Wally’s Week

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

20.5 years. What a long life for a cat. And he was spoiled beyond belief. Sad to see my cat Spooky go this past week, but it was the right thing to do.

Obviously, “Spooky” by the Classics IV has been on my mind this past week.

Monday the 10th – DOUBLE DENTIST DAY – PART DEUX! – Before I started the day I recorded a last-minute audition that had been sitting in my inbox. Then I headed to Wienerschnitzel to get a quick lunch, and then head to my Endodontist appointment for the third and final phase of my root canal. I had an appointment scheduled at my dentist’s office immediately after so I could get cast for my permanent crown. The third phase of the root canal went well, and I headed two floors up to my dentist’s office. He pulled off the temporary crown and said that the Endodontist did an amazing job on my root canal. But he put the temporary crown back on and sat me up in the chair. He didn’t put in the goopy stuff to take a mold for my permanent crown! He told me I’d need to go to a gum surgeon to cut away enough gum around that tooth to get cast for a crown. WHAT?! I thought this would be the final phase of all this madness! The dentist told me there wasn’t enough tooth structure left for a permanent crown to attach to, and I needed to get a “crown lengthening” process. Oh man was I pissed! Not at the dentist, but rather at myself for letting this go on so long. I had fully anticipated getting the permanent crown on before my trip to Kansas City on the 21st; or at the very least before Thanksgiving. But neither was going to happen now. I’m never procrastinating on stuff like this again! The gum surgeon needs to cut away about 1mm of gum tissue around the tooth in order for the permanent crown to have enough tooth structure to lock into, otherwise it will fail. UGH. I’m starting to think I should have just had it pulled and had it over with. But the dentist assured me that keeping your own biological material whenever possible is always preferable. I got back home and did a little work around the house. Then I rested for a bit, and recorded my auditions. Later at night I took my nightly WOG (walk/jog), made a salad and watched the President lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as is my tradition on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. Then I watched several more episodes of “Tiger and Bunny” from the second season on Netflix.

Tuesday the 11th – VETERAN’S DAY! – In the afternoon I called the gum surgeon (the Periodontist) that my dentist recommended so I could get this gum surgery and get this tooth thing finished. Unfortunately the earliest he could see me is December 23rd. DECEMBER 23rd! That’s over a month away. I started doing the math. If the consultation is on the 23rd of December, that meant the surgery would probably be another month away – in January. Then it takes a while for it to heal before it can be molded for a crown; probably the end of January. Then I get the area cast and it takes 2 weeks to make the crown. So I’m looking at sometime in February before all this gets settled. For cryin’ out loud! And it’s really all my fault. Plus, I’ve got to schedule my thyroid surgery soon, so it’s going to be a VERY busy couple of months, surgically speaking. I called my dad to wish him a happy Veteran’s Day. I recorded my auditions, and later on I took my nightly WOG. We’re expecting several days of heavy rain, so I’m going to miss a lot of nights of wogging. Add to that the time I’ll be in Kansas City – so my WOGs are going to be real spotty for the next couple of weeks. I scanned some checks for deposits, and then I hit the hay.

Wednesday the 12th – MEDICAL MAYHEM! – With everything going on I felt that I should speak with my primary care physician and bring him up to speed about all that’s going on. I headed over to CVS to pick up a prescription, and then I went to the bank to make some deposits. I picked up a few packages at my box, and then headed home to do some work. I spoke with the scheduler for the doctor who will be doing my thyroid surgery, and the date she offered was December 2nd. It’s going to be a very busy medical month! I rested up a bit, and then did some work around the house, recorded some auditions, and took one last WOG before the monsoon hit L.A.! While going through some documents on my computer I read that I had started my wogging on January 5th, 2023. So I’ve been at it almost 3 years, and virtually EVERY night of the week (with a few exceptions). I’m pretty proud of myself!

Thursday the 13th – BOND-ING! – My pal Kelly Delcambre came over to do some prep work on my Roger M00re James Bond figure. He needed to look at a few things in anticipation of the work he’ll be doing with the figure on Friday. He and I headed over to Paty’s to have lunch, and we were soon joined by my pal Chris Malmin. Kelly had to split eventually, so Chris and I got a chance to catch up. But soon my buddy (and effects artist) David Woodruff showed up with a friend, so I encouraged them to take a table next to us so we could all chat. The total time I spent at Paty’s was about 3 hours, which isn’t really that uncommon, but time sure did fly! I got back home to do some work. I checked the weather forecast again, and it said we’re expecting several days of heavy rain. I relaxed for a bit, and got up around midnight. It had rained, but it wasn’t presently raining, so I took the opportunity to throw on my workout gear and go out for a quick WOG. I even sat in the anti-gravity chair for a while enjoying the night, but it started sprinkling so I went inside to do some work.

Friday the 14th – FAUX-CAST! – Every weather report kept talking how it was going to rain cats and dogs starting Thursday evening. But so far I hadn’t seen much evidence of it. All the gloom and doom weather chatter was turning into a big nothing burger. My pal Kelly Delcambre came over and we headed to Bob’s Big Boy to meet up with Roger, his counterpart at Blok4 effects studio, and my pal Rob Klein. Rob will be bidding on my behalf at the upcoming Jim Henson auction on November 25th. I’ll be on a plane coming back from Kansas City when the auction is happening, so Rob is going to try and win a few items for me. We had a fun lunch, as all four of us are pop culture nerds, so we had a lot to talk about. Roger, Kelly and I went back to Planet Wallywood to begin the work we needed to do on the Roger M00re the Darth Vader life-size figures. Roger M00re needed to be mounted onto a new base, and have a change of shirt. Vader needed to be mounted to the new base my pal Joe Pendleton made, and he needed to be wired for sound. When the Darth Vader Voice Changing Mask was released in 2004 I quickly snapped it up. In the chest box lived a digital chip which contained several original voice clips from James Earl Jones, which were lifted from the movies. I had the voice chip extricated from the toy’s chest box and mounted in one of the walls of my house. The wire from the voice chip led to a speaker that was mounted inside the face mask of the Darth Vader bust I had. The push of a button installed on my wall would activate Vader’s breathing sounds, in addition to several random voice quotes. But when I acquired the amazing Vader costume from Jazwares earlier this year, I decided to turn the bust into a life-size Darth Vader figure. Roger was busy working on rigging the speaker wire to Vader’s mask, but he wasn’t getting power from the battery pack for some reason. It wasn’t looking good for a while, and I thought that the voice chip may have given out. Meanwhile, Kelly had stripped down the Roger Moore figure and put on the new shirt I had purchased for it. The other shirt developed a dye leak of some sort, and it created some weird streaking on the face of the shirt. Kelly suspects that the hot, humid summer we had may have reactivated the dye somehow and caused it to streak. We also discovered that the humidity caused the black knitted tie to stain the shirt as well. So the old shirt ended up being junk. But this new shirt was factory dyed eggshell, so it should remain colorfast. I think I will trace the tie onto a piece of thin plastic so I can create a barrier between the tie and the shirt, in case this situation happens again. Kelly was also busy attaching foot pegs to the new wooden base. This new base looked much better than the round, silver metal platforms that Roger M00re had been standing on. Once he got the figure mounted and fully redressed, it looked amazing! Through a lot of troubleshooting work, Roger managed to get the voice chip working and wired it to the mask. This figure will be amazing when it’s finished. Later in the evening, Alex and Mike from Alex In Wonderland came by to take measurements for Vader’s new cape and cloak. Mike also took the breast plate with him to do some repair work on it. By now it was raining pretty hard. The weather forecast had been really inaccurate so far, as the heavy rain they predicted on Thursday afternoon was happening now – on Friday night. So I guess the science of predicting weather accurately still has a long way to go. I grabbed a nice nap to the sound of the rain. When I got up later the rain had subsided a bit, and I thought I might be able to sneak out and grab a quick WOG. But I didn’t want to chance getting half way out and then having the sky open up and drench me. So I took the night off. As I continued looking over the Darth Vader life-size figure, I noticed a trait on Vader’s belt buckle that I wanted to replicate. On the edge of his buckle it looks like there has been some paint wear, giving the buckle a silvery outline. I believe that it’s not paint wear at all, but rather a clever way of giving a highlight to the buckle to make it “pop” from the rest of the black on his costume. I removed the buckle from my figure’s costume and hit the edges with a silver paint marker. WOW! The difference is night and day! You can clearly define where the buckle is in relation to the rest of the costume. The “Star Wars” costumers were very clever for doing this. The rest of the night I slept to the sound of heavy rain. Nice.

Saturday the 15th – SPOOKY! – It was great seeing my pal Sara Raftery for lunch at Paty’s, as I hadn’t seen her in quite a while. We got caught up on all the news and had a great time. I picked up a package at my box, and then got some grocery items. I also picked up some extra-large potty pads at the local pet supply store. My cat Spooky had gotten pretty bad of late, and almost constantly has a leaky butt. This makes it difficult to keep his bedding (and my carpet) clean. I have to continually wash the blankets he lays on while he’s resting on his beanbag chair. I figured if I could just put some potty pads on his beanbag, I could save myself from doing all the laundry, and just discard the potty pads when they became soiled. But after giving it a try, I discovered that he didn’t like lying on the potty pads. At one point I found him lying on his beanbag, but he had twisted his body around to avoid being on the pad. This wasn’t going to work, I’m afraid. I also discovered that he had peed in a corner on my carpet. It appeared that my 20 year old kitty might be breaking down. Might be time to let him go. My friends Joe and Zandra Pendleton had stopped over on their way back home. I showed Joe how his Darth Vader base turned out, with all the buttons and wiring finished. While we were discussing Spook and his deteriorating condition, Joe said something that stuck with me. He said, “Dogs will show that they’re miserable by whining. But if cats are miserable they don’t show it as much.” That got me thinking. Perhaps Spook is in a lot more pain and agony than I know. Food for thought. After they left I wrote up my packing list for my upcoming trip to Kansas City. Since it wasn’t presently raining, I took the opportunity and took a quick WOG. But just as I finished it started to sprinkle, and eventually it was coming down pretty heavily by the time I came back inside. My gal Angi called after she got off work and came by to hang out. We made some food and watched the new “Frankenstein” film on Netflix. It was a very interesting film and it had me thinking a lot. Angi took off and before I went to bed I checked on Spook in his bed. He was sound asleep. I left him some fresh food and hit the hay.

Sunday the 16th – SAD, SAD SUNDAY! – After four hours of sleep I woke up and checked on Spook. He was still asleep in his beanbag and hadn’t moved since I checked on him. I made sure he had water and he hadn’t touched the food I laid down earlier. I also noticed that he hadn’t used his litter box. I got a horrible feeling that the end was near, but I went back to bed and slept a few more hours. When I got up later in the afternoon I checked on him again. He still hadn’t moved. I pulled out his beanbag chair and pulled back the blanket. He was still alive, but sleepy. He was also very messy, and I had to clean him off, which he didn’t like a bit. He wouldn’t eat, and I offered him some water from the faucet. But he wouldn’t drink either. This was very, very bad news. I went back to bed, distraught, to meditate and pray on the matter. After an hour or so I got up and called Sara to let her know. Sara and Spook always had a special friendship, so I wanted to let her know what was transpiring. I also called my friend and assistant Emily to let her know what was up. I called a local 24 hour pet care facility called True Care For Pets. They assured me that they did end-of-life care and I could come in anytime. I called Sara and Emily back and asked them to meet me. Emily came by the house and wrapped Spook in a blanket and carried him out to the car. He didn’t protest at all, which told me he had lost all his ‘fire of life.’ Normally when he and I hit the car he would meow loudly in protest. Sara met us at True Care and we registered and told the attendant what the issue was. They came out and took him so they could start his IV. Then Emily, Sara and I were ushered into a private room to spend some time with him. We gave him lots of love, scratches and pets, and told him what a good boy he was. He enjoyed all the affection, but we could tell he had definitely lost his fire. The doctor administered the sleeping drug and we watched Spook fade off into peaceful sleep. Then he administered the final drug, and after monitoring his heart told us that Spook had passed. We were all crying and very sad, but it was the best thing to do. Spook had an amazing (and spoiled!) life of 20 years, but it was time to give him his rest. He wasn’t enjoying life – just simply existing. And that’s no fun for ANY living thing. It’s the first time in 24 years that my house has been completely petless. I got Sassie in 2001, got Spook in 2005, Sassie passed in 2011, so it was just Spook and I for about a year, got Roxy in 2012, Roxy passed in 2023, then it was Spook and I for 2 and a half years, and now Spook’s gone. Hopefully Spook, Sassie, Roxy and my mom are all hanging out together having a great time in the great beyond. I feel in my heart that they are. And I’ll see them all again someday. When we first went in to True Care it was 10:00pm. By the time we came out it was 10:40pm. I’m so glad we were all there surrounding him with pets, scratches and kisses as he went. Even though he was 20 years old and in poor health, it’s still very, very sad. I went back home and fell into bed to sleep. My body clock woke me up at 2am (my usual WOG time) and even though it wasn’t currently raining outside, I didn’t feel very much in the mood for a WOG. So I just turned over and fell back asleep.

And how was YOUR week? (Hopefully better than mine was.)

PIX FROM THE WEEK

The “paint-wear” look on the edges of Darth Vader’s belt buckle are very noticeable here.

Roger M00re looks great on his new base, with his spiffy new shirt!

While checking the local weather on a weather website I like, I happened to hit an “A” icon to the right of the address bar. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it ended up being my own voice reading the weather info. Apparently, the text-to-speech program I did several years ago is in use on this particular website (as well as others, as I’ve discovered). It’s so weird hearing a robotic me reading the weather to…me.