The Catwalk
August 17, 2021
I was supposed to read the obituary I published for mom in Seven Days. Well it’s on the back cover of your bulletin. I am assuming most of you can read this, so I am not going to. I am going to tell you a story. It ties into the obituary.
This story may seem trivial, but those of you who know my cats may understand why it’s not and how it represents the better aspects of mom’s nature.
I adopted a street kitty while living in Japan in 2008. Mom met Aya, my cat, briefly while visiting Okinawa in 2009. When I knew for sure that I was leaving Japan in 2011, I had to make a separate trip to leave Aya here in Vermont as the airlines don’t fly pets off the island during the heat of the summer, roughly May thru September. My contract was up at the end of July. So I tearfully left Aya here the first week of April 2011 and returned to finish out the last 3 months of my teaching contract.
Yes, if you have any conception of the cost of round-trip airfare to Japan, she is now officially a $3000 kitty.
Our family had another cat named Midori at that time, Mom was forced to do most of the kitty to kitty introductions, by keeping Aya in a spare bedroom while the 2 cats got to know each other through mostly closed doors. The cats were well on their way to being properly “introduced” by the time I returned in August… Jackson Galaxy would have been proud.
I went back to Okinawa and bided my time by fostering yet another kitty for the Okinawa animal recue group. I would speak with mom via skype once a week. I always asked how Aya was doing.
“I know you told me not to let her out, but she really wants to go out,” she told me after about 2 months.
I was a little disappointed. Aya had been an indoor kitty in Japan and I did not want her going out at least until I was there and she was used to her new home. In an ideal world I would probably never have an outdoor cat where they get preyed upon by foxes or hit by cars as so many cats have met their end on the blind drop off just beyond my family’s house on Lee River rd.
Don’t know if it was in fact the same conversation or one later where she finally told me, “Your little one really wants out so,… I’ve been taking her for walks. She seems to like it,”
Sure enough, in the afternoons or late morning. Mom and Aya would venture forth for a leisurely stroll around the yard, or the back field. Eventually, I returned from Japan and while I was looking for a job stateside. I joined in and we’d take turns walking the kitty around the property for an hour or two everyday.
If you’ve never walked a cat the first thing you should know is that Aya won’t even wear a collar. A lease and a harness were out of the question. I’d tried when she was a kitten.
Walking a cat consists of at best a leisurely stroll and lots of waiting while Aya investigates everything Discovering all the locations were little critters might be hiding. There had been a big windstorm in Vermont while I was in Japan and she would figure out which of the downed trees behind my parents’ house were good for climbing. In the winter she might spend a good deal of time sitting on your shoes to keep her paws warm. There was also lots of cajoling when was time to come inside, but there’s that one little crack in the barn foundation that still hasn’t been sniffed for mice properly.
Mom would often weed her gardens or collect things from the field for flower arrangements at the church while Aya did her thing.
Eventually as Aya became more comfortable with her new home and being outside the walks got longer… we started to venture into the forest behind our property or the edges of our neighbors’ yards.
One of the neighbors two doors down was an elderly lady who was by then well into her 80s and housebound due to a stroke. Mrs. Cooley frequently saw us walking Aya on the edge of her property. After some time she convinced her daughter, who took care of her, to get them a new kitten. Cricket still lives with Cynthia down the street even though Mrs. Cooley has since passed on, but Aya doesn’t like her very much.
By now you might be wondering why I am spending a lot of time talking about my cat when this is my Mom’s service. I’m single. I have no human children. People who know me know I like to talk about my cat. I care about my cat.
Mom also cared about the cat. Partly because she’s just a nice person and well it’s a cat, but also because she cared about me and knew I cared about the cat, and she cared about me, so naturally she cared about the cat. In this instance she succeeded in finding a creative solution to the problem of a kitty who was stressed out being stuck inside a house and me not wanting her to get hurt or lost by going outside. And I think it’s a good representation of how she tackled problems in her life.
I know for sure the impact of what she started spread at least 2 doors down the street where somebody else now has a cat. Maybe as far as the church here where she brought all those flowers she picked. And the generations of children she cared for in the two church congregations and the preschool that are represented here today.
Aya continued to sit on mom’s lap until she left for Green Mountain nursing home last year. Long after some of her behavior had become disturbing and frightening to us.
A Caregiving and Creative spirit. You’ll be missed, mom and I know Aya misses you too.
Author’s note: My Mother passed away in February 2019. This story was originally read at her memorial service the following month.
Gluten Free Brew (Beer)
May 5, 2013
I am grateful I arrived back in the States at the most opportune time to witness the explosion of gluten free brew coming out of local and craft breweries. I’d gone beerless for about the last year of my stay in Japan, where just about the only brew available is piss colored lager, celiac disease and gluten intolerance are unknown, and nobody has heard of gluten free anything.
Nostalgia for Kirin Ichiban set aside, I also have discovered that for a variety of poorly understood medical reasons I cannot drink more than 3 sips of white wine, red -just forget it. Alcohol also amplifies the sleep-inducing effects of some of my prescription meds so I drink very… very occasionally, usually in the morning and I make it through about one six-pack a month. If this sounds like my apologies for not getting around to this topic for such a long time, so be it.
Gone are the days when the only choices are Redbridge and Bard’s (only marginally better than the former). I was a beer snob before I discovered that gluten consumption was a significant part of what “ales” me. So I am happy to report that in the last year I have tried no less than 6 different gluten free beer varieties. While not all of them are to my taste any of them is a world better than the two aforementioned beverages.
My own personal taste tends to run toward IPA and dark Belgian. Before going sans gluten my two personal faves were Ommegang from Ommegang Brewery and VT Pub and Brew’s IPA.
One of my first finds was Green’s Endeavour Dubbel Dark Ale. It also comes in Blonde and Amber if you like thick frothy Belgian style ale but without the bitterness of the dark. I should warn that this wonderful substance comes only in liter bottles much like my beloved and forbidden Ommegang. If you are going out ot eat in Burlington Ri Ra’s has Green’s Dubbel (I forget which color) available, for about a 200% markup -ouch!
Another early find that has subsequently disappearred since Healthy Living stopped carrying it is St. Peter’s Sorghum beer. My recollection was that it was decent, but I’ll keep buying the Dubbel…
About six months ago I discovered Sweet Clover Market in Essex, VT was carrying a new variety, or I should say varieties of New Planet. they have a pale ale that is quite good, reasonable for GF beer, 4 bottles under $9. They also have a raspberry ale that is slightly sweet and very mild if all these others are a bit bitter for you. I think it’s something like raspberry water and wish my days of IPA drinking weren’t over.
Another GF beer spotted recently, I can’t honestly remember where I bought it first but its been seen both at Healthy Living and Sweet Clover is Celia’s. I was at first excited by the prospect of a truly bitter ale, but have since discovered that they make their brew bitter in part by adding a rather strong citrus component that disagrees with my stomach much like wine does.
I’m currently sipping on a can (yes -a can!) of a new GF arrival at Sweet Clover called Glutenberg. It’s a fairly satisfactorily bitter pale ale. But my absolute favorite discovery last month was a new 1 liter bottle of Harvester GF IPA. True IPA my friends!
The Story of the Lucky Cat
January 28, 2012
A very long time ago, or as they say in Japanese, “Mukashi, mukashi….”, A wealthy samurai found himself caught outside in a rain storm. He took shelter under the nearest tree.
This tree grew outside the doors to a small local temple. The monks of the temple were poor and did not have much money for its upkeep, including taking care of the cats, who had to fend for themselves by hunting mice who ate the offerings brought to the temple as well as the monks’ food.
Standing under the tree, the samurai thought he could see one of the temple cats beckoning to him from the gates. The man thought to himself, “That looks like a friendly cat, and I have nothing better to do but sit here and wait for the rain to stop. It would be okay to get a little bit wet in order to go over there and pet that nice cat.”
So, the samurai gathered his things and walked through the rain to the door of the temple where the cat sat waiting for him. No sooner had he reached down to pet the cat, than a giant bolt of lighting shot down from the heavens and stuck the tree where he had been sitting. The tree was engulfed in fire.
The samurai stood there for a moment silently watching the tree burn, and contemplated his avoided fate before speaking to the cat, “How lucky is was that I saw you beckon to me, for had I remained where I was I would surely be dead now,”.
“Meow!” said the cat.
“You truly are a cat of good fortune,” he said, “Since you saved my life, a debt which is impossible for me to repay, I will do everything in my power to make your life easier,”.
True to his word, the samurai used his fortune to endow the temple, so the monks were not so poor anymore, and the cats no longer had to fend for themselves. And when the lucky cat finally died of happy old age, the samurai paid for a proper funeral and memorial to the beloved “lucky cat” who had saved his life.
Generations of cats at the temple benefited from the samurai’s generosity and it is said that the cat who saved his life was actually an incarnation of the Buddist goddess of compassion, Kwan-yin.
Story notes:
According to one version of the story, the events in question took place at Goutoku-ji Temple, and the samurai was Li Naotoka.
This story is said to be the origin of the figures of “maneki neko” commonly found in businesses around Japan. Cats with their right paw up beckon money, left paw-customers. Black maneki neko are particularly in favor with women because they are said to drive away stalkers.
Dedicated to “Midori” the squeaky cat who got left behind while I was in Japan, and to “Aya” the Japanese cat who came back with me…
The JET Thing: my arrival journal 2007
January 28, 2012
For anyone who has ever wondered about what its like joining the JET Programme, or picking up everything and moving to a very foreign country, here’s the journal I kept of my first week in Japan four years ago…
July 26 2007:
Left home in Vermont, the only time I came close to crying was when I gave my goodbye petting to my cat Midori. She was sleeping in a ball on the spare bed in my youngest brother’s room, blissfully unaware of what was really going on. Her biggest concern was that my aunt, who had come to visit, had brought her geriatric 19 year old cat Sasha to visit. Midori thinks that all cats want to be her friends, but Sasha is not a friendly cat.
Mom baked an apple pie at the last-minute, stuffed it in the car and drove it to Albany with us where we had lunch, pie and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. Felt kind of like the last supper.
July 27, 2007:
My aunt and I lugged my heavy bags to the Amtrak station to take the train to NYC. I would be staying my last night in the US with a new friend I met at one of the pre-departure activities. I arrived at Christine’s apartment to discover that she also had a cat, Malka, whom she was leaving behind with a roommate. Another round of suppressed tears… It did not help any that Malka was also a love bug.
Orientation: received our flight tickets and everything. They threw a big farewell reception for us at the Japanese Ambassador’s residence. I lived in NYC for 2 years and always wondered what the inside of those ultra-expensive townhouses near 5th Ave. really looked like on the inside, now I know…
There are a lot of rumors about JET application and acceptance rates. At orientation we gleaned a bit of info: Of about 420 applicants to the NYC consulate only 123 were accepted. I met the nice Japanese lady who took part in my interview, she said that of all the interviews she did that day, only 3 (myself included) did her group recommend.
July 28 rented a car to JFK. Christine and I would be separated by flights. She was on an American Airlines flight and I was going JAL. The last-minute departure mystery was why the JAL tickets cost $1800+ while the American ones cost only about $875. Apparently back in the day they used to fly all the JETS over business class. Not anymore.
Bad case of vertigo on the flight for about 1 hour. 13.5 hours of torture. Decent food though, and the game console made things better.
July 29, 2007:
Arrived in Tokyo 3:30pm. Eight or nine hours disappeared into the oblivion of time change. Susan and I, we were both going to Okinawa, roomed together. We went to our room and passed out at 4pm Tokyo time. I awoke at 3:30am. Would repeat this pattern the whole time I was in Tokyo.
July 30, 2007:
Orientation: they served us Western style food for breakfast. Everyone was asked to assemble in one of the ballrooms to listen to the opening speeches given by government big-wigs. We assembled at 10am. The visiting dignitaries arrived at 11am. Clearly they told us to be there so early so no one had to suffer the embarrassment of having us Americans, etc… show up late.
All the prefecture JETs got together for a night out drinking at a local restaurant. Restaurant theme was “Hell” or “jigoku”. It was an all-you-can-drink for 2 hours. After 2 rounds they gave up on us and brought big pitchers of Kirin over. What do you expect with an Irishman, a Scotsman, a South African and a Kiwi?
July 31st more orientation.
August 1, 2007:
Boarded a bus for Haneda airport to take the plane to Naha, Okinawa. The municipal JETS got greeted at the airport by small crowds of people with signs and cheers. Our tight-knit group of 2 days was being split up it seemed permanently. Some of the participants had been placed on remote outer islands. Okinawa was not my 1st 2nd or 3rd choice place to go, but I was glad I was going to be living on the main island.
The prefectural JETS, those of us placed in senior high schools or BOE offices (there was only one) were handed a cold beer and taken to the local hotel or youth hostel to spend the night and have more orientation. The hotel was dingy and hot! There is air-con almost everywhere here but it does not make the rooms cool. Because the outside temp is like 90F and the locals have a very skewed idea of what constitutes “cool”.
August 24,2007
Japan was the last country I would have ever thought I was going to be learning to salsa dance in, but there I was at 1am taking lessons from a E. Indian-Canadian fellow JET named Kadija.
August 26, 2007
It’s Okinawa Obon. Dates are slightly different from the mainland. I do not have to go to work tomorrow. The grocery stores were busy with people buying those pre-packaged gift things that are at the front of every store here. Also the stores have a very nice selection of little mochi tea cakes and pastries out for sale. I have discovered that anything with anko on the inside is my friend!
On the way home I took what I thought was a shortcut. I wound up in some small back alley with a lot of single family homes and apartment buildings. It was dark so I could see inside. It seems this weekend is a time for families to gather together. I could see groups of people from children to obaasan and ojiisan gathered around tables watching TV. There were lots of cars outside the houses.
It seems nice but I felt suddenly lonely, as if I was missing out.
That was only my second disappointment for the day. I took the bus down to Plaza House. They were all out of JLPT test applications.
Welcome
January 18, 2012
As a writer by avocation, I think it’s high time I finally started a blog. My goals for this enterprise are to document the progress of my writing and my goal of getting my fiction published. Also to get some subjects off my chest, like an analysis of my four years spent living in Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher with the JET Programme in Okinawa. finally I intend to write interesting reviews of my recent culinary experiences going gluten-free, as a largely self-diagnosed gluten intolerant person. I hope to provide helpful product reviews for wheat-gluten free products, places to shop and dine.
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