Weedy

They called her Skunkweed.

That's a hell of a name to give something, never mind that this particular name was attached to one of the sweetest animals it has been my pleasure to have in my life.  It was decided, pretty much upon hearing that name, that from that moment on, she would be forever known as Weedy.

When Weedy entered mine and Ms. Darkstar's life, she was already ten years old.  Her owners had a dilemma and through some quirks of fate, along with a new baby and allergies, I believe, Weedy had to find a new home. Ms. Darkstar learned of her while working at one of the fabulous companies she temped for during her time in the Frozen Tundra.  The wrinkle in the plan was that Ms. Darkstar wanted to adopt a smaller, and younger, feline, but one look at Weedy and no other cat would have done.  Add the fact that she was an elder cat, and elder cats and animal shelters aren't the best match, and Weedy was pretty much a done adoption.  We set out to pick her up after I got out of work.

I still remember her reaction to meeting Willow.  After some hissing and fluffing things calmed down to a point where both parties agreed to disagree.  Willow had no problem at all with his new playmate/sister, and Weedy wanted nothing to do with him, going as far as to leave the room if he should happen to enter.  Every now and then we'd catch them playing together, but most of the time each cat stayed their distance.

Ms. Darkstar was motivated to adopt another cat mainly because it was clear that Willow was a daddy's boy, and she wanted something that would cuddle and love all up on her.    To a point, Weedy did think Ms. Darkstar made a wonderful cushion on those chilly Frozen Tundra mornings, but for the rest of the time, guess who she gravitated towards ... yup, me.

Weedy had her little quirks about her.  When she would wake up from her nap, she'd get out of her cat bed and emit a series of grumpy little meows before stalking over to myself or Ms. Darkstar and demanding her wake-up petting.  If we weren't quick enough, or if we didn't hear her come in, we'd feel a gentle tapping on our arms or legs.  We'd look down and see Weedy looking up at us with her bright, green eyes, expecting the attention she felt she so rightly deserved.

Weedy didn't like being held or cuddled.  She would, after we first got her, climb into my lap and, if no one else (like a certain Ms. I've been mentioning here) was around, would snuggle her head under my chin, or occasionally, sniff inside my ear.  The whurffling sound, along with the purring noise and the cat breath inside my ear, tickled a lot, but I let her get her snuggling time whenever I could.  In later years, she would just flop herself up on my desk, usually on top of my keyboard, or just sit in front of the monitor as if to say, "Your work now is to pet and worship me, for I am beautiful."

We had lots of nicknames for our dear girl: Grumpy Weedy, Momma Weedy, Little Miss Whurrflepurr (which came around because of the incident mentioned above), but never Skunkweed.  We did, however, learn WHY she had been given that name, and it only took about a month to figure it out.

She had the softest head bonk.  It's like she barely even touched you, but you felt it tickling on your leg.  Or her way of waking you up with a well-placed, cold, wet nose on any exposed skin.   She would greet me after a long day of work with a litany of complaints, expressed as loud meows if I didn't arrive home when she expected me to do so.

Each of those memories makes me smile a bit.

I wish those memories would stand out in my head more.  All I can see now is the replay of her last night with us.  Flashes of the past month.  Lots of "what if I had..." and "if only I ..." dancing around those final, brief moments, leading to the trip to the emergency vet clinic, the grim prognosis, and more importantly, the statement that, even with aggressive treatments, there was no guarantee she'd last the night.

We gathered in Exam Room 2. Our poor girl, thin and weak, panting in an effort to breathe ...

We petted her, kissed her, reassured her.  We told her how much we loved her, how the pain would be over soon, and we were right here, we weren't going to leave.

The vet hooked up the syringe.  And pushed the cocktail in.

Weedy's breathing slowed, and slowed, and finally stopped.  As did her heart.

Weedy had passed.

We spent a long time with her, just brushing her soft fur, feeling her body grow cold.  We did all that we could.

This week will be one of the longest weeks for us.  Every day, I will expect to see her sleeping in her cat bed underneath my desk.

Or feel her soft bonk on my leg.

Or hear the grumpy meows.

Or feel the soft tap-tapping on my arm, and I'll look down and see her bright green eyes staring at me.

I'd give ten lifetimes for any of that.

I miss her.

And her name was Weedy.

Event wrap-up: STRIP! The Dallas Webcomics Expo

Our annual pilgrimage to STRIP! has completed, and now all we can do is look ahead to next year's show.  STRIP!  was formerly known as DWEX, and was intended as a showcase for webcomics and their creators.  This is the third year the event has been held, and is also the third year we've attended.

Our first foray here was made not long after our arrival in Texas.  We peripherally "knew" one artist, Randy Milholland, and being admirers of his comic we set out to meet him.  We achieved that goal, and also met such great people as Samantha Wikan, Barry Buchanan, and Rebecca Hicks.  We've attended every year since and met more great artists.  This year was no exception.

Our day started early with a trip to the bank to withdraw some money, and then it was off to the Southfork Hotel in Plano.  We arrived a bit early, and had to wait for the doors to officially open after we checked in and got our little "it's okay, we already paid" stamp.

Once inside, things became a whirlwind of activity.  We saw Rebecca, Samantha, and Barry before I went to reconnect with Leroy Brown, whom I met at the first show.  We then went and said hello to David Wilborn, and I went to see Mark Largent. (sidenote: Please be sure to check out Greyhawk and the Starbucklers -- it's an excellent read and I don't think you'll be disappointed.)  It was also great to see Will Rodriguez again this year, and I even bought a couple of pictures from his son, who is turning out to be a very talented artist as well.

We were able to check out a couple of panels -- one of which was announcing a special premiere event, which I will be able to attend (I'm glad my on-call wraps up before then), and later in the day we went to the Women In Webcomics panel.  It was a very good panel discussion, but I wish it could have touched on more subjects  As it was, we had to clear the room for the next panel and a lot of questions went unasked.  Still a very nice panel to attend and hopefully next year we can touch on more topics.

Joel Watson and the Cyanide & Happiness crew were there, and we were even treated to an impromptu concert.  I never thought I'd hear Word Up and I'm Your Boogieman played on the ukulele, but Joel did a great job playing along.  There were some pretty decent cosplayers walking around throughout the afternoon, and The Taffeta Darling did an excellent job portraying the expo's mascot.

I also met a bunch of great artists, and if I missed anyone, I do apologize -- these are the ones from which I was able to collect information:  Scott Tapp; Jason Poland; Jason McLean; Elia Madrid (making her first convention/expo appearance); Thomas Overbeck; Terry Wagner of Mental Diversions; Michael Hawkins; Brad Diller; Jose Ramirez and Jamel Jones from Drink & Draw DFW; James O'Barr, author and illustrator of The Crow; the crew from Grrl Power, Halloween Man, and The Jupiter Palladium; and JediCole and the United States of Geekdom.

The show wrapped up and we had time to kill, so we went looking for food.  The hotel bar was full of poker players (no-limit Texas hold-'em tournament, happens every Saturday) and the restaurant proper was closed, so we braved the heat and walked across to Twin Peaks.  I was hungry.  The food was ... edible, and had some decent flavor to it.  Although, for what they save in the wardrobe department, they could invest it back into the kitchen.  My steak could have been cooked a little bit more, but at least it didn't moo at me.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel for the Live Art Show and charity auction.  We shared a table with Rebecca and James, and Chris Jeffrey and his girlfriend joined us as well.  Earlier in the day, there was talk about "booth barnacles," and sitting in the company of such talented artists (joined later on by Jamel Jones, and DAMN he's talented), listening to them talk about arty things, sort of made me feel like one.  So, I decided to post this tweet and wouldn't you know, this is the one the event organizers chose to re-tweet:

Hanging out at the art show post-STRIPcon. Sitting with the cool kids. Feel so out of place. Hate having no talent. #boothbarnacle

 The table got a big kick out of that one, and Rebecca encouraged me to run with the theme, so I composed more booth barnacle posts over the course of the evening.  I also come away with some more awesome art and was pretty sad when the evening was over.

Yesterday was a blast, and I can't wait until next year's show!  Special thanks to Rebecca, Samantha, Barry, Chris, Mr. Largent and Dave Wilborn for allowing me to be a hanger-on and tolerating my presence, and special gratitude to Jonathan Caustrita, Bobby Blakey, and Michael Moreno for organizing and putting on this wonderful event.