A Cat by Any Other Name ...

I recently rescued a young marmalade-colored tomcat we named Buster (as in ball ...). I thought having him neutered (which I would do anyway) would have the beneficial side-effect of perhaps calming him down. Hah!

Buster throws a paw over the shoulder of our elderly Cocker Spaniel, Mackie, and wrestles the totally bewildered dog to the ground. Mackie now flees when he sees Buster. I should clarify ... Mackie waddles for shelter as fast as a very fat spaniel on arthritic legs can.

The Butterscotch Blur chases and torments all of the household geriatric female cats (two of whom have now ganged up on him). He unrolls paper towels by the yard, shreds them and drags the remnants around the house. What he does to toilet paper is unspeakable. He tucks pens under carpets. When he's bored, he leaps out in front of us from behind curtains, trying to startle us. It is quite effective, especially on the upstairs landing, at the top of the stairs.

The last time I had a young male cat was a decade ago. I had an old dresser that the drawers didn't quit fit into after warping in the Calfornia climate, which is quite unkind to anything wooden. Consequenty, the drawers were always open an inch or so. The kitten tore all of my underwear and socks out of the drawers and tossed them all over the bedroom on a daily basis.

When he wasn't engaged in undergarment sorting, he was busy overturning the cats' water and food dispensers and tossing aromatic lumps out of the catbox and sporting with them in batting practice.

He was such a frustrating little bugger I kept yelling, "You little shit!" repeatedly at him. His name was actually Banjo, but to this day, he thinks his name is Little Shit, and he will only respond to that.

Now that we have a new terrorist in the house, Little Shit prefers to nap on the back of a couch and observe from the sidelines. I swear he is smiling.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Heat it Up

Recently, I had a friend visiting from Kansas who did nothing but bitterly complain about the cold here. It's cold here? This is Hawaii compared to friggin' Kansas.

Nonetheless, she was perpetually draped with blankets, layered with sweaters, and surrounded by electric space heaters spewing waves of warmth at her ... yet she continuously took me to task for the house being too cold.

Meanwhile, the furnace was set on 70, which heated my Yankee blood to the boiling point. I was seeing dollar signs dancing in my head (I could just see that gas meter pinwheeling along) while I was wearing T-shirts and feeling like I was living in a sauna.

The chilly house guest has gone back home, and I am left with an unspeakable heating bill, which means now I have to scrimp more than ever this month. However, I have tried to mitigate the problem in this drafty old uninsulated barn of a house without spending wads of cash.

The furnace is back on a sensible 60, and I've put up an inexpensive shower curtain between the front of the house, which is very cold, and the back of the house, which at least retains a bit of heat.

So here I sit, in the somewhat heated part of the house, wondering what the next gas bill will bring. On the bright side, I am secure in the fact that if the fridge dies - no sweat. The kitchen is in the back of the house, and easily as cold as a meat locker.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Stories from Big Red

A few weeks ago, Frank Mahoney contacted me, wanting to use the image above for a video he was producing called "Stories from Big Red" about Royal Nebeker's Net Loft, aka Big Red, which sits out on the Columbia River at the bottom of 31st Street in Astoria. My image was of interest because it shows the building before the lid got blown off in the December 2007 storm.

At this point, I should mention that the aforementioned storm had winds reputed to hit 150 mph, yet on the North Coast, it was referred to as a "winter storm" or a "gale." I have never seen such winds in my life, and I was mightily impressed. Being an old Yankee, I had previously thought winds of 60 to 80 mph, which were often during a hurricane, were a big deal. Hah!

Anyway, the video, which is an hour long, gives quite a detailed tour of the old cannery, and also shows some concert footage from the Big Red fundraiser last summer.

You can see the video here: Stories from Big Red

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Dead Ducks

That Noel snow siege we had in Astoria, all wrapped up as a White Christmas present, really got me galloping down Memory Lane.

When I was a little girl, back on the shoreline of Connecticut, in my little oystering/lobstering village, winter was a very big deal for most of the town's residents. Everything just stopped, period.

Except school, of course, and since my mother was always a social butterfly who didn't recognize seasons, I spent more time than ever during the winter with my babysitter, Mrs. Gay, after school and on weekends.

Yes, her name really was Mrs. Gay. She lived in an unpainted shingled house that was snuggled against a seam of pink granite that was 50 or 60 feet high and ran east about 150 feet.

Mr. Gay was a lobsterman, which meant that during the winter he had nothing to do but mainly sit at the kitchen table and weave new nets for his lobster pots, drink copious amounts of beer and swear. I learned to cuss listening to him, and also learned to revere tattoos (yes, I now have several) and Ford trucks.

When he wasn't weaving nets and swearing, he and his son, Junior (aka Junie), would take their hunting dog, Baggott, their guns, and liver-paralyzing amounts of liquor to hunt Long Island ducks, which were highly prized by the rich folks in the area. It was about the only way they could make any money in the winter.

One of my less fond memories is of walking up the steep and creeky stairs to the porch and being met by brightly colored feathers and rows of dead duck eyes. The hapless foul would be hanging by their feet all around the porch, and especially around the sides of the front door, which opened into the kitchen.

One fall, when I was about 8 years old, Old Man Gay and Junie were drinking beer and target shooting in the yard, getting ready for duck-hunting season. The target was set up in front of the wall of granite. Baggott was watching with great interest, but didn't understand why he didn't have anything to retrieve.

I wandered up to them, and was just hanging around, watching. Old Man Gay said, "Hey kid, you think you can shoot this thing?" Well, I had no idea, so I said, "Maybe." He handed me the rifle, showed me how to hold it against my shoulder and aim it at the target they'd set up, and told me to go ahead and pull the trigger.

I did, and next thing I knew I was flat on my ass and looking at the sky. Old Man Gay and Junie were slapping their knees and howling with laughter. I would have laughed, too, but I was too startled by the unexpected landing.

I think that was the first and only time I heard Mrs. Gay - whose first name was rightfully and fittingly Grace - actually bellow, which she did from the upstairs porch.

Needless to say, Old Man Gay and Junie made no more attempts to "teach" me to shoot, and were sternly chastised for their efforts. But I never forgot the lesson, and nobody ever had to worry about me "playing with guns." A bruised backside and aching shoulder, not to mention all those dead ducks, spoke louder than any adult warnings ever could have.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Let it Snow

I guess all those years of dreaming of a White Christmas finally paid off, in a place I never expected it to happen - Astoria.

The last snowy Christmas I had was in 1981, back in Connecticut. The winter that year was particularly brutal, for some reason. I always wondered if it was Connecticut's farewell present to me, as that was the last winter I spent there before moving to California, and I remember well thinking I would never be warm again.

The clothes froze to the bedroom chair, the quilt froze to the bedroom wall I was vainly trying to insulate with it, and the only room with any heat was the kitchen. I felt like Scarlett O'Hara, but my line with fist upraised on an icicle-covered porch (and California dreamin') would have been, "I'll never freeze my ass off again!"

From there on in, before moving to Astoria, it was California palm trees for Christmas. It's true - be careful what you wish for. I will just say that palm trees don't go well with much besides tree rats and recluse spiders, and especially not with Christmas. Sunny 75 degree weather doesn't go with Christmas, either, so I used to light up the fireplace and set the swamp cooler on stun. But I digress.

Once I got to Astoria, the locals assured me it never snows in Astoria. But that it used to, long ago. With a heavy sigh, I figured I would never see a white Christmas again. And I reminisced mightily about childhood Christmases in Connecticut, on the shoreline, when Long Island Sound froze over with ice cakes, the Victorian houses on the islands in the sound looked like Christmas cards, and the snow was always at least a foot deep by Christmas.

Which then led me to think about the best and worst Christmas presents ever. The best was a TV, when I was only 3 (which was sometime during the first Pleistocene era, I believe) and my father lugged that damn thing uphill to the house from the driveway.

I still believed in Santa back then, so I was damn near delirious when I woke up and saw the beloved TV, which at that time, got a total of three stations that ran about 6 hours each per day. It was black & white, of course, and a screen and lots of tubes surrounded by some sort of pressed cardboard. That is the Christmas present I will always remember, and it still makes me smile to think about how I felt that Christmas morning.

The worst present wasn't the fault of the present, naturally, it was a case of faulty expectations. I was about 6 or so, and this one present under the tree just intrigued me. The shape was interesting, and it was wrapped in many, many layers of tissue paper. It only made a thunking rattle when shaken, and I could not for the life of me figure it out. I must have picked it up 20 times a day to shake it, or feel it, or try to puzzle it out. I was aghast to discover that it was a flashlight. To this day, I can almost feel my face falling again when I realized what it was.

Now, in my dotage, I appreciate the fact that the best Christmas gifts are not of the material kind. This year, it's having my friend Margot here for a month. And a wonderful blizzard on Dec. 20. I was down at Pier 11 doing the Saturday version of the Sunday Market, and looking out at the river with the snow swirling all around, and was tickled to my toenails.

The icing on the seasonal cake was to wake up Christmas morning and see falling snow out the back window that overlooks the city and river. Oh, I chuckled and giggled with glee, and felt like I was 5 years old again, when I would stand in my long-john pajamas (with the button-down butt flap, of course), staring out the window, waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Santa arrived this year, at last, and brought lots of snow and a sleigh-full of memories. I'm still smiling.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site