Empress of Ireland

[abu nuwas]

.
"The Empress of Ireland's cat Emmy, an orange tabby who had never once
missed a voyage, refused to board the ship before its departure on May 28, 1914.
The crew could not coax her aboard, so the Empress departed without her.
It was reported that Emmy watched the ship sail away from Quebec City
sitting on the roof of the shed at Pier 27, which would later serve
as a temporary morgue for the dead pulled from the river after the
Empress went down."
( from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Empress_of_Ireland )

P.S. There are two orange tabbies in the lot I live with.
One is the most Delphic (term selected with Leanne in mind),
and the other, the horniest (who knows?). However, either
seems a possible explanation.

Strange that anyone would write about the cat -- and two conflicting stories. I would put my money on the cat escaping. But wtf is an orange tabby? A tortoiseshell? Or just an old ginger mog with a stripe or two?

As, I stated above we fished, I had a dog that loved to come with us,
except one beautiful sunny calm and clear morning when he was very distressed at the thought and you could not drag him into the boat if you wanted to... not alive anyway. Turned out to be the worst day I ever had on the water.

Back in those days people were superstitious more so than now, people looked for signs that foretold these events after they happened. Animals as it seems, are very in tune with the weather and many disasters could have been prevented if people had been wiser and listened to them.

I must apologise -I somehow completely missed your first reply. Re meter, I only meant that that is what I would do, I did not intend it negatively. Perhaps it was rather clumsily put.

I am sorry to say that I have been bequeathed a whole host of superstitions-- black dog, two magpies, bottle-green, the usual ladders, salt-over-the shoulder, and finger-crossing. It is interesting that people of olden times had it partly right with animals: seagulls inland will betoken bad weather, and as for dogs, their sense of smell is so fine, that they can smell cancers, it seems.

We have a family story about 'don't go to the boating party' and you can imagine what happened to those who went!

I think anything you write about the sea will attract me, just as I like the old shanties.