Tag Archives: Wendy Welch

Roger Tells it like it Is

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Hey. I’m Roger. I’m here with my brother Arthur and my sister Scarlet, and my mom, Hester.DSCN0487

Mom says we didn’t always live in the bookstore, but I don’t remember anything else. She says she used to live in a nice house with a family, but she got pregnant and they took her to a place called a shelter, and that’s where we were born. She talks a lot about the couch and the rug and the nice lady where she used to live – except now she says maybe she wasn’t such a nice lady ’cause she didn’t get Mom fixed, and then she threw her away when she was pregnant. I think Mom’s feelings are hurt, like she’s feeling betrayed or something.

But anyway, we all live here now, and it’s fun. We have lots of food, and room to play, and a water fountain that keeps our water dish topped up and sometimes Arthur and I have water fights. Except Arthur’s kind of the DSCN0495scaredy cat of the family. He runs when feet come into our room. Which is kinda dumb, I keep telling him, because feet are attached to people, and people are the Source of All Good Things. They give body rubs and they carry cans of wet food and they have those little foil crinkle balls we all like. They’re really very nice, feet are.

Scarlet’s got this figured out. She’s what visitors call “adorable” and “plump.” I can tell you right now what her future’s gonna be: she’ll get adopted by some young girl who renames her “Tiffany” and lie down on that girl’s pink ruffled bedspread and sleep 22 hours a day, get up and rub her human when she comes home from school, deign to wear a hat for a few minutes, then eat and go back to sleep. She’ll need those other two hours for eating. Scarlet likes to eat. That’s all I’m sayin’.DSCN0465

Me, I’m the adventurous one. I like to explore the dark corners. I’ve killed like six flies and a couple of spiders since birth, and I can jump from about six feet and land on all four paws, no trouble. Kinda scares our foster mom when I do this. She says I look like a flying squirrel wearing a tuxedo. Whatever.

And I think Mom’s hoping for another shot at a loving family. She’s gonna get her tubes tied as soon as her milk dries up – yeah, me and my siblings might still be sneaking an occasional shot there. And Mom’s not even a year old yet, barely more’n a kitten herself. Makes me kinda sad when I think about it. I mean, we didn’t mean to ruin her life or nothin’ – we couldn’t help being born. But what kinda parent throws a pregnant teenage cat into a shelter instead of taking responsibility for getting the kittens a home and Mom fixed?DSCN0466

Anyway, Mom’s really pretty; she’s got this gorgeous fur that looks dark in the shade but turns to red-brown and gold mixed in the sunlight. Someone’s gonna visit the bookstore and fall in love with her again.

You can come visit us all in the bookstore. We like feet – even Arthur’s starting to come ’round on that.

The Extortionate Horse

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Jack is leading his annual Scotland/Ireland tour, so Wendy is writing all the blogs until he returns – unless he manage to send us one. DSCN0078

Jack and I slipped away to our shack in the Tennessee woods recently. This is the cabin that doesn’t have a clock or the Internet, so we enjoyed chilling out, and finally managed to get together with our nearest neighbors (a half-mile away) Jim and Patti.

The cabin dwellers back in these woods tend to maintain friendly distance from one another, but since Jack and I don’t live in ours year-round, Jim and Patti keep an eye on the place. We wanted to say thanks and have a nice social evening, so we walked up to their place Saturday afternoon and invited them for Sunday dinner: Jack’s famous-in-six-countries-outlawed-in-two veggie curry.

They arrived bearing a gift of traditional homemade Appalachian liquid craftsmanship in raspberry and butterscotch flavors, so we knew we were going to like them right away. (If that description is not clear, google “artisanal moonshine.”)

Jim and Patti’s land stretches down to the main road, more than a mile beyond their ridge-sitting home, and they keep horses in the flatter end of the pasture. That end borders a little white church that some locals attend, held in a building so old, it has separate doors for male and female entrants (no longer used). Last I knew, the congregation numbered about 15, twelve of whom shared the last name “Bledsoe.”

Jim and Pattie have a horse named “Nasty Jack,” a beautiful golden boy of sophisticated breeding–and perhaps behavior. The horse figured out that, come Sundays, yon big box with the pointy top filled with people. And people, of course, were the source of all good things: apples, marshmallows, carrots….

Nasty Jack positioned himself by the fence just outside the church window as the congregation–which does not use musical instruments–swung into a hymn. And he joined in. Matching rhythm with hoof stomps and key changes with creative snorting, Jack whinneyed along until the congregation wheezed to a halt, too breathless with laughter to sing. The pastor shook his head, and asked if anyone had brought “something suitable for a horse” to the weekly potluck. A few apples were produced, and a child dispatched to “keep that horse busy” until the requisite two hymns had been sung.

Next week, Jack did it again. The pastor dispatched a child with a handful of carrots from a veggie tray. At the luncheon, the pastor asked if people would bring a few horse treats for next week. “We’ll designate a horse feeder each week from the children.”

Cabin dwellers being fairly self-contained, the story took a couple of months to reach Jim and Patti. When it did, they were mortified.

“I called the pastor up and apologized, said I’d move Nasty Jack to the other side of the road before Sunday,” Jim said, his round blue eyes twinkling as Patti repressed a giggle. “And the pastor said, ‘No, please. Our congregation has practically doubled. Every child in the valley wants to be the horse feeder’.”

Balaam’s donkey has got nothing on Nasty Jack.