I don’t remember the last time I felt this scattered. I don’t remember what time I went to bed last night. I don’t remember the color of the frosting on the last birthday cake someone presented to me. I think it was an ice cream cake. No, that was the one I gave Liz for her last birthday earlier this year. We spooned it up into Tupperware sized chunks and stacked the containers in the freezer. Once in a while, she’d take one of the delectables out of the freezer and munch away in front of the TV. I was delighted that a birthday cake could last that long. I recommend ice cream birthday cakes.
I don’t remember the alarm going off yesterday or any of the 3 cats stirring in the night. I do remember Chaco bolting across my head to get to the prime night view out the bedroom window near the corner. The cats like to stare out the back windows. There is a tan rabbit who lives in a burrow there. We saw her sunning herself last summer, stretched out near a pile of weathered boards and brush, just like the cats would stretch out. She was licking herself. We named her Tawny. Even though she is wild.
Yesterday we got a letter in the mail from the new vet where we took Mr. Stripeypants last week. He had a urinary infection and at 9 years old, we decided to give him the Senior Package physical. He was scared. But I couldn’t believe how good he was when we were in the waiting room with a large Golden Lab, longhaired Persian, and that vicious little Min-Pin.
The letter, I was struck by it. We laughed our heads off. It was addressed to Liz and Mr. Stripeypants in the Dear section. What section is that, the opening or salutation? The bones of a letter. Hmmmm. Anyway, the rest of the letter was full of references to Mr. Stripeypants. We read it out loud to him and kept laughing about it all night. They said we got the best prize for the best name.
Liz got a ribbing at her office the other day when she was making the vet appointment. When the vet assistant asked her the name of her cat, she slowly spelling out, Mr. S-t-r-i-p-e-y-p-a-n-t-s. Her office mates teased her about it the rest of the day. So now in the morning, we get up and say very slowly, Mr. Stripeyp-a-n-t-s. But we call him – well, we call him Pants.
I don’t know why I’m writng about Pants. He’s an adorable cat and a source of joy for me on a daily basis. I don’t remember the last time I bonded to a pet like that. I had a 13 year old cat named Sasha. She died shortly after I moved into my apartment in 1992. I was still in art school. And fresh out of a long, long relationship. It was very sad for me. And I was already depressed.
The vet let me take Sasha’s body home with me so I could bury her where I wanted. I sat with her for a while there on a yellow terry cloth towel and cried my eyes out. Later, I would go north with my ex-partner to bury Sasha on the cabin lot at the shore of Deer Lake in Wisconsin.
I don’t remember the last time I wrote about that. You never know what’s going to come out in a practice.
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
redravine.wordpress.com 
2:09 pm, EST, Tuesday, April 10
I took my cat, Isaac, to the vet just this morning — and you had no idea. And you and I connected yesterday only yesterday about how we are all connected.
Isaac is losing weight. He’ll be 15 years old on April 14th. He’s alert and like a kitten at times, but he has heart disease. His heart murmur has gotten worse since last October. On a scale of 1-6 (vet scale, I’m assuming), his murmur is now a 4. Last October it was a 2. I have to inject him with Vitamin B12 for the next four weeks to see if that stimulates his diet. He’s masterful at spitting out pills. I cover them with tuna or cheese and rub his throat to make certain he swallows the pill. About 15 second later, he spits it out of his mouth — and the arc he gets on those things is incredible. One time, Adrienne and I waited for the arc, didn’t see it and assumed he’d swallowed the pill. I was holding Isaac and we were both bent over looking on the kitchen floor to see if he had spit it out and we hadn’t noticed. He was looking down toward the floor along with us. About 5 seconds later, he spits the pill out the side of his mouth, while all of us are looking down. Masterful.
The vet says that Isaac is hanging in there for now. It lifted my damp spirits.
Why the name, “Mr. Stripeyp-a-n-t-s”? There must be a story there. In Hebrew, Isaac means “laughter.” Does your name have to do with the coloring on his legs?
Oh, one other thing. Flannery O’Connor is my matron saint. As long as you’re reading “Good Country People” you better read “Greenleaf” and my absolute favorite one (hers, too), “Revelation”. My first cat’s name was Flannery and she was a real bitch. Her vet chart had four red dots (one dot indicated a fractious cat), plus the vet had written by hand at the top of her chart, “Watch Out!!!” and underlined it THREE times. I was with her when I had her euthanized, and it two two shots. Flannery was hissing and spitting the entire time. I remember the vet saying, “Well, at least she’s going out with her personality intact.” Yeah, that Flannery will get you nowhere. A poet friend of mine wrote a poem in her honor after her death called, “Flannery O’Goner.”
Colette says cats are the silent souls of the house. Purrfect.
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I patted the cat this morning, surprised that she was awake before the sun. There is a lump on her left shoulder. The trouble with pets is that this is part of the package, the dying and the going. I don’t remember why I thought it was a good idea to make an investment in something that I knew would end with tears and a vet bill.
Why can’t we just make up stuff to write about?
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Oh no!
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Sharonimo,
I had Sasha euthanized, too, when she got so sick. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever had to do. When I took her home and sat with her there on the floor, crying my eyes out, I realized what I didn’t get to in the practice (was 10 minutes too short?) was that I was grieving the relationship that had just ended, and living alone; all of those things came pouring out in the grief.
Sasha gave me great comfort during those times. But I think I am able to bond even more with my cats these days. I have learned how to open more to joy.
They are the silent souls of the house. I love them.
I’ll check out the FO stories you mention from your Matron Saint. I can’t promise when. I’m making my way down my list of reading materials. Reading is a practice. I need to make more time for it.
Mr. Stripeypants – yes, his name. I wasn’t around when he was christened. But Liz tells me part of it is the pants he wears every single day, the stripes on his legs. The rest comes from Calvin and Hobbes. I guess Calvin used to call Hobbes Mr. Stripeypants sometimes. Or Mr. Stripey Tomato. Or – well, you fill in the blanks.
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes
Word,
I, too, wonder why we sign on for sorrow by loving both cats and humans. I think it’s because the rewards so outweigh the risks. The joy we get from our pets, lovers, friends, family, is so much more than the sorrow when they die away from us. I like to imagine them going to a better place. I always think I will see them again.
And sometimes, I feel them anyway. A soft breeze on the mesa. A dust devil in a windstorm. A bump in the night.
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