Yet another reason why 2009 is gonna suck like an Electrolux.
The metro Detroit region is currently at -11° F, with the wind-chill factor at -27° F.
But more than this -- much more than this -- is the passing of my girl-kitty, Sneakers (c. May 1991 -- 12 Jan. 2009), who had to be put down due to cancer.
She was sometimes a pain in the neck and almost always thought that the world revolved around her; however, like some people with these characteristics, she could also be sweet as pie when she chose to, and she pretty much had me wrapped around her little claw.
When she slept with me, she liked to tuck in under my right arm, pressed close against my chest. If I didn't wear a shirt to bed, she liked to sniff and lick my armpit; if she had her druthers, she'd lick my armpit so long that it ceased to tickle and started to hurt.
I'm still feeling guilty for stopping her from her last bout of armpit-lovin', about two weeks ago. I'd give anything for her to be here, healthy, and have another crack at it, discomfort be damned.
Goodbye, baby girl. I'm sorry I wasn't a better daddy to you.
"'Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing. Life is all. It is the hand with which we hold off Death. It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset.'"
-- H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines (1885)
But more than this -- much more than this -- is the passing of my girl-kitty, Sneakers (c. May 1991 -- 12 Jan. 2009), who had to be put down due to cancer.
She was sometimes a pain in the neck and almost always thought that the world revolved around her; however, like some people with these characteristics, she could also be sweet as pie when she chose to, and she pretty much had me wrapped around her little claw.
When she slept with me, she liked to tuck in under my right arm, pressed close against my chest. If I didn't wear a shirt to bed, she liked to sniff and lick my armpit; if she had her druthers, she'd lick my armpit so long that it ceased to tickle and started to hurt.
I'm still feeling guilty for stopping her from her last bout of armpit-lovin', about two weeks ago. I'd give anything for her to be here, healthy, and have another crack at it, discomfort be damned.
Goodbye, baby girl. I'm sorry I wasn't a better daddy to you.
"'Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing. Life is all. It is the hand with which we hold off Death. It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset.'"
-- H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines (1885)