Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Monday, November 29, 2004 Happy Birthday Those of you who have been stalking me for a little while already know that yesterday was M. Tiny’s official due date. I wrote this entry a couple of months ago in honor of the occasion, figuring that I wouldn’t have time to do it properly after his birth. Which, as of tomorrow, is actually seven weeks gone. But anyway. I’ll just put this up. No time to review or rewrite; I’ll just assume that aside from a few minor details, everything I wrote then applies today. Everything changes now. Our son was born yesterday, just as we learned he would be about two months ago. He came into the world at _____, weighing __pounds, _____ounces, and measuring ______ inches. He has ____of his body parts, including ____of his fingers and toes, with beautiful _____ hair and _______eye[s]. He looks exactly the way we imagined him. We feel so lucky, Trash and I. Lucky that the birth mother carried him full-term, for one thing. Two months really isn’t much time at all to get ready for a new arrival in the family as it is, and we’ve had to rush to make sure everything is prepared. I can’t imagine what kind of sad state we’d be in if he’d arrived a few days early. And thank heaven we had enough time to finish all of our holiday preparations, too. All of the Christmas shopping and holiday cards and cookie-baking have been taken care of in advance, thanks to Trash’s excellent planning skills. It would have been pretty tough to manage all that with a newborn in the house, let me tell you. I also feel lucky that I had time to get settled in at my current office gig before my whole life turned upside down. Can you imagine how stressful it would have been for me to start a new job with a week-old baby in the mix? I probably would have ended up in the Emergency Room speaking gibberish or something. There’s only one thing: they sure send newborns home quick these days. It may be horrible of me to say so, but part of me almost wishes that they could put him up in the hospital for a little while, and we could hang out and sort of practice on him. You know, get some hands-on lessons in baby care. Not a long stay, of course. Maybe just a day or two. And then we’d bring him home, fully prepared, and get to know him there. But anyway now he’s home, all set up in our perfectly-organized nursery that we took the time to get exactly right. Strat and Orca are still adjusting, but I think they’ll all get along just fine. For now, we’re just basking in our good fortune: relaxed, well-rested, and completely on top of our domestic situation. Two months didn’t seem like much time when we first got chosen to parent this baby, but it turned out to be exactly the amount of time we needed. Welcome to the world, M. Tiny. And welcome home. The next seven weeks or so are going to be the most special weeks of our lives. Today’s best search phrase: "MAMMA MAMMA MAMMA." Oh, how we look forward to the days when M. Tiny is a couple of months old and making random vocal noises for no reason that we can ascertain. That will be so wonderful. posted by M. Giant 7:30 PM 1 comments 1 Comments:
Um, yeah, I think MG misunderstood that announcement.
By Friday, November 26, 2004 Thanks Coming in to work this morning, I allowed myself to think that the fact that the downtown streets, sidewalks and skyways were all abandoned a la Omega Man meant that the downtown Target store wouldn’t be unbearable. I’ve been wrong before, but I can’t think of when I’ve been that wrong. But anyway, just because it’s the day after Thanksgiving and I broke my lifelong oath to never enter a retail establishment of any stripe (or concentric circle, for that matter) on this day of the year, doesn’t mean it’s too late to mention some of the stuff I’m thankful for. Because you care, right? To you all for all the intensely useful baby gifts you’ve sent us from our wish lists. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it. Even the stuff that M. Tiny has outgrown already. I’d keep putting those things on him, but Trash seems to object to our seven-pound son getting stuffed into clothes that fit him like he’s late-period Elvis. To Trash’s sister and her heterosexual life-partner, who on the night M. Tiny was born dashed out and picked up a bunch of emergency baby stuff. Not to mention McDonald’s. And to Trash’s coworker who did the same thing and delivered a basketful of supplies the next day. To all the friends who have helped keep us sane, including Girl Detective, Zen Viking, Bitter, and Linda, who continue to treat us like the people we’ve always been as opposed to breeding machines. Not that anyone else on this list has treated us any differently, but we still appreciate the chance to pretend to be cool for these precious last few years. To the people who have passed along the supplies that their own children have outgrown. There’s Wire Monkey Mother (formerly Chicagowench, whom we’ve never actually met but whom we know indirectly through the wonderful Auteurcakes) for the giant box of clothes that no longer fit the child they’ve affectionately (and somewhat fearfully) nicknamed Gojira. One of Trash’s coworkers gave us boxes of castoff toys and a whole array of baby-transport items. At the radio show I worked across the hall from a mother my age who brought her infant twins into the office. I got to enjoy them, and now M. Tiny gets to enjoy their stuff. And of course, Deneice’s parents have delivered us stuff that Deniece can no longer use, now that she’s pushing three. Can you believe that? It doesn’t seem that long ago that I first babysat her, and M. Tiny is already almost half the age she was then. He’s going to pass her at this rate. To the Pub Quiz team, who have been understanding of our absence the past two months, who delivered our trophies to us since we weren’t there to collect them, who have consistently kept us in the top tier of competition when we weren’t there. And to Trash’s cooking partner Blaine, who is not only being flexible about this years bake-annalia, but is also test-baking the sugar cookie recipes y’all sent in. To Dirt and Banana, who were generous enough to host a baby shower in their home, and who pulled it off brilliantly. As well as to everyone who came and brought us such great stuff, all of which is either in use now or soon will be. To the neighbors, who not only haven’t kicked us out of the band, but who have helped us out by giving Strat his shots when we were at the hospital, and whose kid even helped rake leaves. Compared to him, I was a complete asshole at that age. To my sister DeBitch the Elder, who took the time to create and deliver us a home-cooked gourmet meal, including a trifle the size of the Stanley Cup. Sorry Trash and I couldn’t finish it on our own, but my coworkers loved it too. To Trash’s sister and her friend the Vet Friend, who helped us get through the loss of Orca, and who helped us feel we’d done as much as we could to save her. And who helped us with something else I’ll be telling you about in a future entry. And to all of you who sent comforting e-mails and comments, and posted sympathetic thoughts on your own sites, which helped us more than you realize. And of course to Orca herself, who honored us by spending most of her life with us and choosing us as her favorite humans. Not by much, but by enough. To our parents for all of their support. Trash’s dad for printing up a huge volume of baby pictures for us; my mom for raking the yard, helping us clean house, and providing days and days of free day care so Trash can stretch out her maternity leave longer than would otherwise have been possible; and Trash’s stepdad, for the painting that adorned M. Tiny’s hospital room and now his nursery, as well as her mom, who cheerily relocated the shower she’d planned for us at her house in Iowa to the family lounge at the NICU. And of course to M. Tiny’s birth parents and their families, for all the generous gifts they’ve given us, for welcoming us into their families, and...let’s see. Something else. What was it again? Oh, yeah. 
And to everyone else I’ve forgotten. Don’t worry. There are a lot of you. Lately I find myself thinking about one of the few episodes of Sex and the City that I’ve seen. It’s the one where Miranda’s baby won’t stop crying, and the neighbor comes over and asks whether she has friends with babies who will help her because they know what it’s like. When Miranda says no, the neighbor says, “Then you’re screwed!” Most of our friends don’t have babies. Here, as usual, Sex and the City is full of shit. posted by M. Giant 5:25 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:I did NOT know you had a Wal-Mart registry, but I just looked through it and find it completely unbelievable that no one has bought the butt paste yet. It's just begging to be purchased!!
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Butt paste?
By Wednesday, November 24, 2004 Humpblog (11/24/04) I'm ambivalent. I get to see my name on movie theater marquees this week. And yet, it's for a film that by most accounts is total shite. I'm just glad that M. Tiny is too young to understand. And also too young to free me up to actually go and see it. * * * Hey, have you heard of this band called Keane? You’ll never guess what I heard about them. I heard they don’t have guitars. Have you heard that? * * * Trash and I are both overdue for haircuts and I don’t know when either of us is going to have a chance to get one. I’m trying to convince her to just let me buzz my entire head with my old beard-trimmer, but she’s not going for it so far. Any suggestions as to how to win her over are welcome. Aside from offering to let her do the same thing, of course. Tried it. Didn’t work. * * * Speaking of bands that don’t have things, I once heard Chris Isaak tell a story on VH-1 or something about how he went to audition for a band and they didn’t have a bass player. “No bass player?” he said. “What kind of rinky-dink outfit is this?” The band members explained that the lack of a bass player was intentional. Part of the concept. The bass would be provided by the keyboards. Chris Isaak says he left the audition in disgust, and never heard of that band again until they hit the charts as the Doors. I’m pretty sure Chris Isaak was making that story up. * * * Big plans for Thanksgiving? Not us. We have small plans, thanks to a small human. Since M. Tiny’s official due date is still several days off, his immune system isn’t up for big gatherings. So there’ll be a very small gathering at my parents' house, and another very small gathering at Trash’s sister’s house. Poor kid's never been around more than five or six people at one time. He's going to think that's all the people there are. "I must have met everyone by now, right? Is that everyone? Okay, then." * * * Today's best search phrase: "Show me a food web and what is going to hapen to it if we remove a pests." No. No, I don't believe I will. Good day to you, sir. posted by M. Giant 4:56 PM 5 comments 5 Comments:Apparently drums, vocals and piano are ENOUGH, if you are my 15-year-old daughter reading over my shoulder. Keane is evidently the coolest thing around, and who cares about guitars, anyway? M.Tiny will (too soon) educate M.Giant and Trash about current events, pop culture and how old (and uninformed) you really are...they grow up so fast!!!
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I just wanted to pop in and wish the two Giants and the one tiny a very happy turkey day. Thank you for sharing your lives with all of us.
By Ben Folds Five Redux ... only not as rockin'
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try telling her that your head will be all fuzzy and it's nice to pet. like a cat, but not.
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A few responses:
By Saturday, November 20, 2004 To Duluth People from different parts of the country have certain preconceived notions about what it’s like to live in Minneapolis. “Isn’t it friggin’ cold up there?” “Isn’t it culturally impoverished?” “Why did you elect Hulk Hogan governor?” “Isn’t it nighttime from, like, Halloween to Easter?” “Don’t you get tired of Prince showing up at your door with copies of The Watchtower?” and “Isn’t it friggin’ cold up there?” The truth is that there’s a lot more to Minneapolis than that. And the fact is that it’s not that bad. And, most of all, there’s always Duluth. Duluth is a very important city, you see. Not just as the world’s most inland ocean port, or as the ultimate terminus of the St. Lawrence Seaway. More importantly, Duluth is to Minneapolis what Minneapolis is to the rest of the country. It’s smaller, it’s further north, and it doesn’t have as extensive a skyway system. But it does have culture and art, and after driving through rural Minnesota for two hours yesterday, the preponderance of Kerry/Edwards signs and stickers was a welcome sight. And yet, Minneapolitans who secretly dream of punching people who ask us, “Isn’t it friggin’ cold up there?” will politely converse with citizens of any other city in the nation, except people from Duluth, of whom they will ask, “Isn’t it friggin’ cold up there?” And so on, and so on. Duluth has Thunder Bay, and Thunder Bay has…I don’t know, arctic research stations or something. You get the idea. Yesterday was my first trip to Duluth in about four years. If you ever drive into Duluth, there’s something you should know. When you come over the hill outside of town and start descending into the Lake Superior Basin, there is one nasty-ass smell in the air. It comes from the harbor or some kind of industry, but it’s always there, and woe to the motorist who forgets to set his car’s air conditioner to “recycle.” Trash and I always accuse each other of having just farted. But since she wasn’t with me yesterday, I had to call home and do it over the phone. Voice mail, even. It wasn’t the same. I was in town an hour and a half ahead of schedule, so I took the scenic route. Literally. Duluth has a road called Skyline Boulevard, which is a road that runs along the natural ridgeline left when the glaciers carved the Great Lakes. From just about any point on it, the view of Duluth and the lake below is spectacular. Here’s a little-known fact. You know that song “Seven Bridges Road,” recorded by the Eagles, among many others? You may not know this, but the Seven Bridges Road is in Duluth. Or above it, technically, since it’s part of Skyline Boulevard. You wouldn’t expect a song that has not one but two variants of the word “south” in its very first line to be about Duluth (unless it’s Duluth, Georgia), but there you are. I drove on all seven of them yesterday. It took less than five minutes. So anyway, I was driving in for the gig, winding along Skyline Boulevard, looking at the city of Duluth and its busy harbors and bridges laid out six hundred feet below me, and the vast expanse of Lake Superior stretching out to the horizon, and I was inspired. I pulled the car over at a scenic overlook, got out of the car, took out my bass, and started playing. It didn’t last long, though. A) Without an amp, I couldn’t hear myself over even the sparse traffic going by. B) It took less than a minute for me to start feeling like an utter dork. C) It’s friggin’ cold up there. Today’s best search phrase: “What happen if you threw trash on the ground.” Hey! Show a little respect, would you? Jeez. posted by M. Giant 3:58 PM 8 comments 8 Comments:
Thunder Bay has Atikokan. It's definitely really friggin' cold there.
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My dad grew up in Duluth, and that smell you encounter when you get into town is from the paper-making factory that's just down the hill. Or at least that's what my dad used to tell us kids every time we drove by it. I think Duluth is pretty awesome otherwise, but it is friggin' cold up there, and they have more snow than I've seen in a lifetime. And I've lived in Minnesota my whole life. I don't know how they do it!
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My mom and dad (Duluth natives both) always used to refer to it as "the poop plant." Which led me to believe that the source of the smell was a sewage treatment plant. This news that the poop plant is really a paper mill is yet another shattering blow to my childhood illusions.
By Now see, I lived in exotic Buffalo, NY for 20 years. Go ahead. Mention Buffalo to ANYONE and they will nod knowingly. It's common knowledge that there are two seasons there: winter and the Fourth of July. -Sayer
By Thunder Bay's got native son Paul Shaffer... and my ex-boyfriend.
By I just want to apologize right now because I live in San Diego...and I have shorts on. I'm sorry. If it makes any difference my parents immigrated from Fargo 45 years ago to escape the "jeez it's frigging cold". I’m praying for you all so you won’t freeze to death.
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Hello from Duluth, GA, where it is 61 degrees, light rain. And which will soon be utterly and completely deserted because everyone and their brother is headed to the Atlanta airport to fly to friggin' cold places.
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The song "Seven Bridges Road" was written by country singer/songwriter Steve Young and refers to a road in Alabama which was locally known as Seven Bridges Road.
By Wednesday, November 17, 2004 Humpblog (11/17/04) I enjoy the view from my office on the 24th floor of a downtown Minneapolis office building. On a clear day you can see Burnsville. I could probably see my house from there if the Target building weren’t in the way. As well as a real lot of trees. And the building didn’t go up until 2000, which means that that particular view didn’t even exist until several years ago. Unless you wanted to string a rope bridge between the tops of LaSalle Plaza and the Foshay Tower, which to me sounds, um…windy. Today’s view was like looking out the window with a gray pillowcase over your head. The fog was so thick this morning that I couldn’t see the downtown skyscrapers until I was among them, and even then anything over fifteen stories was completely obscured. I sometimes picture myself as a tour guide, pointing out notable Minneapolis sights to an imaginary visitor from out of town. I would have been embarrassed today: “Two blocks ahead of us is the IDS tower, the tallest building in Minnesota. It’s actually much taller than it looks right now. Seriously. If you count the antenna, it’s even taller than 220 South Sixth, which is coming up on our…Oh, hell. Look, I promise we have tall buildings, okay? No, I’ve never been to Muncie. Just be quiet.” Writing about weather and cats. I have become a cliché. * * * It’s been a while since I’ve seen any new state quarters. Which has made me sad. I got an Arkansas one at the Post Office back in the spring, but other than that it’s been a pretty dry spell. I was beginning to wonder if maybe the whole State Quarter program hadn’t been scrapped or something, and the government had gone back to paying veterans’ benefits with regular quarters. Actually, I ascribed it to working in an office that didn’t have vending machines to give me change, and then I ascribed it to working at home, where the only change in the vending machines is the change I put in. But I’ve been at this downtown gig for nearly a month now, and all I got for weeks was another bunch of Connecticuts. Those are dropping off though, which isn’t surprising. The U.S. Mint produced about 1.3 billion of them, and I’d say that about ninety per cent of those are in my house. I don’t think I’ve gotten a Michigan coin yet. They’re probably all hiding because they’re embarrassed. "Look at our quarter! It says, ‘Michigan is the home of Michigan!’" Whatever. And then, in quick succession, I got one each of Florida, Iowa, and Texas. I enjoy the Texas coin’s message: “Don’t bother leaving Austin.” If only others had listened. * * * I keep forgetting to mention that I’m participating in a new collective online effort called “Metroblogging.” The Minneapolis one, if you can believe that shit. And of course, by “participating” I mean “wishing I had time do to more than think about participating.” Fortunately, there are a number of other bloggers taking up my slack, including Linda. And of course, other DHAK writers are on the rolls in other cities from Toronto to Chicago. Okay, that sounded like a much bigger range in my head. See if your city has a Metroblog for you to take part in. Or don’t. I don’t actually care that much. I’m pretty sure Muncie’s out of luck anyway. * * * Today’s best search phrase: “Pumpkin breasts – chicken halloween yard.” Sadly, the neighborhood squirrels nibbled away at my already imperfect pumpkin-borne rendering of Trogdor the Burninator (thanks to Omar for the tip) until it looked more like a tribble, i.e., perfectly round and featureless. And then there was the nasty orange fluid collected several inches deep inside the bottom. What the hell is wrong with kids today that you can’t even count on them to smash your jack o’lantern before it gets all gross? posted by M. Giant 6:02 PM 11 comments 11 Comments:
I actually saw a funky new nickle the other day - it had Lewis and Clark on the back. I used it to buy food.
By When I lived in Toronto (http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?c12) having the tops of some of the buildings hidden by fog was pretty common. Even the CN Tower is not that impressive when you can only see the bottom 50 feet..
By Do you work in the building during the construction of which one of the construction workers died when hit by falling tools? (I swear, I tried to come up with a less complicated but still correct version of that sentence and failed. Clearly.) At the time, I wondered if the death was truly an accident, or if someone on the building crew was dedicating the building to a demon. You know you're getting a little too involved with watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer when...
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You know, we really don't like the Shrub here in Austin. We're glad he's not here, although we'd be happier if he'd just disappear off the face of the earth. And, seriously, if you're in Texas, why would you want to be anywhere but Austin anyway?
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Dude - try living on the West Coast, and trying to collect the state quarters from each mint. My Dad gave my sisters and I these folios that hold each year's quarters, from both the "D" and "P" mints.
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J. was recently given a shiny quarter from the land of his birth by a friend in DC. It has cheese on the back, no lie. Maybe the friend got it at the Mint? He had been there recently. I'll keep an eye out for you.
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So, Connecticut has a balance going on re: the things you mentioned. Our quarter puts many other state quarters to shame. The Charter Oak kicks ass because it's pretty AND historic. Our tall buildings? Not so good. A casino checks in as the fourth-tallest building in the state.
By Man, I wish I could get some variety on state quarters. I keep getting connecticut over and over again. I need Texas!
By I'm sure they'll get Philadelphia soon. I don't think my Alabama cities will be as lucky. Atlanta is only two hours away -- I wonder if I can be part of their metro area?
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You don't want the Michigan quarter. It's stupid. What does it have on it? Michigan. The outline of the state. We've got the Mackinaw Bridge, we've got cool cars, we've got...um...cherries... Anyway. Stupid.
By Muncie, Indiana?...I live 20 minutes south of Muncie
By Monday, November 15, 2004 This and That Thanks to everyone for the wonderfully supportive comments and e-mails this weekend. They mean more than you realize. Trash was once heard to log on and say, “I want to see if there are more comments. Comments make me feel better.” Which has been true for both of us. Thank you all for helping us both feel a little better. It would be nice if Strat could read too, though. Stupid cat. As for M. Tiny, he still has moments when he misses Orca enough to literally scream. Oddly enough, these times seem to coincide with the times when we wake him up to change his diaper. We all grieve differently, you know. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in two and a half years of blogging, it’s that it’s hard to sell out when nobody’s buying. Enter Google AdSense. Now you can scroll down and look on my sidebar to the right for ads from Google that may or may not be relevant to the day’s entry. And you can click on them and I’ll get some money, in a cynical ploy by yours truly to exploit my readership for financial gain. I should mention that in memory of Orca, the first month’s proceeds will be donated to an animal rescue charity. Which makes it feel a little less cynical. So click-click, unless of course you are dead inside and hate all animals everywhere. Not that I would judge you. For those of you who have always wanted to come to one of my band’s gigs but can’t because you don’t live in the Twin Cities are, your problems are over. At least, if you live in Duluth and don’t mind parting with some money. Myrtle Jean and the Bubs are opening for Adrian Legg at the Norshor Theater this Friday, November 19. You can buy tickets here (click on Adrian Legg). Did you know Duluth is the San Francisco of the North? The things that stick with you when doing tour research for a radio show. Of course you don't have to pay money to see us this weekend if you live in Duluth. You can also drive down to St. Paul and watch us play for tips at the Ginkgo Coffeehouse in St. Paul. Click the link on the sidebar for more info. Hey, remember the sugar cookie contest? Even though the entry deadline has passed and our lives have turned upside-down, the contest is not over. Trash’s friend and baking partner Blaine is going to be doing the initial round of bake-testing. We’ll keep you posted as the contest develops. And as other things do, as well. One last thing: Happy birthday, Trash! posted by M. Giant 5:28 PM 13 comments 13 Comments:
Look! Look! A comment!
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If comments make Trash and you feel good, then heck, we had all better get going. Like nearly everyone, your entry about Orca had me sobbing. I am very sorry, you guys clearly loved her very much, and she sounds like she had a wonderful life with you.
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I would love to see your band...but you live so far away! Do you think you'll ever get to Philadelphia? If so, I'll be first in line.
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Happy Birthday, Trash - from a fellow Scorpio chick (bday on Wed)! We are the best, ever.
By It's so hard when a beloved pet dies, and I agree that sharing stories helps. My own "too small tux" kitty died a year ago. She had been gradualy loosing weight, and just stopped eating. The vets couldn't find anything wrong. She was gone a few days after that. I had had her since I was five, and she died the week before my spring break, so I couldn't get home from college to be there. What made it worse for my poor parents was that our parakeet died that night; they found him the morning after. I still miss my pets, but at least they had lived long lives. The cat was 16 and the bird was 9. R.I.P. everyone's loved pets.
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I am so very sorry for your loss. I was going to comment on your previous post, but your photos of Orca look so much like my little Kees - so I was crying so hard by the end of your post I couldn't see straight.
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OK, so, I was pretty heartbroken to hear about Orca. And I guess I was heartbroken enough to have a dream last night that I was in Minnesota and came to hang out with you, Trash, M.Tiny, and Strat for the evening. I brought you soup, hung out a bit, but then I had to leave to go watch the premiere of "The Amazing Race."
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Four years ago, my husband and I had to watch our cat of 16 years put to sleep, and the worst part was that we had to make the decision. His decline was sudden and rapid, and the vet assured us that while she could keep him alive, she could do nothing for his constant pain, so we stroked his little ginger head and told him we loved him while he faded. As we drove home that night, Henry a small orange ball in my husband's lap, we were both crying so hard we could barely see the road.
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And now your Comments section is making me cry. This is how your site will get listed as NSFW, what with all the sad animal stories in the comments.
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Oddmonster, that made me smile; being tagged as NSFW for -that- reason would, I think, be strangely satisfying for MG. At least momentarily. 'Cuz, you know, it would be semi-cool to be NSFW, but he doesn't write the adult-style naughty stuff. At least not that I've ever seen... or want to. Maybe Trash will choose to share what she got for her birthday. Or not.
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I hope you, Trash, M. Tiny and Strat are doing better. I had to have my beloved kitty put to sleep when she developed cancer on her face-- I promised I would end it when she was in pain, and I did. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, and I can still make myself cry if I think about it. But you had far too many good years with her to let a couple of really awful days blot it all out. Sooner than you think, you'll be thinking of her and you'll smile-- remembering something she used to do that made you laugh (or want to punt her, but which seems funny now in retrospect).
By Happy birthday Trash. I hope you were still able to enjoy the day, despite your loss.
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Your comment that people leaving comments made you feel better made me feel better.
By Friday, November 12, 2004 Kitty Down Trash and I don’t have favorites when it comes to our cats. We love them both equally, just like you’re supposed to. It’s not like Strat is mine and Orca was Trash’s. But they didn’t know that. Our family grew to five last month, and now it’s back down to four. We keep expecting to see her, curled up on the bed or the sofa, or as a dark hump in the sock basket. This morning, a black skirt had slipped onto the floor in a place where she usually walks, and for half a second I thought it was her. Every time M. Tiny makes a gasping or wheezing noise, our hearts clench in reaction to this random repetition of the last sounds Orca made. It hurts so much. All the cliches are true. The house feels emptier. I feel emptier, like ten pounds of furry flesh were ripped out of my chest. Trash, of course, feels worse. November, 1991. Trash and I, married nearly two months, are out and about and we have a little while before she has to catch the bus from our Uptown neighborhood to work. We decide to kill a few minutes in the pet store near Calhoun Square. We make a deal that we will not buy anyone. Trash just wants to look at some cute animals. Please don’t lecture me about pet stores. We know all about them now. Orca had seen three separate veterinarians in the past few weeks, including the Vet-Friend, and we followed all of their instructions to the letter. We didn’t want to make the same error we’d made with Strat, waiting too long to get her seen and treated. We tried to learn from our mistakes. Now we just have more mistakes to learn from. Waiting too long to bring your cat in is a mistake, as we already knew. As it turns out, waiting too long for a prescribed course of treatment to take effect is also a mistake. We doubled Orca’s Lysine dose, just as the Vet-Friend suggested. But after a day, it didn’t seem to be taking effect. The VF was going to squeeze Orca into her after-hours schedule on Wednesday night, to give us a third opinion, but Orca’s increasingly labored breathing, coupled with the fact that she was starting to hang out by herself deep in Trash’s closet for no reason, had us worried as of Tuesday evening. I called the VF and asked if there was any way we could get her started on antibiotics right away. The VF made some phone calls, and within the hour I was making runs to both Walgreen’s and the local pet clinic she and Strat go to regularly. She had her first doses in her by seven p.m. Trash lays eyes on a cage where five or six tiny little black-and-white kittens are frolicking together adorably. She is instantly in love. “Strat needs a friend!” she tells me excitedly. I’m doubtful. “This is what I want for my birthday,” she insists. “Nothing else.” I know right then, deal or no deal, that we’re not walking out of there empty-handed. At nine o’clock, Orca’s breathing was already better. The wheezing hadn’t gone away, but she wasn’t breathing through her mouth any more either. I pointed this out to Trash. She smiled. Later, Trash took a few minutes to sit down in front of the love seat where Orca was curled up and pet her and tell her she loved her. This happens regularly anyway, with both of us and both of the cats, especially lately. It’s important. Somehow it seemed more important this time. Remember the scene in Raising Arizona where Nicolas Cage takes all of the Arizona Quints out of their cribs and lets them crawl around the nursery so he can pick the best one to kidnap? Imagine the same scene in a pet store instead of a nursery, with five or six black-and-white felines instead of five humans, and an increasingly lovestruck Trash instead of Nicolas Cage, and an increasingly irritated pet store staff and incredibly patient new husband instead of nobody else. I gave Orca her second dose at around eleven-thirty, right before bedtime, as the VF had suggested. I’d been spending the past week and a half shoving chunks of horse pills down her throat. This pill was one-quarter of a tiny caplet, no bigger than one of M. Tiny’s fingernails. Orca got upset. Really upset. Normally she’s been flattening her ears and running away after I do this. Not this time. She dropped into a crouch and started gasping through her mouth. Trash and I watched this for about a minute, hugging her and petting her and waiting for it to pass. It didn’t. I got my shoes. “Where are you going?” Trash said. “I’m taking her to Emergency.” We’d picked up her chest x-rays and medical records from our regular vet so we could show them to the VF at her Wednesday night appointment. I grabbed these off the kitchen table, put Orca in the carrier, and headed out the door. Obviously Trash had to stay home with our new son; bringing a preemie to an animal hospital was out of the question. Trash told Orca goodbye as if it might be the last time she was going to see her. I didn’t think there was much chance she’d be right. Four or five tiny black-and-white kittens swarm over us in the pet store, tripping on our feet and rolling on the floor, the unspoken words pick me! Pick me being signaled from every whisker. One tiny black-and-white cat is much more interested in exploring the store than us. I’d left without a totally clear idea of where the emergency vet actually was, other than that it was north and west of our house. Trash got online as soon as I was out the door and found the address, then called me on my cell phone to tell me where to go. There are actually two in the area. One is in Golden Valley, which is the direction I was headed. The other is marginally further away in Eden Prairie, a southwestern suburb that I can still get lost in despite having worked there for several years. I didn’t think I had time to get lost. I was already on my way to Golden Valley, so Trash gave me that address, then told me she was going to call and tell them we were coming. She called back a minute later, when I had the sign for the emergency clinic in sight. She said they sounded worried and had asked her how soon I could get her in. “Right now,” I told her. I parked none too neatly and ran inside with Orca’s carrier in one hand and the big manila envelope from the vet’s office in the other. I said the words “Respiratory distress” to a nurse, whereupon she and both items disappeared instantly behind a door marked “Staff Only.” Trash and I pick up and hold all five or six of the tiny little black-and-white kittens, one by one. All of them are sweet and affectionate and loving, full to bursting of pick me! Except the one that’s full to bursting of put me down! “This one,” Trash and I agree. In an exam room, I filled out a few short forms, and was left to sit by myself for a while. I don’t remember the order of everything. The emergency vet came and told me they were putting Orca in an oxygen cage and giving her some medicine to help her breathe easier. I handed over Orca’s prescription bottles. Trash called to ask what was going on. I told her what I knew, which wasn’t much. Something about asthma, which had never been mentioned at any of her previous visits. We’ve been treating her like she had an upper respiratory infection this whole time, because that’s what they told us she had. But now she was having what looked like nothing so much as a full-blown asthma attack. I started to get a little scared. I realized there was a possibility that I might be calling Trash tonight to tell her our kitty had actually died. Again, I’m not sure about the order. At some point I relocated out to the waiting room. Conan O’Brien was on by now. Fatboy Slim was playing. In retrospect, I’m glad his new song was terrible, because if I had to carry associations between that night and a future ubiquitous smash like “Praise You” or “Rockafella Skank” with me for the rest of my life, I don’t think I could take it. “This one” has a built-in snarl of white fur over her upper lip, another white marking that looks like a blowhole on the small of her back, and a fluffy white shirt front and socks. It’s like she’s wearing a tuxedo that’s too small for her so it split up the back, which would be a very small tuxedo indeed. She also has little patience for anything that isn’t her idea. We figure that if we’re going to bring a tiny kitten into a house where an adolescent and fairly large cat has already established his primacy, she’d better be able and willing to defend herself a little. Carson Daly was on by the time the vet came out to tell me what medications they’d given Orca, and that she was going to have to spend several more hours in the oxygen cage. She told me to go home and get some rest, because they close at 8:00 a.m. and I would have to be back to pick her up before then. I went home to Trash and Strat and M. Tiny. Trash took care of the diaper changes and feedings for the rest of the night so I could get some sleep and be sure to get back to the emergency clinic in time to bring her home and get myself to work. At 6:00 Wednesday morning, she called the clinic and they told her that Orca was doing tons better. She was breathing easier, and we’d be able to take her home as long as someone stayed with her. Which someone would, since Trash would be home with M. Tiny for the day anyway. Trash woke me to tell me this, and I felt better. This was, more or less, they way things were supposed to happen. We pay for our new kitty and I walk Trash to the bus stop. Along the way, a young couple notices the meowing cardboard container I’m carrying and asks to see what’s inside. I draw breath to explain how we don’t want to risk losing her or have trouble getting her back in. “Sure,” Trash says. Highway 100 is a parking lot at 7:00 a.m., so I left before then, giving myself forty-five minutes to make a drive that had taken me less than fifteen the night before. Not that I had strictly obeyed all of the more esoteric provisions of the traffic code the previous night. Or indeed all of the intervening traffic lights. I got there a little before seven-thirty, and the vet from the previous night came out to give me the good news that Orca was doing great. She wasn’t even in the oxygen cage any more. She just had to get Orca ready, and they’d be out in a minute so I could take her home. It was more than a minute. When the vet came back out to the waiting room, it was to tell me that just getting Orca ready to go had stressed her enough to set off another asthma attack, and her breathing was again as bad as it had been the previous night when I brought her in. They’d popped her back in the oxygen cage and given her another round of meds, but she wasn’t responding to anything and they couldn’t keep her there indefinitely. It’s a night-only clinic, you see. During the day it’s something else and all the emergency patients and vets have to be out by 8:00. It was 7:40. An angry black-and-white fuzzy head pops out of the daylight-crack between the flaps in the cardboard box. The white whiskers contrast starkly against her black face, the ears are laid back in annoyance, throaty meows issue forth from beneath that badass/adorable little snarl. I have trouble getting her head back in the box. The young couple agrees that she is lovely. After they’re gone, I tell Trash, “Let’s not do that again.” “Open the box, or go into a pet store?” “Either one.” Trash never goes into a pet store again. Our pet clinic is six blocks away from our house, but I didn’t want to bring Orca back to the vet that had misdiagnosed her in the first place. I didn’t want to bring her to VF’s clinic, the better part of an hour away even without rush-hour traffic. I wanted to bring her to another clinic not far away from where we were, in St. Louis Park, run by another friend of Trash’s sister. But they don’t have an oxygen cage, so that was out. The clock was ticking, and Orca wasn’t improving. They let me come back into the Staff Only area to “visit” her, which amounted to peering in at her through the glass door of the oxygen cage, a wall-mounted cubicle a yard per side. She saw me, and meowed in her silent way. She came to where I had my shaking hand pressed against the glass. I watched her mouth working as she struggled to breathe. The vet confessed that she had tried everything she could think of and she was stumped. “Is she going to die?” I asked her. She took a while to answer. “Not this minute.” I stopped being only a little scared. I couldn’t stay back there with her. I wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place. I went back out to the waiting room and consulted by cell phone with an increasingly upset Trash. The emergency vet had a suggestion. The other emergency clinic, the one in Eden Prairie, has a cat ambulance with a portable oxygen cage. They could come up and get her and bring her to that clinic, which is a 24-hour facility. I bitterly regretted my decision to come to Golden Valley the previous night. I talked it over with Trash on the phone. There was a lot to weigh. The drive to Eden Prairie would be over a half hour, and Orca hates riding in anything. She’d be with strangers. When she got there, they wouldn’t be able to do anything that the Golden Valley vet hadn’t already done. Orca was already full of pure oxygen, albuterol, steroids, basically everything short of a Pulp Fiction adrenaline needle through the sternum. And there was no guarantee that after dropping God-knew-how-much on a cat-ambulance ride and another indefinite stay in an emergency facility, that she would recover anyway. As the emergency vet told me, anything we did at this point carried risk. The only thing that was certain was that it was now well after 8:00 and she couldn’t stay here. I came up with the “solution,” and I take full responsibility for what happened. I would drive Orca to our own regular vet, six blocks from our house. That way she could at least be close to us, and among vets and vet techs that she knew. We’d just have to keep her away from the vet who had missed her asthma, and make sure she got Strat’s vet, Dr. M, instead. It was 8:45 by now, and I guessed the worst of the traffic on Highway 100 would be over. The emergency vet would call ahead to let Dr. M. know we were coming, and to have the oxygen cage ready. Orca had survived the drive last night; I figured she could survive another, if I didn’t fuck around. I estimated it was about a fifteen-minute drive under normal circumstances, and I was determined to make it in ten. I now think I only had about five. Trash catches her bus, and I take our new cat home. I leave her cardboard carrier in the hallway and let myself into the apartment. Strat greets me in the foyer. “Hi, Strat!” I say excitedly, petting him with great enthusiasm. He responds in kind, as happy to see me as a laconic puppy. There is a muffled “meow” through the apartment door. Strat turns his head. “Hi, Strat!” I reiterate, and he turns his attention back to me. Until there’s another muffled “meow” from the hallway. The next time he turns his gaze to me, it is distinctly quizzical. “Let’s go in the bedroom,” I tell him, and scoop him up to do just that. Once he’s safely sequestered, I bring the box in. This time I don’t need to worry about getting the cat back in after I open it. I paid Orca’s bill and brought her paperwork and x-rays out to the car. I moved the car as close to the door as I could and left it unlocked with the keys in it and the engine running. I went back into the clinic. The receptionist saw me come back in and called to the back room: “We’re ready.” A minute later a veterinary assistant emerged handed me Orca’s carrier, with her gasping inside it. I heard the assistant’s “Good luck” Dopplering away behind me as I returned to the car at a dead run. As it turns out, Highway 100 at 8:50? Still a parking lot. Fuck. FUCK! I have to go to work myself a few hours later, and I leave the cats sequestered from one another in separate bedrooms. The new kitty is turning out to be quite shy, insisting on hiding from me under the bed. I can’t have that; I want to make friends with her, and now. I’ll explain as much to Trash when she gets home that night to find most of our possessions stacked around the bed frame so the new cat can’t escape underneath it. Ever find yourself in a traffic jam and almost wish that you were in some kind of emergency so you could zip past everyone on the shoulder? Take it from me: don’t wish that. Don’t ever, ever, wish that. I didn’t even bother trying to merge into traffic. Luckily the shoulders were clear, but I still didn’t feel safe going over fifty. And the on-ramps were a little hairy to negotiate, what with people merging in slow motion. I threaded through, however, angry horns going off behind me. Meanwhile, beside me in the shotgun seat, I had Orca’s carrier door open and my right hand on her prone body. Her mouth was open as she laboriously sucked in air and pushed it out. Her side was rising and falling. And then it wasn’t. I can’t describe the sound I made. I forget how many days you’re supposed to keep cats separate from each other in the same house before you introduce them to each other. I do know they aren’t separated that long. Strat doesn’t take to Orca, as we’ve agreed to call her, right away. She hides from him. We hold on to him when she goes to the food dish and the litter box. At a fraction of his size, she knows she’s no match for him. But occasionally he does catch her out in the open and a chase ensues. It always ends the same way: he catches up to her, and when he’s in striking distance she flops over on her back, all eighteen claws pointed straight up at his throat, chest, and belly. Suddenly he has second thoughts about whether striking distance is someplace he really wants to be. “We chose wisely,” Trash and I say. There was a gentle vibration still going on under Orca’s hide, and I seized on it as a potential sign of life. I begged her to hang on, just please hang on, just another minute, we were almost there, just please hold on for us. I kept begging, even after the vibration stopped. And now that we were off the freeway, I drove faster. I didn’t know if it was possible or feasible to resuscitate a cat that had just stopped breathing, but I was sure as hell going to find out. By the time I barely parked the car outside our vet’s office, nine minutes after leaving the emergency vet, I was crying like an asshole. In fact, everything in this entry from now on that isn’t in italics, just assume I was crying like an asshole. The car’s passenger compartment reeked of smoldering brake pads and my panic-sweat. Without bothering to shut the carrier’s door, I snatched it up and carried it inside as if it were on fire. They knew I was coming, all right; a receptionist ushered me right through the “Staff Only” door, where I was met by an urgent-faced technician in scrubs. She immediately reached in through the carrier door and pulled out Orca’s motionless body. “Shit,” she said. The technician rushed Orca through another door marked “Surgery,” announcing, “I have an emergency! Everyone out!” A team quickly exited the room, carrying a confused-looking ginger cat, and the door closed behind the tech who was carrying Orca. Dr. M. appeared out of nowhere, wondering why Orca wasn’t in the oxygen cage if I was there. I directed Dr. M. towards surgery and tried to ignore the way her expression went instantly sad. I was led back out to the reception area. I called Trash on my cell phone and told her I didn’t think our girl had made it. It was less than a minute before the vet came out and confirmed my fears. Orca was DOA. I told Trash. And there’s where it gets sad. Within two weeks, Strat and Orca are best friends. They snuggle together, he gives her baths, they wait their turns and don’t try to steal from each other when we give them treats. They just don’t seem to know who’s in charge. This is a question that will plague them for the next thirteen years. Trash was devastated. Whenever someone dies, whenever there’s a tragedy in her life, Orca sees that she’s crying and jumps up on her lap to comfort her. But obviously not in this case. None of the standard things you say to comfort people in this situation apply here. Even though she was sick, we didn’t expect her to die of it. We were trying to take care of her. We didn’t have enough time to prepare ourselves to lose her. She was only thirteen, and otherwise healthy. And of course part of me will always wonder if she could have survived that ambulance trip to Eden Prairie and whatever would have come after it. Naturally Dr. M. told me I’d done everything I could, that I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. Later, VF told me the same thing. Cats and asthma attacks are a dangerous combination, VF explained, because the breathing difficulty frightens the cat, which stresses her out and makes it even harder to breathe, initiating a vicious circle that sometimes even the best care can’t break. I hope she’s right, and that my failure at least served to spare Orca further suffering. The best thing we can say is that at least she got to meet M. Tiny, although by no stretch of the imagination did they bond in the ten days they spent under the same roof. But just a night or two before, all five of us had been gathered on our bed for a short time, mainly by coincidence. We had a little roll call, a moment filled with hope and promise for our family and the future. I don’t know what happened to that ginger cat, but they gave me all the time I needed in the surgery room with Orca’s body. I stroked her fur, kissed her, told her goodbye from all of us, and left, in much less of a hurry than I’d been in when I’d arrived. “Have a good day,” the receptionist told me as I left with the empty pet carrier. That was probably the only thing she could think of to say, and she probably beat herself up over it for the rest of the morning. Trash met me at our front door, red-faced from crying, and hugged me tight. We told each other we were sorry. My mom was also there. She had just had to put her own aging dog to sleep a couple of weeks before, so she had an idea of what we were going through. I’m grateful to her for sticking around and babysitting M. Tiny for the rest of the day so Trash and I could mourn. “I wish they could make her a vampire cat, so she could come back to us,” Trash said, not completely unseriously. “There are some,” I pointed out tearfully, “who would say that had already been done.” Orca lives with us for thirteen years, almost to the day. Longer than I’ve been doing this blog, longer than any job I’ve ever held, longer than we’ve lived in this house, longer than I’ve known most of the friends I have now. Longer than I went to public school. Almost as long as our marriage. She’s part of our life, part of our home, part of our family. Part of us. So many things make her special: the way she comes running when Trash sings badly and loudly; the way she finishes Trash’s glasses of milk by sticking a paw into the dregs and then licking her pads; the way she holds down one of Trash’s hands when they snuggle in bed; all the mornings I wake up with her on top of the covers but wedged between my knees; they way she won’t accept love or affection from anyone but Trash, me, and veterinarians. Someone once said that cats are the soul of a house, and I believe it completely. After a while I went upstairs to our bedroom, where Strat was lying by himself on our bed. Trash hadn’t told him yet, but he’d known something was up from the moment I’d bundled Orca into her carrier less than twelve hours before. I lay next to him on the bed and petted him. “I’m sorry,” I said. He sniffed my fingers. I hadn’t washed them since I’d left the vet’s office. He sniffed them a long time. “I’m sorry,” I said. And I am. 
posted by M. Giant
7:47 PM
38 comments
38 Comments:
I'm sitting here crying, and I don't have the words. I'm just so incredibly sorry. The only thing I can think to say was that she was with you, knowing you loved her, knowing you were doing your best for her, just as you and Trash had always done. No pet could have asked for more love than you gave her.
By I'm not ashamed to admit that I wept as I read your blog tonight. I wept for you and Trash and M. Tiny and Strat. I wept for my own dearly departed Cheetarah, gone from this world more than four years ago and still missed every day. I wept because I rushed my other cat to the vet last weekend and am so thankful it was a minor problem. Words cannot convey the depth of empathy I feel for you and your family. "I'm sorry" seems so trite, but it is heartfelt, nontheless.
By I am just sitting here crying. You were able to put into words something that I myself have not been able to write about for seven years now. I need to find a tissue.
By i lost my own poor little kitty in july, after 12 years, and i still miss her when i'm going to sleep and she's not curled up at the end of the bed. i'm so sorry.
By My condolences. You did absolutely everything you could, and you were with her in the end. We'll all miss her as much as you will.
By
I'm so, so sorry. You (all) will be in my thoughts tonight and tomorrow.
By
Man, I don't think I've cried this much in a long time. Your writing is amazing and you captured the emotion, the wonder, the love that is a pet so well with the past and further past references.
By
Thank you so much for sharing that painful time. As hard as it had to be for you to tell, you described exactly what I went through a couple of years ago. I came to realize that I will always second guess myself, even though every decision I made seemed to be the right one at the time. I have a feeling you have that problem too. Just remember, if you had gone to the Eden Prairie vet, you may have gotten lost, Orca may have died there, there may have been the same ending just in a different location and you would end up questioning your actions then, too.
By
The tears welled as soon as I saw the title. My heart and support go out to you, Trash, M.Tiny and Strat, and everyone that Orca touched. You write so fondly and well that it's almost (but clearly not quite) like you're all part of my family. May you find comfort in all our support and love, and know that we will miss her too.
By
I am SO incredibly sorry. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
By
Oh my gosh. I just don't know what to say. That was so beautiful. I am so sorry about Orca.
By Not that the love of a whole bunch of people you've never met will help at all, but my heart does go out to the whole bunch of you right now. As a pet owner, I know how much losing an animal hurts. You guys will be in my thoughts.
By
Oh, thanks so much for sharing the story of your lives together with Orca. It was so beautifully written, it brought me to tears, and that doesn't happen easily.
By
Actually, I think the kind words of a lot of strangers helps a lot. I'm coming up on the year anniversary of the death of my dog Sophie at only seven...she had been sick all year, we were in and out of the vet at least once a month, and nobody found out it was cancer until the day before thanksgiving. She died nine days later. I cried when I read this just as I still cry when I think of her.
By
I am so sorry, M. Giant. All of you have my deepest sympathies.
By
I only started reading your blog fairly recently--just, in fact, a couple weeks after I had to put my beloved Ruby Tuesday to sleep at the age of 15 and a half (brain tumor, not asthma, but I can relate so much to everything you wrote here). I'm so, so sorry.
By There are no words but what a lovely tribute to your family and your little kitty with her too-small tuxedo. I'll be thinking about you all. - Trish
By Of course words can't express fully the sorrow you feel when you love a beloved pet, although yours come very, very close. I'll just leave you with the highly inadequate: "I'm sorry," knowing it can never be enough.
By I am so sorry for your loss...my heart goes out to your family...I know how hard it is to lose such a precious member of the family. Your story made me cry, and I will be sure to hug my kitty Maddie a little tighter tonight. Again, so sorry.
By
At the risk of pointing out my own foolishness, I just realized that I DID NOT comment on M. Tiny meeting Orca in the previous comments and then I said I did. Well, I did write something about it, then I thought, "They might think I'm an idiot for saying M. Tiny actually got to know Orca, since M. Tiny is, well, tiny." So, I deleted it. Then I forgot.
By I'm so sorry. Try not to question your decisions... I went down that road after rushing my dog to an emergency clinic at 2 in the morning, and losing her later that day. The "what ifs" are infinite, and there is no way to tell if things would have been better or worse had you acted any differently. Just know that you were with her at the end, touching her, and that is no small thing.
By I'm so sorry.
By Hey man, I just wanted to give an e-hug to the whole giant family. My doggy went missing 5 weeks ago, he's never stayed away longer than a night and he was pretty old. Losing a pet is so hard, but in a while you'll be smiling again remembering all the things you wrote in italics and all the other stuff too. Sorry this is so clumsy, but lots of love, Róisín xx
By
Oh. Dear.
By
M. Giant, M. Tiny, Trash and Strat-
By I'm so sorry. Take care.
By
I've held back on saying anything, because anything I say will sound awkward and insufficient, at least it will to me. But I hope you know how much I'm with you.
By
I am so, so sorry. I have mentioned it before, but we lost a pet last year, and I do know how hard it is. This is almost exactly a year ago that one of our beloved kitties was found hurt, and spent two weeks recovering before going into liver failure - which we didn't discover until it was far too late to save him.
By I love you guys.. and I am very very sorry
By
I saw someone driving on the shoulder, speeding, this morning at about 8:20, and I thought about how you were in that situation. I'm so sorry that you were, and that it turned out so sadly. I hope the person I saw was just impatient and not in dire straits.
By My poor little boy (only 2 years old) became ill quickly and died at the vet's the same day. Slowly the what-I-should-have-done-differently thoughts turn into the what-a-sweet-boy-I-was-blessed-to-have thoughts. But, oh, so sad for so long.
By
I am so so sorry for your loss. I read your blog often, and was so happy for you when you got to bring home M. Tiny...
By
I've shut myself in my office, crying hard.
By I am so sorry about your loss. You went above and beyond the call of duty to get her help, and the fact that you were petting her at the end must have given her some peace. I know that's slim consolance though. Just allow yourself to grieve Orca.
By I'm so, so sorry for your loss.
By I've been trying to post for a few days, and I can't come up with anything better than anything anyone else has said. I'm so sorry for your loss. -- sobell
By I'm so sorry.
By
I almost never cry.
By Wednesday, November 10, 2004 Goodbye 
Orca 7/20/91 - 11/10/04 posted by M. Giant 8:55 AM 34 comments 34 Comments:
So sorry, M. Giant. May he rest in peace.
By Sorry, *she*. May she rest in peace.
By
I am so sorry for your loss. I know how difficult it is to lose a pet.
By
OMG, I'm so sorry. My condolences to you, Trash, M. Tiny and Strat.
By
I am so sorry to hear of Orca's passing. I lost my cat Beeb to feline herpes also. He was 13. I know what you are going through and my heart goes out to you and your family.
By I am so, so sorry for your loss.
By I was so very sad to hear about Orca. I have been through the same thing and it hurts more than many realize. My sincere condolences.
By Please accept my condolences. I'm so very sorry for your loss.
By That sucks, man. I am so sorry. My thoughts and prayers are with you and Trash and M. Tiny and Strat.
By
I'm so sorry, guys. I've lost a cat, too, and I know how hard it is.
By
I am so, so sorry. I know you did your absolute best to give him a full life and by all accounts it was a very happy one. Hope that is a small comfort to you.
By
I am so so sorry to hear about Orca.
By
M. Giant and family, I am so very sorry for your loss. I have also lost a cat, and it is a terrible thing. I only wish I could give you comfort at this hard time. Just know what our thoughts are with you.
By Ohhh, Orca. I am so very sorry for your family's loss...my thoughts are with you.
By Dammit. I'm sorry.
By Oh, I am so sorry. How's Strat taking it? How are the humans?
By
Oh, I am so sorry. We lost a cat nearly a year ago, and it still hurts. My condolences to you and your family. Now I am going to sit here at my desk and cry quietly.
By
(blubbering)
By
My heart breaks for you. Losing a pet, no matter how old, is always devastating.
By So sorry for your loss. OUr pets are our furry children and every bit a part of our families as the human ones. *hug* Kel
By *Joins the snuffling* Oh Orca! Poor little Strat, it's going to hit him hard. I am truly sorry for your loss during what has been such a stressful period in your lives. --Sayer
By I'm very sorry for your loss.
By
Oh, kitty, kitty, we will miss you. Sorry for your loss, M.Giant, Trash, Strat, and M.Tiny. My kitty and I will be thinking of you during this difficult time.
By
Sorry for your loss.
By I admittedly am feeling a little emotional right now, but this makes me cry. I am SO sorry for you guys. I know how hard losses like this are. Hugs to you and Trash!
By I'm so very, very sorry for your loss. I lost my cat last year, and it was more painful than I ever thought it would be. Just know that it all happened in this order for a reason.
By I'm so sorry...my condolences to you and your family. I know what it's like to lose a pet unexpectedly and, three years later, it's still difficult to think about. They're a part of your family and having them in your life is something you'll never forget.
By
So sorry....
By
Oh, I am just so sorry to hear this. You took such good care of Orca, my condolences are with you.
By Oh, M. Giant, I'm so sorry. It hurts so much, I know. I hope that the baby-high is helping to dull the pain.
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I've been reading and lurking for a little while now. I read about Orca today with sympathies for you -- but sort of sympathy you have for someone you don't know very well.
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All I can say is what everyone else already has: I'm so, so sorry for your loss.
By I'm so very sorry for your loss. My family recently lost a kitty after 14 years... and it hurts a lot. Go ahead and cry like an asshole, it's totally the right thing to do. And cry on Strat, and hug him until he squeaks and has to bathe indignantly. It will get better. And you'll never forget your Orca.
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I feel so sad about this, my heart really does go out to you & Trash. I've hugged my cat so much this week it's freaking her out. I hope you will keep reminding yourselves - you did everything you could to love and care for Orca. Everything.
By Monday, November 08, 2004 Cat Scratch Fever When Dirt and Banana heard that we’d been chosen to adopt M. Tiny, they offered to throw a baby shower for us almost immediately. (I mean the offer came almost immediately. Not the shower. That would have been a logistical miracle.) At the time, we decided that the best weekend to have it would be this last one. It would give us a few weeks to prepare, while still being a few weeks before the baby came. Yeah, right. Aside from finding ourselves in the unexpected position of having to find a babysitter so we could go to our baby shower, I’d say it was a huge success. Not that the virtual baby shower of the past couple of months hasn’t been fun, with packages materializing on our back deck and front stoop at the rate of several per week, but there’s also something to be said about sitting in a room with people and opening their gifts in front of them. Particularly gifts as kind, generous, and thoughtful as these. And that something is “Thank you.” * * * While we were hanging out at the NICU with M. Tiny a couple of weeks ago, Linda suggested that the combined stresses of my life called for a special self-help book: So Your Cat Has Herpes, Your Premature Son Is in the Hospital, You Had a Horrible Migraine, and Your Other Cat Has Diabetes. Sadly, I keep forgetting to add it to my wish list. But now M. Tiny is out of the hospital, and I think I’ve got the migraines at bay, mainly by taking care of myself. I try not to get stressed out, I walk half a mile from the parking lot to work and back every day, I get as much sleep as the parent of a newborn can reasonably get without alerting Social Services, and every weekday morning I get up early and fix myself a giant bowl of Ibuprophen. Stays crispy, even in milk. Of course, Strat’s diabetes hasn’t gone away, which we didn’t expect it to, and neither has Orca’s herpes-based upper respiratory infection, which we did. We can still mark her entrance into any room by the sound of her breathing, like Darth Vader’s first appearance in Star Wars. We put her on the Lysine almost two weeks ago. I’ve been cutting those chalky horse-pills into quarters, forcing her mouth open, and cramming them in at the base of her tongue twice a day, and the only thing that’s changed is that now she runs and hides in Trash’s closet when she sees me coming at her with something in my hand. The vet told us a week of the stuff should take care of it, but if anything it’s been getting worse. She’s physically incapable of purring without wheezing, and a sigh sounds like a jet engine revving up. We were going to call the vet to tell hem how much he sucks, but we got a house call instead. See, we know a vet through Trash’s sister, SIL. This is the same vet who fixed Orca’s teeth a couple of years ago. She doesn’t get to see our cats professionally very often because her practice is halfway to the Iowa state line, but since she stopped by to see M. Tiny yesterday after the shower, we figured we’d hit her up for some free medical advice. Funny thing about Orca. There are two classes of people she neither hates nor fears: immediate family, and veterinary professionals. Anyone else who tries to pet her will only scare her off. I was a little nervous when the Vet-Friend, out of office and out of uniform, came in the house and reached out to scritch Orca’s ears. Orca accepted the tribute gratefully, much to the disgusted astonishment of SIL, who is easily Orca’s least favorite person for reasons I may or may not have explained in a previous entry. She thought it was just because Orca was sick. Long story short, the Vet-Friend suggested we double Orca’s Lysine dosage. Getting a second opinion was a great relief to us. I think it even made Orca herself start to feel better on the spot, which may explain why she then tried to take off the Vet-Friend’s finger. Now I’m cramming half-pills rather than quarter-pills down the back of Orca’s throat twice a day. After pulling her out from even deeper in the closet or under the bed. And it’s not that I don’t appreciate those of you who suggested I grind the pills up and hide them in milk or tuna. Unfortunately, that was only halfway successful. Orca knew something was up immediately and wouldn’t touch either. Strat, however, didn’t suspect a thing, and if he was about to get herpes, his immune system has now been fortified against it. I think I’m just going to have to write my own self-help book. posted by M. Giant 7:17 PM 4 comments 4 Comments:
i've never had the first velcrometer comment first. but now i have....
By If YOU wrote a self-help book, I would totally read it.
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When our cat had feline herpes, the drug store ordered the lysine in liquid form for us. It was much easier to squirt the medicine down his throat then to try to force the pill down there. Maybe you can ask your drug store about it?
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I share with you the pain of cat-pill-giving. My cat has a middle ear infection that the vet helpfully tells me could get into her brain and kill her. If that's true, I sure wish his colleague had diagnosed it the first time I took her in, three months ago.
By Saturday, November 06, 2004 Crash Course I was reading What to Expect the First Year. I’d finished the chapter on newborns, and I felt ahead of the curve. I still had a couple of months to read the rest of the book, and then I’d come back to the newborn section and study it in more detail as the due date drew near. When M. Tiny was born, I would be calm, knowledgeable and prepared. Of course, M. Tiny was born seven weeks ahead of schedule and right now I don’t even know where the damn book is. But I’ve learned more from the experience than I could have from the book. There are lots of thing the book doesn’t tell you. For any of you out there who are relying on published works to prepare for parenthood, forget that. Do that smart thing and rely on me. Here are a few areas of preemie-care I can tell you a thing or two about. Halloween: Three weeks is too young for trick-or-treating, especially for a preemie still four weeks out from his due date. I kept thinking he’d come around, but after five hours of screaming I had to admit defeat. Just wait till next year. Laundry: There is a lot of it. If you had little to no control over your mouth, bladder, and bowels, you’d probably have a lot more laundry too. The advantage with a baby is that all the laundry is very small, so you can do a prodigious amount of it all at one time. And there’s no sorting, because I took a chance and learned that the dye from the light-blue clothes isn’t going to bleed and ruin the lighter-blue clothes .Whew. The lack of pockets is a mixed blessing, though. On the one hand, I don’t have to go through them. On the other, no tips. Can't wait until he's old enough to have pockets. And an allowance. Baby Formula: Do you have any idea how much it costs to buy a can of off-white dust that mixes with water to form a liquid that smells like a urine-soaked gym sock? We do. And we got a couple of free cans from the hospital and the pediatrician. We’re thinking that we’ll probably need to stretch the stuff out by cutting it with something cheaper, like flour or powdered milk or cocaine. And add a little more water to each bottle, tapering it off gradually so that he doesn’t even notice when we’re eventually screwing rubber nipples directly onto Aquafinas. He might not grow as fast this way, but at least the laundry will still be small. Sleep: Everyone tells you you’ll get no sleep. Even people who have never had, cared for, met, or been a baby knows that parents of newborns get as much sleep as Christian Bale in The Machinist. This was the thing that worried me most about becoming a parent, because I need sleep. I love sleep. The only way I could love sleep more would be if I could somehow be awake to enjoy it. So I confess to having had some trepidation about giving so much of it up. But nobody told me how quickly I would adapt, and how after only a couple of nights at home with a newborn, a night when you only have to wake up for two feedings becomes a decadent luxury. Because you know what’s better than going to sleep? Going back to sleep. Mmmzzzzzz. Poo: The entry into parenthood is both an ascent into the sublime and a descent into the scatological. I knew I would become more fascinated with the volume, frequency, and consistency of my son’s poo than I am my own (which is, as longtime readers know, a lot), but if you had told me a month ago that this week I would watch a fellow human being lying on my bed while a warm coil of live shit issued forth from his rectum in real time and not freak out to the point of suicide, I probably would have freaked out to the point of suicide. And yet I watched just that and hardly freaked out at all. I credit some of my equanimity to the plastic pad he was lying on and the fact that it was my wife playing Johnny Bench with a diaper, but still. As such, Trash has given him yet another nickname, after a character from Homestar Runner. But I won't be calling him the Poopsmith in these pages on a regular basis. At least not yet. But stay tuned. Today's best search phrase: "Cuff roll my long pant legs up for her." Aww, what people won't do for love. posted by M. Giant 4:05 PM 7 comments 7 Comments:Hee! I give it 6 weeks before you *exclusively* call M. Tiny 'the Poopsmith.'
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No kidding on the formula. For extra fun? Have the kid on the specialty expensive ass 'allergic issues' formula. Bleh.
By Just to maybe help you out, my sister just had her first baby, and she signed up at enfamil.com (im not sure which type of formula you use) but they send you a box of formula containers on the due date and then they send you letters each month with lots of coupons to buy more formula (its basically like toys r us bucks but for enfamil) and every store takes them (even bjs, costco, and sams club!). So we signed up a bunch of relatives and friends with fake due dates, and now she gets like $45 bucks a month off her formula purchases..its worth it to look into!
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Ditto on the mailing lists. Also, every time you go to the pediatrician, hit them up for formula. Formula companies just give them BUCKETS of the stuff, and they're happy to get rid of it. I didn't know that with my first child. Darn.
By After the formula checks run out (which happens far too soon), look into generic formula. Even though I hate to shop there, I make special formula runs to Wal-Mart to pick up Parents' Choice formula. It's half the price of Enfamil et al. HALF. If M. Tiny doesn't have any super-special nutritional needs that require an unusual formula blend, it's the way to go.
By Oh, goodness. I'm crying(I've been laughing that hard!). Everyone's comments (including yours) have had me reminiscing over my experiences as a new mom to a premmie. My son was born at 26 weeks. I didn't get to buy "What to Expect the First Year" before he was born. I didn't even have a crib at that point. He is on premmie formula now, and it really is expensive. It is definetly difficult entering parenthood for the first time, but having to buy special clothes and expensive formula that has just made me loose even more sleep!
By If you want to stick with the name brand formula, it's really cheap at Babies R Us--$4 to $5 less per can than at Target! The trick is they put it in the back corner of the store, so you have to walk past all the little cute clothes and toys to get there. But if you can be strong, it's worth it to go to BRU and buy up whatever they've got in stock.
By Wednesday, November 03, 2004 Humpblog (11/3/04) Good God, America, what were you thinking? You want to live in a fundamentalist theocracy? Then why couldn't you move to one and leave my country alone? I really can't think of anything else to say about the election that I won't be embarrassed about later, so I won't. Probably less likely to get arrested that way, anyhow. Whoops, look what happened there. I do have one hopeful thing to say, I guess. I just hope that now that Bush has won an actual election with both the electoral and popular vote, with high voter turnout, without having to involve his brother the governor of Florida or the Supreme Court, while seeing Republican gains in both houses of Congress, he'll feel he's got the validation he needs to help him finally get over that pesky low self-confidence problem he's been struggling with the past four years. * * * I'm beginning to suspect my cell phone is a piece of shit. Sure, it's got the neato ice-blue backlighting, but it can't get clear reception to save its own life, which is becoming less and less a figure of speech all the time. For a while I thought that the 1950's construction of our house was blocking the reception, but now that I'm out of the house, I can find myself 360 feet above the ground, in a steel building that amounts to a 470-foot antenna, next to a panoramic window that looks out on the entire southern half of Minneapolis and all of Bloomington, but instead I'm looking at the five signal bars on my display and if I move my head more than half a degree in any direction the earpiece abruptly goes silent. I think it's Ohio's fault. * * * They told us M. Tiny's umbilical stump would fall off within seven to twenty-one days of his birth. He's twenty-two days old today. When the subject came up, I'd make goofy jokes about what we'd do with the stump when it fell off: "Stick it in the scrapbook." "Feed it to the cats." "Drop it in my martini. It’s already got plenty of alcohol in it." The stump fell off overnight the other day. I don't know where it is. It's just gone. But for some reason, the cats have been looking at M. Tiny a lot more hungrily ever since. * * * Who could blame them? He does look good enough to eat, does he not? Check this out: 
Whoops, that's my finger. Sorry. Hang on. I'll try again. 
How about that, huh? How cute is that little guy? Okay, enough teasing. 
Maybe you'd rather see a couple from after he was released from the hospital. Here he is in the nursery, in the middle of what looks to be a months-long formula bender: 
Brains! Tiny BRAAIINS!!! Every last thing in the picture besides the human beings and the lamp was given to us by readers, family, and friends. For which we are grateful, if I've neglected to mention that. Seriously, if you sent something and you haven't gotten a thank-you card, let us know, because we are actually caught up. On thank-you cards, at least. There's other stuff we won't be catching up on for a couple of decades, give or take. Today's best search phrase: "Low maintenance for long layered haircuts pictures." You want low maintenance? Even hirsute three-week-olds like ours don't have much hair, and not a lot of scalp area to cover. Can't get much easier than that. Although I do ask Trash not to comb it straight forward because it makes him look like Eminem. posted by M. Giant 7:17 PM 10 comments 10 Comments:M. Tiny is adorable. And all over the facial expressions.
By adorable that M Tiny is!
By Congrats, M. Giant. On the kid, not the presidential election. I'm sure M. Tiny is adorable, although I can't actually see the pictures right now. (Stupid computer. Stupid internet connection.)
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OK, I'm not much on newborn babies, but that kid? Is cute.
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Ooooh! He's so cute! As my father in law said, on meeting my 6-week-old son, "nice lookin' baby you two got there". Yay, M. Tiny! Yay, M. Giant and Trash!
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Being from Ohio, I resent that Ohio comment. We may be flat and boring, but at least we have a SeaWorld and the Bicycle Museum of America. And we're still trying to claim fame to the Wright Brothers. Don't blame me, I checked for dangling chads.
By Yeah Jeff..."fundamentalist theocracy" tells it like it is. We went to sleep on Tuesday in the US of A and woke up on Wednesday in Afghanistan. Uncle Mike in Denver.
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Word. As a graduate of a fine, fine, fine undergraduate institution in northern Ohio, I may say I blame every single one of my former classmates who I know voted for evil. And Napoleon is really is about the flattest place in the universe.
By M. Tiny porte un chapeau orange -- c'est mignon, ca! Donde esta el barra? Domo arrigato! As you can see, I am brushing up on my language skills so I can repatriate.
By Speaking as a native of Ohio, I am very sorry...what else is there to say? I know where I'm from people will vote for any schulb if he/she is likeable enough. And a lot of people like Bush for some reason. There's no accounting for taste.
By Monday, November 01, 2004 Election Day I’ve never gotten much into politics on this site, and I wouldn't be doing so today if, well, look at the calendar. I’m not optimistic about my chances for winning people over to a particular side. People tend to believe what they believe, and I lack the rhetorical flair and blogging skill to hammer together an argument strong enough to turn anyone around. If I were any good at finding links to support my arguments, I'd do it all the time. So even though election day is tomorrow, I’m not going to tell you how to vote. I’m just going to tell you to vote, period. I’m not going to tell you how to feel about an administration that’s packed with people– from Defense Department wonks to the Vice President—who have publicly argued since the 1990's that the United States military should invade and take over one Middle Eastern nation after another on the theory that it can. Decide for yourself whether you want the rest of these wars to go forward, and whether you want to leave them in the hands of someone with a proven history of building his plans around best-case scenarios. It’s up to you to make up your own mind as to whether you want to keep, as your Attorney General, a religious nut who wants to use terrorism as an excuse to peer into every aspect of your life, from the books you read to the groups you belong to—unless, of course, those groups are on the right wing and just happen to own a cyanide bomb and a shitload of guns. Make your own decision about a President who stated his desire to add to the United States Constitution an Amendment whose entire purpose would have been to deny a basic right to one specific group of Americans. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether you want to tell the world that you’re just fine and dandy with the fact that the current administration has effectively opted out of the Geneva Convention. I’m not going to try and talk you out of any feeling you may have that disagreeing with the current president is tantamount to anti-Americanism, whatever your position may have been on his predecessor’s prosecution of such international operations as the Kosovo war and Desert Fox. If you can think about a president who keeps appointing one right-wing judge after another—people who want to turn this county’s clock back a hundred years in a hundred different ways—and not be bothered by the likelihood of that same president appointing the next four Supreme Court Justices, more power to you. According to the polls, somewhere in the ballpark of half the people in this country are in favor of all of those things. Those people have a responsibility to vote for them. But you do what you need to do. It’s your call. Vote what you believe. posted by M. Giant 5:35 PM 10 comments 10 Comments:Kudos.
By Wow, you are not biased at all!
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He has a right to be "biased." This isn't a news site, it's a personal journal.
By Wait, you mean I shouldn't use this site for my news? Someone should have told me that a year ago. Damn...stay cool
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If this is "lacking rhetorical flair", damn, I wish I was as lacking as you.
By My thoughts exactly! I was particularly disturbed by Paul Krugman's column on John Ashcroft -- somehow I'd missed that one. Yikes! Let's hope for the best for America today. (Oh, and I'm not posting anonymously; I don't have a blog on this site. I'm Dan from dano.diaryland.com.)
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Heh, I voted this morning! Loved your fair and balanced blogging. You should start your own network: The Anti-Fox News.
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M.Tiny for president!
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Not the least bit anti (anyone) are you. I agree. I agree I agree. Great recap of Gilmore Girls.
By I'm so sorry to hear about Orca, and that was an amazing tribute. I was with my cat when we had to put him to sleep a couple of years ago, and it's never quite the same. I still wish he'd rummage through anyone's purse as soon as they set it on the floor. But she sounded like an amazing pet, and I'm sure she knew you were there with your hand on her when the time came. Don't be surprised if Strat picks up some of Orca's habits - our remaining cat did that in a very eerie way, but it was also comforting, like his own little tribute.
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