First leg of the Last Hurrah: Washington D.C., to visit my pals Max and Keith. And to see an Elvis Costello concert on the night of April 22 that I didn't get any photos of, but that was quite excellent regardless.
The next morning, Max and I drove to Ann Arbor to live it up with our friends there, two of whom are graduating this year. But that is a story for another day.
I got some sad news on Wednesday. Buddy, a cat who has lived on my family's farm since 2002, has passed away.
Buddy showed up on our farm one afternoon while I was still in high school. Cats suddenly appearing on our property were not uncommon--people in that area dump their unwanted pets out in the country all the time, and we had a reputation for being animal lovers. So one afternoon I came home from school and found this scruffy brown tabbycat milling around near the barn. I half-heartedly called "kitty-kitty" to him, not expecting a response, and to my surprise he came trotting up just as natural as could be. It wasn't long before he was purring away in my lap and digging his claws contentedly into my thigh. We soon took to feeding him along with our other outdoor charity cases, and he stuck around to become the farm's official greeter. I don't think I've ever met a more amicable feline. He could be a little obnoxious (he didn't understand the idea of keeping his claws in), but it was hard not to like him.
He hadn't been well for months before he died; he became quite thin and his normally rapacious appetite was greatly diminished. My mother let me know earlier this week that she planned to take him to be put down soon. She thought he probably had cancer. On Wednesday, when she went out to take care of him, she found him peacefully dead in his bed. He died quietly in his sleep and probably didn't feel a thing. An easy death at the right time is such a rare thing, and for his sake I'm glad that's what he got, but I'll still miss the little guy next time I go home. He's been a fixture of the place for so long.
I apologize for being conspicuously absent over roughly the last month. I kept meaning to write, but wanted to wait until I had real subject matter. A few aborted essays later, and I've decided to just post regardless with a sort of general update about goings-on.
To be honest, I had more to say about this, but it all seems a lot less timely now. People are kind of settling down about it now that they realize the world isn't ending.
