I’m doing okay. My sleep has been somewhat erratic, more due to my recent loss, I think, than anything else. I’ll get used to it, though–I always have.
More concerning is Hope, another of my cats. She and Tig were great friends, and she seems lost. I’m used to her meowing at me for treats and so on (looking me in the eye), but now she meows at nothing in particular, even in other rooms of the house, which meows I can hear. I take the time to play with her and skritch her, which she has always liked, but sometimes she just doesn’t want to participate.
Time heals, I know. Hope will get over it, as will I. At least, when I do sleep, Hope will follow me to bed, and curl up next to me, almost like a teddy bear. It is nice to fall asleep to her purrs.
It’s hard to tease out cause and effect, but the society we live in is, by and large, the one that the people chose. We collectively decided we want convenience instead of privacy and consumer control.
Sleep tight!
I did get some writing done in the wee hours last night. It was work on a scene that I might scrap, but it was fun to be writing again. I do my best writing about 10pm or later. Mayhaps I’ll start an evening writing habit again.
Up for my middle-of-the-night bio break. Having some instant mashed potatoes for a snack. Got my flu shot yesterday morning, so I spent the day feeling like crud, with an aching arm.
Still sore, but not as cruddy feeling, so I’m trying to eat a bit, as much as I can.
Nikki is purring at my feet like a loyal hound dog. She was in my chair when I got up, had to be gently coaxed to move, dammit! and will no doubt re-take it as soon as I’m back in bed. Where Monkey will no doubt find me and curl up with me.
I just can’t imagine a home without cats. People with no pets - especially those who love alone! - just have a completely different mental operating system than mine, I guess.
I guessed wrong. Nikki followed me to bed, and spent the whole rest of the night curled by my pillow, where I could most easily reach her. Monkey stayed out doing gawd-knows-what until I started stirring, then he came bounding in to wake me up the rest of the way.
I’m perfectly willing to co-exist with these no pet people, as long as the ones who live with me agree that my kitties are adorable and can do no wrong. Roomie has a fish tank-cute fish, not so cuddly, but soothing to have around. So shoe. I’m not so bad, I have roommates with scales too.
I did, enjoyed it-I don’t currently have a pillow kitty and I miss it.
Sort of. I’ve been working on the same novel for six years, so my goal for the month is to have a publishable final draft by the end of the month. So far, so good. I rewrote the ending and now all that’s left are some continuity fixes.
We’ve been down to only one cat the last 2 years, and we really miss having two or more. But she’s healthy and happy and loves to purr.
In my experience, people who were raised without pets are missing something in how they relate to other people. Something like empathy. My ex was like that. OTOH, my husband had all kinds of pets when he was a kid, and it shows.
This past couple of years I have been sans cat for the first time in my life, ever. I’ve come this close " a couple of times to getting another cat or perhaps a dog for variety. Now that my SO has a cat(and a friendly loving and respectable gentleman he is at that) I find that for one, I’m enjoying not having pet hair all over, two, it’s nice not having that extra responsibility and three, I seem to have become sensitive to pet dander generally and very sensitive to dog dander.
Losing my cat(s) has made me never want to own a cat again. We just got into a terrible mess. I had 11 amazing years with my baby Merlin. Then we got a younger cat who created all kinds of problems for Merlin, and Merlin developed intense anxiety and started spraying everywhere - and I mean everywhere. 4-5 times a day in 15 different locations. In addition to the completely demoralizing specter of cleaning cat piss off the walls five times a day, this directly impacted my marriage. The cats fought constantly. Fur flying, aggressive fighting. To give Merlin some escape, I blocked off my bedroom for him by installing an electronic pet door only he had access to. Didn’t make a damned bit of difference. The younger cat had serious food aggression issues and was constantly trying to get in to eat Merlin’s prescription food, so we couldn’t go in and out of the bedroom without being attacked. The younger cat was obsessed with food and would camp out in my kitchen chair all day, attacking anyone who entered the kitchen. I tried environmental modification, I consulted a cat behaviorist, but nothing seemed to work. I developed so much resentment toward the younger cat and he was stressing Merlin out so much that after 4 years of trying to make it work, we decided to rehome the younger cat. I did not love that cat the way I loved Merlin. And I feel guilty about that. Especially because some people say you’re a monster for ever rehoming an animal ever. So, I’m a monster.
Merlin, meanwhile, lost insane amounts of weight, developed kidney disease and was showing signs of dementia and intense anxiety. I thought it would get better without the younger cat there, but it didn’t. My Aunt, who has a lot of experience with animals, convinced me that he was suffering psychologically. She suggested it was time to let go, so after fifteen years with that beautiful cat, we made the decision to put him down. The worst part about it is, we had scheduled his euthanasia late in my pregnancy, and I had the baby early. Our first day home from the hospital with our new son was the day he was put down, and I was a suicidal mess (severe PPD), so I didn’t even get to be with him when he died. It was just my husband with him. Literally the last day of my beautiful cat’s life was having some new invader enter the home (our baby), getting shut out of the bedroom he was used to sleeping in, and then taken somewhere to die.
This was in March. I question whether I made the wrong decision to put him down every day. I’m so torn up about it that I can’t even enjoy cat memes or other people’s cats. All I feel when I look at other cats is shame. I don’t think I can ever own a cat again, knowing how spectacularly I fucked up with the ones I had. And I still miss my baby Merlin.
This is the first time I’ve ever talked about this with anyone.
Hey Spice Weasel, you’re not a monster. Sometimes we mess up, and sometimes stuff is just beyond our control. In damn near 50 years of loving and living with cats, I’ve seen a lot. Had the Shitball Cat From Hell, my beloved Rug Rat was such a dedicated family man that he just laid down in the kitchen and died when I came home on leave 3 weeks after my first wife moved back home.
Stuff happens, please don’t berate yourself over it. Enjoy the hell outta that little baby of yours (cuz he’s gonna fill back up with it real fast🤪) and love him like crazy
Thank you all. I loved that cat so damned much. I was so overwhelmed with becoming a new parent I don’t think I ever had the time to grieve.
And just for clarification, the first week my son was born was incredibly hard, but it got better after a few weeks, once we figured out how to take care of a baby, and around the four month mark it got amazing. Today he figured out how to pull himself up to standing. I never thought I’d be so enraptured by these little milestones.
Thank you for sharing that.
It brought to mind how I felt with each milestone for my kids and brought a smile to my face, something I’ve been sorely needing of late.
Spice Weasel, you are not a monster. You are obviously a concerned, loving pet owner, who cares about your animals. Sadly, you encountered a perfect storm of circumstances, but I think you did the best you could, given them.
No doubt, you have many happy memories of Merlin, and photos too. I know I have many such of my cats who have passed, and I cherish them. I have debated with myself whether I was doing the right thing when the time came for the vet to do the kind thing, but then I look at the cat that is, and remembered the cat that was, and I know I did. The decision is difficult, but it is one that we all must reluctantly make eventually. You are not a monster; you are a responsible, loving, caring pet owner.
