A Letter to Lucius the Cat

Lucius,

You came into my life starved for food, attention and love. Soon after I adopted you into my Fort Greene flat I thought I killed you with a dumb cane flower from Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Your chin swelled up to three times it’s size after you nibbled on the poisonous plant. I was racked with guilt, but you survived. 

You terrorized Mona the cat, came between my boyfriend Tim and I, but I never held it against you. Soon, we moved on up to South 1st street in Williamsburg, to a big old bedroom with lots of windows for you to watch the Puerto Rican schoolchildren across the street, blizzards, and an Ethan Hawke movie filmed on our intersection. During the muggy summer I melted ice cubes on your hot fur to cool you down. You hated the New York heat.

I had to leave you for months when I returned to California. I worried you would think you’d been abandoned again. I left you with an engraved collar that disappeared under our roommate Agata’s watch. Edward brought you to Oakland on an airplane. He was grumpy in the airport because you were so heavy. 

I snuck you into to the sunny studio on Laguna street in San Francisco, with big bay windows, in the art deco building where cats weren’t allowed. We stayed there 3 and a half years. I took a series of polaroids of friends holding you on the big magnolia-decorated vintage couch. The polaroids lived on the fridge - a permanent art installation.

Next, we moved to Dolores Street, to a Victorian flat with three 19-year-old girls, including my sister Melissa and her best friend Ari. You insisted I keep the door open at night so you could walk in and out of the bedroom. It made it hard to sleep with all those roommates. When painters put up scaffolding to paint the building, Liz left her window open, so you jumped out and jogged on the wooden planks, past my bedroom window, to the living room window, peering in from outside, looking matter-of-fact. I panicked and tried to get you in the house. You developed a habit of pawing at Ari’s head while she watched TV, then viciously attacking her scalp. She still loved you.

Next we moved to a 2 and a half bedroom Victorian worker’s cottage in Fruitvale Oakland. The house was surrounded by stray cats and chihuahuas. Occasionally large stray dogs wandered over from the pound, a few blocks away. We kept you inside. Stray kittens sometimes snuck in the back door to eat your food in the kitchen. You let it happen. You claimed the guest bedroom for yourself. 

Your last stop was the house I grew up in in Santa Cruz - the nicest place you ever lived. Two-stories, high ceilings, a porch to lounge on and watch the birds, including the neighbors’ fat chickens. Your new sister cat, the beautiful Fritz moved in around Thanksgiving with her person, Kimo. You were intrigued and sometimes picked on Fritz, but she knew how to stand up for herself. Once she scratched you good on your pure white nose, leaving a thin red scab that lingered for days. 

When baby Wilder came home we let you and Fritz explore the outside world. At first you were timid. You slept in the closet during the day. Then, one day, I looked out the window and saw your bright white and dark grey fur against the sparkling blond dry grasses on the banks of the lagoon. You were exploring, looking exquisite in contrast with the natural world. You looked like an exotic creature, a stuffed animal come to life. You sat still, facing the lagoon, ears twitching. I swooned.

A few days later I spotted you sitting on the church property across the way and watched you climb underneath a storage building. A short time later you emerged and walked down a zig zag path towards the center of the church camp. Brave house cat!

The last time I saw you, you slept between my calves. I woke up at 2am to attend to the baby and you hopped out of bed. You must have gone outside. I didn’t know you were in the habit of exploring at night. I knew something was wrong when you weren’t there for breakfast. I looked for you in the afternoon. Fritz was acting strange, staring out from the deck all day. She’d tried to lead my downstairs early in the morning. Did she see you? She knew something was wrong. 

Kimo found your body in the greenery between the ice plant and the lagoon, your midsection missing a crescent-shaped piece. Completely gone. Coyotes? Its the last thing I expected for you - a violent, natural death. You were grumpy, but you were a very domestic cat, like a big stuffed toy. 

We buried you under the redwood tree I planted as a child. I added your rainbow catnip toy that drove you mad with ecstasy and a bouquet of dried flowers tied with a green ribbon. Kimo took care of the details of burial. I couldn’t bear to see your lifeless body. 

A few days later you had to be reburied in our backyard. Animals had tried to dig up your grave. My mom brought a ceramic praying angel to place on your grave.

You brought me great joy and gave me love. Amused me and worried me. We lived together for ten years, from Brooklyn to Santa Cruz, from 25 to 35. I miss you every day.

I love you Lucius. 

Your human forever,

Madeline

My Life

My neighbors in Oakland, giant trucks at Dreisbach Shipping
Photo by Madeline Horn

My life is unrecognizable now from the life I led 6 months ago, and it seems time to share with my readers how I arrived at this place and time. Sometimes it is enormously helpful to sit still and think about how you ended up where you are. Upon self-reflection you might find you need to make changes, or you might be proud of yourself for getting to the place you’re at. For me, I realized that various circumstances had led me to a place I no longer wanted to be.

For the past two years I lived and worked in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, where community ties are strong and the sun shines brightly 90 percent of days, yet you can be robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight. Taco truck workers are killed in botched robberies and middle school children are coerced into gangs at school. Prior to Oakland, I lived in San Francisco and New York City for 14 years. I worked professional museum jobs by day and art house movie theatre jobs by night. I went out often to see bands, art shows and films. Last spring, when I analyzed my situation in Oakland, I realized that I was not leading a life I felt comfortable with. My initial optimism about Oakland had morphed into an underlying fear after years of daily struggle to keep my workplace safe and welcoming amidst an often hostile community. To make matters worse, my relationship with my boyfriend of five years was floundering.

As summer rolled around, when everything in my life felt broken beyond repair, I threw in the towel, discarding the good with the bad, following my heart in a leap of faith. I quit my job, broke up with my boyfriend, and moved to my hometown of Santa Cruz, a ninety-minute drive from the city. I now alternate between two family homes, my 96-year-old grandmother’s my mother’s house, where I was raised. 

Why Santa Cruz? It was an obvious choice, since my family needed my help and I needed theirs. I now split the responsibilities of caring for my dear grandmother with my mom. Also, the natural beauty of Santa Cruz called to me in contrast to the grittiness of Oakland and the congested dirty streets of San Francisco. Furthermore, I felt fundamentally unhappy with the museum work I had been doing. I want to build the life that will make me most fulfilled, because, as I hear the kids are saying these days, YOLO (you only live once). I am single and I have no children. This means FREEDOM. Freedom to explore what it is that will give me the most satisfaction in life. An important point here is that my search is not all about career. I need a lifestyle in which I have the time and energy to make healthful meals, go camping, spend time with friends and family, and pursue creative projects. If I can mesh the professional and the personally fulfilling, all the better. 

My biggest passion in life is travel. I am not able to hunker down and focus on one project for long without hatching a plan to explore more of the world. As Edward Readicker Henderson wrote, “Whoever created the world went to a lot of trouble. It would be downright rude not to go out and see as much of it as possible.” This quote sums up exactly how I feel. I cannot leave this earth without exploring as far and wide as I can. How this will manifest itself is yet to be determined, but I am moving in the right direction now. Yes, I am dead broke, and sometimes I get lonely and bored living at home. I often question my ability to thrive in a non-urban environment, when I desperately miss the intimacy and chaos of city life. Yet, overall, I feel myself getting closer to a life more true to myself. 

I am blessed to have family in one of the most stunning areas on earth. My life could go a million different directions, a thought that is both exhilarating and terrifying. I am writing daily, reading books, rediscovering my hometown, doing yoga, riding my bike, and looking at the ocean a lot. This lifestyle can’t last forever, but its what I need right now. I am open to what comes my way, with the knowledge that I am working towards a life that honors my passions. 

Life Before:

Madeline in West Oakland
Photo by Madeline Horn

Yes, Oakland can be beautiful. Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland.
Photo by Madeline Horn

View from bedroom window in Oakland
Photo by Madeline Horn

Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland

Photo by Madeline Horn


Life Now:

New shakes, Pleasure Point, Santa Cruz, CA
Photo by Madeline Horn

Summer night on the railroad tressle to the Boardwalk
Photo by Madeline Horn

Santa Cruz sky
Photo by Madeline Horn

Taco Tour 2012 - Tamales mi Lupita

Tamales Mi Lupita, the taco truck

Tamales Lupitas is the name, but they’re known more for their pupusas. The menu is Salvadorean but the owner is Mexican. She goes by “Lupita” but her name is Angela. These are the mysteries of Lupitas, well loved in the Fruitvale, so much so in fact that when Anthony Bourdain visited San Francisco, he made a trip to Oakland to taste Fruitvale’s taco trucks and the only one he featured was Lupitas. His guide was Shelly Garza, local food activist of La Placita, a Fruitvale community kitchen for mobile food vendors.

I am lucky to work two blocks from Lupitas, so I’ve eaten their pupusas countless times for lunch and dinner. When I visited today I asked innocently of the friendly man who took my order what the most popular menu item is and he confirmed with a conspiratorial smile, “pupusas.” No question, the pupusas keep the people coming back, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. With any order you will be asked if you want it, “¿para aquí o para llevar?” This always makes me laugh because “for here” means sitting in the parking lot next to a row of cars at a plastic table next to the taco truck. I giggle, but without fail I see a group of people, usually a family, sitting at that table. 

Murals on the side of Pupusería mi Lupita, the restaurant also owned by Angela Alcocer

Pupusas are a Central American specialty, a corn meal (masa) patty filled with meat, beans, cheese, vegetables, or a combination. The cooks at Lupitas start with soft masa which they scoop up, fill with appropriate filling and pat into a patty about 6 inches wide, which they grill until each side is golden. Word to the wise, if you order a pupusa without asking if they have your flavor already made, it could take up to 15 minutes for your order! I’ve made the mistake of ordering zucchini pupusas and locoron (a tangy Central American herb), which are not their most popular flavors, and waited at least 15 minutes for my food. If you are in a hurry it is best to ask them which flavors of pupusas they have already prepared. 

Pupusa

Today I ordered a taco al pastor, a carnitas taco, a pupusa revuelta, and a pineapple agua fresca. The agua fresca was too sweet for me, but tasty and had fresh pineapple in it. Lupitas changes their agua fresca flavors daily, plus they offer fresh squeezed orange and carrot juices right from the truck. Today’s tacos arrived with cilantro and onions on top and fresh lime and pickled jalapeños on the side. The meat sat on two stacked tiny tortillas. Al pastor was delicious - juicy little pieces of meat glistening red, chili flakes and a charred flavor. Carnitas was tasty, but not nearly as good as the al pastor. The meat was tough, but chewable, glistening with oil, again with a charred flavor.

The pupusa revuelta was filled with beans, cheese, and chicharrón, a tasty combination. I made chicharrón’s acquaintance for the first time in Guatemala, where chicharrón means fried pork skin, at a roadside pupusa stand. In El Salvador, where Lupita’s food customs originate, chicharrón is simply shredded seasoned pork. The pupusa had a smoky flavor, with a soft flavorful center and a crispy outside. All pupusas are served with a cabbage slaw and salsa, making for a totally awkward yet delicious eating experience. Pupusas are especially good for vegetarians because they come in so many veggie-friendly flavors. 

Two Tacos

I don’t know how to eat pupusas without making a huge mess. They arrive wrapped in tin foil with cabbage slaw and salsa in double-knotted plastic folding sandwich bags and a plastic fork. Miraculously my salsa arrived today in a hard plastic container with a lid, a major improvement. For years my co-workers and I have laughed side by side as we each stab our cumbersome plastic bags of salsa and attempt to squeeze it in a controlled manner out of the hole we stabbed with a plastic fork. Without fail, the salsa squirts out the wrong side and lands on our clothes. Despite the mess, the taste is worth it. Pupusas are a real delight and highly recommended. Lupitas staff is friendly and helpful and their food is consistently top notch.

Tamales mi Lupita is located in the parking lot of 3340 Foothill Boulevard, at 34th Avenue, Oakland - a ten minute walk up 34th avenue straight from Fruitvale BART.

                                             
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