Fringeville #157: So long, Stella. Don't let the door hit ya where the Lord split ya!

So we finally got the big one. And it was pretty much the promised pain in the posterior. I spend the whole day moving snow. The only time I fell was trying to get back to the shed to fetch the snow thrower, a Craftsman, which performed magnificently despite my belief it needs a replacement inline fuel filter.

When I fell, I was fortunate enough to have a snow shovel with me and I eventually used it to help me regain my feet. Without the shovel, no one was finding me until after the spring thaw. My wife would have assumed I had become one of those husbands that goes out for a pack of cigarettes and disappears for 20 years. Well, maybe wings, because I don't smoke. But you get the drift. Every possible pun intended.

So today, I am a mass of pain and I'm loaded up on ibuprofen. I didn't enjoy Stella one bit.

The feeling in this family, however, wasn't unanimous. My daughter created something called "snow ice cream" and it was good. A little grainy, probably from all the toxins it picked up falling through the atmosphere. But is was oddly pleasing to eat the blizzard that ate up most of my day.

One Nimrod family member, however, loved the blizzard:

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Fringeville #116, August 30 2014

...manning his watchtower

I get up every morning long before anyone else. Sometimes I'm up at 3AM or so. Sometimes I laze around until 5 or 6. But as soon as my feet hit the floor, our cat Psycho dashes out to the kitchen and waits impatiently for me to make coffee. We then trot off to the living room together to watch whatever political nonsense is on MSNBC (I like my comedy early in the day). Once my butt is on the couch, he jumps up on the armrest. He circles around and around about a dozen times to find the perfect spot ...stopping occasionally to nuzzle me ...then he mans his watchpost while I drink coffee.

He has captured the high ground. He will defend it against his two brothers or any other creature that dares approach.

This routine developed mostly over the last year. If I broke it for any reason; if I dared just leave the house without sitting a bit with him ...he held me in low regard the rest of the day.

But next morning I would find him waiting for me. All was forgiven.

I went out last evening to get cat food. By the time I got home, he was gone. He simply died with no warning.

I couldn't sit at the couch this morning. I made my coffee and went to my work table to post this.

Why do we have pets? Why do we knowingly invest so much into them emotionally when odds are we will lose them and not vice-versa? Why do we intentionally set ourselves up for pain?

Well, I think it is because our pets love us unconditionally. When the whole damned Universe is falling on our heads, our pets are there at our side. Or at our feet. Or manning a post on the couch.

I hope there is an abundance of small beads for you to chase across the floor wherever you are now, Psycho. Sleep well, dear friend.

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