“I have not lost hope because I am persuaded again and again that lying dormant in the deepest root of most, if not all, cultures there is an essential similarity, something that could be made—if the will to do so existed—a genuinely unifying starting point for that new code of human co-existence that would be firmly anchored in the great diversity of human traditions.” — Vaclav Havel

I don’t think this is necessarily true however with animal co-existence. As of Saturday we have added our daughter’s cat Jupiter to our household for a week against the silent wishes of Ptolemy and Echo.

Lydia, our daughter, and Jana, my niece, initially rescued Ptolemy when they rescued him and another cat from the rising water in the garage of the home I grew up in, the house that is no longer there. Ptolemy survived, the other kitten didn’t.

Ptolemy stayed with us when Lydia was spending some of her time at the U of M where she then acquired Echo, cat number two, a young female cat, sort of orange and white in color who eventually joined Ptolemy here as a resident of our place.

Now Lydia is moving south to Iowa and last weekend she dropped off Jupiter just to spend the week.  She’s planning to pick him up this coming weekend.

Jupiter is a male cat, a young male cat that looks as if he could be a child of Echo, but this is not the case. Echo will not get to be mother cat, and Echo is not inspired by Jupiter, nor is Ptolemy..

It hasn’t been easy these past few days adjusting to Jupiter’s presence. Ptolemy and Echo get a long quite well with one and another. Ptolemy tends to occupy his time upstairs, and Echo spends the bulk of her time downstairs, but tends to climb in bed during the course of the evening.

However, their routines have changed.

Echo now walks around cautiously and is slipping down the basement to avoid Jupiter. Ptolemy is letting Jupiter come up close to him, almost rubbing noses, and increasing Ptolemy’s anxiety.

As for Echo, she has taken to almost growling when Jupiter comes within a couple feet of her.

I’m not saying that Ptolemy and Echo don’t have their differences; there are times that they have their own chase scenes.

During Jupiter’s first night here, Echo carved a hole in Skyler’s arm that had something to do with Jupiter. Skyler was home from college for a few days. Later I had gone into the basement to talk to Skyler when he asked me to take Echo upstairs about the same time Jupiter slipped into the basement and approached Echo, who was being held by me. That was when Echo attacked. Echo has long paw nails and on her way out of my arms she left both of them bleeding as well as the palm of my left hand. Fortunately, we had some ointment to help soothe the wounds. I’m hoping a truce is pending.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tells us in his “A World Split Apart,” his commencement address delivered at Harvard University June 8, 1978: “Western thinking has become conservative: the world situation must stay as it is at any cost; there must be no changes. This debilitating dream of a status quo is the symptom of a society that has ceased to develop.” I wonder how much of this holds true today 30 years later. It is time for change; even Senator McCain is calling for change. Of course McCain is all about ‘victory’ and just what does his ‘victory’ entail.

In case you haven’t heard “Tales of Two Counties” a musical play about the people of Freeborn and Mower Counties sponsored by the Friends of the Library with Stories from Austin Remembers and Albert Lea Remembers will be performed Friday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the Paramount and again on Sunday, Oct. 26 at 2 p.m. that includes a short phrase from over half the stories from both Austin Remembers and Albert Lea Remembers, a joint-project with friends of Albert Lea and friends of Austin for a cost of $10.

The program is partially funded by a Minnesota Sesquicentennial Legacy Grant. There will be 20 cast members representing both communities.

Tickets are on sale at the Paramount Theatre Box Office, Hy-Vee, the Hardy Geranium and the Austin Library. See you there and close with a Rimbaud quote: “Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.”