Monday, July 27, 2009

Guilt of the Soulless

Two weeks ago today I was putting my cat to sleep. I was called at work after I had dropped her off at the vet for exploratory surgery and told that the most humane thing I could do for her was to let her go.

Since then I've cried alot. Any night I wasn't with MM I cried myself to sleep. The only times I wasn't morosely sad was when I was with him. I felt immense sorrow, but also guilt. I keep thinking that I should have done something sooner (though she'd be gone sooner), that I should have spent more time at home with her, that I wasn't a good "mom."

It's said that a cat is the soul of a home. And I felt soulless. I made up errands and spent hours out of the house just so that I wouldn't go home to it empty. Every single time I opened the garage door I would feel my throat swell, and my eyes get wet. By the time I was in the house I headed for the bed and sobbed. I am heart broken with out her.

On saturday I was at my local humane shelter. I'd been going to different ones since tuesday because I found all of the cats comforting. I didn't want to be ready to adopt another one. Adopting another cat would just mean that I didn't love Babette as much as I did. And yet, I left on saturday with two kittens.

Now I feel guilty, not only about abandoning the memory of the cat I had for 13+ years, but I adopted to adorable kittens and not a full grown cat or two who areless likely to be adopted. I always said I was going to find the ugliest, least likely to be taken home cat and adopt him/her after I lost mine. But instead I am taking care of two 1 1/2 pound balls of fluff.

I keep asking myself what I was thinking? What did I get myself into? One has a URI and needs medicine daily and though separated it seems as though the other has caught it because she's sneezing. I fear that I am going to have gotten them only to lose them as well.

Spending time with them keeps me distracted. It gets me going home again. I cleaned the entire kitchen, master suite and den. Not only for them, but because they required so much care that I couldn't go to MM's for the day I had to have him come to me. He was entirely supportive of my grief and let me stay over often. He was gone over the weekend, and I wonder if that didn't have something to do with my spontaneous decision. Ever since our talk and the party at his parents we seem to be closer. Because he was out of town not only did I have the extra time to go looking for a cat, but I was missing the companionship.

But now I have them. Feeling guilty or not, I am responsible for these little guys. I hope that I do right by them.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

A Cat Story pt3

Due to the pervading theory put forth by my mother, that Babette had been abused (most likely by a man) it was forever impossible to discipline or chastise her for fear of traumatizing her further. Consequently, Babette had the run of the house. By this, I mean she was allowed on all of the furniture, the desks, counter tops, tables (including the kitchen) and once in a while managed to make it to the window ledges too.

Babette was a great "helper" around the house, but mostly with paper work. Homework, bills, any thing that involved sitting at the table and writing she wanted in on. Usually this "help" began with laying across the table. Eventually she wanted to be more involved and would pounce on what ever paper work I was working on or just start to shred it with her teeth. This also including laying out sewing patterns - something about the crinkle of tissue paper that was like catnip to her ears. If extensive writing were involved Babette would "help" by taking hold of your pen or pencil. Typically all of this extraordinary usefulness would wear her out and in the end she'd make a fantastic 10 pound paper weight by stretching full length across the work thereby ensuring that a) the work was all finished and b) it wouldn't go anywhere while I succumbed to ear and chin scratching.

Helping mom clean up is hard work for any cat!


Eventually I did have to go off to college. I didn't go more than a 45 minute drive away so I saw Babette some weekends and on every holiday. Though she would curl up with my mom while I was gone, she always new that I was her human and came back to my bed while I was home. At some point when I was away she began becoming more and more of a baby.

Babette was always a little vocal. She spent her first evening in our home meowing into every corner of every room in the house. But when I came home from college she began begging for food too. Not just at the dinner table, where she would reach up to my chair and attempt, by patting my leg, to get you to give her a taste I happened to be eating. It wasn't enough that she had a food tower that kept her bowl perpetually full and a pet drinking fountain that circulated and filtered water, she began wanting to be pet before every meal. I would walk over to her food dish, she would follow and sit right in front of it. For many years this would be enough, but eventually she would sit, look up at me look at the food dish, look at me, and meow a little if I didn't reach down to pet her.

The same went for breakfast as well. Babette was a master at waking me or my mother up in the morning. My mother was a light sleeper and a light touch when it came to taking Babette to the kitchen in the morning, but if I was home I got the added benefit of being woken up at 5am to sound of the my cat tossing things off of my desk or dresser. If that didn't work she would find something noisy (like a bag or piece of paper) and beginning to play with or chew on it. Her last resort was to come right up to the pillow and bop me on the nose with her paw.

I admit there were mornings where I kicked her out of my room (not literally) I just let her outside and then shut the door. I also admit there are only a few times I can remember doing this, because as I say, Babette was a vocal kitty. She could stand outside of a door and cry for hours, especially when she new for a fact that I was on the other side of it. She also knew how to knock.

After a few months of living with us we discovered that Babette had not been spayed. I discovered Babette was in heat when I woke up to a pitiful crying kitty kneading her paws on my chest, as I by virtue of being her human mom could help her. We took her to the vet to be fixed and at the same time my mother had her declawed (I know... not the most humane of options, however, it was be declawed so she didn't ruin my mother's furniture or find her a nice cage at the Humane Society). She ended up staying the vets for a full weekend. We dropped her off on the way out of town to visit my newborn nephew and picked her up on the way home. When we got her back her little front paws were kind of sore. She had dissolving stitches so we didn't have to take her back to the vet - but in the mean time she developed the habit of sitting in Statue pose with one paw held up. She would periodically switch which paw, but it was a habit she held with varying frequency the rest of her life. But in this way she also learned how to knock on a door, or even push one open if she needed to get to me.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

A Cat Story pt 2

When she was first found this kitten didn't seem like an abandoned animal. She was clean and well fed (no bones sticking out) and her claws were clipped. My mother was convinced that someone was missing this cat. For the next week we placed ads in local papers and walked around neighborhoods near the school asking if people were missing or knew of someone missing a small gray cat. After awhile we stopped knocking on doors, and the ads were never answered. My mother had to concede that she was not stealing anyone's beloved pet and she was welcome to become our beloved pet.

We needed to settle on a name for her. I was leaning toward something romantic and knightly like Galahad before getting to know her and realizing that she was an exceptionally prissy cat. Maybe it was her finicky eating habits, or the dainty way she held her tail as she ran, but there was something that was girlish she needed an appropriate name. I toyed with Genivieve and Guieniver, even Precious crossed my mind. But shortly after adopting her a friend and I went to see the stage production of Beauty and the Beast based on the Disney cartoon. In watching the charming romance between Lumiere, the candalabra, and the sexy feather duster, I came up with my new cat's name. Babette. In one word it summed up her sweet yet exacting nature (and it shortens to "Baby" perfectly).

My mother decided that Babette had been fouly abused as a kitten before being abandoned on high school property. The favorite imagined scenario was that some husband or boyfriend took a disliking to the cat and got rid of her before coming home and comforting his sad significant other. Our only evidence of this was Babette's extreme misandry. The moment she sniffed out a human male in the vicinity she turned into a hissing spitting growling force of nature.

If she hated any man in particular it would have been my father. To this day I can't tell you why because he did nothing to harm her, and had always been a cat person himself. His only comfort was that while she hated him, he was not alone in her contempt. My brothers were no exception. Even visiting men like dates were not immune. As she got older she became slightly more tolerant and by tolerant I mean she would approach a person, let them pet her, sniff them and if that whiff of human pheramone was male she hissed, growled, swatted and if pressed, bit. Sometimes I wondered if she didn't enjoy lulling them into a false sense of security with her big green eyes and soft fur.


"You have to come closer so I can smell you!"
the baby Babette


The only exception I ever witnessed to her hatred of men was my mother's second husband. She seemed to accept him into our family almost immediately. Perhaps because my parents divorced the summer before I went to study abroad, for 2 years my mother lived in our large suburban home alone with Babette. I can only imagine that Babette not only liked having a second warm body to snuggle between when I was not at home, but she knew that my mom needed more than feline companionship and wasn't going to stand in the way.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

A Cat Story Pt 1

Just over fourteen years ago a young cat was abandoned at my high school during a soccer game. She was found in the equipment shed the next morning. She was fed, clean, and claws clipped. An announcement was made during second hour (Junior year English - American Lit) asking for the owner to claim the kitten and take her home. No one came forward. The next announcement came asking for interested students who would like to adopt the cat to obtain parents permission first and to collect her at the end of the day.

My mother has always been allergic to cats, although we did have them when I was very young. Once the last one died before I was six we didn't have anymore. I have always been a cat lover. At lunch time with the instance of my friends that I "needed" a cat and with out ever laying eyes on this one, from a pay phone I called my mother at work telling the front office that it was emergency. I told her that it would be sent to the humane society and put to sleep if someone didn't take it home. I was given permission to put my name at the very bottom of the list of volunteers and if no one else could possibly take this cat, then and only then could it come home with me.

All day I waited to find out what would happen. Then at the end of the day while I was waiting for my ride in the "homework room" (the after hours waiting area for those of us unlucky enough to drive our own cars, but not unfortunate enough to take the bus) I was called to the library (of all places) to get the cat.

It turned out that after the last bell my friends stood at strategic points outside of the school office and told all of the inquiring kids that I was already taking the cat home with me. In that way I ended up moving quickly to the top of the list.

The "kitten" that they had described on the phone ended up being a 6 month old cat. A common american short hair cat, grey striped, and very vocal. She wandered all over the library meowing at just about everything.

Prime real estate for chasing balls down the hallway or grabbing ankles.

We put her food and litter in the laundry room. (Later her food was moved to the kitchen so she could eat with us). That night my parents had plans to go out, I was supposed to go to a church meeting, but was told that I had to stay home with the cat. She spent a good portion of the after noon wandering around the house calling (for who I don't know - another cat, her old owners, who knows). That night I lay on the couch reading and she stretched herself across my tummy - a position she never again adopted.

After the first few days she figured out where the litter box was, stopped having accidents on the way there, and stopped sleeping on top of the dryer in the laundry room. She quickly took to sleeping on my bed at the foot or in the crook of my knees a habit she kept for the next fourteen years.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

A "NO" by any other means is still a "NO"

Two weeks after interviewing for a full time job at another campus of where I already work and not hearing anything I emailed them. I know that I should have called last week, but I got to worked up about it.

Anyway, they don't want me. But said that I could apply to any other positions.... umm... if I'm not mistaken that was the only one open. Unless she's trying to tell me that she's leaving soon... but if she didn't want to hire me to work under her so....

I'm just saying, it's one thing to be polite and encouraging and it's another to encourage some to do the impossible.... like apply for non existent jobs.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things"

MM and I finally had our talk.

He invited me to his family's party and then I found out that he was leaving early and riding down on his motorcycle. I found all of this out as we were sitting with friends of his. MM offered to come back the night before the party and pick me up. What he didn't tell me was that the night before is "guys" night w/ his dad, his dad's friends, and his friends drinking and smoking cigars.

Eventually we came up with the plan that he would ride down on his motorcycle early in the week and then I would drive his truck down to his parents so that he could load it up with stuff. The same day we decide this he talks to his mom who didn't realize MM was planning on coming down so early in the week and had assumed that since he had class Wed nights he wouldn't be down until the Thursday before. That night after we had figured things out and then he talks to his mom, MM tells me that he has decided to take the motorcycle down on Tuesday, come back for class on Wed and then take the truck himself on Thursday. At which point I got severely ticked off.

Now, obviously, whatever I drive there and back I am driving alone, so what's the big deal if it's his truck or my car. It's not the gas 'cuz I'd fill his truck myself anyway. It might be the miles on my car, but I doubt it. MM made this point - I was not upset about the car so what was I so upset about?

I was upset that he invited me in a manner that suggested I was a guest like no other, never told me that I was not going with him (until I commented on his remark to his friend), and then didn't seem to care that we made a plan that I was finally happy with. I'm pissed with him for buying a new climbing harness for a trip to South America with his guy friends over his birthday, but hasn't bothered to get a second helmet for me to ride his motorcycle with him. I told him that I was feeling like an afterthought. Like I was not really at all important to him.

Our talk started off with him apologizing and saying he'd try harder. But he also said that he was intentionally keeping me at arms length. He says he can't make me any promises. I was pretty upset, not because I'm expecting a ring and marriage (or even want that right now), but because the way he said that makes me wonder if he plans on ever getting close to me and allowing me to get close to him. He talked about my "timeline" saying that he understands of if it doesn't match his. Huh? did my boyfriend just say he'd understand if I wanted to break up with him because he wants to move slower?

Nothing got resolved. I cried some. Asked alot of questions. I woke up the next morning feeling like shit. I still can't figure it out. He's asked me to come to this family party, he told me he would try harder to make me not feel like an after thought. He said he was sorry about his thoughtless comment re: you should look for jobs out of state. I have to get better about speaking up - I should have said something right then, but thought his comment was symptomatic of something bigger. And yet he said more than once that he is keeping me at arms length on purpose because of his past and because he gets too close to people too quickly.

I asked him how he feels about me which was "I care about you" and then a whole load of compliments. I also asked him if this was a serious relationship for him and he said yes, but again he couldn't guarantee me anything. He said he's not dating anyone else, but I already knew that and it doesn't really mean anything to me at this point anyway. Just because he's not dating someone else doesn't mean that I'm not just a weigh station before finding someone he does want to make promises too. Although he claims to not be 'broken' when I said that I didn't want to be the girl that fixes him for someone else, despite the fact that he blames this 'arms length' on being burned in the past.

So all that was really accomplished is that my suspicions were confirmed. He has a toe in the water, but isn't ready to get wet.

The only question is how long do I spend waiting him out before finally giving up?
 
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