Letting her go

Today is the day I'm putting Mommie to sleep. She's thin as a rake and her charming personality is gone. She sleeps and eats. She took weak to jump off the bed. I had to put a disposable catbox on the corner of the bed.

I don't know why she's dying. I only know that she is. I've tried antibiotics, steriods, and subQ fluids for 5 days. And she's getting thinner every day. I'd be a complete jerk to deny it and continue to "hope" she'd get better.

I've kept her around because I didn't want to feel guilty about putting her to sleep and because I didn't want to face the pain of her loss. I'm old enough to know that nothing can take her place.

A phone call from the vet confirms that she has e. coli. Damn. Mommie always has been a trash picker. But it's my fault she got to the trash. The guilt is overwhelming and my heart is broken. I feel like coming completely unraveled.

Mommie

My beautiful girl

Mommie Cat is nearing the end of her shelf life. I want to write about her before I put her to sleep because I can't stand the thought of writing about her in the past tense. I want to write about her alive, not dead.

Mommie is a black and white cow cat who is confident in her own beauty. When I think of her, I picture her sitting with her white chest out, whiskers forward, absolutely confident that she is beautiful and irresistibly petable. And yet, she meows like a junkyard cat—a really, grating, disagreeable alley cat sound.

She is a mask and saddle cat. I love that her black ears are sugar-frosted with wisps of white. From the front, she appears to be mostly white. From the back, she appears mostly black—a solid black tail with little wisps of white. Her front legs are marked with black spots. It looks as though the spot starts on one leg and continues to the other. Her best marking is a black, heart-shaped patch over her heart--my black-hearted girl. Her fur is extremely fine and soft and shiny.

I also love that she’s a polydactyl—front and back. I sometimes call her my pterodactyl.

Although she can really talk trash, she is extremely gentle. I’ve sometimes had to give her eye medication or trim her polydactyl nails and she just doesn’t scratch.

She’s my only cat who is a greeter. When my other cats hear someone walking up the steps, they scatter and hide—but not Mommie. She always greets me when I come home from work, either sitting near the front door or howling at me from an open window. She always presents herself to my infrequent visitors. She wants them to have the opportunity to admire her extreme beauty.

She is an amorous girl. She doesn’t like to sit in my lap or to be held, but she loves to be petted—especially her neck, shoulders, and behind the ears. She puts her whole head into my hand and sometimes nuzzles my palm to awaken me for “the petting.” Because she enjoys it so much, I call it “heavy petting.”

Mommie showed up on the patio of my Costa Mesa apartment in the Spring of 1998 with her five feral kittens: two black and white polydactyls, two black polydactyls, and a tabby. She presented her kittens with pride, whiskers up, her tail like a little flag. She spent the afternoons sitting in the sun on my patio chair while her kittens slowly destroyed every plant in my garden.

Over the course of a month, I worked to tame her kittens. At first, when I would open the door to the patio, the kittens would scatter. Mommie would remain on the patio chair, smiling in the sun. Bit by bit, the kittens grew accustomed to my presence.

I borrowed a large dog kennel from the Irvine animal shelter and captured the kittens. I kept Mommie and her kittens in the kennel at night but let them roam my bedroom during the day. As soon as the kittens would tolerate being handled, I gave them to a kitten adoption agency. I’d planned to give all of the kittens away, but Mommie howled and HOWLED with grief when I separated her from the kittens. So I kept her tabby kitten, named him Tommie and he’s lived with me, Mommie, and Cat for nearly 10 years. Tommie nursed on his Mommie for nearly 4 or 5 months, until he was almost the same size as her.

In 2000, the cats and I made the move to my condo in Aliso Viejo. It was a smooth transition and we settled into our new home nicely.

Mommie sleeps in a lot of places, but mostly she sleeps on my bed. Sometimes, she even sleeps on my pillow. The sound of her purring through the nice is extremely comforting.

I love that she is my cuddly cat, the cat that wants to be near me, the one who wants to be petted. She, more than my other cats, is my companion. When I’m home, Mommie is always within arm’s reach, except when I’m in the kitchen.

She loves to drink from a sports bottle of water and is an avid junk food eater. She assumes that any food in the house is up for grabs. Many times I’ve been watching TV and eating chips, left the room, and come back only to find a black and white cat butt sticking out of my bag of chips. She loves to eat melon—especially watermelon and cantelope. And, probably from her feral days, she's an avid trashpicker. She cheerfully pulls anything and everything interesting from the trash for midnight feasts.

She loves riding in the truck. She likes it if I hold her in my arms as we’re driving down the road. She looks out the window and the wind ruffles her fur.

Terms of EndearmentMommie Lou, Mommieness, M-O-M, Mommie ManyToes
Emmy-O-E-Emmy
My Girl
Mommieskin
Mommieskin Rug
Wicked Little Girl
Naughty Girl
Tiny girl
Big girl (Great BIG Girl)

A Nonsense Song I Sing to Her
Mommie Lou
I love you
I really do
Oh Mommie Lou

Mommieness
You’re the best
In the west
Oh Mommieness

MommieMeow
I love you
I really do
Oh MommieMew

Creative Hibernation

I think my creative self is mulling over what to do next; however, there's nothing I'm burning to knit. Even leafing through my stash of knitting books doesn't inspire. Maybe I'm a little burned out. I dunno.

Because of my restricted driving status, I didn't attend the felted scarf workshop in Long Beach. I did buy a drop spindle the other day. I haven't figured out how to spin yet though. I plan on creeping in on Tuesday night to give it a try.

My cats are passionately in love with the roving that came in the drop spindle kit. They really get freaky with it. They act the same way as they do with catnip. Cat is the sweetest girl kitty and yet, after a few minutes of rubbing her face on the roving, she spiked me (without claws) when I tried to take it away.

I leafed through the book "Intertwined" the other day. Wowee--that's some weird and intriguing yarn. I can't really imagine becoming a spinner...but I'm interested in learning how to make yarn.

I've been working my buns off at work and that sucks up a lot of my creative energy, too. Even though it's technical writing, it's still writing.

So, I don't know what's up with me creatively. But, it's normal for me to burn hot and cold, to wax and wane in my interest towards my hobbies. My brain is wired that way.

And yet, my creativity walks forward. After college I took drawing and loved life drawing. I took painting and loved the smelly, juicy forgiveness of oil paints. Through the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts I learned to make paper, masks, and weave baskets. Mada Leach and David Speck were awesome teachers.

When I fell in love with basketry, I searched until I found the Misti Washington Gourd and Basketry Guild. I wove all kinds of baskets for several years. I even travelled to the AMB Convention in Michigan and the Indiana Basketry Convention.

One day, while I was shopping for basketry supplies, I saw a class for making books. I took the workshop and soon abandoned basketry for book arts. I travelled to the San Francisco Center for the Book to take workshops from master printmakers and book binders.

When I was hospitalized for depression in 2001, my desire to do anything disappeared. For years, the only thing I did was kung fu.

In 2006, I noticed a knitting store near my martial arts studio. I signed up for classes and learned to knit.