As calculations go, this might be a bad one...

I've introduced Liz and Terri. Oh my gods, what horror have I unleashed upon the world?

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Ari is sitting in my lap, mewling with a tiny little "Hey, I'm your kitten, stop typing and pay attention to me!" voice.

She's so adorable.

See, Mike and I lost a cat. It wasn't ours, really, but we'd taken it in for a friend who had to get rid of it. It escaped, and disappeared. We went to a shelter to seek it out, and didn't find it, but did see some adorable cats and kittens. We left, and the next day were talking about one particular cat who was scheduled for murder destruction on Sunday. Mike asked if I liked the cat, I said I did, and he told me to go get it.

So I went. And it had been adopted. However, there was a kitten -- an adorable little fluffball, who watched me carefully as I looked around, and who gave me the "save me" look. I looked at her tag, and realised she, too, was scheduled to die if no one adopted her that day.

So I did.

Yeah, I know, I can't save them all. But I can save one. And that's, if not more than adequate, at least a good step.

So her name is Ari, and she's so cute it ought to be making cute-haters in the next county retch, and she won't leave my side today. I'm painting, and cleaning, and she doesn't care, she just follows me around and sits nearby while I work. Fortunately Cailet (my other cat) seems to like her. He gives her baths and makes sure the dog doesn't bother her. (Ari, BTW, Liz and Terri, is no longer afraid or hissing at Bobo. She just ignores him.)

The death of a dream

I've been looking for my father for years, and giving it signifigant effort since 1995.

I've always known that the odds of recreating a father-son bond with him were pretty much nonexistant, and I knew it was likely he'd be homeless, or at best, poor. I didn't care. My dream was to Know -- why he and my mother divorced, why he went to prison, why he never tried to contact me (the one thing my maternal family can agree on is that he loved me very much). I know I have an uncle, and I wondered if maybe I had brothers, sisters, cousins, I didn't know about. I dreamed of finding a family that, if I couldn't join, I could at least get to know.

All of that ended today. Robert Eugene Johnston, born 26 November 1949 in Kansas City, Missouri, died on 7 December 1993 in San Francisco, California.

Gods damn it to hell.

There's still more to learn, of course -- my Uncle is probably out there somewhere, and I'll keep looking for him, and I'll be looking for information about my father's life before he died, of course... but it's over. He's gone, and I can never know him, now. All I have left are two old photo albums, one of which is nothing but pictures out of context.

You know... I have blood family that I care for. My little cousins who call me their brother, my maternal half-sister and her daughter, my aunt, my grandfather, lots of cousins and other distant relatives... but I suddenly feel very alone. I've had two sets of parents, natural and adopted, and both are now gone. I feel like I'm all that is left, even though I know otherwise.

Damn it.