ornoth

Back in 1995, I left my job running a mainframe for a medical software company and joined a small but growing local IT consulting company. Their ambitious corporate tagline was: Changing the Way the World Works.

It’s not often that an individual can have that kind of impact, but earlier this month I was presented with photographic evidence that I found both deeply touching… and deeply humorous.

During my seven years with that consulting company—Sapient—we grew from 100 people to 3600, had a public IPO, and were named to the S&P 500. I was one of their first web developers, who helped them transition from just client-server IT projects to doing their first large-scale e-commerce, banking, and stock brokerage websites.

Today Sapient employs over 12,000 people globally, and (for whatever reason) they’ve chosen to sponsor the Boston Red Sox. While that tagline seemed awfully ambitious for a 100-person company back in 1995, one of the visible signs of Sapient’s success at “changing the way the world works” is the recent presence of their corporate logo adorning that most famous edifice in Major League Baseball: Fenway Park’s Green Monster.

That kinda freaks me out, but it is also a reminder that I had a part in something that really did have a major impact on the world.

During my tenure at Sapient, I started riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge, a fundraising bike ride for the Jimmy Fund. The PMC has been a partner of the Boston Red Sox since 2003, and each year they devote one game to recognizing the PMC and its riders. And in recent years, that has included unveiling a huge PMC logo on the Green Monster.

Having been part of the PMC for 14 years—in the process, raising over $100,000 for cancer research, treatment, and prevention—that recognition means a lot to me.

So I was pretty heartily amused when I saw the photos from this year’s PMC Day at Fenway Park. There in huge script for all to see are two of the biggest accomplishments of my life—the Pan-Mass Challenge and Sapient—right next to one another on the biggest billboard in professional sport.

Obviously, I can’t claim sole responsibility for those two organizations’ work, but I can take pride in having made a meaningful contribution to each, and that those contributions have helped create thriving organizations that will continue to have positive impacts on the world.

But I still think it’s funny as hell whenever I see those two logos out there in left field, right next to one another. Life sure is strange!

It’s been a couple weeks since the Puggle left home, and I’m pretty well adjusted. I think the main source of my anxiety was the thought of him suffering, and not knowing what I could do for him. But now he’s beyond all that. The high drama of his impending death is over, and it’s just a question of adjusting to his absence as a known, unchangeable fact.

However, before my memory of the Puggle fades, I want to take a moment and record some of the wonderful memories he gave me. Some of these are one-time events, and some are just the gifts he gave me every day. I know these probably won’t mean much to you, but I wanted to save them here for future reference, to serve as a remembrance of his character and the companionship he provided.

So here’s the list.

Puggie Nose Leather (“Puggie knows leather”)
His habit of curling up under the covers and going to sleep behind my knee, with his head on my calf
His habit of pawing at the blanket to let me know he wanted to get under the covers
His amusing habit of flossing every day using the cord on the blinds
How he’d often jump onto my lap while I was sitting at the computer, then putting his front paws on my shoulder, asking to be picked up and given a Huggle
How he’d curl up in the crook of my arm while I was sitting up in bed reading
The evening ritual of him standing on my chest to get his kitty massage after I climbed into bed
How he’d invariably sabotage any attempt to make the bed
Our occasional walks in the lobby: his ”constitutionals“
How those walks would usually end with him running back to our door after someone in the building spooked him
The Puggle Skywalk between the countertop and the kitchen table in the Fenway apartment
The total destruction of the door frames in the Fenway apartment
The Kitty Crazies, which in the Fenway apartment resulted in him clutching the door frame, suspended four feet off the ground
His fuzzy Puggle toes
”Here comes Puggle Claws, here comes Puggle Claws, right down Puggle Claws Lane. He’s a Puggle ’cos he’s got Puggle claws and a little Pug brain…“
Sleeping inside a kick drum… amazing
His completely predictable hissing at any women who visited

The time he cleaned my bicycle chain for me and got grease all over his face
Climbing through all the kitchen cabinets
When I built a little pagoda that allowed him to jump all the way up into the top shelf in the bedroom closet
His annoying habit of leaving the bathroom door open after he came in and left while I was showering
”Reach out… touch face.“
”It’s not sex unless the Puggle is watching.“
Always leaving one of the kitchen barstool chairs pulled partway out so that he could jump up onto the kitchen counter
Coming home after a weekend away and having to have extended love-fests on the bed before anything else
His catching a mouse at the Fenway apartment and absolutely having no idea what to do with it
His Puggie pantaloons
Wanton shredding of cardboard boxes, and tenderizing them beforehand for him with my Benchmade pocket knife
Strength-sapping sunbeams
His habit of sleeping on the bed above (and sometimes atop) one’s head
Waking up in the morning with the Puggle in the same position as me—on his side, with his body under the covers and his head on the pillow, face-to-face with me
His climbing up into kitchen cabinet and lying down after I closed the glass doors behind him
His taking it upon himself to wash my hair for me back when I had long hair
The rising trill (known as ”mipping“) that he’d make when asking a question or jumping up on the bed

Thank you, Puggle. For these, and for everything.

Edited additions:

How he’s tell you he'd had enough play by giving you a “nibble”: gently clomping down on you with his teeth, as if to say “I could take a piece out of you if I really wanted, so simmer down, rude boy…”
And if you didn’t simmer down, he’d give you “the bunny hop”: grabbing you with his front paws and kicking with his legs and his rear claws out.

“What kinda cat is he? He's an Eviscerator!”
“Cute, cute little Puggie. I wanna make him stay up all night…”
His uncanny ability to elude veterinary staff; twice he got away from them and out of the back room, once screaming all the way down the hallway, into the waiting area, and into a corner underneath a table, requiring us to move all their furniture to get him out!

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