Two weeks later, I'm still sick. You'd think I might consider seeing a doctor, huh?
While Tammy gets all of the Oregon weblogging community mad at her today, I thought I'd write about something less controversial: dead cats.
On Monday night, as we were preparing to leave for another fine dinner at the Gingeriches', Kris noticed a cat in the road.
"There's a cat in the road," she said. (As a forensic scientist, she's a trained observer. (
"There's a cat in the road," said Kris. "I think it's been hit."
My first thoughts were panicky; we had just shut all three of our cats in the house, right? A closer look revealed Fiona, one of the neighbor cats, sitting on the very edge of the sidewalk, peering at another cat that was lying at the side of the street. The other cat was, of course, not moving.
Kris ran into the house to get a trash bag while I pulled the cat out of the street. Its head twitched when I touched it, but it wasn't alive; the movement was only a reflex. When I laid it on the lawn, its paws twitched. I refrained from looking at its head. I can handle dead animals, but not if I have to look at their faces. When I look at their faces, I break down.
We took the cat-in-a-trash-bag over to the neighbors' house. The have several cats, and we were afraid this might be one of theirs. "Are you missing one of your cats?" we asked.
Cheryl, the mother, made her children go inside and shut the door. We opened the bag so she could see the victim. She gasped. "Oh no — is that Newman?" she said. "Is there any white on it?" She was near tears.
"No, it's not Fiona," I said. We call their cats different names than they do. Her Newman is our Fiona. Her Tom is our Spurge. (This habit started when we first moved into the house. There were so many cats visiting our yard that we commented they were "like weeds". We gave the cats names of common weeds: Spurge, Oxalis, etc. It was years before we learned the cats' real names.)
Cheryl was relieved that the dead cat was not Newman/Fiona. She decided that yes, she had seen that particular animal around recently, but that she didn't know who owned it. We don't know who owned it, either. Apparently Fiona knew it, though. She had been conducting a private vigil by the side of the road.
In the morning, I brought it to the cat cemetery here at Custom Box Service and gave it an honorary burial.
Kris and I are always worried about the possibility of our cats getting hit by a car. (It's happened once before, remember.) We don't worry about Toto — she never goes in the front yard — but Simon's a bit shifty, and Nemo's far too flighty. We worry about Nemo most. He's just earning his outside privileges, and he's not exactly sure of the rules.
One evening last week, he disappeared for several hours when a sudden rainstorm came on. I walked around the house with a flashlight, peering in the bushes, calling for him: "Neeee-mo! Neeee-mo!". I looked in the street repeatedly, afraid of what I might find. Eventually, I found him sitting among the pea sprouts, his fur soaked through. On Saturday, he spent an hour hiding under the house, scared of all the noises (lawnmowers, cars, kids playing basketball, etc.). I think the noise of the street will keep him from it unless, like Satchel, he gets carried away and chases another cat into oncoming traffic.
Still, somehow it was easier to have Satchel die suddenly than to spend months watching Tintin as he wasted away.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2005 — Focus It's strange how sometimes the loss of something makes you realize just how much you value it.
2003 — Monday I'm having one of those days in which every thing I do is wrong: I'm breaking things, I'm losing things, I'm forgetting things.
Decided to come over here and rest a spell. It's much quieter here. Poor kitty.