Wise and Wonderful

I just read a marvelous story from James Herriot, and I have spent hours trying to find some website or blogger out there who has broken the law and managed to publish one of his stories online. After nothing but teasers on a few stories, I can only tell you how wonderfully charming and addictive this old vet is.

Back in the good ol' days of college during freshman year an animal science major sat in the lounge of the dorm reading a book. I passed by, and though we didn't know each other quite personally, I immediately understood just why he wanted to be a vet. There sat one of my favorite books sitting in his hands, the blue cover bedecked with animal pictures and the authors name scrolled across the bottom. James Herriot. Just reading the italics of his penname warms the heart like apple cider.

"You're reading James Herriot!" my thoughts turned vocal without command.
"You've read him?" the student perked up, his deep voice making me notice that perhaps it did seem rather odd that someone reading this particular material might be of the same stature as a football linebacker.
"Read him? I love him! You're only on the first one?"
"Oh no, I'm just re-reading them again." Come to think of it, maybe he was on the football team.
"I have all his books. I would've become a vet for that man if I liked medicine at all."
"Haha. Well I am!" Yes, yes definitely on the team. In fact...I think they won a game.

That's not all I can give you. I can give you maybe a few paragraphs. But don't push your luck! You're going to have to make a trip to the bookstore at some point...don't bother procrastinating. And what is with Christmas this week?

from The Christmas Kitten
by James Herriot

My strongest memory of Christmas will always be bound up with a certain little cat. I first saw her when I was called to see one of Mrs. Ainsworth's dogs, and I looked in some surprise at the furry, black creature sitting before the fire.

"I didn't know you had a cat," I said.

The lady smiled. "We haven't. This is Debbie."

"Debbie?"

"Yes, at least that's what we call her. She's a stray. Comes here two or three times a week and we giver her some food. I don't know where she lives but I believe she spends a lot of her time around one of the farms along the road."

"Do you ever get the feeling she wants to stay with you?"

"No." Mrs. Ainsworth shook her head. "She's a timid little thing. Just creeps in,has some food, then flits away. There's something so appealing about her but she doesn't seem to want to let me or anybody into her life."

I looked again at the little cat. "But she isn't just having food today."

"That's right. It's a funny thing but every now and again she slips through here into the lounge and sits by the fire for a few minutes. It's as though she was giving herself a treat."

"Yes...I see what you mean." There was no doubt there was something unusual in the attitude of the little animal. She was sitting bolt upright on the thick rug which lay before the fireplace in which the coals glowed and flamed. She made no effort to curl up or wash herself or do anything other than gaze quietly ahead. And there was something in the dusty black of her coat, the half-wild, scrawny look of her, that gave me a clue. This was a special event in her life, a rare and wonderful ting; she was lapping in comfort undreamed of in her daily existence.

As I watched, she turned, crept soundlessly from the room, and was gone.

"That's the way with Debbie," Mrs. Ainsworth laughed. "She never stays more than ten minutes or so, then she's off."

She was a plumpish, pleasant-faced woman in her forties and the kind of client veterinary surgeons dream of: well-off, generous, and the owner of three cosseted basset hounds. And it only needed the habitually mournful expressions of on eof the dogs to deepen a little, and I was round there posthaste. Today one of the bassets had raised its paw and scratched its ear a couple of times and that was enough to send its mistress scurrying to the phone in great alarm.

So my visits to the Ainsworth home were frequent but undemanding, and I had ample opportunity to look out for the little cat that had intrigued me. On one occasion I spotted her nibbling daintily from a saucer at the kitchen door. As I watched she turned and almost floated on light footsteps into the hall, then through the lounge door..."

The first one you'll want is All Creatures Great and Small. Enjoy.

National Identity

As I was baking chocolate chip cookies, I noticed Nestle didn't have the usual two recipes on the back of the bag, just one. Instead it had this:

The Nestle Toll House tradition began in the 1930's at the Toll House Inn near Boston. Here, proprietor Ruth Wakefield was known for her rich, indulgent desserts. While experimenting one day, she cut a bar of Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate into tiny bits and added them to her cookie dough. The Toll House cookie was born! In 1939, Nestle created the Toll House Morsel. Today Nestle Toll House helps you share the great homemade taste of The Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie, America's Favorite Cookie Recipe!

The little toll house was originally built back in 1709 as a resting spot for travelers using the highway between Boston and the whaling town New Bedford. They could pay the toll, change horses, and collect a bite to eat. Over two hundred years later, the inn was owned by the Wakefields and served as an inn where Mrs. Wakefield made homebaked goodies for the patrons.

This is the one of the greatest minds of the country we're talking about here. The woman singlehandedly invented the most important aspect of American culture today, though not on purpose. She ran out of chocolate for her chocolate cookies and decided to chop up a semi-sweet chocolate bar and stick it in the batter, hoping it would melt. But Mr. Andrew Nestle's chocolate bars were top of the line, and they didn't melt.

Nestle thought this was a wonderful advertising opportunity and made a deal with Mrs. Wakefield so he could place her recipe on his package. Included with the chocolate bar was a little chopping tool for easy chunking.


And Mrs. Wakefield got her lifetime supply of chocolate.

Downside

I know it's not Christmas yet, but this came to my attention from my roommate Adam. Upside down Christmas trees are the new hot item.

$600. Lifetime warranty guarenteed. What a deal.

Ah the origins of the Christmas tree. Just in case you don't know, it comes from a celebration of a festival of light, like many many cultures have. It's quite common to like light during the long nights of winter, and what better time to do it than winter solstice? The Druids celebrated on December 21st when priests would set apples (for fertility, not the Garden of Eden as Christians later claimed) and candles (eternal light for god Balter) on tree branches to thank the god Odin for the fruit of the tree.

The Egyptians brought palm branches inside to honor Isis, goddess of the harvest, and Horus, mother of the sun. This one raises the religious student's eyebrows for two reasons: Christianity's Palm Sunday and Maryology.

The ancient Romans celebrated Saturnalia with candles on tree branches to celebrate the god of agriculture. The god Solaris was celebrated as well since he could bring back the long days, so the Romans appeased him with decorations on the trees.

In Scandinavia there was Yule (for the feast of Juul, but J's are funky in those languages) and they didn't mess around. They lit a bonfire. In feudal times (when does that mean exactly?), people cut the biggest honkin' tree they could find and just lit one end of it and let it burn in the hearth.

As Christianity and pagan religions met, the Christmas tree evolved. But that won't due; Christianity needs its own legends. For example, Martin Luther's credited with putting lights on it, but don't listen to that since Christmas overlapped many a pagan festival of lights.

No Christians needed to have a tree for a reason, and not Jesus. It didn't make sense. So..there once was a man named Winifred of England, known to some as Boniface or the Apostle of Germany. He was a priest on a misson to convert the Germans heathens. There he found those nasty heathens about to commit child sacrifice to the god Thor on an alter by the sacred oak of Odin at Geismar. Winnie saved the day by saving the child and chopping the tree down. Beside them it was a small fir. And of course that's the tree of Christ. Naturally. And everybody loved Jesus. The end.

Now to our topsy turvy tree, in the 12th century it became quite the fad to hang Christmas trees upside down in central Europe. It is said to have come from the Holy Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit).

I don't find this so convincing. If it was the Trinity, God the Father's usually depicted on the top of the triangle, Son and Spirit on the bottom corners. Then there's this argument going around that the tree's supposed to point toward heaven and if it points down it's sacrilegious. For me, this never seemed to be a problem. It's a tree. When you put the tree inside, you make it look like it did outside. This seems natural. What boggles my mind is how it ever got to be upside down in the first place. I'm not the only one. I have absolutely no idea how to find primary sources on it, but I'll figure it out. I'll let you know if I find anything. Or I'll hoard it for next year and look like a know-it-all.

If you'd like to know more, I highly recommend you to poke around the History Channel's History of Christmas site or Hillman's Chambers' Book of Days if you want to know more, or even this random site; they're loads of fun.

Am I one of those people?

After torturing my roommates Vlada and Christina, one of whom is my sister so I'll bear the consequences of revenge the rest of my life, I have decided not to give you details into the clubbing of fur seals in Newfoundland.

Clubbing. Is that really necessary? After spending a day in research I came up with a few things I thought you should know:

• I am not vegetarian and I do not believe killing an animal for resources is evil. Those who do, more power to ya.
• I'd prefer if the animal was used completely.
  
• The fur industry humane killing laws like those found in the meat industry.
• PETA is nuts. They do have useful research though.
  
• Viva is out to save the chicken. Leave it to Paul McCartney...
• I joined the Humane Society. They're against owning wild animals as common pets, canned hunting, puppy farming, lack of humane fur slaughter laws, capturing pets in the wild (think parrots), unnecessary animal research, and seal hunting....there's more, but I forget. They are not vegan.
• Seal hunting is just...wrong. It's the young, not the mature adult. It's an inhumane method. The government has little regulation. The only reason it's legal is because Newfoundland has seven seats in Parliament. The U.S. and many European countries banned seal fur and its products.
  
  
  
• I really hope to volunteer at the Central Park Zoo. I think I can...I think I can...
• I want a chinchilla.

That's it. I spent all day on all this gruesome stuff and I'm sparing you from it. Instead of a bloody clubbing picture, you get cute seal pups. You can thank Christina.

By a Little Bench in Fort Tryon

Snap didn't make it. Her pneumonia got so bad that she had no chance of recovery, and instead of making her suffer, I had her put down on Wednesday.

There is good news. Go-Go visited the vet and has some antibiotics now. She seems to be responding well with bright eyes and an insatiable appetite for turkey and stuffing.

Frustrated

It's hard to write a normal post when the hamsters are so sick. Sorry for all the depressing information, but...deal. It's my blog.

This disease is sounding more like a respirtory disease which developed into pneumonia, decently common in hamsters. Snap seems to be really inactive, but at least the coughing's gone down. Over in Go-Go's cage, there's more chirping meaning something's wrong. Antibiotic's running out, so I either get a refill and hope for the best or switch to an herbal medication for pets.

For now I'm picking up the idea of honey and lukewarm milk and water. I found out about the idea and decided anything's worth a shot. Milk makes sense...they're not eating and it's a pretty basic nutritional food used on sick and babies. Honey, for some bizarre reason, is a cure-all. The pollen from flowers prevents allergies from getting out of hand, it helps with respiratory diseases, and for some reason it also preserves dead things as Lisa told me, but I hope that doesn't apply here.

I've decided vets should take at least 5 courses in rodents in order to obtain a license. That seems fair.

Late Night

Snap nearly died last night. Go-Go's got a cough. We moved Shag to Jordan's apartment and hopefully he hasn't caught it yet.

Coughing Silently

Concentration on educational requirements exponentially decreases by the sickness of a pet.

Antibiotics

The vet prescribed 1/16th of a pill of Baytil once a day. My vet friend Evie says that's the commercial name for enrofloxacin, an antibiotic often used on dogs that works really well.

If only the cough would go away, somehow I think she could bare it.

Snap

Now that I have a new laptop Pedro, I can blog again. Unfortunately this begins with a sad post.

Snap has got a cough.

Snap on a happier day with food stuffed in her pouches

She stays in a corner and cutely coughs and occasionally gets up for water, food, or bathroom breaks and falls down on the way over. I feel so guilty I didn't catch it yesterday so now the poor thing has to wait 'til Monday to see a vet.

Worse, she's nearly two years old, so she's getting up there as hamsters go. Without medical assistance she may not be able to fight this off. I'm really hoping for some antibiotics tomorrow.

I'm heartbroken. This sucks.