I. The Three
I've come to realize I can't give full attention to eight Orphan Reds after all. I'm going to focus on these three, who I know best: Red Hair Girl, Penny Cooper, and SweePo.
(The others will be happy keeping themselves company, for now.)
RHG (in black) was the first. I found her two summers ago at the Goodwill where I was working. Eventually she wanted a friend like her, and Penny Cooper (in plaid) came. She's the cousin, and both she and RHG are eight.
Then SweePo (seated) came, who is younger than the others.
RHG and Penny Cooper have always been much the same––confident, and in Penny Cooper's case, even triumphant. (LOL)
SweePo, however, was anxious and shy at first. She'd arrived in a package with religious stickers all over it, and I've wondered if she'd endured some "spare the rod, spoil the child" child-rearing tactics.
Look what a happy girl she is now! Front and center.
The others look out for her and cheer her on in everything.
SweePo put her outfit together herself, for instance. Penny Cooper secretly does not think it is a very good outfit, but she is true to her considered philosophy (which she wrote down in her little book) that it's most important to support the people you love in the things they love.
Red Hair Girl is an Aries––is she ever! She considers SweePo's outfit Top #1-A Great!!! . . . and now that we've entered the sign of Aries, she is agitating for her own spring outfit. (Her musketeer outfit is getting tatty too, as you can see.)
II. bink, Selfie with Astro
Astro is a wire-haired fox terrier––a bit of a ruffian, and the snuggliest lap dog ever.
He's a rescue. His former owner mostly kept him alone in a room for a year because she didn't know how to handle him.
Luckily, someone eventually told her about the excellent Wire Fox Rescue–Midwest, and she gave him to them.
The WFRM website banner reads,
bink and Maura are celebrating their twentieth anniversary next month, and not to take anything away from that, but I've always suspected that bink's deepest love affairs are with terriers...
III. My Father
I stole this photo off my sister's FB––our eighty-four-year-old father doing the crossword on my sister's back porch a couple springs ago. (He died at eight-six in 2017.)
This is very much him.
My sister and I are the carriers of our family's culture–
we grew up with the boxed three-volume set of the letters of Vincent van Gogh as a doorstop––
and we're essentially the only ones left.
(Our brother is alive––
and Matz, who just dropped by as I'm writing this, rolls her eyes and points out he is very much Of the Family Culture:
he has Latin in his website bio––
but he's been incommunicado for years.)
When I see my sister (every so often), I get a strong feeling of Home.
Mostly, despite everything difficult between us, in the good sense.
I've come to realize I can't give full attention to eight Orphan Reds after all. I'm going to focus on these three, who I know best: Red Hair Girl, Penny Cooper, and SweePo.
(The others will be happy keeping themselves company, for now.)
The Original Orphan Reds
RHG (in black) was the first. I found her two summers ago at the Goodwill where I was working. Eventually she wanted a friend like her, and Penny Cooper (in plaid) came. She's the cousin, and both she and RHG are eight.
Then SweePo (seated) came, who is younger than the others.
RHG and Penny Cooper have always been much the same––confident, and in Penny Cooper's case, even triumphant. (LOL)
SweePo, however, was anxious and shy at first. She'd arrived in a package with religious stickers all over it, and I've wondered if she'd endured some "spare the rod, spoil the child" child-rearing tactics.
Look what a happy girl she is now! Front and center.
The others look out for her and cheer her on in everything.
SweePo put her outfit together herself, for instance. Penny Cooper secretly does not think it is a very good outfit, but she is true to her considered philosophy (which she wrote down in her little book) that it's most important to support the people you love in the things they love.
Red Hair Girl is an Aries––is she ever! She considers SweePo's outfit Top #1-A Great!!! . . . and now that we've entered the sign of Aries, she is agitating for her own spring outfit. (Her musketeer outfit is getting tatty too, as you can see.)
II. bink, Selfie with Astro
Astro is a wire-haired fox terrier––a bit of a ruffian, and the snuggliest lap dog ever.
He's a rescue. His former owner mostly kept him alone in a room for a year because she didn't know how to handle him.
Luckily, someone eventually told her about the excellent Wire Fox Rescue–Midwest, and she gave him to them.
The WFRM website banner reads,
"Life isn't one straight line. Most of us have to be transplanted, like a tree, before we blossom."
––Louise Nevelsonbink & Maura had previously given a home to two wire foxes from this group, and when Astro came in, the facilitator didn't even put him on the adoption site––she contacted bink & Maura, asking if they'd take a problem boy who would need some extra work.
Good call.
III. My Father
I stole this photo off my sister's FB––our eighty-four-year-old father doing the crossword on my sister's back porch a couple springs ago. (He died at eight-six in 2017.)
This is very much him.
we grew up with the boxed three-volume set of the letters of Vincent van Gogh as a doorstop––
and we're essentially the only ones left.
(Our brother is alive––
and Matz, who just dropped by as I'm writing this, rolls her eyes and points out he is very much Of the Family Culture:
he has Latin in his website bio––
but he's been incommunicado for years.)
When I see my sister (every so often), I get a strong feeling of Home.
Mostly, despite everything difficult between us, in the good sense.
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