Sorry Substitute

The vet's office sent a sympathy card last week. I cried like a baby.

A lot of things will remind me of that boy. Pictures. His things. Sometimes I'll hear a song that will make me think of him.

I had a dream around a week after we'd said good bye. We were vacationing with the extended family up in the mountains, but I wasn't feeling it, and was off by myself. My dad (still around in the dream world, apparently) came out to find me, and was telling me that mom would really appreciate it if I'd spend some time with the family. I was telling him that I wasn't feeling like it, then I told him, “My f'ing cat died!!!”

I've seen a couple of the neighborhood cats since, but they're not sociable. I have been wanting to be around a friendly cat that I could pet and feel the purrs.

A couple years back, my son had seen a stuffed Halloween cat in a claw machine. He like it enough that he took a picture of it, but didn't try and get it. He said, “I should have tried to get it, it was right on the edge, it would have been easy!!!”

A couple of weeks after we said good bye, he located the same stuffed animal that someone was selling on Ebay.

He bought it, and he's pleased with his purchase!!!

Onto an interesting confluence of events: Last week, my wife's car (Kutcher!) was stalling. I've suspected the fuel pump isn't up to the task, it acts like it's fuel starving sometimes under hard acceleration. I ordered a new one from Rock Auto, and in the meantime, we've been rolling in Scruffy.

Of course, it sits a little lower with the whole crew in it. One thing I should have mentioned in the Car Stuff post, I had fabricated a hanger loop – skid plate rig around the end of the tailpipe. It wasn't fully fleshed out, but I had a couple angles screwed to the floor pan, and a flat with the ends bent up. It would scrape occasionally, but if it wasn't that, it would have been the tailpipe!!! Anyway, on Saturday we were out, and came out of a driveway with a scrape... that just kept on going!!! I pulled over, and the front end had come undone, and the plate was vertical to the ground, wedged into the ground, and the tailpipe just hanging (the inside hanger had come off it's hook, too. That always seems to happen when the outside comes loose). Called a tow truck, and located a muffler shop that could take care of us.

They put a mount almost exactly like the one that the very first side exit exhaust I'd had made up had on the outside, and tacked on a couple washers on the inside hooks to keep the hanger in place. It's solid!!! Bonus, they did it for a reasonable price, I think I've finally found a new exhaust shop!!!

While it was up on the lift, I finally got a good shot of a little repair I'd done to the bottom of the front bumper. It was coming to a point in the middle, where it would drag backing out of the driveway, so I drilled a series of holes and tapped a piece of angle aluminum to flatten the whole area. I'd taken a picture of it when I'd done it, but accidentally deleted it.

But this was the highlight of our trip to the muffler shop!!! The dad told my wife that this cat had recently been dropped off by the shop. There's several feral cats around the area, but this one is domesticated. My wife was sitting out back petting him (or maybe her, I didn't even try and find out), and after the car was done, I pulled around and gave him some pets, too. Got my pets and purrs that I've been craving. I'd walked over towards the back of the parked cars there, and he came right over to me!!!

He had the softest, silky fur, and those orange eyes!!! My wife was wondering what you'd name a cat like that, and every time I see a black & white cat like this, I always think “Domino”. My son makes mention of a character from Fallout: New Vegas, Dean Domino, the King of Swing!!! Of course, if you have a pet, you need a one syllable name, so Dean works, or you could call him “D. D.” for brevity's sake. He seemed to have some kind of bump – protrusion on one of his flanks, and when I touched it, he meowed, so he might have some kind of injury.

Later on in the day, when we got home my wife was tidying up and found her cat ears!!!