Category: life

Rest in Peace, Nate

About 4:00 am this morning one of our beloved kitty cats, Nate, passed away.

He had gone missing last Wednesday for over 10 hours. We had almost written him off when he suddenly reappeared inside the kitty door. But the celebration was short. His eyes were dilated, his head was swollen and his fur was soiled with a rank, sticky mud. We have no idea what happened during the time he was missing— but it was no doubt traumatic.

After a visit to the late night emergency vet followed by an overnight stay at his regular vet, we were somewhat hopeful. His regular vet discovered that, in addition to the trauma he had just suffered, his cancer was back after a 3-year remission.

But Dr. Carley thought he would recover from the trauma, and maybe we could stave off the cancer for a few more months. But it was just too much for Nate.

Saturday started out well for him, but as the day wore on, he began fading.

Sunday morning his breathing became very labored and he stopped trying to move at all. We sat with him while he gasped one desperate, final breath. Today he rests among the zebra grass in our back yard. We buried him with his blue bowl and a sprig of thyme, an herb he loved to sit on for hours at a time.

Nate was born under a lawn mower in our garage 16 years ago. He was the runt of the litter and had to be “plugged on” to his mother’s teet until he got strong enough to fight for himself. Nate was the sweetest, gentlest cat I’ve ever know. Rex and I were the first people he ever saw. And as it turned out, also the last.

The (Next Best) Greatest Generation

So when did we all lose the ability figure stuff out?

I mean just simple stuff like righty-tighty-lefty-loosy, shit runs downhill, etc. Basic physics are seemingly beyond the grasp of most of our younger generation. And it’s not just physics– math is another black art. When’s the last time someone counted you back change? Saddly, if you’re under thirty the answer is most likely: never. Our nation’s approach to science and physics is slowly becoming more and more like that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Sir Bedevere deduces a woman must be a witch because she weighs more than a duck.

At the risk of sounding like a crumudgeon, what the hell’s wrong with kids these days?!?

As the off-shoring of America marches onward, past manufacturing and into the service sector, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a bad thing. Why should we make stuff anyway? We no longer know how.

The net effect of our Industrial Devolution seems to be a generation who can barely manage to pump their own gas. Is it a lack of mechanical prowess? Maybe. I think it’s a basic lack of curiosity. Today the most basic principles of physics are now considered befuddling by a huge portion of Americans. My generation pondered the mysteries of science– but the collective response from our puzzled masses seems to be a collective, “Huh?”

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places to find the tinkerers and gearheads of the 21st Century.

The Cyber Retired

I got an e-mail from my Dad the other day.

That probably doesn’t sound strange to any of you. But it is. You see, my father is 84 and is not exactly a technological sort of fellow. An answering machine is about as high-tech as I’ve ever seen Dad go.

So it was confusing when a message popped into my inbox with an address like rexb19 . I assumed it was another spammer that had culled my name from some obtuse web site (I’m a junior ya’ know). The possibility that it might actually be another Rex B. was far off my radar. I deleted it.

Didn’t think another thing about it until the next day when my Dad casually asks, “Did you get my e-mail?”

About a year ago Dad moved into a retirement community. He kept calling it a rest home. I’d been after him for years to consider it. Since my mom passed away he has pretty much been socially dormant. I suggested it might be a good idea to live in an apartment with other folks around. It took a while but he finally gave in. After a couple of months he realized it isn’t a rest home. He really likes it there and even took a computer class.

He hasn’t become a computer geek by any means. He plays much more solitaire than e-mail. But it’s impressive that even knows which side of a mouse is the business end. I would have never dreamed.

The Ice Man Cometh

Yuck. Another blast of freezing rain pelted Tulsa yesterday. In typical Oklahoma fashion the thermometer dropped from 65°F to below freezing in just a few hours.

Our last winter blast left about ten inches of snow on the ground. This time we’re in for more ice as the temperatures at higher altitudes are above freezing. The rain freezes as it nears the ground! Once colder arctic air moves in, the air aloft will be colder so we’ll get snow. Right now they’re not predicting that will happen, so we could have three days of freezing rain and sleet.

Hopefully we won’t have a repeat of 1987 when ice literally coated Tulsa and knocked out power to huge sections of the city. Trees and power lines were coated with a thick layer of ice and the night sky was a symphony of color as transformers began popping. Some neighborhoods were dark for two weeks!

So far the brunt of the “ice coating” has been just southeast of us. Hopefully our luck holds out for the next couple of nights!