Champagne the cat

Picture taken from Site

I wrote in an earlier post that my first real job was an unpleasant one, and indeed it was a terrible place to work.  The only good thing about it was a chance for me to see first hand what happens to people who are too afraid to leave, in that my first job was priceless.  However, outside of work, my life in the Ottawa area was not at all horrible.  I have made one long lasting friend, and another I will never forget.

Being a big city girl all my life, I was not eager to live in the small town where my company was located.  Instead, I rented a room in the city of Kanata, a nice suburb area of Ottawa, also dubbed the silicon valley of the north.  My landlady, Vidya, had only just purchased the house, which was a large one in a quiet neighborhood, with woods to the back.  I had my own room and bathroom on the second floor.

The day I arrived, movers were bringing in furniture and Vidya was busy directing the men, and so I went on a quick tour of the house on my own.  And as I looked around, I took an instant liking to my new home, seeing the possibilities clearly amidst the chaos of the move.  The rooms had good light, tall ceilings and wide windows, and the kitchen had a good view of the gazebo in the yard.  My room was a spacious one, and Vidya provided me with a nice bedroom set; the pieces were already in the room but strangely positioned and partially covered in cardboard wrappings.

"Jackie, do be careful with your closet room.  Champagne is in there."  Vidya shouted urgently from downstairs.

"Alright, I'll watch it."  I answered back.

I shut my bedroom door and prepared myself to open the closet.  Vidya and I had discussed much about her cats prior to our meeting, and I had a strong curiosity to see them, especially the tomcat Champagne.  Vidya had three cats, two girls and one boy, they were all elderly I was told.  She made particular mention of Champagne in her correspondence.

"He is a rambunctious man."  That was the way she puts it.

I opened the closet door and I heard a bit of growling.  A fawn colored cat walked out with his tail down signaling his displeasure at being locked up for more than an hour.  I looked inside the closet and I saw two other cats cowering in the corner, I let them be.

"Well hullo Champagne.  I have heard much about you."  I said to the famous cat.  He gave me a sidelong glance and continued to survey the room, the furniture, the height of the desk, the workings of the lamp, the zipper of my suitcase..etc.  I sat at the edge of the bed watching him, fascinated.  I had never really lived with a cat before, though I had always wanted to, and here was the finest of his kind, who was once awarded the title of second household cat of all of Ontario.

Vidya and I had an interesting start.  She was a newly divorced woman with a young son of five, and she shared joint custody of the boy with her ex-husband.  She purchased the house to start a new life, and me the renter would help to fund it.  I first witnessed her tense meeting with her ex a few days after we moved into the house, it was a Saturday morning and I came down the spiral staircase in my pajamas.  Vidya didn't bother to introduce us but ushered the boy to leave with his father.

After the father and son left, Vidya immediately turned around and asked me:

"Isn't he an idiot?  Have you ever seen such a stupid man?"  She looked eagerly at me to confirm her opinion on the father of her child.

"Well, I only saw him for a few minutes, we barely spoke so I cannot say."  I answered reasonably.

"You have no idea."  Vidya rolled her eyes.

A few days later I would have to agree with Vidya over the stupidity of the situation, when she came back all riled up after speaking with her lawyer.  Apparently after seeing me at the staircase, Vidya's ex husband was not satisfied with the explanation that I was a renter and decided instead I was the lesbian lover of his ex wife, and somehow such a claim would help his legal case to lesson child support, gain custody to the boy...etc.  I was surprised.

"I need to do something."  Vidya was livid, pacing back and forth in her lovely sitting room raging to bring her nemesis down at all cost.  I tried to calm her with words, but it was no use, they just sparked new ideas in her head.  Champagne however did better, he jumped on top of the entertainment unit and commandingly meowed a few times, and he stood there like a sphinx; it seemed to trigger something in Vidya.

"Oh Champ, you are the man of my life aren't you?  I can always count on you can't I?" She said dejectedly.

I took the cat's cue and asked her for stories of Champagne to distract her.  It worked, we spent the night talking about his past.

Champagne was fifteen years old when I met him, and he was with Vidya since he was a kitten.  She purchased him from a pet store for $100.

"He was a funny kitten, completely unmanageable."  She said, laughing as she spoke of him.

A long time ago she said, and in better days with her ex husband, she purchased a new couch and was transporting it to a new house when they heard sneezes from inside the cushions.  Champagne had somehow found a way into the inner compartment of the chair and got trapped there, in the end they had to cut open the cushions to get him out.  Another time Champagne sneaked outside through some opening at night and got caught in the rain, the next morning she found some wet dirty thing outside her front steps and she shrieked from thinking he was a possum.

And over the next few months, I found out on my own what it was like to live with Champagne.  I have two words to describe it:  pure joy.  At nights he gave us gifts.  I could hear him in my half sleep dancing some hunting sequence downstairs, he howled and chased his fuzzy bite sized toys around, then ceremoniously marched upstairs and delivered them to us while we slept.  In the mornings I'd find colorful little things at the foot of my bed, but I always had one less than Vidya, which I am sure signified something in Champagne's feline logic.

The one thing Champagne valued more than anything was freedom.  There was no end to his effort to break free from the house.  He learned how to open doors, sometimes he organized a joint effort with Snowflake his white cat girlfriend.  One time he followed a boy we hired to mow the lawn all over the house, we found out it was because he figured that when the eventually boy leaves the house, it would give him a chance to escape.  Yet despite his love of independence, he very much enjoyed people's attention, on Halloween he proudly wore a black bow tie and stood waiting at the door for trick or treating children.  It was delightful.

I was content in being a homebody back then, my job was horrible and it was very cold in Ottawa.  I loved being in the house and me sitting at the breakfast table on Sunday mornings observing Champagne's ingenious ways to steal my bacon.  But Vidya was full of plans, she was determined to meet the man of her life after her divorce.  We spent interminable hours talking of her hopes for a new romance and my wish for a new job, while Champagne stood quietly next to us.  I gathered he took real pride in being the man of the house, and in his own way he was taking care of us, just as he cared for his kitty girlfriend Snowflake.  Champagne and Snowflake curled up and slept together everyday, and whenever she made the slightest demand, he would diligently lick her inch by inch.  On some nights Vidya and I sat watching their romance while snow fell and a cup of tea in hand, and I never felt so entranced by any other sight.

Vidya and I both agreed Champagne was the man of our dreams.

The ugly legal battle continued throughout the winter, it seemed Vidya and her ex could not agree on anything.  Every time her ex called, Vidya would spend hours analyzing his words to sieve for something to use against him in court, and the legal fees mounted.  Up to that point, divorce was some vague idea in my mind, but in the Ottawa area I witnessed the realities of broken families when I saw scores of fathers with young children in McDonalds on Wednesday nights, it was sad.

Vidya's son reacted by throwing the worst temper tantrums imaginable, and he took to kicking Champagne in the gut.  Sometimes I'd see Champagne flying across the hallway because the kid went mad, it took all my restraint not to shout at that moment.  For some reason though, Champagne never gave up on the kid, he seemed to understand the situation and pitied his abuser.  I talked to Vidya about it.

"You know Champagne really cares about my son.  When my son was a baby and cried, Champagne would insist I come to the crib.  He could not stand to hear my son cry."  Vidya told me.  Yet she didn't do enough to end the problem, I suspected it was because she felt more guilty about the stress of the divorce on her son.

Over time, as the temperature dropped, Vidya and I got closer as friends.  We went out together, I even concealed my age and accompanied her to singles dance for the over thirties. I came to respect her resilience.  After two failed marriages, one being physically abusive, it was a marvel she didn't loose hope on men.  I admired that positivity.

One day in spring I got a new job in the US, it was considered a very good thing, but I was sorry to leave Vidya and Champagne.  They both saw me to the door and watched as the taxi drove me away to the airport, and I saw Champagne meowing at the window for the last time.  Vidya and I kept in touch over the years, we'd call to debrief each other on our love lives and career status.  She had never found the right man, but as time passes that no longer mattered to her.  

About a year ago I received a phone call from Vidya and she informed me Champagne had passed away.  I was stunned though not surprised, he was by then twenty-two years old.  The old devil outlived his two younger feline companions, as I was sure he would, and lived to the fullest till his very last breath.  Through her sobs, Vidya told me Champagne demanded his freedom all the way to the end, despite being in pain, and the last thing he did was smelling the flowers in the garden.  He died in the gazebo in Vidya's arms; I have a vivid picture of them together in my mind, I often think of it.


Jackie

One orange furball

This is my girl Josie the cat, she came from Spotsylvania, VA.  She is one colorful girl; has spots in the most unexpected places.  I've always said the maker spent extra time on her:  one extra naughty cat + 2 parts orange coloring + 1 part black + 1 part white, all put together in a gentle cycle. 

My father the photographer snapped more than fifty pictures like this one of Josie the cat.

A smiling Josie.  She is so accommodating, she lets us jam the camera right in her face.

Yes bring on the lighting blitz you papparazzi.

The naughty girl has no fear.  She was sitting on a lamp three stories high.  Freaks us out.

Jackie

Sugar the Dachshund

Picture taken from site

Sugar is a dog. Sugar is a mother. Sugar was my purpose for one day.

Someone I know wisely observed how we often trade our time for money or experiences. This got me thinking and realizing that outside of making a living, I seriously got bored of all the shopping (the gratification is always too brief), sight seeing (which rarely leaves an impression on me) and TV watching. I thought I would take a chance and try something else entirely different for a change. So on one Saturday, I looked up a local Petsmart event for an adoption drive and signed up as a volunteer handler. I picked a dog event because I didn't have the heart to see cats suffer inside tiny cages all cured up and scared. I thought I had a better chance to come back in one piece with dogs.

So this is how it works. Foster parents and drivers bring homeless dogs from shelters and foster homes to the event, and volunteer handlers like myself would show them to potential adoption families. The strategy is to stand outside by the curb of the pet store giant and accost pedestrians for a chance to charm them. Each handler gets a dog and a bio sheet and then that was it, we go out there and hope for the best pretty much.

I stood in line among half a dozen or so volunteers and we waited to be matched with our dog. Big energetic pit bull mixes showed up one after another, but because I had no experience with dogs, they didn't think I could handle them. So I waited and waited, and just when I was beginning to think I was wasting my time because there was no more dogs to be had, one lady showed up with a Dachshund in the crook of her arm.

"This is Sugar. I need someone to take her, I have another dog to show." The driver lady said.

I personally do not love Dachshunds, I had my heart set on a bigger dog and so I hesitated in claiming Sugar, but I was next in line.

"She needs someone to hold her, she likes to be held." The driver lady added.

"Do you mind holding her for the day?" A very smily blond girl at the volunteer desk asked me. "She should be a breeze."

"Oh yeah, she is easy." The driver lady agreed.

So I stepped forward and took the dog into my arms. She had a surprisingly firm body, like she was entirely made of muscles. I briefly introduced myself to Sugar, she didn't seem to care and looked in the direction of the road.

"We'll be fine." I said to both the driver lady and the smily blond. They assured me Sugar was easy again, all I had to do was to keep holding her and they handed me her bio sheet.

With Sugar sitting awkwardly in my arm, I looked for a space to sit by the curb and found one between two pit bull mixes. Their handlers looked friendly enough and I squeezed myself between them.

"Oh what's this fellow's name? He is new. I had not seen him before." The handler to my right asked me. He looked young, maybe in his early twenties.

"Her name is Sugar. Let's see..." I was scanning through her bio sheet to get a good read on my new friend.

Sugar's blurry picture was at the top right corner of a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet. She was four years old it says, or so believed. Her personality profile was the usual: friendly, calm, good with kids, good with cats, loves cuddles, doesn't bark very much... But as I read on, something stood out in her history section.

"Looks like she was rescued from the puppy mills, she likely had dozens of puppies it says." I loudly declared.

The young man's face scrunched into a grimace, his pit bull mix did not look pleased hearing it either. Sugar however was not giving a damn, she looked like she had passed it all.

"Some people deserve to die." The young man says simply.

Right then the driver lady stopped by to check on us, and I asked her about Sugar's puppy mill background. "Oh yes, she escaped death over and over again this one. First she survived the puppy mill hell, then she was almost put down at the local shelter in South Carolina."

The next part she lowered her voice as if to avoid being heard by potential families. "She is not even toilet trained, she was likely locked inside a tiny wired cage her whole life. And the part about her not barking, I think it is because she was debarked."

"Debarked?" I asked. Then the young man told me it is a common practice in puppy mills, they jam a metal rod down the dog's throat to damage her vocal cords so she cannot bark.

"Some people deserve to die." This time it was from me.

Now, however horrible their pasts, the dogs all seemed to be in a jolly mood. All except my Sugar. She was perfectly calm in my arm, but she was listless, and voiceless. So I played the happy puppy part for her, I did my megawatt dimpled smile every time someone walked by. But no interest.

Some folks stopped and say cute things to the dogs, but most hurried inside the store like they wanted to avoid something awful. The dogs did their very best.  They looked forlornly at anyone who paid them the slightest attention and they were on their best behavior. I don't know much about dogs but I had expected more aggression between them. I mean, if this was a fight for life situation for us humans, we would likely claw our competitors' eyes out. I thought the dogs were very neighborly, I would even say they had a sense of solidarity.

Frankly I didn't expect any of it to work. I had good conversations with the other handlers, we were thrilled to be doing something good, but we steered clear from discussing the dogs' futures. The afternoon wore on and nothing. People passed by but neither the pit bulls or Sugar had any luck, and the handlers were growing a bit despondent. The dogs themselves had more hope, or wisdom, the pit bulls licked their handlers in perfect intervals, but my Sugar was spiritless. She didn't seem to care what happens to her.

A young attractive couple appeared looking around and they had a dog with them, a little black one not much bigger than Sugar. I seized the opportunity. I put her on the ground and led her to them. Sugar perked up and she sniffed the butt of the couple's dog.

"Oh she is pretty." The lady said.

I smiled mega huge, "Oh yes, she is so beautiful and calm. A lovely dog you can take anywhere under your arm."

"Yes and it seems she likes Ken." The lady said.

"Is that your dog's name? he is adorable." Sugar was trying to be nice to Ken, but Ken wouldn't have any.

"Oh Ken, be good now. She looks so much like you, she is the same color. She looks awesome with you doesn't she?" The lady asked Ken.

The driver lady came by and the two women talked. And I thought it was promising because at the end of their conversation the couple assured us they would come back before the event closes to get Sugar. Then they walked away with Ken still giving my dog the cold shoulder. Little mutt!

"That's a good sign." I said smilingly, feeling relieved. But the driver lady didn't look as pleased.

"Some people just want everything matchy matchy." She said with her eyes rolling. I suppose she understands dogs better than me, but then I realized it wasn't so, she reads people better than me, and she didn't like this family for Sugar. I went back to my space by the curb with her tucked in my arm again, not sure if I should be glad or not. The other handlers congratulated me, they said it was a good sign.

I should say that I was less anxious after the couple, or maybe I just didn't have the tenacity to grieve over someone else's life for a sustained period. When the event was drawing to a close and I saw no sign of the couple returning, I sort of resigned myself to an enlightened sense of failure, I adopted Sugar's devil-may-care air.

Twenty minutes before the event closes a woman showed up with three little girls and a little black dog.

"Oh my, look a long haired Dachshund! Wow look at that face, those eyes, she is a beauty!" The woman exclaimed. The girls petted Sugar.

"Casper, look how gorgeous she is." The woman said to her dog. Casper the dog went up to Sugar and licked her in the face. I swear I almost swooned from joy.

"Oh Casper is from this same adoption event, we got him a year ago in this same place." The woman explained to me while looking serenely at her happy family.

"You have a beautiful family, are the girls sisters?" I asked

"Oh they are triplets, not identical though." She said, then she asked her girls "You girls want a girl dog right? You will fight over where this dog sleeps won't you?"

So this was how Sugar found her new family with three little girls and a black dog name Casper. The woman was not fazed when we told her Sugar was a puppy mill mommy and she needed to be toilet trained.

"I am a doctor, I have handled much worst. Casper was not easy either but look at him now. Sugar will be spoiled for the rest of her life." was the woman's answer.

The girls were eager to buy something pink for Sugar, I offered to watch her until they were done with their shopping.

When all were settled, and we had a happy ending, and the other dogs went where destiny led them; I realized I hadn't bothered to get to know Sugar this entire day. I was so eager to find her a home and playing God with her future I forgot what an experience this was for the both of us. I was grateful I was given this little extra time, and I looked her in the eyes and I talked to her. I told her I was sorry for her life in the puppy mill, I was sorry for her lost babies, I said her life would change and I wished her the best. I thanked her for letting me be a part of her life, even if it was only for a little while. I spoke slowly and repeated the same sentences over and over, and in the end, for the first time, she looked at me and nuzzled up to my face. We said our goodbyes.

The woman and the girls came back with a pink collar with fake diamonds on it and a cart load of doggy things. Sugar looked smashing in her new attire.

"Pink bling, you weren't kidding!" I joked. The woman laughed and she puts Sugar in the shopping cart, then everybody seemed to be talking all at once, a family figuring out their new life together. I waved my goodbyes unnoticed and left with my husband.

Jackie

Beeping Pager says: "NO POWER!"

Until a few months ago, I was working in a semiconductors manufacturing company as an engineer. It was a very stressful workplace because every little decision involves a whole lot of money. The cost of running such an operation is staggeringly high, while profit margin is actually rather small, so it is a real cut throat kind of place. Anyway, one of the biggest catastrophe in such a facility is the event of a little electrical interruption, even a few seconds of lost power can cause massive panic, millions of dollars lost, and a beepers hailstorm in the middle of the night.

So power outage is never fun while I was employed there. But one day in the summer when it was very hot, and I just got back from work and my face was stuck in the freezer, I got a phone call from my father up in Canada. He informed me they did not have power for the entire day.

"Oh it is a good thing I tell ya." He said,

"Come again?" I replied,

"We get to hang out with our neighbors! We all had to clear out our fridges, so we had a picnic on the street." He said. And then he attacked me with a question, "Do you talk to your neighbors?"

"Oh dad, I don't have time for neighbors." I said, also thinking I didn't have time for this conversation either.

So that was more than two years ago. But it got me thinking one day, until we figure out how to live in a sane way, perhaps we can ALL use a power outage everyday?

Armed with a new set of principles which must include interaction with those living in close proximity to us, My Harry and I came up with a better idea: We walk our cats every night. Yes, we committed ourselves and made promises to our feline friends to take them out so they can roam around in flower beds and climb trees. We treat them like adult cats that they are, and in doing so, we gain a certain distinction among our neighbors.

"My God, that's a cat on a leash! How did you do that? My cat would never walk like that! Oh my, you are not even holding onto that leash? Aren't you afraid they run into the road? What if they won't come down from the tree? Do you mind if I take a picture with my cell?"

I get these questions ALL the time now. And I answer very slowly, because what I've got to say is always a shock for people to hear. It helps that I am with the friendliest kitty in the world, especially towards children. She fluffs up, flops over, and lifts her leg. That's her signature move. And I get to pretend nag, "Jo--sie...come now...be a lady, do ladies lift their legs like that?" And a really cool conversation always follows.

And when there are no human neighbors to be had, I observe my kitties, and see that they too are making friends by being out at night.

Jackie

Josie the Cat

On May 25th 2009, my husband and I adopted Josie, a calico cat, from a pet rescue group. We found her in a local Pet Smart adoption event. She was tiny, dirty, only weighing five pounds, but she was very friendly. She purred and rubbed her face against my husband’s finger from inside a wired cage the minute when we approached her. She was pretty much the first cat my husband met, and knowing him, it is not surprising we adopted the first cat we came across. Our first impression of Josie was that she was angelically sweet, which is true, but as it turns out she is very naughty as well.

All we know of Josie’s past is that she came from some farm area in Spotsylvania, VA, and she was taken somehow and sent to the shelter there. The kill rate in that shelter is terribly high I was told, it was pretty much a death sentence. In fact they scheduled to put Josie down, but luckily she got picked up last minute by a rescue group and brought to the city for adoption. We think she was about four years old and she probably very recently had kittens.

So now I must go further back in the story. My husband and I married two years before adopting Josie. We married rather quickly, we didn’t date very long, and our relationship wasn’t particularly interesting or romantic. We met as coworkers. We were both engineers in a semiconductors company and for myself; I came out of a decade of intense dating and basically very eager to settle down. I was 30 when we married, so I felt simply that it was time and quite frankly I didn’t know my husband all that well. My husband wasn’t conventionally good looking, or particularly successful, so I wasn’t very proud of the whole thing at the time. I called him my Harry Goldenblatt, my husband is bald and Jewish as well.

As you can see, I was quite shallow. I wasn’t very nice either. I was very anxious to rise in my career, which I felt was not moving nearly fast enough. I was good at what I do, but I never hesitated in doing whatever necessary to move ahead at other people’s expense as well. Survival of the fittest right? But I had a sense that my line of thought was toxic somehow, but couldn’t find a way to shake out of it. I complained for six years that I was unlucky and fate simply didn’t favor me enough. Anyway, it was not all bad, but I would not want to be like that again.

Our marriage was quite rocky before Josie as expected. I thought the point of getting a husband was to have kids, so we were trying for a baby right away. We were planning to buy a big house and big cars to go with a couple of babies, the typical path we never questioned up to that point. But I couldn’t get pregnant, we found out it was my problem, not his. Again I blamed everyone under the sun, my tempers flared. How is it possible that so many undeserving women out there are getting pregnant but I couldn’t? Until one day, I guess even I got tired of complaining and decided to hell with trying for a baby and get a cat instead.

Animals have a funny way to reverse any bad situation I find. Josie did that on her first day. She was a saucy little thing. I can go on forever on Josie stories but I will just give one here. On her first day, we sat down for dinner and we had to establish some ground rules with her. She was not allowed to jump on a dining chair when we are eating, so when she jumped on one, my husband said “OFF!” To our surprise, she jumped down right away, but she went onto the next chair. She looked at us like “You said no to that chair, but not this one.” We said “OFF!” again. We had to say “OFF!” to five different chairs. She was so charming, she surprised us all the time. You'd only have to say no just once; she doesn’t repeat crimes, she simply proceeds to invent new ones. Some months later we adopted Peter Cottontail, and he is as different from Josie as I to my husband, which goes to show how unique each animal can be. Whereas Josie’s philosophy is ‘Do first, possibly think later’, Peter is thoughtful, careful, and polite.

Life definitely improved after the kitties. But then one day, my husband made an offhand remark about how much he loved Josie. I replied, equally mindlessly, “Yeah, we love Josie, but we are meat eaters. Who knows? maybe that chicken we just bought was just as cool as her.” My husband didn’t say anything for like five minutes and I totally forgot the matter as soon as I said it. But five minutes later my husband came back with “I guess we will not eat meat then.”

I thought he was kidding, but was I wrong! My husband was a tank commander in the Israeli army, I underestimated how disciplined he could be. I told you, I didn’t know him that well. He had a whole plan going on his own, he made his own meals and he didn’t order meat when we ate out. He started with one vegetarian day, then two days and so on. I was caught in a strange situation then, I suggested it, so I couldn’t say anything bad about it. But I had no intention of becoming vegetarian, yet I couldn’t let him have the upper hand on me like that. In truth, deep down, I can’t help thinking “Holy Crap! This is the guy I married!”

So I became a passionate fact finder, to convince myself that becoming vegetarian is the right thing to do. My husband didn’t need to know much, he thinks we should give animals the benefit of the doubt and that was enough for him. I needed more. That was when I came across an incredible podcast by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau called Vegetarian Food for Thought. If you don’t know it, I highly recommend it, it gives you everything you’ll need to understand veganism and to better appreciate life in general. I love literature, and Colleen regularly reads the most beautiful stories on animals, and on real heroism. I was sold, we didn’t have reasons to be vegans, but my husband and I turned vegans almost instantly. This experience solidified our marriage, we did something meaningful together and now I can say that we are happily married.

Life changed a great deal for me this past year and it is continuing to change, and in completely unexpected ways. Other than my marriage, my relationships with friends and family have evolved drastically as well. I have enough material to write a novel on that, but I will give one big example here. My best friend’s name is Sanaz, and we know each other for more than two decades. Until very recently, I always thought of her as rather slow and uninteresting, it was generally agreed that I was the smart one in our relationship. She was always very calm and I thought, to my shame…dim. Sanaz is Persian, she came from Iran, and she is vegan since she was two and a half. None of her other family members are vegans. In most ways Sanaz is the stereotypical middle child, with two very self-assured sisters, Sanaz was always pale by comparison.

When Sanaz was two and a half years old, she noticed that the meat she was served had a little blood in it, and later in another occasion she saw a lamb slaughtered in the streets of Iran. She refused to eat meat right then, and she won’t even drink milk which is a staple in the middle eastern diet. Unfortunately her parents were not the most supportive, they tried to trick her every chance they have, so at a young age Sanaz became rather suspicious and she had a tendency to internalize her feelings. I am sure it affected her a great deal, how could it not? Being her best friend, I don’t recall ever being supportive over her choice, she was stunned when she heard I turned vegan. So, what kind of blockhead could have someone like that in her life and not see it for twenty years? My only surprise is that she never gave up on me. She has a beautiful baby girl now, there are times when I don't know what to say to her.

My whole view on life has changed too, and I plan to transform my career. A few months ago I took a huge step and quit both my job and school. I was admitted to the Stanford Management Science program and I walked out on it. I don’t know what will happen next, but I am hopeful. My husband and I joke when we see terrible things in the world, which we did not care to see in the past, we would say, "Oh those red pills!" in reference to the Matrix movie. We took the red pills and now we are open to the truth, I am sure some of you out there can identify. No longer the reason, "we have always done it and/or everyone is doing it" is good enough for doing anything!

Oftentimes I wonder, if I had a baby instead of Josie, how different would things be. Maybe the universe is trying to teach me a lesson, I am glad I took the opportunity. Life is truly a gift, through loving my cats, I found that it takes a lot to give life, and to nurture life...I am not so eager to end life anymore. I think about all the animals killed for me in the past and I cry, and I am so happy I finally have enough wisdom to cry.

After all these strange but wonderful events, naturally, I would like to share my stories with the world. This is not a blog about travel or photography or veganism or any topic in particular. It is to document a quarter-midlife crisis gone right. It is nice to wake up in the morning and not feel tired or angry or scared. Most of the time I am just very curious, I am so full of new experiences now, I feel like a child squeezing a ball for the first time and learning what is squishiness and finding it exhilarating. I hope my blog reflects that.

Jackie

Josie and Peter Cottontail