Lukie

Our cat, Luke, has taken to his bed to die.

He's lost half his body weight and doesn't walk around any more.

But he is seemingly pain free, so we aren't taking him to be put down.

Bern lifts him out of bed and stands him up to drink water several times today. He hasn't really eaten since Saturday. She washes, dries and brushes him twice daily. He really likes that.

We've put his bed in our TV room and one of us is with him most of the time. We rub his head and he still purrs a bit.

It is so hard to see him ending like this. Luke has been a great cat--huge and yellow and puppy like--he always came when we called him.

He was so loving and active and curious.

Now he mostly sleeps, waiting for what comes next, I suppose...though I can't know that.

I miss him as a well cat. I will miss him greatly in what I hope, for him, is a short time now.

He has been deeply loved. Will be still.

It is hard to lose a pet. Having been able to care for him and say good-bye has meant a lot to us. I only hope his comforts have been met.

Talking to hear your head rattle!

That's what my Mammaw Jones used to say to a room full of grandchildren.

"Pond my Swanee", (another thing she used to say), "you all are just talkin' to hear your heads rattle..."

This wondrous auditory came back to me while I was upstairs and heard the dog bark several times. When I went down, I asked Bern, "why's your dog barking?" (Like most people, I suspect, the dog belongs to the other person when misbehaving!)

"Just to hear himself bark," she said, and I remembered Mammaw Jones. Thanks, Bela and Bern, for that memory. It is precious.

About that "Pond my Swanee" saying Lina Manona Sadler Jones used the say: I tried for years to get her to tell me what it meant and she couldn't. Then, English major that I am, I happened across a mild-curse from Elizabethan times.

"Upon my swanlea!" was a saying of mild surprise and astonishment.

Another thing English majors learned is that the English and Scots-Irish settlers of Appalachia were shut off for a long time from the larger culture and some of the sayings they brought with them endured and were transformed.

"Upon my swanlea!" became, over time, my grandmother's expression of not totally positive astonishment at how her grandchildren could chatter on endlessly.

'Nonie' (a transformation of 'Manona') was one of the best. One of the best ever.

I was blessed to  have been her grandchild.

"Pond my swanee", ain't that the truth....

Full of Sound and Fury

MSNBC is covering the Iowa Caucuses all night long. It will be the same in the New Hampshire primary. Iowa has 6 electoral votes and New Hampshire has 4. That's 10 out of 538! That's around 2% of the Electoral College.

I am sick to death of hearing about 2 states that, in terms of diversity, have next to nothing in way of reflecting what America looks like!

In Iowa about 40% of the Democrats describe themselves as 'socialist' and over half of the Republicans self identify as 'evangelical, right-wing'. There are no other states where that would be true.

So, what's the fuss? Why do we care? What is so newsworthy besides the national media says it is.

To complete the quote in the title: ...signifying nothing..."

Wake me up when the voting 'really' begins....

5 and 1/2 stars

OK, I picked it out because of the Title: The Solace of Leaving Early, and the cover--two little girls in princess outfits against a background of leaves.

I often pick wine by the label, so don't blame me for picking a book by its cover.

Haven Kimmel is the author. She's only written one other book, a memoir called A girl named Zippy. So there is nothing to compare "The Solace..." with.

I've simply never read a book like it. And I've read a lot of books, believe me.

It was a novel I kept going back to read passages I wanted to read again. It's not long so I was 20 pages from the end after a day. I took three days to read and re-read those last 20 pages. I'll probably re-read them again before I take the book back to the library.

If you don't trust me, know this: Bern read it and it had the same effect of her. I heard her tell Josh and Cathy to read it and I know she told her women's group as well on Thursday.

And I'm telling you to read it.

For one thing, three of the characters know more about English Literature than I do (and I'm an English major!) and more about theology and philosophy than I do (and I have three degrees--count them--in theology!)

Besides that, I've never encountered characters like this in any novel of the hundreds and hundreds of novels I've read.

And I've never been so caught up in the narrative of any novel before.

So, there I've said it. The Solace of Leaving Early, by Haven Kimmel, is one of the best books I've ever read. Really.

Five and 1/2 stars, nearing 6 stars.

Read it. Believe me, you'll thank me.

Really.

A house is not a 'home'

I came back from Baltimore (awash with the girls and Kathy and Josh) and got home at 6 pm or so.

I made sure our cat was still alive and ate dinner--salad and mussels--and put new food out for Lukie and am getting ready to take a shower.

I'm in the house that is my 'home', but I'm not home.

I've lived here since 1989--that's 26, going on 27 years--but being here tonight with a dying cat that I love to death (but he hasn't died yet) and a parakeet named Maggie, who sings and sings, but it's not home.

Bern and Bela are missing.

Bern will be home on the Excella from Baltimore at 1:30 or so tomorrow. And I'll go get Bela from this great kennel in Wallingford at 4.

Then it will be home, this house I've lived in for over a quarter of a century.

"Home" is where those you love and share the house with are.

Tonight I am homeless--though I am warm and safe and nestled in a lovely 1850 house.

This time tomorrow--with Bern and Bela back--I'll be home.

What makes 'home' for you?

Ponder what 'home' is for a while.

It has something to do with who and what is in the house. Of that I'm convinced.

How old do you have to be?

So, I saw this article on-line that was going to reveal the original purpose for the little pocket near the belt, inside the front right pocket of your jeans. "The one you keep your tic-tacs in," was how the article described it.

How old do you have to be to know that little pocket is for the aptly named 'pocket watch'?

I know only a precious few folks still have pocket watches, but when did our collective memory forget that watches used to go in that pocket? What else could it be for? Tic-tacs, I suppose.

What else, I wonder, has slipped out of modern American consciousness while I was blissfully thinking everyone remembered things I remember?

How about shoe horns? I haven't used one for decades, preferring my shoes half-a-size too large so I can slip them on (already tied!) like a loafer. I'll have to visit a real shoe store and see if shoe horns are still around.

Potato mashers? We still have one but does everybody or do they buy their potatoes already mashed in the cooler at the store...or use a wand or their food processor?

Back scratchers? When I grew up there was one in most people's homes--at least one. Plastic or wood, about 18 inches long with a little claw on the end to reach those itchy places you can't with your hand. I itch in this cold weather and rubbing my back against a door jam, I long for a back scratcher. Are they on Amazon, I wonder?

How about metal ice cube holders with a lever to pull the loosen the ice? We have half a dozen fancy plastic ice cube makers, none of which I can free the cubes from? Wonder if I can find one of those lever holders anywhere?

I showed Bern the little pocket in my jeans after I read that ground breaking article and asked her what to put there.

A watch, she said. She remembers too, though she's never had a pocket watch in her life.

Vests, if I remember correctly, had a watch pocket too, back in the day. Do they still? Another field trip to a store with three piece suits.

I actually own a pocket watch. I'm going to find it (I see it from time to time) and put it in it's pocket in my jeans. I haven't worn a wrist watch for years, but that pocket watch....Think of all the young people who would say, "hey, your watch fits in the tic-tac pocket!"

Going to the girls

We'll be heading to Baltimore on Friday. We haven't seen Josh and Cathy and 'the girls' (our three granddaughters: Emma, Morgan and Tegan) since Thanksgiving. They were out of the country at Christmas and we were going down last weekend--what a mess that would have been--driving into the snowstorm!

It'll be a quick trip for me since I have to be in church for an Annual Meeting on Sunday. Bern can stay through and come home on the train.

For all the bad press, Baltimore is a manageable and interesting city. Very ethnic. I can find my way around Baltimore pretty well. Lots of problems, of course, and some of them are daunting.

Unlike most places, the haves and have-nots are cheek and jowl in Baltimore. You can be in a rather high priced neighborhood and a block later half the brownstones are boarded up.

The neighborhoods are very distinct. Josh and Cathy live in Camden, which is growing by attracting young professionals. Other neighborhoods are emptying out for lack of jobs and possibilities. And yes, the most telling divides are along racial lines.

Poor Black neighborhoods almost touch the trendy area where Johns Hopkins rules.

It is a city of great and wrenching diversity and gaps.

But the girls live there, so it's one of my favorite places!