The Silverdust Report

 

First, everyone who donated to my veterinarian bills, thank you eternally.  Every little bit helped.  

I went to the vet and paid off Silverstreak's bill, clinched the appointment for Silversun, and got Streak's body back.  They'd stored it in the freezer so it was stiff when I got it home, too stiff to curl up and place in the grave.  So I cut away the plastic bag, put her body on the tattered little rug she used to sleep on, and set her on the couch to warm up.  Silversun came up and sniffed her over intently, then perched on the arm of the couch and watched her for hours.  Eventually she softened enough that I could curl her into a ball, as if she were sleeping, and I wrapped her in the rug and took her outside.  Silversun started to follow us out the door, but then stopped and turned back into the house.  

I put her in the hole at the foot of the Tangerine tree, which Henry had dug respectfully deep, said the ritual words -- primarily Wiccan, with added deities from ancient Egypt and North America -- shoveled the dirt back in and put the stones on top.  When I came back into the house, Silversun was waiting.  He looked carefully, saw that Streak's body was not longer with me, and then he hurried to my side and stayed close for the rest of the day.  He didn't want to get too far from me, but followed me all over the house.  At bedtime, he pushed the bedroom door open and insisted on sleeping on our bed, beside or between my feet.  He's made a point of staying close to me ever since -- except for when he gets up and wanders through the house, wailing.  He knows that his two sweethearts are gone, and he's lonely.

Rasty insists that I not get another kitten, not for a couple months at least.  He claims that he's tired of cats, doesn't want any more cats, and doesn't even like the one I've got left, but I think it's more likely that he's tired of seeing beloved pets die.  He made a big fuss about what a mess the house is, and how that's probably the cause of the illnesses that claimed Streak and Dot, so I made arrangements with Jerry to disinfect the house tomorrow.  We'll block off each room in turn, and run the Ozone generator for half an hour in each, which should be quite enough to kill anything -- virus, microbe, insect, or in between. And I'll lay down a thick line of ortho-boric acid all around the house, maybe mixed with Pyrethrin dust, to make sure the damned scorpions don't come back.  I see no use for those vicious creatures, except as food for the Howling Mouse, and I'm pretty sure there are none of those tough mice on our property.  

Come Monday I'll contact the local small-animal shelter -- Buckeye Animal Rescue Kennel, or BARK for short -- as well as the Animal Welfare League of Arizona, and surprise them by putting in an order for a specific type of kitten two months in advance.  This being a farming town, a lot of the animal shelters hereabouts specialize in dogs, horses, burros and goats.  Only a few even take cats.  Farms, obviously, need their cats and rarely hand them over to the animal shelters.  Still, our neighborhood is residential, so there should be a few cats and kittens sent to the shelters, and I'll search through them until I find a kitten with the right characteristics.  Short-haired coat, five distinct toes on the front paws, a larger than normal cranium and visible intelligence: that will be descendant of at least one of my ranging toms.  The bloodline will go on.

--Leslie <;)))><