Into every life comes a little pussy

The day has finally come--a day that was five years in the making. Girlfriend has officially moved in with me--along with her cat.

Now, I'm not a cat-person; I'm not even pet-person. Come to think of it, I'm not much of a people-person, plant-person or unicellular-life-form-person. I don't want my furniture covered with hair or bowls of tuna-flavored mush on my kitchen floor; and if anyone is going to shit in a sand-filled box in my bathroom it's going to be me.

However, I made a deal with Girlfriend: if one of her two cats died, she could bring over the other one.

Now Girlfriend has essentially been living with me for several months, but she kept her nearby apartment solely for her cats (those felines enjoyed a spacious one-bedroom, one-bath with attached garage). While it may have been a waste of rent money, it was a small price to pay for my sanity. That sanity saw its final day last week, when one of the cats passed away, and in moved the surviving cat, Maxie.

So far it's not as bad as I feared, although there is a bowl of food on my kitchen floor and a box of sandy cat shit in my bathroom. I visit PetSmart often and continuously browse the internet for the latest, greatest pet hair magnet, sweeper or vacuum.

Maxie and I have a love-hate relationship: she hates me and I love that. She seems to be afraid of me and runs out the room whenever I enter, not unlike Girlfriend did when we began dating. So now I have a pet, for better of for worse. To be continued ...

Shit! We now live in a Swayze-less world.

It is with deep sadness I announce that at 6:28 this evening, in my Mesa, AZ, home, with my girlfriend at my side, I read an Associated Press article reporting the death of Patrick Swayze. He died of cancer.

As will every account of his death, this article labels "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost" as the highlights of his acting career, but for me there are two other films that will always be classic Swayze: "Road House" and "Point Break."

In 1989's "Road House," Swayze ruled the Double Deuce bar with his quick fists and even quicker smile--a style of leadership and authority not often found in today's roadside bars. As an adolescent, I found confusion in the wonderful sex scene between Swayze and Kelly Lynch: I couldn't keep track of who was who--they had the exact same hair.

"Point Break" successfully assembled a magical combination of elements to create the perfect film: surfing, rubber masks of former Presidents, a pre-insane Gary Busey, Keanu Reeves jumping out of a plane with no parachute, and an extraordinary soundtrack featuring RATT's timeless "Nobody Rides For Free."

Tonight I mourn the loss of Patrick Swayze, but tomorrow I celebrate the life of Patrick Swayze. And this Saturday afternoon--as with nearly every Saturday afternoon--I will honor the career of Patrick Swayze when I turn on TBS (or TNT) to catch an airing of "Road House" or "Point Break", unless it's one of those Saturdays when Nicholas Cage's "The Rock" is on instead.

Click here to read my other "Road House"-related posts.