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.
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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.
I’m sorry I haven’t been posting. I’ve got a few posts cued in my head to write but I’ve just been so tired. Between working out (which I didn’t even do last week) and working, I’m just beat. Work is a fucking grade-A tragedy right now. What a cluster fuck. I think the government is going to pull funding on our contract for real. I’m also worrying a lot about Jack — did he eat enough, is he in pain, is he breathing well? So that’s a lot of emotional energy. Oh and of course worrying about Mr C’s shoulder which I’ve had to keep clean and dressed – and is HE getting enough to eat too? So much emotional energy. And I feel like I have no time to just chill. Which isn’t true, but I’m just tired, yall. I’m tired. But not today!
Why not today? Because we died my hair pink! I’m absolutely in love with it. K’s mom did it this morning. I had such a great day! I went over to K’s house this morning and her mom dyed both our hair pink and K2 joined us just to hang out. Then, when we were going to head out, we were all hungry so I picked up Mr C and we went to this really cool screened patio between the new 5 Guys and Super Chix. Excellent day.
It’s been a busy weekend. I hate busy weekends but It’s been good! Friday was my off-Friday so I spent the morning getting all the vines off the house and trimming the bushes while Mr C was at the doc. I thought this would make Mr C very happy since he’s mentioned those damn vines a couple of times but it did not. He wasn’t unhappy — he was just “meh” about it. So that was a wasted effort. It would have had to be done eventually, but it didn’t have to be done on my day off. Oh well. The house looks excellent. Especially, with all my Fall decorations! I put up Norbert and the pumpkins and mums in the entry way are on point. I love pulling up in the driveway to see them. And I’m very proud of how nice the yard and bushes look. Some times I wonder if Mr C realizes how much I do, but I guess you just gotta do it for yourself. And I like how it makes me feel.
Also Saturday was October first! And how did we celebrate? Well K and K2 came over and we watched Hocus Pocus 1 and then the new Hocus Pocus 2! Then we went to Pinots Pallet and painted BAT CATS!
Thats my bat cat on the right with the last Halloween one we did three years ago on the left.
So good weekend. Yep, yep. And a great agenda coming up. Circus on Thursday! Not the mean-animal kinda. It’s the fun acrobatic, holy-shit-how-did-they-do-that kind. And Mr C and I are having professional photos done on Saturday for our upcoming tenth wedding anniversary! And whats so close that it’s showing up in my google calendar? THE START OF MY SLEEVE TATTOO!
So yeah, I’m tired and emotionally exhausted but life is good. Real good. I mean, the cats dying so that’s harsh, but it’s part of having a pet. You get to pour all of your love into them and then they… well, they don’t last forever. I’ve chosen the urn for his ashes. All that’s left is to keep him comfortable and to try to give him the best last days we can. With lots of extra kisses and snuggles.
My precious little soul-shard is approaching the end of his life. The past two weeks he’s been eating less and less to the point where he was only taking two bites of his food and then never going back for more. I couldn’t even sway him with cheese! His food looked like refried beans with cheese – even microwaved to melt the cheese – but no dice. He wouldn’t eat it. So I took him to the Vet on Monday. I wanted an update on his kidneys and to adjust his pain meds anyway. So away we went.
It did not go well. He screamed like a banshee as they tried to draw blood. I could hear him and I was horrified. I wanted to run to him and help them. He’s better with me. But it continued. I called Mr C to keep from crying. Finally, the vet came in and asked if they could sedate him to draw his blood. Of course, I agreed. Please dear God let him sleep. I know that cats hide pain well, but I knew Jack was in pain. I thought I was just attuned to him. I had no idea the amount of pain he was really in.
I knew when I trimmed his nails he was much more sensitive than usual. And He took a lot longer to get comfortable laying down. But apparently, I only saw the tip of the iceburg. His lack of eating might very well have been that he was just miserable and in pain. He gets gabapentin twice a day for pain. However, they gave him a brand new arthritis medicine at the vet. It’s a shot they get monthly. And while he was out, they took X-Rays to try and understand what was wrong with him while the blood tests processed. I was much calmer knowing he was asleep and I no longer heard his wails of anguish so I waited to hear what the vet thought.
Surprisingly, his kidney function is actually better than when he was diagnosed with kidney failure. The vet commended me on my obvious work to get him healthy. We had both expected him to have taken a turn for the worse and that was what was happening. But no. The X-rays showed a far worse problem. He has a large mass in his abdomen. It already almost fills his entire abdominal cavity. She was surprised he didn’t suffer from shortness of breath. The only thing I’ve noticed is more pain and the lack of eating. I’d have never known.
So this is much more dire than kidney failure. Without knowing what kind of mass it is, we don’t know how aggressive it is. It could be weeks, it could be months – but this mass will choke out his lungs and heart. She talked to me about the options. She made clear the emphasize that we needed to consider “to what end.” She could send me to a veterinary oncologist who could do a soft tissue biopsy and find out what kind of cancer or growth it is. Then we could possibly treat it with radiation or chemo. But to what end? He’ll be 17 next month. He’s already outlived his kidney diagnosis. And he absolutely HATES the vet. Jack does not want to leave the house. It pains me to take him to the vet at all. He’s an old man cat. He doesn’t need that stress. And a surgery at another vet just to diagnose? And for what? Another month or two with him? Weeks of cancer treatments and vet visits? A life in a cone to keep him from opening his wounds?
No.
I just watched my sister take her senior dog to another state for cancer treatment. Only to have to put her down a week later. And the dog suffered because she wouldn’t let her go. I won’t do that to Jack.
I explained to the vet that money was not the issue. Jack is my everything. I cried. He’s my little familiar. My fuzzy soul mate. But what would she do with her own cat? Would she pursue it to no end? No. I will not do anything invasive. I want him to have the best quality of life with what he has left. So we decided on hospice – palliative care. We’ll treat his pain and try to get him eating. In 3 weeks we’ll check him out again and do a quality of life assessment. And when the time comes, I will have someone come to the house. I don’t want his final moments to be terror at the vets office. We’ll have cake icing and oreo cream and Arbys sandwiches and he’ll fall asleep at home with me. So we decided on ramped up pain medication via the monthly shot. We’ll do a appetite stimulant that gets rubbed in his cute little ear. And potassium as his levels were low and it might put a little more pep in his step. I’m pleased to say that when we got home he went to his food bowl and took a bite. Not much, but progress! He didn’t even notice that I gave him his appetite stimulant as I love petting his fuzzy little ears. I put his potassium gel in a butter cup and he slowly lapped it up. That cat loves cream. Throughout the evening he ate more and more. I felt terrible that it must have been the pain that was causing him not to eat. As the shot took effect, he was much happier to nom on his leftover breakfast. This morning I can happily say that he cleaned his dinner plate for the first time in weeks! And I told him what a good boy he was via some ear rubs with a little appetite stimulant snuck in.
1) So as you know, my precious cat Jack Jack is deaf. However, for 16 years, he’s “found” me by screaming for me. He wakes up and screams, I call out to him, he comes. So now he wakes up and screams, but gets nothing. So he just walks around screaming and caterwauling. This drives Mr C insane. But he did the sweetest thing.
I was laying down trying to get a nap when Jack started wailing and wailing and wailing. Mr C picked him up (he hardly ever touches the cat) and carried him into the bedroom where I was. Well, Jack didn’t see me immediately so he just screamed at Mr C till he finally walked over to me and Jack saw me waving at him. So Jack runs over for pets and Mr C goes back to his peace and quiet. So sweet of him to help my Jack Jack out.
2) Does your internal rage ever just jump immediately to full speed and you’re like “woooooah.” Like you didn’t even realize you were pissy and all the sudden you’re about to snap? That happened to me at Taco Mama. I was meeting up with friends for lunch. I was waiting in line. It’s important to know that at Taco Mama, the table numbers are just sharpied on triangles of wood. So he gets number 99. Now go away. Then he goes “haha, is it 99 or 66?”
Motherfucker, it won’t even stand up like that.
3) This job decision is really stressing me out. A lot more than it should. There’s so many pros and cons on both sides. I thought I had decided for sure — take the new position. But then I keep thinking of all the reasons not to. I’m not at peace about this.
