Ok, I didn't reach very far for the song today, but I don't think there exists a closer match for today's topic. It's Internet purity day, all cats, start to finish.
Today was Athena's checkup day, and the news wasn't great. She had a lump on her tail when I got her, and last week they plucked some hair and skin samples to test it. As if a positive test for FIV and a recurring rhinovirus weren't enough, this unlucky little black cat has a fungal infection on her tail. I waited over an hour for them to bring her back to me, and when they did, she was sopping wet and stinking of sulphur. They dipped her, and told me she has to come back every three to four days to get it again. My kitten cannot catch a break. Riding home with her made my eyes water, and now she is dry and sleeping on my collarbone while I recline on the couch. The scent of brimstone is wafting up into my nostrils, like strapping on a horse's feed bag full of matches. This kid had better live a long, fulfilling life for all the hurdles she has vaulted in her first seven weeks.
My man was very excited yesterday when he got online. One of the cats who lives in the courtyard of the house he shares with some coworkers gave birth to four kittens, and he found the mama and babies right after the event. He provided a box and towel for their bed, and mama allowed him to help move the newborns into the bed. I've had cats most of my life, since I was three years old, and he has had cats since he moved in with me in college, but until this summer, neither of us has cared for kittens younger than a month old. We always have our pets spayed and neutered, so none of our animals has made us grandparents. He has been feeding some of the stray cats next to the building where he works also, and this morning reported that of the five kittens he had been watching and trying to befriend since he arrived, there are now only two who appear to have made it. I've been trying to temper his expectations for the latest litter, but I would be very happy if he were to have more success with neonatals than I did. Having the mama cat there is a big advantage.
When I was a teenager, I gave my boyfriend a kitten that I had found, thinking that it was a great idea. It turned out that I was horribly wrong. I never heard the whole story, but what I pieced together made it sound like he frightened the cat to death "playing army," at one point where we were in an off-again stage of our relationship. I can't imagine what I was thinking, even giving the time of day to someone who could be so callous about an animal. I may whine sometimes about the amount of effort it takes to care for this menagerie, that my man and I are equally credited/to blame for creating, but I would have it no other way. The man and I are in total agreement on that, I guarantee.
For the first time since I started the blog, I am planning to use a photograph I didn't take. The man gets credit for the one of his mama-cat, assuming he doesn't tell me I can't use it. And there is no story to go with the one of my boy-cat. It's just the pose he assumed while I wrote. It was too cute not to include. ---While I went back and forth between devices to gather all my photos, the kitten moved, and smelled so foul, even the grumpy calico was moved to groom her. Whatever it takes...
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