I will remember you ...

Last Saturday was, perhaps, the most awful day of my life.

Always an early riser, I had scheduled an 8 AM appointment for my sweet boy, Toes. We had been dealing with kidney failure for nearly three months, and twice a week I took him in for fluid replenishment, a sort of kitty dialysis. Except, this morning, I was there to see the doctor.

He wasn't eating, and in my ignorance, I thought there was something wrong with his mouth and that's why he wasn't eating. Maybe he had a toothache or something.

When his condition was first diagnosed in early May, I asked the veterinarian how I would know when we had reached "the end." I didn't want him to suffer. I just wanted to give him the best quality of life possible for as long as Nature permitted. The vet responded with a simple statement. "He will stop eating." And, there I was on a steamy Saturday morning in July thinking he had a toothache. How could I have forgotten?

It's been five days since then, and, in retrospect, it was denial. I didn't "forget." I didn't want to remember. I wanted there to be another answer. A simple solution. Even a complicated solution would have been more acceptable that no solution. But. There was no solution.

Upon arrival at the vet, the technician took Toes out of the exam room for the doctor to look at his mouth. I had insisted that something was wrong, perhaps with his teeth. I sat down, scrolled through my email and played a game of Dots. Then the veterinarian came in wearing her white lab coat, holding a sheet of paper with red marks on it. She said things like "kidney failure" and "danger zones" and "seizure." My brain fell down into my stomach causing a great pain. My heart was hurting. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, splashing on the paper she showed me with the red marks on it.

How could this be?

The vet was sympathetic and kind as all veterinarians should be, so, I asked her: "If it was your cat, what would you do?" She had mentioned her own cat earlier, when we first began the exam.

She paused. Then she said the words I didn't want to hear. I wanted to put my hand over her mouth. I wanted to take the question back.

In her gentle, quiet voice with the tiniest Scottish brogue she said, "I would let him go."

Even now, as my fingers dance across the keyboard, I have a knot in my stomach remembering the sick feeling in my chest, the knot in my gut, a sense of reeling as though I was losing my balance. But, I wasn't falling. My heart was breaking.

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Toes came to me through my younger brother. Never married, ever the loner, my brother is a cat whisperer. Since we were children, he always had a thing for cats. He loved them.  And, Toes came from that environment, raised from a kitten, knowing only love and pats on the butt and treats. In 2009, the recession cost my brother his job and, eventually, his home. When he prepared to vacate the premises, he asked me to take one of his three cats. I told him I would. "Pick one," I said.

Whenever I visited him, Toes would be the one to sprawl across the coffee table, pawing at my hand to pet him. He was friendly and affectionate, so, I was glad he was the chosen one to come to my house. He arrived by car, sitting in my brother's lap, no kitty carrier visible. Once we were inside the house, we hung out, allowing the cat to get a handle on his surroundings, including our two female cats, Minka and Minipussy.

After about an hour, my brother left, and, in the blink of an eye, Toes disappeared. It took me an hour to find him, hiding between the full length winter coats tucked away in the doll room closet, where he would spend most of the next month of his life.

The thing about cats is that they don't all adapt easily. Toes had known only one home, only one master, and now he was in a strange place with strange people. It was sad to see him hiding, but, every day when I got home from work, I would coax him out to eat and be brushed. He had a thick coat of glossy black fur adorned with a white chest, white paws and white whiskers. The ultimate tuxedo cat. And, he was a big boy, weighing in at 18 pounds. My brother said his father was a Maine Coon and he thought that accounted for his girth. My husband called him Bozo, because, when he ran after the other cats, he seemed clumsy.

He was a lap cat. And, a foot cat. And, he insisted on sleeping in the bed with me. Early on, he would scratch on the bedroom door throughout the night in his attempts to gain admittance, and after a couple of months battling with my husband, Toes won. He became a bed buddy cat as well.

He followed me around the house, from room to room, sitting on my feet when I sat, standing guard nearby when I was on my feet. He was nearly always at the front door to greet me when I came home from where I had been, whether I was gone eight hours or eight minutes. I had never experienced this kind of affection from a cat and his behavior lead to my husband and daughter referring to him as "Mom's dog."

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You might wonder what the symptoms of kidney failure are in a cat. Toes ate mostly dry food. Back around Christmas time, we began to notice that occasionally, within 15 minutes after he would eat, he would throw up. We changed foods, offered wet food, and most of the time, things would return to normal. Until springtime.

That's when I noticed he was losing weight.

I would often pick him up and carry him from one room to another just to get him out from under my feet. One day, I picked him up and he felt different. I called the vet and made an appointment the next day.

You'll never know how much I wish I taken him sooner, that maybe he would still be here. The vet said, "No." It's a part of the aging process in cats, he said. Maybe he was saying that to make me feel better. Maybe it's true. I don't know.

I never knew a love like that with a cat. I've loved dogs in my life. And, more than a few cats. But, this one was different. He was a soul mate. And, I will miss him for a long, long time to come ... maybe always.

I hope it's true what they say ... that when you get to Heaven, all the cats and dogs you've loved will be there to greet you. I sure do hope that's true.

Piggly Wiggly

"Oh, how I long for the days of the Piggly Wiggly."

Piggly Wiggly was the first true self-service grocery store. It was founded on September 6, 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee by Clarence Saunders.  This "new" model of grocery store would change the way Americans shopped for groceries.

For about 15 years now, since around the time the gay community discovered Wilton Manors and adopted it as their own, there's been a drive (pun intended) to change the character of Wilton Drive, the main drag through the central part of the island city. The most common refrain is to "make it more like Las Olas," which is a 7-block stretch between downtown Fort Lauderdale and the beach to the east. East Las Olas Boulevard is peppered with high-end shops, restaurants and bars and it's been a touristy place since the days of Spring Break and "Where the Boys Are."

When I moved to Wilton Manors in 1987, this tiny piece of real estate was just a suburb of downtown Fort Lauderdale. Surrounded by the south fork of the Middle River, it was home to doctors, judges, bank vice presidents and school teachers with a population of 11,000 or so. Mostly middle class, we were neighbors with others like us, young families with school age children.

In those days, there was a Piggly Wiggly in the shopping center on Wilton Drive at NE 6th Avenue. It was accompanied by a Social Security office, a paint store, a small exercise studio and a coffee shop. A bar with a pool table occupied the corner store, naturally called "The Corner Pocket," and the end spot adjacent to the Drive sold sunglasses.

To the south were little strip shopping centers in the blocks along Wilton Drive. There was quite a variety of offerings that regular people might need or want. A plant nursery on the south side of the shopping center offered native and exotic plants cultivated in decorative clay pots along with  advice on how to get things to grow. Next to the nursery was a strip center with an antique store, a record store, a doll shop, a quilting shop, and About Town Lock & Safe, which I think is still in business today. Across the street was my favorite thrift shop, Hidden Treasures. The two women who ran it had big personalities and a whole lot of style and their ever changing collection of merchandise made a favorite spot for many local fashionistas.

Dairy Queen, painted by Nia Nakis

On the west side of The Drive further south you would have found an office supply store, insurance agency, and hair salons. The Junior League Thrift Shop was a fun visit, offering high end women's clothing and accessories for really good prices. There were two laundromats, a Burger King, a camera shop and a few bars and restaurants, the best of which was Wings 'n Things. And, Dairy Queen, which survives today and is a landmark for locals and visitors alike.

Since the Great Recession, a lot of things have changed around town. Taller buildings. More people and more cars. Lots of bars and restaurants. And, not many businesses like what there was when I came here to live.

I get that change is inevitable, but, I don't think all change is good. Sometimes we need to just leave things alone. Humans have the tendency to be short sighted and I thing that's what's happened to Wilton Drive. Many of today's small businesses struggle to survive. With little daytime traffic and the overall impact on retail of the internet, it's a tough go for those selling their wares. Rents continue to climb and local leadership tends toward creating a "tourist destination" rather than serving the tax paying residents in the community.

Wilton Drive is never going to be like Las Olas Boulevard. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Eventually, they will figure it out, but, for me, it's a time gone by. Hence, I long for the days of the Piggly Wiggly, when things were easier.

Life, Art and Fashion Dolls

Since 2012, I have been a part of a team of art lovers running a little neighborhood art gallery we call Art Gallery 21. The building used to serve as the Woman's Club and has now been re-purposed as a cultural center and home to the gallery.

On March 9th this year, we hosted an exhibit titled "The Art of Barbie." The international icon of fashion and style celebrated her 60th birthday and we were blown away by how many people came to the opening and to the exhibit in the weeks that followed.

It's not the first time I've been involved in an exhibit of Barbie dolls, but, this time ... this time, it was art. Beautiful art. Amazing art. Created by amazing artists.

We were blessed with the donation of two photographs from Sharon Wright, who I have the pleasure of knowing personally and whose career I have followed since she first took pictures of Poppy Parker. She's an Emmy Award Winning film maker, actress, model and all around terrific human being and the proceeds from the sale of her photos went to support the art gallery. I think it was extremely generous of her to donate her pictures and I love her for being so kind.

And, she wasn't alone. We also received a donated photograph from Rebecca Berry of "Inside The Fashion Doll Studio," which sold the first night! The artistic talent I've discovered in my journey as a doll collector continues to amaze me.

Which just goes to show you ... doll people are the best kind of people there are. They ARE artists. And, doll lovers. And, generous of spirit. And, I'm so lucky to have been a part of this. Thank you, Universe!