Today I bleached the litterboxes and the cat bathroom. I will also admit that there was totally a poop from my cat that died over 6 months ago in the litterbox. I’m sorry.
So why did I finally get off my ass to stop moping about my dead cat and clean litterboxes? (Seriously, you carry two FULL dirty litterboxes out and dump them and bleach them sometime). Well… I’m thinking about getting a new cat. I mean, obviously I want a new cat, but I’ve been getting extremely anxious when I try to think about it. So it’s been upsetting me. So what changed?
I read an article about a cat that was for adoption and he sounded fucking amazing. Apparently, Pakistan doesn’t have cat rescues. So people rescue street cats and send them to other countries to adopt out. This particular cat loved all the people. I want a cat that loves all the people! Turns out he’s in California and they only adopt locally so bummer. Also someone already adopted him. Oh well. But I did reach out to a local cat place (again ’cause they never responded in January). I’m going with a foster org rather than the shelter because I’m looking for a personality type. I have no requirements on looks or age or sex — only that it be a short hair. Listen, Tabitha was a long hair. When a long hair cat has diarrhea and you’re at work for a few hours — well, your house is now a disaster as is your cat. Also, dingleberries. No thank you.
So I hopped over to their page and read some cat bios. I found a few that sounded good and I emailed them. They actually got back to me this time. So I went full crazy cat lady. I’ve emailed these people back and forth like 10 times. I have thoroughly explained that I want the neediest velcro cat you have. So she sent me like 4 that she thought would be good. Two were out because they wanted friend cats. I kinda want to have a single cat. So I narrowed it down to Rey and Aletha. Rey is young, 7 months, and Aletha is a little over 2 years. I asked if Aletha was going to be cool with me going and picking her up all the time to come sit with me or go to bed. They said Rey’s my girl. Here’s some descriptions of her from her bio and emails:
“Rey is a little firecracker of a girl who is as sassy as she is stubborn. She is the first to greet a new person […]. She’s more than happy to be carried around the house on your forearm for long periods of time, or lounge on your chest while watching TV. Long-haired individuals beware, however: Rey has a tendency to climb your shoulder, wait for you to let your guard down, and then relentlessly attempt to remove your hair from your scalp.”
“Rey is a hilarious little rambunctious girl. She likes to ride shoulders and talks, and is very needy. She would require something like a cat wheel and interactive motion-activated toys to keep her mentally stimulated. She is super duper smart. And she is also extremely social. She WILL seek out wand toys whether she’s invited to play or not, and gets a little possessive about it actually. lol. She also has never met a stranger and wants everyone’s attention that walks through the door. I adore the little squiggle on her nose. When I first saw her I thought it was a piece of lint. LOL!”
“I talked to the foster moms, and Rey would 100% be the affectionate, attention seeking cat you need. Her foster mom has carried her in a baby sling, Rey wants “uppies” which is when she wants to be put on your shoulder…lol, and she said she greets her at the door and loves kisses on the face.”
Here is a picture of Rey at the lounge:
Fuuuuuuck. I’m already in love with Rey. I haven’t even met her yet! So I cleaned everything up really well and bought some food and fresh litter. My Amazon cart already has a new carrier and wand toy in it. I picked out the cat wheel I want to get her (they said she LOVES the cat wheel at her foster home AND at the lounge so they really want her to have a cat wheel. I’m waiting until I see her use a damn cat wheel before I commit to order one. I didn’t think cats actually used those.) I’m going to meet her tomorrow.
I haven’t met her yet. Yall, if this cat doesn’t like me I’m gonna be so sad. I’m all anxious about making a good first impression now! Like I’m all this cat is gonna have. Am I enough? Am I worthy of this cat? I’m so nervous!
Also, all over their website and facebook they make explicitly clear that there are absolutely no same-day adoptions. Then she comes at me with an email telling me to submit my application and I can take her home this weekend if we’re a match! WHAT? You said no same day adoptions! I’m not ready! I haven’t met her! I have to clean! What food does she like? I’m not prepared for this! So I’m going to meet her tomorrow (Sunday). If we’re a match, I’ll get her on Thursday or Friday because it’s my 3 day weekend. That way she can get settled before I go off to work all week.
M, this might be your new god-kitty! Oh I hope she likes me.
I still miss Jack more than anything. You see all these bittersweet comics like this one where your pet is still with you:
But they’re not. They’re gone. I WISH I could imagine he was still around. I would love to see movement in the corner of my eye and think it was him. Or feel a ruffle on the bed and think it was him. I don’t get that though. I haven’t got that at all. I would absolutely love to be the bat shit crazy cat lady that thinks her dead cat is still around. I wanna be that crazy person.
It would be so much better than the emptiness. Just the void. Today I left a hamburger bun on the counter and had the reflex that Jack might get it. But before I even finished the thought I just was filled with the emptiness that no, he won’t.
Friday, I had my second tattoo session on my sleeve. Poor Jack has only been a head since November. Now he has his body and his precious bowtie!
As you can see by the outline (yeah, that’s tattooed), we bit off more than we could chew. But to her credit, my artist pursued a lot longer than she wanted to to get the pumpkins done. Apparently, after 3 or 4 hours, your skin starts to turn too red and my artist doesn’t like to go longer than that. That sucks because I have to drive to Nashville and I’d happily sit for as long as she’d tattoo for. So I’m a bit disappointed that we won’t be able to work behind his head until Fall. In April, we’re going to finish up what we outlined — a few more leaves and his tail and then break for summer. She doesn’t want to do more than that so he looks like a completed piece over the summer.
It was a bit of an awkward session. There was miscommunication on what I wanted, apparently. I’m not sure how it happened as on my tattoo page that I originally sent (click here to see our communications page), I stated that I wanted a half to 3/4 length sleeve. Maybe that means different things to different people? But she wasn’t aware I wanted it to wrap around my arm and she didn’t know I wanted it past my elbow and up onto my shoulder. I think she thought I was “adding on” to my original request and she wasn’t happy about it because she wants to make one big cohesive piece and not something that just keeps getting added onto.
So I felt bad ’cause she seemed irritated. But I assumed “sleeve” meant it wrapped around? And I said between half and 3/4 so isn’t 3/4 below your elbow? I get the shoulder thing — I guess I never spelled that out, or if I did, it didn’t hit. But I love a raglan sleeve. I also don’t like how shoulder/sleeve tattoos just round off at the shoulder. I’d like it to be more like a raglan sleeve. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE when tattoos have a little peekaboo on the neck line. Like just a few swirls showing under your shirt making people wonder what’s there. I’ve seen this a few times and it’s always been part of the visual in my mind. I’m not getting tattoo greedy, but I don’t think she knew that, I guess?
We figured it out. We’re going to add pumpkin vines with some squash blossoms below the elbow. As far as the wrap around, she says just leaves will look bad. So I need to do something else inside the arm. She suggested his favorite toy, but 1 — this isn’t ALL about Jack. And 2, his favorite toy was a banana. So not on theme there. So, I don’t know what the fuck’s going to happen there. I’m almost playing with maybe it shouldn’t wrap and close inside? I don’t know. I always figured it would but I don’t like the idea of more stuff being inside the tattoo. But we played with the idea of more fall stuff — maybe more pumpkins? But how would that work? Anyway, we can do a shit ton more on the tattoo before we figure that out. We got the lower part and the shoulder part. We can do those first.
I also wasn’t aware of the 4 hour “limit” thing. I get that my skin was discoloring but like I kinda wanted to ask if we could do the tail. But she had already cursed at my tattoo three times in frustration. Combine that with the awkward misunderstanding and I was just like OK, whatever. Plus she said she had to do some drawings for the next day. So it was a frustrating appointment. I’m worried that she’s not enthused about what I want vs what she originally envisioned. Yall know how anxious I get!
All that said, we got some great shit done. Look at those pumpkins! And I love the leaf towards my back with all the different colors. Her work is stunning. There’s a lot of oranges – I really wanna get some more reds in there. There will be plenty of green as this is her current sketch of where we’re going:
NOTE: Art belongs to Devon Greig
So. I’m very anxious because the appointment didn’t go great. However, I’m in love with the tattoo. It over doubled in size and I love it! Its big and impactful and gorgeous. It’s going to show in all my short sleeve tops this summer and I’m just going to have to buy more professional tank tops. It has to happen. I never thought I could have an arm tattoo — much less such gorgeous work! I love him.
I’ve also already jumped the shark and ordered some rash guards for summer. Can’t have it fading before it’s even finished!
Today was my last day at my shitty job. They read me out a little early so I got home around 3:45. Mr C took a nap, but I had to stay “up” for the AC repair guy. After he left, I decided I wanted a nap too. I set my alarm for an hour and a half so I wouldn’t sleep too long. I ignored my alarm. Mr C got up to go fetch him some dinner and I stayed in bed kinda 75% asleep and 25% awake. Maybe 80/20. I miss Jack. Obviously, sometimes I think about getting another cat when I’m ready. So I was thinking about looking at cats. I have a long weekend between jobs as I have Friday off and Monday is a government holiday. I thought maybe mom could come up and we could look at cats together.
That would be nice. She could help and it’d be something we could do together. Maybe hit up a few Saturday adoption events. I wasn’t decided or anything, just a thought I probably wouldn’t act on. I decided to get up when a strand of Christmas lights went out on the bedroom tree changing the general cast of the ceiling from a warm red to more of a green shade – then that strand must have completely died and returned the walls to the warm red. When my feet hit the ground I remembered mom’s dead.
I saw a gently sweeping stripe of dead lights on the tree confirming my suspicions.
This is a post about gingerbread houses. And Mom. And Jack. And how Mom got her groove back through gingerbread. Just go with it.
So back in 2006, I had just moved into my own place on Golf Road. Lovely shitty apartment of my own. $545 a month. Just me and Jack. And mom visited a lot. I worked at the police department as a dispatcher and was less than a year away from starting my career (though 5 years from graduating — not the point). It was Christmas! My first Christmas in my OWN place. This called for something special. This called for … a gingerbread house!
So mom came to visit and help me make my very own gingerbread house. There were issues. We couldn’t find any gingerbread mix. So it was really a sugar cookie house. It counts, OK? It had windows! Mom showed me how to crush up jolly ranchers and melt them to make stained glass windows! We had a peppermint roof and a full length chocolate chip chimney. I cut up gum drops and made a wreath. It was glorious. This was before cheap battery-powered lights, but if we had had those, it would have glowed gloriously through my translucent blue and purple sugar windows.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Then the next few years we’d always do something special for Christmas. Usually treats. Like chocolate dipped Oreos, or chocolate covered Ritz Crackers with peanut butter, or those fancy treats where you melt a Rolo on top of a pretzel and smush it with a peanut M&M — or if you’re going somewhere fancy — a half a pecan. Sometimes we even did gingerbread cookies and decorated them with icing.
Then, in 2009, I was feeling adventurous. I was in a much nicer apartment with a guest room and dating a cute guy who would become my husband. It was time for another gingerbread house. We had to outdo our previous effort. This had to be magnificent. We would do something with more grandeur. We would make a church.
How does one make a gingerbread church? Well, you just make the front and back taller so the roof is steeper and put a steeple on top. We’re not on the Food Network here, aint nobody got time to make templates and stuff. But don’t you worry, we got this. It would have even more jolly rancher windows! More icing! The M&Ms would be Christmas colors to look like Christmas lights! And best of all: Shingles. We would use Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and put individual shingles on that shit. Boo-yeah!
Now, I would like to say, we kept improving on our gingerbread game. We got so good we could do competitions! But we didn’t. The church was actually the pinnacle of my gingerbread greatness. Sad, I know. But that’s not where the story ends. Those were merely flights-of-fancy in the gingerbread game of my own. Mom would take gingerbread houses and flip the script.
So take a step back. I moved away from my text-book codependent family in 2003 and got a shit ton of therapy. In my evolution of self, I turned from my father. Fuck that asshole. No, not God, my real father. THAT asshole. Sometimes the pendulum has to swing really far to right itself. Now my beloved mother had been beaten down by that motherfucker for decades. And you can be damn straight I turned my pot-stirring self to getting her to realize it. And she was really coming around by the time she kicked the bucket. I think she might have had the gumption to skip Christmas by the time she died. I’m sad I never got to see that and sneak her a wink and a high five. OK, back to the early 2000s:
So dad always controlled every holiday. Though they divorced when I was two, dad always controlled everything. Holidays were at his house. We’d go over the weekend before and scrub it clean cause he’s kinda a hoarder. Mom would make every single dish and we’d go over to dads and pretend to be happy. Even after he got a girlfriend — who thankfully took over the cleaning part. Mom would still cook for a week and haul it all over to that bastards house so he could have his happy family holiday (yes, with his girlfriend and my step brother — the kid he had while he was still married to my mother). Every Thanksgiving and every Christmas — even Easter.
At some point, she started making extra to “hide.” Is it hiding if you make it yourself, in your own house, and just don’t take it over? Not really, but in my codependent family it was rebellion. I think this started when the girlfriend would start making to-go meals for her friends and for my step brother (the affair child). We stopped having leftovers left. Mom stopped having food to eat off of for the next week after she’d spent all week cooking for everyone. No more turkey casserole! You know, where you shred the turkey and mix it with the dressing and cream-of-chicken soup? None. So mom started making extra dressings and extra mac & cheese and keeping it at her house. Come 2014 something had changed.
Now I’m not sure what triggered the change. And I wouldn’t dare say “something snapped” — nay, something clicked into place is what happened. Maybe that was after dad started putting rules on presents — how much we could spend, and then one year declaring we weren’t allowed to give gifts at all (yeah no, fuck him — yall know I didn’t listen to his shit). But 2014 was a new era. In 2014, mom decided to have her own Christmas.
Now don’t get me wrong, it was still a secret. It didn’t replace dads Christmas. Mom would just have her own Christmas on a different weekend with only her own children and we’d ACTUALLY be happy for real. There were kinks. Bitch sister banned pictures so there are no photographic memories to look back on with my blessed mother. Because god-forbid dad find out and get his wittle-feewings-huwt. So I’m a bit bitter that moms gone and I can’t go back and look at those non-existent-photos, but it happened. And I have the gingerbread houses to prove it. Recently, I took an internet deep dive to find them.
2014 was a learning year. What would we do for moms Christmas? She’d make a big meal but what should we do? Gingerbread houses! But we’re not going to be all difficult about it. This was before gingerbread house kits were a thing, mind you. Mom decided we’d make cardboard houses and decorate them! And we’d use hot glue and caulk because ain’t nobody eating these anyway. So we made cardboard houses in advance. And even one Pringles can which became a rocket of sorts. Then, when the night came, we exchanged presents and ate food and laughed and made merry in my sisters tiny house where mom lived. And after dinner, we gingerbreaded! We had tons of cheap candies and graham crackers, pretzels and cereals, all sorts of shit to glue to your box house!
I chose the biggest box house because I’m ambitious. I did not anticipate the sheer amount of time it would take to cover such a large house with graham crackers, cookies, and smarties. Much less how much time it would take me to caulk to entire roof and lay it with pretzels. It was all I could do to get a Twizzler door and butterscotch windows before the night was over. But it was a wonderful Christmas party! And mom was beaming.
I returned home with my house and eventually, I had to spiff that shit up. I had run out of time! So one night while my husband was playing D&D at the table with friends, I sat in the living room with hot glue gun and made that shit SPIFFY. Look at this. M&M Christmas lights! Lined windows! My signature gumdrop wreath — and Christmas tree Peeps. Fuck Yeah. Much better.
Oh now we had a tradition. And the next year, we found gingerbread house kits! 2015 brought a cookie roof and a ice-cream-cone tree (pretty sure mom made me that). We even started saving all the leftover candies because, again, nobody is eating this stuff. And we got better. Caulk is great for cookies and cereal, but don’t use it on the sugar candy — it melts it. Like, it never dries and the candy melts off it. Some kind of chemical reaction. I don’t know. Eventually we gave up on caulk anyway.
In 2016, I bought a whole stash of PREBUILT gingerbread houses. All we had to do was decorate. I went with a Chex roof.
By 2017, gingerbread house kits were becoming a thing. Not only were they easy to find, they started making weird shit. Mom bought me this sweet Mario castle kit! For some reason it didn’t come with a roof or second-story walls. But I’m an engineer so I hot-glued some wooden-skewer beams for supports and filled in with graham crackers. Fuck yeah. Add some Peep trees. Magnificent.
I should also point out that it started to become clear that this tradition was spreading in the family. And by family, I mean Jack. It became very clear that he was sneaking on the counter at night to eat the icing and marshmallows. I let him have at it. It was Christmas, after all. It was pretty evident on that red mushroom though.
In 2018, I brought back my cereal shingle technique. Notice the Mario-Coins saved from the previous year.
In 2019 mom really went all out. Sister had moved into a bigger house so we could set up in the downstairs game room. Multiple tables were set up and everyone was gifted an adorable little spruce tree in a gingerbread box. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t remember this year much. I had some pretty bad brain trauma and I probably barely made it there. That might also explain why the hell there is so damn much icing on the roof. Not my best showing.
2020 was one hell of a year. The party almost didn’t happen because — well, Covid. My husband wasn’t about to leave our house and he really didn’t want anyone here. But I begged and God was on my side. Everyone promised to quarantine and come up here for the party so I wouldn’t have to travel (I was still recovering). God really made that year special for us. Everyone came up. And everyone spent the night! It was so much fun. We had a full house. And mom had got us all matching PJs! We took one of the family’s most cherished photos that night. A family photo with us in our matching PJs and mom up front. Who knew it would be the last family photo we ever took? We didn’t even hardly have any family photos — maybe just my wedding photos, actually. I’m still so sad my sweet husband took the photo because that means he’s not in it. If only I had thought to ask CB to take one with him in it…
Well, we didn’t actually do houses that year. We decorated cookies to make things easier. J had bought an ugly sweater cookie kit and me and mom baked hand-cut gingerbread cookies before everyone got up here. I think it was December 19th? Just a week before she died on Christmas day. Fucking Covid.
The next year, 2021, not everyone was in much of a celebrating mood. But my sister-in-law and brother agreed to host. I found these spiffy fondant penguins at Target. My sisters didn’t come. But we kept the tradition alive. Hey, I even did a damn fine showing with a frosted miniwheats roof. And that was the last Christmas with my precious Jack. And damned if he didn’t go after that house in those dark mid-night hours. He nearly ate a whole damned Peep tree! And look how his tongue sanded down the wreath candies and the fondant door. And is that a Super-Mario star I spy from years before atop the tree?
This year, 2022 was a little better. My sisters still weren’t feeling the joy so I said I would host. And I bought us all fun kits from Publix! I honestly didn’t expect my sisters to come, but last minute they did! Not only did they come, but they stopped at the store and picked up their own gingerbread kits to make! Since I didn’t expect my sisters and I’ve been insanely depressed about Jack, I invited K2 to join us. She made her first gingerbread house in the form of a Publix. I made a moose lodge with a pretzel roof. Apparently, my husband doubted my pretzel roof. SHAME on you, husband! My pretzel roof is fantastic — I mean, there’s a lot of glue strands but whatever.
It’s not very traditional Christmas-look, but it’s there. I wasn’t feeling it as much this year without Jack. Last year we didn’t have mom, but it was still a tradition for me to make a house for Jack to eat in “secret.” This year was harder for me without mom and without Jack. But we kept the tradition alive. We KEEP the tradition alive. Long live mom and her rebellious Chirstmas parties!
I miss my Jack Jack. This past few days have been a new wave of sadness. I suppose it started with one day this week when I got home. You know how, when you get a new pet, you realize all the stuff you have to change? No more toilets left up, no open doors, no leaving food out — stuff like that. Well, I’m trained for Jack. So I came home and was careful not to swing open the door because he’s always right there waiting for me to open it. But… he’s not anymore. Like for that little minute I forgot he died and expected him to be behind the door.
Then, I had to read all the “The Loving Reaper” comics. Link here on WEBTOON. They’re PSA comics that are beautifully drawn and depressing AS FUCK. And a lot of them involve pets and terrible human beings, and obviously, death. So that didn’t help. I know.
Then, I went saving off old photos. This wasn’t related to Jack. We did our annual gingerbread tradition and I wanted to look at past gingerbread parties. I’ll get into it in another post — but it led me to going through all of Facebook and even back to Flickr for photos. So I also took the time to download all of these old photos (yes, you can request a zip file of every photo you’ve ever uploaded to Facebook). I saved them to my google photos for good future keeping.
LOOK AT MY SWEET BABY! Look how little he was! Those cheeks!
And here, he’s being all curious and adorable.
And I miss his little foot prints.
I just miss him so much. He loved when I’d come home and scoop him up like a baby and rub his belly and talk to him. He’d turn on that fake hamming-it up purr that sounded like a motor while I rubbed his “polka dots” (belly) and stuck my finger between his toe beans so he could squeeze it. He was such a good boy. He loved me so much. I really miss him a lot.
The past few nights (maybe 4ish?) I’ve been getting terrible anxiety at bed time. I’ll get anxiety tummy and then a tight chest.
I also started following this local cat place on Facebook and so that’s had adopting another cat on my mind. I think it’s just upsetting me though. I want JACK. I want Jack back. I want my biggun’
I’ll hide that cat page for now. I’m just upset all over again. Now I’m getting anxiety attacks every night. Ugh.
I have a very sour taste in my mouth. I finally got off my ass to get rid of all of Jack’s old medication and food. I still have 35 cans of prescription kidney diet cat food. That shits almost $3.00 a can. I reached out to every animal shelter. One really wanted his food but wouldn’t send anyone to pick it up. After finally failing to get anyone, I posted it on Facebook and NextDoor. I required that anyone who wants it provide evidence of the prescription and slapped a $10 cost on it to avoid the weird freebie people.
Turns out someone we know has a cat that needs it. Awesome, come get it. Is it over? No. No good deed goes unpunished. I quickly removed all the listings but still had someone reach out to me on NextDoor about it (Admitting that they could no longer find the original post). She had wanted to get it for her non-profit but had to reach out to the foster mom who needed it to see if she had a prescription. Well, I’m sorry it’s gone. I mean, technically it’s by my front door, but you know what I mean. She got a little pissy and even showed me screen shots of the convo with the foster. They seemed peeved that I wanted to see a prescription. Well, yeah. This is prescription food. And damn expensive. Don’t feed it to a cat that can just as easily eat some 99 cent Purina food. Anyway, I did throw them a bone and offer up all of Jacks leftover medicine which includes prescription IV bags with lines and tons of sterile needles.
Anyway, the acquaintance that wants it. Well… I’m not thrilled with her situation. See, she has five cats. One of which is an old man that needs kidney food. He’s not on it though because she can’t afford it. Hence she wants Jack’s. But dude, STOP TAKING IN CATS YOU CAN’T AFFORD. On top of multiple other terrible life decisions I shall not mention. I’m just not thrilled with it. And now she’s sick and can’t pick it up today. And I know that she won’t keep him on this diet because there’s no way she can afford it.
Then tonight one of my local shelters finally replies to my email (they didn’t have a phone number listed anywhere) that they’d be thrilled to have it. God dammit. So it’s sitting by my door, but I have to say no. Cause I already told this other chick she could have it. And I even told her if she can’t pick it up, this shelter wants it. She said “no, I got dibs!” God Dammit.
So now, even though I’m giving away $200 easy in cat health care, I feel like shit. Awesome.
Oh and lets not even mention all the people who have subtilely (and not-so-subtilely ) tried to get me to take in cats. Obviously, I’m a good cat parent. And everyone’s always getting rid of cats. So I’m like a fucking target. Some of my work buddies took in two kittens that a feral had. There’s a third but they can’t have all three. So they really want me to take it. They’ve even shown me pictures. Another guy at work is getting rid of an adult cat and people have asked me if I’d take it. Then another work friend (a little better than JUST work friend) is rehoming his cats. He’s getting married and she’s not a cat person and so he’s getting rid of them. But he’s like super sad about it. So he keeps moaning to me about it. I’m pretty sure he’s hoping I’ll take them. But dude, one of them is antisocial and the other is a cuddlebug but apparently doesn’t want pets. So like, I’m not interested.
Also, my sister is having to find a new home for HER cats. She lives with my other sister who won’t take them. They’ve been living at my dads girlfriends house for 4 years. In a single room because they don’t mesh with her other pets. Sister never visits them. They never get any attention because the girlfriend is rarely, if ever, home. I bet my other sister folds and takes them, but whatever. Anyway — girlfriend is moving so cats gotta go. I bet you $100, if she shows up to my Christmas party on Sunday, she asks me to take the cats. She probably won’t show though. Anyway, she gets under my skin with those cats. Give them to someone who will love them! You don’t love them! She always posts about how much she loves them and compares them to my Jack. No, bitch. You border line abuse those cats. They’re probably half feral from years of no stimulation. I don’t even think they like HER anymore. Oh and lets not forget these are the babies of another cat she had that she didn’t get fixed. She liked the babies more so ditched the older cat to the shelter. Oh and she didn’t get them fixed either so they got pregnant and she had to get the girl a kitty abortion.
Yesterday, I finally got to start my tattoo sleeve! It’s going to take a good while to finish because I didn’t book any more appointments in advance and we’ll have to break for summer (cause I’m not missing pool time to heal). It’s going to be the adorable bow-tie photo of Jack on a background of Fall leaves with pumpkins in front of him around the bottom. It’ll be a 3/4 sleeve. That way I can roll up my sleeves a bit and still not show if it’s for a job interview. Also, I just love raglan sleeves and the 3/4 length of them so yeah.
Reminder of the photo:
So I chose the absolutely fabulous Devon Greig in Nashville for the job (she did my goomba when we consulted for the sleeve). This is her first photo realism portrait but you’d never know it. She’s amazing. Look at this:
It looks like a painting! I’m blown away. I couldn’t have asked for better! I am in love with it. It’s my Jack!
She chose to just focus on the face in this session since it was so detailed. It took just around 4 hours of tattooing. I scheduled appointments in February and in April to do more work on it. The plan is to get his body and pumpkins in before summer. Then finish it out Next Fall/Winter. I’m so excited! Here’s the progress shots I took while she worked on it. He kinda looks like a terminator Jack with half a face here:
Man, her skill just blows me away. I could paint this, sure — but I can go over spots again and again to get them right. I can’t imagine doing it with a tattoo gun and not being able to revise any mistakes! And her FIRST realism tattoo. Damn, girl! Amazing.
She’s a pleasure to work with too! I told her I wanted to cover up my elbow fat lump because I hate it so much. I feel like if we did the half sleeve above the elbow, it would stand out even more. She was like yeah, we’ll just put a pumpkin there! Excellent. I am psyched.
Also, this didn’t hurt half as much as my ankle tattoo. The ankle felt like having a freshly skinned knee for a few days and a lot of burning as it went in. This felt like scratching sure, but tolerable. I mean, yeah it’s gonna hurt, but I expected worse. The only part that hurt the most was the closer she got to my collar bone — so that ear. The mid face was totally fine. I suspect the REAL pain will be when we get to the elbow and especially my scar. But for now, it doesn’t even feel like anythings there. So awesome.
In between chatting with Devon, I watched Enola Holmes on my phone. It’s got Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, and Helena Bonham Carter. It took a good bit to get going, but once it did it was awesome.
FUCK
I just looked it up to get the spelling of the actors names and I watched the SEQUEL yesterday. No wonder if took a while to get going. Fuck me, I watched them out of order. I guess I’ll be watching the first one today then…
Yesterday we said goodbye to my fuzzy soulmate. I had spent all week thinking of the million things that could go wrong and stressing out. But it went well. He had a good death. I had second guessed myself — he was doing so good and happy, maybe we should wait? But he was on 5 different medications plus IV fluids and two of those medications were for pain. You’d think it would have been the kidney disease we treated for two years or the cancer we discovered a month ago. Nope. Just an old cat with arthritis. He was just in too much pain between those miracle shots. So we chose to let him go before the second shot wore off. I couldn’t let him be in so much pain again.
He had a good week. No pain. He cleaned his plate every day. We had cake every day. We celebrated his birthday. He ate at the table with us. K even brought him his own Arby’s sandwich. I let him go outside. He wasn’t interested, but he went out and nommed a leaf in the back and a fern in the front. He had the option. I gave him tons of kisses. We took a family selfie. I camped out on the couch so he could sleep in his heated bed and still be able to see me without having to go upstairs. He woke me up every morning and wished me sweet dreams every night. Just like always.
When Friday came, I did what was right by him. We took him to the vet at 8:00am. Mr C drove us. They gassed him and put in a catheter and handed him back — still groggy and in a cone. Lord help, that cone was a bit of levity we needed. When he woke up half-way to home, he was looking around like the Pixar light. And lord, the lemons. Why lemons? We laughed.
I didn’t make him wear the cone all morning. It was only 3 hours so I figured I’d keep a close eye on him. We snuggled. We had more cake. He couldn’t rest with his foot all bandaged up as it was bothering him. So an hour before they came, I gave him a big dose or gabapentin as they told me to. He fell asleep in his heated cat bed for the last hour. When the vet arrived, Mr C let them in while I woke him up gently. He was a sleepy kitty. We sat on the couch and I held him like a baby with his head draped sleepily over my arm. There was only a brief interruption where they unwrapped his cath. But he quickly forgave them. I hugged him and stroked his head while he fell asleep for the last time. He had the faintest bit of a purr right before he fell asleep.
I had held it together pretty well. But as he curled into a limp ball in my arms and they confirmed he was gone… I lost it. I ugly cried and wailed like a terrible movie actress clutching a dead cat. My beloved Jack was gone.
God bless and be with the sweet vets who have to see people go through that every day.
He was so much more than a pet to me. I hate to say he was my everything because I have to move on without him. I have Mr C and family and friends. But when I got Jack, for a long time he was my everything. There were times I only willed to live because who would take care of my Jack? We lived alone when I had no friends or family relationships to speak of. He was with me through all my therapy. I got him in 2005 when I still lived in the college dorms! I got reported for having a cat daily, but I had my therapist declare him a therapy cat so it was allowed. Man that really got under peoples skin. Ha.
He was with me through every date I ever had. I told him all my secrets. I loved him as much if not more than he loved me. We were a part of each other. I’ve always loved coming home. Some people dally at work or hang out at the gym or go to the bar to avoid home, but not me. No screaming kids here. Just my beautiful house, Mr C and my sweet Jack. He was always so happy to see me and I to see him. We’d hug and tell each other about our days. He was always a talker. (His name was Screamer when he was adopted as a little kitten.) And we’d settle in to mindlessly relax and watch TV and wile away the hours on the internet while he purred in my lap.
At some point he stopped sleeping with me all night. But he’d still wish me goodnight and make sure I wasn’t going anywhere before he left. I made sure to get a picture of our last goodnight on Thursday…
Sweet dreams, Jack
God I loved that cat more than you can imagine. He wasn’t a cat to me. And last night I bawled again as the only prayer I could get manage to get out through the tears was to please take care of my Jack.
I’ll get a cat again. But there will never be another Jack. He knew me before I knew myself. He took care of me by giving me a reason to get up and keep going. He was the best friend I could have wished for.
Jack is scheduled for at home euthanasia next Friday, the 14th. I would appreciate your prayers during this tough time for me and for him. Losing him and mom is just… *sigh* too much to bear.
For the cat owners out there, I’d like to point out two medications that have been amazing for him. First, the Porus One for his kidneys. It’s a powder to sprinkle on their wet food daily and it actually has his kidney levels looking better than when he was diagnosed with kidney failure two years ago. And he doesn’t even notice it. So much better than the pill I was giving him before.
The second is the Solensia shot for arthritis. This one is a miracle in a monthly shot. I took him to the vet almost three weeks ago and he was in so much pain he wasn’t eating. They gave him this shot and by the time we got home, he went straight to his food and his old younger self. Amazing game changer.
Unfortunately for Jack, the shot wore off quicker than a month. Yesterday he took a very sudden and unexpected turn. He didn’t touch his breakfast and was in so much pain he didn’t want to leave his heated cat bed. So today we went back for another. He’s already obviously feeling better. He’s eating again and just hopped up on the couch with me. So with hope and prayers, I hope we will have a good pain free last week.
Next Thursday I will take him to the vet one last time for some happy gas and a catheter placement. Then on Friday they will come here and be able to give him the medications through the already-placed catheter. So Thursday night, I’ll blow up an air mattress and we’ll have a slumber party in the living room. I hope he will be pain-free enough to enjoy some treats he’s not been allowed to have in a long time.
