http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/Essays about animals and those who love themen-UShttp://backend.userland.com/rss092http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/67/06546f830d6ba5cb009eecd3b95264_160x200.jpg <p>Sometimes I feel so very down and discouraged when I read about animal mistreatment and cruelty to animals and it all seems so hopeless, but then something happens that shines a light and I think, "maybe there are more of us than I know".</p> <p>I wanted to mention a few animal heroes I know about so you won't feel so alone. Of course, if you have read earlier entries you know about my cousin Bobby and Duncan Griffin, but there are so many others. Years ago there were great floods up north in my country. Cities that had never flooded were flooding and people were caught unawares and calling for rescue. On a show I heard a recording of one woman's call to 911 in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The house was surrounded by water and it was coming in the door. </p> <p>The operator asked how many needed rescue and she said, "three adults, four children, two dogs, three cats, and two birds in cages". The operator responded that they would only transport the people, that the animals would have to be left and the woman yelled, "then don't come! We'll stay here and chance it because we're not leaving one of them!" All the people and all the animals were rescued.</p> <p>In another flood a young couple were on their roof with their three dogs when a helicopter hovered over and lowered one of those rescue basket things. The woman was raised to the helicopter and the rescuer tried to put the husband in the basket when it became apparent that the rescuers were planning to leave the dogs on the roof. The husband declined to be rescued, stating he would stay with the dogs on the roof until the water went down. The young man and the dogs rode the basket up together.</p> <p>Many, many animals were abandoned during the recent hurricane in New Orleans and many groups and individuals made great efforts to rescue and care for them. I have never been a fan of Matthew McConaughey, even if he is a fellow Texan. His looks don't appeal and his acting seems lacking, except in "Dazed and Confused", however that was really type casting, but I must stop saying anything negative about him, because in the aftermath of the storm he drove his truck to New Orleans and drove and swam around loading dogs in the truck and driving them to shelters.</p> <p>So, you see, when least expected, in the most hopeless dark, one stumbles on heroes and one thinks, "I'm not alone".</p> <p>Many years ago I was reading an article about the places in the Pacific that were monitored years after the atomic bomb testing done there, most famously on the Bikini atoll. I remember reading about how disfigured some sea creatures were and how the exposure to radiation had caused reproductive damage. Then I remembered seeing films of the explosions and I wondered how many fish and crabs and sharks and whales and whatever had died and how anyone could think it was our right to do that. I have always been bothered by all the horses dead in battle and the horses forced to haul cannon in the winter at Stalingrad, the horses who died in Napoleon's retreat, and all the animals that died in bombed out cities, the victims of our stupidity. </p> <p>I hardly ever feel sorry for the people, most of whom seem to have participated in determining their fates, and who at least understood what was going to happen and had a chance to escape or hide.</p> <p>So many creatures are destroyed as collateral damage to our progress by people who never even think about them: the builders, the loggers, the armies and navies, the scientists testing in their labs, the people who drive too fast and don't think it important to let an animal cross the road; I call those people bikinis because they never realize that all life is as important as their own.</p> <p>Some nights I think of the dog sent into space by the Russians in the 50s, whose vital signs were transmitted and read until she ran out of oxygen and died, or the monkeys the Americans sent who made it back, but were then "sacrificed" so that their bodies could be studied.</p> <p>On those nights the world seems very black and cruel, but then I hear the woman in Grand Forks, ND saying, "then don't come! We're not leaving a one of them!" and I know that I am not alone. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2009/04/20/heroes-and-bikinis-5976138/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2009/04/20/heroes-and-bikinis-5976138/Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:58:24 +0200 <p>I wonder, what does one call a group of raccoons, like more than three or so. I mean there are litters of kittens and puppies, herds of cows and deer and moose, pods of whales, flocks of birds, prides of lions, packs of wolves, gaggles of geese; do raccoon groups have a special name?</p> <p>Not so long ago I was getting the cats in because I was going to be gone for awhile. One was behind a large pot on the patio, in which lives the plant eating tree that calls herself Hibiscus. I refer to her as the plant eating tree because as a Mother's Day gift my younger son bought a large, large pot (One needs a dolly to move it.) and filled it with multiple plantings for me. However, the plant eating tree that calls herself Hibiscus and who grows to about four feet tall each year, shortly had somehow deposed and banished all the other plants, taking over the pot; hence, her name. It suits her.</p> <p>As I went out to retrieve the truant cat I closed the patio door behind me so no others would come back out and the burglar bar fell and locked me out. I was nonplussed. There was no way back in. I climbed over the fence to get to my front door, wondering if I had left it unlocked; although I knew there was no chance that I had because of Richard Chase.</p> <p>Richard Chase was an insane and delusional young man who lived in Sacramento, CA in the 1970s. He became convinced that some outside force was turning his blood to powder and that he needed to replace it or die. For months he killed animals for their blood, but as his delusion became more involved he determined that he needed human blood. His victims were selected at random. He would walk down a street, trying front doors. When he found one unlocked he would enter and kill anyone in the home. If the door was locked he would pass on to the next house. He never attempted to break in.</p> <p>Whenever I go to my children's homes if one has left the door unlocked I enter berating them and say, "Richard Chase!" They always claim they had unlocked the door because they saw me approaching and that is probably true. They have had me screaming "Richard Chase!" at them since childhood and they don't leave their doors unlocked, even when home.</p> <p>So, thanks to Richard Chase, who killed and died long ago, my front door was as securely locked as my patio door. I went to a neighbor's and called for a key to be brought over and sat on the steps in front of my door to wait. In a few minutes I became aware of rustling in the shrubs by me and looked over to see four or five raccoons under the bushes, looking out at me and at each other.</p> <p>It was the time of night that I always put out their food. They are used to me and if they hear me walking they might start to run, not knowing who I am, but once I speak and they hear my voice they will come back for the food they know I have. I had their food ready in the house, which was locked. I had been going to put it out after I got all the cats in.</p> <p>They continued to move around restlessly, not knowing why their dinners were not forthcoming. I told them I would get the food in a minute, but raccoons apparently are all about instant gratification. Occasionally one would exit the bushes and stand by me, glaring, before returning to the group. Then they would all line up and stare at me, sending waves of guilt with psychic energy. I apologized profusely and fortunately within a few minutes had a key, went in, and got their dinners; so, all was forgiven, but it did seem, as they ate and looked at each other, they were saying, "What the hell was that about? Why was she just sitting there? Didn't she see us waiting?"</p> <p>During the uncomfortable minutes of their impatience and scrutiny I had random thoughts; one of which was to wonder if there was a name for a group of raccoons. I don't know about all raccoons, but this group was a gang; for mutual protection and support, for identity, for acceptance, all the same reasons there are human gangs, one supposes. So, whatever you call the groups of raccoons who live around you, I call mine a gang. I live with a unique and special gang of raccoons and we are a mutual admiration society. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2009/02/18/nomenclature-5599831/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2009/02/18/nomenclature-5599831/Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:29:04 +0100 <p class="center"> <p>I help turtles across the road. I don't see as many now, but every spring when I'm driving around; especially close to the river, I do see them. </p> <p>I park my car by the side of the road and dash out in the traffic, hoping some idiot won't hit me, and being a shield for the turtle and I grab the turtle and sprint to the side of the road he is heading and set him far back from the road, close to the river, so he can make his way to safety.</p> <p>One time when I did this I returned to my car to find a short little man standing by it; he was almost elflike. His English was not good and my Spanish was worse, but he pointed to the sky and smiled and said "his eye is on you" and I understood that. Now I have no beliefs in gods, but I do not denigrate his and it was the thought that counted. </p> <p>It made me feel good to find a kindred spirit by the side of the road and I carry the memory of his smile in my mind today.</p> <p>Many years ago when my older boy was young he had a turtle that lived in a wading pool in the backyard one summer. Jamie had loved and cared for that turtle all summer, changing his water and giving him new rocks to climb on and feeding him catfood, which he seemed to like, moving him into shade when he thought it was too hot. </p> <p>It was a wild turtle and as winter approached I was afraid that we wouldn't care for him right in the cold weather; so I broached to Jamie the idea that we should set him free and Jamie, always loving the turtle and with his best interests in mind, agreed.</p> <p>We live in a town with rivers and creeks so one Sunday in October we drove to an immense city park that an enormous spring feeds into. In fact, the coldest pool in the world is located there, fed by the natural springs. It has tall waving grass growing on the bottom. We walked way into the woods along the creek, away from people, with him carrying his turtle, and when we felt it sufficiently safe and isolated he walked down to the creekside and set the turtle by the water.</p> <p>The turtle paused for a moment as Jamie returned to my side. Then he slipped into the water that was his home and we watched him make his way to a rock. We took our eyes off him for a minute and when we looked back he was gone. I could tell Jamie didn't want to leave without one more good bye so we stood by the creek for a long while, searching with our eyes, and then we saw him. He hadn't left. He was just lower on the rock with just his head out of the water, his color blending in and him so still we had overlooked him. Jamie said his last farewell and we both felt good about the little turtle.</p> <p>Years later I told this story to his wife and she told me that once, late at night, as she was returning home she saw him in his car in front of her. He pulled into a neighborhood park by their house that had a pond in the middle. She just couldn't figure out what he was doing and paused her car in the street to watch. She saw him open the trunk of his car and remove a turtle, which he took to the pond in the park.</p> <p>Every year at Christmas I try to get cute things for my children's stockings. One thing I always get is a turtle for Jamie. Not a real turtle, sometimes a stone turtle, others a wooden one, once a turtle shaped car deodorizer to hang in his car, but always there is a turtle.</p> <p>Each year, as he empties his stocking, he finds the turtle and he takes it out and unwraps it and holds it in his hand and says, "my turtle".</p> <p>For one moment then, once a year, he is my little boy again.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2008/04/12/tradition-4033351/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2008/04/12/tradition-4033351/Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:50:28 +0200 <p>Once, many, many years ago I walked into the garage and found an orange cat sitting with his back to me.</p> <p>I frequently find cats I don't know around my home; I don't know exactly why. I theorize it's because so many cats live with me, but they are not very welcoming to strangers, so I discount that. I really don't know why they come.</p> <p>I said to this cat, "Why, hello. What are you doing here?" and he turned his massive tomcat head and looked at me over his shoulder. When I saw his face I literally took a step back and caught my breath. I had never in my life seen such a disfigured face on an animal. He had a harelip that went all the way up through his nose and displaced his nostrils. He also had a cleft palate. He looked large and healthy because of his bushy, long hair, but when one touched him one could tell he was undernourished. </p> <p>For a stray cat who obviously had not had an easy life he was very comfortable with most humans. I called him Frankie, for Frankenstein. </p> <p>He preferred to remain outdoors, roaming around, but would always come when I called, for food. I left the garage door open a few inches, so he could seek shelter and protection when he needed to. One night it was very, very cold, icy and some snow, which is unusual for our area; so I brought him inside. The man to whom I was then married was not an animal person, one of the many reasons we are no longer married, but he never did anything cruel, even when Frankie used his tool box in the garage for a potty box.</p> <p>That night when I forced Frankie in he roamed around so that I had to let him back out, making a warm bed for him in the garage, where he could feel free. I was reading in the living room when that husband went to bed and I heard a horrified yell from the bedroom. I ran in there and discovered that he had discovered that Frankie had peed on his pillow. Now cats will do that when displeased, but what the man kept asking was, "Why my pillow? Yours is right there. Why my tool box, when he could have gone to the yard?" Obviously no one not an animal person could realize how psychic cats are.</p> <p>Once, Frankie got a cold, which was not good for one with nostrils like his. I took him to the vet and got him some antibiotics, etc. The vet was fascinated with him, as was I, because usually in the animal world, such aberrations of nature do not survive, but he had.<br> I can't remember exactly how old the vet thought him, but not young, possibly seven or eight years.</p> <p>Frankie didn't live with us long, less than a year. One night when I called him to supper he did not come; so I sent my older son out to look for him and he found Frankie, under some bushes by the side of the house, where he had laid down and died. It was not due to trauma, there was no physical damage and no blood draining from natural body openings to indicate internal damage. He had just laid down under the bush and died. He had not appeared sick to me in the days before his death. It seemed it was just his time to go to sleep.</p> <p>I was very sad and comforted myself, as people do, that for his last days he was never hungry and had a safe shelter from the dangers of the world when he wanted or needed.</p> <p>But the strange thing, as I remember Frankie, is that I cannot picture his disfigurement anymore. I think of him as a beautiful cat and although I can recall that I was shocked the first time I saw him; he became so familiar to me that I cannot recall the feeling of the shock.</p> <p>I am reminded of a Jacques Cousteau show I saw about octopusses, or is it octopi? I never know. They are so foreign to me and their looks so strange that they frighten me. In the show, however, the divers held them and let them wrap around their hands and bodies and heads and when they took off in their graceful glides the divers swam along side and stroked them. I was charmed and wished I could stroke an octopus and I realized that I was only frightened because I had no usual contact with them. If I saw or touched one every day they would become familiar and familiarity, far from always breeding contempt, also breeds comfort.</p> <p>And so it was with Frankie. To most, and to me at first, he was shockingly disfigured and startling, even ugly, compared to usual cats, but as I got to know him I never saw his public face and we found comfort in the acceptance of each other. To me Frankie was beautiful, with a quirky personality and desire to survive that I could only imagine, and he let me see the Frankie who really was, and let me stroke him, as the divers stroked the octopus. Thank you, Frankie, for coming to teach me such a lesson. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/12/07/beholder_s_eye~3411014/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/12/07/beholder_s_eye~3411014/Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:45:14 +0100 <p>Kindly visitors, I have not blogged much lately, but I was surprised to see how many visitors had looked at my blog over the last few months. I know, from visiting blogs myself, that I seldom go beyond the first page; and if that is true of you I feel you are missing some of the best.</p> <p>So, I ask you to search for and read some of my favorites that are found further into the blog than you may be going.</p> <p>* The Christmas Rat<br> * The Snake and the Prissy Bitch: A Love Story<br> * In Memorium: The Farm Dog and the Circus Dog<br> * My Daddy and Animals<br> * My Cousin Bobby and Duncan Griffin<br> * Once I Lived Near Water<br> * Little Brother and the Really Snake</p> <p>Thank you for taking the time to read these and I will welcome any comments you choose to make. I write these to preserve the memories, and for you. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/10/25/visitors~3191499/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/10/25/visitors~3191499/Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:55:44 +0200 <p>One night about two weeks ago as I was going out late in the dark to put out the food I leave for the 'possums and raccoons I am lucky enough to live around, I saw a shadow whip from the bushes and under a car, flitting so fast I wasn't sure what it was; or if it was anything more than the shadow of a branch, tossed by the wind, caused by the moon.</p> <p>But I stood very still and watched the shadows under the car and one shifted and moved and I saw a long skinny tail before it was tucked around a body and I knew. There was a shadow cat in my yard, hiding in my bushes, called there by what I don't know; the presence of the cats who live with me, the aura of my home, the love in my heart?</p> <p>I went on around the building and deposited the wild creature food and returned. The shadow was no longer under the car, but I knew it was not far. I prepared a bowl of food and returned to the bushes and the Shadow, faster than I could see or blink, was out of the bushes and under the car. I shook the bowl, to get him used to the sound of food, and placed it under the bush and left. I watched from the door as the Shadow, moving from shadow to shadow, seeking protection from his own kind, approached the bowl and settled down to eat, and I went in so as not to disturb his meal.</p> <p>Since then, most nights, the Shadow is there, waiting for the food. He disappears, anonymous in the crowd of moonlit shadows, when I approach with the food, but when I have withdrawn about 10 feet he will come back out and crouch by the bowl, but he won't start eating until I have gone. On nights when he is not there, at least not that I can see, I just leave the bowl; knowing he will come later and if not him, some other hungry creature will eat the food that I leave like an offering to a kindly god that never existed.</p> <p>When I go out with the food I croon, "purdy, purdy, kit cat, kit cat" because you cannot call shadows with the loud, fast "kitty, kitty" that I use to call the cats who live with me. You must call shadows soft and low, like a lullaby, crooning the call, calming the spirit.</p> <p>Oh, Shadow, you are so fearful and you are so lost. You never knew my Daddy, but I did; and he was the master shadow charmer and I learned from him well. Someday you will eat when I am there and someday you will let me stroke your body; and even if you never do I will always leave the food and always call you, softly in the night.</p> <p>The thought of the shadow cat eating the food that I put out makes me feel warm and relaxed, like listening to Bob Seger sing, or floating in the ocean, or falling asleep after sex with someone I wanted, even if it's only for one night, especially if it's only for one night.</p> <p>I have heard of moon shadows and I have seen moon shadows, but now I know that one feels a heart shadow.</p> <p>"Kindness to an animal will bring its own reward." </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/10/25/the_shadow~3191028/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/10/25/the_shadow~3191028/Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:07:42 +0200 <p>When I wrote my last post I didn't mention any but personal animal names, but since then I have remembered some names that I really loved. They are names of famous racehorses, all from quite awhile ago, but none of the names I hear now can match them.</p> <p>The first I always was taken by was Native Dancer. Isn't that a great name for a horse? The next was Whirlaway, but the very best of all was Carry the Mail. In a book I've been writing for years there is a horse named Revenant. And there's always "Old Stewball", who never drank water, but only drank wine.</p> <p>I once read that Napoleon's cavalry troops fed their horses bread dipped in wine before a battle, but that's a story for another post. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/03/21/more_really_great_animal_names~1943887/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/03/21/more_really_great_animal_names~1943887/Wed, 21 Mar 2007 03:35:14 +0100 <p>There is a show on the Home and Garden Network here called "If Walls Could Talk". It is about people moving into old houses, one or two hundred years old, and finding artefacts and papers left by previous owners and the fascinating tales behind them. In one show an elderly man had lived for years alone, except for his cats, in the family home where he had grown up. He had so loved his housemates that he had put a memorial stone in the family cemetary plot with their names on it. One of the cats was named Brother and I was charmingly shocked, because one of the cats I live with now is called Brother. This coincidence made me think of the names of all the animals I have lived with and I decided to share them with you, along with some things I remember about them.</p> <p>Two early family pets that I don't remember were a dog called Terry and a cat named Rebecca. Both of these animals also traveled with my father on his ship when he was in the Navy. I remember being told how Terry fell off the ship when it was docked in China and several sailors jumping in the water to retrieve him. Rebecca kept my father company on the LST he commanded during the war and he wanted to name me Rebecca, but my mother wouldn't name me after a cat. I have mixed feelings about Rebecca being on that ship. I don't think it right to knowingly put animals in danger, which being on a ship in wartime certainly was. I keep thinking of the animals on the Titanic; Astor's dog Kitty and the pack of fox hounds Billy somebody was bringing back from England are the ones I know about, but there might have been more.</p> <p>From my father's childhood I know there were many animals, but I only know the names of two; the hound Villa and the cow called Baby. My mother's family did not ever have pets, but she did mention a black horse she and her sister used to ride called Coalie.</p> <p>The next animal I remember is a dog named Rusty who lived with us in Cuba. He also died there. And I remember the feral mama cat who lived in our yard and who helped my father teach me about animals. I remember her kittens and how my father found homes for them all.</p> <p>There was a gray cat named Sweet William, called Willy, whose name was also Moseby because gray cats are always named Moseby and another tom who lived with us at the same time named Jughead, because of his enormous head. At the same time these cats were with us Miss Fluff also joined us, but she stayed for years, much longer than Willy and Jughead. She had a kitten who didn't live called JP, jr. because he looked like Jughead and we assumed he was the father. (Jughead's middle name was Percival.) She mourned so when her kitten died that my Daddy had her spayed, which was more unusual in that socially incorrect time.</p> <p>In Cuba we also had a dog named Lady who returned with us to the states and lived for 15 years. Also in my childhood I remember Duchess and Tiger, two other dogs who lived into my adulthood. </p> <p>I remember a Siamese named Princess Ting who slept with me at night and nursed on the lace and ribbons of my pajama tops. When she died I wrapped her in a pajama top to be buried. Ting had a litter and two of them stayed with us. Sammy, for Sambo, and Patricia Louise, called Patty Lou. All three of these cats died young as did Big Daddy, a beautiful yellow and white tom who was the father of Ting's kittens.</p> <p>There is a mystery in my mind about Big Daddy and no way to ever solve it. My father worked security for a train company in Dallas and late one night he found a tiny kitten, whose bloated belly told of malnutrition and who was covered with fleas and creosote and oil from the train yard. Of course my Daddy brought him home and against all expectations he survived. He was yellow and white and I always in my memory thought that he grew up to be Big Daddy, but Ting came to us at least three years after that and I distinctly remember a picture of Ting and a half grown kitten; she was licking his head, and knowing that that kitten was Big Daddy. So the railyard kitten would have been too old to be that kitten in the picture, but I have absolutely no memory of what happened to the railyard kitten, nor of where the real Big Daddy came from. There is just a gap there and everyone I could have asked who might have remembered is dead, so I'll never know.</p> <p>There were the two birds, Chico and Chiquita. And a list of cats, Sampson and Chuchie and Mai Ling and Ming Foo, and after I grew up and had my own, another Moseby and two Dinos and Rebecca Jane, called Becky Jane. Wally (his name was really Apollo) and Faustus because he was black and white, but he was called Foo Foo, and Rising Star and Cecilia Poops and Molly and Tommy Gordo and Remainder and Tiggy and Sojourner Snake and the Prissy Bitch and Rikki. Of course there were dogs and two were called Chuck and Lucy.</p> <p>I remember the night Lucy wandered into our yard and started living with us. Jamie and Valerie and I discussed what to name her. Jamie wanted Misty because she was gray and Valerie wanted Lucy and I wanted Dolly because she was small and had bright eyes. We put all three names on pieces of paper and drew one and Lucy she was. There was Simms and then Joe Cocker and of course the eternally charming Spock; followed by Eugen, named for the Prinz Eugen, and Cindy Lou, called Loudie, who live with me now. Cindy Lou was named for Cindy Lou Who because she was innocent and loving and playful and trusting despite the horrible treatment she had received from people before she was rescued.</p> <p>Of all my old animals only Sojourner Snake is left, but also here now with Eugen and Loudie and him are my Pretty Little Thing and Brother, who started this blog, and Squeeker Marie Dupree. (I wanted her middle name to be Diane when she decided she wanted a middle name, but she insisted on Marie.)</p> <p>There were also transient cats who stayed around like God's Cat, there were two of them, called so because they belonged only to the cosmos, and the Ghost Cat, (not the real ghost cat, but one called that because of his color.) and of course the Big Head Cat and Yellow Cat. I'm sure I might have forgotten some animals who gifted us with their presence for a little while and some who stayed so briefly they were not named, but these give you some idea and the names of some of the animals I have known and the reasons for some of the names.</p> <p>Share here the names of your animals and how they got them. We'd all be interested in adding them to our memories. In my memory I see them all and if there were time travel I would go back to one day with each of them just to rub them again and say "I love you".</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/02/19/animal_names~1770256/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/02/19/animal_names~1770256/Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:41:58 +0100 <p>I am very lucky because I have creatures living above my ceiling. In fact, in the last three places I have lived I have had such upstairs neighbors. I see wild creatures outside because I feed them, the 'possums and raccoons and squirrels, the rats, the mice, (I'm sure none of the ceiling folk are birds, much too heavy.) but I never know which of the ones I see outside also live inside with me, there, heard, but unseen.</p> <p>In the little gray house I lived in a few years ago I think there were several species in different parts. Over the bedroom I would hear quick light feet, scampering, and sometimes squeeks. I think those were squirrels, because they sounded too heavy to be mice, and anyway, usually the mice came into the house where I had to catch them, and other than that they stayed out in the storage building next to the house, but over the kitchen and bathroom there were heavier, lumbering creatures, who sometimes sounded like they were throwing each other around in some sort of olympic style activities, but not being very vocal. I think that these were raccoons.</p> <p>In the place I lived before this one I only heard the squirrel sounds. I guess because of the woods out back the larger creatures had plenty of places to hide and hole up. But in the place I live now I haven't heard any until the last month. </p> <p>Where I live it is summer about 9 months of the year. Three of those months have temperatures of 80 or above and six of them have temperature of 90 or above and for the other three the temperatures are usually below 80 and into the 50s and 60s at night, but for about 12 days, scattered through the 3 months we jocularly call winter, it gets cold, at least to us, and stays in the 40s or 50s during the days and may drop into the 30s at night with a few nights below freezing. (For you celsius people I am talking farenheit here.)</p> <p>And, over the last month we have had a few cold nights and some creatures who normally would stay outside have apparently come in for the warmth. And these are big. If I didn't know better I would think it was a pack of dogs. And they are loud, with very long claws. I hear constant scratching of claws, almost like they're digging into the wood above, and crashes, as if they are leaping from board to board, and then rumbles, as if they were wrestling and rolling over and over with each other. It is like a symphony of wild sounds and drives Little Brother and my Pretty Thing distracted because they can hear, but not see. They both sit on the dining room table and stare at the ceiling, hoping for a hole to open and whatever is up there to tumble through. Cats can't stand a mystery.</p> <p>I am reminded of the film "The Lodger", which I think was early Hitchcock, when the people below hear the man above pacing and pacing in his room and they just sit there and stare up at the ceiling. In a very effective sequence as they stare up, the ceiling is glass and you can see them staring up and also see him pacing from below. I would love it if I had a glass ceiling so I could watch them do whatever they are doing.</p> <p>At any rate these are harmless creatures, (As I remember it The Lodger was Jack the Ripper.) and they are only seeking shelter, in an environment where we have destroyed so much of their natural cover. But tonight and for the next two nights we are being visited by a much heralded arctic cold front and sleet, etc. is predicted. As you can imagine in a place like this there is much anticipation and news coverage of what might happen. There was even a feature story about wild creatures, maybe even, heaven forbid, rats, seeking shelter in homes and interviews with exterminators doing impromptu ads for homeowners to call them immediately to seal up holes and/or exterminate the intruders. Isn't that just like humans? We destroy their habitats and then begrudge them shelter, and the warmth that leaks from the spaces where we stay.</p> <p>I would rather lie in the sleet with my hands and body cold to the point of pain, but with my heart warm with the knowledge that I have harmed nothing, than sleep in a warm bed, begrudging survival to something doing the same thing I do everyday, trying to stay alive; because if I did that then my heart would be so cold that I would be dead, even if still walking around.</p> <p>Scatter some bread or set out some leftovers tonight for something you may never see, but who will thank you, all the same. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/01/15/cold_hands_warm_heart~1556350/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/01/15/cold_hands_warm_heart~1556350/Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:11:26 +0100 <p>I feed any creature I come across, except people, as those of you who read this blog know. Tonight I was feeding the birds. I get many, many pigeons, and a lot of what I call rooks, but which people around here call grackles, and some sparrows, and a new kind that I haven't seen before; perhaps sojourners from colder climes. I will have to try to look them up and see if I can find out what they are.</p> <p>Anyway, a young man I know, but don't much like, was observing this and said, "People call pigeons flying rats for a reason." I told him that since I didn't see anything wrong with rats I didn't think that was derogatory and that he shouldn't repeat what stupid people lacking in compassion and spirituality said.</p> <p>Of course, he trotted out the old, "rats carry diseases" statement as if it were original or meaningful and I pointed out to him that people carry and transmit more diseases than rats do, and have some rather unattractive behaviors, like waging war and genocide and child abuse and murder, etc. etc. not to mention polluting and destroying, that I am unaware of rats committing; therefore I would vote for the rat and the pigeon as more valuable and less destructive than humans.</p> <p>So many selfish and unenlightened and unintelligent people are so smug in their accidental and erroneous superiority in being born human and never bother to question the validity of their assumptions that I despair of the human race, most of whom have never had an original thought in their lives. If they did no damage to things more valuable than themselves I would not be bothered by them. Unfortunately they do continuous and massive damage and they keep reproducing and perpetuating the error of their existence.</p> <p>You know, on the crime shows on TV that document searches for serial killers they frequently make the point that although the reason a particular one has for the crimes may be obscure and even incomprehensible to the rest of us there is a reason and a pattern to be discerned. (I think the reason serial killers kill is simple. They like to.) But assuming there is some motivating factor, then if I ever become a serial killer ridding the world of these kinds of people would be my motivating factor.</p> <p>So when this person said that to me I looked at him and I thought, "I'm making a list." </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/01/04/i_m_making_a_list~1512487/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2007/01/04/i_m_making_a_list~1512487/Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:39:12 +0100 <p>I get many of my stories about animals from my children, or other people, and here is a short one from my older boy, The SWAT cop. They were raiding another house, guarded by another Pit Bull, but this one was a little more threatening than the fleeing, felon dog.</p> <p>After they had broken in the Pit Bull ran out of the house and across the yard and jumped into their SWAT van with all its equipment, etc. I may say here that SWAT cops and cops in general take a lot for granted. When they are out and about they seem to assume that the citizenary will respect their belongings from fear, or support, or whatever and they exit their vehicles, vans or cars, or whatever, leaving doors standing open or the engine running and the keys in it, etc. with never a thought to anything being taken or the vehicle stolen and usually nothing happens; although last year a woman locked in the backseat did somehow make it to the front seat and drove off in the police car which had been left running.</p> <p>Anyway, they watched in amazement as the dog leaped in their van and took a very large leak all over the inside of it and then laid down and proceeded to guard it with more vigor than had been apparent in guarding its owner's house. I think that he had decided that since he couldn't keep them out of the house he would show his contempt in the only way he could. When they approached the doors the dog would growl and show its teeth and if they came too close it would stand and become more menacing, so they retreated.</p> <p>Eventually the owner or some other family member was brought out and called the dog who went to them and the dog was taken back into the house and the SWAT cops boarded their van, which reeked of dog urine and was very damp in spots, for the return to the station. In this case the dog had demonstrated that there can be things worse than bark or bite. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/12/17/worse_than_bark_or_bite~1447654/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/12/17/worse_than_bark_or_bite~1447654/Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:01:41 +0100 <p>Cats are fairly self sufficient, self reliant, creatures, but most do enjoy some companionship and interaction with others and the people with whom they live. Some I have known however stand out as more self reliant and self contained than others.</p> <p>When I was a little girl and we visited relatives in the piney woods we would always go to a little settlement outside the town called Gum Springs where my greataunt Nettie lived. I remember being told that when he was a little boy my father spent as much time at her house as he did at home. She was very elderly and bedridden. As a child you just accept people and the titles given them, but as an adult, I wonder. Who was Greataunt Nettie? No one ever told me, assuming I knew, or didn't care, and then I didn't. Was she my greataunt, or my father's? If my father's then she was his father's or mother's aunt, but I don't think she was that much older, and for some reason I think she was related on his paternal side, so maybe she was his father's sister. I remember being told that she came to Texas in a wagon, and crossed the Red River on a flat barge, not by rail like some of the relatives, but since my mother and father still rode in wagons in their childhoods that doesn't mean anything, or fix her age or generation in the family.</p> <p>Her last name was the same as my father's cousin Bud, so I briefly wondered if she was his mother, although maybe she was older than that and was his grandmother. I don't know. I remember going to her funeral, but I don't remember seeing Bud or his family there, which surely they were, so that doesn't mean anything, because I also don't remember the after funeral meal which always happens at some relative's house and that I'm sure we went to.</p> <p>Anyway, in Gum Springs around my Greataunt Nettie's house were many feral cats, which a neighbor fed. She had a little wooden trough out front that her son had built, maybe six inches high, about three inches off the ground, and several feet long and she put scraps and other things in it and the cats came and ate. It does my heart good to remember this Kindred Spirit, although I don't think I ever even knew her name. On one visit my sisters saw some kittens and decided to get one, although my father told them "no", they knew they could ignore that. Well, they chased one little pale yellow longhaired kitten through yards and under houses and finally up a tree that my older sister Kathleen climbed to get her. Kathleen had on a bright red coat with really big, deep pockets in the front and she put the kitten in the pocket, where from being tired or frightened or cold or all three, she settled down and went to sleep.</p> <p>When my father discovered this he told my sisters to ask the neighbor lady if she minded if we took the kitten, since she fed them, and of course, she didn't. She was just glad the kitten was going to a good home. My Daddy was still in the navy then and so the kitten, named Miss Fluff, went with us to Norfolk. In fact, Miss Fluff lived with us for about 13 years and made many trips back and forth across country. She could not abide being in the house and wherever we lived she was always out, although she would come when called. She insisted on eating outside and if brought in for any reason she would pace around the door until it was opened and she was free again.</p> <p>The last place she lived with us was an old house in San Antonio, which had an old fence. The fence was posts with a flat board nailed on top to connect them and chicken wire stuff fastened to the board to make it a fence. In the summer the fence was covered with very leafy vines and Miss Fluff would lay under them to sleep on the board and we couldn't even see her, but one winter, when the leaves were gone and only the naked vines remained we looked out the kitchen window and saw Miss Fluff curled in a doughnut, the way cats do, on top of the board with only the bare vines for shelter. It was very, very cold and windy and we could see Miss Fluff's long hair being blown by the wind and there was a little sleet. My mother said she could not stand to see her sleeping in the cold like that and went out and got her and brought her into the warm house, but Miss Fluff paced and paced and would not settle down and so we were forced to let her back out and when we went to bed she was back on the fence, where she chose to be.</p> <p>I remember other things about Miss Fluff. My sister worked at the library downtown and rode the bus home late and my mother would always walk down the block when the bus was due to meet her and walk home with her. Miss Fluff would appear when my mother set out and would follow her to the bus stop and wait and then follow them both back home, as if she were a dog.</p> <p>The house had a big front porch, as only old houses do, and Miss Fluff would lay on the front porch and watch the world go by and get really irritated if any dogs came into her front yard. Usually they didn't see her and would just be sniffing and exploring as dogs do, but when they got by the front porch and she was on the rail above them she would drop down onto their backs with all her claws and and hang on. More than once we ran out when we heard a dog yipping and there would be the dog tearing out of the yard with Miss Fluff on his back, like a witch on a broomstick, or a jockey at the Kentucky Derby, her long yellow hair flying behind her. As soon as the dog left the yard she would drop off and get back on the front porch. Occasionally a dog would surprise her, but not often, and when that happened she would tear down the side of the house and over the fence, where she would stop and sit and look smugly back at the stranger dog while our dogs barked and lunged at the stranger on the other side of the fence. She stayed with us from choice and I guess because she loved us, a little, but she was always the wild kitten from Gum Springs and didn't like to share her space with anyone.</p> <p>Once when I was at work in Waco for some reason a back door was propped open and a young white cat with blue eyes wandered in. She was not deaf, as blue eyed white cats supposedly are, but she was very skinny, so I begged food for her from some people who had brought their lunch and gave her some tuna fish sandwich. At the end of the day she was still there and I took her home and called her Rising Star. She never stayed in any house where we lived, but was always out, and although she came when I called she never sought me out, or seemed to need us, really. Frequently she would leave leftovers from meals she had caught on the front porch, for later snacks or for me, I never knew. She always had two white kittens in her litters, who made their own ways and were even more wild than she, so that I seldom knew them. Once, when I moved I kept her in to have her kittens for a long time and she didn't like that, and when the kittens were old enough to eat and I let her out again she left, and never returned to me. She was a cat who preferred her own world to any that she shared with humans.</p> <p>Her last two kitten litter stayed with me and her daughter, called Molly by my son, was the most recent solitary cat that I knew. Molly preferred to be out, although she would come in, and in cold weather would sleep at the foot of my bed. She liked high places and would sit on top of fences and on top of whatever house we lived in. She, like Miss Fluff, would always come when I called and did like to be rubbed. She loved cream and whenever I went into the kitchen she would follow and meow for cream. Two other cats who lived with me then also loved cream and when they heard her demanding it they would run in the kitchen to get some, too. After Molly was gone, when the other two wanted cream the other female, Poopie, Miss Poops, would have to come into the kitchen and meow for it, and the tom, Ricki, would hear her and run in for some, also. Most toms do not like cream, but he loved it. When Miss Poops died and Ricki wanted cream he had to meow for it himself, which he did. It made me sad to remember when the three of them would crowd in for cream, demanded by Miss Molly.</p> <p>But, like solitary cats there are solitary people and I am one. Most of the people I have known for years are very social and do things together and go out to lunch and invite me and sometimes I go, but I don't really like to. I like keeping up with my children and what's going on, but like Miss Fluff and Molly I would rather not be bothered and I prefer my own space and my own fence, or rooftop. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/11/29/solitary_cats~1380748/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/11/29/solitary_cats~1380748/Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:52:56 +0100 <p>My older son is a policeman and is now on the SWAT team, which he really likes. I sometimes refer to him as my Nazi son because of the hair and the uniform and his unyielding attitudes and judgemental persona, etc. , but we do share some conservative opinions. Anyway, I always feel a twinge of guilt when I call him that, even jokingly, because he is funny and smart and loves animals and has many, many good qualities, but then I think of SS men like Mengele and Heydrich whose families thought the world of them and who loved music and their children and maybe animals, I don't know, and even Hitler was a vegetarian, and look at all of them. But he is my son and so far has not exhibited any conquer the world tendencies, so, oh well.</p> <p>It doesn't seem to me that SWAT people do a whole lot. They train a lot and some of them follow the president's car around when he's in Austin and there are maybe 3 or 4 hostage situations in our town every year, which have so far ended without bloodshed, so I never really worry about his safety. But one job they do have is raids. They love that and they get to use all their equipment. One type of raid they get to do is on drug dealer houses. The narcotic cops find out about the drug dealers and their set up, etc. but if the house needs to be raided the SWAT team does it while the narcotic police stay down the street.</p> <p>As an aside I will say here that I think the war on drugs is ridiculous and isn't even a stalemate. Regardless of the major drug busts and people arrested and all, there are drugs all over and readily available. I think they should all be legal. If one is weak enough to be an addict, go right ahead. At least if it was legal one wouldn't have to break into my house and steal my stuff to buy drugs because the law of supply and demand would operate and they would probably be affordable for anyone. It is easier in my country to keep minors from buying legal cigarettes than it is to keep them from buying illegal drugs. Anyway, I agree with Bill Maher that the biggest drug pushers in my country are the drug companies who are allowed to charge exorbitant prices and don't want any competition.</p> <p>But, off the soapbox and back to the story. Once, the narcotic police told the SWAT police about a particularly dangerous dealer. He was reputed to have a pit bull trained as an attack dog roaming his house and many, many automatic weapons, a TV system to watch what was going on in his yard, all windows covered with burglar bars and burglar cages around his doors. This is a wrought iron cage that surrounds one's door which keeps anyone from being able to approach the door and break in unless the person in the house releases the lock on the burglar cage door to allow access to the real front door.</p> <p>Well, Swat cops love burglar cages because they can use their armored SWAT tank like truck and hook chains to the burglar cage and yank the whole thing off the house, which is very loud and exciting. Then they use their big door slamming ram and knock down the whole front door and run in. Of course, if the person inside is waiting, after having been awakened by the burglar cage flying across the front yard, and having spied many men running around the yard in dark uniforms and head coverings and large body shields and guns, and that person has many automatic weapons, no one wants to be the first through the knocked down door.</p> <p>So, the SWAT cops get to use another of their favorite things, the stun grenade. This thing emits a bright light and some sort of subsonic boom that renders anyone in the room with it stunned and incapacitated for about 30 seconds. So, my son and a few others went to the back of the house and the man's bedroom window. One broke the window out and my son stuck the grenade launcher in and fired the stun grenade. When it went off the burglar cage was yanked off and the door was knocked down and 10 SWAT guys charged into the living room and the first three fell over a couch and knocked it over in the process.</p> <p>Now, all of the guys had those guns with the flashlights on them and were hooked up to the little over your ear, in front of your mouth, radios, so everyone could hear what everyone said. They were all on the lookout for the trained attack dog to charge them, although most are animal lovers and would only shoot it if actually attacked.</p> <p>In the back of the house my son and his companions had yanked the burglar bars off the window and were coming through the window into the guy's bedroom before he could become unstunned and they were also watching for the dog, as if he were an alligator waiting under the window to snap off feet. Then over the radio they heard the guys on the floor in the living room, who had the best view down the hall, say "dog! dog coming!" And he was! That dog was hauling ass down the hall and away from the bedroom, where far from roaming and protecting and attacking, he had been asleep and recovered from the stun much quicker than his owner.</p> <p>The dog leaped over the couch and the cops around it and raced for the front door which was on the floor and my son could hear the cops still by the door warning each other, "Dog! Watch the dog!" Well, they had to watch fast because that dog was over the door and out the opening, past the cops still in the yard, who also told each other, "Dog!", and down the street he went and out of sight.</p> <p>The rest was rather anticlimatic. The guy was still stunned on his bed when my son came through the window and was put in cuffs without incident. Before the SWAT cops could call the narcotic cops from down the street to come in and process and search the house the down the street cops called them on their radios and said "hey, we have a dog here. He came running down the street and when he saw us he ran up to us." Yes, it was the fleeing, felon dog, apparently surrendering.</p> <p>The owner heard this exchange and asked if they could call his brother to come get the dog because he was a good dog and he didn't want him to go to the pound or be left loose on the streets. It appears he was a loved pet more than the attack dog the informant had thought him. Well, the brother was called and he came and got the dog; probably for a long time based on what was found in the house.</p> <p>I just thought this was a very funny story and much more indicative of SWAT police work than what is shown on TV and I wanted to say thank you to police people everywhere who take the time to think and pause and give a fleeing, four footed felon a chance to escape. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/08/17/the_frightened_fleeing_felon_dog~1045895/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/08/17/the_frightened_fleeing_felon_dog~1045895/Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:38:41 +0200 <p>Actually, because my Daddy was in the navy we frequently lived in towns on the water, but our houses were usually inland, but once, in Norfolk, VA we lived right on the water.</p> <p>It was a brown shingle house, facing the water, and was built up about six feet off the ground and one could walk under it. It had a porch all around three sides and as a child I didn't realize how wonderful it was. It was about a quarter mile from the road it was on; a long graveled driveway ran from the road to the back of the house, because the front faced the beach.</p> <p>All of my life I have remembered it as being on Chesapeake Bay, but I also remembered being able to see other land across the water, fairly close, and that didn't seem to be right for a big bay like that. So, when I thought of writing this story I wanted to know what body of water it really was and thanks to the net I found out. First I looked at a map of Norfolk and couldn't find our road, which surprised me because I remembered it as a really big, busy road, but I thought, well maybe it wasn't. Things seem bigger and busier when one is a child. And I saw the bay, but also lots of rivers and creeks and I thought, well, maybe we lived on one of those. I know it was salt water, but maybe it was a tidal river, near the mouth. But I found Granby Ave. and my sisters went to Granby High School so I just kept clicking in closer up and down Granby and I found our street, Ocean View Avenue. (I had thought it was boulevard.) And it does parallel the coast as I remembered, and it is on Chesapeake Bay, as I remembered. The house must have been on an inlet of the bay too small to show on an internet map.</p> <p>I remember the houses up and down the street and the apartment house next door, which was actually pretty far away on the other side of some dunes, because the lots were really big. It was a large, square, kind of gloomy place. I have seen similar apartment houses in movies from the 30s and 40s and it probably predated those, even. The apartments had really high ceilings that seemed shadowed because there were no ceiling lights, just lamps the people had and the doors to the apartments were enormous wooden things, very thick, like ones in a castle. What windows there were; were big, almost floor to ceiling, because of course when they were built there was no air conditioning. But because of the layout on each floor the apartments only had windows on two sides and all the rest was interior walls, which added to the gloominess. Everything was wood, our house, and the apartment house, all the houses, and everything was brown. I remember a little red haired boy who lived in the apartment house that I played with and 10 years ago I remembered his name, but I don't now.</p> <p>I remember the rotted hulls of wooden ships on the beach that Lady and I would explore. There wasn't much to explore. They were really boats, not ships, and being wood there wasn't much left of them, but we found them exciting and imagined all kinds of things as we shared tootsie roll pops.</p> <p>I remember that a little down and next to our house were boat docks and the boats would go by our house, coming and going. Because of the boats, the channel, or whatever it was, had been dredged and when one went in the water, about 10 feet from shore there was a sudden drop to very deep water, no gradual decrease. Lady loved the water and would always swim out with us. She would retrieve anything thrown in the water and return it to the thrower. You might not believe this, but it is true; we could throw a rock in the water and Lady would dive under the water and get the rock and bring it back. Now, looking back I can't believe it and I saw it. How does a dog keep water out of her nose and mouth? How did she see the rock in the sandy, churned up water? I don't know. She had a gift. And she loved water. She wasn't even a water bred dog. She was a brindle colored mixed breed boxer we had brought back from Cuba.</p> <p>I remember the ducks. They lived across the water from us, where there were no houses and the ground was marshy, rather than like a beach. One could see them floating on the water in a flock, close together, bobbing up and down on the swells, like a feathered raft set adrift from an island. I would go stand at the water line in front of our house with bread my mother gave me and in my shrill, little girl voice I would screech, "here, ducky, ducky, ducky". (I'm not a little girl any more but I must confess I still have a shrill voice that I hate.) And they would come, hordes of them, some stayed in the water and I threw bread out to them, but many came up on the beach and gathered around me while I dropped the bread to them. Unbeknowst to me at my age it became quite a show and people watched me call the ducks to come and eat. Apparently one lady had told some visitors about how the ducks would cross the water to eat and they wanted to see it, so they all went out and she called the ducks to come for her bread, but they wouldn't come. She came to our house and asked my mother if I could come and call the ducks, so her friends could see and I did and the ducks came and the friends saw. I guess ducks have ears like dogs and pick up on shrill noises. They were just used to me. While those people were there none would get out of the water, but when the people retreated some, they came around me, like usual.</p> <p>One Sunday one of my sisters and I were home alone. I don't know why now and we were bored and she said, "let's go fish". My Daddy had rods and reels there, but he had always said that one should never fish on a Sunday, so we were a little guilty about it, but we did it anyway. Well, she did. I just stood there. We didn't have any bait, so she must have put a fly hook thingy on the line and we caught a fish, I think. It was the ugliest fish I've ever seen. It was short and fat and had a grossly large misshapen head and big mouth and very sharp looking fins and was a mottled brown color AND IT HAD TWO LEGS IN FRONT. We were startled and frightened and just wanted it back in the water, but we had to get the hook out of its mouth and the hook had gone through its lip and it was bleeding and we were crying to have hurt this poor ugly thing and hurting it more to get the hook out, but we were afraid it would die if we left the hook in and it was one of the most traumatic times of my life.</p> <p>We got the hook out and waded out in the water to put it back in the water because we didn't want to hurt it more by throwing it back and we hustled back up to the beach and started gathering our stuff to go back to the house and the fish came out of the water and started walking on its two little legs, dragging its tail, and coming towards us. We screamed at each other and had to put it back in the water because we didn't want it to drown on air, but maybe it wouldn't have, but we didn't know. So we gingerly got it and waded out to the very deep drop off and returned it and hurried back to dry land. It took it longer to come back that time and we had our stuff gathered as it was coming out of the water. We ran for the house and locked the doors and closed the curtains and sat in the dark, knowing that that fish was crossing the beach and climbing the stairs and would be waiting for us on the porch.</p> <p>Of course, it didn't and it wasn't, and my parents came home and we told them of our great adventure and my Daddy said that was what we got for fishing on a Sunday. Later I was descibing that fish to someone who recognized it and told me its name, so it was a relief to know it wasn't something supernatural and/or that we hadn't lost our minds. But I will always remember removing that hook from its bleeding mouth and I never fished again. Just because you can't hear it doesn't mean that something isn't screaming.</p> <p>Once a hurricane came and all the power went out and the water rose to the level of the porch, which is why the house was built up, I guess. I remember it as a great adventure. I don't know if the grown ups were worried. If they were they didn't show it to me. I remember during the eye my sisters put on bathing suits and walked up the driveway and down the street to a little store to buy some more candles and bread and things and I remember how very,very angry I was that my parents wouldn't let me go with them. The water receded quickly, once the storm had passed, and I remember running out and calling the ducks to make sure the storm hadn't killed them, but there they were, swimming across the water, coming for the bread.</p> <p>I don't know, but I would guess that it is all gone now, torn down for newer buildings and strip malls and hotels. All the brown wooden houses are gone and the gloomy apartments and the old wooden docks and the decaying wrecks. The ducks I knew are dead now and the old lady who asked me to feed them so her friends could watch. My parents and sister are dead now and so is Lady, but she is in an urn on a bookshelf in my living room. Even the creepy fish we tried so hard to save, and that I hope we did save then, is dead now.</p> <p>But it was a wonderful place for a child to live and it still lives in me, and since I told you, now it all lives in you. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/07/12/once_i_lived_near_water~954847/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/07/12/once_i_lived_near_water~954847/Wed, 12 Jul 2006 21:58:38 +0200 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=652618"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/618/652618_82a95f1560_m.jpg" align="" alt="Eugen and Loudie" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Eugen and Loudie (He was named for the Prinz Eugen and Loudie's full name is Cindy Lou.) in a favorite spot on the bed. They are both rescued dogs and can be shy and are looking a little leery because I kept flashing a light in their eyes and wouldn't let them get up. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/eugen_and_loudie~916757/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/eugen_and_loudie~916757/Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:48:21 +0200 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=652538"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/538/652538_94783d9498_m.jpg" align="" alt="snake (2)" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>This is like one of those children's puzzles. Can you spot the Snake on the spare room bed? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/the_snake_on_the_spareroom_bed~916720/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/the_snake_on_the_spareroom_bed~916720/Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:36:02 +0200 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=652425"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/425/652425_9203860afc_m.jpg" align="" alt="Squeeker Marie on the Fence (2)" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Squeeks believes in the old adage, "Look before you leap". She is on the fence that is one wall of the courtyard. If she goes over it she will be in the front yard. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/squeeker_marie_on_the_fence_in_spring~916689/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/squeeker_marie_on_the_fence_in_spring~916689/Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:22:12 +0200 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=652358"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/358/652358_3399863d64_m.jpg" align="" alt="Little Brother in chair" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Little Brother sleeps more securely when enclosed, which the courtyard is. If someone were to walk outside it he would dash in the house and get under the covers on my bed. Behind the hanging plant is the wasp nest I have written about. They don't bother us and we don't bother them. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/little_brother_in_the_courtyard~916659/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/little_brother_in_the_courtyard~916659/Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:07:18 +0200 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=652237"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/237/652237_263e3a00b4_m.jpg" align="" alt="thinger in the woods (2)" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>In the winter Thinger seeks a sunny spot to drowse. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/thinger_in_the_sun_in_winter~916451/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/27/thinger_in_the_sun_in_winter~916451/Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:49:33 +0200 <p>Every year wasps build nests around whatever house I live in. Where I live now it is in what I call the courtyard, a kind of patio enclosed on four sides off my kitchen. I discovered a very small hive starting with only a few chambers and one lone wasp working diligently on the wall behind my hanging begonia plant. That was a month or two ago and now the hive, (if that is what one calls a wasp home) is about 3 or 4 inches across with a score of wasps working on it and crawling around it and over each other. I wonder. Did all the new wasps hatch from the hive and join the original creator, or did they come as adults and form a swarm with the one who started it all? I think they hatched and took over duties, but I don't know. I love to watch them; they are so busy and fascinating. I can't water that plant with the hose anymore, for fear of disturbing them. I have to use a little handheld watering pot. Wasps are not like bees. They don't create honey or anything that I know about; they just seem to live for themselves. Sometimes one will detach himself and lazily fly off, sometimes circling in front of my big, curious face a few times; on what errand I do not know. For food, I theorize, but I don't know what they eat. They are such small things, living side by side with me, and their presence is such a gift.</p> <p>My house is full of spiders. Different kinds I assume because they look different from each other. I don't remember so many spiders from years ago, but the last two places I have lived have had many. I don't know if this has to do with where I live or with some change in spider ecology. Last year I was sweeping my bathroom floor in preparation for mopping and there was some dust behind the door. Because I live alone 99% of the time the bathroom door is seldom closed. Without thinking I swept up the dust and suddenly saw a small black speck moving purposefully across the bathroom floor. This was a spider so small I could not discern its legs from its body, but it could move! I waited for it to reach safety up under a cupboard then continued cleaning. Later I looked behind the bathroom door and there was the dust again, that I now knew was a web, and the small black speck in the middle of it. After that I always checked to see if he were still there when I swept and if he or she was, I left that part alone. I don't know how long spiders live. I don't know what he caught in his web, smaller than himself, to live on. But for months he was there, and then he was gone, and the web became just dust again. He was such a small thing, but to him his existence was as important as mine is to me. I frequently see spiders walking across the wall or floor, busy on their own tasks, and I see their webs here and there. Such small housemates, do they even know that I am here?</p> <p>Last week I heard a constant buzzing, that to me seemed frantic, so I tracked it down. There was a curious wasp like creature, apparently stuck to a cabinet, high up above my refrigerator. Well, I assumed he was caught in a spider web, so I got a chair and caught him in a glass and set him free outside. This creature was most black and a dark orangey, red and was twice or three times as long as the wasps on the courtyard. Where his thorax section joined his abdomen section was so small in diameter it almost seemed as if the two halfs weren't joined at all. After he flew away I thought no more about him, until I heard him in the kitchen again. He had returned to the very same place! When I looked I saw that he was building a mud, or at least mud colored, oblong, igloo shaped structure. I left him alone and all that day he came and went through the open door, increasing the size of the structure until it was about three inches long, going in and out and fixing it to his, or her, satisfaction. Well, I was in a quandary. It was obviously a nest of some sort and I didn't want to shut off access to it, but I couldn't leave the door open all night, then when it got dark I didn't see the creature coming and going anymore and decided that when it got dark it must take shelter in the nest so I could shut the door and reopen it in the morning when we both resumed our activities. But the next day he never came, nor did he ever again. I had decided that it was a creature called a "dirt dobber" because of the materials and appearance of its nest. I have now decided that, unlike wasps and bees, this creature builds it nest, presumably for its eggs, and then leaves them, like turtles or some dinosaurs, to hatch and grow on their own. So I now have a dirt dobber nest on the cabinet above the refrigerator, waiting for the little one/s to appear and go away to continue the cycle. I hope they hatch in the day and find their way out the door because I don't know how many of them there will be and I don't really want to chase them around the house with a glass to be set free, but I will if I have to. Why did this alien, strange creature come into my kitchen to build its nest when there are walls and trees in plenty outside? I don't know, but it is a small thing and doesn't take up much room.</p> <p>Every year, for the last five years, a tiny bird has built its nest in one of my hanging plants. Not the same bird I don't think, but the same species. They prefer impatiens to begonias or geraniums. The second year I sat out and got sight of it, as small as a hummingbird, but more round, with a yellow chest and gray/brown body, and light stripes going back on the sides of its head from its eyes. I couldn't find it on the "web", so I wrote to a bird expert and he responded that it was a wren and that they liked to build nests in hanging plants. When I looked up wrens I saw that he was right. So every year, one came, and there were eggs, and babies, and though I never saw them leave the babies did and the nest was empty. I had to hand water that plant pot, too, not to traumatize the eggs or babies. This year, again, the impatiens hosted a wren. Because the pot is hanging it is inaccesible to the cats and the eggs and babies are safe, although sometimes the cats notice the mother, coming and going, she is so fast and high I didn't worry about her. But this year on the living room floor, I found the little mother, dead, but with no apparent damage. She was such a fragile, small thing. I looked in the nest and there were her four eggs, as small as my fingernail. Feeling hopeless I called Wildlife Rescue, but they told me that they in fact have an incubator and have had success hatching eggs. It was late and they were closing so they told me to put the eggs in a box with a blanket over it and a heating pad, which I fortunately had, overnight. I did, lifting the whole nest, eggs and all, and putting it in the box, and the eggs went to Wildlife Rescue, but I didn't know if they were still alive or not. I called a week later, and they were! Not hatched yet, but still growing and staying warm, in the incubator. They described how they would feed them and then turn them loose. Little mama, I couldn't save you, but your babies will live, and that is what you wanted, I am sure. </p> <p>All these things live with us, unaware of us, perhaps, but like us completing their tasks and raising their young, and just trying to stay alive as long as they can, just like us. When I was in junior high school there was a poem in our English book. The person in the poem had swatted a mosquito and then studied it as it lay dead and felt remorse. I remember only one line in it. He was looking at the mosquito and saw its long, fragile leg and said, "and on this eyelash, this creature walked and stood".</p> <p>There are so many, many small things, that we cannot relate to as we do dogs or cats or horses or whatever, that are so easy to anthropomorphize, but they are as alive and fascinating as any other creature there is. Look at the small things, and see yourself.</p> <p><u>Update Note: 27/06/2006</u></p> <p>This post was originally written on 06/04.</p> <p>The dirt dobber came out of the nest over the refrigerator and started flying around and bumping into windows trying to get out; drawn I guess by the sunlight. I got him out and he took off, so the cycle is complete. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/04/small_things~853817/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/06/04/small_things~853817/Sun, 04 Jun 2006 19:55:05 +0200 <p>I think that love can be defined by reactions.</p> <p>For the last two weeks I have been finding hair balls discretely vomited up in various places in the house. One of the places being on the spare room bed, actually on the new bed cover I had just put on it. My first thought was concern, although I was glad whoever was doing it was getting them up and not having a bowel obstruction. I pondered who it could be, since there were four contenders, but only Squeaker has the long hair that would cause so many hair balls and only Squeaker and the Snake sleep on the spare room bed and I have never seen him have hair balls. I bought a bag of hairball control formula cat food and the problem has ceased. My reaction was concern and not disgust or disapproval.</p> <p>Loudie doesn't like to get her feet wet, so last week when it amazingly rained hard some she didn't want to get off the concrete patio, where she sometimes does her business, but not last week. She shit on the carpet in the living room and I showed it to her and said, very sorrowfully, bad girl, bad girl, and picked it up with a paper towel and dropped it in the toilet without thinking and flushed it and the paper towel clogged up the toilet and I had to do many plumbery things to get it right again. While I was doing those things I was cursing my own stupidity, but not Loudie, who had started it all.</p> <p>Thinger got sick, again, and there is nothing more pitiful than Thingdinger when she is sick. I had to wrap her in a towel and put medicine down her throat while she was jerking her head around and trying to escape. While this was going on for days whenever I would come into the room where she was she would jump up and run out, fearing another medicinal assault. Love is doing the right thing even when the one you love reacts badly.</p> <p>Love is sitting by something that you love as it is dying and whispering "I love you", even if it doesn't hear anymore.</p> <p>Love is singing to a baby while changing an incredibly dirty diaper (nappie, to you Brits) and thinking how glad you are the baby is healthy and that all its innards are working right.</p> <p>Love is feeling sadness for the bee that stings you because you are afraid it is the kind that dies when it stings.</p> <p>Love is the happiness you feel when you find that a bird has built a nest in one of your hanging flower pots.</p> <p>Love is discovering that wasps have built a nest on the wall behind another hanging pot and never moving that pot into the sun or whatever, for fear of disturbing the wasps.</p> <p>Love is setting out food night after night for creatures you seldom see, but who you know come to eat; and setting out bowls of water for them in the heat of the summer when wild water is scarce.</p> <p>Love is leaving the lawn spinklers on at dusk long after it is necessary because the birds are swooping through the water and landing on the wet lawn and shaking as the water pours on them.</p> <p>Love is noticing needs and trying to meet them.</p> <p>What is love to you? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/05/14/what_is_love~797803/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/05/14/what_is_love~797803/Sun, 14 May 2006 05:27:35 +0200 <p>I was inspired by PaulBoyd and Juzzzy (hope I got the right number of Zs) to try something like they did with questions, only related to my blog. If you feel like it answer in comments. I will put my answers here.</p> <p>1. If you could be an animal, which would you be?<br> When my son asked my daughter and I this years ago we both said a cat and he threw a fit that we were so unoriginal, so to placate him, and after thinking awhile, I said, a dolphin, but he said it was too late. Now, years later, I would say a bird. Their lives are short and hard, but they fly high.</p> <p>2. Are all of the animals you live with spayed or neutered?<br> Someone asked me this several years ago and I told them that everything that lived in my house was fixed, but my younger son, and since he was gay I didn't think I needed to worry.</p> <p>3. If you thought a wild animal was going to attack you, would you kill it?<br> This would never happen to me for two reasons:<br> a. my father taught me long ago that wild animals will avoid people if they can and to always talk and make noise when in the woods and you'll never see one, if you don't want to. This is true. I always stomp and bang on trees in the woods and have never seen a snake in the wild, (other than the ones I find in the house or yard, and they don't count) or any animal larger than a squirrel. (If one wants to see one, one is very quiet, like when Bobby showed me the fox.)<br> b. if there is a chance the above wouldn't work, like with lions or tigers or something big I wouldn't put myself in the position where it might want to attack me.<br> But if, through some quirk of fate, like surviving a plane crash in Africa, I was placed amid hungry, wild animals, no, I wouldn't kill it. I would try to get away, and fend it off, or scare it, but I wouldn't kill it.</p> <p>4. If a pet that you dearly love, dies, do you cremate or bury?<br> I have done both.</p> <p>5. If a natural catastrophe happens, like flood or fire or tornado, would you leave your animals?<br> Never, we all drown, burn, or end up in Oz together or we all escape. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/05/09/animal_questions~785733/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/05/09/animal_questions~785733/Tue, 09 May 2006 06:09:52 +0200 <p>There are times when one must draw the line. The only problem with that is that when one draws a line for cats they just step over it.</p> <p>I have become accustomed to owls in the living room and squirrels in the kitchen and lizards and snakes, mostly in the kitchen, but occasionally in the living room; even something like the blue jay, brought in by Little Brother last week, that I had to chase and catch while tripping over Brother and Thinger who were following the fluttering, flying bird as swiftly as I was. (The jay was fine, just terrified. When I took him out and opened my hands to set him on top of the fence he took off like a guided missle.)</p> <p>But, about two weeks ago I came home and found a large lizard sitting on top of the headboard of my bed. He was sitting very still. I am sure a defense mechanism to avoid attracting the attention of any cats who might be looking for him. This was not one of the little chameleons they usually bring in, but a large lizard, long, with pebbly skin, brown and yellow mottled. He also had very long toenails. I guess for climbing. Well, I picked him up before he knew what I was doing and deposited him in a safe place in the yard, and I informed the cats that lizards in the kitchen were not acceptable and lizards in the bedroom were positively prohibited. I don't know why I did; they never listen.</p> <p>Yesterday I came home and the pillows on my bed were messed up; pulled down and semi scattered. I thought Loudie had done it because she likes to lay on the pillows. I picked them up to fluff them and put them back into place and there was a snake in my bed, under one of the pillows. Poor fellow, he was not a big snake, only about a foot long and very slender, brown on top with a yellow,ivory belly. Of course he was restored to a safe spot in the back yard, close to the woods, with no cats looking on, but I am really irritated with them.</p> <p>Now, I just cannot believe that the snake, getting away from whoever brought it in, (and I blame Squeaker because she is usually the snake and lizard catcher.) speed crawled into my room and up onto my bed to hide under my pillow. Obviously, the catcher of snakes and lizards has decided to start carrying them into my room and my bed. Why? Do they get away too easily in the kitchen? Do the other cats try to take them away so that it is preferred to hide them in my room?</p> <p>I don't know, but what are you, or I, going to do? I just have to fold the covers back and look under all the pillows before I get into bed. In my life I have had strange bedfellows, especially if you count exhusbands, and I sleep with dogs and cats, and would consider other mammals, maybe, but I refuse to sleep with reptiles and I don't think they want to sleep with me. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/05/05/strange_bedfellows~777033/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/05/05/strange_bedfellows~777033/Fri, 05 May 2006 06:55:41 +0200 <p>Someone gave me suggestions for animals to write about who don't get written about often and one of them was the crow. I can only think of one story about crows and it is a sad one.</p> <p>I don't watch the news much because it is all reruns; in case you haven't noticed, but maybe you are not as old as I. If I do and it is anything to do with animals I assume it is a story about some mistreatment that I could not bear to watch and I don't, but occasionally one slips in before I can shut it off. Nowadays I have a DVR so the minute I become aware of an animal story I just fast forward through that part, but once about 10 years ago a news story about crows appeared.</p> <p>It seems a farmer in either Iowa or Illinois plowed his field before planting time and scattered poisoned seed for the crows. Hundreds, if not thousands, of them died, there in the field, and he just went out with his tractor and drug the bodies in a pile and burned them. Then he planted his real crops. Aside from the meaness of spirit and cruelty of the man, he must have been the stupidest person alive. No matter how many thousands of crows you kill there are more. They are like people that way. Or did he think the ghosts of the murdered crows would be psychic scarecrows and frighten others away?</p> <p>The news people were appropriately shocked, as they always are. News people's emotions being canned as well as reruns, and reported that he faced legal consequences. What? Some dinky fine? Nothing can replace destroyed lives. Nothing makes a dead eye bright again. I don't believe in hell, but I hope that there is one, just like the christians describe, and that it is waiting for him. I would send this person there, if I could.</p> <p>But there is hell, you know. Everyone has his own. My hell is living in a world of beings who can do something like this and believe me, I suffer in it. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/27/i_don_t_believe_in_hell_but_if_i_did~758923/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/27/i_don_t_believe_in_hell_but_if_i_did~758923/Thu, 27 Apr 2006 04:29:31 +0200 <p>Where I live there are many wild animals still, scrabbling a living from the leavings of man. I have written about the raccoons and 'possums and squirrels and birds and snakes; one sees them almost everyday, and if one is like me, one feeds them and treats them and saves them when necessary, even just with a helping hand. Mostly they maintain their distance and when I can I encourage them to do so, because all people are not like me, and I do not want to teach them to trust when they shouldn't.</p> <p>There are foxes around, although I have never seen them. On the other side of town there is a large park, and my older son, when he was a regular street policeman, would sit in it at one and two in the morning to complete paperwork, when he had no calls. He saw a fox family, some adults and kits, who would be moving around and across the park, seeking prey or human discards to support themselves. </p> <p>Now that he is a swat team member they spend a lot of time keeping up their skills. He said that out at the academy on the outskirts of town they practice with their sniper rifles in a field. When they are doing this and setting up the targets, etc. there is a fox, or maybe two, who come out of the woods and sit on the edge of the field and watch them. He said that he has to wonder about wild creatures who come out in the open, during the day, to watch 10 or 12 guys armed with highpowered rifles. Of course, none of them would shoot them, and despite the noise the foxes probably don't know what the rifles are. Even if one would if unobserved, no one would with my son there.</p> <p>I have been out there and there are picnic tables and barbecue pits where I assume they sometimes have parties. I think the foxes are waiting for them to leave to see if they left anything edible.</p> <p>Within five miles of my home on country roads I have seen coyotes, poor sick, skinny, maligned and mistreated things. Although it has been proven that their diet consists mostly of mice and rabbits and squirrels, etc., small rodents anyway, ranchers kill them en mass and claim they attack cattle. The ranchers, like most men who make their living from death, just like to kill, cattle or coyotes or deer or birds or snakes; it's all one to them.</p> <p>Before I get a lot of responses to this, I do know that coyotes will attack and eat pet dogs and cats in country suburbs. They are wild and they are hungry and they have young to feed. If I lived in such an area I would take steps to protect mine, but not to destroy the hunters, who like every living thing is trying to stay alive as best it can.</p> <p>Within the city limits of two cities where I have lived with populations of over a million each; I have seen deer. Not on the outskirts, but in neighborhoods and by busy roads, in a few undeveloped acres in the middle of shopping centers and houses and apartment buildings. How do they survive? One assumes these are small groups. The limited space could not support many. I have seen does with fawns, so they are breeding. I guess they just stay where they are born and try to live. They have no way of knowing which way to go to seek the country and they are surrounded by traffic and people. Some don't live. One sees their bodies by the side of the road. There are yearly news stories about the damage they do to "landscaping" and the owners complaining about the expensive plants they destroy by eating them. These owners demand that the city kill them, or trap them, or anything, to get rid of them, because you see, by living they are inconvenient. I personally have never had any plants that I valued more than living creatures.</p> <p>We destroy so much because we claim the thing we destroy is dangerous or causes damage, mainly things that are inconvenient to us. I have never experienced any danger or damage . There have even been movements to kill great flocks of birds in downtown areas, because they poop on the sidewalks and buildings. This was suggested in my town, and although I don't see much value in my fellow citizens, they rose to the occasion and promptly put an end to such a suggestion. </p> <p>Look at the waste we dump in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Isn't it a good thing the fishes can't organize and get a movement going to eliminate us, or the birds, for polluting the air, or any creature whose environment we are destroying?</p> <p>So, please, be willing to share the space. It is not your space; it belongs to us all, all of us with fur or fin or feathers or skin, and I have never known a wild creature, who, given the chance, wouldn't avoid us, if it could. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/24/wild_animals_in_urban_settings~750849/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/24/wild_animals_in_urban_settings~750849/Mon, 24 Apr 2006 02:46:58 +0200 <p>I was watching the dogs and cats with whom I live sleeping around me and started thinking about their differences, specifically and generally.</p> <p>All dogs like to have their bellies rubbed, but only a few cats do. (Three of the four cats I currently live with, do.)</p> <p>All dogs like ice cream with the exception of fruit sherbert. Many cats do not like ice cream, with the exception of vanilla, partially melted.</p> <p>All dogs like sweets, of most kinds. Cats, as a rule, do not; although one who lives with me now does like doughnuts and whipped cream and some kinds of cookies.</p> <p>All the dogs I've ever lived with would rather be in than out, but the cats I have lived with, and live with now, would rather be out than in.</p> <p>Based on what I have observed over the years, cats fight more than dogs.</p> <p>I have read of poorly treated and raised domestic dogs killing people, but I have never once read of a cat doing the same.</p> <p>All the dogs I have known, with a few exceptions, prefer to sleep in the bed with their people, given a choice; only some cats have that preference.</p> <p>Cats go off and hide when they are sick, or near death. Dogs will lay by you or in the middle of the room.</p> <p>Both dogs and cats smell things to make decisions about those things, whether they are people or food stuff or plants.</p> <p>Neither dogs nor cats want to be out in bad weather.</p> <p>Cats will use a litter box, if necessary. Dogs will not. (Although apparently some can be trained to use some sort of potty pad, as my daughter's beloved Chi Chi does, if he has to, mostly.)</p> <p>Fleas attack both dogs and cats, but seem to bother the dogs more.</p> <p>You have to bathe dogs regularly, but I have never had to bathe a cat.</p> <p>You can leave cats alone, if provided with everything they need, for a day or two. You cannot leave dogs alone.</p> <p>Dogs and cats seem to require and enjoy the same amount of sleep.</p> <p>Cats climb and most dogs do not; although as a child I lived with a mixed breed boxer who would follow me up the trees that grew by the coast and had grown slanted in the constant ocean wind. So perhaps dogs climb what they can, but they are not built for it like cats are.</p> <p>Dogs are much more varied in size and appearance than cats are, and look very different from each other, whereas most cats, with the exception of coloring, are very similar as to shape of body and ears and size, etc.</p> <p>Dogs are pack animals and usually like to hang out with the other dogs they live with and regard their people as members of the pack. Cats are usually solitary creatures, although I have known some exceptions.</p> <p>Usually, even when mistreated, a dog will stay where it is and continue to seek approval and care from the people it lives with. Given a choice, in a similar situation, a cat will leave, even if it means becoming a stray.</p> <p>Along the same line, dogs trust easily and cats do not, but both are equally loyal when trust is earned.</p> <p>Earn the trust of a dog or a cat, preferably more than one, and see how much richer and warmer your life will be </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/16/the_differences_between_dogs_and_cats~730932/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/16/the_differences_between_dogs_and_cats~730932/Sun, 16 Apr 2006 07:10:02 +0200 <p>My son and his friend have a cabin in the mountains of Northern California and go up about once a week so Mike can snowboard. Aside from drumming, which is physically strenuous, it is his exercise. (I lie. He does mess about at the gym once in awhile.)</p> <p>Last week however it was snowing so hard that the snow boarding had to be called off. Michael said he had never been in snow like that. At first, at the bottom of the mountain, it was regular snow and there were few other skiers there, so there was no wait for the lift and they were thinking themselves lucky to practically have the whole mountain to themselves. However, once they reached the top and coming down, it was snowing so hard it stung his face and then he realized he couldn't even see the trail. He said it was almost like a whiteout.</p> <p>I asked if he had just "deboarded" and walked down, but he said no, he had made it on the board because there was so much powder he couldn't get any speed anyway, so they packed up and went home.</p> <p>As they were driving back from the cabin to the bay area they were first on a two lane road and saw a little dog running alongside the road. Michael said to Rick that it was too cold for such a little dog to be out and that since he was running in the road he would probably get hit by a car, so Rick turned around and they went back.</p> <p>Michael exited the car to get the dog, but the dog was frightened and jumpy and kept staying just out of reach with Michael following behind, determined not to leave it, and Rick following in the car with the hazard lights flashing so that neither of them would be hit. The little dog danced across a roadside ditch and Michael followed, discovering that the bottom of the ditch was full of very cold water hidden by weeds and prickly grass.</p> <p>Ultimately the dog hid under the car, but by patience and cajoling Mikey lured him out and they both got back in the car. The little dog had a tag with the owner's number so they called him and rendevouzed with him to return the dog. He had stopped for gas in his RV and had thought both his dogs were asleep in the back, but this one had apparently slipped out. Michael said he was a nice enough old guy, but not a dog person if he didn't keep a better watch out for them, like we would.</p> <p>I told him it was too bad the dog had the tag and that he should have kept him. He said he had thought about it, but he knew how we would feel if one of ours went missing and we never knew what had happened to it. He kept saying, "He looked like Spock, but more chihuahua, with kind of buggy eyes". Spock was always his dog.</p> <p>I spoke with my older son this weekend because it was his birthday. He has a great gallumping boxer named Daisy and he said she had learned she could jump over the fence. I had warned him about this when he got her because I grew up with boxers and never saw a fence one couldn't get over, by leaping, scrambling, and climbing. He said he had let her out and eventually she kept barking and barking and wouldn't stop, which was unusual, so he went to investigate. Behind his house is a restaurant whose parking lot is fenced in and between their fence and his is a space a few feet wide. She had jumped his fence and ended up in this space and without enough room to get a running start she was stuck, although I think she would have climbed if he had not come out.</p> <p>After cursing her he put on his flip flops to protect from the ever present Texas brambles and got into the space with Daisy. He said he then discovered she was barking not so much because she was stuck, but because there was a baby 'possum there. She must have rooted it out of some nest because 'possums are noctunal and don't come out during the day. He picked up the little thing whose fur was very wet, he guessed from Daisy's slobber, boxers also being very slobbery dogs and placed it under a tree so neither of them would step on it. It immediately went up the tree, wrapped its tail around a branch and hung upside down.</p> <p>He then, as he put it, "picked up Daisy's fat ass to put her back over the fence into our yard" and saw the Mama 'possum, laying right by his foot. She was playing dead, but when one of them stepped close he could see her lip ripple and when he listened he could hear her growl. He didn't know 'possums growled any more than I knew they spit.</p> <p>Well, he got Daisy back in the house and assumed that Mama and Baby would reunite with no interruptions, but shortly there's Daisy, barking again. They had their bedroom windows open to air out the house and have no screens up. Daisy had gone out the window. Back out in the backyard, but this time Daisy was behind the neighbor's yard and the neighbor came out. He told my son he thought there was something under a piece of wood Daisy was barking at because he could see its nose. Sure enough that was where Mama 'possum had taken refuge.</p> <p>Back in the house with Daisy, closed the windows, and then my son said he put on shoes, because the flip flops weren't doing the job, and he added gloves to his ensemble. Then he went back out. Mama 'possum was still under the board. Baby 'possum was still hanging in the tree and they were so far apart and freaked now he was afraid they would never find each other. He removed Baby from the tree. He said, "You know, those things have quite a grip. After I unwound him from the tree he wrapped his tail around my finger and I had to unwind him from that."</p> <p>He put Baby 'possum by the board that Mama was under and left them to reunite and find their way home, resolving to keep Daisy in until they had plenty of time to do that.</p> <p>I am so proud of my boys. If I never do a memorable thing in my life they are my tickets to immortality because I taught them that. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/11/pride~720523/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/11/pride~720523/Tue, 11 Apr 2006 20:16:29 +0200 <p>There is a totally irrational practice of calling people who commit heinous offenses animals and everyone seems to do it. Doesn't anyone ever listen to themselves, or think about what they're saying? Practically every news type show one watches has some person of limited vocabulary calling someone an animal. </p> <p>I was watching a documentary on the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 and everyone interviewed called the guy who did it an animal. How many animals kill 168 of their own kind, or 50, or 10, when it's not for survival? How many animals kill for fun? Well, I'll allow you cats, but when it's for fun I don't think they really mean to kill. They just play rough. </p> <p>But do you get my drift? Animals don't hate like we do. Don't abuse their mates or children. Don't torture or start wars. Are seldom aggressive, unless their territory is invaded or they feel threatened. Aren't prejudiced, don't set fires, pollute, lie, dodge responsibility, or allow their young to be ill mannered, offensive, intrusive, or trouble makers. </p> <p>The wild, and some tame ones, work, or they don't eat, are loyal when it is called for. Wild or tame, when they get sick or hurt they suffer in silence and try to carry on to stay alive, and if they can't, they go off and lie down and wait patiently to die without consuming the resources that can be best used by others. They are not impatient, seldom show anger, rarely attack unless provoked. </p> <p>Please, please call me an animal, and not a human. We are disgusting, filthy, whining, egocentric, xenophobic polluters and destroyers as a species, and the world would be so much better off without us. Unless we wake up to this fact and assume some responsibility and start acting like animals we will continue to do more harm than good. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/07/call_me_an_animal~708871/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/07/call_me_an_animal~708871/Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:20:29 +0200 <p>Once there was a cat who few people knew and probably no one remembers, but me and my younger son and his friend David. I would like you to know the Big Head Cat and remember him, because he was worth knowing and remembering, and there are others like him, if you take the time to look.</p> <p>A number of years ago I moved into a little house with a great yard, but on a semi busy street. The house was small and old with inconvenient electric outlets because they had been added after the house was built. The floors were uneven and it was not heated. I had to buy electric heaters to keep warm in the winter, and there were still large cold spots, as Sister Woman will tell you, but it was gray, my favorite color, and it had its own kind of charm. For the most part me and mine were happy there and we lived there quite a while.</p> <p>I installed a cat door so mine could come and go as they chose and soon discovered the woods in a large vacant area across the street had many raccoons and 'possums and, my neighbors told me, a fox, although I was never lucky enough to see him. The 'possums and raccoons always came to supper. Sometimes after dark I would hear cat yells and curses in the front yard and would run out to rescue mine and would find someone nose to nose and backing up from a black cat I never got much of a look at. When the door opened and I ran out I would say, "shoo, shoo!" to him, because it was my cats' yard and I didn't want him attacking them in their own yard.</p> <p>All I ever saw of him was his silhouette under the street lamp as he ran away in the dark and because of that silhouette I called him "the big head cat". His head appeared enormous, especially compared to the rest of him. I told my son I pitied his mother, giving birth to him, because his head was really big. Michael thought that was very funny.</p> <p>But, although I didn't want him attacking my cats I also didn't want him to think of me as someone who would hurt him and I didn't want him going hungry, so late at night, when my cats were in and I had shut the cat door, I would put out his food and water. I had a bench on the front porch so I could sit out and watch the rain, when it rained, or just watch the world go by and one rainy night I came home and he was sitting on the bench. When I walked up on the porch he jumped down and ran under the house, but I had seen him seeking shelter so I prepared a box for him lined with old rugs and towels and put it under the bench and when he needed to, in the winter when it was rainy or cold, he would seek shelter there, although if I came around he would vacate and go under the house until I left. So I continued to only get glimpses of him and still he was the Big Head Cat.</p> <p>He repayed me by ceasing to attack my cats. Perhaps he saw my house as a positive place of refuge and realized that my cats were no threat to him, so he ignored them, although they would scatter to other parts of the yard or into the house when he came around. He never told me his name, but I would guess it was Soldier, if he had one, because he reminded me of that character played by Kurt Russell in the movie of the same name. He was as life had made him, but he wanted to be trusted and loved and he wanted to trust someone. I always just called him Big Head Cat and he never spoke to me.</p> <p>One night very late I was sitting on the front porch and saw Big Head Cat crossing the intersection under the street light, moving slowly, when he usually ran. He walked up the sidewalk to the front porch and I called to him to let him know I was there because he usually didn't like to get close, although we had progressed to the point where he would eat at the end of the porch while I was sitting on the bench. He kept coming up to me and stood in front of me. He had a horrendous wound on his neck, leaking blood and pus. I have lived with enough cats to recognize a burst abcess when I see one. I was glad it had burst, or that he had burst it, because otherwise the poison would have entered his system and killed him.</p> <p>I went inside and got cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide and put a whole can of cat food on a saucer and mixed in antibiotics that I had in the fridge. I wanted to help him, but no one in their right mind would have tried to give Big Head Cat medicine from a dropper. I cleaned his wound and flushed it out really good with the hydrogen peroxide and sat by him until he ate every bite of the food, so I knew he got the antibiotics.</p> <p>He came to me every night after that and after the wound healed some I put neosporin ointment on it, for infection, and continued to sneak antibiotics into his food. He also let me rub him and his backbone was so skinny and sharp it cut my heart. This was the start of our new relationship. He no longer ran under the house when I came out, but would jump up on the bench by me so I could rub him. He was still a little leery and one had to be careful not to startle him or make sudden moves because he would lash out if frightened. I was always a little nervous when he got on my lap because he was a formidable cat, tough and quick and battle scarred, and I never knew if I would do something to startle him. But David, my son's friend, got on really well with him and would sit on the front porch for long periods, talking to him and rubbing him, and being quite comfortable with him, even when Big Head Cat got on his lap and rubbed his head against David's.</p> <p>Many times I would come home from work and find Big Head Cat in the living room, asleep on the overstuffed chair, with my cats scattered around the living room glaring at him in stunned indignation. He just ignored them. I never fed him inside but would always escort him out and feed him on the porch because I did not want him to regard the inside of the house, which was their sanctuary, as too homey, because I didn't want any of mine to leave. And gradually this system worked for all of us.</p> <p>I learned that Big Head Cat was at least 5 years old because my neighbors had been seeing him around as long as they had lived there, which was 5 years. Actually he was probably a few years older because he was grown when they first saw him. He came in the house to sleep sometimes and was usually there for supper and I doctored any wounds he had, although none were ever as bad as the first abcess, and years passed this way.</p> <p>One would think he was a streetwise cat, since he was so old and had lived in the neighborhood for so long, but on several occasions I had seen him dart across the street right in front of a car, so I worried about him for that. Sometimes he would be gone a day or two on his roamings, but I still prepared his supper and left it out for him, being able to tell when it was uneaten that he had not come in the night. Once he was gone almost a week, but I put his supper out every night and eventually he came back, no worse from the wear. But one time he was gone for a night or two and I don't know why and I will never know why, but I just knew this time he wasn't coming back. So, even though on other occasions I had set out his supper bowl and changed his water every night for a week, this time after the second night I brought his bowls in and never put them out again, and he never came again, after years of coming to me for food and safety and peace.</p> <p>I don't know how I knew he was gone and I don't know what happened to him; did he finally not dart fast enough in front of a speeding car, or did the fox I never saw get him? But I know that for his last two or three years he was never hungry and he always had a warm, safe place to sleep and someone to rub him, when he wanted.</p> <p>So, if you see a Big Head Cat, or a Bushy Tail Cat, or a Slinking Cat, put out some food and water for it, and you will be surprised at the jewels and gold and silver that will be given to you by that cat. Remember, that kindness to an animal will bring its own reward.</p> <p>I remember you, Big Head Cat. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/02/the_big_head_cat~697721/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/02/the_big_head_cat~697721/Sun, 02 Apr 2006 22:59:30 +0200 <p>I wrote this poem more than a quarter of a century ago, when I still could "fall in love".</p> <p>Drink hot chocolate.<br> Watch the rain, freezing on the window pane.<br> Let the cats in. Lock the doors.<br> Check the sleeping children's covers.<br> Get in bed. Sheets are cold.<br> Turn and touch, together hold<br> all the warmth that we can muster,<br> while we hear the winter's bluster.<br> No kindled fire, deep in the wild,<br> could be as warm as that we piled,<br> leg on leg and head on chest,<br> at last to sleep in dreamless rest.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/01/february_night~694913/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://msanthrope.blog.co.uk/2006/04/01/february_night~694913/Sat, 01 Apr 2006 19:17:42 +0200