Jaws
Some of you may have heard. Jaws died last night.
I want to write out the whole thing. In fact, I want to write the whole story of Jaws, from first meeting to the last moments. She led an interesting life, for a cat. I even have some very early photos of Jaws that I can scan to post, including a photo I took of her before she had officially been dubbed Jaws.
I just... I can't do it now. I think that'll be a project for me to work on, in fits and starts, over the coming months... Jaws: The Biography. I can't do it now because it's too raw and too fresh. As I write this, it was just 24 hours ago that I was kneeling in the hallway of our house desperately trying to hold onto her as she was having a violent seizure.
Fuck. Kleenex time.
Anyway, the photos. I've always approached the "Year in Photos" as sort of half art project, half photojournalism. I know plonq gets very artsy, and often takes far better looking photos than I do. I take photos to record moments or places so that they can be remembered later. Between the two of us, we do a pretty good job of documenting the important parts of our lives.
But when you're documenting your life, not all of the photos will be happy.
Plonq has been in training all week and next, so on Thursday we decided to grab some food out. We went to the mall, and after we ate, we strolled through Target. That's where we found the creepiest shelf in the store.
Friday night is raid night. This is pretty much my setup for when I'm raiding. Game on the left, Ventrilo and my Twitter client on the right, and a beer in my hand.
Friday night... Saturday morning? ... Very early Saturday morning, things started to go wrong with Jaws. They'd been going wrong for a while, but when your cat is 20ish years old you expect things to start failing. She recovered quickly, and in the morning she was back to her old self. We popped out to run some errands, and when we got back we took down the Christmas tree. Jaws was very involved: getting underfoot, poking her head into boxes, and generally being in the way in the manner of a cat that is acting normal. We were just finalizing plans to spend some time at over at dronon's place when she had another seizure, and we decided that was it.
Of course, our vet had closed 45 minutes earlier, and we had to take her to the 24-hour emergency vet. She did not protest at all, either being put into the carrier or for the ride there... very un-Jaws-like. By the time that the vet had examined her and ruled out acute issues that might be fixed easily, she had slipped into a half-conscious state.
These places are, by necessity, clinical and sterile. She also hated going to the vet. I am grateful that she was so out of it that she probably didn't even know what was going on. And she's been deaf for quite a while, so my murmurs to her literally fell on deaf ears.
At least the last thing she smelled was me.
This morning, I lit a candle for Jaws. The candle in the middle, at the far right in the sand, is for Jaws.
Jaws, the Great White Cat, Keeper of the Tail of Doom. I'll miss you, girly girl.
I want to write out the whole thing. In fact, I want to write the whole story of Jaws, from first meeting to the last moments. She led an interesting life, for a cat. I even have some very early photos of Jaws that I can scan to post, including a photo I took of her before she had officially been dubbed Jaws.
I just... I can't do it now. I think that'll be a project for me to work on, in fits and starts, over the coming months... Jaws: The Biography. I can't do it now because it's too raw and too fresh. As I write this, it was just 24 hours ago that I was kneeling in the hallway of our house desperately trying to hold onto her as she was having a violent seizure.
Fuck. Kleenex time.
Anyway, the photos. I've always approached the "Year in Photos" as sort of half art project, half photojournalism. I know plonq gets very artsy, and often takes far better looking photos than I do. I take photos to record moments or places so that they can be remembered later. Between the two of us, we do a pretty good job of documenting the important parts of our lives.
But when you're documenting your life, not all of the photos will be happy.
Plonq has been in training all week and next, so on Thursday we decided to grab some food out. We went to the mall, and after we ate, we strolled through Target. That's where we found the creepiest shelf in the store.
Friday night is raid night. This is pretty much my setup for when I'm raiding. Game on the left, Ventrilo and my Twitter client on the right, and a beer in my hand.
Friday night... Saturday morning? ... Very early Saturday morning, things started to go wrong with Jaws. They'd been going wrong for a while, but when your cat is 20ish years old you expect things to start failing. She recovered quickly, and in the morning she was back to her old self. We popped out to run some errands, and when we got back we took down the Christmas tree. Jaws was very involved: getting underfoot, poking her head into boxes, and generally being in the way in the manner of a cat that is acting normal. We were just finalizing plans to spend some time at over at dronon's place when she had another seizure, and we decided that was it.
Of course, our vet had closed 45 minutes earlier, and we had to take her to the 24-hour emergency vet. She did not protest at all, either being put into the carrier or for the ride there... very un-Jaws-like. By the time that the vet had examined her and ruled out acute issues that might be fixed easily, she had slipped into a half-conscious state.
These places are, by necessity, clinical and sterile. She also hated going to the vet. I am grateful that she was so out of it that she probably didn't even know what was going on. And she's been deaf for quite a while, so my murmurs to her literally fell on deaf ears.
At least the last thing she smelled was me.
This morning, I lit a candle for Jaws. The candle in the middle, at the far right in the sand, is for Jaws.
Jaws, the Great White Cat, Keeper of the Tail of Doom. I'll miss you, girly girl.