Cats, Again (Meet Chiaco)





As I have mentioned before, last year actually, we have two cats.  My husband and I brought our two cats back with us from Egypt in 2001.  They both died of natural causes within a few years, and I enjoyed a cat free, fur free house for about 6 months.  Then my husband decided he had to have another cat...a Humane Society cat, and not only that, but a cat that nobody wanted.  (Code for the  ugliest cat at the adoption center.)  The cat he selected was an Angoria pastel calico that had been at the Humane Society for about 5 months. As an antidote for all that fluff, I chose a sleek, black, tuxedo (or clergy) cat.  Both cats were between six months and nine months old.  The black cat was named Inky, and the Angoria cat was named Chiaco.  I think I called her Chiaco, because her grayish, pinkish coat looked alittle bit like a Japanese kimona.

No, she's not ugly.  In fact she has a sweet,
handsome,  even regal face.

Right away, Chiaco attached herself to me, following me about the house, including the bathroom and hopping on my legs whenever I sit down. She is undetered when I dump her off my lap, or yell at her when she pushes the bathroom door open.  Both my husband and I blame her for any unwanted deposits we find in the corner. Her fluffy hair sheds everywhere, although my husband tries to mollify me by brushing her coat periodically.  She insists on sleeping at my feet all night.  She's as heavy as a sack of potatoes, and I have to  push her out of the way with my foot when I want to turn over.

Both our cats are house cats. I don't want them outside collecting ticks or fleas, bothering our birds or getting hit by a car.  Chiaco, not withstanding, stands ready to make a dash out the deck door, tumble down the steps and head for the treeline at the back of our property whenever possible.   Her tubby body bobs up and down like a little bear cub's.   Of course, I have to go  get her, because she's more likely to tolerate me picking her up than her benefactor, the man of the house.  Occasionally, she avoids me and sneaks back up to the deck - making a dash for safety when someone slides open the back door.

I have always felt that this is one cat I could do without.  Yet one evening recently, I had a change of heart.  It appears that downstairs in the family room,  Chiaco found a plastic grocery bag on the floor and stuck her head inside to investigate; she's an investigative cat.  When pulling back out of the bag, her foot must have caught the handle loop. Unable to pull her foot out of the loop, she began to run, but the bag, like a white ghost, followed her.  She came running up the stairs and into the livingroom -  the sound of her head knocking against chair legs and bookcase was terrible!  Before I could arrive on the scene, Chiaco came to a stop under a 'pull up' chair and my husband snatched the bag off her leg.  Chiaco remained under the chair seemingly in a state of shock.  Inky kept a sympathetic watch from the couch.  Chiaco was still under the chair when we went to bed, but  we wanted to give her a chance to recover.  In the middle of the night, I woke up and was concerned to find that she hadn't resumed her usual place at my feet.  I got up to see if she was still under the livingroom chair.  On the way to the livingroom, I was fearful of what I might find.  Was she injured?  Was she in pain? Was she still alive?  I confessed to myself that I was going to be pretty upset if she was actually hurt.  Once in the livingroom, I found that she wasn't under the chair.  She had moved to the couch and stared at me reproachfully.  Inky was still watching her near-by.  Relieved, I returned to bed.  In the morning, Chiaco seemed to be her normal self, and that night she returned to her usual place, sleeping at my feet. I now give her alittle more respect, and allow her to rest on my lap a few minutes before putting her gently to one side.

Monet in the Midwest

The Nelson Atkins Art Gallery in Kansas City has united three of Monet's waterlily canvases from the Mid-West.  One panel is from the St. Louis Art Museum, one from the Cleveland Art Museum, plus the one in the Nelson. The exhibit is in new Bloch Building - a new addition funded with an initial grant from H and R Bloch.


 (And why can't Wal-Mart do the same for our university museum in Columbia?  Sam Walton graduated from Hickman High in Columbia.)   

The University Art and Archaeology Museum where I am a docent arranged for a bus to go to Kansas City on Saturday, May 14th.  (Yes, I know, I'm a little late posting, but time slips by.)  It was a cold dreary day as many of the days have been this month in Missouri.  Mary Sue (my sister) went with me.  We met the bus at 7:00 AM at the Alumni Building on campus. We arrived in Kansas City by 10:30 and were met by the Associate Curator, Nicole Myers, who led us through the display.  She was young, but so interesting -  describing how Monet worked and reworked the water lily canvases in his studio.  Using modern X-ray technology and examining minute chips of paint under a microscope, experts are able to see how Monet painted over and over the water of the pond, plants and water lilies,  until the works now seem to shimmer, to be translucent and abstract. Here is a link:   www.nelson-atkins.org/art/Exhibitions/monet/index.cfm

This is the lily pond looking across to a Japanese
bridge.  Is it THE Japanese Bridge? 

Of course I had to tell the group that I had visited Giverny (about 1995).  I explained that it had been raining all week before we arrived as part of a Bristol University garden tour of France.  The roses looked a bit beaten up, and I was disappointed that the garden wasn't as orderly as Monet's paintings.  Non-the-less, when I looked at the photos I had taken of the bridge, the lily pond, etc., they were smashing. Sez me, of course.  I understand that Monet - his workers, that is - tided up his garden every morning before he came out to paint.  The pond at the time of my visit, looked to me alittle overgrown.  Surprisingly, Nicole had lived in Paris a year and a half and had never been to Giverny.

After spending some time looking at the Waterlilies, Mary Sue, Pam (another museum docent)  and I strolled up through the Bloch extension enjoying the  modern paintings and sculpture.  I particularly noticed a horse, 3/4 life-sized sculpted out of 'drift wood.' 

These two works of modern art were in the lobby of the Bloch Building.

  





At 1:00 we met a number of fellow Columbians at the Italian Renaissance court yard for lunch.  Most of us had salads, and they were large, delicious and gratifyingly satisfying.

After lunch we took in the Nelson-Atkins

permanent collections, including

I down loaded this from a postcard.

 Monet's Boulevard des Capucines.  Supposedly, one art critic called the painting nothing but flecks of paint, declaring that it only created only an impression, and the term Impressionism was born.  However, the stories of when Impressionism got its name are varied.

About 3:00, we were bushed!  We dragged ourselves back to the court yard restaurant  for refreshment.

Preparing tables in the foyer.

We crossed through the main lobby of the art museum to get to the restaurant, although it was roped off so that employees could prepare tables for a wedding reception.  The woman in charge scolded us, but we were too tired to look for another door.  Once in the restaurant we found very little to revive us.  They were also cleaning up, and decorating tables for the reception.  I was grateful for two cups of very good coffee.  We sat at an out-of- the-way table and rested, watching the reception efforts.  
The restaurant closed at 4:00, and by this time rested,  we visited the American Collection that included Thomas Hart Benton and George Caleb Bingham paintings on the second floor.

Finally around 5:00, we meet our group in the lobby of the Bloch Building - truly exhausted. Here is part of the truly exhausted Columbians.

Waiting for our bus, we had a few minutes to admire the stairway from the lobby of the Bloch Building (below), and watch the bride arrive at the museum.  There was a brisk, chilly wind, but the wedding party went around to the side of the museum to have their group pictures taken.  Who would have guessed when they planned a mid-May wedding that the day would be so dark and  disagreeable?

We arrived back in Columbia by 7:00 PM as planned,  dead tired, but that was all the more reason to sleep well that night.



A bit out of place, this is Pam on the left, Barb, our tour coordinator, and
Mary Sue at lunch.