Smacky missing

It’s now been over 24 hours since I last saw Smacky.

I went out for a run yesterday afternoon. The weather was nice, warm, sunny. I’d been inside most of the morning, setting up my new computer, cleaning up the apartment, doing laundry, and playing with Smacky. I wore him out. I’d been in such a good mood all day and he helped. As I told him, he’s got basically two jobs around the house:

  1. Make me laugh;
  2. Catch the bugs.

He was doing great on the first one, not so good on the second one, lazy bastard. I had to catch some of the bugs myself. But I’m not bitter about it.

He was curled up in the computer room when I last saw him. I got up from my desk, went into the bedroom, changed into my running clothes, went outside. I didn’t see or hear him wake up, so I didn’t pay any attention to whether or not he came out of the computer room when I opened the door. I normally watch for him, since I don’t want him outside – especially now that he’s got sutures from the operation earlier this week.

One thing I did that I don’t normally do is left the front door unlocked. I didn’t want to carry my house keys along with my iPod., and I figured I wouldn’t be gone that long.

My run was uneventful and I felt tired and slow. I was only going to go for about 2 miles, just down to the park and back, so I thought I’d push myself and go faster. Ha! That just tired me out.

When I got back, he didn’t come to the door. I called for him, but he’s not a cat that comes when I call him (yet; I always wanted to train him that way). I was tired and sweaty, poked my head in the computer room but he wasn’t there, wasn’t in the kitchen when I got some water, wasn’t in the bathroom while I showered.

That, along with the living room, pretty much is the entire apartment.

I figured he was hiding. But that would be unusual for him. I worried a little bit, then when I was clean and dressed again, I went over the house top to bottom. I opened cupboards, closets. I looked in the washer and dryer with a growing sense of dread and fear (I had been doing laundry; couldn’t he suffocate in there? Could it happen in the time it took me to go for a run and return? Had I left it running?) I looked in the refrigerator and oven.

He wasn’t there.

I can’t think about it even now without feeling stupid and sad and angry. I left the door open and sat in the living room hoping he’d turn up. I kept looking out back, and checking the windows. I would jump up at the slightest squeak or whistle hoping it was him. I walked around the block several times, looking for that telltale black. Oh, who was I kidding? He’d be almost impossible to spot, especially if he wasn’t moving. Like he was asleep. Or. Yeah, stop that.

I’m not close to my neighbors. I tend to keep to myself and don’t talk to them often. They’re, all of them, like me, single older men (I’m not the youngest but close, I think) and mainly they all sit around and drink. They may or may not be employed. The loudest is the one I call “Old Barfy” because, almost every single morning, he’s throwing up, hacking and coughing, in his bathroom. I used to live so that my bedroom shared a wall with his bathroom and his regurgitation would wake me up. I moved, downstairs, primarily to get away from that sound. I can still hear it, faintly, sometimes, but it’s much lessened, like a dog barking in the distance. He’s in his 60s, tanned and bald and thin like leather, with a voice that can cut through steel, sharp and loud. I don’t like him because of all I’ve described plus his manipulative behavior when he first moved in, trying to get me to make his complaints for him to the landlord.

One time, weeks ago, he called out to me in a tone of voice that creeped me out, “That shore is a cute little kitten you’ve got there.” I ignored him. I thought he might try to eat Smacky or something.

I sat for an hour and a half, hearing Old Barfy call out to other folk in the neighborhood, drinking beer on the upstairs walkway with another, quieter bachelor. I couldn’t bring myself to go out there and ask for help from someone I feared and hated.

But as the minutes passed I knew that I had to do everything I could to make sure Smacky got back to me.

I went out and asked Old Barfy if he’d seen my cat. Hardest thing I’ve done in a long time. From the way I’d treated him in the past I had no right to expect any help, but he did, in a small way. He went around to some of the other tenants in adjacent apartment buildings, the ones who already had pets or had kids likely to bring home a stray, and asked them if they’d seen my cat. No one had, but it was a nice gesture. I made sure to thank him.

I’ve made up a flyer that I’m going to post in the neighborhood. I thought about offering a reward. Am I bad that I’m not offering one? Does that reduce the chances of me getting him back? I’m just not made of money. More guilt. I’m sad but I don’t know that what I could afford would be enough to entice a stranger to return a cat.

I’m glad I got Smacky chipped, but I don’t know how well that’s going to work now. I have doubts. Do all vets scan for the chip? Smacky didn’t wear a collar so there’s no outward sign of him being owned and not a stray. Well, no outward sign except for the fact that his claws are trimmed and he’s recently been neutered. Wouldn’t someone notice that?

I’m sad. I have very little hope of getting him back. I feel intense guilt every time I leave the house, to go get food or even take a walk, being sure that he would come back when I’m not around to hear him at the door. I slept most of the night on the couch so I might have a better chance of waking up to his faint, squeaky meow. I left the front porch light on (like he’d notice something like that). I checked out all my windows before going to bed.

And for only the second time since I got him, over 5 months ago, I woke up alone in the apartment again.

Retail politics

Standing in line at the corporate coffee shop, waiting my turn, the barista was working ahead and asked me what I was going to order. I told him (soy chai latte, mmmmmm) which he proceeded to make for me. I still had to pay, though, and sipped it while the person ahead of me paid for their order. While I stood there, though, the barista, a tall shaved-head, goatee-sporting guy, spotted the blue wrist band I was wearing.

“Hey, that’s cool,” he said, “I had one of those, and I tried to wear it to work. But my boss said,” and here he adopted a mocking-authority voice, “‘that’s a political statement and we can’t have you wear that here, you might offend some people,’ blah, blah, blah.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve run into that before.” I was thinking of the time Caleb and I were handing out flyers for our political site and ran into this particular policy in corporate-owned stores. The funniest times were when the employee, obviously sympathetic to our cause, would tell us to set them out while they looked the other way, circumventing the policy.

“Yeah,” he mused, then suddenly came to a decision. “In fact, get out of here!” He waved his grease pencil at me.

“What?” I was confused. He seemed in cahoots with me one minute, then he was tossing me out?

“Yeah, I’m buying your drink. You’re one of the good guys!” he said, beaming. “Get out of here!”

Cool. Thanks, Mr. Barista! Your bosses get to hold back some of your pay and I get to enjoy a delicious soy chai. I’m pretty sure I came out ahead but don’t think I don’t appreciate it.

Final arrival

I GOT MY MAC MINI TODAY!! And as much as it pains me to say it, Apple is sometimes (how shall I say this?) somewhat less than perfect. Their setup wizard allows me to transfer over my home directory, applications, and OS settings from a previous computer — like, say, my iBook.

But the wizard transfered over ALL my laptop settings; like the Airport card, which doesn’t exist on my MM, but now I have a non-functional icon on the toolbar which I’m not sure how to remove. Or the fact that my desktop computer thinks it has a battery that doesn’t exist. But I could live with those things.

It’s just… frustrating

Argh. Brand-new computer and I have to reinstall the OS. I got it at 9 AM and I broke it before lunch.

I guess on the bright side I get to fire off some rant-y email to Apple. “Fix your damn wizard! It’s supposed to JUST WORK — PROPERLY!”

Removed

Smacky update:

Smacky’s doing fine. He was a little groggy when I first brought him home, but that only lasted about a half-hour or so. After that, he was all over the place. He made it a point to do all the things that I’ve been training him not to do: jump up on the kitchen counter and the kitchen table; he attacked my feet several times; he chewed on the cords behind the teevee/stereo; pushed around his water dish and spilled water all over. But he didn’t do it with gusto. He just seemed to do it out of a sense of duty, as if he were saying, “Let’s get this out of the way so we can let the healing begin.”

Or something.

I’m exagerating, just a little bit, probably out of guilt. Certainly I hate to be castrated, although mine was always virtual and not actual, so I’m projecting onto Smacky.

This morning he was his normal self, lounging outside the bedroom door when I got up, being underfoot, waiting outside the shower to attack my feet when I got out, and sitting on the bathroom counter waiting to lick up the saline that fell when I put my contact lenses in. Is that strange? Aren’t all cats strange, though? I guess I’m asking if that’s strange for a cat which puts it on a whole ‘nother level.

Author interview

Dave Eggers being interviewed by The Onion. What could be cooler?

And roly-poly crap, they mention monkeys straight off.

Monkeys! Which are always funny. Always.

Go read it or somethin’.

Random updates for things

Random updates:

I feel great this morning, physically, at any rate. I’m still feeling the energy from my run last night. Running feels great once your body gets used to the stresses. When I’m running it feels like almost my entire body is working in concert. My senses are alert, scanning around me for obstacles or other things of interest; arms pumping and providing balance; back and stomach keeping me upright; legs doing their thing, keeping rhythm, feet pounding the ground; heart and lungs feeding the rest…

It all comes together in a continuous action. I feel like I could go running right now.

The house felt much quieter this morning. It’s finally time for Smacky’s “snip ‘n’ chip”. I dropped him off at the vet last night and they’re going to do him today. I missed having him around, although I’m happy I didn’t collect any new scars from him pouncing on my feet as I get out of the shower while blinded with water and soap in my eyes. (Warning: do not attempt to diagram the previous sentence)

Yep, Smacky’s going to be “chipped”, which means he’ll be a cybercat. How could a geek like me resist the opportunity to electronicize my animal companion? Much more geeky than a tatoo.

It doesn’t look like my Mac Mini will arrive today, after all. I jumped the gun a bit when I saw that it had “shipped” but apparently that only means that the finished building it and left it on the dock for someone to pick up, which didn’t happen yesterday. The page shows that it’s still on the dock this morning, if I’m reading the Fed Ex tracking page correctly. Of course, that page shows local time, so that might have been yesterday. I don’t know. All I know is that the tracking page doesn’t show a delivery date yet. *sigh* And I was so excited.

It felt good

It felt good to go running tonight. For a lot of reasons.

It felt good to be running at all — my last run was last Saturday.
It felt good to be running in my neighborhood again.
It felt good to be running on asphalt, grass, trail instead of a treadmill.
It felt good to power up the hills.
It felt good to coast along the top of the bluff and see the city lights.
It felt good to have wind and trees around me.
It felt good to have the silver full moon shining down on me as I ran.
It felt good to be able to do the full 3.5+ mile loop without collapsing.

But best of all it felt good to have music in my ears to help motivate me.

Yay, iPod shuffle!

I named it “ShuffleSexy”.

Music and running are a great combination.

Arrival

Yay! Got the email this morning: My Mac Mini (with SuperDrive DVD-burnin’ schweet goodness!) is shipping today!

I’ll have it tomorrow!

And my iPod Shuffle comes today!

Yay! Brand new infusion of Apple Crack © ™ !

My wish

Walking home from the bus stop tonight, just about 15 minutes ago, I saw a falling star. Very bright, looked like a fast-moving airplane at first but faded quickly.

I was listening to a little Blues Traveler and was in the right mood to make a wish.

For a materialist atheist I’m inappropriately romantic/sentimental/superstitious sometimes.

No, I am not going to tell you what my wish was.