Maks

If you're reading this, you probably had this cat stick his face right into your cocktail. Or stick his but right in your face. Probably both, and maybe both simultaneously.

We had to do that awful awful thing that pet owners have to do every decade or so, and we let him go on to the hereafter last Thursday.

It's right during the brief and beautiful Spring weather, and I've spent a lot of time sitting out back. I keep thinking I see him out of the corner of my eye before my brain kicks in and stabs my heart all over again.

He was one of a kind. I wrote a long post a few years ago about his biggest adventure.

At the annual St. Paddy's Day crawfish boil on Saturday, we made everyone toast the cat. It felt corny at the time, but now I feel good about having done that. The back yard here will always be his turf. In fact, the whole 3900 block of Claycut should pour a little out for him, as he was the former king of the entire block.

We miss you, Maks.