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

[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.