I am an atheist. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as heaven, not even kitty heaven. That means that when a cat dies, it is truly dead.
That does not stop me from imagining, though, that in a sense, our two cats Marzipan and Tarka are still with us, perhaps watching our house while we sleep, as these cats do in a wonderful New Yorker cartoon titled Vigil:
And then, there were only four. Cats, that is… our oldest cat, Tarka, our last 20th century cat and the last cat that actually knew our first cat, is no longer with us.
We adopted Tarka over 11 years ago, during the winter of 1999-2000. Shortly thereafter, she settled in a cardboard box that was already a few sizes too small for her. We still have that box.
Good bye.
Tarka is our oldest cat and she is not doing very well. Her kidneys are failing.
The day before yesterday, her appetite suddenly vanished, and she became lethargic, urinating outside the litter box. I became rather worried, so yesterday I took her to the vet, who determined that in addition to the ailing kidneys, she may also be suffering from hyperthyroidism. They took a blood sample (we’re still waiting for the results), gave her some fluids, and some new medication, and sent her home.
What can you do? In an ailing organism, as one subsystem after another begins to fail, they struggle to keep up and compensate for the failures of one another. It’s like the ever narrowing flight envelope of a high altitude airplane; if you’re a little faster, the airplane breaks apart, if you’re a little slower, it falls out of the sky, and the difference between the two velocities becomes more marginal the higher the airplane flies. (This, combined with a faulty airspeed indicator, may have been one of the causes of the Air France tragedy two years ago.) So how do we keep Tarka flying true for at least a while longer?
I don’t know… yesterday, after I got her back home, she was doing better, eating more than the day before. But today, she hasn’t eaten anything yet and she’s even more lethargic. Is it time to get seriously worried yet? Another visit to the vet may accomplish little beyond exposing her to yet more stress.
Two weeks ago, I took a stray cat to the Humane Society. I thought it was the right thing to do; we already have five of them, no friend of ours wanted a cat, and this stray was obviously not going to do well outdoors (when we first saw him, he was eating some scraps off the pavement in the middle of a street frequented by city buses.) He was also young, healthy, and friendly, so we had every hope that he would be adopted.
Our hopes were in vain. Today, I found out that he was put down after contracting a viral respiratory infection and some secondary bacterial infection that did not respond to antibiotics.
All we have now is this last picture, courtesy of the Humane Society:
Well, that’s the end of one little life. Wasn’t worth much, I guess.
Not sure what to do next time. Would he have had a better chance outside in -30 Centigrade weather?
Damn.
I just ran this on my main server:
$ uptime 08:13:32 up 365 days, 19:56, 4 users, load average: 0.07, 0.05, 0.06
Yes, this means I last rebooted this server one year and 20 hours ago. (What was I doing, rebooting at 4 in the morning?)
Mind you, it won’t run uninterrupted much longer. An updated server is waiting to take its place, so that I can then take this guy down, thoroughly clean it (removing one year’s worth of accumulated dust and cat hair) and upgrade it as well.
This morning, I took this little guy to the Humane Society:
This young, unneutered tomcat showed up at our doorstep during the holidays, obviously homeless and hungry, but otherwise in good shape and friendly. We took care of him but the weather is getting colder, and spending much of his day in our tiny entry hall isn’t exactly a solution. We already have five cats, so adopting him was not a good idea.
On the way to the Humane Society, as the sun shone into the car, I noticed that he had blue-ish eyes. He was obviously part Siamese, but the blue eyes were news to me.
I hope he finds a good owner soon and lives a long and happy life.
Yes, it’s that time of the year again.
If only I didn’t see snow on the sidewalks outside!
Caught on a Web cam, two very worried kitties in my wife’s room, listening intently as workmen were demolishing an old furnace in the basement:
The other three cats were in hiding.
The White House cat during the Clinton years, Socks, died yesterday.
Socks in the White House
What a lovely day.
No, it’s not the name of a heavy metal group or a German curse word, just an appropriate way to describe the cats in our house, now six in number, given that we have a guest cat again. Poppy is back with us for a month.
Poppy in August
Wow. It doesn’t happen every day that a cat is found after being lost for 13 years. I hope his owners will be able to nurse him back to health.
Today, I decided to download and install WordPress, a web logging tool. It’s time for me to join the 21st century, get rid of my homebrew Day Book, and start using a modern web logging tool instead. (I refuse to call it a “blog”. I really dislike that word.)
A little confusing, but I think I also know how to include an image. My test image is my favorite Halloween cat. I think it’s nice to start a brand new web log with a friendly black cat.