Tortillas has a new look and, needless to say, I LOVE IT! Thank you Dora for finding the awesome background and incorporating her song "Human Nature" into the blog. The song is perfect for the blog: "Express yourself, don't repress yourself"...and with no apologies!
I own the featured book to the left. I purchased the book a few years ago (Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter). Dora was feeling under the weather at the time (and would be for the next few days since being released from the hospital) and I thought the book would bring her a ray of sunshine. Yesterday, I decided to take the book off the shelf and begin reading it myself. So far, it has been quite entertaining...and inspirational. And, if you are a pet owner, you would love this book as much as I do. From one pet owner to another, I don't have to tell you how pets seem to know when you need love and encouragement. My cat--Caty--always makes me feel better when I'm experiencing a rough day. I guess they have a sixth sense. Whatever it is, I welcome it. The main character of the book is Dewey Readmore Books, the Library Cat, who was found by the library director one cold winter morning. Apparently, Dewey had been shoved into the library drop box one night....and he was only an 8-week-old kitten. He was found cold, hungry, and weak. His paw pads were suffering from frostbite and it took them days to heal. The library in Spencer, Iowa adopted him--in fact, the whole town did. Spencer was one of the small, rural towns hit extremely hard by the economy in the 1980s. Farms were being foreclosed left and right. Remember Willie Nelson and Farm Aid? Hmmm, bad economic times...foreclosures...sounds pretty damn familiar.
Here is a reading sample (one of my favorite parts...it made me teary-eyed):
"Then into our laps fell Dewey. I don't want to make too much of this one turn of events, because Dewey didn't put food on anyone's table. He didn't create jobs. He didn't turn the economy around. But one of the worst things about bad times is the effect on your mind. Bad times drain you of energy. They occupy your thoughts. They taint everything in your life. Bad news is as poisonous as bad bread. At the very least, Dewey was a distraction.
But he was so much more. Dewey's story resonated with the people of Spencer. We identified with it. Hadn't we all been shoved down the library drop box by the banks? By outside economic forces? By the rest of America, which ate our food but didn't care about the people who grew it?
Here was an alley cat, left for dead in a freezing drop box, terrified, alone, and clinging to life. He made it through that dark night, and that terrible event turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. He never lost his trust, no matter what the circumstances, or his appreciation for life. He was humble. Maybe humble isn't the right word--he was a cat, after all--but he wasn't arrogant. He was confident. Maybe it was the confidence of the near-death survivor, the serenity you find when you've been to the end, beyond hope, and made it back. All I knew was that, from the moment we found him, Dewey believed everything was going to be fine.
And when he was around, he made others believe that, too."
I highly recommend the book. It has been a joy to read...and inspirational. Makes me want to hug my cat! Wish they would make the movie!
