I Miss You, Sweet Boy

Almost 19 years ago, Herne was born - conveniently on my friend Merry's birthday who'd taken in Herne's very pregnant mama. He was the runt of a litter of five - and by far the prettiest of the bunch, though I'm guessing Mer would disagree since she kept his brother Casey.

When he was a kitten we called him Circus Cat. He'd do amazing midair flips when we'd play with him with ribbons and other toys. He played fetch with puff balls and he'd go to the basement every night and drag three or four dirty socks from the laundry bin, all the way up two flights of stairs to lay them at the foot of our bed. He was so tiny that the socks were bigger than he was. He earned the nickname Herne the Hunter for that. We also called him Bunny Boy because he had fur as soft as any rabbit.

Herne has always been a mama's boy. He snuggles with me no matter where I am and especially likes to help me write by laying on my keyboard or my arms or my chest while I'm trying to work, contentedly purring the whole time.

Over the last couple years, he's been sleepier and weaker. He's gone deaf and blind. He navigates the house using the perimeter of the room and what we affectionately refer to as Kitty Sonar. It involves Herne yowling loudly as he wanders around. He'd always make himself known to whoever was on the phone with me, meowing loudly into the mouthpiece. It's an obnoxious sound, but it's one I'm going to miss.

Herne had a stroke today. One minute he was sleeping by me on the couch and the next he was spinning in horrifyingly endless circles, stopping only when the right side of his body would give way. Then, he'd claw to his feet and repeat motions looking more and more confused.

I held him and he snuggled into me and purred, but when he got restless, the same cycle would start again. They boys and I took turns keeping him calm until Matt got home and we took him to the vet.

We ended up having to put him down tonight. I miss him so much already.

Weirdass Dream and Interview

Yes...I'm afraid it's that time again. Time for another unfortunate journey into Bron's subconscious.

So I woke up completely pissed off this morning, and here's why.

I dreamt that I was cleaning our ginormous walk-in closet. This thing was as big as a freaking room. I needed to hurry, because I had to be on time for a meeting with the Department of Social Services (DSS). It seems we were without insurance and I had to go down and apply.

I made it there (in time) with my carload of donations for Goodwill (I guess that's why I was cleaning out the closet) and I was told I couldn't meet with the people about getting insurance because one of the children was having a birthday party, but I could go have cake while I waited.

Never being one to turn down cake...even in my dreams...sigh...I followed the party noises into a large room. There were kids on one side of the room, very well dressed jumping on silk upholstered furniture and drinking juice out of wine and martini shaped juice-glasses and opening super expensive (and apparently unneeded - "I already have three x-boxes, mommy!") gifts.

I sat down awkwardly with some of the moms and listened to conversations about holiday vacations while everyone stared at their cake, refusing to eat it because they were too full from their cob salads. Whatevs. I ate the damn cake. While they were all discussing their vacations and the upcoming holidays, there was another group of moms and kids who were all standing outside the building in the snow and sleet watching the kids playing at the birthday party waiting for their turn to come in and apply for assistance. The non-cake eating moms sat and made snide comments while the caseworkers played on Facebook instead of letting them come in from the cold and helping them.

I ended up going home and admiring my lovely, clean, organized walk in closet and then the alarm rang. Sigh. I woke up pissed at the state of healthcare in our nation, pissed at the moms in my dream and pissed because not only do I not have a walk in closet, the one I do have isn't clean or organized. Grrrrrr.

If you've stayed with me this far, you should come and visit my kitties. Jody (aka Typing Slave) and Meankitty interviewed my cats over at their blog. I'd love it if you stopped by and said hi! :)