Losing a friend is never easy. But my last moments with Bootsy were the best I could hope for.

Losing a loved one is never easy. But if you have to say goodbye, the last moments I spent with our cat Bootsy were just about the best anyone could hope for.

“Just press this button when you’re ready,” the woman said after handing me my friend of 14 years. Then she closed the door so we could sit together in that quiet, comfortable room for as long as I needed to say goodbye.

That was cool.

Because I’ve lost many cats, but I’ve never gotten to say goodbye in such a soothing manner. And many times, I didn’t get to say goodbye at all.

Especially to my sweet boy Oz, a fluffy orange kitten I found crying up a tree. After eight years with us, he got very sick right before I was flying to visit family in Denmark, and died in the hospital before I got back home.

But the one good thing to come out of all the time and money my husband spent trying to give Oz, who was still a relatively young man, every chance to keep living — and yes, for me to see him again — was how respectfully that hospital treated both Oz and my husband at the end.

So when it came time to say goodbye to Bootsy, that handsome charmer who kept climbing over the neighbor's fence to flirt with me before he moved in with us, we went back to that hospital to put ourselves in the hands of their kind, respectful staff. 

They began the process by giving me a quiet room before taking Bootsy into the back with the doctors. When they returned him to me, he was wrapped in a blanket, which helped hide the catheter now in his leg for administering medicine.

“Take as much time as you need,” the woman said after handing me that very skinny, but still very handsome, tuxedo cat, explaining that if I didn’t want to be present for his last moments, she would take him back to the doctor when I was ready. But if I wanted Bootsy to stay with me, the doctor would come to us after I pushed the button.

Wearing a Bigfoot shirt I chose in honor of his brother, Sasquatch, who died suddenly a year earlier at 14, I sat with Bootsy and thought about how much nicer this goodbye was than all the others, even the other very expected one I had with another black and white cat I had for 20 years.

Because while the vet who put that dear friend to sleep had also been incredibly kind and respectful, the process was much more disturbing: Standing at a table which we already associated with countless stressful visits, watching my beloved friend be poked with a needle under fluorescent lights, then being left with his limp body in the room where I would later take our much younger cat, was a distressing way for us both to spend his last moments.

Not like being given a calming room reserved for just such occasions, sitting down with him wrapped in my arms, allowed to quietly say goodbye for as long as I wanted. 

“It’s OK, Bootsyman,” I whispered to him at the very end, and when the doctor bent over him, he said, “Goodbye, Bootsyman.”

That was very cool.

Coolest of all, though, is how Bootsy and his brother chose us to be their humans.

Hear that story and see both cats in the video below:

Five cool trolls, one super cool friend: How Patty made my "impossible" dream possible.

I hadn’t seen Patty in 10 years. But when I told her I wanted to come visit and try to see all five of the Thomas Dambo troll sculptures near Seattle in one day, she not only offered me a bed, she dropped everything else in her life to spend eight hours driving us all across the Puget Sound to make my crazy dream come true.

That was cool.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I said, five hours into our quest with three trolls down. “And I can’t believe you agreed!”

“That's why we’re friends,” said Patty as we headed onto a ferry to see Oscar the Bird King, who lives on Vashon Island. “Because we both like doing crazy stuff like this.”

So it makes perfect sense that I met Patty because of an even crazier troll adventure, which 25 years later is still the craziest thing I have ever done: Not just driving to Seattle because of a troll, but moving there — where I had no job and knew no one.

It all began with a special episode of the television show “Bay Area Backroads” that had host Doug McConnell leaving California for Washington State to show his viewers the funky Seattle neighborhoods of Ballard and Fremont, which I fell in love with immediately. And as soon as I saw the Fremont Troll, I decided I had to live in a city with an 18-foot sculpture of a troll clutching a Volkswagen Bug under one of its bridges.

Which is how I found myself starting a new life in Seattle, spending the summer of 2000 sending out job applications and buying myself a City Pass so I could see the zoo, aquarium, art museum, Space Needle and the newly built Experience Music Project while I waited to get hired. I also joined a singles group called “Restless in Seattle” that hosted lots of cool outings like hikes and kayak trips, though I was really hoping to find women to be friends with, not a man to marry. And it worked, because I met two longtime friends there, one of whom was Patty.

And I soon learned that Patty was definitely a keeper when we started walking around Green Lake. A lovely lake in the center of Seattle, Green Lake has the perfect path for strolling: flat, only about three miles, but offering plenty of nature and people watching with every step. It was also a perfect place for us to meet after work twice a week to fit in more exercise and chats.

Which we did for a whole year without fail. In the rain we wore our waterproof jackets. When it got frigidly cold, we wore more fleece. When it started getting dark before 4 p.m., we bought little flashlights. I remember thinking one day, watching the tiny snowflakes falling at our feet while Patty giggled at my bright yellow “sport” flashlight, that she was not only the first friend I made as an adult outside of work, she was the first woman who never canceled plans with me. Not once.

Patty Possible: “Peter says it will be impossible,” said our friend Lori, who joined us to see two of the five trolls, explaining that when she told a co-worker of our plan, he did not believe it could be done, especially because at least one troll visit required taking a ferry there and back.

I certainly knew how fickle ferries could be, given that my landing a newspaper job across the Puget Sound is what finally ended our Green Lake walks, since I began spending at least two, sometimes three, hours a day commuting to Kitsap County. 

And I continued sailing to work for eight years: Eight years of boats I missed. Or boats that were late. Or boats that broke down. Or even boats that turned around for confused tourists. 

So Patty and I could have spent the day obsessing about the ferry schedule and letting it dictate our day of trolls, just as it dictated my weekdays for years. But we never even looked at the ferry schedule. 

We just drove to the docks when we needed a boat, and hoped one would be there. And it was. Every time we got in the line, there was a ferry at the dock waiting for us that we drove onto.

That was super cool. And felt like the ferry gods were smiling on our troll trek.

And so we did it, made it to all five trolls in one day. Yes, it might seem super silly, but it was super fun, and I loved every second of it. And I especially love Patty for not only sharing my crazy dream, but making it come true.

You can join us on our epic troll trek here: