The secret life of Tigre
I seldom speak about Tigre. When we moved in Cà Rossa I was worried that changing house would had upset her. She demonstrated a great sense of adaptability and developed a kind of secret life instead. Tigre lives outside, day and night, in the garden and the surrounding countryside. She also spends ages snoozing by the windowsill, where I left an old jumper of mine.
Sometimes you just look out of the window and there she is. Not looking around but inside. Inside the house, inside your soul when you met her evil eyes, yes because she is always pissed off and you don’t even know why… Sometimes, while I’m having dinner and give a glance out of the window, only her yellow devilish eyes are out there in the dark, like an owl watching its prey: she scares the hell out of me.
Tigre by the window. You can see she's outside because the glass is dirty.
She hates everyone, meowing grumpy if you don’t feed her at anytime. Her only ally is Rudy, they get on very well together and she becomes nice and soft when he’s around, playing with her. She slap him in the nose if he is sleeping on the sofa, just to wake him up and play. Rudy let her feed from his bowl sometimes.
Last night though, I went out to feed her before going to bed and there she was: sharing her pap with a little hedgehog, calmly. I suddenly realized she doesn’t belong to me but she belongs to the surrounding nature, creating links with other wild animals in the countryside and living her life better than when we lived in the other suburban flat. Maybe she’s only having a kind of ‘teenager time’ (I guess Rudy is a teenager too, that’s why they’re so close).
Tigre having midnight supper with a little hedgehog
In other fronts, Mina is getting everyday bigger, I bet it’s just a matter of days now. I hope everything is going to be fine for her… and for my sofa.
The garden looks like a still life these days, there’s no frost enough to take some nice picture but they forecast real cold is coming in a few days.
In the meanwhile I’ve been totally captured by Benjamin Moore website lately. I’m choosing the colours for the inside walls upstairs, I like a lot colourful houses because they feel cozy and happy, and also because a ‘total white’ wouldn’t last more than one hour with me and the dogs around…
I love this website because of all those fancy names they give to colours, names that suddenly make you feel like you need a wasabi wall in your kitchen, maybe with a chocolate truffle accent. You can also upload a picture of yours and easily you can virtually paint your home with all those beautiful and oddly named colours.
This is how my bedroom is going to look like: wasabi green and incense stick maroon
...and this is the studio. Same maroon but paired with a gray blue.
It is very funny to see how a dull plaster wall could immediately light up and make a room feel wider or smaller or taller. I was so thrilled by this colours that I rushed to a shop and ordered a few, so next friday I’ll probably take a day off to paint some rooms. Shame Benjamin Moore doesn’t sell his products in Italy, so I had to adapt my choices to some italian products but I think I found something very close to what I wanted.
An App is also available on iTunes, you can take a pic with your phone and then tap the colours on the screen to find out the correspondent shade of paint and its bizarre name so you finally can paint your house to be paired with some mature crab apples in the garden… when they say perfectionism…
A screenshot of Benjamin Moore's ColorCapture App
Will Cà Rossa be painted Caliente? I haven’t decided yet, I think I have to delay the external walls painting until next spring though.
AltroVerde 
That is a wonderful photograph of Tigre enjoying her supper with the local hedgehog.
I have never thought of choosing paint colours with modern technology, although I think you can use it for most things these days – I could have fun for hours with that – if my old brain knew how to use it !! Will look forward to photos of the results.
These tools are very useful when you don’t have that much time to go around shops. OK, colours in the screen are not the same thing as reality but little samples on thick paper are not better anyway. I get the idea and then i go straight to the colour tone I wanted when it’s time to buy.
Tigre sharing her kibbles with a baby hedgehog has been a revelation to me, really. It’s like the bad wolf frying pancakes for little Red Hood.
A lot of interesting things here Alberto! First, you have a bad attitude about cats which I guess explains your cold-hearted remark about poor Fluffy’s murder. (Fictional murder, I should say.) But Tigre is beautiful! (Rudy knows.) And how I wish I had a hedgehog in MY garden! (That is the cutest photo of Tigre & friend hedgehog.) If we leave pet food outside we get racoons, not the same. (I wonder why we have no hedgehogs…) And what fun with the paint color program! I am excited about your interiors, so glad you are getting beyond white– I can’t imagine you living in just white though. I like the maroon with the gray, and you surely must use that ‘caliente’ on something–since it does match the apples. How about some part of the kitchen? –Sending good luck to Mina & her puppies.
You are unfair here! Cats for me are like dahlias… I like them but only in other people’s gardens. I’m more of a dog kind of guy. (I knew that cat wasn’t truly dead BTW).
Tigre is a minute furry sweet-looking cat even though she isn’t sweet at all. 😦
Racoons? Are they nasty? I think I’ve never seen one in my life but they are adorable, aren’t they? Around here it is full of hedgehogs and lately they just had babies so you see these small prickly balls walking around the garden at night…
Downstairs I’m nearly done with wall paint and stuff. The kitchen has been coloured wasabi green too, which is my fave colour. Kitchen furniture is a shade of white and tiles are maroon. I like so much that room that I want my bedroom to look alike, at the end of the day they’re the two rooms I spend most of the time in. I’ll avoid to place a fridge on the wardrobe though, I promise.
A hedgehog..how cute…very regal cat ….I love the Benjamin Moore site but had not seen the app…it took me 5 yrs to pick colors…
Hello Donna, picking the downstairs colours took me longer (not years though!), once you have decided a colour palette for your house, then the choice is much easier. I like natural colours so I went straight for light greens, dull browns, golden yellows and sky blues. Besides I’m not a sucker for useless furnishings so apart from the colours the rest of the house is rather simple and neat.
Hello Alberto,
I once started a story about a man whose job it was to name paints. He ran out of ideas, so he went to his six-year-old child and she said to call them things like Postman’s Bum and Pink Naked-Bottom. They were bestsellers. I entirely sympathise with your views about cats BTW.
Hey Mr. K! I hope that wasn’t a crime novel too, or was it? Then I wonder how it ended for that Postman’s bum! 🙂
Another good job must be to name flavours/parfumes. Did you see how they sell scented candles? With the funniest names.
Recently I’ve heard of cats with odd names too BTW… Cupcake…
Hi Alberto,
For many years my nan *had* a cat called Sam, he was the neighbourhood Tom and wasn’t very friendly nor tame but he chose my grandparents. He’d come along for food but never spend any time in the house except in really bad weather or, when he sadly came to the end of his life. Generally, as children whenever we went round he wouldn’t hang around long and I think he also tended to sleep in their back bedroom which was sunny and no doubt warm.
I love the colours you’ve been choosing for your house; I like coffee colours, browns and natural shades. But I would also love to play around with regency or Edwardian colours… I just need to find the money to buy a nice big Edwardian house next so I can decorate it in traditional colours………………. 😀
Oooooh I want an Edwardian house too!
What are regency colours BTW?
Sam’s story in very similar to Tigre’s, with the difference that she didn’t chose me, she chose Rudy to stay with. Another little difference is that Tigre isn’t dead…….
…yet.
There is some serious negative cat energy around this blog, Alberto. (And you too Kininvie.) (I did love Kininvie’s paint names though.)
I think the caliente would look terrific with the wasabe green. Someplace?
And a refigerator in the closet isn’t such a bad idea…
I choose caliente red for the outside of the house. I’ve been forced to delay the outside painting until frost is over… And it’s just begun! 😦
2011 is the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy: using green, red and white in the same room would be a nice tribute even though I’m not that patriotism.
Anyway the house will be probably painted Pompei red. They have Edwardian colours, we have ours… 😉
Hello Alberto. This is my first visit to your space; I am pleased that you share your garden with Tigre. We have a cat also, a black and white ball of fur by the name of Scooter. Our son brought her home in his arms one day, pleading to keep her. Grown now with a family of his own, the cat remains. Cats are very independent little creatures and are not shy about letting you know that – often.
Raccoons are nocturnal animals and although cute, they are considered to be a nuisance – they enjoy going through trash barrels and can make a considerable mess. Raccoons are also known to carry diseases threatening to humans so we attempt to discourage visits from them here.
You have given me an idea for a blog post, though. I will be certain to include pictures of raccoons if I write it. You are invited to stop by any time (click on my name to travel to my garden blog).
Hi Debra and welcome! Does Scooter have wheels? Because in that case I wouldn’t be so sure it’s a cat… 🙂 I guess most of human/cats coexistances start with someone coming home with a kitten, you can never say ‘no’ to that.
Suddenly I’m glad I’ve never met a raccoon yet and I’m not looking forward for it! When I lived at my parents we have some badgers passing by, my mum was terrified but they’re very quiet if you don’t attack them.
Bringing Benjamin Moore into garden photography is brilliant!
Seriously?!
Thanks Allan, I had a look at your blog and from now on I think I will follow you with interest. Thanks for passing by.
Hello Alberto,
Will you next post be about puppies? Waiting for news here…..