January 18, 2011
By Carl Verheyen
Soon after we lost our very old cat Elvin to diabetes, my wife suggested we get another cat to ease the grief we all felt. I said, “No, it’s way too soon.” But she insisted on checking out an abandoned stray kitten who had showed up at FixNation, the spay and neuter clinic for homeless stray and feral cats in Los Angeles founded by our friends and neighbors Karn Myers and Mark Dodge. The kitten had been discovered one night in FixNation’s parking lot hiding under an old truck, and she was obviously very tame as she had been crying and ran right up to the tech who found her. Within 15 minutes of my wife bringing Greta home, she was adopted and moved in, and now a little more than a year later she’s a treasured member of our family.
As a full time professional musician, I do a lot of traveling. This past year was no exception. The Carl Verheyen Band toured Europe for five weeks in the spring. Shortly after arriving home, I flew to New York to begin vocal rehearsals for the rock band Supertramp, another band I play with. From there I flew to Vienna, Austria to play as a special guest in two nights of concerts sponsored by the city’s jazz festival. More rehearsing in New York followed, and then in mid July, I spent a week teaching at the Jackson Hole Music Experience in Wyoming. In August I flew to Paris, France to begin Supertramp’s 11-week European tour. Last and final stop was to Amsterdam in the Netherlands to participate in a Jimi Hendrix Festival and play one more solo acoustic show before returning home for the holidays.
That kind of touring year is rough on family life. My family and I were video chatting every day to stay in close touch. And that video chatting included Greta! Whenever Greta would hear my voice over the speakers, she would jump up on the office desk and head straight for the sound. She’d check out my face on the computer screen, nuzzle up to it and sniff around with a puzzled look about her. I would talk to her and call her name a few times until she finally walked off screen, kitty call over.
The family says she would wait curled up nearby whenever I was on the chat screen and she wouldn’t leave the room until I said goodbye. It’s nice to know that from 6,000 miles away I can still communicate with my Greta!
Apart from being a FixNation kitty fan, Carl is a renown presence on the guitar. Check out Carl’s music and info at http://www.carlverheyen.com.
