Category: Ask Frank

Frank the Cat offers advice and feline wisdom to you!

D’lo Mississippi

I was blankly watching TV during this latest migraine. The kind so bad, you put your head on a hard pillow (mine is from my Tucson couch), and just listen.

I found a great series on Amazon Prime TV, but this is another network called UP, Faith and Family. I found it when my HS bestie, Kathy told me to watch “A Street Cat Named Bob.” True story, then I ordered the book.

So it turns out UP has a series called, Small Town, Big Mayor. He had, in a town of 400 people and two million hound dogs, and an uncountable number of cats a list of 95 things he wanted to get done.

First thing, they all drive golf carts. Must be Florida for sure, but it’s not. It turns out it is illegal in MS to drive golf carts on streets. Not being a mecca for golfing, people use them for economy, and they can drive one ten years with three gallons of gas. So Mayor John Henry Barry went to the State Legislature to get it changed. I am happy to announce the good folk of D’lo Mississippi can use their golf carts legally thanks to Mayor Berry.

One thing on His Honor’s list was making a library. Sent his sons out to rake in books. There were so few, some even x-rated, so the Mayor had other things to be checked out like a post hole digger, tool kits. He said, “Why buy it and then put it in a corner after you use it when folks can just sign it out using a bar code.) Brilliant!

Of course, at the mention of the word, library, I called Miss Sue down at the Town Hall. Love, love, love the accents. I still use y’all and all y’all (plural) even though I’ve been back from Texas for 8  years. Would they like a copy of my book for their library? Yes, Miss Mary (another thing southern; women are Miss Mary and others, men are Mr. First name.)

So I sent the book yesterday in my agony, because I also had some important  banking

todo,likeit’stimetopayTucsonpropertytaxesandsomemoneyintheckingacctmaybeprudent.

So I sent Miss Sue a copy of Drinking from the Trough, with a sticker that says, “Autographed Copy.” Imagine my book, in the new library in D’lo Mississippi! They want me to visit, but not with Covid and pulled pork. Bah now! Y’all come on up to Colorado, but bring some oxygen.

Ivy’s promise

I ruffled my fingers through Ivy’s mop-headed curls, my face close to hers. “Such a good dog,” I gushed. “You’re the bestest dog in the whole world.” As Ivy wriggled, overflowing with happy puppy energy, a wave of guilt washed through me, leaving behind a familiar ache.

It wasn’t Ivy’s fault. She’s an adorable ball of beautiful fur. From the very beginning, it was obvious that she was smart, loving, and loyal. She was the first puppy I’d raised by myself, and I was (and am) sloppy in love with her.

Ivy came into my life eight years after my husband Earl died. Over the 27 years of our marriage, we’d raised and loved two dogs, both huskies. Keli was our first. Fourteen years later, about a year before Keli died, we added Tipper. Tipper lived a long time too, and died ten days before Earl did.

What do you do when you lose the best dogs of all time, then years later, adopt a fuzzy little puppy who is also the best dog of all time? Is it disloyal to the huskies to tell the newcomer that she’s the greatest dog in the world?

There are some who would pooh-pooh these feelings of disloyalty and my worry that I was betraying my beloved Keli and Tipper. “The dog doesn’t know,” they’d point out. True enough, but just because Ivy doesn’t know the sorrow I still carry doesn’t mean I don’t feel the ache of that loss.

At first, I thought I could stay loyal to the memory of the huskies if I told Ivy that she’s the “greatest dog born in this century,” but that didn’t ring true. It was like telling her, “You’re the best—but oh, wait, I had these two huskies, and you’re not the same—but don’t worry, you’re also a good dog.” Things would get tangled in my head, too. I’d say, “What a good husky,” or call her Tipper.

I slowly began to understand that this was less about grief and more about comparison. What are the parameters by which we compare our pets, and our love for them? Should we compare them?

As Ivy’s first birthday approached, the answer finally emerged: there is no comparison, and there should be none. I didn’t need to let my love of Tipper and Keli go. I didn’t need to qualify my joy for Ivy. All three dogs in their times were the greatest dog of all time. From now on, no comparing one dog to another, no trying to gauge my love to prove it was equally deep for each.

I sat Ivy down and looked into her big round eyes. I told her how much I loved the huskies, and that I’d never forget them or the things we’d done together that made sharing my life with them so much fun.

“These memories are for remembering, not comparing,” I told her. “I promise to never compare you to them. I promise to not add ‘born in the twenty-first century’ when I say you’re the best dog.”

I’ve kept my promise. The ache is still there, but it’s softer, thanks to the memories of Keli’s and Tipper’s love and antics, combined with—not compared to—the new memories Ivy and I have been making for almost three years.

This angel has gone home

How appropriate that my neurology professor, Dr. James T. Ingram, Purple Heart WWII vet, died on Memorial Day at 94. I have posted previously about Jim.

I saw him last week when he was an inpatient for hospice care last week. He was ready to move on.

In Fannie Flagg’s book and movie, Fried Green Tomatoes (book-at the Whistle Stop Cafe,) she has a conversation between Idgie and Buddy, whose mother, Ruth, Idgie’s best friend, is dying. Trying to get him to understand, she says, “There are angels disguised as people walking the Earth. Your mama is one of those angels.”

Jim Ingram, angel, husband, father, friend, teacher and the best equine neurologist ever, has gone home.

And for the class of ’87, “Beam me up, Scotty.”

I did it, Mom

Dear Mom (Carol, as I called you when we worked together),

Today I found out that my book, Drinking from the Trough: A Veterinarian’s Memoir won  three awards just from one competition. Judy, my coach and editor, took a stack of books to send in to many competitions. She said winners are often announced close to a year later.

Yet here we are, three months after the book launch, and I got word this morning of the three awards from Beverly Hills Book Awards. Here they are: Winner: Animals and Pets; Winner-Regional Non-Fiction-West; and Finalist: Memoir. Finalist is just as good as Winner.

You were the greatest writer I ever knew. I think we can thank Northwestern School of Speech (now called School of Communications) for that, where you got your undergraduate degree. For me, my Master of Arts from the Graduate School (now called School of Education and Social Policy, SESP) helped me.

I remember your starting a writer’s column for a little Highland Park paper, the name of which escapes me-it wasn’t the Highland Park News. One time, entries were slow, so you wrote the most exciting short story I’ve ever read. I wish I could find it. The ending was no less unexpected than a Stephen King work.

I miss you so much. This March 12 will be 40 years since you took your leave. In 1979, there were set visiting hours at the hospital, otherwise I would have stayed with you longer than that evening. Instead, the phone rang early the next morning with tragic news. It was unfair to lose my best friend when I was 26. When I have a birthday now, I count how many more years it is since your 56 years of life.

I know we communicate. Doing well on my first book I owe all to you. Thanks, Mom.

Love you, “Cara”

“Mara”

Where is my mom? I am sitting here in Tucson, Arizona with Cowboy Joe and Matthew, and no mom. A person who looks like her takes care of us, but where is she. Auntie Margo says she went back to Fort Collins for two Parks and Recreation board meetings, and to do her taxes. Huh?

She’ll be back soon, so I’ll practice sitting on my couch getting fur all over it. That’ll tell her. Oops! I forgot that the house cleaners come the day before she gets back.

She’ll ride Hannah for a few more weeks before starting her summer activities. We miss you, Mom!

Today in Ask Frank

Franklin discusses how, in my absence, the boys have plenty to do when they are not worn out by all their sleeping. As an aside to what Frank says, I play with the cats before I leave for class for the same reason I’ll put the top down on my happy fun car to drive three whole miles. It’s a mini-vacation that clears the mind and makes me happy and positive. If a student in an intense, serious program of study doesn’t ‘have time’ to feed the birds, play with her cats, or put the top down on the car, what does that do to the emotions? Frank knows I’m doing much better since Earl’s death. I’m really busy, which helps. It also helps to enjoy what’s around me. And there’s plenty to enjoy if you know how to look. Like the time I watched a big snail move along the concrete to get back to the flower garden. There were no snails in the other places I have lived. I watched that shelled unit for about half an hour. Snail watching is fun!