this is Hetty, two Sundays ago

[elderwitty]

Today I buried her in the backyard, under the apple tree and honeysuckle.  She was 16 years old and caught a cat cold last week, so it wasn't terribly surprising when she laid down in the neighbor's yard and died.  Doesn't make me any happier about it, though. 

She was the last of my four cats.  Why four?  I had a string of cats who didn't live past three (hit by car, ran away, cancer), so when Little Face was 2.5, I got Youdere as a backup.  When she was 5 and he was 2.5, I figured they were both due to keel over soon, and got Emma.  Hetty followed the next year.  I went from no cat surviving three years to four cats over 13.   Now I'm back to none, for the first time in 20 years.

Comments

[jarlsberg71.livejournal.com]

Hug. I'm so sorry. I hate it when one of my fish die, and they're supposed to live 200+ years! And if anything ever happened to my puppy, they'd need to feed me xanax from a pez dispenser.

[elderwitty]

Thanks. Like I say, it wasn't unexpected but it still sucks. Although it is better than the alternative I had before these four, that is 'wham! cat's gone, try again.'

[jaekayelle.livejournal.com]

Hey there. Thought I stop by and check out the place, and then I saw this post.

I'm so so sorry about your kitty! It's really tough losing a pet. When my Scotty left me a little over three years ago it just about killed me. He was 17 and a half. Before that, like you, I'd never had a cat that made it past 3 or 4. We raise them like kids, they reach their teenage years but are actually way older than we are. It sucks.

Hetty was a beautiful girl.

[elderwitty]

Thanks for the condolences. Even though I knew it had to be coming, it was still kind of unexpected. It's amazing how the brain can deny when it needs to, ya know?

Is that your Scotty in the icon? He looks like he's ready for the dance in his tux. Very stylish.

[jaekayelle.livejournal.com]

I do know about how denial protects us from the worry. Kind of a survival mechanism.

That's my boy. He was more cow kitty than tuxedo, although I guess they're one and the same. He was a great cat. That's his sister, Sasha, in the icon. She left us a year and a week after Scotty. I really hated December for a while there.

getanothercatgetanothercatgetanothercat

[elderwitty]

COW KITTY!!!! That cracks me up! We had a cat named Cow. Our boy kitty, Butch, responsible young man that he was, brought his girl home after he impregnated her. She was a tiny little thing who looked like a cow when she was pregnant. And she was always pregnant, so Cow. (I was in high school and not in charge of the fixing of cats. All mine have been fixed.)

Sasha is adorable. She looks like she is very affectionate, but still able to get into mischief the moment your back is turned. And then get out of trouble with her rampant cuteness.

Here's the thing on the 'another cat' front. Our neighborhood association will give you a live trap and pay to have the strays caught and neutered. So I caught MamaLola and her two youngins, Honey (thought he was a girl) and Buddy. They got spayed and returned. This way, the rodents are kept down and so is the birth rate. You're not allowed to have the cats for your own, though. I feed them, and trapped brought them inside for the winter, but they aren't mine. That's not just a technicality - there's no way I could get any of them to the vet - and if they're mine, I'm in charge of their healthcare, too.

So I'm torn on the new cat. I would love a new cat, but worry about how they would treat it when it went outside, as Honey can be a bully (he's a teenage boy, after all). I'm mulling it over.

[jaekayelle.livejournal.com]

Your Butch and Cow sound like Tut and Prance. She was always with child, too, but wild around everyone but me so short of hogtieing her there was no getting her to the vet to be spayed. Also small and round. *g*

Sasha was a good kid. Liked to headbutt my chin. She was my stoner cat. Since the day I got her right til the day I had to have her put to sleep she would fold her arms and just slowly nod her head and look around the room like she was really mel-low. Even the vet thought Sasha had found some good drugs. ;-)

Keep the new kitty inside. It's healthier and safer... :-)

[elderwitty]

Short and round, yet Prance? Talent, indeed.

Sasha sounds like a doll. Sashastoner. Maybe she was the next incarnation of the Buddha? Sashammāsambuddha. I could work with that.

My kitties were outside in Florida, then seasonally inside here in Missouri. They were used to always being outside, and I didn't have the heart to refuse them. I know inside is healthier, and I have considered it for a new one. Still thinking about it.

I'll tell you this, though - the next one is going to be potty trained. I had one of three trained to do it, but gave up because the other two were never going to get it. What the hell was I thinking? That was a 33% reduction, but since I couldn't get 100%, I just threw it out the window! Dork. I was in my late 20's, though, so my brain wasn't totally functional yet (is my excuse).

Your icon? Class. Pure class.

[jaekayelle.livejournal.com]

Prance was a little mackerel tabby who constantly did the kneading thing, making biscuits some people call it. She could be on a carpet or linoleum or a sidewalk, and she'd still knead. It looked like prancing. Creative cat naming 101. ;-p

Sasha was very blonde. No offense if you're blonde. I mean the stereotypical airhead. She was a good girl but not the sharpest carrot in the tree. Even the vets called her blonde and, yeah, they have light coloured hair. *g* She fought me with all her claws whenever I tried to give her meds. She wouldn't even accept a treat if I offered it to her, yet she was very sweet. She could have taken lessons in enlightenment from Buddha.

I lost Tut and Geordi to cars, and Chico got into some Warfarin in a grain elevator. After that I finally smartened up and kept the kids inside.

That's my three-legged girl cat George in the icon. She liked to pose for Playboy last year. I convinced her to be a tomboy instead. Now she's just a goofy little cat who is trying to figure out how to get up on the light fixture on the ceiling.

[elderwitty]

I have no leg to stand on on the name front. I had a cat named Kitty, for god's sake. Also Hetty, Emma, Grace (both names from Dead Again), Little Face, Youdere, and Butch...although Mom named Butch (I came up with Cow). I wait to name them until their personality suggests the perfect thing, and by the time I'd thought of hers, she would only answer to Kitty. Youdere was sort of the same. When he'd get into something he shouldn't (often), I'd give him the, "Hey! Hey, you there! Knock that off!" It got slurred into Youdere when I realized I was going to be saying it a lot.

Not blonde. Not offended, either. :grin: None of my were all that bad about meds. They'd offer token resistance, I'd overpower them so they could claim they'd tried, it all worked out.

I lost Butch to a car...in a suburb - the four I had when I lived on the Country Rd (speed limit 55, actual speed 70+) were all fine. Isabeau and Youdere disappeared...though I firmly believe he peddled his 'adorable and starving' shtick to some workers down the alley and got taken home - couldn't keep a collar on that damn cat (he kept breaking the breakaway ones, and the regular kind obviously wasn't safe), but other than that, all my losses were from sickness. Except ChinaMan (really slanty eyes. I know it was wrong, okay?), who I had to give away after eight months, as Suite E hated him with a passion. Had I known she was going to die four months later I would have just stuck it out. So, I know you're right, and inside is better. It's part of the equation that I'm still thinking about.

Are there bugs in the light fixture? That's why I would want in it, if I were a cat.

I need to take digital photos of my analog cat photos, so I CAN HAZ ICONZ PLZ.

[esteefee]

Oh, I'm so sorry, elderwitty, that's so hard.

What a sweet face she had.

Farewell to a good kitty.

[elderwitty]

Thanks.

She was sweet. Even while she was gnawing on my thumb knuckle, she was very sweet. Though, to be fair, she only did that when I was holding her upside down and trimming her claws.

She was the 'no-problem' child of the four. The one who risks not getting enough attention, because she didn't make a fuss like the others. The middle child analogue, even though she was the youngest.

Thanks again.