We lost one of our cats today — The Dude. We got him from the pound about a year and a half ago (check his arrival here), so we didn’t have him for very long. He was an old guy when we got him, so we knew it was going to be a short time, but I didn’t know it’d be this short.

He’s been losing weight for awhile and getting old and generally just getting more and more decrepit, until this morning when he was in an obvious bad way. I took him to the vet and we put him to sleep this evening. It was kidney failure, we think. The doc was maddeningly vague about his condition and whether or not it was time, but it was pretty clear that putting him to sleep was the right thing to do.

He was a cool dude. He made a place for himself among this madhouse of animals and fit right in. I’m going to miss his insistent tap-tap-tapping at the dinner table as he begged for food, his blatant jumping up on the dinner table when the tapping didn’t work, his falling asleep face down in my lap while watching TV at night, his drooly kisses in bed when he’d want to rub his nose against my mouth and I’d always complain to Beth that “Goddamit, honey, my cat is such a fag!” I’m going to miss The Dude, period. He was my cat and I loved him.

Here’s The Dude with Beth and Zoe this morning when we all pretty much knew how the day would end but we hadn’t taken him to the vet yet.

He was loved. He’ll be missed.

Goodbye, Dude.

The Writer’s Guild is on strike, as anyone who pays even passing attention to the entertainment industry knows. Being a (struggling) writer myself, I am 100% behind the WGA and I’d be on the picket line with them if I were a member. But being that I live here in L.A., I’m in an uncomfortable position.

On the one hand, I fully support the writers. On the other hand, though, quite a few of my friends work on several TV shows as cast or crew or drivers, and they’re going to be out of work when the town shuts down. Most of them can’t afford to be out of work.

On a related note, I can’t afford to be out of work. But I also don’t want to cross the WGA’s picket lines. That’s not going to be an issue for me most of the time, since I do most of my training at various business units not involved with production, but it will be an issue occasionally. Like tomorrow, when I’m scheduled to train on the studio’s lot, which is currently being picketed by 100+ writers.

I’ve worked it out with my boss, at least temporarily. A co-worker else is taking my classes on the lot for me tomorrow while I work back at the office, so I won’t have to cross the picket line. But the longer the strike goes on the more this is going to come up for me, and I think the more it comes up the less accomodating my boss is going to be. This is a very temporary solution, but at least it’s a solution for now.

Go, WGA.