Squirrrel stew and Maxellendis's bones

Daisy still has mange. But it must be improving, as in, the mites must be dying off because she is more herself. Her personality is returning to its alpha-ness. Daisy showed up with a dead squirrel dangling from her jaws this morning. Sometimes she gnaws on squirrels, sometimes she shares them with Bruno and sometimes she delivers them to me, as tribute.
And what do I do with a dead squirrel?
Little did I know. Until last week’s crossword puzzle when the clue was: Ingredient in Brunswick Stew. The answer? Squirrel. To make a batch of Brunswick Stew to feed a crowd, you will need 70 squirrels, cut up. You must also remove their furry tails, as these would cause gastric disturbances if ingested. You will also need lima beans and salt pork, two other ingredients I rarely cook with.

Given the average Dark Ages cuisine, Saint Maxellendis would presumably not have turned up her nose at squirrel stew. Au contraire.
Poor Maxellendis. There seems to be no end to the indignities she suffers. Back in the seventh century she strongly objected to her parents’ choice of a husband, one Harduin. She ran away and hid in a clothes chest. But, sadly, Harduin found her hiding place and killed her with his sword. At the moment of impact, he was struck blind. Maxellendis was duly buried in a nearby church “where she was the occasion of many marvels”. Meanwhile, Harduin repented his wickedness and when he fell to his knees before her coffin his sight was restored.
Since that time, Maxellendis’s relics – her skull and many bones – have been treasured and encased in reliquaries of gold and encrusted with gemstones, and duly displayed in the churches lucky enough to have such relics. Until about ten years ago when a gang of Romanian thieves broke into the Church of St. Martin in Le Cateau, Nord, France and stole a bejeweled monstrance in which Saint Maxellendis’s finger bone rested on a red silken pillow. It took two years for the crime to be solved, and it was in a Newark, NJ courtroom where the relic of Maxellendis was returned to its rightful owner. If there is such a thing.

CYBI, The George Hamilton of Saints

Happily it is the feast of Saint Cybi, the only saint known for his tan. Happily, because we needed to take a break from our household’s unfortunate preoccupation with microscopic parasites this week.
Last week it was ticks, which are larger. An evening was spent watching my brother, Carl pick deer ticks from Oliver, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel of a very agreeable disposition. Carl, who is so clean he has been known to wash your plate while you are eating from it, and who drives a six year-old car that is as pristine as they day he pulled out of the lot, and whose basement floor is truly that proverbial “so clean you could eat off it” – this same Carl was removing ticks from his beloved (and otherwise very clean) dog with the tweezers component of his also beloved Swiss Army knife. In case you have not had the pleasure, any occasion of tick removal in the company of one’s siblings gives rise to fond memories of all the various methods of tick slaughter, destruction, and eradication in our shared youth. These include – but are not limited to – conflagration, crushing, explosion, implosion, truncation, decapitation and dismemberment.
Watching the deticking I secretly congratulated myself for not having brought along my dogs, who would surely have attracted far more ticks than tiny Oliver.
Premature congratulations as it happens. For this week Daisy was diagnosed with mange. Mange is just as it sounds: rather revolting and of course, mangy. Otherwise, mange is an infestation by parasitic microscopic mange mites. You will be pleased to know that Daisy’s mange is not infectious; at least, neither Bruno nor we have caught it. I am treating it with a propolis-based cream called Hoof Balm, developed by an upstate beekeeper to treat his miniature horse. We describe the situation thusly: Daisy is not herself. Causing me to think about what it means to be oneself.
Which brings us to Saint Cybi, a sixth century Welsh abbot for whom I harbor a special fondness because my friend B and I trod in Cybi’s footsteps on the lovely isle of Anglesey. Cybi’s best friend was Saint Seriol who lived at the opposite end of Anglesey. Each morning the two friends set off from their respective hermitages and met mid-island to converse until dusk. Cybi lived on the western end of the island and so he walked into the morning sun - hence the tan for which he became famous. How does it compare to George Hamilton’s tan? We will never know. Meanwhile, poor Saint Seriol was chronically pale and wan.