Suzy's Latest Take on Philosophy

🎄 Meowee Christmas!🎄

4 days!

  

          Sometimes it’s very instructive to just let your cats talk amongst themselves and listen to them. You can learn a lot that way. You really have to pay close attention.

            For instance, last night Suzy was reclining, Odalisque style, on the old gas heater and she looked thoughtful as she often does. Willie, the built-in masculine gainsayer was on the green chair just in front of the heater. They were talking about a workable philosophy of life. Cats are past masters at this because they have nothing else to do really.

            “I think I have it figured out,” said Suzy.

            Willie’s eyes flew open in alarm. “What!”

            “How life works. I’ve got it this time,” said she.

            “That’s a little sinister coming from you,” Willie laughed.

            “No, listen, Willie. You know how they’re always talking about all different kinds of living creatures as if each type is a totally unique entity? Well, that can’t be true.

            “I have come to the conclusion that each species is a different form of cat. Some possessing great feline virtue have a close appearance to a literal cat, such as we are.

            “Some, perhaps having really messed up in a former life, come in forms such as bugs, snakes, fish and all those, or even, shudder, as dogs. It’s hard to imagine what a cat could do to come back in the form of a dog!” said Suzy in wonderment.

            “In fact, upon consideration, I have determined that the UR form of life, the original template is that of cat. Erring past lives have to account for the apparent variety!” she said.

            “I find myself quite speechless,” said Willie. This was, of course, not true.

            “Suzy, what about humans?” inquired Willie. I listened very closely then!

            “What I think is this. Those who come back as human were very silly cats, doing things no cat should do,” said Suzy. “Like building things and organizing large groups of cats. That’s not catlike, is it?”

            “What about mice?” said Willie. “Are you sure there isn’t a whole ‘nother order of creation there that you haven’t wedged into your philosophy?” said Willie.

            “No. Mice fit too. They must have been cringing, Scardycats™. Thus they deserve to be mice this time ‘round!” asserted Suzy.

            “Hold up, Suzy. Do you remember what Toots said the last time you got carried away?” said Willie, stifling his guffaws.

            Suzy seemed to be wracking her brain for a few quiet seconds.

            “Not sure,” she said.

            “I’m probably paraphrasing, but what she said was that cat heads are too little for philosophy. It’s not our specialty. We’re made for love, comfort, and napping. And eating, of course! “Just Purr™, Suzy! It’s all ya gotta do!” insisted Willie, rearranging himself to go back to sleep. “Like, take a nap!”

            “Well, if Toots says so, I’ll consider it,” purred Suzy, as she drifted off to sleep.

            And I was left alone there, at my desk, to consider the merits of her assertions!

😻

December 20, The Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest

           It had been a rainy sloppy fall, with floods in the lowlands, but now there was snow in the forest park where Marge did camp host duty. It wasn’t a great deal of snow, and it melted during the daytime, leaving drifts in the shadows. A few hardy types still came up, in campers to spend the night or a few hours in the forest. No tent campers had come lately.

            Marge had helped her mom, Enid, decorate for Christmas at her house over on the dirt road near Ooog and Thaga’s place. That done, she brought a string of multi-colored outdoor lights to the park and arranged them on the outside of her tiny mobile. Then, when she was in town, she went to the Walmart store and bought a very small artificial Christmas tree and set it up in her window where anyone could see it, which was the idea, after all. It came with small white lights attached, but she added some trinkets, shiny balls and a string of glittery stuff.
            She went outside when she was done to have a look. The light was fading, it being 4PM. It looked great in the dim light she thought. Her own Christmas décor. She wished that Twigg would wander over and slip into the park to have a look at her work.
            The next day dawned, colder than the one before, and with a fresh six inches of snow on the ground. Marge dressed warmly, parka and all, and put on her boots. She thought she would just walk around the campground to make sure everything looked OK.
            When she got outside she found big bare footprints around her mobile. So, maybe Twigg had seen her handiwork. She had to assume it was he, because who else would come into the park and walk straight to her home?
            But why didn’t he knock or something, she wondered. While she was wondering she messed up a lot of the prints by stomping around. This involved leaving the campground and walking clear to the ranger station and through the parking lot and over to the area of the dumpster where the tracks went on into the forest. She quit there.
            Right as she was about to go back to her place, an old gray Honda Civic pulled in and parked. She knew the driver alright, but they hadn’t talked. It was Dexter, the National Forest trainee coming to work.
            “Hi,” said Dexter when he got out of the Honda. Then he blushed and walked quickly to the station door and went inside. Rick was already there; his truck was parked in its usual spot. All was quiet again in the parking lot.
            “Hi!” Marge had said to his retreating back.
            “Funny guy,” Marge said to the silent air. Then she forgot about Dexter. It was so pretty outside, so crispy and cold. Clumps of snow fell out of some of the firs making soft landings on the snow covered ground.
            Inside the office, Dexter watched at the window as she walked away. He felt like a total clown.
            Rick walked out of the kitchen nook with a coffee mug in his hand.
            “Good morning,” he said absently and plopped down at his desk. “I made the coffee. Help yourself.”
            Dexter did help himself. With his coffee, he took a seat silently.
            Rick glanced up at him, and then down to his laptop, which he was fiddling with.
            “I want you to go up and tell Marge that I’m going to close the camp for January and February. Her mom lives close. We’ll play March by ear depending on the weather,” said Rick.
            To tell the truth, Marge kind of scared Dexter. He hadn’t ever been good at conversing with girls, even at school. But, he manfully got up to follow directions.
            Ranger Rick smiled a little after Dexter left the office.
            On the way up to see Marge, he noticed a whole string of scuffed out foot prints leading from the edge of the forest. It seemed odd. The strange trail continued all the way to the camp mobile.
            As Dexter approached he saw that the mobile had been decorated for Christmas. All his memories of Christmas past crowded into his mind. He loved the lights. He loved how it transformed the world, just by putting up those colored lights. He saw her little fake tree in the window, shining bravely. He stopped and looked for a moment, then walked on.
            Dexter knocked on her door and waited.
            The door opened and there she was. Hair pinned up, Carhartt overalls, a long sleeved black t-shirt with the sleeves shoved up to her elbows. Sharp blue eyes asking a question.
            “Hi, Dexter. Do you want to come in? Are you here on business?” she laughed.
            “Yeah. Both. I’ll come in and I’m here on business,” he said.
            There were two kitchen chairs beside a truly tiny table, the one with the little tree on it. So they sat there by the Christmas tree.
            “When I walked up I thought what you did looked really pretty,” said Dexter.
            “Thank you,” said Marge.
            “The business is that Rick wanted me to tell you that he’s going to close the campground for January and February, and maybe March if the snow is too deep for campers,” said Dexter.
            “I wondered. I was going to go talk to him about winter. I guess, I’ll go stay with mom and her husband for the winter. I guess I’ll still be around in the spring. I think,” she said.
            “I thought you might be upset,” said Dexter. “Hey, I followed some really weird tracks up here. I bet you know something about them. Looked like somebody was obscuring someone’s trail.”
            “Well, yeah. You remember Twigg? I guess he came up here to see me in the middle of the night and I was already asleep,” she said. “So, I messed up his footprints, just in case anyone but one of you guys saw them. There aren’t any Forest People here, by definition, and I mean to help keep it that way.”
            “Can I ask you a question,” said Dexter.
            “I guess so, how bad can it be?” said Marge.
            “Are you and Twigg together, you know?” he blurted out.
            She looked at him for a count or two and then said, “Nah! Me and Twigg are like we had the same mommy and daddy!” Then she giggled like it was a pretty funny idea.
            “I just wondered!” said Dexter. Then he laughed.
            “Alright, I’ll go tell Rick you’ve got the message,” said Dexter. “See ya!”
            And off he went!

🎄

Out Of The Mists Of The Everett Past

   

It vas a black and vhite vorld back den...

  

       As it happens, I was preparing to write a short open thread type post about a guy who wrote and performed a funny PNW Christmas song. 
            When I did my little bit of research on this character, I was surprised to learn that he had been born in Everett, WA in 1925 to Norwegian, of course, parents, who parents were Norwegian immigrants. 
            This town used to be kind of Norski/Native central. That's still here, but less so.
            Anyhow, this funny guy was Stan Boreson. He used to do a kid's live TV show that sibs and I watched pretty faithfully. There were several of these TV shows in those days. I think we put up with his jokes and songs to get to the cartoon. There was always a cartoon tucked into kid's TV shows, the prize in the box of grownup's attempts to entertain children.
            Stan was a Seattle fixture. The kind of guy with a low level public persona. You knew who he was if you saw him around Seattle.
            He did a whole Christmas album, but this song is the one I always think of around Christmas.  

Boreson, Stan (1925-2017)

A nice history by History Link

Musician, recording artist, humorist, and pioneering '50s kiddie-TV show star -- Stan Boreson was Everett's king of Scandinavian humor. He has brought joy to generations in his native Northwest, across America, and around the globe. In his six decades of recording and performing, Boreson became a regional icon, an American treasure via sales of his 15 albums and a half-dozen appearances on Garrison Keillor's radio show A Prairie Home Companion, and an in-demand act who once accepted a direct concert request by King Olav of Norway, and later in 2005, was further honored by Norway's King Harald V with the St. Olav Medal of Honor -- one step shy of full knighthood....

 

🎼

❄

The Christmas Puppy for Purrsday!

 

🤍🐶🤎

            On the occasion of Christmas 2023, we presented a reading of The Christmas Puppy, written by Kathryn Jackson, who wrote many of the Golden Books of days of yore. It was illustrated by Richard Scarry, whose pictures are also well know to all readers of children's books.
            I went hunting for information about the book, The Animal's Merry Christmas, which includes The Christmas Puppy. It's out of print since the 1950s. There is a newer printing with Scarry's name predominate. It was hard to find except on Etsy or Ebay. 
            It is offered again this year in an appeal to simpler days, childhood, and the child's love of Christmas. Included here is the recording I made of me reading it back then. I hope it's loud enough!

            PS, there are any number of stories out in the wild called The Christmas Puppy! I had to search carefully.

🎄

The Night Louis Went To Payson

 

 
            Louis had been thirteen years old for as long as anyone could remember.
            Louis liked to hang around in town, cloaked of course. He was largely unsupervised.
            Mr. and Mrs. Ferard Feather were harmless retirees. They ate dinner at 5PM and turned out the lights before the evening news. They had two cats, who slept with them. Frank and Jesse.
            Louis had heard an oogah horn somewhere. Maybe it was a generational knowing. Or he had been listening outside some house and heard a TV program about the old days. He thought it was an excellent sound bite.
            It was a beautiful Arizona night. The sky was deep with stars. The Saguaro stood silently, rapt. One owl mentioned a thing to another owl. Then it was as silent as silent can be.
            There was frost on the ground, but Louis doesn’t get cold. He had slept the day away and he was awake now.
            He took a little stroll into the residential part of town. It was that time of year when people put colored lights on the outside of their houses and on trees in their yards. Most of the houses had lights on inside and the inhabitants were doing whatever humans do all the time in those closed wooden boxes. It confused Louis. There was nothing of interest in those boxes as far as he was concerned. He knew because he had looked.
            He chose the house with darkened windows. Those were the best.
            He went to the window next to the bedroom. He could hear them sleeping in there.
            So, he sent out into the night a series of antique horn honks to the very best of his ability and as loudly as he could.
            Frank and Jesse left the bed for safer climes.
            Francie elbowed Ferard. “Ferd, wake up! Can you hear that?” she said.
            “Yes, Francie, I hear it. Rather stunning, isn’t it?” said sleepy Ferard.
            “Are you going to do something about it? Or shall I?” the wife inquired.
            Mr. Feather got out of bed, put on his heavy robe and some slippers and clumped off to the back door and went outside to see what all the racket was about. He had forgotten his glasses on the beside table, so he wasn’t seeing a whole lot.
            He went around to the side of the house where the bedroom window was.
            “OK, funny guy. Are you still out here?” he said.
            Louis was very happy. Someone had come outside. He sent a cloud of tiny orbs the size of peas out for the nice old man.
            “Very good,” said Ferard. “I wish I could do that.” And he really did wish he could do that.
            The tiny lights flew out into the desert. Louis giggled.
            “So you are still here. Why don’t you show yourself,” said Ferard.
            “You’ll probably scream. They all do,” said Louis.
            “I doubt it,” said the old man. “Go ahead, I’ve already seen everything else.”
            Louis cautiously uncloaked, waiting for the shocked intake of breath and maybe a throaty shriek. Nothing happened.
            There he stood. Over six feet tall, heavily built. Covered in soft brown hair, brown eyed, with a joker’s smirk on his young kisser. He was a good 8 inches taller than Mr. Feather.
            “Hi,” said Mr. Feather. “You woke my wife up and scared my cats.”
            “I wanted to see if I could get somebody to come out of their box,” said Louis.
            “Well, I did. What’s next? Do you have a name?” said the old guy in slippers and robe.
            “I don’t know what’s next,” said Louis. “Usually people run away. My name is Louis.”
            “Nice to meet you, Louis. You seem like a nice kid. Mostly. Tell you what. I’d like to go back to bed and sleep the rest of the night. That OK with you? My name is Feather, by the way.”
            “Sure. That’s OK with me, Feather,” said Louis.
            “Hey, kiddo. Could you make me one of those little lights to take in and show Francie?” said Ferard.
            “Yeah! Hey, cool, Feather! Yeah, I’ll do that!” said Louis. And he did. He made a pink one about as big as a Clementine orange. He made it shimmer, and told it to last all night before going poof.
            “Thanks, Louis. Francie is really going to like this!” said Mr. Ferard Feather. “Goodnight, Son!”
            “Goodnight, Feather. I won’t do it again!” said Louis. “Sleep tight!”
            Ferard went on around the corner of the house to the back door and let himself in. He carried the pink orb carefully in his left hand.
            Louis went on home.
            Of course, what Louis meant was that he wouldn’t do it to the Feather’s house again.

🌵

Happy Tootsday All!

🤍

 Ten Ways To Tell If Ralph Is Secretly Visiting You

1. You hear strange noises, but no one is around and nothing is happening. Such as Jingle Bells, the song or the jingling.

2. You smell wonderful things, and no one is in the kitchen doing anything interesting. Perhaps something like peppermint, or chocolate, or pumpkin pie spice.

3. You hear people outside your house singing songs? Are they songs you know? Or are they songs in a strange sibilant and unfamiliar tongue, but sound very merry? Better run outside and see!

4. Is your cat or your dog acting strangely for no reason? Is she sitting alone and looking around with happy eyes and purring at an empty space? Did he say, “wuff!” a couple of times and then face the window and look back at you and practically nudge you?

5. You suddenly remember happy days of childhood, things you haven’t thought of in decades, things you had forgotten. Tears of joy come unbidden?

6. All of a sudden you feel as if you could run forever? You have astounding strength? Yes?

7. You begin to count your blessings and you lose count! It’s too much! There are so many, and again you weep tender tears.

8. Suddenly you suspect that you are surrounded by angels! Maybe if you try you can see them!

9. Confidence, hope, and love fill your chest, crowding out ennui and weariness.

10. Do you literally feel a big invisible warm hairy hand pulling one of your legs by the foot? Yeah. It’s him. Ralph has come to share some joy with you.  

👣

Water Changes Things!

 

            When the people and their familiar beasts came back down out of the mountain, they found a changed world.
            A rather tentative sun shone above them as they trooped back down the same way they had climbed up two days before. The great Raven flew overhead. Her eye was on all below. From time to time the girl-child looked up to see black wings block the sun. She raised her hand toward the bird.
            Ralph led them into the forest. His feet sank deeply into the sodden soil, then the followers had the same experience. The column of travelers with muddy feet descended further, nearer home.
            A mist came up from the ground, smelling of forest loam and resinous plant life.
            An inquisitive wind came up the path, blowing the mist away.
            There were signs of heavy rain on the way down, but not flood as such.
            Ramona held Cherry tightly in her arms. Blue stayed beside Ramona’s feet. Berry and Bob walked on either side of Twigg behind Ramona. They looked solemnly left and right, staying right with the young man.
            Aunt Suzy, she who had been a queen in some time, whether past or future, no one knew, walked behind Twigg and the cats. Her step was measured, even stately. Last of all was Uncle Bob, short in stature, but earnestly taking care on the trail.
            “Oh, Ralphie, look at it,” he said when they walked out into the open meadow.
            Small pools of water still lay on the ground here and there. But the sun was shining as if to encourage the grasses and flowers to stand again, and the grass was indeed reaching up to the sky.
            “It’ll be alright, Bob,” said Ralph. “Let’s go see how your Stump House made it through the flood.”  
            There was enough standing water to clean the walkers' feet as they traveled on.
            At last everyone stood before the Stump House. Its door still held. The fire pit was gone and would have to be rebuilt, but no great harm was done. In fact, the meadow was higher than the Home Clearing. Uncle Bob and Suzy stayed there, and Ralph led his family on.
            “Birdie!” called Ralph, “Will you go see Thaga and Ooog? Tell them that we are back down from the mountain. Ask them if they are also well.”
            “Yes, I will,” Maeve said, and she left them walking home.
            The path left the meadow and went down the familiar way into the forest. Here the ground cover looked ravaged. It was a solemn homecoming.
            Ralph’s favorite log was there of course, being much too heavy for even a flood to carry away. However, the flood had carried away his stash of cigars and beer. The cigar box and both sixpacks of Heineken were gone without a trace left behind.
            “Could be worse,” said Ralph. Ramona nodded, holding on to Cherry tightly.
            More mist rose from the ground. Water dripped from the firs.
            Maeve returned. She silently lit on Ralph’s shoulder as he walked.
            “Well, Birdie, what did they say?” said Ralph.
            “They are well. Their house was not damaged. The garden will need some work,” said Maeve. “They are grateful to hear that your people and yourself are well and back home.”
            “Thank you, Maeve,” said Ralph.
            The Home Clearing looked washed, as if some gigantic hand had scrubbed it with an impossible amount of water and left it to dry in the sunlight.
            “Ralph, will you open the door. I’m a little afraid to look,” said Ramona. She stood beside her circle of river boulders. There was no trace of a fire ever having burnt there. Nothing was left but the stones.
            The seating logs had rolled a little, but were there.
            “Yes, Mona, I will,” he said and undid the latch and pulled the green painted wooden door, the door made by Ooog, open.
            “The door did its job, Mona. There is just a little water behind the it. Not much at all,” said Ralph.           
            “I was afraid,” she said quietly.
            “We need fire. Twigg and I will go find some wood, then we’ll go get some fish, and life will go on,” said Ralph, looking more like himself.
            And so, after the flood in the Great Forest, life did go on as it always does.
            The river was back in its bed as before.
            The fish were handy and obedient, and the wind helped things dry up nicely.

🐟