Open Writing

Friday morning, approximately 2am Eastern Standard Time, our elderly cat, The Princess, let out an extremely loud yowl, followed immediately by another one still louder. And topped off by the loudest and most hair-raising utterance ever produced by a domestic cat.

With the quickness of thought, and the coolness of a veteran Household Forelady, she immediately evaluated the problem, issued the appropriate orders to all concerned, and returned to her bed to supervise and evaluate the result, secure in the knowledge of her management skills.

"Jerry," she shouted. "That's the cat. I think she's in the front bedroom."

I had also recognized the voice of our faithful pet, I could have done without the added noise. But having been married to this young lady for several years, and sleeping with the cat quite often too, I decided my best role was to remain silent. I looked behind me, and noted the cat standing there, with her eyes big and her fur all on end.

I have never known of a cat to suffer nightmares, but that's what it looked like to me. I offered that conjecture to my spouse.

Neither my wife nor my cat seemed to concur.

But I went back to bed, and so did the other participants.

I'm glad they didn’t object. I doubt Dr. Nordman would be pleased to have me suggest a house call.

Staying In Shape

Our old dog Sox is about twelve, according to Avie. For a small dog, half Cocker and half Scottie, that's getting right up there. Maybe older than I am in people years. And for the past several years, her maximum speed and distance have been limited by how fast and how far I am willing and able to go at the other end of the leash.

But she manages to stay fit and trim, by means of a rigorous exercise regimen. At certain times and places, often in front of the TV while we are eating supper, our attention is drawn by small scuffling noises. There is our venerable housedog, lying on her back, with all four legs waving it the air, and her head thrashing from side to side. She will continue, often for fifteen minutes or more. She then rolls over on her stomach, stretches all legs, neck, and back, and relaxes for a while.

Same routine again, several times a day. Wish I could do that.

Trick or treat

When we moved out here from Indianapolis, our kids were all grown and gone, so we weren't plugged into the folkways surrounding school-aged kid events. These things are very much local in their details. What one neighborhood thinks is the one and only way to celebrate is completely foreign to the school district down the road, and likely very different from the way everyone did it here, in 1987.

In our neighborhood in Indy, at about the time our last kids were growing up, there were hoards of young'uns, literally hundreds trick-or-treating if the weather was good. Some of them were big enough you wondered if they were really kids. Of course that was at the very top of the Baby Boom, right after WWII, and our Indy neighborhood was all three-bedroom houses on slabs, purchases by means of a GI Loan.

Our first Halloween, we planned for the usual 100 or so kids, not certain how the lower population density, lack of sidewalks, and notable lack of kids out on the streets would play out.

We had a jack-o-lantern, a couple of corn shocks, and a ghost in the front yard. Almost nobody showed. We still had candy bars in the freezer next summer. I finally made the last of the cider into cider wine, to keep it from going to waste.

Every year, for more than twenty years, we have made at least minimal preparations for trick or treaters. Every year nobody comes.

I think I've finally figured it out. The kids know we are expecting them. They know Avie will always be on a diet, and that I'm too cheap to let food go to waste.

So, here's their very subtle trick. They let me get all ready, and sit there with my Halloween goodies, forlornly waiting for the kids who aren't going to come.

In sadness and sorrow I finally turn off the porch light. I begin stuffing myself with the candy and junk I had to do without back during depression times.

The trick-or-treaters all sit there with their parents in their nice comfortable cars, and snicker at me as I deal with a monster case of heartburn.

That's their trick.

Goodbye, Washoe

Born somewhere in the African jungle, around September, 1965. Died October 30, 2007, at medical facilities connected with the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute, a part of the Central Washington University, where she had resided since 1980.

The 42-year-old Chimpanzee is widely held to be the first of either race to become a fluent speaker of both the human language known as ASL, (American Sign Language), and her native chimpanzee dialect. The humans who devoted a large part of their lives to working with Washoe, Allen and Beatrice Gardner, were the first linguists to realize that attempting to teach a spoken language, when her voice system was not capable of reproduce a number of human speech sounds, imposed an impossible barrier.

In non-technical terms, to teach a chimp to talk, first you have to be smarter than the chimp.

Perhaps in later times professional ego considerations will make it possible for Washoe to be given the credit she deserves.