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mspixieears says...

First part of the dream, I was myself, and living in this odd version of the current house I live in now. Someone had made me this three-piece pendant - a cross, with a monkey face, then beautiful legs of some sort of dragon. It was all burnished gold. I trailed it through the sandpit in the backyard and lost some of it. I found a small, fluffy black cat, who ran from me but let me catch her. She told me, in English, that I was a pretty girl.

I later saw my brother who said that he met the same black cat but that she had told him he was a pretty girl in Greek.

Meeting the black cat meant that we had to head up to the back flat in our backyard. Two men stormed in - one was topless, acne-ridden, very skinny. He was holding a lute. The other man proceeded to tell him that he was wasting his time becoming a professional lutenist, even though he was fantastic. I tried to hide - I merely pretended to be a statue and hid under a massive lampshade as he murdered the lutenist in a nearby bed.

My pendant lost its feet. A girl remade it for me so that it had no monkey face or legs anymore. She said it was better now that it was more simple.

* * *

I was a young boy, fat and always acting up. The community I was in was banned from going outside. I rebelled and rode my bike on the earth mounds. I was to be punished later.

Two women, a man who was supposedly my father and myself were sharing a plate of creamy potatoes and vegetables. We kept shifting food from each others' plates as we kept taking too much of one thing. My father kept cutting up a map so that I wouldn't know where they were.

I hid in carpeted staircases and injured the women. I thought they would see me, but they never did. My father beat me.

 

Filed under: black cats

mspixieears says...

Just before waking up, I had a dream that I was awake, in my bed. In the darkness, I felt my cat jump on my bed, and snuggle up next to me. Eventually, he crawled under my quilt. It was odd because I didn't hear him open my door (which he can do).

Before that, I was raking up a garden that had these weird white lettuces that weren't healthy. The garden was submerged in water and apparently these lettuces were some sort of disease in the garden. I was scared when I saw ivy as I didn't want to come across snakes that might have been hiding in it.

Filed under: black cats

Random Eric says...

I am not the only one seeing black cougars in the Bay Area this Summer.

Last week there were two different, believable reports of a big black cat in the East Bay hills, about two weeks after my sighting below Lexington Reservoir.  Two weeks is plenty of time for a cat to travel 40 miles, Los Gatos to San Ramon; perhaps this Gato Negro is on a walk about.  The shortest walking route between the two cites would be right through San Jose.  


View Larger Map

As much as we would want to believe the big cat would go around the city, we've all heard reports of mountain lions in suburban neighborhoods, and a mountain lion was hit by cars on the 85 freeway by the 17 this year, right along this direction of travel.

There are much better options for a mountain lion than taking the freeway.  If you zoom in on the map you will see narrow green corridors leading from the South West of San Jose to the North side of town: natural streams where a big cat could walk unnoticed, especially at night.

There is another possibility, I suppose.

If this is something like a black jaguar that someone has released from captivity, then surely it is the same, single animal in both locations.  However if we imagine this is actually a black mountain lion, a genetic mutation, then might there be more than one?  A liter, perhaps, who have come of age?

Keep your eyes peeled.  As the hills get drier at the end of Summer, the deer need to come lower out of the hills to find sufficient water, and likely mountain lions are following the deer.  Report any sightings straight here!

Filed under: Black Cats

Random Eric says...

 

It may be when they say there are no "black pumas" they speak as an artist who knows what the color true black is.  When there were many pumas roaming the US, dark brown and slate grey pumas were apparently confirmed, and black pumas widely reported.

Over at MessyBeast they seem quite fascinated in mutant cats, cross breeds, and the related genetics.

 

The "Cherokee Cougar" taxidermy is claimed to be a black puma [..] DNA testing by East Tennessee State University's Zoology Dept appears to confirm it as a puma and that hairs tested were not dyed, however there are no definitive results confirming it as a melanistic individual [..] the black puma taxidermy may be a recessive mutation.

Then again, the site devotes thought to Liger and Tigons, and much of the  data mentioned seems anecdotal and well aged.

So to clarify, there is no such thing as a big black cat in California, there are no black mountain lions.  Unless you see one.  

If you see one and bring it home, you may, with the help of skeptical scientists, prove they exist.

Filed under: Black Cats

Random Eric says...

Event: sighting
Species: unconfirmed

Tonight I went to the town named for these cats, Los Gatos, to take a run up to the reservoir.  I had just about enough time to get up and back down before dark.  Signs at the highschool indicated the beginning section of the trail would be closed for weeks beginning the next day, so it seemed divine providence that I managed to squeeze my run in tonight.

I'm out of shape, so I alternate running and walking on these outings as I rebuild my fitness, the slow zebra in the herd if you will indulge my fear.  I haven't been up here much this year, but this was the 4th time in as many weeks as I push myself to regain fitness.  A fair number of people were walking, running, or biking the wide dirt trail.  I tried not to look into the bushes or otherwise act paranoid when I passed by those coming down; still given my history I did keep my eyes open.

Coming back down was a joy as I knew today I was a little bit stronger, and I really got into my gait as the last couple mountain bikers flew down the hill past me, leaving me with no human company in either direction for a mile or two.  Coming around a corner I saw that I was wrong, for there was someone's big black labradour dashing into the brush on the creek side.  

When I saw that there was no dog owner around, no human activity at all, that something-isn't-right-alarm rang.  The animal I'd seen, the one somewhere in the brush to the right of me, was not a domesticated animal.  I edged to the other side of the trail, jangled my keys, and kept running.  I tried to keep my full wits about me and get out of the area quickly without leaving a blind spot.

I have encountered a dog before in such a situation and I found that dogs are dogs.  I would expect a dog to come out of the brush and either attack me or confront me, quite possibly to stand in the middle of the road and threaten me, but never to hide and watch me.

Hiding, watching, tracking; stealth and the attack you never see coming: that's a cat.  The animal running into the brush would have looked like a black panther, if my mind had not been expecting to see a dog, but big black cats don't exist in California.  They don't exist.  I repeated that to myself a couple times and found no comfort in it.

I jangled my keys for another half mile wondering if an attack would come, and from what side, looking back a few times to keep any cat honest and off the trail behind me, I'd make the cat work harder than that.  

For the first time this year I ran the trail all the way back to the car without stopping.  Not because I was unnerved, just because I felt fitter, honest.

Here's what Naturealmanac.com says about the existence of black cougars:

Many species of large cats have dark (melanistic) color phases that crop up occasionally in wild populations - notably leopards and jaguars - but no example of a melanistic cougar has ever been produced in North America. Some South American populations of cougar have been reported to produce melanistic individuals but concrete evidence of this seems to be lacking and these animals may be a different but similar species of cat that is mistaken for a cougar.
 
Large black cats have been reported in North America since earliest colonial times (long before the importation of alien species) but none have ever been shot or captured. At the time of first contact jaguars ranged as far north as Georgia and Arkansas and these animals do produce melanistic individuals but of course it's highly unlikely that they ever occurred in New England where many of the early reports of black cats originated. So unless there's another species of large cat roaming North America that somehow managed to avoid discovery for the last four hundred years reports of these animals must be based on optical illusions or tricks of light.
 
More recent (20th century) reports of large black cats are most likely black panthers (melanistic leopards) that have either escaped captivity or been released by owners unable or unwilling to care for them. It's significant that reports of black cats increased markedly (at least in Illinois) after the laws concerning ownership of wild cats changed in the 80's. Most recent sightings of these animals seem to describe feral leopards rather than cougars.

We'll call this one: sighting-uncertain; species-unknown; observer-paranoid, and maybe you can put it out of your mind.  I can't, and you'll understand why when you hear of my prior encounters.

Filed under: Black Cats

mspixieears says...

I was walking up an alternative version of High St, Northcote. It was a sultry summer day, and I was waiting for a tram. They didn't seem to be coming regularly. The tram stops seemed very far apart. Eventually, I reached one and a boy I had a crush on for years in high school was there also. Next to a lamppost, there was this massive beanbag. Both of us jumped into it.

A couple from high school who are still together today came to say hello to us. We walked a while with them. They took us to a field - yellow, the grass all dried up from lack of rain. I was separated from my school crush and walked the field alone.

I came across black cats, some lying in the dry grass, one injured, one bleeding, some following me. It occurred to me that at the lamppost with the beanbag I'd left my belongings - two coats, three bags. One of those bags was a laptop bag and I was petrified of losing my laptop.

All of a sudden, I was at the same stop when I realised I was on High St. Ages away from my belongings. I was afraid they would get stolen. Again, it took me ages to get to the same stop. I walked for hours till I reached the same stop and was so relieved: my things hadn't been stolen.

When I picked them all up, for some reason I was flipping through a magazine. It had an apology e-mail from someone who had written an abusive e-mail to me in real life. I was shocked, yet found it funny.

Filed under: black cats