Love and loss. And herpes.
I spent quite a few years working for Borders. Yup, that Borders, the bookstore that started off as awesomesauce and slowly fell apart until complete and total bankruptcy. In it's 'golden years' Borders was a fantastic company to work for and one of the best jobs you could have in the company was to be a trainer. They were opening stores at an incredible rate, and each of those new store openings needed a team of trainers to spend almost a full month in a strange city for the process they called a "Sort". (Because you had to sort trucks and trucks full of product.) So I got to travel a lot and meet a ton of great people. Met my husband through being a trainer, actually. My memories of Borders will forever be fond.
I was That Kind of Person and took my cat, Hazel Stone, with me on sorts whenever I could. She was a good traveler, would tolerate being on a leash, and while she was one of the meanest cats I'd ever known to ME, she would just eat up attention from strangers. One sort I took her to was in Las Vegas.
During a layover...somewhere between Mississippi and Vegas...these 3 little old ladies who were also, actually, going to Vegas, insisted on petting Hazel for good luck. I had her out of her carrier, on her leash, in the smoking lounge. She was calico, and for some reason these old ladies kept calling her a 'money cat' and said that petting her would make *sure* they'd win in Vegas. I'd never heard that before, but did look it up eventually and apparently that it is an old superstition that calico cats bring good fortune. Who knew?
Once at the sort, other trainers would visit my room at night, before bedtime, to get in some kitty petting time. (One of those trainers had previously worked in casinos, knew all about dealing and odds and rules, and she had some amazing good fortune at the casinos that trip...I'm sure it was all Hazel.) The hotel cleaning staff left notes about how pretty and sweet she was, and store staff at the sort would ask about her every day. She became a kind of mascot for the sort, for some reason. I'd had her on other sorts, but this mascot thing had never happened before. I think most people thought I was just a little too crazy-cat-lady for bringing her, but in Vegas, no one thought it was crazy. I think that speaks volumes about the quality of personality in Vegas.
Hazel didn't die on this sort. I just wanted to pause here and let you know that.
One night as I went to feed her...she could barely eat. She was doing this terrifying jerking thing with her head where she'd kind of lean in towards her food but then smack her face into it and then back off and walk away a bit, kind of drunkenly, bumping into things. Full. On. Panic. Attack.
Now, I've had cats and other pets get sick before and dealt with vet visits, but I'd never seen anything like this kind of behavior. I could only think something was wrong with her brain, I was freaking my shit out, and I was stuck in a hotel room in a strange town. I called the sort leader to get use of the minivan, and started digging in the phone book and it was Vegas, so there were 24 hour vets. Full on 24 hour vet hospitals, not just emergency vets. Yay Vegas. Other trainers had been with the sort leader at the time, and they were calling around to store staff for local recommendations, and before I knew it there was a mini-van full of trainers and store staff taking Hazel to a vet.
Four of them came into the vet room with me, the other 3 couldn't fit. The vet's doing her vet thing and checking over stuff and asking me questions and she said something like "I have a couple of ideas first, let's do some tests." These tests, turn out, were eye-drops. First one, drop fell into Hazel's right eye and WHOOSH the entire white of her eye turned bright pink, then it faded as she blinked. I had my hands on Hazel, the vet tech and the vet where helping hold her, and then my 4 sort friends where all there as well, leaned in, looking equally worried and interested. Hazel was a stress-purrer, so she was purring like a fiend. The vet goes "Okay, we need to do one more."
She took out a different eye drop, into Hazel's eye it went, and WHOOSH, the white of her eye was this nuclear looking yellow, and it wasn't fading. It was pretty fricken trippy to look at, I'll tell you. One of the store staff looks around at us all and went "Whooooaaaa..." The vet goes "Yup, it's herpes."
Instantly, his and three other heads and 8 hands, jerk up and away from Hazel and the table.
The vet literally burst out laughing. She could barely get out "It's feline herpes, it doesn't transfer to humans, it's not the same thing at all..." through her laughter. A handful of hands started sheepishly reaching in to pet Hazel again.
Word had spread to the staff about Hazel having a vet visit in the night by the time of the morning meeting the next day. Everyone was expressing sympathy and concern and wondering what was wrong. I explained that it was feline herpes, that it affected her upper respitory system and her eyesight. That's why she was jerking around oddly...her depth perception and peripheal vision were all wonky. There were hugs and relief that it was something treatable and nothing serious.
And then one of my co-trainers, this wonderful, flamingly gay, cheerful jokester of an older gentlemen who actually worked at the other existing Vegas Borders says to me, "So let me get this straight. You came to Las Vegas and your pussy got herpes?"
Hazel was the first cat I ever had that was just mine; not a childhood pet of my parents', not picked out with a partner, just me. I was living in this cool little art deco place in Jackson, Mississippi and had not really thought about pets at all. Come a knock on the door one night and there's some chick standing there with a literal basket full of kittens, trying to find homes for them all. Basket of kittens, y'all. I was powerless.
Hazel Stone is a character in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; a rowdy, rough and tumble, red haired, 12-year-old orphan who helps start a revolution. My new tiny kitten was mean as shit, rarely stayed still, and was a 'red head' since most of her calico was orange. It didn't take me long to name her.
She was 14 years old when she died, less than 2 years ago. I'll always miss my little walking STD.
I was That Kind of Person and took my cat, Hazel Stone, with me on sorts whenever I could. She was a good traveler, would tolerate being on a leash, and while she was one of the meanest cats I'd ever known to ME, she would just eat up attention from strangers. One sort I took her to was in Las Vegas.
During a layover...somewhere between Mississippi and Vegas...these 3 little old ladies who were also, actually, going to Vegas, insisted on petting Hazel for good luck. I had her out of her carrier, on her leash, in the smoking lounge. She was calico, and for some reason these old ladies kept calling her a 'money cat' and said that petting her would make *sure* they'd win in Vegas. I'd never heard that before, but did look it up eventually and apparently that it is an old superstition that calico cats bring good fortune. Who knew?
Once at the sort, other trainers would visit my room at night, before bedtime, to get in some kitty petting time. (One of those trainers had previously worked in casinos, knew all about dealing and odds and rules, and she had some amazing good fortune at the casinos that trip...I'm sure it was all Hazel.) The hotel cleaning staff left notes about how pretty and sweet she was, and store staff at the sort would ask about her every day. She became a kind of mascot for the sort, for some reason. I'd had her on other sorts, but this mascot thing had never happened before. I think most people thought I was just a little too crazy-cat-lady for bringing her, but in Vegas, no one thought it was crazy. I think that speaks volumes about the quality of personality in Vegas.
Hazel didn't die on this sort. I just wanted to pause here and let you know that.
One night as I went to feed her...she could barely eat. She was doing this terrifying jerking thing with her head where she'd kind of lean in towards her food but then smack her face into it and then back off and walk away a bit, kind of drunkenly, bumping into things. Full. On. Panic. Attack.
Now, I've had cats and other pets get sick before and dealt with vet visits, but I'd never seen anything like this kind of behavior. I could only think something was wrong with her brain, I was freaking my shit out, and I was stuck in a hotel room in a strange town. I called the sort leader to get use of the minivan, and started digging in the phone book and it was Vegas, so there were 24 hour vets. Full on 24 hour vet hospitals, not just emergency vets. Yay Vegas. Other trainers had been with the sort leader at the time, and they were calling around to store staff for local recommendations, and before I knew it there was a mini-van full of trainers and store staff taking Hazel to a vet.
Four of them came into the vet room with me, the other 3 couldn't fit. The vet's doing her vet thing and checking over stuff and asking me questions and she said something like "I have a couple of ideas first, let's do some tests." These tests, turn out, were eye-drops. First one, drop fell into Hazel's right eye and WHOOSH the entire white of her eye turned bright pink, then it faded as she blinked. I had my hands on Hazel, the vet tech and the vet where helping hold her, and then my 4 sort friends where all there as well, leaned in, looking equally worried and interested. Hazel was a stress-purrer, so she was purring like a fiend. The vet goes "Okay, we need to do one more."
She took out a different eye drop, into Hazel's eye it went, and WHOOSH, the white of her eye was this nuclear looking yellow, and it wasn't fading. It was pretty fricken trippy to look at, I'll tell you. One of the store staff looks around at us all and went "Whooooaaaa..." The vet goes "Yup, it's herpes."
Instantly, his and three other heads and 8 hands, jerk up and away from Hazel and the table.
The vet literally burst out laughing. She could barely get out "It's feline herpes, it doesn't transfer to humans, it's not the same thing at all..." through her laughter. A handful of hands started sheepishly reaching in to pet Hazel again.
Word had spread to the staff about Hazel having a vet visit in the night by the time of the morning meeting the next day. Everyone was expressing sympathy and concern and wondering what was wrong. I explained that it was feline herpes, that it affected her upper respitory system and her eyesight. That's why she was jerking around oddly...her depth perception and peripheal vision were all wonky. There were hugs and relief that it was something treatable and nothing serious.
And then one of my co-trainers, this wonderful, flamingly gay, cheerful jokester of an older gentlemen who actually worked at the other existing Vegas Borders says to me, "So let me get this straight. You came to Las Vegas and your pussy got herpes?"
Hazel was the first cat I ever had that was just mine; not a childhood pet of my parents', not picked out with a partner, just me. I was living in this cool little art deco place in Jackson, Mississippi and had not really thought about pets at all. Come a knock on the door one night and there's some chick standing there with a literal basket full of kittens, trying to find homes for them all. Basket of kittens, y'all. I was powerless.
Hazel Stone is a character in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; a rowdy, rough and tumble, red haired, 12-year-old orphan who helps start a revolution. My new tiny kitten was mean as shit, rarely stayed still, and was a 'red head' since most of her calico was orange. It didn't take me long to name her.
She was 14 years old when she died, less than 2 years ago. I'll always miss my little walking STD.