Death

I had dreamed a dream, and now that dream is gone from me.

I am 100%, absolutely, not above admitting that I was a man with a cat, and I liked my cat just fine.  I found her in the parking lot of the place that I worked in the summer of 2006.  She was so little that she fit comfortably in my baseball cap.  Her name was supposed to be Orracle, but that got scrapped pretty quickly, her tendency to cry got her renamed "Baby," or "Babe" when she reached her grown-up years.

She liked to read with me...

 Was not above helping with chores...

...even if her tendency to shed white fuzz defeated the purpose on loads of colored laundry.

She never quite figured out the whole "cat bed" concept.  Apparently, my bed was quite good enough.

She was never much of a climber, but she did eventually get the hang of her kitty tower.










She could be a little aloof, and a lot skittish, so I didn't think too much of it when she decided that the far corner of my room was her new "hiding spot" on Friday.  By Saturday she still was still in that same spot.  I tried to coax her out with food (eating being just about her favorite past-time), that's when everything was all wrong.  She was so weak, she could barely walk, she didn't want to eat, and her breathing was extremely labored.

A trip to the emergency vet revealed a worst case scenario.  Congestive heart failure, lungs filled with fluid.  My wonderful little gray cat had been, for quite some time, slowly drowning. What seemed like a bit of a runny nose that came and went unheeded was a tell tale that my friend was fighting for her life.  A fight that I, supposedly her protector and caregiver, came to much too late.  A fight that, ultimately, she lost.

This morning, we buried her overlooking the backyard (her favorite past time), so that she can stalk deer, and birds, and hunt bugs, and be the tiger she always thought she was.

I'm not sure if there's a moral to the story.  I'm not sure what I do or do not deserve in the way of blame.  This post probably fits best with the theme of my blog, Adrift.  I feel like I'm adrift.  The only thing I'm really sure of is that I miss my friend, and I am left wishing that there was more, or anything, that I could have done before it was too late.

I'm sorry Babe.  I'm happy that you won't have to be scared, or hurt anymore.  I love you so much.  Godspeed little one, wherever you've gone, and wherever you're going.

-Paul

New Year's Day

Gone Fishing...

"Fishing isn't just something you do for fun, it's soul repair."

If only the man from whom I first hear that term "soul repair" had used such an eloquent delivery, such as it is, he was the proprietor of a pizza shop where I was ordering a pie.

Yesterday, following the events of New Year's Eve, I got to spend some time fishing with a good friend.  If the day was a microcosm of what the year will be, then I'm off to one helluva start.  We ate good food, we enjoyed good scenery, we listened to good music, and we laughed.  Anyone else braving the weather, and probably a New Year's hangover, to be on the river would've heard peals of laughter as we floated by.

We fished a bit too.  I even hooked myself a new girlfriend...

She was a bit on the chubby side, and maybe not quite a "keeper" yet, but she's got some potential if we hook up again!

I hope that you all, whoever happens across my humble little corner of the internet, have a wonderful, and blessed 2014.