Pogo in the snow

Tom went out for a hike along the river with Debbie Kinder this morning, something they try to do pretty regularly, weather permitting. Not long after he left it began to snow pretty steadily, but it lasted less than an hour and probably accumulated just about a couple of inches.

I stayed in and worked on an article that I have about two-thirds done. I read a bit in a book for Christians about Judaism and listened to a bit of the audio version of A Separate Peace by John Knowles. It's a coming-of-age novel, along the lines of Catcher in the Rye, and it was very popular when I was working at Bookland during college. It's probably more enjoyable to read it when you are eighteen or twenty.

Tom told me that a major winter storm may be coming Tuesday evening and into Wednesday, with snow accumulations of up to nine inches. Of course, my colonoscopy is Thursday. They are supposed to call on Wednesday to tell me when to come in, so if the weather is too bad, I suppose they will just reschedule. I looked at another weather report that was only predicting a 30% chance of snow showers, so I decided not to worry about it. I'd certainly rather get it over and done. As those of you old enough to have had to do this, the procedure is uncomfortable but not horrible. The preparation, on the other hand, is a bummer. I certainly don't want to go through all that and have them cancel out on me because of snow! I'm not sure I want to go through that two weeks in a row. At any rate, about 1:30 the winter storm watch for Tuesday and Wednesday was removed, so I guess that excitement is over.

Meanwhile a possum found its way to the base of the bird feeder after lunch and has been munching merrily away on the hulls and scattered seeds in the snow there. Ugly critters, even if Pogo was a favorite of mine once upon a time. I put Cassidy on the window ledge and tried to convince her that it was a big mouse, but she was unimpressed. When she asked to go out on the deck, I opened the door, she peeked out at the possum and came back in. Pogo, meanwhile, glanced over once and went back to eating. He's certainly not scared of any of our Thundercats.

Doggie doings

Mama told me I shouldn't post things about Texas that will make people make fun of the Lone Star State. So I want you to be sure and read all of this post to see that I am actually making fun of the shared (or at least connected) weirdness of Texas and Wisconsin. I mention that because the first part is kind of longish...

A small-town mayor accused of secretly keeping her neighbors' dog after telling them the pet died has resigned, and a judge is set to decide custody of the Shih Tzu.

Grace Saenz-Lopez apologized Friday to Alice residents and said she believed her actions were in the dog's best interest.

...

A neighboring family accuses Saenz-Lopez of refusing to return the dog after leaving it in her care while they went on vacation. A day after her neighbors left, Saenz-Lopez called to tell them Puddles had died.

Three months later, a relative of the neighbors saw the pet at a dog groomer. When Saenz-Lopez refused to return the dog, the family filed a criminal complaint and a civil lawsuit against her.

Homero Canales, who represents Saenz-Lopez, has said his client believed the dog would die if returned to her neighbors.

Saenz-Lopez, the city's mayor since 2003, was indicted Jan. 18 on two felony counts of tampering with evidence and concealing evidence.

Those charges came after Saenz-Lopez filed a police report claiming the dog was missing. The dog was later spotted at the home of Saenz-Lopez's twin sister, in Ben Bolt, about 10 miles from Alice.

City commissioners voted unanimously last week for a resolution urging Saenz-Lopez to resign. Mayor Pro-Tem Juan Rodriguez will take over mayoral duties.

Okay, now the Wisconsin connection. The Sheryl Albers mentioned in the following section is from neighboring Reedsburg:

A Wisconsin legislator wants state law to govern how divorced couples handle custody disputes — over their pets. ... After sniffing around the bill’s provisions, several divorce attorneys were trying to decide whether to growl or wag their tails.
...
Albers hasn’t said much about why she introduced the bill, but members of a McFarland family said that Albers has personal reasons — a messy divorce that involved Albers’ husband and a Labrador retriever mix named Sammi. Albers also pushed another bill related to that divorce.
...
In 2003, [Albers's now-husband's] divorce was finalized. The divorce included wrangling over who would have to care for and pay for their dog. The dispute arose, she said, because neither [his then-spouse] nor Anders, who married Albers this year, wanted the aging dog, but their three children did. Sammi [the dog] died in February at 16.

Albers introduced her bill [in June.].

...

As part of the divorce, Dane County Circuit Judge Sarah O’Brien ordered that Sammi go with the children as they split time between Symons’ and Anders’ residences...

Albers wasn’t happy with the judge’s decision and told the children she didn’t like the long, messy hair shed by the dog...

In a statement, Albers responded, “Individuals who are parental alienators or engage in controlling behavior of spouses or children sometimes use family pets to exercise control. That is inappropriate.”

So one politician is protecting a dog from potential (unspecified) harm, and the other one is bummed out because she was expected to deal with a dog that belonged to her husband's children by a previous marriage. At least the mayor of Alice didn't drag the state legislature into it! I also note that the poor man who married Ms. Albers refused to comment on the whole episode.To the best of my knowledge -- and remember that I worked for divorce lawyers -- the legislature didn't pass any pet custody statute.

Thundercats

When Wisconsin has delivered too many sub-zero days and too many inches of snow to make it possible for Sundance and Cassidy to go outside to do their business, to sharpen their claws on the deck railing and generally burn off some energy prowling, they go stir crazy. They turn into middle-aged somewhat pudgy incarnations of the late-1980's animated Thundercats.

I call them this not because of their lightning speed and agility but because of the incredible amount of noise they make rushing around the house and up and down the stairs to the basement. Cassidy even makes noise trotting across the carpet in my bedroom!

Cassidy becomes the Mistress of Mayhem, Sundance is the Terror of Tiny Toys. Together the Furious Feline Fighters for Freedom tear around the floor, slipping and sliding as their claws -- grown a bit too long without the natural wear and tear of outside -- click and clack in a futile effort to get a grip on the laminate. Sundance slides into the side of the bookcase, and Cassidy trips into the chair under which the elusive fuzzy blue ball has hidden.

Kinda entertaining, actually. Especially when they pick themselves up and try to look disdainful at mere humans who don't realize that what may have looked like clumsiness was exactly what they had in mind all along.

Library

I got my job at Bookland in Huntsville when I was a senior in high school. Mrs. Slater hired me because I hung out there all the time with her daughter Holly, whom I dated off and on. One day when registration was in chaotic progress and we were underfoot as usual, she said, "As long as you two are here, get to work." So she set us up in her office going over the cash register slips to sort out the various purchases. In those pre-computer days, all the register did was print a letter beside the purchase indicating if it was for a trade book, a textbook, a Bible (tax exempt) or something else. So we went through yards of cash register tape adding up all the A's and B's and so on. For the glorious sum of $1 an hour!

That turned into a weekend job, then a full time job that summer before I went off to Michigan State in the fall. MSU started later than Sam Houston, so I was able to stay and work the chaos of registration in the new store that I had helped move into. I loved that job, and it was waiting for me when I came home for Christmas and spring breaks and for the summer.

Today I started as a volunteer at the Kilbourn Public Library in the Dells. I hang out there so much I thought I should get to work. I was surprised Norma Slater hadn't wandered by and put me to doing something already. I worked for a couple of hours this afternoon, processing books that were to go out on interlibrary loan (a surprising number), checking the shelves for books that had been missing from last November's inventory (found only one) and cutting up scrap paper for ... well, scrap paper.

I enjoyed it and plan to do a couple of hours every Friday afternoon until gainfully employed doing something else.

On another note, this morning when I went to dump my cold coffee into the sink, what to my wondering eyes should appear but the pileated woodpecker hanging on the bird feeder and pecking away at one of the suet boxes. I called Tom who was able to get a photograph. The pileated has been hanging around a lot lately, and I think now that he knows how to make the birdfeeder work, he will be around even more.