Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Cathy, Dogs and Life-Why Don't I Have Children?

Cathy, Beyonce (in her lap) Pete, Layla and Gaga
I had to post this picture. My first picture of my immediate family. Here I am and one of the few times I'm ever happy and loving being in the moment.


Cathy and I met in the Fall of 1976. I had just finished a relationship with a young woman who broke my heart so badly I decided that I never wanted to get involved in another serious relationship...
Yeah right!
On one fateful evening on a Saturday night in the town of Hull, Ma. Our band "Max Ferguson" was playing on a beachfront strip, in a club called the "Llamara Inn". Crappy little dive with hardly anyone there that night. Cathy was playing up the street at a club called "Caseys II" in a band named "New True Story". A cousin to one member of our band had taken a walk up the beach to have a listen to some of the bands playing in the other clubs. Around the end of the second set was playing and kind of just watching people coming in the door when she just walked right through the door and looked right up at me. I had the strangest feeling that I had met her somewhere...weird. She was incredibly easy to talk to and we just started laughing and talking and then everything just started to flow.
She called me a couple of weeks later came down to my house (I was still living with my parents) and she never left. My mom let her move in and by the following January had set the date.
At about the time we married, I had really begun to struggle with my alcoholism. At times it got very bad and I'm really amazed at this point that we stayed together. There were a lot of times when I would have just wanted to be by myself and she felt the same. We fought, we struggled and we loved. The strange thing about it all was I didn't really fall madly in love her at first. I guess it just felt right so we stuck together. As time passed I fell deeply in love with her. The longer we stayed together the more we became protective of each other and time just passed and we're still here.
Even though now we've become independent to some extent with our  personal goals and viewpoints I can never imagine us apart. When push comes to shove we have each others back and are completely loyal to our friendship.


Dealing with my alcoholism and horrible bouts of depression and mania, on top of chronic financial instability, I felt it best to not have kids. I really wanted to adopt during the 80's when I was going through a 20 year period of sobriety but, Cathy would not be convinced and I finally lost the urge to raise children.
With us constantly working and no expendable time we were never able to have a pet. I love animals and it has been something I really missed.
At about the time of the financial meltdown around 2007-2008, Cathy just didn't want to work anymore. I had started to spiral into a serious depression at about this time which required professional intervention. I had been obsessed with rescue dogs and hanging at the dog parks and walking through shelters. On Valentine's day of 2010 I abducted Cathy, grabbed a cab and walked through the door of the SPCA. The first dog I saw way across the room and through all the other dogs I spotted my little black "Lady Gaga" giving me her "Poker Face". I sat down, she ran to me and It was the same feeling I had when I first met Cathy. I knew we were in it for the long haul.






Soon after we began searching for a companion dog and soon came across our "Beyonce" in a very miraculous way.


A few months later we had and accident and in a moment of weakness I happened to be in the right place at the right time and we adopted yet a third dog, "Layla". She completed the pack and I feel it's all just perfect in our family.

I'm now officially "That Weird Dog Guy" and I'm happy as a clam. 
I'm a very lucky guy. Even though most of the times I'm not satisfied with where I'm at in this stage of my life. I sometimes need to step back to look at the big picture and realize how good I have it compared to so many others.
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Running: Bay To Breakers on May 20th.
today's practice race was really below my expectations but, I think I'm not recovered completely since this weekends athletic debauchery!
This event has come up pretty quickly and I'm stretching it with my time prediction of sub-1 hour finish. I'll still try as hard as I can...
9.5 mile run-

1 comment:

Stormey said...

I am so proud to call you my brother!