Mean Ol' Ms Baby Doll

The Naming of Cats
from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
by T. S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, 
        It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
        Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
        All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
        Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
        But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
        A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
        Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
        Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
        Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
        And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
        But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
        The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
        Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
                His ineffable effable
                Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

The white cat arrived with the name of Tinker, which might have been appropriate when she was a kitten but didn't seem right now. I told Chris we could pick another name. After all, a cat doesn't come when you call so she wouldn't be confused if we changed it.

“What should we call her?”

“Oh, whatever,” I said.

And Whatever was her name, at least for the time being and on the veterinarian's records.  

She really was a beautiful cat. She kept her white fur immaculate. I tried to make friends with her using treats. In a soft voice, I used endearments and one of them was “Baby Doll” and that became her next name, but over the years, as her bad temper never improved, I began calling her “Ms Baby Doll” because she seemed to be a liberated cat who didn't seem to need us at all. She merely tolerated us at best. We were her staff.  

No matter what treats I gave her, no matter what kind of cat food I gave her, it made no difference. She was likely to bite me whenever I tried to pet her, drawing blood. Band-aids were a part of my life. I kept trying for eighteen years and in a way, was amused. I have a warped sense of humor.  She fit right in. 

The final name that stuck with her to the end of her days was “Mean Ol' Ms Baby Doll”.  If she had a personal name, she never told us what it was. 

The First Cat

Another snowy day here in Seymour, but as fast as the snow falls, it melts faster.  Because of the damp cold, I couldn't get out to walk, so I spent the morning reading journals.  Now I can go on with the story of Jake Dog and the Four Cats.

*************

After Chris and I came home from the Humane Society without a cat, I comforted him about the tragedy and told him we would have a cat.

Here is the thing about a small town:  if you want a cat, you need only go out on your front porch and whisper to the wind, "I need a cat" and by the end of the day, you will be the servant of some kind of mangy feline.  Most of the folks here in Seymour either have a cat they want to dispose of or know someone who does.

The next morning, I went down to Ashman's, a restaurant on North Main Street.  It really wasn't a restaurant, it was more a cafe. It was the kind of place where farmers hung out.  There was always a slight smell of manure to the place.  There were two horseshoe counters where old guys liked to sit.  They could keep their coffee going for hours with only slight warm ups from the waitress. They discussed politics, gossiped, and talked about whoever was down at the funeral home. There was ancient man who proposed to me every time I came in. I wasn't interested but I didn't mind being asked once in a while. When he finally died I told everyone that he had been my last chance.

They were good at solving problems, these old guys.  When I needed a car, I asked them and they knew who had a solid used car for sale. They were more honest than any used car salesman. When I needed to construct a rich man's home for a set design for our community theatre, the guys who had worked in the Valley's paper mills told me to get the cores of the big paper rolls that would become expensive stationery. They arranged for me to get some which I painted white and turned into marble columns.

So when I came in to Ashman's and said I needed a cat, I got an immediate response from the waitress who told me she had a cat I could have, a year old neutered and declawed female. I didn't approve of declawing a cat, but I liked the idea of having a cat that had its female parts removed and had her shots.  A vet bill was more than I could afford just then, so I didn't want a kitten.

"I'll take her," I said. On the way home, I got kitty litter and some cat food.

The waitress and her husband brought the big white cat that night and thrust her at me. "Her name is Tinker," they said and took off.

I held her in my arms and examined her pretty white fur. She was a beauty, I thought...until I looked closer and saw the quicksilver movements. I stroked aside the fur and saw them.  She was covered with fleas.

I had had cats before and knew if those fleas got into the carpet I would be fighting with them for years.  I went straight into the bathroom and wrapped her in a towel.  I held her tight as she struggled, meowed hissed, and tried to bite me.  I turned on the water in the tub and grabbed at some baby shampoo I had for some reason, probably because in those days I didn't throw much away.  It was probably some I used on Chris a decade before. I was about to give a cat a bath for the first and last time in my life.

I draw the curtain on what happened next. The fleas were washed away along with the blood on my arms.

From that day on, the cat hated me.

Researching

Rain, sleet and snow keep pummeling Northeast Wisconsin.  Kept inside, I worked on research for the next book.

When I began working on Jake Dog and the Four Cats yesterday, I realized there were going to be gaps in the story if I didn't do some research.  I am helped with my habit of keeping records.  First of all, I keep a daily journal.  Though for some years the records were spotty, in 1984, the year we moved to this house, I became a regular journal keeper.

Today, I went inside my office closet and dug out the journals.

Then I went to the scrapbooks with pictures, newspaper articles and so on that go back to my birth.

There I found a newspaper column by Susan Manzke who helped in the move to this address in June 1984.

I still had a question.  Did we get Mean Ol' Ms Baby Doll when we were in the old house or in this one?  I was going to ask Chris if he remembered but it came to me this morning when I took a shower.  I remembered that she arrived with a nice case of fleas.  When she arrived I took her directly to the tub and gave her a bath before her fleas could escape into the living room carpet.  It was painful for both of us.

I don't think she ever forgave me.

With all my records, I should have the book written by the end of summer.  

Jake Dog and the Four Cats - Prologue

We've had rain, sleet and snow in the past 24 hours with more expected.  I am home alone.  Gary has decided to stay in Illinois until he can see clear roads so I don't expect to see him until next week.  It seems a good time to begin to tell the true tales of Jake, my beloved Australian shepherd, and the cats he lived with in this house. Eventually, I will turn those stories into a book, using the memories of friends, old newspaper columns, plus my journals and scrapbooks.

     *****

The story begins twenty nine years ago in a house on Muehl Street, here in Seymour.  It was a ramshackle old house but it was all Chris and I had.  His father had left the year before, leaving us with no money and me with only a part time job at a library and occasional storytelling work. We got along somehow.

Chris is an only child and that can be lonely.  He decided he wanted a pet and I understood that though I wasn't crazy about the cost. Unfortunately, he set out to solve the problem by picking up a stray.  He came home with big old cat.  We took the old guy to the Seymour veterinarian who examined him and gave him the required shots. We arranged a date to have him neutered then brought him home.  Within a day or two, before the scheduled surgery, the tom cat escaped and went back to the wild to enjoy his time with the ladies. We never saw him again.

That happened twice leaving us with vet bills and no cat.

Around that time, I got a great offer on our old house.  It was to be torn down for a parking lot.  In return for my selling, I got to pick out a better house here on Lincoln Street. While we were in the process of moving, I told Chris to hold off on the cat.

As soon as we had unpacked, I took him to the Outagamie County Humane Society pound.  We wandered around peering into cages at this cat and that one.

"What do those numbers mean on the cages," Chris asked.

"Those are dates. The older the date, the more likely the cat in it will have to be put to sleep.  They can't keep the animals forever."

Tenderhearted Chris immediately went to the cage with the oldest date and without even looking in, told the attendant, "We'll take that one."

Inside was a big female, probably an older cat, but Chris insisted and I said "We'll take her."

We filled out the required form, but the attendant said we had to come back in a few days.  I really didn't understand that, but we agreed.

When we returned, the director of the humane society called us into her office.

"You can't have the cat," she said.  She said she had called our veterinarian in Seymour who said we had a record of bringing in cats that never came back.  I did my best to explain about the tom cats, but the woman insisted we could not have a cat because we weren't considered responsible.

Chris cried all the way home.  "They'll kill that cat instead of giving her to us."

I knew he was right.  Later on I found out that others had had the same experience with that facility.  They have a bad reputation to this day for their treatment of patrons.

I promised Chris he would have his cat and two days later we had Mean Old Ms. Baby Doll, the first cat in this story.

Phenology

No, Phenology is not about bumps on the head.  That's Phrenology.  Phenology is keeping track of the seasons and what they bring.

I know when the swans should arrive because I've been keeping track of the birds at the Shiocton marsh for decades.  I keep track of wildflowers, too.

My most complete records are the yearly lists of the flowers in my gardens.  That is why I know this is a cold spring, just  as last year's was warmer than usual.

Today, only snowdrops, vinca and crocuses are blooming here.

One year ago, April 9, 2012 I had an entirely different list.
- daffodils
- tulips
- hyacinths
- pasque flower
- puchina
- scilla
- lungwort
- cherry tree
- chenadoxia
- vinca
- Virginia bell
- violets
- grape hyacinth
- kerai bush
- pear tree

That was not a normal spring in Northeast Wisconsin.  April 9, 2011 was.  That day the following were in bloom:
- crocus
- vinca
- scilla
- puchina
- snowdrop
- dwarf iris

This spring is not that much different than 2011's, in fact it's darn close.  I don't have scilla any more because I had to dig up the terrace strip last year.  Only puchina and dwarf iris are a little slower.  

So this really isn't that late a spring after all.

Posters

For years, I used Microsoft Publisher to make posters for civic events.  Then son Chris brought me a new computer.  It is a wonderful computer but my very old publisher program was not compatible and could not be transferred over. When I checked out prices for a new system, it was more than I could afford.

For a while, I talked friends with such programs into making posters for me. I scanned the results and made copies from the scans.  But I still wanted to make my own posters.

When I was sorting the odds and ends of paper in my supplies, I ran across some stationery, the kind used to print out letters from the computer.  It had an interesting sunset motif. I got an idea.  I worked out what I wanted to say about my book signing in March,  wrote it up and printed it on the stationery.  It made a perfect poster.

I have another signing coming up on April 27, but was out of paper, the fancy kind.  There was none to be found in Seymour.

I met my friend Norma for breakfast in Oshkosh this morning, as I do whenever she comes down from Chicago to visit her sister.  I told her what kind of paper I needed.  She suggested I go to the Goodwill store right down the street.  I tried it and sure enough, there was a pack of the exact paper I needed for two dollars.  

When I came home I set up the poster in exactly ten minutes and made thirty copies. Tomorrow, they'll go up all over town.

I dropped off the first posters at Sissy's and found out that they are running low on Yesterday's Secrets, Tomorrow's Promises.  I have to order another case of them.

Things are going my way.

Frittering

When I finished the book this past week, I breathed a sigh of relief and decided to go into frittering mode. I left almost immediately for Illinois and took with me Stieg Larsson's Millenium series on my Nook and have done very little work since I started reading the books. Millennium
This Swedish author wrote the trio of books:  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, all about one of the most interesting heroines in literature, Lisbeth Salander.

There were some problems with it. Each of the books started slow and seemed to take forever to get to the point. There seemed to be far too many characters with names that were similar. I finally resorted to writing the names down in columns and making notes on what each were doing in the plot. Larsson seemed to be obsessed with writing what each character was wearing. Why should the reader care?  And like many European writers, he had to write the background story for each of the characters no matter how minor which didn't move the plot along very well.  Still, they were ripping good plots overall.

Larsson planned to have ten books in the series in all but one day the elevator didn't work, and after walking up flights of steps, he collapsed.  I would like to have seen so much more of Lisbeth Salander, best computer hacker in the world.

I've finished the books now and can get back to work....until I get lost in another book.

Coming Home

The way home from Illinois takes about five hours.

This morning, friends in Wisconsin were warning about a snowstorm.  Gary checked Accuweather.com and said the same.  There would be snow and sleet.  Maybe I should stay another day, he thought.

I looked at Accuweather, too, but the hourly forecast said that the temperatures all day from Illinois to Wisconsin would be in the mid-40s during the time I would be driving.  There might be rain, but snow was very unlikely.

In fact there never was any precipitation all day.  The roads were good and overcast days are perfect for travel. Bright sun can hurt my eyes. If it snowed anywhere, the snow had melted when it rained in the early morning.

Almost immediately, I was thrilled to see a great blue heron on the River Road as I left Dixon.  Soon after turkey vultures were circling above Highway 2, waiting to see if any of us motorists killed anything for them.

The Rock River, which I crossed and criss-crossed several times between Dixon and Milton, Wisconsin, is running high.  The melting Wisconsin snow is rushing down the river to Illinois.  It wouldn't surprise me if it overflows the bank as it has many times in the past.

Farther north, ducks and geese were on their way north.  At Lake Butte des Morts at Oshkosh, I saw flocks of scaup, though without a telescope (and speeding along at 65 miles per hour) I couldn't identify if they were lesser or greater scaup. At Little Lake Butte des Morts at Menasha, I saw my first tern of the season.  King birds sat on telephone wires.

Tomorrow I have to go to the Mosquito Hill Nature Center near New London for a meeting so I will stop at Van Patten Road and see which of the migratory birds have arrived.

It does feel so good to be home.

Last Day in Illinois

This afternoon, I helped Gary with work around the farm yard. My job was pulling up vines. It was the first gardening of the season so I enjoyed that, though I'll have a sore back tonight.

Now Gary is packing up his laundry and various gadgets he wants me to take back to Seymour tomorrow. He will join me there on April 10^th. We have a month after that to do a few things like guard sturgeon and do the annual Midwest crane count, and then mid-May, camping season starts. We almost certainly will get a canoe trip on the Wolf River in there somewhere.

It was Bettyann Moore's turn to do a story and post it at Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com. It turned out that her story was too long, so she will do a two or three part story which means I won't have to write another for another three or four weeks. I am looking at that as a vacation from writing.

Instead, I am going to be working on PR for the three books I've written or co-written since September 2012. It is time to set up more book signing events, to work on learning about social media, and dropping books off at local libraries.

Decades of Love and Other Disasters has joined the others at Amazon.com. I checked the sales statements a little while ago. I've now sold enough books to get a royalty check in May. I am hoping to make that a regular thing.

I'll also be working on setting up more storytelling tours. There will be the Circle Tour around Lake Superior in July. Liz Miller from New Zealand has asked me to meet her in Jonesborough, Tennessee in October, though I am not sure the Mercury Sable is up for a drive in the Appalachian Mountains. And of course, I want a tour in February 2014, my annual Get Away from Snow excursion.

There is plenty do do.  A busy summer ahead.

Bluebirds and Happiness

Today Gary and I walked through the fields of this Illinois farm. Gary lived in Dixon growing up  but spent a lot of time here during the summers with his Uncle George and Aunt Shirley, brother and sister. Now he is here on his own though he will be returning to Seymour on April 10.

We were barely out of the farmyard when I spotted a blur of blue and orange.  Sure enough it was a bluebird, followed by another and another and soon we had a flock of the little darlings. Killdeer were calling from the ditches and the robins were everywhere.  Spring is erupting in northern Illinois.

The temperature was 60 degrees, the day was sunny, perfect for exploration.

Up the road we found a neighbor shoveling horse manure into his vegetable garden. I told him about a parade I'd seen in Scotland.  In an American parade the equestrian units are usually followed by a volunteer with a shovel and a rolling bin to collect the warm leavings.  In Scotland, no manure collector is needed. The moment a horse drops an apple a little old lady rushes out to harvest it for her roses.  The fellow thought that as pretty funny.

The Harms farm is one of the prettiest in the state.  Most of Illinois is flat, but this farm has a creek and rolling terrain and plenty of trees.  We climbed up a slope with a marvelous view of the surrounding country then worked our way down to a cow lane.  This path has been here for over a century so is worn down.  There was mud because of the run off from the slopes but we didn't mind.  We crawled through barb wire fences and climbed over gates. I certainly didn't feel 69 when I accomplished that.

A herd of at least six deer flew over the barbed wire fence.  We scared up a covey of quail.

We returned to sit on lawn chairs on the front porch and drink lemonade as we waited to wave at cars going by but none went by. Plock Road is quiet except for people driving by on their way to work in the morning and again on their way home. The rest of the day we have the place to ourselves.

Except for the two cats who really run the place.