Even Cats Crave Christmas!

Laugh at the antlers if you will, but laugh at your peril. That business-like look in the eyes of my beautiful calico is very real. Dixie Rose (short for Dixie-Rose-Center-of-the-Universe-and-Queen-of-all-She-Surveys) loves Christmas, and she intends to be ready when it arrives. Do not stand in her way.

Dixie arrived at my door as an unloved, four-month-old stray who became my first real pet. As a child I did receive a small painted turtle, but the poor thing met a most unfortunate end. My birthday puppy lasted only hours. A tiny but exceedingly enthusiastic black Cocker Spaniel, the pup terrified me and was sent packing by disconsolate adults.

Later, I raised a fox squirrel and laughed my way through four years with a prairie dog, but my relationship with Dixie Rose is of a different order entirely. I believe her to be the most beautiful and most clever creature on four paws. I don’t think she’s the most spoiled creature in the world, but we’re working on it – diligently.

Looking East

Christmas comes differently to the country.

Twisted and threaded around and through twin pieces of rusted rebar that serve as mailbox supports, the plastic pine garland is older than several of the children who tumble from the school bus. Still, its shabbiness is apparent only to the mail carrier, or to the slippered woman trudging down the lane from her house, hoping against hope to find greetings in her box.  From the road, the garland appears perfect, full and fresh.  From a distance, even plastic communicates the determination and joy pulsing in the woman’s heart.  In this house, she thinks, we will celebrate. We will mark the season. We will share our joy with you, the passer-by.

Farther down the road,  a wreath made of vines adorns a gate propped against a fence. Its ribbon flutters in the wind, attracting attention, drawing the eye over the gate and into a pasture.  There’s a brush pile, and some uncleared mesquite. A few trees, pushed over and left to die, wait to be added to the pile.  No cattle roam, no stock tank or pond offers refreshment - not even a piece of rusted, broken-down machinery resists the despondent wind sighing across the field.

Lying Fallow

Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I prefer to exclude violence, mayhem and murder from my personal holiday traditions. Granted, there was that memorable exchange over a lavender cashmere sweater at Von Maur’s department store in Kansas City, and a sudden, stubborn insistence on my first and only trip to Bloomingdale’s that I did so have it first, but nothing in my life compares to the headlines emerging from the beginning of this holiday season.

“Woman Pepper Sprays Shoppers to Gain Advantage” in her quest for a discounted Xbox, reads one report.  “North Carolina Police Use Pepper Spray to Calm Black Friday Crowd”, reads another.  There was looting reported in New York, and a beating near Phoenix. Shootings in San Leandro, California and Fayetteville, North Carolina competed for ink with a stabbing in Sacramento. Instances of opportunistic petty thievery among midnight shoppers walking to their cars were too widespread and frequent even to detail.

“The difference this year is that instead of a nice sweater you need a bullet-proof vest and goggles,” said Betty Thomas, 52, shopping with her sisters and a niece at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, N.C. She did go on to suggest that the sale prices on merchandise had been over-hyped, and the shopping wasn’t as good as she’d hoped. “If I’m going to get shot,” said Thomas, “at least let me get a good deal.”

Waiting for Santa Cat…

Laugh at the antlers if you will, but laugh at your peril.  That business-like look in the eyes of my beautiful calico is very real. Her name is Dixie Rose  (short for Dixie-Rose-Center-of-the-Universe-and-Queen-of-all-She-Surveys), She loves Christmas, and she intends to be ready when it arrives. Do not stand in her way.

Dixie came into my life as an unloved, four-month-old stray, and quickly became my first real pet. In childhood, I received a small painted turtle which met a most unfortunate end and a small black birthday puppy, but the pup lasted only hours.  Tiny but exceedingly enthusiastic, he terrified me and was sent packing. Later, I raised a fox squirrel and laughed my way through four years with a prairie dog, but my relationship with Dixie Rose is of a different order entirely. Like a favored first child or grandchild, I believe her to be the most beautiful and most clever creature on four paws. I don’t think she’s the most spoiled creature in the world, but we’re working on it – diligently.

A Season of Singing Hearts

Thirty-three years after I stood transfixed before a photograph of Russian tanks moving into the streets of Budapest, quelling the popular uprising there with determined brutality, true revolution and an overthrow of communist government came to Czechoslovakia.

British historian and political writer  Timothy Garton Ash, noting the series of revolutions cascading through Eastern Europe in 1989,  reminds us that “in Poland the transition [from communism to democracy] lasted ten years, in Hungary ten months, and in Czechoslovakia ten days”. Those ten event-filled days between November 17th and 27th, known to Czechs as the “Velvet Revolution” and to Slovaks as the ”Gentle Revolution”, were in fact a remarkable, non-violent resistance whose effects reverberated throughout the world and still are celebrated today.