(SORT OF A PERSONAL BLOG–LOCAL STUFF)

It was announced today that Bob Dylan is coming to Fort Wayne on August 21st–he’ll be playing at the downtown baseball stadium.  Sounds like a nice time.

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FW has festivals coming out the wazoo–

Right now, there’s Ribfest going on, and in about a month, there’s the biggest –the Three Rivers Festival.  In September, the Johnny Appleseed Festival, celebrating the folk hero who planted apple orchards.  It’s kind of an “old settlers” festival.  I haven’t been to any of the festivals, so I can’t really comment on them from an experience perspective.

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In the local news, I see the link “Batman needs a home”…intrigued, I clicked on it:http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120615/BLOGS22/120619763/0/FRONTPAGE

Haha…not what I was expecting. 🙂

He’s a little cutie, eh?  He looks almost exactly like a kitty my son brought home one day.

The story goes like this:  My son used to go jogging in the area we used to live in, and he said this kitten followed him home one day.  The oldest story in the world, folks, and I fell for it….:)  The truth came out later–he said that the kitten meowed at him, and he was afraid it was going to get hit, so he picked it up and brought it home.  Not that I minded.  The other cat we had, Sammy, did mind, however. She had an issue with sharing. Haha.

Anyway, we took Zeus in and he was apparently much older than we thought–he wasn’t taken care of and it was apparent that someone had dumped him (we lived in the country).  He was such a character–full of life and such a little imp.  He was the first cat that I ever allowed to go outside on a regular basis.  All my previous kitties had been housecats…but Zeus–he heard the beat of a different drummer, as they say, and it would have killed his spirit to be indoors.  He loved the freedom of running around outdoors.  I remember once when i went outside to tend the little garden I had (organic, of course), and I played a little game of hide-and-seek with him–I “hid” behind a tree, and to his delight, would pounce when he would come running past.  Heh.

His love of outdoors was his downfall, however.  One morning, after I had taken the kids to school, he was at the back door and he didn’t look right.  He was dragging his rear end lower than normal.  I didn’t see anything, like blood on him, but I knew something was wrong, so I took him to the vet.  The vet said he was struck by a car….which didn’t make sense because there was no dirt or blood on him or marks of any kind.

So, I took him home and watched as the poor thing got worse.  I called the vet’s office and got the assistant.  When I told her I thought he was worse, and that he was panting from pain, she said that there was nothing we could do for them–you couldn’t give cats anything for pain.  I just had to wait for him to work through it.

The next day, he ate a little so I was optimistic that he was going to recover.  However, as the day wore on, his status grew shaky. He wanted to be let out, but I refused.  I would realize later that he knew he was dying and he wanted to be alone.

The next morning, just before 6:00 a.m., I heard him meow in my bedroom.  I thought he was doing better–what I didn’t realize was that he was crying out before he passed.  My daughter said “Mom, something’s not right with Zeus’ eyes.”  The light had gone out of his eyes.  We cried for the little imp that was with us only a short time and buried him in the garden that he loved.

I strongly suspect that a crotchety old neighbor hit Zeus on the back and that was what caused his death.  Zeus had always been afraid to come near me when I was sweeping the back patio area.  I couldn’t understand why…and the only thing that makes sense is that someone hit him with a broom.  My neighbor detested me because I stood up to him on a few occasions when he was trying to bully me and he hated Zeus, too.  I wouldn’t be surprised to know that he had struck Zeus.  It’s just a hypothesis…I’ll never really know what happened.  Rest in peace, little man.