![\"FoxAnimalSymbolism1\"](\"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/FoxAnimalSymbolism1.jpg\")
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Exactly three times this week I have been privy to the sighting of one particular fox and my old heart has leapt with astonished joy each time, as if I were meeting my long lost soulmate after a somewhat storied absence. \u00a0I want to tell you he is one handsome dude with his black tuxedo markings and snow white chest; his tail alone could bring the house down with its grand bushy plumage and its staccato black tip. \u00a0Jaunty as hell, he trots proudly across the path in front of me and disappears into the woods on the other side, \u00a0playfully daring me to follow. \u00a0Yes, this fox goes about his business with sass and class and everything in me wants to know what this noble messenger has to say.<\/p>\n
The third time I saw him I called my friend and local nature sleuth, Candy, and blabbered on and on about my new love interest. \u00a0She suggested that the coyotes must have left the area for a while and created an opportunity for the resourceful fox to set up house. Lucky us. “Let’s call him Penultimate!”, I said in my little girl voice, “Penault or Penny for short”, mistakenly thinking that penultimate must mean most ultimate<\/em>, which of course the fox was. \u00a0Candy, being a good friend, laughed in agreement and we ended our call and went about\u00a0our important lives.<\/p>\n Later that day when I had the chance to sit down at my computer and google\u00a0the word penultimate\u00a0<\/em>I was dismayed to find that it doesn’t mean most ultimate\u00a0<\/em>at all! \u00a0Seeing as how Candy is an English professor and continually whips my\u00a0ass, and<\/em> my brother’s ass, and<\/em> my late husband’s ass, \u00a0in Scrabble, I knew she had known the correct meaning\u00a0all along, even when I exuberantly blurted out my chosen name for the fox. \u00a0As in \u00a0similar instances with Candy, mainly when playing Scrabble, when I have been\u00a0vocabulary-challenged I usually resort to my ‘but I am a visual<\/em> artist’ defense. \u00a0This usually invokes a fairly big scoff from her, but this time she had let me get away with misusing a word\u00a0and had said nothing.<\/p>\n The real definition of penultimate<\/em> is next to last\u00a0<\/em>which is something of a conundrum if Candy knew at the time and agreed to the fox’s name. \u00a0Since she is not normally prone to humoring me and is usually adamant about the correct pronunciation, spelling, meaning, etc., of all words, I am becoming rather suspect of her fox-like cleverness. \u00a0Phenomenally effective shapeshifters\u00a0and incredibly adaptable, the fox beckons us to not make too many waves but rather, adapt to our surroundings, blend into it, and use our surroundings (and circumstances) to our advantage. \u00a0Is this what Candy is up to? \u00a0Is it some kind of covert Scrabble strategy? \u00a0And If by chance she thinks\u00a0next to last<\/em> is a good name for our fox, then what cunning secret could she and he be hiding?<\/p>\n I know you may be thinking that I am ove<\/em>r thinking all of this but one can never be too careful when fox is around. \u00a0Although he\u00a0has a reputation as a trickster in many myths, make no mistake about it, fox\u00a0does not joke around when executing clever strategies. Maybe the next time I see him it will be the last or maybe he and Candy are just pranking me. \u00a0Any way you look at it I win because I saw the fox and he was penultimate\u00a0<\/em>to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Exactly three times this week I have been privy to the sighting of one particular fox and my old heart has leapt with astonished joy each time, as if I were meeting my long lost soulmate after a somewhat storied absence. \u00a0I want to tell you he is one handsome dude with his black […]<\/p>\n Read More...<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-image-and-word"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":560,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}