pet memoir

Two Is Company

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Oh the poor rejected lover kitty! His beloved caroling away with her paramour. So sad! Is she truly fickle? Did they etch their initials together previously in this tree trunk? Or are those the initials of the lovers he he walking by? Or was the affection all on his side? It was not meant to be.

Our third wheel is in a strange stance – partial fight and somewhat flight as the bottom half of him already seems to be walking away while the top half looks back. He wears a nice bow, unlike the singing lover, although Miss Kitty has a red collar on. The cat couple only have eyes for each other so they don’t even see him behind the tree – alas. I’m fairly sure that the toad stools growing at the base of the tree are symbolic. (Danger, poison and no less than Existential Dread according to the internet.)

This card has an embossed quality and was never mailed, nothing is written on the back. It was produced by Souvenir Postcards of New York and Berlin. I assume it was riding the crest of the Wain-esque cat craze of the post-Victorian era. Although anthropomorphic like his these cats are less pointedly satirical. Not sure who you’d send this card to where they wouldn’t feel like you were making some sort of point or message.

This card points to the whisp-o-will nature of cat affection and, shall we say, coupling of felines. I have limited personal experience of this beyond one cat, Winkie, that managed to evade our window of spaying post-adoption slip out and find a tabby with whom she had a brief liaison resulting in four kittens.

My sister Loren holding the mysterious Miss Winkie.

In retrospect, it is hard to associate those kittens with her as she made short shrift of her affiliation with them. We kept them, two gray, a tabby and a orange tiger. They became: Ping and Pong, Tigger, and Squash. Ping was a smart female and Pong a (very) dopey male. Tigger was a nice and very pretty tabby who sadly wandered off, was found once and did it again. (Our cats were free range in those days.)

Meanwhile Squash turned out to be a pale long drink of an orange cat – so long it was like he had an extra vertebrae or two. As a result would often sit on his haunches, like a human on the couch or in an armchair, comfortably bent completely in two. (My brother Edward once declared of Squash, Survives but never thrives, which seemed pointedly accurate. I have to admit that I have no memory of when Squash passed out of our lives as I wasn’t living home at the time but neither do I remember the report.)

Squash was in most other ways a rather undistinguished fellow living quietly in a multitude of cat personalities. (The kitten event had swelled the family total to unforeseen highs!) However, his distinguishing characteristic was his affection for one of the other cats. He was the rare cat in that house who would seek out another and sleep with his arms around him.

Peaches, one of the Jersey Five of cats, hates everyone (man and beast) it would seem, except the elderly cat Milty. She stealthily climbs up on a chair and curls up asleep with him. Milty, whose precise age is not known to me but a rough calculation has around 20, is largely the benevolent figurehead of senior male in that house. He likes to have a brief go at every dish of food as it is put down but otherwise he’s pretty chill.

Peaches, left, with the ever patient Milty.

Meanwhile, the role of senior cat largely belongs to the four year old enormous all black male, Beauregard or Beau. That said Blackie, of the visiting New York cats, believes himself to be senior cat when we are in NJ. Beau will take a certain amount of that since B doesn’t eat with them which would probably cause the imminent collapse of that small kingdom.

There are occasional blow ups and one took place last summer while I was on a call with the two Board Chairs from work. That said, if you are going to have a cat fight explosion while on an important work call its good that you work for an animal hospital. They are very forgiving about animal interruptions on zoom.

Blackie, looking entirely black since we can’t see the white star on his chest.

Going back to Winkie, who was a very smart little polydactyl calico cat. Having produced said kittens (in my parent’s closet, the carpet was never quite the same) and caring for them a scant amount of time she pretended that she had no memory of them nor where they came from and generally treated them with a superior attitude and disgust as interlopers we’d wished on her one day. Such is the attitude of cats.

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.

T’day Cat Tale

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As is sometimes the case I am on the train and taking a moment to start this post. It is a wet and dark Thanksgiving morning and the train to NJ is crowded. (I can only imagine how crowded the trains on the other side of the tracks going into the city are!) I had to hoof it four blocks to Penn Station in a pouring rain.

Luckily, I was dressed for the elements (that coat I mentioned buying in last week’s post arrived – it is excellent) and traveling fairly lightly. There are a bunch of small hotels near there and many families, clearly here for the parade and holiday, were milling around in front of them, despite the rain. I feel badly for them – even these modest hotels cost them a fortune and it should be a nice treat for the kids – too bad about the rain! Kids looked pretty perky anyway.

The last few minutes of my entry into Red Bank on the train.

I had actually planted myself in NJ on Tuesday night – smartly avoiding the worst of the travel press. Kim had decided to sit this one out in Manhattan so I was hoping for a few days there doing errands and working in the garden to prep it for winter. Then Blackie stopped eating on Tuesday night and the malaise it continued and worsened Wednesday morning. Therefore, I had to come back to New York and we had to take him to the hospital where I work now.

I will start by saying that his vet was responsive in a way that I don’t think any of us feel we can expect from our own doctors let alone our vets. Despite being the day before Thanksgiving, she answered my email at 7:30 am right away and we exchanged several emails before making the decision to bring him in. First, we tried an external stimulant which Kim picked up and applied to no avail.

It was a remarkable relief to see familiar faces around me and helping with him. It had seemed somewhat impersonal in the past when I went there but now I am family. This is especially notable because I have felt isolated at this job and it has been hard to get to know people. However, one of my friends (one of the first people I met there and got to know – she is a Veterinarian Technician) carried him out to me and despite his anxiety he clearly enjoyed Erica’s attentions – that woman knows how to pet a cat!

This stuff is like kitty crack but if they won’t eat it is a very good go to.

His illness, or disinterest in food specifically, remains a mystery. After I got him to eat some Churu at the hospital we decided to take him home last night. I’m glad we did; it was the right decision. He’s diabetic and I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t have to take him in again for a glucose test which will take a full day, but with the holiday if we can get him to eat even small amounts I would rather have him home. He ate a small breakfast for me this morning and so I am heading back to NJ where I will have a handful of friends coming for dinner!

***

Thanksgiving was a quiet affair with the aforementioned couple of friends. I had a winter gardening frenzy of bulb planting (luckily the ground was soft from that Thanksgiving rain) and trimming the dahlias and bagging them up for the winter. Lastly, the geraniums needed to be taken out of the front planters and they are potted and living in the kitchen for now. The trellises I grew my cucumbers on are tucked away in the garage. I had hoped to do more cleanup in the veggie patch but didn’t have time.

Taken this morning. A bit perkier and wondering what on earth Kim and I will do to him next though.

I returned to New York Friday evening. Blackie has resumed eating more regularly but still requiring a stimulant and some encouragement. Essentially we are now in a stage where he’ll eat really good stuff but is still turning his nose up at the healthier real food we expect him to eat. However, he just wolfed down a smidge of smoked salmon so I would say his eating instincts are not totally disabled.

Cookie is taking full advantage of the situation. To be clear, we are martinets when it comes to the cats eating habits. They eat at 6am and 6pm. They get a mix of canned food and dry food is out for them. We have not introduced treats into their lives except to inveigh them to eat on the onset of their stint in New Jersey. When they both stopped eating the first time I was introduced to Churu treats and keep them on hand for such events. Those things must be like kitty crack is all I can say.

Cookie napping recently. I must say, she doesn’t seem concerned about Blackie but is happy about all the treats in the house.

I brought some Churu back from New Jersey with me as Kim had used up our small stash. Cookie keeps taking us over to it and showing it to us – hoping we will take the hint and give her some.

I know I haven’t written much about this new gig. This past year I have been working to get a lot under my belt in a very different area of fundraising and in a very specific place. Building this fundraising operation to full throttle is a journey which has only just launched. I wouldn’t have Blackie or Cookie (or Beau, Gus, Milty, Peaches and Stormy – the NJ Five) sick for anything obviously, but in some ways this recent incident has informed me with an interesting piece of the puzzle for fundraising there.

Some of what I experienced was clearly because I am a staff member, but having used them before with a substantial illness with Blackie, the good communication and much of what I experienced was in play then too – which influenced my decision to take this job. It is a special place, in part possible because it is a non-profit. My job is figuring out how to unlock all its potential.

Peaches

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is an oddball post – I wish to introduce you all to Peaches, the second youngest, female cat of the New Jersey tribe of five. She’s also one of the meanest cats I have ever met. Perhaps considering her story she has some snark coming to her. I will let you decide.

Most readers know that in April of ’23 I inherited a house and five cats from my mother. At her behest, the cats continue to reside here where someone cares for them and the house when I am not here, as Deitch Studio in Manhattan is still our home base. This presents some logistical problems, but fewer than I might have expected when my mother first presented this request, as it became clear that her time was limited.

Shown here with Hobo, our outdoor visitor. They look so much alike! Seems impossible that they are related – Hobo lives too many miles away. But still…

For some background, my mother had briefly whittled her cat family down to something manageable a few years ago when she adopted, first, an all black kitten (Beauregard or Beau) from an agency in Newark, but then followed in rapid succession by two who came to the backdoor (Gus and Stormy) and Peaches whose story I am going to tell today. After the acquisition of Stormy (the youngest) I did request that she stop acquiring cats as it was clear that these were indeed going to end up being my cats.

Our holiday card featuring the whole family (including Hobo) for a quick cat reference.

Unlike the others who, as outlined above, either came through the front door via adoption or showed up repeatedly and starving at the back, Peaches was acquired sight unseen. My mother loved to tell the Peaches acquisition story.

Prized spot in our bedroom. Forbidden territory when the NYC cats are here.

At that time, now about three years ago, my mom had a cousin living with her. They had both grown up in a nearby town called Long Branch and her cousin inherited a house there, but lived with mom for a few years. Word was, back near her house in Long Branch, a friend heard a cat meowing over several days and had called Animal Control to find out what was going on and get the cat.

Seems somehow this cat had gotten away from the mother and the litter and was trapped in a basement after falling down a hole. Poor little thing was starving and crying.

Peaches does play with toys.

My mom knew that it was likely that a feral kitten would ultimately be put down as unadoptable. She called Animal Control in Long Branch as soon as the cat was picked up and told them not to put her down and that she would take it.

I guess the guy said, Lady, you don’t want this cat! It is the meanest cat we’ve ever had to catch. So wild we had to use a broom handle to move the carrier with her in it! And of course mom said she didn’t care and wanted the cat.

She very much enjoys watching the activity on the deck where chipmonks and other critters have been known to roam. Recently I found what I think were groundhog muddy tracks across it so quite a show.

She arrived and was christened Peaches for the woman who had heard her and called Animal Control originally. She entered our house at the time as the youngest and only female cat of the house. To my knowledge no one has ever actually touched Peaches since she came to Oxford Avenue. She hid at first and then slowly assimilated to the extent that she would hang with the pack of cats but keep a wide birth (six or more feet) from any human.

Left to her own devices (which she largely is) she seems quite content.

Over the past several years she has thawed slightly. She now willingly sit in the same room as us, sometimes quite close. When I am feeding them she will come right up to me but if I try to touch her or get too close where she is curled up she will hiss, spit and growl. On this trip however, she “accidentally” jumped up on the arm of my chair and stared me in the eye for several long moments before panic set in and she flew back off. I was as stunned as she was.

Milty and Peaches.

She has one outstanding cat friendship in the house, with Milty, our most senior cat. I will occasionally find them sleeping together. She’ll go over and gently groom him once in a while. It seems like an unlikely pairing, but I am pleased she has a compatriot among the cats.

This just the other day. Happy Peaches.

There have been days this summer when I have caught her rolling and stretching happily. I think she is a contented cat in general, even if her interactions with the human population are limited. I used to joke with my mother that in ten years when Peaches was happily installed on my lap being petted we would look back and remember how we couldn’t get near her. I am less sure of that future, but she’s one of the Butler family cats now to stay.

The Fish Eater

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: While I was trotting back and forth to New Jersey on an odd schedule with mom’s final illness, I kept a couple of potential Pictorama Post items in my computer bag in case I was caught out of town and wanted to write a post. While I also would put photos on my phone for this purpose, I had this and another item (an odd and seasonal one, which I will now likely save for a more appropriate time of year).

I barely remember, but I think I scooped this up in a bunch buy on Instagram. (It may have been that midwest maven @MissMollysantiques again – she and I have done a lot of business in the past few years.) It’s a strange item, thin cardboard, lightly embossed. It is smallish, only about five inches across.

While cute images of cats going after a goldfish abound as a trope both in pictures and three dimensional trinkets, this one hardly qualifies for cute and makes an odd decoration. Our tabby spotted kit appears to have been served up a bowl of small (live?) fish and has one hanging from his or her mouth, right before chomping it merrily down.

This cat has no shame and stares out defiantly. He or she is perched on a bit of defined grassy turf with some other sticks and bits about. More fish are indicated in the shallow dish. While there is a bit of paper loss to the tip of kitty’s nose the rest is in excellent shape, right down to the fish and a bit of fluffy jowl hanging off one side below his whiskers.

What on earth was it? I cannot imagine it was advertising and hardly seems like a decorative image. A bit of a mystery I think.

Currier and Ives print of kitty and goldfish.

I have written before about my childhood adventures of keeping cats away from our fish-keeping experiments. (Some of this territory was covered in a post that can be found here if you wish to delve a bit further in the subject!) We started with small fishbowls of a gold fish or two. (I don’t remember if these were acquired at fairs or at pet stores – in retrospect our acquisition of them seems so unlike my mother who had strong feelings about animals in captivity I can’t quite add it up and my dad was not the pet guy when we were little. I can only assume that my sister or I were insistent about their acquisition and she acquiesced.)

Zebra fish also seemed to be denizens of our tank.

It seems to me that this was a doomed premise, the goldfish bowl. We started with a pair I remember quite distinctly (and because of this clear and somewhat possessive memory, it is likely that I considered myself in charge of these fish) from when I was about four years old. We were moving from a town, Engelwood, in Northern Jersey, down to Rumson where I would spend the rest of my childhood years.

The fish were being transferred in a large soup pot, one had nice black spots on him and I liked him best. The pot, a light blue enamel one, seems like an especially bad idea (Mom – what were you thinking?) and also in the car with the swaying pot of fish and water was our cat Snoopy. I do think Snoopy was too distracted by his own drama (oddly he also just seemed to be free range in the car – no cat carriers at that time in our lives) to bother the fish however. The fish must have made it through the hour or so journey because I do not remember this being the cause of their demise, although that said I do not remember under what circumstances they ultimately left us.

Cat and goldfish teapot for sale on eBay, not in Pictorama.com collection.

It was, however, the beginning of a line of fish which at first, lived atop of our refrigerator because for some reason mom thought the cat (which became cats shortly) wouldn’t notice them. Generally they didn’t, however eventually a single fish disappeared overnight. No sign of him or her. Just an empty bowl come morning.

I think Betty realized at this point that we were committing an ongoing act of fish cruelty and, having raised complex tanks of fish in her youth, she set up a proper fish tank for us. We purchased a handful of brightly colored neon tetras (I remember them best), a few angel fish and a gourami or two. There were some tiny shark-y looking things and something we just referred to as the algae eater.

In retrospect, this tank was a lot of work. I remember the periodic water changes and tank cleaning it required, the plastic plants to be scrubbed and the real ones replaced. Again, I amaze a bit at mom taking it on with everything else she had on her hands with three small kids, two cats and a large dog. (Dad would allow himself to only be marginally roped into fish care activities and would at best follow mom’s direction if he was around for a fish care fiesta day.)

Neon Tetra

I loved the fish however and I would often ask my mother to tell me about the exotic sounding saltwater tanks she had kept as a teenager. Mom was a resourceful teen it seems and also made it all the way into the upper ranks of the Girl Scouts. These tales created an image of teenage Betty as a pillar of resourceful early DIY-type industry and ingenuity which really was probably a fair analysis. (It is making me tear up that I can’t call her up and talk to her about it however. She would have enjoyed reliving it with me.)

I liked to sit and watch them and have some very specific memories of sitting with our cat Zipper and watching the fish together. The air filter would bubble away, rising behind a faux treasure chest nestled in the gravel creating a world unto itself. Meanwhile, Zipper was a feral tabby who came to live with us about that time and unlike Snoopy he had no compunction about his thieving desires where the fish were concerned. He would sit with me and gently pat the surface of the tank somewhat mischievously, looking at us with his huge green eyes full of deceptive faux innocence. After an early incident the tank had something heavy placed on top of it after one of his more adventurous attempts.

The algae eater more or less as I remember him. Usually we saw his tummy as he stuck himself to the glass to munch on the available algae.

Sadly over time it became clear we were just not destined to be good fish caretakers. Eventually the gourami grew huge from eating the other smaller fish – alarmingly we’d find remains in the morning. He was sent to a new home in a larger tank (where perhaps someone ate him dad would darkly speculate), but somehow after that the tank seems to have petered out. Our investment in stray cats and dogs increased over time, tales for the future, but the Butlers left the world of the aquatic behind.

Barty Nichols

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This postcard turns out to be a fairly common one, although I had never seen it before purchasing this example. It was never mailed and nothing is written on the back. The image is a bit odd, Barty the puss peering out between the slats of this sort of picket fence effect, perhaps he is on a porch?

A handful of other capable bloggers have already done tribute to Barty and Hal who was a radio pioneer in Long Beach, California. A musician himself (a few ragtime pieces he wrote can be found on Youtube) Nicols channeled it into the early days of radio, starting in high school where he programmed a station which I assume was the school’s station. (I nosed around in the early days of radio, which are fascinating, via a series of books called The Radio Girls and that post can be found here.) Evidently it really was the medium of radio itself that he loved.

Hal Nichols in an undated photo. A photo of Barty appears to be on the wall behind him.

Unfortunately I could not find an example of the radio show to share and no one has really recorded what kinds of music he played on it. Therefore, I will just imagine that Hal played the jazz and dance band tunes of the 20’s and 30’s that I love since that would have been nostalgic in the 40’s and 50’s. (For a tribute to the radio persona who enlightened me on this subject you can find my post about Rich Conaty here.)

Hal purchased the KFOX-AM station (1280 on your dial) with a 20th Century Fox partner in 1924, but the partner bailed early and he became the sole proprietor. According to his obit, he was on air until his death in October of 1953 after a long illness, presumed to be cancer. I am not sure what the broader programming of the station was, but the Memory Room show was nightly at 6:30. (Today it is a Korean language station out of Torrance, California.) In addition to Barty, Hal was survived by his wife Dorothy – who doesn’t seem to get much air time in the discussion of Hal and KFOX.

Article on Barty. Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

Barty, who weighed in at 18.5 lbs and was described as a tortoiseshell and white cat (fluffier and more long-haired than he appears in my postcard), entered the picture as early as 1946 and I gather his contribution seemed to be purring into the microphone for listeners at home. It is said he could (would?) purr “on command” (request?), but of course exactly who was doing what over the radio waves is a bit hard to verify. Another writer suggested that maybe Barty just purred all the time – seems unlikely to me as a cat owner. One assumes there was the occasional meow, chirp or mutter as well. Regardless, Barty seemed to manage to transcend the shortcomings of this early communication medium as a cat performer and he had quite a following. His fan mail routinely exceeded that of Hal’s, especially over Valentine’s Day and over the holidays.

The Barty pin, not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

As one writer pointed out, being a feline radio mascot was probably a pretty good gig – lots of time with Hal, much attention from staff and I am sure lots of food and treats. I’m not sure fame interests cats much, but of course it is hard to say what their views really might be.

Holiday card not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

Hal Nichols had something of a nose for promotion and he ran with the ball on Barty. Holiday cards featuring the feline were produced annually and there were buttons which proliferated as well. This postcard is another example. These collectibles are variously available on eBay, Etsy and at auction although I didn’t see any of the cards for sale except this one I purchased. In my research, I readily came across one magazine page devoted to the duo (which can be found here) and I suspect there were others. There is no indication if Barty headed home with Hal nightly or if the station was truly his only domain.

Holiday card not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

If it were not for the proliferation of pandemic Zoom, I would not have known of my own cat Blackie’s desire for fame and interest in being a broadcast personality. His daily involvement in Zoom meetings (he prefers late afternoon, but will make an exception for especially long meetings – think Board or Committees) earlier in the day. He is charmed by my being such a captive audience for an extended period.

Although his command center is generally my lap, he does make on-air appearances and favors turning his hindquarters to the camera and I attempt to spare my colleagues that view. He also has a gift for chin and ear rubbing his farewell appreciation on the jerry-rigged set-up which frequently sends it flying to the ground, making viewers believe that I have experienced either an earthquake or, more appropriately, a mini sort of Godzilla cat intervention. All this to say as a result, I can easily imagine Barty, perched on Hal’s lap or giving the mic a few ear and chin rubs, or an errant tail knocking it over occasionally, while purring his way into the hearts of listeners across California for many years.

For further reading on Barty and Hal you can try these blog posts and sites: http://World Radio History; http://Arcane Radio Trivia and http://Estate Sales Chronicles.

A Trip to the Pet Store

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Kim and I are largely the stay-cation types and enjoy the quietude of Manhattan on holidays as a rule. This week we took a walk together in the late morning of July 4. One of the cat dishes had broken earlier in the week and, as our beloved family owned store on York Avenue, Calling All Pets, was closed for the holiday, we wandered into Petco on Lexington and 86 Street to see if we could procure a replacement. We did, almost immediately, scoring the exact small white dish with pawprints in a design around the outside.

While at the check-out counter with our purchase we noticed a single bright blue Fighting Fish, a Betta, in a container at the register. He was in the sort of one serving size container you get for take-out soup and seemed a tad forlorn. Never having gone further into the store than the catfood display at the front, I had not realized that they sold fish. We decided to wander back and have a look after a brief discussion about whether or not we should add this single fish to our lives – we decided that only Cookie and Blackie would win as a result of that decision. (Our only foray into fish ownership, such as it is, was the subject of an early popular blog post Ode to a Shrimp which can be read here.)

Let me begin by stating that there is an official broad Butler family prohibition on pet stores. Betty, my mom, has actively protested them and has especially been involved with the elimination of puppy mills, at the source and in stores. My mother’s animal rights involvement is indeed another future post as she is an amazing person, but suffice it to say, I have never purchased an animal from a pet store. However, Petco did host the adoption day where we ultimately acquired Cookie and Blackie so it is in a sense their ancestral home. We discovered a small ongoing adoption center for dogs at the back of the store and, although they sell birds, there was a sign encouraging the adoption of those as well and notification that they had a parrot available. The bird display was a bit  low-key and sad. Although they seem to have a nice community here.

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However, fish tanks fascinate me and remind me of my childhood, so after a quick look at the birds we went over to examine the tanks. I never did find the friends of the Betta and perhaps he was up front because he was the last to be sold. Siamese Fighting Fish, are in the gourami fish family and, although they are gorgeous, colored in deep jewel tones with extravagant long fins, they are called fighting fish because the males are so aggressive that they cannot be in a tank together or they will fight to the death. I always believed they could not be in a tank with any other fish, but my reading online for this blog states otherwise.

The fish tank of my childhood was a tribute to the tanks of my mother’s own childhood, informed by her experience and also eventual pre-med studies of zoology and biology in college. (Douglas College, the all-women’s division of Rutgers at the time did not have a proper pre-med program and she tells me that one took a dual major to achieve the closest possible coursework.) In retrospect it wasn’t glorious by some of today’s standards (I have been in homes and offices where amazing tanks take up whole walls, maintained frequently by visiting professionals), but ours had a variety of fish with live plants which fascinated us kids and our then cats alike. (Zipper was very fond of it and liked to “pat” the fish on the glass but never reaching in; Snoopy, a very dignified cat paid it less attention. If kitten Pumpkin had an opinion I do not remember.) Like most children, we’d started with goldfish won at fairs and the like, which had sadly abbreviated lives and I guess mom figured if we were going to do it we would do it right.

Even such a fish tank at the level of ours takes a considerable amount of care and in hindsight I am a bit amazed that my mother took it on knowing what it required. Periodically the fish had to be removed and the tank and any objects (I believe there was a sea chest with treasure in it) carefully cleaned in a way and with substances that would not harm them. Then fresh water had to be prepared, the tank and plants re-installed before the fish could be returned. All of this under the watchful eyes of three small children, as many cats and a German Shepard – most likely while my father was off at work or doing something else. I remember her explaining to me that saltwater tanks were even more complicated and that she had one when she was a little girl.

Nonetheless, mom ran a pretty tight ship on the fish tank and it is a glowing memory of my childhood. Neon tetras (which can be seen in my phone video below made at Petco the other day) made up the rank and file citizens of our tank and their winking color brings me right back to being about eight years old and staring at our tank, sometimes with Zipper in my lap, so he could have his polite look.

 

 

I’m not sure I remember all of the denizens of our tank but I know we also had a few Zebra fish, some guppies and some tiny shark variety of critter. (Internet swipes stolen below.) There were also snails and a catfish sort of guy to help keep it all clean. (I liked his “whiskers” and he was a favorite to watch, often attached to the side of the tank so I could see his tummy.) Lastly, something we called an Angel fish, but I cannot really find its likes online. Our track record with keeping them all alive wasn’t entirely unblemished – I do remember a few fish funerals held at the toilet of the coincidently well located, nearby bathroom. However, in retrospect and reading even a little about it online today I realize that ours was generally a well kept and happily balanced fish tank and that even as a small child I had a sense of how fragile that ecosystem was.

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This lesson was dramatically brought home to us by the acquisition of a Kissing Gourami. Now, to mom’s credit, even online right now you will be told that this is a non-aggressive division of the species compatible with smaller fish in a tank – much like the tale of the fighting fish outlined above. Sadly, we were not to find this to be the case. This little fellow, bully that he was, began systematically eating his way through all the other fish! It wasn’t so dramatic that we realized it right away, but nevertheless it quickly became apparent – and what to do?

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As hateful as this was none of us quite had the stomach to kill him outright, but of course we could not allow him to slaughter every other fish. Luckily someone my father worked with had a much larger tank (where our Gourami would not be the biggest guy on the block) and he was packed off to live with Jack Gray’s fish, leaving us to wonder how he fared matriculating in that larger milieu. (The Buddhists have a saying, big fish eat little fish and I reflect on that often. A favorite illustration of that -from the Met of course! – below.)

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Big Fish Eat Little Fish, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Metropolitan Museum of Art collection

 

I do not remember the ultimate demise of our fish tank. I know it did not make the move to our next house when I was about 12. I assume it petered out – for which my mother was likely grateful.

After our adventure looking at fish, we had a quick tour of lizards before leaving. Generally speaking I have an okay relationship with lizards. It is a step up from rodents, for whom I wish a happy existence however I generally like to keep at arm’s length, but below furry critters who I pretty much universally want to get to know. Gecko’s proved endearing when traveling through Nepal where they ate the mammoth cockroaches in the hotels, “barking” all the while. I have a vague memory of my brother asking for a lizard and my mother saying she just couldn’t do it because all she could see was the day that she found one of our cats with a lizard tail hanging out its mouth.

I’ve always been particularly interested in chameleons. This little fellow, shown at the top of this post and below, took a real liking to me yesterday and he stood and waved at me for what seemed to be an extraordinary length of time. For all the world he did seem to be appealing to me to please take him home and I was tempted to heed his call. With Betty’s long ago words about cats and chameleon’s sadly I could not however really consider it.

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