Come Back to Me

Hi, bee bum. Today I brought you home.

My apartment is so quiet without you. Ever since I moved here I've always said I just wanted three things: my job, my apartment, and my kitty. For some reason the universe is set on me only having two of those three things at a time, and your absence is enormous. It hurts. It stings. It slows me down. I didn't have a life in the Czech Republic without you until last week. Your back legs became paralyzed from an embolism in your heart. As soon as you shouted, I knew something was wrong, and when I turned on the light, you were giving me the most pained and panicked face. Your big bunny feet, the ones I like to put on my face and kiss when you're sleeping next to my head, they were lifeless and floppy. While I rushed to get things together to take you to the emergency vet, you dragged yourself across the bed and hid in my pillows. I've heard of dogs doing something like that, where they isolate themselves in their time of dying. But with you I didn't know.

Once we were at the vet, your diagnoses was quick. The veterinarian told me it was very unlikely you would recover from your paralysis, and if you did, you would be in tremendous pain and in need of therapy. Until she was explaining to us what was happening, I hadn't heard of the condition but apparently it is common in cats. They can go into cardiac stress but normally paralysis and heart issues aren't completely symbiotic so they aren't immediately recognized. You were so very fine at bedtime that it was hard to believe such a tremendous event was happening in your chest. But you were crying, weak, and I found out you only weighed seven pounds. You used to be such a tub, throwing your weight around and being not just "a little heavy" as one vet called you, but actually fat. In the end you were so small. You shrank and I could completely hide you in my lap while you were napping and I was working. The vet said they would do what they could, but your outlook was bleak. The last time I saw you before being drugged was looking out of your little spaceship bubble at me. I promised you I'd be back no matter what.

I took the first operating tram at 5am back home. Everyone else on the tram was dressed and going to work, but I was wearing your favorite sweatpants and a beanie and sunglasses and had clearly been crying. While everyone went to work, I went home to wait. The four hours you were in treatment were painfully ambiguous. I kept whispering come back to me in hopes a very unlikely divine intervention would manifest through one of your nine lives and reanimate your little legs so you could shove them into my face while I was sleeping. Come back to me, please come back to me. 

I called the vet at 9:45am. I was supposed to call at 10am but wanted to know how you were doing, and your prognosis wasn't good. The treatment given to you didn't work. The vet said these events usually end up in the cat being put down. Her English skills put my future actions in a number of different ways over the course of the morning. Forcing you to sleep. Euthanizing you. To be brought down. I made her promise not to do anything until I got there.

In our last moments, you were so drugged but all that mattered was that we were together. You responded to my voice and my hands near your head, but your vision was distorted. I smelled your forehead. Even now I can smell that clean, natural scent because you took such good care of yourself. I kissed you and cried. "You smell like a kitty," I used to tell you. Your arm was bandaged up in green medical wrap holding in two different IVs. And then I apologized relentlessly. I told you I loved you and that I would take you with me everywhere. I told you I would love you forever and that you'll always be my bee bum. I had thought in your old age your decline would have been more visible or at least forecasted. But you were fine, and then you weren't.

The vet brought you out onto the steel examining table. I had never seen you so out of space but so close to me. Your body was so limp and small, so delicate and fragile. The vet sedated you first and you went completely limp. I had no idea if you could hear anything I was saying but it was the same things I always told you before bed or when I left for work. And then I said a final I'm sorry. I was stroking the soft spot behind your ears when the vet checked for your heartbeat.

You were gone. In a span of seven hours, you woke me up to get a snack and then you were gone. The vet was very patient with me while I sobbed and made arrangements to pick you up in eight days at the crematorium. And I went home. And I had no idea what to do. I didn't want to go home because you weren't here. I had your collar around my wrist and your spaceship with me on the bus ride home from the vet. I looked disheveled and uprooted, freshly beamed down from an undisclosed location. Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of myself in a window reflection. Sulking, heavy, shocked. Who was I looking at? I didn't know, but neither of us had you.

I didn't realize how much I talk to you. I still make suggestions. Let's get ready for bed. I expect you to be in certain places. I make space in bed for you. I quickly pick things up off the floor when I'm cooking because the jury is still out on if garlic is bad for cats so I want to be safe. I expect cat litter to get stuck to my feet when I walk into my bathroom. There's no little bell wandering around in the middle of the night, jumping up to where you're not supposed to be or swatting at old receipts stuck underneath my bureau.

I also didn't realize how many people care about you, people who haven't met you or seen you ever. But they know you through me because you are my life. There are still messages I haven't responded to because there are so many. People told me they felt like they knew you even though you've never met. You were a character, my ham, my little bee bum with the biggest personality. You were the perfect cat for me. You were so many things. I have only seen you hiss one time in the eight years I've had you. You had to get a few teeth taken out a few years back but you recovered and it gave you the best little lip. You never gave me any problems, at least any problems worth complaining about. Occasionally you would sing the song of your people at 3am for a snack or decide it was time for third breakfast while I slept in late so you'd bite my nose or paw at my hair, but you never complicated my life or made me wish you weren't in it because now you aren't and it is unimaginable without you.

You were my best friend and today we are back together. I took a bus way out to the sticks. The crematorium is located in the middle of a bunch of farmland and rundown refineries, scrapyards and warehouses. It was the very last stop on the 40. I hadn't been out that direction since I had to pick up a UPS package shortly after I arrived here and I ended up at a bus stop that shared its border with a yard full of emus and other leggy birds. The bus went through huge fields of yellow, past big trucks with the flat faces, around potholes that were more of an obstacle than a nuisance. At the last stop, I was the only person on the bus. From the bus loop, I had to walk about a half mile up a frontage road with chemical factories and automotive automation software companies. I remember thinking this wasn't the place for my blood sugar to go low so I let myself run high before leaving. I walked up the road full of potholes and found the crematorium. There was a Japanese bridge half eroded in the front of the building with some unattended construction materials and loose scraps from an abandoned project.

I entered and introduced myself and said I was looking for you.

Hledam moje kocka, Patrick?

The technician took you off the shelf. Your urn was in a cardboard box meant for transporting fragile goods. She showed you to me, a modest wooden urn that was far less flashy than some of the other receptacles available. You were the most valuable cargo I've ever had anywhere, my handle with care, and here you were. Your approximate birthdate and day of passing is on the outside. Your name is spelled correctly and not the Slavic "Patrik." I picked you up and felt the weight in my hands, how the shape and material was different but it was still you in there. The receptionist spoke no English but took her time with me. After figuring out some billing mistakes, I put you in your cardboard box and walked back down the road to Brno's most convenient bus stop. Once I stopped to wait, I asked you if we should go home. I waved to the emus on the way back.

You were my home. You are my home. You are my companion, my bestie, my ride or die, my emergency contact, my everything. I promised you I'd never go anywhere without you. You made me want to be a better person. You made me responsible, reliable, dependable. One of the reasons I'm sober is because of you. I told myself I might not always have you but you will always have me, and as long as you have me, I'm going to be the best person I can be for you. I still think I have to run home to you, and after work last week, it was incredibly hard to come back here. But you're back with me now. You came back to me.

I love you forever.

We Fucking Did It

I don't even really know where to start.

Tuesday was the most stressful day I've had in quite sometime, and not for the reasons you'd think. From beginning to end, my journey from driving to Sea-Tac to shutting the door to my new apartment after my landlord left lasted about 18 hours. I had my last pumpkin spice latte until further notice and had some bizarro goodbyes and not the kinds you want to stay awake thinking about in a bed that doesn't even have sheets yet.

While checking in for my flights, I had to move some weight around between bags to make the attendants and airline policies happy. Four duffel bags and three carry-ons was an ordeal and I'm incredibly thankful my mom took a half day to help me. I know I'm alone now, but I'm not sure if I could have completed that part of my journey by myself. The cost of these duffel bags was pretty absurd and I started to regret hanging onto things like an actual cowbell and Christmas lights and blankets and the shoes that only look good with one outfit and gosh darnet if I want to wear that outfit, it had better be complete.

Patrick did an amazing job. I had these visuals of him sprinting off through the airport in a Home Alone-esque dash. He was in a harness for the first time since I was going to have to remove him from his spaceship to go through airport security. When I returned from Minneapolis, I asked a woman on my flight home about traveling with her cat and if she had any tips that made anything easier. She told me that when going through security, send all of my shit through first and take Patrick last so that way I can have my hands free. And we did just that. Patrick made the littlest of peeps when I unzipped his cargo and grabbed him by his harness to release him very briefly while we went through an old school metal detector. A TSA agent swabbed my hands and helped me put Patrick back into his carrier after we were cleared.

He was a sight to behold, a toothless tabby being transported in a spaceship and defying the laws of aerodynamics in a single security checkpoint. Lots of people would stop and look at him peering out of it, especially if I was in line and someone was forced to stand behind me. Lots and lots of questions. But how does he pee!? was the most commonly asked inquiry. I had inserted pads beneath him just in case, but after the 18 hour journey, he didn't make any business. At one point during my flight to Frankfurt I took little potato pieces from my breakfast and sort of flung them into the carrier with my finger in hopes he wanted to eat, but after arriving at the flat in Brno, I discovered no pee but small ignored potato morsels.

I had two flights, a ten hour flight to Frankfurt and another one hour flight to Prague. Thanks to German efficiency, this process was probably the least stressful part of my trip. I was sitting in Premium Economy because Patrick was at my feet and we wanted the extra legroom, but when booking this flight about ten weeks ago, I didn't realize that my flight wasn't full, so I had no one sitting next to me for the long haul. I was able to sleep on and off while Patrick did little circles and poked his head up in the bubble of his backpack. The German flight attendants were quite pleased with his little capsule and cooed to him in their native language.

For most of the long flight, I slept on and off and weirdly enough, it was more uncomfortable to try to find a position to sleep in because I had extra legroom and no one sitting next to me. I had two meals, watched "Se7en" with the sound off, and watched the aerial digital graphic of our plane moving across the earth. I could get up and pee as I pleased, and I didn't have to crawl over anyone sleeping while trying to examine the perfect time to do so between food and drink carts and more complimentary coffee. I watched the sunrise over the Netherlands and most of the continent was foggy coming in. Lots of cooling towers and wind farms dotted the yellow and green rolling landscape. The best part was seeing the roofs of houses becoming more red as the sun protruded into Thursday. You don't see red roofs from above in the US unless it's the shitty motel chain the Red Roof Inn or you're flying over a new cookie cutter real estate development somewhere in the suburbs of Phoenix.

The one part of my journey I was nervous about was changing flights in Frankfurt. Frankfurt International is a huge airport and I had 80 minutes to change planes, go through passport control, and possibly another security checkpoint with Patrick in tow. Row 26 in a 747 isn't as far back in the plane as I anticipated, so I was able to get off the plane quickly after being bombarded with cute comments about Patrick from people who didn't even know he was on the flight. We disembarked into the Z Gates and needed to make our way up to the A Gates. Z14 to A60 shouldn't have been a long walk but going the opposite way through the alphabet probably would have been quicker. Moving walkways helped us pick up our pace and we made it to the gate in about 15 minutes. I talked to the attendant at the counter to make sure I was seated somewhere that gave Patrick enough room underneath the seat in front of me, and he placed us in a whole row by ourselves. I sat in the window while Patrick went underneath in the middle during our second segment to Prague. The inflight snack was...a pastry. That's all I know because I couldn't read the rest of the label. However I now know "sacharidy" is Czech for "carbohydrate" so it's made calculating insulin dosages less mysterious.

Patrick and I got off the plane and made it to baggage claim at Vaclav Havel. I had been sporadically using my phone's data to contact and update folks where I was in my journey and I now had to make a phone call to the person who was picking me up and driving me to Brno. Petr picked up the phone after a series of beeps rather than rings, and said he'd be waiting for me past customs. Ahh fuck, customs.

All of my bags arrived and I was able to push all of them on a cart but was stopped by the most European looking border patrol agents you could imagine.

Border patrol agent in broken English: Anything declare?

Me: Nope.

BPA: What about this?

He points to my back. Ahh, Patrick. I never thought I'd have to declare something as gentle and weenie as Patrick, but there we were. Kitty didn't receive a pet passport since he's not an "EU citizen" but instead had a 15-digit microchip, rabies vaccination certificate, and official forms signed by the USDA in Washington State. The three border patrol agents scurried away with my passport and kitty's forms while we watched other people simply exit the terminal and into the Czech Republic. I was probably held up because of the four duffel bags and cat in a spaceship thing but whatever. About five minutes later, they came back with a scanner to make sure Patrick did indeed have the right microchip to enter the country. We were let go and told "okay, enjoy now."

Petr was waiting on the other side of customs for me. For the first time in my life, I had someone waiting for me at the airport with my last name on a sign (which was fucking spelled right, btw - if you're a comedy producer and you're making flyers on Facebook but can't double check the spelling of my last name and literally the first person I make contact with after officially arriving in a country that doesn't speak English, get your shit together, get it ALLLL together...). Petr helped me with my bags and once again, Patrick's space capsule was ultimately confusing but admired.

Petr drove like he was on a suicide mission, like Liam Neeson's daughter was in trouble and we had to make it from Prague to Brno in under two hours. I've been told the trip can take up to four hours depending on weather and construction so basically it's no different than Minnesota WHY WOULD YOU CLOSE 35W IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY ON A WEEKEND GAWD. There's a heightened sense of nationalism here that I think transpired when Czechoslovakia split into two separate nations. All of the billboards here are Czech flags. There are other kinds of advertisements on bridges and banners, mostly for beer and some kinds of bottled water, but all of the regulatory sized billboards promote a different red, white, and blue. I nodded off a lot in the car with my mouth agape having only slept minimal hours on two different airplanes. Occasionally I'd wake up to foggy rolling hills beside semi trucks that are flat in the front, or a "lorry" as I guess I should be putting it now.

We arrived at my apartment with my landlord and his son waiting for me. They spoke more English than I expected so I felt good going forward with the process. My place is just like I expected it to be based off the pictures I saw a few months back and there are definite perks to the place. My building is covered in graffiti (some of it is actually good) so it adds to the distant 1980 central European aesthetic. I feel like I should be selling black market Levi jeans and vinyl records. The downstairs has a full size kitchen, a nook with a desk, and a lot of storage cabinets for all the things I gave away before I moved. I also have an upstairs on the "first floor" since the ground floor is now the first floor and that'll be confusing at some point. Upstairs is a living area with leather couches and armchairs, more storage space, a small bathroom, and a king size bed whaaaat I can basically fall asleep in any position and not touch the sides of the bed. It fucking rules.

Everything is hardwood and freshly painted. I have a balcony (which sounds so bourgeois; let's just call it a deck) overlooking some walkways and a carpark. My neighborhood is popular and in order to experience any social stuff or culture based activities, I only have to walk under 100 meters. Also getting used the metric system is real wacky. I keep converting it in my head but at some point, all these powers of ten will be useful since it makes way more sense. The only other countries that use the imperial measurement system aside from the United States are Myanmar and Liberia.

And then I got horrendously sick. I've had a flu type thing for the last few days and it zapped me of any initial energy I had to get anything set up in my place. I actually don't think I left the apartment for the first 24 hours I was here. My landlord left me a bottle of wine, which is probably now in some drainage pipes somewhere in Slovakia, and some sweet treats to get me to survive so I didn't have to leave. I have a grocery store akin to Albertson's a two minute walk away and an ATM where I can fill up my prepaid phone number. RIP 206 number I've had for over ten years. We had some good times.

On Friday I woke up early to venture out for household items to make the place more comfortable: trash bags, garbage can, dish towels, paper towels, bath mat, electric kettle, sheets, etc. Tesco is European Walmart and I was told if I ever needed to get anything basic, they'd most likely carry it. So I popped some cold medicine and headed for the bus. I'm usually pretty savvy with the public transportation of wherever I am, but it's always a bit unnerving boarding a bus when no one speaks English. The ride took under ten minutes and I was able to get in and out of Tesco with a ton of items in a huge duffel bag not fit for public transit and a Czech SIM card in under an hour. I'm not one of those people who dinks around in stores and needs to look and touch every single thing, so I'm pretty much a stereotypical male when it comes to shopping: get in, get out.

Aaaand on Friday night, I had my first comedy show with some other English speaking comics. For most of the day, I ran through all of my jokes and tried to come up with the Czech/European equivalents to very American things (Walgreens, Boeing, true crime Netflix documentaries, creepy vans, not having good health insurance, etc). I took a tram to ArtBar Druhy, a dungeon like bath/slaughterhouse style space with curved brick ceilings and bright white tile that only went up 8 feet on the walls and drains in the cement floors. Aside from the location where they filmed Saw, the place was great. I followed two comics who were born in Prague but are bilingual in comedy. There's this weird style of observational humor they have that's so clean yet integral to being a Czech citizen. I did a little over 20 minutes and blew out my voice for the remainder of the night, but I had a good feeling. Based on the size of the crowd and the responses I was getting for the majority of my jokes, the idea of performing stand up in English while in a country who's secondary languages are either German or Russian seems a bit easier than I anticipated. Feeling good and accomplished, I took the tram back to my street and spent the five minute walk looking at the can control of the local graffiti artists and the fog engulfing all the lights around me. I may not have to title my first album "Do You Guys Have That Here?" after all.

I finally got my phone set up, a fitted sheet on my bed, and compiled a list of things I still need to get for the place. Hangers. Ziplock bags. A Swiffer if there is such a thing here. Cat food. I'm proud of myself for spending so much time being well prepared. It's probably a Girl Scout thing but having a few months to research and plan helped me not be as stressed. I mean Tuesday can straight up go fuck itself into the ground, but having kitty with me and gaining new life experiences while making friends and telling jokes is so worth it.

On Monday I go to Prague to start my visa process with a specialist because I don't trust myself enough to get it done correctly. I have an appointment at the embassy in the morning for a criminal record print out because the Czech government wants to be sure I'm moving here and not "fleeing," as someone put it. I'll then register with the foreign police to let them know I have intentions of staying in the country longer than 90 days, which is the maximum time the Schengen zone allows you to stay without a visa. I'll probably check out the neighborhood where I stayed in 2009 and get some food and make a day of it. I return in the evening so Patrick won't be alone for the whole day. I wonder if I should get him a friend...

I'm not exactly sure where this blog is going or what I intend for it, but I wanted to provide my experiences for other people who are entertaining the idea of expatriating. The Czech Republic has a large expat community, roughly 15% of the whole country, and it appears even larger than that with students coming here to study on erasmus. I'm going to be documenting my experiences with comedy, sobriety, Czech and American bureaucracy, and trying to finally put my English degree to use. If you have any questions, shoot me an email at cedonehue@gmail.com. Also I'm sure these posts won't be as long and text heavy in the future depending on how well my progress is proceeding. Na schledanou! :)