As I photograph a Super Cub, the wind rips my hat off my head and keeps on blowing; Royce update

I got a bit curious today to see what kind of airplane is parked on Anderson Lake in the spot where I used to keep my, poor, crashed, broken, airplane, the Running Dog, tied down in winter.

I found this Super Cub, with another Cub behind it and a Maule behind that.

If I am ever to do this blog right, the way I envision it, I need another airplane. And its a crazy thing - if you were to look closely at my little business right now, you would see that a big struggle to merely survive looms right in front of me - and yet, I have this unshakeable, optimistic feeling in me that, this year, I am going to rise out of it all, make this blog into what I see it becoming, and once again fly about Alaska in my own, little, airplane.

Maybe it is a foolish, silly, absurd little feeling, based on fantasy, not reality, certainly not practicality, but a new friend of mine in India, Thruptha, who you can find in my 2009 May review, put this message on her Orkut page:

"The most successful people on the planet have failed more than ordinary ones."

So, you see, I, who have failed and failed and failed and failed and may well be about to do so again, am surely on the right track.

One more thing: I dream about airplanes frequently - just about every night. So my need to get another is more than just a utilitarian thing - my soul needs an airplane. I am not whole without one.

I am like a cowboy with no horse, a dog musher with no dogs.

As I photographed the Super Cub, my hat left my head and took off across the ice. It traveled so fast I did not think that I could catch it, but I went running after it.

It kept getting further ahead of me, but then it stalled for several seconds and I snatched it from the wind.

The wind has been howling, like 40, newspaper report said gusting over 55, I heard 80 on the radio. The temperature has finally cooled down a bit, too - not frigid, but cooler than it was and if you were standing in an 80 mph gust you would think it was cold. On my coffee break, depending on where I was, the temperatures ranged from 7 to 13 degrees. 

I have not read the forecast, but it feels like we are headed towards cold temperatures again. To the north of here, in the Interior, several places are into the -50's, so I think that air might slip down onto us.

I could be wrong. Another Pineapple Express from Hawaii could be charging up the Pacific, right now, headed straight at us.

It is an El Niño year, after all, and these things are supposed to be more frequent during such years.

That's the box that in which the newspaperman deposits our copy of The Anchorage Daily News every morning. You can see the morning paper itself sitting a littler further back in the snowmachine track. If you look real close at the upper right-hand corner of the photo, just above the entrance to our driveway, you can see the post on which the newspaper box once sat.

It could have been worse - it could have been our roof, or a tree might have dropped on the house or car, or maybe upon my head.

This is actually the first picture that I took today. Yes, I went to Family Restaurant again. I wasn't going to. I was going to cook oatmeal, but I changed my mind.

I think I will fall back to oatmeal for the rest of the week, but you never know.

Just as Melanie advised, I have been feeding multiple small servings of soft food to Royce. I am happy to say that he has not yet thrown up today and the end of the day draws nigh.

Bad news and good hash browns at breakfast; cruising down Wasilla's snow-blown roads with Steve Heimel; Royce, Melanie and coffee

I just about stayed home to eat oatmeal for breakfast, but then I would have had dishes to wash. Plus, it was a Sunday, I had slept in and it just didn't feel right to stay home. So off I went, not knowing if I was headed to Family or IHOP.

I wound up at Mat-Su Family Restaurant, where diners were reading about the police officer in Anchorage who was ambushed in his patrol car Saturday and shot five times. He survived, perhaps because he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. According to the Anchorage Daily News, he is in pain but is going to be okay.

Troubling thing to have happen in Anchorage.

I was surprised when Jolene showed up at my table to wait on me. It has been many, many, months since I have seen her waiting tables at Family and she was pregnant last time. I meant to ask whether it was a boy or girl and what the name is, but she had many tables to wait on and we spent our limited talking time discussing hash browns. 

She said she would make certain the cooks did my hash browns right. And she did. The hash browns were excellent.

I'm sad to say that Jolene is only working temporarily.

Hungry people, pouring into the Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

She stood there for awhile, waiting for someone to join here - and there he is, coming through the door.

It was blustery outside, but something made her smile.

I can't say for certain, but it looks to me like a grampa, carrying a little teddy-bear boy from the restaurant to the car.

After I finished my breakfast, I got into the car and tuned the radio to 90.3, KNBA public radio, the Alaska Native station. I tuned it there because I knew that Steve Heimel would be on the air with "Truckstop," his program of old-time country and folk music, with a bit of Gospel and Blues thrown in.

This was a big mistake on my part, as I had many things I wanted to do back here in my office, but I was trapped. I could not point the car towards home as long as that great music was playing.

So I would waste time I could not afford to waste, burn gas I could not afford to burn, and pump greenhouse gases into the air that I should not have putting there.

I think it would be safe to say that Steve is a conscientious, environmentally conscious, green-oriented person. Yet, I can assure you, he causes many people besides me to inject the atmosphere with greenhouse gas.

I circled around and found myself stopped at a stop sign before I could cross Wasilla's famous Main Street, and drive past Wasilla's famous library.

Then, captivated by the music and unable to go home, I returned back to the Wasilla portion of the Parks Highway.

I had thought that I would go to KNBA's website and pull up a playlist of all the songs Heimel played today, and then I would note some of them, link to them, and then tell you where I was at the time and make some other commentary.

But, sadly, there was no playlist and a good many of those songs are obscure enough that I can not remember their titles.

Sure, I remember some of the obvious ones, like "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton and "Tom Joad" by Woodie Guthrie, but some of the others just escape me.

It's okay, though. Truth is, its late and I am too tired to go find all those songs, make all those links and write all that narration.

Heimel is a very smart and knowledgeable guy and every now and then he drops in his own narration. Like just before playing a good gospel song that was all about Jesus being on the radio before there was radio, he recalled an experience that happened many decades ago when a man asked him, "are you saved?"

"Saved from what?" he responded.

As to the Battle of New Orleans, he gave an off the top of his head summary of the events that led to it, including the fact that it was fought after the war had ended but the poor Brits who went on the attack did not know it and they got slaughtered - 214 dead to 14 Americans dead.

And all this for a war that had ended.

At the end of Horton's piece - and I wish I could quote Heimel, but, damn, his exact words have slipped my mind, he said something like this: an alligator canon is a mighty effective weapon.

"What's your dog's name?" I shouted as we were stopped at the light.

"Annie," he said.

"I bet lot of people take her picture."

"Oh yeah," he agreed, "you wouldn't believe how many people have cameras."

And then the light changed and the interview ended.

I need to get another beaver hat like that. That looks just like one of my three that have disappeared.

I'm not accusing anybody of anything, because I'm pretty sure Annie keeps the man honest. I wouldn't be surprised if his hat was made by the same guy who made mine. The hat maker lives just up the road in Trapper Creek area - or at least he did at the time.

He would go to Barrow to help count bowhead whales and that was how I met him.

Here I am, stopped at another light - and here is the guy behind me.

I turned off the Parks and drove down the Palmer-Wasilla Highway for a short distance.

And to my amazement, even as Heimel took a break to say, "KNBA, 90.3," there was a KNBA Volkswagen right in front of me, with the call letters, 90.3 emblazoned on the back.

What are the odds?

This kind of thing happens all the time to me.

Finally, I knew I had to go home and so headed in this direction. As I drew near, I saw this stuck vehicle on a side street, with this guy trying to help push it out.

I thought about turning around and going back to help, but the song that was being played was too good.

Plus, with this artificial shoulder of mine, I must be very careful about such things.

As I continued on Seldon, I saw three snowmachines ahead of me, on the same trail that I photographed the kid yesterday as he sped along in careless disregard for the mothers and babies who use that trail. This time, I was going 25 mph and I passed all three snowmachines.

So, you see, not all snowmachiners are wreckless and irresponsible.

The street this snowmachine is crossing is my street. I finally turned down that street and got to my house, about 10 minutes before Truckstop ended.

Melanie showed up not long afterward. She expressed great concern about Royce, who is losing weight at a horrifying pace. She said she was going to run to the store to buy him some soft cat food, because she hadn't seen my blog lately and did not know that I had already done that.

I am pretty convinced, though, that the problem is not that Royce is not getting enough to eat. He eats all that I give him and more, voraciously, but still the weight is melting off him.

He has thrown up a lot the past few days, and not hairballs.

I guess I had better take him into the vet.

He seems energetic and bright, but he grows so frail.

Melanie suggested that maybe I am letting him eat too much, too fast and that I should give him smaller servings, more often.

She may be right. 

I am trying that now.

"He is a special, special, cat," she said.

Then the two of us went out for coffee. She brought her mug and ordered her's black. I ordered mine with cream and two raw sugars.

Mine wasn't very good. Her's was better.

I will not say where we got them, because I don't want to make the poor barista feel bad, but it wasn't Metro Cafe. Metro Cafe is closed on Sunday.

And Metro Cafe has spoiled me, because their coffee is always good.

Now - I've got one week before I leave to join Margie in Arizona for two weeks. I have about three weeks worth of tasks to do in that week, so I expect the posts between now and when I leave to be brief - although I never know for certain until I do them.

On my second day with Margie gone, I breakfast at IHOP, find a pleasant diversion involving Jennifer, Heineken and Jazz, then head to iPhone disappointment at the At&t store

It is 9:30 AM and I am on my way to IHOP. Look how light it already is!

Just a short time ago, it was still night at this time; soon it will look like this at midnight. Shortly after that, it will start to get dark again.

This earth just keeps spinning and spinning and plunging through its orbit at a maddening pace.

It does not slow down. It just goes, goes, goes.

That's good, I guess.

We would not want it to stop.

But it spins the years off way too fast, and carries us to old age and death much too rapidly.

It is exhilarates me to see the light coming back.

Now I am going up the hill towards IHOP.

This is Melanie, who used to work at Cafe Darte - the coffee kiosk across the street from the Post Office. She was an excellent barista. Her coffee was always good. Sometime after she left Darte, I happened upon her in Carr's, carrying her new baby.

I took a picture of the two of them and put it in this blog.

Today, as she led me to my table, she told me that her step-father had googled Sarah Palin to see what he might find. That search eventually led him to this blog and when he got into it, he found the picture of his step-daughter and grandbaby.

Melanie says he now visits this blog frequently. 

Melanie says, "hi, Dad."

As regular readers know, there is another Melanie that says those same words to me.

I really wanted good hash browns today. And IHOP came through. Cooked just right, each shred firm and flavorful, not reduced to mush. Someone had made cat ears out of the ham. Nice touch.

But don't worry, Family Restaurant, I will be back.

I must spread my great wealth throughout the community.

After breakfast, I came home and found Pistol-Yero, looking at me.

I went into the bedroom and this sight made me very sad. Margie has experienced a great deal of pain in this bed. When I looked at it, empty like this, the image of Margie lying there, hurting and in agony, superimposed itself upon the quilt.

It made me feel bad.

This bed is at the foot of our big, king-sized bed, which I sat on as I took the picture.

Many of you already know this story, but for those who don't, Margie and I both used to sleep on this big bed, together. Then, on June 12, 2008, I took my fall in Barrow and found out how rotten my insurance policy really is and how deceptive the saleswoman was. I wound up in Providence Hospital in Anchorage and after two surgeries came home with an artificial shoulder.

I was too fragile and in too much pain to share a bed with anyone. So Margie had this bed placed at the foot of our bed and in it she slept.

It took me more than half-a-year to heal to the point where I could dare try to share th bed.

And just when I was ready to, Margie took her first fall and then she could share a bed with no one.

Many months passed and then, on July 25, we crawled into our bed together for the first time in over 13 months. On the next day, July 26, she took her second fall.

And as improved as she is, she still cannot share a bed.

So that also made me feel very sad when I looked at this bed.

Now she is far away, asleep in her sister's house in the high country of the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

How good it used to feel when she would cuddle up next to me, lie her head and my shoulder and there fall asleep. How I long to have her head resting upon my shoulder, once again.

It made me feel very sad to look at this empty bed.

Caleb was playing war games with his cyber-friends. He communicates with both those on his side and the enemy through a headset as their avatars fight their way through a common battlefield. I can't remember the name of the game, but it pits good Americans against bad Russians and some Russians have complained that it unfairly stereotypes them, but Russians play it, anyway.

"You should play with some Russians," I suggested.

"Oh, I've played Russians," he answered. "I've played people from all over the world."

A bit after that, he built a fire and then got in his car and headed for Anchorage. That was 12 hours ago. I have not seen him since but that doesn't worry me. He's a man, with his own life to live and it is the weekend.

Royce, Chicago Kitty and some of Kalib's toys. It was just me and the cats now.

I took a walk. It wasn't long before I came upon a neighbor from down the street, Jennifer, playing with her two dogs, Heineken and Jazz - a pleasant diversion for my eyes.

Further along, I came upon this dog. When he was a pup, he once tried to follow me home. A high school classmate and baseball teammate of Jacob's built this house and lived in it for awhile. Then he sold it and moved on to something bigger and better.

I could hardly wait for the 24 hours to end so that the money would go back into the gift cards and I could pick up my new iPhone. At 4:00 PM, I headed out, NPR's All Things Considered Weekend Edition on the radio.

Just after I turned onto Seldon Street, this kid shot past me like I was sitting still. Curious to see how fast he was going, I accelerated to 45 mph in a 35 zone, but he just kept getting farther ahead of me, so I dropped back.

He was not riding on the road - he was on the trail shared by snowmachiners, fourwheelers, pedestrians, bikers, old men, children and mothers pushing babies in strollers. In fact, Lavina has often been one of those mothers, pushing Kalib, right here, where this kid speeds by.

It is after 4:30 PM. Look how much light is still left! Not so long ago, this time of day was pitch black night. Or as pitch black as night gets around here. It never gets dark dark, the way it does down south in places without snow.

Kendall Ford, a bit after 4:30 PM.

After this, I returned to the At&t store where I would not pick up my iPhone. You can find the story in the previous post, if you have not read it already.

My five minute At&t iPhone transaction that expanded to 24 hours now expands to 10 days

I can hardly bear to proceed with this story. Just looking at this picture exhausts and frustrates me. I took it at about 5:00 PM, right after I returned to the At&t store to pick up my iPhone.

Readers will recall that I went there yesterday to pick up the iPhone that Jacob and Lavina had given me for Christmas - in the form of two gift cards. The salesman had told me that the cards were good for the eight gig iPhone, but if I wanted the 16 or 32, I could pay extra. I asked how much more I would have to pay for the 16. He said $100.

I did not want to pay $100 and so chose the 8 gig. The entire transaction was done in five minutes or less. Then the salesman returned one of the gift cards to me and told me it had $48 left on it. This surprised me, and meant that I would only have to spend $52 out of pocket to buy the 16 gig, so I told him that's what I wanted to do.

"Okay," he said. He then got a 16 gig phone for me but, after close to an hour of trying, had to give up and abandon the transaction. He informed me that he had just learned At&t would not put the money originally taken out for the 8 gig phone back into the cards for 24 hours.

More than 24 hours had now passed. I came in, eager to get my phone. This couple was ahead of me, but soon it was my turn.

The lady behind the counter, took my cards, swiped them through the card machine, had me sign and accept, then had me swipe my credit card which was billed another $53. She entered my phone number into the chip that would go into the iPhone.

We waited for a bit, and then she informed me that the transaction could not be completed. It would take At&t ten days to put the money back in the gift cards. I should come back in ten days, she said.

Now, I really wanted to lose my temper, but it was not her fault. It was At&t's fault.

A simple matter of electronic communication and one of the biggest and most sophisticated electronic communications company in the world could not handle it.

So I fought back my temper, but I let the young woman know how extremely disappointed and frustrated I was. In ten days, I told her, I would be in Arizona.

She said I could take the cards with me and get my iPhone down there.

This was not acceptable to me, but it seemed there was nothing I could do about it.

I returned home, spent a bit of time on my computer and then pulled out my phone to give Margie a call. But I could not. The phone was inactive. "Unregistered chip," it said.

So I called the At&t store. A different woman answered the phone. The store would close in 20 minutes, at 7:00 PM, but if I could get there by then they would reactivate the chip - which they had deactivated in their computer when they didn't sell me the 16 gig iPhone.

"I can get there," I told her, "but I also know that somewhere in At&t, there is someone who can solve this problem and you should spend the next 20 minutes trying to find that person. It is not right to do this to a customer."

I got there just before they closed. The original saleswoman reactivated my chip. She told me that she had sent an email to someone higher up to try to get help to solve this problem before I left for Arizona.

I had planned to cook myself a good healthy meal tonight - vegetables and such. But I was so frustrated that I went across the street and down the road from At&t and bought myself a $6 portobello mushroom burger at Carl's Jr., with a strawberry milkshake to wash it down.

Tomorrow night, I will prepare a healthy meal.

Please note: I have broken down today's post into two sections, both because I felt that this segment needs to stand by itself and it was getting kind of long.

The rest of the day will go up at 10:00 AM Alaska time, 2:00 PM East Coast Time, 11:30 PM India time.

With Margie gone, I eat breakfast at Family; the iPhone - a simple, quick, transaction suddenly turns complex and long

I awoke thinking that, with Margie gone, I might just as well go to breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant - perhaps I would go every day until the 17th, when I leave to join her in Arizona. So what if I can't afford it? What does it matter? Will I be any more broke when they shove me into the cremator's fire then I will if I don't?

I enjoy eating breakfast at Family. And it is a good place to see a good cross-section of Wasilla drift in and out. Should I ever find the time and resource to do this blog the way I want, I have this idea in my head where I will go to Family Restaurant a couple of times a week, pick out somebody, introduce myself and then do some kind of little feature on that person, both in and out of Family Restaurant.

But today I did not have the time nor was I up to such a thing. I just staggered in, groggily sat down and placed my order.

Breakfast is good at Family, but they do have a tendency to ruin the hash browns, to fry them to a hard crisp on the outside and turn them to mush on the inside.

A waitress taught me to order them "soft and light," and then they would cook them just right.

And when they do... oh, my, breakfast at Family is good!

So I ordered my hash browns, "soft and light."

She is a very good waitress and she treats me well. It is not her fault that the hashbrowns came back as mush encased in a hard shell. The omelette was delicious, but I had been looking forward to the hashbrowns and now I couldn't eat them. I tried to get a new order of hash browns done right, but the cooks were allegedly too busy.

So I had breakfast with no hash browns. I had been looking forward to those hashbrowns, soft and light, so it was a disappointment.

Even so, I still recommend Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. And if you order your hash browns "soft and light," there is about a 75 percent chance that you will actually get them that way; otherwise, maybe 10 percent - possibly 15.

And when the hash browns are soft and light, it is the best breakfast in town.

The excellent and charming waitresses are very good at keeping their customer's coffee hot.

After I finished breakfast, I returned to my car and found this dog sitting in the bed of truck parked next to it. The dog was old and looked sad, but maybe it wasn't. Some dogs just look sad.

Still, I had to stop, and visit with the dog for a minute or two.

As you can see, the dog enjoyed the stimulating conversation and perked right up. 

I started up my car, got into it and then noticed that the light was falling beautifully upon the lady in the manicure shop that sits alongside Family. You can see the reflection of my car at the left, but you can't see me. If I should find myself in this situation again, I will see if I can work myself into the picture. This time, I was just too far to the left.

Actually, I believe I'm in this one, but just barely. The reflection is so dark there that it is hard to tell for certain.

I went home after this and made an important phone call. No - not to Margie. I knew that she would be so tired after traveling all night that she might possibly be sleeping and if she was, I did not want to wake her up.

It was about health insurance. One of the great ironies that I have faced recently is that the same month that the US Senate passed health care reform is the same month that I lost my health insurance that I have paid such high premiums for these past 15 years - to the detriment of my health care, as they have covered almost nothing and if I had not been spending so much money on the premiums I would have had more to spend on health care.

Then, they recently raised the premiums 20 percent and in December I just could not cover it.

As worthless and expensive (priced in the Senate's "Cadillac" premium category, delivering "clunker" benefits)   as the policy is, I still feel very uncomfortable without it. So I called to find out how long I can push it before I lose the opportunity to reinstate it and if there was any way Mega Life and Health could make it more affordable.

As my insurance company has had such a negative impact on my health care, I have talked to their representatives a number of times, but an amazing thing happened today. I was connected with an intelligent, articulate, woman with both a knack for listening and explaining and the knowledge and patience to do both. She also seemed to care.

We talked for maybe two hours. While the problems are many, here is the basic one: to get a group rate, I bought this premium through the National Association of the Self Employed... oh hell, what reader is going to want to read through such an explanation? I've probably lost 75 percent of you already.

Briefly stated, almost all the members NASE that I joined with have moved on and now my group is very small - in fact, she couldn't assure me that my group includes anyone but me. My policy is not even offered anymore. Hence, my premiums are outrageous and my services minimal.

Plus the part that she didn't say - the heads of the company are not interested in my health, but only in their profits. When my health care gets in the way, they would just as soon raise my premiums to the point where I am forced to drop the coverage.

Worse yet, I have no alternatives - not yet.

About the best I can hope for is that somehow I last until I reach Medicare age, which is coming sooner than I wish, but perhaps not soon enough.

Thank you, Senator Joe Lieberman. I had a good chance and then your ego got in the way.

Jacob and Lavina gave me an iPhone for Christmas, in the form of two ATT gift cards. I have been eager to pick that phone up, but have been dreading the experience, too, because I was with Melanie when she picked hers up and it was a long and convoluted affair.

Since Christmas, I have been too busy to do it, plus, I had seen the ATT store after Christmas's past and it was wall-to-wall customers, most of them waiting and waiting.

So I waited until today, until after I finished talking with the insurance lady and then I headed over.

To my surprise, there was no line. I was served immediately.

I told the kid about my gift and handed my cards to him. He told me that my cards covered an 8 gig phone, but if I wanted I could add a little more and get a 16 or 32 gig phone. "How much more for the 16?" I asked.

"$100," he answered.

Logically, 8 gigs seems like more than enough for a phone, but my experience with anything having to do with computers is that no matter how much memory you get, sooner or later you find out it isn't enough. You can always plug in more harddrives to your computer, but not to your iPhone.

"The 8 gigs will do," I said. I did not want to pay $100 out of pocket today.

So he took the two gift cards, completed the transaction and zapped my phone number and data into the iPhone - just like that. The entire process took less than five minutes.

Then he handed one of the cards back to me. "You've got $48 left on that card," he said.

What? $48 left over? This meant that I would not have had to spend $100 out of pocket, but only $52.

"In that case," I said, "I'll go with the 16 gigs."

"Okay," he said.

 And from there it got complex and complicated. So much so that when I left the store close to one hour later, after spending time watching children play while my very good salesperson and his coworkers tried to troubleshoot the many problems that kept arising, I departed without an iPhone.

Not only that, but the data in my old phone had gotten messed up. The phone numbers that I had been dialing and receiving calls from all disappeared. My voicemail no longer functions.

I have to come back tomorrow, 24 hours after that he did the original transaction for the 8 gig phone. Then the money will be back in my gift cards and I can spend it again and leave with a properly functioning iPhone.

I hope.

The kid told me his name, so that I could put it in the blog and I memorized it.

But now I forget.

Sorry, kid.

My bad.

As long-time readers know, Royce has been growing old and thin. I have attributed the thinness to his age, but, during Christmas, Melanie and Lisa observed that he wolfed down bits of turkey like he was starving, whereas in the past he would gingerly sniff and sniff such offerings before eating them.

So they speculated that the reason that he was growing thin was because it was becoming painful for him to eat hard food.

After Christmas, I continued to feed him turkey until there was no turkey to feed and I also observed him when I put out the dry food. He seemed to eat it just fine.

"But maybe he can't eat as much," Melanie said. "Maybe it hurts too much. You should get him canned food.

Today, with Margie in Arizona, I did something that I hate to do. I went to the grocery store. While I was there, I not only bought soft, canned, food for Royce, I bought "Senior Blend."

As soon as I pulled a can out of the grocery bag - even before I began to open it - Royce trotted to me with a desperate look in his eye and began to meow loudly. Once I pulled the lid off, he went nuts.

So I put some in a bowl and then took Royce into the boys' old room, placed it before him and closed the door so that the other cats would not try to come and get it.

I didn't close the door tight enough. Chicago came in, nudged Royce out of the way and began to eat his food. He had eaten quite a bit by then, so I decided just to let Chicago eat and then I would give Royce more later.

Then Royce nudged Chicago away and returned to his meal.

What you need to understand about Chicago is that she is the meanest, toughest, cat in this house - not towards people, but towards other cats. There is a story behind this, but I am not going to take the space to write it, right now.

But Chicago did not fight for that food. She stepped back and watched as Royce ate.

I think maybe there are two reasons for this. Chicago loves Royce. She hates Pistol-Yero, despises Jim, absolutely could not stand Marty when she was here with Kalib, Jacob, Lavina and Muzzy, but she has always loved Royce. The two often sleep intertwined.

And I think that maybe she understood, somehow, that Royce needed that soft food more than she did.

Plus, maybe she saw the can and the words written on it, including "senior blend."

Next to Royce, she is the oldest cat here, but she still likes to think of herself as a pretty, young, kitty.

And she is pretty.