What's past is prologue

The old Stickney School was next door

The above picture was taken on Easter Sunday, March 29, 1964, in Chicago, Illinois.

It is of me (in the white coat), my big sister Kay, and our mother.

Here's one taken on the same day, again of me and my sister, outfitted to play in the spring snow:

Sunday Funday, Sixties style

Three weeks earlier, I had turned seven. Kay had turned eight the previous December. Mom was twenty-seven.

And again on the same morning, this one of our mother and her then-husband, Jake:

Life has a way of snowballing

Kay took that picture of them on the stoop of the building where we occupied a small apartment.

From my birth until I went to college at age seventeen, we lived in eleven states. That's not even counting the state of confusion, of which I at least was a permanent resident.

The reason I know the date and place of these pictures is that Mom wrote it on the back of the photos:

Your children will thank you for photo info

Although my childhood memories are sketchy until later than this, I remember many details of that day.

I remember being taken into a warm, fragrant coffee shop, and perched high on a stool at the counter, where I (and my sister too, I assume, although she has no memory of it) was given a donut -- the kind you selected from beneath a glass dome -- and milk to wash it down with.

And I recall that later, when we returned to our apartment which was kept in immaculate condition by our mother, Jake (we were required to call him Daddy even though that's not what he was to us and we liked him not a bit, because we were afraid of him) had gone to a lot of trouble to make it appear as though an oversized bunny rabbit had visited in our absence and left a trail of goodies for Kay and me to find and place in our baskets.

I switched places with her

In case you're wondering, he did that by obtaining some snow with dirt mixed in, and pursed the fingers of one hand together to mimic the paws of a rabbit, and dipped them in the slush, and placed "bunny tracks" on surfaces where they'd show up (such as white tile in the bath) after they dried.

So I guess he wasn't all bad (Jake, I mean. There is no Easter bunny).

It was pretty convincing. At least to a gormless seven-year-old. Anything that led to candy worked for me.

Recalling how I used to twist my hair

You can probably tell from reading this that I've been doing a little bit of research and a great deal of reminiscing. And that's because I'm working on writing a memoir.

(Yes; I've been working on it for nearly ten years. I'll thank you not to snicker.)

Which leads me to the reason I'm sharing these pictures with you today.

Studying this series of photographs late this past winter, I realized that we were coming up on the fifty-fifth anniversary of that day in late March.

Fifty-five Marches later

And I realized that twenty-five years to the day after that wintry Easter Sunday that I remember so well, my fourth child -- our son Andrew -- was born.

So I invited my mom and sister to come to Columbia on March 29, 2019, and on Andrew's thirtieth birthday we attempted to recreate the photograph of the three of us taken in Chicago fifty-five years earlier.

Four generations

(I would have loved to truly recreate it in front of the Stickney School on West Hollywood Avenue in the Edgewater district -- the building is still there, although now it houses condominiums -- but that wasn't an option.)

The building next door to the Stickney School, where we lived, was torn down in the early '70s to make way for a modern apartment complex.

Putting our slant on it

If you're interested in seeing that, click here.

Click down the street a bit -- past the UPS truck -- and you'll see the building in front of which we posed. There's a wrought-iron fence there now, about where our mother was standing.

Click to embiggen

Other than that, it's unchanged.

Lots has happened to me in fifty-five years, haaahaha. And to you, if you're old enough.

We are family

On the day my mother, my sister, and I got together to commemorate the fifty-fifth anniversary of that day in Chicago, we were joined by two of my three daughters, plus one of my three granddaughters.

Mom, Kay, Audrey, Erica, Dagny, and I first went to Sun Ming for lunch. Then we went to Irmo Town Park, where these pictures were taken of the four generations.

Spring and everything

Andrew was enjoying his thirtieth birthday elsewhere -- probably at work but he and Brittany may have been out of town. It's been four months; I don't remember it the way I do fifty-five March twenty-ninths ago.

Speaking of Andrew, he's going to be deployed again in a few weeks, to Afghanistan. There, he and other American heroes will put themselves in harm's way to defend our freedoms.

Two of my own lovely daughters

This past Sunday, fifty-five years and four months after the picture at the top of this post was taken, I posed with two of my girls, and also with TG and our boy.

(Our Brittany, expecting her own and Andrew's baby daughter, took these pictures.)

It's a big circle that has gone around and is coming around. It's our God-ordained place on the space time continuum. Our lives are but a vapor. We live with eternity in view.

My handsome men

And, looking both to the past and to the future, we greet each day with a great deal of gratitude and love.

I hope that you do the same.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday

Reigning cats and dogs

Do you remember our Fourth-of-July surprise in the form of an abandoned kitten?

I named her Velvet and fed her catmilk from a carton, with a bottle.

Well. She died.

We did all right on Thursday (the day TG discovered her by the door between the deck and the garage). We did fine on Friday, and okay on Saturday.

On the Friday, I went in person (without Velvet) to the local high-dollar shelter (after calling a few others) and was told that I could make an appointment through the web site, to bring her in for "assessment."

First I would have to fork over a significant amount of money. Then, if she were deemed "adoptable," they would take her, but only after I had fostered her for a few weeks and attempted to find her a home.

I won't go into the reasons this plan was unacceptable to me; just believe me when I say, it wasn't the money.

So I decided to keep Velvet. I'd never owned a cat but I figured, God gave me a motherless one so it was my responsibility to take care of her.

On the Sunday night after we'd taken her in on Thursday, Velvet began declining to eat.

Throughout Monday, she outright refused to eat. I did manage to get a few drops down her at each feeding, but it was a struggle. She'd clamp her jaws and turn her face from side to side until the sticky formula ran down the sides of her neck.

On the Tuesday morning, TG went to the store and bought a different formula, and a different method of getting it into her -- a plunger-type syringe.

I'd literally prop her jaws open with the hard edge of the syringe -- so that she couldn't close her mouth and force the liquid out -- and give her no choice but to take a tiny bit at a time.

But I guess it was too late because, by that evening, it was obvious she wasn't going to make it.

I hope no one judges me for not running to a veterinarian and incurring hundreds of dollars in charges, to perhaps save the kitten's life.

I researched online and found that there's something called Fading Kitten Syndrome, in which the creature simply loses the will to thrive, and one by one its life support mechanisms shut down.

Whether that's what happened or not, we will never know. I do know that I was overwhelmed and out of my depth in caring for her, and that could have had something to do with her demise.

Even so, it was sorrow rather than guilt that led to what happened next.

After crying myself to sleep on the night Velvet died, I watched from the sunroom the next morning as TG buried her in our fence-corner Weber Pet Cemetery which contains Buckley and Javier.

It's watched over by a kneeling chalk-white headless cherub (the head is nearby) and a standing greenish-resin angel.

I had already ordered a Tidy Cat Breeze litter pan for Velvet, and had been planning on training her to use it.

When I clicked on Amazon to return the litter box, they processed my return but told me to keep the item.

? ? ? ? ?

I know it sometimes happens, but still I thought: Is this a sign? I don't need a litter box; I don't have a cat.

Yes; I realize I could have donated it to one of the shelters, but this litter box is pretty special. As such things go. A bell here, a whistle there.

That's when I began -- out of curiosity -- looking at cats online, on the site of the Columbia Humane Society, where I first saw Rizzo's picture. 

(He was named Stevie during the days he spent at the shelter.)

Early last week, I began noticing a tuxedo cat named Trunk.

At the Humane Society, all of the animals have been spayed or neutered, have had their first shots, have been de-wormed, and have received Home Again microchips.

The critters cost just thirty-five dollars.

By last Thursday, I had a definite urge to go out there and meet Trunk.

(Actually, I had been equally captivated by a feline named Sparrow -- also black and white in color. But when I arrived and asked for Sparrow, she was having a surgery for complications from her original surgery, and was not available.)

The lady at the desk advised me to go and sit in the main cat room and "see who reacts to you."

So I did, not knowing what to expect.

This is because, for my entire life, as you know, I have been a dog person. 

Until a few days ago, trust me: the thought of me owning a cat would have been on a par with me becoming a ballerina, or something similarly insanely ridiculously unlikely.

It's not that I didn't like cats; I just had no frame of reference. 

Well. I do now.

Because the moment I walked into the cat room, Trunk stood on her long legs and fixed her bright yellow eyes on my face. She is beautiful and petite, and that helped.

I approached and she began pressing her head against the bars of the spacious built-in crate (in two entire walls of such holding devices, all containing hopeful homeless cats), of which she was the sole occupant.

I unlatched the door and picked her up. We sat on the bench and she curled in my lap, purring.

And I -- I, a lifelong dog person, I who already own an adored and doted-upon, spoiled-rotten rescued canine unit -- fell in love. With a CAT.

? ? ? ? ?

Who can explain it? Not me. So I will not try. If you don't know, then you haven't experienced it and there's no sense discussing it.

So I filled out the papers; I paid the thirty-five dollars. I retrieved Javier's old crate from my sweltering car and placed Trunk inside.

(Why was she crate-named Trunk? Because about a month ago, she was discovered by police in the trunk of a stolen car. True story. She scraped the top of her nose trying to get out.)

On the way home, I thought about what I'd call her. My new as-yet-nameless cat was calm in the crate as we drove. It was just shy of one hundred degrees outside.

We stopped at the local pet supply store -- the same one we visited with Rizzo, on the frigid January day in 2017 when TG and I brought him home from the same shelter.

My nine-month-old rescue cat peered out from the crate as I bought her a bed and a scratching post and some dishes and food (both wet and dry) to put in them, and cat treats, and a few toys, and a pirate-themed collar with a dainty black bell.

By the time we reached home, my cat had a name.

She's Sweetness.

In keeping with our tradition of naming pets after favorite athletes, I named my cat after another legend of Chicago sports.

(My dog is named for Chicago Cubs slugger and first baseman extraordinaire, Anthony Rizzo).

Extra credit if you can tell me who Sweetness is named after.

But she is indeed sweet. The sweetest cat I can imagine. She loves to curl or stretch beside me, purring and snoozing, gazing into my eyes every now and then, and blinking if I remove my hand from her soft fur.

Now, as I sit in my recliner to write, with Rizzo on one side and Sweetness on the other (they're tolerating one another well, mostly by ignoring each other), it remains to be seen whether I'll ever get anything done again.

(I ordered Sweetness a luxurious cat condo/crate with four separate levels for doing whatever she needs to do. Even when I leave the doors (upper and lower level) open, she likes to lounge around in there and that's where she's napping now, so that I can write this for you.)

She loves to walk along the ledge of the sun room, looking out of the windows at the squirrels and birds. 

She enjoys chasing her toys around the floor, and jumping up on the furniture.

She's extremely fastidious, eats well, is not particularly vocal, and seems to be content in her sunroom world (I doubt I'll allow her to roam the house).

It's all a blur

Most of all, Sweetness loves me. It's obvious. And it humbles me because truly, I did nothing to deserve that.

Be that as it may, I consider her a gift from God.

And I love her very much in return.

And that is all for meow now.

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Happy Monday :: Happy New Week

Five, six, pick up sticks

Dagny spent the night with TG and me on Wednesday.

She hopped into our car after prayer meeting, toting her hardshell rolling suitcase that lights up when you touch something or other on the front.

We stopped by Puglix Publix for supplies on the way home. TG and I like to visit Publix on Wednesdays because we get a five percent senior discount.

While Dagny was getting out of her car seat (it'll soon be replaced by a pared-down booster seat), she mentioned that she was five.

I said I was aware of that fact.

Pretty soon I'll be six, she said.

I cautioned her to slow down and enjoy being five for as long as she could.

Once inside the store, she requested that we stock up on graham crackers and chocolate milk. Both wishes were granted.

Once at home, she ate a meal of chicken and mashed potatoes (yes; she'd already had dinner earlier but so what), washed down with lemonade and chased with graham crackers, on top of which we applied a layer of whipped cream from a can.

That last part was a BIG hit.

Later, after brushing our teeth, she and I snuggled in my bed and watched a fascinating slime video, topped off by a video of two ladies eating various sweets, all colored blue. Blue ice cream. Blue cereal treats. Blue honey buns. Blue gummy suckers.

Ugh.

At about midnight, Dag went to her pallet on the floor and was dreaming in less than thirty seconds.

We slept in on Thursday. After the breakfast and coffee hour, and once we'd gotten dressed, Dagny assisted me with various chores.

She is eager to help with just about anything you're doing. We made beds and folded clothes. She's exceptional at folding towels.

While packing her belongings back into her suitcase, Dagny spotted a tiny bug on the white shirt which, the night before, she'd tossed onto the floor of my room.

The way she reacted, you would have thought it was a five-pound snake.

It almost stopped my life, she said.

Hyperbole 'R' us.

I checked her pulse (normal) and told her to relax.

Then, she pushed the "buttons" on my new washer and dryer, to move laundry along.

(My washing machine died on July first. My dryer was already old and not particularly efficient. The new set was delivered on Wednesday and they're the kind with light-up panels and a window-lid on the agitator-less top-loading washer. When your clothes are done washing and, later, dried to a cozy crisp, a little song plays. She loved watching through the window and listening for the song, and lit up herself, when she heard it.)

Then it was time to empty the dishwasher, an activity that Dagny adores. She knows where everything goes, but naturally she can put away only things that go in spaces she's able to reach. Because five.

But that's quite a lot, and together we made short work of the task.

Then it was time to make hummingbird nectar.

Dagny fetched her white plastic stool from upstairs so that she could help me measure the water and sugar into the pan. She squeezed in the gel food coloring.

(Yes; I know that the addition of food coloring to homemade hummingbird nectar is controversial. We did it anyway. The hummingbirds love my nectar. They fight over it. I've never seen one drop dead from a drop or two of red coloring. Just the opposite; they thrive on it and drain the feeders almost daily.)

Once the pan of nectar was on the stove, Dagny carefully stirred with a small silicone spatula, until it was almost to a boil.

We set the pan aside to cool, and readied ourselves for an outdoor job.

You may remember that in 2016, Andrew removed the ugly holly bushes from the front of our house, and shoveled a ton of rocks into the space which surrounds the white oak.

We have a green bench there and it's so pretty now, and a great place to take pictures.

Only, as you might imagine, thousands of sticks drop from the tree and accumulate on the rocks.

They were sorely in need of a clean-up. Dagny had gone to the store with Papaw last week and helped him pick out a roomy bin to put the sticks in.

Unbeknownst to either me or Audrey, during that shopping trip TG struck a bargain with his ride or die. It involved her earning a few shekels in exchange for services rendered.

So when Dagny, I, and Rizzo went outside for stick cleanup, she marched over to the side of the garage where she'd seen Papaw put the bin. She grabbed it and told me this was what we'd fill with sticks.

Oh ... okay, I said. I'd never seen the bin before but she was confident. And confidence is key.

As we placed the bin on the bench and began collecting sticks, Dagny informed me that Papaw had promised to pay her for performing this chore.

He said I'd get ten bucks, she announced.

? ? ? ? ?

I was skeptical and I said as much. Dag, really? Ten whole dollars? 

She assured me that a sawbuck had been the agreed-upon price for her stick removal services.

Dagny is not known to tell untruths so maybe I shouldn't have, but I said I found it difficult to believe that Papaw had promised her that much money for picking up a few sticks.

(If it was true, I wondered if she'd negotiated a golden parachute while she was at it.)

She hesitated, then said: Well, maybe nine dollars?

I laughed. Maybe, I said. We'll see. 

Later, when Audrey arrived, she agreed that Dagny was perhaps guilty of, if not making something up, then certainly engaging in wishful thinking.

I think three or four dollars would be plenty, she said.

But we decided we'd wait and ask Papaw. Get it from the horse's mouth, as it were.

Later still, when TG arrived home, Dagny and her mother had already left. He'd seen the overflowing stick-bin still sitting on the green bench, and mentioned what a good job Dagny had done cleaning up the rocks.

Did you tell her you'd give her ten dollars for doing that? I asked.

Yes I did, he said.

Well, shut my mouth. I'll have to apologize to my angel for doubting her word. Make it up to her with a few extra graham crackers and whipped cream.

Meanwhile, when we had finished our stick pickup project, Dagny and Rizzo played on the grass.

She tends to overwhelm my spoiled dog with her affections, and he gave some serious side-eye before semi-relaxing into her zealous embrace.

But as he loves to be in the front yard sans leash (and no walkies threatened), it was all good.

We should have seen if his lazy carcass would deign to fetch a stick, but it never occurred to me.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Friday :: Happy Weekend

Wednesday Words: Just Wondering

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Happy Wednesday

Kitten in the kitchen

Audrey does the honors

Current situation: kitten.

As in, when TG went outside to fire up the grill on the Fourth of July, he found a single tiny mewling kitten in the area between our deck and a door leading into the garage.

She'd been abandoned. We searched for hours for her mother and siblings. Not a whisker was to be found.

Rizzo had been eyeing an area between the deck boards, and growling, for a few days. A gray cat has been stalking around our yard for a couple of weeks.

I reasoned that these clues added up to a stray cat having produced a litter of kittens under our deck.

But if that's what happened, they're all long gone.

Is "my" kitten the runt of the litter? Probably.

Since that evening, before the fireworks began, she's been occupying Javier's old crate.

Dagny supplied her with a small stuffed toy. TG went to the store for kitten replacement formula.

Here's my dilemma: accept the fact that I'm now a cat owner, with all that that shocking idea implies, or find her a loving home amongst our friends and acquaintances, or pay for a no-kill shelter to accept her for adoption.

I am leaning toward no one of these solutions.

I have no idea what to do.

Perhaps someone can help me decide.

Cast your votes below. Keep? Give away? Be extorted by the local no-kill shelter?

Meanwhile, the kitten has a name. I use it frequently when bottle-feeding her.

It's Velvet.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Monday