Farewell Paisano!

I had my cat put to sleep today at the ASPCA, actually he has been my mom's cat for quite some time. The cat was breathing faintly and he would have been mistaken for dead when I got to my mom's to pick him and her up. As we watched the veterinarian give him his final shot, a memory collage pasted on mind. Paesano was 22 years old. I got him when I was in Dallas. I was going to Dallas Community College and working at the housing authority at the time. One of my coworkers, while on his way to work, saw some kids throwing rocks at a kitten. He brought the kitten to work and as we stood around wondering who would take him, the cat walked up to me, curled up between my feet and put his head on my shoe. In a room full of cat lovers, he chose me; the guy who's first cat ran away while driving him to his new home (whole other blog), the guy who had a cat that had not been seen for the full six months in his care and was living rapped around the cathode tube of his console TV.
From the first night, Paesano was piss and vinegar. An orange and white tiger striped cat that decided me going to bed was cause for him to go all 'Fantastic Voyage' and to try to climb into my mouth. I closed my bedroom door and he meowed all night to get in; I'd get up, he'd stop meowing, I'd go to bed and the meowing would start. I chased him around the apartment, but he thought it was a game.
The second night I named him Paesano after he sat in my lap and help me finish off a bowl of baked ziti. He quickly learned to eat from a fork and preferred human food to the Science Diet I had been feeding him.

A month after I got him, I came home from work to find him chasing Doogie, the irradiated cat that lived behind the TV, around the apartment, before I could even close the door, Doogie went whizzing by me and out the door.  Paesano stood in the doorway taunting him. Amazingly, Doogie looked like a cat that lived on a TV tube.  His hair was sparse and he looked emaciated, even though I know he ate the food that I left on the side of the TV for him, it was the only time I would see him. The next time Paesano or I would see Doogie would be a year and a half later outside the window of the apartment. I assume it was Doogie, it was a beautiful healthy cat but I was sure it was him.
Paesano, as I said, was piss and vinegar. He would jump on the top of my shower door only to lean over and whack me in the head, while I washed my hair. He could jump incredibly high and loved to play and get into trouble. He was incredibly skilled at opening the garbage can and getting any leftovers out of it.
When I left Texas to move back to NJ, the Veterinarian gave me sleeping pills, to give Paesano, for the plane ride. I gave him one when we got to the airport. This little runt of a cat began meowing like crazy, long MEEEEOOOOOOWWWWs. I gave him a second one before getting on the plane. He sat in a carrier beneath my seat for a good ten minutes, when the lady next to me started sneezing like crazy. Of course, even though I purchased the space under my seat for Paesano, the airline put a lady who was allergic to cats next to me. Just as she leans over and says, “I never sneeze like this unless there is a cat around.”, The supposedly knocked out cat's response was, “Meeeeoooooowwww”. I talked to the stewardess and got the lady a different seat, the meows grew steadily louder and longer during the flight.
My first night in NJ, Paesano decided to get payback on me, for drugging him, and peed on my head repetitively while I was trying to sleep. He held grudges like that. When I moved out, my mom kept Paesano. At her house, he raised three dogs and two cats, he outlived all but one dog.
Everyone loved Paesano, he had attitude, personality and though a runt, never backed down from another animal. He would jump out windows, over railings, up Christmas trees or anywhere else he felt like. He was the first cat my children ever saw. After twenty two years, he was the last attachment I had to my previous single life.
Now he's gone. I watched as he took his final breath on a metal table, much like the one that Connie, my dog was put to sleep on several years ago.

Good-bye Paisano, you will be missed.

There She Is And There She Goes.

I watched Miss America tonight with the girls. The scary part was listening to my thirteen year old proclaim, “It's much more fun watching the 2 year-old pageants.  If your still doing it at this age, your not very bright.”. I wish I could say that I didn't agree. When I was younger, the Miss America Pageant actually meant something, now it just stands for years of child abuse and mothers vicariously living through their daughters.

I'm not saying the Miss America Foundation doesn't do a lot of really good work, just that the pageant itself has become, well, boring and too political. Asking a pageant contestant the merits of universal health care is like staring at a balloon and expecting it to explain Einstein's theories. It may look pretty, but if your expecting to hear more than the escape of air from inside, you'll be disappointed.

I may just be bitter, because I picked Miss Kentucky to win and felt she was the prettiest from the semi-final round on up. Her Evening gown and talent portions were average, but should you really judge these women on talent? I joked with the girls that there would be a ventriloquist, isn't there always? Strangely the contestant who did ventriloquism this year was actually the best in show, hands down (pardon the pun.).

When I was younger, every year, we would look to Atlantic City to find out who the prettiest young woman in America was going be and to hear Burt Parks sing, “Here She is Miss America.”. Now, thanks, in part to reality TV, the magic is gone. I wish it was just me who saw the wizard's feet under the curtain, but even at eight, Lizzy was not impressed.

I think the only thing the pageant has going for it, is the whole 'train wreck'-like quality. It keeps you tuned in, hoping that something goes right in a sea of everything going wrong. Tonight, what happened in Vegas probably should have stayed in Atlantic City.

Two -isms

Someone asked me how I can be so cynical and yet so happy all of the time. I think it is a strange optimism. I expect the best out of everyone and everything and when the notion gets shattered by reality, as it always does, a part of me drifts on the winds of cynicism. It doesn't make me any less happy, cynicism can be quite gratifying. I'm like a puppy that gets upset at the ball when someone puts it under the cup only to pee myself in excitement when the cup is moved.

The other reason I am usually happy, is the fact that I choose to be so. Too many people wake up in the morning and curse life. I wake up and taunt death. No really, I actually do. Some of my more recent taunts have been leaning over the edge of the steps to put up a smoke alarm before my first cup of coffee and frying a pound of bacon and waving the incredible aroma in death's face while finishing off every last piece, all the while, humming, “You can't have any!”.

My optimism is undying, “next time”, I think only to realize next time is a permanent expression. I commuted to New York City for thirteen years. If that didn't dampen my optimism, nothing will. When Frankie said, “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”, I think people misunderstood him. He was actually saying if you could physically get there during rush hour, there was no place on earth safe from you.

I digress.

Why am I always happy? I pay attention. Life has always provided great amusement. Sometimes I play the hero and other times the clown. I don't take the time to worry which one or when. I just go with flow and enjoy. I can always look back on my life at the times when I thought I couldn't go on; time and understanding have always healed my wounds and proven me wrong. I am optimistic that going forward will not be any different. Being happy is a state of mind, being disappointed is a condition of life, being able to navigate the valleys in between, well, that's where I use cynicism to be my guide.

Not So! Artistic Thursday.

I haven't been dating much lately. One of the reasons is that the Co-op has been a mess and I really would be embarrassed to bring someone home to it. In fact my project this past week was to redecorate my den and this week, it is to clean the place from top to bottom. I swore when I moved in that I would have a minimalist existence. Epic fail! Unfortunately, what I didn't count on was all of the stuff I owned being extremely in excess of the room I have. I quickly realized I was trying to fit ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag.

The problem I've had up until now was that most of the stuff I have is in good working order, I just don't need it anymore. I tried to donate it, but the places I've gone to don't take electronics or cables or the other various crap that I'm trying to get rid of. I usually (read almost always) hate to throw good things out,but I have backed myself into a corner and six bags later, I'm seeing progress. Some lucky curb candier or dumpster diver will hopefully have a feast.

I know this is supposed to be Artistic Thursday, my schedule has just not been conducive to it. I've been so busy lately my camera hasn't even come out of it's case except for a friends wedding I shot a few weeks ago. That'll probably be another blog.

So I'm writing today because I promised myself I would write as much as possible and it gave me a reason to take a break from the de-pack-ratting and moving furniture around. Well back to cleaning out the closets.

That Funny Math in Az. and D.C.

I've been pretty quiet as of late, but hopefully that will end soon. Once again I'd like to say it was for something cool like an undercover CIA mission, but in all reality, I've just been really busy between work and life and haven't given much time to writing in general, none the less this blog.

Today we are going to talk about politicians, centering around one that was shot in Arizona, Congresswoman Gifford. Though what happened to the congresswoman is a terrible tragedy, it may have increased the IQ of our government by 50%. Sound cold? Our politicians are now talking about bodyguards for, guess who, all politicians. Let's see six citizens gunned down and one politician shot in the least used part of her body. Why are we worried about the politicians?  Citizens are far more important than they. Why isn't congress talking about protecting citizens. No, those self serving pieces of dog crap are more worried about themselves than the dumb sheep that vote for them.

Politicians are civil servants and as far as civil servants go, they rank somewhere between the fat lady in the next town over who gets a city car and big salary to drive around and fine people who put recyclables in their normal garbage and the horses the NYC policemen ride. 

For what we pay these politicians and the job they do, they should be our bodyguards. They should be helping citizens and jumping in front of any stray bullets to protect them. They would be the highest paid bodyguards in the world.  So I ask you, next time you hear of an incident like this, don't listen to the media, do the math. 6 citizens dead + 1 member of congress wounded = pass laws to protect the congressmen. That's an equation I can't live with.

On a side note, if the gunman had wanted to kill the congresswoman, he should have shot her in the wallet.

Another Used Year.

I don't understand the whole New Year's concept. It's simply an arbitrary day that we decide should somehow change our lives. I don't understand it because every day on the calendar starts a new year from the previous one before and I celebrate it as a new beginning; I don't get drunk, light off fireworks or take off the next day, but have found that subtler course corrections don't require such drastic measures.

It must be hard to only be able to make resolutions once a year. What if you make a mistake on January 2nd? Do you have to wait another 364 days to right that mistake?

My New Year's Eve was spent with my daughters. I was supposed to drop them off at grandma's and go to a killer party. My life is not that simple. Lizzy was pale as a ghost and was sick to her stomach, so last minute I had to stay home. Just me, the girls and a 2lb shrimp cocktail ring that was frozen solid.

At first I wasn't happy about it, but sitting on the couch with my daughters flipping between the multitude of New Year's Eve programs turned out to be a great family evening. We talked, laughed and enjoyed listening to the various musical performances. The funniest moment of the night was watching New Kids On The Block and Back Street Boys perform. These bands sucked twenty years ago when their only talent was dancing and having their voices digitized and regurgitated into the nausea inducing cat vomit they called music. Now they were just sad looking old men who had no talent. The voice processor was gone and they might have broken a hip at any moment during a poor rendition of the Macarena. My eldest daughter laughed the loudest, “Daddy, I danced to their music when I was three and it wasn't new back then.”. Yeah, I should probably feel pity for these guys, but my parent instincts kicked in and I explained to my children about living in the past and the sad repercussions that it could have. The humorous performance in front of us was a prime example.

We continued watching and talking and laughing. That was until I saw Dick Clark. I don't want to sound mean but it actually shook me to hear him talk. Dick was a golden voice. He “was” New Year's Eve. In my younger mind, he was a constant that would never change. Seeing him struggle with the words, I realized, even the seemingly timeless have to eventually succumb to the years. There is only one constant in life. I felt old. Emily saw the sadness as I watched him and I explained to her that Dick Clark was never supposed to age. My first memories of New Year's Eve were of him hosting. He was born to do it. In my mind he was the only one who should or would ever do it.

That thought was interrupted quickly as various other music acts performed. I watched the ball drop. I listened to people explain their once a year resolutions. I thought, I really don't have any resolutions right now, but maybe I'll come up with some tomorrow, the next day or some other new day during the rest of my life.