Our House...is a very very very fine House...

Queen of the known universe….mixed media on illustration board 2022

So many things happened in January of 2017

TFG took the keys to the White House. The day after that we marched in the January sunshine, more than 1500 people marched through Langley WA and millions more throughout the country and world marched in protest that such a vile person could be in OUR House. The following weekend thousand of of people and hundreds of lawyers converged on airports to protest and to help the people caught up in TFG’s vile and illegal ban on travelers from majority Muslim countries. (read Dahlia Lithwick’s excellent book Lady Justice for a great account of what happened that weekend)

For me, the month held personal trauma as I watched Mehitabel, my sweet kitty companion of almost 21 years visibly fade. At last, just a few days later, I realized it was time. Maybe past time. I had promised her I would not let her suffer. If she wasn’t eating and drinking and couldn’t get on the bed, it would be time.

She finally had a really bad night, and I called her vet in the morning. They made an appointment for her to come in and even though I had known this day was coming soon, I started sobbing and could hardly stop all day. She spent the day sleeping near me, on the heat vent. I went outside and dug her grave behind the Katsura tree, under the huckleberry bushes where she like to sit.

I like to think her spirit watches the ghosts of birds she ambushed there.

She was seen out of this world by Dr. Parent, who had been her vet since she was a tiny kitten. I held her in my arms as he gave her the shot that eased her into the great beyond.

I remember her almost daily. Last year I made several paintings of her, from photographs I had taken of her when she was in her prime. (Like the one above- available through The Rob Schouten Gallery) She has also continued to star in my mostly panda ‘toons over at The Panda Chronicles. Someone has to keep all those pandas in line!

Maybe she’s keeping David Crosby entertained in the great beyond. I mean, his music was the soundtrack of my misspent high school and college years.

My cat…is a very, very, very fine cat…