She talks to wolves...

Harvest festivals resonate strongly for me: the tradition of feasting well and making merry once the last of the preparations have been made for winter. The sense of building up a blaze of joy and thanks to carry us through a long night. The celebration that comes at the end of long work and preparation, the moment when you feel secure you've done what you can to shore up against what is to come.

The moments when you count your blessings and are thankful for everyone.

I am so thankful to my family: just for being themselves, but also for the support they've given Andy and me over the past year, whether a shoulder to lean on or a way to pay our bills. I am especially thankful to my mom for planning my wedding so well, to my Poppy for always being a kind and strong support, to my dad for always giving me whatever help he could. I also give thanks for my wacky, complex, beloved brothers who enrich my life with theirs.

I am so thankful to my friends: just for being themselves, but also for their remarkable talents and generosity. As always, I offer especial thanks to my dear cadhla, copperwise, crowley, void_dragon, and worshipper. These wonderful, amazing people are so often the building blocks of my sanity and heart-health. My life would be diminished without each of them.

I am so thankful to every one of you who helped me by supporting my cyber-funded projects or commissioning something from me to keep Andy and I afloat this summer. Your generosity literally means the world to us. I know that graduate school has prevented me from fulfilling some of my obligations to you, but I will. I most certainly will.

I am grateful to be in graduate school, pursuing my academic dreams. I am grateful to have been published in this past year. I am grateful that both my husband and myself are employed. I am grateful we have two beautiful, mostly healthy cats. I am grateful for all of this and so much more.

Most of all, I am grateful for my husband Andrew. He has been one of my best friends for thirteen years: we've been through transcendent joys and sorrows deep as the abyss. We've quarreled terribly, stopped talking to each other several times, written mad poetry to each other, and loved without caution.

And that was all before we married.

He has been a part of my life for nearly half my years on this Earth - I am so ridiculously grateful to look forward to that proportion changing, until I can tell our future children that more of our lives have been lived together than apart. He is my starfall knight, my welcome wolf at the door, my comfort beyond question.

(I love you, Andy, my darling.)

So, yes. Be grateful for all you have today, everyone! Let gratitude and light and love lead you through the months to come.

Willie died today, October 1st, 2007, around 11:30 AM.

I got to the vet's office about 10:15 AM. I sat on a bench in the office and continued working on my notes for today's Biology lecture. My handwriting was a bit shaky. I'd calmed down at home, thinking that she was going to be okay, finally in the vet's office where she could get all due care. Once I returned to the vet's, though, I could feel myself becoming extremely anxious once more.

The assistant called me into a back room and there lay Willie on the examination table. She was just lying there, without even anyone needing to keep a hand on her so that she didn't end up cowering in the corner. The vet turned around and told me kidney failure.

I started stroking her fur, trying to bargain him down to UTI. I pointed out her symptoms, the inconsistency of the signs for kidney failure, how quickly she went downhill. He listened to me, feeling her belly, her skin, looking in her mouth. He told me that her bladder was empty and she was dehydrated. I felt the tears slip out and asked him to do the blood test.

He was back in moments. Her indicator strip was so dark that the darkest side of the spectrum on the test bottle didn't even match it. He said her kidneys were barely working.

He said that he could possibly prolong her life by a few days, but that he honestly wouldn't put her through that or put the funds into that course of events. He recommended that we let her go. And I knew that's what we were going to do because she was hurting so much and we didn't want to keep her around selfishly.

I asked him how this could have happened. How we couldn't have known given the fact that Andy's previous cats sickened over the course of months and years, not days. He said that some cats' kidneys overcompensate for the failure and so there are times when there are next to no symptoms until the very end. Until they just shut down.

Willie always had to do things in creative and exciting ways. She kicked the ass of the fucking kidney failure, but it got her in the end. Our Queenly little Beast.

I sobbed in earnest once I got the doctor to leave the room and turned to call Andy. I strangled back the tears for the phone call, wanting to be able to offer him all the support I could.

I called Andy. I asked him to leave his class and sit down. He said "No," but not in response to my request. He said "No" to the world. I suppressed a sob and started to explain what had happened, but he knew. He saw it in Puss. He saw it in Chessie. He just never expected it so fast in his spirited little girl. Nor so young.

He left work immediately and came to be with us. I stroked and petted her and whispered soothing things to her.

We said goodbye as best we could. She was barely moving her tail anymore and just watched us with dull eyes. It seemed her spirit was just hanging by a thread.

Our usual vet had to leave before this to go and teach an anatomy class at a local university. His partner, also very trusted by us, came in to administer the final rites. He also talked with us, reassuring us that we'd done nothing wrong. He said that 98% of cats who live to old age, without mishap, die of kidney failure. Willie wasn't that particularly old, but he also pointed out that it's just genetics: she was hard-wired to age before her time. (She was the runt of her litter-- I suppose this may have contributed.)

He gave her a sedative. While it was taking effect, she began having some convulsions. She was truly close to the end anyway, and we were just easing her passing. When he came into to give the last shot, I noted that it was a bright and translucent pink. Liquid death, I thought. Why does it have to look so cheery? I could hardly breathe with the enormity of the decision we'd made as he pushed the fluid into her veins. This was an irrevocable decision and it scared me, even though it was the right decision.

We decided to bury her in the backyard of my dad's house. She never lived there, but she's in the vicinity of her original home and it's a lovely place: thick green grass, verdant and spreading bushes and trees, a piercing blue sky. She's also in good company, considering we buried other beloved pets there in the past.

Shelton helped us bury her. We labored over digging a hole, said a few words, then filled it over. Rest in Peace, our beloved Willie. You're hurting no more.

P.S. The vet charged us the absolute minimum price for taking care of Willie. We are in deep gratitude and appreciation.

P.P.S. I absolutely did not teach my Biology class today. I was attending a funeral when it occurred and I really couldn't be bothered to care one whit.

Andy and I had been talking about getting a second kitty for some time now. We had agreed that we wanted one, but thought we might want to wait until we moved to a new place: that way we could trick our Lady Wilhelmina the Queenly (also known as Willie) that the new place and the new cat went together. She wouldn't have to go through the indignities of getting used to a kitten in her current demesne.

Unfortunately, once we'd made up our minds, it kept getting harder and harder to wait. I haven't had my own kitty in many, many years and I really longed for a little bundle of furry joy. I kept resisting, trying to keep to our original schedule; however, moving is a year away. I really couldn't resist any longer when my grandmother died and I said to Andy that two of my grief responses were to go comfort-shopping for books and to snuggle a kitten. I already had a Barnes and Noble bag containing Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett and Interworld by Neil Gaiman. So Andy said, "Well, why don't we? Let's do it." on the kitten.

I felt that we should get a kitten from the Humane Society, especially since our local establishment is a kill shelter. Still, in the interest of checking out any retail catteries, we called around to a couple of stores before we headed out to the shelter. We discovered that there seems to be an over-abundance of puppies right now and a dearth of kittens. We also discovered that the Humane Shelter takes their cats out to PetSmart and puts them on display for adoption.

While we were at PetSmart, we checked to see if blueinsideout was working. She didn't seem to be, sadly, and we didn't linger long when we realized they only had adult cats on display. (Although, if we were looking for an adult cat, there was an absolutely majestic long-haired grey cat there. She was ever alert and a queen surveying her realm: her name was Madonna.)

We drove all the way across town to the shelter and entered the cat room hopefully. As I walked through the door, I saw a flash of orange leap upward in the confines of its cage, twisting in the air to play with some toy. I immediately zeroed in on the orange and white tiger-stripe cat (who bore the unfortunate arbitrary moniker of "Mello Yello"). He was fabulous, meowing at me and immediately reaching through the bars to bat at and play with my hands.

Andy was crouching down next to a voluble little tortoiseshell, dark and comely. He was also quite keen to play with us. And then we were called across the room to another kitten, similarly marked, who wanted to cavort among us new humans. She was the first one we got out ("Weezy"), but we discovered that she was entirely too stand-offish once she was free of her confines. (Stand-offish isn't quite right... maybe just too uninterested in humans once she was free).

As we were trying to play with "Weezy," a cat I think of as "Mama Cats" just came up behind us and started demanding loving. She was an adult cat, a rich and darkly patterned cat (part tortoise-shell, part stripes...?). She was completely awesome. She rolled over and played with my hand, climbed all over me, rubbed her face against mine, and pressed her nose to my lips. She played with my hair, snuffling my ear, and was altogether too fabulous for words. If we'd been looking for an adult cat, she would have been mine in a heartbeat. I feel really bad about not taking her home, still.

My attention kept coming back to "Mello Yello" and I pushed Andy into looking at him more closely. He had a few reservations about him being male and about how his attitude might change when he's neutered. Yet, when Andy took him out and held him, he was completely sold. The orange tiger-cat just turned into completely boneless love in his arms, snuggled, purring, and content. Same when we transferred him to my arms. And, when we put him down again, he immediately pepped back up and began entertaining himself with an errant piece of paper and his own tail.

We had to take him home. We filled out the application (good to see they're so careful and detailed), paid our fee ($75, since he was over six months and technically not a kitten), and brought him home. After reading through the paperwork, I see that he was a stray discovered in a parking lot of a motel. They guesstimated his birthdate as February 14th of 2007. He was brought in seven days ago-- I'm shocked that he lasted that long, kitty fantastico as he is.

So he's got an appointment for shots and neuter-scheduling with the vet on Friday. He loves everyone he meets. He's curious and active and mellow.

Willie, our dear Queen, is most upset by all this. We are heartened by the fact that they didn't try to attack each other, but she's still warning him off and she's so pissed at us that she's not letting us pet her much. Right now, she's sitting on the far side of the room and carefully watching the couch, where I sit and the kitten sleeps on the back. Poor Willie. I hope she finds it in her heart to come around soon.

We're not entirely sure this cat is going to respond well to names. I initially wanted to call him Jack... because Jack is an awesome name, plus I love the concept of the Jack from de Lint's novels, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Jack the Pumpkin King. (We have orange and black kitties now-- Halloween colors, as my dear brother pointed out. I'm in love.) However, Jack doesn't seem to fit him. As cliche as it is, Tiger seems to fit this kitten much better. So his full name is Tiger Jack! the Explorer. Hopefully one of these names will end up sticking.

Tiger Jack likes attacking everything that dangles; including, so far, my necklace, Willie's fishing line cat toy, and the strings on my pajama pants: