Category Archives: animal rescue

Beth and That Nice Boy got Married

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beth hoodOur foster kittens’ pediatrician is a sweetheart of a woman named Beth (that’s her on the left, channeling an inner fairy tale character). Beth got married this past Saturday, her wedding a welcome respite for Jack and me amidst three intense days of hard labor setting up the bookstore cafe.

Likely it seemed less relaxing to Beth than to us, but she looked pretty happy, so we figure she enjoyed it all the same.

beth happyBeth provides a lot of freebie and reduced cost care for our bookstore fosters. She saved staff cat Owen Meany’s life when he had a virus we didn’t notice, and she made house calls for Hazel, the 20-year-old cat who landed in the shelter amid cries of outrage. (Queen Hazel is now living a life of luxury in North Carolina; Clan Hazel is her facebook page, if you want to see how Her Majesty is doing.)

beth hair and dressbeths dressSpeaking of majesty, check out Beth’s gorgeous hairdo and dress. The dress is one of the nicest stories from her wedding. Beth was engaged once, several years ago, and bought her dress before discovering the guy wasn’t worth wearing it for. So she ditched him but kept it–Beth is a sensible girl–until she found someone worthy of her.

“It’s a redemption dress,” she told me over lunch in the bookstore. “Been returned to its rightful purpose in life, just like us.” (Beth and I share Christian beliefs in the redemptive power of Jesus.)

beth sabersSo Beth married That Nice Boy, and an opera singer gave a heartfelt rendition of “Someday my Prince will Come” at the ceremony. Beth’s dog was one of the groomsmen, and he approved this match. You could tell Maverick thought Brandon smelled reliable.

Brandon is a prince of a guy, and we admit we’re bad friends for not trying harder, but we call him “That Nice Boy.” It used to be “That Nice Boy Beth’s Marrying” but that got too long. We actually referred to him, as we walked to the church three blocks away, as “TNB,” which came out “Tenbee.”

It’s all over once you get a nickname in a small town.

“Dr. Brandon Tester, Chiropractor” has set up business in Wise with a brand new office. We’ll just try not to call him Tenbee in professional settings. We can’t call him Brandon because I have a friend who is married to Brett, and her brother is Brent, and she’s best friends with another friend of mine, married to a guy named Brad. And I have a friend named Brian married to a lady named Beth. So sorry, Beth and Tenbee, but we just can’t.

beth glam shots

But we do love you both, and wish you well! It was a grand wedding, and we have high hopes for your mixed marriage. (The cakes and flowers were bright orange for the bride’s University of Tennessee background and deep blue in honor of the groom’s University of Kentucky roots. That’s pretty much Capulet/Montague around here.)

beth dragBut there’s only that one wedding photo in which it looks like TNB is dragging Beth around against her will, so it’s all good. In fact, it’s great. A quote in Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd  sums up a good marriage: “And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be – and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

beth and brandonYep.

Coffee, Kittens, Nightgown an’ All

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It’s chaos on the half-shelf at the bookstore right now, and I have to admit it’s got fun parts and it’s got … parts.

Yesterday morning I swam up from sleep at 7:30 and wandered upstairs, my bare feet attacked by hungry foster kittens at every step – and found three people at my front door, waiting to get in and organize the upstairs kitchen.

We’d told Kelley, the head chef at SECOND STORY CAFE, that she and her helpers Sam and Thom would be able to get into the bookstore “first thing Thursday morning” to have the kitchen ready for an 11 a.m. health inspection.

“First thing” in the morning is a non-specific measure of time, applied differently by different people. I let the team in, apologized for my long white cotton nightgown (which kind of makes me look like a rumpled Victorian ghost with bed hair) and aimed them toward the stairs. Then I moved to the kitchen to flick the switch on our coffeemaker and grab the cat spoon for doling out their breakfast. The cats, meanwhile, unhappy at the disruption to their routine, chorused protests.

That’s why I missed the soft knocking at the window of the bookstore, next to the kitchen and below the outside staircase. Really, given the state of my hair and nightie, it was Rick who should have screamed, not me. But he was “tryin’ not to startle ya, ma’am,” as he explained once I cleaned up the puddle, opened the upstairs door–kittens and nightgown trailing–and let him in to “get started a little early” on the heat and air installation. We hadn’t expected him until 9, but he figured “one big push today’ll do ‘er.”

Back down the stairs I went, kittens riding my bedtails, to find a man on the porch, waving through the glass door. We’d borrowed the keys to the theatre down the street after the Celtic festival ended, so we could get some equipment out when we had volunteers to help. They needed their keys back. I handed them over and invited the poor soul in for a cup of coffee, since the rich brew’s smell now permeated the house and people were trailing one at a time–circus clowns from the Volkswagen–up and down staircases, headed for the source of life.

Theatre dude cast his eyes over my hair–I think at this point a kitten was sitting in it, too weak from hunger to walk any farther–and nightgown, then declined.

I fed the cats, checked the porch just in case someone else had showed up, got dressed, checked the porch, and went for coffee. Pot was empty.

I love my life.