B0B v. POLAR VORTEX

 

We’re all complaining about the Polar Vortex, and how, like a rock star’s floppy forelock or a too large hat, it’s been slipping downward over the northeast US and Ontario, instead of wrapping those icy arms around the usual “Honeys” (as in “Honey, I’m home!”) --places like Baffin Island, Churchill and Barrow.  Certain infamous Bloviators have been saying that the PV doesn’t exist, that “elitists” made it up, but I have it on good authority from my favorite Penn State Meteorology Prof., Fred Gadomski, that this “vortex” has been around since our planet first had weather systems. 

Bob, like the rest of us, isn’t getting any younger. As a kitty boy from the ‘hood who arrived one day and asked if he could come live at our house, he started as a tough customer. The squirrel tails I found scattered around the property were all that remained of the cheeky tree rats who tried to tease him. I’ve pictures of him as 'Zombie Bob', beginning at the squirrel’s head and munching his way straight down to the tail. What a tough guy!

However, this year’s long snowy cold winter has really been working his one good nerve. He’s unbelievably sick of it now, as we creep into March. He’s been known to stand on the threshold, stare up at whoever the current on-duty-doorman is, and deliver a loud-as-a-shout kitty stink eye.

“WTF?! More snow?”

The other night around 9 PM the temperature had dropped to 21 degrees with clear skies, which let me know that worse was yet to come. I called for Bob, but he didn’t show. As I’m up and around every 2-3 hours every night, I didn’t worry, just headed off to bed. No sooner than I’d switched off the light, though, than I heard him yelling below my bedroom window.

“MOM! LEMME IN!”

Obediently, I went downstairs and opened the door. A few seconds later, Bob shot through it. He didn’t look up or wait for a pat and he was carrying his head low. Right away—because I’ve had this game played on me before—I came after him. Sure enough, he had a mouse. As soon as I reached down, he dropped it on the floor where it landed on it’s feet and sat there, scrunched tight, beady eyes blank with fear.

Now it was my turn to speak.
“Oh, dammit, Bobby!” 

Bob sat, looked at up me, and then back at the mouse in a leisurely, disinterested fashion. The mouse, hitherto a still life, suddenly scuttled beneath the bulk of the assemblage we shall call for ease of description an “entertainment center”.   Beneath this mass of cables, stacks of old  LP records, and precariously balanced electronics, it was--at least temporarily--safe.  Bob yawned and headed off to the kitchen to check out the food bowl. 

As I stood there, bubbling over with cat-related annoyance, I realized that Bob had just solved his Polar Vortex problem. If it’s too cold, snowy, and generally uncomfortable to hunt out-of-doors, why not bring the mouse inside and then hunt it later in the comfort of your own warm living room? 

I’m beginning to think that this cat is a lot smarter than the infamous Bloviator. As it’s impossible/irrational to imagine you can jawbone away an inconvenient truth, you'd do better to figure out a way to deal with it.

 

 

 ~~Juliet Waldron

http://www.julietwaldron.com

Historical Novels with Passion and Grit

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SQUIRREL-LAY

 

WART, by the little yew tree, enjoying a peanut

My husband, Chris, has never been fond of squirrels. They got into the attic of a long-ago house and had to be forcibly evicted. They dug up bulbs that I'd spent "his" money on; they bit the lovely heads off the few tulips that managed to escape notice of those earlier marauders. They attacked the bird feeders and gobbled sunflower seeds as if we'd cornered the market and had an inexhaustible supply. I've tried hot pepper spray and even predator urine, but our squirrels remain undeterred, perhaps because the yard has some truly hospitable broken-down fifty foot maple trees which make perfect nesting sites. Occasionally, Chris plugged the bolder "tree rats", but we live in a suburbanizing area, and outright, All-American murder is no longer an option.

Strange things happen to people as they age, and thereby hangs the tale. An odd looking squirrel with a sparse, chewed-on tail and a lump on his/her face began to accost him when he went out, running around his feet and then pausing and holding up clever bony hands, pleading like a beggar. We had some shell peanuts left from winter, so he went back into the house and fetched them out. The squirrel was pleased and scampered off to enjoy his hand-out. Further, the little rodent was smart, because the very next day there he was again, begging for more peanuts.  He also seemed to be able to avoid the attention of Bob, whose stray cat years had taught him that squirrel--especially the
B-r-a-i-n-sssss--could be mighty good eats.

I hadn't been paying too much attention to all this until one day a fresh bag of shell peanuts appeared in the back room after he'd made a solo trip to the grocery store.

"Who did you buy those for?" I asked, because neither of us, in our decaying state, can eat many.

"Well--uh--they're for Wart."

"Wart?"

"Yes. The beggar squirrel."

"You've named it?"

"Yeah. 'Wart' because of his face."

Every day now, Wart holds us up for tribute, extending his bony little hands, and risking death-by-Bob as he, apparently heedless, crosses the patio right under the cat's nose. We've also acquired another squirrel (maybe more than one; it's tough to tell squirrels apart) who are all referred to by the blanket name of "Not Wart." This isn't the best name, in the grand scheme of things, however, because sometimes you find yourself saying things like "That was not Not Wart."

Anyhow, age has taken it's toll. I guess our definition of "family" has extended to include even the "tree rats."

~~~

Juliet Waldron

My historical novels