Boulder has a special relationship with prairie dogs. One has only to peruse headlines from the Boulder Camera in recent months or do a search on prairie dogs at its website to get a clear sense of the place they hold in the hearts of the citizenry. Headlines like: “Prairie Dogs Tapping Toxins,” “Tests Show No Sign of Plague in Valmont Butte Prairie Dogs” and “Public Input on Prairie Dog Endangered Status Commenced,” not to mention “Activists Alarmed by Bulldozing of Prairie Dog Burrows.”

The Camera seems to be quite open to first-page placement for prairie dog stories and I have even seen two stories at once on the front page during particularly dire times. Even Boulder’s close neighbor Louisville gets into the act with a letter to the editor: "Louisville Should Act to Protect Prairie Dogs."

I have nothing against prairie dogs. I have walked on paths by their burrows, listening to their alert warning calls to each other. The sound has been likened to barking, which is why an animal that is clearly a rodent has the word “dog” in its name. I think it sounds more like a whiny little squeak.

When a field has become their habitat, it is riddled with these burrows, which alas make the field unusable by any other species and can produce a mean sprained ankle if one is not careful. Debates have been had on whether the prairie dog is really endangered in Colorado (conclusions varying depending on facts like whether the tail is black or white), and the place that the prairie dog should hold, relatively speaking, in the ecosystem. He’s a dear little creature as you can see here, and tasty for the raptors. We have many brilliant scientists in Boulder who surely can find ways for city parks and prairie dogs to coexist without cramping each other’s style.

In any case, I captured this picture of a prairie dog today on a walk in Valmont City Park, location of Colony #9. Against his better judgment, he let me come pretty close before ducking into his burrow, but sounded his alarm a couple of times to his compatriots nonetheless. I don’t blame him since at one point the city was thinking about killing him and his friends –clearly this plan was revisited.

An Update on Emily

Emily the cat got her feeding tube removed Wednesday morning, leaving behind a round wound that the vet recommended we allow to heal in the open air. She has been reveling in the outdoors, rumors of the lurking neighborhood fox be damned, and seems pretty much back to her old demanding self with many requests for treats, entrance or exit through front or back doors, petting, and laptime - all this punctuated by luxurious naps on various beds and couches throughout the house. She is none the worse for wear after her ordeal except for furless patches on the side of her neck, belly, and one front ankle which all suffered various indignities during her medical treatment. I am very grateful for her recovery, and attempting to finish out administration of the "healthy liver" pills the vet recommended, with little cooperation from Emily herself. "A cat will do what it wants when it wants, and there's not a thing you can do about it." - Frank Perkins.

Mallory, Myth and What I Like

I strongly recommend a book called “Find Me” in a series by one of my favorite authors, Carol O’Connell. The focus of the book and series is a character of mythical proportions named Mallory (although her first name is Kathy she prefers just Mallory). Mallory works for the NYPD but is certainly one of its most unconventional members. She is the adopted daughter of the otherwise childless famed NYPD detective Louis Markowitz and his wife Helen. Lou rescued her at age nine from the New York City subway tunnels where she had been leading a mysterious and feral existence on her own since approximately age six.

Mallory is beautiful, brilliant, and savage. She follows her own code in the battle of good against evil and remains fiercely loyal to family and friends in her own way. After the deaths of Lou and Helen, Mallory is watched over by her father’s three friends, Riker (another hardcore NYPD detective), Charles Butler (a brilliant, wealthy psychologist who has the misfortune of having fallen in love with Mallory), and Dr. Slope, the NYC coroner. Mallory is not undamaged from her years of survival on the streets, but is indomitable in beating her father's friends at poker, trapping murderers and bad guys and succeeding at any other activity she decides is important.

Since I liked this novel so much I decided to itemize what I liked best. One day perhaps I’ll write a novel of my own with all of these elements. This novel has:

• An admirably strong female character repeatedly outsmarting, outwitting and out manipulating the men surrounding her, several of whom continue to love her despite herself.
• A noble quest—in this case a road trip across America down legendary Route 66 in search of two holy grails: finding a serial killer and finding Mallory’s roots (“Find me.”)
• A complex plot that never unfairly deceives the reader. I read it again to make sure; the only misdirection that happens is when various supporting characters, and the reader, jump to conclusions unsupported by logic.
• Excellent characterization, not only of Mallory herself but of her surrounding friends and foes, and even of the killer whose motivation and peculiar behavior ultimately become clear.

One character in the book, a psychiatrist who seems to know more about a child killer than he is telling, has this reaction on tangling with Mallory:

“…here before him was the living illustration of someone larger than life; her sense of presence did not recognize the boundaries of her body. Her eyes were cold, and so was her stance, arms folded against him….face set with grim suspicion, and this was merely what she allowed him to see…he could sense the tight control that checked her desire for expedient mayhem; she dwelt forever in that moment before the taut string snaps. He knew how truly dangerous she was, and she gave him hope…In this new century he had regained his faith in gods and monsters—and she was both.”

Oh, that I could pen a novel this good! Read it. And tell me what makes a great novel in your mind. Comments welcome.

House Cat

Emily the Cat has recently starred in a feline version of “House,” which makes her a “House Cat.” For the uninitiated, “House” is a television medical drama that my daughter and are in the habit of watching on DVD each Sunday night. Dr. Gregory House, the star of the show, is an irascible, irreverent yet brilliant diagnostician, obnoxious to patients, manipulative with friends, addicted to pain pills, lacking in people skills and obsessed with solving complex diagnostic puzzles at nearly any price. He is surrounded by beautiful, intelligent women who are inexplicably attracted to him, of course.

Each House episode involves desperate diagnostic measures, treatments that are stabs in the dark, fairly gruesome and graphic scenes of medical mayhem, patients being resurrected from near death with those round things they put on your heart that make you jerk up into the air, and at least one MRI, spinal tap and/or brain biopsy through a tiny hole drilled in the head.

I plunged into the somewhat less complex world of veterinary medicine the other day after Emily stopped eating, becoming even tinier than she already is in only a few days, and seeming close to death. Blood tests revealed high bilirubin, a sign that the liver isn’t functioning right. The doctor (an affable fellow with no resemblance to House) recommended a liver biopsy, which he unceremoniously extracted through a small puncture in Emily’s abdomen and sent off for tests. Meanwhile Emily had to stay in the hospital with a feeding tube to keep from starving to death while we waited for the lab results.

The results were better than feared—no cancer or hepatitis. Pancreatitis, already subsiding and treatable. But the feeding tube has to stay in for the time being, and with Emily coming home, it would be my job to fill the syringe with soupy brown (but nutritious) cat food and meds four times a day and squirt it into the little feeding tube protruding from the side of Emily’s neck like a perverted periscope.

Emily is understandably irritated by this invasion and periodically hides under a bed at feeding time. But so far we are getting along okay and I am hoping she will start eating on her own soon because I would be sadder than I can describe here to see her go. Stay tuned.