December 18, 1998
Dear Everyone:
Herein lies A Tale of Two Kitties.
“Jeannie” has two cats.
One is small and female and named “Monroe”.
She showed up on the back deck one day about 14 years ago.
She adopted “Jeannie” on the spot, particularly after that can of
tuna fish.
The second cat is a large, white, long-haired male
that showed up about four years ago.
He adopted “Jeannie” when he discovered that she always provided
cat food and he could come and go as he pleased through the bedroom
window. This cat is named
“Big White Kitty”, although he generally answers to…the sound of dry cat
food being poured from a box into a paper plate.
Some months ago, Monroe was feeling poorly and
“Jeannie” took her to the
vet.
The kitty doctor said Monroe had a tumor and would need surgery.
But first, they would have to spend many dollars on terribly
expensive pills which “Jeannie” would shove down the cat’s throat and
which the cat would later spit out somewhere.
In the meantime, “Jeannie” found out about a kitty
oncologist who
offered to provide the cat with kitty
chemotherapy in
place of surgery. This
would, of course, cost hundreds of dollars and take up to two weeks to
accomplish. So, last month,
“Jeannie” drove down to
Pacifica,
during the worst rain storm
of the season, with a very unhappy cat in the seat next to her and
delivered Monroe to the kitty oncology clinic.
Ten days later, they returned the cat with the
tumor “dissolved” and the cat with a severely depressed
immune system.
And a cold.
Did you know that cats can catch colds?
This one did. And a
cat with a cold is worse than a two-year-old with a cold.
At least with a two-year-old, you can hold a
Kleenex to her nose
and say, “blow!” You can’t
do that with a cat. You also
can’t give the cat children’s
Tylenol.
You have to try and give it pills (see above).
To add insult to injury, Monroe gave her cold to
Big White Kitty. So now,
“Jeannie” had two cats with colds.
And Monroe’s cold was so bad that her throat swelled up to where
she couldn’t take in food; so “Jeannie” had to take her back to the
original vet to be fed through a tube.
(You can bet kitty didn’t like that one bit, either.)
This brings us to last Saturday.
We had decided that, since the weather was being so cooperative,
it would be a good idea to get a
Christmas tree
that weekend. So we went out
to Martinez
and, in the spirit of peace and good will, hunted down and slaughtered a
tree. We had to do this
fairly early in the morning so that “Jeannie” could go back to the vet
before they closed at noon.
The big question was whether or not Monroe would be
well enough to come home.
And, if so, what to do about Big White Kitty (BWK) who was in the
process of coming down with Monroe’s cold.
So we stuffed the tree into the trunk of my car and
went back to “Jeannie”’s place.
There, we stuffed BWK into a carrier and took both cars to the
vet. No less than three
people came up to tell us that Monroe was eating on her own for the
first time that morning.
This meant that she could go home.
It also meant that BWK was coming to stay with me
for “a few days” in order to let Monroe recover more quickly.
“Jeannie” took Monroe home and I took BWK to my place.
Thus, I am cat-sitting for the rest of the week.
Once we got to my place, I went to get the cat litter and litter
box (left over from the last cat-sitting episode) from the cupboard
under the sink in the downstairs bathroom (an ideal place to set up a
litter box).
And that’s when the water came pouring out of the
cupboard and that’s another story altogether.
(Note: Don’t use the
bathroom sink until the plumber arrives next week.)
Meanwhile, the tree is still sitting in the trunk
of my car.
Does this, or does this not, sound like your
typical Christmas Crisis in progress?
Both cats were sick as a dog for the first couple of days, but
they’re getting better now.
BWK is even starting to make noises like he’d like to go exploring
outside for a while (fat chance, kitty).
And we did manage to get the tree set up before it
dried out completely. It
even has a few presents under it, although most of them read, “Happy
Birthday, 'Jeannie'” instead of “Merry Christmas from
Santa Claus”.
One crisis at a time.
This is the last Letter for this year.
I’ll be off work for the next two weeks (hallelujah).
Mother is flying down next Tuesday to stay for a week.
“Marshall” will stay with “Jeannie” and we’re all going to
Monterey
and
Carmel the weekend after Christmas.
Everyone have a Merry Christmas and a safe and
Happy New Year! (Less than
380 days left until
Y2K.)
Love, as always,
Pete
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