June 22, 2011
A fur coat in summer
![[IMAGE] fur on the hoof](/blog/blogpix/mink2.jpg)
…about the musicFurry music.
Summer is here, and I welcomed the Solstice by spending noontime dangling my legs over the jagged, igneous rocks in front of where I keep my pencils and scorepads. And most importantly, my erasers. Okay, I welcome most any warmish day this way, and along with a mug of coffee, I’m usually toting two cameras (wide and zoom lens) and a Kleenex. Always prepared.
As I greeted summer, it greeted me with yet another San Juan Island Personal First: this fuzzy spirit, scrambling effortlessly across the [hundreds of] feet of shoreline [twelve feet] below my [merely two] feet. Initially I thought this was a sea otter– rare up here; instead, we get lots of river otters. Even though we’re on the sea and have no rivers. Go figure. Curious, I emailed the pix over to Monika for her expert I.D. services. “That’s a mink!” she wrote back. I was thrilled.
A couple of generations ago, a woman of any means might have a prized fur coat by her mid-twenties. Here I am, months from a happy fiftieth, and I’m just now getting my first one. And in a far more delightful and acceptable form. This is the only fur I’ve ever had, and will ever want. Lucky for him!
![[IMAGE] fur on the hoof](/blog/blogpix/mink1.jpg)
Steve Hollywood said,
June 22, 2011 @ 3:45 pm
Sorry, my furless friend, but there is a difference between a minx and and a mink. You make coats out of a mink. Alex, you saucy little minx, are a completely different animal.
Paul Muller said,
June 23, 2011 @ 9:33 am
Hmmm, let’s see ignatious rocks – did Alex ever mention she was Catholic?
Ah! She probably means igneous rocks – and that is what they look like.
Alex Shapiro said,
June 23, 2011 @ 9:49 am
Ha! Thank you for clearing this up, Paul! I have corrected my malapropism!
Funny thing is, I do have Catholicism in my mutt-like background: my mother’s mother was born in Florence, Italy, and raised Catholic. For reasons too convoluted to go into here, my mother was raised Methodist. She married my father, who was born into an Orthodox Jewish family. He became an Ethical Humanist. What a truly American family we are!
Christy said,
June 23, 2011 @ 11:15 am
He is ADORABLE! I showed my husband your last post with the orcas and he was blown away – he longs to live out by the water and see such things as orcas with your morning coffee…now to get what I need to get out of LA and go move out into some wild and dreamy beautiful place… 🙂
Glenn Buttkus said,
June 23, 2011 @ 11:45 am
My God, and now a mink is mixing it up with the camel, the llamas, divers foxes, mini-deer, and raccoons. How very busy your world becomes when you have the eye and the heart for it.