Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Sneaky Dragon – the internet’s rescue shelter for strays!
This week: Scarry tales; apple car play; Knight life; quiz whiz; pun loving; Villanch idiot; Pamela, Pamela; Gervaise sauce; village idiots; Clive talkin’; accent grave; enema of the people; love Sack; poor wealth; a world of Riches; the Netflix void; oh, the Irona; the limits of nostalgia; the cost of complacency; the Emersonian mind; radio daze; this Burton has blown; trivializing the show; Brown for the crown; aviation inspiration; What’s new? Pussycat!; the comfort of strangers; meet cat; call me by my name; my two dads; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; Bond rating; Cristo lite; snob appeal; a series man; the peanut butter conspiracy; and, finally, naval gazing.
Question of the Week: What should Ian and Pia name their new ginger tabby cat?
Sub-question of the Week: Have you ever rescued an animal?
Thanks for listening.
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Greetings, sneaklings –
I spotted a connection in last week’s chat about lowbrow UK sitcoms and Harvey comics:
Ade Edmondson’s character in ‘Bottom’ is named Eddie Hitler – “Any relation?” “Yes, actually!”
Rik Mayall’s character is ‘Richard Richard’. Any relation to Richie Rich? Could be!
I have a great answer to the sub-question of the week which I don’t have time to answer right now, so can only build suspense for. However unwisely.
The question of the week is a little moot now that Ian and Pia have announced the name of their new family member. But T. S. Eliot tells us in his poem, “The Naming of Cats” that a cat must have three different names. The first is “a sensible everyday name” that the family uses. But next, “a cat needs a name that’s particular, A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified.” So I’ll suggest a middle name derived from the Finnish (remember to roll the R’s). It’s “Mirri-Sisu-Kisu” which roughly translates as “kitty-tenacity-pussycat.” The third name, only the cat knows, according to T. S. Eliot. Speaking of whom, perhaps some of you Sneakers would enjoy Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller’s new Apple TV+ movie “The Gorge”. It came out on Valentine’s Day and is a good date movie for those who like their romance spiced up with a little cold war angst, references to T. S. Eliot, and an allegorical descent into the abyss of human folly.
According to Louise above, your new kitty now has a name! I was originally thinking “Hellkitty” in honor of the studio but naming one’s pet is such an intimate and personal experience…again, *see Louise’s post above*
My Dad reserved the right to name all pets when I was growing up and due to any lack of imagination he named our two cats Louise and Rudy. Yes, Louise again. We took Louise, who was a tortoise shell, in as a stray and she had a litter of one kitten which was a scrappy tabby named Rudy. We kept him as a second cat along with Louise. Then along came E.T., who we found in a field running about much the way E.T. The Extraterrestrial did in the movie, hence his name. E.T. was a black Persian or Maine Coon mix with bright green eyes who only liked my Mom but nonetheless, all three cats got along fine.
Aside from taking in strays, which I suppose is one way of rescuing a pet, we have rescued our more recent pets over the past 18 years. The eldest cat, Mr. Jinx, walked into my parent’s garage from a thunderstorm and I refused to let Dad name him! Maybe I should have named him Thor or Stormy but I’ve always wanted a cat named Mr. Jinx. Then came Mina Harker who was named that since Susan was reading “Dracula” at the time. The last rescue was my dear Charlie, who was a black and white female with a mustache print. Named Charlie after Charlie Chaplin (not Groucho) her mustache was kind of cocked the way Chaplin’s was when he shifted his nose side to side.
The greatest rescue story was how we found Max, who we lost this time last year to lymphoma. We rescued Max from a litter of about half a dozen male dogs, all named after super hero alter egos. There was Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, Clark Kent and Steve Rogers. We rescued Steve Rogers who became Max to us because he reminded me of the Grinch’s dog Max so much. I could see me yelling “STEVE” to come in from the yard at a dog. I still see his file folder in my filing cabinet labeled “Steve Rogers” and I always called him my Little Captain. So yes, we’ve rescued many pets and never regretted one of them.
We only have one pet now, a Malshi (Half Maltese/Half Shih-Tzu) named Chewie…three guesses who named him.
He really looks like a cross between a Panda and an Ewok and nothing like a Wookiee…and he’s a Mama’s boy.
This was a great topic for questions and yes, I’m all emotional now but I love writing about all my pets.
If you’re watching the weather patterns down here, you’ll see we’ve been hit with a massive arctic blast. It’s around 15 degrees with a wind chill of -6 degrees Fahrenheit since yesterday. That’s -10 Celsius for you guys. We’ve got space heaters on the open cabinets and dripping the faucets since our plumbing isn’t equipped for these temperatures. The kicker is it’s supposed to be 75 degrees early next week (24 degrees celsius) so this never lasts more than a few days.
May all my fellow Sneakers sneak somewhere warm and cozy until Snow Miser is done with his winter antics!
I once rescued a brushtail possum I found on my front doorstep in suburban Melbourne. It was clearly needing attention, but I wasn’t very keen to move it as they have formidable claws and teeth. I used my leather jacket to grab it and put it in a cat carrier, took it to a local vet that was part of a program to save and relocate wildlife. I called later and was told it had probably been attacked by a dog, but would be ok and they’d be able to release it when it was better.
Brushtail possums look very cute but can be pretty fierce. They also make bloody awful growls and screeches when threatened. A few years before I had been a presenter on a community radio station: the studio was a refashioned farmhouse way out of town amongst fruit orchards. A few of us were doing a graveyard shift one weekend and around 2am we’d put on ‘Inna Gadda Da Vida’ or something long like that and gone to sit outside for a break. There must have been a possum in a nearby tree and one of us got too close…
Picture it: we’re miles from anywhere in the middle of the night, silence and pitch blackness all around us… suddenly what sounds like the Predator roars from the nearby bush. You have never seen three young, fit blokes fall over themselves so fast in a rush to get inside and lock the door! It was a long time before our hearts stopped racing.