Reunions?

Well it's been a sad couple of days in Bethville, but thanks to all of you for your kind words and warm memories of the Wonder Cat. I find it tremendously comforting to think of him up in heaven riding around on Emma the Wonder German Shepard (she used to let ME ride around on her, why wouldn't she let Thomas?), staring intently at my freakishly ancient 6-year-old goldfish, and hanging tough with Mooshie the Enormous Housecat/Lynx. I'd also like to think that he would stargaze like a dork at the various Morris actor cats that have passed over the years. It's not a bad way to pass on.

My vet gave me this poem about the Rainbow Bridge. I literally wept the first time I read it. But now that I've had some time to think about it, I feel....weird about the idea of Thomas being in some odd heavenly waiting room of sorts hanging out until I get back. It raises all sorts of logistics questions. What happens if he doesn't get along with the other animals that are also waiting for me? What if my mom picks up Emma and Mooshie before I get there? Is there like a coat check girl there that helps me track down my group of furry buddies?

Yes, I'm actually mocking the Rainbow Bridge. I think this must mean I'm starting to feel better.

Siiiigh

So. Well. Yeah. After a weekend of sobbing and petting and sniffling and staring pitifully at the cat, I've made the choice to take him to the vet tomorrow morning for him to head to the giant kitty sofa in the sky. He won't eat, or drink, or be held, and he looks just so exhausted. This is the most wrenching, awful thing I've ever had to decide. This shouldn't be up to ME. Me? Are you kidding? Who am I to make this type of decision?

But in talking to people about it -- and thank you to all of you who've called and written and just sent general good vibes out to me over the past few days -- I feel a strange sense of peace with my yukky, yukky choice. The Wonder Cat has trusted me since the day I brought him home to feed him and rub his belly and pick the eye boogers off of his face, and now I feel he's trusting me now to do the right thing.

Dammit, he was one fine orange robot cat.

Wonder Cat has stomach, or possibly liver cancer. The vet, who could not have been nicer when I teared up and started sniffling uncontrollably in her office, said the best thing at this point is to take him home, spoil him rotten, and give them a call when "it's time."

I feel so heartbroken.

Wonder Cat! 

Think Good Wonder Thoughts

This blog promises the adventures of Thomas the Wonder Cat. Lately the only adventure I have had with said Wonder Cat is trying to get him to EAT.

He. Just. Won't. Eat.

He's just lost all interest in eating. Doesn't even try some days. One day we were eating fine. The next we just stopped caring about food. It's frustrating, it's scary, it's confusing and it's starting to freak me out. He's losing weight, you can feel his hip bones and spine. I am convinced he has a brain tumor, or rotting infected teeth, or a blood disorder, or any number of scary, horrific expensive problems that I won't be able to make better. For this I feel like a crappy owner that should have taken her cat to the vet in the first place when this had all just started.

So I've sucked it up and made a vet appointment for tomorrow morning. Yes, THAT will be fun and I'm going to be weeping all the way there in my Flexcar because of the pitiful screeching that will be coming from my cardboard Kitty Karryall trying to tell my orange cat that it will really, seriously, swear to God, be okay.

Any good vibes for the Wonder Robot Cat would be super duper duper.

Rare Occurance

It's not often that a person can use both the term "yeti" and "Pee Chee folders" in the same sentence, but here goes:

Props and snaps go out to Defective Yeti, a blog that never, ever disappoints, for taking me down memory lane about Pee-Chee folders and Trapper Keepers.

Don't Say I Didn't Warn Ya

I am in a FOUL-ass mood. To say that I'm cranky or grumpy just doesn't cover it. Not even close. Michael Stipe is belting out "Shiny Happy People" right now in my living room with that chick from the B-52s and all I want to do is interject somehow into the song and tell them both to SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY. That song, when you're not in the right mood for it -- no, even when you ARE in the right mood for it, is so annoying it beats even that song about Fish Heads/Fish Heads...you know the song I'm talking about...Michael Stipe of all people singing about Shiny Happy People? Seriously?

I tried to do some yoga when I got home to get me all zen and de-foul-assed. Popped in my usually never-disappointing Rodney Yee tape. And in my uppity state that only served to make me ANGRIER because all I could focus on was how many dustbunnies and specks of filth from my floor were being magnetically drawn to my sticky mat.

And the cat still won't eat.

Grrrrr.

I never was good at math

Note to self: If you add together (1) six foot tall woman who is (2) not Kate Moss and (3) not a professional yogi and put her inside of (4) a Mazda Miata the size of a shoebox, then you just have a night of crankiness and discomfort all stirred up and ready to go.

A girl can dream

If there is a better way to start one's day than with a large creamy coffee and a toasted onion bagel with cream cheese, lox, capers and red onions, then I encourage the good Lord to bring it on.

If I could have that every single day of my life I think I'd die a happy woman.

Let it out, boys

I just flat out don't know how I feel about this new book.

Oh wait, yes I do: Oogie. Yukky. Invasive. Manipulated. Disturbed. Oogie again.

**UPDATE: Okay, so the NYT link caused some difficulty -- you can also check the book out here on Amazon -- "Crying Men" by Sam Taylor-wood...

Love the Swedish

Okay, so barring a whole blog entry about the state of Sweden's socialized health care and the critical importance of mental health days and the disparity between Swedish vacation/sick time versus the U.S., let's just say: People, sometimes a person just has to take a day off to get away from exhausting co-workers and stress and deadlines and just lay in bed with a cat all damned day without so much as showering even when a person might not be SICK AT ALL. Insurance companies can bite my stressed out sick-time allotted behind.

Ahem, not that I've ever even thought of doing that and I swear that every single time I called in sick, I was 100 percent certified knocking-on-death's-door sick. Death's door. Yeah, that's the ticket.

There are few better ways to spend a Friday night than to go out for a few cheap happy hour drinks with a friend, and then come home, nestle into some comfy clothes, and get deeeeply embedded with a good book. Yes, I am a hardcore homebody.

I also can't say enough about J. Robert Lennon's The Light of Falling Stars. The characters are flawed and beautiful and human. His way with language is so simple and yet so affecting. Gotta stop blogging. Must. Keep. Reading.

Sap Alert

Since I moved into this new apartment, I've yet to call my cable guy and get myself hooked up. And I mean that in a literal "I need to get cable" way, not in the dirty way that sentence turned out. Maybe I need to do that too. MY POINT IS....

Without cable, I basically have three stations to watch and all of them are crappy crapperson. It has been night after night of watching crap family sitcoms with laugh tracks and bad reality shows that aren't interesting. (Internal voice: "Beth, couldn't you, say, LEAVE the house or do something besides watch TV?") Shut up, Internal Voice. MY POINT IS...

First there was the Oprah episode that reduced me to tears. Then tonight I just watched ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition where the Trading Spaces guy rebuilt a house for a family of TEN after the husband died of a BRAIN TUMOR. And guess who was there, sitting on her sofa, crying AGAIN with joy about this family's new home? Yup. You guessed it.

Tomorrow Maria Shriver is talking to Roy Horn about his recovery. This totally sets me up for a bad Kleenex-ridden habit that needs to be broken as soon as possible.

Oprah's Revenge

God, did I mock Oprah yesterday. I read about her whole car giveaway show and about some homeless girl who she gave a full scholarship to and rolled my eyes. Whatever Oprah. Clearly I was in the wrong studio audience yesterday because I was still on the B.O.-scented bus heading home.

And then. Then.

I got home and turned on the tube to watch the Oprah episode that I had so flippantly mocked. And sobbed like a little baby through the whole thing. My God, that homeless girl? Who only wanted more than anything in the world to HUG OPRAH? And there she was, HUGGING OPRAH right in front of me while my heart burst with joy for her? And the foster mom that was going to -- guh, guh -- be evicted with her eight kids and then suddenly Gail King was standing there on her porch with a giant check handing it to her while her hands shook? "It's a pretty good day today," Gail said to her and I sat on the sofa with tears streaming down my face thinking "MY GOD GAIL IT IS TRULY A GREAT DAY!" I am tearing up just thinking about it.

Damn you Oprah and your whole un-abashed generosity thang. You make life hard for us cynics.

But Who's Counting?

Can I just saw how freakin' GIDDY I am after installing a counter on my blog?

We are past 100 unique visits, people. Which is, yes, a micromillimeter in the big scheme of Internet publishing, but give me a break, I only put it up a few weeks ago. It's a big thrill to see my little baby get clicked on so much...even if its only by one person. Thanks to all of you who check out my weird world and actually....keep reading.

Ten Long Angsty Years Later...

Amazing how a song can transport you back in time. When I was in Denver I picked up some old CDs from a good amiga and since I've been back I've been listening to lots of goodies from the 1992-1996 years. Last night I popped in the Wild Colonials and found this song ("Heaven and Hell") that I LOVED back from college -- I mean this was the type of song where you obsessively listen to the track overandoverandoveragain because it's as though it is speaking directly to the core of your very SOUL. You get the picture, everyone's got a song like that.

And instantly, I was back in 1994. Full of angst and tears and grief because the guy I was so, so deeply in love with was (oopsie) coming out of the closet at the time. Wanting to drop out of school because I was so miserable being among the football-crazed Greek freaks. I scrounged up my journal from that time and found pages upon pages of angst and alienation and longing and self consciousness. Trying to be understanding and supportive, but feeling rejected and abandoned. So young. So clumsy and naive about so many things. It was a rough year.

So glad to have these ten years between my current self and the person I was then.

Strange Thoughts

Standing at Neumos last night listening to the ever-dreamy Decemberist Colin Meloy sing about Los Angeles and architects, the only thought I could muster was "Wow, he really looks like the hipster love child of Mo Rocca and the Verizon "Can you hear me now?" spokesperson guy.

And that's not a bad thing.

So much for the resolution to read all my books before buying more

$80 spent at Half Price Books last night. God, I am SUCH a dork. Let's just say it is seriously bad news for Beth to live two blocks from an enormous and well-stocked used bookstore. I may not have electricity in the next couple of months, but damn if I won't have my birch Billy bookshelves from Ikea crammed to the ceiling with pretentious literature!

I brought my giant bag home and scattered my new purchases around me on the sofa and felt true joy. Sarah Vowell, Amanda Davis, some trashy UK Chick Lit, Michael Moore and a bunch of random travel essays about Ireland, Spain and Afghanistan....welcome home, kids.

Just Askin'

What is the dealio with this poncho trend for fall?
Why do I feel the need to mock them in public and then secretly long for one when I get home?
Worse yet, why am I feeling that I might be able to MAKE ONE?
Would I look like the cute hipster chick in that picture, or more like a scary six-foot-tall orange coming towards you?

(thanks to Not Martha for the link and getting my brain cookin')

Yee Olde Wedding Recap

So Beth is back after a week away and ready to report on the merriment and feasting that went on at the Medieval wedding of the decade:

Day One: Pick up my rental car. Flirty car rental guy offers me a convertible. I wet myself and accept. I am officially hot sh*t.
Day Two: Stop over -- in the convertible -- to Jenny's house to participate in Al Franken's Great American Shout Out. Bush seemed unphased by our screaming, but I notice that his voice quivers slightly about mid-way through the speech and know we've made an impact.
Day Three: Road trip to Pueblo for Yee Olde Medieval Wedding (YOMW). Bachelorette party that night. We will not speak of the bachelorette party again except to say that it featured kareoke versions of "Redneck Woman," "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and "Hit Me Baby One More Time." A state trooper was also involved. That's all I need to say on that topic.
Day Four: Wedding rehearsal. Resting from kareoke night. Lots of water is consumed, as well as several Reese's Fast Break candy bars, which make me weep with joy.
Day Five: YOMW. Bride looks beautiful. The details are amazing. Friar Mike does a great job and it all comes together. Beth stands next to a guy with a very large sword and I don't mean that in a "wink wink" kind of way but in a literal enormous period weaponry type of way.
Day Six: Beth drives her mom around in the -- ahem -- convertible and buys mom an opera CD. The afternoon is spent driving around the suburbs with Puccini blaring and we feel totally cool.