No More Birthday Blogs

Since 2008, on and off, and in the past more recent years, mostly on than off, I have been writing a birthday blog for people in my family. It’s a chance for me to look back at the kind of year they all have had, and to appreciate, in a more public way, all the blessings they bring to my life. 

It’s  a chance to sing their praises and hopefully outline the special-ness of each one of them. But it was mostly meant, selfishly, to give them a gift that is so hard to give on their exact birthdays, given that we are all so spread around the entire world on two continents. 

It’s not because I love them less. It’s not because I feel they are physically any closer to me than they ever were since 2008’ish when I started doing this, but starting this year, I am retiring my birthday blogs. I think the topic has run its course, for some reason. 

My sister said “Well, there is only so much you can say about one person, right?”. And it’s not even that. I will never run out of things to say about her klutz-iness, or my nephew’s obsession with money, or my other nephew’s love of kitties and puppies and all creatures, or my husband’s love of squirrels, for example ... But, at the very least for the sake of diversification, I felt like this would be the time to change course in what I give and to make future presents just as memorable ... Call it a “milestone kind of a year” change of course, if you will. 

This is by no means a hard line in the sand. Birthday blogs might make an appearance in the future. But it’s no longer a tradition that I want to follow here, anymore. 

I have always loved to give presents. I enjoy that infinitely more than I enjoy receiving them. And with that in mind, I am constantly revising how and what I give as presents. Starting with a couple of years ago, I have been putting much more thought into gifting experiences more than just things (thanks to a dear friend who reminded me of that).

Just like the birthday blog was not a material thing per se, I am giving away time together, or things that can be experienced with others, like concert tickets or trips ... I find that much more rewarding to myself as the giver, and I find that my family smiles more and enjoys them more, too. When looking back and remembering the memories, they are the gift that perpetually will keep on giving, every time we recount it. 

You might ask “why is a present needed at all?”. But the answer to that is easy: dad always told us to take the time and celebrate special moments in special ways. He took it a bit too far (he would throw a 5-course dinner party for 20+ people every time he bought something new like a car, a fridge or when he got a new job), but he always dressed up for the occasion, stopped, and celebrated a milestone - birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, saints’ feasts (or name days), you name it. I happen to share his view on this. A present, to me, is part of that celebration. 

I hope the new gift-giving will be just as welcome, surprising, and well-awaited as the former birthday blogs were ... 

With that in mind, I wish everyone in my family, happy birthdays ahead, for many, many healthy years to come! And may we all enjoy every special moment together, as much as we enjoy making arrangements to do so ...

Thank you for the memories, old, and the ones I am anxiously awaiting to make together in the years to come ...

Laissez les bons temps rouler ...

What’s with all the turkey killing for Thanksgiving? What’s with the eye-rolls when your Republican uncle makes an inappropriate comment across the table from you? Instead, how about walking the streets of an old, historic city while feasting on crawdads and gumbo with your favorite person in tow or even alone? The latter sounded like a much better plan for us for this year’s Thanksgiving. 

So, instead of the homey feast and watching the Macy’s Parade (although we have no uncles to share Thanksgiving with), we opted for a long road trip to New Orleans. From where we are, you can split the 12 hour drive into two half days. 

Here are some random thoughts that hopefully paint a picture of this unforgettable trip ... 

We started the trip on November 22nd - a year to the date of my dad’s last breath on this earth. I figured he would have wholeheartedly approved of a good time with good food and even better music to celebrate his life. Our first stop was a fast food place for lunch where, in memory of dad, we paid for the meal of the people behind us in line. I know dad would have loved a meaty, burgery meal complete with a frosty dessert. 

The 22nd of November was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving this year - and as you can imagine we were on the road with some other millions of people trying to get to that turkey dinner, or who knows, maybe, like us, trying to just get away. The maps lied. They said 5 hours and a half to Atlanta (our stop for the first night). But it took a bit over 9 hours to get to our hotel. We were stiff, tired, and hungry. We got to New Orleans the following day, Thanksgiving Thursday, after having our Thanksgiving lunch at a Cracker Barrel in Mobile, AL - the only place in three different states that we found open. 

New Orleans is a melting pot of all things strange, unique, weird, amazing, smelly, delicious, diverse, and so, so much more ... The first time I went there, in 2004, I told people when I got back that my eyeballs were literally in pain, strained from seeing so much ... too much ... of everything ... I used to call it “the Disney World for adults” until I saw Las Vegas, and then, I changed my mind. Nowadays, after my second visit, I would call it “the adults’ Disney World with a rich and beautiful history” (which is what’s missing in Vegas). 

The past creeps into everything you see and experience in this grand old city. The buildings and cobblestone streets speak of the past, the filth and decrepitude brought over by hundreds of years of humidity speaks of the past, the historic markers speak of a rich history, of carnage and tragedy, of death and also of victory. The past is very much part of the present today in New Orleans - it was never replaced but dragged into the light of today, kicking and screaming. The gas-fueled lamps burning day and night at every street corner are reminders of this past. 

The eerie beauty of New Orleans at night

New Orleans plays tricks on everything you think you know about the order of the world. Everything you know about propriety and “rules” has its own set of measures and limits in New Orleans. Objectifying women in the windows of bars while belting out indecent and abusive words as you pretend you’re spanking them? Maybe two year old toddler playing the drums in the middle of the street at 11PM on Thanksgiving night and collecting tips? A sassy, belligerent waitress named Spaghetti? They are all commonplace in New Orleans. 

Street gas lamps burning in the middle of the day

I have never been more confused about the gender of most people in one place like I was during this trip. Although in The South and people here get and allow freely the “yes, ma’am”-s and “no, sir”-s on a regular basis, I never dared say these words to anyone there, because I was just not sure. Not that it would be important, of course, except for how I frame my responses. 

One of the things people come to New Orleans for is the food. Whether you eat a po boy in the street or a fancy seafood stew at an exclusive restaurant booked months in advance, you’ll be in for a treat! What I have learned is that you cannot go wrong in these parts, as everyone knows how to cook with flavor. It’s in their blood. Food is always fresh, cooked from scratch and cooked with a love you can taste. You just know that these many layers of flavor, this much depth does not come from a bag of Sysco frozen potatoes. 

The fin wings appetizer at GW Fins took the absolute “best meal” prize on this trip for me. Someone out there read my mind and knew I was coming when they invented these goodies. I have been saying for years that yes, fish, too, have wings that are totally edible and delicious, and that is exactly what they were. And some lookers to boot! 

The fin wings at GW Fins

Not sure if it was the cold weather (and it was cold! 55F degrees daily or less and raining the whole time we were there), or what, but the streets were not flooded with music, like I remembered them ... There was the occasional cover band here or there, a blues musician in one restaurant, a couple of rap performers (with the women dancing half-naked in the windows), a jazz band at our hotel, and that was about that ... When I first went to New Orleans, almost 20 years ago, zydeco was flowing freely from every street corner; street performers were overstepping each other’s spaces for an enchanted cocktail of sounds and rhythm. Nothing like it this time ... I want to believe that this was the dark, wet, at times freezing weather that was to blame and it’s not a change in this musical city’s DNA, because this would be a shame. 

I have a friend who says New Orleans smells like vomit. And he is not exaggerating. It smells like sewage after a carnage. Just putrid and breathtakingly, nauseatingly stenchy. The reeking smell of pot flowing from every establishment or hitting you in the face from every fifth person you meet is not helping one bit. 

It’s a city revolving around good times, partying, and loving life to the fullest. Everyone there comes on an escaping mission from their routine, from their everyday boredom to test the boundaries and embrace excessiveness. There are no boundaries, it seems, and no regrets ... These belong to another world, out there, left at home ... The world one escapes from and dreams about during their daily existence ... 

The tourists as well as the wait staff, cleaning people, tour guides, boat captains - everyone are in this mutual silent agreement to show or give a good time to all, regardless of what it costs or how strange the request might be ... It’s a bon vivant's paradise. 

Like with so many other places I have been to on vacation (cruises, New York, Hawaii), the amount of great time spent in these places is directly proportional to the amount of guilt I feel towards the people providing these priceless escapes. Everyone, in every restaurant we entered, every souvenir shop, every tourist attraction we experienced was so incredibly nice and patient, so gracious with the pettiest and crankiest of people, worked so incredibly hard from the wee hours of the morning until well into the night (restaurants here close at 6AM. How is that for a city that never sleeps?), and never seemed to be cranky. They looked, at times, tired, but their sweet smiles and calm demeanor never faded. You can tell they are working their fingers to the bone and not for a lot of cash, either. 

In fact, there were a couple of times when I thought I saw a waitress doubling up duties as a palm reader in front of St. Louis Cathedral one day. And there were a couple of street dancers that I thought I had seen waiting on tables in a fried food joint. It’s a hard job, entertaining in a city such as this, and it looks like not for much of a reward, either, which makes one who partakes in these well-spent experiences feel guilty and the experience somewhat bitter-sweet.

New Orleans is very much a city of contrasts. The beauty and originality of art right next door to the squalor of the street; the peaceful, lazy roll of the Mississippi river, right next to the hustle and bustle of the French Quarter, engulfed in constant motion and noise. The rich and the poor sitting next to each other at the same communal table sharing beignets on the patio of Cafe du Monde. 

There are some joints in town where class distinctions pretty much disappear. But there are others where class differences are clearly delineated. For example, one night, we had failed to get reservations for dinner (and it was close to impossible over this Thanksgiving weekend to get into any place for dinner without one). So we ended up in a somewhat high-end establishment (mysteriously called Mr. B’s Bistro). Not every restaurant we go to has its own wiki page, but this one does (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._B%27s_Bistro - and I still don’t know who Mr. B. is). They were the first restaurant we walked in that agreed to take us in without a reservation, but  ... they immediately could tell we were some sort of a different kind of riff-raff, at the opposite end of their black-tie customers sitting in the quiet, peaceful dining room. So they stuck us in the darkest corner, way in the back of the restaurant, where very clearly all the people clad in jeans and rain coats (it was pouring out and late in the evening) were supposed to sit. 

In the dark corner and outside the kitchen and all, the seafood gumbo at Mr. B's Bistro was outstanding

Our tables were covered with a crisp white table cloth just like the black-tie people’s tables were, but the tables were closer together and the space was visibly crammed. The food was equally delicious, I am sure, but we did feel like we maybe were not worth being shown off in the front dining room, since they stuck us in the corner like they was ashamed of us, to paraphrase Delmar O’Donnell from “O’ brother, Where Art Thou?”... 

To say just one more word about the folks of New Orleans’s (and Louisiana’s, in general). It is a city that speaks, breathes, sings, and swings American black culture. Through everything they do, and with everything they offer, from the Creole twang to the bayou cuisine, from every beat of music, be it jazz, blues, zydeco, or blues, this city reminds you of this rich, substantial, beautiful culture with deep, gnarly, interesting, beautiful roots in these parts ... Its merits to establishing Louisiana and what New Orleans is today are sacrosanct. I love learning about black culture always, but I adore this city for it  because these folks seem truly proud and feel truly celebrated here - as they should. To be able to take in this rich culture without so much as a passport stamp is a privilege. 

New Orleans is also intrinsically French. Everywhere you turn is a reminder of something or other French. Louisiana is named after its founder King, Louis XIV of France. The massive Catholic cathedral in the French Quarter (arguably the most famously recognizable part of New Orleans everywhere in the world) is St. Louis Cathedral (which has a very funky schedule, however, so we were not able to visit its interior). Fleurs des lis everywhere. And I mean, everywhere ... French street names (Napoleon Avenue, Orleans, Iberville, Dauphine, and of course Bourbon) ... European (French?) old architecture with houses divided by only a small gap, maybe a 5-foot person’s-waist-worth; cobblestone pavers ... Sensuality at every corner ... A gourmand’s paradise ... Decadence and a laissez faire attitude surround and drown you in pleasure and delight ... 

Street sign and old paving on Bourbon Street, in the heart of the French Quarter

St. Louis Cathedral

Many people come to New Orleans to look for ghosts. The city touts itself as the most haunted city in America and for good reasons - I’ll leave it up to you to google this. The stories are chilling. They built walls between the houses here with necks of broken bottles sticking out poured into the concrete, to prevent ghosts from moving from one home to another, they say - true story! 

Broken glass wall between two houses in The French Quarter

We stayed at a remodeled Courtyard Hotel in the French Quarter and my husband said it’s probably not haunted because it’s newer. But there is nothing truly new in the French Quarter. Everything remodeled is housed in an old building. We were having this conversation while waiting for our table to be available at The Court of Two Sisters. The bartender, a lovely, chatty, young lady (I think, but not 100% sure) heard us chatting and she asked if we’re looking for ghosts and I thought she was doubting their existence for a minute, so I said “I told my husband that old hotels and old houses always have ghosts - I know because that’s where I saw them myself!”  To which she said nonchalantly while wiping glass sweat off the bar: “Well, in Nawlins, you don’t need to be in a house to meet them. Here, they just walk down the street witchya”. 

The haunting charm of the interior Court of the Two Sisters

We got out of the city for one day, to visit the Oak Alley sugar cane plantation and experience the Mississippi swamps for the first time in our lives. I will only say this about Oak Alley because otherwise it would need its own blog: history and live oaks. Definitely a must-see! 

I have read stories and seen movies about life on the Mississippi and life in these swamps where so much of the shrimps and crawdads (and some of my personal favorite foods) of America are coming from. I have always wanted to be up close to these people, the people of the water, who have such a unique sense of orientation for one, and who develop such amazing survival skills on a land always shifting, always moving, always different ... We drove to Marrerro, LA (a small community that does not believe in left turns; here, if you want to go anywhere that’s on your left, you have to make a U-turn) and took a boat through the Jean Lafitte (can it be more French?) Preserve. 

I checked our altitude frequently on this trip and at any given time, we were anywhere between 0 and 50 feet above sea-level. So, it made me wonder: since at the very highest point you can only be only at 50 ft altitude and since the maximum allowed speed limit is 55 mph, even on the highways, outside of the city (and rare at that), should they call their roads lowways instead of highways?! 

In the preserve, the wild life and vegetation did not disappoint, but equal in richness and uniqueness was our captain, Jason: a  mix between a Southern Louisiana bayou native with some Boston Rob mixed in. Hilarious as all get out, delivering everything with a dryness and non-pretentious-ness that only made it that much more funny: 

‘Every time you heah an alligatoh eats or mauls a ‘uman, that’s a newspapeh stohry, and not a hreal stohry … The’s mohe to that stohry that you ain’t bein’ told. I grew up ‘ere with the alligatohs. Kids swim heah, they jet ski heah, feed them with marshmallows heah - ain’t no alligatoh eatin’ a kid every day! The’s moh to that stohry they ain’t telling ya!” 

The alligators of Jean Lafitte Preserve

The boat we boarded in search of alligators, turtles, owls and other water fowl was like a Noah’s Ark of nationalities. You could literally find pretty much every race of human on that boat. 

We were all in search of the same things: beauty, nature, history - this very diverse group  of people on an obscure swamp in this small corner of the world, all chasing the same things in life. Our skin, our language, our different prayers to our different Gods did not take away anything from our common humanity. In contrast, as we were waiting for our captain to arrive, I was skimming the news on my phone - they were all speaking of the casualties and the carnages of war around the world (Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan ...), and as I looked around me, I was contemplating at the wrongfulness of it all, at the superfluousness of it all, at the meaninglessness of it all ... Why can we not see that we are more alike than we are different? Why can we not agree that at the end of the day, we all want the same things? We are moved by the same things, we are saddened by the same things, we all want a roof over our family’s head, a meal on the table, and the same corners of the world to escape to in search of beauty. This boat was my proof! Our common shared experience of almost two hours, when we all took pictures of the same things and wooed and aahed at the same things was my proof! 

Our very close-quarters and beautifully packed swamp boat

It was cold the whole time we were there. Cold and wet - true November weather. But we walked everywhere every waking hour and we saw so much that our eyes hurt. We stopped for snacks (like hot pepper-jelly fried shrimp and strawberry mojitos and gin cocktails) when we got tired, and we moved right along ... We had the best time and I would not have spent my Thanksgiving any other way.  You know you’re in a great place and with good company when you had the best time in a long while in absolutely crap weather! Our cups and thanks runneth over ... 

Les bons temps were surely well-spent! 

More beauty in the Mississippi Delta. How did Jason know where to find all these creatures, especially a still owl in the middle of the day, unmoved and serene among the Spanish moss, will remain a mystery to me ... 

Thoughts, Travels, Pictures of 2019

I reckon this is just as good a year as any to close out a decade. A decade of us being together. A decade of fortune, loss, sickness, birth, happiness, and sadness, too. A decade of all the things human, fortunes we don’t dare talk about out loud for fear we might jinx ourselves, and a decade of learning so much about each other, our families, our worlds that sometimes it hurts. Mostly it hurts with pleasure.

This past year had everything. Love, hatred, bounty, loss, much of that, work changes. Heck, we even saw a ghost! It continued a streak of bad news started a few years ago, but God and life have also been merciful and giving, peppering our journey with friends, loving family, love, in general, good news here and there. And as always, it gave us travels. Many beautiful trails to pick from and journeys that we’ll cherish for a lifetime. 

From the bald peaks of The Rockies, through deserts and through the dark green Smokies all the way to the emerald Atlantic and beyond, we hiked, we listened to music, we met new people and tightened the bonds with old friends, we saw family and somewhere in there we found time for work, too … But as important as work might be, this is not what we’re taking with us to our deathbed. All the other stuff is what …

This is about remembering this old year… 

…. we started out the year learning about the passing of a dear aunt of mine. She lost her battle with some rotten form of leukemia because of a stupid cold. She was always a fighter and had such a spirit! The year continued with much loss of people – not close to me, but close to people I knew. Lots of sickness, too, from people close and far from us physically and otherwise … There is just so much pain in this world …

We also learned about my mom’s cancer coming back and we stood by her side, from far and close, with bated breath, through her chemo treatments which lasted most of the year. It was not easy, to say the very least. My sister and I went together for the first time in 10 years to see her, to touch her, to learn … As hard as this was, it was also good. For us. For mom. For taking it all in and building some perspective. But this was not till May-June, so I skip ahead...

Before then, we visited Richmond, VA, met family in Chesapeake, VA, we spent a weekend tasting good foods and bonding with old and new friends in Kinston, NC in early spring. There are so many corners of magic and wonder all around us, if you only open the door to let them peek in … 

Come April, we wandered about Charleston, SC. We stayed downtown and walked pretty much everywhere. We walked the lush grounds of the Magnolia Plantation and the marshes of Sullivans Island. We ate every seafood seen on this planet and came back full of Southern history and amazing pictures. April is just a perfect month for Charleston. 

We spent probably the coldest May on record while we explored New Mexico and Colorado. We visited Taos, NM, and Denver, Colorado Springs, and Breckenridge in Colorado. We tried to drive up Pike’s Peak in Colorado Springs, which was on my bucket list since I was a teenager back in Romania with no prospects of ever seeing it. Who would have expected a thick snow storm in mid-May?! That prevented us to go past the 10,000 ft mark. We got lost in the desert in Taos, NM amazed by art, old Native culture, delicious Southwestern cuisine, and even more art … If I were to pick one trip that we took this year to do it again soon, this would definitely be it. 

Back to my trip to Romania, my sister and I also saw The Pope come to our Romanian hometown while we were there … Now, that is not something we planned for, but more of being in the right place at the right time sort of luck … The skies opened up with glorious sunshine when he started speaking, after several days of gruesome rain and hail storms … Maybe a sign of hope for us all ... 

We spent a couple of weekends in the North Carolina mountains, around Blowing Rock, Grandfather Mountain, Boone, and Banner Elk. 

We spent the summer months taking in all the foods and events around our area – Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Pittsboro. There is just so much to see and do around here … Food halls, wine, beer, and even mead festivals, rooftop bars, lots of live music, small and big ticket concerts, lots of farms. Everything … If only we had all the time to do and see it all.. 

We camped on the shores of Smith Mountain Lake in VA and rounded up our winery visits for the year in that area, too, towards the end of summer. 

We visited Highlands, NC in early fall to see what the fuss was all about in that sweet mountain town. I swear there is not one issue of Our State magazine that doesn’t mention it. It’s like a fantasy village, complete with cobblestone streets and a trickling stream that runs through it. 

We walked the streets of Greensboro, NC for two days listening to the music of The Folk Festival and sampling the local food, and again bonding with old friends … Greensboro will forever feel like my one of many homes to me … I always love going back … 

We took in the history and charm of Atlanta in October, and learned many new things at the FH Summit down there. 

We closed out the year of travel in The Bahamas. We took home memories of learning about a new culture as well as the painful memory of having lost our dear kitty while stuck on a boat somewhere in The Bermuda Triangle … We came back home to rest our tired bones and mourn our sweet boy for a while … 

Most of us, close family and friends, are still here, on the right side of the dirt. And for that, and that alone, I am immensely grateful … The rest is the cherry on top.

We have built new friendships this year, and like always let old ones drift away, as life would naturally have it in its constant shifting … We are older and probably none-the-wiser, but happy we made it to almost the end of this year and decade now … I am wishing for us all to know more beauty and less pain in the new year. More acceptance and less fright. More understanding and less hatred … I wish this to us all close by and to everyone out there … 

Happy Old Year and Happy New One, too! May you always keep an open heart! 

Click the video to view our year in the rearview mirror. Many thanks to Emily Scott Robinson for the amazing background music. When all else hurts and fails, we are forever grateful for our mobility to take in the travelling mercies … 

My Lucky-Charm Cat

Gypsy: May, 2001 - November, 2019

This is the first blog I am writing in many, many years from my home, when I am not getting sidetracked by little fuzzy paws pulling at my sleeve as I type, asking me to stop and play with them; I am not getting pitter-patter feet running across my keyboard, nor kitty faces rubbing against my laptop lid, in a tireless effort to make it close. This is because for the first time in 21 years I am in my house, completely catless.

Our last kitty, Gypsy, went away to meet his two brothers over the rainbow bridge this past week. He was 9 days short of being exactly 18 and a half years. The pain of missing him is only surpassed by our regret of not being able to be there when he passed. Life wanted it other ways … But this is not about us … It’s really about him.

Gypsy  was an answer to a long, secret wish I had as a 20 some year old. Before I moved to the Bible-belt South, I never knew such hatred towards black cats. I was amazed every fall, around Halloween, how people found black cats mutilated and strangled, and drowned in bags in the river. Humanity, or lack thereof, made me sick. Although at the time I was a happy mommy of two gorgeous cats, I said to myself: “one day, I want to have a black cat! I want to love him and raise him and turn him into the most amazing, kind, gorgeous kitty so I can show all these freaks that black cats are awesome.” No sooner did I utter this wish than in two or three-week’s time, we started hearing this piercing meow under our house, coming from the crawlspace. We had a stray cat that usually came and went, and we were thinking, OK, maybe it’s in heat and she’ll stop once it’s all over. But the meow would not stop. A day became two. A night became three, and the meow continued.

One warm late May afternoon, I opened the door to the crawlspace to let the poor creature out, weary from several sleepless nights where it had kept me awake with the incessant meow-and-meow-and-meow. I was figuring it must be a huge kitty, probably hungry from days of being trapped and dying to get out. When I opened the door, the meow kept getting closer to me, so I knew the kitty found its way to the opening. Instead of a huge kitty, to match the loud meow, I saw this tiny fuzzball, easily under a pound, covered in cobwebs, one eye half closed, I thought, or just dirty with under-the-house muck, big blue eyes, and completely black walking towards me, slipping and sliding on the rotten beams we stored in the crawlspace at the time. His voice was piercing. I had never heard such a loud meow in any size of a cat, but especially in a cat small enough to fit my palm! Since the minute we made eye contact, he did not want to lose my sight! He had the most expressive face and just begged and begged for help and comfort.

I knew I had to keep him! I was absolutely smitten, and my prayer of an all-black cat was right then and there answered. I took him to the vet who thought I wanted to put him up for adoption, having just found him under the house. I was insulted. How can someone, anyone, put this kitty up for adoption?! Just look at him: eyes blue as the skies, hungry, lonely, skinny as a rail, tiny, lonely, and all he wants is some food and love. Who can put him back out there into the world with no one to his name?! He became mine, or rather I became his the first moment we locked eyes. I asked the vet to check him out, before I would bring him to my other cats, to ensure he is not carrying some odd disease. He was not. Other than being severely dehydrated and hungry, he was 100% healthy. The doctor called him “a woolly worm” and he said: “This cat has incredibly strong lungs, and that is a sure sign that he will have a long and healthy life.”

We named him Gypsy, as my mom who was then visiting suggested “kindly”. The name fit: he was independent, dark, stubborn as they come, and with no regard to anyone’s wishes but his own. He was then and he remained for the rest of his life, the baby. Me-me-me … all the way.

As a young cat, he got himself into all sorts of troubles. He chewed more wires than any other cat I had. He chewed my shoes like a dog. He was 100% nocturnal. When the sun would go down, that’s when he was wide awake and ready to play, bite your toes, lick your face, knock pictures off the walls in your bedroom, and pull your hair. He was relentless. No matter how much he got sprayed with water, he continued his shenanigans for years. He was fearless of getting in trouble. I always joked that he knew that if I saved his life, there is nothing that I could ever do to hurt him, so he was not really ever scared of any consequences. I think he was maybe 8 or 9 when I ever noticed any sign of him slowing down and maturing just a tad … He was always playful, curious and loud. With all that said, he was also the most gentle cat you ever met: he literally had no idea how to hurt anyone, but especially humans. He trusted humans more than any other cat I knew. He never bit or scratched maliciously. Ever. He was trusting and gentle.  

People will talk about cats that want to escape and want to be outside more than they want to be inside. The number one prerequisite for being my cat is that you are going to be a 100% inside cat! No arguments! I cannot risk them being eaten by some beast, or run over by cars. Gypsy never had any interest whatsoever to ever be outside. He was completely content in the house, always in the humans’ business, especially mine. He had a nervous breakdown when I was behind any closed door – he was my shadow, constantly. He wanted to be where I was and have me in his full sight. In his old days, he would pick the most strategic point in the room so he can watch me no matter where I was headed from just one spot. His big yellow eyes (they turned from blue to yellow when he matured) would follow me around like laser beams. He loved to nap with me, and sit with me as I typed on my laptop. He slept under my desk, when I worked … His eyes were intelligent and intent in everything that had to do with me. We had a bonding like I never had with any other being. This was our life for 18 years. We read together, napped together, put up the Christmas tree together, ate lunch at the kitchen island together …

Gypsy was the only one of our cats that traveled to Utah, and then made the trip back to the North Carolina woods where he was born. He came back across the country as a 16 and a half old cat, and he did superbly during that journey: sleeping all day in his carrier in the back seat of my Corolla, and sleeping at night in our camper, when we’d camp at KOAs across The Land. He never complained. He always felt safe with us, and I hope, always loved. He was.

In the two years that we have been back in NC, he has slowed down a lot. He has outlived all the cats and dogs in our families and extended network of friends. But, life took its toll and his kidney disease advanced, and he started crying incessantly again, just like when he was a kitten. His piercing meow could wake up the dead, really! You’d never know that a creature weighing only 7 pounds (or not even one when he was a kitten) could be so loud. But that voice is what saved his life.

His big voice, bright eyes, curious nature, soft as silk coat, beautiful, picture-perfect profile will stay with us forever … He was in truth my dreamed-about, picture-perfect black cat, just like I wished all those years ago. And he did show the world that a black cat can be gentle and kind and loving and sweet, as well as mischievous and naughty ... 

I am not sure how I can now move on without any kitties in the house. I really don’t know how to function with no bowls to clean, no stop in the litter aisle at the store, no special blankets around the house … no one to snuggle with when I nap in the afternoon, no purring as I fall asleep … Gypsy was my go-to kitty for all the naps I have had in the past 18 years. Fero almost never slept! And Little Kitty was way too independent to be anyone’s cat … But Gypsy was my mirror. My soul-mate, the answer to my prayer. Just like I wanted him before he ever happened under my house, I want him now, and will want him always …

Life, of course, is never endless … He was called to the other side to maybe make other souls as happy as he’s made us.

We’ll miss you more than you know, little guy. We’ll mourn and ache for you for a long, long time, and we pray that you’ll forgive us one day for not holding your paw when you crossed that bridge. We were, and I know you knew – but just not in person. Sleep well, and wander free – enchant other worlds as you so plentifully did ours.

With a bleeding, aching heart, your momma loves you, and Mr. Aa., too …