One To Beam Up: Crossing the Rainbow Bridge

One of the hardest challenges faced by the family of a beloved keetain is the day he or she departs for the great Cat Condo in the sky.  The only way to combat the grief is with gratitude.

Sometimes My Cats Are The Only Thing Keeping Me Going

Yes, I actually Googled that once.  Not too long ago.

During a pet-free phase of my life, when I was mourning the termination of a troubled human relationship, a wise friend suggested getting a pet.  Any kind. "Sometimes it's good just to have another beating heart around the house," she said.  I didn't act on it for years, but in the end how right she was.

What is it about a cat?  Mine are mostly terrors at first glance.  It's a madhouse.  Julia clucking like a chicken and treading all over our laps and the tabletop during dinner:

"Introducing the Catkin"

Sebastian singing a feline rendition of O Sole Mio at four in the morning accompanied by the clack clack clack of a rod toy being dragged throughout the house.  Keaton circling the bedroom a half hour later, pulling open the window shades (really!), pawing the furniture and trilling at the top of his wee lungs because he's waited long enough for breakfast.  Leaving little poopie Klingon presents for me to find because I am a negligent owner who doesn't take him to sick bay regularly to have Dr. McCoy trim his anal fur.

And yet, *sigh* -- and yet.  When the black dog days come, and I can barely move out of bed, Julia comes and drapes her little body over my ribs and licks my hand.  Sebastian comes and curls up on my pillow, leaning his chin on my forehead.  Their purring soothes me when I've forgotten how to soothe myself.

Keaton, too cool to be a lap cat (or even a bed cat) nonetheless keeps watch nearby, meeting my eyes expectantly when I look his way.

They need to be fed.  They need to have their litter boxes scooped.  They provide me with the opportunity to get out of myself for a second and put somebody else first.  I can be there for them; I will be there for them.  No matter what crap is going on in my life, I matter to them.

Cats are Zen masters.  They have so much to teach us about the gift of being in the moment.  It is a great spiritual endeavor for us brainiac humans to be present the way animals are, rather than be prisoners of our own minds.  As long as their basic needs are met, cats don't plague themselves with worry.  To them, the past is already long gone and the future doesn't exist yet.  Right now is all there is.   How simple and elegant.  Right here, right now, all is well.

Prrrrrrrr.

When, Keaton?  NOW???

So, how about you, dear reader?  Please share how your kitties keep you going.

Les Meowsérables

As a New Yorker living blocks from Times Square for 8 years, I used to turn a cold, glazed eye at those long-running musicals that had inhabited their respective theatres so long that their sets were growing lichen.  The prime example is that still twitching tourist trap, The Show With The Chandelier, which after 25 years is just a foundered old warhorse whose time is come to be put in a piano box and buried as far away from Secretariat as possible.

Lord of the Ringworm

Excuse my absence from this blog of late.  Where did the time go?  I spent most of it in a movie theater watching the two longest films in the history of cinema since The English Patient.  The latest magnum opi are Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, and The Hobbit, starring some techno-nerdist locked away in an animation studio, eating a ham sandwich and producing CGI effects.

Sing A Song Of Sebastian

Sebastian.  A/k/a Spanky Pete.  He doesn't get a lot of press, because he's not crazy.  He doesn't make trouble; he doesn't do naughty things.  He's not perfect, oh no.  He has a tendency to yowl at night - well, every night, but this is a trait common to many male Keetains who believe they have exceptional singing voices.

Let zem eat birthday cake!

Hey, yesterday was my birthday, my uncertain-ageth.  Much to my delight I received several posts from my dear friends on Facebook.  Two e-cards came as well, a vanishing custom.  More amazing still, I received two greeting cards on actual card stock, a way of life which is nearly extinct, sadly.

These last are worth noting, so here they are.

Fat Cat

Keaton, that big loaf of cat.  I could fill an entire blog with his antics alone.  I could also fill a three story townhouse with his ever increasing bulk.

Although he is not a Hemingway, somewhere along the line Keaton seems to have developed an opposable thumb.  This secret digit allows him to break into sealed containers to procure victuals on the sly, far from the watchful eye of She Who Would Try To Keep His Weight Down.  Worse, he demonstrates a considerable predilection for sweets.  So much for the obligate carnivore theory.