BlogOfParadox

Junior is about 7-10 days behind the Wallcats, but he’s bigger by far than any of the others. He’s a polydactyl black-n-white emo kid with a fierce white goatee and fingerless gloves. His head is football-shaped, even Stewie Griffin-ish, and he has striking white whiskers in every direction. He and Puff will be heading to their forever home in mid-May.

Sad Ending to Zeta’s story:read more

Zeta was a beautiful calico with a sweet disposition and a thoroughly endearing habit of sucking on a foot to fall asleep. She was fond of sleeping in impossible, hilarious positions, even with her mouth wide open. We’re told Zeta was more of a cuddle-kitty than a rambunctious adventurer, and that definitely goes along with my personal experience with her (she crawled onto my chest and dozed off immediately). Zeta passed away on April 26.

Both of these kids’ll come home with us on my birthday, officially Best Caturday in History.

For those of you who only read my blog, I owe you a story. Until then, allow me to sum up: a crazy feral  mamacat climbed 10′ UP along our HVAC duct to bear kittens in our attic. The space would’ve been ideal kittennest, save for the steep drop-off that allowed tiny kittens to fall down into the loadbearing walls in our house. All five were rescued; four on Sunday, one on Wednesday. Our walls are tewtally ghetto-fabulous right now, but what matters most is this story has a happy ending. All these kittens are thriving with a surrogate mama, and all but one (a wee loudmouth dilute tortie/calico, who will come back to her original home) will be available for adoption.

Someone’s already called dibs on the wee Siamese one with a raccoon tail, but there’s a wee tortie/calico (who sucks her/his foot to go to sleep), a grey tabby (first out of the wall, brave explorer) and a brown tabby (so handsome!!) They’re all ridiculously cute.

LeeAnn (who works with In Defense of Animals’ Mississippi program PROJECT HOPE) says that if you choose to adopt a Wallcat, Junior (the black and white) or Hemi (mamacat) via IDA, your donation covers your cat’s spay/neuter, their first round of shots, AND helps needy animals in Mississippi. That’s a crazy deal

Adoption fees via IDA are

• $75 for one beloved cutiepie
• $100 for two (don’t you want two? You know you want two!!)

You can contact me at wallcats@birdofparadox.com for more information.

You can check out Project Hope’s blog to see what they do, but warning: there are some really sad cases.

Wallcats from Matthew Glover on Vimeo.

Jack came home with me in the summer of 1992. I fell in love with the little guy when my aunt showed us her cat’s new kittens. He was stubbular, round-eyed and looked like his belly might burst from glutting himself on milk. Even as a kitten, his paws were ENORMOUS. He looked like he was wearing fuzzy slippers. I smuggled him home tucked inside my sports bra, thinking it was far better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Jack would follow you like a dog all over the house, but was afraid of strangers. As soon as the doorbell rang, he would hide under my parents’ bed until the coast was clear, sometimes staying for hours after guests had left. My grandmother never laid eyes on Jack except for pictures.

Jack lived to bite string and wire. He also enjoyed asparagus and fresh herbs. He was a mean drunk when it came to catnip. He liked escaping the house and going on adventures, much to my chagrin. Jack loved being petted: he’d demand attention by body-checking your shins and love-biting any dangling or convenient part of your body. Until his older years, he particularly liked being pet like a dog. He’d dig his claws into the back of the couch for stability, and purr with his mouth open as you aggressively raked your hands from the scruff of his neck to his tail. When Matthew and I got married, we marveled at how similar Jack’s body language was to that of the great cats we saw in Vegas. He was just as regal, slinky, playful and tough as any tiger.

When Mom died, Jack came to live with me full time. He spent two months under the bed, eating and using the litterbox only when I brought them to him. One day, he emerged from his hiding place to rejoin the world, and has been an incredibly personable, even boisterously friendly cat.  He soon discovered he loved crowds, and especially women. He particularly liked it when women would drape his cookie-sized paws over their shoulder and allow him to stand on their cleavage. I like to think that was his favorite way to ride around because that’s how he came into my life.

Jack had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. From the time he woke up in the morning until he settled into the crow’s nest on the cat tree, he was treated like a prince. He dined on turkey, asparagus, cheese, fresh cream and tuna. We bustled through the kitchen more carefully, allowing him to ankleshark as we worked. I even “dropped” a few morsels for him to greedily “steal,” so he would feel like his careful plots to trip us worked to his advantage.

His breathing became rapid Thursday night, which meant fluid was building up around his heart, hindering his breathing. When I woke up to check on him early Friday morning, his breathing was so shallow, we knew the time had come. I’d hoped to avoid the vet, but he had to take one last car trip. He didn’t flirt with the vet techs, which is a big sign of how poorly he was feeling.  When we were ready, I draped Jack over my shoulder and let him stand on my cleavage for the last time.

Jack was such a “big” cat, personality-wise. The whole house feels colder and a little empty without him. It’s likely I’ll never have another asparagus-eating, ass-biting, dog-chasing cat. It’s a certainty there’ll never be another cat quite like Jack. He was a fierce defender, a sexy beast, an adept nad-stomper, a gracious host, a devoted omnivore, a jewelry thief, and a mildly sadistic lover of humans. Jack taught me that you get what you give out of a relationship with an animal, and how earning a cat’s trust and respect is a humbling and prideful matter.

Writing this makes me even more aware that I haven’t written about Mau. It’s still difficult to talk about, but I need to do it. Royalty deserve good eulogies.

I’ve not been talkative of late. I’ve had some introspective-thinky incidents, and a great deal of work to do. When I get bogged down like this, I generally retreat into a carefully constructed hole of meaningless diversion. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.

This time, it’s different. There’s so much effort and thought that goes into planning an Anusara-style class, and that work keeps you grounded and completely, uncomfortably, unflinchingly involved in the guts of living. We theme our classes; not only physically, but emotionally. It’s like theatre without the comforting veneer of character. If your heart’s not in your theme, if you’re not engaged with the material, you come across as full of shit. No one wants to be called on their bullshit when they’re surrounded by a bunch of buff people who know how to bend themselves (and YOU) in terrible configurations.

So the practice keeps me focused and present, even when I’d rather be staring at YouTube or cleaning the tile with a toothbrush. The teaching digs more deeply than the practice, and while my physical progress is best measured in micrometers, I feel like I’m making some serious head&heart-way.

It’s no surprise Sarah Palin disgusts me: her lying, hypocrisy, ethics, and opinions on reproductive rights can send me into furious, hour-long rants; much less her piss-poor understanding environmental stewardship, her belief that God cares a lot more about war and oil than social programs, and her ignorance to the vital role community organizers play in our society.  I could easily write an essay, but I won’t.

Anything else I say will detract from my main message, which is that there’s a way for you to voice your disappointment/rage/frustration in a constructive way.

There is an online grassroots movement (GO COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS!!) urging people to donate to Planned Parenthood “in honor of” Sarah Palin.

Craig Newmark (yes, Craigslist Craig) writes on The HuffPo:

When you make a donation to PP in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor.  Here’s the link to the Planned Parenthood website:

https://secure.ga0.org/02/pp10000_inhonor

You’ll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the “in Sarah Palin’s honor” card. I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is:

McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street
1st Floor
Arlington , VA 22202

P.S. Make sure you use that link above or choose the pulldown of Donate–Honorary or Memorial Donations, not the regular “Donate Online”

In my opinion, this is using the full snark of the Internet for the highest good.  I would be thrilled if it came to be that Sarah Palin was responsible for the largest online fundraiser for Planned Parenthood.

I’m beat, so I’m going to link over to Matthew’s post.

June 15, 2008
Shortest Hobby Ever
Filed under: parkour — mglover @ 6:52 pm

Yesterday morning a bunch of us planned to get together and make our first real foray into parkour training.  While sitting around waiting for the others to show up, I jokingly posted to twitter: Waiting around for the other wannabe traceurs. On the menu: rolls, speed vaults, turn vaults, kongs, precision jumps, and emergency rooms.

Let me tell you, as I lay in the emergency room, the bone in my shin exposed to open air, that joke was hilarious.

I’m fine.  It was a stupid fluke accident.  I encountered a wall about waist high, put my hands on it, vaulted over it, and as I landed on the other side, the top tier of concrete blocks came free and landed on my left shin and foot.  It looked and felt really, really bad.  Luckily I was running with Billy.  He sprinted back to where we’d left the cars, rushed me to the emergency room, saw to it that I got admitted right away, and called everybody who needed calling.  He also waited throughout the day to make sure I was okay, then gave Deirdra a ride to get the things we needed for an overnight hospital stay.  He was a real hero.

It turned out that it badly lacerated the flesh of my shin, did some minor damage to a tendon, but no harm to the bone.  At the hospital they gave me a tetanus shot, antibiotics, painkillers, x-rays, and eventually put me under so they could clean out the wound and piece me back together.  I spent the night and got released this morning with a keen pair of crutches and a nifty mug.  I go back in a week so the doc can see how I’m healing and what needs doing next.  It looks like I’ll be okay, in time.  The doctors were very reassuring.  I’ll probably be taking a few days off work to recuperate, but I’ll be online here and there.

I wanna thank Billy, Marg, John, Ashley, Michael, Sifu, Katie, and all the countless people who called, wrote, and offered to help.  You guys are awesome.  Most of all, I want to thank my wife.  She made sure the doctors and nurses did their jobs, went to get me food when I was starving, sat up with me when I couldn’t sleep and needed painkillers, and generally made herself sick with worry and caregiving.  She puts up with my stubbornness and without her, I’d be…well, I’d really rather not contemplate it.  She hasn’t yet beat me up for getting myself hurt.  I think that says it all.

My wish for each and every one of you: May you never have to see the bones of someone you love.

I know Mister Jack Jackity Jack Jack Attack (once and future) Fattycat is feeling a bit more like himself: he managed to jump from the kitchen floor to the countertop, and was thoroughly scouring the last place he saw me with cheese.

We sat together and watched Obama make his “Presumptive Nominee” speech in MN, and my old man purred loudly.  It doesn’t surprise me: as a personable skinny Tuxedo cat with big ears and a funny name, they have a more than a bit in common.

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

I wrote this more than two months before it was “due,” but it required some editing after this weekend.

It’s been three years since we were married, and about six since we started dating, or whatever it was we thought we were doing.  I have a husband who is often quite introspective, and often distractedly hyper-focused, but loves hugely. I am so full-heartedly grateful to have this wonderful partner, who grows with me and respects the things that nourish me.  I am so glad to have this man who keeps my crazy at bay with all of his reason, sensibility and compassion. I am so darned lucky to have someone who can make me laugh embarrassingly loudly at semi-inappropriate times; because one day when I am ancient and do not care at all what people think, I will still be laughing. I am so lucky to have a partner who has wholeheartedly embraced the furry clan I brought into our marriage, and doubly lucky to have married someone willing to medicate such a fearsome, toothsome beast as old man Jack (The Anniversary Miracle!)

You’re an inspiring, brilliant, thoughtful and loving man, and you make me strive to be a better person.

Happy Anniversary, one day late.