Val RIP 1996 - 2013

Well, people, now I am petless. For the first time since 1986, I do not have a pet. It’s weird. It’s sad. It’s oddly freeing, too.

Before I write about my cat, Val, I wanted to say a few things. I am about to embark on a publicity tour for my book, “If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother” which has been published by Simon & Schuster. I go to New York next week, and to Los Angeles the next week. I’m doing a lot of publicity, which is nice. A lot more than I remember doing for my last book. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the book will be received well. I’m really proud of it and I hope people connect with my book.

I usually list the movies I watched in the last month and the books I read. But now I need to do two months of lists, and I became un-hinged to my tracking system, with all the Sturm und Drang over getting the book out. I can’t remember what movies I watched. All that comes to mind off the top of my head is that I watched the entire oeuvre of Agnes Varda - every film she made. This was fantastic and inspiring and maybe even life-changing. I am an Agnes Varda nut now! I don’t know why I wasn’t turned onto her before.

Another memorable day involving film was with my mother-in-law, Norma. Norma came here from Los Angeles for a few days in February so she could record her part of my book for the audio version of the material. We had one day free to hang out together. We began a friendly but spirited argument about Dr. Oz, the TV doctor who Oprah made famous and who now has his own popular show.

We both had just read the profile in the New Yorker about Oz. Michael Specter: Is Dr. Oz Doing More Harm Than Good? : The New Yorker Our argument was this: I think Dr. Oz is creepy but started out sincere and principled. Norma thinks he is successful because he is so creepy and was never principled and hungry narcissists make it big because that’s who makes it big! It’s a requirement. I think you can be wildly popular like Dr. Oz and be principled and ethical, but it’s rare.

That was the gist of our argument.

Then, just coincidentally - because I got the Elia Kazan box set of films, we watched A Face In the Crowd. This is the film starring Andy Griffith as a southern singer who becomes an enormous sensation and descends (or if you are Norma, you think he was already this way to begin with) into megalomania. It was such a serendipitous afternoon - the Dr. Oz discussion and A Face in the Crowd! I highly recommend this combination for an afternoon. It will knock your socks off.

And the advertising part of it - what the character Lonesome Rhodes endorses in the film… And when you see what Dr. Oz pushes endorses. Well, people, it’ll give you tingles.

I think I’m going to start a movie page and separate book page on my new website. Then, I’ll make my lists that way instead of all together and monthly. I like how Lisa Hazen (my fantastic web-designer) has formatted these pages and I think it would be good to have one dedicated to film and one dedicated to books - my two favorite types of art. Well, besides art. Y’know, paintings. And sculpture. Ha. I can’t do the hierarchy.

Oh. Books, by the way.

I just finished Citizen Vince, by Jess Walters. Now I’m reading his non-fiction book, Ruby Ridge. What a wonderful writer! I really wish my dad was alive to have been able to read Citizen Vince, a mystery which is partially set in Spokane.

I’m also in the middle of two other books, which is so wrong! I try not to do this. One is An Intimate History of Humanity, by Theodore Zeldin. This book is really nutty and surreal and I think pretty enlightening, but I’m not sure yet as I just started it. The other is The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. His writing takes my breath away. I’m not saying that hyperbolically. Seriously, I gasp for air at his sentences.

But mostly I am angry with myself, because several years ago I made a rule about reading only one book at a time and it was a very successful personal rule. This is because it reduced the number of books I started and then didn’t finish. But like with a diet, I slip up now and again, and right now is one of those times….

Now, before I write about my lovely cat, Val. I wanted to say this as well. We made a little film of the Jill & Julia show in January. We were trying to get the website up and launched by the time my book came out, but it’s taking a wee bit longer to get it all together. Last week, however, Jill and I did the sound editing for the show (well, Jill - and Heather, our producer and director mostly did it while I watched…) and it’s pretty good! I’m very proud of our little film. I hope that by the end of April it’s all up and running.

The other exciting thing is that people can now download Letting Go of God off my own (this!) website. This is really cool. I love that I am now able to do this. All of this is inspired by Louis C.K. by the way. And speaking of fantastic and hilarious comics, I discovered a great one this week online, whom I will mention. Her name is Emily Heller and she was on Conan last week. I saw this first on the Laugh Button.com.

Here’s the link: Emily Heller Stand-Up 03/26/13

Wow, Emily is sooooo funny. Great stuff.

Okay, now I want to reprint what I wrote about Val a few weeks ago. Here it is:

About Val

I got my cat Val in Los Angeles in 1996. I already had three cats then.

One Sunday, I was walking home from Larchmont Blvd, and as usual I passed the pet store. They were having a “Pet Adoption Day” and as it was very early, they were just setting up. I controlled my desire to look at the kittens they already had in cages.

A hundred feet past the pet store, however, a guy was getting out of his car with a box of kittens. We made eye contact and I asked if I could look at the little critters. He told me how he had a pregnant stray cat get herself underneath his porch steps and have her litter. He lived in Echo Park. He said he read about the pet fair, and decided, since the kittens were six weeks old, to bring them all in. I reached into the box and picked up the smallest cat who was cowering in the corner. She was so small, she easily fit into the palm of my hand. I told they guy that I had three other, older cats at home, but I wanted to take this smallest cat. He shrugged and said, “Sure.”

I put the kitten into my pocket, she was that small. I started to walk towards my house.

I could hear some commotion behind me. The guy who had the box of kittens was being admonished by a worker at the pet store. She was saying something like, “You can’t just give someone a cat on the street! They have to promise to get the cat fixed, and all the shots and sign a paper!” I was far enough away that I could pretend that I didn’t hear the conversation. I knew I would do all those things. I had a split second where I was torn between stopping and continuing the walk home. I continued to walk. I heard someone say, “Oh, well, just forget her. Come into the store.”

So this is how Val came to be in my care. I thought Rita, my older female cat at the time, would reject Val. But I figured the male cats would tolerate her. But Rita immediately went into nursing/mommy mode. Val would suck on her nipples and Rita would groom her. It was sweet and poignant.

Rita, along with Frank and Gus - the other cats - died long ago, Rita over ten years ago. But Val kept chugging along. She stayed really small. Her top weight was six pounds. Just before she died she got down to 4 pounds.

She was very loving, and when I wrote in my office she liked to sit on my lap, or stare obstructively into the computer screen. She had a squeaky meow. She was not a short-haired cat, and that made her my first in the cat department. She had longish hair that I would shave off in the summer. She loved the feel of the electric hair shearers. She’d lean into it and I’d have so much hair at the end I could have made a sweater out of her every summer. I had to learn not to cut the hair on her tail, because she wouldn’t recognize herself and begin to chase her own tail like it was a mouse’s.

Val was an example of how to love the sun. She would lay in the sunlight for hours on end, and roll on her back, squinting into the rays of light, like she was making love to our Big Energy Orb.

She loved to lick Michael’s beard. She loved to lick my ear lobes. She loved to sleep buried in between Michael and me at night. We’d often roll over on her.

When we got home from our Christmas vacation this past December, Val was limping. I took her to the vet and they found she had a tumor on her shoulder. It was embedded in the cartilage and there was nothing to do about it that wasn’t insane.

Her limp got worse and worse. We called her hop-a-long Cassidy. We called her Tiny Tim. The tumor got so big, it caused her left paw to fling outwards. But she didn’t seem to be in pain at all. However it was painful to watch. I flinched involuntarily when I watched her walk across the floor.

We even took her back to Los Angeles for a weekend where she basked in the backyard sun she knows so well. On the way back to the airport to fly home to Chicago I had to do some voice over work on the Pixar film Monsters University at the Warner Brothers lot. So I had to take Val along. She walked around the studio sound stage. She curled up and meowed with curiosity at everything going on around her.

Her disability got worse. She would try to jump up on the bed and fall backwards. But her alertness was keen. She was aware and chatty. She had a good appetite.

I carried her around the house for two days straight. She was purring day and night. My vet said that some cats do this, it’s a self soothing thing. It was heartbreaking.

Then she started peeing in the wrong places. I’m sorry people, that was it for me. We had to do something. We took her to the vet, all three of us: Michael, Mulan and me. I held her while they gave her the shot that ended her life. It was over in a flash.

Wow. Both Arden (my dog) and Val - gone within six months of each other. I am telling Mulan that she is my last remaining pet. I am only partially kidding.

Here’s the thing. I don’t want any more pets. I am moving out of care taking mode and into freedom mode. Yes, Mulan is only 13. But already, I felt freer to plan summer travel because of the fact that I don’t have a pet at home. For the first time since 1986, I do not have to get out of bed immediately in the morning and stare into the eyes of a vocalizing pet who wants to eat.

It’s a lot to organized, getting out of town with a pet to consider. Pet sitters have to be procured and there’s a lot of back and forth. Also, I am always wondering about my pet when I’m away. Concerned and wishing I were home. Of course this is true for my family members too, but in the case of the this summer, I will either be with them or they will be doing other things away from home. So, I guess I am glad there’s no animal to worry about.

I have a lot of friends who have pets that keep them homebound. They can’t go many places because of the cost and hassle of getting pet care. I think they have decided it’s worth it. I can totally see that. But I am OVER it. I am on the other side, people. Part of me just wants to live with only a backpack.

So, I can’t say with 100% certainty that we won’t get another pet. But I am voting no. I had my pets. I loved my pets.

My pets are in the past.

My pets are alive.

In my memories.