Today we said goodbye to another member of our family. We almost lost Satch a year ago, but our miraculous vet was able to save him and give us a “bonus” year with him. Luckily, his death was way more peaceful than my dad’s. He slipped away quietly while in my arms, which is the best any of us could ever hope for. He was the most loving cat I’ve ever had and I doubt we’ll ever be able to find another cat quite like him. But I am SO damn grateful that we got the time with him that we did. Thank you for enriching our lives, sweet boy. You did life and love right.
Snowed in today. Well, really rained in. Or sleeted in. We’ll have to wait and see. My goal for the day is to paint until I can’t see straight and my hand cramps up, then spend the rest of the evening snuggling with S and the cats. Poor sweet Satch is sick yet again. He’s now on 5 meds. Poor little punkinmonkey. How do you not throw up have your heart break when this face starts leaking fluids everywhere?
I may have to paint him. By which I mean paint a picture of him, not paint on him. I don’t think that would make him feel better. Though it would be fair since he’s been doing an excellent job of painting our floors, walls, and chairs with bright green snot. Eesh. Little Sniffleupagus is so pathetic.
Me: Am I paying for Satch’s med school out of the regular account?
Me (again): Meds. Not med school. Thank you autocorrect.
S: Yes. Checkbook is there.
Me: What if Satch decides he wants to do med school? How will he get student loans, seeing as how he’s a cat and all? We certainly can’t afford to pay his way through med school. That shit is expensive! I feel like we’re failing him.
S: Forget it.
Me: Are you really so ready to cast aside his hopes and dreams? He might discover the cure for feline leukemia! Or pimples! Or asshole-itis! Or he could figure out why Dizzy is such a degenerate! Don’t you want answers to these pressing issues?!
Me (again): Hello? If you think I’m going to be the one to break the news to him that med school is not an option, you’re sorely mistaken. I don’t know how you can sleep at night.
I wish I was a marsupial. Preferably one who has the power to shrink loved ones. If I was a marsupial, I’d carry Satch around in my tummy pocket all day. And I’d shrink my dad down and put him in there to keep Satch company. Satch’s purring would send healing vibrations through me – especially when I have cramps – and my dad would keep me laughing hysterically with puns. And both of them would give me snuggles when I’m sad. Granted, as a marsupial, I’d probably have more fur to contend with, but I’m pretty good at shaving and waxing, so I think that’d be a reasonable price to pay. Or I could embrace my dirty inner hippy and just let it grow out. I heard the other day that people are doing that and dyeing their armpit hair now. No really, that’s a thing.
I should really consider sewing a pocket onto my stomach now, for Satch, but I haven’t figured out how to shrink my dad down yet (or get him back to the point mentally where he can shout all those puns up to me), so it feels a little premature to take that step with a needle and thread. I also have to figure out the best way to clean inside my tummy pocket. Given the fact that belly button lint exists, I can only imagine the dust bunnies that would hide in the corners of my pocket, making Satch and my dad sneeze. I think I’d have to dry clean it or something, because Satch doesn’t really like getting wet. Really, I’d have to dry clean my whole body, because showering could present problems. What if my pocket got wet and shrunk? I mean, Satch and Dad like to snuggle up close, but no one wants to feel squished.
These are serious considerations. You know what else I should seriously consider doing today? Some actual, bona fide work. Or maybe I should consider drinking some bourbon. Decisions, decisions.
Satch is very, very sick and may not be long for this world. Two nights ago, he had to be separated from Dizzy so we could monitor his litter box, and Dizzy, surprisingly, spent most of the night outside the bathroom door where Satch was sequestered and cried and cried out for him. When I brought Satch home from the vet again yesterday, Dizzy, who normally licks only as a precursor to a sneak attack of biting, came over and started licking and licking him. He followed him around the apartment, jumped up on the sofa with us, and only licked. No biting. I’m quite proud of him, and honestly, grateful, because poor little Satch doesn’t need any extra stress right now. It was too cute not to capture, so here you go, video evidence of Dizzy not being an unholy terror:
In honor of it still being National Poetry Month, I have written a little haiku (the “little” there was redundant, wasn’t it? Oh hell, I’m leaving it in anyway), just for you, dear internet:
This is the story of Dizzy, our pitten. What is a “pitten,” you ask? It’s a cross between a puppy and a kitten. He looks like a cat, but we’re pretty convinced there’s more to the story based on his behavior.
We had 2 adult cats before, but our eldest, Ella, passed away about 2 years ago. We decided to bury her out at the property, which sounds like no big deal, but we had had a lot of rain that week. So, the hole kept filling up with water, which we had to submerge her in. Only, she didn’t want to be submerged. She kept floating back up. So we had to bury her mobster style by weighting her down with bricks. Yeah, that was fun. I kind of wish we had it on film, though, because we must have looked hardcore covered in mud and fur.
Ella
Satch, current title holder for World’s Sweetest Cat
After Ella died, our other kitty, Satch, got all sad and pathetic and would cry all night outside of the bedroom door, so after a long search, we got him a kitten, Dizzy (we’ve named all of our cats after jazz musicians. We’ve had Ella Fitzgerald, Satchmo, Frankie – for Sinatra because he had blue eyes – and now Dizzy Gillespie). I had originally planned on getting another adult cat, but had been looking for about 8 months and hadn’t fallen in love with one yet. When I was in VA visiting my parents, my mom and I had to kill a little time and decided to stop by the local SPCA to see their kitties. We walked in and saw this little kitten who looked like a mini-me of Satch.
Satch’s Mini-me
I’m pretty sure thisis the only time they have ever snuggled
Now I’ve owned a lot of cats over the years, and I’ve never had as great and snuggly a cat as Satch, so a mini version of him was too hard to resist. Then he reached his little paw through the cage and looked pleadingly at us like Puss n’ Boots in Shrek, and we lost the battle. So much for getting another adult.
Imagine this face with a paw stretched through the cage bars at us, and you can understand why we melted.
Dizzy was either born with only 1 testicle, or has a 2nd one floating around in his little tummy, so we seriously considered naming him Testicles (pronounced Testiclees – like a very wise, uniballed Greek philosopher). He also has the cutest little kink at the end of this long fluffy tail. We got a defective cat. While we decided to name him Dizzy, his real name seems to be “Dizzy-No!” He’s rotten to his very core (as evidenced by the fact that when he poops, it smells like Satan himself is coming out of this cat’s butt), and he torments Satch like it’s his job. There are many times when I have seriously considered turning him into a shishkacat. This has resulted in Satch being even more sad and pathetic. And now, instead of Satch crying outside our bedroom door all night, Dizzy does it. Oops. He chews everything in the house like a damn dog. I thought maybe it was because he was losing his baby teeth or something, but he’s about a year and a half old now and he’s still doing it, so that’s not the reason. To date, he has destroyed/eaten 5 cat toys and chewed through 6 speaker wires, 1 dvd cord, 3 cell phone charger cords, 3 ribbons, 1 vacuum cord, 11 shoelaces, the plastic wrapping for at least 10 bundles of firewood, and chewed a bald spot into my hair. We’ve had to wrap all vital cords in terry cloth and duct tape.
This is what it now looks like behind our TV
His favorite game other than tormenting poor, sweet, Satch, is to wear belts. Here’s what I mean:
He does this for hours each day. He dives in and wriggles the loop onto him, wears it around like a belt, wriggles out, then repeats the process over and over and over. And Satch just looks at him, like, “what the hell is wrong with you?” I’m telling you, defective cat. Pitten.
The Perks of Being an Artist 