The Unhappy Cat

Yesterday was a delightful day. It was the kind of pleasant day that I envisioned when I was getting sober. I hoped for days like yesterday but secretly believed they could never happen. It was a day full of the little delights and joys that were obscured by my drug and alcohol use.



My alarm went off at 3AM. We all remember 3AM, don't we? I got home at 3AM all of the time, vaguely aware that it would not be pleasant getting up in a few hours even without the hangover and shakes. I stuffed my elderly cat into a bag and went outside where it was 3 degrees, which is cold. I drove an hour to the airport and turned in my rental car, and walked a few hundred yards to the terminal with the cat and all of my luggage, in the cold. The cat was not happy with me. The next 8 hours were consumed by flights and layovers with an unhappy cat.

Actually, it was OK. I'm making a lot of this up. The cat was fine, behaving better that SuperK and certainly better that I do when traveling by air. I made it home, or someplace, anyway. I have spent the last 6 weeks in hotels. Eight different hotels so I'm a little uncertain where home is, exactly. The last hotel I stayed at was getting a little too familiar. It was nice to see my wife and sleep in my own bed.


The time I spent in my old city was unpleasant but informative. Work was a miserable grind, my family behaved as if they were taking cues from Quentin Tarantino, and the weather -- a big part of my desire to move -- was awful. When I left my new home to travel back a few weeks ago I was kind of excited. I was still uneasy about my decision to leave and I looked forward to seeing familiar faces and visiting familiar places.


Herr Luber, ever the irritating pragmatist dreamer, suggested that all of this confirmed our decision to move, irritating me briefly. I like the concept that I need to get up in the morning, chat with my Higher Powers, then try to navigate through the day to the best of my ability, taking care to avoid solid walls and walk through any doors that happen to open in front of me.

My old place was comfortable. It was like a piece of white bread with peanut butter: nutritious, not bad-tasting, inexpensive, easily obtained from any store. My new place is an organic hazelnut muffin with cardamon and carob sprinkles, bought from a small shop run by a recovering heroin addict. Not everybody is going to like the cardamon, the muffin is a little expensive, and I'm not sure the heroin guy is up to code with the health department.

I have a confession to make. I didn't throw away the off-brand jar of peanut butter when I was home. I bought a new jar of Jiff, which I ate first, but kept the old one in case the Jiff didn't last the duration of my trip. I trotted out the old stuff right at the end. It still tasted pretty bad. I decided to check the "Sell By" date.


10/7/10.