Nice People Die.

Fact of life -- nice people die too. Maybe even more often than not so nice people, who seem to live forever (just to piss me off, it seems sometimes).

In the last month, my friend Pam's husband died -- 50 years old, no illness, strong as an ox, would give the shirt off his back to anyone who needed it. A prince of a man. Then Heath Ledger died -- ok, I didn't know Heath Ledger, but his death affected me strangely. I'm not sure why, I'm not a particular fan of his, but I was truly saddened by his passing. And then this past week, my friend Badger's father died -- I didn't know him either, but he raised a terrific son, so he's got to have been a nice guy too, and Badger's sad and that makes me sad.

I'm hoping the old adage about deaths coming in threes is true, because I'm not sure I can handle anyone else dying around me.

My oldest cat died this past month too. OK, she wasn't a person, and she certainly wasn't nice, but she died and I cried over it. Her name was Asia and she was 19 years old. She was trouble from the first day I got her, and she never got any easier to live with. She hated everyone, except me, and in her later years she became quite vocal about it. My nephew Paul was afraid to go into the kitchen from age 8 to age 13 because Asia was lying in wait for him on top of the refrigerator. Yeah, she lived on top of the refrigerator for a few years. I had to carry her to the litter box every day, otherwise she'd just do her thing up there. I've never had a cat who was quite that crazed. She might have been psychotic, or perhaps just obsessive. It's hard to tell with a cat. Regardless of her mental state (or perhaps because of it), I loved her. She was bad-tempered, she held grudges, she attacked without warning -- what a great personality! Hey, at least she had personality, not like some cute brainless calendar kitten . . ..

RIP, Asia baby.