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Just took this a few minutes ago. The cat is still sitting in that little spot of sun as a type. I have my desk under our stairway because we have a huge unused space there, and it’s kind of centrally-located in the middle of of everything. He likes to lay on the stairs because of the sun, but also because he ends up sitting right next to me when I’m at my computer.

We’re spending our day today keeping busy with wedding plans. I keep thinking of things I haven’t done yet or haven’t even thought of yet, and then get a little panicky because it’s a little overwhelming making sure I don’t forget to do something!

Jared spent a couple of hours making a playlist of songs for during cocktails and dinner, and so many of them have special meaning to one or both of us. For very sentimental reasons we both wanted to add a particular song by Dean Martin; for Jared it’s to remember his dad, and for me it’s to remember my grandfather. Ironically, when I typed the date onto this photo of my cat, I realized today is the anniversary of my grandfather’s death. It makes me very emotional, as he’s really the only grandparent I ever felt I knew.

He lived with us in his later years, so I spent just about every day with him for over ten years, washing his laundry, making his meals, keeping him company. He was a huge part of my life in the most formative years, and I miss him often.

My kids will never know him, Jared will never know him. That makes me so so sad. My brother and sister and mom and I sit around and talk about him for hours sometimes. He was one of the greatest people I ever knew. He was born in Italy, came to the US in 1930. He bootlegged whiskey for the mob. You can imagine the stories. He spent his late teens, 20’s and 30’s in Youngstown, Ohio, which later helped to explain his intense addiction to gambling. He was quite a character. We used to sometimes tell him something like “Two men dressed in suits and sunglasses are at the front door for you,” and either to entertain us, or because he really felt worried, he’d say “Tell them I don’t live here anymore!”

So to my Nono, I present a picture of my cat, which I took during a break in making our playlist, about 10 minutes before realizing the coincidence in the date. According to him, all cats were girls, and all dogs were boys. And ChiPs was the greatest TV show EVER.