Stratovania

Clancy died last Friday. He was originally Beth's dog, but we left him with her mom and uncle when we moved up north. He and his sister Mabel, who died last year, were mostly Chihuahua and about a quarter Jack Russell Terrier, but while she had the Chihuahua body type, he was pretty stocky, and about twice her size. He still had the Chihuahua nervousness, though, and was afraid of a lot of things. He had a lip curl, and when he was a puppy, one of his ears pointed up and one down. He ended up living a year longer than Dewey, whom Clancy used to follow around and imitate when he was young. Clancy had been sick, and when we'd bring the cats down there, Felix would scare him away from the food. He did love cat food, but Felix didn't seem to want him around the dog food either.

To move to a totally different thing that happened on the same day, Jamal had requested tickets to the show Have I Got News for You, so we went with him to see that. It's a comedy news quiz show based on a British original, which airs on CNN and is in its second season, but Beth and I hadn't watched the first one. The host is Roy Wood Jr. (no relation to the guy from ELO, as far as I know), and the regular participants are Michael Ian Black and Amber Ruffin, with two guests every episode. I don't think I'd heard of Amber before, but she worked on the script rewrite for the recent Broadway revival of The Wiz. The guests at the taping we saw were Dave Foley and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who received some fame recently for telling Elon Musk to fuck off. A lot of the questions this time were about Donald Trump and J.D. Vance berating Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not sufficiently kowtowing to them, also addressing the "big, beautiful bill." I've always found it strange that a guy who's always putting on a tough-guy front is so fond of the word "beautiful," although it always seems to be in reference to something intended to be an inconvenience, like the border wall. Michael mentioned how Mike Lawler, who was his team partner in the previous episode, lied to him on the show about whether he'd vote to cut Medicaid. I was kind of relieved that there weren't any token conservatives on the filming we attended. I know it's a tradition on comedy shows like this to include people with different political perspectives, but when the Republican Party has pretty much gone full fascist, why even bother? That's part of why I gave up on Bill Maher as well. I haven't seen the finished episode yet, but Beth played a little of it yesterday, and they cut out a fair number of jokes, presumably for time. I assume that's standard, but I wouldn't mind seeing some of the outtakes from other episodes.

It's been ages since I wrote a life update post. I have a draft saved of something I wrote at the end of April, so I'm going to incorporate that, but not lead with it. I think the most significant thing is that Beth's uncle's dog Mabel died last week. She was one of a litter of three, one of whom was adopted by Beth and the third by another uncle; but Clancy stayed in South Jersey when we moved to Secaucus and then Brooklyn.

He's the only one who's still alive, and he's not doing that well. They're three-quarters Chihuahua and one-quarter Jack Russell Terrier, but it's Clancy who shows the latter the most. He's still nervous like a Chihuahua, but he's stocky instead of tiny. Mabel was a sweet girl, if a little too eager to assert her authority when she thought other pets were after her stuff. When Nellie lived there, she took a liking to Mabel and tried to play with her, but she wasn't that interested. So anyway, that's really sad. Poor little Mabel.


The last two times we visited Beth's family, we took both cats down with us. Felix is pretty outgoing when he's down there, but getting him into the cat carrier is difficult. He's surprisingly slippery for such a big cat. The time before last, when we were trying to leave, Nellie hid under a pile of bags, and I'm not sure she would have been able to get out on her own. When she's not scared, she spends a lot of time lying on her side, often in doorways.


On Sunday, 28 April, we made a trip to Great Adventure. We have season passes, and had to get them redeemed. As it was, we got there pretty late, and didn't have the chance to ride much stuff. We were further frustrated by how so many rides now won't just let you leave your stuff on the side when you get on. Two years ago, this was the case with the Joker and Jersey Devil, but I figured that was because they were rides that didn't stop to let the passengers on. But now it's also the case with Superman, which was never like that before. There are lockers you can use at each ride, but they cost money, and that seems like a cash grab. We haven't been back since then, and we need to in order to get our money's worth. The fact that it's been oppressively hot recently has not been conducive to theme park visits. We also want to go back to Knoebels at some point, and to Knotts Berry Farm when we're in California for OzCon.


The Saturday before last was the Mermaid Parade on Coney Island, which we attended despite the heat. It was pretty harsh, but not as much so as I'd heard predicted, so I guess that's something. I always take a lot of pictures and have trouble deciding which are my favorites. I did notice a few recurring themes that I used when sharing pictures on Instagram, including rockets, ships, sharks, environmentalism, and food and drinks.

I recognized the mermaid in the wheelbarrow from last year.

There were also at least two different Ursulas, someone with a bird head and an egg, a family of goldfish, Frog Mario, and Prince with tentacles (Octoprince?).

We had hot dogs from Nathan's before the parade, which worked out a lot better than trying to get them afterwards. There used to be a Nathan's cart near where I worked, but I haven't seen it there since the pandemic. And I saw this guy with Luigi's body and Mario's clothes, but not as part of the parade.

I did get more engagement on Instagram than is typical for me, but I guess I'd also look for pictures of myself if I were in the parade. I'm also on Threads now, although that's basically just an extension of Facebook and Instagram, isn't it? Bluesky is my main Twitter substitute now, and even there I probably post more replies than original thoughts. I pretty much just put links to my posts on actual Twitter these days. (And yeah, I know it's technically not Twitter anymore, but does anyone who doesn't own stock in it call it X?)

I've reached the part in Final Fantasy X where I got to ride an airship and meet this game's version of Cid.

I did take note of something that seems to happen a lot in video games, which TV Tropes calls Gameplay and Story Segregation, where the party's strength in a cutscene doesn't really match up with what happens in battle. You fight several guys with guns on the way to reach where Yuna is being held captive, then one guy with one gun stops the whole group from approaching her. And why do both this and FF9 have a part where your healer is out of commission?

I guess that's all for now. I want to write something about the screwed-up situation in American politics, but that should probably get its own post. For now, I'll leave you with Beth and Slowpoke.

Our cat Reagan died this evening. She's been with us a long time, and it's going to be so weird not having her around. Beth adopted her in January 2007 (on my parents' anniversary, actually, although they were no longer married at that point), and I wasn't living with her at the time, but I still visited a lot. Her other cat, Wally, was reaching under the door and meowing when she was isolated in a room. He always seemed attached to her, but she usually ignored him except when they were fighting. Soon after that, when she had her leg shaved for a needle at the vet, Beth decided that, together with her feisty attitude, she was a punk rock girl. We never tested it to see if that was really the kind of music she preferred, but it fit. She had a thick undercoat and shed a lot, and her tail bent in ways I don't see from most cats. It also seemed like she didn't have as much feeling in her tail, as you could play with it and she wouldn't care. She hated being picked up, though. There was a white patch below her chin, which we called her pretty spot (even though she was pretty all over). She was very vocal, often loudly meowing for attention, and purring noisily as well. She really took a liking to Beth's Uncle John, but later on she got really attached to me, getting excited when I was around. That might have been because I was the one who usually bought food, but I'll take it. Between that and her nagging me a lot, Beth told me Rea was my other wife. It seemed like she had more respect for me than for Beth, as she frequently walked over Beth's body, and rarely did the same with mine. But who really knows what she was thinking? She loved people food, and sometimes tried to steal it. It's not surprising that she liked chicken and cream cheese (not together), but she'd also eat muffin crumbs. That said, she could also be very picky, sometimes rejecting foods we thought she'd like, and only eating dry food when there was no other option. She developed some health problems as she got older, kidney issues and a dust allergy. A few months ago, high blood pressure made her retinas detach, and while the ophthalmologist we saw said there was a chance they could reattach, they never did. After that, she had trouble getting around the apartment, and often seemed confused about where she was. While she still enjoyed attention, she no longer jumped up on furniture or came to see us, instead spending most of her time in a bed on the floor. And she was on so much medicine that she resented taking, including subcutaneous fluids. Yesterday, she had an appointment with the eye doctor on the Upper East Side, so we drove her up there, and the doctor told us we needed to take her to an emergency room. She was dehydrated, had low blood pressure, and wasn't able to stand up. So we took her to our regular vet, who is in our neighborhood. After keeping her overnight, he said there was nothing he could do for her, so we had her euthanized. This is the first time either of us had gone through that; all of our other pets had died naturally. It was incredibly sad, but I'm glad we could be there with her for her last moments. We knew she probably wasn't going to last much longer, but it was still quite sudden. I'm not sure what Wally thinks of her no longer being around. He's seemed a bit off since we brought her to the vet for the last time, but he's twenty years old and it's hot and humid, so I don't know whether that's the reason why. I don't think he's used to being an only cat, however. Even before Beth adopted him, he was in a cage with two other cats, presumably his sisters. But I know we all loved her very much.

Dewey was the first dog I knew for his entire life. I was afraid of dogs as a kid, but Beth had dogs her whole life, so I started to get used to them when I stayed with her. Now I'll try to make friends with dogs on the street. Beth adopted Dewey after her previous dog, also a dachshund, died, about two years after we'd started dating.

He was very loving, and while Beth was his favorite (at least when she lived with him; more on that later), he was friendly with pretty much everybody.

He loved being under the covers, and one time when he was a puppy and there were no covers on Beth's bed, he tried to crawl into a pillowcase. He also used to be able to grab on to a set of toy rings and hang by the strength of his jaw, something he obviously didn't do for that long, but it was impressive. Dachshunds have a reputation for being smart and stubborn, and Dewey could definitely be both of those. He had a bark that he only used when he wanted to come inside. When Beth would play her clarinet, he'd howl along. And I don't think it was because he didn't like it, as he'd go right to her when he heard her playing.

He also liked to wear costumes, and we'd try to take him out for Halloween. In different years, he was Freddy Krueger, a pirate, a bee, and the Big Bad Wolf.

It's not uncommon for dogs to enjoy dressing up, but it's probably best not to try that with a cat. When Beth and I moved to Secaucus, we tried taking Dewey with us, but he was too set in his ways. I think it was confusing to him that we didn't have access to a yard, so he couldn't go outside whenever he wanted. So we brought him back down to Beth's mom's house, but he always loved seeing us when we came to visit. Four years ago, he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and Beth's mom gave him pills. Not only did he manage to live another four years, but I'm pretty sure he's the longest-lived dog Beth's family has had. As you can tell from the dates, he died a few days after his sixteenth birthday. Last weekend, we took him on a car ride and gave him ice cream, two of his favorite things. I think he appreciated that. He died in his sleep yesterday morning. It's going to be so weird not having him around.