Saying goodbye

It's weird to be writing a eulogy for a pet who wasn't even mine, but P.C. was just that kind of cat.

He showed up on day, about ten years ago, in the gutter across the street from my parents' house. Just lying there. I thought it looked odd so I walked out to the fence for a closer look. When I realized that the cat over there was alive and was headed my way across the street, I jogged over to check it out. What I found was a scrawny, dirty-white kitten, half Siamese and half tabby, and oozing from a puncture in his front leg. He was friendly, though, so I carried him back over to show my mom. She had been musing about getting a cat while her two dogs were still pups, but Hudson (a.k.a. the Gold-Plated Dog) had just been through his second surgery in as many months, and mom's predictable reaction was something about putting the vet's kids through Ivy League educations, so no--no cats. I looked at the purring trainwreck in my hands, and dug for the most manipulative cheap-shot I could come up with. "Okay, then, but I'd better take this guy to the pound so they can at least put him out of his misery, because he's not gonna last with his leg abscessed like it is."

"Oh, just take him to the vet and have them bill me!" she groaned, exasperated. So I grabbed my car keys and bolted off before she could change her mind. The vet shaved the kitten's leg, managed to clean it out without debridement (which would have meant one more surgery on the bill), got the fleas off him, and sent him home within two hours. He sat on the seat next to me, purring all the way.

Soon named P.C. by my mom (short for "Plain Cat," though he earned several less-printable nicknames over his tenure there), this little guy took a short look around my parents' house, declared it his kingdom, and never looked back. He remained on the small side, but put on weight as he developed into a stocky, muscular adult. As his fur filled in it provided the perfect contrast to the most dazzling blue eyes I'd ever seen on a cat. Dogs, people... he held everyone in his sway. Snickers and Hudson (my parents' Springer Spaniels), both over 55 pounds, were reduced to chew toys and wrestling partners. My own dog avoided eye contact most of the time, as he never quite knew what to do when a cat chased HIM. When visitors came over, they were greeted at the door and marveled at this gorgeous, outgoing cat who would turn into a ragdoll in your arms, craning his head backward for an upside-down look at the world. And even as I became more and more allergic to cats in recent years, I'd load up on antihistamines before I'd visit, knowing full well I wouldn't be able to resist petting, playing, or occasionally napping with their little bruiser.

On December 26th, P.C. left us as abruptly he arrived. My mom noticed he hadn't been around for a while and went looking, finding him motionless on their bedroom floor. He hadn't been sick, hadn't been injured, and was only ten years old. I was stunned by my dad's phone call, and I'm sure it's going to be difficult when I go over next. While it's sad to lose P.C. so soon, though, I can't help but smile remembering how much fun it was to know him.

Take care short cat... and wherever you are, don't bite the dogs in the face, okay?

Food!

So much is happening that I don't really know where to begin a blog post, so I'll throw up a recipe.

First, some background: Everyone should have an Aunt Lynda. Mine lives a couple of states away, and she and my uncle have this incredible home that calls out to visitors, "come hang out with us for a while... it's therapeutic!" Weekends with them are generally spent watching for bunnies in the garden, hiking, staring out at the prairie, staying up late, playing cards... stuff like that. Things I never get around to at home, but ones that, in the right company, seem to drain the accumulated angst of life away. Yeah, there was that time my cousin and I got completely smashed on gin cosmopolitans while we were there, but that's a rare (though probably necessary at the time) occurrence.

Anyhow... on my last visit, we were playing pitch in the middle of the afternoon, and for some reason everyone was hungry. Dinner wasn't planned for some time, so my aunt threw together a great salsa that staved off starvation, and it (or a variation thereof) has since become a football-season staple here at home. I call it, simply,

Aunt Lynda's Black Bean Salsa

(All measurements here are approximate; use as much as you like)
1 15-oz can black beans, drained
1/4 cup cut yellow corn
About 1/2 tomato, chopped fine
About 1 tbsp diced jalapeno pepper, seeds removed (optional)
1-2 cloves garlic, pressed
About 3-4 chopped green onions, or a couple tbsp red or brown onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp bell pepper, finely chopped
olive oil
salt to taste

Throw everything together in a bowl with enough olive oil to mix well and refrigerate until someone attacks it (this stuff doesn't last long at my house, but it's actually better after it's been around a day or so).

Serve as a dip with chips or veggies, or fill a pita with the dip and a slice of cheese, and toss it in the toaster oven for about 5-10 minutes. This recipe also scales easily; simply add more of everything and adjust as necessary until it looks right.

Maximum carnage in a minimum of time...

Visited with my friends Donna and Rick at Donna's mom's house near Phoenix this past Friday night. Kind of thrown together at the last minute, but that's how my social life usually works. So, after playing an outdoor gig in the morning, I ran home, showered, and headed off to the airport. After about an hour in the air, I touched down, rented a car (and by the way, at Alamo Rent-a-Car, a PT Cruiser is among their "compact" models), and soon I was crawling through traffic on my way to the suburbs south of town.

After I arrived, we hung out at the house a while, looking at real estate websites (they're working on a possible move to the area), giggling at lolcats, and having a glass of wine before striking out for dinner about an hour later. The Mexican restaurant we went to was a favorite of Donna and Elinor for their mole, but the place was pretty crowded so we ended up outdoors on the patio. They had great chips and salsa, and we munched those for a while as we ordered a round of drinks. My blue margarita was excellent, and in the 100-degree heat it went down like fruit punch, even though I'd been making a special effort to drink a lot of water all day. After a short while our entrees arrived, and we chatted about business planning as we worked through them. I had the pollo asado with rice and borracho beans, which was very good. Donna's mole was excellent, and I was kind of wishing I'd ordered the same when the weirdness started setting in.

"Weirdness," in this context, is the best term I can think of to describe the general feeling of, "whoa... what the heck is happening to my head?" After confirming with Rick that yes, I was looking a little pale, I tried waiting it out, hoping like crazy I hadn't lost track of how much I'd been drinking and was about to lose my dinner all over the patio. Just in case, I asked Donna to walk with me to the ladies' room. It was a good thing she agreed, too... because she kept me from doing a face-plant moments later, as I unceremoniously passed out.

But wait... it gets better! So I come to and find myself on the tile in the middle of this restaurant. The manager is offering me a damp towel and telling me not to get up so quickly, and I'm thinking, "oh crap... I can't believe I just did that." But I still wanted to go to the ladies' room, so Donna and the restaurant manager (a very nice lady who said this happened a lot) escorted me over, and I soaked up the air conditioning while I tried to clear my head. A few minutes later a team of paramedics arrived, so we moved back out to the patio where they checked me over. My blood sugar was normal and I was starting to feel a bit more together, so we were thinking of just heading for home when the medics asked me if I was okay to walk out to the car. Upon standing my blood pressure and pulse (which were being monitored) both took a nosedive, so on their recommendation I consented to be taken to the hospital. Within minutes I was sporting an I.V., a heart monitor, a pulse/ox monitor, and was being loaded into an ambulance bound for Mercy General Hospital in Gilbert. Not *exactly* how I'd planned to spend the evening.

I was certain I was headed for a lecture about my reckless alcohol abuse, but after a battery of blood tests, an EKG, and a chest X-ray, the E.R. doctors decided that my meltdown was likely the result of a combination of fatigue, low potassium, and being unused to the heat, which were all amplified by the drink I'd had at the restaurant. They dumped about a liter and a half of saline into me, prescribed potassium and sleep, and then turned me loose to go home at about 1:30am. Rick and Donna (who had been incredibly good sports through this whole stupid adventure) drove me back to Elinor's house, and spent a few minutes peeling innumerable little adhesive foil squares off my skin before heading off to bed. What a night.

Given that waste of an evening it would have been nice to stay a little longer, but I didn't really mind going home Saturday and spending the rest of the weekend taking a break from my usual hectic routine. I think that if there were a moral to this story, it's that I'm not 18 anymore and really need to get serious about taking better care of myself. That's a bummer, but as my office-mate once remarked, getting old is WAY better than the alternative.

In the interest of posting a trip photo, though, I give you this shot of Elinor's little whirlwind of a Boston Terrier, Pogo. This year-old terror is almost always moving, and I was actually surprised to catch him taking a momentary catnap the next day. Here he's hoping that his perfect "down-stay" will earn him another game of tug-of-war...

Tour de Cure

So here's something cool: my cousins Sara and Anne (they're in the middle, flanked by their friends Bob Avritt and Kathleen Vasa) are going to bike 100 miles on August 25th on behalf of the American Diabetes Association. That's HARDCORE. The most I've ridden in a day has been just shy of 50, and I won't even go into how much my butt hurt after that. To do all the training required for a century ... with a sibling (and they're not allowed to kill one another), and oh yeah... Sara has lived with juvenile diabetes for 14 years now. Wow. That rocks.

Here's their blog. Stop in and send well wishes, and don't forget to make a donation while you're there.

Rest in Peace

Lots of sad news this week: Wednesday, we learned that a wonderful musician and friend, drummer Steve Sykes, passed away Monday after a rough struggle with cancer. Steve was a tremendously musical player, and his creativity on the drums put him on a short list of guys to call for small-combo gigs. He was a really sweet guy to boot, and devoted to his family. He will definitely be missed.

On the heels of that news (literally, that evening), I was had been shaken awake by the small earthquake we had the other night, and on a whim I looked up the website of magazine where one of my scuba industry colleagues was the associate publisher. There, I learned that another old friend, Shawn Beaty, had been killed in a house fire in 2005. I had worked with Shawn and her husband Jerry at two different companies while they were manufacturers' representatives, and although I didn't keep in touch very closely after I left the industry, I knew that they had joined the Dive Training organization and were doing very well. Making matters infinitely worse was the further revelation that this appears not to have been an accident; it seems that her death has been ruled a homicide, but no arrests had been made and authorities have no solid leads. Having known Jerry and Shawn well for several years, I can't even imagine what dealing with this has been like for him... to lose a spouse like that must be indescribable. Inept as I am about stuff like this, I'm stuck wondering whether to get in touch, or what I would say if I did. I don't know if there's anything meaningful I could say at all.

With all this fresh in my mind, the bizarre double-murder/suicide that took place a few blocks away (I was headed off to a rehearsal just as the neighborhood was being besieged with police and the media) was just enough to make me think, WTF? Maybe it's that I live a somewhat insulated existence the rest of the time, but geez... It also has me on a bit of a self-reproach jag; I wonder if I really do deserve to have such a satisfying life when people around me are suffering. I know it's an irrational line of thought, but all this is really pretty weird. Not sure what else to do except not take life for granted.

Sigh.