King Charles, Part I

I am currently charging the robot fish. Before that, I charged the robot bird.

"I'll take 'sentences people 50 years ago wouldn't understand' for $1000, Alex."

Life in 2025, when you work at home (and only leave the house when necessary) and you have cats is really strange. There are things you'd expect and there are things you wouldn't, and perhaps a little blending of the two here and there. For example, for our perpetually energetic but easily bored cats, we got both a robot bird that flaps around and chirps, and we got a robot fish that flops around like a real fish would. Both are stuffed with catnip and both charge via USB-C.

And none of our cats give a single flying shit about either one of them, despite their extreme novelty. 

Our home has felt very different since we lost Maggie and Sadie. Yes, we have other cats of course, but the dynamic has shifted. The old guard is slowly going away. Pete is still here -- as old and stoic as ever -- but he's been joined by three new (relative) children, all with their own quirks and personalities. They are the next generation; they are the future of cats in this household. 

Honestly, I thought we were pretty much done. At least for some time, anyway. Let Pete enjoy his figurative retirement as he enters the last months/year or two of life. I wasn't necessarily looking for another cat nor did I think I'd be really interested in one. The household relationship between all the ones we had now was good, Sadie had just died and the pain from that was fresh, and we went on with our lives after the holidays -- I returned to the grueling schedule of five overnights a week of work, I watched the Chiefs keep winning playoff games and head back to the Super Bowl, and Daisy lived her life again as she always had. We spent time together, cooked and ate dinners, went shopping and ran errands, visited her parents, and generally everything slowly went back to some semblance of a status quo. 

Then three cats popped up on the Nebraska Humane Society website that Daisy became wildly interested in -- a longhair tortie girl, a longhaired very orange boy, and a flame point little boy. 

All three arrived at the humane society on the day Sadie had died.

She really liked the tortie and the flame point. I, because I'm me, really liked the orange lad. All three of them were very cute. All three of them were in their holding period and wouldn't be put up for adoption for a few weeks. And, with the way NHS works, they may not make it to adoption at all -- they could be claimed by their owners or by NHS volunteers, who get first pick of all the new intakes. 

Daisy had given them names -- well, we both did. The little orange boy we called James, because for some reason it just fit him. The tortie girl she called Starla, and the little flame point she called Gary. It was a cute thought, but I still wasn't sold on any new cats. Sadie had just passed and I did not want to use misplaced grief to channel it into the love and care of another animal just because I was sad. If I were going to get another cat, it had to be right -- the right cat, the right time, the right feeling.

Still, James called to me. And I didn't know why. His little blue eyes, his fiery orange long fur -- there was something in his photo that told me "Brandon, love me, take me home." I couldn't put my finger on where that feeling was coming from or what was making it so prevalent. Adding to this, it was another boy -- and we already had two dominant male cats in this household. Still, there was a pull there, a connection that I couldn't ignore. It was as if I was being told that Hank needed a little orange son. 

Daisy was much more transfixed by the other two, Starla and Gary. Starla looked like Hank and Emmy had a child, as she looked like an exact 50/50 blend of each of them. She was beautiful and tiny, and for some reason, the name Starla that Daisy had given her -- randomly, out of the blue -- really fit her. 

Gary I was not interested in all. I did not think his name fit him, and I also wasn't impressed by his photo. He looked like a little ratty thing to me, and I've never been a fan of flame points. Nothing personal by that, just...I think seal points are much prettier and I always wanted a seal point Himalayan, like Sassy in Homeward Bound.

I was willing to hold out until I found a Sassy, or until I found another available cat that really called to me. I always thought flame points looked like albino raccoons, and not in a cute way.

We were devastated a few days later when all three cats were removed from the site -- they had either been reclaimed by their owners or they had all three been snatched up by the volunteers working there, who always got first pick of the new animals. Or, conversely, all three could have been sick and died too (I'm sure this happens a lot on intakes that legit come in off the street). Daisy, who seemed more heartbroken than I was, immediately signed both of us up -- with my permission, of course -- to become volunteers at the Humane Society on weekends.

As an aside -- this is something both of us have wanted to do for a very long time. I've told Daisy for years that if money were no object and I didn't have to work for a living, I would devote all of my time and efforts to volunteering at the humane society to take care of all of the cats and other animals there. It feels like my true calling in life is to help animals, to protect and love those little beings who can't protect themselves, to make them feel loved and safe and cared for. 

That's not a joke, either. I have felt a very strong pull to that destiny for a very long time. I would love to own a lot of property and to own and operate a cat sanctuary, a safehouse for all of the cats who have been mistreated or abandoned or otherwise had nowhere else to go -- a place where they can be fed and stay safe and warm and feel that they are loved. 

Anyway.

The volunteer training sessions start in March. 

Along with the volunteer application, Daisy also signed us up for a home inspection to be able to become licensed to legally house six cats instead of the city's normal statute of five. It's a special permit that must be renewed every year and it costs $100 for the home inspection. They're looking to make sure the cats have enough food and water, enough litter pans, enough space to have their own territory, and that there's nothing dangerous for them to endanger their lives. We'll have to clean the house a bit, but I'm not concerned; our cats live a life of leisure and luxury, with multiple food and water bowls, pans, two giant cat trees, plenty of roaming space, and the love of two very devoted parents. 

"It's likely just a tax, babe," I told Daisy. "And by that I mean I am guessing the 'inspector' looks at the house for less than five minutes and then checks a box. They're really just doing it for the money, which goes directly to the humane society."

We had the inspection scheduled for yesterday. And then Daisy got really sick.

I was sick about two weeks ago with a bad cold or something similar -- a sore throat, lots of sneezing, wild sinus congestion, chest congestion, headaches, a light fever, etc. It was not fun, and it lasted about five days before my body slowly, finally, kicked it out of my system. It wasn't Covid (I tested), and I chalked it up to just being a run of the mill winter head cold.

Well, about two days after I had really recovered from it, it hit Daisy -- and it hit her hard. We had to kick out Emmy's yearly vet appointment by a week, and had to kick the inspection back a week as well. Daisy's still not all the way recovered yet, but she's slowly getting there. She also tested for Covid and was negative, so I am guessing it was just a cold. She still doesn't feel great, of course, but it will eventually pass as all other sicknesses do.

We had just sat down to dinner on Friday night, and Daisy checked her phone and gasped. "They're there tomorrow!" she said, "they're back on the site!"

I did not know what she was talking about, and then she showed me her phone:

They had goofy names, but two of the three were back on the site -- the little orange cat (which was apparently a girl) and the flame-point boy. Starla, the tortie, was nowhere to be seen. 

We turned off the movie we were watching and began discussions.

For me, seeing that the orange cat was a little girl, for some reason, made me less interested in her. She was still beautiful, but...for some reason in my head I was set on her being a little boy, a son for Hank. I didn't really get the call for her, the tug at my head and heart, that told me I needed to adopt her immediately. But I was still curious and somewhat interested.

Daisy, on the other hand, thought she was beautiful but was more interested in the flame-point boy. She has always wanted a flame-point and they are exceedingly rare, especially rare in a shelter adoption environment. People breed for flame-points and they sell for high prices. This one looked ratty and tiny, but had those piercing blue eyes that he'll keep for life. 

I was not interested in him at all. He did not give me any sort of feeling one way or the other. 

Eventually, after much discussion of possible names -- I'd had a few to give the little girl but none for the boy because I wasn't interested -- we decided we'd be there before opening to wait in line in the morning to be the first there to look at both cats. We didn't have to get one, and we couldn't get both because of the inspection not being yet complete, but we wanted to give both of them a shot and get a vibe check. With that decided on, we went to bed.

Daisy said she dreamed about the little flame-point boy all night. I got up early the next morning and ordered dry kitten food, kitten treats, and multiple cans of kitten food in the event that we did bring home a new child. In my mind, at the time, it was going to be very iffy. I would have to be sold on either of these cats. I don't take cat adoption lightly; this is a cat that's going to find his or her forever home with us and I have to be 100% certain that he or she will mesh well with the rest of the household as well as us. Hank and Emmy were furious with us for a few days after we brought Mable home, and Mable has since become the baby -- she is very sweet, but is also set in her ways and has her own patterns and quirks. If I don't think any new cat is going to mesh well with them, or interact well with us in a household that already has four cats, then it's all over.

But, I will say, by the morning hours I was set on seeing that little orange girl, and was hoping I could love on her and she'd be receptive and fun.

Daisy tended to be open and optimistic about the whole scenario. If we felt a connection, cool. If we didn't, there are always going to be other cats. Our past year has been awful, as you know, but as the month of January has gone on, there have been multiple silver linings here and there and things have kind of been looking up. Sadie's loss was still fresh, and she knows I've been grieving her in my own ways -- mostly quietly and unseen. She said that it was overall my call whether I wanted us to take home either of these cats today -- or any cat in the future -- and I had naming rights (as long as she approved) if we did. Truthfully, that made me feel a lot better -- I would not be forced to walk out of there with a cat if I wasn't feelin' it, and it wouldn't make me feel I was letting Daisy down if it wasn't meant to be or I was still uninterested ater meeting both cats.

We were the first people at the humane society on Saturday morning -- we arrived around 9:30. It was freezing. We immediately got out of the car and went to wait outside the door, starting a line. As we stood there for the thirty minutes before the place opened, a line formed behind us -- a long line. I aggressively held my ground. We had our paperwork done, we were prepared, and nothing was going to stop us from seeing those cats first and getting first pick if we wanted them. Once they let us in, we went right to the counter and locked in the first visitation reservations to see them in a small meeting room. Said small meeting room was back behind the cages in the cat section, so we'd be walking right by them to get into the room.

The lady who ran the introductions was the same lady who adopted Hank to us almost two years ago. "I just played with both of them this morning," she said. "They're both very sweet little kittens."

We walked down the long hall lined with cages until we got to theirs -- they were being kept together -- and we laid eyes on them for the first time. The little orange girl immediately scurried to the back and tried to hide, and the flame-point boy came running up to the front of the cage to greet us, big blue eyes wide, excited and wanting attention.

Fuck, I thought. It's all over. 

Both were brought into the meeting room with us; I took the little orange girl first. And oh was she beautiful -- so much prettier than the picture would have led you to believe. She was also very fluffy and very tiny, did not really want to be held or played with, did not want to interact with the boy or with us, and remained somewhat aloof and frightened.

The flame-point boy wanted love, wanted to be held, wanted to run around and play and jump, and acted like Hank. When we held him, he purred so hard, so loud that he vibrated, could be heard across the room, and sounded like Maggie.

Fuck, it's all over. 

The adoption lady let us have several minutes with them, during which Daisy and I discussed further. The little girl was beautiful -- like Empress-level beautiful -- but she acted like Sadie. Very much not a "I want to love and be loved" cat, an aloof and shy cat that wanted to be left alone. And while I loved Sadie very much, I already have a lot of those traits in Empress -- who only really wants love and play and attention on her own terms and would rather be a loaf and sleep most of the time otherwise. 

But this boy...this flame-point, little ratty kitten with giant blue eyes, a long tail, and super-loud purrs...he was like Hank. He was giving off big Hank energy. And he was very cute. I started to feel the pull a little.

Still, the little girl was really cute.

"I don't know," I told Daisy. "What do you think?" 

"I think the decision is yours," she said. "I'm fine with either one of them, or I'm fine with just going home."

I did not feel pressure one way or the other. But as I held that little boy I knew we would regret it if we didn't take him home. Maybe not that day or even for a few weeks, but we'd look back on it and regret that we didn't get him when we had the chance. And I'd be fulfilling one of Daisy's dreams -- to get a flame-point.

It was at this point the lady came back to the room and asked us how we were feeling.

"I think they're both so cute," Daisy said. "I wish we could take them both, but, permit."

"Are they actually siblings?" I asked, "or did they just come in at the same time?"

"I don't think they're actual siblings," she said. "Just same day intake, same time." 

Daisy looked at me as if she knew what I was going to say.

"We'll take the little boy," I said. 

As if he knew, he came running out from under the bench across the room and rolled around all over the floor at my feet. I picked him up to love on him and he purred hard.

She again left the room to go get his paperwork and kitten medicine (I'll get into this more soon enough) and I immediately turned to Daisy. 

"Names," I said. "Now. We don't have much time and she'll have to put the name on the paperwork. He's not a 'Gary,' he does not have the personality of a Gary."

We quickly ran some names by each other, names we'd thrown around before, before we looked at him and one stuck.

"Charles," I said. "Little Charlie."

It fit him. It really fit him. I don't know why. 

His new name was put on the paperwork, he was put into the now-familiar cardboard box that kittens are transported in, and the adoption process was painless. We were waiting for all of the paperwork to be processed when one of the other humane society volunteers came up to us.

"Settle a bet for us," she said. "Which one is it?" 

"It's the little flame-point boy," I said.

"Ahhh, well we were wrong. We thought the little orange girl would be the day's first adoption."

And $181 later, we were out the door and into the car with our new infant son. 

Charles does not like the car. He cried incessantly and tried to tear the box apart. 

I texted the parents. "We're on our way over, and we have a surprise."

"I know," Mama responded. "I've been tracking you."

Mama can track Daisy's phone with an app so she knows where she is and what she's doing. It's not a malicious thing, just a motherly one. 

We fought through what felt like an hour's worth of traffic with a screaming child in the backseat so that the parents could be the first to meet Charles. And when they did, well...

Hi everyone, meet our new son.

Charles is very sweet and loves to be held. He is eight weeks old, has been fixed (and still has a nasty incision scar because there were mild complications), and is very vocal. His purrs are so sweet, and his meows very cute. His big blue eyes are striking and stunning. His tail is as long as his body and is already getting raccoon-like rings on it. He is happy and healthy and loves to play and get any and all love bestowed upon him.

But how would he get along with the other cats?

Well.....

One Year

 Tomorrow marks one year to the day since Maggie left us.

There Comes a Reckoning

 I've been in a really weird headspace for the past week or so. It's like a dread or low-lying paranoia, an anxiety, but...not quite. It's not reached the cusp of any of those feelings yet. It just feels like that hill is currently being climbed, very slowly. Daisy has felt it too, and (I would argue) likely much more deeply than myself. 

We've both been forgetful, we've both been very tired and occasionally quite irritable. Neither of us have really felt great -- on Friday night I had such a headache and exhaustion that I only spent five minutes downstairs (to make a sandwich) and then came upstairs and went back to sleep. Daisy has been taking B2 nearly every day to help with her own headaches.

I saw a meme last night that said something like "isn't it interesting how we're only two weeks into the new year and we're all already overwhelmed?"

Yeah, something like that.

This is not the January I envisioned. But, honestly, I don't know what January I envisioned anymore. I originally envisioned a peaceful month that would culminate next week with the election of our first female president, but obviously that's not going to happen. 

I think part of it is that we both need something good to happen. We need something to appreciate, something to look forward to, something to be excited about -- because without that it's four cold months of relative misery, locked indoors to stay warm, with zero holidays until Memorial Day. Every winter sucks and really messes with my brain and body chemistry, but this year seems worse than most.

None of the cats really seem to miss Sadie, but I think it is evident they've noticed she's gone, because there is a difference now in the household dynamic. Empress used to be very lovey with us and want all the attention -- now she seems far more skittish and does not want to play anywhere near as much as she used to. Hank has become much more dominant and gets very jealous when Daisy gives Pete (or, really, any other cat) attention. He is also acting out a lot more trying to get attention himself, negative or positive. In contrast, Pete seems to have become far more relaxed and far less anxious. He has his moments, but it is very clear that his anxiety and anguish has greatly lessened since Sadie's death, and I'm not sure how to really explain it other than that. Mable, in turn, has gotten a lot more vocal and a lot more cuddly/clingy with me when previously she was not. Don't get me wrong, that little girl always loved me, but since Sadie's passing, she has wanted to be with me a lot more -- spending hours with me in my office upstairs or sleeping next to me on the couch or on the floor when I'm working. I've also caught her sleeping cuddled up with me a few times, like she does with Daisy. I can no longer go to the bathroom without her, and she screams when I take a shower because she can't be in there with me.

I don't know; maybe all of this is natural and I'm just trying to find a way to justify that the other cats know and understand that Sadie is gone instead of just flat-out not giving a shit. When Maggie died, Pete lost his shit and his anxiety went through the roof for months -- it only really started to settle once we got Mable and she became his little baby. With Sadie? It doesn't seem like any of them care in the least and may actually be happier in some respects. 

I miss Sadie. I do. The pain lessens a little more by the day and flows more towards final acceptance, but I miss the old lady. Yesterday afternoon, when I came downstairs so we could run errands, I instinctively looked to where she would've been on the couch and where she would have jumped down to come over to see me, as she always did. In her place was a very sleepy, content Hank, who looked up at me with his big yellow eyes and seemed happy to see me. There was, of course, a part of me that was soothed by this, a very life goes on part of me -- the next generation of cats picking up where the last one left off -- but there was still a sadness there, still a sadness that I'll not see Sadie gently meow at me and come down off the couch to rub her cold wet nose on my legs anymore.

It's a tough process. Daisy said something along the lines of how she knows how hard it's hitting me and how Sadie and I were so bonded, and how she and Sadie never had that bond. I told her that she did, even if she didn't really know it, because Sadie loved her very much. When I wasn't downstairs, Sadie would climb up on top of Daisy, she'd snuggle close to her, she'd want to be with her. She really loved her mom. That bond was definitely there for Sadie. No, Daisy did not have the same bond with her that I did. She was not Daisy's shadow as she was mine. Yes, it did take her some years to really warm up to Daisy. But, once she did, there was no going back -- no matter how many times I playfully called Sadie a traitor. 

When Pete goes, it's going to be awful -- not just for us, but for the girls. Mable is Pete's little baby and she absolutely adores the old man. They are not lovers like Hank and Emmy are -- no, Pete and Mable are very much a father/daughter relationship and it very much shows. Empress also loves on Pete quite a lot, cuddling up with him on the couch and pulling him in tight. Pete doesn't always like it, but it likes it more than he doesn't. 

Pete is the last of the old guard and I fear he doesn't have much time left. His kidney disease isn't progressing quickly, but it's still progressing. His appetite has greatly slowed down and he is losing weight like Sadie did. He is still active and still gets around really well, but he's also showing his age more and more by the month, and when Maggie went down, she went down fast -- there was about a month or so of troubling symptoms and then her body just began shutting down over the course of a few days and we did what had to be done. I am very concerned the same thing is going to happen with Pete, at a time when we don't expect it to, and then he's just going to be gone. 

I've been asked about the history of my cats by work colleagues, and there's a script at this point I almost have completely memorized:

"Well, first it was Pete, Sadie, and Maggie. Then it was Pete, Sadie, Maggie, and Hank. Then it was Pete, Sadie, Maggie, Hank, and Empress. Then Maggie died, so it was Pete, Sadie, Hank, and Empress. Then it was Pete, Sadie, Hank, Empress, and Mable. And then Sadie died, so now it's Pete, Hank, Empress, and Mable."

I try not to make it confusing to outsiders, even though it's simple to me because it's my daily life, but I get the sense that people look at me like I'm slightly insane when I tell them that I have or had this many cats all at once. But, for the moment, we're back down to four. I think four is a somewhat reasonable number. Two males, two females, all of them fixed. All of them have been re-registered for 2025 too, and Sadie was removed from the registry. 

So what's coming up in our lives?

I can't really say, to be certain. This weekend we mailed out the last of the boxes that needed to be mailed -- two for Daisy's sister and family, a small care package to our niece (same family, just away at college), a box to my friend April, and returned the Star Trek hoodie that was four sizes too small. It's snowing right now (flurries, nothing concerning) and I will soon be going to sleep for several hours to reset my sleep schedule for this coming week of work. The Chiefs don't play until next weekend. I have no plans whatsoever for the next week except to work and pay bills. There are no real "events" until the Super Bowl, which I already put in the PTO for and it's still almost a month away. 

The Other Shoe

 Well, 2025 started off with a bang, didn't it?

Look, I am still holding out hope that this year is not going to be another 2024 -- a year filled with misery, stress, and tragedy. I tried to rationalize that Sadie likely should have died in 2024, but I asked her to hold off on it until after the holidays (this is 100% true, actually). She did, of course, wait until January 2. I am trying not to let her death frame what could otherwise be a better year, but it seems like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

None of the cats seem to notice her absence. Pete did, I'm sure, that first night. And, truth be told, since her death he has been far less needy and anxious. I don't know what to make of that, honestly. But the children? None of them seem any different. The only thing I've noticed is that Empress seems to be cuddling with Pete on the couch far more now, as she no longer has to compete with Sadie for that spot. One thing I have noticed is how big of an eater Sadie really was -- we now don't need to give the cats multiple cans of wet food every day, because she was the one who had been eating most of it. Not that it really seemed to help her anyway.

I have had brief dreams about our dearly departed Sadie, slightly disturbing ones where I just see her sitting across the room watching me, and in the dream I know that's not possible because she's dead -- but I don't feel any malicious intent. She's just watching me. 

We also haven't experienced any signs that she's still with us in any way; after Maggie died, Daisy was sitting on the couch, very sad, and she said she swore she heard Maggie purring. A few days after Maggie died, I turned the corner to go upstairs and out of the corner of my eye, for a brief second, I swear I saw Maggie sitting in her spot on the couch. When I did a double-take, she was not there. It shook me up a bit.

With Sadie? Nothing. Maybe Sadie just winked out and moved on peacefully. I don't feel her presence in the house anymore at all. I don't expect to see her, I don't expect to feel her climb up onto the bed with me. She's just gone.

Perhaps that's the saddest part of it all, honestly. 

I re-blued my hair again yesterday afternoon. The color was fading out far too much for my liking. I do it about once a month or so now, though at this point I am basically out of blue dye, with only enough left for maybe one or two more treatments. I do, however, have a ton of the purple dye left, including an entire unopened bottle. I like the purple, but sometimes I just want a deep, dark blue. My hair's getting to the point where it's too long to effectively re-color without using a large amount of dye; when I get it cut in the spring, once it's warm, I'll likely get most if not all of the color cut off, wait a few months for it to grow out again, and then bleach and start over. Maybe this time around I'll choose a different color, maybe not. I can't honestly say at this point.

Daisy has also dyed her hair again recently -- she stripped all of the old blue, green, and purple out of it and now looks like a fiery natural redhead. It is gorgeous on her. Every day I'm impressed with how well it turned out.

We are in the midst of a snowstorm right now -- because, after all, it would not be January in Nebraska without a snowstorm. We're getting the light end of it here in Omaha, per the forecasts, but just a few hours south of us in the Kansas City and Wichita areas, it's a major storm and a white nightmare. For us, as I write this, it's barely a dusting outside. The weather people say we're supposed to get 1-3 from this, which, if that's it, fine. It'll take an hour or so to clean the driveway and walks, and it won't be fun, but I'd rather have that than 6+ inches to shovel. 

After the snow hits, it's supposed to be bitter cold for the next 3-4 days, because again, it's not January in Nebraska without a brutal cold snap. This one's not as bad as the ones in previous years where it got down to -22 or so; we're not even supposed to go below zero this time, and by the end of the week it's supposed to be well above freezing again (so whatever snow is left will likely melt off). 

None of this really concerns me, of course; I really don't have anywhere to go or anything to do but work. Starting tonight, I now return to work on my regular schedule for the foreseeable future, with no planned vacations or time off (save for Super Bowl Sunday) in my future, during the most depressing and miserable time of the year to be constantly working without reprieve -- the cold, dark months of winter. 

It is what it is, I suppose. I'm just so dreadfully tired all the time, and the dark and cold make it worse. I was able to rest and recover a lot over the holidays, but it never seems like enough. Wildly, I'm not depressed -- even though three days ago I had to say goodbye to one of my cats. I'm not any more anxiety-ridden than normal, and I think my stress levels are pretty normal. The good thing about the cold and dark winter months is that I generally don't have a lot of trouble sleeping, though now that I've said that, of course, who knows. 

There are some things I need to do on a relatively-soon basis; I need to get an appointment made for bloodwork to be done so I can renew all of my prescriptions (Daisy needs to do this for herself too). We'll have to pay bills and the mortgage as per the usual. The remaining cats all need to start going in for their own checkups and bloodwork, with (I believe) Empress being the first on the list for that. We need to see Daisy's parents, as we didn't get to go see them on New Year's Eve because neither of them felt well. And, in addition to all of this, we desperately need to get our passports renewed as they both expire this year.

I still have to send packages out in the mail too; Daisy will need to fill and seal the last box for her sister, and I have a box to send my friend April. I also have to return the Star Trek hoodie I got from the Tiktok Shop because, surprise, it is far too small, which again frustrates me to no end. 

But that's how life is going at the moment, I guess. 

The Death of Sadie

 [Trigger warning: as I did here when Maggie passed, I am letting all readers know that I'm going to discuss a dead cat. So, if that bothers you, perhaps you should skip this one.]

Sadie is dead.

Yesterday afternoon (January 2), she had another seizure -- a much worse one -- while sitting on the couch next to Daisy; she wasn't even doing anything, just sitting there. By the time the seizure stopped, Daisy was already on the phone with the vet. 

This seizure Sadie did not recover from quickly. It took multiple minutes, during which she needed to be helped down off the couch for fear of her falling, and she could barely walk. She stumbled over to the opposite side of the room and attempted to hide under my desk, and I stopped her -- I picked her up and held her, gently, and tried to love and soothe her. She was scared; her old, cloudy eyes were wide, and she was having trouble breathing. She was mostly limp, her legs not knowing where they were or needed to go. Usually when I hold her, she helps tuck them up into my arms -- this time it was like she didn't even know they were there.

She seemed conscious and alert, but not all there -- like she was trapped in her own body and didn't know what was happening. I handed her off to Daisy and got dressed, and we got her into the carrier and into the car to get her to the vet. She initially cried, softly, as Daisy drove -- she hates being in the car, going to the vet, or being in the carrier in general.

About halfway through the drive from our house to the vet's office, we heard a thud inside the carrier and she stopped crying for a few minutes. This was, very likely, another seizure. We couldn't see, of course, as she was in the backseat. A few minutes later she began whining again about being in the car, so we knew she'd recovered and had not died in the backseat. 

The vet we took her to is the vet we've been taking all of the cats to since we got Hank; they're halfway across town, but their prices are very reasonable and we both adore our vet there -- who is about my age, maybe a few years younger, and is very good at his job. The vet tech girls -- one of whom loves Sadie and took care of her last week when we had her in for her UTI, was very sad to see us back for the reasons we were there. She took Sadie's temperature and it was about six degrees lower than it was supposed to be, and it was at that point we really knew this is it, her body is shutting down.

I knew this as we'd gotten her into the carrier and into the car, of course. I knew that she would not be coming home with us. I let my sober logic take over when I realized that was going to be the case. Daisy, on the other hand, thought there may have been some hope, that there was something they could do for her. I would like to pause for a moment to mention that these roles are almost exactly reversed from what they were with Maggie on her final day with us -- I assumed Maggie just needed medicine and would be coming home; Daisy knew before we left the house that she wouldn't be. 

Because these roles were reversed and because I knew this was coming for a very long time, it was far less traumatic for me. When the vet came back in a few moments later, we had to discuss our options, which -- similar to the conversation we had with the other vets about Maggie -- were basically either to let her die at home in discomfort, confusion, and pain as to what was happening to her, or to humanely let her go to sleep right there in the office never to wake up.

I looked down at my old lady for the last time while she was still lucid and conscious, and told her how much I loved her and how she would be okay. She looked up at me with her big, wide eyes, and I rubbed her head and scratched her behind her ears.

And then I signed the paperwork to humanely euthanize the cat who had loved me more than any other cat ever had, and who had been my shadow for over seventeen years.

The process at this vet was different than it was with Maggie; this vet gives a sedative first -- the same sedative he uses to knock out animals when they get spayed or neutered, so he said -- that puts them into what can only be described as a semi-coma-like state. Once that has fully kicked in and the animal is fully relaxed, the actual injection of drugs that stops the heart is used.

As such, Sadie went from being scared and nervous to very relaxed and in a twilight, non-lucid state in Daisy's arms very quickly. Her eyes were half open and she was breathing slowly and steadily, but she was really no longer there, she was off in dreamland. Every once in a while, her muscles would twitch; Daisy said that was the most traumatic and disturbing part. I saw this happen once or twice as the drugs took hold. Sadie was facing me as Daisy held her, and her eyes did not move once she was in the sleeping trance; I moved my hands back and forth in front of her a few times to see if there was any reaction there, and there was not. There was life, but no reaction. She looked very peaceful and just off in her own little world.

Later, Daisy and I would both agree that once those drugs took hold, Sadie was no longer with us; she was, for all intents and purposes, already dead and starting her journey into the afterlife.

A few minutes later, the vet came back, Daisy placed Sadie on a very soft, comfortable pillow and blanket that was brought into the room, and a small spot was shaved onto her front leg so that the final drugs could be administered. When they were, she was gone within 30 seconds. I reached down to touch her head and her ears one last time to silently say goodbye to her, and felt how warm she still was -- it was as if it wasn't real, as if she were just sleeping, like she always did on my foot under my desk, or against my shoulder in the bed.

"Take all the time you need," the vet said.

"It's okay, you can take her," I told him, almost immediately. I couldn't bear to be there in the room with my dead cat just laying there. I couldn't just sit there and stare at her. "But we may need a few minutes in the room."

Daisy didn't seem to initially understand what was going on until I turned to her and said that I just couldn't sit there staring at her, I couldn't just be there looking at her. But the vet understood. He very gently wrapped her up in the blankets -- covering her like a sheet was being pulled over a body at the morgue -- and very lovingly, gently carried her out of the room. We would not see her again.

It took maybe two or three minutes to compose myself after he left. I did not cry, but I was not exactly okay. Daisy had cried a few times during the entire process. I tried to remain as stoic and unemotional as possible, but it tore me up inside. I need those few minutes of time to center myself and just become a functioning human again.

We thanked all of the vet staff profusely and returned home with an empty cat carrier. 

Sadie will be communally cremated and her ashes spread in the park in the spring, just like Maggie was. I chose this because I wanted her to be with her sister again physically as well as in spirit. Unlike Maggie, there weren't any options for keepsakes of paw prints or anything like that which I was made aware of, and honestly I was okay with that. I got almost eighteen years of unconditional adoration from Sadie, and her end was absolutely as peaceful as possible -- more peaceful than Maggie, even. 

The old girls are together again, and that brings me much peace. Hopefully they've met up in whatever afterlife cats have, if they do indeed have one, and they themselves are at peace. 

We did not bring the empty carrier inside the house; we stripped the towels out of it for laundering and left it in the garage. Inside the house, with the four remaining cats, life seemed to just go on as if nothing had actually happened. I don't think any of the children noticed Sadie was gone -- none of them really interacted with her that much anyway, save for Hank. Hank would check on her and go lay next to her to sort of watch over her if he knew she wasn't feeling well, but that's about it. None of them realized or understood that she was gone and not coming back.

"Did you tell them?" Daisy asked me.

"I did," I said. "It's not like they really understand me, though."

I had to work last night. It was a somber, quiet evening. My post about Sadie's death on Facebook got more reactions and comments than anything I've posted in years, so by the time I got in, most people I worked with in the overnight knew what had happened and treated me very respectfully and with love -- some of them even asking why I was there, asking how I could work after something like that. 

"No point in burning PTO and just sitting around doing nothing," I said. "It doesn't change anything. Besides [my boss] is out tonight."

That was the complete truth, by the way; I could either sit alone in the dark in my room to mourn and basically waste PTO, or I could let life move on. I've been mentally training myself for Sadie's death for years, and while I am still very sad, I am not completely devastated or non-functional. I worked as I was expected to work, I slept as I expected to sleep, and I got up today with one less cat in the house than there was when I woke up yesterday.

Still, I miss my shadow. I miss Sadie terribly. While my eyes have welled up with tears once or twice since her passing, usually when I am discussing her with the wife, I have not cried. I'm not sure that I will. She lived almost a full year longer than her sister, who passed last year on January 19. Almost all of that time was borrowed time. She got to see her 17th birthday (and nearly her 18th, if she'd hung around a few more months) and get party hat pictures taken of her. She got to see one last Christmas and one last New Year's. This cat was born in 2007 and made it to 2025. In 2007, I still lived in Missouri and had only been living in the midwest for about seven or eight months when I got her. Sadie lived a very long, full life -- she lived in three different states, six different residences, and with five total other cats (and for a very short time, three dogs) throughout her life. She never wanted for love, companionship, food, or treats -- never went hungry, always had a warm and safe place to sleep, was never in danger of any sort, and had two parents who loved her very, very much and would protect her with their lives. And I know she knew all of this. I know she knew how loved she really was, and how important she was to us. As I mentioned earlier this week, I think that's why she stuck around with us so long -- she did not want to go. She did not want to go until she had no choice.

As for Daisy and me, we're okay. We're not great, but we're okay. We're dealing with Sadie's death in our own ways. I want us to see if we can donate her medicines to pet owners who are less fortunate and cannot afford them (I don't know if that's possible, of course). We'll also likely donate the food that only Sadie liked to the local shelter where we got Hank, Empress, and Mable so that they can feed their population as well. In a grand sweep of irony, we returned home with our empty carrier to find the new paperwork to re-register all of the cats waiting in the mailbox for us. 

I told Daisy that I have changed my mind -- I do not want another new cat right now. I don't know when, or if, I'll truly want another cat. It will likely not be soon and will likely not be until Pete dies, if even then. There is a good dynamic within the house right now with Pete, Hank, Emmy, and Mable and I would like to keep it that way. Pete, as the last remaining old cat in the house, I also do not want to stress out with yet another one added to the mix -- and Sadie dying really reminds me of Pete's mortality as well, as he was and always has been the oldest; he'll turn 18 in April. He also appeared to search the house for her last night, just looking around everywhere he could with a very sort of depressed look on his face. When he couldn't find her, he just laid down and went to sleep for the night.

The other cats, as I said, don't seem to notice she's missing -- or if they do, they don't really understand or fully grasp that she's not coming back. Mable was not really a fan of Sadie and would always hiss at her when Sadie investigated her or smelled her, but over the past few weeks they seemed to get along better, even cuddling together on the couch on rare occasions. Emmy and Sadie got along fine, especially when Emmy was younger; one of my favorite pictures is of the two of them in the hallway outside my room:

And it was not really uncommon to see Emmy lay with Sadie or cuddle up with her on the couch or in that same spot above outside my office door upstairs.

Hank had a strange relationship with Sadie. When he was younger, he'd pin her to the floor and try to fuck her, which most of the time she seemed to just proverbially roll her eyes at and take it, and other times she'd be like "leave me alone, you weirdo." As he grew up, he seemed to take a protective role over her, especially as her health started to go downhill a lot more after Maggie's death. As I mentioned, he would check up on her, he would lay next to her -- not usually cuddled up, but almost like he was guarding her -- like a protector. I think he knew she was old and that her time was coming soon, and when he realized that, he became her watchman.

Pete and Sadie had a mostly antagonistic relationship, but also likely the closest cat relationship in the house. Don't get me wrong, everyone loves Pete and he loves them, but Sadie had been with him almost her entire life (give or take a month). She curled up with Pete every night and would snuggle in tight with him, even if they'd spent the entire day fighting -- which they did a lot, even up until the very end. She truly loved Pete as much as she loved me or Daisy, even if she showed it differently; she was very bonded to him. He was her rock who was always there, and this was never more apparent than after we lost Maggie. She would have been devastated if Pete had gone before her, as she's definitely the cat who would've wandered the house howling looking for him.

This is the final picture taken of Sadie before her death; Daisy took it while I was holding her shortly before the sedative was administered to her:

She was scared and did not know what was going on, but she was calm and she knew she was loved. I will cherish this last photo of us forever.

So what now?

Life, as always, moves on. Even I myself have to get used to the idea that she is not coming back, that I won't open my door to see her sleeping outside my office in the hallway, get used to the fact that I will never again feel her flop down on my feet while I work at my desk downstairs. I will have to get used to her no longer diligently following me from room to room anymore. All of this is difficult.

I still expect to see her downstairs on the couch when I enter the room. I still expect to feel her cold nose on my legs when I'm standing downstairs at the sink washing her food bowls. I still expect to hear her little quiet chirp of a meow when she's hungry, or to hear her purring in her sleep as she cuddles up with me and Pete on the couch. So yes, it's going to be hard. I told Daisy tonight that it still doesn't feel real, and that I still feel very numb to all of it. It feels like it's all a slightly unpleasant dream that I become lucid in the middle of, but try to wake up from and cannot. 

But, I guess this is all to be expected, right?

I want to stress, again, that we are okay. We don't need pity or sympathy, though the sentiment expressed by everyone thus far has been wonderfully kind and thoughtful. We will get by. Just like Maggie, it will hurt less and less by the day; it will never fully go away, but it will hurt less. 

Holidays 2024, Part XIII: Christmas Day, and the Aftermath

Christmas Day is, as always, experienced with one foot in the past and the other in the present. It is and always has been an emotionally-charged holiday for me, as much as it is for many others, I'm sure. As such, I have tried to start this post three times and have failed each time, deleting paragraph upon paragraph of writing just to start over again.

Before I go further I do want to say that Daisy and I had a wonderful Christmas, both in our own private time at home as well as with her parents. The day itself was nothing special; we went to the parents' in the morning for breakfast, watched the Chiefs game on Netflix, had our taco lunch, and came home in the evening to open our presents for each other and to watch a Christmas movie together (Robert Tinnell's Feast of the Seven Fishes) with the cats. It was a very peaceful, very relaxing day -- just like Christmas should be. 

As I talked up a big game about it before the holidays, this is the list of what I got Daisy for Christmas -- because I can now share it here:

Total cost was about half of what I spent last year on Christmas for her; she wanted a "Treat Christmas" and I gave it to her. If you've never heard of half of the candies/treats above, you should likely look them up. I'm not going to link them. They're all good. The first item was purchased in early September and the last item(s) were purchased and delivered on 12/23.

Here's what she got me -- all that I can remember, anyway -- I'm sure I'll leave something out here or there:

• A new parka, with the money received returning the Anbernic game system that was faulty. Technically I guess this could count as a late birthday present, but it didn't arrive until 12/31, so whatever.
• A box of Aloha bars
• An advent calendar full of snacks/nuts/chocolates
• A large art print of a tattooed, bearded merman (that very much embodies my spirit)
• A giant pack of the Dickies socks I like
• The latest (2024) Uncle John's Bathroom Reader
• Various chocolate bars
• A set of flavored instant coffees
• Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department, Anthology edition, which was a Target exclusive and apparently hard to find
• A cat t-shirt that she designed the art for and printed herself via Printify
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Criterion collection Blu-ray

Again, I'm sure I'm missing some little things here and there, but you get the gist of it.

From the parents, we received a cat stroller so that we can take the kids on walks, and a new set of wonderful bamboo sheets for the bed. Daisy got both her parents an array of items -- jams, marmalade, and a really nice footstool for Dad, and a bunch of Torrid clothing for Mama -- this was in addition to the homemade/handmade lip balms and body butter that Daisy made for both of them as well, and all of the tie dyes I made each of them -- including many pairs of tie-dyed underwear for Mama. 

I am completely done with tie dye now and I don't care if I ever make another tie-dyed shirt again. 

For my own parents, I sent them (you guessed it) a box of tie-dyed shirts to help their collection grow ever larger, a stack of comics for my dad, and a non-slip shower mat and new showerhead with sprayer for my mother's bathroom. I also later sent them a doormat that says, and I quote, "Hope You Like Loud Ass Birds."  

The box we received from them, on my birthday, came with a lot of treats for us, Tim Hortons K-cups, slipper socks (a standby of my mother's, and I love them so I'm not going to complain), some bracelets, bourbon scented soap, and a pie-and-bundt-cake maker machine that looks like a nuclear device with how complicated it is.

We have yet to send the presents we have to Daisy's sister in Ohio, and her other sister in Denver (the one who brought her germ-factory kids to Thanksgiving and infected all of us) has not yet returned to Omaha, so their presents also remain unwrapped and un-delivered as of right now. I guess they both have stuff for us we haven't gotten yet either; it is what it is. 

In the time since I have been mostly exhausted; I have accomplished almost nothing that I wanted to do during the last two weeks of December, and instead spent a lot of time feeling like each day was slipping in and out of consciousness and doing little else. When I returned to work on the 29th, to work the 29th and the 30th, I was simply there, going through the motions -- sometimes as little as possible -- waiting for the clock to hit 7am so I could log out. Both were two very long, dismal, slow nights for me that felt like I was watching paint dry for eight hours straight each night. I did my job, of course, but my heart wasn't in it. I wanted to go sleep upstairs instead.

During this time, this limbo week, both Sadie and Pete had vet appointments -- Daisy found blood clots in Sadie's urine when cleaning the pans, and we took her in to get medication for a UTI (which she does have). When Pete began attacking her every day and then began peeing on the floor, Daisy took him in as well to check him for a UTI (which he does not have, he's just a prick and kicking Sadie while she's down). Last night, in the lead up to the ball dropping, Sadie had what appeared to be a seizure and peed all over the floor. I did not see it happen; I only saw the pee and how dazed she was for a few minutes afterwards. She recovered quickly and seemed mostly fine, though a bit slower for the rest of the night. 

It's becoming very apparent that Sadie is not going to be with us much longer. She has been struggling a lot as of late, and it seems like she's holding on for our sake only -- holding on because she doesn't want to leave us. It's a losing battle, though. Aging comes to the lucky. Sadie has had a great life, a long life, but even with the antibiotics we got from the vet to combat her UTI (which, amazingly enough, she really seems to not mind) I don't know that she'll live long enough to fully recover, or if her body will allow her to. 

It's hard for us, of course, but it's also not -- we have known her time is coming for a very long time and both of us have tried to mentally prepare for it. Maggie went quick, and it was traumatic. Sadie is not going quick; she's been steadily declining for a while. Knowing that, and seeing it every day, isn't really making it any easier, though. I don't want to help her off this mortal coil unless I know that she's not going to have any quality of life left. Daisy is wondering if she'll just die peacefully at home -- just wink out one night (or day, for me) when we're sleeping. I don't want to be premature and take her to the vet saying "I think it's time" if it's really not. So yes, it's hard. Sadie is my shadow and always has been since she was a kitten; wherever I am, she's been by my side since the first week I had her and she bonded with me. I don't want to let her go, but I know I will soon have to. I'm sick about it. 

Last night -- New Year's Eve -- was my last "vacation" day off for the foreseeable future. I wish I could take another week off to rest up and refresh myself, to not have to work the remainder of this week as customers and clients slowly return to work and the post-holidays status quo resumes. I am intensely tired at almost all times, and the longer I work in my job, the more it wears on me. I have a wonderful team under me and a ton of experience in my field, but I also feel like I've accomplished all I can in that job from multiple perspectives and that I need to move on into something new and far easier as I get older. 2025 will be my 11th year working there, with nine of those years spent on overnights. 

I'm also not a fan of New Year's -- I am incredibly wary every January now, waiting for the first things to go wrong in the new year. 2024 was an awful, absolutely dismal year, and I am just so tired of having awful, dismal years. That being said, I hope your new year is a good one and that you can manifest what you need to be happy and healthy. 

I've been trying to manifest a winning lottery ticket and a 1977 Bandit Trans Am in my driveway, and so far it's not been working, sooo.....