Thread by @PatrickByrne

OBITUARY: Master Po has passed. I never had a better teacher or sturdier friend.

6/13: Convalescing at home from heart surgery #N. I stepped into the sun. A tiny calico ran back-and-forth from the barn, squeaking to me for help. I follow her in and find the incomparable Master Po.

It took 2 afternoons to catch her. She knew every crack in the hay bales and hole in the walls. Weak, I was awed seeing her sliding one from me clinging to the wall, listening for me over her shoulder while the opposite paw felt frantically for a hole she clearly remembered.

Two afternoons wasted scrambling after her among hay bales & horse stalls. At last I outsmarted her, using jackets to seal up the holes. Her sister came willingly, as both were starving. We sat inside a few hours, them lapping up goat milk (best for kittens), then drove to a vet.

Lady-vet said, "6 weeks old, birth-canal infected her eyes. When she opened them after 10 days they were eaten away to goo. Most folks put down blind kittens."

I told her, Save the cat.

Vet smiled, said, "You'll never know love like this. Put down mats of different textures."

I convalesced watching her struggle to map my home. Stoically, methodically, and with deliberateness she'd reach, patiently reposition, reach again. I learned not to move chairs, then began living on the floor on yoga cushions & faux furs like a Beatnik so she'd nowhere to fall.

The naming of cats is a difficult matter: one waits until THEY tell YOU their names.

In time, I began to know to call my new teacher "Master PO".

Her sister went by "Che Guevara," as she tended to dash into rooms as though popping into HQ, just back from a mission.

Po never knew she was any different.

But as Po and Che grew, I needed to find a third cat with whom both sisters could play. Three months later I came across one of the same age, and the blue of his one eye matched my father's.

So I called him, "One-Eyed Jack".

That was the start of my Yoga Vegan Organic years. I swam, walked, learned bachelor-vegan cooking. I learned that cats (especially blind cats) gravitate to Zen. If I lived calm and centered like Shaolin Monk, my movable feline feast would follow me 24/7.

My days were spent researching, Bitcoin mostly. But once I had learned to curry their presence and favor, my new friends began forming up each night to call me to bed. We termed this our "Ménage-à-CATre".

I learned that the largest firm then accepting Bitcoin was an $800k/year diner in west Australia. Folks speculated: how many years before a $1 million firm, $10 million, $100 million...? But I saw that Overstock (at $1.5 billion), could short-circuit that.

So we did.

That's when I became "Bitcoin Messiah". The duties of which caused me to have to begin leaving my friends to rejoin the world.

Meanwhile, Master Po grew as a warrior and hunter.

Po did not like me leaving for work without coming to show and showing me her "Circus Tricks," which amounted to her rolling from one side to another and, when feeling adventurous, doing a somersault.

For nearly 7 years we all grew older together in what I hoped would be a polyamorous fairy-tale ending...

Summer, 2019: the pipes of war were calling. I quit OSTK, went public about FBI Maria & Me, claimed I was going to "shellac the Deep State" (the Dumbs scoffed, I heard).

I gathered my team one last time, played them "Danny Boy," then left to join the battle you already know.

My family was adopted whole by a wonderful friend, a former small-animal vet's technician who loved and cared for them like I never could. Po lived out the second half of her life knowing nothing but being spoiled and love-bombed. Yet only 3 times in 6 years did I get to visit Utah and see them.

Po's health deterioated. I went to her and we had our goodbye. She told me that I have trust issues.

She passed away Friday morning in endless purr.

Master Po, RIP
2013 - 2026