Well hello there. I've not been here for quite awhile...except for my book review. Life's been pretty...ummmm...interesting over the last few months. I'm going to try to catch up with my musings on here because it's somewhat therapeutic. But I have a lot to catch up on.
First traumatic episode first:
PLEASE PEOPLE! TAKE CARE OF YOUR PETS!!
For fuck's sake, please do me a solid and just fucking make sure you are 100% committed to taking care of a pet before you get one and abandon it. How about this:
1) Before you get a pet, why don't you buy a plant and see if you can keep it alive for a year?
Yes, I semi stole this from a pretty good movie with Sandra Bullock and an extremely hot Viggo Mortensen. Watch the movie if you need a more detailed explanation. But if you can't keep a plant alive for a year, you have no business getting a live animal that will be dependent on you for many years to come.
2) Please accept that cats should be indoor pets. They live longer, they are healthier in general, and they cause less problems for others. Much like dogs, there really is no reason to let a cat run free other than YOU ARE A LAZY MUTHERFUCKER.
No sane person would let a dog just roam the neighborhood, so why do people think that it's okay for a cat?
Disclaimer: I have not always been a model pet owner. I have a few regrets in my life in regards to really and truly caring for a pet. A lot of that was the product of learning to take care of pets in the age of my parents. Back then (at least in my parents world) it was a whole different ballgame. But in today's world of social media and widespread knowledge with the flick of a computer keyboard or smart phone, there is no room for ignorance when it comes to pets.
I could probably rant on for hours but, frankly, this is all so distressing for me. So I'll just get to the heart of the problem.
I'll start way back about 4 years ago...
We were living in a rental house in a good neighborhood. Obviously the economy was going downhill fast and people were losing their homes. An adorable little kitty started sunning itself in our backyard. It was about a year old and was rapidly fading away before my eyes; obviously it was not being fed. I'm sure it was a casualty of the housing market...someone had got it as a kitten and then abandoned it. It was not feral.
At first it was very scared of me (especially if I happened to be carrying a broom or rake...obviously it had been abused by someone) but soon it's need for human companionship and attention overcame that. It started approaching me and I started putting out food for it.
I had two rescue cats of my own plus my elderly baby Wembly so I couldn't fully adopt it or let it in the house, although it wanted to come in very badly. Soon I took to calling it Friend and it pretty much lived in our backyard.
I STUPIDLY didn't fully take into consideration what would happen if we had to move suddenly. Which we did when my mom's Alzheimer's took a quite sudden and severe turn for the worse and we had to put her in a facility.
I let that poor cat down all over again. I don't know what happened to it...I hope someone took it in and loved it like it's sweet little self deserved. But if no one did, I'm sure it didn't survive.
Fast forward a year and a half. We've been living in this apartment on a very busy 6 lane street. There are a lot of cats around here; most have owners, but are still allowed to run outdoors. I've seen several that have not survived the dash across the busy road to get to the mouse-laden field that lies across it.
This week has been hell for me at work...more details on that (possibly) some other time. But on Tuesday night, Adie called me and told me that an adorable ginger kitty was hanging around our front door for a little bit.
When I got home, it was still there. It was as sweet as sweet can be. It was also obviously starving. Again, this was not a feral cat. He was a sweetheart that wanted me to pet him ever so badly.
I spend the next hour agonizing over where or not I should feed him. Adie and I discussed it and remembered Friend. We talked about some popular opinion that feeding stray cats interferes with their ability to hunt for themselves. We wondered about feeding it near our apartment door that fronts onto such a busy street; it obviously wasn't safe for it to think it could come there for food and possibly be tempted to cross the road.
We thought maybe we should take it to the SPCA but nixed that idea thinking he would just be killed due to overcrowding.
In the end, we decided to give it some cold water (since it was 106 that day).
I still wanted to feed it but kept wrestling with the decision.
The kitty stayed on our 2nd floor walkway until after I went to bed.
The next morning, I scooped cat food into a ziploc baggy as I prepared to leave for work at 6:30a.m. I told myself that if I saw the adorable sweet thing I would take it down by the pool area and feed it away from our apartment and the street.
I walked to my car and didn't see it. Unfortunately, it was the first thing I saw as I turned onto the busy road. It had been hit by a car. Killed. All. My. Fault.
I wish I would have taken him to the SPCA. I wish I would have fed him the night before so he may not have tried to cross the road to the field. I wish he would never have been abandoned. I wish whoever had owned his mommy or daddy kitty would have spayed/neutered their pets.
I wish. I wish. I wish.
I'm so sorry beautiful, sweet ginger kitty. I'm so sorry my beautiful, sweet, fluffy, gray Friend.
I am so very, very sorry. RIP and never go hungry or lonely again.
xoxo
