Why the Chicken Crossed the Road

My friend, Max Grover, told me a chicken joke. "How did the punk rocker cross the road?"
Answer: "By stapling a chicken to his ear."  It makes sense.

But last night I went for a walk with Susi and our grandson, Clay. We wandered through the woods 'til dark, and upon our return saw a chicken standing by the side of the road.

Clearly it was debating whether to cross the road or go back to its peeps. We said hello and talked about the weather, then bid the biddy goodbye. But she protested. "Don't leave me," she begged.

"Now, go home darlin'," I said. But it would not. It followed us all the way up our street.  Well, I could not abandon a chicken in distress so I took it in.

 There is a dark side to my story. First, there was this ghost ship. Look at the thing in the back. Looks like a ship with trees growing out of it? That is exactly what it is. Nobody seemed to notice. But I did. And the sister of the chicken did.

 A walk can heal what ails ya, as I've said before when I actually used to blog. I apologize for wandering around Neptune. I'm back, I hope, and noticing odd things along the way. Like this dog who said, "BEWARE the chicken!"

"Good dog," says I.  A little further down the road I see Mary up there with some pigeons. I think if she lived in Port Townsend, she would in fact be feeding the pigeons.  Saint Francis had a way with animals because he listened to them and let them sit on his head and shoulders.. He would have taken the chicken home.

How nice to look for friends along the way. Along the path.

So then, about that chicken's sister. I did find the owner of the chicken the next day. But he said that she had a sister who also escaped from the coop last night. Apparently she had been spooked. I think he may have mentioned the ghost ship. The next day they found a pile of feathers next door.

So why did Henrietta cross the road?   1. To get away from ghost ships. 2. To find a safe place to snuggle away from the coyotes. or 3. For love.

Gifts From Deep Dark Space

I hear my mother, "You never know from where you sit, who from the balcony is going to spit". This always rang true to me, the boy, and I still never sit right under the Balcony Spit Zone.  But the Outer Space Zone is another matter.

Meet my new black cat.  Showed up on my back porch on Halloween.  "No way," I chortled. "Go away you apparition," I hissed at the thing. I mean, come on. Halloween? I've read Nataniel Hawthorn, Snow White, and MacDonald's Photogen and Nicteris. I wasn't born yesterday.

But the so-called cat was clearly starving. It had twigs and waify things in its fur. "Not falling for it!"  I opened and slammed the back door for emphasis.

Well, I couldn't let it starve could I? A few tidbits.  Next day the same. Now the cat owns me.

What does one call a seriously black, Halloween cat. I thought of the blackest things I could think of. Charcoal. Inky. Midnight. Trite, trite, trite. Tar? Skid marks. Oil spill. Burned carrots. I was pulling hard for Atramentaceous, but try saying it three times in a row. Susi said, "What about Olive?" For a boy?!!  Maybe. "What about Space?" I beamed. "It's so dark out there. And the weird cat might be from outer space. Acts like it."

"For a cat?" wife doesn't look up from laptop.

We were at loggerheads. What does that even mean? "We'll let the grandkids decide," I proclaimed.

They listened to our closing arguments like diplomats. Held counsel and announced, "The name should be Space Olive." Whoah. Profound. Think about it. What could be blacker than a black olive in outer space? Especially when you climbed inside the hole.

Art inspired by another almost all black cat, Wiley.  Holding marzipan mice.

Well? 

 I hate to be wasteful. So when my cat puts poor dead creatures on my door mat. I first lecture the cat. Then I sketch the offering.

You learn so much from observation. A must for artists. Writers. Superhero costume makers.

I even used my cats when painting this lion to see the way the fur layers.

Sometimes I hide things in my art.  In this illustration of the expulsion from Eden, I hid a cat in the flames.

See the cat?