Season’s Greetings From Cat Hair Country:
We’ll skip the annual animal head count this year and settle for merely listing the additions. JoAnn’s year 2000 resolution to champion the cause of homeless, injured, endangered animals produced the following spectacular results:
Emma the stray cat and Avery the homeless dog, both suffering egregious injuries, somehow escaped the animal shelter gas chamber and found their way to Care Animal Hospital, where JoAnn saw to their recovery, took them home for “the weekend,” and subsequently neglected to return them. Emma’s souvenirs from her previous life include mutilated ears and a lot of hardware in one hip, but she’s still the fastest, best-looking cat in the house. Tom requested that JoAnn trim his ears in hopes of attaining the same improvement. JoAnn agreed to comply only if the improvement included less snoring at public gatherings.
Avery the shepherd mix graduated from the canine college of obedience in November. Shortly thereafter, in typical dog-like fashion, she designated JoAnn as the Alpha male of the household and demonstrated her dominance over Tom in a manner that shall remain un-described in this document or anywhere else. The knowledge of his true position in the household shocked Tom. JoAnn appeared unsurprised by this revelation.
The passing of Nigel the South American possum left JoAnn with an empty aquarium, which she quickly filled with rat ladies Adelaide and Pandora, claiming that she had saved them from a fate involving caged reptiles. Tom suspects ulterior motives as their presence evens the household female to male ratio at 1:1 and threatens his campaign to become household Alpha male.
On the subject of campaigns, Tom’s year 2000 anti-necktie crusade faltered because of an apathetic streak that began when he discovered that he and the Etch-a-Sketch are the same age. However, he did accomplish the apparently difficult feat of remaining with the same employer for an entire calendar year, and is currently enrolled in a company-sponsored training program intended to help him appear less stunned in public when work-related events do not occur as planned.
We celebrated our 7th anniversary with a visit to Cape Cod, where we combed the beaches of the National Seashore for big dead fish heads and petrified horseshoe crabs. The staff of the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History sent us on a nature walk of the shore line at low tide and then charged another group of tourists admission to watch us make our way back across the swampy salt flats as the tide rolled in. The high point of our trip involved a tour of the Chatham Light House, where Tom, under the direction of a muscular Coast Guard volunteer, learned how to clean nose prints off an antique Fresnel lens. The last night of our trip found us at the Captain’s Quarters in the historic Boston suburb of Revere, a location we would not recommend for your next family vacation.
Wishing you all a cat-hair-free 2001 that’s the best year ever.
