The Story of Isabel

My darling Isabel has just shaken off her mortal coil.  My wee bouncy bouncy girl has ended her sojourn in my house after more than 19 years.  

Isabel on yard watch

She was fearless, more fearless than me, even on my best brave day.  She knew people I never met.  I'd hear some strange cheerful voice wafting through the window of my little house in Colorado - "Hi Isabel!"  She spent countless hours lurking down the alley ways stalking prey and making friends.  If you had a ladder against the side of your house, you'd find her, tiny and eager to see you as you set about repairing the roof shingles.  A sweetheart, open to all.

Isabel and Mannetje 1990's

She may have seemed second fiddle to our Siamese companion Mannetje, but she has always been the leader of her own band.  Still, when Mannetje left us three years ago, she seemed lost for days, inspecting every room, gazing out the window or even just towards the front door, waiting for him to return.  Ironic really, how do you explain death to a creature who has ended dozens upon dozens of lives of rodents and feathered creatures?

I brought Maggie home for a new companion, then Dorothy.  Our cowgirls.  Isabel became their protector, making sure no ferrel block cat lingered too close.  She picked her spots in the sun so that she always had eyes on her new charges.

She has always been little in size, big of heart.  She's never weighed more than 6 ½ pounds.  In her last year or two, even smaller, 5 pounds, now less.  In late September she began to go blind.  Come December, dementia has set in, she walks in circles throughout the house until she gets herself stuck in some cubby where I come to rescue her.  I set up an "apartment" of her own in the bathroom, which gratefully seems to have calmed her.  I invade only when necessary and often scoop her up to cuddle for a few hours here and there as we both wait for the inevitable time to come...

To die: to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come...

Sweet dreams bouncy wee girl.

Train of Thought

My grandpa (in middle) and friends about 100 years ago

For the past ten years I have worked in Homestyle Desserts Bakery just one block from our train station in Peekskill, New York.  It seems peculiar really, that I rarely find myself thinking about the trains.  There is a regular onslaught of Metro North commuter trains, Amtrack trains and freight trains whizzing by right next to the bakery, blasting their horns as they pull in and out of the station.  We actually don't hear them much of the time.  The windows and doors are that good, and of course we have lots of our own ambient sounds helping to drown out the noise of the railroad along our idyllic Hudson River waterfront.  There are machine noises from mixers, ovens, fryers as well as the people noises of customers and staff and the $5 Walmart purchased radio that sits in retail.        


I blissfully work in a room pretty much to myself decorating wedding cakes.  Many of these take concentration and focus, so the solitude is a welcome necessity.  While I forget about the trains outside, I do enjoy following the occasional train of thought.  Today's random excursion in my head went something like this:    

My co-worker Katie who was writing on cakes in the adjoining decorating room was double checking with me on how to spell "Manhattan."  I said, "Man...hat...tan.  Think of a man wearing a tan hat."  And that reminded me of an anecdote my youngest brother David told me.  David, who works in Manhattan was leaving work one evening and got on an elevator.  A woman got on at another floor.  David removed his hat.  Mind you, in this day and age, he took his hat off.  He's not some elderly gentleman from a bygone generation, he was in his forties, raised in New York.  He could sense the woman noticed this and, looking a bit puzzled, she turned to him and said, "Did you do that for me?"  David smiled and replied, "My mother raised me right."      

David, if you ever write your memoirs, I suggest the following title, a chapter title at least - "Confessions of a Nice Man Working in Manhattan."  I'm so happy to know one!