Diggin' in the Dirt

Timmy Cat, 2003-2011

2011-10-31T10:49:00.000-07:00

A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.
- Mark Twain

This morning, Halloween day 2011, our cat, Timmy, was put to sleep. Just saying that Timmy was our cat doesn’t begin to convey what Timmy truly was or what a big presence he had in our lives.

Timmy was one of those cats with personality. Not ‘purr-sonality’; cutesy terms didn’t fit Timmy at all. He was a 'people' cat, not a 'cat' cat. If there was a party or even a lone visitor to our home, Timmy was involved. He was a greeter and a facilitator at these events. He helped unwrap gifts. He settled into laps. He shared a place on the couch amongst everyone gathered.

Part of Timmy’s appeal was that he was a bounder at 20 lbs in his prime. He was a mere adolescent when he came to us. Rosie and I had seen him one day while on a walk about 6 blocks from our house. He started to follow us, and I thought, “Oh, please, no. The last thing we need is another cat.” He got distracted and stopped trailing us.

But then, a week or so later, I saw him across the street from our house, being stalked by a much larger, disreputable looking stray tomcat. They went into some hedges, and I knew the younger cat wouldn’t stand a chance against the old scrapper. So I did what any cat lover would do–I intervened. I gave my ‘kitty kitty kitty’ call, and Timmy came out to see me. The other cat fled. I carried Timmy across the street and into our lives.

He immediately set about creating havoc. He stuck his nose on the gas logs while they were still hot and burned it. He jumped on the pancake griddle while it was hot and scorched his paws. He ate things he shouldn’t and got sick. He terrorized my old lady cat, Chloe, by biting her in the butt whenever he had a chance. Even if the catnip container was hidden on the highest shelf is the most obscure area, he'd find it and chew it open. He carried off my earrings and they were never seen again. Had he not been such a likeable and self-assured cat, he’d have worn out his welcome.

As he settled and began to leave some of his kittenish ways behind, he got more involved in our household routines. When it was time for lunch, Timmy was there on the seat beside us at the bar in our kitchen. If it was time for TV watching, Timmy was on the couch beside us. Upon arising in the morning, Timmy stood ready to escort us to the bathroom.

He liked petting, but stroking Timmy was an invitation to be bitten. We called them ‘love bites’ but they weren’t gentle nibbles by any means. You knew he’d been petted enough when the ears flattened back and the eyes narrowed, but there wasn’t always a warning and sometimes Timmy just felt a good bite to the hand was in order.

He liked rough-and-tumble play. Our two female cats wanted nothing to do with that sort of thing. But Timmy made a friend, a neighbor’s cat who roamed, and they’d rip through our house and body-slam each other. Then, they’d fall asleep on the floor, head to head, with paws outstretched so they could touch. Sadly, his friend was hit by a car and killed. Timmy sat by the window many days, waiting for his buddy to arrive for a play session.

When my old girl-cat Chloe passed on, Timmy seemed a bit lost. They’d moved beyond the butt-biting stage and Timmy was gentle with her as she declined, laying beside her and grooming her when it became too much of an effort for Chloe to do herself. We brought home a kitten, a black and white male, so Timmy could have an energetic playmate once again.

Timmy wasn’t amused at first, but Jerrie the kitten didn’t get the not-so-furtive nuances. He came back for head thump after head thump from Timmy, until the elder realized the younger was here to stay. Timmy began to realize the possibilities and tutored Jerrie in mutual grooming, tussling and games of pounce and chase.

Then we noticed Timmy’s normally immaculate fur looked as if it hadn’t been groomed as often. His morning bathroom escort service turned into a plea for us to turn on the water in the tub for a drink. He was irritated when Jerrie wanted to play, and when Rosie weighed him, he’d lost 3 lbs in as many months. At 8 years old, the vet diagnosed kidney disease. Two weeks after that diagnosis, with a shockingly rapid decline that was so hard to witness, we laid him to rest beside old Chloe, under the cypress trees just outside the back door.

Requiescat in pace, sweet Timmy-cat.

Scenes from a Fall Vacation

2011-10-21T23:16:00.000-07:00

Photos from our October 2011 trip to Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Right Here in New Albany

2011-09-25T04:03:00.000-07:00

Just a few short blocks from our home on Main Street lies the Loop Island Wetlands. Steve has seen and phtographed a lot of wildlife there over the years. Here's his most recent photo of a Great Egret fishing in the big pond.

This Summer's Hummer

2011-08-12T13:01:00.001-07:00

Photographed by my husband, Stephen Brown.

Hiking at Hemlock Cliffs

2011-03-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

Hemlock Cliffs in Hoosier National Forest is great for a quick getaway in early spring as it's only about 50 miles from New Albany.

Visit mid-March if you want to see one of the earliest of spring wildflowers, the round-lobed hepatica.

Photos top to bottom, all by Stephen Brown:

Southern two lined salamander (Eurycea cirrigera)

Round lobed hepatica, in shades of white, pink and blue

2011-01-02T05:43:00.000-08:00

One should examine oneself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.

~Moliere

As The Old Year Winds Down . . .

2010-12-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

I reflect upon the good friends, neighbors and business associates that I am fortunate to have, and the family that I am blessed with. Hopefully they know how much I appreciate them, and to all of you I wish a most prosperous and happy New Year.

Christmas in Brooklyn

2010-12-24T04:47:00.000-08:00

Following is an excerpt from one of my favorite books, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

The spruce trees began coming into the neighborhood the week before Christmas. Their branches were corded to hold back the glory of their spreading and probably to make shipping easier. Vendors rented space on the curb before a store and stretched a rope from pole to pole and leaned the trees against it. All day they walked up and down this one-sided avenue of aromatic leaning trees, blowing on stiff ungloved fingers and looking with bleak hope at those people who paused. A few ordered a tree set aside for the day; others stopped to price, inspect and conjecture. But most came just to touch the boughs and surreptitiously pinch a fingerful of spruce needles together to release the fragrance. And the air was cold and still, and full of the pine smell and the smell of tangerines which appeared in the stores only at Christmas time and the mean street was truly wonderful for a little while.

There was a cruel custom in the neighborhood. It was about the trees still unsold when midnight of Christmas Eve approached. There was a saying that if you waited until then, you wouldn't have to buy a tree; that "they'd chuck 'em at you." This was literally true.

At midnight on the Eve of our dear Saviour's birth, the kids gathered where there were unsold trees. The man threw each tree in turn, starting with the biggest. Kids volunteered to stand up against the throwing. If a boy didn't fall down under the impact, the tree was his. If he fell, he forfeited his chance at winning a tree. Only the roughest boys and some of the young men elected to be hit by the big trees. The others waited shrewdly until a tree came up that they could stand against. The little kids waited for the tiny, foot-high trees and shrieked in delight when they won one.

On the Christmas Eve when Francie was ten and Neeley nine, mama consented to' let them go down and have their first try for a tree. Francie had picked out her tree earlier in the day. She had stood near it all afternoon and evening praying that no one would buy it. To her joy, it was still there at midnight. It was the biggest tree in the neighborhood and its price was so high that no one could afford to buy it. It was ten feet high. Its branches were bound with new white rope and it came to a sure pure point at the top.

The man took this tree out first. Before Francie could speak up, a neighborhood bully, a boy of eighteen known as Punky Perkins, stepped forward and ordered the man to chuck the tree at him. The man hated the way Punky was so confident. He looked around and asked; "Anybody else wanna take a chance on it?" Francie stepped forward. "Me, Mister." A spurt of derisive laughter came from the tree man. The kids snickered. A few adults who had gathered to watch the fun, guffawed.

"Aw g'wan. You're too little," the tree man objected.

"Me and my brother-we're not too little together."

She pulled Neeley forward. The man looked at them a thin girl of ten with starveling hollows in her cheeks but with the chin still baby-round. He looked at the little boy with his fair hair and round blue-eyes-Neeley Nolan, all innocence and trust.

"Two ain't fair," yelped Punky.

"Shut your lousy trap," advised the man who held all power in that hour. "These here kids is got nerve. Stand back, the rest of yous. These kids is goin' to have a show at this tree."

The others made a wavering lane. Francie and Neeley stood at one end of it and the big man with the big tree at the other. It was a human funnel with Francie and her brother making the small end of it. The man flexed his great arms to throw the great tree. He noticed how tiny the children looked at the end of the short lane. For the split part of a moment, the tree thrower went through a kind of Gethsemane.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," his soul agonized, "why don't I just give 'em the tree, say Merry Christmas and let 'em go? What's the tree to me? I can't sell it no more this year and it won't keep till next year." The kids watched him solemnly as he stood there in his moment of thought. "But then," he rationalized, "if I did that, all the others would expect to get 'em handed to 'em. And next year nobody a-tall would buy a tree off of me. They'd all wait to get 'em handed to 'em on a silver plate. I ain't a big enough man to give this tree away for nothin'. No, I ain't big enough. I ain't big enough to do a thing like that. I gotta think of myself and my own kids."

He finally came to his conclusion. "Oh, what the hell! Them two kids is gotta live in this world. They got to get used to it. They got to learn to give and to take punishment. And by Jesus, it ain't give but take, take, take all the time in this God-damned world." As he threw the tree with all his strength, his heart wailed out, "It's a God-damned, rotten, lousy world!"

Francie saw the tree leave his hands. There was a split bit of being when time and space had no meaning. The whole world stood still as something dark and monstrous came through the air. The tree came towards her blotting out all memory of her ever having lived. There was nothing-nothing but pungent darkness and something that grew and grew as it rushed at her. She staggered as the tree hit them. Neeley went to his knees but she pulled him up fiercely before he could go down. There was a mighty swishing sound as the tree settled. Everything was dark, green and prickly. Then she felt a sharp pain at the side of her head where the trunk of the tree had hit her. She felt Neeley trembling.

When some of the older boys pulled the tree away, they found Francie and her brother standing upright, hand in hand. Blood was coming from scratches on Neeley's face. He looked more like a baby than ever with his bewildered blue eyes and the fairness of his skin made more noticeable because of the clear red blood. But they were smiling. Had they not won the biggest tree in the neighborhood? Some of the boys hollered "Horray!" A few adults clapped.

The tree man eulogized them by screaming, "And now get the hell out of here with your tree, you lousy bastards."

Francie had heard swearing since she had heard words. Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect. The phrases could mean many things according to the expression and tone used in saying them. So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smiled tremulously at the kind man. She knew that he was really saying, "Goodbye-God bless you."

Scenes from North Carolina

2010-12-01T12:25:00.000-08:00

All photos by Stephen Brown

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Big Sable Point Lighthouse, Luddington, Michigan

2010-11-20T06:21:00.000-08:00

photo by Stephen Brown

2010-11-10T09:46:00.000-08:00

To friends who have asked, personal postings will continue as Notes on Facebook, but will no longer appear publicly on the Diggin In The Dirt blog.

Has Moved

2010-11-08T16:20:00.001-08:00