Jack’s Wednesday guest post –
As Wendy has posted in the past, we’ve been having lots of folk dropping into the shop who’ve read ‘The Little Bookstore’ – some from quite a distance (hhmmm – that sounds odd). They range from fairly large book-clubs to family groups and individuals and from Michigan to Florida. We’ve even got someone coming from Oregon in a month or two!
Almost without exception they take photographs, and these usually include pictures of our cats. The cats react to this attention in a variety of ways. Val-Kittie ignores everyone and continues working on her 5 year plan, while Beulah poses on the front porch – her domain – with great pride.
But the newest bookstore staff cat, Owen Meany, is just coming to grips with stardom. We didn’t have him while Wendy was writing; he came just at the end, and is named for the book Wendy was not supposed to hate. Owen is still too kittenish to carry off ‘aloof,’ and doesn’t have a personal domain to be proud of, or a story from the book for people to react to, so he does – – – kittenish things.
His favorite thing right now is to try to swing Tarzan-like from the tassel on the end of the fan pull-cord, although when he is discovered doing this he will quickly pretend to be working hard at something very important. Poor Owen; perhaps when Wendy writes her next book, he’ll be in it. That will make it easier for him to find his place in the bookstore world.
I do have to say that when I visited, Val kyttie was very gracious and let me scratch her in the proper places. I did wonder though if she was just watching to make sure I took home a proper amount of reading material.
Susan Hamrick
Sent from my iPhone
Haha! I enjoy your writing Jack. Those kitties look like lots of fun!
I LOVE the pics that include the cats. For those of us whose phones and picture files have more faces of animals than our friends/spouses/even children—this is our kind of eye candy…
Actually, Owen is Valkyttie’s paw candy. She refers to him as her toy boy.
How about Maine to Florida……
C’mon down!
Oh what fun to read Owen’s history here. He’s not a meany though. Even when I misread a smudge on his coat as an orange patch and called him “girl,” all he did was give me a well-earned dirty look and walk away.