Too much sad going on

Our beautiful cat Sydney has died.

We adopted her so long ago, it was before Greg and I were married, before we bought our condo. It feels like she's been with us forever.

She was a very vocal, social cat who followed Greg around like a puppy. She was polite, though. She would come up on our bed on Saturday and Sunday mornings, just to check and see if we were awake yet. If we weren't (or we were lying still and pretending) she'd just hop down and check back an hour later.

Often on Sunday mornings we'd have family cuddle time; she'd lie on Greg's chest and I would snuggle up in his shoulder nook.  A couple of times each year she'd have allergy troubles and those Sunday morning snuggles would sometimes include sneezes; a kitty sneeze in the face from just a few inches away is pretty unpleasant. But we always laughed.

She meowed really, really loudly when she wanted something, and not just once or twice, she would keep going until she got it. She purred so loudly you could literally hear her from the next room. I've never heard a cat purr so noisily.  She used to purr while she was eating her crunchy cat food and it was the weirdest, most savage sound. Sometimes you can look at the 12-pound Siamese housecat and see the lion.

She started losing weight, and we took her to the vet, and they did blood tests and didn't help her at all. So we took her to another vet and he did more tests and tried so hard with different types of medication.

Cancer through her digestive system meant that she was eating, but not getting the nutrients she needed to maintain weight. So she'd eat, and lose weight, and seem normal, but still lose weight. And the poor thing always felt hungry. We'd give her cheese and steak and peanut butter and all kinds of ridiculous things, and she enjoyed eating it but got none of the calories and stayed hungry.

So it became a question of how long to wait. I know some people wait until their beloved animal family members are not able to walk, not able to do anything. We didn't want to wait that long.

While she was still able to get around, and meet us at the door every day when we got home from work, and jump up on my lap, and purr a little from time to time, we put her to sleep. She was clearly suffering, but the suffering wasn't constant yet. She weighed less than 4 pounds.

She's gone now. Our house is so quiet.

I swear the saturation isn't bumped up on her eyes,
they really were an amazing color
(~ 4 years ago)

Nothing better than lying on a nice crunchy fresh plastic
bag... except maybe jumping into a nice fresh cardboard box
(~ 5 years ago)

Greg and Sydney on her last morning

Lying in my lap, the expert in
maximizing lap comfort (~3 years ago)

The real reason we have cats: They are decorative.

Sydney

Alabama

She's here!  We brought her home after work on Wednesday.

We have a front sun room that has a sliding glass door and we set up her little kitten stuff out there, to keep her separated from Sydney.

Alabama exploring her new home

The next morning we took her to the vet.  Her mother was a 9 month old stray cat, so we were a little worried about feline leukemia and other scary diseases, but little Alabama checked out just fine.  She yowled a bit in the car, but did very good with the exam.

Alabama exploring the vet's office

She does have fleas, unfortunately, so we are keeping her in her own little room until we can make sure they are all gone.  She seems comfortable and happy.

Kittens don't need no stinkin' gravity!

She can be a bit talkative, which is interesting since Sydney, being a Siamese, talks a lot.  It could get pretty noisy up in here.

Did I hear someone say catnip?!

She seems very intelligent, and she's been energetic and playful and friendly. Sydney has hissed at her a few times from the other side of the sliding glass door, and she just calmly looks at Sydney like, What's up?  She ate her kitten food and drank her water and used her tiny litter box right away.  It was like she was just waiting for us to come and get her.

Overall it was a great birthday present for Greg, his heart is completely and utterly taken by this tiny little ball of fluff.

Alabama

Kittens > Work

I hate this.  There is something going on at work and I've been directed not to talk about it, so I'm afraid to write about it here, even though as far as I know no one from work reads my blog.  But it is all I can think about, any other thoughts that happen to make their way into my head get pushed out of the way sooner or later by thoughts and worries about work.  We are supposed to have a big meeting on April 4, so maybe I'll be able to talk about it after that.  Maybe I'll have answers then, I don't have any real facts right now anyway.

Greg and I are planning to go see The Hunger Games movie soon, although it might not be this weekend because, somewhat ironically, I have to work.

Greg's birthday is on April 5, and his birthday gift will be a kitten. Greg absolutely loves cats, and has never had a little baby kitten. 

When we went to the Humane Society 6 years ago we planned to adopt a kitten, but then Greg got completely distracted by the full-grown adult cats. We had to adopt one of the adults, he insisted, the adult cats are more likely to be put down since everybody wants kittens. I argued that so many kittens are born every day and not all of them do get adopted, plenty of kittens are put down too.  But it's MORE likely they'll get adopted, Greg insisted, and then when an adult siamese cat came over and jumped up on his lap, that was the end of it. She is a very decisive cat. So we brought her home and named her Sydney.

I knew Greg couldn't go back in the Humane Society and see all the poor potentially doomed adult cats again without getting sidetracked from wanting a kitten, so when a co-worker (See?  Work again!  Every thought leads back to work) mentioned having a new litter of kittens, I said we'd take one.  Last Saturday we went to meet the kittens and pick one out (One, I told Greg. ONE.) and holy crapmuffins, they are just the cutest little things with their pointy tails and their blue eyes and their wobbly attempts to claw their way up on the couch with us.

We'll pick her up after work on Wednesday April 4 (Work! That'll be the day of the meeting. Okay, stop thinking about work) and the next day will be Greg's birthday.  We took that day and the next day off, so we'll have a four-day weekend to celebrate the anniversary of Greg being born, get to know the new member of our family, take her to the vet for a check up, and introduce her to Sydney.  Hopefully that'll go fairly smoothly and fang-free, we're planning to restrict the teeny fluffball in one room for the first day or two, then gradually get them together.

Madame Sydney might wake up to acknowledge a kitten

Possibly the long weekend/mini-vacation will also include watching lots of movies and having Chinese food delivered, we'll see.

She really is adorable, as all kittens are.  She's got blue eyes and fluffy gray fur with a few little spots and streaks of white.  To continue on the tradition of naming cats after movie characters (Sydney is from High Art) Greg wants to name her Alabama (from True Romance).  Alabama was the hero of that movie, maybe our teensy little fluffball will turn out to be heroic as well.

Quick

• New header!  Somebody rub Sydney's tummy, k?

• The title of my blog, "existence of ellen", comes from the olden times, when I weighed 115 pounds, wore a lot of jewelry made out of chains, padlocks, and rosaries (you know, kind of Sid Vicious + Madonna = melancholy 80's college girl), and attended Radford University.  Everything was called RU something or other.  I lived -- and I swear I am not making this up -- in a big apartment complex near  the university, called RU Living.  Whenever I talked to my older brother on the phone, he would ask me:  "Are you living, or merely existing?"  I didn't know, actually.  But, bam!  A couple of decades later and it makes a good (?) blog title.

Sydney

My favorite model. She even woke up for a minute there!