Everybody wants to be a cat.

Max had this world absolutely figured out. Max, the cat that largely thought he was a dog, the one who’d always respond when you called his name. His life was a relatively simple one filled with habits and the simplest of oft-repeated patterns. Perhaps that’s what endeared us to him … that he didn’t deter from the cat we grew to know, year after year. He taught us consistency.

Observe some of what made Max the cat he was, then, now that he’s gone.

Put weight on in the cold months to keep warm, dropped pounds like crazy during the warm ones to keep cooler; went from cuddly to sphinx in no time. Slept in his bed atop the freezer occasionally, slept atop a warm car hood for as long as the engine allowed it to stay so, leaving telltale signs of his footsteps cross the windshield. Tried to come inside for a few minutes to hang out with his people, either by sitting patiently outside a door or slipping in when nobody was looking. Purred loudly enough and acted cute enough, to the point someone would pick him up and comb the hairballs out of his coat. And someone always did, no matter how much static electricity he zapped him or her with in the process. Caught a bird with clawless paws when the dry cat food and other awful-smelling fish treats weren’t enough, then proceeded to eat it until only the bones and feathers remained. Tolerated a pretty hyperactive dog. Established long, enduring friendships in the neighborhood, friends that would feed and love and feed some more. Always came home. Never forgot where home was.

I can’t get caught up in how many years he was with us, as the reports vary depending on who’s doing the speaking, but it’s a little hard to recall when he wasn’t, you know? He was the big, gray, sauntering thing with sleepy yellow eyes that would make himself at home on your chest and think nothing of raising his tail and putting his cat butt directly in your face. A respecter of persons, he was not.

Is he missed? Certainly. And, going back to Utah, it’ll be hard not to feel the void left in his absence. It does make some kind of sense he was buried in the backyard there, however, next to a family dog we all remember as well. I can imagine some short conversations still playing out over yonder sometimes, much like the ones he’d have while alive.

“Hey, Max, how’s it going?” *meowrrr*

“What’s the latest?” *meowrrr*

“That right?” *meowr*

Thanks, Max, for being absolutely true to the cat and friend you were.

Wordless Wednesday.

Wonder if he got a blister?

So this guy walks from San Francisco to New York (more or less) and has the video to prove it. 2,770 photos shot over 14 days' time, all set to one killer Edward Sharpe song. I like that these sorts of things exist. And, well, I'm not even that mad that I didn't come up with it in the first place. Amazing.

Happy birthday to ME.

That's all I wanted to say, truthfully.

Wordless Wednesday.

Daddy.

I've gone back and forth with that whole having kids of my own thing. Most of the time I'm okay with the fact I don't have a single mini-me to call my own. After all, I'm single, have no girlfriend and pretty much abstain from that dating thing (and, for the record, I'm okay with that, too). If I can liken it with a terrible metaphor, choosing to have a child at this point is like, I don't know, choosing to eat expensive steak for dinner the rest of my life when I am absolutely penniless. You pick up what I'm putting down here, right?

Then I saw this little girl and I had to change my mind pretty much immediately. I'm back on the kids train. I mean, seriously, where do I sign? And could I get a guarantee that at least one of them looks like her? Okay then.

I Must Be in a Good Place Now.

Because I love Vetiver & and I love Eric Johnson (he being the singer of Fruit Bats, who released one of my Top 5 albums ever when he helped create Mouthfuls), then I, yes, I love, love, love this. I adore this song, this video, this music and the way it was even shot, throwing in glimpses of nature in between words and verses. This find was easily a high point of my yesterday. Watching it more than 10 times has caused it to loop inside my brain, too. I'm perfectly okay with that. Ah, sweet, agreeable bliss.

Vetiver & Fruit Bats from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Wordless Wednesday: Pit Stop Edition.

Chose my own adventure.

It started with a couple hours’ drive to a city I’d never been, with sleeping bags and three ripe peaches and an iPod playing its share of 53 Ryan Adams songs. It was a celebration of a work week ended. Camping next to the Atlantic Ocean got nixed, sadly, but it’ll happen on another adventure. Those 24 hours or so were pretty filled all the same. Things fell together pretty rapidly.

I saw those Sleigh Bells at long last and learned, in short order, why they are so loved and beloved. It has a bit to do with their catchy songs, sure, but the real treat is seeing them live. It’s necessary to understand them completely, even. Talk about your unleashed joy! I pretended I was younger than I am and rushed the stage and swayed and sang and sweat like I was trapped in a locked sauna. I reached out to Alexis when she fell forward to outstretched arms and smiled like a buffoon for the duration. $10 and a tank of gas for 40 minutes of passion might seem steep to some, but it wasn’t … this was concentrated goodness here. This was as crucial as it was worth it. Everyone seemed to agree on that, too.

And there was a last-minute booked hotel just a half-mile away. There were shared dinner nachos. There was a determination to wake up five hours later and drive 30 minutes to the beach, just in time to see a blood red sunrise. Waves and cool sand under my feet and reflecting and meditating and musing.

Pulled quote of the morning: “I think they just made a sand castle … of a boob.” Classy sorts, those early morning beachcombers. Classy with a capital K.

The way back was equally filled. Bought boiled peanuts from a roadside mullet for the first time ever (they so beat sunflower seeds). St. Augustine allowed us a good long look back into our nation’s history, wandering around a 300-year-old fort and even sipping from the Fountain of Youth (it tastes and smells of rotten eggs). There was even talk of Cassadaga, where supposed mediums all live together in an elevated state, and what it’ll be like to visit there one day. We even shared some secrets about ourselves, quite accidentally.

The Leu Gardens visit today and recently discovered wee breakfast café don’t much hold a candle to all that went on over the last couple of days, but know this: as long as weekends like this continue to take place, I will be one of those progressively happier sorts. I am getting my sea legs for Florida still, but a weekend like this one is evidence that things are coming along real nicely, thanks. There’s a world of comfort in that.

We’re talking deep sea fishing next weekend. These fingers are crossed. All of them.

Okay, I'll wake up early to see this.

Thanks, Florida.

Quote of the day.

This guy happens to know what he's talking about. That's what I think.

"The biggest lesson I got is the power of unconditional love. If you offer that to your child you're 90 percent of the way home. If every parent out there could extend that to their child at a very young age, well, it's going to make for a better human being." — Warren Buffet

For more, check this out.

Working day and night.

FACT: If you're at 903 Mills right around closing time and you decide to dance to "Thriller" as you're paying your bill (it being what the ladies in the kitchen have chosen to listen to), even if you do a pretty awful Michael Jackson, you just might be awarded a cookie. I went with their peanut butter one.

Jessica Biel, call my name.

So of course my friend ends up on an accidental vacation to CO with someone she doesn't even care for terribly when she learns that he just so happens to be Justin Timberlake's cousin, which leads to her hanging out at a BBQ in the middle of nowhere with Jessica Biel and Justin and yada yada yada whatever! And, of course, I don't really believe it until a pretty bad photo shows up on my phone one night with one blurry photo of Justin. None of Biel, though she does tell me later all about spending so much time with her and her mom and on and on. Story after story until, well, I'd had enough. I couldn't much take it anymore.

And to think I thought I never got jealous, too.

Happy birthday, America.

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours
and sing an American tune
Oh, and it's alright, it's all right, it's all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest

Two seconds.

When you submit to having two months of glorious beard shaved off by the hands of a professional, it taking more than an hour for the one qualified guy in the barber shop to shave it off completely, with so much lotion applied and hot towels and piles of shaving cream and using the straightest and sharpest of blades, and you come out of the ordeal a more relaxed and sleepy and younger-looking man, and the cute punk rock hair stylist of a girl is standing nearby, the one with the star shaved into the side of her head, and she asks fairly excitedly, “Can I touch it?” and she means one of your hairless cheeks, by all means, allow her that opportunity.

Do so and, months down the road, when your beard has assumed its rightful place on your face once again, the soft hand on your face is what you’ll remember most of those couple hours, even though it was over and done with in under two seconds time.