The True Story, As Told By Penguina The Cat
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My human calls me Penguina for my alleged resemblance to a penguin. That silly name is not my true name but, never mind. I write this with keyboard assistance from Dee Dee, Sondra’s daughter. We cats have a superior means of communication. But that is another story.

The first clue I had that something was up was when my servant, Sondra, was late coming home from work. Work, hmmm, something I don’t really understand. But she smells so delicious when she comes home. Sometimes, chicken, sometimes, fish. Mmmm. Oh, I’m forgetting where I was. Anyway, we have a system I worked out. Immediately after work she comes home and lets me out. Oh sure, I could use the "litter box" but really? I am much too refined. I prefer to refresh myself in nature. Anyway, that day the sun went down, it got cold, and she still wasn’t home. I do not like being kept waiting. Have I said that before?

Let me establish a few home truths right off the bat to avoid confusions later. Sondra calls me her cat. It is quite the other way around. Make no mistake, I own her.

After dark, Sondra finally rolled into the house. I elegantly and briskly marched outdoors. But, when I finished my toilette, I had to stand at the door and call for her to let me back in! Such rudeness! Such indignity! She ignored my complaints and sat down in my favorite chair. She thinks it’s hers. You humans are under the misperception that you own it all. I jumped up on her lap to be petted in that perfect way I taught her. What was that thing on her petting hand? It was hard and it smelled like medicine. She used her other hand. It does not pet as well. I endured. Hmpff. I wasn’t sure how she was going to do for me with one hand. I could see that I would have to take control here.

Sondra put me down and phoned her daughter, Dee Dee, my co-author. Dee Dee was my first servant. Oh, that is another story. Anyway, she told her daughter she had fallen and broken her wrist, banged her knee, bruised her face, chipped her glasses and ached all over.

Next she went to the bedroom to change into pajamas, which she lived in the next few days. She tried to pull her clothes off with one hand. And get dressed. I took pity on the poor old girl and grabbed an arm of her pajamas and handed it to her. You would have laughed to see the look Sondra gave me. Didn’t I already say we cats are the superior species?

Sondra clearly thinks she rules the roost. Roost, really, why do they call it a roost? We live in a house. No chickens here. Unless Sondra bakes a chicken. Yummm. I love fresh baked chicken when Sondra makes it. She always honors me with a giblet or special piece. Oh dear, I lost my train of thought again. Hmm, which makes me wonder why humans call it a train of thought? Oh well, I will worry about that later.

When the sun goes down, Sondra likes to brew tea to sip with a slice of toast. That evening was different. Did I say Sondra makes her own bread? She has to slice it? With one hand? I had to snicker when the loaf flew off the counter and landed under the table. I still find crumbs to lick up. Why she doesn’t buy sliced bread at the supermarket, like most humans, I don’t know. Sondra claimed she couldn’t open my cat-food can or make her usual home-cooked meal. So we had to make do with a little dry food for me and a glass of milk for her. I was so happy when she later called her friend Mary to bring her English muffins and a soft snack for me. I was afraid we might starve, but I guess that we will be fine.

As a rule, before bedtime I jump into Sondra’s lap. Usually she rubs me like a good servant and makes me so calm and relaxed I go to sleep. But since her good hand is useless, now I rub myself all over her and purr until her blood pressure goes down and she forgets her pain.

I can see that our roles will have to change for a while, a little while, just for this emergency. I would say this constitutes such. However, discretion is in order. Please, do not even hint to my fellow cats that I am serving a human. I would never live down the shame.

Penguina, for Sondra Ashton, by way of Deborah Robart

HDN: Looking out my back door

October 25, 2012
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All in the Family

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I waved as my daughter and her family backed out of my driveway on their way back home to Marysville, Washington. The whole family, Dee Dee and her husband Chris, their daughters, Jess and Toni, dogs Cutie and Daisy, spent the last several days at my home. Well, almost the whole family—everybody but Burli. Burli, the one hundred fifty-five pound English mastiff with the self-esteem of a lap dog. Burli, who could pin me into my chair and make me laugh. Burli, with her massive face, beautiful with all its folds and wrinkles. Burli, with her drool.

Burli had been put down. She had been in continuous pain. In her last month she had lost twenty pounds. The vet figured that on top of her long list of ailments, she probably had a cancer. It had been a sad day. Everybody cried. Burli was family. Many times during their visit, our conversations turned to memories of Burli.

As a farm girl, I had ample opportunity to become fond of an animal only to discover it had disappeared from the barnyard and through a circuitous route, ended on the table. Because of this, I never had a chicken as a pet. I had much too active a role in the process of their transition from fluffy yellow chick to pullet to Sunday dinner.

However, my first experience with losing a pet was my own pig, Jasper. I killed him. I was eight years old. It was a rainy day in early spring. We lived on a small farm in southern Indiana with several acres of woods. Mayapples, with leaves the size and shape of small umbrellas, grew there in profusion. I asked my dad if I could gather mayapple leaves to feed my pet pig. The mayapple is also called the hogapple. Their little fruit ripens in early fall and the hogs seem to find them a delicacy. My dad said yes. I made trip after trip into the woods, gathering armloads of mayapple leaves and tossing them over the fence into the pigpen where Jasper lived with seven other handsome Yorkshire weaner pigs.

I loved Jasper. I would hang over the fence for hours scratching Jasper’s pink back and talking to him, unloading my eight-year-old troubles. Jasper wriggled in appreciation, grunted, sighed, and burped. Once I had heaved a small mountain of leaves into the pigpen, I headed to the house to peel potatoes for supper, leaving Jasper and the other seven porkers noisily rooting through the tender green delicacy.

The following morning my dad woke me early and motioned me to get dressed. I followed him to the barnyard. There lay my own Jasper, bloated, belly up, legs in the air. Around the other side of the leaf pile, the other seven pigs sprawled in the same position. All dead. I had killed them.

I cried and cried. My Dad stood with his hand on my shoulder. He never said a punishing word to me. After all, I had asked and he had given me permission to feed the mayapple leaves to the pigs. He had not known the leaf of the mayapple was poisonous.

I have had pets much of my life. Pinky, my first cat. Flopsie, my first dog. Pete and Repete, my daughter’s Chinese hooded rats. Houdini, my son’s gerbil,which I nearly killed one night when he escaped his cage and snuggled under my chin to sleep in my warmth. Horses, more cats, more dogs, and even more rats. Some died. Some disappeared. Twice I held dogs in my arms while the vet put them down. Whether we intend it or not, our pets become family.

My own two cats, Penguina and Fat Louie, did not welcome our visitors, especially five-year old Toni and the dogs, with the same enthusiasm I did. Penguina holed up beneath my garden cabin and only emerged in the dead of night to come to the house for a bite to eat. Fat Louie eventually tolerated the children and the dogs. Now my kids, grandkids and their pets are gone. The house is awfully quiet. Penguina is peacefully asleep beneath the cutting table in my shop. Fat Louie is curled in my garden basket, under the bench out my back door.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
September 1, 2011
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Dances with Cats

Dances with Cats

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“Are you a cat person or a dog person?” a friend asked one day. “Yes,” I answered. I like pets. I haven’t had a cat or dog for some years now because I travel a lot.



So why was I driving home from Seattle in the middle of winter with Fat Louie and Penguina perched on a chair in the back of my van giving me the evil eye? I’m a sucker. I am easily had. I have known these two critters since they were pliant kittens, dragged around in doll clothes by my granddaughter. I was there when she gave them a bath in the toilet bowl. I went to bed many a night in the guest room with one draped over my head and the other anchoring my legs. We have history.



Why indeed? Plain and simple. There was no room at the inn. My daughter, Dee, and her family have a new living situation. No cats allowed. “Mom?” my daughter asked. “Grandma?” my granddaughter pleaded. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Gulp.



Chris, my son-in-law, loaded the potty station, bowls, a sack of food, and the large travel cage into my van. “Did you talk to them; do they understand they are going home with Grandma?” I asked. Fat Louie rubbed against my ankles; his tail whipped around my legs. Penguina was nowhere to be found. I looked around the room. If I were a cat, where would . . . I leaned down to look into the space between the wall and the couch. She hunched in the dark, her eyes flickered like candles. Dee pulled Penguina from her hidey-hole and put her in my arms.



By the time I headed up into the Cascades I realized these two fur balls might not like one another. I could hear them spatting in the cage. I opened the door so they could roam if they wished. Fat Louie stepped right out, howling all the way. Guina hunkered down and glared. Over the next few hours both cats registered extreme dissatisfaction with their transition to a new life. Long before Spokane I decided to high-ball it home, no snugging down in a warm motel bed. I fortified myself with power naps and caffeine. I computed the hours and figured I could make it by 3 am. Roads were clear and dry.



I rolled into Missoula in light snow with intermittent snow pack. Added an hour to my ETA. Ten miles out of Missoula the wind and snow amped up to a full-blown storm. I mentally added two more hours.



Thoroughly snow blasted, I finally reached Lincoln . I ditched my plan and pulled into the first motel. I have friends in Lincoln . I usually stay with them, but I had two cats, a nasty cold and I couldn’t knock on their door at 1:30 in the morning. I don’t even remember getting in bed.



I slept later than I’d intended, skipped the shower, filled the food and water dishes, brushed six inches of snow from my windshield and prepared to sneak out of town. My van would not start. Not a click or grunt. Nothing. I went back into the motel and called my friends. Ten minutes later Gary and Linda showed up. Linda ignored my excuses and chewed me out for not staying with them. Gary called the repair shop and the tow truck. We put the cats in their garage for the day.



Linda put a chicken in the pot to simmer for soup. Their friends Barney and Rosie came over. They all taught me to play Hand and Foot, a complex card game similar to Canasta. The shop called. The van was ready. I picked it up. We ate soup and played cards.



After Barney and Rosie went home, Gary and I went to the garage to transfer the “children” to the sun room for the night. They’d disappeared. We called, cussed, pleaded, shivered with cold and searched. Finally I snared Fat Louie from behind a stack of boards. Gary found Penguina stuck under the back wheel well of the jeep. “Pull,” I said. He ripped her out in two pieces and screwed her back together. By that time, the fat solstice moon was starting its eclipse. So we stayed up to watch the rare spectacle.



At noon the next day I was again ready to leave Lincoln . I loaded the cats, hugged my friends and turned the key. I couldn’t believe it. The van would not start. Not a click. I unloaded cats and suitcase. Prepared for a repeat of the previous day. Tow to shop, etc. All that for a ten dollar relay.



We finally did make it home. Now I can’t sit down without a feline Velcro-ed to my lap. At night Penguina wraps herself around my head. Fat Louie anchors my legs to the bed. Today I heard myself talking baby talk to them. I’m considering counseling.



Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

December 30, 2010
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The New Economy

I wrote this this last night and this morning.
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The New Economy

The dog showed up on my doorstep, whimpering and shivering, minus collar, tags, or known history. Yes, I know, I know. Wisdom says, don’t feed him; he will never leave. But what would you do? The leaves had fled the poplar trees in my yard, the rime of frost was thicker each morning, daylight was migrating south. The mercury plummeted, and snow flakes gathered, readying for the long-dark-night-of-the-soul winter.

I am a cat person. I do not want a dog. He wagged his tail. He said, “I’m here to work on your relationship skills.” Those are the first and the last words he spoke to me—which is par for my relationships.

Fool that I am, I lay down the rules: You will not lounge on the couch. You will not track mud over the floors. You will not put your paws on me. You will bathe frequently.

But, true to form, before I realize that I am the one changing, I learn new habits. I make space for him. I buy and prepare special foods, treats, toys, a new bed. I use a term of endearment when I call him for dinner. I change my routine. I check with him before I make plans for the weekend. I think, “This is really sick.”

One day, while sitting at my desk, paying bills, I say, “Dog, you gotta carry your own weight around here. There are no sluffers in this family. Everyone contributes, each according to his means.” I say this sternly. He, of course, does not answer.

The next day, after an expedition roaming the neighborhood, Dog drags home the thigh bone of a tyrannosaurus rex. I heave a sigh, imagining mountains of debris I will have to clean up when the yard next appears, probably in May. I know Dog isn’t going to pick it up. I watch as he buries the bone in a mid-size drift, then sits, tail gouging angel wings in the snow, altogether pleased with himself.

I have an ‘ah-ha’ moment. This is when our relationship begins to turn around.

I don’t want the neighbors to see me. I wait until dark. A sliver of moon guides me to the spot marked in my memory. I pry t-rex from its frozen grave, and drag it into the house. I fill the stock pot with water and boil that bone with the butt of a celery stalk, a couple onions, a few cloves of garlic, some carrot tops, assorted herbs dried from my garden. I boil that bone about 30 hours, strain the whole mess and can 6 quarts of prime soup stock. I toss the cooked and softened bones back into the yard.

A couple days later I serve dinner to friends. They rave about the soup. I smile sweetly and say, “It’s all in the stock.”

Every few days, that dog drags home a new animal part. I note where he hides it, and under cover of night, slip outside and dig it up, throw it in the stock pot and simmer a new batch, pat dog on his head. Best relationship I ever had.
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