Dorian the kitty-lady returned to a cat-party in her bedroom.

Yesterday, Mrs. Rhodester came home after having spent two weeks in the hospital.

This is not a pleasant experience, as any of you know if you’ve been through it.  When I last spent time in a hospital I had my parents hanging out with me, so it’s been a long, LONG while. I think Betty Rubble was my nurse.

Mrs. Rhodester, aka Dorian, has had chronic health problems for years but it all got kind of bad late last year when she collapsed in excruciating pain and I had to rush her to the emergency room at San Francisco General, where we waited with about twenty other people who were also in excruciating pain.

I won’t bore you with the excruciating details, so we’ll just say she had nine hours of surgery where they did stuff, then she had seven months of recuperating from the stuff they did, then she had to go back in two weeks ago to have some of the stuff they did undone.  Now she has about another seven months of getting better ahead of her, but hopefully they won’t have to do or undo any more things.

She’s been an absolute trooper through it all. Back in December they ran a tube up her nose that went all the way into her stomach. During this process she just sat there saying, “Is that all you got? Come on bitch, bring it on!” while I gagged a little and saw birds swirling around my head.

They didn’t have to do that this time, but she did have needles sticking out of her. Fortunately they were delivering nice drugs, so I’m not sure she noticed. She was eventually weaned off the needle drugs onto pill drugs, and then they started giving her less of those as she was better able to cope with the pain. She’s still taking the pill drugs but if you could see what they did to her tummy you’d need a few yourself just to walk away from it intact.

Being the helpful husband of 21 years, I’ve been the one recruited to change her dressing now that she’s home, mainly because the cats would just get fur in her wounds. I’m kind of squeamish (as a kid I cut an earthworm in half and had to have therapy) so I’m really not the best candidate for this job but there’s just no-one else to do it.

I had to suck it up and watch the nurse demonstrate it for me, but now that I’ve done it a bunch of times it’s a piece of cake. You could put golf-balls in the holes they made in her and at first I was all dizzy and swimmy when the dressing came off, but now I’m used to it and we talk about what we’re going to have for dinner as I’m changing it all out. After I’m done I make a marinara sauce and slather it over liver.

I’d say that’s progress.

We have some healing to do now that she’s home and, although she’s taking it slow and easy, she’s going to get better and we’re going to go for walks and stuff as soon as she feels up to it. I have yet to tell her about the zipline they installed at the Embarcadero here in San Francisco, but I will once I feel confidant that she’s not going to run down there and hook herself up until she’s ready.

The kitties threw a little party when Dorian came home. They hired a stripper who jumped out of a can of tuna and there was a little mouse-clown that juggled and told jokes for about 15 minutes until they ate it.

Zipline, here we come!

]]> http://rhodester.net/kitty-party/feed 5 http://rhodester.net/cats-with-apologies-to-andrew-lloyd-webber http://rhodester.net/cats-with-apologies-to-andrew-lloyd-webber#comments Sat, 28 May 2011 14:52:01 +0000 David Rhodes http://rhodester.net/?p=10403

WHAT OUR CAT LOOKS LIKE..

WHAT OUR CAT THINKS HE LOOKS LIKE..

Cheese

I had to take the cats to get shots, which necessitated a ride on the Muni train with Shadow in an animal carrier and Pagan in a little backpack.

The young retarded girl didn’t see Pagan, since he was in the backpack, but she admired Shadow and poked her fingers into the carrier. “You have pretty kitty!” she exclaimed. “I want pet him!”

“Well, his name is Shadow and he’s a girl” I said. “I don’t think petting him.. er, her.. is a good idea right now but you can talk to her and I bet she thinks you’re pretty too!”

“HAHA! Her name SHADOW?”

“Yes. Shadow. Her name is Shadow.”

She erupted into a fit of giggles.

“I want to call her ‘Cheese’.. can I call her that? I’m-a gonna call her CHEESE from now on!”

“Okaaaay..”

She laughed, giggled and poked her fingers into the carrier until the train rolled into Church Street station and “Cheese” and I had to get off.

San Francisco is the biggest small town in the world and as such I frequently see the same people going back and forth on the trains, including the retarded girl. Whenever I see her she asks how Cheese is doing.

Cheese is doing fine, thank you.

photo by isazappy on flickr

In our never-ending quest to survive in San Francisco, we have given our cats a code name.

This is because we are in a little hotel room in an old building with thin walls, and cats are not allowed here, so we had to be all sneaky and enclose them in packages to bring them in.

Then we realized that what we say can be heard by anyone passing by in the hall so we have to be careful not to say, “Did you feed the cats?”

Instead we say things like, “Did you stuff the pillows?” which doesn’t make much sense, but at least they won’t know we’re talking about cats.

We tend to ask each other “Where is the dark pillow?” and the other will reply, “It fell under the bed.” We’re certain the management thinks we talk about our pillows way too much.

The cats also like to sit in the window and look down at the street, which is why we chose a room toward the rear instead of the awesome corner room over the building entrance. We’re hoping the building manager never walks down the side-street and looks up.

We don’t like being all sneaky and conniving, but life in the city has brought us to this. Only rich people don’t need to be sneaky and conniving, but they’re the worst of it which is probably how they got to be rich in the first place.

We go to this periodic meet-up that exists to match-up renters with people who have rooms to rent, but we may stop going because we’re always billed as “the cat couple,” meaning we might as well be covered in boils and reek of rotten salami.

We couldn’t use the “pillow code” with people we’re trying to rent a room from in a house or shared apartment because they’d notice the cats right quick, so we’re just upfront about it all at the meet-ups. We write on our name labels that we’re a couple with two cats and low income, which makes us akin to ogres covered in slime who like to smoke hookahs full of dried donkey dung in the living room.

So it appears that until we have the money to buy our own place (HA!) we’ll just have to keep shuffling from one old weekly rate hotel to another and keep talking about our pillows.

“But Rhodester,” you say, “there must be some places in town that allows pets!”

Yes, you’re right.. there are plenty of places like that on the market, all of which are available to purchase.

“But Rhodester,” you say, “If the cats are such a problem then why do you still have them?”

You need to stop talking now.

Note – In honor of PRIDE WEEKEND here in San Francisco, I am resurrecting this blast from the past that is possibly the best explanation of gay people that I’ve ever come up with. I can say that because it’s the only explanation of gay people that I’ve ever come up with.

Today I am going to talk about gay people and gay issues.

This is because absolutely no one else is talking about them, and you never hear anything about their wants, needs, desires and politics, so I might as well bring it up.

HA HA HA!

That’s sarcasm.

Actually, we hear about it all the time, and you can’t swing a dead cat here in San Francisco without ruffling a gay person’s ascot.  But I just want to put in my two cents.  By the way, this editorial may be slightly overpriced.

I’ll start by saying that I have some gay friends who are pretty cool people.  I’ve also met some gay people in the past who are not my friends because they’re not so cool.  It’s kind of like having a cat that plays a lot and another cat who sleeps more than cats normally do.

For some reason I’m using cats a lot in my illustrations.

I’ll try and stop.

Drag Cat by rockmixer on Flickr

The thing is, as people, we’re all different.  There are good and bad white people, good and bad black people, good and bad Asian people and good and bad American Indians, who prefer to be called “Native Americans,” but I like “Indians” because it brings me back to my childhood when I used to play “Cowboys and Indians” until supper, when Mom would call us in just before putting the cat out.

Damn.

Okay, so getting back to gay people..

There are those who think gay people are like cowboys, in that they become gay over time, just like cowboys decide at some point to start punching cows (whatever that means) and rounding ‘em up.  There are others, present company included, who think that certain people are born gay, just like the Indians.

Not that the Indians are born gay — I’m saying that Indians are born Indians — stay with me, darn it.

So NOT gay

Indians who try to be cowboys are not usually very successful at it, as you’ll see if you watch a lot of John Wayne movies.  Heck, in those movies they don’t even try.  But they can be a cowboy if they want, because a cowboy isn’t something you’re born to be, unless you’re John Wayne.

But you just don’t see a lot of Indian Cowboys.

So it’d be more like if Indians tried to be cats (damn) because you are either born an Indian or born a cat, but you can’t really be both.  However, you can be an Indian’s cat if you want.

I’ve known gay people who’ve tried to be cats.. er, I mean straight people.. but it never seems to work because all they can think about is wanting to be gay and their hearts aren’t really into being straight.

I’ve even known of a gay cowboy or two..

Technically, they were Sheepherders

But if a person who is attracted to members of the same sex tries to go out and be attracted to members of the opposite sex, they usually just end up being really good friends and go shopping together a lot.

Now, here’s the thing..

I know this Christian guy, Mike, who says that the whole gay thing is an “abomination before God,” and all of that.  I’ve known him for a lot of years and, even though he’s married now, I knew him back when he used to say that abomination thing as he was on his way to a motel to shack up for three days with some chick who he’d bone like crazy.

Actually, Mike boned a lot of chicks in his hey day.  He was quite the ladies man, in that all he had to do was walk up to them and say “HEY,” and they’d drop their pants.

Now, before you go saying that Mike is a hypocrite, let me just check my stats to make sure he’s not a reader of this blog..

Okay, he’s not.  Go ahead and say it.

The thing about Mike is that he was born liking chicks.  Well, to be technical he probably started finding titties to be tantalizing when he was around 11 or 12, but you know what I mean.  I’m bringing him up because I remember him talking about a wedding between two gay people he worked with and how he would not be going to that wedding, because of the abomination thing.

So I asked him if he had fun that past weekend when he shacked up in the motel and boned that chick for three days.

He said yes, he did.. then he thanked me very much for asking, and offered to introduce me to her sister.

Other issues aside, Mike was always polite and courteous.

gay madrid by alex castella on flickr

But you see, guys like Mike think that all gay people are cowboys and that they choose to round up members of the same sex before punching ‘em, when in reality they’re all a bunch of Indians who are just really attracted to other Indians.  They find their fellow Indians to be quite lovely, and all they want to do is be left alone to pow-wow in peace.

Now, I realize that there are Indians who say “God made me the way I am” and there are Cowboys who say “God doesn’t make mistakes,” but make no mistake.. if an Indian wants another Indian then you best just git along and leave ‘em be, or else you’ll probably get scalped, with “scalped” being a metaphor for “gay lobbyists pushing legislators to pass laws allowing them to get married and enjoy the same civil rights under the law as straight people.”

This being the case, you’re going to just be better off sitting back and enjoying that parade of pretty headdresses.  Those gorgeous, fabulous headdresses!

in costume by moriza on flickr

That’s all I have to say.. I’m done now.

I have to go feed the cat.

DAMN.

Ian Rhodester

I can’t tell you how much I miss this guy. I didn’t even realize it myself until last night.

This is Ian. He was my best friend for a short period of time and in a way, he still is.

I remember finding this one lone dog hair on my suit during a TV shoot a few years back. I don’t remember what the show was – I’d been booked as an extra, and it was not unlike any other show I’d been involved with.

I wore dress pants and a business shirt with a tie, because it was an office setting. I was just a guy making copies in the background and when they went to reset the scene, I sat down and experienced a moment that I’ll never forget.

Ian had been gone for about four months. He’d left suddenly one day, when I wasn’t home. Heart problem, the Vet said. Never saw it coming.

I had these suits I wore for doing the “background acting” gig, which is the technically correct term for “extra,” and do you know how hard it is to keep dark suit pants free of dog hair with a Sheltie around?

It’s impossible.

I’d always be finding some reminder of my old friend whenever I went to work, no matter how meticulously I rolled that hair removal thingy over the suit. After four months though, it was pretty clean. The pants had been to the Dry Cleaner a number of times since he passed, so there was no reason for a little gray hair to still be lingering.

But there it was, plain as day. I plucked it off and stared at it, and then the tears came. I had to leave the set because I didn’t want them see me in this state. Being a lowly extra, they didn’t miss me, they just did another take without me and I managed to sneak back in unnoticed after having composed myself.

That’s how much he meant to me.

I don’t easily trust people who say, “I’m not really a dog person.” That’s not to say they’re bad people, I just don’t warm up to them so quickly.

We went to this guy’s house once and he had three little pups he kept out on the back porch. I thought he’d put them out because we were having a meeting and he didn’t want us to be disturbed so I said, “Hey, no need to banish them to the yard.. I love dogs, let ‘em in!” But it turned out they weren’t allowed in, they’d “ruin the furniture.”

Geez man, it’s just furniture.

I’ve talked before of our blogging pals, Jim and Rene, and how they drop in on us whenever they come blowing through. They travel in a rig, and they used to travel with a swell furry fellow named Jerry, but Jerry has passed from us too. He and Ian are running around up there somewhere, leaving little hairs on clouds.

I guarantee Ian’s leaving more hair than Jerry.

PBS produced a documentary called “Why we love cats and dogs,” which is about the bond between people and their animals. Jim, Rene and Jerry are prominently featured in two segments of the hour long program and it’s available to stream for free at the PBS website.

Jim, Rene and Jerry on the beach

The show looks at how we interact with cats and dogs, and explores the odd psychological glue that binds us with our furry kids, and what makes them so special to us.

It got me to thinking of Ian and his predecessors.. Rufus, Bear, Goofus, Belle and Dopey. Oh, and there was Pancho too.. he was a little long-haired Mexican Chihuahua.

Mean little cuss, but I loved him anyway.

It’s a fascinating bond. There’s a scene where Jim has taken a mouth full of water from a drinking fountain and is spitting it upward so Jerry can lap at it. Jim and I are friends, but I don’t think I’d lap at his stream.

But dogs don’t care about silly things like convention or how things look to people.

We’ve had cats too. We currently have two cats and we’ve had past cats. We have no dogs at the moment. Yes, I sound like a person who works at a small pet store.

This is Tazzy..

Tazzy Kitty

Coffeesister, aka my wife Dorian, swears that this little guy was a fluffy angel sent from heaven to guide her through deep despair. I think she’s right.

He left us too and, just like Ian, it was way sooner than it should have been. He was a kind-hearted, warm and considerate little soul in a tiny package of fur.

Another similarity to Ian is that he left a lot of that fur behind and, in a bit of similarity to me, Dorian will spontaneously burst into tears should she finds a tiny orange hair stuck to a pillow.

They have some kind of brilliant magic, these fur-people, and they use it to make us better. They manufacture memories and leave us with life lessons. Jerry helped Jim and Rene grow spiritually, and Ian helped me grow up.

Tazzy was a comfort and companion to Dorian when she most needed it. His timing was impeccable.

I think you’ll like the PBS show about cats and dogs. It’s nothing deep or scientific, it just kind of looks at the relationship between us and them and says, “Huh, how about that!”

“Why we love cats and dogs” at PBS.ORG

Interview with Rene about Jerry

Tripawds – Jim and Rene’s website dedicated to canine cancer victims.

Live.Work.Dream – Jim and Rene’s blog about life on the road.

Dorian, Dave, Jim, Rene and Jerry in Palm Springs