Alecto's Ophelia

On being catless

Catless is just weird, weird, weird. I’ve had a cat since I was four years old. There may have been a month or two after I left home before I got another but I’ve always had at least one. My daughter, all her life.

 

Now. No cats, no cats nowhere. We haven’t even removed the litter box yet even though it’s perfectly clean because before she went there was nothing going in and nothing coming out.

 

We don’t even know where she is. That’s the hard part. No smell, no sign, chance she slipped outside but hard to say. We know we have to tear the house up sooner rather than later but there’s been so much going on we’re in avoidance.

 

We talked about getting another but now is not the time. Daughter just wants to know it will happen before she goes to college. She has one more year of high school, I suspect we’ll have another rescue kitty by then.

 

Just not now. Now we are catless. Lets see how that feels for a bit.

On cats and kittens and other small things

I have had a cat since I was four years old. Always, at least one cat. My first cat was a calico called Duchess and from Duchess I learned where babies come from first hand (in general mammal terms) and how much small things matter and how easy it is to give it all away.

Once when my mother was showing a litter of puppies to a prospective buyer I burst into the house yelling "Mommy! Mommy! Duchess is making babies in the front yard!"

And she was. I don't know what happened to the buyer but my mother was mortified.

Later in the summer when those kittens were old enough to be played with but maybe not quite so old as to leave their mother entirely I put them in my little red wagon and managed to give one of them away. I think what really happened was a neighbor walked by our yard and asked for a kitten and I said yes. When I told my mother she suggested I might find homes for all of them.

I took my little red wagon around the neighborhood and knocked on doors until every last one of those kittens had homes. The enormity of what I'd done didn't land until I went home with the empty red wagon and proudly told my mother what I'd done.

She cried. I did too.

Waiting

I'm sitting on the couch in my living room with a cat carrier to my right, door right up against my right thigh because it's the only thing keeping my cat from completely losing her shit. Yep, here we go about a cat again.

This cat turned four in October and belonged to my husband's brother Frank who died horribly and alone in his bathroom at home just two years and ten months ago. The last time anybody talked to Frank was Valentine's Day, 2006 and if you want to read about it go here because it's a pretty powerful post and everybody's names are used so please tread with care (I won't edit this post for any reason). Anyway, Nomans found Frank on March 4 and it was as awful as you might expect. It took some time to sort everything out but the net result was a disaster of an apartment full of hazmat that needed to be emptied, the kind of hazmat that happens with a particular flavor of mental illness, and two cats needing homes. Two cats that spent at least two weeks locked up with a body. I'll leave you to work that out on your own.

Shortly after the funeral (and as Jews we should have done this immediately but for what should be obvious reasons, could not) my husband had to go to Switzerland for a week and I, suddenly jobless at that point, chose to stay home. Staying home was the wrong thing to do but half way through the week I put my girls in the car and drove nearly three hours South to bring home what amounted to two feral cats, not much past kitten hood.

One cat made it and one cat did not. By 'did not' I mean he failed to assimilate into the household in any way and had to be removed. His litter mate, named Wicious (because she's 'wicious and fawocious') eventually settled in and did just fine.

A few weeks ago, just as we were becoming painfully aware that we really were in the end game with Chuck, Homer the Dog started behaving badly. He pooped in our bathroom, peed on the couch, peed on our bed and it just went on and on. We assumed Homer (we were right about the bathroom) because it was nearly odorless and Simon can't get up on the furniture by himself to save his life (he just eats it instead). We forgave Homer because he's had a lot to deal with (like a sixty pound baby) and crated him to avoid further issue for the time being. And then there was another odorless puddle on the bed and another after that. You see, she tried the foot of the bed and that didn't work. Then she tried my side and I still didn't pay attention. And then she tried Noman's side when she was accidentally locked in our room and then we knew our last kitty was pretty sick.

And then we noticed that she was always hungry but stopped eating after a mouthful or two and walked away crying. And then we could pick her up and hold her like a baby and she didn't purr and she didn't struggle, she just laid there all snugged up and motionless.

I didn't waste time. I called the vet today, gave symptoms and was told to come in. So the appointment is at 3 and I didn't want to risk not being able to locate or catch her (not like she's moving very fast but she is wicious and fawocious and wiley too. And I'm sitting on this couch with the carrier right against my leg and she's gone to sleep. If I get up and moves she cries like the world might end.

I don't know how this is going to turn out but it can't be good. I only know we love this cat and I will gladly pay the price of fear and pain and possible loneliness to have the right to love and be loved back by this cat. (and the dogs are in the kitchen eating the table legs and I'll probably get over it).

Last Days with Chuck

Note - I have been unclear in the following post. Chuck was euthanized on Saturday, December 6, 2008. The original linked post was written in February, 2007. This post was written Tuesday, December 9, 2008. We got an extra 22 months and we're grateful.

We said good-bye to Squeegie like cowards just past Thanksgiving two years ago by having Oldest who hated the cat take her in to be euthanized. He cried anyway and brought her ashes back in a small tin that sits on the very top shelf of the hall closet so that Youngest can ask strangers if they’d like to see that she keeps her cat in the closet.

After Squeegie died I wrote a piece called Last Days with Chuck and when I look at the photograph of her all curled up in the sunlight on the back of the couch I can see the beginnings of what we saw in the end; her wizened little face curling in on itself all the while letting the sacred cat bits fly back to Bast.

It didn’t get bad until early fall. Chuck peed on Little Girl’s bed and we chalked it up to a not quite clean enough litter box and a not quite tidy enough bedroom. Cats are funny that way. We took her off dry food and forced wet in an effort to reduce any urinary tract infections but that just pissed her off because Chuck doesn’t like change of any sort.

And what began as a gentle Pavane toward the

Rainbow

Bridge

escalated rapidly with recriminations, pointed fingers and bad behavior all around; including the cat but we can’t really blame her for that.  Middle Child, who found the kitties in a wood pile when she was just five years old, about lost her mind over this. She did so in the traditional manner where storm clouds gather in corners of rooms and hover like the threat of disaster.

We limped through Thanksgiving in a state of unraveling denial and every day I told myself I would call the vet from work and every day I did not.

And then one day I did. It was a Wednesday and I dialed the number and when a man answered I blurted out all staccato like “I need to make an appointment to put my cat down.” Stop. Breathe. Air. There was some back and forth and an appointment was made for Saturday and the man told me he was sorry and then we hung up and I put my face in my keyboard behind my cubicle wall and cried good and hard as quiet as I could. Then I blew up a couple databases and left for the day crying all the way home until my eyes swelled shut. Aside from mentioning the appointment in passing, I didn’t speak of it after that.

On Saturday morning I got out of bed and dressed with some coffee and a toothbrush. Chuck was in Middle Child’s room and the kitty carrier was on the back porch. I think I started crying when I picked it up. Anyway, into Middle Child’s room I went and stuffed Chuck face and feet first into the last place in the world she ever wanted to go while Middle Child sat in her bed like the world stopped spinning and I’m doing this and eventually we all got into the car and drove the requisite 4.5 miles to the vet in the center of town where we three plus the cat sat on a bench in a quiet room and waited.

Our vet is a good guy. Really. He says things like ‘that dog’s on the right side of the force’ and I know exactly what he means. He talks sense about the whys and hows of animals and the choices we make and that’s about as unexpected as hens teeth around here. He looks at us and says “I understand you’re considering euthanasia.” Just like that. Like we had an out or something but there wasn’t any judgment going on all the same. So we talked a little about what was going on and what we’d done to try to fix or live with it and he agreed it sounded a bit like some neurological magic coming undone only he didn’t say magic, I did. I’m thinking Bast is way behind pulling this kitty home and maybe it’s my fault for wanting to hold on just another day longer.

Anyway, it was time and he explained everything. Cat’s don’t like to have their arms held the way dogs are kind of ok so the cat has a shot that puts her out but her eyes are still open and she’s all floppy like she already died or something but she’s warm and she’s got a heartbeat and he leaves the room again and there we are taking turns holding her when Husband finally finds a box of tissues and half the Atlantic ocean ends up in paper. When the vet comes back he shaves her arm a bit, ties a tourniquet taking care to tell us that it doesn’t hurt and we’ve laid hands on this cat not to heal but to send away and the needle slides in just so and the fluid is dispensed tiny bit by tiny bit (he is so careful, this vet) and her chest stops moving and her heart goes still and Chuck has crossed over the Rainbow Bridge leaving the rest of us behind to remember last days with Chuck.

Heartshots

I don't even know where to begin. This post had multiple titles in the making (that would be thinking on the train) and even more as I looked at the photos. I'm tempted to just give you the captions.

Here is Cletus at camp in deepest, darkest New Hampshire (as it turns out) (someplace called  Mosquito Island):

Caption (it's a long one): There ain't no bugs on me, there ain't no bugs on me, there might be bugs on some of you mugs but there ain't no bugs on me (that will make absolutely zero sense if you don't watch television commercials which I absolutely adore):

We photographed Cletus's cat, Chuck (Chuck is a girl and Chuck used to be my cat, please do not ask me to explain any of this) in an attempt to make a LOL cat to put on Cletus's door when she came home to kind of explain the fact that I trashed her room, or at least meant to clear out the hazmat and I lost my soul in the process and I'm really trying to get it back. Anyway, here's Chuck, the LOL cat:

  Now I want to discuss the chicken house. You know, I am a serious offender in the Control Freak arena. Surely, if you've been around longer than, lets say, a month, you know this. So when my husband, Nomans, decided to foil my plans for mass backyard destruction and ordered himself a chicken, ahem, coop from the, ahem, Internet, I scuffled my considerable size nine feet around in the dirt and said, well yeah, OK, especially after El mentioned something about the avoidance of hammer throwing and all that and well, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE DAMN DOG HOUSE? (really. I just had to get that out of my system)

Here's something amazing. Or maybe not. It was amazing to me. I had to look it up. Late last week I looked out the window from my upper porch and I saw an Egret in the trees. An Egret. I see all manner of flying wild life in my trees from bats to to ducks to hawks to those blasted fool crows that I swear I'm going to shoot out of the trees one Saturday morning - but never an Egret. I about lost my breath and fumbling for the camera this was the best I could do. I know you can't tell from this. But I saw it, I truly did (I looked it up just to be sure I wasn't high on Weston crack or something).

Here is some of my own deepest, darkest. Just because I love the woods, the deep dark damp fungusie woods and the swamp and the marsh and the trees looking out into the light and I see these old stone walls built by farmers not too long ago, clearing the New England fields of 90% of what it had to offer up and I wonder at the rate of the growth of these trees that think nothing of consuming it back to the earth from whence it come...

Here is about to be a bean. I think they are the most beautiful flowers and they make these lovely little green thingies that I like to sit in the dirt eating at the end of the day even though it's way too early to pick them but you see I've eaten all the Arugula so I've gone and moved on to the pretty, pretty, tender green beans...

And lastly, because El and Wendy said so (which means they did it and said it) I did it too and here is my pizza from the grill! (Because I STILL do not have an oven door and I'm not fighting that too hard either) And do you notice the brilliant blue I just want to run my tongue over and the fact that there is always a glass of wine in one of my mother's glasses (and now I'm in deep donkey dip because she's going to work out that I never gave them back when I borrowed them twenty years ago) and it's just so darn beautiful in the light and the color and taste and smell that is this life I love so well.

Oh, yes, one more. This will be the summer banner once I get around to making it landscape and all that.

Bits and Pieces and The Stations of the Cross

This evening Cletus came into our bedroom with a half eaten sausage that clearly the cat had been mauling. It was a big sausage, she had to work at it. The funny part was the surprise on my husband's face. "Again?!" he sputtered, "she did it again?!"

Well, yup, that's our cat. If you leave a sausage on the kitchen table and then you yourself exit the kitchen, the cat, a Calvin among Calvins who clearly subscribes to the theory that them that gets gets and them that don't, don't, will help herself to a good half of the sausage before she gets nervous or full or bored and exits stage left.

What does stun me is that she doesn't drag it off to one lair or another (the house is filthy with cat lairs). She eats and leaves what she doesn't want or need in the moment for the rest of us. As if we would eat what she's left behind. Well, yeah, actually, we would. It was a good sausage.

Cletus had a hard night. She knew I was sixty miles North again with Jeffrey and it finally hit her on the way home from driver's ed. This man she's known almost her entire life. This man who is the father of her favorite nanny and whom she sees rarely but who always hugs and loves her as if she is still eight years old. This man who is dying so consciously in a hospice wing at Bristol hospital.

Sometimes we hear these things and they never land. Sometimes they land when we least expect it. Tonight she let it rip her guts out and stomp them across the floor. I am proud of her.

I think that when someone leaves this world they leave a hole, a negative space, and it is this negative space we poke at like the space where a tooth has been removed or a limb severed and in this weirdness we begin to explore the realm of grief. I think it is important to recognize that the experience of negative space does not negate what once created that space and left a wake in it's path and leaving. I think where we, or at least I, get stuck is in the perceived negation of the being I love. How can I be in this world when he is no longer in it as well?

Migdalia and I walked and walked and walked the corridors tonight because one of the girls suggested she needed to get back in her body. I think that was a true observation. What she said were the things I think we might all say and feel. "I cannot believe this is happening. I cannot believe this is happening to me. I cannot believe this is happening to my girls.  I cannot believe this is happening to Jeffrey. I wish I had a magic wand and could make it all not be so for him. I wish that I could make him not be scared. I wish that I could make him not be so, so sad. I wish that I could make it right for all of us."

I think that's exactly what she's doing but in the process we can only trust the process, not have the answers.

I sat with the girls in the Hospice family room and another visitor came and was sent down to be with us because Jeffrey was having a clean up. My Girl did not care for this woman and made snarly noises in her general direction and this woman wanted to counsel the girls who had no wish for counsel; they are angry now and want to be angry and talk about weaning Dad off his need to see them every five minutes and this requires no interaction other than, uh huh, uh huh, it's OK, sweetie, uh huh. That's all they want right now but she insisted on guiding them through the appropriate behavior expected of children during the dying process and they were quite good until she got the freeze out and left and then My Girl made machine gun noises with her mouth and fired her fingers in the direction of the door. She is a good girl and waits until she won't be over heard.

Jeffrey is passing back and forth through the five stations of the grief cross. Tonight he is angry and his girls move in and out of his river without a fight. I didn't have as much to give Jeffrey today as yesterday. Today I had more to give the girls and Mig. So this is what sitting naked on Jeffrey's island looks like. Who knew?

So Sayeth the Kat

What does the cat say?

The Cat says:

What for you bury me in the cold, cold ground? (it's a line from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, however, metaphorically speaking, the cat has never recovered from being alone for two weeks after never having been alone for eighteen months. And I mean Never.)

How did this happen to me?  First I peed on everything I saw.  I am better now because I have seen what happened to my brother when he could (would?) not stop.  My brother does not live here anymore. (This is not necessarily a problem for me. After all, the first two letters of the word karma are also the first two letters of the word Kat.)

Now I live, relatively pee free, in the house of my human's brother. I had a step-sister.  I have not seen Squeegie of late but I hear she's in the closet in a box.  Every time the closet door is opened I look for Squeegie.  I do not see her.  I do not know what these humans go on about. A Kat in a box?  Doesn't Squeegie need to eat?  Maybe not.

I have another step-sister.  Her name is Chuck.  You work that one out.  I give up. Chuck is old but she is mean.  I am bigger than Chuck but Chuck still kicks my ass when merited.  Lately, it has not been merited.  Although, one time I fell off the couch. Chuck saw me fall off the couch.  Chuck called me an Embarrassment to the Species and proceeded to kick my ass.  I had it coming.

Once I peed on Adopted Mom's foot.  Adopted Mom was sleeping at the time. In her bed.  I squatted and peed on Adopted Mom's foot. Adopted Mom made me stay outside for a really, really long time.  I was cold.  Not the brightest thing I've ever done.  Another time, Adopted Mom and Adopted Dad went running in the morning.  When they came back, Adopted Dad got in the shower.  Adopted Mom crawled back into bed.  It took Adopted Mom awhile to realize she was laying in a big cold wet spot.  And I do mean big.  And cold. And did I mention wet?  Woof.  I didn't actually do that but it doesn't matter.  I went outside anyway.

Have I mentioned I've been relatively pee free and that the loss of my brother has not been a huge disappointment to me since he was the bigger whizzer and bigger baby and bigger suck of attention anyway. Now I have almost all the attention because Chuck does not care.  Usually.  In the event that Chuck cares, I leave the room immediately, and gracefully until further notice.

Now I need to discuss the Dog. The Dog is a Travesty and an Embarrassment to the Species. That's all I have to say. It is not relevant that the Dog is not officially part of the Species. He is still a Travesty.  And now that's really all I have to say on the subject.

On the subject of children.  Ah Children. We have a new one in the house. One left. The room was cleaned out and relatively stink free and I had no further need to pee on the pillows. But then a new one came in. She talks too much. I will not go in there because I am afraid I would do something and then I would be outside and it is getting cold.

On the subject of my front claws.  I do not possess them anymore because when I moved into Adopted Mom and Dad's house I proceeded to tear every piece of furniture to shreds.  And then I went to the Vet.  When I was at the Vet I escaped and hung from the screen door by all four sets of claws.  The Vet said I was funny. I do not think I am funny. And I still do not understand why all my tearing is now fruitless. I tear and tear and nothing happens. Adopted Mom tells me to go outside and hunt field mice.  I do not need my front claws to catch field mice.  Adopted Mom does not want me to bring my field mice in the house.  She says that the front porch will suffice.

Adopted Mom thinks the Travesty of a Dog ate the Hamster just because he is a Rat Terrier and he is apparently good at that kind of thing.  She is wrong. It was me. He is not smart enough to hide the evidence. He would have left it in the middle of the kitchen floor.  Hahahahaha. Shhhh. Don't tell. I don't want to go outside. It's getting cold.

I drool a lot. And I do mean a lot. Adopted Mom says this is disgusting. I think anyone would be blessed to have an enormous amount of my personal saliva deposited on their pants right before work.  After all, it's the gift that keeps on giving, all day long.  And besides, she should be grateful.  I don't pee anymore.

That's all.  OK.  Love, The Kat.

And  that's what the Cat says today. You can check back tomorrow as it might change.  We all know that the Cat is entirely unreliable.