Cat Bulletin

Not good. When we got home from the A's game Saturday night, Oliver could walk only with great difficulty. He'd move a few feet -- shuffle really, like an old man -- and then sit for a while. Sunday morning we called our vet hospital, which was short staffed and told us no appointments were available, but Eydie said it IS an emergency and you WILL see the kitty and they did.

So the last round begins: a steroids shot and pills twice a day. We see no particular benefit 24 hours later. The little guy struggles to move, though he is using his litter -- some of the time. I do not think life is very pleasant for him, even by cat standards, which I have never thought of as particularly exacting.

What are the parameters of cat contentment? Were those all-night snuggles essential or incidental, one of many sources of warmth in the night? It is sentimental to put off killing him, I conclude, but I think that supposing we can be rational about all things is itself profoundly irrational and more distorted and misdirected than our wild spasms of intution. (Reverse is true, too.)

So: a few more days and then the hole in the garden, the tears at the vet (where sometimes they are unsettled when a man cries) and then the good memories take hold, and we accept things as they are and let those things resonate.



Here. Look at this. These are things I've said before.