May 2017 – Wishes On Whiskers

Sad but true….

Chris Cornell, 1964-2017

Chris Cornell died early Thursday morning. His band Soundgarden played a show on Wednesday night at the Fox Theater in Detroit. Two hours after the show ended, he was gone.

For two days, I’ve been working on a piece to pay tribute to him, and it’s been a struggle. Usually when I have a problem like this it’s because I’m staring at a blank screen trying to figure out what I want to say. That’s not the problem this time. The problem is I have way too much to say.

I’m not going to sit here and claim to have been a huge fan of Soundgarden. I didn’t dislike them, I just had to take them in small doses. I was a fan of Cornell. I love “Seasons,” the solo song he had on Cameron Crowe’s movie, Singles. It’s a droning acoustic song about isolation and the…

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Eight years ago, when I first moved to this neighborhood, I brought 14 cats with me. More than half of them were being socialized to be re-homed (after spaying/neutering of course). My old neighborhood was overrun with strays and ferals and they were all reproducing like rabbits. I already owned several cats, mostly foster fails, and didn’t plan on keeping too many more.

Seven was my only ginger, and he did not like the other cats. He was more of a dog cat. The people who had him before had dogs and I’m sure he thought he was a dog for a long time. Anyway, after moving here, he decided to run away from home and move in with a family about 6-8 houses down the road. (They have old dogs.) I missed him but since I had so many cats to deal with, I let him go. I spoke with the neighbors and they said he liked living in their garage. Not ideal, but it was his choice.

Now, 7 years later, Seven is trying to come back to me and it’s not working out too well. I recently adopted another neighborhood stray whom unbeknownst to me, he had been battling for the past 4 years. Now that stray, Ozzy, is a permanent part of my household.

I once made the mistake of letting Seven in to eat when Ozzy was in the other room. He came racing into the kitchen and tried to attack him. I grabbed Seven and Ozzy lit into my leg, trying to climb up to get him. Now I have to lock Ozzy in the basement before letting Seven in, and give him a head start back to the neighbor’s garage before letting Ozzy out. The other morning, they sat on opposite sides of the kitchen window, growling at each other. First with Seven outside, and then later, Ozzy outside and Seven inside. I’m back to juggling cats again.