2004-01-11

Ah, chitlens. These are sad animal times. About two days after my parents put Verbena to sleep, we found a pretty enormous lump on C*lyde's hind leg. Tests reveal that it's a tumor, so now there is surgery and probably radiation/decisions.

Sigh.

After having dinner last night with my best friend of over ten years, Miss LibbyLu, I was driving home through the somewhat residential neighborhood of Bernal Heights. I saw a beautiful, fat, long-haired, extra fuzzy gray cat lying dead in the middle of the road. The cat was fat enough that it was obviously someone's pet.

I pulled over, but didn't know what to do. I had nothing to pick him up with, and I didn't want to move him if he was...opened up. So, sadly, I went on.

But then I started thinking. If, God forbid, that was ever one of my cats, as terrible and sad as it is it's even more terrible and sad to think of the poor thing lying alone in the middle of the road as cars go by. I couldn't bear it, so I got some newspaper and went back.

He was so fuzzy and fat. His eye was hanging out.

Other than that, he seemed contained. I picked him carefully up with the newspaper. He was heavier than any cat I've ever had the pleasure of over-feeding, but maybe it was just the limpness of death that made him seem so much weightier.

By the time I got him across the road and laid him in some grass on the sidewalk, I had totally lost my shit. I was sobbing for all the little cats I've had that have died, for Mr. C*lyde's impending doom, for the poor girl who's calling her soft, fat, fuzzy gray cat right now wondering why he didn't come home last night.