Journal of a Sabbatical

July 20, 1999

tyler's trip & toson's treatise

Today's Starting Pitcher: Brian Rose

Today's Reading: are you kidding?

The heat wave broke just in time for me to do the pet therapy thing at Brigham Manor this afternoon without melting in the first 10 minutes. I thought, and had written in my notes from the last Purrfect Companions meeting, that Kendra was going with me so we could bring four cats (2 each) even though Martha isn't available. My calendar said "meet Kendra at 2:00" so I did.

Kendra had no memory of agreeing to do this today. It wasn't on her calendar. Oops. Come to think of it, she was pretty distracted at the meeting because of Diana's bleeding after getting spayed. I suppose I could've written down the wrong date, but since Kendra didn't have any date written down ... guess I'm going alone.

Tyler is a big cuddler and had been to Brigham before, so I picked him and decided since he weighs about 15 pounds or so I wasn't going to be able to carry anybody else around to the rooms. I figured Tyler could put up with about 45 minutes of cuddles with elders before he'd burn out. So it's just me and Tyler against the world.

Mrs. L was sitting by the door and her eyes lit up when she saw the cat carrier. I set the carrier down on the bench by the door and let Tyler out. But Tyler didn't come out. I coaxed him. Mrs. L coaxed him. A couple of the nurse's aides coaxed him. He wasn't budging.

Finally I dumped him out. I gathered him into my arms and held him while Mrs. L and another person sitting near the door had their turns to pet him. I still had illusions of doing room to room visits, but the first room I visited, he once again wouldn't come out of the carrier. I held the carrier up and let the guy pet him through the open door. This'll never work - I'll burn out before Tyler decides to socialize.

There's a bunch of people in the activities room, many of whom I know from previous visits. They don't mind my interrupting their game of "Name that Tune" with Tyler, who finally decides he'll come out under his own steam but only if I put the carrier down on the floor.

Just about everybody in the room who wanted to pet Tyler got a chance. It was hard to get him around to the people sitting in the back of the room because it was so crowded. I didn't think I could get back there without tripping over somebody's walker or wheelchair. We learned in the pet therapy training that a wheelchair is part of a person's personal space so we shouldn't touch it or lean on it (or trip over it) without the person's permission. I didn't want to violate anybody's personal space, so I let the activities person do the honors for the people in the back of the room.

Tyler got tired of laps and cuddles and hid under the credenza. I had no trouble coaxing him out from under and back into the carrier though. By that time, I figured room visits were definitely out of the question. So we said our good-byes and went on back to the shelter.

I'd meant to visit Roy's aunt again, but her room is on the second floor and we just didn't make it up there. I hope Roy doesn't ask me about it tomorrow. Maybe I should ask Roy if he wants to bring a cat with him the next time he visits her.

Basically it's the story of one man's decline from youthful idealism into madness during one of the most turbulent times in Japanese history: the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and rise of the Meiji restoration as Japan opens to the world. It's basically the biography of Shimazaki Toson's father, thinly disguised. In fact the poems and memos and other writings attributed to Hanzo, the main character, were actually written by Toson's father.

If Toson's father is the protagonist, the antagonist is the forces of change. All the conflict/drama/tension in the book is between Hanzo and political/social/economic events. Rather than a setting or a backdrop for the story, history is a character. And history wins.

I'm glad I read it. Without a background in Japanese literature, I really can't say whether it's the great masterpiece it's reputed to be. If it shows up in your used book store for 86 cents, you have a lot of time to devote to it, and you are interested in the so-called "opening" of Japan, by all means read it.