Let's Review

In the interest of chronicling my life so I may one day look back on it and chuckle... let's go back over the last 3 months or so.

My puppy dog has massive epileptic seizure he never comes out of and I must put him down.

A few months go by and all is okay... UNTIL... a few weeks ago when my boss tells me the business is closing.

OCH

After 12 years I am suddenly unemployed. While I am very upset this happened, there is a whole other part of me that is actually happy because I have been thinking of moving for the last year or so and now I realize I can. I have enough experience under my belt that I'm not concerned about finding another job and as proof, I've already been contacted by another company and I'm not even finished up here yet. So while I'm certainly sad to see a business fold that's lasted 20 years, and I'll miss my boss cause he was the best boss EVER... I am equally as excited to get out of this boring ass town and back to the city.

So we had the job thing... then... last Saturday we wake up to find my daughter's fish died. I feel badly for her. She cries, I console, we bury it, then she asks for a puppy.

But the worst of all... the absolute worst... one of my cats... mah baby... my soul mate in kat form... the ying to my human yang... is not looking so good. Granted my baby is 15 yrs old and has had a plethora of health problems over the years, to the point I've often reminded her when she's given me attitude that she better take that somewhere else for the amount of money I've spent on vet bills over the years. I had noticed she had started limping and was spending alot of time sleeping, so I kept a close eye on her and after a few days when she didn't appear to shake it off, I called the vet and off we went.

They kept her for 3 days and did what they could, but it wasn't enough. She wouldn't eat. All her muscles had deteriorated, she was anemic, she had ulcers in her mouth. When I went in this past Wed to see her and the vet took her to me I broke down as I hugged her. It was pretty obvious she had one foot in the grave. She looked so horrible. The pain was written all over her face and yet, when I hugged her and kissed her, she purred and meowed, obviously happy to see her momma. She leaned into me and tried to kiss me, but her mouth hurt so bad she couldn't stick her tongue out so she just touched her nose to my forehead to let me know she tried.

*heavy sigh*

The vet advised me they could treat her, but it would be merely maintainting her as she was, which there was no way I could make her go through that. He said I would never get her back to the way she was.

So with alot of tears and a heavy heart I did what I had to do for my baby. I stayed with her and hugged her and kissed her and gently, peacefully, released her from her pain. It was actually alot less traumatic than I thought it would be, and he didn't rush me out, letting me continue patting her and hugging her until I was ready to let her go.

There will never be another cat like Oochie. Yes, that's right... 'Oochie'... like hoochie, without the 'H'. It was a slang term I heard a looonnngg time ago when I first got her as a baby kitten only 2 or 3 months old. I said Hmmmm... Oochie... how do you like that name? And she looked at me, meowed and went back to what she was doing, so Oochie it was. Whenever someone would ask I would tell them it was old Native word meaning 'BitchCat'.

She was so close to human it was frightening. She had perfected the art of the dirty look to the point my sister was afraid of her. I had a bond with her like I've never had with any other animal. I'd talk to her and she'd answer with a combination of chirps and purrs and meows, or sighs if she found me particularly irritating that day. My father called her 'Itchy Bitchy' and the vet asked me one time why I even kept such a cranky cat to which I informed him 'Because I love her! She's mah baby!' Oochie never liked him. She saved her best dirty looks for him. He eventually warmed up to her but they definitely had a mutual hate for each other in the beginning.

But she loved her mama and always let me know. She'd sleep around the top of my head and purr me to sleep, and if I turned my head to face the other way she'd get up and turn around so she was near my face, not the back of my head. I drove her crazy one night turning back and forth just to see if she'd keep changing position. She did every time.

She drove across Canada with me when we moved to BC, and flew back home with me when it was time to return. You could open the car door and ask her if she wanted to go for a drive and she'd hop into the passenger seat, sit there primly and look at me like she was asking where we're off to now.

I'll never forget when we brought Cayman the puppy home. She looked at me as of to say 'What the HELL are you doing?!' Then she looked at him with obvious disgust, shot me another dirty look, sighed, then huffed and walked away like 'That's it man. I am outta here.'

When the movie Stuart Little came out everyone who saw it said Snowball reminded them of Oochie. I had taken to calling her Queen Oochifur over the years for her diva-like attitude.

So please, Karma Gods, I don't know if this is part of the Grand Plan and if I'll see the purpose for all this hopefully sooner rather than later, but NO MORE GOD DAMMIT!!! You crossed the line when you took my cat! I LOVED that cat! Okay granted she was 15 years old but STILL!!! I'm sure she would have lived forever if you hadn't intervened.

I miss mah baby. Alot. When everything felt like shit in a cesspool she was the one bright spot I could always count on. Unconditional love. There's nothing like a little lick on the end of the nose from your favourite furry friend when everything's falling down around you.

I'll see you again Miss Ooch and try not to kick the shit out of Cayman too bad while you wait for us. I'm sure there's rules about these things, even on the Other Side.

np: "Light Years" Pearl Jam