Threes

  It's said that "bad things happen in threes."  A couple of months ago, eye found out that m'eye boy kitty who lived at m'eye mom's had to be put down.  Then Angel found out his good friend died previously this year.  Eye got a fish on m'eye birthday, and it died.  So... that's three, right?  No more deaths, no more deaths, please.  The love of m'eye life with her diminishing & returning health... slowly downward, it seemed, perhaps - eye'd figured some things out, starting to treat her, get her back on a good track.  No fucking memorials to write at next year's Burning Man (eye have one EVERY year eye go.)  WRONG.

  On Sunday evening, eye saw blood on the kitchen floor.  Eye mentioned it to Angel and cleaned it up.  Then saw a large drop (about a third or less the size of the original blood spot) headed toward the hallway.  So, eye went into m'eye bedroom, to look for Baby, with a paper towel.  Had Luabelle scratched her, again - this time much more seriously than she's ever done?  Baby was under the bed.  Eye picked her up and put her on the bed, and laid her on her right side, tail toward the side of the bed, head on the middle.  She purred. Eye looked under her tail, didn't really see anything.  Saw blood on her leg.  "That's coming from her leg, right?  That's not coming from her ass, is it?"  Eye headed toward the kitchen as Angel investigated, he now possessed the paper towel.

  He came into the kitchen holding what looked like a clump of blood in the paper towel.  "It's coming from her ass," he said.  FUCK.  Not more wrong with her.  She had been losing weight over the course of the last six to eight weeks.  She seemed to be eating less (but Angel said he saw her eating just as much as ever.  She also begged like she was absolutlely starving whenever she knew we were eating "human food" - and would even eat things like broccoli in chinese food sauce-stuck her head right in m'eye bowl and ate it!) Her constipation issues had become worse throughout the last year, getting more frequent, getting more sensitive to foods, the bouts being worse - eye'd just treated her from her last bout around a month prior.  And in the last couple of days, this gravel-sound in her mouth after she ate - which meant broken teeth.  And near the broken teeth, eye think, she was developing a mouth infection.  She'd been having sneezing fits for a couple of days, as well.  She had two seizures in the last year (had never had any others that eye saw in her lifetime.)  She sometimes had problems jumping onto the kitchen chairs, and would slip back off.  This is what eye suspect caused a sprained arm a few weeks prior.  She had periods of days or weeks this year where she would just hide and stick to herself, at times ignoring grooming.  But then she'd bounce back to acting normal, being active, following me.  She also became incredibly finicky with the litterbox.  She'd been finicky for quite a while, but now, for the most part, only seemed to use it right after it had been SCRUBBED OUT with new litter put in.  Eye suspected arthritis, eye suspected diabetes.  Eye'd started feeding her canned food in attempt to put weight on her.  Eye planned to start "vet-shopping" the next day, had started looking at prices online.

  Eye entered m'eye room back to m'eye girl.  Luabelle was on the bed with her.  Oh baby! Her back legs were kind of hanging off the bed.  Eye pushed them up under her a little better. Eye told her that eye was sorry.  Eye petted her and held her paw.  She purred.  Eye whispered in her ear that eye knew she wasn't doing ok & hadn't been feeling well, and that she could "go" if she needed to.

  Eye returned to studying for m'eye "physiology of behavior" class, started reading the book, going over the notes of the classes eye've been to, taking notes as eye went, considering eye missed the first two weeks of school, thinking that eye wasn't even enrolled (eye was told eye couldn't, and the internet showed no financial aid the friday morning before school started.)  About three hours in, eye decided to check on Baby.

  When eye walked through the doorway, eye saw her legs were hanging off the bed in what looked to be an uncomfortable manner.  Wh'eye had she gotten herself back in that position?  Eye went to go move her legs again.

  She was hard!  Eye was shocked, horrified, traumatized, upset.  Right now coming to life, the horrible head-image that's haunted me for a while, made me afraid to leave the house because what if she wasn't alive when eye came back?  Went toward the hallway and called to Angel, "She's dead!"

  "What?"

  "She's dead!"  He came into the room, eye told him what had happened, eye broke down.  He told me to leave the room so that he could take care of it.  Eye asked him to cut off some fur from her tail.  He asked if eye wanted the whole tail.  No!  Eye'm not one to keep "Stuffed" dead animals.  Much as eye want her around forever, that creeps me out.  Eye did want to have her cloned.  But don't know how eye'd go about "keeping" her blood, plus that's no longer legal in the US.  He wrapped her in a bag, and put her in the freezer, said we'd keep her there til we could bury her.  Eye couldn't even go in the freezer for food the rest of the night.  Eye spent the rest of the night texting people, on the phone, or telling people online what had happened, crying.  Certainly not studying.  (The next day, the test made NO sense to me.  Afterward, eye spent half an hour crying in the bathroom over pictures of her.  Then went outside to quickly falling, fat raindrops. It was for her.  But there weren't enough tears in the sky for how eye feel.)

  When m'eye cat Eyeball died, eye was going to bury him. It was a similar situation, except he'd only recently developed problems - with urinating.  Eye took him to the vet, they flushed his kidneys/urinary tract (it was blocked) and they suggested keeping him there 5 days.  Eye could NOT afford the $1200, so took him home.  He laid on m'eye floor & eye went downstairs to hang out.  When eye returned later that night, it was to a hard body with eyes glazed over... so awful.  Anyhow, when eye could not penetrate the rock-hard desert ground more than a few inches on the side of the house, eye took him to the pound.  When eye later told m'eye Hopi neighbor about it, she said it was good that eye didn't bury him, or the animal's spirit would remain trapped near where his body rested, unable to move on.  So, eye want to have her cremated.  But eye want the ashes, this time.  Eye'm still in the process of figuring out which company's services eye'm going to use.

   Baby - eye got her as a Christmas present from JJ, m'eye best friend and roommate at the time, in 2000.  Eye'd returned home from Christmas with m'eye family to a present from him.  She was the best present ever!  She was a flame point siamese/color point shorthair with beautiful big deep blue eyes.  She was 3-4 months old.  Eye like to think that we had the same birthday.  When eye moved out of m'eye mom's house, she wouldn't let me take m'eye boy kitty.  So eye used to put pictures of him around m'eye bed, and would cry because eye missed him so much.  So, JJ decided to look at the animal shelter, where he snatched up one of a litter of what had originally been 4, now there were 2 - an identical boy and girl.  When he saw her, he said that it was me.

  M'eye baby followed me everywhere, everywhere!  When m'eye mom came to give her shots, she said that we were alike.  Eye used to stay home from partying to be with her.  She purred so much, and licked.  She had the most beautiful high-pitched meow and the cutest silent meow. She would play with m'eye feet under the covers.  But when not covered by a blanket, she NEVER bit or scratched me, not even to play!  So kind & gentle.  She used to lay under the blanket with me when it was cold.  We moved playing with each other when eye was on acid, after all - the cat toys were fun for me too, with the tracers & colors following after its movement.)   She got a buddy when JJ decided to get a cat, too.  They had a lot of fun chasing each other around.  One night, eye was cutting up a sheet of acid & eye was sweating.  Eye hadn't intended on tripping, but eye sure did.  She ended up walking across the damn sheet & may have gotten some in her, too.  She also tried to eat mushroom dust.  She was just interested in whatever eye was doing, wanted a part of it all.  Eye used to get chicken breasts and cook them up just for her.  She greeted me when eye came home.  She spent lots of time on m'eye lap.  She'd also crawl into the laps of some other people on their first meeting, which eye always took as a good sign about that person.  She slept with me every night.

  At some point, eye ended up getting into methamphetamine.  JJ was Extremely against tweekers, so eye spent more & more time away from home, to avoid him.  But in doing this, eye abandoned her to become JJ and his boyfriend's responsibility.  JJ once told me that whenever eye left the house, she would cry & look for me endlessly.  Eye felt so guilty, but eye couldn't be around him & his accusations.  Whenever eye came home and went to bed, she'd lay right on top of me, trying to hold me down, to keep me there (eye don't like to move when kitty's on me, and rarely will eye move kitty from a spot, even if eye want to sit there.)  Eventually, he moved out (& the fucker tattled to my mom that eye was on meth.)  But, now eye got to be home with my baby, and boy was eye glad to be there!  The only bad thing, is that meant she was around meth smoke - not like she was going to avoid it - she wanted to lay on me!  In the period of time eye was tweeking, eye became suicidally depressed.  One night, when eye planned to slit m'eye wrist, Baby slept on m'eye hand all night.  When eye was cutting myself, she'd open the bathroom door (she knew how to push the handles to get through doors!) and cry at me to stop.  She was so incredibly in tune with m'eye emotions. 

  After that place didn't work out with roommates and the lease was up, eye lived in two different places for the next month.  Eye then moved back into m'eye mom's for a year and a half.  Eye got her a new buddy - Luabelle.  M'eye mom had to change the door handle to a door knob because Baby would let them both out of m'eye room to explore the house whenever eye left!  In this time, she met m'eye boy kitty, bc when Baby would open the door, he would want to go in, since it was m'eye room.  Well, they seemed to like each other, which was wonderful.

  Eye moved back out, and had periods of time living alone, and periods of time people lived with me, and they had their cats, too.  (Oh, & once when eye was making DXM capsules, she stuck her nose in the powder! Eye cleaned it off, but damage done - she started tripping, it seems!)  Around the time the last roommate moved out, eye got Eyeball from JJ's litter of kittens.  Then eye moved into a house with Marty, m'eye best friend at the time.  Eye ended up getting him his very own baby kitty.  We had many heavy psychedelic experiences there, acid, dxm, DIPT, ketamine.  We decided that Baby was a goddess from the mountaintops of Asia, Luabelle was a jungle goddess from the Amazon, and that his kitty was from Europe.  They all loved each other.  Baby met lots of our friends, and they loved her.  They agreed that she was a goddess from Asia, said how pretty she was.  She liked to lay with people, stare deep into their eyes, purr, lick.  Eyeball died (which was HORRIBLE to Marty's baby - they were best friends), a mom & kitten moved into the house (the mom was Mamba "from Africa," we decided.)  A month after the passing of Eyeball, she gave birth to a rainbow litter of 7 kittens!  Around the same time, since eye'd lost m'eye job due to Eyeball's death, eye had to do some illegal-immigrant smuggling to come up with rent.  Unfortunately, on the second run, eye was caught.  Prison sentence, m'eye cats back to mom's.  Marty lost his job while eye was in.  Eye almost lost the house, but managed to arrange enough money to keep it.

  After coming back, after a couple of months, eye had a full house of people, and had some rotating roommates.  In addition to Marty & m'eye cats, were other cats that belonged to various roommates.  As soon as eye could, as eye'd been planning a while, eye moved to Vegas, with a boyfriend who was relatively new to me at the time.  Eye was a little pissed that Tanner & Marty had given up the dream of coming with me, at least at the time.  But eye had been ready to go for so long!  Marty's cat stayed with us until eye got a semi-rescue kitten (boss would have taken to pound otherwise) and the landlord raised hell about *too many cats* & told me if he saw all those cats again, we'd be thrown out.  Eye wanted to hide the new baby Mel, but found a neighbor a few doors down who'd take her.  Angel & eye told her that we'd go 3 ways in on getting her spayed, since she was a horny little thing too frequently cycling into heat.  Well, unfortunately, she never took us up on it - and Mel had gotten pregnant.  The lady dumped them on our doorstep in a cage at 4 in the morning one day, screaming about giving her a pregnant cat (and if the bitch had let me SEE Mel like eye'd wanted in the prior 6 weeks, eye could have told her that & we could have taken care of it.)  Angel called Aunt Patty to have her take them all to the pound, didn't give me time to find them a new place (& found out a week later that another neighbor would have taken them all!)

  So then it was back to just the two babies.  In all this coming and going of cats, Baby never got territorial or lashed out at them.  For a couple of days, she would just growl at the little intruder IF they got too close to her.  But then she accepted them pretty quickly.  Luabelle, on the other hand, is a raging cunt to other cats, liked to sometimes swat at Baby, chase her, and even has left long scratches on Baby's neck (which strangely sort of corresponded to the track-mark scars on m'eye own neck.)  She was so adaptable.  She trusted me completely, she'd stay to let me clip her claws even though she hated it, stayed put on the couple of occasions she had to be given a bath, hated to take medicine when she had to, but wouldn't hold it against me.  She was all grace, and elegance, and love.

So many regrets.  What if eye'd taken her to the vet RIGHT when eye got m'eye student loans?  (But the mouth infection was VERY recently acquired, & what if it was blood poisoning from that?  And what the HELL causes a cat's teeth to randomly break, anyway? - looks like it was 2 front teeth.)  What if long ago eye'd gotten online and found out about where you can appl'eye for financial help to get a pet's medical needs taken care of?  (Eye found sites for this about a week before she died.)  Eye should have started giving her canned food as soon as Angel said she was getting thin.  Eye shouldn't have given her anything with ANY dairy in it, much as she cried for it, because it could lead to constipation, depending on the "lightness" of the dairy - a tiny bit of cheese would do it EVERY time, a bit of light ice cream may not - though she was becoming more&more sensitive as time went on.  Eye should have kept m'eye pet insurance, even after leaving that job&that state.  Should have taken her to a vet every year.  Should have never handled drugs around her (though that would have taken locking her out of the room, as she wanted to be involved in EVERYTHING eye did.)  Never left her alone & gone on m'eye tweek escapades.  Never smoked meth or cigarettes around her.  Maybe should have put her down when her health went on this decline/improve/decline thing, where it slowly was getting worse, and Angel kept saying she was going to die soon? And that Sunday night, eye should have studied in the bedroom.  If some part of me knew enough to give her permission to go, why, why, why didn't eye stay there, holding her paw through her last breath?

 She was all the good in me, and much of the time the only one who meant anything to me, and she meant everything.  Eye always wanted us to die on the same day, her first - so she'd never had to have been without her mommy.  But that's not what happened.  Eye cannot financially afford a drug-suicide attempt, because, as it will probably not work, eye'll run out of drugs too early.  School-wise, eye cannot afford to miss classes from some other botched type of attempt.  So, here eye have to "keep on keeping on."  The semester isn't over until mid-December.  So eye must function, treat school as m'eye job, be careful with spending, etc.  But eye don't want to "function."  Eye want to break down.  Eye want to be the mess of emotions eye try so hard to suppress, eye want to crumble into the pieces of m'eye broken heart, eye want to be the nothing that eye am without her.