Friday, September 6, 2013

Post 2439 - Friday

Hello again, my 4.7 friends.

I had a day off work today and was gonna do hell and all.  Instead, I went to the Tim Horton's in Timberlea for a late lunch and into Bayers Lake where I bought a 1TB portable hard drive for a really good price that included a free pouch to keep the thing in.  But the highlight of my day was going to the Value Village in the Park and buying a couple radios, which will replace a couple of the poorly-working radios here at Casa Bevboy.  I won't miss them.  They kept drifting off station and sounded like crap.

There is not much else going on.  I was surfing the web this evening when I chanced upon a link in Facebook that made me think about our pets.   Comedian Sarah Silverman just lost her dog of 14 years and was so devastated that she wrote an obituary for him.  Here it is.

Any person who likes dogs and cats has several legs up in my estimation of them.   I figure if especially a cat takes to a person that the person can't be all bad.  And, yes, Hitler had a German Shepherd he named Blondi.  Hitler would be an exception to my rule.

Patricia has had Cindy now for almost exactly 10 years.  Her neighbour had Cindy before Patricia did and had just got married.  The wife did not want Cindy around and Cindy began to roam the neighourhood because she was pretty much kicked out.  One place she ended up at was Patricia's.  One very cold evening Patricia got home and found Cindy on her deck, freezing nearly to death.  She opened the door.  Cindy peered inside, took a sniff, and walked in as if she had just paid her mortgage and repaired her automobile.  She ended up that night sleeping on Patricia's head to keep warm.

Not long afterward this neighbour asked Patricia if she wanted a cat.  She agreed, and Cindy was hers.  Cindy would run away from time to time because we were not used to having a cat around.  She would whiz through the door when I arrived and visited Patricia.  She had run away from us just as Hurricane Juan hit in late September of 2003; days later, another set of neighbours called Patricia and threatened to sic the SPCA on her for letting Cindy roam around.  We got her back and were 1000x more careful keeping her in sight and on a leash.

We have had lots of fun with Cindy over the last decade.  I spent a cheerful couple of hours this afternoon looking at an awful lot of digital pictures on my other desktop in an effort to find some Toastmasters pictures to give someone who's attending a TM thing on Saturday.  Along that journey I located plenty of Cindy pictures.  In many of them she is being playful and hiding amongst the blankets on a bed, or spooning with Patricia or giving us head butts.  After Patricia's mother died, Cindy spent the night with Patricia rubbing her head against hers in an obvious effort to assuage Patricia's overwhelming grief.  Cindy knew what was going on.  After my own father died, both cats hovered around me, actually getting along with each other for a change, as if they were checking up on me and seeing how I was doing.  Yes, I noticed.   Yes, they cared.

Cindy Clawford hasn't been feeling well lately, and we are puzzled as to why.  In recent months, she has been eating less and sleeping more, even more than a cat does by default.  She lost about half of her weight, from 12 to 6 pounds.  And she doesn't seem to be in any pain.  Like I said, most puzzling.

We took her to a vet last month during our vacation and she was put on a regimen of meds to reduce nausea and increase appetite, and something to help with her extreme dehydration.  The weight loss has slowed down considerably, and there are times when she gains weight.  She is with Patricia at the cottage this week while Newbie and I remain here in the city.  Cindy has been vomiting from time to time.  Today she retched up a hairball along with some food, but I am willing to conclude that the hair ball needed to come up anyway, and the victuals went along for the ride.  But we both worry about her, and it's because we love her to pieces and want to postpone the inevitable as much as possible.

Just like Sarah Silverman did with Duck.

The day will come when Cindy will leave us, and we will miss her terribly.  The death of a pet is never something that one grows used to.  If one does, then one is not the type of person I want to know or spend time with.   I hope you feel the same.

Say, I know.  Why not respond to this post, or the tweet announcing the post, or the attendant Facebook update, with a story or an anecdote or a vignette about a special animal who was in your life?  Did you have a Newbie or do you have a Cindy in your life?  Tell me about him or her.  

(Yes,  Him or her.   Not it.  Our pets are referred to by their gender, because they are not objects, but living, breathing things.)

Long day tomorrow.  Better hit the hay.  Newbie will be right behind me, because we're buddies, and we look out for each other.

See you tomorrow.



Ken said...

I am an animal lover and have had pets all my life. Dogs are great, no question, but I am a cat lover first and foremost. We have had as many as four cats due to the blending of our lives when we married. Right now we have two.

In February, just three days before my birthday, I lost my 16 year old pal, Smokey. It was a long and expensive illness, but it wasn't time to say goodbye. When that day came I was home alone, my wife being on a trip to Pennsylvania. It was extremely difficult that day. I cried.

But before that day, dear friends who knew my companion animal was very ill arrived with a large carrier with two kittens, a brother and sister, in it. I was given my choice of one, both or none. I chose the male and a new member of the family had arrived.

I named him Rue.

Rue is a great buddy. He's not Smokey, but he has fitted in well. He is a climber though, and I frequently hear him on the bureau or chiffonier in my bedroom in the middle of the night!

He sure has learned when bedtime is and how to get to the bedroom. He is often nowhere to be seen but beats me down the stairs, through the family room and into the bedroom at breakneck speed! By the time I arrive in the room he is lying on the bed, purring and carding, as if to say "Where have YOU been?"

Great fun!

Bevboy said...

A wonderful story, Ken. Love your cats while you have them. I remember when you lost Smokey as you wrote about it at the time.

Cats are wonderful animals. Cindy and Newbie are great companions.