Yay! Cat Puke

My new cat seems to be settling in pretty well. I did not want a new cat. I did not want an old cat. I did not want any animals, even though I promised my older daughter that we would get guinea pigs in a few more months. I promised her that only because I knew the guinea pigs would need to go with her to her father's next summer, and he hates rodent animals. But she didn't know that when I promised it, so it was more like me being the cool mom.

The cat who I just had put down, I got him back in the fall of 1992, when he was about six months old. He was a gorgeous Russian Blue, and if you don't know what that is, look it up because I'm feeling a little anxiety ridden and assholish tonight and don't feel like explaining. I'm pretty sure a good dose of hot sex could fix this, but that's another topic. I got this cat before I realized what a pain in the ass animals are, but by the time I had realized that, I had already committed to him. Until I had my children, he was my child. He slept in the bed with me, listened to all my problems, laid his big fat ass right up on my chest when I was trying to nap on the sofa, hid under a chair and clawed my ankles when I walked by, all the things that cats do. He ignored me periodically, and demanded that I never ignore him.

The day I put him down, I didn't think the vet would do it, because he had refused to put him down four months prior, and I was scared that I was going to have to take this cat back home and watch his quality of life decline even more. He had stopped eating at this point, but I managed to get him to eat cheese popcorn and shrimp once a day or so. Because that's what he loved. Cheese popcorn and shrimp. So I took him to the vet and the vet, bless his heart, didn't even examine him. He just asked, is it time? And I started crying. Yeah, it's time. I had never seen an animal put down before, because when you grow up in the country, you generally say goodbye to your animals when you find them dead in their pen, they get hit by a car or they just go missing, and you know that they went off somewhere to die alone. Putting an animal down was a new experience for me, and it was hard. I kept thinking, this can't be it. This can't be the end of this 18 year relationship. They took him in the back and put in a catheter in his front leg, and then brought him back to me. He was laying all wrapped up in a blanket, and we snuggled for a little while, and I talked to him about all of the things that we had done. Sounds stupid, but he knew. He licked my hand, and I put my finger up next to his paw and he curled his claws around it, like we had always done. I always thought that was his way of holding my hand. The vet comes in and it's time. I kissed my oldest baby one last time and told him that I loved him, and the vet gave him the injection. For that one moment in time, I wanted to say, no, wait! Not yet! Not now! I'm not ready! I need more time! Please! But it was too late. As soon as those thoughts entered my brain, I felt him go limp and I knew he was gone, and I just sobbed. I sat there on that hard ass bench in that vet-smelling examination room with the blinds pulled on the door, and leaned my head up against the wall and sobbed. And I knew I wasn't crying for him, I was crying for me. Because that's what we do when we lose someone. We cry about what we've lost, what we've had, what we won't have again, nothing else. And then they took him, and that was that. I had him cremated, because I just didn't have it in me to bring him home and bury him. I just couldn't do it. I picked up his remains the other day, and started crying all over again. Goddammit, I hate crying.

I came home that day and threw all of his stuff away, and I cried about that, because that was the finality of it, and I didn't plan to get any more animals any time soon. Definitely not a dog, because I am diametrically opposed to dog shit in my yard. Definitely not a cat, well, because I need a break. Definitely not fish because I don't want to have to clean some scuzzy tank, and birds are too loud. I'll take a couple of months off and we'll get these fucking guinea pigs, because that's what Mommy promised. But the guinea pigs are no big deal, because they can stay in their cage, and well, when some hot guy asks me to run off to somewhere fabulous for the weekend when my children aren't here for some fast and furious horizontal action, I can just run the guinea pigs in their cage over to The Ex and then take off for fun times. So we can definitely do guinea pigs.

But then my other mother called. I've mentioned her before, and this would be my former neighbor who is now exclusively the neighbor of The Ex. But she's my other mother. Actually, she reminds me of my grandmother, and that's why I will move heaven and earth for this woman. I have issues with my grandmother dying before I was ready to let her go and without me being able to say goodbye, and really, we never appreciate our grandparents when we're kids. My other mother, she's a lot like my grandmother, so much so that my mother has even commented on it. I can't say no to my other mother, because it's like going back in time and getting that extra bit of love from my grandmother, but I only had to run across the cul-de-sac for it. Like I said before, people come into our lives for a reason. I like to think my grandmother sent her to me, because my grandmother wasn't ready to say goodbye to me, either. Actually, my grandmother is with me every day, because I named my younger daughter after her. But in spirit, my grandmother and my other mother are pretty much the same person. So this is my chance, maybe my only chance, to do for my grandmother what her cancer robbed me of.

She wanted me to take her cat, because she's selling her house and moving back to West Virginia. Which I'll also have issues with, but it's cool, because we can skype. I'm a little sketchy on the whole heaven thing, largely because I'm very sketchy on the whole religion thing, but if there's a heaven, I wish we could skype up there. Anyway, she's got this cat, and she wants me to take it. I can't say no to this woman. I can't, I won't, end of story. The cat came to live with us on Sunday, and the older daughter is okay with it, even though I made sure she understands that we won't be getting guinea pigs after all. Because this is her other grandmother, and she can't say no to this woman, either. We wake up this morning, the cat is yowling a good morning to us, the day gets started and then we see it. Cat puke. Right next to the front door.

Great. Here we go again.