Good Night, Sweet Princess

I don't remember when she wandered into my parents' yard. Could have been 18 years ago, when they got their first dog, or could have been later. She was a stray, although she never looked like one. Dad always said she belonged to the neighbor, but I am not sure: she spent more time in my parents' yard than in any other place on the street.

She was smart, as cats go, and she was sassy, as they go, too. But less so than any other cat, she was quiet. She was unobtrusively inserting in the life of our family, and mostly in our hearts forever, without as much as a meow. She never begged per se, but she always sat on the outside window sill of the kitchen waiting for food.

More than any other cats, she was gorgeous. I am yet to meet an ugly cat, really, but she was exquisite. She had the markings of a Siamese cat, with piercing blue eyes, but maybe not with the same body style – more short and dense and less athletic, less tall. I truly thing she was a mutt, but not less beautiful for it.

My first ever Instagram picture was that of Bella

Bella was never officially my parents' cat, but they treated her always like she was. Their first dog never barked at a human, but he barked at Bella (and all the other cats of the neighborhood). He, even, knew she did not belong there. But she came there every day, religiously to nibble at food from her bowl which dad put on the kitchen window sill so the dog won't bother it. She spent many winters in my parents' laundry room, because mom would have no pets anywhere else in the house, otherwise.

I did talk about her as “my parents' cat”, but she was really my dad's. He is the animal lover in our midst and he infected both me and my sister with the love for cats. Mom could take pets or leave them, but mostly leave them.

She spent an errant life, really, of a stray cat. She would perch on top of roofs and jump from yard to yard, to avoid the busy street filled with crazy drivers, and naughty kids who would surely torment her. This made her smart.

She hoped from yard to yard, but I think she was fed only at our house. My parents were probably the only ones on the street going to the pet store for Bella. She scavenged what she could off the other neighbors, from trash and dropped food. But she had her designated food and water bowls at our house.

I never heard the neighbor ever looking for her when she was gone from their yard.

When we were there, she came and snuggled and said 'hello' in a quiet, shy voice. She loved to be petted and loved on. She did like humans, to some extent, after all, but never expected anything from you. She purred in content when you paid her any amount of attention. She was tame. She was a stray but definitely never feral.

This fall, she disappeared for a few days. Dad was besides himself with worry. We knew she was old, but I don't think we ever knew exactly how old. Dad thought for sure it was “her time” and she would probably never come back. But she did. Dad said she came back “fatter.” Well, they only found out recently that she was actually sick: her abdomen started swelling up with fluid and this past week she was the “fattest” she had ever been although she all but stopped eating or drinking.

Today, they found her on the floor of the bathroom, motionless. She was breathing, but that's about all. It was time. And she knew it. She had come back home, for the final stop. Like the owner that he acted as all these years, it was dad's “job” (the hardest job in the world) to help her through her final hours.

She was such a big presence in the landscape of my parents' house. She had, like all pets do, the superpower of really inserting themselves deeply into our hearts, right where our softest, most delicate, and most vulnerable spot lives.

She leaves a big hole in our hearts. My heart cries mostly for my dad, but for all of us who knew and loved her, over the years. I hope she is now truly free to roam, without cars, naughty neighborhood kids and dogs to chase her. And I hope she tells all our other furry friends that we miss and love them, too.

Rest, sweet girl. No more worries where to spend the winter. You will always be part of our family.

This is the last picture I took of her, this past May. It looks like she prophetically is waving us 'good bye.' Sweet girl! 

So Long: Saying 'Good Bye' to the Rockies

I started this a few days ago, as I was mentally playing a slideshow of favorite places I have acquainted with in the past seven years of living in The American West. It was supposed to be just a few words, but it took on a life of its own. Hope you have the patience and the time. Here we are …

If spring makes my heart sing, fall makes my heart be quiet. And listen. Listen to the swoosh of the leaves lazily, unconvincingly floating down from trees towards the eternal grave of the earth. Listen for the rain violently hitting the dusty desert windows, in rage and hunger. Listen for the time to pass, the days to shrink, and the nights to swallow us whole for six more gray months. Fall makes me quiet and makes me listen to my life passing and my time being left behind me. Rear view mirror, but no rear drive. This is my last fall in The Rockies, and it's extra special for this reason.

Even people that know me well might not know this about myself, but I had two dreams amongst the many I grew up with. I told myself that if I ever were to move to America (which I did, with the Good Lord's mercy) I was going to have two experiences: one would be that of living in The South. I wanted the diversity, to be close to that history, to that dialect, to the food, to the sweet and gritty people, to the “Gone with the Wind” days of the past. The second one was that of living in The West. I wanted to roam aimlessly across the plains of The West, listen to the enormous silence of the desert, put roots where the soil was too harsh to harvest, climb the majestic Rockies, and step on the same trails where the white man and The Indians met, where the buffalo roamed and the antelope skittishly but confidently called home. And again, by His grace, I did this, too.

And now it's come to the time when I close this second chapter of my American life. We're saying 'good bye' to The West. My husband wrote (http://aaronkuehn.net/tol/?p=825) about all the reasons why, so I won't go into details. I will just say that there comes a time in everyone's life when things must move on. Naturally and without effort. We must move forward. And this is our forward time.

I will have to say that The West has proven to be everything I was expecting and dreaming about for decades, and at the same time absolutely nothing I was expecting. It's bigger. Larger than life, really. Overwhelming. Much louder and faster than I expected it. Less American Melting Pot and more American Puritanical. It's tough, but this was no surprise. I am convinced now that you need more grit to make it out here than you do in the South. The South welcomes you and patches up your wounds. The West digs the dagger into them deeper and makes you bleed more. Makes you a stronger human, for sure, but a more scarred one. People are colder and more aloof here. Their gaze, lost in the red dirt of the desert, looking for that chimera that might never come; dreaming in an abandoned resignation for a forgiveness that might never come. The West is purging. The South is the absolution.

If I have loved The South like I love my mother and father, if I have loved it like the safe, balmy heaven that I need to rest my body and find comfort in when it is tired and unsettled, I have loved The West like you love a sexy, crazy, abusive, but passionate lover. The temptation is huge, the luring is powerful, the scars deep. I love The West like you love a drug that you cannot quit.

The West is made up of stuff the movies, and the legends are made of, and I got to see it, smell it, taste it with my own senses – a bigger privilege and adventure cannot be possible.

Life has not always been easy for us here, if at all. But we made incredibly beautiful memories in this part of the world. I am beyond words grateful to have been given the opportunity to have lived here for seven years! What was but a dream has been my seven (7!!) year reality now. I have the gray hair and the wrinkles to prove it.

I can firmly say that we made a life here, a life that was very different than the one before, but very good, albeit very tough. We had almost no friends, for the most part. The ones we had left sooner than us. We will remember long, lonely years when we reveled into just being on our own, learning the land, camping alone, hiking in search of the next beautiful corner of The Rockies (and that was always plenty!), and finding each other, stronger and more in love.

There are things I won't miss, for sure: I have never used this many bottles of lotion to keep my skin moist as I have in the past seven years. The dry air, and the harsh mineral waters cut your skin. I probably aged faster because of how quickly and often my skin lost its moisture.

Traffic is insane, at least in the part of the country we're in (Utah Valley). Pollution is incredibly and surprisingly high in lots of Western cities, not just in Utah. It's depressing. Services are mediocre at best.

And then there are the people, again: they never answer calls. Waiters and waitresses never acknowledge a woman is sitting at the table. Employers, at least in Utah, severely underpay women for the same jobs (or harder) than men. As a woman you really don't exist in this state, especially as a childless woman.

I never did understand neighbors here, either: they are not friendly enough to come over for dinner, or invite you over for a bbq, but they do leave stuff you don't need nor ask for at your door in secrecy. I am not sure I'll ever understand that, even if I were to remain here 20 more years.

But warts and all, I am desperately in love with this place, and I will sorely miss it! There is something surreally cathartic about sitting on the porch of a log cabin overlooking The Rockies, and taking in the rocks, the pines, listening to the trickling river, watching the wild creatures come for a sip of water, and hearing the wind sheepishly crawling through the trees. Like I said: like a strong drug you can't quit, I will crave it painfully. I will miss jumping in the car and driving for 10 minutes to stare at a valley from a high peak. I will miss the camping in crisp cold mountain air, the buffalo on the prairie, and the vast lands, with limitless mountain ranges. I will miss having a mountain view from every window in my house. I'll even miss the snow peaks in the middle of June!

There have been hundreds (with no exaggeration) of memories we have made in the past seven years, and I really would like (another dream) to sit down one day and write my Big Fat Western Memoir. But I will mention just some of them here, just in the hope that someone might need some reasons to move up here. Like I said: it started out with just a few thoughts, and it grew into this …

In no particular order, these have been some of my most favorite moments in my seven years of living in The West:

… being able to go on a road trip to Napa Valley and winery hop for our honeymoon. Sipping the best (my husband says) Long Island ice tea on the San Francisco Harbor. Eating at Morimoto's in Napa and experiencing California – every bit of its diversity and noise.

… driving on a whim to Vegas for some world famous cocktails and a show. Tripling my money at the penny machines.

… playing Bingo in Mesquite, NV, and then getting lost in antique stores down there, full of memories of The Western Past, a mixture of Native Indian art and Old Frontier paraphernalia.

… eating at old timey saloons in Park City, Cody, WY, or Jackson Hole. You can smell the stinky leather boots to this day, and trip on the warped wooden floors.

… sipping hot toddies at Hotel Monaco in Salt Lake City on New Year's Eve, waiting for the fancy dinner to start at Bambara's and for the fireworks show to begin at midnight.

… eating the best Thai food in America (to date, for us) at Sawadees in Salt Lake, right before going to see Saturday's Voyeur at Salt Lake Acting Company. How we're going to miss that show!

… riding the chairlift at Sundance during a full moon. Coldest summer night you will ever experience! Watching the moose lazily bathing in Silver Lake on Big Cottonwood Canyon, or sipping a cold brew at Solitude on a lazy, Sunday afternoon in July. Just us, the mountains and the tall skies – the Nature's Cathedral just for us.

… we went to this tiny little town of Afton, WY one summer for the weekend. Never in a million years would I have wanted to go there – why Wyoming?! What's in Afton?! But they have some of the best cabins to rent and they have the best trails on the edge of Bridger National Forest – gushing rivers and tall firs, rocks and peace, deafening peace everywhere. And believe it or not, some of the best seafood you find here, in a mom'n'pop store in the middle of downtown.

...lakes are deeper and cleaner here – except for Utah Lake. I do believe that there is a huge monster, maybe a whole family of them, living in Utah Lake that spew out neon waste every hour to give it it's gloomy, dirty, neon glow every other day. Outside of this lake, however, the lakes out here are pristine, cold, crystal clear, and deep.

… although Utah does have some vegetation (Utah has everything, really, landscape-wise, except for the ocean), Colorado and Wyoming definitely won the coniferous lottery. Montana, in the upper North-West, too … I will miss the firs and the pines. I will miss camping at Ponderosa Campground on Nebo Loop and gathering cones right before winter came. They are big and sturdy cones. You dip them in bleach and they make great décor for Christmas.

… wandering the streets of Ketchum, ID, where Hemingway scattered his last steps before he died. Ketchum has the best breakfast potatoes at Bigwood Breakfast Cafe – a sure sign you're in Idaho.

… sampling absinthe in a gourmet store and eating elk chili at the brewery in Jackson Hole, WY. Walking under the elk antler arches in the downtown – nothing says more “wild” and more “West” than that! Afton had the antler arches, too. Or maybe I am wrong: there is at least one thing that says more “wild” than that: wandering in the middle of the desert and running into hungry hawling coyotes and wolves in the middle of the day, or seeing horse, cow, or deer carcasses in almost every hike. Vultures and crows feasting on naked bones in a melting summer mid-day.

...we will probably not run again into many establishments with names that bring ghosts of the past and John Wayne movie memories to mind – places with “wild”, “cowboy”, “lonely”, “ranger”, “Indian”, “saloon”, “claim jumper”, “desert rose”, “one eye”, “buffalo”, “shooter”, “gun” , 'barrel”, “rain(dance)”, “sun(dance)”, “wind”, “last chance”, “trading post” in the name.

… going up the Provo Canyon to Sundance on a whim: whether it was a long weekend, a boring weekend with nothing to do, a dinner craving, a Sunday brunch – we could always rely on Sundance to be there for us. And once we were there, the views, the peace, the chill in the mountain air took all the pains of the everyday life away. Bob (as in Redford), we will miss you!

… going down to Zion or Moab for the weekend and shooting the moon-like desert life for hours. Getting lost in the redness and getting speechless in the face of a nature like no other on Earth. The red rock is as unique as the limestone mountains of Turkey, the jungle of the Amazon, and the vastness of Antarctica. There is nothing like it, nothing compares – it just must be seen with your own eyes to understand. Or to puzzle upon.

… speaking of Moab: if you can only go there once, make sure you eat dinner in the sunset, on the Colorado River at the Red Cliffs Lodge – about 14 miles off the main drag. Leave time and the world behind you and go die for a minute – just you, the mighty Colorado, the red rocks and the sunset. If you still believe that God is bogus, you have no feelings, really …

… getting lost in the desert was still my favorite past time here. Going to Bluff, UT in the winter, when no one is there and there is only one restaurant in town open and one gas station with a cranky host gives new meaning to the words “lonely” and “desert”. You understand why the Navajos are not people of many words in these parts: they don't dare disturb the serenity of nature and God. Their turmoils are internal, just like the riveting life of the desert – all under wraps and in the shadows.

… I will equally miss the salmon supper in Payson, UT – best, largest wild Alaskan salmon cooked on an open fire - and the Indian food at Bombay House in Provo. The people at the Bombay House were the best hosts I have met in my stay here. The friendliest, most efficient, and most passionate about what they do.

… I will miss shooting. Shooting (as in camera) is so easy here: you just point the camera and make sure you have a steady hand. The light is almost always perfect and the landscape is begging to be shot. You can never run out of things to shoot here, but my most special moments were when we chased the buffalo on Antelope Island, on the big Salt Lake, or the birds, frisky with frost, in the deep winter, on Utah Lake. Utah Lake in the sunset goes apey! I will miss shooting sunsets …

… I will miss the skies here, mostly. There are no rainbows I have ever seen anywhere bigger and brighter than here. The sunsets and sunrises are glorious odes to God and to Earth, painted canvases in search for an audience. Such show-offs!

… I have loved all the trips we took from here – from California to Washington State, from Colorado to Nevada, Montana to Arizona. But the one place in my heart that will remain like the ever-burning flame of my life here, and of my memories of The West will be Monument Valley in the heart of the Navajo Reservation. That place, between the buttes, in July, at sunset, is the place where all of the energy of the world and the universe comes for supper. Time truly stands still and is visible, so you can see it sitting down and having dinner, chewing ever so slowly till the sun dips into the red dirt. If I have to take one picture and one picture only from The West with me, snug in my heart and my sinews, it would be that piece of land right there.

… Montana had always been my Mecca. Unlike any other European person that dreams of coming to America for New York and L.A. and Miami, I wanted to come to the US for Montana. The untouched land, the wilderness, the candle-like trees bordering the rocky cliffs – it's all there, and it's what I think about when I think of The Rockies. For a while we thought we might even move there, but alas, altitude got the better of my heart, and we can't anymore, for wanting to live. Glacier National Park was like coming home, finally. Everything I have ever dreamed about and loved about mountains, mountain absolute perfection is achieved there. There is a feeling of reaching an apex, like I felt when climbing the Twin Towers in New York in 1999, of achieving something great when you cross the Continental Divide and stare into the immense valleys below. When you watch olden glaciers melt into water and air right before your eyes. There is also a feeling of smallness and unimportance about yourself, in the grand scheme of things. Montana is all that and so much more.

… when I think of more Old West reminders, I think of every other eating place in downtown Park City, I think of The Lodge at Bryce, Irma Hotel in Cody, WY, The Mahogany Grill in Durango, CO, or The Cowboy Grill at The Red Cliffs Lodge in Moab, UT. You step into any one of them and you're expecting that Buffalo Bill is sitting at the bar, Bourbon in hand.

I know The American West stops at the level of family photo albums as far as history is measured, but it does have its own history and its own character, to be sure, unfound elsewhere in America, I believe. It's a land of cowboys, hunters, law breakers, women who had to either make it on their own or hide between the husband and 10 kids, and maybe even 2 or 3 other wives. If I had a dollar for every time I said “Wow! We really do live in the Wild West” because someone shot a cop, or made their own justice somehow, I would be rich now. History has caught up with these parts, in some ways, but some people still think the gun and the land run supreme, and nothing and no one will stand between them and those sacred treasures!

… some of my favorite time has been spent enjoying the small towns we live in and near-by: going to the rodeo or buying the annual funnel cake at Fiesta Days in Spanish Fork, or going to Park Silly in Park City, or to Oktoberfest in Snowbird. Solitude is such a gem of a resort, and as deep and powerful as the name itself. Pure, crystallized … solitude.

… I will miss the mountain streams skipping step from rock to rock in the spring. Camping on the mountain tops in the fall and hearing the tired, not so full sound of the springs running towards the valleys in rest, waiting for the winter snow and ice to mute them.

… I will miss the sweet tomatoes my rocky, sandy soil yields – sweetest I have ever tasted in this hemisphere, because dryness makes sweet. Same for grapes. Harvesting tomatoes, grapes, pears and cherries was as close as I ever got to being a true Pioneer woman and taming these dry, stubborn, rock-full lands. I never did learn how to make apple pie, neither here, not in The South. I did learn a thing or two about funeral potatoes. It's not any kind of special recipe, really – it's just whatever potato dish you want to bring to a funeral to share. Why not a wedding, or a christening, I have not a clue!

… you get used to driving long roads here, because there is nothing for hundreds of miles but the desert and a few bad barns, leaning on one side. Nothing but beauty and nature, that is. Nothing but wilderness and the almighty sun. But as long as the drives were, I will still miss taking them and being in very different climates, and flora and fauna zones. I will miss planning road trips to places like Lake Tahoe, CA, Yellowstone National Park, Whitefish, MT, Sun Valley, ID, Durango, CO, Vernal, UT.

… the winds in The West are what I underestimated the most. I don't believe the tornadoes of the South will make me wince anymore, after having lived here, where 60 mph gusts are the norm. Especially at my house, at the mouth of the canyon. Winds will always carry me back here, on their swift wings …

There are still places I have not seen and I am kicking myself for not having done so. Would you believe that I still have not see The Grand Canyon, or the Sequoia Forest in California?! Or Yosemite? Or Portland, OR? Or Grand Staircase Escalante? For these and many more, I will be back. That is a promise, health and money not being an issue.

I quiet down now and let the wind take my memories away and scatter them across the plains. I came of another age in this place, both wonderful and mean. I am older, stronger, tougher, and I probably used to being lonely, just me and Aa., more than before. We have grown into a couple here, strong and loving, from the two entities we came here as, when we had barely gotten married. Some say that no toughness is built unless there is loss, and as much as we have gained in these past seven years (us, our love, our marriage, our travels, our many hundreds of thousands of photographs, our lives stronger and more accomplished), we have also lost. We lost jobs, two adorable, amazing kittens, money, even (and not in gambling), health, patience … It made us stronger and it shaped our road from here, so zero regrets and much looking forward to the door that is now opening.

Oh, I could go on for another 10 pages, but I am looking at my count and I am into five of them right now, so I better stop! These are all things that came to mind as I am sitting here, on a windy Tuesday night, all alone, pondering upon the recent past.

It is somewhat poetic that the end of such an adventure comes in the fall for us: it's when my heart gets quiet and can think and reflect on things past, somewhat melancholy, somewhat longing, but always accomplished.

I am already longing for some of the places I stopped to document here, for posterity. As much as my heart is filled with the apprehension of what my next chapter back in my beloved South might bring, it is also filled with the memories and the emotional baggage I have stored in these past seven years.

And speaking of my heart: there will forever be a more organic, more material connection to this place than to any other place in the world: when they took my aorta and my aortic valve out of it last year, you could say that a piece of my heart will forever stay in The West. Quite literally. The West is not for quitters, that's for sure. And we are not that. We're just ready for the next road trip.

So long, Utah, and Montana, and Wyoming, and Colorado, California, Nevada, and Arizona, too … Till next time …

The Inconspicuous Cat

About 15 years ago, almost to the date, he was caged at PetLand in Greensboro, NC, at Friendly Shopping Center. He was “up for adoption”, for a small fee of $150. I asked the shop clerk “how much did he cost” and he corrected me that “he is not for sale. But he is up for adoption, for $150”. He was ugly, if I have ever seen such a thing as an ugly cat, skinny and had big, ears, full of mites. His eyes were sleepy. He had gorgeous orange tabby markings with not a speck of white or other colors in it. He was a true tabby. A true redhead! In more ways than one. 

I could tell he was making an extra effort to sit as close to the middle of the cage, so kids who were poking their skinny fingers to touch him won’t reach him. I told myself: he will never get adopted! He is too ugly and he is too old to be a kitten. Not old enough to be quite a cat. And he looked angry. Annoyed with all the kids’ poking. No one would see a “family cat” in him, I told myself, as I walked out of the place with my cat food in hand, and I sighed. 

I went home and told my then husband about him. We had $300 in the bank and the mortgage of $750 due in a week. 

Two days later, a Saturday, sometime in the fall, my husband and my then step kids showed up at the door with him in their hands. The ugly kitten, all mites, bones and ever so soft orange fur was now ours – our second kitty, after his bigger brother, Fero.

My first reaction was “We cannot afford HIM! We cannot afford the mortgage this month and you go out and buy a CAT????”. My husband said: “OK, fine, he has a 48 hour warranty, I am going to return him! Give him back”. 

I had him in my hands, and he was scratching and hissing and angry. All claws out and clinging onto my skin for dear life! I said: “NO WAY! He has been through enough already! We’ll love him up to be beautiful!” And the rest, really, is history! 

He never did get a real name. Fero was Fero, and the “little kitty” we just got became Little Kitty. And on his vet certificate, he is still Little Kitty. Not just Kitty, but “Little Kitty”.  

If God went out to design a perfect mold for a kitty, He must have fit my Little Kitty in it. He was the softest cat I have ever touched. The cleanest. The quietest. Like any cat, he was fiercely independent and stubborn. He liked company on his terms and he made those terms very clear! By biting, and scratching and hissing. You always knew his boundaries. And he only had to tell you about them once. 

He was my one true hunter cat! When I lived in a house in the woods of Summerfield, NC, we had mice. He caught them every time they’d dare wander through my kitchen, and would bring them to bed, in the middle of the night, in his mouth, to show me his catch! He was upset when we killed the mouse. It was his pray to kill, so understandable. 

He sneezed, occasionally, because he was allergic to clay, I found. He was even allergic to almost every brand of litter except two! I tried using clay bowls for his food – not a good idea! His nose would get as red as Rudolph’s and it would drip and drip, as he sneezed with all of his body. 

He always let Fero be the alpha cat, and always protected the baby cat, Gypsy. He was stoic, devoted to all his duties and respectful of everyone’s space, as long as they respected his.  

For years, I lived alone, after my divorce. We were all a team, me and the three kitties. I clipped the nails of the other two cats, but I could never do it by myself to him. He was impossible to pill or to put in the cat carrier singlehandedly. It was always a two people’s job. I figured, he was feral for a while, before he ended up at PetLand. You could tell, he did not trust people. 

He slept with me, for years. But always at the foot of the bed. Just enough to be close but not enough close where I could touch him. In true cat fashion, he spited me: with a name like Little Kitty, he grew to be the largest cat I have ever been owned by. 

 

A very rare sight: Little Kitty bonding with my sister. She was amongst the very few who "got him". And he, her.

Just like I promised him on his first day with me, I loved him up, I think, to be beautiful. Even gorgeous. He still had dreamy eyes and a serious look, all of his life, but the mites went away, and he filled into his large ears and paws.

He never once, that I can remember, got in trouble! He never broke anything, always groomed religiously, his breath never smelled. His moves were ever so calculated and slow, just like a tiger, which gained his nickname in his later life of Richard Parker, the tiger in Life of Pi. He was my tiger. Or “pumpkin”. Or “pinkie”, because of his pink paw pads. Because of his serious allure, he became “Mr. Kitty” to my now husband. And lived up to that name. He always kept a low profile. He ate the longest, because he always took his time, with everything. He was a typical middle child!

Just like with all my cats, we built a whole life together. Some people tell me that 15 years is “old” for a cat. To me, 100 would not be enough! We had to say ‘good bye’ to Mr. Kitty tonight. Just as quietly as he slipped into my life, he slipped away, on his own, after a two month heroic battle with kidney failure (I swear Utah water is killing my cats!). He was 15 and 5 months today. 

I’ll miss so much about him! His constant presence just beside me. His long grooming sessions, his lazy an watchful swagger down the stairs, swinging his fat belly left to right, while sheepishly glancing over his left shoulder to make sure I am following him. His quiet meow. His habit of “rearranging” my coasters: he would knock them on the floor, from the table or the arm rest of the couch. We never quite figured out why just the coasters. 

I hope kitties go to heaven and this way he can meet his brother, Fero, and compare matching bracelets of shaved fur on their paws, from the IVs they got for their kidney diseases. I hope he runs free, with no one chasing him down to clip his claws. I hope he makes someone as happy as he’s made us, and as fulfilled. 

He never asked for much. Not even for attention. A bowl of food, a clean litter box, a bowl of water, and a window with fresh air where he could watch birds, squirrels and cars.

I’ll miss his presence the most. To me, he was the ultimate symbol of coming home.

He ended up being so much more than a kitty with no name. 

Rest in peace, Little Man! We ache and cry and hope you make another world as happy as you made ours! 

Little Kitty:

 May 15, 1999 - October 15, 2014

From "Family Town" to "Everything Town"

Interesting fact: Did you know that tiramisu is made with … lemons instead of coffee in some Utah County restaurants?! For those who don’t get it, just google “coffee forbidden Utah” and find out.

We are so lucky to be so close to Park City for so many reasons. Not just because it’s a picturesque place to visit, with breathtaking mountains and beautiful architecture, but it’s our breath of fresh air. Literally and figuratively!

We go to Park City for The World Market. We go there for the Whole Foods store. We go there for The Eating Establishment restaurant and Squatters' IPA. We go there for good bagels. We go every summer for Park Silly Sunday Market, and every fall for The Parade of (vacation) Homes.

But most of all, we go there to escape into a sense of normalcy! It’s our chance to remind ourselves we still live in the US of A, and not on a patriarchal estate, somewhere, on a remote island where God locked us up and threw the key away.

In our very guarded, very securely, ever so carefully and morally tightly packed ‘Family County’ we feel like suffocating some days. After tripping on strollers everywhere in our town, after dining next to “The Smiths, family of 23”, of which adults are always outnumbered, every Friday night, no matter what restaurant we pick, after weeks and months of frowns when we order wine in a restaurant and a parade of several waiters in one order because the 16 year old, nor the 18 year old, nor their parent waiters know how to make a ‘non-virgin’ margarita, it’s nice to go “out” (literally) and … have choices!

Funny how our lives change. As the old cliché goes, you don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone. Ordering a drink, being in an adult place, like a bar, and feeling that comfortable unwinding kind of feeling at the end of a long week, where you congregate with other adults and hash out the stress gone by, used to be commonplace a year and a half ago, in another state. Not anymore. Now, it’s a treat that you have to travel to the next city to get.

This past weekend, we got away for an impromptu couple of hours to the said Mecca of Park City. We ate at Bandit’s Barbecue and I re-discovered another long time culinary love of mine that I don’t order but maybe once a year: fried pickles, baby! And here I was thinking that I left them buried into the Ol’ South! Not so.

We also took the chairlift across Main Street and beyond – more than an hour of peace, quiet, fresh pine and sap fragrances, and lots of fresh air. That was such a recharging experience, too! There is something overwhelmingly serene and therapeutic about being forced to just sit, with nowhere to go, and just be. Just breathe and watch and listen. And wonder. That’s what a chairlift does.

But as beautiful as the nature was, and always is, our most favorite part was just to connect with “other” kinds of people. Less judgy, perhaps, and more accepting (or completely ignorant!) of their neighbors. We enjoyed seeing the big, wide, crazy world out there, first hand, past the borders of our subdivision and small city life: colorful people and street décor, no reservations young artists of all sorts of media, we loved enjoying the exotic smells of street foods, like Thai and Peruvian, loved even seeing the oddities, like super fancy mobile restrooms (not the kind you think!), funky art like necklaces made of bent spoons and forks, and spoiled rotten puppies, as well as people eating out on the sidewalks on small patios and decks, taking in the mountain dim sun!

Most importantly, we loved just feeling like ourselves again. With freedom to talk however we want, and order without any nervousness that they might be out of … adult beverages on a weekend, freedom to even shop, on a Sunday …Freedom to move about without tripping on 2 year olds. We forgot there for a minute we’re in the same state. We forgot we’re not on vacation yet. And the ever so joyful and acute feeling of letting go and enjoying the moment was one last plus for which Park City will always be our get-out-and-breathe little getaway! Till next time, world …we’re back on the estate. *Sigh*

For pictures from this midday adventure, click the “last chair”.

Coming back from the mountain on the chairlift - last chair floating by us ...