What a week. Alot of late nights and early weekends. But I got a lot accomplished. I do make things happen. I make a lot happen. I truely love my window seat.

But nevertheless I got a lot done for the company. For me. I got nothing done. Well no. I joined 24 hour fitness. Now I just need to attend. I am waiting for Isadora to see our bank statement. She is going to be so pissed. Pissed off that I spent $30 on my health. Screw her. I can't be afraid of her. This is my life. I am trying to live. At 260 lbs, we are in emergency mode. I am on medication that leads to zero ejaculation.

I choose life.

Her idea is that I work out at the Y early in the morning or late late at night. Fuck that. I am going to work out at lunch to blow off steam and that is when I am awake to work out.

Man I am so excited!!!

I bought her a James Avery sleeping cat charm. I have it engraved with Princess. I never gave her anything to remember Princess. I have nothing to remember my pets...but I had so many. I guess the ones that meant the most to me were Cassie and Patsy and Princess. Cassie I grew up with...and Patsy was the first pet I got on my own....Princess was Isadora's but I loved her. She was sweet and wonderful. She loved her rituals with me. I miss them all. Now we have a cat hotel. Sammy, Pixie and her son Loudy go in and out all day long. Scout comes in for his weekly for an intense petting session. Jezebel stares at us in the living room through the solarium door window and then runs away when we open the door to feed them. Spanky only comes out to spend time with Isadora composting.

Flees, cycling, broken DVD player, Pitching

My family got me an exercise bike. Pretty cool. I cycled last night while watching Dan in Real Life and reading the Economist. We have flees downstairs. Isadora broke the DVD player. Isadora got rid of the flees in the bedroom with flee powder....and then this morning she brought flee infested blankets from Darryl's bedroom to our bed. Darryl and I are dying. I told her....GET PEST CONTROL!!

I think they are coming from Butterscotch...who is passing them onto Spanky, Jezee, Scout, Pixy and Sam. Butterscotch is looking raggedy these days. I told Isadora that we need to put him down. Otherwise all the other cats are going to get sick.

Darryl and I played T-Ball last night. We threw back and forth across the street. It was fun. He can really throw well.

Good bye to Princess

We put Princess to sleep on Tuesday. She let us know it was time. On Monday, hours before we were going to take her to the vets to have her put to sleep, she jumped down the storm drain. I ran to the storm drain...no I walked...jog/walked...just in time to see her walk intentionally into the storm drain pipe system. I pulled the storm drain cover off and jumped down. It was black. I could not see 5 feet down the pipe. Darryl got a flash light from home. I shone it down the pipe. The pipe diverted to left and right a short way up ahead. No telling which way she went.

Isadora decided it was best to let her be and die. Princess is her cat. I was fine with that.

At 5 o'clock, guess who jumped out of the storm drain.

She was dirty and weak. But she cleaned herself off that evening on the couch. Isadora was happy to have one last night with her first baby. We all slept downstairs on the couches with Princess.

I drove extremely slow to the vets the next day. I was crying. We rolled down the window for Princess so that she could one last time feel the air and see the trees. We drove down Settlersway past our old appartments. I think she recognized them.

Our vet, Scott, let Isadora hold Princess as he injected her with the anthestic. Princess fell asleep in her mommy's arms. Perfect.

We buried Patsy and Princess in the same box in our front garden. We put a lavender plant on top to commemorate Patsy. She was lavender. Not kidding. And a Gardinia for Princess who was white.

I just remember my baby Princess in the box with her head curled down. Doesn't seem right that she is gone that she died. She was so noble and smart and full of character. I cry everytime. Like now.

I love you, Princess. I always will. I respect you. You were and always will be special in the highest sense of the word.

Good bye Baby. You were worth every moment.

The trip to the vets

We went to the vets last night to pick up Princess (Chicky). The vet came into the room and told us that Lymphoma is pretty high on the list of what she might have. We need to wait for her blood work to return and her stool sample analysis. This could all take until Monday to complete. Isadora is going to have a rough week.

It hasn't hit me yet. It does a little bit. This time next year, she will be in a jar on our bookshelf next to Patsy. I just can't imagine Princess not being alive. She has always been with Isadora and I. She was with us when we met. She spent a year with me and Patsy down South before Isadora arrived.

Sad. Can't imagine it.

I think it will hit when the final prognosis is made. On average she could have 6-12 months to live. This depends on how well she takes to the steroids, so that she can gain weight. Right now she is bones. Princess is a nightmare to get medicine into. She can flick her tongue as fast as a fan. It is insane.

Princess might have Lymphoma

Princess might have Lymphoma. She coughed up bile last Friday. It stank up the whole living room. That is not natural or normal. Isadora called the vet and made an appointment for Monday. Princess has lost 3 lbs. 9 lbs to 6 lbs. Pretty dramatic.

She is 16 years old. She is Isadora's life. This is not going to be fun. Isadora is going to be a mess. Darryl is going to experience his first death in the family. Our pets are family. They sleep, eat, watch TV, garden, relax, read with us.

This is not good.

Looks like we will end up with Sammy, Loudy and Pixi.

And Spanky and Jezebelle living outdoors. They are wild. They don't seem to be able to domesticate themselves. Which is wierd because they are Pixi and Scouts sisters.

Sammy

When Patsy died, we settled on not bringing another cat into Princess' life. Remembering the Rupert situation, we knew that introducing a new pet can go good or bad.

While Isadora was pregnant, she started hanging out by the apartment pool and reading. This apartment complex had many stray cats. We had already taken in and found homes for two of them. That is another story in Karma.

Isadora called me at work to tell me that there was a stray cat that was spending its days with her at the pool. It was really cute and probably is not wild just abandoned. She wanted to take it in.

We took it in. I was reading a book on our city's namesake. We named him after him.

Sammy had a big head and a little body. Had.

Sammy slept. Sammy ate. Sammy pooped. The Daily Phases of the Sam.

Sammy is huge. He is half cougar. He is solid muscle. He likes to play. We don't like to play with him. Teeth and claws are fair game with Sammy. He is the only animal I have ever hit in the face. Sammy understands one thing. Power. He is the ultimate alpha male.

However, when Isadora was pregnant with Darryl, Sam's job was to guard her while I went to work. He sat beside her all day and every day. Sammy has slept in Darryl's bed ever since Darryl was born. That is Sam's job. Protect Darryl.

Since we moved into the house and Darryl is four, Sam has retired from active service. Now he lies on his back on the SUV and suntans his private parts all day. He must be originally from the Mediterranean. If Sammy were a man, he would definitely be wearing a thong.

Ofcourse, we got Sammy fixed so he doesn't have his Macadamias. But don't tell him that. We had to because we are trying to help prevent the spread of unwanted cats. Actually, in Sammy's case it was because he was really horny and really big and had developed a love for using my belly button as his personal vagina.

I lied down on the sofa to watch football one Sunday. Sammy sat on top of me and started staring at me. I was watching the TV. I looked up at him. He was looking at me. I noticed the bottom half of him was shaking. Something under him was stabbing and poking the inside of my belly button. No.

I lifted him up and there was this red raw coil sticking out from his fur.

ISADORA!!!!

Patsy

Patsy was my sweet little innocent tragedy. Fearless and bold but delicate. Isadora convinced me that I needed a cat. I think she wanted to domesticate me. If you have a pet that you need to take care of you can't venture very far. Maybe she recognized me as a hermit and wanted to give me a companion. Isadora is Italian and Italian's are not allowed to leave their homes until they are married.

We went to the SPCA and Patsy was the perfect one. Calm. She had long soft white hair with a dark lavendar mask like a superhero.

She refused to eat and I brought her back to the SPCA to fix her. They thought I was dropping her off and taking off. I gave them $100 to show my sincerity.

We lived together in harmony in my basement apartment during the cold winters in the hood. I owed $27,000 in back taxes and was paying it off in large sums. I had no money for living. My apartment was $275 a month in the basement on a street that was notorious for hookers and drugs. The hookers were haggled and out of shape. Yet night after night, people picked them up. The main bus stop on the street was right in front of my apartment. On several occasions, I stepped out of the shower to find a group of people staring at me through the window. I sing in the shower. I like to leave my blinds open at night.

One day, one of my work friends brought over a cat from the father of a friend of ours. Networks. Rupert was a huge orange cat. However, Rupert had one flaw. The smell of his poop was unbelievable. It would fill the entire apartment in a matter of minutes. I had to change the litter immediately after a deposit. Each time I returned home from work, I would be hit with a wall of smell. The smell was poop and mucus fermented for 7 months in vinegar. Your knees would get weak when the smell hit you.

Patsy wasn't thrilled. Rupert shit in the litter the minute I changed it. If he didn't have to shit then he sat in it until he did. If Patsy was on the window ledge then Rupert needed to be on the window ledge. Patsy put up a bold fight but Rupert would just push her off.

Patsy would sit on my pillow right above my head at night and pur. Rupert would sit on top of me and fart.

Upon announcing that I was moving South, the friend returned to take Rupert back. I actually put up a fight.

Patsy's fur was light, long and fluffy. Her poop used to get entangled in it on the way down. She would plop her butt on the floor and then drag her self across the floor with her front paws.

She used to sit at the window during horrible thunderstorms. She feared nothing.

All cats always let her eat first.

She walked around on her tip toes.

Princess and Patsy were each other's best friends but they wouldn't admit it. Isadora brought them down South while she was finishing her Master's. My mother complained that I was being a hermit. She brought me companions. Each night, while I studied for my certification the two cats would alternate coming into the bedroom and sitting on my lap. Princess slept with me for half the night and Patsy slept for the other half. Princess slept at the foot of the bed. Patsy slept on the pillow. Each night, I found them sleeping on the bed together when I returned from work.

We lived on the third floor of the apartment. Patsy would walk on the other side of the railing. I couldn't watch. When she started showing off, I went inside. One day, I walked up to get her. She was focused on me. She knew I was coming to get her because I was scared. She loved it. The sprinklers went off. Patsy jumped and fell off the ledge. I screamed. She spread all four legs out and....drifted down. It was amazing. The bushes broke her fall and as I was running downstairs, she was running up the stairs. She started limping. We jumped into the car and went to the animal emergency clinic. Her internal organs were probably destroyed. They XRayed her. Her pinky was broken and her bowels were full of shit. They put a giant cast on her front left leg that was significantly longer than her right leg. They injected water under her skin to rehydrate her and hopefully unclog her.

At first she lay on the floor depressed because the cast made it difficult to walk. Then she learned to stick it out to the side and run on her other three legs. Then she learned that it was a great way to get attention by knocking on the door or hitting you in the head when she was hungry.

One day, while walking her back legs gave out. She continued to walk and her legs gave out again. I felt sick. I took her to the doctors on Friday before Memorial weekend. He told me it might be a heart problem. The next day she began vomitting blood. We took her to the emergency clinic wiith the intention of putting her to sleep. The doctor told us that she had diabetes and that they could save her by getting her regulated on insulin. We sighed. The next day we returned and her condition was the same. We left her for another day. They told us to take her to her regular vets to continue. We did. The vet took her home that night to continue treatment. The next day, he called us up to tell us that she had developed jaundice and that her kidneys were probably failing.

I drove home to pick up Isadora. We drove to the vets. They brought her out in soft blanket. My poor baby. I petted her head while they injected her. She coughed. Her eyes went wide and blank. Her pulse was gone. I kissed her head. Bye bye baby. Daddy loves you. You were my first.

I filled out the paper work to get her cremated. Her vase sits on our book shelf. She was my perfect pet. Calm.

Princess

One day Isadora went along with her brother Augastino while he went for a job interview. After the interview, the two of them walked through the mall. They stopped at a pet store. In one of the cat bins there was a bunch of kittens that looked like his favorite cat at home. They were white with gray patches on their heads. The store owner picked the smallest cat and gave her to Augastino who gave it to Isadora. He pretended to be the kittens little voice. "Will you be my mommy?"

Augastino purchased the kitten for himself. Nikki, his cat at home, would be really happy to have a baby that looked just like her.

Nikki was pissed.

Augastino lived above Isadora and her mother in a triplex.

Princess lived in the top floor with two older cats who didn't like each other. Augustino threw Princess into the mix to relax the tension.

Each day, Princess made her way down to Isadora's place for attention and relaxation.

Isadora's mother was separating from her father and had turned to wine therapy to ease her depression.

Princess and Isadora became each other's comfort.

The cats

1) Princess - Isadora's
2) Patsy - Deceased from diabetes
3) Sammy - Adopted by my wife at the apartment pool
4) Patches - Mommy stray cat
5) Aslan - Daddy stray cat
6) Butterscotch - Neighborhood stray cat
7) Scout - Patches and Aslan's alpha male son
8) Pixie - Patches and Aslan's alpha daughter
9) Spanky - Patches and Aslan's wild daughter / twin of scout
10) Jezebel - Patches and Aslan's wild daughter / twin of mom
11) Loudy - Pixie and Butterscotch's son / Darryl's pet

...now that we have that out of the way...I can talk about them.