Healing power of the ocean at sunset
I have been putting off writing this post for weeks, not because the weekend was bad. It was great; one of the best campsites we’ve ever gotten. But I knew writing this would mean I would want to write about Kitty. And blogging about it makes it real. There have been so many really positive things finally becoming a reality, but life is all about balance; the good with the bad, the highs with the lows. I’m afraid we have lost our Kitty to the circle of life, and that is a heavy blow. I need to do a little Kitty homage here, even though she was never a camping cat, except when we camped in the garage.
One of the few pictures with her collar on. She must have ditched four or five of those, with their name tags, before we finally gave up.
I have seen on the internet that lots of people seem to love their cats. But honestly, Kitty was the Best Cat, better than all other cats. She was a stray, who adopted our daughter while we were on our first summer trip with Dory, and later decided to take in the whole family. She allowed us to feed and pamper her, as long as we were all very clear that she would be allowed to make her own rules. We obeyed the best we could, and she rewarded our doting with an endless offering of mostly dead wildlife. Her favorite hobby was to torture and murder as many small rodents as possible, announcing loudly when a new tribute had been claimed. She was proud of her superlative slaughter skills, and rightly so. Since she’s been gone, our neighbors have become overrun with rats. She patrolled the whole neighborhood, but allowed very few humans into her royal presence.
Kitty selfie. This would have been the last image seen by an unthinkable number of terrified mice.
Though we didn’t ever find any proof, we are pretty sure it was a coyote that got her. We put up fliers and posted on local social media, just in case she was out being a tramp. We walked the streets, and talked to neighbors, and banged her food dish at all hours. But we had seen coyotes in the neighborhood recently, in broad daylight. Then one night, as we were sitting on the patio, around the gas fire pit I’ve been waiting for over a year to use, we heard something rapidly crashing down the hillside in the dark. A large coyote jumped off the retaining wall and onto the ground, not ten feet from us, before dashing around the ADU and disappearing. There was little doubt after that as to what happened.
Driveway camping cat
Kitty, whose actual name was Sketch, spent her life contributing to the great circle of life, in impressive abundance. Lord knows she built up some karma there. I will be sad for a long time, but I also believe she lived her best life while she was with us. She will certainly be missed and I will probably always be looking for her at the sliding glass door.
Best Cat
The timing of losing Kitty is especially painful, as things at home had really only just reached the point where it looks like a normal home. The mud is all covered up with bark mulch, or decomposed granite. There is now a safe and welcoming approach to the front door. There are new pathway lights wired up to a fancy shmancy wifi controlled timer system, that knows when sunset is, so it can turn the lights on.
Hey, weren’t there expensive rocks under there, that we paid for, and painstakingly hauled into place?
We were even able to do an archeological dig to uncover the natural stone wall and flagstone landing I put in some twenty odd years ago. It had long since been overtaken by rosemary and apathy. But once uncovered, it seems to have held up remarkably well. I mean, it’s rocks, so I guess they do that.
Actually doesn’t look so bad!
And on a whole other front, Randy is moving full steam ahead on Dory reparations. He has been sending videos of the repair process, and it is just wild. Through some elaborate winching and pulling, he has managed to get the roof section into pretty decent shape. We had some sheets of aluminum, and a new back wall shipped to him from Safari Condo, almost three years ago. That back wall will get attached to a new floor section, and the roof will get covered over with a matching aluminum skin. Once he’s done with this, she should actually be fully functional. Watching Randy in his element is like watching a wizard bring a creation to life. He thinks she should maybe have a cabana built into her backside, with like a Tiki bar.
Half Moon Bay, Francis Beach
And lastly, given this is supposed to be a camping blog, I should probably mention that we did go camping. At that point, Kitty had been missing for about a week. It was good to have a respite from staring at the sliding glass door, calling her name, and listening for distant meows. The site was as premium as you can get, where the waves are viewable from the windows, and the surf is loud and soothing. We walked to Tres Amigos to get hot gooey churros, and we walked to Spice Me Thai to get comfort food. Richard got back on the horse by getting back on his bike. He’s still working through the trauma of being hit by a car, but he’s doing his best to get back out there. He rode out to Pescadero, where I met him, and got in a nice shopping trip to Arcangeli. It was a therapeutic weekend, where we got to lick our wounds and reflect on the positive things that are also happening in our lives.
Recovery riding along the coast
It’s funny how this blog has become a place to capture so much more than just the camping trips. It’s a space to memorialize, and recognize times of significance for us. We miss our Kitty, and we know we will want a mouser after Dory moves into the back yard. But for now, it is ok to just pause and be in the ouchies. Sometimes life is like that.
Total miles: 57.6, 17.3 mpg, 2 hours 1 min. Site 19, premium and amazing. Hookups and ocean view, with privacy on door side. Excellent cell service. Great dump.
