Marching On

Pardon the corny title. Let’s just get through this.

This leap year’s bonus day was the first day of the year I could wear short sleeves outside. The weather, at least, keeps getting better.

We’d suffered days in January that were so frigid, cloudy and gloomy it made one scream to get out. If we’d had to put our elderkitty Otis T. Cat down then I don’t know if I’d have made it. It’s going to be hard enough this week under sunny skies as the temperatures rise above 50° F (10°C) and the first big tourist event of the year, the Crane Festival, brings Monte Vista out of hibernation.

It is, of course, impossible to feel the least bit festive when you’re dealing with a death in the family. Again, though, if this had happened in January...seriously, I shudder to think about it. I will make a point of getting the sun on my face this week, so I’ll have that much to look forward to.

We were going to give it yet one more weekend before we made the appointment. When I came home from a volunteer gig Thursday night, however, I leaned over to pet Otis where he lay in his bed and noticed his entire back end was matted with urine. The deal was, when Otis is too weak to keep himself out of his own waste, his quality of life was below optimal and it was time to make the call. And so it came to pass that the call we were putting off until Monday was made on Friday. On Saturday, the first day of the year warm enough to go out in short sleeves, Cynthia took the can she’d chosen for Otis’ ashes from the thrift store and began painting. It was a festive little Christmas cookie gift container with old-timey London storefronts across it. Was....

Tuesday is the day, though. The veterinarian, bless her soul, will bring her needle to our house at about 1345 hours on Tuesday. We’ll pay the vet, and drive out to the local animal crematorium—coincidentally, right next door to the animal clinic the vet will be driving from. We were grateful this could be done at home, though. 

After that, it’s a post-Otis world. Now what?

Otis, in his bed where he spends his days, just after I’d come back inside from photographing his future resting place. Since September when it was clear Otis couldn’t hold his water, he’s moved from a chair in the laundry room, to the kitchen, and now in the area between the downstairs mud room and the kitchen. Farther and farther away from us. The isolation has to be the worst. That, and his failing kidneys.

I have a book release party to attend in La Jara on Wednesday so I can pick up a copies of the annual poetry collections I’ve been published in since 2018. It’s a 60-mile round trip, but it’s either go now or miss out. This is the third edition I’ve been published in, and I don’t have a copy of either. I’ll count myself lucky to get the earliest one. I’ll do a reading if I’m asked, but I want to get that drive home over with as soon as possible.

Thursday at my volunteer gig will be especially trying as I expect the early crowd for the Crane Festival to packing the place. It’s just one night, I keep telling myself. I should be okay. As I also must remind myself, I don’t want to disappear up my own backside in this office. Which can and has happened. Current conditions are optimal for such an occurrence.

Meanwhile...is this the month I finish The Wrong Kind of Dead? An important corner was turned last month. More on that later. I’ve got to get out into the sun, take a long walk. I’ll scratch behind Otis’ ears as I go out and come back inside. These will be among the last.

Last year we had tourists all the way from China. Maybe not so much from China this year, given current events, but the Crane Festival, along with the Stampede Rodeo in late July and the Potato Festival in September, keeps getting bigger with every iteration. Come to think of it, Otis first started seriously failing the week of the Potato Festival. And now...okay, I’ll stop.