The Toes Girl Bear

This past weekend David and I travelled to Gatlinburg where we met my family and stayed in a mountain cabin. Like most lodging in the area, the place was filled with woodsy themed decor, but unlike past places we’ve stayed, the decorations in this cabin were contemporary. For instance, over the couch there was a dark toned, broad stroked painting of a deer head that when caught in reflection in a facing window made it look like a real deer was out on the deck.

The main room featured lamps and a chandelier constructed from faux(?) antlers and in the downstairs bedroom there was an intricate metal stamped cutout of a man fishing in a pond. At the bottom of the stairs on the lower level hung a canvas print that listed the cabin rules–one of which was RELAX. RELAX. RELAX. I spent most of the weekend wearing bear pajamas in observation of this mandate.

My favorite piece of decor was a small bear statue with a humped back and stretched out neck that reminded me of our cat Toes. It’s been almost seven months since she passed away, but David and I still talk about her daily often repeating the phrase Kitty Cats. Toes Girl. That’s our girl. in a singsongy way and meowing at each other in Toes fashion (e.g., with a radar meow). During our stay at the cabin, David arranged it so the Toes like bear statue stood under a faux (for sure) potted plant, paying tribute to Toes’s penchant for sniffing at the bushes in our back yard. I don’t have access to a picture of Toes engaging in this exact activity, but you can still observe the similarities below: