Groundhog Ruminations

The groundhog festival seems to get bigger every year here in PA. I remember when there were only a few members of the “inner circle” with top hats, Victorian black coats and silly, fake aboriginal names like “Thunder Maker” and “Cloud Rider” up on that stage. This thing has really taken off since the “Groundhog Day” movie in 1993. The ever-growing numbers in the “inner circle” and yearly attendees prove that.

The custom comes here from German settlers, who, in the old country, may have looked for bears to awaken as a sign of spring. In southeastern PA, you can still find a few “Grundsow” Lodges, where for that morning only Pennsylvania Dutch is spoken. The dawn festival involves speeches, skits and traditional foods. Traditionally, the attendees waited at the groundhog’s burrow to see if he’d emerge. If he was awake and came out, the weather had probably been warm, and an early spring—a signal to get ready for planting--could be predicted.

Phil is now, according to Punxsutawney legend, 120 years old, but anyone can see he’s been recently replaced. His newest incarnation is a slender young groundhog who first appeared on stage a few years back. (He had a runny nose yesterday, so I'm a bit worried about his health!)

He replaced an earlier, massively obese old fellow who probably came to the end of his decade-in-captivity life span. The older groundhog was far less human friendly, and did wonderfully entertaining things, like peeing on his handlers and sometimes chewing on their gloved hands. To me these acts of defiance were an important part of the show. After all, they’d dragged the poor critter out of his nice warm cage in town and brought him out in the middle of fireworks, flashing cameras, TV lights and a host of enthusiastic people (many of them, I’m sorry to report, drunk) screaming at the top of their lungs: “Phil-Phil-Phil!”

Heck, such treatment would unnerve anybody, not to mention a poor, overweight groundhog. Of course, not being eaten after being dragged out of your warm burrow is a definite improvement over the treatment many groundhogs received in the protein-starved winter past.

February 2 is also Candlemas on the Christian calendar, a/k/a the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin. Besides that, in medieval times it was one of the “cross-quarter” days on which bills were paid, workers hired and contracts drawn, important in every long ago market town. Both the religious observance and the business deals go back even further, into pagan times. Even the most casual observer can see that the days are growing longer now, and of course, the ancients, who were formidable astronomers, had noticed. February 2, known as Imbolc in the Celtic calendar, was sacred to the red-haired Mother Goddess Bridget, who tended a magical cauldron, and was patroness of poetry, music, dance and all the “arts of civilization.” Weather prediction was part of her festival, too, as the time of the spring planting was of vital importance.

One Cat Over the Line, Sweet Jesus!

Like the 70’s song, I fear, our house has reached capacity. In fact, as of Thanksgiving, we’ve got one too many cats.

This all began when our beloved resident ex-stray and tough guy, Bob, disappeared in wintry weather. Four days passed. It was very cold, and he did not return. I’d rather keep him in like the others, but there was no way Bob would submit to being a full time housecat, so my husband and I had made the best of his wandering. Now we mourned for him, thinking that even his superior street smarts hadn’t kept him safe. In fact, I was so worried I checked in at the township police station, even though I knew a wandering cat was “in violation of township regulation” and subject to a fine.

Into this emotional turmoil came my best buddy, Patti, who feeds a few of the local strays. Onto her porch, in the twilight, had come a starving orange kitten, attracted by the dish of Purina she put out every night. She could count every rib, every bump in her little kitty spine. The kitten looked up at her with golden eyes and chirruped sweetly. Patti knew she had to rescue her.

The next day, Patti came to me with this sad little creature in a carrier. She was, Patti said, to fill the hole in our house left by the death of Bob. My husband wasn’t thrilled, but Patti bravely offered to pay all the vet bills, and to get her tested for all the kitty plagues. The first thing was to flea treat her because she was polluted. I made a place for her in one room, with box, food, bedding and water. I sat down cross-legged, and the kitten promptly climbed onto my knee, purring. She proved to not only have fleas, but a host of dog ticks which had to be removed. Later I’d discover an infected wound on her left flank. When my other cats looked in at her, she hissed and growled, imitating, I think, the meanest cat she knew, the one who had bitten her. Integration of this fierce little mite into the existing peaceful feline kingdom inside our home was going to be difficult.

As people with a multi-cat household know, behavior problems erupt if there are changes of any kind, particularly at the introduction of a new cat. Hissing and fighting—even between cats that were friends—happens. It’s “the new baby” problem in spades, with jealous “siblings” and the added difficulty of interspecies communication. (I try, but sometimes I just can’t think like they do.) Now I had the new kitty—a semi-feral survivor with a septic wound and PTS who needed lots of special handling—as well as the other three who were undergoing an emotional adjustment to the new reality in the house.

Of course, you can guess what happened next. One day after the arrival of the kitten, I opened the front door and Bob walked in, with his customary loud “MA-WOW, MA-WOW.” He rubbed against my legs, and then headed toward the communal food dish. As I watched his striped backside recede, I spoke aloud. “You didn’t call. You didn’t write. WHERE the hell have you been?”

Of course, I’ll never get an answer, but I’m too darn glad to see him to be cross. I sat down beside him and patted him while he chowed noisily, dropping food all over the floor and purring like mad. I figure he lost some lives, and I sincerely hope he will be more careful of –whatever—in future!
So things continue here with one more cat than I can easily handle. The kitten has been very sick, and to the vet for surgery. She’s begun to grow nicely, but she’s still paranoid and hissing. My days are full. I’m a little old lady cat patter, vet tech, and feline psychiatrist. The patting I’ve got down pretty well. That’s a pleasure. The rest takes time. The refrain of the old song goes round and round in my head while I scrub water bowls and cat boxes. We’re “one cat over the line.”

Major Household Appliances

The big bucks ones! As a woman, who has been for long stretches of her life, a housewife, I don’t take appliances for granted. In fact, not too long ago, “housewife” was shorthand for drudge, and we pampered modern ladies forget this at our peril. Living in an area where I can still see Old Order Amish women slaving from morning till night—in between dropping babies and attending church—and as a writer of historical novels—I’m keenly aware of the comfortable life we modern women lead.

I’m not ashamed to love my appliances. I name them, too, because they are my “serving girls.” I feel lucky, rather like a Jane Austen heroine, to have married well enough to afford them. ;)

The washer came first, while we were still in college. As I had been lugging baby + clothes + diapers to the laundromat for over a year, this was a real luxury. I earned it, too, this trendy looking brown Sears appliance, while working as a waitress, picking up the quarter tips which were standard in the early 60’s diner, while my husband minded our son, Miles, and did his college homework. We’ve got pictures of me bringing in frozen diapers from the line during a harsh Massachusetts winter, though, and it was a good while before we managed to get the space and the dollars for a dryer.

I’ve just graduated to a front loader, a Bosch. Her name is “Ursula” because she has a bearish, blockish look. She is German by design, though the salesman carefully explained she was manufactured at a plant in Ohio. I love her dearly, because she is already saving us money on water and electricity. More than that, she does a ton of laundry at a time, and has a way with deep cleaning the ground in dirt that men are champions at producing in a way the top loader never did.

A dish washer only arrived at my home a few years ago, so the thrill of loading it up and then unloading clean dishes has not yet gone away. Her name, (christened by my husband) is “Heidi,” and she is also a Bosch, thrifty and extremely quiet. I was the dishwasher for years, and vividly remember many Thanksgivings and Christmases at which I spent literally hours at the kitchen sink, washing endless coffee cups, plates and silverware for our houseguests—my husband’s brothers and sisters. I dearly loved being the “Mom” and their lively company, but sometimes it got to be a bit much, and I’d have to go into the living room, turn down the rock’n’roll, and drum up some relief.

One beneficial side effect of not having a dishwasher for all those years was that both my sons were trained early to do dishes, dry them, and put them away. They were sent on to wives quite domesticated—at least, for boys!

You notice I haven’t said much about dryers. The fact is they aren’t very interesting. They are simple creatures and don’t develop personalities the way the other appliances do. However, I thank my stars to be a woman here in the 21st Century during winter or during weeks of rain like we had last summer, as I dump Ursula’s prodigious output into the gaping mouth of faithful, careful Molly the Maytag.

Thanksgiving

The Iroquois have an inspiring “Salutation to the Natural World” which I’d like to paraphrase and share as my contribution to this year's Thanksgiving
celebration.

Their prayer begins: “We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings thanks…”

First, they send “greetings and thanks” to the Earth Mother, for “she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time.” Second, they thank the waters of the world, for “water is life.”

Third, they turn their minds to the Fish in the water, who, they believed purified the water, and who gave themselves to the Iroquois as food.

Fourth, they thanked the plants, which “work wonders,” sustaining all life. They especially thanked the food plants, the grains, vegetables, beans, berries and roots which “help the People survive.” They thanked the Medicine Herbs, who are “waiting and ready to heal us.” They thanked the trees, who gave food, shade and shelter to men and to animals alike.

They thanked the animals, who were their teachers, and who gave their bodies as food. They thanked the birds. With their “beautiful songs…each day they remind us to enjoy and appreciate our life.”

Then they thanked elemental Nature. They thanked the Four Winds, which “bring messages and strength,” and the “Thunder Beings,” ancestors, who brought water and kept demons” in hiding. They praised the Sun as “Elder Brother,” “the source of all fires of life.” They thanked Grandmother Moon, “the leader of all women,” and the stars who guide hunters and warriors who travel at night.

Finally, they thanked the “enlightened teachers” who have come to earth throughout all ages. “If we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live…”

Last of all, they thanked The Great Spirit, sending “greetings and thanks for all these gifts of creation.”

The Iroquois believed that all we need to live a good life is here on Earth. Sometimes in our modern, frazzled lives of getting and spending, of racing here and there, of competition and “keeping up with the Jones,” it’s therapeutic simply to pause, to look around us and remember to give thanks as they did, for the natural wonder of the world which sustains and surrounds us.

Afternoon at the Opera

Just attended one of those wonderful HD transmissions in my local Regal theater. These originate at the Saturday matinee of the Metropolitan Opera’s "Aida."

“Met at the Movies” is a godsend to lots of us: elderly fans and to those who’d like to introduce kids to this peculiar Western art form, and folks like me who don’t have a zillion dollars for Trip to NYC + A Good Seat. I hope it raises some money for the Met, too, during this economic fall over the cliff we’ve just passed through.

It’s not only a real treat to see/hear the opera through the privileged eyes of cameras, but to get the commentary from the elegant Diva Renee Fleming. This week, she took us backstage to see fascinating things we’d never get a look at otherwise, like the formidable machinery that moves huge sets and multi-level stages in a few minutes, while stage hands, focused as any pit crew, swarm everywhere.

As the performance is broadcast live, all the glitches are there, too, like this week’s incident where the Prima Donna had to leap across a rapidly opening gap between two stages. Verdi Prima Donnas are not generally made for jumping, so her stumble when she landed elicited a gasp of real fear from the audience who really wanted her to survive to sing the last two acts.

When I was a kid, my mother spent her winter Saturday afternoons stretched on her bed with a cocker spaniel and a murder mystery. She chain-smoked and listened to the Metropolitan Opera’s radio broadcast. We managed to pick it up in the Finger Lakes, although the nearest station that carried it was in Toronto.

Grand Opera became the sonic background to many a snowy, freezing afternoon of childhood. I know this makes me a little strange, but the emotional depth and absolute beauty of operatic music became imprinted on my brain.

Yesterday, I sat in the theater, listening to the familiar score of "Aida" and remembered all sorts of things, like me and my best friend, Gay, dressing up and dancing to this music. A melancholy rush through time into a dark, cold Skaneateles afternoon...

Snow piled up outside, and the two of us, all of ten or eleven, played at ballet and make-believe, putting the needle back on the "Aida Highlights" record again and again. We danced in tights and undershirts, wearing junk jewelry we imagined was exotic, long polyester scarves and odds and ends from the costume box her clever seamstress mother maintained. For a few hours, we were Temple Priestesses or the Princess Amneris' dancing girls, not just kids in a small upstate town.

Out All Night With the Grand Marquis

This has become a catch phrase in our house, applied to people who have been out all night partying—perhaps in scandalous ways. We got it from an advertisement, which I don’t think was ever shown on this side of the Atlantic. It featured a long skit, a divorce trial with a dishy, elegant brunette on the stand. The prosecution lawyer declaims: "She was out all night with the Grand Marquis,” eliciting a gasp from a packed courtroom. The camera pans in on the front row of spectators, and we see a debauched 18th Century aristocrat, silken legs, heels, make-up, wig and all. Next, there is a fast cut to the latest Grand Marquis—a smooth, sleek, ultimately made-in-Detriot automobile—with the brunette at the wheel, driving fast. A voice over passionately tells us all about the car's many new, luxury features.

We thought it was a very clever ad. Me particularly, with my 18th Century hang-up.

Oddly, this is my preamble to another cat story. As you may know, we’ve acquired another. (Actually, he acquired us.) He decided to live here during the winter about two years ago, after searching the neighborhood for an amenable house with an attentive kitty feeder/doorperson. My husband and I proved to fit his requirements to a T. One or the other of us, we’re up and down all night, turning on lights and wandering around at 1 a.m., at 3 a.m., at 4, and maybe 5 o’clock, too. As we are already awake, we can certainly open doors if his Lordship wants to come in during the night for a munchie, a pat, or just to crash on the carpet behind the speaker for a few hours. When he stays out all night, and comes in late mornings, he looks as if he’s really been out with the original Grand Marquis—the old, depraved 18th one—at some drunken hell-fire club.

His kitty eyes are blurry and rheumy, and a long ago injury shows up in a limp which he doesn’t display when he’s fresh out of the sack. He gives us a perfunctory leg rub, then makes a few face-first slams into the crunchie bowl to bolt a few down. Then he’s off to the nearest couch, bed, or warm chair to sleep on his back and drool for the next six hours.

Bookcases I've Loved

My mother had a charismatic English friend named Rosemary, whose home we visited during several school holidays. She lived in an rambling old stone house in the evocatively named small and ancient village of Shipton-Under-Wychwood.

In memory, my image of Rosemary has merged with Julia Child’s. Mother’s friend was a tall, fair, big-boned Englishwoman, forever engaged in day long sessions with French recipe books, standing in an enormous dim kitchen filled with arcane culinary devices and dangling copper pans. Her children were much younger than I, so they weren’t very interesting to me, a solitary teen. She also kept 6 or 7 (they milled in a group, so it was tough to count how many there actually were) long-haired Dachshunds, a breed of dog I’d never met before. They were charming dogs who liked to lie in heaps on the couch, like a fluffy, smiling pile of black and tan pillows.

Rosemary had terrific bookcases, which I was turned loose upon while she and Mom sipped sherry in the kitchen. They were full of historical novels from the 30’s and 40’s—some earlier. Here were Norah Lofts and Elizabeth Goudge with their mystical and yet oh-so-grisly- vision of the romantic past. Between those covers I discovered a burning love for the genre, and learned what a mesmerizing time travel experience a good writer can deliver. The most exotic of all the books Rosemary owned were the ones by Joan Grant: “Winged Pharoah,” and “Lord of the Horizon.” Mrs. Grant always said her “novels” were, in fact, recalled past lives. So brilliantly realized are these books that they infected me. I had dreams about them for years. They also kindled a keen interest in topics which were considered totally wacko in the ‘50’s, but are now Cable TV staples: past lives, auras, astral projection, Egyptian gods and Pharoahs, Atlantis, and so on.

Rosemary was also an expert in all these new and fascinating topics, and seemed to like to talk to me. After a few hours, I found I could enter the kitchen and talk with her about these astonishing things I’d read. The ladies, having imbibed several glasses of sherry and had their grown-up chat, were quite welcoming, even Mom, who was proud of my geekiness. I remember sitting on a stool in that imperfectly lighted kitchen, watching Rosemary turn a perfectly delicious bird into a pate, which to my kid taste buds didn’t taste half as good as plain turkey. Meanwhile, ever more dishes piled into the big sink. Spoons and glittering knives of many sizes and shapes littered the counter. The dachshunds were everywhere underfoot, begging for thrown treats and getting them, their long ears dragging across a slate floor with an authentically medieval patina of grease.