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.

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.

Comfy Bonnie

Comfy Bonnie, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

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.

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"...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Purring to Freaky Friday music a video by Lone Primate on Flickr.

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.

McKinnon Road bridge redux

In anticipation of spring I've been looking back at old spring opening wanders and one that I came across that stood out was the hike along McKinnon Road alongside the Nottawasaga River in May four years ago. The intent of that hike was to see the old abandoned bridge at one of the north bends there, and it turned out to be a stunning silver truss bridge in extremely good condition, despite being over 80 years old.

Some time ago, I was made aware of McMaster University's set of 1954-1955 aerial plates of southern Ontario online. They're a real gold mine of information from 60 years ago. Last week, it finally occurred to me to have a look at the site of the bridge in question to see just what it was on the other side it provided access to.

I still don't know.

Here's the view from circa 1954. You can click on it to enlarge it.

The bridge is the little white line in the middle of the long diagonal black line that, I think, designated a municipal boundary. The squiggly black line is the river. P-Doug and I came up the closed road on the left side of the river in this view.

I still can't see what they built this bridge for. There's nothing on the far side. There's no road that connects to anything north, no buildings to speak of... nothing. All I can think of is that they built it in anticipation of something and nothing happened, and eventually the road and bridge dropped off the road grid.

But the really interesting thing is that on the near side of the bridge, huddled into the elbow of land on its northeast corner, is some kind of impressive set of buildings. I don't know what they were but I can tell you there was nothing to indicate they'd ever been there by the time we were there in 2009. In fact, at this point, that site is nearly completely forested over.

 
Here's a view of the site from the bridge.

There doesn't seem to have been any reason to build the bridge but to open up the east side to development that, apparently, never came. But now I'm kind of keyed up to go back there and check out that site on the near side of the bridge.

But I don't think I want to go to the far north end down Richardson Road again. I think I'm happy enough to leave that to the mosquitoes and the razor grass. :)

Bird sniper

Today I was out with a friend I haven't seen in a while. She's on the verge of becoming a professional photographer. She's come a long way in the last three years. Recently she acquired a used Canon 7D and was given... GIVEN... a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens. Retail, the pair would set you back $3600 before taxes, with 2/3 of that being the price of the lens. Today she wanted to wander out to the Scarborough Bluffs to try them out.

She also brought with her her Canon T1i, sort of the great-grandchild of the eight-year-old Canon XT I still have, along with a much less expensive 70-300 lens. She graciously allowed me to borrow and use the T1i which she tried to work out the 7D, and when we returned to her place, she downloaded my shots to one of my thumb drives. I took three hundred-some-odd shots over about 15 minutes, and of the bunch, about two dozen or so struck me as keepers.

It's been a long time since I've really done anything with my own DSLR. It's no hell these days; 8 megapixel, three generations back in sensor processor technology, and I don't think any of my lenses is worth more than about $500 new. Nevertheless I got that old thrill out of piloting the T1i today, and even discovered a new technique: keep your left eye open to follow the birds while you're sighting the lens at 300mm with the right. That's where most of the decent shots came in. I have a 300mm lens of my own. I should really make more use of my Rebel XT this spring and summer.

Here are my shots from today. All but one of them are cropped for better effect, but otherwise, they're pretty much all the way they came out of the camera.