How to Prank a Cat

Jake loved boxes.  He was always snuggled up in one.  I realized I had several boxes that all nested inside each other, each progressively smaller than the last.  So I set out his favorite box and he made himself comfortable.  When he climbed out and left the room, I swiftly substituted the next smallest box.  I did this several times.  Here is the result.  He did forgive me for this stunt, and I believe he got a kick out of it.  He was a cat with a great sense of humor.  I miss him.

Kitten Camaraderie

The Internet has changed our world.  As soon as folks were able to post photographs online, the cats began showing up.  Cute cats, dramatic cats, pathetic cats.  Kittens.  Lots and lots of kittens.  According to Wikipedia, it was in 2005 that the first LOLcat appeared.  In 2006 I Can Has Cheezburger propelled cats into an even wider spotlight.  With the arrival of Facebook the floodgates opened and soon we were drowning in cats:  adorable sour puss Grumpy Cat, angst-ridden Henri, box-loving Maru, Roomba Cat, Venus the Amazing Chimera Cat amongst many other feline cyber stars.

Live video feeds soon added yet another dimension to this phenomena, but the first animals I found were not cats.   In 2008 millions were mesmerized watching the first famous Shiba Inu litter of puppies.  They were so cute, so klutzy, so endearing!  After this feed ended, I went in search of more live events.  I watched a wind-blown nest of eagles high in a tree in the Pacific Northwest.  I followed the adventures of Pale Male in his Central Park aerie.  I sat watching the sun rise and set over the pyramids at Giza.  I clicked into and out of many live cams, but nothing held the staying power of our little Shibas.  If there were any cats on a live cam back then, I never found them.

I continued to "Like" many cats and cat groups on Facebook.  Many of these cats had triumphed over horrible adversity - there were blind cats and three-legged cats, cats that had been abandoned, cats that had been abused - I read some truly horrifying stories.  I found dozens of rescue groups, each pleading for money, fosters, homes for their needy animals.  Their approach seemed to be, "See how awful this situation is?  Give us money now!"   After a time I grew weary of these sad stories.  How much empathy (and money) can one poor person muster?  

Just as I was becoming disheartened by the enormous need, along came the cat pages.  Hank the Cat ran for the Senate in 2012 (I heard he got 6,000 write-in votes).  Tuxedo Stan ran for the office of Mayor in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  He did not win but he managed to inspire many of the human candidates to sign his Pledge (promoting a low-cost spay/neuter solution to the feral cat problem) and the first one to sign was elected Mayor.  Humans with savvy social marketing skills and great graphics were behind both Hank and Stan.  Stan recently passed away from cancer but his littermate Earl Grey is following in his footsteps.  Awareness seems to be increasing and with awareness comes solutions. 

On November 18, 2012, the Tuxedo Party's Facebook page posted a link to a live cam which would indeed change my life.  It was a Livestream feed of Foster Dad John (FDJ) and his now world-famous Kitten Cam.  I honestly did not think that watching this cam would be any different from the previous ones I had watched.  But then I fell through the looking glass of my computer screen into the Wonderland of John Bartlett and his kittens.  I started watching when the Spice Kittens were six weeks old.  Mama cat Rosemary and her kittens Sage, Basil, Pepper and Mace.  Rosemary was such a beautiful and attentive mother and the kittens were so danged cute - running, tumbling, prancing, twitching in their sleep.  Only a year before I had rescued my own feral cat Mama Lucy and raised her six little boys, so watching these kittens brought back that experience in all its tumultuous glory.

In addition to the draw of watching the kittens another interesting feature of the Livestream feed was the chat.  At any given time of the day or night, hundreds of cat lovers from all over the world are chatting about the kittens and if the kittens are sleeping or off-camera, they exchange recipes, talk about world events, tell stories, quote movies, recommend music - the sky is the limit on this group.  The kittens can be gone to a vet appointment for hours and still nothing stops the chat except technical difficulties.  Chatters are united by the love of the kittens.  I read the chat, got to know the routines, and I was sad when the kittens were adopted and the live event ended.  But I kept checking back to see if there were any new kittens and one day I found the new litter.

Ripley's Kittens drew me in from day one.  All of John's litters have name themes - this litter was named after the characters in the Alien movie.  Mama was Ripley, and the kittens were Ash, Bishop, Newt, Parker and Dallas.  Ripley was a stunning cat - black with white trim and HUGE gold eyes, painfully thin and giving everything she had to her babies.  She was wary at first but soon grew to trust and then love FDJ.  He won her over with pure love and gentleness, and he won me over the same way.  I watched morning, noon and night.  At the shop, at home - I could not stop watching these precious little balls of fluff and their sleek mama.

And it was not just the cuteness that drew me in - there was the drama.  I'll never forget the day my favorite kitten changed gender.  "Ash is a boy!"  He was so floofy that he had originally been thought of as a girl.   By this time I had studied all of the written material on the Kitten Cam page - I learned the names and lore of all of the toys and cat furniture (named by chatters).  Chickenfish (Hail!) the most famous yellow fish/chicken cat toy, perfect for cradling the kittens when they are wee and wrestling with when they are larger.  Chickenfish has made it into the Urban Dictionary and there are several Facebook pages devoted to Chickenfish and many products offered for sale to benefit Purrfect Pals, FDJ's rescue organization.  The second most famous is Fishbed, which unless clipped to the enclosure wall has an alarming tendency to migrate about the room (propelled by tiny kittens).  The furniture includes the Tardis, The Mewniverse, The Ziggurat, The Enterprise, the Transpawter, the Hammock of Destiny (HOD), the Contact Rings (this group likes science fiction!). 

Ripley's kittens grew and grew.  They moved from the little cage to a bigger area and then an ever bigger room.  I watched them until the fateful Adoption Day.  All of the kittens had adopters lined up; the adopters just had to show up, pay the fee, sign their names and voila - the kittens had new homes!  But not one single person had put in an application for the Most Wonderful Mother Cat in the Universe - Mama Ripley!  How could that be???  Chatters around the world were mortified and miserable.  I could not stop crying (and I was watching this drama unfold at my shop on a busy Saturday afternoon).  One by one the kittens went home and there was Ripley, alone and seemingly unloved.  Oh!  The horror!

Suddenly the word spread like wildfire that a lady had phoned and was on her way to adopt her.  Joy filled my heart.  Then another announcement was made that  there was yet another person who was also interested in her.  Was there about to be a fist fight in the aisle at Petsmart?  Our fears were alleviated when the full story emerged - it was a husband and wife who were coming for our dear girl and they had each phoned and thus the mix-up.  But would they be good enough for this special gal?  We could only hope.  By the time this photo was posted I, for one, was a basket case.  It still makes me weep.  Ripley had found her forever home.

The "English Gentleman" and Ripley.

After this chaotic Adoption Day, I discovered that not only did FDJ have a Facebook page (The Critter Room) but many of the adopters had made pages for their cats.  I began what has turned out to be an ever-growing collection of FDJ related cat pages.   I joined several Kitten Cam related groups on Facebook and began getting to know the chatters on a more personal level.  As I have never participated in the chat, they did not know me at all but I can now say with confidence that I have made friends for life and they are scattered all over the world.  If I were a traveler I would go visit some of them and hug them in person.

The next litter for FDJ was named after Russian astronauts - The Cosmo Fosters.  Mama was Laika, the kittens were fierce torti Valentina, mischievous orange Yuri, and the black twins Boris and Pavel, often referred to as the Borvels since they were identical.  I followed their progress from their arrival to their departure and I am still following most of them on Facebook.  Laika (now renamed Mimi) is gorgeous and content and Boris is simply glowing with happiness and mischief.

Along came The Mythbusters:  Mama Kari, Siamese colored Adam (who later turned into a girl - Addie), Tory, Jamie and Grant.  Grant touched our hearts when he began sleeping on his back and we noticed his breathing was rapid and shallow.  Turns out he was diagnosed with a rare congenital malformation of his ribcage so his respiration was labored and used up a lot of the calories he was getting at Mama's milkbar.  John began supplementing his mother's milk with special formula.  Kittens mostly outgrow this defect if they can be kept healthy.  Watching John doing these feedings further endeared him to me.  So dedicated - so gentle!  Oh, be still my heart!

Foster Dad John feeding Grant.

By the time Adoption Day rolled around for this litter everyone had been spoken for except Grant and Tory.  Could it be that Grant's medical history had scared off a potential adopter?  We watched, clutching our tissues, while all of the kittens and mama went to their new homes and both Grant and Tory were still there!  Oh no!  This meant that they had to remain in the Petsmart store until someone wanted them.  Those poor little dears - at least they had each other!  Fortunately, a young couple showed up and adopted them the very next day and everything has turned out for the best.  We receive constant updates and photos on their Facebook page and these clever humans even came up with a way to raise money for Purrfect Pals - anyone who made donations to PP would receive (on FB) a personalized greeting from the cat of their choice.  I chose Grant (since he looks so much like my very own Mister Fletcher) and you can see from this photo how healthy he is now.

Mythbuster Grant and a personal greeting for me!

John is a techie guy, always upgrading his cameras and tweaking the lighting and fussing with the placement of the cat furniture for best viewing and also for best kitten growth experiences.  One night I stayed up way past bedtime watching him install a new light in the cage and he kept having to crawl in and out because he needed tools and drill bits and he reminded me of myself when I attempt a project.  He installed blue towels when the Borvels were not showing up on the white towels (camera had trouble focusing with the sharp contrast).  Then there was the night he decided to repair one of the fuzzy planets on the Mewniverse.   He brought in what looked like a dollar store sewing kit and between fiddling with what he called the "cheap ass scissors" and fumbling with trying to thread the needle, I had tears running down my cheeks from laughing so much.   By the time he managed to complete this job I was ready to mail him a proper sewing kit.

John has fostered over three dozen litters and never once been a "foster failure."  (I am a foster failure - I have fostered 9 cats and adopted 5 of them!)  He has eight cats of his own (sometimes heard outside the door to the kitten room).  Unbelievably, he is allergic to cats, but he does not let this interfere with any of his feline activities.  He is a man with a mission.

One of John's stated missions is to inspire others to do as he does - foster cats and kittens.  He has inspired many followers to do just that and some have also set up cams.  More and more felines are finding forever homes thanks to John's lead.  But not everyone can make room in their lives for this endeavor, so other creative avenues have been pioneered.  I have read some heartwarming and beautifully written fiction and poetry, motivated by the lives of "our" kittens and their mamas. Thousands of images have been screen capped so there is a vast digital vault of material from which many images and videos have been produced to commemorate each litter and each stage of their lives with John and beyond.  A world wide variety of artists have been influenced to create in many mediums:  digital, anime, watercolor, collage, fabric, and sculpture.  Katja, an artist in Finland, has been inspired to begin making little felted miniatures of each kitten and mama.  She auctions them on Ebay with part of the proceeds going to Purrfect Pals.  I bought a T-shirt with the Mythbusters on it, designed by my cyber-friend Hanna Fate.  She has designed wallpaper, wrapping paper, all kinds of products offered for sale through Zazzle, also with a portion of the sale to benefit Purrfect Pals.

Mythbusters by Hanna Fate

Awareness is spreading and kittens are becoming famous on camera; then they are adopted and some become even more famous.  Donations are being made - money, catfood, litter, toys, furniture.  All Purrfect Pals has to do is post their Amazon wish list and the catfood rolls in.  Chatters are also helping each other, all around the world.  This whole thing has turned into an amazing community.   Many other rescue groups are also being inspired by Purrfect Pals and Foster Dad John.  He probably never dreamed when he tossed that first little pebble into the pond what a ripple effect he would create.  He has helped cats he will never even see. 

The next litter that came along after Mythbusters was The Looney Tunes Fosters.  Stunning Mama Hazel, and her kittens Taz, Sylvester, Marvin and Penelope. Honey, a plucky and fuzzy solo kitten, was briefly introduced to Hazel and her kittens  She was only in the crate for a couple of hours when she was returned to her first foster human mom as she had been sick and it was hoped she would rejoin the group for kitten socialization when she became well.   There was not a dry eye in the Kitten Cam world when word came that Honey had passed away from congestive heart failure.  It was just not meant to be.  I like to think that all felines on the Kitten Cam now have the presence of a very special little guardian angel.  All of the Mythbusters found forever homes and ended up with Facebook Pages after adoption.  

FDJ and the Looney Tunes Fosters - on their Last Day in his care.

The most recent litter was the AI Fosters  - all named after artificial intelligence entities in various science fiction productions.  Mama was GlaDOS, slender, jet-black yet somehow silvery, huge Ripley eyes, constantly mrrring to her babies.  She gave birth to one kitten, Hal, but later adopted as her own three little guys from another litter - Eddie, Holly and Jarvis.  Their successful Adoption Day was yesterday and she and Holly went home together.  Jarvis has had a name change, too.  Now he is to be called Bartlett, a fitting tribute to the man who raised him.

Cats all over the world also watch the Kitten Cam.  My Leto will watch for an hour or so, falling asleep on my laptop and Mama Lucy was quite puzzled the first time she heard kittens squeaking on camera.  She jumped up on my workbench and searched for them behind the laptop.

Leto watching and reaching out to Laika.

Mama Lucy wondering "Where are those kittens?"

For many months I viewed all of the artwork pouring from the hearts and hands of the kitten cam people and wished I had something I could make for a contribution.  Without practice, my drawing skills have evaporated  and my digital skills are severely lacking.  What could I do?  I decided to dust off my miniature skills and began making small versions of the cat furniture and toys I saw on John's cam.  My eventual goal is to create an entire miniature roombox of his Kitten Cam.  If I ever figure out how to complete this, I will then auction it off and offer a portion of the proceeds to Purrfect Pals and also my local rescue groups.  The box itself is proving tricky, I am still trying to figure it out.  The mama and kittens (maybe the next litter?) ought to be a snap as I am pretty good with polymer clay.  I keep plugging along.  Having a real Chickenfish (Hail!) and a real Fishbed are invaluable, but working in 1:8.5 scale is fun to say the least.

Fishbed, Chickenfish and their little friends.

I have tried and tried to explain to anyone within earshot why I watch the Kitten Cam.  Next time I feel the urge to preach I will just steer them to this blog entry.  I daresay I will probably be writing about them again some day.

Thank you dear Tuxedo Stan for sharing the Kitten Cam link with your readers.  Thank you Purrfect Pals for finding such a wonderful man, and thank you Kitten Cam followers and my new friends from all over the world.  But most of all, thank you John Bartlett.  You are an inspiration to so many and a mighty hero to those little fuzzy creatures that you so take such great care to socialize and send out into their forever homes. 

I will end this as FDJ ends each visit with his small charges:  "Have a nice day.  Enjoy the kittens."

The Equine Lexicon

(A brief essay on the influence of the horse in our language, which I began writing in 2005 when we did our first Art Horse fundraiser, and published on the Horsin' Around Rivendell pages of my website.  I have added to it every so often.)

Our culture’s relationship with the horse has given us many colorful words and phrases. These come from the horse itself as well as the gear and activities associated with the horse.

We refer to young girls as fillies (female foals), virile men as stallions or studs (male horses), a person who constantly harangues is called a nag (an old and worthless horse), and little girls and aging hippies wear their hair in pony tails. We indulge in horseplay when we are having too much fun. This is also called horsing around.   When a person behaves in an arrogant, haughty or disdainful fashion we say he is on his high horse.    When we can't seem to let go of an untenable notion it is known by the rather unsavory phrase beating a dead horse.
 

Over a hundred years since the invention of the automobile we name our cars after the horse. There are the Mustang, the Colt, the Charger , the Bronco and the infamous Pinto. Our car’s engines are rated by horsepower. When the automobile was first introduced it was called the horseless carriage and streetcars pulled by horses were called horse-cars. Our fascination with the power and mystery of the horse can be seen every day when we see car commercials on TV. Count the number of horses you see in one day’s worth of car commercials!

Another term for common sense is horse sense. Certain dancers have been called hoofers and when we decide to walk instead of drive, we are hoofing it. When we watch the Olympics we view gymnasts performing amazing feats on the pommel horse. The pommel is a part of a horse’s saddle. When we cut wood we use a saw horse. The term riding roughshod means to treat harshly and originates in a horse that has been shod with projecting nails (kinda like golf cleats).

A person with a long face, a lantern jaw and large teeth is derogatorily called horse-face. A person who is said to be very fond of his or her apparel is called a clothes horse.   Nonsense and silliness has been called horse feathers (think of the Marx Brothers). A slang term for a baseball is a horse hide, even though baseballs were never made from horse hide. A loud coarse laugh is called a horse laugh. Movies, TV shows and plays with a Wild West theme are called horse operas. A horse shoe is not just that piece of metal nailed to a horse’s hoof it also refers to anything that is U-shaped, including our own Horseshoe Falls.  When we go to the circus it is often held in a place called a hippodrome.  This comes from the ancient Greek and combines hippo (horse) and drome (race course).  The ancients held chariot races in hippodromes.

Speaking of race courses, a lot of words and phrases in our language come from the race track.  When we start an new project with a great flourish, we say we are off to the races.  A project in its infancy is just out of the starting gate.  When this project is going well, it is on track.  When we uphold the losing side, we have backed the wrong horse.  And when things get out of control we say it's anybody's horse race from here!

A shrewdly conducted bargain is still called a horse trade, to pony up means to settle an account, and a dark horse is not only a horse that comes out of nowhere to win a race but also a political candidate unexpectedly nominated.  When a person falls (or is thrown) from a horse there is much urging to get back on the horse  - that same phrase is used to encourage someone to overcome fear or doubt.  Riders often need a boost to mount a horse - this is the origin of the phrase leg up. The military even today uses the word dismount to describe getting out of a vehicle, a clear throwback to cavalry.  Also, the word cavalcade originally meant a procession of persons riding on horses.  When we promise to keep a secret we claim that wild horses couldn't drag it out of us.  When precautions are taken after a problem has occurred we refer to this as shutting the barn door after the horse has gone. When me mix up our priorities during a project this is commonly known as putting the cart before the horse.  In the four years that we presented Horsin' Around Rivendell, we accumulated a stable of artists.

A horse is controlled by its bridle and the attached reins. A laneway wide enough to accommodate a horse was called a bridle path.  In many subdivisions today there are streets called The Bridle Path which have never seen a horse!   We refer to unbridled passions or enthusiasm; we rein in our emotions or our spending.  We also use the term free rein to mean letting someone do what he pleases. The metal mouthpiece of the bridle is called a bit which curbs or restrains the horse.  A curb is also a type of bit, hence phrases like curb your enthusiasm.  When we say the phrase taking the bit in one's teeth, we mean casting off control.  When we say champing at the bit it means to betray impatience.   A rider sometimes wears spurs on his boots to urge the horse along.  We still use the phrase spurred on to indicate that we are being goaded into action.

The rider sits in the saddle and we often refer to being saddled with burdens or debt.  A person who is in the saddle is a person in a position of authority.  When we return to working after an absence, we say we are back in the saddle. Saddle shoes are oxfords with a band of a contrasting color across the instep.  For a horse to carry items, saddle bags are used (think Pony Express mail carriers).  Women with, ahem, hefty thighs sometimes refer to this extra "baggage" as saddle bags!  When some niggling little thing keeps bothering the heck out of you it is frequently referred to as a burr under your saddle. 

 Sometimes when we work too many hours we complain that we have been in harness too long.  A person overly attached to the notion of working is often called a work horse.  Another way of telling someone to leave well enough alone is to use the phrase don't switch horses in midstream.  You can imagine the problems that would arise from such an effort.

Words like corral, lasso and round-up all come from our Old West heritage. These words are frequently used to mean gather.

Horse of a different color has come to mean something that is entirely different. When we wish to restrain wild impulses we say hold your horses. When we receive news from a trustworthy source we say we have gotten it straight from the horse’s mouth.  Hot to trot means ready and eager, as does feeling one's oats.  A person who falls into a rage is said to be up on his hind legs, like a rearing horse.

A time-honored method of determining the age of a horse is to look into its mouth. The length and condition of the teeth reveal the age. Hence the phrase looking a gift horse in the mouth, meaning to question a gift. Not a good thing!  Carriage horses work long hours and are given food in nosebags or feedbags.  Hence, putting on the feedbag means to have a meal.
I will continue to add horse words as I think of them, but for now, I do not want to give anyone a nightmare so I will stop.  Well, how about one little Night Mare?

Night Mare, one of the first Art Horses I did for Horsin' Around Rivendell, 2005.

My Little Goldfish

(My remembrance from the memorial service for my stepmom, at St. James United Methodist Church, Niagara Falls, New York, Sunday, January 27, 2012)

My dad always gave me the best presents.  When I was five years old he made me a fabulous rocking horse and when I was going off to college he gave me my very own portable typewriter.  Little did I know the best present was to come in 1972 when he married Carol, and after being an only child all my life, I suddenly had a whole new family.

   

In addition to this new mother, I had two brothers, and they had wives and children; now their children have children – so I have brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces and grand nephews.  Carol also arrived with a dear quirky aunt and a delightful animal-loving sister and I ended up with two new cousins as well – not to mention various dogs, including one very special step-poodle and an awful lot of cats.

Carol and I began to become acquainted with each other right here at St. James – for many years we attended the then-annual Mother and Daughter Banquet.  We always had a grand time – eating and laughing and singing - and did I mention eating?  Our favorite experience was the entertainment portion of one unforgettable evening – a chorus of retired men, clad in spiffy red blazers, who belted out “Rise up O Men of God” as their first number.  Carol and I laughed about that for years!

We grew closer in our relationship after my dad died in 1999.  I visited her weekly and she fed me, (or we went out for Chinese), we went shopping and we enjoyed a lot of movies.  We sat in the sunlight and chuckled at the antics of the birds and the squirrels.   Every Thanksgiving we watched the Dog Show on television. 

 

After she moved into Sterling House and later Clair Bridge she continued to enjoy her life – looking forward, of course, to family visits but taking part in all activities that were offered.  The level of care she received at both places was truly a Godsend.  The amazing staff always made sure she was well-fed, warm, safe, entertained and happy.  Some days, however, when I visited she would seem kind of lonesome, longing for a visit from “her boys.” But then she would laugh, pat her hand on my knee and say, “But I’ve got you, babe!”

Towards the last few years of her life, Carol developed an increasingly distressing loss of her short-term memory.  We all went through a bad patch during the stage when she was aware of this loss and became perplexed and occasionally vexed; but once she forgot this forgetting, she was, as the Buddhists call it, “living in the now.”   And this is where her wonderful personality came into play – everything and everyone she encountered was a fresh delight.  I took to thinking of her as My Little Goldfish – she just swam around and around in her little domain and she enjoyed every single minute of her life.  Let us hope that all of us may be equally blessed.

November 2012, age 97, working on a painting.

                                           

Here's My Plan

In 2008 I inherited my dad's antique oak bookcase, 59" long, 57" high, and 14" deep.  This aged behemoth has adjustable oak shelves and three single-pane glassed doors.  Unfortunately, this lovely and most-treasured piece was placed in front of the loveseat in my living room upon its arrival and there it still stands today, five years later.  Shelf by shelf I have managed to fill it up with junk and stuff, instead of finding the perfect location for it and filling it with my real treasures (like my larger horse figurines - I am so weary of dusting them!).

I love this bookcase - it has been in my family for as long as I can remember.  It lived in my dad's study in each of our parsonages.  It was always filled to the brim with his most precious books - his collection of religious tomes, some ancient and leather-bound.  Old Bibles, modern texts, the 1909 Compton's encyclopedia (which I still have).  

I measured and remeasured it, trying to think where I could shoehorn it into an appropriate location in my house.  Too deep for the hallway ( I could just imagine crashing a clumsy elbow through the glass).  Anyway, the hallway is already lined with ten shallower bookshelves, one chest of drawers and one tall cabinet.  Thus was the hallway eliminated from consideration.

Kitchen?  No.  That would be silly; plus the antique oak china cabinet is already out there, filled with knick knacks from grandma and mom .  Bathroom?  No. Too moist, and there are already two bookshelves in there. Bedroom?  No.  Seven bookshelves, three small cabinets and multiple stacking bins.  So back to the living room.  If I relocate the filing cabinet and the maple corner cabinet, and move the loveseat and a few chairs, I do believe it will fit into a nice safe corner.  It only took me five years to think of this solution.

Of course before I move the filing cabinet I have to clear a space for it.  If I Freecycle the old oak dresser in the utility room, the file cabinet will fit in there.  But first I have to clear out the utility room.  And most of the other stuff in there - six or seven cat carriers, a 50 gallon drum of pine chip litter and numerous 5 gallon buckets full of more stuff - all of these need to be moved into the front hall.

Of course the front hall is full of bags of pop bottles and other recyclables.  The recyclables will go to the curb and the returnable pop bottles go into my stash in the garage (my only savings account).  I must also make the decision to recycle the 100 pounds or so of old framing magazines I have stashed in bins and boxes.  That should allow me enough room to store the cat carriers and other stuff from the utility room and maybe squeak the oak dresser out into the garage if anyone wants to pick it up.  It cannot live in the garage for too long or it will go to a moldy grave out there.

So, there.  Now I have a plan.  New Years is always the time to create plans.  All I have to do now is get started in the right spot and I will be on my way!  Happy New Year!

The Night Before Solstice

Twas the night before Solstice
When I and the cats
Had just settled down
For a long winter's nap

When out in the hallway
There arose such a clatter
Thunking and clunking
What on earth was the matter?

The cats were not with me
I found none in the house
Has they all scattered thither
In chase of a mouse?

I roared as I strode through
The doorways and halls
"What the hell are you doing?"
"What's going on?"

The last door I yanked open
Revealed a surprise
Leto the kitten
With huge frightened eyes

His head was wedged firmly
Inside a glass jar
I don't even know
How he'd made it that far

In this airless prison
His doom was foretold
I had to act swiftly
I had to be bold

Left hand on the kitten
Right hand on the jar
I grabbed his neck tightly
And twisted the jar

I pulled and I pulled
With all of my might
And I freed my small friend
From his terrible plight

I calmed him and soothed him
And called him by name
"Oh Leto! Poor Leto!"
"You're all right again!"

His purr increased swiftly
And I swear he made clear
"Blessed Solstice to all!"
"I'm so glad I'm still here!"

 Mister Fletcher, Prince Mica and Leto, Christmas 2011

Something Wrong in Norway

My grandfather had an amazing brain full of great jokes for every occasion.  Grandma could never keep up with him; she could never remember punchlines and frequently managed to mangle even the most common quotations.  She was trying to come up with the quote from Hamlet, the one about something rotten in Denmark, when she blurted out "Something wrong in Norway."  We never let her forget it; Grandma was our own Mrs. Malaprop.

Grandma tried to tell a joke once about a worm named Motor and the punchline was supposed to be "Out bored Motor!"   She got all mixed up and wondered why no one laughed at the end when she finished with "Out Motor bored!"  I think after that she left the jokes to Grandpa.

My mom, on the other hand, had a famous mondegreen.  She lived in South Buffalo as a child and misheard the line from the hymn "Jesus is seeking your humble heart" as "Jesus is sneaking through Humboldt Park."  She always wondered why Jesus would have had a need to do that and found herself looking over her shoulder whenever she had to walk through the park. 

My first mondegreen occurred when I was little and, listening to Up on the Rooftop, proudly declared that "Reindeer don't have paws, they have hooves."  For many years I also misheard the Winter Wonderland lyrics, "In the meadow we can build a snowman, Then pretend that he is Parson Brown," as "In the meadow we can build a snowman, Then pretend that he is parse and brown," which is really odd considering my dad was a preacher and I did not recognize the word parson.  I spent years wondering why a presumably white snowman would be parse and brown (I pictured a sort of  Charlie Brown scraggly snowman).

Only this week I discovered a mondegreen which has been rattling around in my brain since the early seventies.  My favorite album in the whole world is Fraser & DeBolt (with Ian Guenther) and in the song Waltze of the Tennis Players, one line had always puzzled me.  The correct lyric is "The cowboys are sprinkling mycelium. Mushrooms keep growing in every new bootprint."  I suppose the line about the mushrooms should have been my clue, but I always heard the word mycelium as two words, my celium, and I could not figure it out for the life of me. What the heck was a celium?  Many thanks to Allan Fraser for publishing the lyrics to all of the songs on the album. Now I can sleep.

I guess as the third generation (that I know of anyway) of proud perpetrators of malaprops, mispronunciations and mondegreens, it makes sense that I have a collection of not only my own family's aural bloopers, but also a selection of doozies I have heard on the radio and seen online. Some are unfortunately all too common:  road to hoe instead of row to hoe, bomb fire instead of bonfire, drug attics instead of drug addicts.   A recent addition to my collection is innocent bi-standard instead of innocent bystander.

A fill-in announcer on CBC once pronounced the northern Ontario town Attawapiskat as "Ottawa Piss Cat" and I can never hear any story about that town's terrible tragedies without thinking of that mispronunciation.

But these two are my all time favorites:  A teenager breathlessly described her new boyfriend as a "diamond in the rust."  Another young lady solemnly included in her narrative the phrase "a canary in a mine field."

We are all in good company here, so stay tuned.  I am sure there will always be more things wrong in Norway.