thursday blues....

...today I found myself thinking of teatea at work during one of the trivial disputes between self-pontificating managers....and let myself go back to the moments when we put her down....and in a fit of self- punishment, allowed me to glimpse what she may have experienced during some of her last moments....somehow I yanked myself away from that abyss of despair and made myself go back to more pleasant memories....like the day I threw her onto my ex-husband's face....no, really, it was an accident....but a hilarious one at that.

teatea was a scrapper with other cats.  they were NOT acceptable in her home.  I was living with my sister, who decided that she would get a cat as well, and we had them on a rotation schedule....teatea out at night, foosil (her cat) out during the day.  Well, teatea was out and out came foosil.  Brawl.  teatea was quick and sharp, so I broke it up by grabbing her scruff and kind of flinging her off of foosil (not the brightest or quickest of cats)....well, i never dreamed of envisioning her trajectory pattern during the launch....but quickly realized the shortcomings of my plan when over my right shoulder I hear this "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!"  I turned around to see my previously napping husband laying on the sofa with a very very angry cat on his face....during the launch and trajectory teatea had managed to right herself to land claws down....right on my husband's head.  He was not pleased.  I could not stop laughing.  This is not the reason he is an exhusband.  I found out later that he deserved it more than just a bit.   [=   

...new misses every day...

we've started to let the foster cat out of the room to roam the kitchen and living room to give her a break from the kittens....i have mixed emotions about doing this, because for 19 years I've only seen one furry face looking back at me in those rooms....but it's the fair thing to do.  teatea is still never far from my heart and mind...i know she lives in my soul.  Earlier I was thinking about how this foster cat Oona is just about the same size at Teatea was...on the petite side, but not slight.  Teatea loved laundry baskets, biting on nail files, my nutrogena microderm abrasion thingy for a massage, and "helping" when you were wrapping gifts....she used to leave her little teethmarks all over the ribbon....one year i just gave out the packages that way at xmas and everyone laughed their heads off.....

...she is missed...

...wondering...and missing, despite it all...

...i was sitting in with the foster 7 tonight and missing the familiarity of teatea.  All this new life creeping all over, looking as cute as the dickens (the dickens MUST have been VERY cute) and my thoughts returned to my familiar friend...and that's exactly what I found myself missing....her familiarity.  I knew everything about her and she knew everything about me.   I knew her talking, body language, habits, the sounds of her purring and even her smell (which admittedly wasn't all that great in the end!) ...and even with the 6 new little lives and the excitement of a new cat in the home, I find myself wishing for that familiarity that I won't have for awhile......I reckon you really can't hurry love......

...the candle still burns....

...although the spare room is filled with fuzzy little balls of wonder (foster kittens), the candle still burns in my bedroom for teatea....and will for quite some time.  I'm still wearing her collar as a bracelet and am already dreading the day when the leather gives way and I can't wear it any longer....her 2 favorite toys are still in the cat bed that we replaced after her death, because we couldn't stand to see the foot of the bed empty of her "kittycave" (sadly she had an accident in hers, so we couldn't keep it)...and the pet stairs still lead up to the bed, where she is welcome any time her new life finds her in the neighborhood.  I miss her.  It makes my heart ache how much I miss her.  I can't let myself think that I'll never see her again...I couldn't bear the pain of that....so I refuse the thought every time it tries to enter my head, choosing instead to know that somehow she is near me always....because that's where she always chose to be.  The thought of her being gone makes my heart hurt to the point of immobilizing me....but the memory of her and the knowing she's very very near makes me smile.....

2 weeks of silence, but not of forgetting....

my silence of 2 weeks isn't because of forgetting teatea....not by a longshot.  Life just suddenly got very very busy.  I picked up the foster cat and 6 kits (that were 3 days old when we got them) about 2 weeks ago, and most of my spare time is taken up by making sure they have everything they need, including fresh bedding, lots of handling, lots of attention for the mom (named Oona) .....and then there was the dreaded time change that sucks the life out of me every year!!  How did it get here so early?!   I've lost about an hour and a half sleep every night for the last 2 weeks, and STILL haven't had time to remember to post here....but teatea is never far from my heart and mind.  The cats are a welcome distraction....I would HIGHLY recommend anyone that has lost one of their furry friends to think about fostering.  It's a way to get that furry love back in your life while still honoring the one you loved and lost, by giving a cat who has had a "rough start" a safe home til their time for a permanent home comes.  I'm not thinking of adopting any of these little critters currently, but if teatea "appears" in any one of them, they might be mine.  If she doesn't, I shall go on fostering for the cats/kittens until that "one" does appear.  It's not my time frame, it's teatea's.  I'll post a few of the photos of the litter here, because they are a part of the process of healing from my loss.  

I am also walking for the the Humane Society that I'm fostering for..... currently i am about $300 shy of my fundraising goal, but I hope to make it by walk day.  It's in honor of teatea and all other pets of my sponsors that are still painfully missed.  Wish me luck.

...today, a change.....

Teatea has been gone for one month today.....such an empty feeling in my home and in my heart still.  I think everyone that has (or has had) an elderly cat really tries to "relish" every moment we're given as the furry family member comes toward the end of it's life....trying to appreciate every time they say hello to you (no matter how busy or late for work you are) and attempting to remember everything....the pitch of their purr, the way they smell (although sometimes that isn't too pleasant!) the way they communicate their changing needs to you.  Well, here I am just one month in to the loss of teatea, and I worry that I'm forgetting things that I was meaning to honor for the rest of my life.  I reckon that I forgot that I'm in the process of getting old too!!   [=  

It wasn't on purpose that a change is coming exactly one month after teatea's death.  It was just that "timing" that happens in life.  My husband and I really miss having a furry being in the house (teatea was an "only cat" indoors, by her rules).  I know that I'm nowhere near ready for a permanent resident to be chosen, so I have decided to "foster" cats in need in the meantime.  One cat, perhaps a couple of kittens, depending on what the needs of the humane society were.  I called and they said they had a 1 year old female that was about to give birth and would I be interested in taking the cat and her kittens after she had them and they all checked out to be healthy....sure.  A 1 year old first time mom would probably have....what....about 3 or 4 kittens.  Wrong.  She had 6 healthy kittens.   Six.  So today I am heading down to the shelter to pick up 7 cats....why does it feel like I should be heading to St. Ives instead????   (more later...)