#A-TO-Z-CHALLENGE – LETTER “C” AND “D” - CATS!!!! AND A DOG

I'm cheating here. I should have posted letter “C” on Friday, but I had a little run-in with the SSA and then the IRS over this whole “incentive check” nonsense, and after sitting on hold, listening to horrible hold music and being hung up on by two different alphabet agencies in these here Untied (sic) States, I was in no mood to write or think about #a-to-z-challenge. Quarantining is bad enough and then, trying to deal with our Federal Gubmint for ANYTHING, just raises my blood pressure. But, I REALLY want to finish this challenge this year AND I digress.

At last count, in my household, we have four cats, one dog and three birds. The cats don't really seem to know what the birds are, as the cats weren't raised by their mothers and never learned to hunt. They do like to watch them fly around in their cages. We have two finches and a cockatiel. The finches finch around, making that little beeping noise, and the cockatiel has a variety of sounds that she lets loose on the regular. It sounds like a zoo in here. The cats are more likely to eat the birdseed that I scatter on the floor, when I'm feeding the birds, for some reason.

Ripley, wallowing on my bed, after I spent twenty minutes making it. 

When we first brought the two kittens in the house, we already had Ripley, our husky-hound mix. Two things about Ripley, besides the fact that he's an absolute sweetheart of a dog and is really easy with the kittens. First, being part husky, he loves to run, and if there's an open door anywhere in the house, he will run. RUN and will not come back until he's good and ready. This wouldn't be a problem, except someone put some buckshot in him once. He came limping home. We got him healed up, and we thought that would cure him, but nope. He still loves to run. Luckily, we're good at keeping him fenced up. The other thing is, he yodels.

I believe I read somewhere that dogs are only capable of ten types of sounds. Well, you sure wouldn't know it by Ripley. He'll be outside on his lead, yodeling, in just about every key. He's doing dog karaoke and hollering to his imaginary friends out there in the forest that abuts our land. It's hilarious.

Eddie was barely two months old when we brought him home, as a foster. We ended up keeping him. We're kinda like the "Hotel California". You can come here, but you never leave. 

Anyway, when we first introduced each kitten to Ripley, they all had pretty much the same reaction. Puff up, dance sideways, and hiss. I don't know about you all, but tiny kittens getting all fierce is the funniest thing ever. Poor Eddie, or Eddifer, as I call him, when I'm not calling him “son”; he was so brand-new when we brought him home – he was a foster – that he couldn't figure out how to un-puff himself. He danced backward into his little kitty house and circled around about three times, before he got it all figured out. For about two weeks, he was scared of Ripley. Of all my cats, he is the least adventurous and the one most likely to be found under the bed at the introduction of ANYTHING new, including toys.

Glenn Wallace – named by my husband, after my late father – is the smartest and most adventurous, and he loves any new-fangled thing that comes his way. We got this ridiculous toy that is battery-operated, and it writhes around on the floor and sparkles and snaps, and Glenn loves it! He also loves the Chitter toy, that makes a chittering sound when played with, unlike Eddie, who just ran under the bed when these toys were first introduced. Eddie doesn't hide so much any more from them, but he just sort of tolerates them.

Glenn, sleeping. He always looks like he's come in after a really rough night at the bar. He's also the longest cat I've ever seen. He has long legs and whiskers. I'm devoting the letter "G" to him and will have a lot more to say later. Just revel in the length of this animal!

Allie, or KittenMcGrabbyPaws is probably the funniest with her balls and tiny painting spool. She has these little wool balls, and she will fling them around, or bring them to me and have me throw them for her. It's so funny when she brings it back. I don't know if it's possible, but she always carries the ball on the right side of her mouth, so if that's a thing with cats – left-mouthed, or right-mouthed – it's the first time I've ever observed it. My old Russian Blue, Trotsky would play fetch, but as I recall he was ambidextrous, when it came to carrying shit around in his mouth; tin foil, wool balls, whatever we were playing.

The other thing with Allie, or any of the kittens and Misty is when they play with the spool, they make one HELL of a racket! It sounds like they're playing hockey; the wool in the spool gets caught in their claws, and they fling the spool around. It hits the wall, cabinets, and floor and it sounds just like a hockey game. All we lack is a fight.

My doofy husband, whom I adore completely, took this Alexa picture of Allie when we were out to dinner one night. "I wonder what the kids are doing?", he asked. Apparently, they were re-enacting "The Lion King".

The dog and the cats all get along; Ripley has discovered that he cannot go leaping about on the furniture, and he can't play “The Floor Is Lava”, but he's good for a cuddle! Letter “E” coming up; no more calls to the IRS or the SSA. It is what it is.

One last thing, I'm going to be posting a special post for a self-published author, a friend of mine, Andy Toppin, Jr., whose book “Rowan's Chronicle, Volume 1” is on Amazon. He's really a good friend and a special person. I love this book, and hope you all will enjoy reading about him! I'm enjoying this #a-to-z-challenge. I hope you all are too!

#ATOZCHALLENGE 2017 – LETTER “C” - CIGARS IN YBOR CITY

Nebraska Avenue encompasses a wide variety of cultures and different enterprises in and around its environs. As we saw with Bo's, we have a sort of retro 50's kind of place, that is reminiscent of the old soda shop, minus the juke box and soda fountain. At the other end of the spectrum, we have Ybor City, which is rich in its own history. Filled with Cubans of third- and fourth- generation emigrés, Ybor City was once home to the world's largest producer of fine, hand-made cigars.

courtesy:Ebyabe      

This is the original cigar factory that was founded by Vicente Martinez-Ybor. There are several others around, and one burned down a few years ago. One is still in operation and you can tour the museum and watch cigars being hand-made.

The first factory was built in 1886, by Vicente Martinez-Ybor, who moved his operation from Key West to the new company town he founded just northeast of Tampa in 1885. The first cigar factory and holding company was a three-story building and the largest cigar factory in the world at that time. Over the next few decades, skilled cigar makers or tabaqueros would roll hundreds of millions of cigars on wooden workbenches set close together in the building's wide, sunlit rooms.

The skilled cigarmakers had a great deal of economic and social power until the 1930s, for they could always be recruited by other firms. They set their own hours and often left early to dine on Seventh Avenue or visit a club. Their wives were rarely in the work place, as they were part of the traditional social order of Spain and Cuba. Eventually, women began to enter the work force, but didn't hold the top artisanal jobs.

Often, the factories themselves were owned by Anglo or British owners, but the Management and Supervisory duties and all of the day-to-day functions were performed by Cubans or Spaniards. Each role within the producing of the cigars had clear-cut definitions of who would perform those roles, as each role had its own sphere of influence.

courtesy:tampabay.com     

For example, the Spanish handled most of the jobs directly concerned with the manufacturing of cigars; wrapper selector, packers and knife-sharpeners, while the Cubans rolled the cheaper cigars, and Afro-Americans cleaned and did janitorial work. One of the most important and influential positions was that of el lector, who sat on a raised platform – la tribuna – and read the news and other items to the workers as they worked, a practice that had been started in Cuba and important in any labor negotiations, was highly prized and sought after.

The hand-rolled cigar business continued right up until after the Second World War, when mechanization was introduced and with it, began that slow and steady loss of a colorful industry that still, to this day, has one functioning hand-rolled cigar factory. It's on everyone's itinerary for a visit to Ybor City and it's fun to watch the skill and dexterity that it takes to roll and perfect these Cuban cigars. You also don't have to worry about smuggling them in from Cuba!

#A-TO-Z CHALLENGE 2014 – LETTER “C” CHARLIE CHAPLIN

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

 

Sir Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin, KBE, English comedian, filmmaker and composer, born, 16 April 1889, died 25 December 1977. 

I have always enjoyed the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and I knew that as well as being a comic, he was also a filmmaker and composer of music. I've reveled in the crazy chaos of his movies and the seeming half-assedness of silent movies in general of the era. What I did not know is that he is the personification of the rags-to-riches story. Sent to a work house at the age of 9, the son of parents who were both entertainers in the thriving West End of London, he rose to become one of the most influential names in Arts and Letters, with a few bumps along the way, but that seems to be the norm for anyone who lives to a fairly ripe old age of 88.

"Making A Living" is a 12-minute harum-scarum mish-mash of Charlie trying to steal Henry's (Henry Lehrman, Director, on the right) camera, selling a picture from that camera to a newspaper that apparently just chucks papers out the back of the warehouse to passing newsboys, as they race by. Somewhere in this madness, Henry finds time to roll around with a lady mistakenly in her bed, fall down stairs, and they all get chased by the Keystone Kops. That's the whole movie! 

During the movie, Charlie treats the cane as an elaborate prop, whirling it around and occasionally turning it upside down and pretending to fall is it slips out from under. It's frenetic and funny and amazing what can be conveyed with no dialogue. 

Rather than focus on his life and controversies, I decided to look closer at the beginnings of his career and how he got started, because he shares a commonality with the Marx Brothers, who made some of the funniest movies that have endured for decades. Although, Chaplin worked in silent film, even after “talkies” came into vogue in 1927, he got his start in burlesque, as did the Marx Brothers, and they all transferred easily to the silver screen. The difference being that, the Marx Brothers incorporated elaborate sight gags, songs based on operas and witty puns that became more and more complex as they improved and often improvised, while filming.

But Chaplin was the first, and in watching him on screen, I began to wonder how he came up with the idea for his much beloved character the “Little Tramp” who endured for decades, as one of the funniest and most poignant characters in filmdom. Although the final costume was not decided upon until his second film, he described it thusly,

 

"I wanted everything to be a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large... I added a small moustache, which, I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression. I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage he was fully born."

 "The Pest" readying himself for another round of bothering people! The whole film is spent with Charlie being chased in front of and away from the front of rickety-looking autos, as they "speed" by. The chaser is again, Henry Lehrman, the director of this short film.

Later, one of his biographers noted that this was not strictly true and that it took him a year or so to perfect and hone this character and he would do so the rest of his career. You can see this in movies such as "Gold Rush" and his later movies, but since I'm trying to keep this short and sweet for the A-to-Z challenge, I leave you with this little gem. His second released film was "Kid Auto Races at Venice" or, more appropriately as "The Pest," is the true debut of his "Little Tramp". In this 6-minute film, there is a second camera, which actually breaks the "fourth-wall" in that it invites the audience in on the joke. The same guy, Henry Lehrman, who is at odds with Charlie in "Making a Living" spends the entire 6 minutes chasing the Little Tramp around during an actual Junior Auto Race at Venice, California in 1914!

I had a terrific amount of fun researching just these two movies. Chaplin went on to have a long and storied career and his physical comedy would be matched only by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. The Marx Brothers took the physical and added verbal word play to it, on a par of sophistication with the Algonquin Round Table. But that aside, the physical comedy of Chaplin, Lloyd and the Keystone Kops speaks to an innocence of that time; 1914, before the First World War and the Depression.

BLOGGING FROM A TO Z APRIL 2013 – LETTER “C”

CLUE

As in I haven't a... As in what to write about. Words that begin with “C” abound, teem, jump and leap in my head. Beethoven must have taken what little inspiration I most recently acquired, out of my head. I only recently got it back, after catastrophes, chaos and crises, both large and small. My clues have to be writ large. I am that most literal of people; a horrible on or off type of person; binary in code.

I always, always lost. My go-to was "Miss Scarlett in the Drawing Room with the Race Car." Was there even a Race Car in this game? Or was that Monopoly?

I said more than I should have about Ludwig; windbag that I am. But I love him so as he is my Muse. Never fear, he is not my "M" word. I have a clueless and loving, adopted Chimera cat. I also tend to take more than my share of 270 degree turns. I like those dichotomies. Our Chimera cat is not a true Chimera; probably only a quartet, not an octet as I've been led to believe a true one is supposed to be to exist. Or, is she?

Venus, a true Chimera cat. She is her own twin.

I haven't a clue. I do have a cat, chaos, crisis on a semi-regular basis, but no longer do I use cat-gut strings on my viola. They were sheep-gut, actually, when I was in college, now, we have synthetic-core silver wound strings. But still, I have no clue. As a postscript, I remembered in my artless way later on, that my original "C" word was to be on compassion, which would have probably been much better. Although not as quixotic, it would have been longer. Win-win? I still have no clue.