Gifts of the Cat

ats whose guardians allow them to wander outdoors are known to return home with assorted kills. For many cats, this is meant to be a gesture of giving rather than a stash to consume later.

One such kitty is profiled in Susan Chernak McElroy’s Animals as Teachers and Healers. Sammi and her person lived in the country, where every morning began with the chattering of Sammi at the front door and her gift of a (dead) field mouse. Her person lavished her with praise for her efforts, which Sammi reveled in.

Then the pair was forced to move to a small place in a city—no more countryside for Sammi to roam in, no more field mice to hunt, hardly a tree to climb. Her person worried that Sammi would have difficulty making the transition. She needn’t have fretted, though. The cat adapted to the nature deficit without a hitch: Each morning, Sammi chattered at the front door and presented her person with…

…a couple of pine cones. Sammi was just as pleased with these inanimate objects as she’d been with the tiny rodents. And her person must have been more pleased.

How sweet is that? Sammi made do.

As I searched for a photo to accompany this tale, I found The Happy Cat, the feline pictured here. His person explains that Happy Cat has a special fondness for squirrels—likes to carry them around by the scruff of the neck as if they were his own kits. Sometimes he places them at his person’s door, quite alive and never hurt. But as soon as the squirrels realize their good fortune, they race off. Yet Happy Cat doesn’t try to stop them or pursue them again.

I’m not sure what to make of this. I wonder if something’s missing in Happy Cat’s life. All the same, I do admire his unique approach to gift-giving, and his reminder that every animal is an individual.

[Drop cap by Jessica Hische; photo by Fred Griffin.]

Booze and Books

“I am simply a ‘book drunkard.’ Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.”
—L. M. Montgomery

Pictured is NoMad Hotel’s Library Bar. A place where real people go to read real books and drink (and be seen doing it). A place I would have loved back in the day.

I once lived on the same block as the Commodore Hotel in St. Paul—of F. Scott Fitzgerald fame. I was a nanny at the time, and hanging out in the rundown deco bar reinserted me in a grown-up world. I wasn’t much of a drinker, could nurse a Smith and Kearns for an entire evening, but like Ms. Montgomery, I was crazy for books. I didn’t think it strange then to read while I drank. And people-watch. It seemed a perfect way to unwind.

Clueless and Curious—A Bad Combination

As I’ve written before, my beloved first cat was not the sharpest of our menagerie. She was a porcelain figurine come to life—small and delicate of frame, glossy white coat, emerald eyes—and had no idea how to be a cat. She’d been weaned too early, was abused and brain damaged, and by the time I met her at four months of age, had become an adoption failure (she was brought back to the shelter by one family for not being energetic enough). Miss P saw the world through a much different lens than other kitties, a lens perhaps unique to her alone.

But what she lacked in feline savvy she more than made up for with her sweet, sweet temperament and uncanny empathy. I thought of Miss P when I saw this picture, for she certainly would have been the cat curious about the Big Sparrow:

Recipe Instructions I Understand

 

“I mix flour, yeast and water, then climb on the counter and knead on all fours, trying like hell to pound some sense into my world.”
—trishawinn, brief nonfiction from Creative Nonfiction

[Artist unknown.]

There’s a Place for Us

My mind’s all mushy thanks to this lousy flu bug. I’m afraid Lull will continue to be Lull Lite for a bit longer.

Thought I’d share a song from West Side Story with you today for no particular reason. It’s actually an award-winning ad from Animals Australia.

[The song runs for about two minutes; what follows is educational and unsettling if you’re not familiar with factory farming. Watch at your own risk past 2:18. Or go to Make It Possible if you’d prefer to read instead of watch and find out how you can change the world.]

It’s a Matter of Perspective

I liked this photograph at first glance because it has two of my favorite critters in it.

 But then I saw its message and liked it all the more.

Sharing the Stage with Groundhog Day…

Today is World Wetlands Day, a single day reserved to rouse awareness for the importance of wetlands—not just for the plants and creatures who reside in them, but also for the critters just passing through (like these Whooping Cranes migrating through Kentucky and searching for a resting spot).

You can spread the word about wetlands by sending a favorite someone an e-card.

“[T]he meeting of land and water…keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and the relentless drive of life. Each time I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings.”
—Rachel Carson

[Photo of Purple Gallinule in the Wakodahatchee Wetlands by Jake Paredes; photo of migrating Whooping Cranes from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.]

Second Amendment Twist

“Support your right to arm bears.”
—Cleveland Amory

[Photo by Lil Polley.]

A Surprise from the Library

We rode our bikes to the library this past weekend. My husband stayed on his, but I, alas, wound up on the ground. No, there was no other cyclist or driver involved. Sometimes Gravity likes to perform a pas de deux with me. (Which is to say I’m a lousy bike rider. You know how folks say, “Don’t worry! It’s as easy as riding a bike”? That never puts my mind at ease.)

Anyway, we picked up the special-request book I had waiting for me and returned home—much more slowly than the first half of our trip. As it turned out, we brought home a lot more than that single book.

What populates libraries on a grander scale than books? Germs.

Yup. We both have the flu now. I guess as long as I’m sore from the fall, I might as well cough like a seal too. I just wish we had a trio of Florence Nightingales like the ones pictured to be our caregivers.

Hope you’re staying well this winter…

News from Home

My mother just mailed another obituary to me—the second this week. Death has become an expected topic in her letters and in our weekly phone conversations.

At first, the deceased were the age of my grandparents and parents. Now they’re my age, too.

It’s sobering news. Reminds me to take nothing for granted. And reminds me of these lines from Billy Collins’ poem, “Obituaries”:

And all the survivors huddle at the end
under the roof of a paragraph
as if they had sidestepped the flame of death.

[Death in the Sickroom by Edvard Munch.]

BOOKreMARKS: The Workout that Wouldn’t End

I opened my new reading year with Grayson—a sweet, short memoir by competitive open-water swimmer Lynne Cox. In it, she details a single morning of her daily three-hour training in the Pacific Ocean—a morning that began like any other until…the water shuddered. This occurs in the sixth paragraph; then the morning (and every subsequent graf) gets stranger.

Cox is only 17 and has already broken numerous long-distance swimming records at this point in her life. She’s schooled in visualization techniques, resilience, and discipline. Where others cower from fear (like me, whom you’d never find in a dark, 55-degree ocean at 5 a.m.), Cox confronts and controls. Better still, especially for those of us who are armchair travelers, she remains aware and in awe of the marine life she encounters. She introduces readers to aloof sea turtles, chatty dolphins, a manic stingray colony, and flying tuna. We learn tidbits about each of these creatures and how oddly they’re behaving that morning. We get drawn in to Cox’s fear-induced urge to finish her workout ASAP and high-tail it home until…we meet “old” Steve near shore.

Steve owns a bait shop and has long been a source of wisdom and friendship to Cox. Today he’s not in his usual spot and Cox worries. She heads closer inland yet he waves her away. He explains that a baby gray whale has been following her like a puppy for about a mile. She can’t go closer to shore—it’ll beach the little guy—and she can’t stop swimming now. She must help the infant find his mother, his only food source at his tender age (baby grays drink about 50 gallons of milk per day), or he’ll die.

An already exhausted Cox rallies to save the 18-foot youngster. She takes her mission quite selflessly and compassionately, in spite of how the cold is affecting her, in spite of having no idea how to find one particular female whale in the Pacific. Though the baby—whom she dubs Grayson (a gray’s son)—acts healthy and playful, Cox knows every minute counts to reunite him with his mother. Especially considering the 5,000+-mile migration to the Arctic the whales have ahead of them.

As Grayson’s rescue grows longer and more complicated, Cox takes the advice of another old seaman who keeps an eye on her during her morning workouts. “Sometimes answers come out of time and struggle, and learning. Sometimes you just have to try again in a different way.”

Cox experiments with new dives, new ways of holding her breath longer, new ideas about what little Grayson is thinking and how he might have slipped away from his mother. And in all of this, Cox continues sending positive thoughts/energy into the Universe, hoping it will help the cause, and Grayson continues following her around the Pacific.

Don’t let Grayson’s slim dimensions fool you. At first glance, it’s a stirring rescue tale. But at closer read, it’s a love song to the ocean—and an instruction manual on what’s possible when we open our hearts and minds to the unknown.

[Gray whale mother and calf: photographer unknown.]

Too Easily Foiled by Size and Gender

When I was asked which instrument I wanted to play in my grade school’s newly formed band, I said, “Drums!”

“Girls don’t play drums,” snapped the teacher.

So I turned my musical aspirations to the orchestra, for which I saw myself playing string bass.

“Your hands are too small,” another teacher told me.

“Then how about cello?” I chirped.

“Same thing. Why don’t you play the violin?”

Because I didn’t want to play a high-pitched instrument, nor did I want to play an instrument that gobs of other kids were already struggling with. But somehow I got roped into the flute. And all the years I played it, I harbored aspirations to push the instrument into unusual territories—new genres, new sounds—rather than conforming to the Mozart and Debussy available to me. But I never mustered the confidence required to improvise and branch away from the norm.

Enter my husband, who introduced me to PROJECT Trio this week—a combo of two instruments I always longed to play and the one I ended up with. The trio explores the territories I had hoped to pioneer decades ago—even holds a camp to teach young people how to play their instruments “in any musical situation and in multiple different styles.” What a dream! (Do you think I’m too old to go to camp?)

My Bluebird of UNHappiness

I wrote to the Nevada Mining Association this week. I’d never even heard of the Nevada Mining Association until I read my new issue of Audubon magazine.

On my ever-growing list of things I never knew (I’ve a friend who sends me news stories nearly every day to which I reply, too frequently and embarrassingly, “I had no idea!”), I can now add “mining markers”—hollow PVC pipes used to indicate a mining claim and operation on public lands in the West.

Sounds innocuous, right? Perhaps an aesthetic blight to some, but otherwise not a problem.

But this is not the case. Birds and lizards are drawn to these markers as potential nesting and roosting sites—or simply places to rest and conserve energy/heat for a bit. Trouble is that once they go in, they can’t get back out. The markers become the animals’ final resting place: death by dehydration or starvation.

Environmentalists have been trying to fix this since 1983. Finally, several years ago, miners were given two years to change the materials they used for these markers; now, after 30 years, it’s legal for anyone to remove the markers. Nevada state wildlife officials jumped into action with conservation groups and started pulling the markers in November 2012, when the new legislation permitted them to do so. Audubon magazine was celebratory over the change and reported that 8,000+ markers have already been pulled. Only 2,992,000+ to go.

“Once, with binoculars, I watched a male American kestrel perched on a post, staring down inside over and over. I avoided him for a while and came back to the post about a half hour later. The male was gone and his recently deceased mate was in the bottom of the post. Given how long it takes for a bird to die of dehydration, I imagine this male had kept vigil for some days, if not weeks.”
—Pete Bradley, Bristlecone Audubon Society conservation chairman

Not every pulled pipe held a dead bird, but some revealed as many as 15—my adopted Mountain Bluebird’s kin among them (this was part of the outcry—the Mountain Bluebird is Nevada’s state bird). With 2,992,000+ more markers to remove, that’s a lot of birds.

Hence my letter to the Nevada Mining Association, whose members include 3M and Halliburton. Obviously, the new legislation isn’t requiring the mining companies to remove their own markers. So I wondered which companies were assuming social responsibility and sending their own crews out to remove markers. Seems like a great PR opportunity, doesn’t it?

I haven’t heard squat from the NMA, but I’ll let you know if I do.

[Photo of marker by Christy Klinger; photo of Kestrel by James Ownby.]

Happy Anniversary, Dear One

“The older I get, the less time I want to spend with the part of the human race that didn’t marry me.”
—Robert Brault

Black Bears and Bad Dogs

“Will it bite?”

The folks had stopped their International Scout along the road out of curiosity. They’d spotted the bear in a field, where it had just been released by wildlife manager Mary McConnell. The bear had been drugged in order to transport her to this habitat and she was still a bit groggy.

“Will it bite?” asked one of the International Scout folks.

“If you corner her,” McConnell replied. She paused, and added, “A mouse will bite if you corner it. Of course, the bear has a bigger bite.”

This little scene is from John McPhee’s “A Textbook Place for Bears” and it makes me want to hug Mary McConnell. “Will it bite?” is the most frequent question I hear when I’m accompanying an animal of any kind. It’s exasperating. Could there be a more foolish question? I will bite you if I think it’s the only way to get you to leave me alone!

Any animal (humans included) with teeth may bite. Even animals without teeth (like geese) may clamp down on you hard enough to hurt. Does that make the animal “bad”?

Yes, if we’re to believe Kevin Renfro, a local personal-injury lawyer.

I’ve nothing against personal-injury lawyers—we all have to make a living. However, I do have a problem when said p-i lawyer goes on television while holding his two adorable dachshunds (they’re GOOD, he says) and tries to reel in new customers: “If you’ve been bitten by a BAD dog, you may need help getting your fair compensation from the insurance company…”

A bite is not a character flaw, Mr. Renfro. A bite is a SIGN—an indication of a health problem, a misinterpretation of circumstances, a territorial act of protection. A bite doesn’t make an animal bad. I would hope that you (and those lawyers who specialize in dog-bite litigation) have some basic knowledge of canine behavior so you’re not perpetuating myths and disseminating misinformation on television and in courts.

Every bite tells a story, Mr. Renfro, and without “hearing” (i.e., understanding) the dog’s point of view, you’re missing the most important element of the tale. If you don’t feel the need to delve deeper into canine behavior for your work, I urge you to do it for those cutie-pie dachshunds of yours. “Good” dogs shouldn’t have to settle for “bad” guardians.

[Photo of bear by Lil Polley; photo of Mr. Renfro from his TV ad.]

A Spider Mystery

We have a spider in our living room. Don’t know what kind. He (she?) stays in one place, yet we know s/he’s alive.

What is s/he doing? Do you know anything about spiders? Is s/he just trying to stay out of the cold (which means our usual way of dealing with spiders—taking them outside—won’t work)? Is s/he dying (in which case I need to drum up a eulogy)?

I don’t know what kind of spider we’re dealing with yet. Guess I need to get out the binoculars if I really want to solve this mystery.

What I DON’T want—as much as I like critters—is a nursery of baby spiders! But I don’t want to kill our little guest either. Any ideas from you would be much appreciated.

Understanding My Place: A Letter and Neil Gaiman

Stranger in a Strange Land – No. 26

The other day my husband brought home a glossy, four-color, eight-paged publication he’d found on the sidewalk in our neighborhood. He intended to toss it into a recycling bin, but when he realized what it was, he knew he had to share it with me first.

I pawed through it—picture after captioned picture of one senior couple’s 2012 activities: celebrating milestones with grandchildren and former exchange students; vacationing with friends and family in Italy, Monaco, and China; learning to surf in Hawaii; hosting Union Rags and the Wyeths at the Kentucky Derby; acting as professional photographers for a wedding, building custom furniture, and so on. And so on…

Was it a self-published booklet to commemorate these events?

NO! It was their Christmas Letter to friends and extended family!

It’s exactly why people have come to hate such correspondence. It was so over-the-top it could have been a parody of the genre. But it wasn’t. It was a chirpy report of all the stellar 2012 moments one family experienced. And they sent it to someone in MY neighborhood, which can only mean (or I HOPE it means) that the recipients lead similar lives and didn’t take said Christmas Letter as the disturbing show of pretentiousness I did. Once again, I felt quite removed from my neighbors.

I had just been reading about Cabal, a dog rescued from a roadside by author Neil Gaiman. I learned that Cabal suffered from the same condition my pooch did (degenerative myelopathy), that British-born Gaiman now lives in the Midwest, that his relationship with Cabal was of the unexpected and nonpareil variety… Heck! I have more in common with Neil Gaiman than I do with these Christmas Letter–sending neighbors.

Hmmm. Maybe I can work Gaiman into my own Christmas Letter this year. Maybe I, too, can incite envy and head-shaking during the holidays.


This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, just select Stranger in a Strange Land from the right of Lull, under “Choose a topic that interests you.”

[Photo of Cabal and Neil Gaiman by Kimberly Butler and titled Unconditional Love.]

Birdbaths as Adoption Tools

Oklahoman Larry Flick was in his garden when he heard a splash. He turned to investigate and photographed this in his birdbath:

What a find! I can’t entice so much as a sparrow into my artful birdbath, much less a spotted pooch.

Turns out the dog was homeless as well as overheated. Until, of course, he paired up with a birdbath—a cute-as-a-button PR strategy that quickly got him adopted by Mr. Flick.

83 Is the Answer, but Who’s Counting?

I received an e-mail earlier this month from GoodReads, a social network for book enthusiasts. (I became a member merely to access an interview with a favorite author.) How many books do I aim to read in 2013? GoodReads wanted to know. Don’t I want to read more? GoodReads would help me do that with a kind of Weight-Watchers community approach.

First of all, as my mother would attest, no one needs to encourage me to read more. (As a child, I was encouraged to play more.) Second, if you’re a member of GoodReads, aren’t you already an avid reader? This goal-setting activity seems a sham to me—seems participants are really just showing off the number of books they’ve read. Third, and most important, quantity shouldn’t matter to people who read with ease (reminds me of Adler’s observation about reading). As long as your nose is stuck in some kind of printed/digital matter, why be concerned about the tally?

In reviewing my blog list, I counted 83 books read last year plus magazine articles, short works, and blogs. The number means nothing. Some books were slim and full of poetry; a few were written for a young audience, while others were of a how-to nature. Most were animal- or nature-related.

Why do I keep the list?
1. It helps me choose the next read and prevents me from rereading books.
2. It’s a kind of diary for me. I can gauge from the list my emotional temperature and mindset over the course of the year. And you can, too, if you’ve read any of these books.
3. If I want to direct someone to specific animal-welfare information, the list helps jog my memory as to which book to recommend.

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
—Oscar Wilde

It’s not a contest. I’m not trying to read more books than some other schmo. I can’t/won’t compete: The field is FULL of folks who read at least a book a day. I need more time to ponder what I read. Sometimes one book prompts me to read another book at the same time because they complement one another or they reference one another. I once read an article profiling different kinds of readers based on…well, I can’t remember now. All I recall is being hopping mad that I fell into the “Promiscuous” category simply because I read several books at the same time. Promiscuous readers apparently are unable or unwilling to commit.

At any rate, I will continue my list-keeping—without the aid of GoodReads—of books I’ve read and books I want to read and think about next. (I maintain this second, much longer list in a journal.)

Call me promiscuous if you want, but I’m opening my mind, learning new things, considering and developing new ideas, shaping and solidifying my beliefs, and seeing the world differently. That’s what books do for me—what I wish they could do for everyone.

[Art by Albert Joseph Moore.]

Huzzah for Guns?

The first headline I read this morning announced a new target-practice app for four-year-olds from the NRA. Then my husband shared a Stephen Colbert video, “Double Barrel Blam-O-Rama,” with me (which I can’t embed here for some reason—you’ll have to follow the link above).

Colbert notes that the first-ever national Gun Appreciation Day is coming up this Saturday, sharing the week with another holiday, Martin Luther King Day. The originator of Gun Appreciation Day believes MLK would have been pro-gun (the same way Jesus would have been pro-nail, quips Colbert).

Tsk. My dream of a nation instilled with kindness and compassion is quickly being dashed by a fear that there’s not even hope for sanity and common sense.

Today is MLK’s birthday. I’ll leave you with a bit of his wisdom:

“A nation or a civilization that continues to produce softminded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.”
—from A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., edited by James M. Washington

[Creator of flower gun unknown.]