It's Moving Day

This will probably be my last post here at The Cat in the Cabinet. I have launched my own website, The Vintage Word, where I will be able to reach a larger audience and offer business writings as well as the humorous accounts.

Please go to www.thevintageword.com

I will keep this blog alive as long as Google lets me. In the event that they want to remove this blog due to lack of activity, I will just re-post these stories on my website.

The Legacy of the Orange Wonder

If, as Leonardo da Vinci says, "The smallest feline is a masterpiece," then OJ was a ceiling-spanning work of epic proportions. Life to OJ was a big, fat juicy burger with cheese, pickles and special sauce; to be devoured with gusto and lots of napkins. He lived large.

Becoming an indoor cat receiving sub-q fluids was no big deal for him, at first. After all, he was O.J., the Podge, superstar. Rules and diseases did not apply to him. Rule #1 - no cats allowed in the bedroom. As you can see from the picture, not only did he get in the bedroom and on the bed, he got into the absolute geometric center of all the pillows. Rule # 2 - cats are not allowed on the furniture. I don't have the pictures to prove his utter disdain for this rule, but trust me - he got on every piece of furniture in the living room and den. Tables, too. Somehow he knew better than to try the chairs in the dining room, but there were a few mornings when we found him asleep on the dining room table, snoring.

So for awhile, we dealt with it all. Chelsea had to learn to deal with this big oaf galumping all over the house, eating out of all the food bowls and stealing precious lap time. Diablo found a serious playmate in his favorite game of "Let's Run So Loud They Think They're Being Invaded by Elephants!" My petite mother-in-law who lived with us delighted in the purry lap-warmer kneading her arm and making what she called "mushy-mushies."

After the holidays, OJ grew increasingly grumpy whenever it came time for the sub-q. He'd run from me as soon as he saw the bag; I was having to hold him firmly and listen to some really foul language throughout the process. His appetite began to drop off.

I tried to ignore the signs but I'd been down this road before. In March of 2011, he started hanging out by the sliding door. He wanted to go OUT. We started letting him out more and more to spend time with his old buddy, Smokey. This picture doesn't really convey his shrunken frame - he looks fairly normal. But for a cat that had weighed close to 16 pounds, it was now obvious to all of us that his time was winding down. One evening toward the end of March, he told me clearly that he did not want to come inside any more, and I was just going to have to accept it. He still got his fluids, now twice a day, but he returned to his beloved backyard at the end of each ordeal.

This is the last picture we took, on April 12, 2011. Smokey and I knew we had done all that we could as caregivers.

It's hard to say goodbye to a pet for any reason. It's especially hard when they have been with you for such a long time, and have made an indelible impression upon your soul. OJ had such an impact on all of us, both human and feline. I will write another post about Tabitha's astounding reaction to OJ's demise. It threw all of us for a loop.

I'm happy that I can now think back about our time with OJ and smile. We all feel so lucky that he chose us as his family so many years ago. I leave you with a picture that sums up this wonderful cat in so many ways, taken in the summer of 2000. Hakuna Matada! Sleep well, my friend.

Cupid's Arrow

There are over 50 wineries in the Livermore Valley wine region today. In 1995, there were only 15. I had been living in California for 3 years, and I'd been to the Napa wine region multiple times. I'd even visited wineries in Sonoma and the Santa Cruz mountains. All these areas were more than an hour's drive away from my house. The closest Livermore wineries were only 20 minutes away and yet I'd never gone. It's not that I didn't want to go, it just never came up until August of 1995.

I'd been single for awhile and not into dating at all. The last breakup had been hard, and I was still in my "I hate men" stage. I'd been playing third wheel with my closest friends, Barry and Michele, a couple I had met in the summer of '93. We planned to go to the annual Livermore Fall Festival on Labor Day weekend. I was excited to finally explore new wineries so close to home.

Then tragedy struck - Michele's father passed away. He had been ill so it wasn't completely unexpected, but now there was no way for her to attend the event as she would be in southern California with her family. Barry couldn't go with her (work reasons, I think.. hey, this was 16 years ago) and so he figured on going to the festival... did I still want to go?

Every day we make decisions. Some are monumental, life-changing decisions: yes, take the job and move across country. Others, not so: yep, I will have fries with that. Some seem trivial when you make them. It's only years later that you realize just how important that one choice was. "Yes," I told Barry. "I'll go along."

And so I found myself experiencing the tastes and sights of the Livermore wine region on September 3, 1995. We visited Garre (http://garrewinery.com/), which had just opened the weekend before. Also, Cedar Mountain (www.cedarmountainwinery.com) and Concannon (http://www.concannonvineyard.com/). Fenestra (http://fenestrawinery.com/) was our last stop. The picture at the start of this post is of Fenestra.

During the Harvest Festival, each winery offers their own particular spin on crafts, art, music and food for purchase. You might hear bluegrass, see artistic photography and chow down on pulled pork sandwiches at one winery, then catch rock-n-roll, burgers and hand-crafted jewelry at another. It's actually grown a bit too big to be enjoyable nowadays, but in 1995 it was absolutely delightful.

By tasting and not gulping, and by nibbling at each stop, it's not that hard to still be standing after 3 wineries. I was in line for some of the free appetizers when someone who had been drinking WAY too much tried to talk to me about this wonnnnerfulll weenerie we were at. Ugh. I needed an escape route. "Um, thanks..gotta go!" I took my plate and stepped out of line. Mr. Sloshed didn't seem to notice. Whew.

Wine in one hand, munchies in the other, I looked for a group to join. I've never been a wallflower; put a little vino in me and I'm even more chatty. I saw a guy wearing a KKSF Smooth Jazz tee shirt. Hey! I listen to KKSF!

"Where did you get that shirt? Do you like Smooth Jazz, too?"

The guy wearing the shirt smiled. He had a nice smile. His eyes were warm hazel; they were friendly eyes. It turned out that he did like Smooth Jazz. He was with a group of friends, and we were soon talking about all kinds of things - the winery, the wines, the weather. Soon, it was 5pm and the winery was closing. We exchanged phone numbers, said our goodbyes and left.

As Barry and I drove off, I told him "I LIKE that guy." Barry said he seemed nice.

His name was Jim.

I won't go so far as to say it was love at first sight. I was still hurting. Tabitha (my only cat at the time) got her ears talked off for weeks - should I go out with him? Should I try again? And why isn't he calling me anyway?! Our first date happened over a month after we met. And I was the one who called him!

But I did call. And we did go out. And there was a second date.. after Tabitha convinced me to go. Dates led to more dates. Adventures. Carmel. Yosemite. Trips back east to meet parents. Moving in together. We even had a brief breakup. And then finally 15 years later, the flash-mob wedding.

You never know when you'll find love. You may think you're ready. You make think you're not. In the end it doesn't really matter what you think - what really matters is what you feel. Love isn't logical. Love doesn't follow rules. Love just is.

The Lost Journal

I just came across a lost journal. It's a small book; the jacket is made of leather and the front cover is an embossed design of a cat sitting in an old spindle-backed chair. I remember buying this journal at the Dickens Fair (http://dickensfair.com/) in 2002. It would be the last time both of my parents visited me in California but of course I didn't know that at the time.

There are several entries in the journal, all dated 2003. I guess I was always meant to write a blog because that's just what this book contains - random articles about my observations on life and the world around me.

I'll be turning each of these articles into blog posts. Plus - I discovered a list of future topics that I never got around to writing. More fodder for the blogger!

I wonder how many other lost journals are out there?

Flash-mob wedding

I love the concept of flash mobs. I've seen a video where shoppers in a crowded mall at Christmastime are treated to the Hallelujiah Chorus. You can't tell me that those in the audience didn't appreciate it. That song just sends chills down your back no matter what (or lack thereof) religious persuation you happen to follow. (When it's done well, of course. I know that piece very well. Serious challenge for the top-sops - first sopranos).

So when Jim (my now-husband) suggested his idea for our wedding, I was on board 100 percent.

Jim and I met at Fenestra Winery in the fall of 1995. I will write a full-length post about the day we met at another time. For now, it's enough to know that some 15 years later, we were regular visitors to this winery and Jim had gone from a casual, volunteer-paid-with-wine pourer to a regular paid employee who poured there every Sunday. We wanted to get married there, but unlike some of the area wineries, this one didn't really do weddings. The upstairs gathering room was, um - shall we say, rustic. So perfect for tasting. Not so perfect for weddings and all their associated trappings.

This was fine with us. We didn't want the dress, the attendants, the invitations, the cake... no, wait. We wanted the cake. But hey - this was going to be the third time for both of us. Jim suggested that I just show up at the end of the day one Sunday and we could be married then, after they closed. Surprise! The workers always hung out a bit anyways after cleaning up, so we would have a small, intimate gathering. I'd bring my brother and my mother, and we'd have our two closest friends there to stand with us (they'd said long ago that they would do this, if we ever got married). Perfect. They would be the only ones to know. We weren't going to actually tell anyone at the winery that we were doing this. Except for one gal, who was usually off on Sundays. We clued her in so she would pour that day.

For awhile we were stuck on who should actually marry us. We thought about one of the other winery owners who has some sort of "license" to marry people. Then Jim came up with a really great idea - one of the winery's club members was a real minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Oakland. We met with him and explained our plan, and God bless him - he loved it!

We picked a date - January 16, 2011. I selected a cake (pumpkin spice, mmm!) at my favorite local bakery - all natural ingredients. (Bay Area people - it's Amia Bakery in Fremont). We picked out simple rings at a local jeweler. I even found a small bouquet of flowers at a craft shop. Okay, so I guess I wanted some of the trappings... :-) We told my brother a month before; we told my mother a week before that all three of us were going wine-tasting that day. She didn't know a wedding was at the end of the wine-tasting until the day before. It's not like she didn't like Jim, she did. I just didn't want this to become an out-of-control, invite-the-world, twenty-seven-potluck-dish extravaganza.

Januarys in the Bay Area can be windy and rainy, but the 16th was crisp and clear. I picked my brother up at BART, drove over to Livermore to get mom, and off we went. Since no one really likes drunk brides, and besides - I was the driver - we only went to two wineries. It was fun as usual - I really enjoy wine tasting. Then it was time to head over to Fenestra.

The plan had always been to wait until they closed at 5PM. It was a little after 4 when we arrived and the minister was already there, enjoying the fruits of the vine. Our friends came in a few minutes later. Jim was busy - the winery was pretty busy at that point. He winks at me and leans over to Ken, the unofficial tasting room manager, and says, "You always wanted to know if Anita and I were getting married. Well, we are - today!" He went on to tell him not right this second because he could see they were busy, but after 5.

I didn't actually hear this conversation. Jim told me about it later. What I heard was Ken's big booming voice: "Attention! For the second time in the history of the winery, we are having a wedding here today!" There were about 20 customers in the winery at that point, and they all stopped talking. The minister quickly explained that this was only going to take about 10 minutes, Jim came out from behind the counter and joined me and well, - we got married!

We served the cake afterward, paired with one of Fenestra's dessert wines. People kept coming up to us and saying how wonderful it was, and how happy they were that they chose to come to Fenestra that day. One family had relatives in from Wisconsin - "Does this happen all the time around here?"

I don't know if we were the first "flash" wedding at a Livermore winery. But I do know it was very special to Jim and I. And yes - we both wore jeans!

PS. The first wedding at Fenestra? The owner's son got married there some years before.

Full House

As it turned out, having a diabetic cat wasn't all that much trouble at all. I know for a fact that I really "dodged a bullet," as they say because oftentimes, getting a diabetic cat regulated on the right amount of insulin is a frustrating teeter-totter dance for weeks or even months. As I wrote before, we settled in to our 1/2 unit of insulin fairly quickly.

I started letting him outside again, too. He just loved being able to snooze in the sunshine, or on the patio chair, or in his Cat-loo (don't you EVER say "Dog-loo" around him). Hmm. Cat-loo sounds like a bathroom. Whatever. One of those Igloo-themed houses for canines. You pet owners know what I mean.

September arrived and I could sense something wasn't quite right. OJ's appetite was diminishing and his fur was getting rough. I was expecting to hear we needed to up the dosage of insulin. What I didn't expect was the diagnosis of CRF, or chronic renal failure. We didn't know exactly how old he was but had been going by the rough assumption that he was about a year or two old when he first showed up. This would make him 12-14 years old. CRF in a cat of this age was hardly unusual; what was unusual was that the diabetes had reverted. My vet had told me that this sometimes happens. The animal ends up being too sick to have diabetes. I know. It doesn't quite make sense to me either.

But that was where we found ourselves just a little over a year ago. OJ was now a "kidney cat" and had to get sub-q fluids at least once a day. The insulin was no longer needed.

I made him an indoor cat, with only brief supervised visits outside. He didn't seem to mind. In fact, I think he liked all the attention he got. He quickly made himself at home and soon found out that laps were things to be sought out and claimed. My other two indoor kitties, a brother and sister pair I'd had since their birth 14 years ago were quite tolerant. They'd known OJ nearly all their lives.

My house was full: three cats and four adults. If I wasn't at work, I was at the grocery store or pet store. Safeway gave me a titanium-level rewards card (kidding!). Petsmart was on speed-dial (not kidding).

Looking back one year later, I wouldn't have given up a single day of it.

Two? Seriously?!

I began this blog with high expectations. I never intended to write two posts and then disappear.

But that's what happened. I don't imagine I'm all that different from a lot of folks. We all begin things (diets, jobs, marriages) with the best of intentions. "This is IT!" we tell ourselves. We're really going to do it this time.

And then ... we don't.

There have been thousands of books and seminars written about self-motivation, getting back to doing whatever it was, etc. I'm not about to turn this blog into another one. What I am going to do is do what I intended in the first place, namely - write a blog. I still have lots of stories to tell, even more than ever before.

Let's get started.