biking; training for

I'm planning a weekend bike ride to Coney Island and back- roughly 33 miles- as part of my MS Bike Ride training (although I still haven't officially registered, as Human Resources here haven't gotten back to me on whether or not we are, in fact, a matching gifts company. Nor has my PCP gotten back to me about a referral to an audiologist, despite repeated calls. Moment of panic- do I, in fact, exist?)

...and so much for that. Congratulations, wierdnun!

Bella

Sitting here, feeling sad; just found out that Bella, the cat I'd picked out as a small, wobbly bit of gray fluff for E., my ex-fiancee, back in 1999 as a birthday present, passed away from feline leukemia this week...

...and those times coming rushing back to me, courtesy of a memory that can be astonishly retentive about all the wrong things:

-Calling E. up, and telling her to be at a certain address (the animal shelter) at a certain time, with no explanation given.

-Picking Bella out from a horde of cute kittens (is cuteness being selected for as a survival trait for kittens, these days?), and taking her home in a loudly mewling cardboard box, until she can triumphantly wobble her way around E's apartment.

-Seeing her sleep on the couch, when I'd walk up to E's place (I've been by there once, and only once, since we broke it off, when I had to pick up some King's Highway bagels for a friend; my eyes still automatically checked that part of the window, even though the couch she lay on is no longer there.)

-Asking E to pass her to me after an arguement, only to have E. angrily fling the cat into my lap and storm off, and feeling the cold suspicion for the first time that we were over our heads, and that this entire engagement would not work...

...which it didn't. We parted angrily; then amicably, then angrily again; the last I had heard, she had left New York; in the wake of the towers' fall, contact was- tenuously- re-established. Now, we're emailing more or less regularly, and AIM names are being bandied about... and I find myself missing a small, wobbly, gray bit of fluff, a symbol of an innocence that couldn't surmount painful experience.

Goodbye, Bella Diva.