This was our hairiest son, Lion-o. Known by many names — The Baby, Reluctant King of the Kitties, The High Stakes Jumper, Waterbeard and Grunter S. Thompson, and whose origins were only hazy at best. As the story goes, Lion-o (our pop-reference to a cartoon character in our 38 year-old’s favorite shows of his childhood) was the pet of some fellow in Barberton who was sent to, let’s say, a reeducation camp to learn the consequences of Methamphetamine manufacture and sales, and the authorities, as a rule, don’t allow pets there.
The neighborhood ‘cat lady’ (a woman who actually succeeded in the altruistic goal of all cat ladies) took our guy into her home to live with over 30 others of his kind. That’s just what she and her husband did — take in stray cats of every type and size (ours, one of the world’s most common types, but measured 37” when stretched out), creating a veritable United Nations of Cats in her home, who paraded up to say hello, then another, then another….
But our guy decided to take his place on the arm of the couch, right next to our younger son’s head. He was a beast, and my wife had been talking about getting a kitty, so when both she and Eric asked “What about this guy?”, hell, i love cats, and i would love him as i would any of the ‘newer’ ones. In the first half an hour home, this big tom managed to get himself stuck in the ONLY spot in our house that he couldn’t be retrieved. After about 2 hours trying to devise a scheme to get this poor, frightened Lion-o unstuck, i succeeded, and after that, about 13 years of orange enlightenment and total cat goodness followed.
He knew what the human phrase ‘belly rub’ meant
Our friend Lion-o, was never a healthy guy. When he was euthanized today, he had 1 remaining fang, kidney problems, thyroid problems, a bad eye issue that he always had, an always over-sensitive right ear…… i read once about this type of cat being on kind of a downward slope genetically, and after having just had a stent put in my belly last Monday that was a bit more difficult than expected, i can dig where He was coming from. The truth is, person, cat, it doesn’t matter — there are things that my Mom’s family unknowingly passed on to me that led to me missing the last week and a half of my life, and it was nobody’s fault — not even mine. All, the time though, i knew we would have to make a decision as soon as i left the hospital about our friend Lion-o, and the last time i had to make a decision like this, it was with my Pop 9 years ago.
When we got up today, having [characteristically unwise in a health sense for me] dealt with all the ‘stuff’ required to bring our friend home to our yard ahead of today’s solemn event , my wife said that she would probably cry all day. My answer was, that there was no way that we could make this day anything but fucked up, so we will try to push things away that make us feel poorly, but try to not beat ourselves up if we don’t quite make it there.
Thank you for being our friend, Great Lion-o. You were daily proof that there are good things.
And now, for something completely different.
Since i had finally got up enough courage to finally join my wonderfully-enlightened diarist friends for the first time on DK today, i thought i would throw out a kooky-ass idea that i have been thinking about since reading a fellow Kossack’s diary on there being rumors that Mr. Mueller might leave the government so as to be not legally under 45*’s teeny thumb in terms of testifying before Congress.
Here goes. If Robert Mueller can save our democracy with something he can testify to before Congress, but would possibly suffer some vengeful legal shit from the a-hole who would be [and is] tru p, then, let me take Bob’s place in the slammer. Indeed, i am really nobody, but i am a 64 year-old anglo-saxon male whose family has been here since 1630, so the demographics almost match. A little time in the pokey for some hayseed from Ohio in trade for Americans being able to know that they won’t be living under a despotic monarchy? You bet! i am not really kidding.