October, 2007:

Rather than try to eulogize or chronicle the life of a cat, which may seem a tad puffy, I just thought I’d try to figure out a way to celebrate Aretha’s life. This seems more appropriate to me. Since she’s checked out, I’ve managed to get past the initial sadness and mourning. I’m now more able to reflect on her life with smiles and laughs over tears. Well most of the time, at least.

And here’s why…

For a cat who was rejected by her mom and essentially left out of the litter to die (like my other cat Lucy was, in fact), Aretha has lived one hell of a life. Now, I’ve had several cats throughout my life, all interesting, all with their unique quirks. What set Aretha apart was that her life was chaptered with challenge after challenge, adventure after adventure, and ordeal after ordeal. To which she dealt with all displaying savvy and aplomb. And through all my challenges, adventures and ordeals through her lifetime, she’s been pretty much the one thing that has always remained constant. Through it all, she was always in pretty good control. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Here are just a few notable headlined adventures of Aretha’s life that come to mind:

Aretha’s EUROPEAN VACATION! – About 2 years after we got her, around 1995, my now-ex-wife Mahi and I decided to go to Europe after her semester ended for a month-long trip. Mahi wanted to spend time with her family in Holland, and we were also planning to spend a couple of weeks driving through Belgium and France. I even talked my dad into coming out and meeting us for the trip. It was going to be fun.

While making our plans, we tried to figure out someone or someplace where Aretha can be taken care of while we were gone. Being that the semester was over, Gainesville was essentially dead. None of our neighbors that we can trust would be around. We called a local kennel, and not only were the costs ghastly, we really couldn’t deal with having Aretha essentially locked in a cage or a pen for a month. After fast running out options, we figured we’d look into taking her with us.

Surprisingly, the cost of flying Aretha to Amsterdam and back was less than $100, or about a quarter of the cost of the kennel fee for a month. So after a stop to her vet to get her health papers worked up, she was off to Amsterdam with us. The vet did indicate a concern for Aretha on such a long trip, and suggested we mildly sedate her. We ultimately opted not to, and nervously, we checked her in with the airline.

Fast forward about 10 hours, we got Aretha back at baggage claim, and she was perfectly fine. Once we got our rental car, Mahi let her out of the carrier, and she was happy as a clam. It was really surprising. No muss, no fuss WHATSOEVER. And being in the travel biz for a few years before this time, I have heard plenty of pet travel horror stories, so I was prepared for the worst.

When we got to my in-laws’ house, Aretha quickly made herself at home. Despite the cool, wet weather, Aretha preferred to be outside most of the time. Remember, this is a FLORIDA CAT. She made her place on the roof of the house, and all was cool. We left her there when we started our road trip to France. We came back about 2 weeks later, and I don’t think she even noticed we left. She handled the trip back to Florida with no problem either.

Aretha’s MAJOR TRAUMA! – About 4 years into Aretha’s illustrious life, she was out roaming around the apartment complex we lived at in Gainesville. There was lots of open space, grass, and woods. Also plenty of moles and squirrels for Aretha to chase and catch. Suffice it to say, she spent most Of her time outdoors. We suspected that Aretha liked Gainesville lot more than we did. Anyway, one night, during Aretha’s usual romp, she got hit by a car. Apparently, she got smacked by the bumper of the car with incredible force. The impact broke her cheekbone, which in turn pushed up into her left eye cavity, destroying her eye, and pushing it out of its socket.

Despite this major injury, Aretha still managed to run back to our apartment gate, JUMP OVER IT like she always did, and get into our courtyard. There, she sat and waited for us to find her. My ex opened up the door at Aretha’s usual returning time, to see her sitting in the dark. The light hitting her damaged eye in a way that Mahi could see something was clearly wrong. She called me, and I went out to the yard, and saw she was hurt. We called a 24 hour emergency vet, and brought her over immediately. She was clearly in shock, and we were afraid she was going to crash on us.

The vet told us that her eye was not salvageable, but he would keep her stable until our regular vet was available the next morning. He said he would transfer her to the other vet for us, so we would just have to go directly to her. Our vet told us she was going to lose her eye, and have to experience a major surgery which was extremely risky. Aretha made it through with flying colors thanks to one of the best vet surgeons in Florida, and her will to just plain survive.

Her recuperation was slow and painful, she constantly tried to get at her stitches which closed the area where her eye used to be. She had to wear one of those damn cones around her head for weeks. She’d get stuck with it on furniture and wall corners. It was comical and sad at the same time. But she got through that recovery process. And within a few weeks, she was completely back to normal. Sure, she had to learn how to manage her poor depth perception to handle making jumps onto walls, etc. The first few times she tried to jump off our roof onto the top edge of the courtyard wall, she missed. Falling all the way to the ground. Amazingly, she figured out how to compensate for her disability. Her jumping, climbing and other skills went back to normal. Even our vet was amazed.

She wore her lost eye as a badge of honor, it was a testament to her ability to survive, and adapt.

Aretha’s CROSS-USA ROAD TRIP! – We had made the decision to head west to California after my ex-wife graduated UF. The plan was to move to LA, where I had a sister living, continue building my budding internet business, and my ex-wife get a good job with an architecture or design firm. we shipped most of what we owned to my sister Judy’s via freight. We decided to make the drive cross country in January 1997. Despite it being winter, we decided we would take a week or two and make some special stops along the way. So, we packed our remaining stuff, and Aretha, into our 1989 VW Cabriolet. We had so much stuff packed to the top of the inside of the car, that the only space left was just enough for Aretha’s carrier, and a small litter box. It was funny.

For the most part, Aretha handled the trip like a good sport. She’d whine from time to time, just to tell us that she was tired of being stuck in the car for as long as she was on that leg of the trip. She seemed to enjoy our stops in some really nice places along the way. Places like New Orleans, San Antonio, Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and many others.

One night while driving through NOWHERE in Texas, Aretha started getting a bit restless in the back of the car. She was whining loudly, and scratching and biting at the gate of her carrier. Mahi asked me to stop on the side of the road, and let Aretha out on the leash. Maybe that would relax her a bit. I was a bit reluctant, because it was: a) PITCH BLACK outside, and b) a rather narrow 2-lane stretch of I-10 with lots of trucks and big-rigs screaming by. With both Aretha AND Mahi whining, I finally acquiesced and pulled off the road. I carefully got out of the car with Aretha on her leash. She hated the leash, but liked being outside of the car for awhile. She sniffed around while I stood there.

A few minutes into this foray, A massive 18-wheeler blasted by, and for some reason sounded his horn. This freaked Aretha out instantly, and she bolted. So fast, that the loop of the leash flew right OUT OF MY HAND! Aretha was now running away from the road straight for a wall of thick brush only a few dozen feet in front of her. I was chasing her madly, in the DARK, trying to catch Aretha who was now running at full speed. I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch her, so I opted instead to try to grab or step on her leash instead. While running after her, I stuck my right foot straight out where I THOUGHT the end of the leash would be, because I really couldn’t see it, especially while I was running! I got lucky, and nailed my foot on the end of the leash, and not a moment too soon. Aretha was less than a FOOT away from where the short grass ended and the heavy brush started. Had she gotten into that brush, there would have been simply NO WAY I could have found her.

She made the rest of the trip with a better attitude. And she actually learned to stay quiet in the motel rooms that we had to sneak her into because they had strict “no pet” policies.

Once we got to my sister’s house in LA, Aretha had a new set of challenges. While we tried to get settled into LA, Aretha had to basically share a house and backyard with my sister’s three dogs and 2 cats. One of the dogs, a greyhound mix named Stax, particularly loved chasing down cats and KILLING THEM. But she managed how to continually avoid them, lay low, and made the best of a very sticky situation.

Ironically,7 years later, when we moved on to Andiamo, we drove back to Florida from LA in our 2001 VW Cabrio. This time, we had 2 more cats, making the trip even more intense than before.

Aretha FALLS OFF ANDIAMO AND DISAPPEARS! – About four months into our tenure aboard my then new boat, Andiamo, we were docking into a marina in Key West. The first night we were tied up there, Aretha decided to jump off the boat onto the dock and go for a little tour. She’d been doing this in Miami and all our other stops along the way, so we figured she knows what she’s doing. That night, I called out for her to come back, and she didn’t. I figured she’d found a nice place to hang out on the property off the dock.

The next morning, still no Aretha. By the end of the first day, we really began to get concerned. during this week, we were trying to resolve some electrical issues on the boat before continuing on to Dry Tortugas. We were only going to be at the marina for a week, since it was CRAZY expensive. Despite our best canvassing efforts, Aretha was nowhere to be found. The week passed, and we had a weather window to make it out to Dry Tortugas, an overnight sail away. After one last major push to find or locate Aretha, we tearfully gave up. As we pulled out of Key West, we cried over our loss, and only could hope that Aretha was in a good situation.

So we proceeded on to Dry Tortugas. The winds died down at night, so we had to motor. While motoring, we found a new major electrical problem on the boat, and had to turn the boat around and head back. We tied up back at the marina we had just left. To our surprise, one of our former dock neighbors ran up to the boat and told us Aretha had been spotted. He even brought her some food. We ran over to where she was spotted, and within a few minutes we found her. The relief and happiness was immeasurable. Aretha was a little thin, but otherwise ok. She hadn’t cleaned herself in awhile, and we realized it was because she covered in salt from salt water. Turns out Aretha fell off the boat while trying to jump back on, and fell into the water.

She was unable to find her way back up to the boat because all the docks and pilings were concrete, not wood. So apparently, she actually SWAM out of the entire marina area, AROUND a large concrete breakwater over to a shallow area. There, she was able to get back on land. Despite the fact that we looked over that entire area, we never spotted her. But somehow she managed to survive on her own for more than a week. Within a couple of days after getting back on Andiamo, she was completely back to her old self. Utterly amazing.

These are by no means the limit to Aretha’s many adventures, but I think you get the idea. In her 15 years roaming the earth, she’s had more than her share of adventures and challenges. She was far from the friendliest or most affable cat, but that didn’t matter. What won people over about Aretha was her genuineness. This cat was the real deal. She didn’t just like anyone, but if she liked you, it’s because you somehow deserved to be liked. She had a nasty disposition, particularly when she wasn’t in a good mood. When all three cats were still on board, there was never any question among them who was in charge. But you can also tell that she didn’t take life too seriously. She was amazingly complex for a cat.

I also find it amazing that Aretha, as old and crusty as she was, not only adapted quickly when she was brought onto Andiamo, she THRIVED. In the first year aboard, she lost weight, and became even more fit and active than she was before. You can tell that she got something out of sailing. Because whenever we were sailing, particularly at night, Aretha was either on deck or in the cockpit, taking it all in. She’d go all the way to the bow, while we’d be sailing in some decent wind and seas, and she’d look down at the water off the anchor tray. This used to freak me out totally, because I was sure that one day, she’d just get washed off or fall off and that would be IT. It never happened. She had a zest for life that you don’t see in most people.

So, not only do I thank Aretha for the multitude of memories, I applaud her for having had such an awesome life. She always had the right spirit and attitude to deal with what life dished out to her. I’m proud of her, and I’ll really miss her.

Not bad, for a cat.

Aretha had to be put down today. She had become extremely critical from an obstruction in her intestine, and the vet said she couldn’t handle surgery on account of her being too septic and her age. We gave her a burial at sea right off the anchorage here in Bahia Almirante.

I’m dealing with the loss pretty much as expected. She’s been a constant in my life through so many changes, losses, and all that other stuff. It’s really hard to imagine life without my bitchy, annoying one-eyed cat.

I’ll write more later.

So the plan was to get back to the boat with my visiting “mystery guest”, take on some diesel and go sailing for the next week or so. That was the plan.

As usual, things don’t go as planned, particularly for me. Turns out Aretha, who had been somewhat constipated before I left for the states had taken a serious turn for the worst. So much so, that we had to put off any trips until it was clear that she was going to get better. She did appear to be be back on track last weekend. But since then, she’s gotten worse. She’s severely distended, and hasn’t eaten in days. I’ve been giving her laxatives, enemas, anything to get her going again, to no avail.

On top of that, Andiamo had several issues arise simultaneously that have made the past week rather difficult. Although I’ve managed to resolve the major issues, I find the boat is still not quite where she should be.

But at this point, my main concern is Aretha. Today, she was in an incredible amount of pain, vomiting up what looked like bile, and just generally a mess. There is a visiting vet who comes out to Bocas a couple times a week, and has checked her out. He looked at her this afternoon, and said he had to take her with him to the hospital in Changuinola. So tonight, Aretha is at a hospital awaiting her fate. I’m not optimistic, but hopeful. For most of her 15+ years, she’s been in almost perfect health, save her car incident that cost her an eye. You’d have no idea how old she is by looking at her. It’s really upsetting to see her in this state.

The vet said he’d do his best to save her. I can only hope. This ol’ cat’s been around me for more than one-third of my life.

While I was stateside a month or so ago, I got wind of our upcoming 25-year high school reunion coming together in the first week of October. I wasn’t really hip on the idea of coming back stateside just for the reunion. But then again, flights have been pretty cheap from San Jose, and I would need to get some parts that I ordered that didn’t make it to me on time last month. Oh yeah, and my friend Pam, was basically threatening me with a painful death if I didn’t show up. Even now, I’m still a little afraid of Pam.

So after making some arrangements for someone to babysit Andiamo and the cats, I was off to San Jose yet again. I was going to be laid over one night there before catching my flight up to Florida. GC Mitzy, got a break and managed to score a killer room at the Radisson, and a free ticket on TACA, so she was heading to San Jose for yet another jaunt. We figured we’d get some good poker in right at the Radisson before I caught my flight out. We managed to get there on a tournament night, so we got to play a cool tournament for a mere $30 buy-in. I was happy with my playing, but died out on the 2nd to last table. Mitzy did better than me, but also fell out just before the final table. A fun, albeit unprofitable night of poker.

Next morning, I was off to Daytona. It was basically going to be a long weekend trip to make the reunion, pick up my parts, do a quick visit with the niece and nephew, and head on out.

The first night of the reunion was quite nice, it was held at a riverside bar/restaurant. Since our class was so small (only 72 seniors), we didn’t expect that great of a turnout. Only maybe 1/3rd would make it. There were several classmates that I literally hadn’t seen since graduation, so that was really cool. A few surprises too, all good.

One of the things that I was a bit concerned about (not too much) was the fact that my marriage had ended since the last reunion. Mahi had been to the last two reunions, and had gotten to know many of my classmates. I was sure that there would be lots of “Where’s Mahi?” questions, but wasn’t quite sure how I’d deal with that. The questions did come, but it was ok. Nobody pried.

Interestingly, I’d somehow been able to regain some major lost youth since the last reunion, and it showed I think. In 2002, I was just on my way out of the very stressful life I’d had the previous 8 or so years running my internet company in LA, and to say that it took its toll is an understatement. Physically, I was a wreck back then. I weighed over 30 pounds more than I do now, my skin was a mess, I was ridden with migraine headaches, ulcers and all kinds of stress-related health and emotional issues. I was feeling closer to 50 than 38.

The past 4 years of cruising on Andiamo and basically switching to a life of virtually zero stress has given me back ten years. I have never felt better health-wise, and it was flattering and nice to see that other people noticed as well. Particularly people I grew up with and hadn’t seen in awhile. I was also impressed at how well so many of my classmates had turned out.

The next night, was the “banquet”, held at the Hilton. The turnout was a little different this night, some people that didn’t make the first night made the 2nd night, and vice versa. A couple of our former teachers also made the 2nd night. One of the teachers, Bill Hunter, who always makes our reunions, was especially good to see. Recently on Facebook, I cited him as one of the people who changed my life. To give a quick explanation about this: Back in senior year of high school, he was my english teacher. He was a harsh critic of writing. He was extremely difficult to please, and graded you accordingly. Though I wasn’t doing particularly well in school, or even his class for that matter. I did learn quite alot from him about writing. In our mid-term exam, a huge chunk of our grade was placed on an essay that we were supposed to write about something we had discussed in the previous semester.

I wrote up this essay at 6 AM that morning, and turned it in. Just spat it out. He gave me a 100. The only 100 in the class. This gave me the first confidence I’d ever had that maybe I could do something in writing. Ironically, due to some other major issues I was going through, I failed the class with a 69 (the only class I failed), and had to take it in summer school to get my diploma.

Fast forward 20 years, and I saw Bill Hunter in 2002’s reunion. At the time, I was still involved in an internet company and also running a liquidation business. After I told him what I was doing, he just shook his head, and said, “that sounds awfully boring Tony. Are you sure that’s what you really should be doing with your life?” It kinda jabbed at me, but deep inside, I knew he was right. And that was one of several subsequent inspirations and/or motivators that has me doing what I am doing now to some extent.

Anyway, I took the opportunity to tell him this, and he was very gracious about it. He indicated he’d like to check out some of my writing (which I asked him to do), and we’ll see what kind of feedback I get from him now.

The reunion continued well into the night, there was a gator game that night, so some people were distracted by college football. But still, in the end, it was a good time. The overall good time was marred by an incident that occurred at a bar later that night, when my camera was stolen right off the bar. What sucked about it, was all the pictures I took from the reunion and my previous stateside jaunts went with it. Damn…

I made it back to San Jose, albeit a day late because of a missed flight, and met up with someone who flew in from Europe to spend 2 weeks on Andiamo. A blast from the past if you will.

But that’s another story…