For Leo, the Best Cat Ever.

My buddy Leo died a couple of weeks ago. He was 15.

As anyone knows who's lost a pet, those first few days afterward can be pretty tough. When you get home, no one is there staring back at you from the front window, waiting to say, "Hi, it's great to see you. You've been gone a really, really long time. Where the hell is my food? I'm soooo hungry! But it's so good to see you. But where's my GD food? I'm literally starving. Stop tripping over me and get me some food, Tim!"

This is Leo shortly before he passed away. Poor dude started looking a little like a kitten again. He'd developed a tumor inside his right sinus cavity and it steadily grew to the point where, although his energy and appetite were normal, he'd rest with his head down to take the pressure off the lump in his face.  Here is is on the fridge, his favorite perch during those final days.

Periodically, he opted for a human skull to replicate the effect:

Leo joined our home when he was three. He and his sister had previously lived with another family who decided to return the two of them to the adoption agency, as the siblings had some congenital health issues. Leo's sister (let's call her Leah) was born without a tail and had difficulty controlling her bladder and bowels. Leo (aka Lee, Leroy, and the Toothless Bastard Cat), had only three or four teeth and a stubby, crooked tail that resembled a furry, leopard-print rabbit’s foot.

Could he be a douche bag? Oh, hell, yeah. He peed on a surge protector behind the TV, causing it to emit a toxic, gag-inducing cat smog throughout the house. It was apparently to protest the extended vacation from which we'd just returned.

On more than one occasion, he pooped in my wife's shoes in an effort to display his displeasure at his exclusion from social events. And if you turned your back for a split second, you'd find the little urchin raking his sandpapery tongue over a freshly baked loaf of banana bread, a black bean soup ladle or a tuna casserole left uncovered.

Leo's bodily fluids reached far and wide, especially for such a petite mammal. Due to his toothless condition, he was a big drooler, often depositing ropey trails of slobber onto his preferred sleeping spots. And combined with his hoggish dining habits, Lee's dental condition elicited voluminous, barely-digested chow regurgitations on nearly every conceivable household surface.

But any annoying behavior, any amount of cleaning up after him or tripping over him or running into him, was profoundly overshadowed by his loving, yet quirky personality.

He liked to sleep in strange, often precarious positions:

He enjoyed watching me watch Husky games on TV:

And he'd frequently belly up to the bar while I prepared dinner, as if patiently waiting for me to mix him a Manhattan.

In the event that someone in the family was upset, our sweet guy would hop up on their lap and tuck his head under their chin as if to soak up the negative emotion. He'd often lie on me with his fuzzy cat arm draped across my chest like we were going steady.

Leo lived a fairly pampered life, especially during his final days. His palliative care often included supervised visits to the backyard:

And just a lot of daily TLC:

Sometimes, I still think I can hear his claws clicking on the hardwood floor in the next room or sense him looking at me from the dark hallway. I can still feel his damp nose lightly touching mine as if to say, "I'm here to hang out with you."

It was Leo's time to go, but I miss him so much. We all do.

Bless the Beasts and Cabbage Patch Children.

Seriously, this couldn't have come at a better time.

After basking in eighty-one straight shimmering days of Pacific Northwest sunshine, I awakened at five-thirty this morning nearly as grumpy and sore as Jerry Sandusky after an evening horsing around with the prison tickle monster. Things were damp and things were dark.

Usually on Mondays, I drag my carcass, newly heaped in the weekend's toxins, through the throbbing florescent glare of the gymnasium lobby. Once inside the door, I'll do just about anything to forestall the anguish of an impending anaerobic frenzy.

And since I'd already memorized the fire exit diagram and Puget Sound YMCA location poster, a freshly printed item perched atop an easel beckoned my dilated pupils and encrusted eye sockets:

Did I say I was cranky? Yeah, I thought so. Yet sometimes the smallest gestures, the tiniest beacons, can morph your outlook from sour to super, from grim to vim, and by God, that's just what happened as I stumbled upon this poster in the lobby that the Y shares with a local church.

Finally, our furry friends can receive the same blessed Godscreen SPV 50  the rest of us have been slathering on this whole time.

If our lord and savior can ensure that Tim Tebow runs for a first down as a reward for pointing skyward, why can't my one-toothed cat Leo receive a little unwavering heavenly intervention? Could a quick nod to JC possibly spare him from yakking his profoundly undigested Little Friskies grilled veal spleen into the crevices of our steamy baseboard heater?

Well?

In 2006, Star Jones claimed she was spared certain death from the devastating Asian tsunami thanks to her devout faith and prayer.

And of course that thirty-day gap between when she was there and when the thing hit. But still, you know, let's not split hairs when it comes to divine intervention.

Pat Robertson prayed during the Bush era for Supreme Court vacancies and his request was granted.

Sure, John Roberts cast the deciding vote in favor of Obamacare, but how is it God's fault that Robertson wasn't more specific?

Convinced of her personal status on God's VIP list, supermodel Linda Evangelista once proclaimed, "It was God who made me so beautiful. If I weren't, then I'd be a teacher."

Well said, but come on, she's way too smart to be a teacher.

I would like a little more information, however, about this animal blessing coming up on Sunday. It says it's okay to bless a dead pet. Sounds fantastic, although I had a cat named Simon, and I think he may have been Jewish. The last thing I want to do is pull a Mitt Romney and retroactively baptize him into another faith like the Mormon Church did with millions of dead Jewish people, including Holocaust victims like Anne Frank.

Yeah, no.

The lobby sign also suggests bringing a stuffed animal if you don't own a pet. That's cool,  but I am wondering if it's okay to have other stuffed stuff blessed— like is it plausible that God might reduce the fat content on Costco chicken bakes or various deep friend fair foods?

Because that would be awesome.

Anyway, I'm really stoked about this, and it's nice to have a full week to ponder all the live and inanimate objects which can now be engulfed with a condom of heavenly protection, thanks to Fauntleroy UCC.

And it's so wonderful living in Seattle, a place where Leo won't have a problem finding something nice to wear.