Past Blogs

Epitome is a lovely word, and I saw an epitome in action the other day. I walked into our upstairs bathroom (14 inches at its narrowest point) and almost stepped on Guy, our sweet, gray cat. He was sprawled on his side with his paws gently resting on the baseboard of the vanity. Between his paws was the baseboard heating duct which was delivering a steady stream of toasty warm air. Guy had discovered the epitome of cat comfort, his own source of tummy-warming decadence.

We can thank the Greeks for the word epitome, although its meaning has changed down through the centuries. The original word, “epitemnein”, means to cut short or abridge. British dictionaries define the current meaning of the word as “the typical or highest example of a stated quality” while American dictionaries say “the best possible example of something”. An epitome is what happens when the mundane is cut out.

It’s enjoyable to fantasize about the epitomes that could be enjoyed if a windfall came into one’s life. Here are a few of mine.

• The epitome of luxury… staying in five star hotels where everything gleams and the beds would please even that princess that had the pea problem.
• The epitome of house features… a garage with a ceramic tile floor and a built-in car wash.
• The epitome of fashion… the designer clothes from the 1950s.

Enjoy your epitomes, whatever they may be.

0

I woke up the other morning and looked out the front windows to discover it had been a busy night in our yard. Multiple deer hoof prints in the snow came up the path to our front porch, and a rabbit had visited us as well. Other animal tracks crisscrossed our yard. While we were sleeping, our homestead was hopping. One of our main goals in moving to the country was the desire to coexist with nature. Our wish is most definitely being fulfilled. 

Sharing our space with our fellow creatures was not as easy at our city home of thirty years. The possum who took up residence under our deck and the raccoons who wandered up from the nearby creek at night were not welcomed by our neighbors. We were told that the bird who built a nest over our back door was “too messy” and the crows were “too noisy”. To fit into this neighborhood, every blade of grass had to be mowed down with precision and all wildlife had to be banished.

Among the biggest delights at our country home are the animal visitors, both diurnal and nocturnal. I often wonder how many living things are calling our land home in one day. The answer is probably millions. The spiders alone constitute a nation, and in a few months the gnat towers will be swirling above our meadow. These swarms of mating insects look exactly like black tornadoes. Coexistence with these creatures means turning off all unnecessary lights in the house when their sex orgies are ongoing.

I must confess that we put out the welcome mat to our animal friends by running the Tooley Café in our side yard. By purchasing trunkfuls of seeds, corn, suet and nuts, we provide dependable feasts all year round. They, in return, give us endless entertainment which is far better than any wildlife videos.

In almost 25 years of living in the country, only one visitor was unwelcome. The mink was a true terror. It raced through the neighborhood attacking everything in sight and even chasing chipmunks through drainpipes. We were not unhappy when, of its own accord, it decided to leave the vicinity.

But on most days, we can live by the maxim on this lovely piece of art from the Trick Dog Gallery:

0

There are only four weeks in the entire year when we can keep our car clean and shiny. The first occurs in late spring between the end of the snow and the start of the bug hatches. The second is in fall after the first hard frost kills the bugs but before the first snowfall that sticks to the ground.

Since last week didn’t fall into either of those categories, I suggested to my husband that a visit to the car wash should be on our Saturday agenda. You know it’s time when your car’s back window is opaque and your winter coat is coated with salt and grime if it brushes against your vehicle.

The first car wash we tried had a massive line of cars waiting to be scoured. We are patient people, but an hour’s wait seemed excessive. The next wash we found had only four cars in a queue. Plus, it promised our car would get a “Dino Wash”. How could we resist this?

While waiting our turn, we had time to read the Dino wash menu and pick one of its four options. I must report that the $12.00 T- Rex option was mighty tempting. We did need to “take the bite out of dirt” as our car’s surface was buried under road slop. And one feature promised “Dino Glow”, a most intriguing option even though real dinosaurs, to the best of my knowledge, were not bioluminescent.

After a few moment’s thought, we eliminated the T-Rex wash for three reasons:

• It cost $12.00.
• It did not have tri-colored (pink, blue and yellow) bubbles which other expensive washes have, thus turning a mundane wash into a psychedelic art happening.
• A snowstorm was forecast for two days after our wash.

The basic wash proved to do a decent job, despite the fact that our car did not acquire a glow. For a day or two our car would reveal its true color and the windows would be transparent.

I must add that there is a third car wash in the immediate vicinity of the two aforementioned ones. It was never under consideration. We are boycotting it for an extremely good reason… it only washes the car 3/4s of the way down.

0

The Tooley cats were incensed when I published my blog about monuments to dogs last week. My plea that I didn’t know of any memorials to virtuous cats was met with feline disdain. To mollify them, I embarked on serious Google searching which proved fruitful. The cats are now saying, “We told you so.”

If you are a cat owner (or more correctly a person who a cat has decided to tolerate)  you may wish to share the following with your felines.

Trim – A black cat with white paws, chest and chin, Trim was a sailor through and through. He was the constant companion of Englishman Matthew Flinders on his many voyages, most notably his circumnavigation and mapping of Australia.

Trim was born aboard a ship and fell overboard as a kitten. Managing to swim back and climb back aboard by scaling a rope, Trim became a favorite of Flinders and his crew. The two of them went on to have years of adventures including a shipwreck and imprisonment.

These words by Matthew Flinders are on a plaque beside a statue of Trim in Sydney:

To the Memory of Trim
The best and most illustrious of his race
The most affectionate of friends,
faithful of servants,
and best of creatures
He made a tour of the globe, and a voyage to Australia which he circumnavigated,
and was ever the delight and pleasure of his fellow voyagers.

Trim has five memorials; Sydney, Adelaide and Port Lincoln, Australia, and Lincolnshire and London, England.

 

Hodge – Dr. Samuel Johnson was a towering literary figure in the 1700s who is most famous for writing the dictionary. A lover of cats, Johnson would personally go to the markets to get oysters for one of his favorite cats, Hodge. A memorial to Hodge stands in front of Johnson’s home in London. Note the oyster shells in front of Hodge who is serenely sitting on a dictionary.

 

Dick Whittington’s Cat – Richard Whittington (1354-1423) was from very humble origins, but became a Lord Mayor of London as well as a wealthy textile merchant. The famous stories and nursery rhyme about Dick Whittington and his famous cat are, however, pure legend. In the fables, Dick is a penniless orphan who reluctantly sells his cat to a ship’s captain. The cat excels at catching rats and is subsequently given by the captain to a king in Africa whose palace is overrun by vermin. In gratitude, the king bestows a fortune to the sea captain who graciously turns it over to Dick Whittington enabling him to live like a gentleman.

 

Towser – Cats have long been called upon to rid farms, homes and businesses of mice and rats. But one cat stands above all the others and is honored as “the most productive cat of all time” in the Guinness  Book of Records. Towser the Mouser caught an estimated 28,899 mice in her 24 years (1963-1987) living in the Glenturret Distillery in Scotland. She was a gorgeous Scottish long hair tortoiseshell. Her fame is recognized in a bronze statue at the distillery.

You might have noticed that these honored cats were all engaged in activities that they personally enjoyed doing.

 

 

0

Dogs are back in the White House, and that’s a good thing. My blog readers expect to see many references to the feline family. But I love dogs as well, and this seems like the perfect moment to honor them.

Most dogs possess numerous traits that cats eschew. They are loyal, hard-working, eager to please and in need of a master. Because of these qualities, people erect many monuments to dogs all over the globe.

One of the newest statues is a 19-foot tall golden dog in the capital city of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan. The country’s President, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, is an ardent lover of the Central Asian shepherd, known locally as an Alabai. The breed is used for protection and to guard livestock and is described as “proud and self-confident”.

Here are a few of the other canines honored in statuary:

Greyfriar’s Bobby – This faithful Skye Terrier guarded his master’s grave in Edinburgh for 14 years. His statue tops a fountain with a water dish for dogs at the bottom.

 

Kostya – Kostya, a German Shepherd, was riding in a car outside the Russian city of Tolyatti when the car crashed and his master was rushed to the hospital and died. Kostya paced the side of the road for seven years, searching for the return of his master and his car. Townspeople brought him food, but he refused their offers of a home. Newlyweds visit the monument to “the most loyal dog” and rub his nose to ensure their fidelity to each other.

 

Old Shep – A sheepherder fell ill and went to Fort Benton, Montana, for treatment. He died a few days after his arrival, and his casket was shipped East to relatives. His dog, Old Shep stayed at the train station many years, greeting every train in hopes of his master’s return.

 

Hachiko – This dog, a Japanese Akita, would meet his owner, a professor of agriculture, each night when he arrived home from work at the Shibuya train station in Tokyo. One day, his master died at work and never returned. Hachiko went to the station every afternoon for nine years, nine months and fifteen days exactly when his train was due. A statue erected to faithful Hachiko at the station is now a popular meeting place.

 

Fala – A Scottish Terrier, Fala was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s beloved dog who lived in the White House during World War II. He was rarely apart from his master’s side and even accompanied him on ships and planes to meetings around the world. Fala was also immensely popular with the citizenry, receiving thousands of letters from the American public. A secretary was assigned to him to answer his fan mail.

 

0