Farewell to the Big Dude

Silly, in one of his favorite spots, on his futon.

My wife and I both knew it was going to end this way, ever since we met with the oncologist.

He told us that treating cancer in cats isn't the same as in humans, explaining that one of the reasons why people get so sick during chemo is that the treatment is intended to kill the cancer. It's milder for cats, but that's because the intent is only to hold the tumor back as much as possible. 

In the most-aggressive treatment, which is surgery and chemo -- which Silly couldn't have because the doctor also thought he saw cancer in his lung along with his pancreas, so it was only going to be chemo -- he said maybe you get a year.

We got 11 months ... 11 mostly great months.

* * * * *

Between the two of us, my wife and I had three cats when we moved in together 13 years ago. She had Silly and Skippy, and I had Scrapper. (Even though it was unintentional, we kept the naming tradition going with our little one, Sasha.)

Of the three, Silly was by far the most laid-back, which came in handy when he was diagnosed with diabetes more than 10 years ago. It meant he required two shots daily, and he never gave us a problem. When it was time for a shot, he'd let us grab the skin on the back of his neck, lift it up and give him his insulin. Then he would go back to whatever he was doing. We're not sure it would have been nearly as easy with Skippy or Scrapper.

Silly was just relaxed about everything. He was never in a hurry, and just liked to hang out in his favorite spots: the futon in our TV room (pictured above, and behind me as I type this), one of the beds upstairs, the cat bed in the window is Sasha wasn't too pesky, out on the deck in the nice weather and the middle cushion of our couch.

But in the last months of his life, Silly added one more spot ... my lap.

Silly always liked people once he got used to them (he would hide if strangers or my brother's dog would come), but he was never big on being held for very long, and while he spent hours sitting next to me on the couch on his middle cushion, he never liked to sit with me until a few months ago. All of a sudden, he couldn't get enough of my lap, to the point where sometimes he'd stand with his paws on my stomach and climb my chest to get face-to-face.

Maybe he was trying to tell me something, trying to get as close a possible before he was gone.

* * * * *

Like the diabetes, not to mention the growth on his liver that caused us to get him checked for cancer in the first place, Silly handled cancer like a champ. Because of the diabetes, we and our oncologist (who was fantastic, by the way) had to be very careful about making sure he ate, and at one point he did go into shock so badly that they kept him overnight in the hospital as a precaution. 

But other than that, he did great, so much so that after a couple months, his treatments were cut from once every three weeks to once every four. The cancer wasn't spreading, his weight was fairly stable, he was eating reasonably well (although he would have stretches where he decided he didn't like his food anymore and we had to change) and while he was a bit slower, he got around well enough to where he wanted to go.

I generally get up in the morning before my wife, especially during the week, and each day, the first thing I would do was look for Silly. I'd usually find him downstairs in one of his favorite spots, and he'd start coming around when he knew it was time to be fed. After mostly alternating before, Sasha took on more of the nagging us to wake us up on the weekend duty, but every now and then he'd wander upstairs to get in one of our faces.

* * * * *

The beginning of the end for Skippy came in January 2013 (Scrapper had died a few years before), when he fell down the stairs. I saw him tumble down the steps, and it was terrifying. He didn't last much longer after that, dying a couple days later.

I heard Silly land awkwardly after he jumped off our bed on one of his rare forays upstairs a few weeks ago, but he got away before I could grab him, and the next thing I heard was the frightening sound of him bouncing down the stairs.

When I got to the bottom of the steps, he was crying, his legs were splayed out underneath him and he had trouble standing up. He eventually settled down, and then it happened again -- the same tumble down the stairs, the same crying.

We brought one of our litter boxes up from the basement and shut the basement door -- one of the things that slowed his fall down the stairs was the wall and rail on one side, which didn't exist going to the basement, and the drop was to a concrete floor -- and I slept downstairs with him for a couple nights just to keep tabs on him.

The first night, he slept with me all night. The second, he kept trying to get away from me and walk around.

Because, you see, Silly was going to give us one last rally.

* * * * *

One thing I hope to never have to do is have a pet put to sleep. So far, it hasn't happened. Scrapper died on our deck after my wife discovered her cowering in the basement, and Skippy died while I held him to my chest in bed.

My brother had to do it with his dog, and my in-laws with one of their cats earlier, and I know it happens all the time, but I would feel incredibly guilty, like I had given up. 

Instead, I hope for the miracle, and after Silly fell down the stairs, it looked like he was going to give us one. He was slower than ever, but legs that had been unsteady were firmly back underneath him. He wasn't eating a lot, to the point where we stopped giving him shots, but he would eat. He was even back to sitting on my lap.

We knew better than to get our hopes up too much, but maybe the falling was a temporary problem and that he wasn't anywhere near done yet.

Then, a few Sunday mornings ago, my wife and I were in the living room, reading the paper, when we heard a thump, followed by a cry. We went into the TV room, and there was Silly on the floor. He had tried to get down from the futon and landed badly. We tried to put him on his feet, but he couldn't stay upright.

We brought him out to the living room, and eventually after we laid him down on the ottoman, the crying got so bad that we wondered how long we should wait before we took him to the hospital to ... you know ...

But whatever pain he was in, it only last for about another hour. My wife and I sat with him, and I repeated what I told him when we first heard his diagnosis, "Fight as hard as you can't, but when you can't fight any more, it's OK to stop."

And so, at age 17, he finally stopped.

He's with his brother and sister now, under a tree in our yard.

RIP, Silly. We miss you tons.

When did I enter 2014?

A co-worker made a request yesterday that left me so flummoxed, I actually inquired why she would do such a thing.

She asked for my phone number.

I don't mind using the phone -- unlike my wife, who prefers to do just about anything else -- but I don't actually do it all that often. Most of my phone calls consist of these four activities:

1. Talking to my parents and grandmother Sunday nights.

2. Calling for pizza Tuesday nights.

3. Yelling at customer service reps.

4. Taking calls from the guys who work for me when I work at home.

And ever since my wife and I ditched our land lines last year in favor of iPhones (I previously had a flip-phone that I pretty much only used for emergencies, but the phone number is the same), not that many people even have my number, which is awesome since I rarely get interrupted at dinner.

However, that's not the reason her request threw me off, to the point where I was worried she was asking because she had some horrible news about work that she could only share on the phone.

It was because there are so many other ways she could reach me. We're friends on Facebook and follow each other on Twitter; in fact, she follows me on personal and work accounts. Why did she need my phone? It seemed so, dare I say ... retro.

As it turned out, she was on a Facebook group message I sent out about work to some of my co-workers earlier in the day, but she doesn't like those, so she wanted, not to talk to me, but to text me about it ... another relatively modern contrivance (at least by my standards) that I never did until I got the new phone and my wife showed me how easy it was.

Instead, she sent me an individual message on Facebook ...

... and I did eventually give her my number.

Giving in on the burger battle

I'm not Sally of "When Harry Met Sally" fame, but rare is the meal that I order without some kind of deletion, addition or change.

I don't like vegetables or mashed potatoes with skins in them, and one of the guys who worked for me used to hear me order turkey subs enough that he developed a frighteningly good impression ("plain turkey, on white ... no, I don't want lettuce or tomato ... just meat and bread").

When I used to get soft drinks with my meal, I always ordered them without ice. Once, to the astonishment of my companions, I sent back a soda not because it had ice in it, but because the waiter brought it without ice and clearly only the amount of soda they'd put in if the drink had ice in it.

Now, I mostly drink water with my meals, so I don't care if there's ice (you can't water down water, after all), but I used to have a problem with servers disregarding my request to not have lemon in my drink until my wife suggested asking for it "without lemon" instead of "no lemon." I have no idea why -- maybe "without" registers because of the extra syllable -- but I can probably count the lemons in my water since then on one hand.

Which brings me to Wendy's.

I've written before about how it baffles me that Wendy's refuses to recognize hamburgers to the point of serving cheeseburgers even when I specifically say the word "hamburger." Much like Niagara Mohawk and mlb.tv, among others, I'm sure one of my rants is on a training video somewhere. (I've also gotten the "do you want lettuce, tomato and onion" line when I've asked for my triple hamburger plain, but far less often.)

But I do love their burgers, so when my wife and I went out for some errands today near a Wendy's, that's where we went for lunch. This time, however, I made a fateful decision.

I surrendered ... threw in the towel ... tapped out ... gave up. When it came time to order, I requested a plain ... triple ... hamburger ...

... without cheese.

I still think it's stupid that Wendy's defaults to cheeseburgers, and just as stupid that their employees either don't realize or are trained not to realize when someone wants a hamburger. But I just didn't feel like fighting it, and I did get exactly what I asked for.

And it was tasty.

Problem that is completely inconsequential in light of the many troubles in our world ... solved.

Oh yeah ... he's still got it

Not a bad way to spend an evening.

There once was a young singer, and his voice was a revelation. My wife and I saw him in concert for our anniversary not long after we were married, and it was terrific.

The young singer is now 33, and the album that first made people take notice is now nearly 13 years old.

Last night, my wife and I went to Tanglewood to see Josh Groban in concert for a second time. Our anniversary was more than a month ago, but my wife bought the lawn tickets as an anniversary gift. Fortunately, we got great weather.

As years go by, artists come and go and various songs catch your attention at any particular time, to the point where if you're flipping through the songs you've downloaded, you skip through a lot of songs in order to hear whatever's at the forefront of your mind at the time.

In recent months, Josh Groban's songs (among others) were among the ones I skipped a lot. It's not like he stopped being good. It's not like I stopped liking his music. But it had reached the point were it was just ... there ... and there was usually something else I wanted to hear.

Then he came out on stage last night, joined by the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra (think Boston July 4 celebration) ... and the reasons for his appeal came back all at once.

The voice is still amazing (dumbest review I ever read, and one I wish I could find, was the one that said he had a "generically pleasant voice). The stage patter is much improved, I assume the byproduct of being older and having spent a lot more time in front of audiences.

The songs, particularly the older ones, are the same as I remember them. As the nearly two-hour concert appeared to be winding down, it was like the audience was waiting to hear "You Raise Me Up," and he complied.

Yeah, he's still good. He's still real good.




   

Come one, come all to our Silly Emmys party

It's Emmy time again night, which means it's time for everyone to get together and take part in the most-enjoyable aspect of any awards show ... snarky remarks, wondering how they could have worn THAT, celebrating or bemoaning who won what and generally having a laugh at the proceedings. (The Robin Williams tribute will, of course, be a notable exception. I'm expecting lots of people wondering how the room got so dusty all of a sudden, or who's cutting the onions.)

The festivities here will start around 7ish, or whenever I get the chat fired up, so we can cover the exercise in vapidness that is the pre-show. So make sure you put on your best red-carpet-if-the-red-carpet-is-in-your-house attire and join in the fun! All it takes is a valid social media account -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

As always, there are only a few rules:

1. Do not actually come to my house unless you ask first. Otherwise, I will tell you to leave and probably call the cops.

2. Bring your own food and beverage.

3. If you're going to come to my metaphorical house, do not pee in my metaphorical pool.

Hey Facebook, why stop at satire?

In an effort to aid those whose BS detectors aren't up to snuff, Facebook is apparently going to test a "satire" tag for people's news feeds. That way, people who can't tell the difference between what's real and what's fake can save themselves the potential embarrassment.

Although at least one friend of mine considers it a sign of the impending apocalypse, maybe Facebook should do even more.

For example, we've all seen posts/sent posts/seen or sent the email that can't possibly be true, right? That's because it's usually not. (Confirmation bias can play some serious tricks on the mind.) Therefore, perhaps Facebook could hook up with Snopes.

If someone can't wait to inform his or her friends that Barack Obama is the only president not to go to the D-Day Monument on the D-Day anniversary, or that Sarah Palin wanted to invade the Czech Republic after the Boston Marathon bombings (speaking of satire), a little message could pop up saying, "Before you do this, there's something you should know. What you're posting isn't true, and while your like-minded friends will probably say 'See, I knew all along!' when they see it, to everyone else you'll look kind of silly."

And while Facebook is at it, is there any way to build an algorithm that tries to keep people from posting racist, sexist or otherwise bigoted stuff? While I would never say that people shouldn't be allowed to post what they like, maybe a note stating, "This may not be a good idea. You may think that no one outside your circle will ever notice, or that you'll just take it down, but screengrabs are not your friend" would be enough to cause second thoughts. (This wouldn't be a bad idea for Twitter, either.)

I'm no expert at writing computer code, so I don't know if either of these are even possible, but if they are, surely someone at Facebook would know how.

So get on it, Zuckerberg.

(Now, the question is, "Am I being satirical?" Maybe a little, or more than a little ...)

Thoughts from the left side

So today is International Left-Handers Day. I didn't get any cards.

In fact, I didn't even know there was such a thing until a friend of mine (whose husband is left-handed), posted a funny pie chart in which the vast majority of people, when they notice someone writing left-handed, say, "Are you left-handed?"

Being left-handed means using those little scissors with the green handles and wiping ink smudges off your hands. It means always eating with your elbows close to your sides to protect yourself from chicken-winging right-handers and hearing people shout "LEFTY!" when you walk into the batter's box.

"Sinister" and "gauche" have their roots in left-ness, and I'm sure most of us have heard and said "If the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and the right side of the brain controls the left side, then left-handers are the only people in their right minds" more often than we can count.

But in a world that finds us odd, being left-handed is just ... what I am. And it's not weird at all.

I've made some allowances for a right-handed world. I've known how to cut with right-handed scissors for years, and I was so used to right-handed desks in school that I usually refused on the rare occasions there was a left-handed desk available and someone offered. (To the righties reading this who may ask, "What's the difference?" a right-handed desk has the little area for your books and notebooks attached to the right side of the chair, while it's obviously the reverse for a left-handed desk. The intent is to not have to read or write across your body, but I got used to it.)

If I'm casually driving with one hand on the steering wheel, it's usually my right hand, and for whatever reason, I cannot type on a smartphone with my left hand at all.

Strangely enough, I've come to believe that one of the benefits of being left-handed is that lefties are aware that most of us have two hands. No matter how left-dominant a person is, it is a physical impossibility to be purely left-handed. The world isn't set up that way. However, I know right-handed people who can't do much with their left hand because they've never had to.

Yet using my left hand (or foot) to write, eat, throw, kick, roll a bowling ball, shoot a basketball (badly) or swing a bat or golf club (also badly) is as natural to me as breathing. There was no point where I realized I was left-handed, at least not that I remember, and I didn't have to be taught to do things with my left hand. I just did them, and fortunately, I'm young enough to have missed the era where left-handed kids were encouraged if not forced to change.

Sadly, the one thing I never learned how to do with my left hand was throw a curveball. Otherwise, I might still be pitching in the big leagues in my early 40s and be millions of dollars richer. (Jesse Orosco and Tony Fossas are our patron saints.)

So to all my fellow southpaws out there, Happy International Left-Handers Day. To the right-handers in my life, I like presents, but money and gift cards are nice, too.