#A-TO-Z CHALLENGE 2016 – LETTER ”M” FOR MAMA, CAT MATRIARCH, IN MEMORIAM

It's with sadness that I write this post and highly ironic, for I've sung Mama's praises to the skies since the day she allowed me to be her friend and it took a long time for that to come to pass. Mama died recently after a long and fruitful life. She originally adopted JC, and actually, it's been one year today, since JC's passing, so that too is ironic. I'm not a person who believes in coincidences, or anything of the sort, but she had been JC's cat, and I worried about her after he died. Alex said she's with Jim now. Yes, in some highly disordered form, I guess.

Speaking of highly disordered form; there is no perspective here, but near as I can figure out, I am behind here, on my bed, and that's a map of the us of a on my computer monitor. I have no clue what I was going for here.

Yet, she was so affectionate and even closer to me than she was to him. However, about six months ago, she came down with Distemper and being elderly and having lived most of her life on the streets, she never really came back from it. Outdoor cats have a hard life and she really could not adjust to becoming an all-the-way indoor cat, which is what I would have preferred and once JC died, I had to keep the doors locked all the time – even THAT didn't stop two idiots from getting in, while I was sleeping, woe unto them. Mama ended up crafting her own little pet door in a window screen, so she could come and go as she please. It was perfect.

She spent lots of time indoors, and followed me all around, and when I sat on the porch, she sat on the porch with me. She had two older sons that would come and visit; they looked like her, just so much bigger. Mama was never a big cat, but she had such distinctive markings; such as I had never seen on a cat before. I guess as old Leonardo da Vinci said, “The smallest of the felines is a masterpiece!”, I take it to mean both in the general and the specific. But all of the felines are, big and small.

Gotta love essential tremor. I was asked "is it REALLY essential, why is it called that?" I thought for 5 seconds and my head exploded. Some dumb neurological term. "Dystonia" is muscle cramps. Every picture I take looks like art from the Impressionist Period.

She had her funny ways and ways to drive me crazy. When she was healthier, she played a lot with her toys and would tear around my little apartment and she could literally bounce from the bed into the kitchen, or from the bed into the living room. A friend, Nancy Cooper sent her some artisanal catnip mice and she went crazy over those. One disappeared, as such things often do.

She could be a little con-artist, too, as most cats can be. I was trying to get her to eat a good dry food and for the longest time, she acted like she hated it. So, I was buying her Friskies and feeding her this stuff, which wasn't really that good for her. This went on for a couple of weeks and I cut back on the Friskies, because it was getting expensive. I walked into my kitchen one Sunday and here she was, happily munching on her dry food. She looked up and the look was priceless: “Oooh, I am soooo busted.” I turned and walked out of the kitchen and she came running after me, hollering about how lousy that dry food was.

This looks like a graphics "feature" in Runescape3, where everyone's head melted for a few weeks. Good times. Good times. She shook her head JUST as I clicked the clicker.

But, she had a really wonderful thing that she did. I have 2 towers made out of milk crates on either side of my blogging chair. One holds a board and a mousepad on the right, and the other, on the left, holds a land-line phone, or a laptop. I have two computers in front of me, side by side. Mama would jump up on the right-hand side and “rest” on my mouse pad, or hand and gradually creep her way up my arm.

She's just starting to work her way up my arm. . .

Now this is a cat that I couldn't even look at without scaring 4 years or so ago, and we had gotten to the point, where she had to have some part of her on me, at all times, while she was in the house, or would lie down between my feet. She also slept with me, sort of.

What she mostly did was walk around on my head, knead in my hair, or with her tiny, less-than-dime-sized feet, stand in my ear. Or I'd feel little feet walking all over my face. But, her most endearing quality was when she would sit on my mouse pad, and reach out with one dainty paw and make me look at her. She would look into my eyes and she seemed to show such love and gratitude that she had a home. I will never forget that, ever. Animals grace us with our present and I was gifted with that grace beyond anything I ever hoped to see from her.

. . . Slowly creeping upward. My only regret is that I never was able to get a decent shot of her reclining on my entire forearm. That was pretty funny. She will be missed. Rest well, Mama, my heart!

I haven't said much, only very close friends like Jeremy Doll who is a fellow Leader of SpiritZ and horse enthusiast and all-around animal lover and such a good person, and Alex Cavanaugh and my Aunt Lande. “She was such a nice cat.”, Jeremy said. And that she was. In all the time she was with us, she never scratched, or bit and never got angry or irritated, she was just such a wonderful being. It was hard for me to fathom that someone had abused her, but she was blind in her right eye, and it wasn't from a cat-fight. I know what that looks like. She would occasionally get scared of the kids playing next door and hide behind the toilet and I'd go and take her some sardines.

Alex and I knew she was going to die and I was in West Palm Beach when it happened. My better 2/3, was all for packing up and driving to Tampa, when Alex called. I thought on it for a while, but said, “No. The offer is so lovely, but it's okay. You care. That is all that matters.” I called Alex back and he agreed. She was put lovingly to rest and will never be forgotten. The really wonderful thing is this; Her progeny gave birth to some more of her progeny, and I will have two little great x infinity grandbabies to keep me busy. Kittens are fun, but these will be indoor kittehs, except for playdates with Oso!

BEGINNING 09/23/2013 - PERFECTION CHALLENGED BOOK PROMOTION

There are some reasons I have this picture of the beautiful Jade Kerrion and her books where I would normally display #ROW80. First, there's no #ROW80 going on, although when I first started #ROW80, I just kept on going. Second, when I uploaded the HTML code, for the images you see to the right there, I found this peculiar box, that could mean any sorts of things, and being me, I began to play, um fix. I discovered that the reason the picture does not display is that that is the equivalent of a “404, not found.” Rather like my head. I isolated the part of the code that was throwing the “404” error, and pasted that link into a new browser window. The picture you see up there is what came up, along with the “404” error. I made a note and emailed Jade. When the Magic Blog Fairy sets things a-right, it will be fixed. It wasn't the code; Jade sent me EARLIER a copy of the the book cover reveal she wished to be used in place of “404. Page Not Found." So, yeah, let's call it a "404-PEBCAK error. Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.” I will honestly look for any pretext no matter how slight to get under the hood, when it comes to anything regarding systems, networking, applications and programming. Just keep the hardware away from me. I did make a copy and paste of the URL to get the image you see above; I would NEVER under any circumstances, touch anyone's code without their permission.

This is the scroll and serif of my viola, Wolf. Wolf was "born" in 1836, just 10 years after the death of Beethoven. I've had him since I was 19 and have never played another viola since, unless it was upon invitation of another player, who wanted to play Wolf. He was made by Guidantus Florenus and is of the Bolognese school of fiddle makers, not the Stradivari and Amati and Guarneri houses. At 15 7/8" which is small for a viola, he's got a huge sound. He was named by a luthier up in Royal Oak Michigan when I had work done on him. Nobody touches him but me, capisce? It's like computers, or workmen and their tools, ask first. I wouldn't have cared if it had been freakin' Jascha Heifitz; ask first.

It is axiomatic among musicians, computer engineers, writers, that OTHER PEOPLE KEEP THEIR GODDAMNED MITTS OFF MY STUFF! I came out of the ladies' room, during a break when I was in one of the nameless thousands of symphony orchestras I played in, to find a Russian woman, who had played in the first violin section of the Cleveland Orchestra, playing Wolf. I almost punched her in the eye. I don't get on other people's computers unless I've been given permission and only for repairs. I don't change what people write; that is the intellectual property of someone else. I certainly don't play other people's instruments, unless invited to do so.

The other reason, I must admit, is I am lazy and as per usual, it got hectic around here; when doesn't it? JC was supposed to have his wrist operated on for squamous cell cancer on Thursday, and the supplemental insurance company that provides the rides, never showed up. So, we have to reschedule that, which is so hard on him. He hates the waiting and is understandably frightened. He has a low pain threshold, but he wants it over with as well. We called 3 times, and no one ever showed up. I hate this. When did the world become so careless? After 7 weeks of wrangling with my psychiatrist's office, supplemental insurance office, pharmacy and drug-maker, I am finally back on my anti-depressant, Cymbalta, since Friday. I hope it works because, Damn! I am sick and tired of crying all the time over what seems to be nothing.

I understand that no one has a perfect life, that there are always bumps and stumbles and just plain driving off cliffs, intentionally or not. But there have been times recently, when just every stupid, malicious, mendacious and cowardly act has come back to haunt me. Is it because I've been depressed? Probably. Is it helping me now? Not one bit. Fuck guilt. At some point, after all the maudlin wallowing and all the mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, you have to suck it up and get back up on that horse.

Yeah, I am so so sorry, I smoked for about 30 years, but I am not nearly as bad off as my mom. Could I have done things differently? Why even ask. Everyone has things they wish they hadn't done. What I have to do now, is to keep going. And that has been the biggest hurdle for me, over the last 1 and 1/2 years. Since I have my psychotic break, and had to deal with tremors and weird sensations, numbness, loss of sense of smell, drooling. I've been legally blind for almost 10 years now and I don't even count that a deficit anymore. It's the recent stuff. The stuff that's slippery and hard to define.

I have horrible problems with my sugar dropping quickly, precipitously and within 20 minutes, to the point of dementia. One night I was here blogging, and I looked at Gina Valley's smiling face and saw God. For real. I knew it was time for some OJ. I know how to keep it from dropping, but now it spikes high, higher than it ever has been. 335, 158, 150, 168. WTF? What do I do to counteract that? Eat salt? Buy a salt lick? A bit more sinister, my white blood cell count is high, not high enough to think leukemia, or non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but something else. Having worked in a teaching hospital 35 years ago gives one just enough knowledge to put me firmly in the trenches with all the other hypochondriacs.

Comparing my past blood tests with ABC blood test Company (highly researched) all of my -cytes and various -leukos and trilobytes are just a teeny hair off, until we run into eosiniphils. Oops. I guess I've spent wayyy too much time out of country. Of course, RBC is practically in the negative range, because, redheads are almost always anemic and I have fought that since forever. Scratching around in my chart, which is conveniently online (what asshole thought that was a good idea? Oh! I know! Someone who clearly has no idea about how computers and networking works, and that people like me exist) I also discovered that I carry the diagnosis: childhood failure to thrive.

That has got to be the single most depressing thing I've ever read about myself. Maybe that will teach people like me to keep my nose out of places it doesn't belong. It is true; I was a preemie, in the days that few survived, but not by much. I spent 2 weeks in an egg crate I guess, before my dad took me home, as my mother went back to work. He took me to class, the bar (where I learned to walk) and took good care for me. He was the ever-patient father. If I started to fuss and squawl during his studying, he just fired up the record player, either some Big Band stuff, or more likely, Beethoven and an-ever growing list of classical music from Johann Strauss to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. A lot of you know the rest, so maybe I should just be damned glad I've had the life I've had, and shut up already. I've got the coolest friends on the planet, so, I know I still have lots to do yet. My bucket list is to visit these mega-talented people, in no particular order, ANDI-ROO, GINA VALLEY, AMBERR MEADOWS, AARON BRINKER, NEYSKA, CATERUSSELL-COLE, ALBERTA ROSS, ROBERT LEE HAYCOCK, Baking-in-a-Tornado, Sundae Rye, YumaBev, Nancy Cooper, Cyndee Bowen, That DJPARIS guy, (who has apparently been booted from some kind of men's support group--sounds like me) and a bunch of other people that I just can't think of right now. They are probably heaving a sigh of relief. A visit from me is like a visit from a batch of confused Mongols, only slightly more polite; emphasis on the slightly. Nancy is about the only one of this fine batch of folks who blog and write books for a living who does not have a blog, but she is a first-rate writer and a wonderful, dear friend.

Anyway, while I was tap-dancing through whatever that was, Jade and I were emailing back and forth madly (okay, it was one email and an answer.) She had already sent me a picture of PERFECTION UNLEASHED. I uploaded it and away it went! Her books are awesome. She is awesome! For the next week, starting tomorrow, to help Jade Kerrion celebrate and launch the release of the FOURTH book in her DOUBLE HELIX SERIES, I will be posting a couple of the interviews that she put together. One is with the author, Jade, and the other is with Zara Itani, one of the stars of the DOUBLE HELIX series.

When I read the interviews, I was originally asked to choose one, but was so taken with both, I asked Jade if I may run them both. She readily agreed and for more than one or two days. I hope you have as much fun reading them as I did, and don't hesitate to leave comments for her. All of her contact info is to the right of this post – I've “tailored,” (read mutilated) this template so many times, we're lucky to have words to read. You also have the chance to purchase her e-books .99 (discounted from 2.99.)

Congratulations and kudos are due Jade. She is a marvelous writer and a wonderful person and I wish her every success in her book launch and subsequent blog and book tours.