Katy Klein Has a Chat

On Tuesday morning, two of my beautiful chickens were killed by a nasty tom cat. Clucksy survived, I would say by the grace of the gods, except it was more like the grace of sleeping in.

I didn’t even really understand what had happened as I stood in a garden covered with feathers. Tandi and Parma were gone. Parma was a big chicken and we’d never had any problems with cats before. Then I saw the big grey tom cat on the fence eyeing off Clucksy and flicking its tail. He jumped off the fence when I yelled and jumped straight back up again.

Clucksy is completely dejected, she hasn’t talked to us since, not even to demand treats. She doesn’t even run when she sees the compost bowl which was previously one of her favourite events of the day.

Clucks watched me bury her mates and has stood by their graves ever since.  It just breaks my heart. I know they’re just chickens but they kept us so happy with their little chicken antics and cluckings. 

So I wanted to say goodbye to Tandi, our lovely teenager. Such a little miss, the youngest and bravest of our chickens. Constantly leading the others to new and unexplored territories like down the driveway. For some reason her favourite spot was in the patio planter. The moment my back was turned, in she’d hop and up and down she’d strut.

And Parma, the most beautiful of our chickens. Not so bright, but still Clucky’s best friend. Parma was the most prolific of egg layers, every day without fail. Usually she’d announce the event by loud cackling as if each day surprised by what had popped out of her bottom.

May they both go to a happy place where there is plenty of scratchings and treats. They will be missed.

I really like operas. Each one is different. Some you see for the music, some have amazing singing, some have laughs and some are all about the action. Some operas even have nudity. All of them are about love. It turns out that I have racked up about eleven operas thus far and hope for far more. But the thing that has intrigued me since my very first opera, is why the heroine has to die.

In the operas I have seen, there have been two where no one dies. These are usually the comic operas like Die Fledermaus and the Barber of Seville. Don Giovanni is the only opera I’ve seen where it’s the guy who gets it (rather oddly by a concrete statue that has come to life).

But overwhelmingly, it’s the chick who has to die for love and the list of dying options is fairly varied. Here’s just a few:

Tosca – by throwing herself off the battlements.

Madame Butterfly – Stabs herself.

La Boheme – Consumption (Tuberculosis).

La Traviata – TB again.

AIDA – sealing herself in a vault so she can be buried alive with her fella. There’s devotion for you.

Lakme – Eating some poisonous Datura leaf.

Turandot – stabbing herself for love.

I haven’t seen Il Travatore and Rigoletto but the chicks in these operas sacrifice themselves to save their lovers. And if that wasn’t enough, one then takes poison from her ring and the other one is mortally wounded.

Maybe we just don’t believe in romance like the old days or maybe RSVP is just so handy we don’t need to go to these extremes to prove ourselves.  But if you really want to impress your fella next Valentines Day ladies you may want to re-think the chocolates and cards and say it with TB!