Photo-A-Day #2598

Roo has started eating food now. Allison has steamed up carrots, peas and apples and he loves all of them. He’s very big on carrots now. I can’t believe that he’s almost six months old (he’ll be 6mos on Tuesday). He’s getting so big and so strong.

Today was National Daddy Daughter Tea Date Day but we didn’t celebrate this year. Because of Duncan’s death we decided to go out as a family to Morin’s Restaurant for breakfast.

Before that I got home and Eva told me that Duncan had passed away. She got up and Allison had to break the news to her. I was very sad for Eva. She immediately asked if we could get a new cat. We explained to her that we would, in time. We need a bit of time as a family to process Duncan’s death.

At Morin’s we tried Andrew in the high chair but he was too small for it and just flopped around. I went out and got his car seat. While I was gone the waitress came over to take our drink order and Eva told her, “My brother passed away last night.” The waitress was sheet white at that statement until Allison explained that Eva called Duncan her brother… and that he was a cat.

Eva also asked me to film her as she drew on the placemats. I was very impressed with her knowledge of Octagons.

After we got home from breakfast Allison took the kids to a birthday party. I got out the shovel. Allison took care of wrapping up Duncan in trash bags and then placing him in a plastic container. She put that in the garage with my toolbox on top of it. I didn’t want any mice out there seeking revenge (Duncan was an awesome mouser). I dug a grave in the side yard in a spot that I still needed to seed with grass. I thank Massachusetts for the abundance of rocks, roots and hard packed soil for the time of it I had but in the end I was able to make a decent sized hole. I took Duncan from the container, he was wrapped in two trash bags, one at his head and one at his tail. There was a bit opened in the middle so I could see his black fur. I got a bit choked up and placed him in the grave.

He was stiff.

I covered him with the dirt and packed it down a few times and covered it some more. I raked up the remaining dirt and will probably seed it soon so that we can have some grass grow over the spot. We’ll also place a painted rock somewhere on that side of the yard to indicate that he was buried there.

Yesterday I speculated about having to take Duncan to the vet to have him put down and how I would have to deal with that, something that my Dad had to do with our pets. But in the end it came down to Allison. She took care of Duncan and pet him and talked to him up until he passed. She gathered up his body and took care of dealing directly with his death. She had to break the news to Eva. Allison was very strong.

After burying Duncan I went inside and messed around on the computer. I got an e-mail telling me that I had missed a call. The call was from comedian Mike Schmidt of The 40 Year Old Boy Podcast. He’s coming to town May 30-June 1 for his one man show on June 1. I donated to his Kickstarter campaign and as such I get to go to dinner with him while he is in town. Well, I called him back because he wanted to know if he could have the T-shirts shipped to my house for the show on the 1st. I said sure. Now Mike talks about how a phone call with him would be awkward and strange, a TV come to life sort of thing. In the end the strangeness happened because of me. He apologized for calling me so early and I said. Oh don’t worry about it, you know I have a weird schedule and I am usually asleep at this time but I just buried my cat….. I made it weird. Who tells a stranger on a first phone call that? Apparently I do. Luckily Mike has heard much worse over the years and it wasn’t that weird.