Dorit

Hello, my little Masonites: meet Dorit.


If you're looking at this picture thinking to yourself, "Jesus Titmouse, old Apron's finally cracked-- two dogs, impending twins, AND he got himself a fucking cat!" please, calm thyself. We didn't get a cat. This cat currently resides approximately 330 miles away from my home base. It lives and thrives well below the Mason/Dixon Line, and there it shall remain, until its owner, Bernie, the shoeless bed-and-breakfasteer extraordinaire deems otherwise.

Mrs. Apron and I befriended this cat during our all-too-brief, and all-too-ballsweat-hot stay in Lexington, Virginia last month. We first set eyes on her the first day we arrived, and she was curled up in the lap of some random woman on the generously-sized front porch of the Federal-style B&B, and we assumed that the woman was Bernie's wife, and that the cat belonged to her. We were wrong on both accounts. Bernie's wife was deceased (it's amazing how quickly you learn about people at B&Bs, and, frankly, awful) and the cat belonged to Bernie, not this random woman who was, in fact, a guest. Her husband was hiking the mountains daily and she hung out at the B&B getting drunk on wine and beer with Bernie.

It wasn't until the next day that the cat decided to make our acquaintance, and that I decided her name was "Dorit."

That next day we actually met quite a few cats. A cadre of them, or a gang, if you will, hung out in the gravel parking lot of Duke's Antique Barn and, as I noted in an earlier blog, one of them was kind enough to demonstrate the awesomely fountainesque spectacle that is male cat urination/spray. It was indeed a sight to behold. Not only that, the sight of eight or nine cats sprawled out unceremoniously on the gravel, warming themselves in the insistent sunlight reminded me of a bunch of strung out opium-addicts. Except these cats use their tongues as toilet paper, which I don't think most opium-addicts are capable of doing.

Then again, I haven't met many opium addicts.

Later that night, when Mrs. Apron and I came back to the B&B after a heady day of antiquing and romping through a nature preserve, we were greated by this beautiful cat, just sitting on top of the outdoor table pictured above. She looked up at us almost questioningly, and responded well to a few well-timed head rubs. She was more into me than Mrs. Apron, but there's no accounting for taste.

Later that night, sitting outside as the sun set, I sipped on an unreasonably thick chocolate milkshake as the cat came bounding over to me like a dog, and leapt up onto my lap, inserting its claws leisurely into my knees and thighs. I was taken with her that I bit my lip and bugged my eyes and tried not to make too much of a fuss.

"What do you think her name is?" Mrs. Apron asked me.

"Well," I said, "Bernie's English, so she's got to have an English name." I cocked my head to gaze into the cat's electric eyes. "You're a little Dorit, aren't you?"

She responded by injecting her claws into my leg and purring seductively. I love a girl who gives mixed messages.

People I've spoken to about Dorit have said that the name sounds more Jewish than English. "That's because you're pronouncing it "Dor-EET", which, yeah, sounds Hebraic. I'm thinking more "Dahr-it"."

Of course, upon looking the name up online, it's a fucking Greek variant of "Dorothy" or "Dorothea" so go blow, right? It means "Gift from God" which, the more I look at baby names lately, it seems like that's the English translation of about half the fucking names out there.

I don't know if she's any gift from God, but she's sure a cutie. The next day, I asked Bernie what her name was, even though I knew whatever he was going to say was going to be a disappointment.

"Misty," he replied.

Hmpf, I thought. Fuck that.