Big Stone Gap | Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids

It’s often only when you’re pulled away at short notice, with many loose ends left dangling, that you realize how many real friends you have. When my sister’s funeral summoned me to Scotland, I was worried that even with Internet availability and my trusty laptop, there were chores that folk at home just wouldn’t know needed to be dealt with, things the bookstore required that wouldn’t get done.

With the evidence of over a hundred messages of condolence and many more FaceBook ‘likes’, and with a high proportion from around here, I should have known better. It’s a guy thing, I guess.

Of course Wendy bore the brunt of it and cheerfully juggled duties while also dealing with a writing deadline and the current exceptional stress of her day job at GMEC–not to mention grabbing the opportunity to ‘launder’ a fourteen count kitten rescue through the store while I was away. I could also depend on the usual emergency cover by the heroic James, Kelley, Kody, Elizabeth and Mark and my exceptional ‘soul-mates’ Tony and Anne.

This core group of people that are a kind of loyal bookstore family (Wendy is family, of course, but you catch my drift) each rallied round and in whatever way they could. This reduced my panic to a bearable level and let me concentrate on family and friends at a time that, although predicated on sadness, also involved a lot of reconnecting with family and friends.

My final evening in Scotland before returning home was an invite for dinner with one of my oldest friends. My former singing partner Barbara had asked me to her and her husband Oliver’s new apartment in Edinburgh along with another couple of friends and her son Archie, who did the catering. Despite having just moved in and with only half the rooms habitable, we all sat down to a relaxed and memorable meal, punctuated with lots of memories of the folk and jazz scenes in Dunfermline, where we had all grown up. In the middle of the evening Barbara began to describe her visit to Big Stone Gap two years ago with her husband Oliver when she headlined our Celtic festival. She spoke of Kelley and Sam and their kids, describing Kelley as “a kind of female rugby character, someone you felt you should not mess with but who has a kind heart.” She depicted life in the bookstore (“kittens everywhere, all adorable”) and reminisced on their visit to Carter Fold (“the dancing, such a community”) I realized that I’m exceptionally lucky. Because I have another extended family back in Scotland, some of whom have visited here and made the connection. I consider myself doubly blessed!

My dearest wish would have been for ‘Big Sis’ Margaret to come over, visit with us and become part of that bigger family, just like my niece Vicki and her daughter Elle.

I had been plotting, but it wasn’t to be – – – Time waits for nothing. Enjoy your family, biological and chosen, while you have them. They are a blessing.

Long story short, Jack is in Scotland, which means I’m throwing away things he won’t miss when he returns, and intaking kittens at an exponential rate.

It’s a marriage thing.

Happily, this Wednesday six of our adult cats are going to an urban no-kill shelter that works with rural rescuers. Even more happily, those not already spayed or neutered don’t have to be, because they have a vet who volunteers these services. Which is a big help on our pocketbook here as my crochet time dwindles for fundraising.

Not, I hasten to point out, that our vet Saint Beth at Powell Valley Animal Hospital is any slouch in the volunteer and low-cost department. She has done stuff for us that defies job description. Just follow Miss Pogo on Facebook to see some of the care Saint Beth provides.

Or feast your eyes on these photos, snapped Friday when Beth arrived with reinforcements – Kendra and Meghan from the Pretty Nurses Brigade – to give the unspayed girls we have in our garage their rabies shots. (We have nicknamed the garage the Virgin Vault, as Fiona and Salome are sojourning there until their Wednesday departure.)

Jack ASSURED me before he left for Scotland that he had “cleaned out” the garage so it could provide overflow for kittens during the summer tsunami.

When a man says he’s cleaned something out, he seems to mean that he’s removed everything from it that is of no use to him. Nothing about stacking, ordering, putting lids back on, etc.

Fair enough. It’s a marriage thing.

So Beth and her team entered a maze of chairs waiting to be caned, empty boxes waiting for who knows what, paint waiting to have its lids put back on, litter boxes waiting for target practice, and two girl cats hiding somewhere in the midst of it all.

Fortunately, Kelley’s son Asher was on hand. Being about 4’3″ and 65 pounds, plus a natural cat whisperer, he quickly found the cats hiding in their respective corners, explained that nothing bad was going to happen, and soon had them in arms. The ladies took their shots like champs, and I grabbed Beth’s phone and took a few shots, too. Heh heh heh.