Lost in Translation

It sounds like Dad’s getting a lot of media attention this week. In an article published today in PLoS Medicine (”a peer-reviewed open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science”), he - along with a large group of researchers - reports on the mortality and morbidity associated with alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug use, using data from the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The WHO’s WMH survey is the first step toward acquiring good epidemiological data from around the world - especially from less-developed countries - on alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug use.

Their findings support the association of an increased rate of mortality and morbidity with drug use. But here’s the part that’s getting him the media attention:

Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly and is not simply related to drug policy, since countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones. Sex differences were consistently documented, but are decreasing in more recent cohorts, who also have higher levels of illegal drug use and extensions in the period of risk for initiation.

(Emphasis mine.)

Already Mom is talking about how every time she sees him this week he’s on the phone with a news organization. (Bloomberg is one of the first news sources I’ve seen reporting on this.)

Congratulations, Dad! And, er, hopefully you’ll get to have a private life again soon…

Meet MacLeod.

When we left for my parents’ house on Sunday, Edward’s fate was still very much up in the air. We were hopeful, but we weren’t foolish; we knew that there was a good chance that we wouldn’t see him again. As I drove, we discussed what might happen: he might get better, he might stay stable, he might die. Holly looked at me, on the ramp up to I-70, and asked me, “If Edward dies, do you want to get a new kitten?” It wasn’t really a suggestion at that point. She was wondering if I intended to replace Her Cat. “Only if you want to,” I replied. A moment later, she responded: “I’ll think about it.”

An hour later, the subject came up again. “If we got a new cat, what would you want?” We spent some time discussing breeds and personalities, and we came up with a rough sketch of what we’d want: probably longhair, definitely playful, a cat who would curl up with Holly at night and when she was watching TV.

Another hour went by. “So we’re getting another cat if Edward dies.” This was no longer affront as she imagined my potential imposition; she had decided that if Edward died, we needed a new cat to fill the void. Nature abhors a vacuum and so, it appears, does my wife. That’s not to say that I disagreed; I thought a new kitten was a great idea, but I didn’t want to upset Holly by implying that I wanted to replace Edward.

Then, on Monday, we got the news that Edward hadn’t made it through the night.

On Tuesday, we started looking in earnest for a new kitten. It was a pleasant diversion and a needed distraction. We discovered American Bobtails quickly, and it seemed like they suited our needs… but when we looked for sources in the area, we discovered that the closest source also had another breed of cat that looked even better for us.

One of the kittens she was advertising really stood out to us - the runt of the litter, this kitten had bright orange fur (his siblings were all silver) and polydactyly (an extra toe on each foot). We called and inquired, and he was available; we spent the next few days arranging a time to go down and meet the owner and the kitten. Today - Monday, June 30th, our first anniversary - was the first day that everything came together, so at 4:00 we all (me, Holly, and Alex) piled into the car and drove down past Cincinnati to meet our kitten source.

We knew we’d made the right choice as soon as we lay eyes on the kitten. He was even nicer to look at in person, very cuddly, and very playful - he was as happy to curl up in Holly’s arms as to chase a toy mouse across the countertop. We signed the adoption agreement and headed home, our new cat in tow.

We haven’t introduced him to Zach and Tippie yet because we want him to be able to get used to the place - and also because we got home around 10:30 PM, and we want to actually be able to spend time on introducing them properly. But he is in the bedroom tonight; in fact, the picture above is of him sleeping on Holly’s duvet.

Oh, and the name? Well, it comes from the breed - MacLeod is, of course, a Highlander.

We got home at about 4:45. I came in long enough to retrieve Edward’s empty shell from the freezer. (Carolyn doesn’t drive, Geno was unable or unwilling to take Edward to the vet to be cremated, and we couldn’t reach anyone else in town.) We drove quickly to the vet and said our goodbyes, and they relieved us of the body.

On the way to the vet I noticed a speck on my hand that looked like it was moving and swatted it, then pinched it, hard. Apparently the cats have fleas. So we got flea treatment for them, and sometime in the next week or so we’ll bug-bomb the house so that the remaining fleas will die.

We bought new sheets for Alex (Spider-Man) and ourselves.

I cleaned up the stray cat crap in the corner, and emptied the trash. The house smells much better, but we’re still airing it out. One of these days I want to clean it from top to bottom. With my luck, it’ll be just before we leave.

Holly has a line on a new kitten for the house. He’s the runt of his litter and the only one still being offered by his owner. He’s a polydactyl orange Highlander. If we get him - we’ll see on Sunday or Monday - we’re naming him MacLeod. I wonder, idly, how many other Highlander kittens are named MacLeod. He’ll be “Mac” and “Tiny” for short.

Zach and Tippie are both very upset at the moment. It’s hard to tell that Tippie is sulking, but Zach is hiding in the depths of one of the closets; when we drag him out, he wanders the house, meowing plaintively and looking under things. The objective is obvious. We brought Zach and Edward home together as kittens; Zach doesn’t know what being without Edward is like. He thinks that if he looks under enough things, Edward will pop out of one. It’s heartbreaking.

I miss my cat. I keep expecting to see him walk out of the bedroom or standing over by the water bowl, lapping away. I’m not really at the tearing-up stage anymore (although Zach’s melancholy gets me close), but it’s still hard to not have him here. MacLeod will go a long way toward filling the hole he’s left behind, but he could never replace Edward.

We hung Edward’s purple collar on our bedroom wall so he can be with us always.

In much, much happier news, my friend Jaida and her partner Dani are releasing their debut novel, Havemercy, tomorrow (6/24/08). Havemercy is a clockwork fantasy novel, about a city in scandal and in war, and about four adventurers - including one of the riders of the city’s mechanical dragons - who must overcome both.

Many congratulations to Mss. Jones and Bennett, and best wishes on this and many more.

The emotional content of the day has left me exhausted. I took fifteen minutes to express my grief privately; other than that I have been steadfast so that Holly doesn’t have to be. We keep running into memories of things that will never happen again, and they hurt more than I can show or express. He’ll never sleep on Holly’s keyboard again. He’ll never try to get out the door while I’m getting the mail. (He loved the outdoors.) I asked Carolyn to take off his collar before she did anything else. I’m going to mount it above the bedroom door - above every bedroom door from now on. It will remind us.

For better or for worse, he was our friend, and we loved him. We still do. It’s so hard to talk about him in the past tense that we have to force ourselves to do it, and everything we even think and feel about him seems to creep that way too sometimes. We love our Bedward (even though we’ll never watch him sleep again), our Ed-bird (even though he’ll never perch on our shoulders again), our Edward-bear (even though his fur is cold and still). We always will.

We lost Edward last night.

Requiescas in pace, sweetheart.

(And thank you, Carolyn, for helping us with this. You have our deepest thanks.)

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . .

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

I’m going to be considerably scarcer over the next month and a half, because Alex is arriving tomorrow and much of my time is going to be devoted to him. However, I do have what I consider to be some major content coming up, hopefully in the next week or so. So keep your eyes peeled!

Congratulations to the newly-minted Eric and Wednesday Burns-White. May you live long and prosper.

I feel like I should do something with my Classics degree. So here you go: a bit of classical-studies trivia.

The word “cyclops”, contrary to popular belief, does not refer to the mythical humanoid having only one eye. It refers to the size of the eye in question: κύκλος “circle, wheel” + ὤψ (’ops’) “eye”. A cyclops is someone whose eyes are as big as cart-wheels.

(You see κὐκλος in words like “bicycle”, and ὤψ in “optics”.)