6Nov24 Feeling Pessimistic

“We’ve gotten ourselves into a position where we need Democrats with courage and/or Republicans with integrity, so we may be fucked.” – Me, 2018

“We’re fucked” – Me, 2024

One of the downsides of being a pessimist is that there’s no joy in being right.

I love people. Despite being an introvert and having a limit to my social energy, I really do like many individuals. People as a whole, that’s a different story. Throughout my life I’ve generally expected the worst from people. Still, every now and then, they surprise me with how bad they can get. When I say I generally expect the worst from people I mean that I expect many people to be dumb, ignorant, selfish, or short-sighted. Hell, there are times when I am dumb, selfish, or short-sighted. One of the things I’ve realized about myself is that I have a blind spot. What I don’t expect, and what truly catches me off-guard, is when people are just bad or evil. I see people, myself included, as basically good, even if we don’t always exhibit the best version of ourselves. Very rarely do I expect a person to truly act from bad motives. It’s bitten me more times than I like to admit.

I was a little surprised in 2016 when Trump won the presidency. Not as surprised as many, but still surprised. I grew up around Trump, so I always knew what a clown he was. I figured most people didn’t. I thought they fell for the Made-For-TV bullshit story of him being a successful businessman. I knew he would be a bad President, and sure enough he is consistently ranked by historians as one of the worst presidents we’ve ever had. Possibly THE worst president we’ve ever had. Honestly I figured the republican party would play along and then leave him out to dry at their earliest convenience. I thought that at the very least their self-interest would cause them to distance themselves from him eventually.

But then I have a blind spot when it comes to evil intentions.

When some republican politician would stand up to Trump and say “this is a line we will not cross” they would find themselves excommunicated from the party. Over the years, the ones who stood up lost their jobs. Now we’ve come to the point where I don’t think there’s anyone left who would dare stand up, and I’m not sure there’s any line left they wouldn’t cross. Looking back it seems like for the bulk of the party, this was the goal all along. Time after time, given a choice between the nation or power, they chose power. The few that briefly stood up were barely an inconvenience. They gave the illusion of integrity to a party that no longer felt the need to display any.

Which brings us to today. The 2024 election was yesterday. Trump won. Again, I’m not surprised that he won. I half expected it. Polls had been tight all along, which itself is an indictment of what America has become, and that’s kind of the problem isn’t it? The fact that the election was close at all felt like a big alarm going off, and something we would need to address, win or lose. Unfortunately now that we’ve lost, it may take decades to address it in a way that leaves us in a better place than we were last week.

When Trump won in 2016 only due to the Electoral College, most of the electorate didn’t really know what they were getting into. Sure the outright racists and fascists knew he was their guy but I think most people who voted for him bought into the TV image of a successful businessman. I figured they were just blind to who he really was. I didn’t expect him to get re-elected. The fact that 2020 was as close as it was was disappointing, but I thought that maybe enough people had finally seen enough of him to send him packing. After January 6th I thought his spell over all but the the most faithful would wane. I was wrong.

But then I have a blind spot when it comes to evil intentions.

You see, this time around people cannot claim ignorance. People know who Trump is, and they voted for him anyway.

One of the worst presidents in our history, and the only one to be impeached twice, and we voted for him. A convicted felon out on bail and with dozens of other charges against him, and we voted for him. A person found liable for sexual assault, and we voted for him. He took a good economy, cratered it, ran up record deficits, and this time has promised to effectively raise taxes on imported items by 20% or more, and we voted for him. His entire campaign was (again) almost entirely based on racism, and we voted for him. His own chief of staff and others who have worked for him have said that without a doubt he is a fascist and should never hold power again, and we voted for him. He has promised to jail his rivals and absolutely purge all Federal agencies of people who are not loyal to him personally, and we voted for him. We knew ahead of time that he would declare himself the winner and foment violence if he lost, but this time, he didn’t have to. We just handed it to him instead. The first time he was president we were stacking bodies in refrigeration trucks, and now we’re going to give him the job back. It seems like there’s no limit to what extremes Americans will go to to avoid electing a woman as President.

That’s the part that gets me. This wasn’t some Electoral College technicality achieved by pockets of zealots in a few states mixed with enough well-meaning people who were blind to the racism but thought they were getting an effective businessman. This was over 70 million people who saw the racism, misogyny, crimes, incompetence, and appeals to hatred and violence, and said “yep, that’s what we want.” They knew what they were voting for so yeah, while the result doesn’t necessarily surprise me, the failure of Americans to uphold American ideals feels very much like the end of something.

Even if Harris had won, I honestly don’t know how we’d get back to a place of having basic respect for one another and a sense of a shared society. Had she won it would have been a heavy lift but it would have at least been an opportunity to start. Yesterday the electorate effectively stated that they don’t even want a shared society any more. They don’t like the idea of America that their ancestors fought for. Maybe republicans are right, and some people just prefer to be ruled rather than represented. Either way, things are going to get worse for a while. Possibly a for a generation or more. Eventually they will get better again. Maybe not here, but somewhere. I hope I live long enough to see America become America again.

America might not be the largest civilization in human history. It probably won’t be the longest-lived in history. It will almost certainly go down as one of the dumbest.

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20Oct24 Two Weeks, Two Hurricanes

One of the local myths in the Tampa Bay area is that the local Tocobaga tribe of Native Americans put a blessing upon their burial grounds, and that this blessing is what has shielded the region from a direct hurricane hit for about 100 years.

As I mentioned last time, that luck might be running out. It did. Within the space of two weeks, we got a double-whammy of two intense hurricanes. First up, Hurricane Helene passed 100 miles offshore on its way to the Big Bend area of Florida. Far enough to keep the hurricane-force winds offshore, but close enough for a 6-8 foot storm surge and heavy rains to cause massive coastal flooding, making it the worst hurricane for the Tampa Bay region in about 100 years. Before the cleanup was done from that, we got an almost direct hit from Hurricane Milton. Technically Milton made landfall just south of Tampa Bay at Siesta Key as a category 3 hurricane. This saved Tampa Bay coastal areas from the worst of the storm surge but the bulk of the wind and rain were on the north and northwest sides of the storm which caused massive damage in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. At one point the eyewall of the hurricane was about 10 miles south of our house.

So the Tocobagan blessing is gone. Tampa Bay’s luck has run out. The current estimate is that 33 people died in the storm. Over 3 million people were without power, including about 600,000 Tampa Electric Company (TECO) customers in Hillsborough County where we live.

Full disclosure: I was not here for Hurricane Milton. I was out of the state on a business trip. We discussed if I should make the trip or not. The storm was just turning into a category 1 hurricane and was predicted to hit somewhere on the west coast of Florida. We decided I should make the flight. By the time I got to my destination, worked the day, and got checked into my hotel room, the storm had become a category 5 hurricane headed straight for Tampa Bay. Tampa Airport was closing, and there was no getting home until after the storm had passed. I got home Friday morning, about 36 hours after the storm hit.

So how did we fare with hurricanes Helene and Milton? We got through both hurricanes pretty well. Sue is safe. The cats are ok. To be clear, we’re talking about extreme weather events here so there’s very little that we had control over. Lots of people got their homes wrecked. We’ve been helping some friends where we can. The fact that we came through intact is really just down to the cosmic roll of the dice. What I want to focus on here is the fact that Milton was the biggest hurricane to hit the Tampa Bay area in over 100 years, so what worked well and what would we do differently next time?

Physically, the house only had superficial damage. The roof is only three years old and we got storm windows installed last year, so the house was in about as good a shape as we could get it. Lucky us for being in a position where we could do those things. We never lost water service. The biggest impact for us was that our power was out for five full days. Here again, we were about as prepared as we could have been. We have a generator that we ran for 5-8 hours every day to keep our refrigerator (as well as our neighbors) running. This kept our food fresh so we were able to use a grill and smoker to cook a whole lot of meat during the power outage. We have JetBoil camp stoves that we could use to boil water. Really the only difficulty for us was the heat. The week following the storm was thankfully clear and dry but the daytime temperatures were about 87° which meant that even with the windows open the house was over 90° inside. We could spend the bulk of the day outside in the shade but once the sun went down the mosquitoes would drive us inside where it was difficult to sleep in a pool of your own sweat. That was really the worst of it for us, and we consider ourselves very fortunate. Many people lost everything they had. The worst that happened to us was that we were uncomfortable for a few days. The power outage even coincided with our work schedules so that we missed a minimal amount of work.

Short-term effects on our area:

  • Many people lost water service, but we did not.
  • Millions were out of power, including us. Most traffic lights still worked. Other things came back online over the next few days.
  • Cell phone connectivity was spotty for the first couple of days after the storm.
  • Our grocery store was open a couple of days after the storm. Even now a week later some items like toilet paper and bread are in short supply.
  • Gas stations took a day or two longer for limited types of fuel, and took about four days to get back to full service. As the storm was about to hit, leaving wasn’t even an option since many stations were out of fuel.
  • Schools were closed for about a week.
  • Garbage service was slightly interrupted with each hurricane.

What did we do well?

  • Structurally we had the house in about as good a shape as we could. The new roof and windows were quite expensive, but they appeared to hold up through the storm. Still waiting on a roof inspection to have a closer look.
  • We have a generator. For years it has just taken up space in the garage, but that is now a place of honor. It’s more than earned its place in our family. We were able to help out our neighbors as well.
  • We had a lot of water on hand in case the water went out.
  • We had a freezer full of food. Typically this would be bad for a prolonged power outage but since we had the generator we were able to keep that food cold.
  • Between the JetBoil stoves, a grill, and a smoker, we were able to cook many types of food without electricity.
  • Having several flashlights and lanterns along with batteries for all of them certainly helped once the sun went down.
  • Our cars were mostly topped off with gas before the storms hit.

What would we change next time?

  • Consider evacuating. If something had happened to the house with us in it, there’s nothing we could practically do in the middle of a huge hurricane.
  • RTFM on the generator before the storm actually hits. Ours has an electric starter, but you have to charge the battery beforehand. I learned this after the power had gone out.
  • Try to have more water available. We had a few gallons in bottles as well as every pot in the house full. We never lost water so it didn’t matter, but I don’t know how long we could have gone on what we had stored. Filling several gallon-sized freezer bags with water before any future storm and absolutely packing the freezer with them should give us extra water and help keep the freezer cool for a while.
  • Maybe try to have a little more gas on hand? The gas we had for the generator lasted us until the gas stations were back online. Had the gas stations taken any longer to get running again we could have siphoned gas from our cars if needed. Thankfully we never got to that point.
  • I don’t know if there are battery-powered fans that can last for several hours, but having any air movement at all certainly would have helped to cool us down at night.
  • Make sure we’re stocked up on many staples such as toilet paper long before the storm hits. Supply chains will be impacted and will take a while to recover.

Other things we learned:

  • Do not walk in floodwater if at all possible. If powerlines are down it can be dangerous, and there is often sewage in the water.
  • Don’t expect nights without power to be quiet. We kept the windows open trying to keep the house as cool as possible, and some neighbors ran their generators well into the night.
  • Expect to be out of power for up to two weeks after a major storm.

Be safe.

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6Oct24 This week’s hurricane brought to you by…

Living in the Tampa Bay area you learn that it has been over 100 years since we’ve been hit with a major hurricane.

We’ve had a few close calls. Hurricane Charley in 2004 was aimed straight at Tampa Bay until it turned slightly east and hammered Fort Myers. There have been other close calls. Everyone knows that the luck can’t last forever. Around September-October the hurricanes tend to form further west, either starting in or making their way into the Gulf of Mexico. Atlantic storms might head back out into the ocean, but once a storm gets into the Gulf it’s going to hit someone. For the last 100 years, Tampa Bay has been lucky.

That luck may have run out. It’s been a week and a half since Hurricane Helene passed 100 miles offshore on its way north to wreck the Carolinas. Even that far offshore it has been the most destructive storm to hit the Tampa Bay region in over 100 years. I’ve got a few friends who were flooded out of their places and the cleanup will take a while. Now we’ve got tropical storm Milton aimed at us, which is predicted to hit the west coast of Florida in a few days as a major hurricane. We are dead center of the current track but the models currently put landfall anywhere on the west coast of Florida.

I sometimes need to be reminded that most natural disasters are unpredictable. Earthquakes and tornadoes just happen with little warning. I’m more familiar with hurricanes which typically give a few days warning. We schedule our weeks around them. “I’ll go into the office on Monday, do some shopping on the way home, order pizza on Tuesday, and then settle in for Wednesday’s hurricane.” It’s a bit surreal. I’m reminded of living in New York when we knew a big snowstorm was going to hit. The streets would empty out and as the first snow was falling there would be an eerie silence and emptiness outside.

I hope the storm misses us. I hope it does minimal damage wherever it does land. If it does wreck our shit, I at least hope that we’re all safe and sound afterwards. I hope you are too.

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14Aug24 I’m Great, Thanks For Asking

A quick note,

To the person who told me I’d end up in jail.
To the person who told me I’d always be a loser.
To the person who held a shotgun to my head.
To the person who told me I was irredeemably selfish.
To the person who told me that I would just have to accept that I wasn’t going to go any further.
To every person that told me I had no value.

I’m still here. I’m doing well. I’ve been able to boost other people along the way.

Maybe that all comes crashing down tomorrow. No success lasts forever. I just know that I’ve gone further than I thought I would, and I’ve gone further than you said I could.

Maybe at some point you had to reap what you’ve sown. Maybe you were successful at leaving that burden for others in your wake. Just know that it didn’t take root in me.

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8Jun24 For Those Who Once Rocked

What bands have you seen that don’t exist anymore? What bands did you miss seeing?

We had a discussion at work this week about bands that we wish we could have seen. It got me thinking about what bands I could have conceivably seen during my concert-going years that I missed, as well as the bands and musicians that I did get to see before they disbanded or passed away.

With that in mind, I made a list of the bands I’ve seen or missed as of the date of this post.

Concerts I wish I had seen, but missed my chance:

  • Queen
  • Barry White
  • Cranberries
  • David Bowie
  • John Lee Hooker
  • Lou Reed
  • Morphine
  • Nirvana
  • Plasmatics
  • Prince
  • Sinéad O’Connor
  • The Cars
  • The Clash
  • The Kinks
  • The Pogues
  • The Who
  • Twisted Sister
  • Type O Negative

Concerts I did see before someone critical passed away (I have been very lucky):

  • Avenged Sevenfold with The Rev
  • B.B. King
  • Charlie Daniels
  • David Crosby
  • Etta James
  • Huntress
  • Jeff Beck
  • Joey Jordison (drumming for Slipknot)
  • Katie Webster
  • Metallica with Cliff Burton
  • Motörhead
  • Nell Carter
  • Ozzy Osbourne (still alive but no longer touring)
  • Pantera
  • Ronnie James Dio
  • Rush
  • Slayer
  • Soundgarden
  • Stevie Ray Vaughan
  • Stone Temple Pilots
  • The Ramones
  • Tom Petty
  • Tony Bennett
  • Voivod with Denis D’Amour
  • ZZ Top with Dusty Hill
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28Dec23 2023: The Only Constant in Life is Change

Another year fades into memory. This year has been a bit of a whirlwind.

Sue and I spent most of the year taking Spanish classes through our local community college, so the majority of our weekends for the year were spent studying.

The big news for the year is that I changed jobs, leaving the company I’d worked at for almost 13 years to go work for a startup. Part of me thinks I’m crazy to go work for a startup at this stage of my career. It’s risky, but it’s also something that’s exciting and if I didn’t take a shot at it I’d kick myself for the rest of my life, so here I am. We’re still operating in stealth mode so I’m still unable to say who I’m working for or what I’m doing, but It’s been nothing but positive so far.

Our big vacation for this year was to Arizona. Sue had never seen the Grand Canyon, and my one trip to the area was comical due to the fact that I was continually changing my itinerary due to snowstorms. This trip was in June, not December, so there was no risk of snow. The trip was fantastic, I got to see the Milky Way clearly for the first time since my childhood, and we had one of the best dining experiences of our lives with a couple of friends at Kai Restaurant outside of Phoenix.
Milky Way

We spent almost three weeks traveling through the desert and we still had to skip things because we just didn’t have enough time.
Spider Rock

Besides the vacation. this year has involved more travel than usual. At one point in the year I traveled out of town three times in four weeks. It felt really good to get back home after the last trip and finally put the suitcase away. Speaking of which, it was nice to re-connect with a few people who I’d not seen in far too long.

As for other interests, we didn’t see many movies this year (see the bit about most weekends being taken up by homework). TV that we enjoyed included The Last of Us, Slow Horses, and The Peripheral. I’ve been getting more into board games recently but with so many busy weekends it’s been tough to get any to the table.

It’s been an incredibly slow year for concerts and events. Many bands are not touring as widely, those that are touring are skipping Florida more often, and the shows that do stop here sometimes have prohibitive prices. The lowlight was Run the Jewels getting rained out at the Gasparilla Music Fest. Highlights for the year were Shemekia Copeland, Alicia Keys, and The Interrupters.

Books that stood out for me are Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi and Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. I’ve read all three books of the Three-Body trilogy (there’s a fourth book but it’s really just a fan-fiction) and it’s one of the best things I’ve read in the last decade. I believe it will become SF canon before too long. I’m looking forward to the TV adaptation, but I really wish I could catch the Chinese series as well.

2023’s been a good year. May we all reach the end of 2024 in good health and fortune, despite the way it’s shaping up.

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10Nov23 Conversations with Corporate Websites

Why do some companies go to such lengths to make their sites terrible to use? Shopping online for something, these are some typical experiences. I imagine the website and its designers talking to me:

Be My Friend

(website loads, get a brief glimpse of the site, which disappears behind a popup…)
Hey! sign up for our newsletter!
Um, I don’t know anything about your company yet. How about I get to know you a bit first? (close popup)
Ok, let me click on this link…
(Page loads, interrupted by…)
Hey! sign up for our newsletter!
(leave site)

I’m Too Cool For You

(website loads, and loads, and loads. Land on a page with huge images)
Hey! Look at how great our site design is!
Yeah, cool. Where’s the product you’re selling?
Oh, we don’t sell PRODUCTS, we sell LIFESTYLES and EXPERIENCES.
Look, do you have what I’m looking for or not?
Well, do you want something from our Joxer line, our Callisto line, our Panexa line, or one of the dozen other lines we have?
Those words mean nothing to me. Do you have something that explains what they are? Better yet, do you have a page that lists your products and lets me filter by their traits, or are you going to make me click through over a dozen different links to find out if you have what I’m looking for?
But think of the EXPERIENCE…
(leave site)

Crossing Boundaries

(website loads, landing me on a page where a promo video starts playing…)
Ahhhh, shut the fuck up! I didn’t ask you to talk to me. Make it stop! Where’s the volume control? Easier to just close the tab…
(leave site as quickly as possible)

No There There

(website loads…)
We’re working on our site at the moment.
Please check back soon.
Hmmm. Site has probably been this way since 2010.
(leave site)

Your Guess Is As Good As Mine

(website loads, lands me on product page…)
Great! Finally a company that actually sells what I’m looking for! This looks interesting (click link)
Sold Out
Oh well, back to the product page. Hmmm. Doesn’t say it’s sold out in the main page. How about this one…
Sold Out
Oh for fuck’s sake. Let me back up and try this one instead…
Sold Out
You seriously expect me to click through to each individual product to see if it’s available or not? How about no?
(leave site)

Amazon

(website loads to a familiar Amazon screen)
At least this site will show me products. Ok, I’m looking for an Illudium Space Modulator model Q-36.
Sure! Here’s an Amazon Basics space heater, followed by two dozen other things that have some of the letters you typed.
How about something with the letters “Space Modulator” in that order?
Sure! Here’s an Amazon Basics Spice Rack!
(leave site, log off, go and pour a drink)

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4May23 Music Is My Friend

All I want is to keep on trucking,
I think I could with a little bit of luck.
Come too far to just get stuck,
So I refuse to die.
– Sydney Sprague

I think many of my favorite songs are aspirational. They often describe people I wish I had in my life. Those times when I really needed a friend that I didn’t have, I found one in music. Don’t get me wrong, I had some great friends through these times that I will always treasure, but in a lot of ways I had to figure stuff out on my own.

For the longest time the only person who told me that No One could keep them from loving me was Alicia Keys. Every time I hear it I imagine she’s singing it directly to me.

Ani told me that all of the Parameters can change, no matter how invincible I imagine myself to be.

B.B. King warned me that I’d Better Not Look Down.

Colleen Duffy was the one person who, after everything went to shit, still wanted to take a Walk With Me.

I wish I’d had someone to tell me I’d See the Sun again. Dido had to take that role.

Tom Shear told me that The Noise Inside My Head wasn’t mine alone.

Ronan Harris let me know that it was ok to have Gratitude for what is in the past, but to Perpetually look beyond the place I stand.

Nobody told me that there could be someone to pick you back up again if you Fell Back Down except for Tim Armstrong.

Aimee Allen let me imagine a world where we’ve Got Each Other‘s backs and that she would be By My Side.

The spirit of Invictus was instilled in me by Randy Blythe.

Frank Turner told me that so long as I’m alive, I can Get Better, and that If I Ever Strayed I’d have friends who stuck with me whether I deserved them or not.

Music can have a profound effect on me. In a life dominated by solitude, some of my closest confidants have been musicians that I will never meet. If you know me well enough to recognize why these songs helped me, then thank you as well. It’s been a beautiful journey. I wouldn’t be who I am without them, or you.

Like Jamey Jasta said, I Live For This.

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24Dec22 2022: The Illusion of Normality

It’s been an odd year. It seems like a quiet year with fewer events than I’m used to, but then I remember that we lost a couple of years somewhere along the way. This might be the first year I see more Florida Orchestra shows than all other concerts combined, which sounds like I’m getting too old to rock but really just means that not many musicians are back to touring yet and many of those that are, are skipping the Florida peninsula.

That said, it’s been nice to get out and live again. The big highlight of the year was a trip to New York City in April. The main purpose for the trip was that I wanted to see Hadestown with as much of the original cast as possible. Mission accomplished as André De Shields left the show seven weeks after we saw it, and Patrick Page is leaving it at the end of this year. They, along with Eva Noblezada, are the heart of the show for me. I love that show. Our time in NYC was just packed with sightseeing and fantastic restaurants. It was so satisfying to play tour guide to Sue in a city that is embedded in my soul.

NYC

American Museum of Natural History

Another high point was going to Nashville in February to see the Lightning play the Predators in Nashville’s football stadium. We had a blast, the Lightning won, and I got to see some of my extended family up there.

NHL Stadium Series

There were a couple of other small trips to Ponte Vedra and Saint Augustine. We’re trying to conserve our travel budget for some plans that we have over the next couple of years.

Our family got smaller as we lost Oreo this year. Our family grew again as we adopted Lucky.

Concert highlights include Frank Turner, Iron Maiden, and Aesthetic Perfection.

Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, Orlando HoB 6/26/2022

Now that I am done (for the moment) with flight training and able to read for pleasure again I spent the year reading all nine books of The Expanse series. It’s been well worth my time. The TV series was excellent, and now I know what the story is beyond the TV series.

No movies really stand out in my memory. Prey was good. Top Gun Maverick was good. Nothing spectacular.

The general vibe of the world around me is that basically I’m going to make some popcorn, watch people burn down the world that our grandparents left for us, and try not to get any of the flaming shit stuck to me. Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do remember history are doomed to stand by helpless as they watch others repeat it. I’ll do my best to not be a jerk, which suits my contrarian disposition.

As 2022 draws to a close and I look forward to next year I’m hoping to be able to reconnect with a few people that I’ve not seen in far too long. It seems that I’ve entered the stage of my life where the number of friends I have will only grow smaller over time. I’d like to spend some time with them.

On that note, I’ve probably shared this one before but it’s a great reminder of how temporary this all is.

“Let go of the little distractions
Hold close to the ones that you love
Because we won’t all be here this time next year
So while you can take a picture of us”
– Frank Turner, Polaroid Picture

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17Jun22 Oreo

“I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Who doesn’t love an underdog?

For many years my neighborhood has had several stray cats in it. I’ve been feeding them more or less since they took care of a little problem for me, which is a story for another day. Having a set of cats that would regularly visit the house meant that we started to give them names. None of the names were terribly inventive. They were all chosen based on the appearance of the cat. This is the story of one of those cats.

This is the story of Oreo.

Oreo was a long-haired tuxedo cat who spent many years on the streets. Of all of the neighborhood strays, Oreo was by far the friendliest. Most of the cats don’t let me anywhere near them, but Oreo would always come and brush up against my leg. He had a hard life on the streets. Over the years I’ve seen him bloodied and ragged at times. Still, he showed up for dinner when we offered it.

Unfortunately for Oreo I already had two cats. This was down from the four cats I’d had just a few years earlier. That’s a lot for one person and so my heart had hardened to the idea of taking in any more strays. Eventually Mojo and Kitty passed and I was the only living thing left in the house. For a while, perhaps selfishly, I kept it that way. I fed Oreo, but he stayed outside.

Sue didn’t have any cats and she debated cat-napping Oreo, but we didn’t do so until December 30th of 2017. We were coming back to the house after shopping and Oreo came up to us looking as bad as he ever had. We picked him up and put him in a carrier to take him to the emergency vet. He was malnourished, FIV+ and had some serious hip damage, probably from getting hit by a car sometime in his past. He was covered in scabies. He was terrified and bit me as I was trying to comfort him, so our next trip was to the emergency clinic so I could get a shot for potential rabies. It was quite a day, and that’s why the date has stuck with me.

Sue sat with him in the garage that night. He curled up on her lap and from that point on the two of them were almost inseparable. She took him home with her and for 4-1/2 years he was almost never more than a foot from her if he could help it. For all of his time on the streets, he was one of the sweetest cats I’ve ever known.

Oreo

Oreo died on Thursday, June 9th. He’d been eating less and less over the last month or so. There was something wrong with his kidneys and though we tried various things to help him out, in the end there was nothing that we could do except try to make his last few days as comfortable as we could. We spoiled him with all of the treats and tuna that he could eat. He was a cuddlebug right up until the end.

When we picked him up I didn’t think he would have lived more than a couple of weeks considering the condition he was in. Instead, he got over four years of the good life with lots of love and tuna, which to a cat might be the same thing.

Oreo was definitely a momma’s boy. Although he only lived with me for a little while his passing hit me harder than I thought it would. When I think about why that is, I think about the kind of cat he was and the life that he lived. Like I mentioned above, the streets were not kind to him. Fights, injuries, illnesses. He was one tough cat. Through it all he was still just a fluffy ball of love that adored his humans, and we adored him. To endure so much difficulty and come out of it with so much love, how could I not be affected by that? Rare is the cat that makes me want to be a better human.

Goodbye little buddy. We miss you. I wish we’d had more time together.

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