Fat Bastard has been missing a week now. He’s old. He was born and lived his first 8 years on a farm in Queensland. He helped me to foster cat-safe greyhounds. This cat played by his own rules. The last time he disappeared, he returned having nearly lost a battle with a dog. I could feel his intestines between his abdominal wall and skin. We had 10 days before we left Australia for the U.S. He made it. He is a tough cat.

He would not be one to linger. His life. His rules. I believe he has left to die. Sixteen years is old. Sure. He may come back, but I am realistic. I just wished that I could have said good-bye. What breaks my heart the most is that his fellow Australian, Fabian, knows he’s been gone. He’s been low. 

And how do you keep coding when you’re sad? What has “worked” for me has been to just relax the rules a little. A lot. 100 Days of Code should be fun. This is not my job. It’s okay to mope. Eventually I opened the laptop, but coming up with something that would satisfy coding as well as not requiring too much focus has been harder. I have plans, but those require a level of concentration that does not allow for wistful staring out of the window, checking the Austin Lost-and-Found page on Facebook and Nextdoor obsessively. 

I went back to the beginning. I found a basic coding project that would keep me occupied enough but not demand what I cannot give. It also gave me an idea for my own spin, so I am not just copying something else. I’m taking a simplified Battleship game and taking the war out (let’s not kill all of those people on the battleship, they’re just doing their jobs) and putting the animal welfare in. No. You don’t have my battleship to sink, you have my rat to rescue from the belly of my snake. 

We’ll see.