family

Love-ly Lamp

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I think Pictorama readers know by now that I am very susceptible to stumbling on something while scrolling through the internet, eBay and Instagram in particular. I see a heck of a lot and, if you think of it in proportion to what I see I inquire about a small amount and purchase and even smaller amount – although it does pile up. Anyway, this lamp popped out at me while casually strolling through Instagram and I went so far as to purchase it for the house in Jersey. It came to us via Mike Zohn @obscuraantiques whose antique store on the we used to visit on the Lower Eastside before his relocation to points south of here.

Pictorama readers might also remember that I have a soft spot for lamps and have posted about a number of them purchased for the house here and a few for the apartment in New York. (I was thinking about this the other day and remembering that for my father it was clocks and chairs. Man, my father would go way out of his way if he thought an antique clock might be in the offing. When he was a bit younger he was also that way about antique chairs – I grew up with an extraordinary number of chairs in the house – many were Shaker in origin. We could have seated small concerts or film viewing. They were like cat nip to him. Meanwhile, some of those past lamp posts can be found here and here.)

Somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking that this lamp would look nice and be useful in our bathroom – I am not a huge fan of the overhead light. I was assured that it had been rewired and all I would need is a shade and the hardware for the shade however when it arrived the thingy where the bulb goes looked awfully gnawed away. It took a number of months before I could get it to the hardware store here which is a splendid place to get work done on lamps.

Fair Haven hardware is one of those rare thriving businesses that manages to look (and smell) both contemporary while remaining steeped in its longstanding past. Fair Haven Hardware is 72 years young this year and while it was sold by the son of the original owner to a employee a few years ago, he’s pledged to keep it going for the next 70 years. (I recently got on my elevator in Manhattan and was talking to a neighbor who used to have a home down here, when she talked about selling she said the thing she’d miss most was this great hardware store in Fair Haven!) Their 70th anniversary banner still hangs on the front of the shop.

Kim and I were trying to analyze what the smell is. It is reminiscent of an aging Woolworth’s or ancient five and dime of that variety with perhaps a bit more fertilizer and grass seed thrown in. You might say dust but it isn’t dusty, nor is it dark, quite well lit really.

Anyway, they replaced the bit that holds the bulb and now I just need the hardware for the shade and a shade. While it isn’t exactly light, it is not as heavy as it might look. It’s sort of a dotty design and the ageing patina improves its appearance I think. I continue to think it might have a place in the bathroom. (Although I recently purchased a night light for it and it seems a tad less pressing than it did.)

Buying a shade for a lamp online is a bit difficult and this has prevented me from purchasing one for Popeye as well. You have a desire to see how various shades look. I need to find a local store where I can take them and pop a few on, like trying on hats. Or I can gird my loins, order online and take my chances. I’ll let you know what I decide.

Swanning

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: In a sense this is a New Jersey post. We’re here and it is an object I purchased with this house in mind. It showed up in my feed and I instantly snapped it up. (Like yesterday’s postcard post, this also courtesy @Marsh.and.Meadow via Instagram.)

My mother was devoted to swans – the real ones that lived in the river on our property when I was growing up. She loved them and she started feeding them and they got to know her. She also began to help injured ones. People began bringing them from all over and would call for her help and advice. Along with the geese they were generally despised and over time she fought to keep them from being rounded up and gassed along with the geese. (There were resources, such as chasing dogs, that could be used to rid your yard of geese – the Geese Police.) It was a complicated issue but she was firmly on one side of it.

Swan planter awaiting plants out back.

This passion played out over the background of my sister’s illness and treatment for cancer. It kept mom out as a part of the world beyond care taking in the house. She picked up a long unused camera and began taking pictures of them.

During that period I can remember coming to visit and sharing a bathroom (not really because swans don’t share) with an injured swan spending the night inside. There was one she called Sweetheart in particular that did a lot of time in the house. Frequently swans and other water birds swallow fishline or “sinkers” which, in turn twist in their gut or give them lead poisoning. Those that recovered would be released either into our river or given to someone with a protected pond on their property. Some of the swans were pinioned (wings clipped) to keep them in a small waterbody on a property but often without enough food. They were moved to where they could be supervised as flying is their only real defence.

Sadly my sister eventually died. Not too long after my parents left their house by the river after Hurricane Sandy. Mom herself moved from a walker to being largely immobile. Throughout it all she continued to take calls about swans and other injured or endangered waterfowl. Pictorama readers know that she was also clearly a sucker for cats and adopted four of the Jersey five I have today in those last years. (Yes, this means I inherited four very young cats out of five. I sometimes say I have cats for life.)

A bit of stained glass with a swan that was a gift to mom years ago. Next to a chair with a view of the yard she favored. She’d be pleased with how much it has grown in and been added to.

While mom was never one to pick up bits and pieces (I inherited that from my father and his family – a post about their collecting can be found here) there are a few bits of evidence of her love for swans in the house. Some cards made from her photos and of course some prints. There are a few swans either in the yard or tucked away in the house. I am looking at a piece of stained glass someone gave her.

Yet, as soon as I saw this door knocker, green with age and patina, clearly weighing a ton, I had to have it for the house here. Someone may have tried to clean it a long ago mistaken day, at least that is what I think the white bits in places represent. The knocker is largely the long neck of the swan.

Swan door knocker. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

He is a beady eyed fellow. No cartoon cuteness to him. The bottom is sort of decorative feathers and even abstracted feet. It ends in a sort of blossom, water reed design.

It weighs a ton! Realistically I would not be surprised if I am unable to install it here although I will try. My metal fireproof door may be able to hold it (although my current knocker is hung with one bolt rather than two) and I will have to let you know! If not, I will find somewhere else to put it here. It seems like mom would have liked it very much.

Atlantic Highlands

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s postcard, celebrating a local summer spot where I grew up in New Jersey, seems like a fitting Memorial Day holiday kick-off card. I purchased it at the postcard show bonanza of a few months ago with the intention of framing it for the house in NJ where I am gathering a few early cards of local spots I love.

This one was mailed on August 8, 1923 from Atlantic Highlands at 11 AM. It was mailed to Mr. Robert Del Paso, 44 Est 98th Street, New York. Written on the back is a brief note, Best regards to you and your sister from Dorothy and Eugene.

The view shown here is the one that you now see from the ferry when it pulls in. It looks nothing like this now, a small public beach is at the landing and some low condos not far beyond. Boats dock nearby and restaurants and small businesses dot the edge of the water along with some houses, although you don’t see those right in this spot either, as it is largely in the shadow of a much larger bridge.

The approach to Atlantic Highlands via ferry from 2021.

The first time I took the ferry into Atlantic Highlands, the sense memory of that spot was amazing. On the occasions I would go sailing with my dad or on the creaking wooden fishing boat of my grandfather, the Imp, we would head first under one bridge and then the other and to the bay or ocean. The sense of history smacked me hard being on that spot of the water again.

I have touched on this Jersey shore enclave before, not long ago in a post about Bahr’s Restaurant which can be found here. I opined on the thoughts I had about living there at one time, and the history of that restaurant where I had what turned out to be a last birthday dinner with my sister, a few decades past now.

Atlantic Highlands, and it’s kissin’ cousin Highlands, abut the area of the shore I grew up in. (Highlands is the hamlet slightly further into the river side, Atlantic Highlands faces out toward the ocean and beyond.) However, while Sea Bright, a spit of land that adjoins it, was an almost daily destination, the Highlands while hard by, somehow were the route less taken. I believe that this was probably largely due to beach traffic and while being almost within shouting distance as the crow flies it was rarely the shortest way to go anywhere from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

The parking lot for the ferry, next to the small public beach and some condos.

Once I hit high school we made it part of our route when traffic died down late in the evening. We ate lobster rolls and drank beer at shacks at the edge of the river at the junction where the bay joins the river and the ocean. Also on our route was a movie theater that showed films recently fallen out of circulation for an admission of $1.00. Beyond that, expensive restaurants that hugged the shore and gave a view as far as Manhattan on a clear day and those were beyond our means.

Atlantic Highlands, as shown in this postcard, attaches to Sandy Hook beach (and now state park) via the bay. Not only has this quaint wooden bridge been replaced, but the concrete one of my childhood (which seemed plenty big at the time, bigger than its Sea Bright counterpart which required a draw bridge function for the passing parade of boats) was replaced very recently by a true behemoth of a bridge.

Moby’s lobster shack on the water.

The one in Sea Bright is also under reconstruction and I gather will no longer be the draw bridge of my childhood – it’s opening hourly in the summer was how we timed our days in the summer in order to avoid it and the traffic back-up it would cause. I had a boyfriend in high school who had a summer job working the bridge which was a great gig and the retirement job of numerous fishermen. I don’t know how, in retrospect, Ed got that job but many envied him it. I am sorry to say I never visited the tiny shack mid-bridge that was the man cave you stayed in if you worked the bridge.

The theater is evidently still there.

I’m also sorry to have to say that one of the people I spent the most hours with in Atlantic Highlands is gone now. A long former boyfriend, I had fallen out of touch with Sam Lutz, and found out via local connections that he died a few years ago.

I suspect I will eventually return to writing about this area. For some reason it lives in my memory in a way other places do not. However, for now, this rosy sun setting over the Highlands hills is a good place to leave Pictorama for the holiday weekend as I head out there shortly.

Easter…1966 and Now

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is a pile of Easter bits. I looked and it appears I haven’t really written about Easter since 2021 which was a spring still fraught with pulling out of the pandemic. At that time I wrote a bit about the family Easter/Passover traditions from my childhood there including glorious Easter egg hunts at my grandmother’s house. (That post can be found here and another from an earlier post about my grandmother can be found here.)

When weather permitted we were outside in her yard and finding Easter eggs and treats among the nascent tulips and hyacinth planted there. In retrospect it was likely my uncle who did the Easter planning since mom and dad were with us and my grandparents were already older. I think there was at least one year when weather did not permit and we did it inside.

My sister Loren and I back on Easter 1966.

As it happens, I have a photograph from one of those Easter Sundays above. It is not an especially good photograph but it is family history for me so I am stretching the point. I (on the right in the yellow flowered dress) would have just turned two and my sister Loren (in a very unlikely pink dress), would be a month beyond her fourth birthday. We are seated on my grandmother’s green couch which was covered in impossibly scratchy fabric, flowered wallpaper behind us and and window where in particular the blinds were not raised in my memory. The living room was always cool and dark. There was matching green figured wall-to-wall carpet on the floor there.

Somewhere in my possession is a photo of us all outside on an Easter Sunday morning and I am wearing a light blue coat and Easter bonnet I feel like I can still remember being very proud of. Perhaps we’ll have that one next year if found.

Loren, true to form, looks like she is only seated reluctantly for the moment this photo took. She’s smiling but I recognize her tightly wound energy – she’s ready to go tearing around. While meanwhile yours truly was more of a jolly lump who would go along with whatever. We never wore dresses, let alone ones like this, and if I had to guess I would say these were a single symbolic for Easter only wearing.

This photo hung in my grandmother’s house forever, actually right near the couch shown here if memory serves, and this snapshot shows its wear. I can’t remember if this is before or after the egg hunt. I suspect they did it first thing before we had time to ruin our clothing.

Mom and Dad, Loren and I in November 1964.

I found it in an ancient plastic sleeve and behind it is a photo I prefer of the four of us, above. Printed neatly on the photo is November 1964 which makes me, shown in my mom’s arms, only 11 months old here; Loren in the plaid coat is only three. Mom and dad are very young here, Betty about 26 and Elliott 36. They are in what appear to be matching trench coats (normal for dad, a bit unusual for mom, dad must have bought it for her) and I love the little plaid jacket Loren is sporting. This the same front yard of my grandparents, my mom’s dad, Frank, would have still been alive, now a bit barren for fall. We lived in northern Jersey then, about an hour’s drive, and would have come in for a Sunday visit. This is more evocative for me – I can feel the fall air and smell that yard.

****

Yesterday Kim and I shook the dust off a bit and went downtown. Ostensibly, I had new eyeglass prescriptions to fill and I dropped those off in the East Village but it was a gorgeous unusually warm spring day. I was pleased I decided to stop next door to the eyeglass store at Porto Rico Coffee Importers as my favorite Danish roast was on sale. Particularly with the expectation of rising coffee prices I stocked up.

I love his toes! look at the size of the Steiff button in his ear!

However I also detoured us to the John Derian stores where I heard there was a large display of Steiff toys. I was not disappointed. We were greeted in one store by the giant elephant below (I should have taken a close up picture of the Steiff button in his ear – it was enormous, consistent with his enormity) and at the one devoted to fabrics, by the even more spectacular nodding warthog! For me these were well worth the price of admission right there. All three stores were nicely done up for Easter with a lot of vintage bunnies.

This moving warthog greets you at the John Derian fabric shop!

John Derian and I seem to have a more or less separated at birth sensibility. I know where he acquires much of his antique stock (or at least the type of places) and how much he pays so I can’t really ever buy from him – the mark up is too high. That doesn’t mean I don’t like seeing what he’s found and how he’s put it together. I purchase this or that small item, sort of on the edges of what is available. Somewhere deep inside what I really want is to see his house which probably has all the really good stuff! Sadly I do not think an invitation is forthcoming. (Some photos of the shops to scroll through below.)

Lastly, a teaser, something I can’t remember doing before but we have the chance today. I leave you with this photo of Cookie atop box she has happily commandeered. It contains a major toy purchase so she won’t be enjoying it for too long as I plan to open it today and share the contents with you soon. To be continued as they say.

Cookie on the mystery box…

Belated Birthday Fare

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: As those in the New York area know, it was a freakishly warm day here yesterday, topping out around 80 degrees. As a result the denizens of this metropolis poured onto the streets in wrinkled summer garb (or simply lack thereof) all white bellied and sleepy like a city of Rip Van Winkles. Kim and I entered the fray and spent the day hunting small Pam pleasures as is our program for my birthday.

A February birthday girl, this year I was bedeviled first by Kim’s Covid, followed by my own – and then a distressing string of funerals and memorials, plus one wedding! The MoCA comics festival thrown in too. All this to say, yesterday was our first day in a long time when we were left to our own devices.

Old Good Things is chock-a-block full of antique fixtures and a lot of brass. My dad was a utter sucker for brass fixtures and I can only imagine he would have come home with one of these. My father’s daughter, I too was tempted…

I started our itinerary with a stop at an antique and architectural salvage store, way over on the westside of midtown called Old Good Things which I have been curious about. (Their website can be found here.) I follow these folks on Instagram and while what they offer is generally just too large for my living situation but I have always wanted to visit the store. I do fantasize about replacing bathroom fixtures, maybe a fireplace mantel in NJ and light fixtures as well, and it sends me musing. There is much wonderful furniture, with an emphasis on wooden cabinets of drawers which is one of my own forms of kryptonite, hard to resist. Still, these are very large pieces for the most part and I live in small spaces.

Two intriguing standing lamps that had just come into stock. They are being rewired so I have a minute to think about investing in them.

Notably there were a few rather comfy and wonderful leather arm chairs but all I could see were happy cat claws so I moved along. These two standing lamps which just came into stock and had yet to be rewired were of interest – we could use a standing lamp here in the New York apartment and the weird sort of jadeite on one interests me. They were pricey but I will consider them. A good standing lamp is hard to find.

Then we headed downtown for what I considered the main event – the Metropolitan Postcard Club show and sale. I have not been to one since before Covid when they used to take place on 57th Street at a rundown Howard Johnson’s hotel near 8th Avenue. It was then a much larger affair, easily 3-4 times the size of the group yesterday. However, this just meant I burrowed a bit deeper and a very patient Kim joined me in sorting through boxes of cat postcards, with a few of New Jersey thrown in for good luck.

It was held at a pleasant, small and essentially non-descript church in the West Village called the Church of the Village. About a dozen dealers had a large circle of tables and it was quiet enough that you could sit and patiently go through the labeled boxes. I flashed a picture of yesterday’s Felix card on a few dealers to see if they had ever had any go through their hands. One looked quite stunned and said no, the other gave me a knowing look and said he might have one at home. I gave him my card.

I left the show lighter in dollars but happily heavy in cards and I will commence a liberal dissemination of them here in the coming weeks. It was well passed lunchtime and our tummies called so we wandered over to the Old Town Bar on 18th Street. I had a craving for an old establishment and this fit the bill perfectly. We’d eaten upstairs not that long ago but for lunch were seated at a table in the back.

My view of the main room at lunch yesterday. I would like to be there when it is quiet enough to go around the room and read what is on all the walls.

After lunch we made a quick trip to Blick so I could buy some watercolor brushes and paper. My friend Eileen (@EileenTravell) gave me a very lovely birthday gift of a nifty watercolor set for my birthday and I hope to commence playing with them soon.

Thank you again Eileen! I hope to make some use of these.

The next real stop of the day was The Strand bookstore. Our original thought was that we would just pop in to look in used fiction. (Kim looking for Dumas and I for someone named Carol Brink. We just saw a somewhat obscure Barbara Stanwyck 1953 film based on a Brink novel called Stopever. The films was renamed All I Desire, and directed by Douglas Sirk. It is masterful film making and visually stunning, like many of his films although this one in black and white and not the signature saturated color. A good TCM write up of the film, with spoilers, can be found here.) We came up empty handed on both scores but decided to head up to the Rare Book Room.

We’ll see if this acquisition is more than good looking on the outside.

Kim and I more or less nibble at the edges of the Rare Book Room. We aren’t interested in the signed first editions, but instead make our way to a few bookcases of more or less random old books. I have scored several items at this venue, including some that lead me further down the path of interesting authors or series. Despite the name, some of these volumes are very affordable.

Very competent illustrations by someone named G. Demain Hammond R.I.

However, I did pay up a bit for the book I bought yesterday. Shown here, it is a very pretty looking, illustrated volume which helps its cause. It actually may not need any help. I looked up the author, Rosa Mulholland, and she appears to be quite interesting. She was an Irish writer, very prolific and also wrote under the name of Rosa Gilbert, her married name – aka Lady Gilbert. Rosa appears to have worked the side of the street of fiction I like so maybe more about her to come over time as well.

A frequent stop either to or from The Strand.

We wrapped up with a quick look in Alabaster Bookshop around the corner from The Strand. Still checking for Dumas and coming up empty handed. I like Alabaster although they focus more on recent books and art volumes and I feel like I haven’t bought anything there in a while. I always check their kids and juvenile books, but it is a somewhat diminished section. I always remember that had a charmingly grumpy calico cat I saw grow from kittenhood on there. Her ghost still wafts through and I miss her.

That was it, a wrap on another birthday, perhaps all the better for the wait this year.

Concern for cats…

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I used to say that I would like to retire to a cat farm in Connecticut. Now, far from retired, those of you who follow my story know that it does appear that I roughly run one in New Jersey in addition of course to the feline folks here in New York. Additionally, my work life is now very animal centric and I can say I find myself in a place where I can have some very catty days indeed. Today I am dedicating a bit of space to my feline friends understanding it may not be the cat’s meow for all readers.

Peaches sees a bird out the window. She is ever watchful of the outside perimeter.

Just last Friday at work I found myself having a delightful hour crawling around on the floor of our member’s lounge with two new visitors, such good kitties they were out of their carriers and investigating the premises. Their mom adopts special needs cats only and is able to devote time and resources to their care. They are remarkably well adjusted cats and sat on my lap for pets and purrs.

Stormy is most likely to be seen at meals.
Milty, grand old man, napping.

In general, unlike dogs (some actually seem to enjoy a visit to our premises – others less so) cats are rarely up for an actual visit when they are at the vet. This is certainly true of mine. If left with me in an exam room Blackie will immediately start to examine all possible exits for a getaway, first checking the perimeter of the room and gesturing to the doors – come on mom, we can make a break for it. I had another cat, Otto, an excellent jumper, who would look upward and the next thing I knew she went from my shoulder to atop high cabinets and had to be fetched by office staff. It is more than fair to say I meet many more cats these days, albeit those under the duress of being at the vet.

Beauregard who has recently discovered the pleasures of Zoom and sitting on my desk in NJ.

My work integrates daily thinking about cat projects as well – fund a cat recovery area in surgery or ICU anyone? Pay for some research? The largest number of patients are dogs, and frankly we care for many exotics (it seems to me I have seen a lot of guinea pigs coming and going lately and even heard tell of a goldfish). One day in the hall one of our staff rushed past me with a teeny, tiny turtle in a plastic tub. However, cats are far from uncommon.

Cats (dogs – and other animals) which need to be rehomed are sometime detailed and emailed to staff as it is, obviously, a huge network of animal people. This in addition to a daily dose of cat tales and woes on posts via the internet where adoption and loss seem to vie for attention. Lovely adult and senior cats who have lost their home due to circumstances changing – illness, death or indifference.

Sunny front door action at the NJ house. A prime morning spot.

As much as the New Jersey cats are tended and adored in my absence I worry about them. Although it has worked out better than I thought it would and it was definitely how my mom wanted it. I continue to consider it a work in progress.

Here in New York, Blackie continues to confound us with a newfound desire to drink water from the sink. I have had other cats develop this desire, but Blackie is single minded in his demands. Yes, he has had all sorts of tests run about it and even taking his diabetes into account it is unclear where the increased water intake has come from. In part, one cannot separate out the entertainment factor of making your human perform simple tricks such as turning the faucet on for you when you caterwaul. Still, there is definitely a corresponding urge and he also drinks considerable water from his shared bowl with Cookie.

Gus on the bed in NJ. He is one cat I think misses getting singular attention.

Blackie’s sister Cookie has become a more affectionate cat as she gets older. She is demanding in her own way (in fact we sometimes call her Demanda) but usually for pets, preferring morning and evening specially for those. Cookie is unusual in that she is the only cat I have ever known who truly likes having her tummy rubbed – like a dog. She will roll and stretch and request our attention for this. She and Blackie will share the bed during the day, but once I get into it at night she eschews it. Blackie has the job of waking us in the morning and only if we refuse to stir by about 6:15 will Cookie take matters in hand and race across the bed a few times to see if she can eject us manually.

Tummy rubbing time.

So this morning I find myself wishing I could give them all a home, but a bit overwhelmed by my own inherited menagerie at times. Wouldn’t trade my daily dose of cats however, although I am learning to appreciate dogs too – more to come?

Milton the Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Kim had the excellent suggestion this morning that I might consider each of the cats individually for a post, starting with some of the New Jersey guys (and gals). Peaches was featured in a post (which can be read here) not that long ago so this would be the second of the lucky kits seven to be in the spotlight. (My father’s wonderful cat Red who died not that long after him was featured in a post here.)

Beau, Gus and Milty waiting for breakfast one morning.

Milty, as he is generally known, is the most senior, if somewhat titular, head of the New Jersey manor. He is, by our best guestimate, about 21 years old. I’m afraid I don’t have any photos of a young Milty. As you can see, he’s an almost tabby, white with copious tabby spots, a sort of every cat.

Milty achieving pets on the arm of the chair.

He came to my mom as a tiny kitten rescued in Newark with a terrible long cut down his back. Because of that, I guess, he came to mom with the moniker of Knifey which she thought was an awful name and hardly described this genial little ball of fluff. He was found and rescued him on Milton Street (Newark Harrison Plaza to be precise it would appear) in Newark and Mom went with Milton as his name, Milty most of the time. Meanwhile, his back injury was so severe that he had to be isolated away from her other cats for a few months while it healed.

My parents were still in the (very large) house I grew up in and Milty had a room upstairs where he spent his first few months. That was a rough and tumble house of more or less five cats at the time, but eventually Milty found, and probably occasionally fought, his way into the milieu.

It was, I believe, not long after my sister Loren died that Milty came to Shrewsbury Drive. It also became a tumultuous time with my folks packing up that house ultimately and leap frogging to a rental before moving into the house I have now. So while a new kitty is always a thing of joy I think things like hurricane Sandy followed by my parents packing up and moving overshadowed his arrival somewhat. He slipped quietly and seamlessly into the life of the Butler household.

Winsome putting her hat on him on a whim last year.

Milty was always a pretty easy going guy. Slowly he moved up the ranks of mom’s cats over time and there was a moment where it was just him and two others before mom went on a cat acquisition streak not much more than two years before she died, bringing their number to five.

Of all of the cats, Milty is the friendliest and in fact actually demands to be petted by all comers to the house – sitting by you and reaching out with a tapping paw gently. He has a good memory for the regular visitors who pay attention to him and runs right to them. He does not discriminate by age – he is perfectly willing to let Anaya, Winsome’s granddaughter age 3, have her first, tentative cat pats with him. His fur is amazingly soft and he has gotten fluffier, not less so, with age.

Milty in the livingroom.

He is a bit of a grump and tyrant these days when it comes to food. If given his way a stream of cans would be opened for him ongoing throughout the day. He has the annoying (for the other cats) habit of eating the first wet bits out of every dish as they are put out – taking the best moist bits off the top. He drinks copious (truly vast) amounts of water daily and is said (by mom) to have tumors in his stomach. In the mornings that I am there he meows loudly and urgently for his breakfast until it is served, he and
Beau eat first there.

Milty is demanding for attention as well and sits on the arm of your chair and gently grabs your arm, just a few gentle claw paws, for pets. Unfortunately, he is not a well behaved lap cat and the claws are in play for starfish paws and he tends to get moved along. He is the top ranked puker in the house and has other occasional accidents, not surprising I guess given his age and other factors.

Peaches smiling and giving Milty a pat.

He enjoys a surprisingly good relationship with essentially all of the other cats. (He has no use for the New York cats when they visit but that seems fair. He mixed it up with Blackie on our last visit, marching into the bedroom one morning to see where breakfast was. He also swatted a friend’s dog who wandered into the house with him one evening.) I tend to find an odd combination of cats curled up with Milty. The most surprising is Peaches, our most feral and generally resistant feline. I frequently find her curled up with him while giving me a somewhat defensive look. Gus also likes to sit with (or sometimes on) Milts and Milty never appears bothered. He is the Switzerland of cats.

Gus horning in Milty’s perch.

High jumping was never his thing – the awful long cut on his back perhaps – and he generally stays near to the ground now and rarely gets up higher than a low chair. Aside from that he is surprisingly spry and greets all visitors like the retired mayor of a small town who sits out in a sunny rocking chair on the front porch of the general store or post office. He expects a certain amount of recognition and fealty.

In some ways I feel bad for Milty as he never quite got to be a singular favorite with a devoted individual tending him. He has been loved but a bit generally by many. We’ve had a few scares with his health and know that at 21 for a cat his time is likely melting away. However, he seems utterly content as the figurative king kitty in the house of Butler.

Photo of My Dad

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I found this photo in New Jersey while looking for something else over the holidays. I found a cache of photos there of my father and his cousins when they were very young and spending summers in a tiny, bucolic enclave called Cottekill, in Ulster County, New York where the family had a house. Some of those photos showed my grandfather quite young with my dad as a tiny tot and many of the three children at play.

I don’t know why, but somehow I never saw this particular pile of photos. And I am sorry not to have found them to puzzle over with mom while she was still alive. Photos from Dad’s family somehow didn’t make it into the family rotation. Actually my parents mostly kept pictures of their life together in the house and ones from their past dribbled in over time, but were not always examined it seems. Although a cousin brought mom a pile from her side of the family which we were able to examine during the last years of her life.

Dad’s memory, never good, was sort of a Swiss cheese hit or miss before he died and I don’t know how much help he would have been in identifying anything anyway. As interesting as I find those photos of him as a babe or small child, this is a rare shot of my father as a young man and I can’t think of another from this time in his life so I have brought it back to New York with me.

Frankly, it is not a great photo, bad exposure and poorly printed, messy edges with some bit of another photo bleeding into the left side. The composition is not great – the photographer could have fitted dad into the frame better. Presumably it was taken by one of his friends, perhaps also learning the craft of still photography at the time. Dad appears to be noodling around with a piece of film editing equipment. (On subsequent study – is that a press camera seen from the side?) For me my interest is mostly that I don’t have other photos of him from precisely this time. It is undated and there is nothing written on the back – may I just say, neither side of my family ever made notes on their photos.

A photo of mom from about a decade later.

My father did his undergraduate degree at NYU in history and, after a stint in the army during the war in Korea where he was stationed in the Arctic and learned to film maneuvers. He later used the GI bill to get his masters degree in film at Boston University. I wonder if this shows him, plying his new trade, in an apartment somewhere in Boston, although it doesn’t really have the look of a student apartment – drapes on the window and paintings on the wall.

The objects on the table are too indistinct to really see. I believe the paper in front of him is likely the booklet of instructions for the device he is using – that may be a roll of film next to it. He is dressed in a rather natty button down shirt and vest and a watch with a leather band which predates the metal Rolex one I inherited (and wear) and remember him best as wearing.

Dad in an undated photo on a motorcycle he rode across country.

Dad always dressed well and he liked clothes and shopping – my mom didn’t so I assume I got my interest in those things from him. (I have written about his mom, Gertrude, before who collected jewelry and was always well dressed. A post devoted to her and my inherited interests can be found here.) The only real surprise is that he never wore a striped shirt in my memory. His closet was a perpetual sea of light blue and white versions of this shirt (pink might occasionally find its way in) which I might inherit to mess around in once the collars and cuffs frayed. It is a bit beyond my imagination to think of him wearing stripes, but evidently they are something he grew out of.

I have a photo I have written about before of dad a few years later, astride a decaying motorcycle he rode across the country. (That popular early post can be found here.) I like this one to help fill in the dots along the timeline of his life and I plan to put it in a frame and bring it to my office. There it will reside next to a much beloved picture of my mom I rescued recently where a young Betty Butler is holding Snoopy, our first cat as a family. Mom and Dad would meet about five or more years after spot on the timeline I assign to this picture.

Unlike some family photos I have unearthed, this one doesn’t really have stand alone quality as a picture to recommend it so thank you for indulging me a bit if you read this to the end.

Holiday Migration

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: We are (mostly) packed and at the ready to head to New Jersey this morning. It is still pitch black out as I write this, but here in New York we got our first snow flakes in a long time yesterday. I think the ground was too warm full there to be a frosting of it out there, but we’ll see what Monmouth County has, if any.

Although there is a certain feeling of routine to it, this is only the second year we are spending in New Jersey for the holidays. We are still finding our stride with it. While there are packages of gifts and essentials, I usually take the opportunity to move a few bulky items to the house there while we are packing up a car.

Christmas breakfast with Eileen Travell yesterday before leaving town. I gave her this pretty little blue and white bowl.

Rides With Cash is a car service I have used since I commuted frequently during my mom’s last illness. (I posted about it previously here.) Jeff, the proprietor, brings his unfailingly wonderful Aussie, Cash, with him and I get a dog cuddle in as well. Now that Cookie and Blackie share some of these rides they are less thrilled with Cash but the car is large enough for a generous separation of cats in carriers and dog!

Cash sitting in the front seat during our summer sojourn.

Although more frequent commutes from New Jersey in recent years has mentally shrunk the distance between the two locations, bringing the cats and going to stay is still definitely a maneuver which requires forethought and planning. Somehow the holidays got away from us this year and I feel a bit like we are going to land in a heap. Blackie’s Thanksgiving holiday illness set us back a bit schedule-wise and there will be a holiday card reveal tomorrow while we are still sending out the bulk of our mailed cards! (Apologies in advance to those of you who don’t like your surprise ruined.)

We had our annual Top Dog Gala at work last week. We honored the NYP’s K9 unit and the dogs we care for on the force. Centerpieces complete with usable leash were for sale at the end of the event.

Blackie is better, although he required yet another trip to the vet this week – puffy eye. We aren’t sure but maybe his sister socked him, or he got something in it which made him rub it a bit raw. He is somewhat demoralized by gooping three times a day and I’m sure this trip out of state will get on his last little cat nerve. (It is finally getting light and it has indeed snowed and there appears to be a half inch or so on the ground.)

For those of you who are new to the fold – five additional cats await our arrival in New Jersey. My mom left me her cats who continue to reside in the house there where they are cared for. Our visits mean a house full of seven cats. What was my mother thinking?

All staff holiday party. My colleagues had spent the day in the lobby playing Santa and Elf to visiting animals who could have their picture taken.

For all of this, going there for the holidays is very soothing for me . Like many folks, I feel the loss of family and friends most keenly at this time of year. Being in the area I grew up in and being around the people there mitigates it somewhat and blunts the blow of the sharp edges. I know it is asking a lot of Kim and the cats who would much rather stay in New York. However, going as a family and having everyone I love together in one place for a few weeks is special to me.

So, a brief entry today an unsuspecting Cookie and Blackie to be placed in their carriers shortly. More from the other side. Let the holidays commence!

On the Wall

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: The other evening I was meeting a former colleague and we were discussing the shifting sands of the office place – he who now works entirely remotely for a national not-for-profit and I am who am still adjusting to life at an animal hospital where many things are different. The conversation somehow turned first to mail (I am struggling with the local post office) and then to handwriting. I told him that when I worked at the Met I handwrote many notes and that I hoped over time that when people saw the envelope they would recognize my handwriting immediately.

The verso of a postcard from a prior post – sometimes the writing is half the fun, other times indecipherable.

Even less than a decade ago mail was a much bigger part of my job. This area in fundraising has had a continued contraction and, while I am far from an expert, I am struggling to find its place at work as older supporters still like it but it is expensive and you can lose money. Direct mail aside, my days at the Met were packed with notes written – a constantly dwindling pile of cards atop my desk for notes to attach to things, my business card and stacks of cards from the museum’s shop which I worked my way through with birthday wishes and other occasions. For years all of our invitations were handwritten and stamped. We did them at home and were paid by the piece – I helped pay for my trip to Tibet by addressing envelopes when we opened the new Asian Art Wing there.

At the Met we had a mailroom which collected our piles of mail and delivered ours to our office. I have learned over time that this is a luxury in offices.

Our Top Dog Gala invitation this year. We are celebrating the work of the police dogs and this handsome German Shephard is representing for it. Invitations have printed envelopes now.

At Jazz I immediately noticed fewer written missives, as well as less time on the telephone – everything was pretty much online and email including invitations. If not a dedicated mailroom, an office manager did distribute mail and bring it to the post office daily. Covid interrupted even that and mail stilled to a full stop and barely ground back into use in the post-Covid work world.

My office today slots mail into boxes in the main hospital building which we try to pick up daily. Somehow I have never gotten the swing of mail pick up there (due to construction it moves around) and we tend to stamp and mail things from public boxes or a trip to the post office. It isn’t true but sometimes I feel like the only person who produces mail beyond the occasional mailing of things like Gala invitations.

Very recognizable Louis Wain signature as per yesterday’s post!

However, what we really touched on the other night and what has stayed in my mind since is the memory of handwriting I have known. I recently had to go through check registers of my mom’s for tax purposes and spending the day immersed in her (slowly deteriorating) handwriting made her and that final year together very real again.

I have only a few samples of my sister’s writing, although it was a neat distinctive cursive I would recognize anywhere – she had the habit of looping the bottom of her capital L’s backward as part of her signature. I never asked her about that.

I saw less of my father’s handwriting than other family members, but certainly would recognize his signature. Somewhere I have a few letters from him, written while he covered the Olympics in Sarajevo. Meanwhile my maternal grandmother had a round script that would come with birthday cards, some of which I still have.

Autographed books, always with a picture, by Kim here and below.

There are those folks whose handwriting I realize I do not know, or only have an inkling of, like my father’s parents who died when I was fairly young. (To my brother Edward, I am realizing that we never correspond with handwritten notes. I don’t really know yours although maybe I would recognize it if I saw it?) I have friends whose handwriting I can see in my mind – some former colleagues and others like my friend Suzanne who is an artist and whose very round writing is distinctive in my mind’s eye.

Kim’s handwriting and his signature are of course well known and very recognizable. Legibility in his line of work is essential. He eschews my cursive as hard to read. (There was a time when I was younger when I corresponding in a tiny neat print, but I found it labor intensive for my needs.) Recent trouble accurately reading numbers people have written on things has reminded us of the importance of neatness – not just for cartoonists, but for all of us. After all, first and foremost, it is a form of communication.

One of the nice things about living with Kim is he continues to receive (and send of course) letters and packages in the mail. We get more real mail than most folks.

I especially like this one for Shroud for Waldo!

When I was in college I remember a professor at the beginning of a course talking about how handwriting was a mark system like any other, one we use constantly and defines us. (She also pointed out that how we dress is another visual vocabulary all our own and I think of that sometimes when I put on make-up which in some ways is the closest I get to painting these days.) However, handwriting is the one that is intimately tied to who we are and is our very own – obviously like finger prints our signature can be used to identify us in a court of law; it is that singular.

Of those folks like my mother, father and sister who are now lost to me the thought of their writing, coming across it or remembering it, makes me miss them all the more. However, it is a comforting odd bit of us that we keep, thoughtfully or unconsciously, and remains in the world long after we are gone.