Our little Akiyata was missing since Thursday night so TBU put up posters around the neighborhood this morning. We got a call a few hours ago from a neighbor who Aki would hang out with. She asked us to come over because she had bad news.

She told us that her roommates found Aki in the parking lot bleeding from his face, he had been hit by a car. They took him to the emergency vet to be put to sleep.

I’m so grateful someone who loved him found him and took him to be put to sleep because this would be so much worse if the last image I had of him was of watching him suffer through severe head trauma.

His name is from Return of the Jedi when Princess Leia and a team of Rebel Fighters are racing through the forest of Endor on speeders, fighting Storm Troopers, then a band of Ewoks defeats the Storm Troopers saving the Rebel Fighters. One of the Ewoks raises his spear and with his cute little Ewok face yells something resembling, “Akiyata!”

That was the first time I saw the movie and after a week of triumphantly yelling, “Akiyata!” for no apparent reason we found this tiny feral gray fluff dodging cars in a busy parking lot. TBU went up to him and got an adorable sandpaper lick. That was it. I tried to convince the Teebs that we couldn’t keep him because we already had two cats. But he was too fucking cute and quickly got named Akiyata. That was three days before I graduated college and I always thought of him as my graduation present.

He was never fully domesticated, he spent most of his time outside bossing the neighborhood around. Anywhere he sat he was guarding whatever was behind him. He drank out of the toilet and when he was done he would block the door, if we tried to walk over him he bat at our ankles. He didn’t like to be held and only recently began tolerating being pet. But he came when we called and was incredibly sweet to strangers. It wasn’t a surprise to find out our neighbors befriended him.

He was incredibly beautiful and regal looking, something that was ironic since we found him as an abandoned kitten in a parking lot. His sense of entitlement was endearing and we called him Proud Prince Akiyata when he was looking particularly handsome or was especially demanding.

He was getting sweeter and sweeter all the time. The night before the accident he was asleep at our feet letting us pet him. Teebs and I could not get over how cute he was and how sweet he was being. We commented how lucky we were that he was so awesome. The next day I saw him asleep on top of a car when I came home from work. I thought it was strange that he didn’t follow me in like normal but he was feral at heart and fairly unpredictable so I didn’t think much more of it. That was the last time either of us saw him.

Our saturday

TBU: We shot our booze wad

TM: No, no, no NO. I’m totally ready to drink more.

TBU: Well then let’s go get more.

~ 5 minutes later, referencing the above conversation ~

TBU: That’s pretty sad that the funnest thing for us to do on a Saturday is to get drunk and drink more.

TM: It’s not sad… [thinking about the possible sadness]

TBU: Well it’s not sad but it’s telling.

TM: Yes, yes it is telling.

Two years ago I could not fathom a time in my life where sleeping until 9 am would be a luxury. Did you hear? Oh, I’m sorry I was under the impression everyone had heard. 9 am is the new 1 in the afternoon.

I am kinda over my job, like the day to day workings of it. What I am not over is their extremely lax attitude on taking days off and how they pay for all of my health insurance. So I’m a little torn. Should I put up with annoying clients who want to talk about the finer point of eggnog for 20 minutes because I can decide to take work off tomorrow and not be made to feel shitty about it? Or should I find a job (if I am so lucky in this climate) that is less annoying while I am doing it but isn’t so chill in other respects? I dunno. I’m leaning towards just not being a dork and getting over myself and realizing that I have it pretty good.

Also, internet, I need more advice. We have a new upstairs neighbor, they’re not as insane as our last one but we’re convinced they’re adding a second story to their apartment or that they have a home business that involves hammers and banging on their floor. Whatever the case, that’s not what I need help on. The thing is that I have a lovely garden going. It’s quite fabulous really and I have to work at it because I am not one of those people who just brings a plant home and knows what to do with it. Our upstairs neighbor lady also has a lovely garden going and she works on it too, every fucking day. The problem with this is that she pours water into her plants which then create an evil high pressure waterfall onto my delicate, innocent plants below. Is it too much to ask her to get a saucer underneath her plants? Is this not the most curmudgeonly old lady blog post ever? What have I become?

The Millionizer wants to get drunk and reminisce about when she used to be cool, she has pictures to prove it