On Christmas Eve, Bean the three-legged shop cat suffered a blockage to his urethra and had to be rushed to the animal hospital. He was in bad shape. His bladder was full and hard, his heart was racing and his bloodwork was troubling.
The good vets and technicians at MedVet in Cincinnati went to work immediately. They removed the blockage and catheterized him. But his blood – particularly his potassium levels – were in the deadly range. For the next couple days they monitored him, but he was listless.
On the third day, a switch flipped in his body. His blood returned to normal at a shockingly fast rate. And he was his normal self. The vets removed the catheter, and he immediately became blocked again. So he went to surgery and got a shiny new…hole.
He’s now home and confined to a bedroom without furniture. Downside: cone of shame. Upside: fentanyl patch.
Bean is expected to make a full recovery in the next three weeks. And he will be back to work as our Walmart greeter, smeller of new people’s shoes and lead toolchest investigator. On the other hand, our bank account’s recovery will take much longer. But this is what money is for.
Long live Bean.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Shoutout to MedVet (it’s a chain of hospitals) and everyone who works there. At every step they did everything right: communication, care, compassion. I hope we never have to use them again.
We were simply overwhelmed by your generosity of so many donations in Nancy Hiller’s name to support The Ranch Cat Rescue – a rescue in Nancy’s adopted hometown of Bloomington, Ind. (and that Nancy continues to support in perpetuity with 10 percent of net sales of her book “Shop Tails”). It’s enough to make me well up (which usually happens only when someone accidentally hits me with a hammer). To everyone who donated: You’re so very kind; thank you. Today, I’m mailing a cashier’s check – for $8,770.85!!! – to the rescue’s director/resident human Alison Zook. The raffle winner of Carol Russell‘s fiddleback Tasmanian blackwood cat (I’ll miss this gorgeous little carving!) is Melinda in California; the winner of the book we used as “cover art” for the audio version of “Shop Tails” is Jay in Virginia (both have been notified via email).
Alison asked me to share the paragraph below –
Y’all. To say I don’t have words for this generosity is an understatement. These last few weeks I’ve been thinking I want to do something permanent with these funds, something that really honors Nancy. So I had an idea. While some of your donations will go toward medical care, food and supplies, I’m putting a portion aside and starting the Hiller Fund (working title). This will specifically be used for building projects and improvements made at The Ranch Cat Rescue, with a focus on empowering women and girls to pick up tools and get some sawdust in their hair. While these projects won’t hold a candle to Nancy’s woodworking skills, I know that she would have loved to be a part of them. This way she always can be. Thank you, new friends, for being the beginning of this.
As soon as Alison schedules that first building project, I’m clearing my schedule. I’ll be there.
Misericord from Sint-Petruskerk, Oirschot, Netherlands. Photo from the Elaine C. Block Database of Misericords held by Princeton University.
While sorting through a file of misericords (originally amassed in 2016 for a three-part series on the woodworkers found in misericords), I rediscoverd this photo and decided to find out more about it.
The Message in the Misericord
Part of the study of misericords involves determining which parable, proverb or fable is depicted. With the mouse on the table we know this is a cat and not a fox, dog or bear. Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Nederlandse Spreekwoorden” (Netherlandish Proverbs) painted in 1559 is once source used to match a misericord to a proverb. The only proverb in the painting involving a cat is this one:
To “bell a cat” (even if one is armed to the teeth) is interpreted as carrying out a dangerous plan, or a plan doomed to failure. There is also the proverb “while the cat is away, the mice will play” or the alternative “when the cat is at home the mice are afraid.” None of these options apply to this misericord. One writer thought perhaps the cat was reading a Bible which would be an example of “the world turned around” with an animal performing human activities. The reading of this misericord may be to show the stark contrast between a well-fed cat studying in a comfortable setting compared to its normal “job” of being a mouser. This would be a reminder to a cleric or monk that the effort to study should be taken seriously, whereas a cat has no choice but to work continuously for its next meal. Not all scenes can be deciphered to have a particular meaning and this misericord may just show the typical cat trait of curiosity and their annoying habit of taking over their owner’s chair.
The History of This Misericord
The misericord was carved in oak by Jan Borchmans between 1508-1511. He worked in churches in Oirschot, Netherlands, and in Averbode and Aarschot, both in Belgium. The photograph was taken in 1941 by Martien Coppens. In 1943 Hans Sibbelee also photographed the church in Oirschot as part of a war-time effort to document important monuments and works of art. We are fortunate to have this photographic record. On October 2, 1944, Sint-Petruskerk was shelled during the Battle of the Scheldt, the World War II campaign to free Belgium and the Netherlands. The shelling caused a fire that destroyed all the choir carvings and misericords. Twenty-two days later and after tremendous losses, Oirschot was liberated on October 24, 1944.
Although the story of this misericord is poignant, we have a photograph that allows us to appreciate Jan Borchmans’ craftmanship and perhaps his sense of humor. He very kindly provided a footstool to accommodate this well-fed cat’s very large hind feet.
I don’t know about you, but this misericord has three elements that remind me of a workshop on Willard Street in Covington, Kentucky, where chairs are made, books are edited and cats roam free.
–Suzanne Ellison
P.S. If you would like to check out my 2016 series on misericords featuring woodworkers you can read about them here (the woodworkers), here (the carvers) and here (the workbenches). The Carvers post includes these misericord carvers:
Church of Notre-Dame des Grands-Andelys, France, dated 1413.
Christopher Schwarz also wrote something about workbenches and misericords and you can read about it here. Altogether that should take care of your weekend activities.
Chris is already hard at work (shocking, I know) on a second LOTR-inspired chair, and I’m belaboring every word in my Dutch tool chest book manuscript. But we’re also here to answer your burning hand-tool woodworking questions. Or cat questions. Or late 19th- early 20th-century Russian literature questions (that’s Chris, not me; he contains multitudes). So post ’em in the comments below, and we’ll answer.
Derek Jones helping with a student glue-up in his summer 2023 Cricket Table class at the LAP shop.
I had a half-hour or so video chat with Derek Jones, the author of the new book “Cricket Tables,” to ask him about the form, what drew it to him in the first place, where the name came from, and where his online handle (lowfatroubo) originated. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and listen in.
Also, the book is now available for purchase in the store, and for 30 days, you’ll get a free pdf when you purchase the hardcover book. (By the way… I screwed up…and didn’t get that pdf up before we launched the book – so if you’ve already purchased the book, you’ll be getting a notification to download that free pdf sometime early next week. Sorry for my boneheadedness.)
And here’s Derek at my favorite local place to take all visiting cat lovers: Purrfect Day Cat Cafe. He did not take home a kitten.
