Noises, off and on and from cats

When I moved away from Wichita Falls some years ago, I thought I would never be able to do another show at Backdoor theatre again. That's my home theatre, where I learned anything I know about acting or being in a show. In 2004 I moved to Midland TX, where I learned to treasure Midland Community Theatre and the friends I made there. Now I live in the Houston area, and while I won't sell the theatres here short - they do set high standards - it's really hard to do theatre when you have to drive 45 minutes each way for rehearsals because the theatres are so far apart here.

But thanks to my best friend still trapped in the Falls, who allowed me to live in his home for a couple of months for rehearsals and performances, I was able to audition for, and have a role in, the funniest play ever written, Noises Off! (The title is supposed to have an exclamation point, you see).

I did that show twelve years ago, playing Freddy/Phillip, but the part I always wanted more than any other was Lloyd, the director, who speaks such lines as "No, Freddy, we have several minutes left before we open." This time, I got the part I wanted most. But beyond that, I was privileged to work once again with my favorite director, Gare Brundidge, and with my best friend, Dave. The downside was that I had to drive between Houston and Wichita Falls once the show went up. But then, I did some calculating, and I think I actually drove fewer miles doing that than by making the round trip for every rehearsal in Houston.

An added benefit was that Dave served as my personal trainer. When I stood on the stage for the audition, I was offering 235 pounds of mass to the gravity of this planet. I now weigh around 200 pounds, give or take a kilo here or there. Granted, when you perform in Noises Off!, you do get your exercise - I learned that twelve years ago - but most of it was improved diet and my 90+ minute walk each day.

So now I'm back home, and glad to be here, and the Houston heat and humidity is beginning to return. The real heat is actually in July and August, but June is at least warm, though not as warm as Wichita Falls.

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Our cat, Pearl, is dying.

Some of you know about Pearl, having met her. We named her Pearl because she was born on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and because she is sort of pearl-colored, or cream. You can see by the picture she is one pretty cat -or she was when she was younger and healthier. Age robs cats of all but their inner beauty, too, just like most people. Yes, there are exceptions.

We have been trying to deal with a thyroid tumor (some cream in the ears apparently keeps that in check), impending renal failure (which has been impending for about ten years, and which I suspect we never really had to worry about), and some inconvenient seizures (they had something for that, too), but the last week or so she has quit eating and excreting - that means pooping, for you non-medical types out there. We took her in to see if there was some blockage that could be removed, but it turns out that her lack of appetite has more to do with the fact that she has cancer. How's that for irony? We move here to work for M. D. Anderson, the cancer center, and our cat gets cancer. So now she's on steroids to improve her appetite, and to make her feel generally better, but we are now considering her to be in Home Hospice for kitties - she is dying, and we have to figure out when the right moment is to have her put down. At what point is starvation far enough along to end it all? When is her life no longer worth prolonging? If she were human, the answer would be more clear - you keep people alive as long as you can, as comfortably as you can. But with a cat? A cat who can't even tell you if it hurts? I don't want to make that choice.

We have already decided not to have any more pets. Life without a pet is going to be radically different - beyond the expenses we will be relieved of, from vet bills to food and litter, there will be the things we did or didn't do solely because we had to accommodate the cat. We don't use actual bath mats because cute little Pearl peed on them when we did. We don't use floor mats just inside the front door for the same reason. We carefully check before we open a door to make sure she doesn't get out and get eaten by an alligator. We keep three litter boxes throughout the house to make sure she doesn't have to suffer any inconvenience when she needs to empty her little kitty bladder. Until recently, we couldn't eat without saving some for the cat, especially if chicken or tuna is involved. We are agreed that life without Pearl will be better and more convenient. Yet there is still the fact that we have had that cat for over 17 years, and we expect her to jump on the bed at night time and get in the way, we expect her to follow us into the kitchen and beg for food and get underfoot, we expect her to try to kill us as we go up or down the stairs.

It's going to be a different life. But for now, we have to keep that cat as comfortable and happy as we can, because it's either that or have her put down sooner. And we want to postpone that as long as we can.