Archimedes

OK, let’s take a break from the backyard wildlife, and get to the real purpose of this particular blog….our cute adorable kids!

Most folks who know me have been subjected, willingly or otherwise, to photo albums of our “babies”, but since there are a few friends who live too far away to have been treated to said photos, and there is a remote chance that someone might stumble onto this page, who does not know me, I will start at the beginning.

In the beginning there was Archimedes…

I may have mentioned to Don a few times before we were married that I love animals and had missed having one during my college years and since. I hoped when we were married we could find a home that would accommodate a pet…in particular, a canine pet. I didn't mean to make it a condition of marriage, but I've never been certain if the poor fellow thought I had.

At any rate; when, in late December of 1991, we considered an apartment in Newport Beach, I did not forget to ask the owner if pets were allowed. “Probably. A small one, perhaps.” was her response.

Then, one day in 1993, when Don and I were meeting my brother and sister-in-law at a rented cabin in Big Bear for the weekend, Don went inside a grocery store for some firewood and a couple of vittles while I waited outside. He returned with said firewood and vittles and an announcement: “Someone just inside the weather protection area, is giving away a puppy.” Don was worried that the lady might give the pup to the pound, and that even if someone who lived on the mountain took the dog, they might not really be able to afford it. He thought, if I was willing to be the one to ask our landlady if we could keep him, that we should take this last pup of the litter, a Yellow Labrador/German Shorthair mix home. If our landlady rejected the pup, he reasoned, we would be more likely to find him a good home down in Orange County than the woman giving him away at the super market up on the mountain could. Who was I to argue?

Long story slightly shortened, our landlady repeated “Small. You can have a small pet. Get a little 15 pound dog. A dog as large as this is going to be, can not be happy in an apartment.” The verdict was in; Teddy Bear was out.

Tears were shed after handing him over to the nice young couple who had just learned they could not have children. But knowing they would consider Teddy their son helped. His name was changed, as Teddy the man did not want to share a name with Teddy the dog. (A sure sign it was meant to be, we’d given the dog his owner-to-be’s nick-name!)

Despite my knowledge that buying animals from pet stores is tantamount to condoning “Puppy mills”, the Teddy Bear experience was followed by a couple of episodes of my falling in love with pet store dogs, pleading with Don that we should take them home; Don having to remind me that the landlady doesn’t approve of puppies intent on becoming large dogs.

Several months later Don and I were in Lakeside (San Diego), visiting my Dad and step mother. Escape the August heat, we spent a couple of hours watching “Another Stakeout” with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez, at a local movie theater. A primary character in the film, that figures later in this story, was a dog named Archie.

Before returning to Dad and Julie’s house we stopped for groceries.

This time it wasn’t a puppy that caught Don’s attention as we left the store, but a tiny bleating kitten in a cardboard box being tended by a young lady, no more than 8 years old.

Knowing I was in for a tough departure if I saw the kitten and left without it, I tried to walk the in the opposite direction. Don, however, seemed determined to look. Again, who was I to argue? (But I did attempt to harden my heart on the short trip to the box, because, if I got a cat, would that mean my pet quota had been met…would I ever again be able to get a dog?)

The child said her parents had told her if she couldn’t give the little four-week old kitten away it was going to the pound. She said it’s siblings were all bigger and were going to kill him. “He’s part Siamese [blue point] and part Calico,” she told us. She’d bathed him in flea shampoo and felt confident in declaring that, “he has no ticks or fleas.” She then held him out for one of us to take him. I stood with my arms folded, just looking, while Don urged me to go ahead and take him. I relented and reached out for him.

On the way to Dad’s house we discussed names. The huge ears on the little four-week old head reminded me of an owl for some reason. I recalled that in T.H. White’s “The Book of Merlyn” Merlyn’s very clever companion is an owl named Archimedes. Taken, no doubt, from the Archimedes of ancient times; a Sicilian of Greek decent—a famed mathematician and inventor. This was appropriate because this is how I think of Don (no, not as Sicilian! As inventive.), so I suggested the name, explaining my reasons, and concluding that we could call him Archie, like the dog in the movie we’d just seen, since he was probably going to be the closest thing to a dog I was going to get.

He was the cutest little kitten.

Four weeks is too early to take a kitten from it’s mother. It’s eyes aren’t fully open and it doesn’t know how to lap liquids yet. (And apparently, according to something I read in a book, this was also what caused the development of his strange mating behavior---namely, that he wanted to with anything and everything-animate or inanimate.)

We used an eye-dropper to feed him and were very pleased that even at only four weeks he knew what to do in kitty litter.

His eyes, when they finally opened, were a brilliant deep turquoise. I wasn’t sure if all cat’s had blue eyes as babies, so while I hoped they would stay this color, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t. They lightened, but are still pretty.

I’m a believer in the power of names, and it's true Archimedes is a very clever, inventive kitty. He's probably even good at math. What I didn’t know when we named Archimedes, was that the famed inventor was also a violent warrior. And what I didn’t think of when I thought it was cute that we could use the dog’s name in the movie as his nick-name (Archimedes scoffed at “Archie” so we didn’t use it after-all) was, that dog was a ROTTWEILER. But these things bore out in his little personality as his eyes began to focus and his claws and teeth found their marks.

He became our little guard dog….I mean cat. He answered the door whenever company came and attacked if he didn’t like the look or smell of the visitor. He sat on our upstairs balcony wall and bellowed at us as we parked our car below. The noise was so loud we joked that he was trying to embarrass us, imploring the entire neighborhood to call 911 to rescue him from our callous abandonment, never mind that we’d been at work slaving to feed his Little Furry Highness.

Archimedes was ruler of the house for four years…and then there were dogs.

I’m afraid all his kitten pics were on film. If I can find them I’ll try scanning. Meantime, here are more recent pics of Archimedes.

Look, I'm a Jack-o-lantern!