The hog whisperer

I think it probably goes without saying that I was a weird kid.  I was also a kid who was obsessed with cats.  I hounded (no pun intended) my parents about getting a cat until they finally relented.  When we went to Cat Welfare to pick out a kitten, we took along our family friend Dottie, who had three cats of her own and who had taught me very carefully how to properly pick up and hold a cat.

Dottie demonstrating proper cat-holding
 technique on the day we got Ginger, my first cat 

--and me holding one of Dottie's cats.

This technique has worked with pretty much every cat I've ever had up until the present: our black cat, Stella, doesn't like to be picked up or held at all, and has let me know in no uncertain terms that not only is this technique not "proper," it's tantamount to abuse, and if I keep it up she'll report me to the authorities.

Still, the method has generally served me well, especially on one particular occasion.

My grandmother lived in the very small town of Athens, West Virginia, and when I was growing up, we'd often go down to visit.  Trouble was, there wasn't a whole lot to do in Athens, and the options were further limited by my grandmother's ideas about what was proper for girls to do.  So, I often entertained myself by walking through the cemetery that was just down the hill from her house.  There was a path at the back of the cemetery that led down to a barn and a small pond on some land she owned further down the hill, and it was kind of fun to play "pioneer" down there.

One summer day when I was about eight or thereabouts, I was on my way back from the pond, wandering through the cemetery and reading the headstones, when I caught a flash of something furry out of the corner of my eye.  A cat, perhaps?  It was about the right size.

I followed it and discovered that it was, instead, a groundhog.  He was just ambling along, and when he noted me following him, he stopped.  I crouched down and made the usual clucking noises you make to get a cat to come to you, and much to my surprise, he kind of wandered over in my direction.

Or maybe he didn't: to be honest, I don't remember.  I like to imagine that I enchanted him, like a groundhog whisperer, and he realized that I was a Trustworthy Gentle Person.

At any rate, he stopped, or moved slowly enough that I was able to pick him up, flip him on his back like I'd been taught to do with cats, and carry him back to the house.

I remember being so excited to show everyone what I'd found in the cemetery--my very own pet groundhog!

My mother, of course, tells me that the adults were freaking out when I came in the house cradling a groundhog, but didn't want to alarm me (or the hog).  So, they very helpfully suggested putting it out on the fenced-in stone patio behind my grandmother's house, where I could visit with it.  And my dad (in typical fashion) maintained enough presence of mind to snap a picture.

The groundhog and I stayed out there for quite awhile.  I probably fed it something; I don't recall.  What I do remember is that when I got up the next morning, the groundhog was gone.  I was disappointed, though in hindsight, it was remarkable that it stuck around at all after I put it down!

A few years ago this incident came up at a family dinner and my parents said they supposed the groundhog was sick; why else would it let a kid pick it up and carry it around?

To be honest, though I was well into my forties by then, that thought had never occurred to me.  For the first time ever I was able to see the event as an adult would: Holy crap, does that thing have rabies?!  Put the pest-ridden wild animal down slowly, little girl. 

In addition to the photo, that's the thing I'm most happy to have taken from that experience: the knowledge that at one point in my life, I was innocent and trusting and bold enough* not to worry about such things.

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone!


*and stupid!  Did I mention stupid?

******************UPDATE*********************

Here's my mom's version of events.  Needless to say, I did not witness Chuckie's escape.

We were in Athens for an overnight stay on our way to visit the Beegles and their horses in Charlottesville and then on to Williamsburg. 

You decided to take a wander--unbeknownst to us--to the cemetery.  That's where you discovered Chuckie, as you called him, sitting tamely among the markers.  You scooped him up and carried him back to Grandma's.


Yes!  Dad and I were startled and a bit worried.  It seemed strange to us that a wild animal should be so amiable--perhaps he was sick.  Rabies flitted through our minds.   It took some persuasion to convince you to part with Chuckie:  he would not be happy as a house pet, he was used to country life, we wouldn't know what to feed him, etc.,etc. Finally you reluctantly agreed to free him and he scuttled away--under the washhouse as I remember. And your parents tried not to be too obviously relieved. Now we have the picture and the memory, thanks to Dad with his ever present camera.

The cat days of summer

Here's a clue: they're nothing like the dog days, as far as I can tell.

The kitties are a mess. The colds they had when we got them have turned into upper respiratory infections, for which they're taking antibiotics, and now they have ringworm, so they're coated in a greasy antifungal goo. Better still: the spores can stay active for up to 18 months, so experts recommend steam-cleaning all carpets, upholstery, and curtains, and dousing every other surface with a dilute bleach solution. And did I mention that humans can get ringworm from cats? So now every time I have the slightest itch, I'm sure that I, too, am about to raise my foot and try to scratch my ear off.

We're trying to dwell on the positive: they seem unphased by any of this--are still running around and wrestling with each other and eating like small horses. But honestly, this is not what I bargained for when we adopted these babies. I feel horrible even saying that, but, well--let's just say I'm sending out props to all you real parents of real children who nurse them through illnesses and clean up after them with nary a thought. At least I can shut these two in the basement when they get too skanky.

Baby cats!

As faithful readers might recall, we lost our darling old cat, Lucy, in March, just a month shy of her 21st birthday (and damn, we were getting all ready to take her out for a night of tequila shots).

As hard as that was, I knew I'd be sucked into pet ownership again before long, inevitable heartbreak and all. We looked at the shelter and the foster home's offerings a couple of times before we finally picked out two littermates this week and brought them home.

The black one, Stella, is a tubby little ball of energy. The calico, Pip (short for Pipsqueak--aka Pippa, Pippi, Pipperoo, The Pipster) is a little less rowdy, since she still has a bit of a cold. But we're loving having them around...even if it is odd to have cats who actually jump and can hear!

It's that time of the semester

To illustrate just how low the entertainment bar is for me at the moment, when final papers have fried my ability to follow any train of thought longer than a paragraph (which is about how long my students seem to be able to sustain one, too)...I present the following, inspired by video of a sleepy kitten on an edition of the Daily Show earlier this week. Who knew that entering "sleepy kitten" in the search box on YouTube would yield so many results? Or that I would be so childishly delighted by nearly all of them?

Best cat ever

That Lucy was destined to be my cat, there can be no doubt. On the sunny June day in 1987 that my friend Kate took me to her aunt's farm in Danville, Ohio, to see the kittens that had been born to one of their barn cats a couple months earlier, I picked out a different one to take home. As I recall, it was an adorable little black and white ball of fluff, but it was feral enough to run under a bush when we tried to catch it.

"No problem," Kate's aunt said. "I'll round it up and bring it over later." At that, we went back to Kate's parents' farm for dinner, after which the aunt showed up with...a brown, stripy kitten with no tail.

"What happened to the black and white one?" I asked, not wanting to sound too disappointed.

"Oh, I never did find that one, but this one was right out in the open," she replied, depositing the impossibly tiny creature in my lap, where it promptly curled up and fell asleep.

That was nearly 21 years ago. Lucy was born on Easter in 1987, and almost made it to Easter 2008. She saw me through half my life: the end of college, more years of grad school than I care to admit, nine different apartments and houses, many bad relationships and one good marriage, two cross-country moves, and every other major (and minor) event of my adult life.

She was a rabble-rouser; a stubborn, spoiled brat; too smart for her own good and too sweet to let go of. She lived a good, long life, and died a relatively peaceful death. And I'm glad she's not in any more pain and confusion. But christ almighty, I'm heartbroken and I know it's only going to be worse over the next days and weeks as I wait for her to come up the stairs in the morning and she doesn't, or expect to find her curled up on the corner of the couch when I get home from work, and she isn't there.

But nobody wants to read a maudlin, sentimental blog about someone else's dead cat (however much I'd like to write one). Instead, I'll just say a public thank you to her here for her companionship, her spirit, and all the other gifts she's given me over the last two decades...including making it easy to know when the time had come to see her out of this world and into the next.

Vade in pace, sweet thing.