I stopped the "Grendel and Me" columns a few years ago before age and senility awarded me with total recall of the distant past, and before I became an ancient mariner hooking unsuspecting wedding guests with supernaturally compelling sea tales. But I have one last hurrah as a tribute of farewell to my good and faithful friend and constant companion of 16 years, Grendel. The end came relatively quickly since he was diagnosed with feline chronic renal failure (CRF), not an uncommon way cfr cats to go. I gave him subcutaneous fluids for about six weeks at which time he keeled over one day and could sustain life no more. I was with him at the end where the vet ended his suffering gently and compassionately in my arms. Many of us loose our pets and understand the vacuum left by such a loss, but I find it is more bearable to remember all the hours we spent together happy each with the other. My wife, Gail, suffers this loss as much as I, and together we heal. As for Grendel, in the words of the Bard, "The rest is silence."
I was talking to Grendel the other day during one of those Halcyon spring days of promise recently. We were on a sortie of the rear perimeter, the second of the morning, (it was that nice out) and like the flora around us Grendel was rejuvenating. He was tracking scent trails around, and when he came to one of particular interest he began to have a splendid wallow, squirming and writhing in the glorious wafts of what I can only guess was a gloriously available queen. This from a cat that thinks a stinky can of fish cat food smells delicious. I could only be grateful that my own senses could not pick up on his delight.
Above his head the forsythia bush was at the precipice of having its little green buds burst into bright yellow petals. In the branches of the trees squirrels were raging about the branches in a frenzied seasonal pursuit. The air was thick with the pungent aroma of earth working out of its cold hardness. I was actually not bundled up in a coat.
We stayed out a little longer that day, who wouldn’t; we might have lingered a bit more but for some young boys walking noisily home from middle school. We are in fenced community near the end of a block that if allowed to extend would tee into a fairly well traveled street. Pedestrians are about seventy yards from where we usually walk. I would think that much distance would make the little G-guy comfortable and safe, but upon seeing anyone there, except women, he scurries home in great trepidation. Yet, if those same people were to walk on our street within ten yards of him, he is not bothered.
“Boo,” I said, “They’re a mile away. Why are you so nervous?”
“Can’t be too careful, Boss. Loud young boys are not always a cat’s best friend.”
“But they’re nowhere near you,” I offered lamely.
“The way I like it. What if I have them on one side and a UPS truck barreling down at me from the other? What then? Thanks, Boss, but one problem at a time. It’s a lot easier do deal with than a bunch.”
“True, true.” How could I, a diver, quarrel with that?
A second stage reg. gets funky just as you reach the reach the deck of the 851. Use the octo, apprise your buddy, and continue the dive? I have. Grendel wouldn’t.
On a night dive one of you lights dies. Notify your buddy and abort? I wouldn’t. Grendel would.
A member of your dive team points out you have a slight bubble trail coming from your first stage. Abort and return? Or continue knowing there are plenty of octos. in the group. I aborted. So would Grendel.
You find on your last dive that your tank has only 1900cf. It’s a 70’dive to a wreck you have been wanting to see for a long time. Plan on a short dive and go for it? I wouldn’t. Neither would Grendel.
You’re diving a wreck with a known current. Not usually a problem since you’re familiar with it, but you notice a really worn fin strap. Grendel wouldn’t.
It’s not that cats have nine lives; it’s just that they are much more judicious about the one they have.
I was talking to Grendel the other day, because there was a lull in my efforts to figure out my taxes. I made the mistake of telling him that his life was easy.
“All you have to do is go to your bowl and eat. You don’t even have to hunt.”
“Hunting is not work, Boss, it’s one of the great pleasures of felinity.” (Yes, that’s actually a word.) “Sort of like your scuba diving. A coral reef to you is like a pulchritudinous chipmunk to me.”
“Besides, you don’t hunt. Who fills your bowl?”
“I don’t eat out of a bowl.”
“Uh, Boss; I’m speaking metaphorically.” (Honestly, the cats of English teachers!)
“Oh, I get it; you mean where do I get my sustenance?”
“Got it, Boss.”
“Well, I just go to the bank at the end of the month and…”
“Your bowl is full, metaphorically of course?”
“I guess, if you put it that way.”
“And you don’t hunt any more?”
“You could say that.”
“So…who are you to tell me about my easy life?”
“Point taken...”
His eyes drooped shut and I knew this conversation was over. So here I am compared to a lazy cat with little argument to deny it. Except that I still have to do my taxes, and even that is not possible at the moment because of his highness’s choice of a bed. And he rolphed up his breakfast on my desk and I’ll have to do a second cleaning to get rid of the smell, and take out the trash, and go shopping, and make dinner and…I need a nap.
Accepting the honor of Diver of the Year Grendel uses his cheek glands to scent his trophy.
I was talking to Grendel the other day upon presenting him with the sterling and crystal love cup for “Diverse of the Year”, and I must confess that he was as diverse as any recipient that has ever been so awarded. I knew it would be as helpless to explain why we give awards like this to each other as it would be to explain to Gulliver why Lilliputians gave each other bits of colored string for athletic prowess. However, he has never been an ingrate, so he accepted the empty bowl with grace.
By now you already know his reaction, so I might take a moment to reflect on why last month was devoid of any articles of our antics.
As you know I elected to get a gnu gnee, a decision fraught with the confidence that it was a minor gnuisance quickly dispatched without breaking stride. As you might have observed at the January meeting it was none of the above. It was, in fact still is, a lot more than expected. You’ve all heard the nurse say, “You may feel a little pinch.” Yeah, right.
Thus I thought I might recall some of the process for you, should you have to make a similar decision. At some point in the narrative drugs were introduced, but I assure you my observations are astute and as real as anything I have heretofore narrated in this Chautauqua previously.
Let’s begin this in the shower at 0400 where I scrub myself with some vile pink liquid soap that smells of unburied death, and follow it up with a drive to a hospital affiliated with a university to remain unnamed. For company there was my driver/wife who is not keen on being subjected to other living things at this hour. She was as quiet as a cobra and just as venomous. I was as quiet as a mouse for a different reason.
My next memory is of being in some kind of tent with cloth walls and women swarming around me mostly looking for places to stick needles. See, “You may feel a little pinch” above. The one that sticks in mind was trying to stuff a knitting needle sized hypodermic into a vein she suspected was just under the skin. She kept poking at it and I swear the little thing was squirming under the dermis trying to avoid being skewered like a barbecued sausage.
But, alas, she finally lanced it, and before she could do anything, it shook itself loose and started hemorrhage subcutaneously until a large spot appeared just below the skin looking a lot like the continent of Australia. Upon closer examination my eyes gaped at a perfect rendition of Mary mother of… I postponed any mention of this earlier, as I feared some overzealous Ebayer might have designs on a quick profit at my expense whereupon I could loose some skin or worse a treasured appendage.
“Gee”, sayeth the phlebotomist or hippopotamus or whatever she was, “I’ll have to find another vein.”
“Nay, quoth I, “You’ll have to find another nurse. Don’t touch me again.” A brave stand I thought at the time.
Meanwhile, another hippopotamus managed to secure another vein on my other arm and I started to feel a little woozy, a loss of blood thought or maybe I’ve been slipped a mickey and started to worry about waking on a slow freighter bound for Shanghi.
This fear of being Shanghied was reinforced by the feeling of traveling feet first, like a luge, until I struggled toward the light only to find myself in a room crowded with hitech equipment and a bunch of terrorists dressed in light green robes and masks and head gear. They stood around with their gloved hands perched up like waiting vultures. I remember being tied down with my arms straight out like I was on a cross. This isn’t going well was my final thought, as I sank rapidly into a twisting vortex.
Well, all’s well that ends well, as my next observation was of my rescuers hustling me into a hospital room, but that’s another story.
Meanwhile Grendel walked across a warm sunbeam and collapsed on the rug for an instant snooze as I might think some readers have done by now.
Friday, November 27, 2009
GRENDEL AND ME (1109) Bernie Moore
I hate cute kits.
I was talking to Grendel the other day. We were on a recon patrol and he chanced upon a delicious pheromone enhanced bush. He sampled it rapturously with his mouth open (cats have a “Jacobson’s organ” in the roof of their mouths specially designed for such information. I may have incorrectly referred to it as a “Cooper’s gland in a previous post.) He stood frozen for a while as the delights of the encounter enveloped him.
“Boss, you ought to smell this pXXXX.”
Hereupon I had to correct his political.
“You can’t use that word in polite company.”
“You’re polite company?”
“Irrelevant” You know this conversation may be recorded for quality control and customer service.”
“You humans abuse language. Why can’t you just say what you mean? “
“Because there are some who say what is acceptable and what is not.
“Another thing,” quoth he, “You humans use language to hurt each other. Why, if you want to hurt somebody, not just wrack their faces with your claws?”
At which point he looked at my recently manicured (self) fingernails and sighed, “Never mind. Still, we use language to warn others so they don’t get hurt. If they don’t heed the warning then the consequence is on them. And we also use musical language to serenade our… now what am I supposed to say here?”
“Well, I have heard that humans that run dating services for amorous felines call the ladies Queens.”
“Queens?That’s rich. Especially when you consider what those pimps call female dogs.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” I replied sternly, pulling his leash away from the bush as he fell into a funk of brooding silence.
But it got me thinking about odors; and especially the ones of fall. There was a faint scent of crushed dried leaves about which stirred memories of long ago autumnal rituals. The sounds and smells of another era.
When fall meant falling leaves and the sound of the rakes that herded them to the side of the road where we burned them. Sometimes we created mountainous ranges the length of our property and started the fire on one end and coaxed it to the other with the rake. For safety, there was the garden hose, rubber of course, and no recollection of ensuing disasters. Let’s face it; fire is fun, and we loved the rituals that nurtured it to our own ends.
Sometimes the burning leaves had a pissy smell to them, but I don’t remember whether it was while they were burning or just rotting.
Sometimes in early the morning stillness I could smell the labors of a distant raker, way out of earshot, but within range of the drifting currents of air.
Today it’s quite a different story. The smells come from the roaring exhausts of powerful internal combustion engines mounted on the backs of hardy young men blowing leaves at hurricane force. When all the leaves have been herded streetside a behemoth juggernaut lumbers up the street wailing like thousand Banshees, sucking up everything into a two foot maw.
The days of sitting on front porches in the evening watching the neighbors go by is so archaic we don’t have front porches any more; besides the neighbors go by so fast you can only recognize the vehicle not the people in it.
Though much is gained; much is lost. I wouldn’t mind a fall’s afternoon scraping leaves into a pile and the ceremony of burning. Though Grendel’s sense of smell is 14 times greater than mine I don’t think he gains that much. Besides he will never know the scent of a reef. Life has its compensations, eh, Teddy?
Friday, September 11, 2009
GRENDEL AND ME (0909) Bernie Moore
I was talking to Grendel the other day, and the discussion was about the paucity of chipmunks and other cat sized game upon which he practices his combat skills. “Do you remember the folk song about the missing flowers?” he queried. “Where Have all the Flowers Gone?” I asked. “Yeah, that’s the one. How did it go?” “Well. I think I can summarize it without subjecting your sensitive ears to my blaring basso.” Where have all the flowers gone?... Girls have picked them every one…Where have all the young girls gone?... Taken husbands every one... Where have all the young men gone?... Gone for soldiers every one... Where have all the soldiers gone?... Gone to graveyards every one... Where have all the graveyards gone?... Covered with flowers every one. When will they ever learn?Pete Seeger “Yeah, that’s the one.”“You know, it makes me wonder,” He pensed. (figure it out; it’s not in the dictionary.)“Where have all the chipmunks gone?”
I thought about it awhile. Our hunting trips have been barren for quite a while. It sort of reminded me of Beowulf when our hero tracks down the dragon that is about to destroy him. He comes upon a deserted castle with its cellars full of gold and treasures, taken over by the dragon when the last of its race succumbed in honorable combat. Honor was served but the race became extinct.The silent castle bore nothing but the sleeping dragon who was content with his treasures and would have remained so for eons had it not been for some fool servant who stole a bejeweled cup for his angry master. When the dragon found this bit of his treasure gone he began warring on Man, thus prompting the aging Beowulf to save his people one last time. They both won; they both lost, and monster and hero passed into mythical history. All quests must end, and the ending too often is tragic, but some are just melancholy as in the case of the hero who outlives his need. Grendel has rid the neighborhood of cute little vermin, and he wanders his turf in search of his raison’d’etre, a pointless quest but to no avail, a Don Quixote without even a windmill to tilt at. If there is a heroic quality in each of us it is in the pursuits of our youthful goals. The struggles, anxieties, and (if you please) the blood sweat and tears of our lives define who we are: some take on dragons, some the niches, small and large of what has to be done to create a viable society. There comes a time when you put down the sword or pass it on to a youth, full of dreams and aspirations. I do not think Grendel is saddened by his success; he is actively vigilant, prowling on the end of a leash, searching under leaves, peering into dark crevasse, and scenting the air for opportunity. He remains diligent in spite of his barren landscape. It is difficult to strive without adversaries, whatever form they take, but he does so not because of some learned value, but because he is hard wired to. Still, I have to admire his tenacity. He teaches by example.I dare say that whatever medals are due me from my life are all in; there will be no more. My days are filled with indulgences only dreamed of while I struggled through the decades. My chipmunks are gone. The race is won or lost; it really doesn’t matter any more. I feel like I’ve just finished a 10 k race, tired but elated from the exertion. When are we more alive then after a great effort? At the end of a soirée we return to the house and he has a tuna or a salmon snack, (he detests chicken and other fowl) and then on to a well earned nap prefaced by a tongue washing and a good smooching from his page. Life is good. What is sweeter than a hot bath and a well earned rest?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Grendel and Me
(September ’09)Bernie
Mug Shot
I was talking to Grendel the other day and we discussed our policy of not publishing during the dog days of summer, but as the discourse unfurled, and with the threat again of Uncle Norm abdicating, we decided to give it a doggone try. We discussed poetry, but August verse is just so much doggerel, so it’s back to prose.
So here we are with Grendel’s 11th birthday just around the corner and mine not too far behind walking through the jungle: he with his karate black pajamas on and me in short sleeves and walking shorts. He is also wearing a Mark II Combat Harness with Seeing Eye Leash with which he drags me through the brambles. As if that weren’t enough it’s humid and the mosquitoes are starving. All you need is to have one skeeter land on you and the next twenty are imaginary, but just as troublesome.
There are stations where he prefers to sit while I stand there smacking my exposed skin while trying to pass the leash from hand to hand. He looks up at me and sighs. I’m making far too much noise for his stealthy reconnoitering.
Our walks are shorter now; he has just about driven all the vermin from our unit. He goes to the former haunts of the displaced critters and sniffs around, but here is no action, no scent. He reaches down to his shoulder in an abandoned chipmunk’s hole but only half heartedly, almost as a bit of practice. Nothing. He stares at carpets of leaves and looks for the tell-tale shifting of twigs and debris that indicates a swale trough which mice flow. Nothing.
Occasionally a ladycat (Herein I note that cats do not have a pejorative word for the female of the species) will meander by and leave a bit of pee mail which he reads voraciously and then rubs his cheeks in. It’s what you gotta do if you don’ have a thumb-drive. Once done, he sues for leave to track her and offer his comfort, but, alas, I no can do.
While we are not yet into fall, when the world in New England turns on us, and summer forsakes us for other parts of the planet, we still are in a rapidly changing stretch. Children abandon the streets and fill their classrooms, gardeners are filling their arms, and the world is awash in zucchini, though native tomatoes have taken a beating.
It’s an enjoyable period for divers, though as the water is as warm as it’s going to get for a while. Some bold tropicals who heeded not their mothers will find themselves in water that chills faster than they can flee. Who knows? They may form a tougher breed that can survive the rigors of New England like those parakeets that have evolved on the light poles of Bridgeport. The water gets a little clearer, even at Fort Wetherill and vis is almost acceptable.
And of course the closing of summer brings on elections for Innerspace Explorers. The veteran officers are seeking relief. Too long have they been holding things together. It’s time to pass the leadership on to younger members with newer ideas and boundless energy. (OK mebbe not “boundless”.) In particular we need a new editor for the newsletter. It’s not a difficult job, but it does grab a little time at the end of the month. Our presidents are repeating terms, our treasurer has never been challenged, our webmonster has been so forever, our secretary is sometimes wearing two hats, our VPs are like the will’o’the wisps in the swamp. Or is that Wills’o’the wisp?“Ve need new bloohd! Please consider stepping up. We have been relying on the kindness of the elders for too long. Stand and deliver!
