life with Charlie • those pearly whites • episode 4

We’d had cats for close to 40 years when suddenly, kidney disease took the last two. Ben was the sickest and went first—Bella two months later. Had we been 20 years younger, we would have done the sensible thing and waited a while before filling that empty place, but we aren’t younger, and we didn’t wait. It was winter, political games were heating up, and we had just survived a scary bout of Covid 19. Valentine’s day was not going to brighten up that scenario. We needed a furry, four-legged friend in the house. Within a week we found Charlie…nearly two years old, beautiful, friendly, smart, and so on. There was something about him that seemed worth the gamble. We took him home.

After about 2 months of total besottedness with our little genius, we asked our visiting veterinarian friend, Jeff, to meet the incomparable Charlie. In a matter of minutes, Jeff determined that he couldn’t be a 2-year old: “Just look at those teeth”, he said. We did, and suddenly besotted moved over a little, leaving room for reason and recognition. 

 “Of course…and those little pink toe pads too! ‘I’ll look into it”, said my suddenly awakened left brain.  

The next day—through calls and emails—date discrepancies turned up in the adoption papers, which made him about 10 months when we adopted him, not 21—nearly a year younger than we’d been told! In addition, we learned that just days before we found him, he’d been adopted and returned after just one week, for bothering the resident dog. Kittenish behavior for sure, not that of a 2 year old cat—orange or not. All that aside…not sure why the pretty little white teeth and smallish size (at a mere 8.4 lbs), didn’t raise questions as to his appropriate age in the first cat clinic exam. No problem… just a little mental adjustment for us. 

We are comforted to know that 5 years from now, he will take longer naps.

Bye Dr. Jeff, thanks for coming and setting my friends straight.  Come again and we’ll have a good game of catch the flying bird feathers.

Charlie is now 13 months old, and that is comparable to 15 human years, according to the American Animal Hospital Association guidelines. We have a teenager! He is bigger, taller and has a teenager’s joie de vivre. Next year, at 2 years old, he’ll be 24 human years, with the self-confidence of a 20-something with a master of laws degree. I’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of exhausted. But still besotted, no doubt.

Is it snack time now?

life with charlie • episode 3 • all in a day’s work

Every day is a new day for Charlie.  No regrets, no shoulds, oughts, or maybes. The night passes and the dawn breaks. I open his door at 6 am; he stretches, yawns, purrs, and snuggles his head into my lovelorn hands. We missed each other and are happy to meet again—he because he’d rather not spend the night in his room, and me because I got a decent night’s sleep. He doesn’t hold a grudge. He’s ecstatic and all over the place. I need my coffee.

After a while he asks: What are we going to do today?

We’re going to do a new game, Charlie, not the kitchen floor game, something new and exciting and you can watch this time. Scott is coming to put in a new electrical outlet for us. Remember Scott? He’s going to come and you can help. 

Look, here he comes now.

Yes…Scott…I remember…didn’t like the kitchen floor game, but love Scott…he gets me!

You going to be my helper today? Yes…what should I do first?

There’s something poking out over there…

Wait! No! Not the black one, Charlie!

You can sort these out for me. You’re such a good helper.

Looks good, Scott. I’m exhausted. Let’s take a break.

Gotta go now, Charlie. We did good work today. Thanks for helping.

Oh…I miss him already!

Life with Charlie • episode 2 • Safe keeping

Charlie was with us a mere 2 weeks, when the first gasp left my throat upon realizing Charlie’s potential for getting into trouble. This is what I encountered coming in from my daily Prairie Path walk…how and when did he get in there?

I thought he was safely asleep in my office when I went to fetch the Amazon delivery.  What if someone had come and opened the screen door???  If I had come in the back door as usual, rather than the front door (which is highly unusual), I would have looked everywhere for him and gotten frantic with worst case scenarios flooding my brain. 

Three weeks later, and still wondering how we were going to manage going in and out of the house without Charlie going out for a stroll, we got word that the new flooring we ordered (before he was even in our thoughts and/or dreams), was here and ready to be laid. Our man Scott, head of all things needing to be installed, modified, or invented at our little house, sent word that he would be ready to roll the following week.

Because Charlie was turning our experience with cats upside down with his Mensa-mind and world champion physicality…not to mention just plain captivating personality…every day was a learn something new day for us. The prior 40 years of cat-keeping were not applicable. What was applicable (as stated previously) was that life with Charlie did not allow feeble-mindedness on our part. We didn’t know what he could get into—didn’t want him to get hurt and didn’t want to be on guard duty either, so rather than keeping him safely locked up in his room during installation, we opted for a gate that would allow him to watch the proceedings at a safe distance. We thought this would work well, because he loves new experiences and generally takes time to consider and process the pros and cons before deciding their merit. 

Scott arrived promptly and set about installing the safety gate.

What are you doing? New game? Yeah…it’s called keeping you safe, Buddy

Not sure I want to play this game…

Finally, after 2 days, the floor was laid and the game was over. Everybody survived and the kitchen looks good. Thanks Charlie.

Yippi! Free at last!!

Nice job, Scott. But I don’t care much for the rules of the game. Let’s not do a replay.

Life With Charlie • Episode 1

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra: It ain’t over til it’s over!  He was talking about the 1973 National League pennant race. I am talking about old age…not older age…old age…upwards of 80. Old is a fact of life. One minute you’re a kid thinking about what you want to be when you grow up and the next minute, there you are with a whole lot of space in between that you have to process.  It’s hard work even in the best of times. 

The past half dozen years have been painfully challenging throughout the world, and the meter is rising as we move into this election year. What we held as reliable social structure is now swaying in the breeze of hot air malevolence. Those of us on the upper end of aging have a particularly difficult time of it.  2023 was a really hard year for us—in and out of hospice for our aging cats, Ben and Bella. 2024 began with Covid and the finality of losing these two creatures who had been such good companions.

We’d lived with cats for 40 years. Suddenly it was just us two-leggeds, and a world of grief. Didn’t take us long to find Charlie. Within the first few days, we knew he was not the laid-back Morris-type we thought we’d adopted. But he was nearly 2 years old, not really a kitten. I thought I knew a lot about cats. What I didn’t know is that male, orange tabbies are a thing, a phenomenon, a natural classic: super smart, fearlessly athletic, and, on their own terms, relational and loving.

All this to say that life with Charlie does not allow feeble-mindedness. No, got to be on your toes. This morning, with Charlie looking on I decided to clean the coffee maker. Here he is observing and mentally cataloguing the process. He doesn’t miss a beat. I try to do the same.

What the heck is that? I’m cleaning the coffee pot.

Can I help? It’s hot, Charlie, you’ll get hurt. Go sit on your ledge.

How about here? I’ll just watch, you might need me.

Don’t need you on this, Buddy. Okay, I’ll just stand by.

Okay, I’ll just watch. Maybe I’ll learn something for later 🙂

10 years later

Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024: I have inadvertently stumbled onto one of the last two entries on this blog: sharing and caring, a cat story for all ages, posted 10 years ago on April 2, 2014. Wow, I said to myself, this is pretty good…did I do that? So much has happened to dampen my spirits…can I compose like this again, or have I completely succumbed to the chaos enveloping our lives these past several years? 

So much development in the electronic world. Platforms like WordPress have evolved into marketplace products with increasingly complex algorithms, difficult to grasp the older I get. But Charlie, my 22 month old, rescue cat says don’t know if you don’t try. So let’s see how it goes.

I thought orange cats were laid-back, Morris-types. Well, apparently not male orange tabbies. He is alert, smart and a ball of unrelenting energy, ready to play at a moment’s notice, anytime, anywhere. On the flip side, he is highly relational and loving…lets me hug the daylights out of him. I’ve had lots of cats and this one tops the charts. He is the successor to Beau, the sharing caring, cat story for all ages, cat. 

Did I mention that he seems to understand spoken language?

Scam Alert

2014 has been another roller coaster for us. I’m beginning to think this might be the new normal for western culture…perhaps for most of the world! Time seems to have tripled…hours can seem like days. What once was the standard for fast communication has been replaced by instantaneous messaging. Never mind the dry, witless, impersonal nature of it; this new world has no time for politeness, graciousness or tact. Too bad if you are suffering with a cold, flu or broken leg and can barely think straight. Reply, Reply, Reply. The show must go on!

Question: What’s an aging brain to do?

Answer: The best it can under the circumstances.

My aging brain has been keen on recognizing and avoiding scam emails—particularly the viral ones that want to foul one’s hard drive. Of course, having a Mac computer affords me an edge on this wave of sophomoric pranksterism, but I went a bit farther and thought myself pretty savvy…until last Tuesday.

I was expecting delivery of a USB SuperDrive from a trusted New York supplier…one that often requires signature upon receipt of electronics.

Feeling unwell and slightly foggy, I would be gone for a few hours in the afternoon. I don’t have neighbors who can take in a package, so, when I received this email, instead of thinking clearly, I clicked on Get Shipment Label.

Clicking on Get Shipment Label brought me to a site clearly stating: Not compatible with your operating system, followed by a list of Microsoft PC programs and systems. That should have been sufficient to bring me back to sensibility, but no, I clicked again with the same result!

Googling FedEX SmartPost and seeing that this was a less than successful coordination with USPS my annoyance increased, since mail delivery on my street is erratic at best. In a stupor, I hit Reply and typed out my request for additional information. I wanted that SuperDrive and I didn’t want to jump through hoops to get it delivered.

Slowly, my brain began to make connections. Check the Reply address, it said. Did I immediately understand the hoax? Took a few minutes, checking back to my original paperwork with the seller, to understand that no brand of FedEx, Smart or otherwise was delivering my order.

Many of you already know what happened next: Yes, my email was returned and there it was: the pirated email address used to scam me. Oy vey!

Next step was to look up the seller’s paperwork for delivery date and carrier. UPS was clearly stated, as was the history of transport, the tracking number and promise of delivery that very day. The big green arrow said: On Vehicle for Delivery Today, but for some reason that escapes me now that I am no longer feverish and ill, I still harbored doubt that this equipment would arrive and that I would be at home to sign for it. I was doing a version of Woe is Me from the Life Sucks chorale.

I returned home from my afternoon appointment: Nothing on the porch, no notice from the UPS driver. I quickly removed my note and nervously waited, checking the front porch numerous times. Finally, about 7:00 p.m., the UPS driver brought the package and rang the doorbell. Just as I got to the door the driver was scrambling into the truck. No signature required, obviously. I should have realized this since the paperwork did not contain that stipulation. OY vey again! No matter. I had my SuperDrive and I was happy. Apple does everything beautifully—even the delivery packaging is a perfect delight to the senses. Can’t bring myself to discard it. Maybe it can be re-purposed?

sharing & caring, a cat story for all ages

This is a story of feline sharing and caring from my yet to be written, therefore unpublished, AdvoCat Studio anthology: My Life With Cats.

Frankie, the polydactyl, tabby cat, began his life with us under the care and tutelage of Nicky, our big, luxuriously furred, Himalayan-Birman mix. With patience and forbearance, Uncle Nick taught Frankie the ABCs of cat behavior and etiquette, a sometimes daunting task.

Frank was already a grown up with a long track record of caring and tutoring each kitten that came to live with us just as he’d been taught, but like any cat, he needed his rest and had his favorite spots.

One fine winter’s day, when Frankie was asleep on his favorite morning spot atop the radiator in my studio, dreaming dreams only cats really understand… in walked Beau, the sleekly, beautiful, young prince of the household.

“Ah, there’s Frank… must be a great spot for a nap,” he said to his cat self as he gracefully leaped up to join his friend.

“Oh bother’ muttered Frankie through his sleepy cat lips. ‘Patience, forbearance… that’s the key…”

“Okay, you’re cute, I love you: lay down now.” In truth, Frank was just a tiny bit annoyed, because he’d been dreaming the most wonderful dreams that morning and wanted to get back to them as quickly as he could.

Beau sighed, deeply content with such loving acceptance, but he just couldn’t get comfortable.

 

“I’ll give him another minute to find his groove,” Frank thought… ‘he’s just a kid.”

“You okay, there buddy?” Frank asked in his best uncle voice.

“I think my feet are too long,” whined Beau as he twisted about, certain that with perseverance, he’d find his perfect spot right next, and as close as possible, to his friend.

“Feet? Something like that,’ Frank whispered to his own self… ‘something like that!”

“Got it, Uncle Frank! Thanks”

“This spot feels great; I’ll just do a quick wash, be done in a jiffy. You don’t mind do you Uncle?”

 

“Musn’t forget the hips ‘n haunches… so important to a cat’s graceful beauty. Appearances are important.”

“Okay, all done, I’m back now. Thanks for waiting Frankie.”

Frank, running a bit low on patience said ever so quietly, “I’m sleeping now, gorgeous. Try it, you’ll like it… we’ll both like it.”

But Beau wasn’t ready to sleep yet. Settled near enough to hear his friend’s heartbeat, he said coquettishly, “Tell me a story and then I’ll go to sleep.”

Frank, reaching the end of patience as well as forbearance, thought: “I really don’t have time for this.”

” See you later…bonne nuit,  Beau, sleep well.” He said warmly, and slipped away to where grown-up cats go when they really, really need their rest.

Beau was bewildered; he couldn’t understand why Frankie would just up and leave like that.  “Where’s he going,’ he mused, ‘I’m kind of lonely here all by myself… but I do look good, don’t you think?”

 

A Most Magical Christmas

A Most Magical Christmas is an adaptation of the original story written for me long ago by Korin Heinz. As with all Armenian stories, this one was…
and was not…

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Melineh, who lived with her parents, her sister and her brother in a big house. Melineh liked to pretend and play imaginary, magical games, especially at Christmastime. Starting the day after Thanksgiving, and right up to Christmas, she listened to The Cinnamon Bear on the radio and imagined herself right inside the story.

She was happy except for one thing: she dearly wanted a pet—not just any pet—a warm, furry kitten all her own to love and hug. She asked her mom and dad for a kitten many times, but the answer was always no, because they thought animals should always be outside—not inside the house. Then one day, after thinking it over carefully, Melineh’s father came home with a small, tabby kitten that he found near where he worked.

“Look what I found, Melineh,’ he said, ‘He begged me to bring him home, so I did.”

Melineh, filled with joy, held out her arms and begged her mom,  “Can I keep him… please?”

“Well… if you will promise to take care of him and not let him scratch the furniture, then we will try it for a little while,” Mom said, rather reluctantly.

Melineh named her new kitty, Buttons. She fed him every morning before school and in the afternoons when she came home. She brushed and played with Buttons and sometimes even put doll clothes on him. At night, Buttons slept on her bed in a tight curl of fur. Melineh was happier than she’d ever been in her whole life!

A few weeks later, just before Christmas, Melineh came home from school to play with Buttons, but couldn’t find him. She called and called and looked in every nook and cranny, but could not find him. “Mom,” she asked plaintively, “Where’s Buttons? Have you seen him?”

Mom looked away and said quickly, “Oh, he must have run away.”

Melineh wailed helplessly, “No, that’s not possible! You know where he is!” Inconsolable, she cried for days. There was nothing she could do but wait, hope and dream.

Then, on Christmas Eve, while Melineh was making make paper chain garlands for the tree with her sister, she heard a faint scratching noise at the back door: scritch, scratch. “I wonder what that is,” she thought, and got up to look outside in the fading afternoon light. At first she saw nothing and was about to close the door when she heard a tiny mew from under the porch. Melineh bent down and saw something dark and furry; “No, it couldn’t be,” she thought, but there, rubbing against her hand was Buttons, back from wherever he had been!

Melineh brought her precious tabby kitty inside and gave him some food. Buttons, once again in Melineh’s loving arms, purred happily. This was the very best gift ever—for sure!

Buttons lived with Melineh and her family for many years, bringing warmth and fun into the big old house in the city. When Melineh grew up she had lots more cats, but she never forgot that wonderful Christmas when Buttons found his way back home.

And, of course…they lived happily ever after…

Visual images in public domain from:
karenswhimey.com and clipartpal.com

Dancer Down: an unexpected seclusion

The morning of August 7 was unusually bright and sunny. A series of personally difficult life challenges had come to resolution and I was filled with immeasurable joy. Driving to my dance session that morning, I felt glad to be alive. Normally an experience like this would have made me eager to dance, but I had a vacation coming up in two days and things to do in preparation. I didn’t really want to go, but the body can get rather lazy. Like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz, it can come to a rusty impasse. I didn’t want that, so I drove on and arrived—all smiles—without a hint of the disinclination I really felt.

Jane, my teacher/partner, was not her customary, cheerful, and optimistic self. Something was off. Normally we will match each other in body-spirit whether we start out that way or not, so I didn’t think to question, nor did I state the truth of my disinclination. Undaunted by the disparity, I was confident we would find each other eventually, and so we began as we often do, moving in our separate spheres, performing for each other. Midway through the hour Jane put on the album I’d brought with me: Picture, by Night Ark (a quartet of musicians known for their fusion of instrumental jazz with tradition Armenian tonalities). Little did I know: I was about to meet my Waterloo.

I felt this hypnotic, seductive rhythm as a call of connection to the culture of my ancestors, hidden deep within my DNA, and my joy quickly increased to excitement. Although far beyond my improvisational abilities, I threw myself into moving interpretively to this hauntingly beautiful music, without the willing consent of my aging hips, and in a manner I think may have looked something like my little diagram drawing.

Within minutes, there was an audible a POP sound, followed by white-hot, searing pain! I knew something had torn inside. Groaning, I crumpled to the floor, where I stayed motionless and incoherent for several minutes, as the shock of the experience overtook reason. Time lost dimension and I was swimming in painful slow motion—a curious 4th dimension of my customary reality.

Having spent much of her life as a professional dancer with a collection of her own dancer’s injuries, Jane sprang into action, as I laid there in stunned disbelief. Prone to responsible problem solving and somewhat stunned herself, she tried her hardest to get me to consent to an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital emergency room. There was no way I was going to see the inside of one of those buses, before my time was up! Absolutely not! I took ibuprofen and arnica and continued to try… unsuccessfully… to reach my partner, Judy, by phone as well as text message.

As an InterPlay leader of 20+ years, with a talent for cleverly overcoming roadblocks, she reassessed the situation and applied InterPlay’s signature principal of incrementality to moving things along. She would suggest a move and I would try it. Little by little, I was miraculously on my side, then sitting up, then standing on one leg, and then leaning on the back of a chair. Using the chair as a walker, with Jane cheerleading, I hobbled to the elevator, out the door and into the car. Within 10 minutes, Judy arrived on the scene and drove me to an immediate care facility, where we learned that no bones had broken, but the pop had indeed been a tear, requiring weeks of rest, ice, pain medication, and a walker, along with patient acceptance of the situation (a challenge for me).

A stunned state of shock persisted for the first week, deepening as Judy and I felt our way around and through the daily realities of a crippling injury—a disability of unknown duration—to a person of a certain age. This was something I couldn’t accommodate without anticipating a measure of public chastisement. Had I been a bit too pleased with myself for having a fairly agile, old body? Perhaps I’d pushed it beyond reason…colored too far outside the box? Won’t people think I fell and broke my hip, like many older persons before me? But I knew I hadn’t crash-fallen; Jane taught me a dancer’s fall and that’s the way I went down.  Still, the idea haunted me and I didn’t want the humiliation of being thought of as a silly old lady playing at dance in her old age. The truth is: if I could have been anything in my life beside a visual artist, it would have been a dancer. To dance now, even past reasonable age, has been life affirming. All things considered I was even pretty good at it…for an old lady. 🙂

It wasn’t until a follow-up orthopedic appointment 10 days later that I learned my pop had been an avulsion, i.e., a tearing of the Sartorius tendon where it attaches to the iliac spine area of the pelvis. (The Sartorius is the longest muscle in the body, resolving in a tendon attaching to the pelvis.) This accounted for both the bone and tendon pain I was experiencing. No bone chips, no fractures—just a painful separation between the tendon and its point of insertion. I was assured that it was a common athletic injury—particularly in football—one that occurs when the muscle is stretched beyond its capacity. Well, I clearly did that, without doubt…but football? That was worthy of a laugh out loud!

Laughing or crying, in 3 weeks I would begin a course of physical therapy that would help me regain 95% of my former function. My inquiring and restless mind finally had an understanding of what had happened and a course of action. Between the relief I felt with the diagnosis and prognosis—along with the homeopathic care I knew would hasten healing—I returned home ready to welcome this secluded time out as an unexpected gift.

The story continues…

Speaking of rolling stones…

“How does it feel… how does it feel… to be without a home… like a complete unknown… like a rolling stone?” This signature Dylan song has been in my head for weeks…home can mean many things. A year ago I began my June 13th entry, art then art now:

I need to reorganize the house I’ve been living in for the past four years! In 2008, we moved from a beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright house to a small, unassuming, 1960s tri-level with joyous expectations of becoming part of a particular church community in the neighborhood. Shortly after moving the housing market fell, leaving our FLW house without a great many qualified buyers.

Rolling on: Membership in the neighborhood church community did not come to pass and that tri-level never got organized. Shortly after writing the entry, we received an offer on our beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright house that took us down the real estate garden path by the throat! Weary of tumbling along over the cobblestoned highways and byways of the past several years, we did an about-face—put the  tri-level on the market and moved back to the FLW house. We were glad to be home at last!

This spring, we invited people from all walks of our life  to celebrate our home coming in a music fest. In addition to old friends, the guest list included people who had made music or art with us, people who had helped us in various ways through the past several years, and people who had helped us in the actual moving process. Everyone brought something to share…food was abundant and the music flowed from gospel to rock ‘n roll. We had a great time and hope this will be the first of many music fests to come.

Jim Croegaert on keyboard, Mark Vanderhoff and Callie Surber on guitar belting out Bob Dylan’s classic, 1965 tune, Like a Rolling Stone.  Go ahead and sing along, shake it all out…you won’t be able to help yourself!

After that We Went Down to the River to Pray. The movie, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou has nothing on us! We were rockin’!

Nancy Miner Guenther and Judy Studenski leading out with Joni Mitchell’s 1970 hit, Big Yellow Taxi.

Mark Vanderhoff playing Neil Young’s Heart of Gold from the album Harvest; applause by Ardean Goertzen

Jaime Cortez’ Rain Down, with rolling arpeggios—catching them single-handedly.

Even after everyone had left, there was still more music…

Links in text:
Jim Croegaert, Singer-Songwriter • Rough Stones Music
Nancy Miner Guenther • Roses and Teacups