A Tour of my Refuge and Sanctuary

This is my bedroom. The walls of my bedroom are pink, and the walls of Peggy's bedroom are green. Every two weeks, we clean house, and it is then that I change out many of my decorations. It is for this reason that you might see the same item in two locations. We bought the silk painting atop the mirror in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in 1972. When silk-paintings of John Wayne and Elvis Presley became popular, Peggy wanted to discard our desert scene. I go along with most of what she wants, but on this occasion I demurred. The cat painting to the left of the mirror came from a St. Vincent de Paul Store in Eugene, and the wall-hanging above my BiPap is a pressed-plastic picnic scene that came from a junk store in Wisconsin. 

 

 

The brown heart to the right of the second photo was a gift from a British blogger. I call both Peggy and the sleeping squirrel to the left of the photo, Fluffy, Fluffer, or Fluffy Squirrel.

 

I used to have 44-plants in my bedroom, but am now down to the ones in the photo plus an Aglaonema that stays in the den. The white cat was a gift from an elderly neighbor named Helen who has since died. In front of the white cat are wasps' nests (I love wasps and bees), petrified wood, and ceramic pieces by the same British blogger who gave me the heart.

 

 

In January, my collection of Civil War books reached the point that I paid $50 for the above bookcase at a Habitat for Humanity store. When the ensuing book shuffle was complete, my Civil War books were in the hall, and my new bookcase contained books about cats, knots, and domestic plants. The poinsettia blanket is one of several bed-coverings that I use to keep cat fur off my spread.

 

 

Our youngest cat—five-year-old Harvey—is relaxing amid my cat library. His luxuriant ruff isn't visible, but his snarky expression is. He is so beautiful that I long ago become the world's first bitch to a cat.

 

I bought the white rabbit holding the carrot at a junk shop sixty miles from town while on an outing with my friend Walt (https://snowbrush.blogspot.com/2023/11/invitation-to-suicide.html). Determined to maintain my manly image, I didn't buy it that day, and so it was that Walt had to drive me back for it the next day. The plaster-of-Paris animal to the right of the rabbit was so well-cuddled that it's identity is no longer decipherable. I love many damaged possessions. For example, I used to collect broken-legged horse knick-knacks because I couldn't bear the thought of the store throwing them away. I didn't realize that my father knew about my horses until he started crying about them the year he died.

 

The dark-colored cat below the stuffed cat is Bastet, my only overtly religious symbol. I bought the fox to the right of Bastet at the Jackson, Mississippi, zoo when I was seven in honor of a wolf the zoo had, and who spent his nightmarish existence pacing rapidly back and forth inside a small cage. I thought my fox was a wolf until twenty years ago Peggy realized my mistake. The blue mug to the right of the "wolf" contains bookmarks that I cut from Christmas cards. 

 

 

My mother made the needlework tree as my Christmas present in 1976.

 

The wolf in snow came from a long-forgotten antique store run by a delightful lady named Penny who died of Alzheimer's. The rock on the floor fell from Symbol Rock, a 40-million-year-old Cascade Mountain basalt formation that an extinct Indian tribe used to worship, as do I.

 

 

I read in bed from 10:00 until 1:00 each night and am often joined by four cats (all four are in the photo). A fifth cat joined us until he got mad at me for swatting his tush when he attacked my defenseless girl cat, Scully (she's sitting up in the photo). That dire event occurred five years ago, yet I'm still lucky if he joins me twice a year. I have multiple nicknames for my various cats. For example, Scully answers to Girlfriend, Beauty Girl, White Whiskers, and Pretty Lady Cat. As is the way with men, my love for my male cats often wears a disguise. For example, Brewsky (the tabby at my feet) is Sweet Man, Patriarch of the Cat Side of the Family, and Lard-Ass; while Harvey goes by Sweetheart, Pretty-Pretty Cat Man, Most Beautiful Cat on Earth, and Shithead. 

 

Albert Schweitzer well-expressed my own delight in cats when he wrote:

There are two means of refuge from the misery of life, music and cats.