Adele Archer's Blog, page 5
May 12, 2018
Tables ‘o’ Crap!
[image error]
Now, I’m not telling you how to suck eggs, but from what I understand, ‘car boot sales’ or ‘boot fairs’ (if you’re posh) are mainly a British phenomenon. The most similar thing you would find in the U.S. would be a flea market, I guess. In my country, people usually converge on some large field or unused spacious concrete space early on a Sunday morning to buy used goods from another person. They don’t actually sell second-hand goods from the boot of their car, as such, but usually on a trestle table in front of it – or from a scabby suitcase. Anyway, that established, I’m here today to advise you how much I despise the car boot sale. Or as I like to call them, ‘tables ‘o’ crap!’. They could easily have made it onto my ‘Things that make me go boom’ list, but they’re so despicable, I felt they required a blog post of their very own (I’m just surprised I haven’t written it before [I think I haven’t written it before…]).
[image error]I suppose boot sales wouldn’t irritate me so much if I wasn’t forced to attend them quite so often. I could just ignore their very existence on a Sunday morning, but my husband loves them. So much so, he sometimes visits two or three in one morning. I almost dread the Spring/Summer seasons when the ‘booties’ all start up again. It’s my own fault, really. When my husband pipes-up that he’s off to the local bootie, and would I and the kids like to join him, the children almost always readily agree. I sort of um and ah for a bit, and I search the recesses of my mind as to why I don’t enjoy them, and I can never quite remember. I tell myself, ‘oh, they’re alright on a hot and sunny day – you might even see something you like’. And so I reluctantly accept. Every bloody year I fall for it. But then I arrive at that field swarming with other punters on that not-so-warm-and-sunny morning, because it now resembles the windswept tundra, and I’m stuck there in the middle of nowhere for the next two hours. It’s only then that I remember the horror; the absolute horror.
[image error]Want some skis, or a car exaust…?
Like a wind-up toy, off my husband goes in systematic lines: First up the left-hand side of the first row, then back down the right-hand side of the first row. Next row. First up the left-hand side of the second row, then back down the right-hand side of the second row. Next row. Ad infinitum. And the kids and I trundle after him as he clack-clack-clacks through any box of vinyl albums he comes across. Clack-clack-clack. Next box. Clack-clack-clack. Next box. Clack-clack-clack. Initially, I stand behind him awaiting him to finish rummaging through record boxes, until I decide that this is intolerable. Then I wander off at breakneck speed right down the CENTRE of each row (unthinkable!), only briefly glancing left and right – until I have blitzed the entire boot fair in less than seven minutes. And it’s only then that I realise I have again made that hideous mistake that I make at the start of every boot sale season – whilst I am slowly driven out of my bloody skull due to the mind-numbing boredom!!
I’ll tell you the problem with booth sales; you’re rifling through tables and boxes and suitcases of other people’s sh*te, when you already have a houseful of sh*te at home! That’s the very reason these sellers are there! When what we really should be doing is selling a car-boot-full of our own crap to claw back a bit of household space – not filling it up with more sh*te!
[image error]Want some tat for a £1 or 50p or something…?
I’m sorry, that was an unnecessarily angry paragraph. But you get the gist. Last week I point-blank refused to go along with my husband and family (I’d had an intensely dull experience the Sunday before). They said nothing, though did try to give me the ‘guilt-trip eyes’, but I stood firm and said, ‘I’m not falling for that again!’. So in my absence, my husband and children had a competition to each buy me an item which cost less than a pound – an item I was likely to have picked up myself and purchased – hence proving to me that boot sales are indeed a wonderful thing. The family would bring the items home for my perusal (not letting on who bought what) and I would choose the winning item. My husband purchased me two boxes of sachet-medication that I occasionally have to take (out of date, no less, and lest we forget, from a car boot sale [slightly suspect to buy second-hand medication, perhaps?]) and he spent a princely sum of £1. My eldest daughter brought back a drinking glass with Velma from Scooby-Doo emblazoned over it (it turns out she really bought it for herself) for a bargain 20p. My youngest daughter bought me a 2-DVD workout box-set from my current favourite celebrity instructor, Davina McCall – at only 50p. Needless to say, my youngest daughter won. At 50p, I probably would have bought that DVD box-set. The Velma glass is now proudly displayed in my eldest daughter’s room holding pens (because it never really was intended for me, and frankly, I don’t want it), and the medication sachets are now in the bin. But thanks for trying, everyone, you’re all winners to me, but don’t feel the need to repeat the exercise. And I must just state for the record, I regret nothing; I spent a thoroughly lovely morning pottering about the house by myself and not up and down boot sale isles.
[image error]
Am I being unfair about car boot sales? Possibly (no, but I’m prepared to consider it). Still, it would be remiss of me to say that I have never bought a fairly useful item from a bootie (I’ve been to enough of them, so even I couldn’t go home empty-handed every time). I recently bought a brand new table-top compost bin. And once I bought a cat carrier a few days before my cat was due at the vets. Oh, and one time, I bought a Reebok Step (one of those aerobic jobbies from when ‘step classes’ were a thing and before I realised I had very little coordination). I remember the lady-seller telling me she’d only just got it down from her loft that morning. And I actually said to her, ‘yes, and I’m just going to take it home to put it up in mine‘ (how true that turned out to be). So you see, I think the only point in going to a boot sale is when you actually need something. And you want to get that something for a very reduced price (even lower than Amazon). Otherwise, if you go with absolutely nothing in mind, you’re just scouring over tables full of tat for nothing. And even if there was something amazing hidden in that scabby box or suitcase, you just can’t see for looking. Some might say, ‘one man’s junk is another man’s treasure‘. But I just say, no; first it was your old crap, and now (sadly), it’s my old crap.
PS: Whilst surreptitiously shooting the above photos during a recent bootie, my husband sighed under his breath, ‘I bet you’re going to write an angry blog about car boot sales, aren’t you?’. Ha-ha-ha, how well he knows me… *muses*
PPS: I needn’t worry about how to get out of tomorrow’s boot sale, my name will be mud in my house after writing this blog…
April 28, 2018
Things that make me go (‘this is intensely irritating’) boom II
This is a follow up to a post I did in 2015 – ‘Things that Make Me Go Boom’. And since this is me we’re talking about, there are too many things that drive me up the wall to be crammed into one blog, so I felt it time to do another. I had hoped to be a calmer and more chilled-out person now that three years have elapsed. But I am afraid that hasn’t happened. I expect I’ll be that same easily irritated person when I’m in my nineties – a grumpy old lady, if you will. I wish I wasn’t so hot-headed. That internal annoyance does me no physical good – I can feel the stomach acid production going into overdrive even thinking about writing this list, but I may as well share these grievances with you, and maybe you may even sympathise.
Odd numbers of painkillers in a packet:
[image error]Sickening, isn’t it?
I suppose this is my OCD traits gaining force in my old age. But it happens so regularly in my house that it has begun to grate on my nerves. Be it Paracetamol (Tylenol) or Ibuprofen, there is somebody in my household who only ever takes one tablet at a time. The recommended dose is two. I do have a child who is a couple of months shy of twelve years old, so it’s probably her, and I should probably shut up (because never let it be said that I – as a health professional – would advise somebody to take more than the recommended dose for their age/weight). But I just wish somebody would even up the packet a bit before I get to it. Think of my poor nerves. However, if the person causing this unevenness is an adult, I will personally kill you. And no painkiller can fix that.
Facebook’s current obsession with narcissists:
[image error]
There has been a recent spate of articles on Facebook about narcissists and what you should be looking out for to avoid them (on my FB feed, anyway…your guess is as good as mine, maybe I’ve given them the impression I’m super-paranoid). But I didn’t realise narcissists were such a potential problem – until now, that is. I mean, jeez, I could be walking around and chatting to toxic people, without knowing it, who are trying to poison me with their negativity! Oh my God!! Call the Police!! It’s never dawned on me before that I’d had this serious threat hanging over me! Thank you, Facebook. People say such awful things about you, but if I’ve avoided just one narcissist because of your handy and frikkin’ constant posts about them, then all your sins are forgiven.
Jokes:
I know, I know – everybody likes jokes. Well, um…not me. Now let me explain, I don’t mean off-the-cuff jokes, or funny things said on a whim. I like all that. I like the spontaneity of that. In fact, I pride myself on my dry sense of humour. What I dislike are scripted jokes. The ones that your husband (or my husband) insists you sit through until you get to the (usually) unsatisfactory punchline. I just hate the process. I hate the whole setting up of the gag – only to be sorely disappointed, or at best, just relinquishing a vague smile or groan at the end of the whole tedious business. Having said that, there is one joke I do like. I’m not sure if I actually like it, or I just like my husband’s reaction to it. He literally cries with laughter every time; he can hardly get through the telling of the joke before dissolving onto the floor into a complete mess – with his girlish high-pitched chuckle and tears running down his face. I’m not kidding. The joke is a bit long and I can’t be bothered to tell it, so here’s a link. Enjoy.
People who post more than one blog per day:
This may come across as sour grapes since I post one blog per fortnight (at best), and maybe you’ll just think me envious as I am not nearly as industrious. But as you’ll know, if you follow a blog (which I do; hundreds of them), whenever that blogger posts, you will be alerted by email. And let’s face it, we all hate a full email inbox that takes thirteen hours to clear. I’m not just saying this, I do like to read all those blogs and I will make time to do so. But I do have to work, eat, and sleep as well. The other day, my Gmail account had ninety-nine blogs to be deleted (no exaggeration) because I hadn’t checked it in two days. It’s mainly the poets who are responsible for this over-posting (sorry poets, you’re all super-gorgeous and talented, but it’s true). Because poems are short, I supposed they feel justified in posting about five a day. But could you not just put all your five poems into one blog post – y’know, so my inbox doesn’t get so full? Honestly, I’d be ever so grateful. You could take a leaf out of my book; I hardly ever write anything, not just because I’m mad-lazy, it’s just so your inbox won’t get so clogged-up. I know, I’m all give.
‘Not one person will share this’:
[image error]
I’m sorry, FB seems to be in for a bit of a double tongue-lashing from me today. But there is so much about FB to get riled up about. The ‘sharing’ posts get right on my chimes; they prey on our basest instincts. The ones I hate most usually involve a picture of a cute dog or something, who is quite insistent that it is ugly, and goes on to tell you that not one person will share its post because of its intense hideousness. You’re damn bloody right I won’t! Why would anybody share it? There is no such dog! And if there were, it would be unaware of its attractiveness. It’s a dog. And if by some freak of nature it WAS aware of how aesthetically pleasing it was (and was clever enough to create a Facebook account, take a selfie, and post its own picture), it would be unconcerned about how many users on Facebook had shared its picture. Come on, people! We’re better than this!
I could go on and on (and on) about my list of pet dislikes. I’d love to tell you all the reasons why I hate car boot sales (there is a blog post about this annoyance alone in the pipeline) or LinkedIn – and how nobody in the history of the world ever got a job via LinkedIn. Ever. *Ignores the comments as scores of people write in to tell me that they have*. I don’t know, maybe I should learn to let it all wash over me, maybe I should just take a break from it all so I can calm down a bit, or take up yoga or something. I’ll do my best; I might even write a happy-go-lucky blog post next time. Ommm.
NB: If you read this blog with any regularity, you’ll know me, and won’t need to read the next sentence. But I’m writing this addendum for that one Twitter troll who will complain about how unnecessarily worked-up I get over things (like last time); for that person, there is such a thing as tongue-in-cheek. I’m British. That’s what I do, and I intend to make a very good living out of it.
April 21, 2018
For Old Times’ Sake
[image error]
I know, I know. I’ve been lying low again. There’s no excuse. Actually, there’s a lot going on and quite a lot to write about, but none of it I actually feel at liberty to write about (I do consider myself a very honest blogger, but at the same time, it doesn’t hurt to play your cards chose to your chest). Anyway, I did write the following piece a week or two back, but it’s in a similar vein to other pieces of mine, so I thought I’d sit on it until you’d forgotten those past pieces (I’m really selling this today, aren’t I?). The trouble is this; my interests that I’m feel free to discuss are simple and few – cats, period drama, and…no, that’s it. So you see with a selectively secretive – yet unvaried – life such as it is, I’ve been all about escapism. As per uzsh. And how does somebody like me find their escapism? Well, I’ll tell you (you already know, but I’ll tell you anyway)…
If you read this blog with any regularity, you’ll be aware I have been reading a lo-ho-ho-ho-ot of historical fiction lately – to the point where it’s a bit embarrassing, really. My husband often catches me with my head in a Kindle whenever there’s a spare moment, and asks (and I wish he wouldn’t), ‘what are you reading?’. And I always wrack my brain to try to invent some very clever reply (or lie). Because some might say that a self-professed writer like me ought to be reading something very avant-garde, something hot off the presses, something of great modern literary interest. But surprise-surprise, I am usually (or always) to be found pouring over something written two hundred years ago, or at a push, in the Victorian in era. Once I’d rinsed and re-rinsed everything of Jane Austen’s and Charlotte Bronte’s – which I did long ago – I moved on to Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins (the Victorian forerunner of the detective novel, don’t you know). That seems to be the general direction ‘Austenites’ go (apparently, Google says that’s not a thing; I just made up the term – go me!). And if I’m not doing that, on my days off, I will be re-watching a BBC adaptation (not ITV ones, they’re awful), or failing that, the movie versions of the same old classic costume dramas. Again and again and again and again – because only so many were written and I just can’t get enough. Failing that, I like nothing more than a stroll around some National Trusts houses and grounds, where I can pretend I’m surveying my estate. I know I’m not doing anything particularly unconventional or eccentric or original; many women of my age are a bit obsessed with our historical past (or more correctly, a fictional version of it), but sometimes I wonder why that should be so.
There is something about the fiction written in the Regency or Victorian era. I’m not sure why it has such an appeal; much of the time, nothing really happens as far as plot goes (just read Cranford [that was a bridge too far, literally NOTHING happened at all and had to give up on it]), but they are just periods in history one can strangely lose themselves in. Let’s face it, modern life is extremely stressful; never more than now has so much been expected of a person; hold down a full-time job, be the perfect parent, still manage to have an amazing social life. The pressure to succeed in this is so strong, that some of us crave a simpler time – like in the past. But I don’t know why we romanticise that past to such a ridiculous level.
Let’s get real about this, if I’d be born in the Georgian or Victorian period, and I’d fallen into the same socioeconomic class that I did when I was born in 1971, I would have been born into poverty. Infant mortality was rife, and life expectance was poor. I say this a lot (to myself, at least, possibly to my blog – I can’t remember), if you take into account my own experiences of childbirth, I would have died during labour (on both occasions – not that there would have been a second occasion), because neither of my children were coming out naturally. And lest we forget, there were no antibiotics. I’ve had various infections (one of which was scarlet fever) that I believe would have killed me if these medications were not freely available. Yep, I’d be dead ten times over (if not more), and most likely, so would you. Financially, if I had been lucky enough to even survive into adulthood, my greatest career opportunities would have been as a scullery maid or a seamstress – if I didn’t get sent to the poorhouse first because I was in so much debt. Education would not have been available to me – I’d have been lucky if I could read or write. Some say, modern-times me hasn’t mastered that skill either. Cheeky b*stards.
[image error]If it involves period costume or workouts, it’s mine.
No siree bob; a life in the past would not have been suited to one such as me. I have to keep reminding myself that I would have been penniless, and then to cap it all off, I would have been dead. Nothing romantic about that, is there? Yet the literary past of bustles and bonnets; genteel women of means passing their leisurely days by adding to their many accomplishments (music, needlework, languages, painting, reading – that’s all they had to do), balls and plays, it still seems so idyllic – doesn’t it? None of that rat-race crap that the majority of us have to put up with today. And I guess that’s why old books have such an appeal with us, have such a hold over us. Simpler times would wonderful, wouldn’t they?
I know I’ve developed a pattern throughout my life; when I’m hitting the period drama hard, I’m dissatisfied with my current life. And I guess I’ll just have to do something about that. Still, you can’t deny it, there’s a lot to be said for modern times. Yes, a lot of it is absolutely rubbish, but there’s just no knocking what science and technology have done for us. I mean, could you live without your phone or laptop or the internet? I certainly couldn’t. Some would say we are lucky to be alive right now. Perhaps people will write about our era in the distant future with a longing and fanciful air. Of course, we’ll all know about the crappy negatives, but even the 1980s are now being eulogised – even the 90s to a smaller extent (not so much the 70s – I think we’re all in agreement they were horrid – I have photographic evidence of a childhood me in a horrid orange and brown dress to prove it). But I’ve lived through all those decades. And because they all fall into my lifetime, escapism can’t really be found there. For me, at least, only escapism into a past that I actually know nothing about will do. Because then I can pretend it was something that it wasn’t – and I’d have been happier there.
NB: I do have a few other posts in the pipeline that are nothing to do with cats or period drama – honest.
March 24, 2018
For the Love of a Cat
A few weeks ago, an odd occurrence passed in the middle of the night. I didn’t write about it at the time because I was rather too concerned about it; too concerned to put it into a blog. Anyway, I was awakened at about three in the morning by a loud but perpetual noise in our bedroom – so loud, that it woke the entire house (and I sleep with earplugs in, thanks to my husband’s snoring). Our room was pitch-black and for some reason, I couldn’t find the bedside lamp to throw some light on the situation. My husband was forced illuminate the noisy section of the room with the little light on his wrist watch. Only then could I locate the lamp, which had been strangely knocked to the floor.
Once the lamp was snapped on in a panic, I found my favourite cat, Kirby, lying by my bed in an awkward and ungainly position. Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling; pupils dilated, twitching, claws gripping the carpet, and her tail at an odd kind of right angle. She was, or most definitely had been, having some kind of seizure. Our other cat, Slim, was crouched in fear by the bedroom door, watching.
[image error]Kirby in the snow
Both my husband and I scrambled to the floor beside Kirby and I repeatedly ran my fingers over her fir, hoping to bring her around. But she definitely wasn’t ‘with us’, and quite evidently didn’t know I was there. After some time, Kirby seemed to ‘come to’ and even began to purr loudly. But she still wasn’t quite right. It was as though she wouldn’t or couldn’t stand. Tears were already filling my eyes when I turned to Gareth to say, ‘what’s wrong with her? Something’s wrong…’, hoping he’d say she was ‘fine’, or contradict me in some way to settle my fears. But his face was as fearful as mine. Something was wrong, something had happened to our only two-and-a-half-year-old kitty. Eventually Slim ran off and Kirby unsteadily climbed to her feet, wandered a couple of yards away, and hunched down into a ‘bread’ position. I attempted to pick her up and put her in bed with me, but she hopped off the bed and hunched down in exactly the same spot as before.
It was the middle of the night, and we both had to work the next day, so we had no choice but to turn off the light and go back to sleep – or to wait and watch until morning came. I turned to Gareth and whispered miserably, ‘I love that little kitty’, and he (who is usually unreasonably disparaging about the cats and their standoffish ways) said, ‘don’t we all’. Occasionally, I would snap on the lamp to make sure Kirby was still okay, but there she sat in that same ‘loaf of bread’. I think I drifted off, in and out of consciousness, too worried for any hope of real sleep. And during the periods of wakefulness, I clearly remember thinking; I wish we’d never chosen to have pets (not that we ever made a choice, they came to us by default), I wish those cats had never come to live with us and stolen their way into our hearts, because I just won’t be able to handle losing them.
[image error]Kirby on my lap (proof!)
Like I say, Kirby is my favourite cat. I grew up with cats, and she will always stand out as the best pet I’ve ever owned. I love Slim too, but she doesn’t really love me (or anybody, for that matter – she’s a stray with a bit of a personality disorder, and is liable to bite or scratch you if you’re not careful). But Kirby loves me. Mine is the only lap she will sit on, and she’s well known to follow me around the house like a little dog, and she’s even featured in my books. Perhaps it’s because I’m the one who doles out the food 95% of the time, but I still believe that cat adores me. And unconditional love is very hard to come by. Fairly recently, my brother and sister-in-law lost their beloved dog to illness; she died at the respectable age of twelve, I believe. And I remember we remarked that that was the price you paid when you shared your life with an animal; an animal with an infinitely shorter lifespan than a human.
[image error]Kirby just being generally cute
The next day, the alarms went off at their standard time of six-thirty a.m. I cautiously heaved myself to a sitting position and my eyes darted over to the cat. Kirby was still there, sitting exactly in the same place she had been three hours before. I slid out of bed and hunkered down beside her again; another stroke, another purr. But Kirby is normally ravenously hungry by morning, circles my ankles like mad, and nearly trips me up on my way downstairs in her excitement for food. But I made my way downstairs alone. Kirby stayed right where she was. Eventually, I had no choice by to carry her downstairs and place her by her food bowl, but she wouldn’t eat. Instead, she wandered into the lounge and plopped back down into her standard bread pose in the middle of the floor. I explained to the kids what had happened in the night; they had heard the strange noises but were too sleepy to get up and investigate. Kirby was evidently better than she had been at three a.m., and although the kids were concerned, they were not nearly as terrified as me. But they hadn’t witnessed the ‘fit’. I’d thought I was going to lose her there and then on the bedroom floor that night. My cat is a creature of habit; in the morning she wants to be fed, she sometimes sits on my lap when I eat my porridge, she skittishly races around the house knocking things over to remind herself she’s a hunter, and she’ll wander out with me to my car to watch me drive away. But none of that happened that morning, and I was forced to leave her in the house alone.
That day at work, I could hardly think straight, wondering if my cat was having another seizure in my absence. When work was over, I determined to go home and take her straight to the vet if she still wouldn’t express any interest in food. But as I opened the door, Kirby wandered out to meet me like she traditionally does, her tail a little curled in greeting, a little more sleepily than usual, but she was definitely improved from that morning. I dished-up a sachet of food into her bowl and breathed a sigh of relief as she ate it greedily, then proceeded to follow me around the house like a lost puppy.
[image error]Kirby, the loaf of bread
I’ll never quite know for sure what happened to Kirby that night. I do know our cats like to play rough games (well, Kirby does). Kirby chases Slim around the house relentlessly, and we know they had been fighting off and on that night (sometimes they wake us up with their roughhousing). We figure that Kirby may have run headlong into the wall, a door, or a piece of furniture and practically knocked herself out – causing some kind of seizure. It’s purely an educated guess. I watched Kirby closely for days, and there was no repeat of the incident. Thankfully, it seems the fit was a one-off. But it’s made me face a painful truth; unless there is something very wrong with my expected lifespan, I will outlive my cats. Still, I guess that’s just the human condition, isn’t it?
We’re here to experience love and loss, life and death, and you can’t just shut yourself off from all great experiences because they will invariably come to an end and hurt you. The good times will have made the bad times worth the pain. Yes, one day (hopefully many, many, many years from now), I will lose my cats. And it will hurt me deeply, and a period of mourning will be required. But I shall just have to pick myself up and remind myself that I am still needed. There are thousands upon thousands of kitties out there (there are dogs too, but dogs aren’t for me, you can sort out the dogs – I can’t do everything), and one of those kitties will need me – because every cat needs a home. And I just happen to have one.
NB: If you’d like to follow Kirby on Instagram (she has her own account, obviously), then please click HERE.
Related Posts:
For the Love of a Cat
A few weeks ago, an odd occurrence passed in the middle of the night. I didn’t write about it at the time because I was rather too concerned about it; too concerned to put it into a blog. Anyway, I was awakened at about three in the morning by a loud but perpetual noise in our bedroom – so loud, that it woke the entire house (and I sleep with earplugs in, thanks to my husband’s snoring). Our room was pitch-black and for some reason, I couldn’t find the bedside lamp to throw some light on the situation. My husband was forced illuminate the noisy section of the room with the little light on his wrist watch. Only then could I locate the lamp, which had been strangely knocked to the floor.
Once the lamp was snapped on in a panic, I found my favourite cat, Kirby, lying by my bed in an awkward and ungainly position. Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling; pupils dilated, twitching, claws gripping the carpet, and her tail at an odd kind of right angle. She was, or most definitely had been, having some kind of seizure. Our other cat, Slim, was crouched in fear by the bedroom door, watching.
[image error]Kirby in the snow
Both my husband and I scrambled to the floor beside Kirby and I repeatedly ran my fingers over her fir, hoping to bring her around. But she definitely wasn’t ‘with us’, and quite evidently didn’t know I was there. After some time, Kirby seemed to ‘come to’ and even began to purr loudly. But she still wasn’t quite right. It was as though she wouldn’t or couldn’t stand. Tears were already filling my eyes when I turned to Gareth to say, ‘what’s wrong with her? Something’s wrong…’, hoping he’d say she was ‘fine’, or contradict me in some way to settle my fears. But his face was as fearful as mine. Something was wrong, something had happened to our only two-and-a-half-year-old kitty. Eventually Slim ran off and Kirby unsteadily climbed to her feet, wandered a couple of yards away, and hunched down into a ‘bread’ position. I attempted to pick her up and put her in bed with me, but she hopped off the bed and hunched down in exactly the same spot as before.
It was the middle of the night, and we both had to work the next day, so we had no choice but to turn off the light and go back to sleep – or to wait and watch until morning came. I turned to Gareth and whispered miserably, ‘I love that little kitty’, and he (who is usually unreasonably disparaging about the cats and their standoffish ways) said, ‘don’t we all’. Occasionally, I would snap on the lamp to make sure Kirby was still okay, but there she sat in that same ‘loaf of bread’. I think I drifted off, in and out of consciousness, too worried for any hope of real sleep. And during the periods of wakefulness, I clearly remember thinking; I wish we’d never chosen to have pets (not that we ever made a choice, they came to us by default), I wish those cats had never come to live with us and stolen their way into our hearts, because I just won’t be able to handle losing them.
[image error]Kirby on my lap (proof!)
Like I say, Kirby is my favourite cat. I grew up with cats, and she will always stand out as the best pet I’ve ever owned. I love Slim too, but she doesn’t really love me (or anybody, for that matter – she’s a stray with a bit of a personality disorder, and is liable to bite or scratch you if you’re not careful). But Kirby loves me. Mine is the only lap she will sit on, and she’s well known to follow me around the house like a little dog, and she’s even featured in my books. Perhaps it’s because I’m the one who doles out the food 95% of the time, but I still believe that cat adores me. And unconditional love is very hard to come by. Fairly recently, my brother and sister-in-law lost their beloved dog to illness; she died at the respectable age of twelve, I believe. And I remember we remarked that that was the price you paid when you shared your life with an animal; an animal with an infinitely shorter lifespan than a human.
[image error]Kirby just being generally cute
The next day, the alarms went off at their standard time of six-thirty a.m. I cautiously heaved myself to a sitting position and my eyes darted over to the cat. Kirby was still there, sitting exactly in the same place she had been three hours before. I slid out of bed and hunkered down beside her again; another stroke, another purr. But Kirby is normally ravenously hungry by morning, circles my ankles like mad, and nearly trips me up on my way downstairs in her excitement for food. But I made my way downstairs alone. Kirby stayed right where she was. Eventually, I had no choice by to carry her downstairs and place her by her food bowl, but she wouldn’t eat. Instead, she wandered into the lounge and plopped back down into her standard bread pose in the middle of the floor. I explained to the kids what had happened in the night; they had heard the strange noises but were too sleepy to get up and investigate. Kirby was evidently better than she had been at three a.m., and although the kids were concerned, they were not nearly as terrified as me. But they hadn’t witnessed the ‘fit’. I’d thought I was going to lose her there and then on the bedroom floor that night. My cat is a creature of habit; in the morning she wants to be fed, she sometimes sits on my lap when I eat my porridge, she skittishly races around the house knocking things over to remind herself she’s a hunter, and she’ll wander out with me to my car to watch me drive away. But none of that happened that morning, and I was forced to leave her in the house alone.
That day at work, I could hardly think straight, wondering if my cat was having another seizure in my absence. When work was over, I determined to go home and take her straight to the vet if she still wouldn’t express any interest in food. But as I opened the door, Kirby wandered out to meet me like she traditionally does, her tail a little curled in greeting, a little more sleepily than usual, but she was definitely improved from that morning. I dished-up a sachet of food into her bowl and breathed a sigh of relief as she ate it greedily, then proceeded to follow me around the house like a lost puppy.
[image error]Kirby, the loaf of bread
I’ll never quite know for sure what happened to Kirby that night. I do know our cats like to play rough games (well, Kirby does). Kirby chases Slim around the house relentlessly, and we know they had been fighting off and on that night (sometimes they wake us up with their roughhousing). We figure that Kirby may have run headlong into the wall, a door, or a piece of furniture and practically knocked herself out – causing some kind of seizure. It’s purely an educated guess. I watched Kirby closely for days, and there was no repeat of the incident. Thankfully, it seems the fit was a one-off. But it’s made me face a painful truth; unless there is something very wrong with my expected lifespan, I will outlive my cats. Still, I guess that’s just the human condition, isn’t it?
We’re here to experience love and loss, life and death, and you can’t just shut yourself off from all great experiences because they will invariably come to an end and hurt you. The good times will have made the bad times worth the pain. Yes, one day (hopefully many, many, many years from now), I will lose my cats. And it will hurt me deeply, and a period of mourning will be required. But I shall just have to pick myself up and remind myself that I am still needed. There are thousands upon thousands of kitties out there (there are dogs too, but dogs aren’t for me, you can sort out the dogs – I can’t do everything), and one of those kitties will need me – because every cat needs a home. And I just happen to have one.
NB: If you’d like to follow Kirby on Instagram (she has her own account, obviously), then please click HERE.
Related Posts:
For the Love of a Cat
A few weeks ago, an odd occurrence passed in the middle of the night. I didn’t write about it at the time because I was rather too concerned about it; too concerned to put it into a blog. Anyway, I was awakened at about three in the morning by a loud but perpetual noise in our bedroom – so loud, that it woke the entire house (and I sleep with earplugs in, thanks to my husband’s snoring). Our room was pitch-black and for some reason, I couldn’t find the bedside lamp to throw some light on the situation. My husband was forced illuminate the noisy section of the room with the little light on his wrist watch. Only then could I locate the lamp, which had been strangely knocked to the floor.
Once the lamp was snapped on in a panic, I found my favourite cat, Kirby, lying by my bed in an awkward and ungainly position. Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling; pupils dilated, twitching, claws gripping the carpet, and her tail at an odd kind of right angle. She was, or most definitely had been, having some kind of seizure. Our other cat, Slim, was crouched in fear by the bedroom door, watching.
[image error]Kirby in the snow
Both my husband and I scrambled to the floor beside Kirby and I repeatedly ran my fingers over her fir, hoping to bring her around. But she definitely wasn’t ‘with us’, and quite evidently didn’t know I was there. After some time, Kirby seemed to ‘come to’ and even began to purr loudly. But she still wasn’t quite right. It was as though she wouldn’t or couldn’t stand. Tears were already filling my eyes when I turned to Gareth to say, ‘what’s wrong with her? Something’s wrong…’, hoping he’d say she was ‘fine’, or contradict me in some way to settle my fears. But his face was as fearful as mine. Something was wrong, something had happened to our only two-and-a-half-year-old kitty. Eventually Slim ran off and Kirby unsteadily climbed to her feet, wandered a couple of yards away, and hunched down into a ‘bread’ position. I attempted to pick her up and put her in bed with me, but she hopped off the bed and hunched down in exactly the same spot as before.
It was the middle of the night, and we both had to work the next day, so we had no choice but to turn off the light and go back to sleep – or to wait and watch until morning came. I turned to Gareth and whispered miserably, ‘I love that little kitty’, and he (who is usually unreasonably disparaging about the cats and their standoffish ways) said, ‘don’t we all’. Occasionally, I would snap on the lamp to make sure Kirby was still okay, but there she sat in that same ‘loaf of bread’. I think I drifted off, in and out of consciousness, too worried for any hope of real sleep. And during the periods of wakefulness, I clearly remember thinking; I wish we’d never chosen to have pets (not that we ever made a choice, they came to us by default), I wish those cats had never come to live with us and stolen their way into our hearts, because I just won’t be able to handle losing them.
[image error]Kirby on my lap (proof!)
Like I say, Kirby is my favourite cat. I grew up with cats, and she will always stand out as the best pet I’ve ever owned. I love Slim too, but she doesn’t really love me (or anybody, for that matter – she’s a stray with a bit of a personality disorder, and is liable to bite or scratch you if you’re not careful). But Kirby loves me. Mine is the only lap she will sit on, and she’s well known to follow me around the house like a little dog, and she’s even featured in my books. Perhaps it’s because I’m the one who doles out the food 95% of the time, but I still believe that cat adores me. And unconditional love is very hard to come by. Fairly recently, my brother and sister-in-law lost their beloved dog to illness; she died at the respectable age of twelve, I believe. And I remember we remarked that that was the price you paid when you shared your life with an animal; an animal with an infinitely shorter lifespan than a human.
[image error]Kirby just being generally cute
The next day, the alarms went off at their standard time of six-thirty a.m. I cautiously heaved myself to a sitting position and my eyes darted over to the cat. Kirby was still there, sitting exactly in the same place she had been three hours before. I slid out of bed and hunkered down beside her again; another stroke, another purr. But Kirby is normally ravenously hungry by morning, circles my ankles like mad, and nearly trips me up on my way downstairs in her excitement for food. But I made my way downstairs alone. Kirby stayed right where she was. Eventually, I had no choice by to carry her downstairs and place her by her food bowl, but she wouldn’t eat. Instead, she wandered into the lounge and plopped back down into her standard bread pose in the middle of the floor. I explained to the kids what had happened in the night; they had heard the strange noises but were too sleepy to get up and investigate. Kirby was evidently better than she had been at three a.m., and although the kids were concerned, they were not nearly as terrified as me. But they hadn’t witnessed the ‘fit’. I’d thought I was going to lose her there and then on the bedroom floor that night. My cat is a creature of habit; in the morning she wants to be fed, she sometimes sits on my lap when I eat my porridge, she skittishly races around the house knocking things over to remind herself she’s a hunter, and she’ll wander out with me to my car to watch me drive away. But none of that happened that morning, and I was forced to leave her in the house alone.
That day at work, I could hardly think straight, wondering if my cat was having another seizure in my absence. When work was over, I determined to go home and take her straight to the vet if she still wouldn’t express any interest in food. But as I opened the door, Kirby wandered out to meet me like she traditionally does, her tail a little curled in greeting, a little more sleepily than usual, but she was definitely improved from that morning. I dished-up a sachet of food into her bowl and breathed a sigh of relief as she ate it greedily, then proceeded to follow me around the house like a lost puppy.
[image error]Kirby, the loaf of bread
I’ll never quite know for sure what happened to Kirby that night. I do know our cats like to play rough games (well, Kirby does). Kirby chases Slim around the house relentlessly, and we know they had been fighting off and on that night (sometimes they wake us up with their roughhousing). We figure that Kirby may have run headlong into the wall, a door, or a piece of furniture and practically knocked herself out – causing some kind of seizure. It’s purely an educated guess. I watched Kirby closely for days, and there was no repeat of the incident. Thankfully, it seems the fit was a one-off. But it’s made me face a painful truth; unless there is something very wrong with my expected lifespan, I will outlive my cats. Still, I guess that’s just the human condition, isn’t it?
We’re here to experience love and loss, life and death, and you can’t just shut yourself off from all great experiences because they will invariably come to an end and hurt you. The good times will have made the bad times worth the pain. Yes, one day (hopefully many, many, many years from now), I will lose my cats. And it will hurt me deeply, and a period of mourning will be required. But I shall just have to pick myself up and remind myself that I am still needed. There are thousands upon thousands of kitties out there (there are dogs too, but dogs aren’t for me, you can sort out the dogs – I can’t do everything), and one of those kitties will need me – because every cat needs a home. And I just happen to have one.
NB: If you’d like to follow Kirby on Instagram (she has her own account, obviously), then please click HERE.
Related Posts:
For the Love of a Cat
A few weeks ago, an odd occurrence passed in the middle of the night. I didn’t write about it at the time because I was rather too concerned about it; too concerned to put it into a blog. Anyway, I was awakened at about three in the morning by a loud but perpetual noise in our bedroom – so loud, that it woke the entire house (and I sleep with earplugs in, thanks to my husband’s snoring). Our room was pitch-black and for some reason, I couldn’t find the bedside lamp to throw some light on the situation. My husband was forced illuminate the noisy section of the room with the little light on his wrist watch. Only then could I locate the lamp, which had been strangely knocked to the floor.
Once the lamp was snapped on in a panic, I found my favourite cat, Kirby, lying by my bed in an awkward and ungainly position. Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling; pupils dilated, twitching, claws gripping the carpet, and her tail at an odd kind of right angle. She was, or most definitely had been, having some kind of seizure. Our other cat, Slim, was crouched in fear by the bedroom door, watching.
[image error]Kirby in the snow
Both my husband and I scrambled to the floor beside Kirby and I repeatedly ran my fingers over her fir, hoping to bring her around. But she definitely wasn’t ‘with us’, and quite evidently didn’t know I was there. After some time, Kirby seemed to ‘come to’ and even began to purr loudly. But she still wasn’t quite right. It was as though she wouldn’t or couldn’t stand. Tears were already filling my eyes when I turned to Gareth to say, ‘what’s wrong with her? Something’s wrong…’, hoping he’d say she was ‘fine’, or contradict me in some way to settle my fears. But his face was as fearful as mine. Something was wrong, something had happened to our only two-and-a-half-year-old kitty. Eventually Slim ran off and Kirby unsteadily climbed to her feet, wandered a couple of yards away, and hunched down into a ‘bread’ position. I attempted to pick her up and put her in bed with me, but she hopped off the bed and hunched down in exactly the same spot as before.
It was the middle of the night, and we both had to work the next day, so we had no choice but to turn off the light and go back to sleep – or to wait and watch until morning came. I turned to Gareth and whispered miserably, ‘I love that little kitty’, and he (who is usually unreasonably disparaging about the cats and their standoffish ways) said, ‘don’t we all’. Occasionally, I would snap on the lamp to make sure Kirby was still okay, but there she sat in that same ‘loaf of bread’. I think I drifted off, in and out of consciousness, too worried for any hope of real sleep. And during the periods of wakefulness, I clearly remember thinking; I wish we’d never chosen to have pets (not that we ever made a choice, they came to us by default), I wish those cats had never come to live with us and stolen their way into our hearts, because I just won’t be able to handle losing them.
[image error]Kirby on my lap (proof!)
Like I say, Kirby is my favourite cat. I grew up with cats, and she will always stand out as the best pet I’ve ever owned. I love Slim too, but she doesn’t really love me (or anybody, for that matter – she’s a stray with a bit of a personality disorder, and is liable to bite or scratch you if you’re not careful). But Kirby loves me. Mine is the only lap she will sit on, and she’s well known to follow me around the house like a little dog, and she’s even featured in my books. Perhaps it’s because I’m the one who doles out the food 95% of the time, but I still believe that cat adores me. And unconditional love is very hard to come by. Fairly recently, my brother and sister-in-law lost their beloved dog to illness; she died at the respectable age of twelve, I believe. And I remember we remarked that that was the price you paid when you shared your life with an animal; an animal with an infinitely shorter lifespan than a human.
[image error]Kirby just being generally cute
The next day, the alarms went off at their standard time of six-thirty a.m. I cautiously heaved myself to a sitting position and my eyes darted over to the cat. Kirby was still there, sitting exactly in the same place she had been three hours before. I slid out of bed and hunkered down beside her again; another stroke, another purr. But Kirby is normally ravenously hungry by morning, circles my ankles like mad, and nearly trips me up on my way downstairs in her excitement for food. But I made my way downstairs alone. Kirby stayed right where she was. Eventually, I had no choice by to carry her downstairs and place her by her food bowl, but she wouldn’t eat. Instead, she wandered into the lounge and plopped back down into her standard bread pose in the middle of the floor. I explained to the kids what had happened in the night; they had heard the strange noises but were too sleepy to get up and investigate. Kirby was evidently better than she had been at three a.m., and although the kids were concerned, they were not nearly as terrified as me. But they hadn’t witnessed the ‘fit’. I’d thought I was going to lose her there and then on the bedroom floor that night. My cat is a creature of habit; in the morning she wants to be fed, she sometimes sits on my lap when I eat my porridge, she skittishly races around the house knocking things over to remind herself she’s a hunter, and she’ll wander out with me to my car to watch me drive away. But none of that happened that morning, and I was forced to leave her in the house alone.
That day at work, I could hardly think straight, wondering if my cat was having another seizure in my absence. When work was over, I determined to go home and take her straight to the vet if she still wouldn’t express any interest in food. But as I opened the door, Kirby wandered out to meet me like she traditionally does, her tail a little curled in greeting, a little more sleepily than usual, but she was definitely improved from that morning. I dished-up a sachet of food into her bowl and breathed a sigh of relief as she ate it greedily, then proceeded to follow me around the house like a lost puppy.
[image error]Kirby, the loaf of bread
I’ll never quite know for sure what happened to Kirby that night. I do know our cats like to play rough games (well, Kirby does). Kirby chases Slim around the house relentlessly, and we know they had been fighting off and on that night (sometimes they wake us up with their roughhousing). We figure that Kirby may have run headlong into the wall, a door, or a piece of furniture and practically knocked herself out – causing some kind of seizure. It’s purely an educated guess. I watched Kirby closely for days, and there was no repeat of the incident. Thankfully, it seems the fit was a one-off. But it’s made me face a painful truth; unless there is something very wrong with my expected lifespan, I will outlive my cats. Still, I guess that’s just the human condition, isn’t it?
We’re here to experience love and loss, life and death, and you can’t just shut yourself off from all great experiences because they will invariably come to an end and hurt you. The good times will have made the bad times worth the pain. Yes, one day (hopefully many, many, many years from now), I will lose my cats. And it will hurt me deeply, and a period of mourning will be required. But I shall just have to pick myself up and remind myself that I am still needed. There are thousands upon thousands of kitties out there (there are dogs too, but dogs aren’t for me, you can sort out the dogs – I can’t do everything), and one of those kitties will need me – because every cat needs a home. And I just happen to have one.
NB: If you’d like to follow Kirby on Instagram (she has her own account, obviously), then please click HERE.
Related Posts:
For the Love of a Cat
A few weeks ago, an odd occurrence passed in the middle of the night. I didn’t write about it at the time because I was rather too concerned about it; too concerned to put it into a blog. Anyway, I was awakened at about three in the morning by a loud but perpetual noise in our bedroom – so loud, that it woke the entire house (and I sleep with earplugs in, thanks to my husband’s snoring). Our room was pitch-black and for some reason, I couldn’t find the bedside lamp to throw some light on the situation. My husband was forced illuminate the noisy section of the room with the little light on his wrist watch. Only then could I locate the lamp, which had been strangely knocked to the floor.
Once the lamp was snapped on in a panic, I found my favourite cat, Kirby, lying by my bed in an awkward and ungainly position. Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling; pupils dilated, twitching, claws gripping the carpet, and her tail at an odd kind of right angle. She was, or most definitely had been, having some kind of seizure. Our other cat, Slim, was crouched in fear by the bedroom door, watching.
[image error]Kirby in the snow
Both my husband and I scrambled to the floor beside Kirby and I repeatedly ran my fingers over her fir, hoping to bring her around. But she definitely wasn’t ‘with us’, and quite evidently didn’t know I was there. After some time, Kirby seemed to ‘come to’ and even began to purr loudly. But she still wasn’t quite right. It was as though she wouldn’t or couldn’t stand. Tears were already filling my eyes when I turned to Gareth to say, ‘what’s wrong with her? Something’s wrong…’, hoping he’d say she was ‘fine’, or contradict me in some way to settle my fears. But his face was as fearful as mine. Something was wrong, something had happened to our only two-and-a-half-year-old kitty. Eventually Slim ran off and Kirby unsteadily climbed to her feet, wandered a couple of yards away, and hunched down into a ‘bread’ position. I attempted to pick her up and put her in bed with me, but she hopped off the bed and hunched down in exactly the same spot as before.
It was the middle of the night, and we both had to work the next day, so we had no choice but to turn off the light and go back to sleep – or to wait and watch until morning came. I turned to Gareth and whispered miserably, ‘I love that little kitty’, and he (who is usually unreasonably disparaging about the cats and their standoffish ways) said, ‘don’t we all’. Occasionally, I would snap on the lamp to make sure Kirby was still okay, but there she sat in that same ‘loaf of bread’. I think I drifted off, in and out of consciousness, too worried for any hope of real sleep. And during the periods of wakefulness, I clearly remember thinking; I wish we’d never chosen to have pets (not that we ever made a choice, they came to us by default), I wish those cats had never come to live with us and stolen their way into our hearts, because I just won’t be able to handle losing them.
[image error]Kirby on my lap (proof!)
Like I say, Kirby is my favourite cat. I grew up with cats, and she will always stand out as the best pet I’ve ever owned. I love Slim too, but she doesn’t really love me (or anybody, for that matter – she’s a stray with a bit of a personality disorder, and is liable to bite or scratch you if you’re not careful). But Kirby loves me. Mine is the only lap she will sit on, and she’s well known to follow me around the house like a little dog, and she’s even featured in my books. Perhaps it’s because I’m the one who doles out the food 95% of the time, but I still believe that cat adores me. And unconditional love is very hard to come by. Fairly recently, my brother and sister-in-law lost their beloved dog to illness; she died at the respectable age of twelve, I believe. And I remember we remarked that that was the price you paid when you shared your life with an animal; an animal with an infinitely shorter lifespan than a human.
[image error]Kirby just being generally cute
The next day, the alarms went off at their standard time of six-thirty a.m. I cautiously heaved myself to a sitting position and my eyes darted over to the cat. Kirby was still there, sitting exactly in the same place she had been three hours before. I slid out of bed and hunkered down beside her again; another stroke, another purr. But Kirby is normally ravenously hungry by morning, circles my ankles like mad, and nearly trips me up on my way downstairs in her excitement for food. But I made my way downstairs alone. Kirby stayed right where she was. Eventually, I had no choice by to carry her downstairs and place her by her food bowl, but she wouldn’t eat. Instead, she wandered into the lounge and plopped back down into her standard bread pose in the middle of the floor. I explained to the kids what had happened in the night; they had heard the strange noises but were too sleepy to get up and investigate. Kirby was evidently better than she had been at three a.m., and although the kids were concerned, they were not nearly as terrified as me. But they hadn’t witnessed the ‘fit’. I’d thought I was going to lose her there and then on the bedroom floor that night. My cat is a creature of habit; in the morning she wants to be fed, she sometimes sits on my lap when I eat my porridge, she skittishly races around the house knocking things over to remind herself she’s a hunter, and she’ll wander out with me to my car to watch me drive away. But none of that happened that morning, and I was forced to leave her in the house alone.
That day at work, I could hardly think straight, wondering if my cat was having another seizure in my absence. When work was over, I determined to go home and take her straight to the vet if she still wouldn’t express any interest in food. But as I opened the door, Kirby wandered out to meet me like she traditionally does, her tail a little curled in greeting, a little more sleepily than usual, but she was definitely improved from that morning. I dished-up a sachet of food into her bowl and breathed a sigh of relief as she ate it greedily, then proceeded to follow me around the house like a lost puppy.
[image error]Kirby, the loaf of bread
I’ll never quite know for sure what happened to Kirby that night. I do know our cats like to play rough games (well, Kirby does). Kirby chases Slim around the house relentlessly, and we know they had been fighting off and on that night (sometimes they wake us up with their roughhousing). We figure that Kirby may have run headlong into the wall, a door, or a piece of furniture and practically knocked herself out – causing some kind of seizure. It’s purely an educated guess. I watched Kirby closely for days, and there was no repeat of the incident. Thankfully, it seems the fit was a one-off. But it’s made me face a painful truth; unless there is something very wrong with my expected lifespan, I will outlive my cats. Still, I guess that’s just the human condition, isn’t it?
We’re here to experience love and loss, life and death, and you can’t just shut yourself off from all great experiences because they will invariably come to an end and hurt you. The good times will have made the bad times worth the pain. Yes, one day (hopefully many, many, many years from now), I will lose my cats. And it will hurt me deeply, and a period of mourning will be required. But I shall just have to pick myself up and remind myself that I am still needed. There are thousands upon thousands of kitties out there (there are dogs too, but dogs aren’t for me, you can sort out the dogs – I can’t do everything), and one of those kitties will need me – because every cat needs a home. And I just happen to have one.
NB: If you’d like to follow Kirby on Instagram (she has her own account, obviously), then please click HERE.
Related Posts:
For the Love of a Cat
A few weeks ago, an odd occurrence passed in the middle of the night. I didn’t write about it at the time because I was rather too concerned about it; too concerned to put it into a blog. Anyway, I was awakened at about three in the morning by a loud but perpetual noise in our bedroom – so loud, that it woke the entire house (and I sleep with earplugs in, thanks to my husband’s snoring). Our room was pitch-black and for some reason, I couldn’t find the bedside lamp to throw some light on the situation. My husband was forced illuminate the noisy section of the room with the little light on his wrist watch. Only then could I locate the lamp, which had been strangely knocked to the floor.
Once the lamp was snapped on in a panic, I found my favourite cat, Kirby, lying by my bed in an awkward and ungainly position. Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling; pupils dilated, twitching, claws gripping the carpet, and her tail at an odd kind of right angle. She was, or most definitely had been, having some kind of seizure. Our other cat, Slim, was crouched in fear by the bedroom door, watching.
[image error]Kirby in the snow
Both my husband and I scrambled to the floor beside Kirby and I repeatedly ran my fingers over her fir, hoping to bring her around. But she definitely wasn’t ‘with us’, and quite evidently didn’t know I was there. After some time, Kirby seemed to ‘come to’ and even began to purr loudly. But she still wasn’t quite right. It was as though she wouldn’t or couldn’t stand. Tears were already filling my eyes when I turned to Gareth to say, ‘what’s wrong with her? Something’s wrong…’, hoping he’d say she was ‘fine’, or contradict me in some way to settle my fears. But his face was as fearful as mine. Something was wrong, something had happened to our only two-and-a-half-year-old kitty. Eventually Slim ran off and Kirby unsteadily climbed to her feet, wandered a couple of yards away, and hunched down into a ‘bread’ position. I attempted to pick her up and put her in bed with me, but she hopped off the bed and hunched down in exactly the same spot as before.
It was the middle of the night, and we both had to work the next day, so we had no choice but to turn off the light and go back to sleep – or to wait and watch until morning came. I turned to Gareth and whispered miserably, ‘I love that little kitty’, and he (who is usually unreasonably disparaging about the cats and their standoffish ways) said, ‘don’t we all’. Occasionally, I would snap on the lamp to make sure Kirby was still okay, but there she sat in that same ‘loaf of bread’. I think I drifted off, in and out of consciousness, too worried for any hope of real sleep. And during the periods of wakefulness, I clearly remember thinking; I wish we’d never chosen to have pets (not that we ever made a choice, they came to us by default), I wish those cats had never come to live with us and stolen their way into our hearts, because I just won’t be able to handle losing them.
[image error]Kirby on my lap (proof!)
Like I say, Kirby is my favourite cat. I grew up with cats, and she will always stand out as the best pet I’ve ever owned. I love Slim too, but she doesn’t really love me (or anybody, for that matter – she’s a stray with a bit of a personality disorder, and is liable to bite or scratch you if you’re not careful). But Kirby loves me. Mine is the only lap she will sit on, and she’s well known to follow me around the house like a little dog, and she’s even featured in my books. Perhaps it’s because I’m the one who doles out the food 95% of the time, but I still believe that cat adores me. And unconditional love is very hard to come by. Fairly recently, my brother and sister-in-law lost their beloved dog to illness; she died at the respectable age of twelve, I believe. And I remember we remarked that that was the price you paid when you shared your life with an animal; an animal with an infinitely shorter lifespan than a human.
[image error]Kirby just being generally cute
The next day, the alarms went off at their standard time of six-thirty a.m. I cautiously heaved myself to a sitting position and my eyes darted over to the cat. Kirby was still there, sitting exactly in the same place she had been three hours before. I slid out of bed and hunkered down beside her again; another stroke, another purr. But Kirby is normally ravenously hungry by morning, circles my ankles like mad, and nearly trips me up on my way downstairs in her excitement for food. But I made my way downstairs alone. Kirby stayed right where she was. Eventually, I had no choice by to carry her downstairs and place her by her food bowl, but she wouldn’t eat. Instead, she wandered into the lounge and plopped back down into her standard bread pose in the middle of the floor. I explained to the kids what had happened in the night; they had heard the strange noises but were too sleepy to get up and investigate. Kirby was evidently better than she had been at three a.m., and although the kids were concerned, they were not nearly as terrified as me. But they hadn’t witnessed the ‘fit’. I’d thought I was going to lose her there and then on the bedroom floor that night. My cat is a creature of habit; in the morning she wants to be fed, she sometimes sits on my lap when I eat my porridge, she skittishly races around the house knocking things over to remind herself she’s a hunter, and she’ll wander out with me to my car to watch me drive away. But none of that happened that morning, and I was forced to leave her in the house alone.
That day at work, I could hardly think straight, wondering if my cat was having another seizure in my absence. When work was over, I determined to go home and take her straight to the vet if she still wouldn’t express any interest in food. But as I opened the door, Kirby wandered out to meet me like she traditionally does, her tail a little curled in greeting, a little more sleepily than usual, but she was definitely improved from that morning. I dished-up a sachet of food into her bowl and breathed a sigh of relief as she ate it greedily, then proceeded to follow me around the house like a lost puppy.
[image error]Kirby, the loaf of bread
I’ll never quite know for sure what happened to Kirby that night. I do know our cats like to play rough games (well, Kirby does). Kirby chases Slim around the house relentlessly, and we know they had been fighting off and on that night (sometimes they wake us up with their roughhousing). We figure that Kirby may have run headlong into the wall, a door, or a piece of furniture and practically knocked herself out – causing some kind of seizure. It’s purely an educated guess. I watched Kirby closely for days, and there was no repeat of the incident. Thankfully, it seems the fit was a one-off. But it’s made me face a painful truth; unless there is something very wrong with my expected lifespan, I will outlive my cats. Still, I guess that’s just the human condition, isn’t it?
We’re here to experience love and loss, life and death, and you can’t just shut yourself off from all great experiences because they will invariably come to an end and hurt you. The good times will have made the bad times worth the pain. Yes, one day (hopefully many, many, many years from now), I will lose my cats. And it will hurt me deeply, and a period of mourning will be required. But I shall just have to pick myself up and remind myself that I am still needed. There are thousands upon thousands of kitties out there (there are dogs too, but dogs aren’t for me, you can sort out the dogs – I can’t do everything), and one of those kitties will need me – because every cat needs a home. And I just happen to have one.
NB: If you’d like to follow Kirby on Instagram (she has her own account, obviously), then please click HERE.
Related Posts:
For the Love of a Cat
A few weeks ago, an odd occurrence passed in the middle of the night. I didn’t write about it at the time because I was rather too concerned about it; too concerned to put it into a blog. Anyway, I was awakened at about three in the morning by a loud but perpetual noise in our bedroom – so loud, that it woke the entire house (and I sleep with earplugs in, thanks to my husband’s snoring). Our room was pitch-black and for some reason, I couldn’t find the bedside lamp to throw some light on the situation. My husband was forced illuminate the noisy section of the room with the little light on his wrist watch. Only then could I locate the lamp, which had been strangely knocked to the floor.
Once the lamp was snapped on in a panic, I found my favourite cat, Kirby, lying by my bed in an awkward and ungainly position. Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling; pupils dilated, twitching, claws gripping the carpet, and her tail at an odd kind of right angle. She was, or most definitely had been, having some kind of seizure. Our other cat, Slim, was crouched in fear by the bedroom door, watching.
[image error]Kirby in the snow
Both my husband and I scrambled to the floor beside Kirby and I repeatedly ran my fingers over her fir, hoping to bring her around. But she definitely wasn’t ‘with us’, and quite evidently didn’t know I was there. After some time, Kirby seemed to ‘come to’ and even began to purr loudly. But she still wasn’t quite right. It was as though she wouldn’t or couldn’t stand. Tears were already filling my eyes when I turned to Gareth to say, ‘what’s wrong with her? Something’s wrong…’, hoping he’d say she was ‘fine’, or contradict me in some way to settle my fears. But his face was as fearful as mine. Something was wrong, something had happened to our only two-and-a-half-year-old kitty. Eventually Slim ran off and Kirby unsteadily climbed to her feet, wandered a couple of yards away, and hunched down into a ‘bread’ position. I attempted to pick her up and put her in bed with me, but she hopped off the bed and hunched down in exactly the same spot as before.
It was the middle of the night, and we both had to work the next day, so we had no choice but to turn off the light and go back to sleep – or to wait and watch until morning came. I turned to Gareth and whispered miserably, ‘I love that little kitty’, and he (who is usually unreasonably disparaging about the cats and their standoffish ways) said, ‘don’t we all’. Occasionally, I would snap on the lamp to make sure Kirby was still okay, but there she sat in that same ‘loaf of bread’. I think I drifted off, in and out of consciousness, too worried for any hope of real sleep. And during the periods of wakefulness, I clearly remember thinking; I wish we’d never chosen to have pets (not that we ever made a choice, they came to us by default), I wish those cats had never come to live with us and stolen their way into our hearts, because I just won’t be able to handle losing them.
[image error]Kirby on my lap (proof!)
Like I say, Kirby is my favourite cat. I grew up with cats, and she will always stand out as the best pet I’ve ever owned. I love Slim too, but she doesn’t really love me (or anybody, for that matter – she’s a stray with a bit of a personality disorder, and is liable to bite or scratch you if you’re not careful). But Kirby loves me. Mine is the only lap she will sit on, and she’s well known to follow me around the house like a little dog, and she’s even featured in my books. Perhaps it’s because I’m the one who doles out the food 95% of the time, but I still believe that cat adores me. And unconditional love is very hard to come by. Fairly recently, my brother and sister-in-law lost their beloved dog to illness; she died at the respectable age of twelve, I believe. And I remember we remarked that that was the price you paid when you shared your life with an animal; an animal with an infinitely shorter lifespan than a human.
[image error]Kirby just being generally cute
The next day, the alarms went off at their standard time of six-thirty a.m. I cautiously heaved myself to a sitting position and my eyes darted over to the cat. Kirby was still there, sitting exactly in the same place she had been three hours before. I slid out of bed and hunkered down beside her again; another stroke, another purr. But Kirby is normally ravenously hungry by morning, circles my ankles like mad, and nearly trips me up on my way downstairs in her excitement for food. But I made my way downstairs alone. Kirby stayed right where she was. Eventually, I had no choice by to carry her downstairs and place her by her food bowl, but she wouldn’t eat. Instead, she wandered into the lounge and plopped back down into her standard bread pose in the middle of the floor. I explained to the kids what had happened in the night; they had heard the strange noises but were too sleepy to get up and investigate. Kirby was evidently better than she had been at three a.m., and although the kids were concerned, they were not nearly as terrified as me. But they hadn’t witnessed the ‘fit’. I’d thought I was going to lose her there and then on the bedroom floor that night. My cat is a creature of habit; in the morning she wants to be fed, she sometimes sits on my lap when I eat my porridge, she skittishly races around the house knocking things over to remind herself she’s a hunter, and she’ll wander out with me to my car to watch me drive away. But none of that happened that morning, and I was forced to leave her in the house alone.
That day at work, I could hardly think straight, wondering if my cat was having another seizure in my absence. When work was over, I determined to go home and take her straight to the vet if she still wouldn’t express any interest in food. But as I opened the door, Kirby wandered out to meet me like she traditionally does, her tail a little curled in greeting, a little more sleepily than usual, but she was definitely improved from that morning. I dished-up a sachet of food into her bowl and breathed a sigh of relief as she ate it greedily, then proceeded to follow me around the house like a lost puppy.
[image error]Kirby, the loaf of bread
I’ll never quite know for sure what happened to Kirby that night. I do know our cats like to play rough games (well, Kirby does). Kirby chases Slim around the house relentlessly, and we know they had been fighting off and on that night (sometimes they wake us up with their roughhousing). We figure that Kirby may have run headlong into the wall, a door, or a piece of furniture and practically knocked herself out – causing some kind of seizure. It’s purely an educated guess. I watched Kirby closely for days, and there was no repeat of the incident. Thankfully, it seems the fit was a one-off. But it’s made me face a painful truth; unless there is something very wrong with my expected lifespan, I will outlive my cats. Still, I guess that’s just the human condition, isn’t it?
We’re here to experience love and loss, life and death, and you can’t just shut yourself off from all great experiences because they will invariably come to an end and hurt you. The good times will have made the bad times worth the pain. Yes, one day (hopefully many, many, many years from now), I will lose my cats. And it will hurt me deeply, and a period of mourning will be required. But I shall just have to pick myself up and remind myself that I am still needed. There are thousands upon thousands of kitties out there (there are dogs too, but dogs aren’t for me, you can sort out the dogs – I can’t do everything), and one of those kitties will need me – because every cat needs a home. And I just happen to have one.
NB: If you’d like to follow Kirby on Instagram (she has her own account, obviously), then please click HERE.
Related Posts:
