Curiosity did not kill the cat...but maybe the dog did...

This morning, I got up, still in my nightgown, and let Winter outside for her morning stretch in the sunshine. I went back into the kitchen and started to put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher, when I heard a very weird bunch of noises coming from outside. I couldn't tell what was making the noise, but it sounded ominous, so I went and opened the back door and looked outside, but saw nothing. I couldn't see Winter either, and she usually is close by, so I stepped out a few feet...and saw Winter hanging for dear life from the ivy that grows on the side of the shed by the carport. She looked frightened out of her wits. And then that noise again--and I saw a dog jumping up, right in my very own yard, trying to get Winter and pull her down off the ivy.

Ivy is not the strongest thing to be holding onto when your life depends on it, and soon Winter took a risk and jumped down onto the bike rack. I called to her to run into the house, but she didn't listen. Instead she streaked out of the yard, not bothering to look for cars, and whipped up the O family's tree. The dog was right on her tail, literally. It was tall enough to almost reach her in the tree while standing on hind legs and batting at the tree with the front ones. But Winter was out of reach, and the dog suddenly ran away.

It took much less time for all the above action to happen than it did for me to type it. What I saw in the few seconds that it took for all this to happen was that this dog that I had never seen before was right in my yard attacking my cat, and it was not the least bit perturbed at my presence. I did not frighten it--my yelling at it did NOTHING to stop it from its purpose, which seemed to be to kill my cat.

And I thought, "This is what happened to Lakhi."

There was no barking, no meowing, just this really swift attack, going for the kill, and the cat was in terror.

I went inside and told the kids what happened, and Josie got dressed and went outside to get Winter out of the tree. Winter did NOT want to come down, but she loves Josie, and she came with her.

She has a mangled paw, and a bad case of post traumatic stress. None of us want to let her outside. No cat deserves to suffer at the...feet of a terrorist dog.

All I can tell you about the dog is that I never saw it before. It was black and white, quite big, short haired...and was wearing a red jacket. The jacket kind of threw me and drew my attention away from details about what the dog actually looked like.

I have been rather bothered by Lakhi's death. She was such a good kitty and she always stuck close to home. WHY would she wander out during a thunder storm and get hit by a car? That is so not like her.

But if that killer dog struck on that fateful night, having observed the dog in action against Winter this morning, I can see that a whack or two from him, and she  would not have stood a chance. Winter is lucky to be alive and to only have a hurt paw.

Cool International Library and Other International Stuff

My friend Linda Fong, who is Chinese Canadian and married to an American, recently took her Chinese-Canadian-American daughter who is a very accomplished Balinese dancer to Montreal for university. They discovered this library that was deliberately built to straddle the US/Canadian border.

In Linda's words: "Model for world peace? The black line on the floor is the actual Canada-U.S. border, which runs through this 110-yr-old building housing an opera house on the 2nd flr & library on 1st flr. This morning we carefully walked the sidewalk in the village of Stanstead, Quebec, taking care not to step off it onto the road and incur a $5000 fine for illegal border crossing, to go around the building to the library entrance on the Derby Line, VT side. (All the books are on the Canadian side of the line, so this is the only U.S. library with "no books"!) Whether at a library table or opera seat, the person next to you might be in a different country--imagine if we could set up libraries and opera houses like this at borders around the world!"

Here is an outside view:

Again, in Linda's words: "Here's the little marker, next to the sidewalk I was talking about, and the line across the road showing Canada on one side and the U.S. on the other In the background is the white "Do Not Enter" warning sign, not as big or obvious as you would think. So if you walk across the road to talk to a neighbor, or drive into the parking lot for the Opera House, you have to go first through the official border crossing down the street or report in to border officials. Quite a contrast to the 20ft high steel walls we see on "The Line" in Arizona!"

And last of all, a link to the website for the opera house/library: http://www.haskellopera.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=25 

P.S. My friend Ann's Facebook comment caused me to add the following:

My friend Ann Frederking, born in the US, became a citizen of Canada after she married a Canadian years ago. She loves living in Ontario. She mentioned that the International Peace Park in BC/Washington also straddles an international boundary, and that there is a music camp that meets in no-man's land. In Ann's words: "Not an Opera House, but the International Peace Park also straddles the border. Within its boundaries are the International Music Camp at which I attended a camp for handbell directors about 9 years ago. You pass Canadian custo...ms (leaving Canada) before you get to the park entrance which is before American customs.

While there I was able to participate in the camp and purchase music brought up at a discount and when I went back to Canada, all they wanted to know was if I'd left the camp and gone to the USA before returning. I brought lots of music in tax and duty free."

And here is the website for that! http://www.internationalmusiccamp.com/about/ 

Fun stuff!