Meredith wrote this last Friday, the day Bocca died. We wrote our own memorials so we would have more memories of our wonderful kitty.

Loving Bocca

 

“We’re not going to be able to bring him home until next week,” Matt explained.  To my confused look, he replied, “Well, you see, he’s … different.  He was in the shelter’s Socialization Program – it’s for, well, I guess what you’d call Special Needs kitties.  If people want to adopt one of these cats, they have to wait a week – the shelter wants to make especially sure they’re committed to the adoption.”

 

“I see.  And what kind of ‘Special Need’ does he have?”

 

“Uh, well, they think he might not adjust well to the new environment at first.  But he was so cute and sweet in the shelter, I just had to pick him.  He picked me, really.”

 

Returning from the shelter a week later, Matt brought the box into our bedroom and opened it.  I got only a blurry glimpse of tiger stripes as the cat scrambled frantically out of the box and under our queen-sized bed, stopping at its exact center, just out of reach and impervious to our entreaties that he come closer.  All I could see were its glowing green eyes.

 

When we realized that the cat had no intention of coming out from under the bed anytime soon, we shoved bowls of food and water under there with him – shortly followed by a litter box.  “Cats can live a long time,” I reminded Matt.  “Are we going to be shoving food, water, and litter under the bed for the next eighteen years or so?  I mean, we’ll do what we have to, but it’s not exactly what I had in mind for cat ownership.”

 

As it turned out, we only had to do this for about three weeks, and even toward the end of that time, the cat would come closer to our outstretched hands.  The first day he let me touch him, I felt we’d had a breakthrough only slightly less miraculous than that of Anne Sullivan with Helen Keller.  Several days later, he finally came out from under the bed for short spells.  And several days after that, he was roaming throughout the apartment.

 

Though we’d chosen the name “Bocca” – Italian for “mouth” – before bringing him home, the name proved an apt one:  he loved to talk, and he loved to eat.  His voice was not the most dulcet-toned of meows, but he generally saved his particularly strident vocalizing for when he wanted food.  We said he was world’s sweetest kitty everywhere except in the kitchen.  To distract him while we dished up his food, we would sing him one of the little songs we made up:  “What is it, Bocca? (3x)  Oh, why do you cry so?  Why do you cry? (3x)  Oh, why do you cry so?”  This one we sang in harmony.  The other one didn’t lend itself so easily to a harmony part, but had an echo:  “Bocca Bo-Sweet (Bocca Sweet, Bocca Sweet), on his little kitty feet (kitty feet, kitty feet) – oh, we sure think he’s neat (think he’s neat, think he’s neat) – he’s Bocca Bo-Sweet (Bocca Sweet, Bocca Sweet).” 

 

Not surprisingly, given his appetite, Bocca got rather large – about twenty pounds, at his heaviest.  When one of our friends came over for dinner and saw him for the first time, she gasped and said, “That cat looks as if he’s swallowed a meatloaf!”   

 

The only thing Bocca craved more than food was love.  We used this to explain his size, telling ourselves, “It takes a lot of cat to hold that much love.”  Some people think of cats as aloof, but this one certainly wasn’t.  He got into the habit of waiting by the door when he knew I was about to come home.  Then, when I tried to walk in, he’d flop down in front of my feet until I gave him some loving attention.

 

For a long time, Matt was his favorite if we were on the couch.  Matt preferred to eat Roman-style, reclining, and Bocca would curl up next to his stomach.  He had an aversion to laps – unless we covered our laps with blankets.  During the last couple years, the blankets were no longer necessary, and our sitting down was often enticement enough for him to come running to make himself comfortable, giving us a firm head-butt if we forgot to keep petting him.

 

At night, Bocca was more likely to sleep on my side of the bed, usually down by my feet, but if he sensed me waking up, he’d move to be by my head or chest, where I could reach him to rub his belly or scritch his ears.  Because of his ongoing eagerness for affection, we called him the Love Sponge – he soaked it all up.

 

Whenever we went away on trips, Bocca would mark our return by not letting us out of sight for at least an hour or so, following us from room to room as if to make sure we weren’t about to leave again.

 

Bocca’s gentle, loving nature also kept him from being aggressive with our two other cats – which is fortunate, since for most of his life the “Meatloaf Kitty” was almost as big as the two of them put together, and could probably have done some real harm if he’d been so inclined.  But they picked on him decidedly more often than he picked on them, and we’d urge him to overcome that sweet, pacifist nature and put the littler ones in their place.  When he wouldn’t, we’d intervene, chasing the others to different rooms for “kitty time outs” while we comforted Bokey. 

 

While he almost never started fights with our other cats, Bocca had no qualms about releasing any pent-up hostilities on rodentkind.  His first Christmas with us, one of our relatives had given us a stuffed cat-toy – a mouse about the size of a large rat.  We tossed it to Bocca to see what he’d do with it.  He immediately grabbed its head in his mouth, rolled over on his back, and, in just seconds, disemboweled it with the claws of his hind feet.  Stuffing was everywhere, so the first time he got to play with this toy was also the last.

 

At the time, we wondered if Bocca would prove similarly fierce if he encountered a real mouse.  Several mice later, we now know the answer – although he never disemboweled any (thank goodness), he was indeed a capable mouser, and proud of his skills.  In fact, my first day of summer vacation, when I’d been so looking forward to sleeping in, began much too early, as I was awakened by his muffled cries of triumph – muffled because he had a mouth full of mouse, of course. 

 

That was only six or seven weeks ago.  That particular “Bocc-alarm” was not the reveille with which I’d wished to begin my long-awaited break, but I’d give much to hear it again.  We’d noticed Bocca getting thinner – too rapidly, we feared, and yet besides increasing boniness he had no other symptoms of ill health.  If anything, he seemed healthier in some ways – when heavier, he had sometimes wheezed while he slept, or had had trouble jumping up onto the bed.  At this lighter weight, he was able to leap nimbly from the back of one couch to another, something we’d never seen him attempt in his younger but fatter days.  

 

Because of the weight loss, we had taken Bocca to the vet in January, but no problems were found.  In the ensuing months, he gained back a couple pounds, and we assumed he’d be with us for a few more years.  But then the weight loss happened again, more quickly and more drastically than before.  When his voice started to become higher and feebler, and when he began spending time in half-hidden nooks and crannies he’d never frequented previously – like beside the toilet, or at the back of the linen closet – we made another appointment with the vet.

 

It was too late – some disease we never caught the name of, but the prognosis was clear:  several months at the most, if he responded to the medications.

 

Bocca used to be such a strong cat that we were physically incapable of forcing him into his carrier, so whenever it was time to update his vaccinations, we’d find a vet who made housecalls.  I still remember coming home from work one day and being met at the door by Matt.  Agitated and breathing hard, he opened the door only a crack to say, “The vet and I are having trouble cornering Bokey.  It isn’t pretty.  Why don’t you take a walk around the block a few times before coming back?”  From inside, I heard the frantic yowls of a terrified cat, and decided I’d take my husband’s advice about that walk.

 

Moving from Chicago was wretched.  Bocca’s panicked yowlering, from a carrier on the front seat of the U-Haul, was shredding Matt’s nerves so badly before we even left the city that he recruited the aid of his mother and her boyfriend – one of them drove their car and one drove mine, so that I could sit in the cab of the truck with Bocca, petting him constantly, all the way to Ohio, to keep him quiet.

 

It wasn’t like that this time.  Too weak to put up much physical or verbal protest, Bocca let Matt take him to the vet for the diagnosis and pills.  And then back again a couple days later, for longer-lasting shots, because we couldn’t get him to swallow the pills.  And then back again for fluids, because we couldn’t get him to eat or drink.

 

The vet visits of the past couple weeks were a far cry from those early housecalls, but in one way Bokey had come full circle:  he was once again back in our bedroom.  He’d started his years with us in the bedroom solely because the bed was the most immediate sanctuary he found when Matt first opened his box.  This time, though, he was with us by choice – ours and his.  We wanted to be close to this creature who’d given us so much joy and asked only for food and affection in return.  Not content to be on the floor, where he had access to food, water, and litter, but lacking the strength to jump up on the bed to join us, he would cry or look up at us piteously until we put him on the bed between us, where he could be loved and petted from both directions.

 

Even this morning, he wanted to be with us.  Even this morning, when it had been several days since he’d eaten or drunk on his own.  Even this morning, when he could no longer hold his head up, and his breathing became labored.  Matt called the vet one more time.

 

The earliest appointment we could get was at 11:00.  I had to do some work in my classroom, so Matt and I walked to school together, and back again a little after 10:30.  He brought up the cat carrier from the basement.  Unable to say so, we both knew the carrier would be coming home empty.

 

Matt didn’t bother to bring the carrier into the vet’s with us – he just lifted Bocca gently into his arms and held him on his lap in the waiting room, while I petted him.  As Bocca struggled to breathe, Matt and I did too, choking on our tears.  One of the vet’s assistants brought us a box of tissues, and the other woman waiting, who’d been there before us, urged the vet to see us first.  We brought Bocca into the room and laid him on the table.  The vet got out his stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat, but found none.  Bocca had passed away in Matt’s arms only moments before, giving us the last gift it was in his power to bestow:  he spared us from deciding that we had to have him put to sleep.

 

On that harrowing moving-day ride through Chicago, eight years ago, my own stress and hormones were taking their toll, despite the fact that I was driving my own car at that point, and wasn’t even within earshot of Bokey’s heartrending howls.  Praying aloud that Bocca would calm down, would not be so scared, would stop crying, I began crying myself.  “God, please,” I wailed.  “He’s just a kitty – he never gave us anything but love!”  I cried the same prayer again today.  

 

I know he was “only a cat.”  I know there are people going through far worse ordeals, and I know lots of people have gone through this one.  I know.  I do.  But I miss him so much.  That Special Needs kitty Matt brought home just a couple months after we got married has been one of my life’s most consistent blessings over the past eleven years.  And although I’m not sure what the situation will be regarding animals in heaven, I’m really hoping that when I one day reach my own “mansion just over the hilltop,” I’ll open the door to find a green-eyed tiger cat flopping down in front of my feet, meowing insistently as if to say, “Thank goodness you’re finally home!”

Our sweetest cat, Bocca, died last Friday morning. We had found out about two weeks ago (on Monday the 13^th) that Bocca had a terminal disease. He had been losing weight for months, and the vet could not find anything wrong with Bocca when I took him to the vet’s last spring. We hoped it was due to older age (Bocca was about 13), and we kept an eye on him. He rebounded for a few weeks and put some weight back on, but then started losing it again. Finally, his voice started sounding high and weaker than it normally was, so I took him in to the vet’s again. This time, the vet was able to tell immediately that Bocca’s kidneys were swollen to three times their normal size. He said that meant either cancer or, more likely, an immune system disease that was attacking the kidneys. Either way, he indicated it was a terminal disease. He said we could try to treat it with antibiotics and appetite stimulants, and Bocca might get as much as 6 more months. If he did not respond to treatments, the vet said he might have as little as a week. Sadly, Bocca did not respond to the medicines, and we got 12 more days with him, of which the last 5 or so were very difficult on us and on Bocca. He just kept getting weaker and weaker, and he stopped eating last Sunday and stopped going to the bathroom last Tuesday or so. He could no longer walk, and had trouble even moving (crawling) on his own the last few days, especially Thursday and Friday. He would show some brief improvement to medications or fluids or special foods, so we never lost hope. Still, he had a rough Thursday night, so we made the decision to take Bocca in to the vet’s on Friday to see if there was anything left to try, but with the likely decision to put Bocca to sleep so he would not suffer. The vet got us in at 11:00. We took Bocca in, and sat in the waiting room. He was so weak that I did not feel he needed to be in a cage, so I held him and Meredith petted him. He let out a soft cry and moved once or twice, so I tried to make him comfortable. He settled in my arms, but his breathing was very labored. Mer and I were both crying, and a very nice lady gave up her spot to let us go first. We went in the examination room, and the doctor listened for a heartbeat. There was none. Bocca had died in my arms. The world’s sweetest cat had given us one more sweet gift – he had saved us from having to make the decision to put him to sleep.

Flash back to 1998. Meredith and I had gotten married in August, and we knew we wanted two kitties to make our apartment into a home. We both loved cats, and felt a home was not really a home without them. Mer did not feel as if she could go to a cat shelter and pick just one kitty (we were each going to pick one cat), so she had her good friend and former roommate Laura go with me to the shelter. So, in October of ’98, we went to Mer’s old neighborhood to a no-cage, no-kill shelter called Tree House. It was a three-story building with cats kept (mostly) on the upper floors. Laura and I went upstairs with a Tree House representative, and we saw a few kittens. There was a very small and fluffy kitten who had just (as in while we were in the lobby) been returned since the owner discovered she had allergies. Laura fell in love with the kitten, and so Macska (“Cat” in Hungarian) was adopted by the Riordan household by proxy. We continued to look around the shelter at the full-grown cats. I do not have a very distinct recollection of them now, 11 years later (I’m sure they were very cute). At some point, the Tree House representative asked me if I wanted to see the cats in the “socialization room.” These two rooms were where they kept cats that needed more time to get used to being with other cats and people. The outer room was a room for cats that had graduated from the other room; these were cats that still had some issues, but were getting close to being in the general population. I looked around this room, and there were cats everywhere. In the middle of the room was a platform of some kind (I think it was a fake tree, but it may have been a table). On this platform were two or three cats, and one of them was flopping and rolling around as we approached. The Tree House worker scratched the kitty on the belly, and he rolled around some more. I was charmed. I looked at other cats in the place, but the flopping, rolling tiger kitty had claimed me. I indicated that I wanted to adopt him. I was told there was a waiting period of one week to adopt a “socialization room” cat, but that did not deter me. We signed the papers and took Macska home, and I told Meredith we could get the other kitty, whom we decided to call Bocca (“Mouth” in Italian), in a week.

I went back to the Tree House to get Bocca, and they put him in a cardboard carrying case. I don’t remember if he cried much during the 15-minute trip, but based on later experience, I’m pretty sure he did. I looked in my rear-view mirror to see Bocca thrust his head through the top of the box and jump out. I quickly closed my window, but it was unnecessary as Bocca cowered in the very back of my hatchback. Once I got home, I climbed over all the seats to get into the hatchback without opening the doors. I got Bocca back into the cardboard carrier, and quickly got him in the apartment. Mer was waiting, and I opened the lid. Bocca stuck his head up, jumped out, and bolted straight into our bedroom and under the bed. He did not come out while we were around for at least a week. Mer was not really sure what he looked like, but the glimpses she could get by looking under the bed showed her a very handsome tiger cat with beautiful green eyes. We shoved food, water, and litter under the bed for several days, and Mer began to think I was crazy for picking a cat we would never see. Then, one evening when we were watching TV, we saw Bocca poke his head around the corner. He was very skittish and nervous, but he had come out from under the bed and immediately found his way into our hearts.

Bocca would always be skittish, even up to the last weeks of his life. Any loud noise would cause him to start up, and he would run into the bedroom and hide anytime someone knocked or rang the doorbell. If we had guests, it would take him hours, or even a full day (if they were spending the night) to come out to see what was going on.

As indicated early on by his breaking out of his cardboard box on the way home, Bocca was immensely strong for a cat. He may be the strongest cat I have ever encountered. Bocca got out of our apartment once the first few months when the door did not latch (the only time he ever got out of our home in 11 years). Happily, he went up the stairs to the second floor instead of going down the stairs toward the outside door. I heard him crying (he had a loud and desperate yowl when scared), and I ran upstairs and scooped him up. He did not resist being picked up, but as soon as I set foot in the apartment, he gave a mighty heave, scratched me and got away and ran under the bed. I still have the scar on my right arm.

We needed to take Bocca to the vet once right after we moved to Ohio in 2001. Shannon was over, and he said he would help capture Bocca. We isolated the downstairs as much as possible by closing doors, and warned Shannon that Bocca was very strong. Shannon told us not to worry; he had never had a cat get away from him before once he had the cat scruffed. I can still see Shannon diving at Bocca in the living room, getting him in a lock in his arms, and Bocca struggling madly. Bocca got away. Shannon got up off the floor and proclaimed  Bocca to be one heck of a strong cat.

Even with Bocca being strong and skittish, he was still one of the sweetest and most loving cats I have ever seen. Once he got used to us, he loved being with me and Mer. Unless he was deeply asleep, if we were home and on the couch, so was Bocca. When we went to bed, Bocca almost always came with us. Mer and I like to watch TV while we eat supper – it helps us unwind. For years we had a full-sized couch, and I would lie on my side facing the TV and Mer would sit up on one end of the couch. Bocca always had to be “in my curl” – he had to be curled up next to my stomach and curled-up legs. Many times, he was jumping onto the couch before I was even fully on the couch. When Mer graded on the couch, he was usually on the couch or on the back of the couch. Once I started having back problems, I started sitting up to eat. When that happened, Bocca adjusted by claiming the middle cushion on the couch. Mer would have one cushion, I would have one, and Bocca would have his own. That was a little sad for me; in our house, we have “kitty privilege” – when someone has a kitty, the kitty cannot be disturbed, so the other person has to wait on the kittied one. For years, I had perpetual kitty privilege when on the couch. Once I sat up, Bocca had his own cushion, and as often as not he would snuggle with Meredith.

Once we moved up to our current house, our couch wore out. We swapped it with a love seat that we had, but it only has two cushions. This created a bit of a space crisis since Bocca still wanted his own cushion. He got very good at wedging himself between us, and even started lying down on Mer’s lap. This was pretty amazing – for years Bocca would never sit in anyone’s lap, unless the lap was covered by a blanket. Our best guess was he never realized he was on a lap when it was covered up. But, for the last two years, especially the last year, Bocca has loved being on laps. He especially loved being on Mer’s lap, and would often leave mine once she sat down.

Bocca adored Meredith. There was no way around that. He simply loved her more than me. I am okay with that, since Bocca loved me too, but he loved his “Momma” best. I could always tell when Meredith was about to get home in the car because Bocca’s ears would perk up. I have no idea how he knew, but he did. He would leave my lap to go to hers, he would leave my side in bed to go to hers, he more often than not curled up by her feet for the night. Sometimes he would come to me when I called, but many times he would not. I’d then tell Mer to call “her” cat, and he would come over to us. Even in the penultimate week of his life, after we found out he was very sick, I was trying to get Bocca to come to the top of the bed so I could pet him. He was at the foot of the bed, and would not come. I told Mer to come and call him. She sat down and called him and he immediately came to the top of the bed to “get some lovin’.”  Even when he was so sick he could not walk, he still tried to climb up on the bed to get to Meredith. That cat absolutely loved love.

If I would carry Bocca to the bed with me, most of the time he would stay for a few minutes, but then he would jump down to go be with Mer. He would stay with her while she graded. He might be on the floor or on the coffee table on her papers, or he might be on the couch with her, but he loved being with her. The oddest display of this was in the last year we were in the New Baltimore house, when Mer took to reading or grading in a glider/rocker. Bocca loved her and wanted to be with her, but there was not very much room. His solution was to jump to the back of the chair and curl up around her neck like a shawl. It was very cute (but not always comfortable for Mer).

Bocca loved to eat as well. He was a snacker, eating small amounts all day long. Due to Macska having some digestive issues, we started feeding the cats special canned food once a day in the evening. If you forgot to feed the kitties, Bocca was there to remind you. He was a sweet cat, but his “feed me” cry was loud and grating. We told him he had an unlovely voice at times like that. He did not care as long as he got fed. Bocca eventually topped out right around 20 pounds. When I would carry him to bed, I carried him like a football – in both my arms, with his legs sticking straight down and his tail straight back. It was a pretty funny sight. One of our friends on seeing Bocca for the first time proclaimed, “It looks as if that cat has swallowed a meatloaf!” We always said that it took a lot of cat to hold that much love.

The weight started to have an effect on Bocca once we moved to our current house. Before he started losing his weight, he was having difficulty jumping up on the couches. He was still almost 20 pounds, and he was at the time about 11 years old. I think it was just too much for him. He then started losing weight because of the disease, but it gave him a very good year because of it. He was able to jump around on things again once he got down under 15 pounds. I think he enjoyed it. He took to jumping to the love seat by first getting on the old couch and leaping over to the love seat, a distance of about three feet. Our other two cats have never done that, but Bocca did it several times a week. I think he was just having fun.

Bocca had a few odd quirks. He loved shoes. He really loved shoes. If we left a pair of shoes lying around, he would lean on them while lying down. He loved to prop himself up while lying down. He would  lean on shoes, books, book bags, and he often propped himself up on the bricks of the woodstove hearth in the old house. He would lean against it with his shoulders above the brick line, and have one paw stretched straight out across the bricks. He looked for all the world like he was lounging at a bar. It could not have been very comfortable, but he did it all the time.

Bocca also used to flop hard on the floor. He would go from standing and fling himself down, sometimes on his side, and sometimes rolling over to his belly. He would do this when he wanted lovin’ and sometimes he would flop right in front of you while you walked. On rare occasions, he would even get up and flop in front of you again.

Bocca was the sweetest cat I have ever seen, to us. But if you were small and furry, then heaven help you. Bocca was a tremendously accomplished hunter. He caught and killed his last mouse just six weeks before he died. Right after we adopted Bocca, we gave him a slightly larger-than-life stuffed mouse. He grabbed it in his front paws, rolled over, and then raked it with his back paws. Stuffing flew everywhere. He had the mouse toy completely gutted in about one minute. It was most impressive.

We had a toy we called “the bird.” It was a few feathers on the end of a string on the end of a pole. When you whipped the pole around, the feathers would fly about and make a noise like a bird in flight. All the cats liked it, but Bocca was amazing at catching it. He would leap three or more feet straight up in the air (remember, he was over 15 pounds!) and catch it. Once he had it, it was very difficult to get him to let it go; I usually had to reach down and pry his paws off of it. He would then try to attack it again.

We had a mouse mini-infestation this spring where Bocca caught four mice. One night, I was trying to get him to let one of the mice go; he was playing with it by letting it go and catching it again, and I did not want the mouse to suffer. I wanted to catch it and let it go outside. I managed to get the mouse away from Bocca briefly, but he caught it again very quickly. He then very deliberately walked over to my boots that were on the floor. He stuck his head in my boot and let the mouse go in there, despite my “Not in the boot!” cries. At least I was able to get the mouse outside at that point.

Bocca had many endearing qualities: coming when we called, flopping on the floor for love, wanting to be on the couch and bed with us. But one of the more endearing qualities was displayed in the mornings. Bocca would often sleep at the foot of the bed, usually on Meredith’s side. He would stay there peacefully all night as far as I know. But as soon as we moved at all when waking up, he would come to the head of the bed for lovin’. If we ignored him, he would settle down again, usually curling up around Mer’s head. He would lie there and purr. We called it the “Bocca-lo” – part cat, part pillow.

In the last year, Bocca surprised us both. At night he started curling up with me, at least for a little while (he would then move back over to Mer). He always had to be up by my head, and always on the edge of the bed. He would wedge himself in the space even if I was already occupying it. It was very cute. He also started wedging himself in between us more often. We often joked about the “chastity cat” keeping us apart, but it made it possible for Bocca to be loved by both of us. Maybe at some level he knew what was happening to himself, and he wanted all the love he could get while he could get it.

Mer and I used to sing to Bocca. We had two songs we would sing to him all the time. One we would usually sing to him while we were dishing up his food and he would cry. Mer would sing beautiful harmony to it.

The other song we would sing just as a ditty, almost absentmindedly.

Bocca was a wonderful cat. We love our other two cats as well, but Bocca loved us in a very special way. He was sweet, and he really enjoyed being with us. Our home is very much diminished with him gone. I have cried 6 times in my adult life. I cried once when my grandmother died and once when my grandfather died. I actually cried at a play once. I then cried once when I found out Bocca was sick, once during the last week of his life, and once the day he died. Our friend James coined the term “happiness time bomb” to describe pets. They provide joy to our lives, but in most cases we outlive them, and that causes great grief. I am happy and thankful to have had Bocca in my life for the last 11 years. I will miss him greatly.

Backblog – Friday, May 8th

May 8th saw my acting debut. This Friday was CVCA’s “prom” – the Junior-Senior Banquet where the kids get dressed up for a formal dinner, have some form of entertainment, and watch the senior video that is made by one of CVCA’s teachers as a service to the kids.

This year’s prom was at Hudson Country Club. It was a nice club, but did have one major drawback – to fit all the kids in they needed to use three separate rooms. While it made the dinner portion of the evening more intimate, it was weird not to see a large number of the students once everyone had been seated. The kids looked really nice, as usual. They take the evening quite seriously in its formal nature, and the guys look sharp in their tuxes and the girls look very pretty in their dresses. The main entrance was crowded this year – the main entrance also housed the photo line, so there was no good place to dress-watch with Meredith. We like to compare notes on what style and color of dresses we like. I felt as if I missed most of them this year since I was largely at my table for much of the evening.

Dinner was okay, but for some reason that I never fully understood, it was served about an hour late. That is a long time for people to mill about and chat, and it may have been that chatting that caused the food to be later than it otherwise would have been.

Several teachers, me and Mer included, made up an acting group that was to be the entertainment of the evening.We were performing a murder mystery, and the kids were organized into teams to guess who done it. We improvised a bit for the “auditorium” – we realized that we needed a lot of space to accommodate the students, so some quick thinkers cleared all the tables out of the way and set up chairs in rows. That way, we seemed able to seat about 90% of the students (the rest seemed content to talk with each other in the far dining rooms).

Mer and I were a married couple in the play. She was an impatient, wealthy, domineering wife who was mostly concerned for her three million dollar diamond ring (which she had locked in the school safe). I was a wimpy, brow-beaten husband who was an incessant gambler. So, we were pretty much typecast. What are you going to do? Anyway, our characters are at a presentation at a high school named after my character, and some of the students start to act up, so Mer loses her temper and storms off to get her diamond so she can leave the school (and never come back). She finds her diamond has been stolen, and the school security guard staggers onto the stage and dies in front of the students (to much effect). Thus the mystery part began. The cast of characters was fun – there were some “punk” kids, a cheerleader, a coach, a principal and his secretary, a thief, an FBI agent, a student protester, a couple of teachers, and our daughter (Mer and I had a daughter in the play). All these characters were played by CVCA teachers and spouses. It was a fun group.

Mer had worked very hard to memorize her lines. She had a ton of lines (maybe the most in the play – it was close), and she did very well, especially with her screaming, frantic run on stage after she discovers her diamond has been stolen. I also memorized my lines, but I think I only had about 12 lines in the whole play, so I pretty much picked them up from helping Mer run lines.

We had four practices in all. I think it came together very well for a bunch of non-actors with only four performances. Occasionally people forgot lines, and one time the coach forgot his lines and just started ranting in character. It was wonderfully funny, and the kids loved it. As fun as the play was, the practices were even better. We just all got along and laughed much of the time. One of our very sweet colleagues had to pull a gun on everyone at the end. To her credit, she had no idea how to hold a pistol, and we just all lost it. What a great group of people to work with.

We got to improvise some during an intermission. We were supposed to wander the crowd blaming each other, and generally being in character. I loved that part. It tied in nicely with my improv skills and I did not have to worry about lines.

So, I think the kids enjoyed the play. We got pretty positive feedback, and there seemed to be a lot of smiles around. After the play, we all watched the now-traditional senior video that shows baby pictures of all the seniors followed by their senior photo, and there are many group photos as well. Once the video was over, the formal part of the evening broke up and most people headed to “after party.”

After party is a parent-sponsored and run informal time after prom. It is held at the Cuyahoga Falls Natatorium, and it is a place for the kids to take their dates to go and hang out and have fun. There is tons of food, music, usually a couple of movies playing, various games (wallyball, racquetball, basketball, etc.), and there are some really good prizes given away at the end of the evening (iPods, TVs, DVD players, and so on). Mer and I stopped by after party, and once again had the joy of being mistaken for students (we were still in our formalwear). We ate more food, chatted with some colleagues, and wandered around to enjoy seeing the students having fun. We stayed for about an hour and then headed home. I’m just sad that my play closed on opening night.

Backblog – Saturday, May 1st

The theater-intensive week (four shows in eight days) was capped off with an original play, Tremont. Tremont is a Cleveland suburb, and the play was written by a Cleavland-area couple. This was the world premier run, and was taking place at Actors’ Summit Theater, where we had season tickets.

All of the action happens in a bar/pub in Tremont in the late 60s/early 70s. The set was effective, with two doors leading to other rooms (off stage), a full bar, and several tables. The play has a cast of six – the barkeep, a girl he is in love with who waitresses at the bar and is living in a spare room because her house has been broken into, her good-for-nothing brother (in flashbacks and later in the play), a factory worker who is either slightly slow or slightly mad, and an elderly couple who enjoy nitpicking at each other. I was familiar with all of the actors except the barkeep, and they were all excellent. The waitress was played by one of my favorite actors, who is tremendous. It was a very good cast.

The play captured the changing Tremont neighborhood that was going through hard times because the factories were shutting down. The cast was fairly small because those were the only customers who came into the place. The main three characters (the barkeep, waitress and her brother) had good compelling relationships on stage. The elderly couple was mainly comic relief, with some job of exposition on the no-good brother. The factory worker was a lovable, sweet character, and seemed to be there as a foil for the jerk brother to pick on when he shows back up looking for inheritance money.

The show was very solid on the whole. Mer and I both thought it could use a little tightening up in places; this is to be expected from a world premier. The elderly couple’s focus on bodily function humor goes well enough at first, but it is brought back repeatedly, and for too long. The play was a touch long – if ten to fifteen minutes could be cut out, it would be very crisp. It has tremendous promise of being a play that well captures the difficulties of family and community. Even as it was performed, it was still entertaining and thoughtful.

Backblog – Wednesday, April 29th

The theater fun continued on this Wednesday. I have a bias since I work there, but I think CVCA has a kick-butt theater program. I have been very impressed with the theater productions in general, but especially the spring musicals. The musical pulls together a pit orchestra, a cast of 30 or more, a set crew and tech crew and costume crew, and in all attracts the talents of about 100 students. It really is amazing, especially for a high school.

This year’s production was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. While this may not be everyone’s cup of tea (in Chip, of course), the kids were really excited. I had not seen the animated movie in a long time, so while I knew the story, I had forgotten many of the particulars.

The set was fantastic, with three layers. The farthest back was the Beast’s castle, and it had two levels – an upstairs where the Beast’s library and rose were, and a lower level where most of the action happened. This allowed for some pretty dramatic entrances by the Beast, and forced him to be pretty physical. The lower level also had a dungeon door where Belle’s father was imprisoned (and included a door that the Beast could rip off the hinges while enraged).

There was also a mid-stage curtain that could be drawn across the stage that had a creepy forest painted on it for the scenes where Belle’s father (and later Belle) are attacked by wolves. The wolves were really neat. They were ensemble actors dressed as wolves who had well-choreographed dances and moves while attacking. They were very effective, and exited through the audience, which was a nice touch.

The front of the stage had mobile scenery that was often made up of the town that Belle lived in, and was home to the wonderfully chauvinistic Gaston. It included several building facades, a town well or platform (Gaston stood on it during one song), and two thrust stages on either side of the main stage for Belle’s garden and other smaller scenes. The scenery was not the stereotypical cardboard cutout falling over at the back of the stage!

The costuming was fantastic. All of the costumes were rented, so the costumes were pretty much what professional theaters use. The magical people/objects found in the Beast’s castle were much fun, with the costumes often being more suggestive of the object and sometimes more literal. The magic chest of drawers was a full costume including one drawer that opened up, while Lumiere (the candle) was mostly suggested by two flames that covered the hands.

Ahh, and the special effects. I don’t often think of special effects for high school productions, but this one had some doozies. There was Chip – the little boy who had turned into a teacup. He was wheeled in on a tea cart, and all you could see was his head. The cart was open, so it certainly looked as if there was no body below the head in the teacup. It worked really well (it was done by carefully constructed mirrors, and was apparently very cramped inside). There was Belle’s father’s invention – a machine that chopped wood. The character dropped a whole piece of wood inside his cart, and several split pieces fell out immediately. This was done with springs and a trap door, and was also very convincing. The Beast’s final transformation back into a human was a closely guarded secret, and it involved a huge rush of dry ice that immediately covered the back of the stage in a fog. It was very impressive.

The big central number, “Be Our Guest,” was amazing. It involved at least 30 people dancing on stage, and included hundreds of lights that burst on the stage in the middle of the song. It was pretty jaw-dropping.

The music was very fine. It turns out that the score for Beauty and the Beast is actually very difficult. Many of the pieces are very fast, and there is music through almost the entire play (at least as background music). The kids did a great job, and I was pleased to be sitting right next to the pit so I could see how they were doing. The singing was excellent – CVCA has a massive amount of singing talent, possibly a nice result of the students’ singing in church every Sunday for 15 years.

Mer and I both thoroughly enjoyed the evening. The kids did a great job, and there is a special treat of being “in the know” when watching a production: knowing the actors, crew, musicians, and directors adds a level of fun that makes the evening special.

Backblog – Saturday, April 25th

This particular Saturday was a fun “date day.” It was a beautiful April day, and it was “my” day, so I took Mer to go for a walk in a couple of parks. The first park is called Daffodil Trail, a part of the Furnace Run park, which is a short (about .6 mile) trail. What makes it special, especially in the spring, is that the trail has large collections of daffodils all along it, and Mer particularly likes daffodils. It was a very pretty walk with lots of flowers. Some had already gone by, and some other were not yet blooming, but there were plenty of flowers to see. The walk did not take all that long, so we proceeded to Rock Creek trail (part of Furnace Run, but in a separate area a few miles away) and hiked there as well.

On the way to the park we had passed a farm stand called Country Maid that sold ice cream. We had never heard of the place before, so we stopped on the way back. The articles on the wall of the stand praised the ice cream, but especially lauded the shakes of the place. I’ll have to take Sonotmu there sometime since he is a shake connoisseur. Mer and I both got ice cream, and we both thought it was very good. We both think Handel’s ice cream is better, but Country Maid has a wonderfully rural scene, and is a much nicer place to eat.

That evening, we went to see Hudson Players’ production of Guys and Dolls. Mer had bought me tickets for my birthday present, and was very excited to see the musical. We have had the sound track for years, and I liked the music, but the music did not make much sense to me as a story. Hudson Players is a community acting group, and I was not sure what to expect. They did a great job. They had a 7- or 8-piece orchestra that did very well, and the cast of the musical was very large. The acting was quite fine, and the singing was good; I would say the only thing that hinted at the play’s being an amateur production was that the singing was not always loud enough (and we were in the front row).

The scenery was fun – they had constructed a street scene in New York, with a painted background of a skyline and then several buildings and a newsstand in front, on the stage. When the play moved to Havana, the crew brought out a tiki hut. Well done!

I really enjoyed the play. It is a fun musical anyway, and getting to see the characters in context made the play fall into place for me. The scenery, music, and acting were all fine, and then to make sure our allegiance was won over, they had a cheesecake dessert reception after the show where you could mingle with the actors. Luck was a lady tonight, indeed!

Backblog – Friday, April 24th

Friday, April 24th, marked the first evening of a theater-intensive period for us. Mer had won tickets at the CVCA auction to see Kent State’s production of Twelfth Night. We had seen productions at Kent State before, and we were looking forward to this one.

The theater is semi-circular with colosseum-style seating that goes three quarters of the way around. It only seats about 100-200 people, and so is quite intimate and the actors do not have or need microphones. The set was very simple – it was a series of platforms set about the stage, and there were tall and thin curtains at the back of the set that were used very effectively at the start of the play to indicate a ship that was going down in a storm (the banners waved back and forth as if in a violent wind).

I am pretty familiar with Twelfth Night; we own two different copies of it on DVD, and we have seen it in the theater before. So, I had no trouble with the plot or the language or in keeping track of the characters.

Overall, the play was quite good. I was a little surprised at a few of the casting decisions. Most notably, the woman who played Viola (a major role) had trouble with delivering lines. She had them all memorized, but they were all said essentially the same way, no matter what emotion the play was calling for. As such, her role came across as flat. I think the director may have been going for a “stranger-in-a-strange-land” effect since the young woman had an accent and was exotic looking, but there were times where her monotone delivery of a line undercut what was going on around her. It was an odd choice for a leading role.

Some of the other major roles were quite excellent. The actor playing the uptight steward of the house, Malvolio, was just fantastic. He played the stringent joy-killer with a pompous air, and after he is fooled into thinking that the great lady of the house loves him, his comedic timing was wonderful. The others of the household were also excellent actors – Sir Toby and the man he is mooching off of, Sir Andrew, Maria the housemaid and the Fool of the house all pulled off their roles with gusto and with vigor. The multi-stage set was used to good effect to indicate where the action was taking place, and there was some fun but limited interaction with the audience. I did feel bad for the actors (and for us) in that the auditorium was really uncomfortably hot. I’m not sure if the air conditioning was broken or if Kent State had not turned it on yet since it was still April.

All in all, it was a good production and entertaining, and since Mer had gotten the tickets at about half price at the auction, it was a very successful outing.

Backblog – Saturday, April 18th

Every year for the last seven or eight years, CVCA has held an auction as a fund raiser. This includes a very good dinner, and a fair amount of nice things are donated. It generally brings in over $100,000, and it helps to keep tuition down.

Saturday, April 18th, was the auction for this year. I am always invited since the check-out procedure is computerized. It is an interesting evening for me – it is a wonderful dinner with lots of people that I know, with a constant background of checking on how the computers are doing. Meredith gets to come along, and that is fun for both me and her.

This year’s theme was “God Bless America” and so the food was American, which I loved. There were burgers and pizza and lots of other good stuff. I ate too much, as I always seem to do at buffet-style meals.

I’m not sure if it was because of the economy being down or because our table was way at the back, but the auction seemed more subdued this year. The results were still okay – we were down about 15% or so over all, but it just seemed to lack some of the energy of past years. Mer found some good buys, some of which she shared with me. She got a spa package, and gift certificates for 3 dozen donuts, and the real hit (for me) was that she got a gift certificate for a Dairy Queen Blizzard cake. Neither of us had ever had one before, and it turned out to be fantastic. What a great dessert. Funny story – there were two gift cards for a cake, and several days later a teacher who had bought the other one told Meredith to be aware that the expiration date was only a few weeks away. Mer told her that was not a problem since we had already eaten our cake.

Anyway, the auction went well from my perspective; Mer had a good time, I ate too much, and the computers behaved themselves.

Backblog – Sunday, April 12th, and Monday, April 13th
Easter Sunday was fairly mellow. There is a small church in Bridgman that Mer and I like called Olivet Congregational Church, and we decided to go there for Easter. It is a very small church; even with me and Mer and Ellen, the congregation was under 20 people. I’m not sure why that is – the preaching was fine, and the people were friendly, and the music is much fun – the music is provided by the congregation sitting in the first pews, and included saxophone and trumpet along with the piano of the church. The pastor was easygoing without being informal, and he chatted with us (Ellen and Mer and me) from the pulpit to welcome us. I really liked the church, so I am not sure why it is so small.

After church we went home and I made brunch – I served up strawberries and then made French toast. Marc’s brother makes maple syrup, and Mom and Marc gave us a mason jar of it. So, a brunch was certainly called for! I managed to pull it off, and it was tasty. Mom and Marc’s kitchen is open to the dining and living rooms, so the three of us were able to chat while I played chef for the morning.

The rest of the day is a bit fuzzy. There is an excellent chance that I took a nap while Mer graded and Ellen worked on her doctoral dissertation. At some point, we went down to the beach again so that we could see the beach without freezing. We did not attempt a sunset again, having experienced a rather lengthy one the day before. I expect a game or two was played at some point during the day as well, but all in all, it was a quiet day.

We had to go back home on Monday. We did take time to swing by Sammie’s for breakfast again. We then headed back to get Ellen home to Hillsdale, but we did manage a Dairy Queen stop just before getting to the town. Ice cream is always a welcome pit stop. Sadly, we could not really stay long at Ellen’s – we had school the next day, so we mainly just dropped her off at home and used her bathroom and were off again. We had no issues getting home, and it was good to see the kitties. It was a quick weekend get-away, but a very happy one.

Backblog – Saturday April 11th

There are many great joys of being at Mom and Marc’s place in Michigan (even when Mom and Marc are not there); it is quiet, and pretty, and near the lake, and has lots of cute towns nearby. But, perhaps the greatest pleasures for me and Mer are sleeping in and eating breakfast at Sammie’s Restaurant.

Since Mom’s place is very quiet, it contributes nicely to a good snooze. Add the fact that the house is on the far west of the time zone, which means the sun comes up later than it does in Ohio, and you get a very nice set-up to be lazy. Once you do roll out of bed, you can walk (if the weather is nice) about a mile to Sammie’s Restaurant, where they serve huge and tasty breakfasts until 2:00.

So, this Saturday was no exception. In fact, since Ellen had never been to the area before, it seemed like a downright duty to introduce her to Sammie’s. If I recall correctly, I did have to wake Meredith up; the morning was getting on and everyone else was awake, so the poor thing had to put up with my shortening her sleep. After everyone was ready (no small feat with five people), we all strolled off in the pursuit of high-fat breakfast foods.

The day was nice and sunny, and the walk was quite pleasant for an early April morning. We arrived to little or no wait at Sammie’s (an unexpected bonus), and we all proceeded to eat too much. On the way back, Shannon (who likes a brisk walking pace) pulled the long-suffering Jo along and they got home well before Ellen, Meredith and I did.

Not too long after we got back, Marc showed up. It is, after all, his house. He was on his way to visit his brother and sister, and he stopped in at the house along the way. Marc is one of the most hospitable men I have ever met, and he made Ellen feel quite welcome. Ellen, Meredith, and I had chatted about going to a nice town that was nearby called St. Joseph. When Marc found out that plan, he offered to be the tour guide, and we quite happily accepted. Marc would take Ellen and Meredith in his car, and I would follow along in mine. That way, he could continue on his way north after we were all done, and the three of us could drive back to Bridgman.

We set off in the very small convoy, and Marc took the lead along the back way to St. Joe’s. He quickly pulled into a parking lot, and I followed. We were at a donut shop, and we had just beaten their closing time. Marc bought everyone a treat of his or her choice, and thus provisioned, we proceeded in our 25-minute trek north.

We got to St. Joe’s and Marc pulled into another parking lot. I followed, and this time it turned out to be the Krasl Art Center, a very small but well-done art gallery in the town. They had five or so pieces of sculpture outside, and inside there were two galleries. I’m afraid at this point I have forgotten what was in the first gallery – I think it had some sculpture, but I am not sure, The second gallery was unusual – it had a special exhibition by an artist who was interested in palimpsests. Palimpsests are previous writings on reused surfaces. Normally, these are old writings that were written down when paper was very costly, and then the writing was scraped off so the paper could be reused. These older writings are often of great interest to archeologists, This artist created modern-day examples of this by using chalkboards. He would let people use a chalkboard, and then he would lightly erase the board and have them use it again. He then captured the images (usually by photograph), and he displayed them. I’m not sure it passed the “Matt test” for modern art (the test of “could I have made this?”), but the gallery was easily done in a few minutes, and I really enjoyed the small art center as a whole.

We then drove down to the main street. The main street area of St. Joe’s is a great place to stroll – they have nice shops and restaurants, and you can see the lake from cross streets as you walk. They have a very cool toy store, and importantly for the dessert-addicited Riordans, they have two chocolate stores. We stopped at both, and picked up some chocolates for later at the first one, and I got a chocolate chip cookie a local bakery. Since we are not faint-hearted sweet tooths, we stopped for ice cream at Kilwin’s (an ice cream/fudge/chocolate store).

By this point, Marc needed to be leaving to go to his family’s, but he recommended that we stop by a local art building called the Box Factory. It used to be a factory (presumable one that made boxes), but it has been converted into studio and display spaces for local artists. We stopped by, and wandered around. It is quite large, and they have a stage for musicians, and a small cafe. Since it was late afternoon on a Saturday during off-season, the place was quite quiet. We explored the two-level structure and poked around in the galleries. There was some very nice art, and it looked as if it could be a very festive place during a busier time in summer.

We headed back to the house and found that Shannon and Jo had left. Shannon had intimated that they had to leave, and they might leave while we were away. Since it was now getting along toward evening, I decided that Ellen had to see a sunset at the beach. Since the beach looks over the lake to the west, sunsets are very often spectacular. I calculated when the sun would be going down, and we left about 15 minutes before (we drove down since it was starting to get chilly). We got out of the car and wandered around. To my surprise, the sun was staying quite high and not making perceptible progress toward the horizon. No worries!  I knew how quickly the sun could sink into the lake. After about 15 minutes and no real progress, we began to discuss the situation. In talking it over, I realized that I had calculated incorrectly – I had mistakenly allowed that the sun went down earlier in Michigan than it does where we live in Ohio, when it is really the other way around. This meant that the sun went down about a full hour later than I had figured on. We decided to spend a good chunk of the remainder of that time in the car since a wind had sprung up which made the cold, well, colder. At length, the sun did go down, and it was a pretty sunset.

We headed back home and broke out our leftovers, as well as some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and the chocolates that Mer had bought. We had brought along a DVD of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labors Lost, which I had never seen or read. It was an updated version, with the setting being right before WW 2. They also added in song-and-dance numbers that used songs from various points of the 20th century. That sounds weird, but it worked okay. I enjoyed it. The only sad part of the evening was that I was so stuffed from all my eating during the day, I actually turned down eating some of Mer’s chocolates. Love’s Labors Lost indeed.