Critters

Very recently a certain smart-ass copy editor referenced this site as the "Wannabe Corral". While it is true that I am a native Texan, I would like to make clear that it's been many, many years since I've set foot in a corral. (The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo counts, I guess, so we'll call it 1992).

Much to my parents' dismay, I moved from Texas to "might-as-well-be-a-Yankee-land" in 1998. My argument that Maryland is still south of the Mason-Dixon Line didn't impress. Nor did referencing Virginia as "The South" and saying Texas is really more "Southwest." Oh, no, that one was definitely not well-received. How dare I lump Texas, Our Texas with such paltry states as Arizona or New Mexico? (No offense, ya'll Southwesterners).

The rest of my immediate family still resides within 20 miles of my childhood home in a rather rural area east of Houston. Please, wipe away that mental image of longhorn cattle and oil derricks. Rural does not equal stereotypical. But it is rural: there isn't really any public transportation, the nearest honest-to-God mall is about 45 minutes away, and it was a big deal when McDonald's came to town. Okay? Small town. It's the kind of town where dogs sometimes trot leashless on the residential streets, and the annual county fair means no school for two days (the FFA kids have to show their pigs and calves, you know.)

In this environment, stray cats can also occasionally appear. Now, my momma likes cats nearly as much as I like dogs. Over the years, she has fed many a cat that appeared on her doorstep. A choice few were invited into the home with the associated privileges of litter box use, smelly canned cat food, and all the lap sitting and petting a cat could want. Others ate once or twice and then disappeared again. Most, however, became regular "outdoor" cats: cats that were not affectionate enough to be a housecat, but visited the doorstep at least twice daily for meals.

Such is life at MommaWhit's in Smalltown, Texas. I imagine it's not a bad life for the cats, as long as they are wise to the ways of neighborhood traffic. There are lots of birds and squirrels for entertainment. And armadillos, of course. I specifically did NOT remove armadillos from that stereotypical mental image, because there are armadillos aplenty in my momma's neck of the woods (despite the fact that Suzanne has yet to see one in a form other than roadkill).

FYI, nothing makes yappy dachshunds bark more than a nest of armadillos under the house. Except, perhaps, raccoons eating the catfood on the doorstep - along with the cats.






I say "perhaps" because my parents no longer have dachshunds.

Obviously, there is no corral.


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