Kate's Queen City Notes

This post is about putting my cat to sleep, and the events leading up to it. There are also some fond memories here. Feel free to stop reading if you don’t want to hear some self-indulgent pet owner wax on about their animal like most people blab about their babies.

Nov 2012
Fargo had been sick for the last 9 months. She suffered considerable weight loss and increased lethargy. After several vet visits, the vet suspected that she had diminished kidney function. He explained that this would lead to kidney failure, and this disease would kill her. I understood that her time was limited.

Spring 1997
Fargo was a gift for my 21st birthday from my college roommates. *Pets are never good gifts. But in this particular case, it worked out.* She was my last choice of the litter of kittens that I had to pick from. While I was chasing her siblings, 8 week old Fargo marched up to my roommate and mewed to be picked up. My roommate announced that she had our cat.

Dec. 12 2012
Fargo had been a little listless, but otherwise ok. I left for the day.

Late 1997
Kitten Fargo had some peculiar habits. She would regularly shred any available paper products during the few moments in which none of my 5 roommates were at home. I would return home to find that an internal snow storm of shredded paper had descended upon our home, winter storm Fargo. When deprived of any loose rolls of toilet paper or paper towels, she would turn to potatoes. Potatoes would be scattered about the house with teeny kitten teeth marks in them.

Dec 12 2012
I returned home at 7pm to find that Fargo couldn’t walk or stand without assistance. She clearly recognized me, and would purr when I talked to her and pet her. I gently arranged her on her favorite pillow, and spent the rest of the night with her. I told her about all stuff we did together, which I am sure was more of a comfort to me than to her.

1998
Fargo liked to climb trees. She resembled a huge black squirrel running up tree trunks. She also had no qualms about jumping on the gas stove when burners were on. She seems displeased when I snatched her up and dowsed her with water in the sink. I don’t think she noticed her singed fur. She liked walks the park; she didn’t like the yellow lab bounding up to her to make friends. She liked throwing-up on my roommate’s bed. She loved escaping, but she would happily come to me when I noticed her absence and called for her.

Dec 13 2012
Fargo started seizing late in the evening. I believe that at some point in the night the seizures caused her to lose her higher brain functions. I called the vet in the morning and set our appointment. I spent the day with her.

1999- through early 2012
Fargo saw me come out. She saw me through every break-up and disappointment; she saw me through every success and achievement. She has moved with me from Clifton to Prospect Hill to Northside to Clifton to Prospect Hill to OTR to Hyde Park to Norwood to Downtown. She has been a consistent fuzzy companion for almost all of my adult life.

Dec 13 2012
We made it to the vet’s office. The vet asked what I was thinking we should do. I said it was time to put her to sleep. He agreed. It wasn’t a difficult choice. She was just a shell of her former self. The vet was very kind. Jenn and I stayed with her until she was gone.

I am at once profoundly sad and thankful. She was a wonderful pet. I will miss her dearly.

The Southgate House, a local music venue, closed for the last time on New Year’s Eve. The historic building housed a large two-level ballroom for regional/national acts, a mid-sized Parlor complete with a full bar, and a small barroom for duos and small bands. The venue offered free live music every night in the barroom, and provided a large venue for artists who prefer not to sign their lives over to TicketMaster or Live Nation. 

The ballroom has hosted NOFX, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, The Queers, They Might Be Giants, The Black Keys and many other popular indie bands. The venue is closing due to a dispute among the family that owns the historic building that houses the venue. I take comfort in this over alternative reasons for the business to end, such as a lack of support from the community. 

The family plans on opening the venue in another location soon. Although no confirmed announcements have been made, the rumors abound. There is talk that the new venue will remain in Newport and open in another historic building as early as February of 2012. I am hopeful that this gaping hole in the local music scene will be filled so quickly. 

I’ve seen too many acts there to list. Not only will my memory fail me, but typing the list would exhaust my fingers. I will focus on the highlights. My favorite shows there were put on by DeVotchka,  The Seedy Seeds, The Heartless Bastards, Mates of States, Jupiter One, the now defunct Young Republic, She Wants Revenge and Bad Veins. The DeVotchka show I count among my favorite shows of all time. I was transported to a musical bliss state for which I have no words to adequately describe it. 

The Seedy Seeds gave me my last great show at the venue. The show was packed. We managed to get in front of the stage. They played a couple of originals about The Southgate House, one was an ode to their signature shot the Tommy Gun, Jameson with a pickle juice chaser. The mood at the show was that of a joyful celebration of all the great memories housed in that building. They wrapped up the show with a cover of “I’m Sailing Away”. They invited the audience on stage to contribute to the song. The stage was overwhelmed with lusty singers, their faces bright and shining with joy. It was a beautiful last moment in a place that had so many beautiful moments over the years.

Thanks to The Seedy Seeds. Thanks to the people who worked hard to make The Southgate House what it was. Thank you for your commitment to music. I look forward to your next work.   

Of my Christmas vacation goals I have been most successful at reading books. But that’s not to say that I won’t accomplish all that I have set out to do. I have already done lots of cooking, as planned. I have also played my guitar enough to have new callouses. I am pretty sure that I will have Carol of the Bells knocked out by the time I start back to work. 

Thus far I have read, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer and 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I just started Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman. I have to admit that as compared to the others, I practically flew through 11/22/63; I was driven to late night reading due to King’s writing style and the suspense of the story.

Slaughterhouse 5 and The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals were a little more tricky to get through. Both are about mentally and emotionally fatiguing aspects of war. So the very subject matter makes them a little more difficult to read for hours on end. Plus, Mayer’s book is packed with quotes and winds through the bureaucratic labyrinth that is Washington DC.

Both books foisted difficult thoughts about war on my mind. They both hold in the light that which we would rather ignore: human cruelty. I found Mayer’s book slightly more challenging in this regard due to my being of voting age when our country engaged in the actions described. Most of Mayer’s book is about the legal wrangling that took place to enable the CIA and military to torture suspected terrorists. While she describes what some of what the detainees claimed to have suffered, the language of torture is often spoken through clinical, antiseptic legal jargon. There’s something so chilling about this.

I like all of these books for different reasons. It’s time to start on Thinking Fast and Slow.