Lost In Greenpoint: Tina Turner

You know, every now and then
I think you might like to hear something from New York Shitty

Nice and easy

But there’s just one thing
You see, I never ever do nothing

Nice and easy

I always do it nice and rough
So I’m gonna take the beginning of this post

And do it easy

Then I’m gonna do the finish rough
This is the way I do lost cat named Tina Turner proud!

This weekend I had dinner with some good friends of mine at Casanova Restaurant. Located on the Garden Spot of the Universe’s answer to the Champs-Élysées (READ: 388 McGuinness Boulevard), it has been my observation that many will not give this sorely underrated eating and drinking establishment a whirl. This is a shame: the food is good, the price is right, the service gracious, the wait staff courteous and the rear dining room is fabulously decadent.

What does my previous effusive endorsement of an Italian restaurant have to do with a lost cat, you ask? My answer is very simple: pleasant surroundings are conducive to enjoyable conversations. And enjoyable conversation was the main course this particular evening. Upon hearing one person’s encounter with a “rat-sized” tea cup chihuahua named “Vinny” we aired our respective opinions about pet names. One person present said he was amused by pets who have “human” names ( “Vinny”).

I told him I found pets named after inanimate objects fascinating. Especially food: “Tortilla”, “Chocolate”, “Pickles” (who I was told was dumber than a bag of hammers) and Uni, my very own calico, are examples to name a few. When I adopted Uni from her college student “parents” (who were, not surprisingly, Japanese) they said I could change her name. I didn’t want to: it suited her purrrfectly.

For better or worse what we are trained to answer to is not our decision to make. Speaking for myself my mother picked “Heather” for me because she thought it was “unique”. 30-odd years of hindsight (and being mistaken for any one of another “Heathers”) proved her wrong. But I digress.

What’s in a name? Well, in this case, quite a bit.

If anyone has seen Miss Turner please contact her person at the above-listed phone number or email address. And before you judge this pet owner for his choice of pet names I’d like to remind you I have a cat named Frances. As in Frances Farmer.

She has always been “cantankerous”, this I will confess. Shortly after I had her spayed— 15 years ago— I decided to go out of town for the weekend. When I came back home she hissed at me, climbed atop my pile of laundry, looked me in the eye and took a shit. As a senior kittizen she has slowed down considerably— but Miss Frances (AKA: “Stinky”) gets her digs in when she feels like: two weeks ago she pissed on Mister Heather’s head. While he was sleeping, no less.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet?

— Williams Shakespeare

Miss Heather