We have had a cat in our house almost continuously for over 30 years, some of them much more memorable than others. On Wednesday our longest surviving old cat took her last ride. Spooky was approaching 18 years old which is ancient for a domestic cat. We found her as a stray while living in Hearst and she has been with us for 16 or so years. She came by her name honestly. The night we brought her home she hid in the back of the dryer for hours before we could get her out. She shared the house then with Tommy, a huge orange ball of fur and they tolerated each other, most of the time. After Tommy met his fate under the wheels of a car she had the place to herself for a few years and managed to make the transition to St. Joseph Island with only minor damage to her psyche. Then Mulder entered her life. Mulder had more personality than almost any other cat on the planet. Nobody ever told Mulder that he was a cat so he never acted like one, more like a big goofy dog. He may have been born brain deprived but we were never able to prove it. Spooky tolerated Mulder and Mulder loved to torment Spooky. But they were a team. Throughout her time on the island Spooky was a pretty good mouser both inside and outside. Lots of days in the summer she would head purposefully down the driveway as if heading off to work and then reappear a little while later with a dead mouse in her mouth which she would deposit on the deck. She rarely tried to get one inside. Then Mulder met his fate one night thanks to a hungry Bobcat who saw him more as supper than a cousin.
That event and advancing age caused her to become much more obsessive in her habits. She could only be picked up by certain people sitting in certain places or petted while parked on a particular perch. She was arthritic, hard of hearing, probably suffered from failing eye site and her aim around the litter box was more shotgun than rifle. She regularly hissed at her own reflection in any surface she walked past and was incredibly fearful of almost everything and everyone. She was eating less and less and over the past 2 or 3 months obviously losing weight.
We had her to the vet a few weeks ago and the prognosis was that Spooky was on her way out and the tests showed that she would probably die of kidney failure, as do most cats who live that long and that death by kidney failure will be protracted and painful if left to run its course. We had already decided that when the time came we would have her euthanized rather than let her die a natural and painful death. Decision time was approaching said the vet but not here yet.
We are getting ready for an almost three week absence and had several discussions about leaving Spooky, as we have on numerous other occasions . There is a young person who we hire to come in and feed her and clean her litter box once a day. This time we were really concerned about leaving her alone for that long; what if she got ill and was in real pain, what if Alexandra found her dead or dying. We didn’t want any of that to happen. One day I came home and Val told me that she had made up her mind that before leaving it was time for Spooky to go. We both agreed that this was the humane thing to do. We told ourselves and each other that every day for a week and every day for a week we did not call the vet to make the appointment. Last Monday Val called and made the appointment. It was a tough call, literally as well as figuratively. Tuesday we ignored the subject, but it hung over both of us.
Wednesday morning we both had a cuddle with her and both agreed that we felt rotten. Of course Spooky wasn’t aware of any of this and just carried on being herself. After lunch time just seemed to drag as we waited to leave. I finally went and got her cage and brought it in. She hated the cage and it always took two of us to get her into it.
The drive to the vet clinic was made looking out through tear misted eyes with Spooky in the back making sad noises of displeasure at being in the cage. When we arrived things moved very quickly. The vet asked us if we wanted to be with her and Val said yes and I wasn’t going to make her go through that on her own. Spooky was calm and both of us were blubbering. To say that the procedure is quick would be a monumental understatement. She was dead almost before the hypodermic was out of her vein and she never made a sound. The vet checked her with a stethoscope and confirmed what we could see. Now we were both a bigger mess. After a few minutes we put her back in her cage for the ride home, no argument this time and headed back to the island. It was a very quiet ride home.
When we got here I went and got a shovel for the shed and we buried her beside Mulder. We covered the grave with some rocks so nothing will dig her up. Back in the house we took out her litter box and cleaned up her food and water dishes. It was a quiet supper.
We miss her, a lot and the house seems a little emptier the last few days. . We know intellectually that we did the right thing and as the vet pointed out as we left we had done Spooky the last act of kindness by sparing her the inevitable suffering. But we still miss her and will continue to do so for some time I’m sure. We haven’t decided at this point when or even if we will get another one. We’ll have to see.
Bye Spooky.
Last night we went to a concert in Hilton Beach. Valdy was here! The OTH is a neat venue. Seating for about 200 so everyone is close to the performance. Lots of pony tails and gray hair in the audience but a few younger folks and some even brought their kids.
He started right on time and put on a great show. He has been doing this for a long time and the patter is funny and offers good stories. He manages to drop a bunch of names ranging from Prince Charles to John Prine, an eclectic group. He talked about kids and literacy and nuclear waste, causes about which he obviously holds passionate views.
His singing is still good, it doesn’t sound like he has to strain to hit the notes and most of all I could understand every word he sang. I have never seen him play before and i do not own any of his recordings but I was surprised how many of the songs I could sing along with and he repeatedly invited us to join in any time we felt like.
In 6 months we have attended three very different concerts; in November we were among 10,000 or so who went to see Bob Dylan, I still have mixed feelings about that one. In February we went to see the Bare Naked Ladies. It was ok. But last night was my kind of night. It doesn’t have to be Valdy, it can be almost anyone with a guitar who has the balls to get up in front of folks and entertain them. I love to sit close to someone who can make music on an acoustic guitar, play it well. I love to hear the stories about where the person has been or where the song came from.
I may be a little sappy but some of the songs he sang spoke very clearly about experiences and feelings I have had and mistakes I think that I made over the years.
All in all a wonderful evening.
I just read this in today’s edition of the Toronto Star.
“ Today is the third annual That Sucks Day. Designed to celebrate failure, frustration and futility (and that’s just the f’s), it is built upon its creators’ guiding observation: “Rigorous scientific studies have shown that 10 out of 10 people die.” (thatsucks.net)”.
Thats terrible. The same rigorous scientific study has already proven that 10 out of 10 humans are born to a woman who they call their mother. At least in my world there are for more things to be happy about then to say “that sucks”. I am pretty sure that I am giving this “day” a lot more attention than it deserves. The whole idea sucks!
Its snowing today, which has nothing to do with Linux except that it gives me a good reason to sit in front of the computer with my trusty Ubuntu guide at hand and try to learn this OS. I am making progress. I now know how to zip and unzip files. I can change the desktop themes and borders. I can use (with help) synaptic package manager and I am getting into the art manager. I am in the process of downloading 1081 Gnome backgrounds. I’m not sure I will ever use them all, in fact I’m sure that I won’t but it is one of the exercises in the guide that I am following. I will try to get a couple of screen shots and add them to this post.
The thing that I can not achieve, yet, is connecting my laptop to the internet, either through a cable or my wireless router. I know the cable works because my old desktop is running Ubuntu only and that one I can connect to the internet and my laptop when running Windows XP will connect to the internet via my wireless router – very frustrating because the truth is I start the laptop, open Ubuntu, install the wireless card and command it “work you bastard” and at every attempt it chooses to ignore me. Oh well, I know that the cavalry will come riding in around May 5th and save the settlers 
.
Back to work now!
I live in a rural area east of Sault Ste Marie. Population density is low and this is not an area where you expect to find hunger, that is largely because it is invisible, even more invisible than it is in a big city. But it is here. I was told recently that over the last two years the number of families using our food bank has doubled.
In early January I had an idea to help our local food bank. I went to our parish council and suggested that we organize a food drive over the six Sundays of Lent. I called the head of the group that operates the food bank and she thought that this was a good idea and yes they could certainly put the food to good use. Our congregation already helps out by operating a thrift store during the summer, selling donated clothing at very low prices with the money raised donated to the food bank every autumn. As well we fund vouchers which are given to families with young children to allow them to get milk or formula or baby food. That is all good but most of us don’t pitch in and we are often not aware of the extent of the problem. Time to change that.
I drew up a plan that included a theme for each of the six Sundays and I set a goal. I came up with a catch phrase, “Lets Give Up Food For Lent”. I prepared a short piece for the bulletin each Sunday in which I talked about hunger and nutrition. The idea was simply to keep people thinking about this project.And finally I set a goal. I said that I would like to see us raise enough food to fill the box of my pickup truck. I didn’t really think we would get that much but that was the goal.
Last Sunday Rosalie, our priest suggested that we weigh the food to see how much we had raised. Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the last Sunday of Lent and arrangements had been made to bring the food from our two churches to the food bank. We called the reporter for the local paper to come and see what we had done. Just before 1.00pm a dozen of us drove up to the food bank and delivered 1,425 lb. of food! More than enough to fill the back of my truck! The folks at the food bank were shocked to see how much we had collected and I think quite frankly that we were also. I felt a great deal of pride, not personal pride but pride in our congregation. We may be small but can be mighty when we try!