Today was Antares Aloysius Collins’s last day on earth. He had been declining for some time, but he awoke late last night in incredible pain and unable to use one or both of his hind legs. After a midnight trip to the emergency vet, I made the decision to end his life.
The first year with Sentinel taught me that Sentinel wanted a buddy. He was always interested in hanging out with other cats like upstairs kitty. And I wanted a kitten. I found a listing on the Oregon Humane Society’s website for Atari, a small black kitten who had spent the first few months of his life as a feral kitten and needed a cat to teach him how to be a housecat. I had just such a cat. We picked him up from his foster mother and Matt found the name Antares, which is the brightest star in the constellation Scorpio. We pronounced it An TAR eees, rather than An TEAR eeses. The dictionary says both are correct.
Antares was a feral kitten for a short enough time that he was friendly to those who wooed him, but long enough that he was incredibly skittish for his entire life. If I had a dollar for every time I said, “It’s okay!” to him, I would have been able to pay for all of his care, and probably some of Sentinel’s too.
Antares was a champion hider. When people would come to the house, he would crawl under the comforter on my bed. He was a visible lump, and many people jokingly wondered what that lump on my bed could be. But under the covers was a safe place for him, and also quite warm. Because he was always hiding, it was only in the last few years of his life when he calmed down enough to be wooed by people other than me. I would guess only about six people besides me were ever able to pet him.
He wasn’t the smartest cat in the room. I blame his feral kittenhood, which perhaps was missing a few nutrients. But he was a learner. His foster mother brought him to her home to hang out with her three cats, so he would learn how to be a house cat. Sentinel continued the lessons. While it never occurred to him to jump on top of the refrigerator, when my aunt’s cat Squeak came to stay, Antares watched Squeak make the jump and then make the jump himself. Was he doing it to push Squeak out of his spot? Yes he was. But still, he was learning.
Also, when my friend’s cat Mork came to visit, he was similarly rude. But Mork is a champion kneader, and Antares noticed. He tried out kneading on his own, and it became a comfort in his life. He preferred to knead my shoulder as I was reading before bed before settling down on my chest.
Antares spent most of his life as an ineffective alpha cat. Sentinel just didn’t care about his antics and mostly ignored them, and he was very rude to cat visitors. He woke me up in the middle of the night once because he was attacking the back door where presumably there was a cat sitting on the porch. He often wasn’t nice to Sentinel, to the extent that if they both liked something, I needed to buy two, because Antares would not let Sentinel have a turn. This mellowed when both cats got old, and disappeared entirely when Sentinel died. At that point, he became a very sweet cat. Although I had learned by then not to have cat visitors.
I called Antares my southern California cat, because he loved sitting in the sun. In this house that means my bedroom window. When I made the back porch catio, that also became a porch sitting option on sunny mornings. That option got even better with the pandemic, when I shifted to working at my desk many hours of the day. I could easily open the door to let Antares in and out (and in) (and out) (and in) (and out). He also kept his feral roots going and used the cat door for the front catio most nights that weren’t cold and rainy. And sometimes he would go out on cold and rainy nights.
Possibly my favorite quirk about Antares was that he loved rolling around on swimsuits. I think it was the chlorine smell he liked. Because he was fairly destructive, especially when he was younger, I made sure to keep my active swimsuit out of reach. But I saved old swimsuits and would intermittently set them out on the bed. He would roll around on them and claw at them, and eventually curl up and sleep on them.
While Antares wasn’t wedded to eating at a specific time as Sentinel was, he didn’t like his daily routine to be interrupted. Unmaking and making the bed was an ordeal as it meant moving the bed from the wall to get at the sheets (blasphemy!) and the covers being disturbed (intolerable!). I eventually bought a second sheet set so I could immediately remake the bed because he didn’t like the mattress bare while the sheets were being washed, and he would complain loudly. If I ever had to wash the comforter, that was the end of life as we know it. No other comforter would substitute. Not even this delightfully fluffy blue one in the next picture.
Antares was a bit of a delicate flower. Not in the digestive way, like Sentinel was, but in a whole host of other ways. He had to have a bunch of teeth extracted when he was around three years old. He got a mysterious eye disease that meant going to the cat eye doctor and an expensive regime of drugs. When that more or less cleared up, he started having troubles with his nose, and eventually had a blockage in his left nostril. Then he started growing a lump at the base of his tail and was quite accomplished at that feat. By then he had heart problems and couldn’t get it removed. So he ended his life sneezy, a bit drippy, blocked, and lumpy. Poor cat.
In later life, he had some joint problems which meant he got to a point where he couldn’t jump on the counter anymore. I found this to be a bonus (while also not wishing that fate on him).
Antares was a great fan of being groomed. After the teeth removal, I started brushing both cats’ teeth. With Sentinel, it was a process that took months. (Set on counter, get a treat. Touch outside of mouth, get a treat. Touch gum line get a treat, etc.). With Antares, we were brushing within the first week. He also didn’t mind medication doling, claw trimming (somewhat), and loved to be combed.
One of my favorite stories about him happened at the vet. He was angry, as usual, that I had taken him from his realm, that he had to go in the car, and that he had to sit through an examination. The vet tech took him in his carrier for some bloodwork, and when she bought him back, he was still wrapped in a towel. She explained that she did the blood draw and wrapped him in a towel while she finished up. When she went to de-towel him, he protested, so she left him wrapped up. We both laughed, and I took him home in that towel, which I still have.
Names I called him: cute kitten, boneless kitten, old man kitty, kit-TEN
It ombre-ed into orange not red, and no lion was present, but I enjoyed this feature of my room.
When I was growing up the Red Lion Downtowner was fancy, so it was interesting to stay there in 2025. It isn’t so fancy, instead turning down at the heel. For instance when I walked in to register, there was a homeless person sleeping in the lobby. That may have had something to do with it being cheaper than staying at an Airbnb or Verbo rental.
In an echo of the Vegas visit, I went to my assigned room only to find that the do-not-disturb sign was on the door. I waylaid a housekeeper who assured me someone probably forgot to take it off, and opened the door for me. She quickly shut it, as we both realized that someone was already in that room. I headed down to the front desk for a new room assignment while she apologized to the dude in the room who was confused why someone was opening his door.
I hosted Easter this year, and the only picture I have is this one that shows off a new method I tried for dying eggs: eggs rolled in salt that has food coloring in it.
I won’t use that method again. The color didn’t stick very well, and I had to have Matt wrap all the eggs in paper towels so we could properly play the egg game without getting red dye on our hands.
The meal included: ham steaks with madeira sauce, roasted radishes and radish greens, asparagus and mushrooms, funeral potatoes (my first time eating and making), and cheddar kale roles where the dough was rolled in a butter/kale/mustard concoction before being baked in a cast iron skill it.
Linda brought pie for dessert (cherry, quince, and apple) and Rick brought homemade ice cream. Present but not pictured: me, Linda, Rick, Matt, Kelly, my mom, and Aunt Pat.
The first is a bit of a deep cut. It depends on you knowing that Robert Kennedy Jr., gave a very uninformed speech about people with autism, and that’s what Matt is referring to. The sign also encapsulates Matt’s indifference toward baseball and his dislike of poems.
The other side references his sadness over the loss of Greater than Games, a company that has supplied him with many fun hours of board gaming.
This next poster covers what a lot of us are really angry about.
And its obverse records Matt’s annoyance at doing his civic duty by serving on a jury.
I took my friends through the house and when we got to the basement, one of them marveled at the door. Isn’t it great? So very wide.
It’s also perfectly weighted and makes a satisfying clink of the latch falling when it closes. I’m guessing this door was salvaged from some other building, but it might have been bought new for the house.
It needs some reglazing, and perhaps a paint job, but I enjoy that when my brother duct taped the cracks in the middle window, he made it look like a figure kicking up its heels.
Antares was sunning himself on the back porch, and I was typing away at my computer when I heard a growl.
Who should be in the back yard but yet another black cat.
While Antares isn’t into making cat friends, I’ve been trying to befriend this cat for some time. He doesn’t often come through the back yard during my work hours, but when he does, he shows no interest in befriending me. He usually looks annoyed when he sees me and then he speeds up his trotting. So I was surprised to see him so close to the house.
After the initial growl, there was a long period of staring, then the visitor noticed me and excited the yard quickly.
This picture also features Antares’s lump on his tail. His heart isn’t strong enough to have surgery to remove it, and it continues to grow. I’ve found that cutting the hair around it makes it less irritating to him as the fur doesn’t get stuck in the scabby lump. Though it also makes it more prominent.
The house is creeping closer to being ready to sell, and I took some pictures of some small details I love.
The fact that there is a utility room. Everyone has always called this the utility room, something that I didn’t realize was nomenclature of the period until I was reading a small booklet about Richland Washington’s Alphabet Houses, and noticed that all the plans had utility rooms. It would be called a laundry room now.
But also I love that cake cover style light cover, which is probably original to the house.
Here’s a closer look.
In the grandpa bathroom, a tiny room off the utility room, no one ever cleaned out the grandpa medicine cabinet, so here it is, last used in September 1990.
It includes a handy list of first-aid hints held up originally by cellophane tape. The other taped up item says, “Yet, it’s a pretty good and very simple remedy. It is not infallible, but very frequently will settle a queasy stomach. Use a two per cent salt solution (one-half teaspoonful of salt in three ounces of water). Then take a tablespoonfull of this solution.”
At some point in possibly the Oregonian, the was an article about someone in real estate (agent? photographer?) who kept a collection of cool light switch plates. I understood the appeal.
Here are two very cool light switch covers. I didn’t notice until I was taking the picture that they have mirrored backgrounds.
And here’s one of the two probably original bathroom switch plates. (From the other bathroom, not from the grandpa bathroom.) This one is cracked, and the other is not, but the picture of the non-cracked one came out blurry, so you will have to make do with the cracked one.
I also like the grooves on this switch plate.
Grandpa also had grandpa items in the big bathroom. Here they are, patiently sitting there since the George H.W. Bush administration.
I took the medicine cabinet contents home and put most of them out on the street for people to take as needed. They were all gone within hours, even that empty English Leather bottle.
I’m a Portland Monthly subscriber (support local media!) and received two different offers in short succession. One promised me the lowest rate you will receive, the other was alerting me to the fact I could save 67% off the newsstand price.
I don’t think I’ve ever paid the newsstand price (I went online to subscribe), so that was a moot point. But comparing the two offers, I did catch Portland Monthly in an untruth. While the three-year renewal rate was $42.00, thus $6.00 less than the $48.00 off-the-newsstand rate, and the two-year renewal rate of $32.00 was $4.00 less, the one-year subscription renewal was $20.00—$4.00 less than the lowest rate I will receive.
Which letter did I respond to? After checking my records and discovering I’ve been a one-year-at-a-time subscriber, I went online and renewed there. Where the rate was $20.00. The same rate I’ve been paying annually since the genesis of my subscription.
