the cat can't crap so pat his head in passing please!

Already I know that I'll remember this as being a time of closeness. How is that for being in more than one place at once? I will remember now. Oswald and I share many parts of this experience: we are both caught between a rock and a more placid place. We are both fond of fish...

We are both occasionally constipated.

Lynda took Oswald to the vet on Saturday. He had not crapped for a couple of days, and for a daily dumper a day without a dump is disturbing. The vet gave Lynda some fish-flavoured laxative lube in a tube. He asked Lynda if she would mind terribly sharing the stuff with Oswald.

Otherwise he continues apace. Yesterday he and I had a contest to see who could move the least. It was a tie until about four in the afternoon. I lay on my bed reading. He lay on his bed. Not reading. Just lay there thinking things over I guess. Maybe doing a year end review. With his eyes closed.

Then (at 4PM) he got up, arched his back, and leaped from his bed to mine. He ambled across and made himself comfortable, and I stroked his fish-shiny coat for an hour. It was the best hour of my day. The best hour of my week. This is the way animals operate and it's why we love them and are attached to them. Oswald did not come close because he had anything for me. He came close because he needed something from me. And in needing something from me he gave me a great gift indeed.

________________________________________________

So these moments are precious. These days become weeks become months, I hope. We'll see. It was not always this way for Oswald and I. I was the guy who would pat his head in passing. How you doin'? Once in a while I would get down on the floor and pretend to give him an electro-shock treatment. That was fun. I wish someone would get down on the floor and give me an electro-shock treatment. That would be fun.

Just now Oswald has come to take his place on a favourite chair. It's time for him to get on with his hard day of doing as-close-to-nothing-as possible. He is good at it...

one paw forward-the oswald series

The vet told us that bleeding from the mouth and drooling might signal the re-growth of the cancer in Oswald's mouth. That was a couple of weeks ago. For one week he struggled to find an appetite. This last week has not been about what's coming out his mouth, it's been about what's going in...

Tuna fish. And chicken. Lots of both. Oswald spent the week eating, taking a break, and then eating some more. For Lynda and I this was a relief and a great pleasure. We've watched as his coat becomes shiny. He's never looked better...

While we watch each of us work through the odd disconnect. Oswald has cancer and the cancer is bound to kill him. Sooner than later and later would still be too soon. Even as I write this I feel only a little embarrassment; a slight shame, perhaps, with this admission that a feline has come to matter this much. It's wasn't always this way. It is now.

Now, as all the wise guys and gals down through time tell us, is all we really have. So this tuned in time of tuna binging is a fine time, a time that matters to Lynda and I. And, I hope, Oswald. I hope this time is meaningful in a cat kind of way.

_________________________________________________

This morning there was a smear of blood by Oswald's dish. I called the vet and made an appointment for after work. When I walked out to my car I saw that the clouds were salmon-coloured, the air was cool and fresh. I registered this. It was beautiful. There have been flashes during this time, flashes of understanding that life can be beautiful and sad, all in the same day, all in the same moment.

Oswald and I drove to the vet around 4:30PM. The sky was darkening, and lonely-looking. It was a lonely quiet drive. Oswald meowed once, and then watched through his travel cage. He was quiet at the vet's office. The other animals and their animal owners sat with us, all of us attached only to the fur-bearer on our own lap. The vet examined Oswald. He has an infection at the site of his surgery. We'll give him anti-biotics. The vet cauterized the wound. I held Oswald's mouth open while the vet did his work. I felt useful...

When Oswald and I got home he had a bit of an anxiety attack, his breath coming in gasps while Lynda soothed him. I had an attack of temper, complaining loudly that all the news is bad now, and I don't like it. I won't join you in the toilet Lynda said. Good. More room for me to do the backstroke!

I'm writing because it helps me to recycle all of this. Like air; going in and then going out. Life, hearts beating, sun rising and setting, joy and pain, celebration and suffering. Alone. All one.

tiny oswald-a christmas carol

I have my own death and dying fantasies. Some are healthy, some are morbid. I don't hope to die in my sleep. Why miss the event entirely? I hope for some advance notice; maybe three months. Then I can produce my very own docu-drama, attend my own memorial, receive all those overdue accolades, and generally luxuriate in a warm bath of self-pity...

Tiny Oswald is allowing me to experience some of this. He is doing well, on a day-to-day basis, his coat is glowing from the tuna fish he scarfs with his lop-sided maw. His meow is slightly altered, a little less persistent, still endearing. He leaves the sanctuary of the bedroom more often and hangs out with us on the couch.

In short, it's hard to imagine this guy is leaving us. But he is...

Last night we watched A Christmas Carol. The new animated one, with Jim Carroll as Scrooge. It was excellent. At the end Lynda turned to me, accusingly, and said I had told her Tiny Tim was "...not going to make it..."

What the fuck!?

Have we not been watching A Christmas Carol for about fifty years? Do we not know how the story goes? Yes, Tiny Tim "makes it..." and he is alive, even now, hopping happily down the streets of London. Tiny Oswald, on the other hand, is a tuna-eating terminal patient and my guess is the vet's prognosis will be just about right on the money. My other guess is that Lynda and I will continue to wish all of that away because that's just what you do under these circumstances. You open another tin of tuna and put one paw in front of the other....

oswald in overtime...

This good-natured tabby companion has travelled down a long road with Lynda and I. We had him (he was maybe six months old...) in 1994 and he ran away and hid while we cheered the Canucks on against the New York Rangers. Over time Oswald came to understand that with the Canucks there is only so much cheering that happens, so he gained a measure of calm and lay on the couch, on his own pillow, between us while the games were on.

He sleeps on his own pink pillow and very unlike a cat comes when he's called to bed. He's been a source of pleasure for nearly seventeen years...

Time is what time is and does what time does. It passes and it brings all the news. The good news, the same old news, and though we hope delivery will be delayed...the bad news arrives. Oswald is real sick. He's had a surgery and he may survive this crisis but the vet has spoken and we are in overtime now.

Lynda and I sat, heavy with grief, last night and we talked about all of this. All of the time and joy and comfort this docile creature has given to us. Oswald; who has survived all of his two litters of kittens, save one I think. Oswald, named by me and after the alleged arrogant assassin of John Kennedy. Don't ask me why. I am an idiot, I guess.

Oswald is anything but arrogant. If you bit him on the nose he would not bite you back. He could not be more gentle. He is irreplaceable and he has taught us that in our lives loving an animal is important. So we'll love another one day, God willing and the river don't rise too quickly. But we'll never love another like we love Oswald, not as long as we live....

there was a cold rain falling straight down!

November 8th, 1988. My father delivered me to Maple Cottage Detox in New Westminster. We stood outside the big old oak doors and waited for someone to come and admit me. On the grounds of Woodlands School, this place looked ugly and lonely and sturdy. All these years later I am able, barely, to consider what this moment must have been like for him...

He was seventy one years of age then, and likely hoping his third born son would be, consistently, a source of pride. Of joy. We didn't speak as we stood in the rain. We didn't need to speak. I was broken, and my father, too, must have felt something torn in this sad shared event.

I was less than one hundred and twenty pounds. My last stop before getting sober was not alcohol. It was methadone. I had been drinking street-bought methadone for months. With orange juice. I had been dancing the dance of I-don't want-to-face up. Just as fast as I could. Now it was time to pay the band.

My marriage was done. A brief affair-but no regrets because it allowed for the birth of the baby who is now a beautiful and bright young woman named Megan. Some dumb and poorly articulated dream I had for family life was ashes in my mouth and at my feet. It's twenty two years later and in that time I've gained a measure of understanding. Then...

Just cold cold rain and fear and grief.

There was such sickness in making my way back to the world; back into my body, back to some semblance of feeling and reasonably clear thinking. Months and months of sleeplessness and the blackest depression. All the while, slowly, imperceptibly, progress, roots of a better life making their way down into the earth. It takes years to recover and it is never done. The doing of it. The living of it. And in my case the road has not been straight. There have been relapses and there have been re-fresher courses in those bleak institutions where we go to rid ourselves of the poison.

There is a saying: addiction leads us to the institution, to the graveyard, to insanity.

Is addiction, to alcohol or the other substances, a disease? Of the body? Of the mind? Of the spirit? There is no blood test for addiction. There is just a script, a slow growing cancer that reaches into every corner of your existence. Is it a disease? I think so...

It's twenty two years later along the path. Enumerating my blessings, the grace and good fortune re-gained, is not a blog post, it's a book. Yesterday, on Facebook, some folks I know wished me well, and so this short piece of writing is a thank you. And a remembering. This is the week of lest we forget.

If you are suffering, if you know someone who is suffering, well...there is hope and another option. One day at a time...

happy 70th john. war is still not over!

This Saturday will mark John Lennon's 70th birthday. Imagine that! I haven't thought about the man or his music, much, for years it seems. But this is true: I play guitar and sing and write (for what it's worth) as a direct result of Lennon's influence on me when I was twelve years old. It wasn't the other Beatles I wanted to emulate. It was Lennon...

When John Lennon left the Beatles it was because he wanted another kind of experience. He was, at his essence, restless. He was, among many other things, a premier shit-disturber. He had things on his mind, things he wanted to address, things going on in the world and the tight collar of fab-ness turned out to be choking. So he moved to New York City, and he hung out with Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman.

He had been busted on a simple possession of cannabis charge in England and he was, on the one hand, tremendously paranoid that any further run-ins with the law would result in his deportation from his adopted nation. In fact the government moved to deport him, only dropping that pursuit after Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974. Lennon spoke out against the war, but when he made his strongest statements he balked, in some fashion; for example changing the title of this song from Free The People to Freda Peeple. I'm not sure the authorities were fooled...

Listen to the song and check out the lyrics. The guy had a way with words. He was a poet. Crude, maybe, but a poet nonetheless. He is missed in this world. Happy birthday, John!

(Alright Boys, this is it, over the hill)

We don't care what flag you're waving
We don't even want to know your name
We don't care where you're from or where you're going
All we know is that you came
You're making all our decisions
We have just one request of you
That while you're thinking things over
Here's something you just better do

Free the people now
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now
Free the people now
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now

Well we were caught with our hands in the air
Don't despair paranoia is everywhere
We can shake it with love when we're scared
So let's shout it aloud like a prayer

Free the people now
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now
Free the people now
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now

We understand your paranoia
But we don't want to play your game
You think you're cool and know what you are doing
666 is your name
So while you're jerking off each other
You better bear this thought in mind
Your time is up you better know it
But maybe you don't read the signs

Free the people now
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now
Free the people now
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now

Well you were caught with your hands in the kill
And you still got to swallow your pill
As you slip and you slide down the hill
On the blood of the people you killed

Stop the killing (Free the people now)
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now
Stop the killing (Free the people now)

the road into bullhead city...

The drive from Kingman north to Bullhead City is a moonscape. A preview of the afterlife, you have died and been born again in a world without colour. At the end of the this Godforsaken Road is Las Vegas. That is where the fun begins. It's also where the fun ends...