so long, sadie-kitty.
when i was growing up, my mom had a cat named miss kitty who we had to put to sleep when she was 24 because of kidney failure. a few weeks later, on october 30, 1990, my mom was looking at the rio rancho observer and saw a photo of a cat up for adoption. in the photo was a female calico cat, 12 weeks old who had been abandoned and picked up by rio rancho animal control. the cat bore a strong resemblance to miss kitty, and still sad about her loss, she went to animal control to adopt the cat.
when she brought her home, she was really scared of everyone and was really uncomfortable in our home. what struck us as the most strange, however, was her affinity for our golden retriever, bo. while she didn’t really like any of us, she loved the dog. when she ate, she’d take her foot and put it in her bowl and pull food or water out of it. my parents guessed that she must have been kept with dogs, fighting for food for most of her life.
after a while, she started to get used to living with us, and really enjoyed the company of my mom and i the most. she didn’t really get along with our other cats, figment and smokey. she preferred being outside where she could roll around in the sunshine and dirt. always a dirt and grass-roller, always chasing and catching birds and leaving them on our doorstep, catching and eating lizards, this was my kitty sadie.
one tradition we had on holidays involved making a little plate of food at thanksgiving or christmas for sadie. my mom would also make little plates of food for the mice in the woodpile on the side of our house. it seemed as though sadie knew what time of year it was and every time we’d go outside, she assumed she was getting her little plate of turkey and stuffing. when the holidays actually came, she would gobble up everything and stare up at us with her big green eyes in an attempt to guilt us into giving her more food.
we moved from our home on western hills to another house at the other end of the city when i was 12 or 13. sadie immediately took to watching all the different birds and also to running around in the abundant grass in our front yard. being much braver than she should have been, she would take on and beat up any neighborhood cats who dared enter her yard. (this is something she did, even at 20 years old) i remember once when she was intensely interested in a roadrunner that was hanging around and chased it up onto the patio cover in our back yard. the bird grew tired of the black cat following him around and chased her right off the patio cover. she fell and injured both of her back legs and had to be given anti-inflammatory medication for a few weeks til she recuperated.
this around when she and i became better friends. she’d always sort of tolerated my mom and i more than other people, but never really seemed to do any more than that. my parents were having marital issues and it seemed like sadie was suddenly much more interested in my companionship. in november of 1998, when my mom, sister and i moved back to our old house on western hills, it seemed like sadie sort of knew what was going on and did her best to make me feel better. instead of wanting to be outside all the time, she’d come inside when i was home or when i’d arrive home from school. she slept in my bed, she provided me with a bit of stability while the rest of my life was being turned upside down by divorce and other drama.
when i started high school, i found myself out of the house more often, but she would always be there waiting for me in the driveway when i’d arrive home. as she got older, we had to start keeping her outside more often because of constant scuffles with our other cats and because she was nearly always on edge. she’d still spend all her time outside sleeping in the sun, rolling around in the dirt, begging for more food (she was always hungry, never a meal too big for her) and enjoying her yard, her family and her life with my mom and i.
i moved out of my mom’s in 2007 and reluctantly had to leave sadie behind. she was too old to be moving about, too set in her ways, too fond of being outside for me to take her with me and lock her up inside our apartment. even still, every time i’d visit, she’d trot right out to my car and we’d start over where we left off, with hugs and a little chat. i think that’s what i’m likely to miss the most, going to visit my mom and having my friend come running out to greet me, ask (loudly) for more (always more…) food and attention and sit on the hood of my car.
now that she’s gone, i’m finding myself really wishing that i’d spent more time with her. it breaks my heart to remember how many times i drove by my mom’s, only to see my kitty streak across the front yard, thinking i was going to stop. it also breaks my heart that i’ve lost my oldest friend and companion.
twenty years old, feisty, fiery and happy.
so long sadie girl, i hope you knew how much we all loved you and how much we’re all going to miss you.
google voice transcriptions SUUUUUUCK
after being sort of spoiled by the ease of use of visual voicemail on the iphone (which is the only iphone feature i miss) i figured when someone sent me a google voice invitation that i’d go ahead and provision it for use with my pre. i had visions of the transcription text arriving in my email, and being able to read my voice messages instead of having to listen to them. unfortunately, this isn’t the case. as with all google services, GV starts off mostly functional but with some serious caveats, including leaving me wondering about the motive for them to offer it as a free service. of course, that’s my thought about every free service they offer, and that evilness is part of why i avoid dealing with them as often as possible.
here are some fun GV transcriptions i’ve gotten:
From my good friend Phil, who is having trouble with his monitor:
Hey. It’s Phil calling to ask you questions. Just curious if you’ve ever run into an issue with your monitor like I just did. I think my mother died. I don’t know if you really. Another little, but I just started getting these. Birkel flights like he kinda went past, but I just went black, or the other office til the desktop and Also unlike this little wanna sort of paint all over the screenwriter, redline Jill, I’ve quite live, and I hope this is gonna fill the whole screen with little colors. The. Grink I was well, so try to clear off and just trying to Mon around it’s just a monitors my cos I’m not in the still do it, so I don’t know if you know anything about those type of this crap anyway if if you have a chance give me a call if you could help. If not, I will. P Olympia for a while so. Alright dude. Later.
From Doug, the douchebag tech at Qwest who doesn’t return calls or emails:
Are you. This is Douglas quest tech support. I was asked to give you a call regarding some slow speed issues and dropping connection. Mike with your view. I. P set up or if you have any was alright. Take a look at the levels email what I’m seeing is your upload speed is o’clock in the red, it’s full rate, it actually and it’s about half what it should and I have taken some errors pummeling as well, which I don’t really have any to do is congested Gateway hurt your, and I T data or V D S, L to as it’s also called which it there is really cool congested gateways on on that type of system so something else. Maybe inside wiring issue. Jack as you possibly the modem call me and so yeah but you see a problem, so I’ll be here for the a couple more hours today if you wanna send me an email. I can give me a call back. I want to hear from you. It’s Doug dot Morgan at Qwest, dot, com and again. I’ll be here all day tomorrow so I don’t talk to you today. Thanks so much bye bye now.
From our Realtor:
Hey Chris Calum ward O’Brien doing a couple of things. I printed out a bunch of stuff, just a little while ago. I wanted to get out and fill love and that’ll give them an account. The warm up and then it occurred to me. I, I. I’d check in with you find out how we’re ready to go and then where I need to come pick you up so I can come pick you up and I will get out. Rock and Roll see what we can see it was wonderful slushy dreary morning but in the meantime, just give me a call when you’re up and I got plenty of things I can be David here for a second. I’ll call you back a little bit import see you bye.
So, as you can see, the transcription tech is sort of accurate, but for the most part it just generates what Cadie describes as “weird poetry”.
i fail at social networking. also, we’re looking at houses and..that’s exciting.
ended up deactivating my facebook account again. it was making me feel sort of schizophrenic, like i was talking to myself. i guess i’m just not very good at social networking or something, but it kept giving me the distinct impression that i was saying things aloud in a room full of people without any response. people who know me are aware of the fact that i’ve never really been a big fan of social networking at all, the whole logic behind it has always sort of dumbfounded me. initially, i’d been keeping it because, for whatever reason, cadie wanted me to.
anyway, after debating whether i should keep it up or just forgo that type of communication, i decided to delete it. i’m keeping my twitter account because it sort of amuses me and at least i get some sense of interaction (the whole “social” part of social networking) from it.
in other, more significant news, cadie and i have been looking at houses for the last few weeks. it’s something i’d sort of wanted to avoid, mostly because it makes me feel like i’m getting old and also that i’m getting rid of what little “kid stuff” is left in my life and replacing it with more real-life adult responsibility. after looking at a few, we grew really attached to one particular house and ended up making an offer on it. at this point, though, we’re in sort of a waiting game because it’s a short sale and that leaves the burden of approval on the bank who holds the current mortgage. usually, that kind of thing will take 30-60 days, so that gives us some time to look at other things, save some more money, etc. i hate to admit it, but it’s kind of exciting to possibly be getting a place of our own, away from idiot neighbors in such close proximity. i might actually be able to play amplified guitar (sans headphones) for the first time since april of 2007.
dns changes (who cares?) and a trip to nc
david u, a guy i’ve got a lot of respect for, has sold his former dns provider project to dyn, inc. this sort of bums me out because everydns has always been a great free dns provider. i’m not a fan of dyn’s products, and since they’re saying that they bought everydns to eliminate a competitor, i’ll be switching my dns over to another provider.
cadie and i had a great trip to nc. we went out to visit my dad and stepmom and spent 6 days in the raleigh area. we didn’t really do all that much, aside from visiting biltmore, the duke campus and raleigh to buy some music from an awesome local record store, we spent most of the time at my dad’s. on both the flight out to atlanta from albuquerque and back from atlanta to albuquerque, i used a free inflight wifi coupon, which helped to keep me sort of occupied during the 2.5 and 3.5 hour flights. it worked surprisingly well, so i was pretty impressed with it on the whole.
happy new year
welcome to 2010. happy new year.
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