Let's Wait and Pee

Scratch, scratch, scratch in the litter box. Meow, meow. A few droplets of pee. 

Maggie Lou repeated this routine throughout the day. By the next morning, I knew I had to call the vet.

As it turns out, she has something called "Feline Idiopathic Cystitis." It's caused by anxiety.

"Have there been any major changes in her routine?" the vet asked.

Nope.

"Is she the only cat in the house?"

Yes.

"Have you changed her diet?"

I gave her a little dry food the other day, but it's never been a problem before.

In fact, the only change I could think of is that we spent an hour or so moving boxes around in the closet. She freaked out a little at the time, but I hadn't thought too much about it.

The upshot was, our cat was suffering from anxiety that interfered with her potty routine. 

"What has she got to be anxious about?" queried Mr. Ginley. "She eats, she sits in the back window, ack acks at the birds, moves to the front window, sleeps there, kicks a toy around every once in awhile and sleeps some more. What's so stressful about that?" 

Pondering it further, he asked, of no one in particular, "Does this mean I shouldn't give her airplane rides anymore?"

Whatever it was that put our cat's anxiety into motion, the upshot is that she's on a new diet, painkillers and something to relax her ass. "Pill or liquid?" asked the vet. The last time I crushed a pill and put it in Maggie's food, she stopped eating. 

"Liquid it is," I replied.

So, I got to chase her down and stick a plastic syringe in Maggie's mouth. Let's just say I was not her favorite human.

The next step is to acquire a plug-in air freshener that dispenses kitty pheromones to calm her ass down. 

With any luck, it'll help calm me down, too.

After seeing the vet's bill, I sure could use it.

Hi Lilies Hi Lo

I will never be the gardener my mom was. And yet, she did instill in me a love of florals that's stayed with me all my life.

As I schlepped the garbage out to the curb this week, I noticed the lilies of the valley had come up on the side of the house. The prior owners planted them, so I can't claim responsibility for their appearance. Also, as I admitted, I'm no gardener. So when they arrived, it was amidst grasses and a few weeds. 

But there they were.

When I was growing up, my mom would let me take small bunches of flowers to grade school. She would wet a paper towel and wrap it around the base, then cover the towel with foil to keep the blooms fresh. I'd put them on my desk and enjoy them all day. It seems such an odd thing, that sometimes I wonder if I dreamed this. My siblings can confirm or deny.

In any case, as I noticed the little flowers valiantly poking their heads up, I decided to clip a bunch and put them next to my writing table so I could enjoy them as I worked. I hadn't remembered how fragrant they were. As the day went on, their scent filled the room.

Such a lovely aroma from such teeny flowers.

Later, when my work was done, I pondered the idea of something so diminutive making such a big impression. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. 

But I was content just to enjoy them while they lasted and leave the metaphors to others. 

Happy Spring!

P.S. Hi Lili Hi Lo is a song Leslie Caron sang in the movie Lili. I had it going through my head when I wrote this. (My mind is a strange and occasionally wondrous thing.) The song was written by Walter Jurmann and Bronisław Kaper (who was Jewish, born in Warsaw and fled Europe during the Nazi occupation). The pair ended up in Hollywood, where they enjoyed successful careers writing music scores for movies.

Trunk Show

When I was small, my sister, Diane, fashioned an elephant out of mud she obtained from our backyard. Surprisingly, the little guy has held it together for more years than anyone would have imagined, although it has crumbled away part of its trunk.

Photo Courtesy of Rocky River Public
Library and the Cowan Pottery Museum

Maybe this is where my fondness for elephants was born. In any event, I love the huge, trunked creatures. So when I happened upon one particular pachyderm recently, I was intrigued.

As I mentioned in an earlier article, the Rocky River Public Library has a collection of Cowan Pottery. On the day of my visit, one of the featured pieces was a ceramic elephant, designed by Margaret J. Postgate. Alongside it was the inspiration for the piece, a soap carving.

Alas, doesn't take much to send me right down the rabbit hole. In this case, it was a bar of Ivory Soap.

Curiouser and curiouser. What was with the soap? 

My artsy friends may already know this, but I didn't. In 1924, Proctor and Gamble held a competition of carvings made out of Ivory soap. As it happens, there's something in the molecular composition of Ivory that makes it uniquely suited to carving. (It resists shearing or somesuch.)

Postgate entered her Elephant into the contest in 1925, and it became part of a traveling exhibition that made a stop at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The success of the competition spurred P&G to continue running the annual soap carving contest, and Postgate submitted entries year after year.

By-and-by, P&G asked Margaret to write out instructions on how to carve each of her critters in soap. These how-tos were immortalized in children's publications like Boys Life, giving youngsters the opportunity to carve their own frog, elephant or other animal out of Ivory soap.

A few of these soap carving renderings were transformed into ceramic objets d'art at the hands of Cowan Pottery. The elephant in the photo shown here was created in 1930. Keeping to the elephant theme, Postgate also designed a pair of bookends. (One elephant is pulling, the other is pushing.) She did a religious piece on the three Mary's (Jesus' mother, Mary Magdalen and Mary, Martha's sister.) And Postgate was responsible for a whimsical pair of polar bears that Cowan produced.

As a result of her success with soap sculptures, Postgate was asked to carve models in soap for various projects, including pieces that were cast in porcelain (Lenox) and bronze  (Gorham Manufacturing Company). She was also commissioned to do soap renderings for architect Francis Keally.

Soap sculpture went on to become ever more popular, acquiring a place in New York City hobby shows in 1935. These days, soap sculpting is part of art education.

I thought about attempting to make one of the soap sculptures following Postgate's instructions. 

But in the immortal words of Bones on Star Trek, "Dammit, Jim, I'm a writer, not a sculptor."

I may have just taken certain liberties with that quote.

Who Was Margaret J. Postgate?

The artist (not to be confused with the poet Margaret Postgate Cole) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her family moved to Manhattan in 1910, where she continued her studies at Cooper Union, the Art Students League of New York and the School of American Sculpture. Her home was in Brooklyn, NY, where she resided until her death in 1953 following a long illness. Margaret never married or had children and left no surviving relatives, according to her New York Times obituary. (I wasn't able to dig up anything else about her life after her soap carving days.)

Diane's now-ancient elephant
(photo used with permission)

A Crack of the Spoon

I thought my mom's method of corporal punishment was unique. Until I saw a meme on Facebook.

And there it was, in all its menacing glory: The Wooden Spoon.

Apparently, I wasn't the only child who got whacked with this kitchen utensil. In fact, all my mother had to do was reach for the silverware drawer and glare at me, and I'd promise to do anything she told me to, no matter how onerous. I was so traumatized by the wooden spoon, my mom seldom had to apply it to my posterior. And when she did, it stung but didn't cause lasting pain. I think was more the idea of her punishing me than the actual blow that brought me to my knees.

To be honest, the worst punishment my mother inflicted was guilt. She'd look me in the eye and say, "I'm disappointed in you," and I'd crumble like a stale Pecan Sandy.

Years later, my mom said she almost felt bad about threatening me with the wooden spoon because I went all Sarah Bernhardt on her. I think she had a hard time trying to sustain her anger and not crack up. 

When it came time to disciplining my own kid, Mr. Ginley – as the primary caregiver – did most of the heavy lifting. While spanking was occasionally inflicted, he found other methods that were just as effective, especially as Joe got older. 

One of the classics was sending Joe to the "Bad Boy Corner." We later dubbed it "The Wailing Wall," because our son would cry his heart out and wail about the indignity of being punished for whatever his transgression was. When it came time to paint the wall, there were actually tear streaks that had stained the paint. If we were modern parents, we would have been mortified. Being old-school, we just laughed and painted over it 

My sister, Denise, tells a story of my Mom when she was in the nursing home in the final years of her life. Dementia had taken over, and her memory was spotty. One day, a staff member came in while Denise was visiting and tried to get Mom to respond to a memory task. Mom shut her eyes, as the woman rambled on about how she knew mom cooked for her family, and then asked if she remember this.

She produced a wooden spoon.

Mom refused to open her eyes or respond in any way. Denise stepped in and said, "Hey, Mom, remember how you used to bang the wooden spoon on the counter, and Barb would beg and plead and say, "Don't hit me, I'll be good!" 

Mom kept her eyes closed. But chuckled.

Once a Mom, always a Mom.