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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Lucy — 1993 - 2010

“Laughing and crying ... it’s the same release.”

—Joni Mitchell, “People’s Parties” (from Court & Spark)

“Even when you look for [weirdness], you’re never prepared for it.”

—Hobbes the tiger



What a long, strange trip it’s been.

I had been remarking of late that I hardly saw family anymore. It seemed like everyone was either sick, hundreds of miles away, or flown from this mortal plane. I needed to see people. I needed to feel love and life. And what better time to see people than the weekend of my twenty-fourth birthday. My cousin was in town, and we would get to see a couple of lesser-known-to-me relatives in Arlington Heights, as well as a couple of long-time-unseen family friends. And that’s not to leave out some family quadrupeds — Dinah and Stella from downstate, Tazzy and K.C. in the suburbs.........and Lucy.

We talked; we laughed; we smiled; we ate; we caught the end of a rare Cubs victory; all was good.

It’s always abrupt.

I neither heard the cry nor saw the break. For a little while, we all thought everything was fine and all was clear for the consumption of Princess Torte. Then we decided we should check on her.

A forearm should not bend like that when she walks.

The emergency vet’s diagnosis and our resulting decision thwacked me like a one-two punch. How the heck could she get stuck in a chair she should know so well? Had she really been that sick this last week?

It was a bizarre and surreal moment when she came in for the last time, wrapped in a towel with an IV through a bandage on her other leg. She clearly wanted to drift to sleep as we snuggled and admired her one last time. Curiously, she had not shown signs of being in pain since the original cry. I remained fixed on her.

This was more than a house pet; this was the lone representative of my whole conscious life to this moment.


Lucy was adopted as a kitten by my grandmother Lila in 1993, as was her twin brother, Linus. I was in second grade at the time. When Lila died the following year, my uncle Jim took up the young felines. For a few years in the middle, Jim had his own place in the suburbs, and so that’s where Linus and Lucy went. The rest of the time, everyone stayed with Lori......and Loki and Abby.

Lucy tended to take a back seat to the other cats. Loki was the alpha, and he and Abby ruled the upstairs. Of the two “Van Pelts,” Linus, being bigger and more sociable, got the lion’s share of, well, most things. This may explain the distaste that Lucy expressed toward the other cats. But I gave Lucy as much attention as I gave anyone. She was primarily Jim’s cat; anyone else had to specifically look for her if they wanted to see her.

I couldn’t resist that eternally youthful kitten face. She didn’t seem to think me too shabby myself. She was the most enthusiastic of the four about claiming me as hers. The more enthusiastic the rubs and snuggles, the better, I say.

I kind of figured she would outlast all the others — the others being two diabetic big boys and a lady some three-and-a-half years her elder. By the time Jim died, Loki and Abby, the kittens of 89, had also gone, granting the “Van Pelts” the whole house. Lucy’s behavior changed from that point: she became more social, stopped hissing at her brother, and, for some reason, stopped grooming herself. I didn’t think to call her a “Rastafurrian” at the time; I just thought of it now. Anyway, I spent a few hours over time attempting to comb some of the mats out of her fur. She was quite resistant to that the first few times, but I believe she came to realize that it was a “necessary evil,” and so I could get away with it while she napped.

Lucy changed her behavior still when Linus departed. The spotlight was all hers now, and she claimed it calmly, quietly, and gracefully, although one person whose bedroom she now shared would beg to differ about the “quietly” part. She’d get a bit bossy after a while, and, out of the blue, she’d pick up some of Linus’s old tricks. Also, for no apparent reason, she would soak the underside of her face in her water (a long time habit of Dinah the dog, from whose schnauzer beard water drips all over the floor).

That cat had brains. She and I could communicate, and I swear she figured out how to open the basement door.

For about seventeen years out of my twenty-four, Lucy remained, a consistent sweetheart and an anchor to the best of my days.


As we drove back home, just after midnight, I could momentarily see, between the tears, a full (?) moon masked by lightly hazy clouds. I think there was one small lightning fork beneath it as we came down McCormick. I don’t know if it means anything, but it seems somehow poetic.

Lucy changed her behavior with each close death. Now, with Lucy’s passing, perhaps it’s my turn to change behavior just a bit.




Lucy, exact date unknown, 1993 – June 28, 2010.

Rest in peace, my Angel.





(This is my final photograph of Lucy, taken on May 31, 2010.)

Thursday, June 10, 2010

I need food to give me energy to open a jar of food.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Idea For a Corona Ad

For those who haven't seen the Twilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder": SPOILER ALERT! (You can look it up on YouTube and watch it before you read on.)

And for those who haven't seen the Corona beer ads on TV here in the States, they tend to base themselves on dialogue-less perspective tricks using the Corona bottles at a relaxed scene on a beach. And the more recent ones involve a couple on the beach (shot from behind) silently going at each other for ogling passing members of the other sex.

Anyway, my idea: Start with that same scene of the couple in their chairs. The camera zooms in kind of semi-slowly on one of the Corona bottles. Eventually, it gets too close and knocks it over. A voice says "Oops!" The camera zooms back out. The couple simultaneously turn their heads to glare at the camera, and it is here that they turn out to have the sort of faces that the majority of the people in the "Eye of the Beholder" world have.