Electric Kitty

This picture was taken by accident. I swear to God.

I did not know that Dito's power source was in the picture. But it makes for a fitting portrait of one of the most wired and hyper individuals I've ever known.

Dito (short for Bandito) spends most of every night yowling at the top of his lungs and caroming off the walls in the raptures of some one-cat adventure movie. His favorite thing is for me to say "HAH!!!" and then he takes off and I chase him while he zooms around the apartment like a released, untied balloon.

Actually, he's mellowed quite a lot. He no longer emits blood-curdling shrieks at visitors and attacks their legs as they walk across the room. (We still feel VERY safe from burglars.) He has fantasies about the dog next door: he'll utter ear-splitting pleas to venture out in the hall, then moments later, guttural moans of terror as he either sees the dog or imagines he's about to, and he streaks back through the opened door and wheels around to make a last stand against the monster.

We have to assume that Dito's nervous system was set permanently at a high pitch by his traumatic beginnings. In brief, he was:
-- born in Korea, where they eat cats
-- as a tiny kitten, rescued from a cliff on a wild mountainside (dropped there by a hawk, we can only conjecture) on a special day
-- housed temporarily in a karate dojo in Seoul and fed on bodybuilders' protein powder
-- fostered by a commune of pot-smoking Canadian English teachers
-- flown to Canada on a 747 (we drove all the way from NY to Kingston, Ontario to pick him up)
and, last but not least,
-- mistaken for a female, which he quite obviously was not by the time he walked out of his carrier and into our lives, aged 4 months.

For those who always have time for a good cat-miracle story, original documents of Dito's rescue and infancy are appended below. (You'll see, he's always had that voice. That's why he's here.)

- amba

From a very faded fax, dated April 1996:

Jacques and Annie, OSU! [karate greeting]

Friday here, a national holiday [illegible] birthday. I'm not kidding I [...] figure they know when the historic Buddha was born. I went hiking with three of my students. One German, one Hungarian, one American. We climbed a mountain called Pukansan. Pu means north, kan refers to the Han river, and san means mountain. It's the "mountain north of the Han." It's supposedly a sacred Buddhist mountain. It's got temples all over it. My German friend has actually lived there for six months in a Zen monastery. He knows the mountain very well - consequently - and he took us off the beaten path. We climbed up on the trail but decided to climb down at some random location off the side of the trail. We wound up doing a lot of sliding - the mountain's that steep. My Hungarian friend actually had to leap for a tree limb as a last-ditch effort when he lost controll in his slide and almost went off a cliff - Korean mountains have lots of sheer cliffs and sometimes they sneak up on you.

Anyway, we were about half way down, in the middle of nowhere - no trails around, no people, no evidence that we weren't the 1st people to attempt that particular slope - and I heard a cat crying. The others told me it was a bird. We'd seen falcons earlier and we'd almost decided that that sound must be a baby falcon. But then I heard it again. It had to be a cat - a young one.

So I set off to climb this cliff on a rescue mission in search of a crying kitten. To make a long story short, I found it - on a little narrow ledge with fifty feet of sheer cliff below and thirty or so above. She's about a week old, black and white, long hair. There was no sign of a mother or siblings. Maybe she fell there from above. - Maybe the stork that delivered her brought her to the wrong address. - Anyway, I put her in my pocket and carried her down, down off the mountain and back to my dojo (the dojo where I live). I've been feeding her milk and protein powder (you know, the kind body builders use). After a time of fighting my spoon, she's taken to lapping the mixture up on her own. I call her "Bloomer," although that ought to be spelled "Bloomur" because it came from her amazing ability to scream loud enough that we heard her from a long way away. She screams bloody murder. I didn't think I should name her "bloody murder' so I shortened and combinded those words into "Bloomur."

She needs a permanent home. . . . I told [my friends] I had friends in the City who have been known to adopt kitties with stories. . . . I know you'll think me crazy for suggesting it but here I am in the land where they eat dogs and where cats wind up being mangy, flea-bitten street creatures, with a beautiful little, helpless, motherless, b & w, long haired kitten, a kitten that fell from Heaven (apparently), and landed on a sacred Buddhist mountain on Buddha's birthday, a kitten that definitely needs to "get Lucky." [A reference to our cat Lucky, whom we saved at 3 weeks old from a garbage dumpster in Romania, but that's another story for another day.]

What do you say? Will you take her? I thought it was at least worth the time and ink to ask.

OSU!

Nathan
"patron saint of wayward kittens in training"

(Is that an offer you can't refuse, or what??)

(After all that we expected a fluffy, female, very spiritual kitty. What walked out of the carrier was a sleek, streamlined street dude with a thief's mask and an attitude. So we had to name him Bandito instead of Ananda or something. I like to think the Buddha is waving away the incense and laughing.)

Nathan (Ligo) even wrote an epic poem about the adventure, for those of you with lots of time to kill:

The Ballad of the Baby Bloomur (in progress)

To climb a sacred mountain, one recent beautiful morn,
Four of us set out on the day Buddha was born.
One German, one Hunn, another yank and myself,
We found Bloomur there on a cliff side shelf.

A tiny black and white kitten -- she'd fit in my hand --
Without mother or sibling, alone in that vast wild land.
How she came to be there, you and I can but guess;
Was she a gift from the gods? From Buddha, a Bless?

A tiny cry we heard, carried far on the wind,
We had to strain to hear it, our ears we'd bend.
"It's a kitten," said I. "I'm sure it must be."
"Forget it," said my friends, "That's an impossibility."

" . . . It must be a bird, a hungry hatchling in a nest.
A swaying tree creaking, a dying mouse sqeeling at best."
"Okay, maybe so, we'll see." I set out to explore.
"How sad't would be, for infant to find shelter, no more."

So I followed that voice, that itty-bitty cry,
And still, for a quarter of a mile, no source did I spy.
But it was a kitten, as sure as Arthur sought the grail;
That tiny cry had long since become a deaf'ning forlorn wail.

"Bloody Murder! Bloody Murder!" she cried and she cried,
I scaled a cliff -- Son of a Bitch! -- I could have died!
And then, there she was, weak, hungry and alone,
How long she'd been there without food, who could've known?

To rescue such a critter at risk of such inconvenience,
To respond to one's conscience with out a shred of lenience,
Is an act of giving -- indeed the highest form of charity,
Such a deed in my life -- I admit -- is indeed a rarity.

So the decision to save her, I made not all on my own;
If it wasn't for an inspiration, I'd have left her alone.
It was the story of Lucky, a kitten from the Eastern Block,
Rescued by the Patron Saints of Kittens, Annie and Jacques.

Maybe they would keep her in the States, I knew I could not.
I'd feel my landlord's wrath, if ever we were caught.
"I'll see what I can do," 'twas all I could say.
I'll sustain her for now, and leave that problem for another day.

So in my pocket I placed her, saved from certain doom,
For five hours, she remained, nestled within that second womb.
Her first meal she consumed eagerly, that Heaven-sent screamer,
In an attampt to suckle from a spoon, non-dairy coffee creamer.

"Bloomur," I named her, for she'd screamed "Bloody Murder";
For it was thanks to her vocal cords that we even heard her.
Baby Bloomur, Baby Bloomur, Will you survive?
From the subway station to my dojo, on a city bus we mst drive.

That bus she despised, she cried all the way,
She'd started to tunnel, in my pocket she just wouldn't stay.
Embarrassing it was, to have that screaming bulge in my pants,
I have nightmares of those people staring after Bloomur's rants. . .

Back in my room at last, on a down comforter I placed her.
I thought of a cat and wondered how her mother had raised her.
I'd have to be this cat's mother; my life would surely change.
Food, a place to sleep and to shit, I had it all to arrange.

What should I feed her; a mother cat would simply nurse her.
I wonder if she'll eat on her own. I might have to force her.
So five minutes later I returned with milk carton and straw,
My customary cold-blooded nature continuing to thaw.

I dipped the straw in the milk and covered the end with my finger
Removed the straw full of milk, a drop formed, I daredn't lnger,
One end in her mouth, she showed me that that too she despised
I broke that seal, milk filled her face, boy was she surprised!

(If I ever finish this, I'll send you a copy. -- Nathan)

Comments

[Rob King]

I was just looking for the Nathan Ligo I had the brief but memorable opportunity to train with the Carolina Kyokushin Club back in the mid 90's. I have continued my training with Brazilian groundwork, muay thai, and hapkido. However, I wish the opportunity to continue with kyokushin.

[Tibor Horváth]

I am most probably the Hun in the story. I am looking for my old friend, Ligo, who suddenly disappeared from our life, and we miss so much. Life is so strange. I am sitting in the Lobby of Intercontinental in Amman, Jordan and finally found a sign of you. Nathan you s..of a b.. send me an e-mail!

[Doris Faouzi]

Hi Nathan,
do you remember me from Davidson College in 1994?
All I read about you in the world wide web is so much YOU!
I wondered if you have become
a writing martial arts instructor or a fighting writerduring the last 14 years?

I am teaching at an International School in Germany - very close to Munich. If you happen to pass by this area or want to visit the Oktoberfest - just write me an e-mail!
Hope everything's fine!

Doris