Art for the Day

Cornelizs Visscher, The Large Cat, c. 1657

T loves this picture. When he sees it, he gets excited and says with great fondness, "Deedee..deedee." He loves deedees and pup-ees (kitties and puppies) and is thrilled when he sees one in the neighborhood.
We all miss having animals around. We are not allowed to have pets at the rental, so we had to find new homes for Darla and Betsy Cat before we left Idaho. (Sadly, Tacy succumbed to her skin cancer about a week before we moved.) We were so happy when we found a family through Freecycle to adopt them both. Unfortunately, a couple weeks after their new pets arrived, one of children left a gate open and Darla escaped. She was an old dog, and quite deaf. It's sad to think we'll probably never know what became her after we had placed her with a nice family. But she always took the opportunity to explore the neighborhood whenever she managed to get off her leash when she lived with us, so it's not surprising the same thing happened again. But still sad. I get all wistful when I remember how within a few minutes of going out the back door, at least one if not all three animals would come to greet us. Darla would be full of unabashed enthusiasm, asking for a scratch behind the ears, or even better, a walk. Tacy would come trotting and meowing, ever hungry for affection. Betsy would silently appear from her hiding place, softly brush against my leg, allow a pat or two before sitting down a small distance away, watchful in her calm presence.
And one more animal story. The other day I was looking at food ads and T wanted to look at one too. I absenty handed him one. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about when he got excited and exclaimed "La la! La la!" When I looked closer at the ad, I saw there was a small picture of a dog that looked vaguely like Darla. I couldn't believe he remembered how to say her name after these months--it's been a long time since we talked about her. And he was barely starting to say her name when we left. He has such affection for furry creatures.