Shelter Cats and Redemption

This week I commemorate two years since Tyler crossed the Rainbow bridge.  With that comes a flood of memories, both joyous and painful.   Here's one I am eternally grateful to have caught on my phone's camera . It was exactly two years ago today that Tyler experienced the joy of jumping into an empty garbage can for the final time. July 26th, 2014. Two years ago I was dabbling with the idea of converting to Christianity.  A lifetime of disillusionment with Judaism, coupled with a rather severe personal crisis around my 40th birthday (I'm not getting into it now) sought me to seek religion from.....shall we say.....a different angle? I started attending a church, reading the bible (an app version of the bible of course) and gave it a serious shot, culminating with my baptism exactly 2 years ago today on a beach on the north shore of Long Island.  It was kind of a group baptism thing, I was one of 15 or 20 people who, one by one, accepted Christ and a...

A summer update and my current dynamic feline duo! Living with Ashley the Italian chef means.....yup.....a garden.  Well, pots all along our back stoop anyway.  Everything you can imagine is planted in pots all over the place and are watered and cared for quite well.  I being famous for killing plants just by looking at them means I stay totally out of this whole garden thing. Tyler used to use plants as his own personal litter box.  My mother always thought she had a green thumb and for the most part she did.  All through our large Long Island home were large potted trees and large plants, all cat safe of course.  Safe, that is, except for the soil.  It wasn't too long after Tyler came to live with me that each and every one of those trees ended up dying off once he started.....popping a squat. Citrus spray, pebbles covering up the soil, nothing helped!  To Tyler, a plant was an excuse to take a leak!  It was hard to get annoyed with him...