A worthy addition to the Cat Tales collection. I loaned my copy of the book to a buddy with four cats, down from 11 before his wife left with six of them, leaving him with the sickly ones who he will have to euthanize one by one sooner than later, already losing Milo, the cat who thought he was a dog. I told him the book isn't really about cats.
I feel like I've read a fair amount of the Baruth catalog, and that linked story was new for me. Humble suggestion, maybe a "from the archives" regular post, but it's introduced with the perspective of age and reflection.
And if I recall, you had to take a lot of that content down because of the various threats from various snowflakes and wusses who unfortunately had just enough control of the hands of power to be able to make your life an absolute hell, make you completely unemployable, etc.!
Having grown up in Columbus, I remember that ad on 281-8211 and the distinctive way that guy pronounced "wound," dragging out the long "u" sound: "Park Woooooound Care."
Years later, when my diabetic dad had a few toes removed and the gaping hole in his foot wouldn't heal, I thought of Park Woooooound Care, which gave me a good chuckle at an inappropriate time.
It's such a small world, isn't it? Here we are, on a global resource and a website that derives at least 20% of its revenue from other CONTINENTS... talking about the wound care guy on the local Columbus time/temp line. :)
Great writing, and as a cat/dog owner, I can relate, some of this is all so very existential, I don’t worry for myself as much as I worry about my cats and dog. As a steward of their care, I have put them down, it is the worst feeling, to look into their eyes and say goodbye to them. But it does close a chapter, I know their fate. My wife’s cat, that I told her not to get is the only cat that tries to escape, once while taking the dog out, she escaped into the night, unbeknownst to me, I heard her at the side door when I got up at six am to use the bathroom, she came back in like nothing happened, and when she gets out during the day , I have learned not to chase, because it’s a game for her, I worry that at some point it’s no longer a game, and she doesn’t come back, I will have failed.
So far, she senses when I am done playing, and she comes back to the door after a few minutes, and if the wife isn’t sleeping in the bedroom and I am, she lays down next to me.
I'm of the opinion that we have pets in parts so we can learn how to deal with loss and grief without the cost of a human life. Unless a person is well into their 70s, there's a good chance that they will outlive just about any pet they have.
Maybe I'm a bit sanguine about it because I observed my father, a veterinarian, euthanize many pets. I'd sometime bag them up and put them in the freezer to wait for the city to pick them up.
Interestingly, he only put down one of our dogs, a poodle that had epilepsy. All the rest lived out their natural lives. When they developed age related issues, they moved to perpetual care in the back kennel at Dad's hospital. That way we could visit them and he had a donor for blood transfusions. I suppose that it's possible that he euthanized them at the very end and didn't tell us.
I am in my mid sixties, my dog has a tumor on her spleen, I am hoping that she passes in her sleep one night, my cats are young enough that they could easily outlive me…and yes, death is part of life.
"Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately." M. Twain
"And yet. If you’ve ever had a wound that would not heal. If there has ever been something wrong with you that renders you unwanted, unlovable, unable to continue your life as you want. Then perhaps you have known what it is to wish for a painless death."
This has been on my mind a lot over the last 6 months. A mother shitting through a hole in her torso into a pouch she often tears off because shortly before it was put there Alzheimers took over her mind and she doesn't understand what it is. A memory that sometimes fails her when a nurse asks who I am, the one she was pregnant with when she accepted her high school diploma; it's a blessing though that she always remembers the man she married halfway through her senior year to keep him from being drafted and sent to kill men on the other side of the planet. The Bible tells us husband and wife are one, the spouse takes precedence over the child. It's the natural order.
I sit and wonder at her bedside, is Alzheimers a punishment for modern medicine keeping us past our due date? She had her first heart attack at 58, the age her mother passed. Is payment due for the bonus 20 years? Last week Mom would lay in bed and have discussions with her mom, a presence she detected in the room, a presence that seems to have left us now that she gets a dose of Seroquel, Justin Townes Earle's favorite pharmaceutical, every night so she'll lose her night-time agitation and sleep til morning. Are the men in her family heartless and selfish in not feeling one has to sit with her throughout the night, but while possibly stealing away the comfort of her mother?
I'm rambling and done stealing your time. I just now have more compassion for people who want to end it peacefully, it's not always a plot of the State.
Gene, may you be given the grace and patience to get thru these difficult times. There is no perfect answer nor is there a perfect way to act. We all do the best we can, given our many limitations, and imperfect guidance from the medical community, who frankly generally suck at the end of life process. And thankfully we can't see around the corner to what comes ahead. The answer to your last question is, no its not heartless; you have to take care of yourself also. And we should not dwell on past decisions and actions.
I will say that while some are less than good, especially one particular physician I called out by name in an earlier comment, most everyone in the hospital concerned with her care has been an absolute blessing. That goes for her primary surgeon to the housekeeper that stops me in passing 6 floors from her room to ask how she's doing and offer her support.
My mother moved to the communally run Jewish Senior Living facility and as her dementia progressed, she went from her own apartment with a small kitchen, to a dormitory style room, to finally the memory care unit. I'd like to say that the staff treated her well, and many of them indeed did. I have a lot of respect for many of the people who work there and got to know some. My younger daughter was director of activities there for a while (after my mom passed away) and my older daughter, who is a foodie, is currently a manager in the commissary in the same facility. They both care deeply for the residents.
That being said, at the end, when she was in hospice care, someone on the staff stole her engagement ring and her favorite opal ring right off of her fingers. Because I had shot some video with her and my grandkids just before her final decline (she was so happy to see them, even if she might not have known exactly who they were), and she was still wearing those rings then, we had a rough idea when they were taken but the facility management wouldn't do anything about it.
My Mom still knew who my Dad was, as well as my brother and I, right to the end.
But I saw a hallucination like you saw with my own eyes—her Mom and Dad were standing in front of a family room chair! As well as delusional moments where she insisted upon going home to where we’d last lived 35 years before!
When my mom first moved into assisted living, she had one of those formal wedding portraits of her and my dad. Later, she asked me who he was. My younger sister, who would come to town every couple of months or so to see her, would complain that she sometimes didn't recognize her, but perhaps because I saw her at least weekly (I'd sometimes go at dinner time because she liked making me sit down and eat) she always knew who I was, at least until her brain started to completely shut down.
My nephew would take her to lunch and to movies. I think she thought he was wooing her.
Once, when I visited her in the memory care unit, I was sitting next to her in the activity room. To my other side was the woman who was my 2nd grade teacher. It occurred to me that the two women had known each other for 60 years but were oblivious to each other's presence.
Unfortunately, there’s no instruction manual on dealing with this, because every single one of these manifestations is different, depending on the person, as well as the caregivers’ actions and responses, including the care facility into which the person may be placed.
I have not had to deal with this with a parent but my grandmother made it to 90 or so completely fine and then just fell off. The one bright side is she got to hold our oldest “baby?” That was the last time i saw her alive. And thankfully passed two months before covid. Good luck man. I cant imagine how hard it is to watch a parent go through this
My mother, bless her heart, is attempting to send a copy of your book to twice-failed NYC mayoral candidate Chris Sliwa, because he’s known as an animal-lover and, like our author here, has more cats than any grown man of dignity should claim.
She has no personal connection to him, mind you. So hopefully it doesn’t wind up in a room full of unwanted and forgotten gifts from my mother’s fellow well-wishers.
I'm partial to 'Fragile' between those albums, but 'Blue Turtles' is better as a whole.
At least from the photos you posted and your descriptions Broken Meower sounded worse off so you may see her again, all else being equal, which it isn't.
I sense regret from a failed Captain Saveaho/ White Knight attempt or three. To the younger men, do *not* do this. You did not break her and it is not your responsibility to fix her.
Re. MAID: A young woman was recently 'euthanized' in Spain. She had been gang raped by three underage 'migrants' in a mental hospital and jumped off the roof, paralyzing herself. Family were prevented from seeing her at the end to prevent a change of heart as her organs were already spoken for.
It's too bad both sides of the Spanish civil war couldn't lose.
Notwithstanding the expulsion of 1492, if forced to choose between Ferdinand & Isabella on one hand and Montezuma on the other, I'd go with the Jew-haters over those who practiced human sacrifice on an industrial scale.
"Does it really matter if you heal, once they are gone?" According to the laws of nature no, your purpose is to procreate and raise the young till they can survive on their own. That's why despite the radiation life proliferates around Chernobyl.
Humans are different in that we are creative and build so our lives seem to have purpose beyond. Speaking of which you and DG seem amazingly well suited.
Every creature wants to live as long as they can. Cats seem to enjoy a great sunny day more than most.
Jack, I hope you keep the cat tales coming. These days when I spot the various ferals that hunt my acre of hillside, I can't help but wonder what stories they might have, about their hardships and triumphs.
My preferred method of stress relief lately has been exploring the various gravel and/or unmaintained roads that run the innumerable ridges of this county, and very recently on one of these drives I encountered a bobcat for the first time in my life. It was on its way through the trees toward a nearby hay field, probably to hunt for the evening, and as I got closer and stopped the truck, it stood on a fallen log and watched me for a while before continuing on.. I was truly awstruck, it had such a powerful and almost mystic presence. It's truly hard to get lost in rural WV anymore, just when you thought you had really gotten out into the sticks, there's a new Dollar General around the next bend, and most of the time you've still got cell signal. Seeing that cat made the world feel suddenly wild again, a glimpse of what the frontier once was.
you probably have bobcats in your area now and yet will never see them.
last year some critters were digging in my flower beds here in my small suburban yard, so I installed a trail cam to record photos/videos at night. turns out raccoons and possums routinely visit. one day was going thru the videos and "what's this long legged animal?" - there was a bobcat wandering thru. we have lots of coyotes also in the area but haven't seen one in the yard.
Not so long ago the coyotes became so numerous here that I saw one chase a deer across four lanes of morning traffic with her pup in tow. Local farmers and hunters have since lowered the population I suspect. I wonder whether or not a bobcat would pay any mind to your ferals if they crossed paths in the woods.
A taxidermist in the UP told me that he never goes into the woods without a firearm. I motioned to the mounted bobcat in his shop and asked, "Because of those?" and he said, "No, there are packs of feral dogs that have no fear of humans."
Outstanding!
A worthy addition to the Cat Tales collection. I loaned my copy of the book to a buddy with four cats, down from 11 before his wife left with six of them, leaving him with the sickly ones who he will have to euthanize one by one sooner than later, already losing Milo, the cat who thought he was a dog. I told him the book isn't really about cats.
Tell him we have a cat for him, when he needs one.
Probably many choices!
Opossum you Oliver Wendell Douglas motherfucker? Only a city boy would include the O.
More later.
Please!
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To prove to the possums that it could actually be done.
I feel like I've read a fair amount of the Baruth catalog, and that linked story was new for me. Humble suggestion, maybe a "from the archives" regular post, but it's introduced with the perspective of age and reflection.
seconded
vast majority of it seems to precede acf and as such has zero likes or comments
I think that is because he copied the articles over from another site, without the original comments.
Yes, but not on purpose. Substack wont let you import comments.
That sucks!
And if I recall, you had to take a lot of that content down because of the various threats from various snowflakes and wusses who unfortunately had just enough control of the hands of power to be able to make your life an absolute hell, make you completely unemployable, etc.!
From his former locally-administered site, Riverside Green.
It is 11 years old, from my previous site. I should bring some of them forward, and I will.
Having grown up in Columbus, I remember that ad on 281-8211 and the distinctive way that guy pronounced "wound," dragging out the long "u" sound: "Park Woooooound Care."
Years later, when my diabetic dad had a few toes removed and the gaping hole in his foot wouldn't heal, I thought of Park Woooooound Care, which gave me a good chuckle at an inappropriate time.
It's such a small world, isn't it? Here we are, on a global resource and a website that derives at least 20% of its revenue from other CONTINENTS... talking about the wound care guy on the local Columbus time/temp line. :)
Great writing, and as a cat/dog owner, I can relate, some of this is all so very existential, I don’t worry for myself as much as I worry about my cats and dog. As a steward of their care, I have put them down, it is the worst feeling, to look into their eyes and say goodbye to them. But it does close a chapter, I know their fate. My wife’s cat, that I told her not to get is the only cat that tries to escape, once while taking the dog out, she escaped into the night, unbeknownst to me, I heard her at the side door when I got up at six am to use the bathroom, she came back in like nothing happened, and when she gets out during the day , I have learned not to chase, because it’s a game for her, I worry that at some point it’s no longer a game, and she doesn’t come back, I will have failed.
You can't make her come back if she doesn't want to. The responsibility is different and greater for dogs, i think.
So far, she senses when I am done playing, and she comes back to the door after a few minutes, and if the wife isn’t sleeping in the bedroom and I am, she lays down next to me.
I'm of the opinion that we have pets in parts so we can learn how to deal with loss and grief without the cost of a human life. Unless a person is well into their 70s, there's a good chance that they will outlive just about any pet they have.
Maybe I'm a bit sanguine about it because I observed my father, a veterinarian, euthanize many pets. I'd sometime bag them up and put them in the freezer to wait for the city to pick them up.
Interestingly, he only put down one of our dogs, a poodle that had epilepsy. All the rest lived out their natural lives. When they developed age related issues, they moved to perpetual care in the back kennel at Dad's hospital. That way we could visit them and he had a donor for blood transfusions. I suppose that it's possible that he euthanized them at the very end and didn't tell us.
I am in my mid sixties, my dog has a tumor on her spleen, I am hoping that she passes in her sleep one night, my cats are young enough that they could easily outlive me…and yes, death is part of life.
Damn Jack .
-Nate
"Welcome to Volume 2 of Cat Tales"
hell yeah we gettin a second volume
"many people are up in arms about Canada’s “MAID” program"
well yeah its evil and probably used to harvest organs
"for the oldest reason of all"
hoe ass cat
"I will regardless start searching the woods for her body, alive or dead, with or without mewing progeny near it"
okay fine ill feel awful
"Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately." M. Twain
"And yet. If you’ve ever had a wound that would not heal. If there has ever been something wrong with you that renders you unwanted, unlovable, unable to continue your life as you want. Then perhaps you have known what it is to wish for a painless death."
This has been on my mind a lot over the last 6 months. A mother shitting through a hole in her torso into a pouch she often tears off because shortly before it was put there Alzheimers took over her mind and she doesn't understand what it is. A memory that sometimes fails her when a nurse asks who I am, the one she was pregnant with when she accepted her high school diploma; it's a blessing though that she always remembers the man she married halfway through her senior year to keep him from being drafted and sent to kill men on the other side of the planet. The Bible tells us husband and wife are one, the spouse takes precedence over the child. It's the natural order.
I sit and wonder at her bedside, is Alzheimers a punishment for modern medicine keeping us past our due date? She had her first heart attack at 58, the age her mother passed. Is payment due for the bonus 20 years? Last week Mom would lay in bed and have discussions with her mom, a presence she detected in the room, a presence that seems to have left us now that she gets a dose of Seroquel, Justin Townes Earle's favorite pharmaceutical, every night so she'll lose her night-time agitation and sleep til morning. Are the men in her family heartless and selfish in not feeling one has to sit with her throughout the night, but while possibly stealing away the comfort of her mother?
I'm rambling and done stealing your time. I just now have more compassion for people who want to end it peacefully, it's not always a plot of the State.
Gene, may you be given the grace and patience to get thru these difficult times. There is no perfect answer nor is there a perfect way to act. We all do the best we can, given our many limitations, and imperfect guidance from the medical community, who frankly generally suck at the end of life process. And thankfully we can't see around the corner to what comes ahead. The answer to your last question is, no its not heartless; you have to take care of yourself also. And we should not dwell on past decisions and actions.
I will say that while some are less than good, especially one particular physician I called out by name in an earlier comment, most everyone in the hospital concerned with her care has been an absolute blessing. That goes for her primary surgeon to the housekeeper that stops me in passing 6 floors from her room to ask how she's doing and offer her support.
She is in my prayers, but you are in my prayers more, because we both know is it harder for you than it is for her.
My mother moved to the communally run Jewish Senior Living facility and as her dementia progressed, she went from her own apartment with a small kitchen, to a dormitory style room, to finally the memory care unit. I'd like to say that the staff treated her well, and many of them indeed did. I have a lot of respect for many of the people who work there and got to know some. My younger daughter was director of activities there for a while (after my mom passed away) and my older daughter, who is a foodie, is currently a manager in the commissary in the same facility. They both care deeply for the residents.
That being said, at the end, when she was in hospice care, someone on the staff stole her engagement ring and her favorite opal ring right off of her fingers. Because I had shot some video with her and my grandkids just before her final decline (she was so happy to see them, even if she might not have known exactly who they were), and she was still wearing those rings then, we had a rough idea when they were taken but the facility management wouldn't do anything about it.
Was she in hospice in a separate facility? Or the same facility as where she started?
Hospice care in the memory unit.
My Mom still knew who my Dad was, as well as my brother and I, right to the end.
But I saw a hallucination like you saw with my own eyes—her Mom and Dad were standing in front of a family room chair! As well as delusional moments where she insisted upon going home to where we’d last lived 35 years before!
You have my prayers (as does she). It’s tough!
When my mom first moved into assisted living, she had one of those formal wedding portraits of her and my dad. Later, she asked me who he was. My younger sister, who would come to town every couple of months or so to see her, would complain that she sometimes didn't recognize her, but perhaps because I saw her at least weekly (I'd sometimes go at dinner time because she liked making me sit down and eat) she always knew who I was, at least until her brain started to completely shut down.
My nephew would take her to lunch and to movies. I think she thought he was wooing her.
Once, when I visited her in the memory care unit, I was sitting next to her in the activity room. To my other side was the woman who was my 2nd grade teacher. It occurred to me that the two women had known each other for 60 years but were oblivious to each other's presence.
The entire experience was bittersweet.
Perfect response
Unfortunately, there’s no instruction manual on dealing with this, because every single one of these manifestations is different, depending on the person, as well as the caregivers’ actions and responses, including the care facility into which the person may be placed.
I have not had to deal with this with a parent but my grandmother made it to 90 or so completely fine and then just fell off. The one bright side is she got to hold our oldest “baby?” That was the last time i saw her alive. And thankfully passed two months before covid. Good luck man. I cant imagine how hard it is to watch a parent go through this
God bless you and her.
Excellent. Could not have said it better.
Once again Jack - WOW.
Just sit down and write the damned novel already.
My mother, bless her heart, is attempting to send a copy of your book to twice-failed NYC mayoral candidate Chris Sliwa, because he’s known as an animal-lover and, like our author here, has more cats than any grown man of dignity should claim.
She has no personal connection to him, mind you. So hopefully it doesn’t wind up in a room full of unwanted and forgotten gifts from my mother’s fellow well-wishers.
Oh gosh. I wonder if I could get hold of his publicist directly. Please thank her for me.
I'm partial to 'Fragile' between those albums, but 'Blue Turtles' is better as a whole.
At least from the photos you posted and your descriptions Broken Meower sounded worse off so you may see her again, all else being equal, which it isn't.
I sense regret from a failed Captain Saveaho/ White Knight attempt or three. To the younger men, do *not* do this. You did not break her and it is not your responsibility to fix her.
Re. MAID: A young woman was recently 'euthanized' in Spain. She had been gang raped by three underage 'migrants' in a mental hospital and jumped off the roof, paralyzing herself. Family were prevented from seeing her at the end to prevent a change of heart as her organs were already spoken for.
Has Spain ever been a moral exemplar?
Briefly, during the Reconquista, and again when they chose Franco over the alternatives.
It's too bad both sides of the Spanish civil war couldn't lose.
Notwithstanding the expulsion of 1492, if forced to choose between Ferdinand & Isabella on one hand and Montezuma on the other, I'd go with the Jew-haters over those who practiced human sacrifice on an industrial scale.
"Does it really matter if you heal, once they are gone?" According to the laws of nature no, your purpose is to procreate and raise the young till they can survive on their own. That's why despite the radiation life proliferates around Chernobyl.
Humans are different in that we are creative and build so our lives seem to have purpose beyond. Speaking of which you and DG seem amazingly well suited.
Every creature wants to live as long as they can. Cats seem to enjoy a great sunny day more than most.
Jack, I hope you keep the cat tales coming. These days when I spot the various ferals that hunt my acre of hillside, I can't help but wonder what stories they might have, about their hardships and triumphs.
My preferred method of stress relief lately has been exploring the various gravel and/or unmaintained roads that run the innumerable ridges of this county, and very recently on one of these drives I encountered a bobcat for the first time in my life. It was on its way through the trees toward a nearby hay field, probably to hunt for the evening, and as I got closer and stopped the truck, it stood on a fallen log and watched me for a while before continuing on.. I was truly awstruck, it had such a powerful and almost mystic presence. It's truly hard to get lost in rural WV anymore, just when you thought you had really gotten out into the sticks, there's a new Dollar General around the next bend, and most of the time you've still got cell signal. Seeing that cat made the world feel suddenly wild again, a glimpse of what the frontier once was.
What an enviable experience! I want to drive the coyotes out of my woods and replace them with Bobcats.
you probably have bobcats in your area now and yet will never see them.
last year some critters were digging in my flower beds here in my small suburban yard, so I installed a trail cam to record photos/videos at night. turns out raccoons and possums routinely visit. one day was going thru the videos and "what's this long legged animal?" - there was a bobcat wandering thru. we have lots of coyotes also in the area but haven't seen one in the yard.
Not so long ago the coyotes became so numerous here that I saw one chase a deer across four lanes of morning traffic with her pup in tow. Local farmers and hunters have since lowered the population I suspect. I wonder whether or not a bobcat would pay any mind to your ferals if they crossed paths in the woods.
I'm afraid they would EAT the ferals.
Bobcats will prey on domestic cats, although I think Tiger Dad would make it a tough meal.
A taxidermist in the UP told me that he never goes into the woods without a firearm. I motioned to the mounted bobcat in his shop and asked, "Because of those?" and he said, "No, there are packs of feral dogs that have no fear of humans."
Name dropping Cormac McCarthy when this cat is clearly carrying the fire. Well done.