Bad day

Recently I had been talking about the fact that I've just had nothing to say in my blog. This was not the way I wanted to come up with something to write about...


Today was a bad day. Before I came into work I had to have our cat Guinness put down. Before anyone asks, yes, he's named after the beer. So is our cat Killian as well as Pauli. The most recent addition, a stray named Spots... well, Mallorie named named him. Guiness had been sick for over a week and had quit eating and drinking. We thought we had pulled him out, but he quit eating and drinking again, his weight had dropped from 17 to just over 8 and we just knew it was time, as did Dr. Ferguson.

So, why write about this in a blog that's basically about journalism? Quite simply, it was photojournalism that brought the big guy into our lives.

As journalists we're supposed to be "detatched observers," but how can you not be affected by all you see, who you meet and where you go? Sometimes it's easier to be detached, I was pretty detached at the fatal crash on SR2 yesterday, but everything we do, everywhere we go, and everything we see has some effect on us. Sometimes just more than others.

It was fall of 1994 and I was shooting stills freelance. On this particular week, I was doing shots in a shelter in Farmington, NM for Cat Fancy magazine. In the middle of the cat cages, there was this big, fuzzy, friendly guy. He had kittens all around him and as people would come through looking at the cats, they would jump toward the kittens. He loved attention and would reach out with a paw through the bars to the people, but they were too busy with the kittens. I took a liking to him and would play with him and pet him in between pictures. On my last day of shooting, the director of the shelter walked by and put a big red X on the card on his cage door. The red X meant his time was up. By this point, I was too involved and couldn't let that happen. And so, my then girlfriend, now wife, and I brought home a second cat. He and his sister (Killian) moved with us when we left New Mexico so I could take a staff job in Indiana. He kept an eye on our new baby when we added her to the family. A few years later, he escaped and was missing for four weeks. I even had a thank you for all the people who gave us tips about his whereabouts put on the editorial page of the paper where I was working. While he was missing another stray claimed us. He played with her for the next couple of years after he came home. A year or so after moving to Toledo, he was diagnosed with diabetes, leaving us giving him a daily insulin shot and keeping him on a special diet. Over the years, he slowed down some, but he was still pretty vital until about a week and a half ago when he came down with some kind of infection.

Finally, 13 years later, after a week and a half of fighting, medication and vet visits, the big red X caught up with us.

The coverage that we do always affects us and sometimes gives us a friend. Funny thing... the story I was shooting for was cancelled and the pictures were never published.