The Water Bowl / Dobbox / The Hoyer

You know how we love Dobby, how iconic he is, on top of being a big-eyed, star-faced angel. No matter the more perfect photos we get, we return to this one, "dobbox." Fred was working in the Computer Turret, caught up in an ADHD bit of hyperfocus and entrepreneurship, hence the waiting Priority Mail box.  Fred noticed Dobby as he first sat to deal with his antique Leica buyer -- those eyes, that trusting stare, are impossible to miss.  Some 40 minutes later, Dobby had not moved, his eyes had not wavered, constricted, nor his hope for some Fred Time.

Recently, we acquired a Hoyer Lift as part of my new bedroom décor.  It terrified all the cats.  The Hoyer is big, moves suddenly, inexplicably, and has replaced the comfy wheelchair at bedside.  The most movement, welcoming or aggressive, observed, have been hit-and-run paw slaps at very high speeds, followed by deep angled skids out the bedroom door.

This morning, though, the very slight routine the cats and I have established was disturbed.
Buddy was on my head, CHECK.
Marmy was on my full bladder, CHECK.
Dobby was nestled against my right arm... NO... and... NOWHERE to be found.

Buddy and Marmy, perturbed, scoped the bed, my body, the room, the house, and returned. About to use our high tech intercom system to wake Fred for a Dobby Search, the two cats and I saw the famous star face rise slowly above the slung sling of the... Hoyer Lift.  He yawned. Buddy's considerable jaw dropped and he backed out of the room toward the kitchen, and familiar food, familiar sights.  Marmy, subject to multiple personality disorders and close to becoming feral again, gave *me* a dirty look.  I guess the Hoyer is my fault, ultimately.

Were I as smart as my smart phone, we might have had a photo to compete with "dobbox."
And I am pretty sure that the Hoyer and Dobby are secret sharing.

REPOST.

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Dobby, Our Little Idiot, is unusual.  Still, his latest peculiarity, begun this morning, as far as I can figure, has me stumped.  Though odd, he is usually fairly logical.  For a cat.

He is talking to a bowl of water.  We have three bowls of water for the cats.  Perhaps that's an overreaction to having lost felines to kidney disease, but we are obsessive about making sure they all have access to fresh water whenever the notion of a drink may cross their tiny minds.

Dobby has bought into our obsession in a major way and has always been a little water sprite.

You know those laser lights that cats love to chase?  He's an incredible leaper, able to easily jump 6 - 7 feet high from a standstill.  I often play Laser Chase with him at night when I cannot sleep (or when he cannot, and therefore no one can!).  It's my habit to trace an up-and-down pattern across the medieval tapestries lining our Manor Suite walls, and he runs along the draperies, putting Baryshnikov to shame. 

Unless he passes a bowl of water.

He might be half way into a record-shattering 10 foot vertical leap when he spots it.  He might be running full tilt, his eyes on the prize, every muscle primed to catch His Red Laser Dot.  (If you wish to see Instant Craze, lazily ask Dobby, "Where is Your Dot?")

But water means all bets are off.  Screech. 

First, he pats it with his paws, then tastes said paws.  Next, he gives a shout-out, a loud cry that is, frankly, scary.  Lastly, he settles down for a long and noisy drink.  Then he trots to me for a congratulatory pat, as this tiny routine is of huge importance in Dobby Land.

He also does something that I now know is not all that unusual among cats: When he wishes to claim an object as his own, he will drop it in a water bowl.  Where it stays.  Unless he then fishes it out for a quick game of Post-Diluvial Soccer.  It's not that cute a behavior, given his proclivity for investing in items like eye drops, pill bottles, yarn balls, cloth toys stuffed with catnip, and whatever miniature electronic parts he can steal from Fred's workbenches, none of which take well to repeated dunkings. 

For a while, when he was competing with his four litter mates, as well as three adult cats, the shelves over The Manor's One and Only Clothes Dryer were always full of drying Dobby Things.

It becomes downright annoying when he gets the notion to thieve from within Marlinspike Hall, from Haddock Holdings  -- like... oh, I dunno... just off the top of my head:  An antique 14k gold thimble with an engraved grape-and-leaf design in its original, velvet-fitted, paper-covered box.

Or like The Captain's unparalleled collection of Miniature Animal Husbandry Electro-Ejaculators (from Cameroon).  I fear the conversation we are going to have with the Old Salt on his next inspection visit... Haddock has never really let go of his veterinary dreams.

Anyway, Dobby hasn't indulged much lately in his Dunk-It/Own-It scheme.  He's moved on.

Like I said, Dobby now talks to one of the water bowls. The red plastic one.  The two large ceramic vessels are apparent dullards.  That's not to say that I've evaluated any of them as potential interlocuteurs.  Besides, whether he's addressing the water itself, or just the bowl, or some unified vision of the two, I cannot say.

He just sits there, yakking away.

Sometimes he gives me a wink and an eyeroll, as if to say: "Can you believe the stories this water bowl comes up with? Oy!"

Truth be told, my heart is glad, as Dobby has been caught up in grieving for Sammy, whom we euthanized early in July.  He stalks around The Manor at night, calling, and remains convinced Sam-I-Am is just hiding out in the back of my wardrobe, where he sought comfort when so sick.  But these past few days, The Dobster has cheered up, for some reason. 

It's gotta be something the water bowl said.

Short Shrift: Breakout at PTZ

It was fun while it lasted.

Well, that's not true, entirely.

It's fun as long as you protect yourself with some fluid-absorbent pad of an absurd persona.

I made the huge error of going as myself [profderien], and not taking la bonne et belle Bianca Castafiore along for the ride!

Unfortunately, The Castafiore is busy with rehersals for the upcoming operatic season. We've pitched in, as well, and are selling tickets to the 2010-11 repertory as part of the Marlinspike Hall ManorFest -- proud to be the only venue with tickets available before they flood the Tête de Hergé TicketTron on the first of August.

We chose not to make much noise about it, but there has been a huge infusion of energy into our Summer Comestibles Project, which forms the heart of ManorFest (excuse me for belaboring the obvious!).

A relish here, a chutney there, here a candle, there a bramble, ohhhhhhh! (To the liberalized tune of Alouette)

Of course, this means of making pocket change is hardly unique to our humble estate, as the Cistercian monks down the unpaved country road peddle all sorts of "benevolent" crap, er, crafts and products, from Benevolent Biscuits to Ink and Toner supplies. It's the height of collusion, but my Marlinspike Pickles owe a good bit of their Pucker Power to the Monastery Mustard Glorious Garlic Blend.

Anyway, between broken hips, infected shoulders, rehersals for Gounod's Faust, batches of cucumbers, and intensive Moat Upkeep (yes, the algae is back!)? There's no time for the stress of social networking over at Poke That Pus Plug, Perforate That Sinus, and Pop That Pointy Zit dot com! [I don't know if owner Chris Azzari still has the site up for sale, but back in 2007 he was ready to ditch it for a mere $10,000 starting bid. At the time, he said he received an offer of $22,000, as well as many partnership offers. Three years later, much more media savvy, I bet he's hoping for much more! I don't think it can still be called a website flip at this point -- it's more like a senior citizen tumbling pass. As I try to support the things that I enjoy in this world,I recently enriched Chris with a donation of Ten Whole Bucks... The "DONATE" button disappeared later that same day, prompting some of the warm, fuzzy feelings I have for Azzari's site at the present time.]

Honestly, personality disorders (in multiples) are breaking out at PTZ faster than any pimple ever could, and I finally came face-to-face with the fétide, puant, malodorant, croupissant, infect, et immonde underbelly of the zit-site beastie. Who knew that the Phone Sex Operator -- who sent me a video of a cat dissection on the occasion of Sam-I-Am's death -- would end up looking like the healthier end of the mental spectrum for the website?

Oops, I forgot: LOL, ROFLMAO, etc. You see, it is often suggested that emoticons might temper my speech for the better, with the usual reasoning that my interlocuteurs can't discern when there's a little smile playing upon my lush red lips -- or a merry crinkling of the tiny laugh lines that frame my shining hazel eyes!

Short of that, I could always claim to "love" the other pimple fetishists and admire their dastardly acumen at finding YouTube videos of weeping abscesses and bubbling boils -- not just in English, mind you, but in Japanese, U.S. Southern, and Belarusian, as well. The competition is fierce and the accolades steady -- how else to keep the supply of masturbatory material coming at a generous pace?

It's a sharp mind that can plomb the depths of the zit-ified and conduct searches not just for "abscesses," say, but for its misspelled and foreign variants, as well.

Absess! Abses! Abcess! Absceso! Abcès! And so on!
(Staying abreast of popular misspellings can be a challenge to the searching poppologist.  My most recent favorite? "Purlunet")

Ah, I am going to miss that rush of adrenaline that comes from scooping the cyst, exposing the repost, and being all witty about it, too. Not as easy as it sounds, my friend, not as easy as it sounds.

Unfortunately, I tend to think emoticons the refuge of the inarticulate, and my resultant reliance on words -- put in certain order and modified at will, mind you --made some of the pseudo-writerly members nervous to the point of requiring sedation.



PTZ is a site that attracts people much like myself, I think -- people in physical pain, disabled people, insomniacs, perhaps fighting an excess of invasive medical procedures in actual, real life, on actual, real bodies. We so want to understand life's various putrefactions.
(Ewww. No, we don't!)

We just think blood and guts are cool, in the same manner that little boys and men "like to blow stuff up."

Like any fetish site, it has more than its share of unstable people, so it's easy to spend too much time catering to the psychically funked instead of just having a good time. Trust me, I have met each and every Neurological Misfire, and been subjected to the folksy stylings of each and every Ingrown PTZ Heir.
Fetish site demographics, a hot new area of statistical study, reveal frustrated doctors, frustrated lawyers, people passing themselves off as all kind of things... but above all, passing on burgeoning needs for importance. The blog-writer becomes An Author -- the risk management specialist, An Incomparable Neurosurgeon -- the Obese Hausfrau, An Intrepid First-Responder.

Given my congenital weakness and my "condition" (Walterus Mittyitis) -- you would think I'd be in the thick of all that pretense. Well, of course I was! Yes, I passed myself off as A Retired French Professor. The truth? They can't handle the truth! Already subject to severe bouts of Clinical Unworthiness, how might these fragile psyches react to the presence of someone who is lodged in a place like Marlinspike Hall, nestled in the heart of such perfection as is found deep, deep in The Tête de Hergé (très décédé, d'ailleurs)? And if they knew I was a dear friend of Captain Haddock? Imagine the whirling dervish of jealousy!
I have given short shrift to the counter-balance of wonderfully normal people over at PTZ, so allow me to lengthen that shrift (more on shrift below * ). From owner and steward Emilbus to the charming but testy Cyst Face, there are dozens of fun, knowledgable, and decent folk from all walks of life, in all sorts of circumstances. Those two, for instance, are new fathers -- I imagine that the births of their sons put a zit-popping website into proper perspective. Innaffitoften enlivens the place with a pure love of fun; Twisted Cyster joyously keeps the home bot fly fires burning; Anna Nonymous and her brother-in-law Evil Felon have even gone so far as to star in and produce what will soon be video cult classics -- So no... PTZ is not overrun with delusional depressives!
Still, and even so, I cannot help but wish I'd never stopped to scope out the less wholesome side of things.

Folks get terminally ingrown and pustulently petulant for a reason -- I forgot that. Don't push, don't call anyone on it, don't do the Dr. Phil 8-minute cure. Fear of exposure can make the barely stable personality spin out of control, or at least melt into a mess of childish tantrums.
Stress is hell on the complexion.

La bonne et belle Bianca Castafiore has further opined that there's a hell of a lot of prescribed painkillers sliding down gullets and a real heft of untreated clinical depression among PTZ denizens. Fortunately, I know *nothing* about the snarky, contrarian behavior that can ensue, given those variables! I just have to take the fat diva's word for it.

The weirdest thing, and it shouldn't be a perpetual surprise to me, as I encounter this in most insular online communities, is the way too many people decide that every word uttered by profderien somehow has to do with them. The level of paranoia astounds, and like the sebaceous cyst invaded by green-pus-producing bacteria -- it's gonna blow!
Sobering. And, ultimately, off-putting to a degree that drives "people like me" away.

Excuse me for a moment. The Cabana Boy is outside on the drawbridge screaming about an infestation of Hair and Bubble algae [Bryopsis plumosa and Dictosphaeria cavernosa, respectively], and demanding emerald crabs and Mexican turbos to stave it off, "or I am outta here!" (He's cute, the way he stomps his little feet!)
I need to go talk water parameters with him, and to do it before he forms a blood blister that no self-respecting zitmeister would deign to pierce.
You see, we maintain a high nutrient content in Our Moat, a necessity because of the Koi, as well as the Lagoon Sharks that we shelter in the winter for @Yoclutso, Beloved Twitter Twin, when she is busy with her castle and the Ark is out of commission. What do you do when your moat is overrich in phosphates, silicates, and nitrate? A flat out better sort of person, @Yoclutso sometimes mentors The Cabana Boy, whereas I state clearly to his vapid little face that he is a blatantly inefficient skimmer!
Maybe a few mangrove plants will suck up enough phosphorus that we won't need to go the macroalgae route (sort of the Activia Challenge for Moats)...
Ah, well, as far as PTZ goes, I am, of course, responsible for all of my actions, and many of them were clearly wrong.
I will mea my culpa, but I will not mea my maxima, ultima culpa. I mean, be real! I have a freaking estate to run!

I will examine my behavior... I always do. Any improvements, though, made on the current Model of Moi shall remain unheralded by the Occasional Crazies and Purported Popologists over at PTZ. I'll just have to waste my stunning renovations on you, Gentle Readers, and the lovelies of The Manor!

So, good luck, Emilbus. Many happy poppin' returns!

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* My regular readers know my love of word/expression origins. Today, let's visit The Mavens' Word of the Day, where Maven Georgia just happens to be addressing the saying short shrift:

Do you remember the scene in Romeo and Juliet where Romeo says to the Nurse: "Bid her devise / Some means to come to shrift this afternoon; / And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell / Be shrived and married."?

The English words shrift and shrive derive from an Old English verb scrifan which comes in turn from Latin scribere 'to write'. The Old English word had several meanings: 'to decree a person's lot', to 'pass sentence', and, in the ecclesiastical sense, 'to hear confession and then impose penance and grant absolution'. When Juliet goes to shrift, she is going to confession, and when she is shrived (or Modern English shriven), she has been given penance and granted absolution.

The original sense of shrive seems to have been that of 'writing or prescribing a penalty'. It never meant simply 'to write' in English, but German schreiben and Dutch schrijven, both meaning 'to write', come from the same Proto-Germanic root. The Scandinavian languages also have the 'penance' sense, which does not exist in the West Germanic languages.

Scrifan first appeared in English around 776, and scrift around 900. Both, in assorted spellings, were in common use for centuries. The meanings got a bit tangled up so that shrift at various times meant 'penance', 'absolution', and 'confession'. Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, is the day when people are "shriven"--they go to confession and receive absolution before making merry on the last day before Lent begins. The three days before Ash Wednesday are sometimes known as "Shrovetide."

The earliest citation for the expression short shrift in the OED is from Shakespeare's Richard III: "Make a short Shrift, he longs to see your Head." The man being addressed is Lord Hastings, whom Richard has just condemned to death with the sentence to be carried out immediately. Time is short--and Hastings' shrift must be similarly brief. This is apparently the original meaning of the phrase: a criminal condemned to death was given only a brief time to make his confession before being executed. He was given short shrift.

There seems to be unanimous agreement among scholars on this derivation, but I wasn't able to find any solid evidence, and there are no citations. One source tantalizingly said the phrase appeared "late in the fourteenth century" but didn't give a citation. There is also a great gap in citations between Shakespeare and the first quarter of the nineteenth century when Sir Walter Scott used the phrase in several of his novels and popularized it. Did he pick it up from Shakespeare? In A Legend of Montrose (1819), a man asks what a traitor deserves, and someone replies "A high gallows and a short shrift." Joseph Conrad wrote in Arrow of Gold (1919) of "a man condemned to a short shrift by his doctor."

To give something or someone "short shrift" now means 'to give little consideration'. This sense developed late in the nineteenth century. Here is an 1887 quotation from the Times of London: "Every argument...tells with still greater force against the present measure, and it is to be hoped that the House of Commons will give it short shrift to-night."

A Web search produced thousands of current examples: A recent article in the Economist contains the sentence: "Jordan's foreign minister...predictably got short shrift from Mr. Sharon" (April 2001). And Newsweek noted that "...[risk is] often given short shrift when investors peer into the future in an area like technology" (April 2001).

All of this sounds quite benign when we think of the phrase's origin.