Goodbye Kitty

My phone rang at 6:30 this morning. I was sleeping, like I always am before the sun comes up, and I answered the phone knowing it probably wasn’t good.

Dawn had walked out to get the paper, and found DC, her 5 year old male cat, dead on her lawn.

I’ve taken care of it. His remains will be cremated by some of the best people I know.

The price we pay for love is loss, and the grief Dawn and her girls are going though is horrible, but a bargain price for the years of love, affection, and fun that black and white boy-cat brought them. Eventually, every relationship ends, and while death isn’t always the cause, it is the most final.

What I’ve encouraged Dawn to do is to remind her girls of little things DC used to do. Talk about the best of him. Think about him chasing their legs when they walked by, or how he would curl up under the covers on a cold winter night. Compare those memories to the pain of losing him. The joy he brought into their lives makes the current loss bearable.

Ragtop Blues

I’ve got a craving for a new toy. Specifically, a fun second car I can take the top off and drive around with Jones and have people stare.

For a while, I’ve lusted after a Ravenna Green Karmann Ghia . The color is the same as my SuperBeetle I had when I was 16, and the Karmann Ghia is the car I wanted in the first place, but my mom refused on grounds that parts were harder to come by. Moms. Sheesh.

I’m a big guy. Six feet, two inches, and way too many pounds doesn’t fit all that well in such a tiny car. My friend Chad₀ has a Miata, and I’ve driven it, quite uncomfortably. My biggest complaint was that my knees hit the underside of the dash, and my size 12 feet filled every inch of the tiny footwell, making braking, accelerating, and using the clutch (clutching?) a real booger. Maybe a tiny roadster isn’t for me.

Now I’m looking for a Jeep. I think I should stick with an older CJ, but the one ammenity I don’t want to give up is air conditioning. There is a company in Arizona that makes aftermarket AC kits, but they bolt on under the dash and look cheap. Factory air has become one of my requisites.

So, if you have a Jeep, or see a Jeep for sale that meets those criteria, email me and I’ll take a look.

Here is my wishlist:

• Jeep CJ, Scrambler, or Wrangler (with round headlights).


• Factory Air Conditioning.


• Hard Doors (glass side windows that roll up/down).


• My dream would be a Ravenna Green color, with Yellow in second, but I’ll consider any color.


• Black or grey interior.


• Manual Transmission.