Gritting My Teeth Over: Cats, Again

One of these, hm, kittens who came to live in my home turned out to be a "designer".

Her name was "Josie" when I adopted her. She and her sister are equal halves of the Morse Code twins: Dot and Dash.

"Dot" is a gray tabby covered in spots. Spots are supposed to be rare in a tabby. Her mama was a Siamese/Abyssian mix. Her daddy was a great american alley cat. Dot looks just like an "Ocicat", a designer breed.

"Dash" is a gray tabby covered in, you guessed it, elongated spots or dashes.

It's a misnomer. Dot dashes several times a day, in no particular direction and for no particular purpose, except maybe to make me wonder what the heck she is doing. Dash wouldn't dart after a mouse if it ate all her tuna fish and bopped her in the nose on its way out of the house.

They were identical twins at six weeks, when I hired them to rid my remodel-prone house of rodents.

By the way, they own the house now.

Which reminds me of another designer. Jack Sherman Lloyd. Hang onto that name.

When he was maybe ten years old, he came over to my house because he didn't have a red vest for his cubscout patches. We probably used a scrap of red felt leftover from a Christmas tree skirt. We may not have even used a pattern. Vests don't exactly need patterns, just a few measurements. Jack used my sewing machine to sew four seams on his vest and then proudly wore the thing home.

I forgot about the incident for about 13 years. Saturday, Jack's mother passed on some news to me from Jack. "He's working as an intern for Oscar de laRenta!"

Woo! An internationally known designer! Way to go, Jack!

She continued, "He wanted you to know because you taught him to sew!"

I did? Oh! What did we sew? a cubscout vest?

Encourage kids with whatever you can. I thought I was giving him life survival skills. What did I know?

"So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word."

2 Thessalonians 2:15-17 , NIV