I'm not really expecting anyone to read this stuff and indulge me at this point. This is mostly so that I can look back someday and see how I was feeling and how I was working things out.
My fairly calm, sang-froid reaction to losing Bonnie is both a comfort and a concern. It's a comfort because I've been spared the headaches, the burning face, the lost sleep, the desperate thoughts and bleak hopelessness I've felt at similar losses. It's a concern because I feel like I may have lost something important and human about myself somewhere.
I always believed, and looking at that post from a couple of years ago about the song No One's Gonna Love You (More Than I Do)—which I love but will never be able to make a friend of or listen to—only underlines it, that when I had finally lost Bonnie, I'd come apart. Weeks of despair, time off work, waking up every half hour to find her not there, yearning for her touch, being unable to even look at a photo. It was something like that when Jenny died. But it hasn't been like that, for a very long time.
And now I wonder... why?
Twinkle went through hell, but I got through it, and I think I only came to tears when a card from the hospital came. Max, I got through that too. I ached inside, but I never came apart. But Bonnie, I figured there'd be no escape. So many years. So much love. So much singular, irreplaceable personality and companionship. How can my life be so almost normal, so soon after? I'm really trying to understand.
I know I loved her, and continue to love her in her absence. I remember, with some pain, the particular things she did, the contact she made with me, the way we were together. So it's not that it didn't matter, or I've betrayed all that. It's still here. So what is it?
Well, I guess it could be a lot of things. I'm a lot older than I was when Jenny died. Ten years older. I guess life really has worn me down some. Blunted keen feelings, made it harder for them to break through. Like I said, that's both a comfort and a curse.
There's also the aspect that I've been through the loss of two other pets I loved, and in so short a time. There's been almost no recovery time from morning and adjusting before it starts all over again. And maybe that, sadly, has robbed Bonnie of something that should have been her due. The rag keeps getting wrung out before it's really wet again.
Another aspect is that with Bonnie it wasn't really a surprise. Twinkle and Max got sick, and with two weeks, they were dead. A one-two knockout punch in each case. They left me less miserable than simply stunned. But with Bonnie, well, she was 15. She'd had a brush with cancer. It was back; operable, but probably for the last time, and would likely return. Her health had clearly been declining in recent months. And, unlike Twinkle and Max, I did get some breaks with her. When she terrified me the summer I moved by losing her appetite and taking to hiding under the bed in the spare room, I steeled myself for losing her. Turned out to be an infected anal gland. Immediately after that, Twinkle got sick... but I didn't lose Bonnie. Then, last fall, the cancer... but I didn't lose her then, either. I got six more months to enjoy her company and feel her love. So though I ultimately lost her, yes, I also had those sweet reprieves, and that's not something I got with the others.
Finally, it's right there in the post from two years ago I quoted this morning. I mourned Bonnie for a long, long quiet time before she really got sick and died. There were, quite literally, dozens of times when, in reflective moments, I'd contemplate the day I'd lose her, and have to brush away tears... and that was back when she was just fine, and robust, and making my life a daily joy just being herself. Even then, I was letting myself feel her loss. Maybe that's it. Maybe part of it is, in small doses, I let that out over time, rather than all at once. It was a constant reminder to be good to her, to indulge her, to pick her up and hug her and croon my affection to her, and see it blinked back to me, silent meowed at me, nibbled into my arms and cheeks. Maybe I haven't needed to come apart because I took so much of that mourning and converted it into expressions of love when it mattered.
Okay, now my eyes are stinging. <:)
I miss you, Pumpkin. But I missed you while I still had you, too, when it counted. I love you. I always will.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
The move: mulling it over
I've had these little inklings in my mind at various times today, telling myself that, well, you know, maybe I am overreacting. No one's actually said so yet; most people have cautioned me not to do anything rash. I'm not planning on moving for many, many months yet; maybe even a year.
But I just kind of had a wander back and I was looking at that little movie of poor little Twinkle, tube in her nose, trying to eat for me in the animal hospital. And no, I'm not overreacting. That's all this place has been to me, and everything else considered, I'm not really interested in giving it the several years it'll take to stop being that.
When I moved [note: interruption of about 18 hours occurs at this point in writing due to my cell service provider calling me up to offer me more service at a cheaper rate] in 2011, things were different. For one thing, Bonnie, Twinkle, and Max were all alive. I figured I had probably another two or three years at least with Bonnie, another five with Max, and probably another ten with Twinkle. I was still working at a nice office on the subway with the team of people I had to interact with to get things done actually there in the bullpen or elsewhere in the office. We could even go out to lunch, and sometimes did. I was finally a home owner, with a great view, and could even at long last do my laundry without leaving my apartment. I missed the company that having Larry a couple of steps down the hall had grown me accustomed to, but he still wasn't far away. G was still alive and if not a constant presence when I got together with P-Doug, a constant topic of conversation, news, and anecdotes. I kind of missed the place I'd lived in for 11 years (had they stuck a washer and drier in it and put it up for sale, frankly, I'd have bought it), but I felt I'd finally stepped up to something better. Well, I did. It's just so much about it all in the meantime has grown so depressing, and I want a change.
It's little things, too. I'm tired of everything being about elevators. A couple of months ago, I was literally on the way out the door when the power went out. Thirty seconds later and I'd have been in the elevator, and stuck between floors for two hours. As it was, on the 19th floor, I wasn't about to trot all the way down, only to find out I couldn't get my car out of the garage because the door wouldn't open, and then... what? Climb back? Sit in the lobby till whenever? So I had to sit it out.
Yesterday (the day I started writing this), I stepped out into the hall at 6:30 to find a cascade of water pouring down in front of the door of a suite opposite the elevators. It wasn't a torrent, but it was as much water as you'd get running the bathroom sink, and there was a pool a couple inches deep in front of the door. I went downstairs to tell the office, called the number, could hear the phone ring, got no answer. So I had to try at the intercom in the lobby. And then it was a 30-second comedy of errors trying to explain the problem over a bad sound system to a guy who came by the English language late in life. I'm tired of feeling hostage, as I have been for 13 years now, to everyone else's fuck-ups, and the response of other people whose responsibilities I can't supersede even if I wanted to.
As mentioned in a previous entry, last night I parked in a visitor spot in the off chance my car needed to be towed in the morning (it didn't). I left a note identifying my suite number and typical spot and why I was there, and I still came down to this snotty note about this not being my parking space and move it or it'll be towed. If I hadn't been more worried about getting the car started and to the dealership, I'd have marched inside and told them what I thought of the note and where to shove it, and how deep. Instead, I crumpled it up and threw it on the lot. Last year, someone broke my window doing work on the roof. I'm sick of all this, too... stupid, arbitrary, bullshit little rules about when you can do this and what colour that has to be and when to make sure they can get into your unit. Can't have a dog, but a hallway full of someone else's pot smoke at 7 in the morning, no problem.
Oh, and I'm paying what will soon be $700 a month for a lot of facilities I never use. I look around at other places, especially town houses, and their condo fees are more like $400-500, even when they're inclusive. Because they're inclusive of upkeep and utilities, not facilities, so they're not expecting people to pay for Beverly. Hills, that is. Swimmin' pools, movie stars.
Anyway, you add it all up, and I'd really like to get Dig and Bolt in there this summer, spruce the place up just a little, maybe do some painting, and then see what I can get for it, and where that can take me.
It's still a good place. Just not for me, that's all.
But I just kind of had a wander back and I was looking at that little movie of poor little Twinkle, tube in her nose, trying to eat for me in the animal hospital. And no, I'm not overreacting. That's all this place has been to me, and everything else considered, I'm not really interested in giving it the several years it'll take to stop being that.
When I moved [note: interruption of about 18 hours occurs at this point in writing due to my cell service provider calling me up to offer me more service at a cheaper rate] in 2011, things were different. For one thing, Bonnie, Twinkle, and Max were all alive. I figured I had probably another two or three years at least with Bonnie, another five with Max, and probably another ten with Twinkle. I was still working at a nice office on the subway with the team of people I had to interact with to get things done actually there in the bullpen or elsewhere in the office. We could even go out to lunch, and sometimes did. I was finally a home owner, with a great view, and could even at long last do my laundry without leaving my apartment. I missed the company that having Larry a couple of steps down the hall had grown me accustomed to, but he still wasn't far away. G was still alive and if not a constant presence when I got together with P-Doug, a constant topic of conversation, news, and anecdotes. I kind of missed the place I'd lived in for 11 years (had they stuck a washer and drier in it and put it up for sale, frankly, I'd have bought it), but I felt I'd finally stepped up to something better. Well, I did. It's just so much about it all in the meantime has grown so depressing, and I want a change.
It's little things, too. I'm tired of everything being about elevators. A couple of months ago, I was literally on the way out the door when the power went out. Thirty seconds later and I'd have been in the elevator, and stuck between floors for two hours. As it was, on the 19th floor, I wasn't about to trot all the way down, only to find out I couldn't get my car out of the garage because the door wouldn't open, and then... what? Climb back? Sit in the lobby till whenever? So I had to sit it out.
Yesterday (the day I started writing this), I stepped out into the hall at 6:30 to find a cascade of water pouring down in front of the door of a suite opposite the elevators. It wasn't a torrent, but it was as much water as you'd get running the bathroom sink, and there was a pool a couple inches deep in front of the door. I went downstairs to tell the office, called the number, could hear the phone ring, got no answer. So I had to try at the intercom in the lobby. And then it was a 30-second comedy of errors trying to explain the problem over a bad sound system to a guy who came by the English language late in life. I'm tired of feeling hostage, as I have been for 13 years now, to everyone else's fuck-ups, and the response of other people whose responsibilities I can't supersede even if I wanted to.
As mentioned in a previous entry, last night I parked in a visitor spot in the off chance my car needed to be towed in the morning (it didn't). I left a note identifying my suite number and typical spot and why I was there, and I still came down to this snotty note about this not being my parking space and move it or it'll be towed. If I hadn't been more worried about getting the car started and to the dealership, I'd have marched inside and told them what I thought of the note and where to shove it, and how deep. Instead, I crumpled it up and threw it on the lot. Last year, someone broke my window doing work on the roof. I'm sick of all this, too... stupid, arbitrary, bullshit little rules about when you can do this and what colour that has to be and when to make sure they can get into your unit. Can't have a dog, but a hallway full of someone else's pot smoke at 7 in the morning, no problem.
Oh, and I'm paying what will soon be $700 a month for a lot of facilities I never use. I look around at other places, especially town houses, and their condo fees are more like $400-500, even when they're inclusive. Because they're inclusive of upkeep and utilities, not facilities, so they're not expecting people to pay for Beverly. Hills, that is. Swimmin' pools, movie stars.
Anyway, you add it all up, and I'd really like to get Dig and Bolt in there this summer, spruce the place up just a little, maybe do some painting, and then see what I can get for it, and where that can take me.
It's still a good place. Just not for me, that's all.
More mixed notes
Well, this morning, I'm waiting a bit to get going. Last night, the car wouldn't start. For the first time ever I called the Kia helpline whose number's been glued to the driver's side window of my last two cars. They sent around CAA. The guy was great. Got the car started, thought maybe the pump wasn't up to it because taking the gas cap off got her going. Followed me to the dealership in Markham where, just off the cuff, they figure it's an undervolt problem in the ignition. Thing was, they had no way to get me home, so I had to take my chances and drive home. Managed to get it started again and parked above ground. Left a note on my car; hope they haven't messed with it. Anyway, I have to see about getting it started again in about half an hour.
Yesterday the financial adviser at the bank emailed me a scan of a filled-out mortgage discharge paper. I printed it, signed it, scanned it, and sent it back. What an age. Banking by Jetson. Still, so much for "paperless". It took at least two pieces of paper to do what one used to to.
In the last few days I've uncorked the cat treats again for Seth and Ally. Last night was the first time in, oh, a couple of months, maybe? that I opened a can of cat food rather than just pouring out the various varieties of hard stuff. It wasn't fair to them, I know, but seeing Bonnie not eat the cat treats she loved and not even lick at the gravy of the canned stuff, something else she really liked, made it all just too real. Besides, even Ally, who was the whole reason I started buying and serving the stuff, had been just going through the motions for a while. Open a can for me! Thanks. Well, I'm tired of this stuff. Just throw it out tonight. I'd had enough of that. Last night, after a couple of months of not having the stuff, they really cleaned the dishes. But I think it'll be once a day from now on, if that.
Yesterday the financial adviser at the bank emailed me a scan of a filled-out mortgage discharge paper. I printed it, signed it, scanned it, and sent it back. What an age. Banking by Jetson. Still, so much for "paperless". It took at least two pieces of paper to do what one used to to.
In the last few days I've uncorked the cat treats again for Seth and Ally. Last night was the first time in, oh, a couple of months, maybe? that I opened a can of cat food rather than just pouring out the various varieties of hard stuff. It wasn't fair to them, I know, but seeing Bonnie not eat the cat treats she loved and not even lick at the gravy of the canned stuff, something else she really liked, made it all just too real. Besides, even Ally, who was the whole reason I started buying and serving the stuff, had been just going through the motions for a while. Open a can for me! Thanks. Well, I'm tired of this stuff. Just throw it out tonight. I'd had enough of that. Last night, after a couple of months of not having the stuff, they really cleaned the dishes. But I think it'll be once a day from now on, if that.
Love bites
It's going to be love bites. I realized it this morning.
Bonnie used to give me love bites. On my cheeks, on my nose, on my arms. She used to reach out, take hold of me in her mouth, and begin to squeeze. Squeeze till it was sharp, but short of breaking the skin. Usually, that is. One night about six or seven weeks ago she squeezed my nose so hard I woke up with blood spots on the pillow, but I didn't mind. I knew what it was.
I've had other pets. Have other pets. Will have others, I expect. But it came to me again that it's possible that no one has ever loved me as purely, unconditionally, broadly, and deeply as Bonnie, or even will again. The only consolation I have is that I knew it, and I didn't take it for granted.
Haunted now by this post from exactly two years ago tomorrow.
----------------------------------------------------
As often happens, I was in the men’s room when I heard the new song (well, new to me, anyway). It’s one of those places where it’s quiet and you tend to be alone for a few moments, so you pay attention. The song, as it turns out, is No One’s Gonna Love You by Band of Horses.
But no one... is ever gonna love you more than I do...
No one's gonna love you more than I do.
I suppose it’s meant to be reassuring to someone you’re spending your life with. But the song has a faint desperation and even a bit of a melancholy to it. It’s gorgeous and soaring in its way but I find it painfully depressing. As it’s rolled over in my head these last few days, it’s kept reminding me that my cat, Bonnie, is thirteen this summer. She’s in good shape, as far as I know, but I can’t help thinking that, you know, most cats are lucky if they get past about sixteen (though it’s not entirely rare for them to), and that mushy, iffy three years or so seems so, so short. It’s hard to explain, and I think a lot of people with spouses and children would be apt to wave it off, but... it’s almost less what I’d say to her if I could as what I’m tempted to believe is true about her with regard to me. Almost daily she’ll stare into my eyes, looking back and forth between them, reaching a paw out, and the knowledge that if I live long enough, I’m going to lose that, is almost more than I can stand. I honestly don’t think there’s any less conditional love in my life than hers. Humans always have conditions; we can’t help it. She wants to be with me wherever I am at home; she doesn’t want me to leave in the mornings. She’s scratched my arms trying to keep me from going. I find myself cutting short my excursions because I don’t want to leave her alone for too long, knowing in the back of my mind that my time with her company is, indeed, finite. So there’s all that in the chorus of this song.
I hate being the kind of person prone to mourn what I haven’t even lost yet... but on the other hand, when the time comes, I’ll be able to say I didn’t take it for granted. I do adore her, and the best part is, I’m convinced she knows that.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Mixed notes
Well, wasn't yesterday a stellar Hockey Night in Canada.
Larry emailed me Sunday night and said he had come back from Mother's Day with extra steak, potatoes, corn, even pumpkin pie, and all we had to do was warm them up. He actually suggested we watch game 7 of the Leafs-Bruins playoffs. I laughed and said I didn't think there'd be a game 7, but if the Leafs won Sunday evening, sure. It was a strange request because neither of us is a big sports fan, but we'd incidentally watched the Leafs blow it twice at pubs in the past week and I guess it was just a chance to square the circle.
So, as it turned out, the Leafs won Sunday evening. They went from being down 3-2 in the playoffs to tying it up, and now there'd be a game 7. I still didn't think they'd win, but at least now they had a shot. Who knows?
Larry came over and we watched the first two eps of the original 1981 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then hopped onto the game about ten after seven. The Bruins scored first and Larry joked that was a good sign, because both times we'd seen them lose, the Leafs had gotten on the board first.
Meanwhile, Ally did what she always does when Larry comes over... climbs all over him and starts making a big deal over him. I'm not sure why she does this; if it's an attempt to make me jealous or just that he's someone she's seen a lot, has grown to trust, and wants to be social. I've warned him a few times, though, what I've noticed she doesn't like (such as sticking your finger in her face to warn her off, which he's apt to do... bad move), and that she likes being petted briefly and on her own terms, and he exceeded them. She started to lean back and I said he should probably ease up, but he didn't, and she finally had enough, grabbed his arm and raked his wrist with her back legs. I didn't like seeing her lash out at him but it was a little hard to feel sorry for him. Cats really aren't that hard to read and when they're letting you know, with whatever patience they can muster, it's time for you to respect their space, you really shouldn't play the "I'm human and bigger than you and I don't have to" card. And I did try to warn him off. He says he's done with letting her get social, and I suppose he is, but that's too bad, when all you have to do is take what she's able to give, and ease off when she lets you know she's given it. Twinkle taught me that.
Anyway, in the meantime, the hockey was hockeying. Then it happened. The Leafs tied it up, and then started winning. Four unanswered goals, and it got really quiet in Boston. I started thinking hey, the Leafs really are going to make it to the second round. They went into the third period up 4-1, and I kept saying, hey, it's not over till it's over, but just tying it up would be a huge chore for Boston.
Then Boston scored one.
Then, with about two minutes to play, they pulled their goalie, which I didn't think they'd do with a two goal deficit, but they did. And it paid off. With 87 seconds left in game 7, they scored. Now it's 4-3. But the Leafs just have to keep their shit wired for less time than it takes to listen to an early Beatles ditty.
Nope.
Bruins tie it up with 50 seconds or so to go. Game goes into overtime. I knew the momentum was theirs. Six minutes in, so was the game.
They've been called "the loser Leafs" all my life. Last time they won, or even played in the finals for, the Stanley Cup was in 1967, the last year of the Original Six teams. I wasn't born yet. No one playing on either team last night was, either. The coaching staffs probably can't even remember that. And for all that, last night has to be some kind of Leafs record for epic fail. To piss away a three goal advantage and then lose the game all in less time than it takes to play a single regulation period is something that probably doesn't happen much more than once in a season across the league... and yet, the Leafs managed to do it last night in game 7. I don't mind that they lost so much as I hate them for making me think they really had the heart to win.
Hockey isn't even one of my hobbies and I'm some pissed off. I can't imagine what this is like for people who watch every game, or pay hundreds of bucks to sit in the ACC. Probably like Larry feels about Ally. I should probably call my dad.
Larry emailed me Sunday night and said he had come back from Mother's Day with extra steak, potatoes, corn, even pumpkin pie, and all we had to do was warm them up. He actually suggested we watch game 7 of the Leafs-Bruins playoffs. I laughed and said I didn't think there'd be a game 7, but if the Leafs won Sunday evening, sure. It was a strange request because neither of us is a big sports fan, but we'd incidentally watched the Leafs blow it twice at pubs in the past week and I guess it was just a chance to square the circle.
So, as it turned out, the Leafs won Sunday evening. They went from being down 3-2 in the playoffs to tying it up, and now there'd be a game 7. I still didn't think they'd win, but at least now they had a shot. Who knows?
Larry came over and we watched the first two eps of the original 1981 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then hopped onto the game about ten after seven. The Bruins scored first and Larry joked that was a good sign, because both times we'd seen them lose, the Leafs had gotten on the board first.
Meanwhile, Ally did what she always does when Larry comes over... climbs all over him and starts making a big deal over him. I'm not sure why she does this; if it's an attempt to make me jealous or just that he's someone she's seen a lot, has grown to trust, and wants to be social. I've warned him a few times, though, what I've noticed she doesn't like (such as sticking your finger in her face to warn her off, which he's apt to do... bad move), and that she likes being petted briefly and on her own terms, and he exceeded them. She started to lean back and I said he should probably ease up, but he didn't, and she finally had enough, grabbed his arm and raked his wrist with her back legs. I didn't like seeing her lash out at him but it was a little hard to feel sorry for him. Cats really aren't that hard to read and when they're letting you know, with whatever patience they can muster, it's time for you to respect their space, you really shouldn't play the "I'm human and bigger than you and I don't have to" card. And I did try to warn him off. He says he's done with letting her get social, and I suppose he is, but that's too bad, when all you have to do is take what she's able to give, and ease off when she lets you know she's given it. Twinkle taught me that.
Anyway, in the meantime, the hockey was hockeying. Then it happened. The Leafs tied it up, and then started winning. Four unanswered goals, and it got really quiet in Boston. I started thinking hey, the Leafs really are going to make it to the second round. They went into the third period up 4-1, and I kept saying, hey, it's not over till it's over, but just tying it up would be a huge chore for Boston.
Then Boston scored one.
Then, with about two minutes to play, they pulled their goalie, which I didn't think they'd do with a two goal deficit, but they did. And it paid off. With 87 seconds left in game 7, they scored. Now it's 4-3. But the Leafs just have to keep their shit wired for less time than it takes to listen to an early Beatles ditty.
Nope.
Bruins tie it up with 50 seconds or so to go. Game goes into overtime. I knew the momentum was theirs. Six minutes in, so was the game.
They've been called "the loser Leafs" all my life. Last time they won, or even played in the finals for, the Stanley Cup was in 1967, the last year of the Original Six teams. I wasn't born yet. No one playing on either team last night was, either. The coaching staffs probably can't even remember that. And for all that, last night has to be some kind of Leafs record for epic fail. To piss away a three goal advantage and then lose the game all in less time than it takes to play a single regulation period is something that probably doesn't happen much more than once in a season across the league... and yet, the Leafs managed to do it last night in game 7. I don't mind that they lost so much as I hate them for making me think they really had the heart to win.
Hockey isn't even one of my hobbies and I'm some pissed off. I can't imagine what this is like for people who watch every game, or pay hundreds of bucks to sit in the ACC. Probably like Larry feels about Ally. I should probably call my dad.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Future pets
Well, I just looked at my watch... Bonnie's been gone for about half an hour over a week now. There's an entire week now between my life with her, and since. The forever since.
I forgot to mention my discussions with Michelle on the weekend as to future pets for me. I've gotten used to a three-cat home. Right now it's a blessing because if I'd lost Bonnie and was just down to Ally, that would be hard. And if it were just Max and Bonnie, I'd have very been facing a Bonnie with cancer within two months of losing Max. It's selfish but I need more of an emotional safety net than that and with Ally and Seth, at least there's some of that. When Jenny died, I spent a couple of months with just Bonnie, and that was a little lonely, and must have been a bit hollow for her, too, when I was out of the apartment. Max rescued us both from that, for years and years.
Ever since adopting Bonnie, all the cats I've had have been rescued cats... cats who had a home and lost it. Bonnie, Max, Twinkle, Ally, Seth... they were all someone else's cat first, and came to me as adults. I'm still dedicated to that idea but... it's been so long since I've seen a cat grow up. The one and only time was Jenny, who was about four months old when I got her. I've never in my life gotten to name a cat or a dog... at least not and have it stick. I won't rename a pet who's already got a name he or she is used to (nickname, sure; that's different... Refinnej, Bon-Bon/Pumpkin Girl, Weasel/Squeezicus, Alberatsaurus, Sethticus Giganticus, etc, .etc.). What I'm saying here is, I think in a couple of months, sometime well into the summer, I'd like to stock back up the three cats, and for once, probably for last time in my life, I'd like that new cat to be a kitten. If I live long enough, I'll see Ally and Seth pass away, and I pledge to make room in my home for other cats who've had and lost a home. But one more time... I want to watch a kitten grow up.
Nearly ten years ago now, I lost a friend—a human friend—to cancer. He was a very dear friend I knew only from the internet, but we were a daily part of one another's lives for ten years and the distance mattered not a bit. At the end of his life and for a couple of years after, I became close to his father in his own right, and probably spoke with him more in those few years than with my own dad in the past 20. He was another friend I lost to cancer, two years after his son.
The son's name was Jody (the father's, Jim), and he loved cats more than almost anything else in the world. They fascinated him and there were lots of times he said flat out he wished he were one. Though exceedingly intelligent and a talented code writer, he was a very shy young man who died a virgin in his mid-20s. The simplicity of a cat's life deeply appealed to him, but he was born into a species with a more complicated society than he was really suited to. Obviously he never got his wish to be a cat. But it struck me when I was talking this over with Michelle... this kitten... boy or girl, the name "Jody" is appropriate. And it would have delighted Jody to have a cat named after him. So that's what I hope to do in a few months, when the soreness of the hole Bonnie's passing has left heals some and isn't tender, and bringing a new cat home doesn't feel like a slap in the face to her memory. But two or three months isn't all that long. You usually can't adopt a cat until he or she is 6-8 weeks old. So "Jody", this kitten, might already exist somewhere... either in the womb, or already as a newborn. It's a ponderous idea, realizing sitting here right now, that "Jody" could already be sharing the world with me, but not my life yet.
Another reason I'm thinking of moving, and finally getting out of apartment living, is the nagging, on-again-off-again urge over the years to get a dog. I grew up with a couple of dogs. From the time I was seven, until long after I was out on my own, my parents' home had dogs; much earlier than we had a cat (Jenny). Two spaniels, actually, separated by about a year. Astonishingly different in temperament to one another. But it seems natural to have a dog around, and I think if it hadn't been for the rather attentive, direct, vaguely canine natures Bonnie and Max had, I would have felt that more keenly. Where I used to live, what mainly stopped me was that I lived on the 5th floor, and hauling a dog in and out just seemed like too much of a pain in the ass. Besides, I lived alone and was out of the house between 8 and 9 hours a day. Now, the building I bought into doesn't even allow dogs... which frankly I think is a violation of a fundamental human right older than civilization itself and shouldn't even be constitutional. But if I get a place where I'm on the ground floor, and it's got something like a backyard, and it's not such an issue to get out the door and walk for a bit in the good weather, and I'm working from home so I can look after a dog, why in the world shouldn't I do it? I love the idea of being able to go out on weekends and do a little hiking with a dog, or see her sitting in the car seat excited by a trip, hanging around at my feet at home and chasing around with the cats. I really want that. Bringing the dog around to visit my folks, especially my dad who really misses having a dog. Soon it could be possible.
Yeah, I know. Three cats and a dog. But I'm not married. Don't have kids. I have a powerful urge to nurture and support and give and get affection without too too much complication. And it's one more of those things that seems to have opened up in the past week or so. Maybe it's just spiritual junk food I'm feeding myself for a moment to assuage the craving Bonnie's left behind in me. But it's still better than starving.
I forgot to mention my discussions with Michelle on the weekend as to future pets for me. I've gotten used to a three-cat home. Right now it's a blessing because if I'd lost Bonnie and was just down to Ally, that would be hard. And if it were just Max and Bonnie, I'd have very been facing a Bonnie with cancer within two months of losing Max. It's selfish but I need more of an emotional safety net than that and with Ally and Seth, at least there's some of that. When Jenny died, I spent a couple of months with just Bonnie, and that was a little lonely, and must have been a bit hollow for her, too, when I was out of the apartment. Max rescued us both from that, for years and years.
Ever since adopting Bonnie, all the cats I've had have been rescued cats... cats who had a home and lost it. Bonnie, Max, Twinkle, Ally, Seth... they were all someone else's cat first, and came to me as adults. I'm still dedicated to that idea but... it's been so long since I've seen a cat grow up. The one and only time was Jenny, who was about four months old when I got her. I've never in my life gotten to name a cat or a dog... at least not and have it stick. I won't rename a pet who's already got a name he or she is used to (nickname, sure; that's different... Refinnej, Bon-Bon/Pumpkin Girl, Weasel/Squeezicus, Alberatsaurus, Sethticus Giganticus, etc, .etc.). What I'm saying here is, I think in a couple of months, sometime well into the summer, I'd like to stock back up the three cats, and for once, probably for last time in my life, I'd like that new cat to be a kitten. If I live long enough, I'll see Ally and Seth pass away, and I pledge to make room in my home for other cats who've had and lost a home. But one more time... I want to watch a kitten grow up.
Nearly ten years ago now, I lost a friend—a human friend—to cancer. He was a very dear friend I knew only from the internet, but we were a daily part of one another's lives for ten years and the distance mattered not a bit. At the end of his life and for a couple of years after, I became close to his father in his own right, and probably spoke with him more in those few years than with my own dad in the past 20. He was another friend I lost to cancer, two years after his son.
The son's name was Jody (the father's, Jim), and he loved cats more than almost anything else in the world. They fascinated him and there were lots of times he said flat out he wished he were one. Though exceedingly intelligent and a talented code writer, he was a very shy young man who died a virgin in his mid-20s. The simplicity of a cat's life deeply appealed to him, but he was born into a species with a more complicated society than he was really suited to. Obviously he never got his wish to be a cat. But it struck me when I was talking this over with Michelle... this kitten... boy or girl, the name "Jody" is appropriate. And it would have delighted Jody to have a cat named after him. So that's what I hope to do in a few months, when the soreness of the hole Bonnie's passing has left heals some and isn't tender, and bringing a new cat home doesn't feel like a slap in the face to her memory. But two or three months isn't all that long. You usually can't adopt a cat until he or she is 6-8 weeks old. So "Jody", this kitten, might already exist somewhere... either in the womb, or already as a newborn. It's a ponderous idea, realizing sitting here right now, that "Jody" could already be sharing the world with me, but not my life yet.
Another reason I'm thinking of moving, and finally getting out of apartment living, is the nagging, on-again-off-again urge over the years to get a dog. I grew up with a couple of dogs. From the time I was seven, until long after I was out on my own, my parents' home had dogs; much earlier than we had a cat (Jenny). Two spaniels, actually, separated by about a year. Astonishingly different in temperament to one another. But it seems natural to have a dog around, and I think if it hadn't been for the rather attentive, direct, vaguely canine natures Bonnie and Max had, I would have felt that more keenly. Where I used to live, what mainly stopped me was that I lived on the 5th floor, and hauling a dog in and out just seemed like too much of a pain in the ass. Besides, I lived alone and was out of the house between 8 and 9 hours a day. Now, the building I bought into doesn't even allow dogs... which frankly I think is a violation of a fundamental human right older than civilization itself and shouldn't even be constitutional. But if I get a place where I'm on the ground floor, and it's got something like a backyard, and it's not such an issue to get out the door and walk for a bit in the good weather, and I'm working from home so I can look after a dog, why in the world shouldn't I do it? I love the idea of being able to go out on weekends and do a little hiking with a dog, or see her sitting in the car seat excited by a trip, hanging around at my feet at home and chasing around with the cats. I really want that. Bringing the dog around to visit my folks, especially my dad who really misses having a dog. Soon it could be possible.
Yeah, I know. Three cats and a dog. But I'm not married. Don't have kids. I have a powerful urge to nurture and support and give and get affection without too too much complication. And it's one more of those things that seems to have opened up in the past week or so. Maybe it's just spiritual junk food I'm feeding myself for a moment to assuage the craving Bonnie's left behind in me. But it's still better than starving.
Tuna is fail fish
I've mentioned tuna here before. I was just down in the cafeteria and glancing over the ready-made sandwiches, I spied tuna. Kind of a downer. I used up my last can the day Bonnie died, getting her to drink something. Last food she ever had.
Before that, last year, it was trying to interest Max in food again. I even got to the point of pureeing it for him because the tumor at the back of his mouth made chewing and swallowing obviously an ordeal.
It took me a long time to get to like, or even stomach, tuna. I think I was 12 or 13 before I'd eat the stuff. In fairly short order, I took to it, and while it never became one of my top faves, it got to be something I'd look forward to about once a week. When I moved out and was losing weight successfully for the first time, I remember eating quite a lot of it.
The sight of a stack of tuna cans now will be forever associated with the knowledge that I had a cat who was so sick as to have stopped eating. The realizing I probably had a beloved pet in the process of dying. I'll eat tuna again. I'll even buy it. But I'll never again be able to do so without seeing it as something with darker connotations.
Before that, last year, it was trying to interest Max in food again. I even got to the point of pureeing it for him because the tumor at the back of his mouth made chewing and swallowing obviously an ordeal.
It took me a long time to get to like, or even stomach, tuna. I think I was 12 or 13 before I'd eat the stuff. In fairly short order, I took to it, and while it never became one of my top faves, it got to be something I'd look forward to about once a week. When I moved out and was losing weight successfully for the first time, I remember eating quite a lot of it.
The sight of a stack of tuna cans now will be forever associated with the knowledge that I had a cat who was so sick as to have stopped eating. The realizing I probably had a beloved pet in the process of dying. I'll eat tuna again. I'll even buy it. But I'll never again be able to do so without seeing it as something with darker connotations.
I'm not sure what to call this, so...
As it turns out, I just got the call from the bank, and the new mortgage has been apparently approved without issue. No mention of an assessment, so I guess they figured the estimate wasn't out of line. So, if my math was right, and I can stick to it, the line of credit should be paid off by the end of the summer.
Reasonably busy weekend. I don't usually blog about that anymore unless it's a genuine excursion but I'm in one of those phases, and this is a confusing moment in my life that probably bears some mention just so I can keep it all straight later. So here goes.
Anyone who remembers what I went through with Twinkle a year and a half ago will remember I had my friend Michelle around through nearly all of it. She listened to my hopes and fears over dinners. She accompanied me several times to visit Twinkle in the hospital. She came by my home on what turned out to be the last night of Twinkle's life and it buoyed my spirits to see Twinkle, not usually the cuddliest of cats, crawl all over Michelle as if in recognition of her visits. I mention all this for context. I had brunch... well, lunch, really, with Michelle Saturday. Earlier last week she casually let me know that she's expecting. I'm happy for her and her intended (the wedding is this August and I've wrangled myself an invite, I think; she didn't think I'd want to be around a lot of strangers). It is, after all, a vicarious joy to see your friends get what they want out of life. Ah, but there was a bittersweetness to it, too. She was once, a long time ago, the one I thought I'd marry, and I suppose in myriad parallel universes, did, to varying degrees of success. But not in this one. That's pretty minor; though. Just a silly legacy of who we were as young people together. The other aspect is that it means I'll see even less of her than I do now. It's inevitable. When your friends finally really grow up and leave Neverland, that's how it is. But I won't abandon the lines of communication this time. I know she won't either.
Afterward I ended up in East York to continue some work in P-Doug's back yard. Larry arrived with a borrowed spade that was the principal tool of the day. Pretty quickly we focused on removing the stumps of the felled young trees; a task that grew harder with each we undertook. The last took about half an hour to dislodge. We also cleared up the mystery of how the 25' clothesline mast and possible radio antenna was anchored. We managed to dig it up, but didn't have the leverage or horsepower to actually remove it. I'm personally hoping this can be accomplished quickly and easily by salvage operators who will remove old metal for free. As it is, it's even less decorative than it was a couple a weeks ago.
I suppose we were back there for about an hour. The weather was cool, but not cold... despite all the oomph, I don't think even Larry worked up a sweat, though if anyone had a right to one, he did. By then it was somewhere between 2 and 3, and we headed up the the Queen Vic. There was a point at which I was sitting there kind of mourning it, thinking, if you move, how will you do this? But then I realized, this is Saturday. You'd do what you just did: get up, drive to East York, do the chores, then hang around someplace till the evening, DUH. The only difference is the length of the drive. That was kind of reassuring.
Sunday, Mother's Day, I was supposed to do a cat-transport thing in Brampton on my way to Hamilton to visit my folks but someone got the jump on it Saturday so I just headed straight in. I took my folks out to lunch at Kelsey's, partly for Mother's Day, partly to run the idea of my moving past them and gauge their reaction. I honestly didn't know what to expect; anything from "how about our basement" to "oh, don't be so foolish; you just moved into the place" was in the cards in my mind. When I explained it all—my feelings on losing the cats so quickly and terribly, my weariness with apartment life, the fact that my job's no long geographically-fixed, my desire to be closer to them and more generally central to where my friends live, and the goings-on with the bank and my mortgage—they were surprisingly supportive. After they paid the bill when I couldn't get the banking app to respond... ahem... we had a look around the area where I'd found one interesting place in Hamilton. It was actually a rather nice-looking neighbourhood. I'm still rather more inclined to pick Mississauga, but there's a lot to think about in terms of what can be had for how much money and where over the next few seasons.
It's funny what gets you thinking. I almost never watch sports unless I'm in Hamilton with my dad. Yesterday we sat downstairs and watched a hockey game between Canada and the Czech Republic. My relationship with my dad is not as emotionally constrained as Hank Hill and his son Bobby, but there's still kind of a waspish restraint to it. Still, I find myself enjoying things when I'm hanging with him that I wouldn't on my own; watching football, baseball, hockey, curling, and actually finding myself commenting more than half-intelligently on them. Before I left home there were other things we used to watch together... public television military dramas like Sharpe and Horatio Hornblower were kind of a touchstone for us for a long while. Yesterday I got him kind of charged up by talking about a documentary I'd seen about the exploits of people escaping under, over, and around the Berlin Wall. I guess it's who we are to each other. Part of moving, I suppose, is to take more advantage of that than I have for the past 13 years or so.
I can't help dreaming my little dreamy dreams for everyone. I've long lamented P-Doug's awful commute and I started looking for things I thought were approximately, or not much above, the value of his place much closer to his job, and I was surprised to find a really nice one not half a mile's walk from his office. The difference in price was, I'd estimate, something like the value of a new car. I was psyched enough to even show it to my mother when we got back to their place. You know when you think you know someone? She surprised me. She doesn't usually frame things in terms of what appeals to others, but I'd previously mentioned the new BBQ and how much use P-Doug would be making of it over the summer, and she floored me by saying, "Oh, if he left by five, he'd be grilling by quarter to six!" She made me feel like I'd just brought home a test with an "A" on it or something. :) I'm not really expecting much from it, but you never know. After all, the whole reason I'm switching mortgages now in the first place is because of what Dig and his wife said back in forth in emails to me last Monday.
Little things. Seth is more and more on the chairs beside me. Even Bonnie's perch. That's a tiny stab in the heart but she's gone; she can't resent it (and didn't when Max used to do it anyway), so I should take it for what it is—Seth trying to sit closer—and adapt to it, not try to take offense for it on Bonnie's behalf when she herself, always above jealousy and resentment, probably wouldn't have. Also, someone was grabbing and sort of chewing on my foot at about 4 in the morning. I assumed it was Seth. When I finally peered into the darkness, I realized it was Ally. In a year and a half, Ally has only rarely made a place for herself on my bed when I've been in it. This morning she must have spent an hour or two there, and I was really surprised. My mother and some of my friends have remarked they'd expect to see a change in the feline dynamic of my home now that Bonnie's pillar no longer supports a status quo. I suppose that's right. Watching how and to what extent things change over time will be the adventure, I guess.
Reasonably busy weekend. I don't usually blog about that anymore unless it's a genuine excursion but I'm in one of those phases, and this is a confusing moment in my life that probably bears some mention just so I can keep it all straight later. So here goes.
Anyone who remembers what I went through with Twinkle a year and a half ago will remember I had my friend Michelle around through nearly all of it. She listened to my hopes and fears over dinners. She accompanied me several times to visit Twinkle in the hospital. She came by my home on what turned out to be the last night of Twinkle's life and it buoyed my spirits to see Twinkle, not usually the cuddliest of cats, crawl all over Michelle as if in recognition of her visits. I mention all this for context. I had brunch... well, lunch, really, with Michelle Saturday. Earlier last week she casually let me know that she's expecting. I'm happy for her and her intended (the wedding is this August and I've wrangled myself an invite, I think; she didn't think I'd want to be around a lot of strangers). It is, after all, a vicarious joy to see your friends get what they want out of life. Ah, but there was a bittersweetness to it, too. She was once, a long time ago, the one I thought I'd marry, and I suppose in myriad parallel universes, did, to varying degrees of success. But not in this one. That's pretty minor; though. Just a silly legacy of who we were as young people together. The other aspect is that it means I'll see even less of her than I do now. It's inevitable. When your friends finally really grow up and leave Neverland, that's how it is. But I won't abandon the lines of communication this time. I know she won't either.
Afterward I ended up in East York to continue some work in P-Doug's back yard. Larry arrived with a borrowed spade that was the principal tool of the day. Pretty quickly we focused on removing the stumps of the felled young trees; a task that grew harder with each we undertook. The last took about half an hour to dislodge. We also cleared up the mystery of how the 25' clothesline mast and possible radio antenna was anchored. We managed to dig it up, but didn't have the leverage or horsepower to actually remove it. I'm personally hoping this can be accomplished quickly and easily by salvage operators who will remove old metal for free. As it is, it's even less decorative than it was a couple a weeks ago.
I suppose we were back there for about an hour. The weather was cool, but not cold... despite all the oomph, I don't think even Larry worked up a sweat, though if anyone had a right to one, he did. By then it was somewhere between 2 and 3, and we headed up the the Queen Vic. There was a point at which I was sitting there kind of mourning it, thinking, if you move, how will you do this? But then I realized, this is Saturday. You'd do what you just did: get up, drive to East York, do the chores, then hang around someplace till the evening, DUH. The only difference is the length of the drive. That was kind of reassuring.
Sunday, Mother's Day, I was supposed to do a cat-transport thing in Brampton on my way to Hamilton to visit my folks but someone got the jump on it Saturday so I just headed straight in. I took my folks out to lunch at Kelsey's, partly for Mother's Day, partly to run the idea of my moving past them and gauge their reaction. I honestly didn't know what to expect; anything from "how about our basement" to "oh, don't be so foolish; you just moved into the place" was in the cards in my mind. When I explained it all—my feelings on losing the cats so quickly and terribly, my weariness with apartment life, the fact that my job's no long geographically-fixed, my desire to be closer to them and more generally central to where my friends live, and the goings-on with the bank and my mortgage—they were surprisingly supportive. After they paid the bill when I couldn't get the banking app to respond... ahem... we had a look around the area where I'd found one interesting place in Hamilton. It was actually a rather nice-looking neighbourhood. I'm still rather more inclined to pick Mississauga, but there's a lot to think about in terms of what can be had for how much money and where over the next few seasons.
It's funny what gets you thinking. I almost never watch sports unless I'm in Hamilton with my dad. Yesterday we sat downstairs and watched a hockey game between Canada and the Czech Republic. My relationship with my dad is not as emotionally constrained as Hank Hill and his son Bobby, but there's still kind of a waspish restraint to it. Still, I find myself enjoying things when I'm hanging with him that I wouldn't on my own; watching football, baseball, hockey, curling, and actually finding myself commenting more than half-intelligently on them. Before I left home there were other things we used to watch together... public television military dramas like Sharpe and Horatio Hornblower were kind of a touchstone for us for a long while. Yesterday I got him kind of charged up by talking about a documentary I'd seen about the exploits of people escaping under, over, and around the Berlin Wall. I guess it's who we are to each other. Part of moving, I suppose, is to take more advantage of that than I have for the past 13 years or so.
I can't help dreaming my little dreamy dreams for everyone. I've long lamented P-Doug's awful commute and I started looking for things I thought were approximately, or not much above, the value of his place much closer to his job, and I was surprised to find a really nice one not half a mile's walk from his office. The difference in price was, I'd estimate, something like the value of a new car. I was psyched enough to even show it to my mother when we got back to their place. You know when you think you know someone? She surprised me. She doesn't usually frame things in terms of what appeals to others, but I'd previously mentioned the new BBQ and how much use P-Doug would be making of it over the summer, and she floored me by saying, "Oh, if he left by five, he'd be grilling by quarter to six!" She made me feel like I'd just brought home a test with an "A" on it or something. :) I'm not really expecting much from it, but you never know. After all, the whole reason I'm switching mortgages now in the first place is because of what Dig and his wife said back in forth in emails to me last Monday.
Little things. Seth is more and more on the chairs beside me. Even Bonnie's perch. That's a tiny stab in the heart but she's gone; she can't resent it (and didn't when Max used to do it anyway), so I should take it for what it is—Seth trying to sit closer—and adapt to it, not try to take offense for it on Bonnie's behalf when she herself, always above jealousy and resentment, probably wouldn't have. Also, someone was grabbing and sort of chewing on my foot at about 4 in the morning. I assumed it was Seth. When I finally peered into the darkness, I realized it was Ally. In a year and a half, Ally has only rarely made a place for herself on my bed when I've been in it. This morning she must have spent an hour or two there, and I was really surprised. My mother and some of my friends have remarked they'd expect to see a change in the feline dynamic of my home now that Bonnie's pillar no longer supports a status quo. I suppose that's right. Watching how and to what extent things change over time will be the adventure, I guess.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Redux: the lastest last photo
Actually, I forgot about my phone. My usual camera, the S100, is in the shop for repair of a well-known lens error, so I've been making more use of my phone lately.
Taken just before 10 in the morning, this would seem to be the real last photo I took of Bonnie in her life.
Below is a photo of Bonnie in the cat bed on the pillow beside mine. This is where she spent at least some of pretty much every night since 2002 or so, after Jenny died. This photo was taken April 19, the day after I learned from her ultrasound that things weren't as bad as I feared, and her cancer surgery would go ahead the following Monday. As you can imagine, this shot represents a rather joyous and hopeful moment in our recent life journey together.
Below is a photo from the last Thursday of her life. I'd been working from home over the past couple of weeks, both to keep an eye on her and to spend time with her, knowing that no matter what happened, the end of our time together was in sight... though at that moment, I didn't know how near it really was. As the photo shows, from time to time she would show up and simply insist on stepping out onto the keyboard tray, obliging me to move the keyboard for a while. Only the most hard-hearted could fail to understand the necessity of this indulgence.
And, finally, this is a shot from last Sunday, a week ago, around 4 in the afternoon. Bonnie was sitting next to me and simply reached out, as she did every so often. She didn't tug... she just reached out and left her paw on my arm: I'm here. Being near you pleases me. You matter to me. I had no idea yet when I picked up the phone and took this photo that we were already well into the last 24 hours of her life.
Taken just before 10 in the morning, this would seem to be the real last photo I took of Bonnie in her life.
Below is a photo of Bonnie in the cat bed on the pillow beside mine. This is where she spent at least some of pretty much every night since 2002 or so, after Jenny died. This photo was taken April 19, the day after I learned from her ultrasound that things weren't as bad as I feared, and her cancer surgery would go ahead the following Monday. As you can imagine, this shot represents a rather joyous and hopeful moment in our recent life journey together.
Below is a photo from the last Thursday of her life. I'd been working from home over the past couple of weeks, both to keep an eye on her and to spend time with her, knowing that no matter what happened, the end of our time together was in sight... though at that moment, I didn't know how near it really was. As the photo shows, from time to time she would show up and simply insist on stepping out onto the keyboard tray, obliging me to move the keyboard for a while. Only the most hard-hearted could fail to understand the necessity of this indulgence.
And, finally, this is a shot from last Sunday, a week ago, around 4 in the afternoon. Bonnie was sitting next to me and simply reached out, as she did every so often. She didn't tug... she just reached out and left her paw on my arm: I'm here. Being near you pleases me. You matter to me. I had no idea yet when I picked up the phone and took this photo that we were already well into the last 24 hours of her life.
The last photo
There's always a last photo. The last recorded memory of someone that you can have and hold outside of yourself and say, yes, this is them, this is who they were, this was the last I knew of them.
For Bonnie, this is that photo.
This was taken just after 9:30 the day she died, about an hour after I called to ask the vet to come, and not quite three hours before Bonnie died. You can see there wasn't much left of her. The little bowl contained the drainings of a can of tuna, which, kind of sadly, she actually completely drank that morning. For a moment I had hope, but pure water continued to confuse her.
Compare that to these shots.
This is from last October 14, about a week and a half before I noticed that growth under her tail that sent us to the vet in the first place. I guess you could call this our last "normal" week or so together. You can see she's still very robust. At the time, she weighted about 12 lbs. (Note: paired shots here are 3D; you can see the effect by crossing your eyes slightly.)
And this is a photo of her and Seth on February 15. Not much change to look at her, but right around this time I was beginning to be able to feel in my hands there was an undeniable weight loss. Still, she looked fine, could do anything she ever could before, and was still eating well.
These are her from the last day, May 6.
I look at the shots of her from even a couple of months ago and I can see how much I was fooling myself hoping she'd recover. She went down astonishingly fast after March but I swear, even that seemed gradual over six weeks. It's only when you can compare views like this instantly, without the interval of months, that you can see plainly what was really happening.
For Bonnie, this is that photo.
This was taken just after 9:30 the day she died, about an hour after I called to ask the vet to come, and not quite three hours before Bonnie died. You can see there wasn't much left of her. The little bowl contained the drainings of a can of tuna, which, kind of sadly, she actually completely drank that morning. For a moment I had hope, but pure water continued to confuse her.
Compare that to these shots.
And this is a photo of her and Seth on February 15. Not much change to look at her, but right around this time I was beginning to be able to feel in my hands there was an undeniable weight loss. Still, she looked fine, could do anything she ever could before, and was still eating well.
These are her from the last day, May 6.
I look at the shots of her from even a couple of months ago and I can see how much I was fooling myself hoping she'd recover. She went down astonishingly fast after March but I swear, even that seemed gradual over six weeks. It's only when you can compare views like this instantly, without the interval of months, that you can see plainly what was really happening.
Tricks of the trade
A few minutes ago Seth pushed his way through the not-quite-closed door and into the bathroom. Just to see what would happen, I pushed it not quite shut again. He didn't flip or anything; he just went over to it, pressed his paw against the edge, and opened it again.
I said to him, "You know, Twinkle never managed to figure that out in a year and a half."
Nothing of consequence here. Just something a little funny I thought I'd like to remember someday.
I said to him, "You know, Twinkle never managed to figure that out in a year and a half."
Nothing of consequence here. Just something a little funny I thought I'd like to remember someday.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Comfy Bonnie
I think, everything considered, this is my favourite picture of Bonnie. It's from three years ago, April 25, 2010. It's at the old place. It was taken the day before I started my new job. Larry was living in my spare room. Max was still alive. We'd just gotten Twinkle and were in the process of that interesting couple of months where I was being awoken by her feral growls at Max two or three times a night, while Bonnie slept by my head.
Wasn't she gorgeous? Can you see the personality and depth in those eyes? She knew me.
She loved me.
Advances
The queen is dead. Long live the king.
I mentioned here a few days ago that in a dream I had about Bonnie, it was Seth who was sitting in the cat bed on the chair at my left elbow... but that he had never actually done this in real life.
Well, it didn't take long. Seth actually did that for the first time Thursday evening, a little over three days after Bonnie died. The second time was just a few minutes ago, now, Saturday morning. He's actually curled up comfortably in the cat bed, six inches from my left elbow, right now.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. It seems very sudden.
But then I remind myself, it only seems unusual because in the year and a half Ally's lived here, she has hardly ever bothered with the cat beds on the chairs, and Seth, though he's sat a few times in the secondary one on occasion, never challenged Bonnie for the primary in their three months together. But Bonnie, Max, and even Twinkle all rotated positions. More often than not, Bonnie took the closest spot, but not always; I'd say Max had it about a quarter of the time without Bonnie ever picking a fight with him over it. The one spot that was sacrosanct and acknowledged inviolably Bonnie's by the all others (after Jenny died) was the pillow beside mine on the bed (and as of writing, remains so, even after her death).
I what it comes down to is that because for pretty much the past year, since Max died, the spot has been Bonnie's exclusive privilege, and seeing Seth in it now underlines that she's gone.
I mentioned here a few days ago that in a dream I had about Bonnie, it was Seth who was sitting in the cat bed on the chair at my left elbow... but that he had never actually done this in real life.
Well, it didn't take long. Seth actually did that for the first time Thursday evening, a little over three days after Bonnie died. The second time was just a few minutes ago, now, Saturday morning. He's actually curled up comfortably in the cat bed, six inches from my left elbow, right now.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. It seems very sudden.
But then I remind myself, it only seems unusual because in the year and a half Ally's lived here, she has hardly ever bothered with the cat beds on the chairs, and Seth, though he's sat a few times in the secondary one on occasion, never challenged Bonnie for the primary in their three months together. But Bonnie, Max, and even Twinkle all rotated positions. More often than not, Bonnie took the closest spot, but not always; I'd say Max had it about a quarter of the time without Bonnie ever picking a fight with him over it. The one spot that was sacrosanct and acknowledged inviolably Bonnie's by the all others (after Jenny died) was the pillow beside mine on the bed (and as of writing, remains so, even after her death).
I what it comes down to is that because for pretty much the past year, since Max died, the spot has been Bonnie's exclusive privilege, and seeing Seth in it now underlines that she's gone.
Friday, May 10, 2013
The look of love
I think it's Richard Dawkins who has theorized that our pets are the inadvertent beneficiaries of a broken or hyperactive gene in human beings... one that would ordinary say, in most species, "you will be driven to nurture and defend small creatures that look sufficiently like you until their neotenous characteristics abate", but in us now directs "you will be driven to nurture and defend small creatures that look even vaguely like you; and in the event they reciprocate your affection, will do so indefinitely"...
Twinkle
October, 2011
$14,550.85
Max
January, 2012
$108.86
August, 2012
$1,047.31
Bonnie
August, 2011
$153.70
January, 2012
$951.24
October-December, 2012
$1,620.93
March-May, 2013
$3,713.53
Total:
$22,146.42
...I guess so.
Feline medical outlay since moving to the condo in June, 2011
Twinkle
October, 2011
$14,550.85
Max
January, 2012
$108.86
August, 2012
$1,047.31
Bonnie
August, 2011
$153.70
January, 2012
$951.24
October-December, 2012
$1,620.93
March-May, 2013
$3,713.53
Total:
$22,146.42
...I guess so.
My financial career
As it turns out, I went into the bank last night to formalize and complete the mortgage transfer application. The whole thing took not quite an hour. A lot of it was paperwork, of course. Check this. Confirm that. Do you have this? How many of those do you have? I was surprised to learn my credit rating wasn't just good, but unusually good. I haven't had a credit card in about three years and I'd always heard that counted against you, but I guess having had several you built up a debt on and then paid off without blowing payments counts.
She actually had this big print out from the credit agency. Pretty much every credit instrument I've been involved with for years. Her mission was to make sure there wasn't anything outstanding, and I got to watch her... circle, check; circle, check... I kind of felt like I was back in university, in an end-of-year interview with a professor, or one where I'm trying to get into a course and need to show the prereqs. I guess in a way I was.
I had to bring in a few things. Statement of employment and annual wage... which I was surprised is actually about fifty dollars a month higher than I remembered... must have gotten a COLA in there I was never told about... property tax statement, estimate of resale from my real estate agent based on recent sales of similar units in my complex... last two pay stubs; things like that.
So off the thing goes now. It looks like it should go through. The sticking point will be whether or not they actually demand an appraisal. I hope to God they don't; not over a difference of about ten grand either way. Since they only lend you 80% of the value, that's only a difference of about two or three grand. Peanuts to them; but every thousand dollars is a month I do, or don't, have to live like a monk to kill off my line of credit debt. And what we're pitching for is right up the middle of what my agent says places have sold for.
I stand to come out ahead in a lot of little ways. For instance, the life insurance my current mortgage company insisted I get costs me $74 a month. The insurance my bank is suggesting I have tacks on only about $32 a month. That's $500 a year, right there. Not to mention the $60 or so a month I'm currently giving the bank in interest on the outstanding $13,000 in the line of credit, which is about 2.5% higher than the rate on the mortgage that, I hope, is about to absorb most of that. There's another $700... well, give or take; obviously that would come down as the months pass, but still... I've been paying pretty close to that every month for a year and a half. That's a thousand bucks or so that just vanished into thin air since I lost Twinkle. Anyway, it's hard to put a precise number on it, but if you were to ballpark it, it probably frees up well over a thousand dollars in the next year or so.
I've been thinking about it this morning and there are really two factors that put me here right now. One is, of course, Bonnie's passing on Monday. The other was actually a leg-up I got just about exactly a month ago. It came right out of the blue, unsolicited and unexpected, and when I realized what it was, I was literally breathless for a moment. It was, I believe, a gesture of financial understanding and sympathy with what was about to be undertaken for Bonnie's sake. But it was something else, too. I took it as a vote of confidence. What I mean is, I don't believe it would have been made, everything else considered, if I'd spent the last year flashing credit cards around, buying whatever I pleased, or acting like I didn't care at all about the debt that was on my shoulders. And I recognize that there was a risk involved in making that gesture. I might have taken it as a sign that I didn't need to worry after all; that other people would bail me out. For me, it was kind of the opposite. It was humbling, in a good way, and I felt it put a moral obligation on me... I realized I had to be worthy of the gesture. To earn it, retroactively, by how I marshalled it and how I behaved afterward. Part of the drive to do what I'm doing is a conscious effort to show my appreciation and live up to what was done for me. To show how seriously I take it and how much it meant to me.
I feel compelled, not just for my own sake, to take this opportunity as a chance to responsibly put money into my retirement funds and to sock more into the mortgage, and not just to pay off the debt and start living like a sailor on shore leave. I want to be in a position where it will be possible for someone else to depend on me someday.
She actually had this big print out from the credit agency. Pretty much every credit instrument I've been involved with for years. Her mission was to make sure there wasn't anything outstanding, and I got to watch her... circle, check; circle, check... I kind of felt like I was back in university, in an end-of-year interview with a professor, or one where I'm trying to get into a course and need to show the prereqs. I guess in a way I was.
I had to bring in a few things. Statement of employment and annual wage... which I was surprised is actually about fifty dollars a month higher than I remembered... must have gotten a COLA in there I was never told about... property tax statement, estimate of resale from my real estate agent based on recent sales of similar units in my complex... last two pay stubs; things like that.
So off the thing goes now. It looks like it should go through. The sticking point will be whether or not they actually demand an appraisal. I hope to God they don't; not over a difference of about ten grand either way. Since they only lend you 80% of the value, that's only a difference of about two or three grand. Peanuts to them; but every thousand dollars is a month I do, or don't, have to live like a monk to kill off my line of credit debt. And what we're pitching for is right up the middle of what my agent says places have sold for.
I stand to come out ahead in a lot of little ways. For instance, the life insurance my current mortgage company insisted I get costs me $74 a month. The insurance my bank is suggesting I have tacks on only about $32 a month. That's $500 a year, right there. Not to mention the $60 or so a month I'm currently giving the bank in interest on the outstanding $13,000 in the line of credit, which is about 2.5% higher than the rate on the mortgage that, I hope, is about to absorb most of that. There's another $700... well, give or take; obviously that would come down as the months pass, but still... I've been paying pretty close to that every month for a year and a half. That's a thousand bucks or so that just vanished into thin air since I lost Twinkle. Anyway, it's hard to put a precise number on it, but if you were to ballpark it, it probably frees up well over a thousand dollars in the next year or so.
I've been thinking about it this morning and there are really two factors that put me here right now. One is, of course, Bonnie's passing on Monday. The other was actually a leg-up I got just about exactly a month ago. It came right out of the blue, unsolicited and unexpected, and when I realized what it was, I was literally breathless for a moment. It was, I believe, a gesture of financial understanding and sympathy with what was about to be undertaken for Bonnie's sake. But it was something else, too. I took it as a vote of confidence. What I mean is, I don't believe it would have been made, everything else considered, if I'd spent the last year flashing credit cards around, buying whatever I pleased, or acting like I didn't care at all about the debt that was on my shoulders. And I recognize that there was a risk involved in making that gesture. I might have taken it as a sign that I didn't need to worry after all; that other people would bail me out. For me, it was kind of the opposite. It was humbling, in a good way, and I felt it put a moral obligation on me... I realized I had to be worthy of the gesture. To earn it, retroactively, by how I marshalled it and how I behaved afterward. Part of the drive to do what I'm doing is a conscious effort to show my appreciation and live up to what was done for me. To show how seriously I take it and how much it meant to me.
I feel compelled, not just for my own sake, to take this opportunity as a chance to responsibly put money into my retirement funds and to sock more into the mortgage, and not just to pay off the debt and start living like a sailor on shore leave. I want to be in a position where it will be possible for someone else to depend on me someday.
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Show me the money
Something comes along and suddenly it's all about blogging. Weeks, months sometimes can go by when I just don't have the heart or the urge to pass anything along here. Other times, like this, there is simply so much I want to share with the two or three people who come by here, or with myself down the line.
This is about the money.
I moved into the condo in June, 2011. Now, I can remember getting a casual, boilerplate message from my bank soon afterward offering me a line of credit... five or ten thousand dollars initially; I'm not sure which... which probably goes out automatically from some computer to anyone with my financial particulars. I remember I snorted at; I'd only just paid off a long-standing credit card debt just around the time I decided to buy the condo, and the last thing I wanted was that temptation again. Almost right off the bat, though, Twinkle got sick. When I was hearing that feline transfusions were in the hundreds of dollars, and she'd need at least a few, I knew I was going to need to take them up on that offer. Honestly, I don't know how people in the States manage. It was bad enough with a beloved pet... what if it's your actually flesh-and-blood child, or your spouse? It genuinely amazes me there aren't riots in the streets for a universal health care scheme there... what I wouldn't give for one for pets! But I digress.
Anyway, of course, it didn't work out. I spent around $14,000 trying to give Twinkle her chance to get past five or six, but it was all too hard on her and she died anyway. And I've been carrying that on the line of credit ever since. At first I was paying $250 a pay on it (not counting the monthly interest they automatically withdrew from my chequing account, which by now has almost certainly topped $1000 all-told), thinking I'd pay it off over about two years. But me being me, I found it all too easy to cheat here and there and buy this little thing and that little thing, and it really never got down much below about ten grand. Then Max got sick, and even though there was little we could do for him, the tests and stuff, they added up. I don't remember exactly how much but it was probably about two thousand dollars. Two months later, Bonnie and her first brush with cancer.
I thought it was around the time that happened that I made the adjustments, but in looking at my pay statements, I can see it was actually in September, before anything was at issue with Bonnie, that I tried to get serious about paying the line of credit off. I gritted my teeth and cancelled my retirement savings contributions... which represented about 11% of my income, and were partially matched by the company. But then I could go full bore. Now I was shoveling $500 a pay against the line of credit like a stoker on the Titanic after the iceberg hit, and though I spent perhaps a thousand dollars of it on other incidentals since then, it's been going down. Just before Bonnie's surgery a couple of weeks back, it was just about to cross the ten thousand threshold again. Well, when I pay for her ashes and euthanasia in a week or two, it'll be back up over $13,000 again.
So, as previously stated, this evening at 6 I'll be going back to my bank and signing an application to have my bank assume my mortgage. I'll get creamed by the people who hold it now, but the interest savings over 5 years will cancel that out. Meanwhile, if we've worked the numbers out correctly, the bulk of my line of credit will be paid off, leaving something like $4,000 outstanding. That's a far more comfortable number and I'm going to try very hard to retire that as quickly as I can, because at that point, that $1000 every two pays becomes mine again.
My intention, then, is to put all the retirement deduction numbers I dialed to 0 last September back up where they were, which means roughly half what I'm now throwing to the line of credit. Then I've got something else to work with, and this time, instead of just letting it evaporate, I'd like to do something with it. My plan, right now, is to take about $100 a pay and put it into my own savings account; something readily accessible, but something I'll be just a little reluctant to touch because it'll be so satisfying watching it growing larger. And I want to take about $75 a pay or so and apply that to my mortgage payments above and beyond what I have to. Amounting to almost $2000 a year, that could really help bring down the amount of time I'm paying that off, particularly since, if I understood what the bank's financial adviser said, that excess is applied directly to the principal. That leaves about another $50 or so a pay that I can use for just living expenses. The budget I put myself on last fall was probably not realistic... I routinely exceeded it, and in truth, it was $100 a pay less than I was allowing myself when I was digging myself out of debt ten years ago. Even with another $100 a month or so I might still have to change these numbers... but the $200 a month in savings will mean I can gauge that without incurring interest penalties.
About three and a half years from now, the car should be paid off, and then almost $300 a month will become available for investment and savings... at least while the car holds out.
It's rough to say it, but as I've been slowly coming to terms with the stark reality that Bonnie really wasn't going to see 2014, it's been in the back of my mind that her passing was probably going to represent a financial watershed moment. I don't like thinking of it in that kind of predatory way, but it's true. I'm grateful to Dig and his missus for suggesting the solution I'm going to try this evening that's taken what was going to be another 13-month Volga boatman slog, at least, of living as much like a monk as I could stand while putting nothing aside for the future, and potentially shortening that to something I might get paid off before the second anniversary of Twinkle's death.
I've had a lot of adjusting to do in the past few years, financially speaking... paying off and getting rid of my credit card with the aid of Larry's subletting my spare room; stepping up to a mortgage and condo fees; and then taking on this albatross of a line of credit that's largely built on the bones of my psuedo-children, loved and lost. While it hasn't completely cured me of avarice, I'd like to think it's made me more realistic. I'd like to start being responsible on my own, without the whip of crushing debt and the self-imposed austerity of necessity driving it for a change (but hey; at least I've had that much discipline). And this is what I'm setting out to do by laying it all out here.
This is about the money.
I moved into the condo in June, 2011. Now, I can remember getting a casual, boilerplate message from my bank soon afterward offering me a line of credit... five or ten thousand dollars initially; I'm not sure which... which probably goes out automatically from some computer to anyone with my financial particulars. I remember I snorted at; I'd only just paid off a long-standing credit card debt just around the time I decided to buy the condo, and the last thing I wanted was that temptation again. Almost right off the bat, though, Twinkle got sick. When I was hearing that feline transfusions were in the hundreds of dollars, and she'd need at least a few, I knew I was going to need to take them up on that offer. Honestly, I don't know how people in the States manage. It was bad enough with a beloved pet... what if it's your actually flesh-and-blood child, or your spouse? It genuinely amazes me there aren't riots in the streets for a universal health care scheme there... what I wouldn't give for one for pets! But I digress.
Anyway, of course, it didn't work out. I spent around $14,000 trying to give Twinkle her chance to get past five or six, but it was all too hard on her and she died anyway. And I've been carrying that on the line of credit ever since. At first I was paying $250 a pay on it (not counting the monthly interest they automatically withdrew from my chequing account, which by now has almost certainly topped $1000 all-told), thinking I'd pay it off over about two years. But me being me, I found it all too easy to cheat here and there and buy this little thing and that little thing, and it really never got down much below about ten grand. Then Max got sick, and even though there was little we could do for him, the tests and stuff, they added up. I don't remember exactly how much but it was probably about two thousand dollars. Two months later, Bonnie and her first brush with cancer.
I thought it was around the time that happened that I made the adjustments, but in looking at my pay statements, I can see it was actually in September, before anything was at issue with Bonnie, that I tried to get serious about paying the line of credit off. I gritted my teeth and cancelled my retirement savings contributions... which represented about 11% of my income, and were partially matched by the company. But then I could go full bore. Now I was shoveling $500 a pay against the line of credit like a stoker on the Titanic after the iceberg hit, and though I spent perhaps a thousand dollars of it on other incidentals since then, it's been going down. Just before Bonnie's surgery a couple of weeks back, it was just about to cross the ten thousand threshold again. Well, when I pay for her ashes and euthanasia in a week or two, it'll be back up over $13,000 again.
So, as previously stated, this evening at 6 I'll be going back to my bank and signing an application to have my bank assume my mortgage. I'll get creamed by the people who hold it now, but the interest savings over 5 years will cancel that out. Meanwhile, if we've worked the numbers out correctly, the bulk of my line of credit will be paid off, leaving something like $4,000 outstanding. That's a far more comfortable number and I'm going to try very hard to retire that as quickly as I can, because at that point, that $1000 every two pays becomes mine again.
My intention, then, is to put all the retirement deduction numbers I dialed to 0 last September back up where they were, which means roughly half what I'm now throwing to the line of credit. Then I've got something else to work with, and this time, instead of just letting it evaporate, I'd like to do something with it. My plan, right now, is to take about $100 a pay and put it into my own savings account; something readily accessible, but something I'll be just a little reluctant to touch because it'll be so satisfying watching it growing larger. And I want to take about $75 a pay or so and apply that to my mortgage payments above and beyond what I have to. Amounting to almost $2000 a year, that could really help bring down the amount of time I'm paying that off, particularly since, if I understood what the bank's financial adviser said, that excess is applied directly to the principal. That leaves about another $50 or so a pay that I can use for just living expenses. The budget I put myself on last fall was probably not realistic... I routinely exceeded it, and in truth, it was $100 a pay less than I was allowing myself when I was digging myself out of debt ten years ago. Even with another $100 a month or so I might still have to change these numbers... but the $200 a month in savings will mean I can gauge that without incurring interest penalties.
About three and a half years from now, the car should be paid off, and then almost $300 a month will become available for investment and savings... at least while the car holds out.
It's rough to say it, but as I've been slowly coming to terms with the stark reality that Bonnie really wasn't going to see 2014, it's been in the back of my mind that her passing was probably going to represent a financial watershed moment. I don't like thinking of it in that kind of predatory way, but it's true. I'm grateful to Dig and his missus for suggesting the solution I'm going to try this evening that's taken what was going to be another 13-month Volga boatman slog, at least, of living as much like a monk as I could stand while putting nothing aside for the future, and potentially shortening that to something I might get paid off before the second anniversary of Twinkle's death.
I've had a lot of adjusting to do in the past few years, financially speaking... paying off and getting rid of my credit card with the aid of Larry's subletting my spare room; stepping up to a mortgage and condo fees; and then taking on this albatross of a line of credit that's largely built on the bones of my psuedo-children, loved and lost. While it hasn't completely cured me of avarice, I'd like to think it's made me more realistic. I'd like to start being responsible on my own, without the whip of crushing debt and the self-imposed austerity of necessity driving it for a change (but hey; at least I've had that much discipline). And this is what I'm setting out to do by laying it all out here.
Remembering correctly
Something that occurred to me when I was thinking about the older dream I had about Bonnie was the actual timeline of her first brush with cancer. I'm mostly writing this for my own edification...
I remember now that when I took her in with the swollen nipple, the doctor said he figured it was just a blocked duct. I remember he took a needle and drew off the fluid from it. There was only a tiny bit, and it looked like cafe au lait. He smeared it on microscope slide and sent it off, expecting it was pretty much just pus or something. Then it came back that it showed, if I remember correctly, "irregular" cells with a recommendation that the nipple be surgically removed. It was probably more or less at that point that I had the dream, but it might have been a bit later.
Then, of course, came the biopsy of the actual excised tissue. Carcinoma, I think it was. But small, with no evidence of spread to the margins of the excision, and not found in the lymph nodes. At that point, given all that news, we had every good confidence that we'd caught it in time. It turned out we didn't, and it very likely would have taken her sometime this year anyway, if her thyroid and its complications hadn't run out her time first.
It's hard not to have regrets about all this. What if, what if, what if. I guess there's no getting around it; we're pattern-seekers and it's in our nature to find and plot solutions, even in retrospect. I would have thought I'd be past that with Twinkle and Max by now, but no, not really. I still find myself thinking things like, well, they wanted me to get Bonnie's and Max's teeth cleaned, and I got Bonnie's cleaned because she was older, but what if I had gotten Max's teeth cleaned, and they'd noticed the growth at the back of his mouth? I mean, what if? What if I'd taken a friend's suggestion last fall to do a full mastectomy on Bonnie? What if? But I do realize you can really torment yourself with these things and I'm trying, trying, not to do it. It's hard not to. It's like holding your breath; you can only do it so long and then you have to give in to it.
I remember now that when I took her in with the swollen nipple, the doctor said he figured it was just a blocked duct. I remember he took a needle and drew off the fluid from it. There was only a tiny bit, and it looked like cafe au lait. He smeared it on microscope slide and sent it off, expecting it was pretty much just pus or something. Then it came back that it showed, if I remember correctly, "irregular" cells with a recommendation that the nipple be surgically removed. It was probably more or less at that point that I had the dream, but it might have been a bit later.
Then, of course, came the biopsy of the actual excised tissue. Carcinoma, I think it was. But small, with no evidence of spread to the margins of the excision, and not found in the lymph nodes. At that point, given all that news, we had every good confidence that we'd caught it in time. It turned out we didn't, and it very likely would have taken her sometime this year anyway, if her thyroid and its complications hadn't run out her time first.
It's hard not to have regrets about all this. What if, what if, what if. I guess there's no getting around it; we're pattern-seekers and it's in our nature to find and plot solutions, even in retrospect. I would have thought I'd be past that with Twinkle and Max by now, but no, not really. I still find myself thinking things like, well, they wanted me to get Bonnie's and Max's teeth cleaned, and I got Bonnie's cleaned because she was older, but what if I had gotten Max's teeth cleaned, and they'd noticed the growth at the back of his mouth? I mean, what if? What if I'd taken a friend's suggestion last fall to do a full mastectomy on Bonnie? What if? But I do realize you can really torment yourself with these things and I'm trying, trying, not to do it. It's hard not to. It's like holding your breath; you can only do it so long and then you have to give in to it.
The dream
I just had my first dream, that I can remember, about Bonnie. (Edit: since she died, I mean.)
It was a drowsing dream. I've been sleeping in about two-hour chunks the last few days.
In the dream, I was sitting in my chair in the living room. Seth was sitting in the chair beside me (something he hasn't done yet), looking at me. Suddenly, Bonnie trotted up, jumped into the red cat bed beside him, laid down and gazed at me. She looked like she used to a couple of months ago. I said, "Oh, Bonnie, but you're dead!" But it didn't matter. I leaned over and stroked her and stroked her as she began to purr, and I said, "Oh, Pumpkin... Oh, Pumpkin..."
I woke up. Clock said 2:51. 3rd Rock from the Sun was on TV; episode where Dick gets an ATM card and gets robbed.
The Golden Girls is on now. I'll try to drift off again.
-------------------------------------------------------
P.S. 7:15 a.m. I'm reminded of a dream I had around Halloween when I found out Bonnie had cancer and I was afraid I was within a week or two of losing her... bad news for Twinkle and bad news for Max both resulting in remaining life spans of two weeks, you see. In the dream, she was lying on her side by the apartment door, panting and dying. I was kneeling beside her, touching her, crying, begging her not to leave me.
As it turned out, she didn't. Not that time.
So back when there wasn't actually an immediate end to our life together looming (though I feared there was), that dream. And now that it has ended, and I'm the one who actually chose to end her life, I'm visited by this vision of her reasonably well, happy to see me, with even this faint air of gratitude and forgiveness and understanding... unaltered love. A dream I woke up from vaguely pleased with. I mean, I know none of that is real. She's gone, and even when she was alive, she understood nothing of the things we put her through. They were just the mysteries of life among us more powerful and seemingly capricious creatures. But still, I'm surprised when I consider the two dreams in comparison.
It was a drowsing dream. I've been sleeping in about two-hour chunks the last few days.
In the dream, I was sitting in my chair in the living room. Seth was sitting in the chair beside me (something he hasn't done yet), looking at me. Suddenly, Bonnie trotted up, jumped into the red cat bed beside him, laid down and gazed at me. She looked like she used to a couple of months ago. I said, "Oh, Bonnie, but you're dead!" But it didn't matter. I leaned over and stroked her and stroked her as she began to purr, and I said, "Oh, Pumpkin... Oh, Pumpkin..."
I woke up. Clock said 2:51. 3rd Rock from the Sun was on TV; episode where Dick gets an ATM card and gets robbed.
The Golden Girls is on now. I'll try to drift off again.
-------------------------------------------------------
P.S. 7:15 a.m. I'm reminded of a dream I had around Halloween when I found out Bonnie had cancer and I was afraid I was within a week or two of losing her... bad news for Twinkle and bad news for Max both resulting in remaining life spans of two weeks, you see. In the dream, she was lying on her side by the apartment door, panting and dying. I was kneeling beside her, touching her, crying, begging her not to leave me.
As it turned out, she didn't. Not that time.
So back when there wasn't actually an immediate end to our life together looming (though I feared there was), that dream. And now that it has ended, and I'm the one who actually chose to end her life, I'm visited by this vision of her reasonably well, happy to see me, with even this faint air of gratitude and forgiveness and understanding... unaltered love. A dream I woke up from vaguely pleased with. I mean, I know none of that is real. She's gone, and even when she was alive, she understood nothing of the things we put her through. They were just the mysteries of life among us more powerful and seemingly capricious creatures. But still, I'm surprised when I consider the two dreams in comparison.
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Circles
A moment ago it occurred to me that had I taken Bonnie's weight loss more critically when I noticed it, I guess in February sometime, and taken her in while she was still eating well, I probably could have gotten her thyroid diagnosed and treated before it set her liver off... I have a feeling that's what actually put her into the spiral she couldn't come out of. I waited too long. But it honestly just didn't occur to me till it was too late. I think it was because in the back of my mind, she'd had cancer, and I was probably too scared to go in and hear that's why she was losing weight. Damn it, that was irresponsible, but I just was not thinking clearly about it. I'm amazed by it now.
Of course, I tell myself that yes, her cancer was back; it just wasn't the cause of the weight loss. And the reality is, even if they'd caught that at the same time, the odds are it was elsewhere if it managed to come back from the tiny tumor they caught in October. So the reality is, I might have spared her the awful weight loss of the past couple of months, only to have her body spider webbed with tumors by the summer or fall, and God only knows what kind of torture that would have been. She was an elderly cat, though I was always loathe to admit it, looking at that perfect, sweet pelt. Her body was giving out, and it would have been one thing or another.
But I'll spend the rest of my life second-guessing this.
Of course, I tell myself that yes, her cancer was back; it just wasn't the cause of the weight loss. And the reality is, even if they'd caught that at the same time, the odds are it was elsewhere if it managed to come back from the tiny tumor they caught in October. So the reality is, I might have spared her the awful weight loss of the past couple of months, only to have her body spider webbed with tumors by the summer or fall, and God only knows what kind of torture that would have been. She was an elderly cat, though I was always loathe to admit it, looking at that perfect, sweet pelt. Her body was giving out, and it would have been one thing or another.
But I'll spend the rest of my life second-guessing this.
What Bonnie deserved to know: a letter of love to a beloved cat
What can I tell you about Bonnie? What can I say about the things that mattered? What would I have said to her, if only she could have understood?
Dear Pumpkin Girl...
1998 was not a good year for me. My working life was late to the gate, and its engine sputtered for years. It taxied, and stalled, and taxied, but never took off. That whole year saw me living in the basement, sunk in despair, ready to give up on ever having an independent life. But unbeknownst to me, somewhere out there, you were born.
I'll never know what your first couple of years without me were like. I hope they weren't all bad. Judging from your sweet nature, you must have had some good people in your life, however it was you came to be in that cage. My couple of years before we met were years of slow but steady improvement. My friend Jay got me out of the basement and into a solid job. It wasn't enough to live on, but by the time I left it, it was about to be. What took me out of it was a better job. One that got me out of my parents' house and into a place of my own at last. I got the job in March, and moved out on May 6, 2000. Thirteen years to the day before you died.
And then there was you.
For a long time I thought we met in June, but looking at the papers I got with you thirteen years ago, I see now it was July. July 12. The papers don't tell me much about you. I don't know when you were born. They just say you were two years old. They say you were just 7.9 lbs when I got you, which astonishes me... were you really that slight back then? They say you were fostered in March, and then given to the shelter in April. Somewhere in all that, you got pregnant, and, presumably, had a litter: the folks taking care of you did tell me all your kittens had been placed. I remember you still had your little breasts when I got you. I wish you could have talked. I would have liked to have heard what that was like for you.
I already had a cat, Jenny, whom I'd had since she was a kitten. Where we lived before, there was always company. Me, my parents, a rabbit for a while, a dog, and after him another dog. Jenny didn't have another cat around, but she always had someone to interact with. When I moved out, it was just me. P-Doug remarked to me that a cat needed another cat to be a cat. I understand that... what would it be like to be a human alone in a world of just dogs, or just cats? There'd be companionship, but not that connection to all your own nature and faculties. So, with that in mind, I decided to look for another cat.
I found you where I shopped for Jenny's food, at the Petsmart in Markham. Later, I would also find Max there. I don't remember now just how I settled on you... what brought me to your cage, or how we made that connection. I do know I was partial to torties... I guess that gave you a head start. But whatever it was, I'm glad, so glad, so grateful I took you home. It was easily the best $70 I ever spent. I hope you would have agreed. One thing I remember is that I really didn't fancy the name "Bonnie" back then, but I've never believed in actually changing a pet's name, so it stuck. And you went on to make it one of the very sweetest words to pass my lips. Bonnie. Bonnie.
I remember you tested me at first. You used to wait till you knew I was briefly awake in the middle of the night, and then pee on the bed beside me. I remember I used to leap up in a rage and chase you around, terrifying you. I don't know why I did that now. Immaturity? Power? The desire to shock and awe you into not doing it anymore? I am so very sorry for that. Do you remember the last time I did that? How I finally cornered you, and you were crying to me, begging me to stop, not even fighting back to defend yourself, and I hauled you into the bathroom and ran a cascade of cold water on you in the tub? How I left you flopping, soaked, on the porcelain, and then locked you in the dark there, cold and wet, for the rest of the night? I sure do. I used to wonder what parents meant by "this hurts me more than it hurts you". I sure know now. I've hated myself for that ever since. You slayed a monster that night, Bonnie. It burned out any capacity in me to ever do that again.
There were other times, maybe a half a dozen over the years, where you tested me like that again, but you remember that from then on, I simply told you to get off the bed, and insisted you leave the bedroom. I would not let you in again for a couple of nights. I would pretend, for the next day, not to "see" you. I can remember you playing for my attention. Trying to apologize, maybe, or set things right. You always broke me down so quickly. But for all the power-gaming I did at first, I'm proud that I never gave up on you. When, a few months after I got you, I complained about your antics to my manager, he said to give you back. No, I said... it was my idea for you to come and live with me; I had to stick by that. And I did. Thank heavens I listened to the better angels and not my boss. You trained me, Pumpkin, and tamed me, and taught me. You are the reason that Twinkle, who tested me far more than you ever did, got her chance to make of go of life with me, though tragically short it proved to be.
One time we had it out and I ignored you for a couple of days and finally it just broke my heart, and I remember actually apologizing to you... in English, out loud. And I went out with P-Doug and G to a jewelry market on the Golden Mile and found you an ornament... Jenny had worn turquoise set in silver. I got you a glorious amber half-sphere in silver, and you wore that for the next ten years or more. You were wearing it when you died, and it will grace your urn until I do, and our ashes are mingled. You completely owned my heart, Pumpkin Girl.
I'll never know what you were trying to tell me with the peeing on the bed thing. A specific complaint? Simply testing my limits? Trying to get a rise out of me? Just a strange compulsion even you didn't understand? I'll always wonder if that's what lost you whatever home you had before mine. But in the long run, it didn't matter.
I don't think Jenny was every truly happy you were around. She was 11 when you came to live with us, and hadn't ever had to share digs with another cat. But, you both got along well enough. Like you, she developed a thyroid condition, though we managed hers better and longer. I don't remember now exactly the day she died... it was in August of 2002. I came out of my bedroom to see her lying on the floor of the spare room. She didn't respond to my greeting, and I went over, and realized, with a crushed heart, that she was gone. What I'll never forget was the sight of the fur of her hip, licked the wrong way. She couldn't have done that. That could only have been you. You had been with her at the end. You perfect little angel.
Two months later, we got Max, your friend, grooming companion, and wrestling partner for the next 10 years. Eventually, many years later, we added my roommate Larry for a couple of years, and Twinkle for a little while, but essentially the core of our little family for the next decade was formed.
After Jenny passed away, you took over the role of sleeping by my head, and you kept that vigil for the rest of your life. I'll always be grateful to you for that. Oh, I know you'd drift away after a while, probably because my snoring was intolerable, but if I were falling asleep, or drifting back to consciousness, or waking up, you were usually there, or would suddenly appear, for many years leaping on the bed with that mother cat "brrrrt!" greeting. Do you remember how, for a while, you got into the habit of taking the claw of the middle toe of your right front paw and picking, picking, picking gently at my lips when you knew I wasn't actually asleep? I wish I knew what that was about. Wanting attention? Just a fascination with something different? I didn't like it, but I adored it... if you understand what I mean.
You were, really, the one I was coming home to all those years. It was you who was nearly always at my elbow or beside my head when I was home. It was, more than anything, you I was anxious about when I was away too long. You sort of took over that role from Jenny. For a long time, I assumed that, one day, Max would inherit that role, after you, for at least a couple of years. But he never really got his turn. I don't think he minded. His needs were different.
I have an early picture of you on the couch, on your back, with your mouth open in what I think was a silent meow. I also have a picture of you, even earlier, with one eye closed in a blink. I didn't know what those meant then, but I learned, early in our time together, that winks and blinks are something like kisses, and silent meow, which you and only you have ever given me so far as I can recall, is a great and rare token of love. You and I traded thousands of both in our life together, and I'm so glad I learned to "speak" enough of your language that you knew my love for you was boundless and overflowing, and I could hear it back. Yes, that's the sweetest thing of all.
Bonnie, you're gone now, and that day had to come if I lived long enough. It's a deeply bitter thing to have all that sweetness you filled my life with taken out of it. My life will never really be the same without it... just like it would never have been the same if I hadn't had it in the first place, and for so long. Your life with me pretty much encompassed my entire fully-adult existence, up until now. You were the living symbol of my achievement, and its sweetest dividend. Every time I looked at you, every time, you were a tiny infusion of joy.You'll never know what you truly meant to me... but I guess I'll never know what I truly meant to you, either. But I believe I know how you felt about me, and I guess that's enough. It has to be, for any of us, between cats themselves, and even between humans.
I wanted you to know that, Pumpkin.
Dear Pumpkin Girl...
1998 was not a good year for me. My working life was late to the gate, and its engine sputtered for years. It taxied, and stalled, and taxied, but never took off. That whole year saw me living in the basement, sunk in despair, ready to give up on ever having an independent life. But unbeknownst to me, somewhere out there, you were born.
I'll never know what your first couple of years without me were like. I hope they weren't all bad. Judging from your sweet nature, you must have had some good people in your life, however it was you came to be in that cage. My couple of years before we met were years of slow but steady improvement. My friend Jay got me out of the basement and into a solid job. It wasn't enough to live on, but by the time I left it, it was about to be. What took me out of it was a better job. One that got me out of my parents' house and into a place of my own at last. I got the job in March, and moved out on May 6, 2000. Thirteen years to the day before you died.
And then there was you.
For a long time I thought we met in June, but looking at the papers I got with you thirteen years ago, I see now it was July. July 12. The papers don't tell me much about you. I don't know when you were born. They just say you were two years old. They say you were just 7.9 lbs when I got you, which astonishes me... were you really that slight back then? They say you were fostered in March, and then given to the shelter in April. Somewhere in all that, you got pregnant, and, presumably, had a litter: the folks taking care of you did tell me all your kittens had been placed. I remember you still had your little breasts when I got you. I wish you could have talked. I would have liked to have heard what that was like for you.
I already had a cat, Jenny, whom I'd had since she was a kitten. Where we lived before, there was always company. Me, my parents, a rabbit for a while, a dog, and after him another dog. Jenny didn't have another cat around, but she always had someone to interact with. When I moved out, it was just me. P-Doug remarked to me that a cat needed another cat to be a cat. I understand that... what would it be like to be a human alone in a world of just dogs, or just cats? There'd be companionship, but not that connection to all your own nature and faculties. So, with that in mind, I decided to look for another cat.
I found you where I shopped for Jenny's food, at the Petsmart in Markham. Later, I would also find Max there. I don't remember now just how I settled on you... what brought me to your cage, or how we made that connection. I do know I was partial to torties... I guess that gave you a head start. But whatever it was, I'm glad, so glad, so grateful I took you home. It was easily the best $70 I ever spent. I hope you would have agreed. One thing I remember is that I really didn't fancy the name "Bonnie" back then, but I've never believed in actually changing a pet's name, so it stuck. And you went on to make it one of the very sweetest words to pass my lips. Bonnie. Bonnie.
I remember you tested me at first. You used to wait till you knew I was briefly awake in the middle of the night, and then pee on the bed beside me. I remember I used to leap up in a rage and chase you around, terrifying you. I don't know why I did that now. Immaturity? Power? The desire to shock and awe you into not doing it anymore? I am so very sorry for that. Do you remember the last time I did that? How I finally cornered you, and you were crying to me, begging me to stop, not even fighting back to defend yourself, and I hauled you into the bathroom and ran a cascade of cold water on you in the tub? How I left you flopping, soaked, on the porcelain, and then locked you in the dark there, cold and wet, for the rest of the night? I sure do. I used to wonder what parents meant by "this hurts me more than it hurts you". I sure know now. I've hated myself for that ever since. You slayed a monster that night, Bonnie. It burned out any capacity in me to ever do that again.
There were other times, maybe a half a dozen over the years, where you tested me like that again, but you remember that from then on, I simply told you to get off the bed, and insisted you leave the bedroom. I would not let you in again for a couple of nights. I would pretend, for the next day, not to "see" you. I can remember you playing for my attention. Trying to apologize, maybe, or set things right. You always broke me down so quickly. But for all the power-gaming I did at first, I'm proud that I never gave up on you. When, a few months after I got you, I complained about your antics to my manager, he said to give you back. No, I said... it was my idea for you to come and live with me; I had to stick by that. And I did. Thank heavens I listened to the better angels and not my boss. You trained me, Pumpkin, and tamed me, and taught me. You are the reason that Twinkle, who tested me far more than you ever did, got her chance to make of go of life with me, though tragically short it proved to be.
One time we had it out and I ignored you for a couple of days and finally it just broke my heart, and I remember actually apologizing to you... in English, out loud. And I went out with P-Doug and G to a jewelry market on the Golden Mile and found you an ornament... Jenny had worn turquoise set in silver. I got you a glorious amber half-sphere in silver, and you wore that for the next ten years or more. You were wearing it when you died, and it will grace your urn until I do, and our ashes are mingled. You completely owned my heart, Pumpkin Girl.
I'll never know what you were trying to tell me with the peeing on the bed thing. A specific complaint? Simply testing my limits? Trying to get a rise out of me? Just a strange compulsion even you didn't understand? I'll always wonder if that's what lost you whatever home you had before mine. But in the long run, it didn't matter.
I don't think Jenny was every truly happy you were around. She was 11 when you came to live with us, and hadn't ever had to share digs with another cat. But, you both got along well enough. Like you, she developed a thyroid condition, though we managed hers better and longer. I don't remember now exactly the day she died... it was in August of 2002. I came out of my bedroom to see her lying on the floor of the spare room. She didn't respond to my greeting, and I went over, and realized, with a crushed heart, that she was gone. What I'll never forget was the sight of the fur of her hip, licked the wrong way. She couldn't have done that. That could only have been you. You had been with her at the end. You perfect little angel.
Two months later, we got Max, your friend, grooming companion, and wrestling partner for the next 10 years. Eventually, many years later, we added my roommate Larry for a couple of years, and Twinkle for a little while, but essentially the core of our little family for the next decade was formed.
After Jenny passed away, you took over the role of sleeping by my head, and you kept that vigil for the rest of your life. I'll always be grateful to you for that. Oh, I know you'd drift away after a while, probably because my snoring was intolerable, but if I were falling asleep, or drifting back to consciousness, or waking up, you were usually there, or would suddenly appear, for many years leaping on the bed with that mother cat "brrrrt!" greeting. Do you remember how, for a while, you got into the habit of taking the claw of the middle toe of your right front paw and picking, picking, picking gently at my lips when you knew I wasn't actually asleep? I wish I knew what that was about. Wanting attention? Just a fascination with something different? I didn't like it, but I adored it... if you understand what I mean.
You were, really, the one I was coming home to all those years. It was you who was nearly always at my elbow or beside my head when I was home. It was, more than anything, you I was anxious about when I was away too long. You sort of took over that role from Jenny. For a long time, I assumed that, one day, Max would inherit that role, after you, for at least a couple of years. But he never really got his turn. I don't think he minded. His needs were different.
I have an early picture of you on the couch, on your back, with your mouth open in what I think was a silent meow. I also have a picture of you, even earlier, with one eye closed in a blink. I didn't know what those meant then, but I learned, early in our time together, that winks and blinks are something like kisses, and silent meow, which you and only you have ever given me so far as I can recall, is a great and rare token of love. You and I traded thousands of both in our life together, and I'm so glad I learned to "speak" enough of your language that you knew my love for you was boundless and overflowing, and I could hear it back. Yes, that's the sweetest thing of all.
Bonnie, you're gone now, and that day had to come if I lived long enough. It's a deeply bitter thing to have all that sweetness you filled my life with taken out of it. My life will never really be the same without it... just like it would never have been the same if I hadn't had it in the first place, and for so long. Your life with me pretty much encompassed my entire fully-adult existence, up until now. You were the living symbol of my achievement, and its sweetest dividend. Every time I looked at you, every time, you were a tiny infusion of joy.You'll never know what you truly meant to me... but I guess I'll never know what I truly meant to you, either. But I believe I know how you felt about me, and I guess that's enough. It has to be, for any of us, between cats themselves, and even between humans.
I wanted you to know that, Pumpkin.
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Changes
Probably not surprisingly, Bonnie's passing has shaken a lot of my life loose. For one thing, it implies an end, for the time being, I hope, of major expenditures on feline health. Ally is three, I think, and Seth is four or five, so it ought to be a while yet before I'm back in this position for the same reason.
A couple of other things, tangential to Bonnie's death, happened yesterday. Larry was good enough to answer the call when he got off shift at noon, and was over here just after the vet left with her body. He apologized for not being here for her passing, but I knew that wasn't realistic in any case. It was touching that he arrived so quickly.
I didn't want to sit around where Bonnie had just died, so we went out to the Queen Vic. The beer flowed. He listened while I talked about Bonnie and what had just happened. It must have been strange for him; he'd seen her less than 24 hours earlier and had borne witness to her confusion in trying to drink water. And there we were, so soon after, and I was telling him about how she'd passed. Well, it was strange for me too.
Eventually our conversation turned to his job prospects. He's grown very disenchanted with his workplace, where he's been for 13 years, and is actively seeking a new situation. He has hopes of a place that will pay him far better, out in Mississauga at Mississauga Road and the 407, not far at all from where I used to live. He expressed, in no uncertain terms, the clear points of his disaffection with the place he's working now. All the while it was occurring to me that I want to get out of this condo, and I began thinking. Why not both? If he gets the job, he wants to become a homeowner. But as I can attest, you don't get much for one income in the GTA, and the kind of place I have is not what he has in mind... but it's all he's going to get. So I threw it out there: what about going in on a place together... a place that's really two places? A place with one of those basement apartments with a separate entrance? That would give him what he wants... decent space that's his own, a lawn, a non-condo situation... and meets my needs as well. No more elevators, no more condo fees and rules, and something like the same space. The chance to have a dog again, in a situation where it make sense to have one. Naturally, he said he couldn't commit, since he doesn't even have the job yet. He was fair; said he wouldn't say yes and wouldn't say no... but I do remember he seemed impressed by the idea when I ran it past him.
I'm kind of unhappy with things too. When I started working for the company I'm with now three years ago, we were independent. Then we were scooped up by a huge multinational. They do take care of their people, but I went from working with people I could turn around and talk to, to sitting in a giant complex, surrounded by people I don't know and barely speak to, and everyone I work with in a different city. I just spent the last three weeks or so working out on my enclosed balcony, spending time with Bonnie and keeping an eye on her. And after she died, it hit me... what am I living in North York for? For years, it was because I had to be close to the office I had to drive into. But for two years now, that hasn't been the case. I don't really want to work from home... I'd rather work in a group of people I know and see everyday. But if it's all the same, sitting here or sitting in an office, then why stay here? I sent an email off to my former manager, the one I came into the company with, who works from home. She said that given I'm not working in situ with anyone in the office, she couldn't see how my working from home permanently would be a problem. Which pretty much frees me up to move wherever I want...
I would like to move west. To be in the middle of the array of people I care about instead of at one far edge. To be out of this place with little in it but sad, bitter, lonely memories. To be out of an apartment situation and back on the ground. I think I can manage it on my own but if Larry gets the job and he's persuaded by my suggestion, it could be done with style.
Just after Bonnie died, my friend Dig sent an email about my financial situation to his wife, CCing me. She was a financial adviser at the bank with which I do business, and between them they suggested talking to the bank about assuming my mortgage and rolling my line of credit, loaded down with the cost of trying to keep three innocent little cats alive over a year and a half, into the mortgage. When I pay for Bonnie's euthanasia and her ashes and paw print, it will be back over $13,000. Last October I tried getting serious about it. I cancelled my retirement savings plan contributions and started laying on $500 a pay. It was going well... I was about to cross the $10,000 threshold when Bonnie's health issues raised their head again recently. A thousand dollars a month that could be freed up to pay into retirement, to pay down the mortgage quicker... could it be possible?
I begged off this morning, with my managers' kind indulgence, and spoke to a financial adviser at my bank. She made what was a very good offer. A whole point off the mortgage interest rate, locked in for five years, payment of the legal fees. All I had to do was provide her with a ballpark of the maximum units like mine are selling for (considerably more than I paid two years ago, as it turns out) and find out what the penalty for early discharge of the mortgage was. She figured two or three thousand dollars.
So, I sent an email to my real estate agent from a couple of years ago, asking what's the best a place like mine can fetch, and then called the bank way out west that holds my mortgage. The penalty? $7400. Ouch. But oddly enough, that's just slightly less than I'll save in interest rates over five years anyway.
I got back in touch with the financial adviser and so, working with those figures, it looks like I will be able to get about $161K, applied to a balance of $144.4K, and the $13K on the line of credit... that leave something like $4,000 outstanding in the line of credit. That would mean if I keep my shoulder to the wheel for just four more months, that line of credit that's been preying on my mind since Twinkle died will finally be off my back. Yes, I'll have less equity in this place when I go to sell it, but all that money will be freed up soon to start planning for retirement and even pay more than I have to on the mortgage. So I'm going in to make the application on Thursday.
Meanwhile, my real estate agent phoned me up and we talked for fifteen minutes. He said he'd actually been planning to call me anyway, to keep in touch... a good business move. I mentioned that I was keen to get out of here, and why, and that I'd like to look a little west of here. He's going to call me Monday to set up a time we can meet over coffee and just talk about what it all means, the possibilities and realities of it.
A lot's now going on again, suddenly. It doesn't mean for sure I'll be out of here, or that it'll happen soon... but it does mean the wheels are in motion, and when I remember how quickly things came together when I was out to buy this place, I know it's entirely possible that I could be blogging in a different home this time next year.
A couple of other things, tangential to Bonnie's death, happened yesterday. Larry was good enough to answer the call when he got off shift at noon, and was over here just after the vet left with her body. He apologized for not being here for her passing, but I knew that wasn't realistic in any case. It was touching that he arrived so quickly.
I didn't want to sit around where Bonnie had just died, so we went out to the Queen Vic. The beer flowed. He listened while I talked about Bonnie and what had just happened. It must have been strange for him; he'd seen her less than 24 hours earlier and had borne witness to her confusion in trying to drink water. And there we were, so soon after, and I was telling him about how she'd passed. Well, it was strange for me too.
Eventually our conversation turned to his job prospects. He's grown very disenchanted with his workplace, where he's been for 13 years, and is actively seeking a new situation. He has hopes of a place that will pay him far better, out in Mississauga at Mississauga Road and the 407, not far at all from where I used to live. He expressed, in no uncertain terms, the clear points of his disaffection with the place he's working now. All the while it was occurring to me that I want to get out of this condo, and I began thinking. Why not both? If he gets the job, he wants to become a homeowner. But as I can attest, you don't get much for one income in the GTA, and the kind of place I have is not what he has in mind... but it's all he's going to get. So I threw it out there: what about going in on a place together... a place that's really two places? A place with one of those basement apartments with a separate entrance? That would give him what he wants... decent space that's his own, a lawn, a non-condo situation... and meets my needs as well. No more elevators, no more condo fees and rules, and something like the same space. The chance to have a dog again, in a situation where it make sense to have one. Naturally, he said he couldn't commit, since he doesn't even have the job yet. He was fair; said he wouldn't say yes and wouldn't say no... but I do remember he seemed impressed by the idea when I ran it past him.
I'm kind of unhappy with things too. When I started working for the company I'm with now three years ago, we were independent. Then we were scooped up by a huge multinational. They do take care of their people, but I went from working with people I could turn around and talk to, to sitting in a giant complex, surrounded by people I don't know and barely speak to, and everyone I work with in a different city. I just spent the last three weeks or so working out on my enclosed balcony, spending time with Bonnie and keeping an eye on her. And after she died, it hit me... what am I living in North York for? For years, it was because I had to be close to the office I had to drive into. But for two years now, that hasn't been the case. I don't really want to work from home... I'd rather work in a group of people I know and see everyday. But if it's all the same, sitting here or sitting in an office, then why stay here? I sent an email off to my former manager, the one I came into the company with, who works from home. She said that given I'm not working in situ with anyone in the office, she couldn't see how my working from home permanently would be a problem. Which pretty much frees me up to move wherever I want...
I would like to move west. To be in the middle of the array of people I care about instead of at one far edge. To be out of this place with little in it but sad, bitter, lonely memories. To be out of an apartment situation and back on the ground. I think I can manage it on my own but if Larry gets the job and he's persuaded by my suggestion, it could be done with style.
Just after Bonnie died, my friend Dig sent an email about my financial situation to his wife, CCing me. She was a financial adviser at the bank with which I do business, and between them they suggested talking to the bank about assuming my mortgage and rolling my line of credit, loaded down with the cost of trying to keep three innocent little cats alive over a year and a half, into the mortgage. When I pay for Bonnie's euthanasia and her ashes and paw print, it will be back over $13,000. Last October I tried getting serious about it. I cancelled my retirement savings plan contributions and started laying on $500 a pay. It was going well... I was about to cross the $10,000 threshold when Bonnie's health issues raised their head again recently. A thousand dollars a month that could be freed up to pay into retirement, to pay down the mortgage quicker... could it be possible?
I begged off this morning, with my managers' kind indulgence, and spoke to a financial adviser at my bank. She made what was a very good offer. A whole point off the mortgage interest rate, locked in for five years, payment of the legal fees. All I had to do was provide her with a ballpark of the maximum units like mine are selling for (considerably more than I paid two years ago, as it turns out) and find out what the penalty for early discharge of the mortgage was. She figured two or three thousand dollars.
So, I sent an email to my real estate agent from a couple of years ago, asking what's the best a place like mine can fetch, and then called the bank way out west that holds my mortgage. The penalty? $7400. Ouch. But oddly enough, that's just slightly less than I'll save in interest rates over five years anyway.
I got back in touch with the financial adviser and so, working with those figures, it looks like I will be able to get about $161K, applied to a balance of $144.4K, and the $13K on the line of credit... that leave something like $4,000 outstanding in the line of credit. That would mean if I keep my shoulder to the wheel for just four more months, that line of credit that's been preying on my mind since Twinkle died will finally be off my back. Yes, I'll have less equity in this place when I go to sell it, but all that money will be freed up soon to start planning for retirement and even pay more than I have to on the mortgage. So I'm going in to make the application on Thursday.
Meanwhile, my real estate agent phoned me up and we talked for fifteen minutes. He said he'd actually been planning to call me anyway, to keep in touch... a good business move. I mentioned that I was keen to get out of here, and why, and that I'd like to look a little west of here. He's going to call me Monday to set up a time we can meet over coffee and just talk about what it all means, the possibilities and realities of it.
A lot's now going on again, suddenly. It doesn't mean for sure I'll be out of here, or that it'll happen soon... but it does mean the wheels are in motion, and when I remember how quickly things came together when I was out to buy this place, I know it's entirely possible that I could be blogging in a different home this time next year.
Bonnie... 1998-2013
Bonnie's been through a lot since late October. After Twinkle and then Max, I simply didn't have the heart or the bravery to blog about it while it was going on. But now that it's over, I feel like I should speak about it, if only so that years from now, I will be able to remember it. The sorrows and joys, the ups and downs.
Max died last August. After that, it was just me, Bonnie, and Ally for a while. As an aside... I don't think I've mentioned I acquired a third cat again, a large, friendly male named Seth, at the beginning of February. Anyway, once Max was gone, I was intensely aware that my time with Bonnie was probably short, too. A couple more years at most, I figured. One morning in October she hopped up beside me onto the basin in the bathroom. That was a bit unusual. She used to do that a lot when she was young, but it got to more of a Max thing and she kind of gave it up after that. When she did, I happened to notice a strange growth on her anus. Petting her a little later, I also noticed one of her nipples was extremely elongated. That didn't alarm me as much; she was 14, getting older, and I put it down to hormones.
Anyway, I took her in, she stayed overnight to have the growth removed, it was quickly biopsied and deemed benign. Almost in passing I mentioned her nipple. The doctor paused, admitted he'd missed that, and offered to see her again, free of charge. He figured it was just a blocked milk duct, but recommended its removal and biopsy. But the little thing that didn't trouble me turned out to be a sarcoma. But it was very small, and he had cut wide, and had every hope he'd gotten it all. Still, I had the feeling I'd be saying good-bye to her very soon. But as it turned out, no. Not then.
I remember bringing her back in to get the stitches removed... Bonnie lying on her back, her paws trembling with nervousness, but not fighting, not fussing. I adored her at that moment. Somehow, she trusted us.
There was a follow-up in December. I can't quite remember what it was for. But it kind of put the cap on things for a while. My time with Bonnie opened up again. Perhaps she really did still have years. The one sour note: she'd lost weight. She'd long been a cat of 13, 14 pounds. In October, she was 12 and change. By December, she was a bit over 10.
In retrospect I wish we'd paid more attention to it then, but she'd been through so much, and, frankly, my cat care debt was accumulating, and I was looking for a break and a chance to recover my finances some. Also, in the back of my mind, always, was the possibility her cancer would come back.
But time went by, and things were normal. After that brush with losing her, it was very sweet. But by February I could tell she was losing weight. I sighed and told myself, well, she went through a lot in the fall. She's getting older. She's slowing down. This is what happens.
It was in late March, when she finally stopped being interested in the cat treats she's loved since Twinkle died, that I started getting concerned. I remembered Jenny and her thyroid condition. That had to be it, I told myself, and I booked an appointment and took her in. Yes, they confirmed. She has a thyroid condition and her liver numbers are very high (but so were Jenny's when she was diagnosed, so I wasn't too worried). But they also felt another growth in her mammary chain. She was down to 7.2 pounds. They didn't want to operate till they had her numbers under control.
We started her on tapazole, same medication Jenny took. Bonnie was fiendishly hard to pill, so I did some research and found out there's transdermal gel you can simply smooth inside a cat's ear that delivers the medication simply over the next half hour. I was kind of sore at the vet that they hadn't offered that as an option in the first place. I got it, and it made dosing her much easier.
After a couple of weeks I took her in for a follow-up. The thyroid had responded almost too well; the numbers were now on the low side. The liver numbers were worse, though, but they speculated that might have been a slow reaction to the thyroid stabilizing. They x-rayed Bonnie and couldn't see any indication of spread of the tumor, which was welcome news. But now she was just 6 pounds. My heart sank.
I got an appetite stimulant for her, and while I saw some bursts of interest in food in her, it was the same sad story as with Twinkle and Max; a heartbreaking disinterest in food for the most part.
Thursday about three weeks ago she was scheduled for an ultrasound. I kind of gave up on her that day. I was expecting they'd tell me her liver was shot through with cancer. I contacted vets who would come by and euthanize a pet at home... I wish I'd known about that option for Max... and settled on one. I was expecting to have her come by the following Monday.
But the ultrasound actually showed organs in good shape. There was an indication that her kidneys would eventually begin to fail, but it wasn't an issue at the moment. On the basis of that, they decided to go ahead with the cancer surgery. I can hardly express how happy I felt that day. The money didn't matter. The cancer was going to be dealt with, and we had a handle on the thyroid. Getting her eating again, I felt, was now the issue. So, instead of losing Bonnie that Monday, she went in for surgery to prolong her life.
She came home with a drain in her side, and they took that out three days later. They gave me the biopsy results. They'd gotten the cancer, cut wide, and didn't find it at the margins. But they did find micronodules further up the chain, and the suggestion was if it had spread a few inches that way, there was no way to be sure it hadn't spread beyond the incision in other directions. If it recurred, they recommended against further surgery as essentially pointless. I took that to mean that, really, I probably had til the summer or fall at best. She was scheduled to have her stitches taken out, right around now today.
Bonnie started moving around more, and visiting me in bed again, and getting up on things with the help of shorter things to jump on first. I thought this would be the new normal. But she was so small. I could feel every bone in her legs. If she weighed more than 5 pounds, I'd be surprised. But I kept hoping.
She took to spending her time at night in the little nook on the other side of the chairs I've set up for cats beside mine in the living room. But when I was there, or she anticipated I would be, she climbed up into the red cat bed at my elbow. I'll never forget that. Wherever I was, Bonnie was there. Unless, I think, I was snoring. But otherwise, always. Always. Anyway, I made things comfortable for her there. Put down one of the cat beds, put food there, water, moved a litter box into the living room.
I was getting prepared for the trip in this week, to have her stitches out. But this weekend I, and Larry when he dropped by, noticed that Bonnie would go to the water bowl, sniff at it, stare at it, but not drink. It was like she couldn't remember how. Sunday night was was interested in the toilet. I brought water to the bathroom. Same thing. Want to drink; can't seem to figure out how. I'd seen her do something like that with food before. She was restless Sunday night, spent time lying in the bathroom.
I didn't sleep much, and around 2 in the morning, I came to realization that this was it.
Right about now yesterday morning, I called the home vet and made arrangements for noon.
I spent most of the morning being kindly indulged by a couple of longtime friends via texting. The vet arrived just before noon. She met Bonnie, explained the process to me, discussed options for her ashes, paw prints, urns. About quarter after twelve, she gave Bonnie a sedative, and she pretty much drifted off to sleep. About five minutes later, she gave Bonnie the lethal injection. She said Bonnie had almost no muscle left. It was hard to find a place to inject. When Max was euthanized, he died before they finished the injection. But Bonnie's circulation was so poor that her heart, her little lion heart, carried on for another five minutes or so. Finally she told me, "She's gone." I was petting Bonnie all the while.
I knew I couldn't stand to see her picked up like a rag doll, so I stepped into the dining room while she transferred Bonnie to the little basket and covered all but her head with a little paw print blanket. She also took off Bonnie's collar for me... I told her I didn't want to be the one to do that, take it away from her... and gave it to me. We spoke for a bit. At quarter to one, she left with Bonnie. She'll be back in a week or two with the ashes and the paw print. I have the fur shaved from her tail... the tail tip she used to pat and caress my arms with at night. That was the fur I wanted to keep.
I didn't come apart during any of this. I'm honestly trying not to. People will say I should go with it, but no... no, that would make it all too awful. I did the right thing. There was nothing left of Bonnie; we'd really wrung everything out of her life we could short of the causing her to suffer just so I wouldn't have to face a tough call. But I made it, and to the best of my knowledge, she never suffered. And I want to focus on that. I want to be calm now. I've spent so much of the last two years in angst over these tiny, speechless feline people that I love that I really feel like I deserve not to feel awful, and I won't summon it. I gave Bonnie loads and loads of love, and got the same back from her. Going to pieces might be a fine tribute but it can't help her now, and I don't feel like it would help me. I want calm. I want acceptance. I want the gentle ripples of her love as her wake, not torment. I hope I can achieve it.
In a way, I've been mourning Bonnie for a long time. I can remember when I became intensely aware of it... it was one evening when I was watching a DVD of Freaky Friday, and the quirky menu music was playing, and I was petting Bonnie beside me and she was purring up a storm. It was perfect. But my mind said, "she's ten; you probably won't have this in two or three more years". It was a very bittersweet moment, so I videoed it. As it turned out, I had her companionship for another four and a half years; four without much worry. I wish I could have known that then. But really, have a look. Isn't this glorious? Isn't this what it's all about?
I'll probably blog about the things I remember about Bonnie in the next little while, as I did with Twinkle and Max. But for now, it was enough to remember what she and I went through the last little while.
I hate this place. This suite I bought. It was going to be the place I'd live, work, and retire in, but now I abhor it. I hate coming home here because it's been nothing but a charnel house for the cats woven into my heart. Almost from the time I moved in, every 9 or 10 months, one after another. The three cats I moved in with not quite two years ago, all gone. In their place, two relative strangers, Ally and Seth. I want out of here. I've started thinking seriously now about leaving North York and heading a bit further west, closer to my parents. I don't see enough of them, and quite clearly, time waits for no one. And this isn't a home... it has never become my home. It's just the place my stuff is. I want to change that.
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