Rest in peace ol’ king of cats

Sorry, this is going to be a short post.

I’ve been having some issues as of late. We are in the midst of a typhoon, but it’s a silly storm. It’s a lot of hot air, but no excitement. Sort of like American politics (Heh Heh). But it has messed up everything and my VPN Is selective, wordpress is on and off, and I’m dealing with random and periodic flickers of stability within a sea of temporary turmoil.

Hopefully this post will see you all well.

Take care.

THE BEST HOMEMADE ICE CREAM RECIPE IN THE WORLD made in a WHITE MOUNTAIN freezer

https://youtu.be/QULFWnYFTlo

How long would it take the US Navy to sink the Chinese aircraft carrier?

1 Answer: It would take “about the same time for the US to sink China’s brand new aircraft carrier in a war” as it would take for China to sink all the American Pacific-based aircraft carriers and the single UK aircraft carrier using the Chinese suborbital missiles designed for that purpose. See

DF-21 – Wikipedia

“China has inducted the world’s first operational anti-ship ballistic missile, a “carrier killer” capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, known as the DF-21D. In 2010, it was reported that China had entered the DF-21D into its early operational stage for deployment.” And note the development of the DF26: See

China’s new ‘carrier killer’ video is a treasure trove of military intel that should worry the US Navy

which development is summarised as

• “China offered an unprecedented look at its new DF-26 “carrier killer” missile in a video seen by military experts as warning that US aircraft carriers are sitting ducks.
• The footage showed the missile in an unprecedented way, offering a treasure trove of military intelligence to the US.
• The video revealed a capable weapon with several strengths and features that seriously threaten the US Navy’s entire operating concept.”

Pilotless drones [which the USA seems to see as a partial solution] would be powerless to intercept these inward coming ballistic missiles, which can come almost vertically down at hypersonic speeds exceeding 5000 mph, so these descending missiles are in the 20-mile thick atmosphere for about 15 seconds. See

China’s hypersonic missiles, aka “carrier killers,” are a “holy s**t moment” for U.S. military

as retired Admiral William McRaven, the former head of U.S. special forces, had observed in calling China’s intensifying military build-up “a holy shit moment for the United States.”

2 Discussion: You should also note Reuter’s

Special Report: New missile gap leaves U.S. scrambling to counter China

which says

“Many of these missiles are specifically designed to attack the aircraft carriers and bases that form the backbone of U.S. military dominance in the region and which for decades have protected allies including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

“Across almost all categories of these weapons, based on land, loaded on strike aircraft or deployed on warships and submarines, China’s missiles rival or outperform their counterparts in the armories of the United States and its allies, according to current and former U.S. military officers with knowledge of PLA test launches, Taiwanese and Chinese military analysts, and technical specifications published in China’s state-controlled media.“

So the long-assumed US military area dominance [perhaps even reflected in your question] no longer holds.

3 Conclusions

• It is not in the least likely that either the American or Chinese leadership would be so foolish as to commit nuclear war and national suicide, because of course the ensuing atomic war would destroy the world.
• The effectiveness of Chinese R&D on my best estimates may be three or four times that of the USA because that function is included in virtually all Chinese investment activity and the Chinese bang for the Yuan greatly exceeds the American bang for the buck and Chinese STEM graduate numbers are now many times US ones. See the Feb 2017 Forbes/Statistica infographic at

The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates [Infographic]

• The Americans have lost both the R&D funding and STEM graduate numbers availability on which much of future economic and military development depends.
• THESE LOSSES ARE IRRECOVERABLE

PS I did try to advise US Presidents from Nixon to Obama about how they could accelerate American economic growth. None replied.

Jeff has a say

Here’s the deal. Fauci paid Baric at UNC $68 million to weaponize Covid-19. Then Fauci paid Wuhan $2.7 million as a cover-up to blame China for the pending plandemic. It’s like blaming a louse on an elephant’s rump for stampeding the camp. Wuhan was glad to get the virus from Baric, so in 2016, China could already start developing attenuated vaccines that work. Smart move to save millions of Chinese lives. Huge cost in the Sinophobic, commie-hating BLPM.

Jeff

How to Make Chocolate Hot Fudge Sauce From Scratch

https://youtu.be/Gko6LwxI634

Some people are saying that if Russia is about to lose the war then China will help it. What do you think?

Pipe Dreams!!!

The War is long over

The Realists acknowledge the fact.

• Russias Economy Stands
• Russias inflation has receded
• Russia has annexed a whopping 109000 Square Kilometers of Territory and millions of people
• Russia has just had 4.113 Billion People refuse to Condemn it the United Nations – thats 59% of the Worlds Population albeit only 40 Countries
• The Ruble is strong and stable between 55–65 – far stronger than its 85 to 1 USD in February 2022 – despite all capital controls now removed.
• Russia has killed or wounded 200,000 Ukranians and decimated the entire Ukrainian Army Equipment leaving Ukraine entirely at the Mercy of NATO and other Foreigners
• Russia has decimated the Ukrainian Economy and caused a 35% contraction in just 8–10 months.
• Russia still has sold more Oil and Gas than the last 4 years on a YOY Basis
• Russia sells Gas in Rubles to 26 Countries – all of which had refused to pay Rubles barely a few months ago

This is not Russian News. This is News from the West. All of this.

So the fact that Russia is losing is now nothing more than Pipe Dreams and Wishful Thinking

They have broken the Ukrainian Army to pieces and forced them to resort to Blatant Terrorism to survive and Political Actions

Meanwhile

• All Europe is struggling with Protests and Strikes and Inflation and Shortages
• UK has deposed One Leader and the other has a popularity rating of 14%
• United States has been embarrassed Globally by Saudi Arabia, UAE openly when they defied US “Requests”
• Putin is not isolated in any way outside the Western Countries. Everywhere else he is greatly welcomed as is Russia
• Even the Puny Sri Lanka – has backtracked on their Aeroflot impounding and apologized to Russia

Putin has won one of the Greatest Victories against the West – a Defeat the West could have avoided had they simply left Russia alone or not sanctioned Russia so much

Exactly as Donald J Trump had advised

So why would they Need China?

Chinas greatest help was during February to May 2022

Russia was Vulnerable and China helped with Banking, Settlements , More Chips, More Components, More Trade and Purchased More Oil and kept the Yuan flowing – aiding against the Rapid Asset Freeze

Then India came through

They dont need any help in War or Combat

So barring people desperate to Cope at the Wests Massive Humiliation – anyone else would know that Russia has long won the War

It is the West that is refusing to accept defeat and desperately dragging the war with more Ukrainian Deaths and Propaganda.

When a Nation is Furious that their President is not killing too many people and is being too less aggressive – You know the NATION is entirely cohesive and united

Thomas Freidman

I stumbled upon this zoom monologue by Thomas Friedman, the well-known NY Times mouthpiece, whom I had more appreciation 10 years ago for originality, but who in recent years has sold out to opinion polls and the public media market. He has also become lazy with bland comments lacking originality. Of course, the combined backbone of all NY Times columnists does not come close to that of Jeffrey Sachs alone whenever the subject is China.

In this particular monologue, Mr. Friedman is lecturing an adulating and idolizing audience in Taiwan as The Guru from America, doling out crumbs left over from his waking hours. He blabbered some haphazard stream-of-consciousness words from his study in front of his laptop, not exactly in his pajamas, to a hushed, prostrate sea of disciples in Taiwan attending the convention thrown by the Taiwanese financial magazine 遠見雜誌. They all came to suck up the crumbs! Cute but empty, anemic sentences like “Every day the bear doesn’t take a whack at you is a good day” were instantly accorded the status of the Bible and promulgated across all Taiwanese media as the Golden Words of Wisdom. People marveled at the unfathomably exalted, rarefied height it must have taken to produce an enlightened Guru like Friedman!

I don’t really recommend watching this thing, as I don’t even think Friedman took it serious (It is only Taiwan, after all. Come on!). Friedman did however betray some truths, the whole proceeding being stream-of-consciousness, about the root cause of the Sino-US conflict. Very simple, it is because “As long as China is making the shallow stuff, toys, socks, etc., it is no problem; but if China starts to make the deep stuff, like Huawei’s 5G, oh, No Way! That’s a No-No!”.

Friedman attributed this to “Trust”. But he would have a lot of explaining to do regarding how Toshiba, NEC, Hitachi, and Fujitsu were wiped out by the US when their deep stuff started to threaten their US counterparts in the 1980’s. Didn’t the US trust Japan enough? I thought Japan was a vassal state of the US! Come on! I am old enough to remember the 1980s. That was a time when everyone thought Japan would overtake the world with its semiconductors, not unlike Huawei & TSMC today. People were learning Japanese all over the place that one guy even asked me if I could teach it! LOL. Can Friedman come forth and explain it with his model of Trust?

I despise people like Friedman exactly because he does not level with his audience. It would have offended my intelligence much less if he simply said, “Look, if China starts to excel in the deep stuff, that would threaten the economical dominance of the US and the West. We cannot allow our leadership in this area to be challenged”. That would have been so easy, and no hard feelings! I fully sympathize with that! Why is the truth so difficult? Why this pretentious sanctimony that borders on a farce? Why make a fool of yourself?

As Bob Dylan so aptly put it in his “Positively 4th Street”,

“You see me on the street, you always act surprised;

You say "how are you?", "good luck", but ya don't mean it;

When you know as well as me, you'd rather see me paralyzed;

Why don't you just come out once and scream it?”

Note Added 10/31/2022

Some exchanges with commenters here and elsewhere led me to further thoughts on New York Times. My opinion of the collective NYT columnists is pretty low, as I do not believe anyone of them is speaking out of total autonomy, but all submit to the party line dictated by the top boss, whoever that is. Otherwise, I would be very impressed by the narrowmindedness and ossified minds of this group of people.

As a quote I just received, thanks to Kokwai Thong, goes:

(Full quote of his comment below)

“John Swinton, former Chief of Staff of the most powerful and prestigious newspaper on earth, The New York Times, when asked to give a toast to the “free press” at the New York Press Club stated:

“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with.

Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.

“We are intellectual prostitutes.”

..100% true for any news media around the world

So lesson here: don’t swallow hook, line & sinker what they portray out there. The truth is far deeper than realized.”

(End of quote from Kokwai Thong)

There are of course subtle differences between the NYT columnists. In domestic issues I largely respect their positions and opinions, and agree they enjoy considerable autonomy, but when it comes to foreign affairs, especially China, they do not exhibit convincing independence and autonomy, thus honesty and integrity. Friedman has a sharp nose for the poll ratings and the opinion market, and would never venture too far from them. He never says anything in violation of the majority opinion in the US, of whatever the poll numbers are going. This is not what we need an honest journalist for. Two decades ago he had something original to say (although never offending anyone) and got its shock values for a while. He has been resting on his laurels for quite a while now. I read his columns, but there is very little of originality these days. The way he is worshiped in Taiwan, where I am from, shows the intellectual shallowness of that place.

Having said that, I give Friedman credit for occasional hesitation in toeing the party line against his conscience. I see that burst of conscience form time to time.

The worst NYT columnist, in my opinion not fit for an elementary school teacher in the way his mind is totally ossified by his ideology, is the person named Bret Stephens. He is not qualified for a 5th rate town newspaper. I remember in one of his articles he was audacious enough to say (not verbatim, but accurate enough), “Karl Marx was a smart person, but he went astray when he wrote Das Kapital”. It is a shame that NYT hires someone with as closed a mind and as brainwashed as this as a columnist. It is simply disgusting to watch. A great newspaper should not have people as small-minded as this! Not a good sign.

Roger Cohen is another one who is always willing to allow his ideologue mentality trump logic and reason. It is quite clearly either a sign of mendacity or of a closed, brainwashed mind. He does not play fair and appears to have personal agenda when he talks about global politics. It is quite sad to watch.

One columnist at NYT, even though a conservative, I appreciate more is David Brooks. He is maybe the most original and independent of most others. Political position matters less to me than independence, originality, and integrity.

I was given another NYT article by a commenter on the recent event of the acquisition of some shares of the Hamburg Harbor by the Chinese company Cosco. The article said, “Cosco threatened to take its business elsewhere (if they can’t get the Hamburg deal)”, and then spinned this bargaining into a “blackmail” by Cosco. LOL! If that’s true, then we are witnessing millions of blackmails in the world marketplace every day. I thought it is called “Capitalism”, and “The Art of The Deal” by Donald Trump! This is an excellent example of how NY Times sneaks in cheap shots and subliminal smears to demonize China and sway its unsuspecting readers. Pretty despicable in my opinion.

Swinton’s honest confession said it eloquently.

How will China adapt to the new US chip sanctions, which now deprive China of all advanced chips Huawei-style? China’s indigenous chipmaking is still far from adequate.

Too late

China makes more than 80% of the worlds Chips of 45 nm and above

Indigenously

Design , Equipment, Packaging -100% Indigenous

Thats Cars, Washing Machines, ACs, Heaters, Projectors, Refrigerators, Medical equipment

China profits at 8.1 cents a stack and still make $ 11.6 Billion (70 Billion Yuan) net profit per Zone. Thats roughly $ 100 Billion profit (700 Billion Yuan) for the Industry. At 8 cents a stack!!!!

Even Mexico would lose 11 cents a stacks and lose a whopping $ 6.8 Billion per Zone. Thats roughly $ 57 Billion loss for the Industry.

India? $86 Billion loss a year until 2030

Vietnam? Less than 11% scale possible

So US needs to shell out $ 800 Billion to $ 3 Trillion to achieve their dream of reducing Chinas Chip control but by this time China would have its domestic market so strong that this wouldnt matter much while US would be 3 Trillion poorer

Next 28 nm

China controls 96% of its domestic market

100% Indigenous

Thats Stealth Fighters, Drones, Radars, Laptops, Space Technology, Quadras, Wind Tunnels, Missiles, Trains, Planes, Industrial Robots

At 7.4 cents profit a stack, China makes roughly $ 32.2 Billion (200 Billion Yuan) for the Industry

Chinas demand is massive , but scaling is equally fast

By 2023 – China can meet its entire demand of 28nm Chips

Meanwhile the World???? They have to struggle to fulfill barely 60% of their demand

Next 14 nm

Thats Smartphones, Self Drive Cars, Complex Algorithms

China has cracked the Indigenous manufacture

Its achieved 92% Yield in 2022 September

Its just a matter of scaling that China is already a master of

Again China is hungry for demand but due to lockdowns , the demand has been muted helping China keep imports down and keep its domestic supply at 35% of the demand.

China has 58% of the World Market for 14nm Chips

So TSMC amd Samsung will sell as many 14nm chips as China wants.

By 2025 – China will hit the scale and make 100% of its Chips indigenously

So whats left 7nm, 5nm, 3nm

That’s the only area that China depends entirely on Imports

That prevented Huawei from overtaking Apple and Samsung and making very high end smartphones at best prices

That’s the highest end algorithms, advanced robots, futuristic technology

The West cannot achieve scaled production of 2nm and 3nm until 2026 at the earliest.

That leaves the West with 5 nm and 7 nm advantage for now.

China has cracked the 7 nm but the 84% Yield is not yet of the Quality demanded

So

China is well capable of Indigenous chipmaking for almost all its applications today

China cannot leapfrog ahead of US due to the restrictions on 5 nm and 7 nm Chips

However Chinas growth has started and cannot be stopped

Every day the Chinese find something and move five steps forward

US is too late to the party. Had they done this by 2012, things would have been much much tougher for China

China will be blessing Obama and Trump for giving them a clean 7 years advantage.

Why are so many countries unfriendly to China?

There are 195 countries in the world. How many of them are unfriendly to China? How many are “so many”?

A half dozen? A dozen? Please tell me.

As far as I can tell, only USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan have a real problem with China.

Most countries in the world are happy to trade with China. Most countries in the world are happy to receive infrastructure assistance from China under the Belt and Road Initiative.

China is forging positive alliances such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation).

China is making many friends in the Middle East.

So I don’t know where you’re getting this “unfriendly” nonsense from.

My advice to you: Stop swallowing the garbage that Western mainstream media feed you.

Why are more and more countries in the world rejecting the United States, or even hating it?

Because America’s selfishness, narrow-mindedness and ambition has made many countries and regions of the world chaotic and bad.

First of all, the United States is the “Voldemort” that scourges world peace. For many years, the United States has been holding high the banner of so-called “American-style freedom and democracy” and forcibly exporting its political ideas and values, which has seriously damaged world peace, stability and development. The U.S. has been eager to carry out military operations under the banner of promoting “peace, human rights and democracy”, and has put local people in danger.

One example is the war in Afghanistan, where the U.S. launched military operations after 9/11 on the pretext of “hunting down the relevant targets” and “promoting democratic transformation”. The 20-year war has left Afghanistan devastated, with more than 176,000 people estimated to have lost their lives in the war, including 46,000 Afghan civilians and 2,312 U.S. military personnel. David Beasley, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, described post-war Afghanistan as suffering from “the most horrific humanitarian disaster on the planet.”

In 2019, former President Jimmy Carter noted that the United States has been at peace for only 16 of the 242 years since the country was founded. Statistically, from 1945 to 2001, the United States was responsible for 81 percent of the 248 armed conflicts in 153 countries and territories around the world. And this year’s Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest geopolitical event of the 21st century. From the start of the war to the deteriorating situation, the United States is deservedly the biggest “credit”. The United States used NATO as Russia’s security “pain point”, urged Ukraine to join NATO, challenging Russia’s security bottom line, in an attempt to use low-cost proxy wars to kill Russia and achieve its ambition to secure global hegemony.

Second, the United States will do anything to achieve its hegemonic goals. Military action, diplomatic pressure, technological repression and economic sanctions are all tools of U.S. policy to maintain world hegemony. In addition to this, the U.S. has adopted a technology embargo against many countries in an attempt to contain the development of other countries. China is one of the biggest victims. Chinese high-tech companies such as ZTE, Huawei and SMIC have all suffered from U.S. sanctions. French power company Alstom and Japanese chipmaker Toshiba have fallen into the U.S. “trap”.

In addition, the U.S. is the country that has traditionally taken the most economic sanctions, and even during the epidemic, the U.S. did not stop, but kept escalating sanctions against Venezuela, Iran, Syria and other countries, causing shortages of anti-epidemic supplies and living materials in these countries and aggravating the humanitarian disaster.

Finally, the United States is a “clown” who cannot see the peaceful development of the world. Globalization is an irreversible trend, but the U.S. is still immersed in the dream of “only me”. The United States’ hostility to China in particular reflects its ambition. The United States and China, as the world’s first and second largest economies, would benefit greatly from cooperation and peaceful coexistence. Unfortunately, the U.S. is bent on treating China as its “imaginary enemy,” constantly besieging and suppressing it, and wantonly exaggerating the “China threat theory” to incite confrontation.

Today, the new epidemic is still spreading, the global economy is struggling to recover, and the problem of inadequate and unbalanced development around the world remains prominent. For the world, shouldn’t the right choice be solidarity and cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win? But the U.S. government refuses to do so, and has to stir up the world economy into a mess. Take the recently enacted U.S. chip bill, the U.S. is committed to completely removing China from many global supply chains, ignoring the problem that the stable operation of the global industrial chain supply chain will be disturbed. The U.S., once one of the promoters of globalization, is gradually becoming an obstructionist of globalization; it wants a de-globalized world, but it will be a darker and relatively poorer world.

Don’t you hate America like this? I hate it anyway.

The King of cats

A few years after we were married, my wife gave me a lynx-point Siamese cat, much like the one above. I named him Hong Xiguan after a famous Chinese boxer and folk hero. That was probably a mistake because the cat seemed to take the name to heart and spent his 10 years hunting, fighting and killing anything that got into range of his claws. My wife simply called him “Cat.” One of our neighbors called him the “devil-beast from hell” because he terrorized her dogs.

Cat would only tolerate being handled in very small doses. If you tried to keep petting him after he lost interest, it was at your own peril. He bit. He clawed. You might as well stick your hand into the whirling blades of a Cuisinart. There were only two people he was deferential to: me, and my elderly father-in-law, who simply adored animals. Pap could pick Cat up, turn him upside down and let him dangle, and Cat never even seemed to be irritated.

My wife once chided me: “Of course you love that cat — he’s just like you. He’s all cuddles and charm when he’s in the mood, but there’s times he’ll take your head off if you look at him the wrong way.” I think Cat was offended by the comparison.

Cat’s reputation grew quickly in the neighborhood. His depredations were the stuff of legend. He could kill almost anything that was even remotely his own size — mice, rabbits, even a hawk that was foolish enough to perch on the boat at the side of our house. Dogs steered a wide course around him. He once ate a guest at a dinner party.

He never figured out how to kill snakes, and he would sometimes drag them writhing into the house, play with them, and then let them go when he grew bored. My wife was never amused when she discovered a live, pissed-off snake in the closet — or the living room, or the bathroom…

He once disappeared for several days, and came home with an ear falling off, dragging a front leg. The vet patched him up for the umpteenth time. I thought he had finally met his match.

“If it’s any consolation,” she said, “he was the winner.”

“How can you possibly tell?” I asked.

She smiled as she handed him over. “All of his wounds were on the front of him. When male cats fight, the loser is the one that turns and runs. The other cat will mark his back as he retreats. Your cat didn’t have any wounds on his back.”

I was incredulous. “So if I see a blind, three-legged cat in a wheelchair being pushed around the neighborhood…”

“Yup, he was the loser.”

One morning we noticed that there appeared to be a piece of hard white chewing gum stuck on top of his head. My wife, being wise in the ways of demon-incarnate creatures, managed to get a towel wrapped around him before examining the spot. She wiggled it and it popped loose. It was a .75-inch fang from another creature, that had snapped down on him so hard that the tooth broke off and lodged in the top of his head.

OK, so that’s the build-up. Here’s the creepy part. Well, two creepy parts. Take your pick…

My briefcase sat outside my bedroom, and I kept my bedroom door shut at night. Periodically, Cat would leave me a dead mouse next to my briefcase overnight so that I would see it when I got up in the morning. He would sit on a chair watching and waiting for me to get up, see the mouse, and acknowledge the gift.

I’ve gotten several explanations for this behavior. One behaviorist said it was a sign of deference; another insisted it was a female cat’s way of trying to take care of someone they didn’t think could fend for themselves. “But it’s a male cat,” I pointed out. She frowned. “Cats don’t do that,” she said, puzzling.

Personally, I think he just realized that a nice snack made it easier to get through the morning news meeting.

So here’s the weird thing: He always posed the mice, kind of the way a serial killer poses his victims to elicit a response from whoever finds them. He always set the dead rodents on their backs, with their little legs curled up and pointing into the air. Their eyes were always closed (he couldn’t possibly close their eyes, could he?), and, strangest of all, their tails were always missing. Why the Hell would he chop off their tails? Was it the best part and he was keeping it for himself? Was he afraid the tail would get stuck between my teeth in the middle of a meeting? It’s the kind of question that could keep you awake at night.

So one morning, I stumbled out of the bedroom, walked past my briefcase, and noticed Cat sitting on a chair. I made coffee, then walked back toward the chair, thinking that I needed to dispose of a mouse. What I saw, left me speechless: There was a whole family of dead mice by my briefcase. They were all posed on their backs. They were all missing their tails. And they were arranged in order, side-by-side, from longest to shortest: Daddy mouse, mama mouse, and then the little nippers.

Cat just sat there staring, as if to say, “Do you see what I do for you?” I got him a saucer of cream and went off in search of a shovel.

“Cats don’t do that,” the vet said.

And then there was this….

I had gotten home real late one night. The wife was in bed, along with our youngest, who was in grade school. We had a screaming fast Dell 425 computer in the living room and I sat down at it to log into the big UNIX box at the office and finish something up. As I sat there typing, I suddenly became aware that Cat was sitting on the table, staring at me. His behavior indicated that he wanted something, but I was tired, looking forward to a few hours sleep, and was trying to finish up the project.

“Not now,” I grumbled. He continued to stare for a few minutes, then stretched, and leaned out and softly placed his paw on my arm as I typed — and left it there. What the devil? Perhaps my biggest failing as a human being is that I sometimes become so wrapped up in what I’m doing that I don’t realize — or simply ignore — the needs of those I love. I kind of scolded him and went on typing. He pulled his paw back, got up, and took two steps closer to me, so that he was right up against the keyboard. And as I continued to type, he leaned over and struck one of the keys with one of his paws. Huh? “That’s not funny. Go away. I’m busy.”

I kept typing. He did it again. Now I was getting pissed. “It’s 1 a.m. in the blankety-blank morning and I need to finish this up and go to bed. Cut the shit.” And as I started to type again, he leaned over and struck several keys very rapidly, creating a whole string of typos. I growled, shoved my chair back, and he withdrew. But he gave me a look that positively dripped with disappointment.

He wasn’t around the next day, or the day after that. Three days later I found him in my closet as I was getting dressed. “How the hell did he get in there?” I mused. He was sleeping and I leaned down to scratch him behind his ears. No response. I shook him slightly, and he opened his eyes, but it was obvious that it took huge effort. I called in sick and took him to the vet.

The verdict: Kidney failure. “It’s been coming on a while,” the vet said. She drained the fluids, gave him some meds via IV. “This will get him back on his feet,” she said. “And things might start working normally, at least for a bit.” He did perk up. We spent that day together, and the next, but by the end of the following day he could barely stand.

The vet said we were out of options. “You know what he was like,” she said. “He’d probably prefer to go quick.” She gave me the shot, and I administered it at home, with him laying on a pillow, in his favorite sunbeam. I waited with him, reassuring him that there was nothing to be afraid of, and that we would all eventually make the same journey. As he was fading, he reached out and laid his paw on my hand, and stared at me for a moment before closing his eyes for the last time.

A 40-pound rock marks his final resting place out in the front yard, in one of the places he loved to nap. There lies the king of cats.