karmic calamity

It's always darkest before the dawn (or the Adventures of Roxy and Zeke)

So anyway, this is my second downer post, part of me putting all this behind me. This all does have a positive ending, I assure you. I wouldn't even write any of this if it didn't.

So there we were, our best little black and white buddy gone, and a First Friday artwalk rapidly approaching. Being open on First Fridays, if you're not really behind the idea, is really stressful. So we both just sort'a looked at one another and decided "no way are you in any shape to be working the gallery" And we stayed closed.

On top of that, we found out that the Pit, our favorite local bar, was closing. The Pit was located inside the Ramada Inn in downtown Phoenix, and that had been given to ASU to use for student housing. I guess they didn't think it'd be a good idea to have a dormitory with a bar on the first floor, so our beloved Pit had to go.

By this point, I'm thinking "what the fuck else can go wrong?!?" No cat, no bar, I'm incredibly stressed out and all I want is to have a beer-- but now I won't be able to because the damn bar is gonna be turned into a freaking cafe or a smoothie bar for ASU students.

Life sucks sometimes.

This is, seriously, the first two weeks of July. Halfway done, just days before Comicon, one week before my birthday and lemme tell ya, I'm in a smashing good mood!

But, y'know, things do have a way of turning around. After we had Erlik put down, neither of us really wanted to get another cat anytime soon. But then we started looking online. And Rhonda found this little tabby/calico mix kitty named Penelope that was being fostered by a lady in North Phoenix. She'd been saved from one of the shelters that euthanizes stray cats. We make arrangements to meet Penelope on a Saturday morning.

The thing is, Penelope has a little friend--Jaden. Weird skinny little bowling-pin shaped tabby mix with a pointy face, pencil neck and a big pot belly. Neither of them was older than 9 weeks old. We went to a Petsmart in North Phoenix, and they get Penelope out of her cage. Almost immediately, her little buddy starts looking at me like "what are you doing?" He's looking at me as if to say "that other cat is the only thing I've got in the world, and you're gonna take her away?"

Great, just great. So then we get him out of the cage and decide that if we're gonna take one, we gotta take 'em both. So we did. No way were they keeping those names, though. Penelope and Jaden? Nah-uh. Roxy and Zeke-- much better.

And all of a sudden, things were suddenly looking up.

posted by Dale Ingram @ 3:11 PM