Yes, it’s been a mixed bag around the ol’ Flamingo Pond over the last several days. Oh, Highest of Highs: Last night the perfect television evening of America’s Next Top Model and the premier of Project Runway! Could it get more perfect thant that?
Tomorrow (Friday) is the office Thanksgiving Feast – a potluck for around 60 people – involving 2 turkeys, some turkey legs stewed in some sort of Jamaican concoction, a Jamaican rum punch, jerk chicken and pork (do you sense a trend around here?), and myriad sides and desserts. I have become the de facto in-office Thanksgiving Queen over the years, and I have to admit that it’s a lot of fun getting to push around lawyers, administrators, and what-not… at least the once a year.
And yet, I’m pretty bummed out right now. Our kitty, Toto, appears to be fading and failing fast. I’m afraid that it may be all over on Saturday morning, when we see the vet. Toto is significant, not just for her age – she would be 20 years old in the Spring – but for being the kitty that MJ and I brought home together on our second date.
I remember we had plans for dinner (at New York, New York Deli) and a movie (A Fish Called Wanda). Also in the same strip mall was a pet shop. I said something like “Oh, let’s go inside for a few minutes and look around.” In the back of the store were some cages, and one of them contained four little kittens. The shop clerk told us that a good customer had some kittens and asked them to give them away to good homes. I looked at MJ and asked, “Should I?” and he replied something to the effect of “Sure, why not?” Many years later, MJ confided that, what he was really thinking was “Are you crazy? You already have three cats in a two bedroom, third floor condo the size of a matchbox, and you want to get a fourth one?”
So, we picked up the smallest, meekest little fluff ball – the one huddled all by herself in the back of the cage and took her back to my apartment…. where she turned into the Tasmanian Devil. She bounced off of every wall in the place, attacked me, and terrorized the other cats. At night, when we were trying to sleep, she sat outside the door crying. It was the first time in my life that I actually toyed with taking a kitten I adopted back to where she came from. But I didn’t. And she fell in love with MJ and followed him around like a puppy. I told MJ that if he ever left me, he’d have to take Toto with him, since she rarely, if ever, wanted anything at all to do with me.
In the last 7 or 8 years or so, Toto mellowed. She became a lap cat, addicted to affection – from me of all people. Affection-Demando-Kitty. Even today, remembering how she was for the first dozen or so years of her life, I’m still amazed to look down and find this former berzerker curled up and purring in my lap.
She went stone-deaf about a year ago. Now, she’s wandering around the house talking to herself. Or should I say wobbling around the house. In the last few days, she’s taken to splashing in her water dish, I think to figure out the level, and in the process dropping bits of dry cat food in there, changing the water color to something like, oh, I dunno, sludge. Which does not make JJ happy in the least. Toto’s doing what all very old cats do – she’s shrinking. Almost before my very eyes. She’s shrinking and wobbling and perpetually sopping wet. I fear the end is near.
Thank you for letting me do that. I have to compartmentalize right now, so I can get back to work and be pleasant to clients and actually get some work done. ->Sigh<-
