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! 

Lakhi isn't lucky anymore

Sad night last night. While I was on the computer chatting with someone who had heard some distressing news (not mine to tell), and while Josie was on a date, tragedy struck.

It was quite noisy while I was on the computer—the day had been very hot, and I had fans running in the windows to bring in the cooler night air. The dryer was going, drying that last load of laundry. I didn’t hear any unusual sounds.

I went into my room to lie down, exhausted from the work of the day. A storm blew in and soon it was raining in earnest. I heard a cat whining outside—not one of our lovely ladies, but clearly a male cat—and that reminded me that I should go let the cats into their room to get out of the storm.

Earlier in the evening, Nancy and the girls had walked over and Rachel had insisted that I go to the park with them, and since I had barely gotten out of the shower and was wrapped in a towel when they arrived, I was not ready for play. But Rachel was very compelling in her demands that I get dressed and go to the park and play, so I got ready and we went to the park together.

When we were coming home, Rachel wanted to be carried because she is afraid of our cats. I could see our neighbor Sarah in front of our house trying to make friends with our cats. Winter was walking towards her, and I called out a warning to be careful because Winter can be…unfriendly, shall we say. Lakhi was staying away from Sarah, because Lakhi is a scaredy-cat. She is scared of the washer, even when it isn’t running. She is scared of the vacuum clearner. She is scared of empty boxes. She mostly stays right in our yard, because she is scared to wander very far. She is the epitome of the term scaredy-cat.

Josie had been with her friend Lydia, and they came home and were in Josie’s room until it was time for her rather late date (9:30 for Comedy Sports at 10:00). Lydia left just before Josie’s date came—they both saw Lakhi running around the yard being her sweet self.

Lakhi is sweet and pleasant to be around. She loved, loved, loved to be outside, spending time laying under the trees and basking in the glory of nature. She would wait, usually patiently, at the back screen door, to come in and eat. Sometimes she would want to stay inside, especially in winter, because she is no fan of cold weather. But in the summer, she prefers fresh air. She would come inside to eat, and then quickly want to go back out to play. So she has stayed slim and trim, and still seems very kittenish.

Lakhi was born on American Thanksgiving in November of 2005, one of eight kittens born that day to Winter in an incestuous relationship with her kitten Simba, who was born on the 4^th of July the same year. I know!! I was so embarrassed for my cat back then! While Nancy was engaged to Andrew, the dining area in our kitchen had been cordoned off as a kitten nursery, and people were often seen literally crawling with kittens!

Lakhi was born during one of Josie’s film obsessions—this one was Bride and Prejudice, and of the Bakshi sisters in the film—Jaya, Lalita, Maya and Lakhi—Josie liked the name Lakhi the best. Especially because Lakhi would sometimes wear a T-shirt emblazoned with “Lucky.”

Clearly, when you live in a city, you can’t keep eight kittens. Two of the kittens were “runts” and were clearly born with birth defects; they died. We gave a few kittens to neighbors and reverse sold—ie paid—to “give” three to the animal shelter, and that left us with Winter, Simba and Lakhi. When Kelli and her kids wanted/needed a cat, Simba moved on. So for the last four years, we have had Winter and Lakhi, two absolutely gorgeous pure white cats, leaving their white residue everywhere! But they have been much, much loved, especially by Josie, who unintentionally was very aptly named—they even made a movie about her, “Josie and her pussy-cats”!

Last night, Josie went on a double date with a school friend and that friend’s brother. They went to see Comedy Sports at BYU, and I am sure that it was hilarious! Some of Patrick’s actor friends were the comedians of the night, and he was a bit jealous that Josie was going and he wasn’t, but he didn’t want to spend the money, so he was off to play volley ball. David had been out all day doing things with his friend Brandon, but he was in the house, in his room. As you know, I was chatting on the computer, interspersed with doing laundry…and then it began to storm.

I went to the back door to let the cats in. Their room was all clean, with a nice fresh litter box and food and water waiting for them. Winter was waiting at the door, and came right in. “Lakhi,” I called. “Lakhi?” And then I saw her under the Sunfire—that was the last place I had seen her earlier in the evening. She had run under the Sunfire when she was scared of Nancy’s children and our neighbor Sarah. She was so close to the tire that it almost looked like the tire had run over her, except that no one had been driving that car.

Weird that she didn’t come when called. She knew her name and would come running. “Lakhi!” I called again, “Come inside!” She didn’t move. At all. I walked a little closer, but it was my turn to be scared. I went downstairs. “David? Are you still up?” I called. “Yes,” he said, “I’m watching a movie on my laptop.” “David, I think Lakhi might be dead!” I said. He came immediately. He was brave and went right up to her, and told me that he agreed; she was dead.

We didn’t know what to do…it was 11:15 at night. I called Patrick, who was on his way home. “You need to move her,” he said, “Josie can’t come home from her date and find her lying like that.” “Do you want to move her?” I asked, because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want it to be true that she was dead! “No,” he said, “I have had too much death lately.” (This year he has had a friend commit suicide, another friend’s baby died, etc.) So I asked David if he would do it, and though he really didn’t want to deal with death either, he did it. We got a box and David pulled her from under the car. Immediately, she left a trail of blood. She was already a bit stiff, so we knew that she had been dead for awhile. He gently placed her in the box, and put it in a place safe from the rain.

And then we waited for Josie to come home. She loves her cats so much, even though they can be annoying—kind of like children! :o) Her date was probably not expecting to walk her to the door and see through the open door TWO big brothers waiting for her to come home. She had a big smile on her face, basking in the afterglow of the comedy she had been immersed in for the past few hours. She usually only finds me waiting for her when she comes in late. “Why are you guys sitting here?” she asked. I came into the room, and said, “Josie, I am so sorry to have to tell you…”

“Who died?” she broke in. And so I told her the sad news. Her brothers were heroically wonderful, kind and tender to her. She was being quite brave, but soon she went into the bathroom for some privacy . Patrick came and told me later that she was sitting on the couch holding Winter, and David was holding her. They were quietly crying together over the loss of Winter’s sweet and precious daughter. I don’t know how cats feel, so I don’t know if Winter was crying, too—she was honestly not very nice to Lakhi for the past couple of years—but certainly David and Josie were shedding tears over the loss of of our Lakhi kitty.

So—we don’t know for sure what happened to her. She was not mangled, but for sure something had hit her hard. So we are guessing she got hit by a car, and then made her way to lay down in one of her favorite spots, in the shade of the Sunfire, and her life ebbed out of her. We will miss you, sweet cat.