Sunday, June 12, 2005
Livestock news
By The Erudite Redneck
Look what Bird dragged in! A dang cat.
(Been awhile since I wrote about Bird: 19-year-old redneck redheaded stepgal, takin’ a sociology class at the local college this summer; recently declared she might declare same as her major next fall, when she returns to Oklahoma State, in Stillwater, to continue work on a physical therapy program that eventually will have her transferring – egad – to the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. Bird, my only young’un, is the apple of my eye.
(Some of y'all have told me you like readin' about Bird. Here are some oldies but goodies: "Twenty years ago" and "Baby Bird" and "Takeoff!" and "Idiot's Guide to Modern Teachin' " and "Bristol: NASCAR High Holy Day" and "(Dodo) Bird and natural selection" and "Wee bee" and "Mama ER speaks" and " 'Back to Sadnormal.' ")
Not just a cat, but a kitten. A scrawny, bug-eyed, mostly black street-thug of a kitty-cat. Injured and sick, no less. It’s a little bitty thing, and so ugly it’s cute.
I thought Bugsy was a good name. Or Deng. Bird and Dr. ER settled on Ice-T for a name.
A cat! Another darn cat!
Mao, the black bobtail cat that lives part-time on our front porch, is a regular family member, he’s been around so long. Bird says she showed up on 9/11. I was stranded in D.C. that day, and it took me a week to get home, as some of y’all know.
I don’t think I noticed him until Christmastime of 2001, when I was immersing myself in Chinese history for a graduate seminar that next February -– an actual, five day dang-near daylight-to-dark SEMINAR, with Orville Schell as guest scholar, at the University of Oklahoma. I produced a pre-seminar paper based on some of the reading, had to scrape together a presentation on the fly during the seminar, then I wrote a post-seminar paper.
On China. Which is why when I noticed the cat hangin’ around, what he said all the time, to my ears, was “Mao.” Hence his name.
Bird and Dr. ER wouldn’t let me call the new kitty Deng, which seemed entirely appropriate for a cat that came after Mao, because it sounds like “dung,” and they thought it would be mean to name a little kitty cat a homophonic-scatological nickname.
So, Ice-T is living in a box in Bird’s bathroom, still takin’ meds twice a day, until he’s big enough to take up residence with Mao outside.
In other livestock news, another one of the goldfish died. The deceased was Ralph. That leaves Dale Jr. Dale the fish died many months ago). Names inspired by the Earnhardts: Ralph was Dale's daddy; Dale was Dale Jr's daddy.
Bird also has Play-Doh, a beta livin’ in his own bachelor pad that she picked up at O-State and brought home for the summer.
In still other livestock news, Riker, the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, cost us almost $500 the other day -– to get a stick, as in part of a tree limb, dug out of an ear, where it had lodged and pierced his eardrum! Laws, it is ALWAYS somethin’ with critters.
END
Look what Bird dragged in! A dang cat.
(Been awhile since I wrote about Bird: 19-year-old redneck redheaded stepgal, takin’ a sociology class at the local college this summer; recently declared she might declare same as her major next fall, when she returns to Oklahoma State, in Stillwater, to continue work on a physical therapy program that eventually will have her transferring – egad – to the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. Bird, my only young’un, is the apple of my eye.
(Some of y'all have told me you like readin' about Bird. Here are some oldies but goodies: "Twenty years ago" and "Baby Bird" and "Takeoff!" and "Idiot's Guide to Modern Teachin' " and "Bristol: NASCAR High Holy Day" and "(Dodo) Bird and natural selection" and "Wee bee" and "Mama ER speaks" and " 'Back to Sadnormal.' ")
Not just a cat, but a kitten. A scrawny, bug-eyed, mostly black street-thug of a kitty-cat. Injured and sick, no less. It’s a little bitty thing, and so ugly it’s cute.
I thought Bugsy was a good name. Or Deng. Bird and Dr. ER settled on Ice-T for a name.
A cat! Another darn cat!
Mao, the black bobtail cat that lives part-time on our front porch, is a regular family member, he’s been around so long. Bird says she showed up on 9/11. I was stranded in D.C. that day, and it took me a week to get home, as some of y’all know.
I don’t think I noticed him until Christmastime of 2001, when I was immersing myself in Chinese history for a graduate seminar that next February -– an actual, five day dang-near daylight-to-dark SEMINAR, with Orville Schell as guest scholar, at the University of Oklahoma. I produced a pre-seminar paper based on some of the reading, had to scrape together a presentation on the fly during the seminar, then I wrote a post-seminar paper.
On China. Which is why when I noticed the cat hangin’ around, what he said all the time, to my ears, was “Mao.” Hence his name.
Bird and Dr. ER wouldn’t let me call the new kitty Deng, which seemed entirely appropriate for a cat that came after Mao, because it sounds like “dung,” and they thought it would be mean to name a little kitty cat a homophonic-scatological nickname.
So, Ice-T is living in a box in Bird’s bathroom, still takin’ meds twice a day, until he’s big enough to take up residence with Mao outside.
In other livestock news, another one of the goldfish died. The deceased was Ralph. That leaves Dale Jr. Dale the fish died many months ago). Names inspired by the Earnhardts: Ralph was Dale's daddy; Dale was Dale Jr's daddy.
Bird also has Play-Doh, a beta livin’ in his own bachelor pad that she picked up at O-State and brought home for the summer.
In still other livestock news, Riker, the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, cost us almost $500 the other day -– to get a stick, as in part of a tree limb, dug out of an ear, where it had lodged and pierced his eardrum! Laws, it is ALWAYS somethin’ with critters.
END
