I was really looking forward to today, gang.

A Sunday off, a sunny day, and the temperature is going up into the 50s (Fahrenheit)!!

I have 9 documents that I have to begin editing today for the tv series proposal package. And Peitor is enroute to Iowa, so it will be a quiet day here.

Last night, I had a really fun time watching a couple reruns of “Castle”. I knew I had liked the show a lot, back when I had actual cable television and watched regular TV all the time. But I couldn’t really remember what the show was about.

So I just randomly tuned in to Season 3, and immediately recalled why I had liked it so much, What a fun show — great acting and great writing. And just delightful characters.

I had a nice evening, after having spent another sort of intense day with the 94-year-old Japanese client. Not a bad day, it just gets so intense — this line between his incredible life, and this vague sort of twilight area that he spends reliving it all with me, as he waits to “go upstairs,” as he puts it, “to be with his wife”.

Here’s a photo of his favorite hotel in Tokyo, when he lived there in the 1970s. It was an iconic hotel that was torn down in 2015. Hotel Okura:

Anyway. I always enjoy every moment with him, but it is always intense for me — this eventual ending of his beautiful life.

So I was happy to get home yesterday afternoon — it was sunny yesterday, too, and all the snow & ice were melting.

The 3 outdoor cats who live on my porch were having a great day — frolicking in the sunshine, and just spending time outside of their little houses.

I fed them their dinners, then had my own. And when I was turning out the kitchen lights to head upstairs, the sun was setting and I saw Big Blackie in his favorite porch chair, just staring out at the sunset.

You may recall that this past summer, a tornado touched down in our town, and Big Blackie (I don’t know what his real name was, but I have 2 stray black cats — a big one and a little one). Anyway, he was on death’s door when he suddenly showed up on my porch one day, to eat some of KonTiki’s food that I’d set out.

I had never seen a cat in such bad shape — he was literally a walking skeleton, covered in flies, and had been seriously injured by the tornado. I nursed him back to health and the chair on my kitchen porch became his new permanent home.

Looking at him last evening through the window — so healthy now, so content, so peaceful; the sun setting on what had been a beautiful day.

Around 4:30 this morning, I woke and glanced at my phone, and saw that my neighbor (the ones who have been such a blessing to me) had texted during the night to say that one of my cats had been killed by a car. They had found the cat in the road when they were out walking their dog around 11PM.

I did not know which cat. I threw on my robe and slippers and ran downstairs and went out into the incredibly dark and peaceful and star-filled freezing cold morning to find which cat was missing. I immediately saw that my neighbors had gotten Big Blackie out of the road and laid him in the grass in front of my kitchen porch.

I was so grateful to them for taking him out of the road. Not only did it spare me from having to do that, but it also kept him from getting run over multiple times.

Anyway, it was heartbreaking, but I immediately thought to myself that he died free, you know? He was happy, healthy, loved. And gone in an instant.

Here he was, out in my backyard last August, on the mend but still really thin:

I will miss him so much, but it was such a blessing, having that cat in my life for that brief, happy time.

And my neighbors continue to bless me — the husband texted me to say he had the day off and would bury Big Blackie for me.

So on we go, gang.

This idea of life and death — I have not only lost 3 cats in the last 8 months, but of course my Dad died, too, and that favorite client of mine. And in my work-life, I’m surrounded by people getting ready to pass over, who all have such wonderful stories to tell me about their long-lived lives.

Well, I have to get to that editing now.

Enjoy your Sunday, wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya.

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The theme song from the first movie that ever made me cry. I saw “Born Free” at the drive-in with my family when I was 6 years old. I have always just adored animals.