repose...

found...

Prizes from the thrift shop...

A sakura scarf from Japanese designer Hanae Mori.

  Kid gloves: 1940's?

 A new addition to the Floraline collection.

This timely seasonal treasure: a vintage turkey tin.

Halloween Greetings...

Ellen Leonard

Arthur Rackham

The Haunted Chamber                   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow                     Each heart has its haunted chamber,                    Where the silent moonlight falls!                     On the floor are mysterious footsteps,                     There are whispers along the walls!                   And mine at times is haunted                   By phantoms of the Past                  As motionless as shadows                 By the silent moonlight cast.                 A form sits by the window,                                 That is not seen by day,                                      For as soon as the dawn approaches              It vanishes away.                 It sits there in the moonlight               Itself as pale and still,                  And points with its airy finger               Across the window-sill.                 Without before the window,                  There stands a gloomy pine,                   Whose boughs wave upward and downward                    As wave these thoughts of mine.              And underneath its branches              Is the grave of a little child,              Who died upon life's threshold,              And never wept nor smiled.              What are ye, O pallid phantoms!              That haunt my troubled brain?              That vanish when day approaches,            And at night return again?               What are ye, O pallid phantoms!               But the statues without breath,              That stand on the bridge overarching              The silent river of death?

Arntzmobile...

Gerd Arntz was the German artist and graphic designer responsible for creating the pictograms of Isotype, The International System of TYpographic Picture Education developed by Viennese social scientist and philosopher Otto Neurath.  Isotype was a means of visually representing complex statistical information - the generic pictograms were typically used to illustrate stylized charts explaining economic and political data.   Isotype marked the inception of modern visual statistics, establishing a clear means of communicating to ordinary people esoteric information that was often difficult to understand.  In addition to the uniform human symbols, Arntz created pictograms for ships, automobiles, food, plants and factories.   Among the over 4000 symbols Arntz designed were these, my favorites, unsurprisingly: images of animals wild and domestic. 

These are wonderful images, and, quite unlike the majority of human figures he created, vivid and dynamic.  Not only are they examples of good design but they're cheerful and deserve to be seen.  With a little cardstock and some thread, I fashioned this mobile of woodland creatures - Rabbit, Squirrel, Frog, Mouse.  

 

 

 

If you're interested in seeing more of Arntz's work, the Gerd Arntz Web Archive is the place to start. There, you can also download the Gerd Arntz Memory App which is indeed a very pleasant brain-enhancing distraction.   And do spend some time meandering around the Gerd Arntz Archive from the Museum of the Hague.  Here are a few images to tempt you...

"the noblest of fruits..."

Conradus Schlapperitzi, Bible History, 1445

...or so thought Henry David Thoreau when writing his glorious paean to the apple, entitled Wild Apples, a meticulous account of the history and habits of both "civilized apple-trees" and those old, ungrafted trees which do not bear the burden of domestication.  Published by The Atlantic in November 1862, it was one of three articles commissioned by the magazine toward the end of Thoreau's life.   It is fascinating to read and a pleasant reminder that now is, indeed, apple picking time.  If this is precisely the sort of joy-making diversion that tempts you out-of-doors, a wonderfully helpful site, Orange Pippin, can direct you to over 2000 orchards in the United States as well as locations in Canada, the UK, India and Europe.  The site also provides (!!) an extraordinarily comprehensive A to Z directory of varieties you perhaps have not heard of, from the sweet and fruity Swiss Api Etoile, introduced in the 1600's, to an 1885 cultivar, the German Zabergau Reinette, a strong russet with the intriguing taste of nettles!

Educational plate, 1902

Leonard Leslie Brooke, The Three Little Pigs, 1904

Arthur Rackham, Hi, You Up There, 1915

Apple vendor, Boston Common, 19th c.

Kate Greenaway, A Apple Pie, 1886

(Images courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery & Vintage Printable.)

long live the Queen...

Today, we're celebrating Foof's ninth birthday.  Since learning of the date a few years ago, I've created announcements proclaiming the glorious occasion - this year's inspiration is that other Queen's Jubilee.  After greeting in a distinctive manner some neighboring cats who came to pay their respects, HRH tucked into her favorite repast, a chicken and duck pate with a refreshing salad of oat grass.  She accepted, with typical grace, my apologies for being unable to stage, in her honor,  a stately, floating procession of gayly bedecked craft and instead, enjoyed a few moments in the bathtub.   On the advent of the next year of her triumphant reign, she is as majestic, clever and beautiful as one could hope for.  For a celebratory treat, she asked to hear the recitation of a favorite passage from Chaucer.  She is now resting, having exhausted herself over a tin of catnip sardines.

Vivat Regina, dearest Foo Foo, long may you live!

Mice Before Milk   Lat take a cat and fostre hym wel with milk And tendre flessch and make his couche of silk, And lat hym seen a mous go by the wal, Anon he weyvith milk and flessch and al, And every deyntee that is in that hous, Suich appetit he hath to ete a mous.  

from The Manciple's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer

Bob...

When Bob arrived in August of 2007 it was in a dull red carrier from which he refused to move.  I  put in a friendly hand to say "hello" and was bitten, not severely, but decidedly.  He had just endured a long car ride and fearful of a new place, was not yet prepared to tolerate a stranger.  When his former mum left the following morning, poor Bob was at the top of the stairs, pulling pieces of fur from his hindquarters.  Foof, who had also suffered the trip, was in hiding, sulky and petulant under a bed somewhere and of no help to him whatsoever.  Gradually, he began to settle in.  Some months later, both cats came to live with me.  Again, he was terrified, disappearing entirely to some unseen empty space in a cabinet and causing a complete panic that prompted a preposterous outside search and then absolute incredulity when his hideout was revealed and he was discovered, quiet and baleful and forlorn. 

The challenges of another transition soon passed and he and Foof took to their new home fairly quickly.  I could see their relationship was primarily based on a polite mutual tolerance.  I think they regarded each other as competition for resources: food, territory, my affection.  They rarely argued, although on those very few occasions when they became occupied with fighting and biting, it was typically she who was the aggressor.  Only once did I see Bob bully her.  His choreography was eloquent.  Bob's shape was unusual for a cat - he was quite barrel-chested and so convincing as a thug while persecuting her for some offense.  After cornering her and looming in a large and manful way, he retreated to the berry box which she used as a nest from time to time.  With that glow of serene righteousness that the wronged experience when - at last! - favored by Justice, he flooded her lair with an abundant stream of urine.  Having put things right, he marched off, triumphant and as happy as I'd ever seen him. 

He liked cookies.  He liked pastries.  He liked popcorn and potato chips.  He liked hand cream.  He was rarely permitted access to such goodies, but when in the presence of any of these treats, he assumed a look of hopefulness and was usually rewarded with a fraction of a fraction of something sweet or salty.  The hand cream was not given as a treat, but Bob was a licker and if he could ambush you emerging from the shower he would pursue like a tiger on the prowl until picked up and kissed and lavishly complimented on being such a sweetie and it was then that he would seize you in his paws and devour as much after bath moisturizer as he could consume before being wrestled from the banquet of unguents.   I also quite recently observed, and preempted, I must add, his fondness for spray starch. 
 
I don't think any of the photos of him on this blog made clear the reason for his name.  He was a bobtail - either a rumpy riser or a stumpy, I haven't yet worked out which.  He had a little black stump of a tail that would blossom into a black puff at the sight of some strange cat.  Along with his bandit mask and his oddly shaped feet, (he had unusually large "heels" that enabled him to stand like a human, with his enormous back feet flat on the floor), the little tail was one of his most endearing traits.  That and his quiet stoicism and aura of pure and enduring goodness.  In his dotage he became a talker.  "Rrrrrowwww" was his favorite word but it had very many variations and it was generally only used for the benefit of humans. 

At times, Bob was quite possessive, but then, so is Foof - perhaps it's the nature of cats.  I have always had pots of fresh cat grass and catnip for the enjoyment of both beasties but the catnip always belonged to Bob.  He would often try to prevent Foof from having any by sitting in the pot and squashing it all flat.  Often, he liked to play with his toys but with one paw securing the nip.  It was quite a dilemma.  Bob wanted to have all the toys, too. 

Last week, over the course of a few days, Bob stopped eating.  He had Chronic Renal Failure and was being treated with various nutriceuticals with apparent success.  But at 21 years old, he was giving out.  I've lived with nine cats during my life and the ones who have become demonstrably sick have done so almost overnight.  They are fine one day and then the next they're not fine at all.  It was like that with Bobcat.  By last Friday, he could barely walk.  It was agonizing to watch.  For the last couple of years I have awoken every day wondering if Bob would still be alive.  Astonishingly, he always was.  I had hoped he might die quietly in his sleep and I would discover him still and at peace,  but instead he began to suffer outwardly and I had to finally make the decision to end his suffering.   When we lose our animal friends, we are often overcome by the strength of our grief - grief that is proof of our love.  That part of our hearts animals claim as theirs alone is much greater than we imagine when we choose to share their world.  Bob was a kind and loving soul.

We made the trip to the hospital at noon on Saturday with Bob in his dull red carrier lined with a soft blue blanket.  In the back seat of the car, I opened the carrier to pet him.  He looked at me, put his paw on my hand and began purring.