Chloe

My family got Chloe right after I turned nine. She was so small that I was afraid to pick her up at first; I felt like I would hurt her by mistake. She was the most patient cat imaginable, even when my sister and I dressed her up in doll clothes, or repeatedly picked her up against her will. In almost fourteen years, I think the only time she scratched me was when I tried to give her medicine.
Chloe was the most sociable animal I ever met; she would come running to meet you when you came through the door, and wherever there were people to be found, that's where she was. She never really liked other cats as much as she liked humans, and we always suspected that she didn't really think she was one of them. She used to jump on my bed when it was time for me to get up for school. For some reason that we never really understood, she used to carry around red pony-tail holders in her mouth, and sometimes leave them in her water bowl. She was perpetually curled up on the clean laundry, especially the towels, though she sometimes slept on the cable box. Only six weeks ago, to our amazement and horror, she actually caught a mouse. She used to eat ice cream off my fingers, but after she was sick she started eating anything she could finagle from us, and we let her; she ate two whole tortilla chips once, to the utter amazement of my mother and I, and babaganoush, croissant, chicken, yogurt, and even lentil soup. Wednesday evening, the night before she died, I fed her cheddar cheese and she was delighted.
Yesterday I came home from work, and when I opened the door, the hallway was empty. I opened a can of cat food, and I had to split it between two, not three. (How can two cats in one New York apartment not be enough?) I cried.
Every person thinks that their pet is the best, but you're all wrong; mine was. It won't be the same without you, Chloe. We love you.

In Which I Mourn and Amuse Myself

My beloved movie rental store, creatively named Movie Place, closed in late November of this year, leaving me sad, lonely, and without sufficient viewing options. Blockbuster just doesn't satisfy me the same way; they just don't have any of those eclectic foreign titles, or two-for-one deals, or opinionated store clerks. Movie Place was one of those neighborhood institutions that had been there since my early childhood. I rented Strawberry Shortcake animated films from Movie Place, followed by the original Parent Trap, Little Women, Annie Hall, and countless others. I will never forget the time that Movie place management created a special display of films about "dysfunctional families" and included both Psycho and Star Wars in the display. I will never think of Darth Vader in the same way.
I'm somewhere between denial and anger in the grieving process, so I haven't signed up with a different rental store yet. My sister in Vermont has a Netflix account, and my boyfriend recently bit the bullet and signed himself up too. I'm skeptical, because I suspect that Netflix was one of those nails in the coffin of my beloved store...but on the other hand, I want to be able to rent movies.
So, for investigative reasons, I went on the Netflix website, and there I discovered something endlessly amusing; Local Picks. My local picks, here in New York, New York, tend towards the Woody Allen side of things, with the New York 8 Disc Documentary Set also prominently displayed. New York is fairly predictable.
Local picks are the movies that people in your hometown are watching significantly more than people in the rest of the country. And I discovered that people in this country are shockingly, almost depressingly, predictable, and also endlessly amusing.
In the Bronx, the number one local pick is a documentary by Rosie Perez, about US Puerto Rican relations.
In Brooklyn, the number one pick is called A Life Apart; Hasidim in America.
In Astoria, they're watching a lot of independant documentaries, French films, and Annie Hall. I consider the latter, in particular, to be a positive reflection on the Greeks.
On Staten Island, the number one pick is Terminator 2.
Out in suburbia, things continue to be interesting. In East Hampton, the wealthy beach area, number one is American Beauty. I was all ready to make a few snide comments about suburbia when I saw that, but what I found next was even better for snide comment making. In both New Rochelle and Scarsdale, nice prosperous suburban towns, the number one pick is Heading South, a movie about middle-aged women traveling to Haiti to "sample the young islander's sexual talents." I swear I'm not making this up. I don't think I could make it up if I tried.
In Burlington, VT, where my sister lives, and which may be the coldest region in the entire continental United States, the number one pick is a documentary about surfing.
In Evanston, IL, where my boyfriend comes from, the number one pick is A Clockwork Orange. I find that a little bizarre, and I'm still waiting for an explanation.
And in Salt Lake City, the top list includes American Mormon, something called Mobsters and Mormons, two different versions of The Work and The Glory, which is a historical film about Mormonism, Church Ball, about a Mormon basketball team, New York Doll, about a "drug-and-alcohol-riddled" New York punk rocker who becomes a Mormon, Big Love, and Friends, Season 4. Some things, I guess, are universal.