Sad Times A-Coming

It appears that our little Miss Yinny Yin Yin is winding down. She hides in her little cave a lot, she hovers over her water dish for hours at a time, and most telling, she doesn't struggle when we pick her up.

As you'll recall from my early postings last fall, she and her litter-mate brother were dumped by a breeder at four weeks old, as soon as their eyes opened. Yang was a wall-eyed Siamese, and Yin has no pupils in her eyes - bad ju-ju for a breeder

Our vet told us not to expect either of them to live longer than four years. In fact, Yang died once on the operating table and was resuscitated when he was three months old. He died again two years ago at the ripe old age of nine. Yin is eleven and up until a couple of weeks ago, was still going strong. Now she's losing weight - and she was always underweight - and looking kind of ragged like her brother did before he died.

We are being intentional about giving her quality lap time these days, and doing everything we know to do to make her feel loved during her last days, weeks, months - whatever. It's hard to say good bye to one who has been such an inspiration to us - a blind little girl kitty with the heart of a lion! Our friend Colleen described Yin's legacy this way: she showed us that being scared is just the first step toward being brave.

Where Does The Time Go?

Almost three months ago I was looking down the barrel of the cannon that would shoot us to our new home here in Meadville, PA. Since then I've been taken off anti-coagulants (which means I'm back on ibuprofen,) we closed on our house, Carmen was ordained, we packed up all of our stuff for the movers, who came right on schedule on July 5th, drove four days with two cats, the movers arrived about six hours late (not bad, really, as movers go) on July 10th, and since then we've been alternately unpacking and remodeling our cute little house here.

I'm sitting in my office - you heard me right, MY office - I can shut the door and everything! Carmen's office, meditation space, artsy fartsy room and primary closet are upstairs in the former attic that was sold to us as a "Master Suite" because it was scheduled to have a bathroom. Someday it will have a bathroom. I promise. My other domain, besides the kitchen, is the basement, a wet and musty-smelling place that Carmen is happy to let me rule. Early in my reign I donned a hazmat suit, put bleach in my squirt tank, and hosed down the whole interior of my basement.

The yard is huge compared to anything we had in Boston or Albuquerque. We bought me a lawn mower and a battery powered weed whacker (I LOVE IT!) first thing. Today I bought a 24' extension ladder to fix a small leak around the vent pipe. I've hung three ceiling fans, two regular doors, three bifold doors, two accordion doors, one window air conditioner for the attic space, two sets of mini blinds and three sets of "regular" blinds, and walls, floor and ceiling in the new attic closet since we've been here. And painted. There's a lot more, but those are some highlights.

And the kitties? Well, the big french doors face south toward Pittsburgh, and the back yard is home to birds, bunnies, squirrels, dogs and about five neighborhood cats who use the former owner's horseshoe pits as outdoor litter boxes. Anyway, the kids can sit in the sun and watch the show (or listen to it, in one case) which can entertain them all day while chaos reigns around them. In addition, there are new rooms to explore, including a basement, new furniture to test-rest, and the magic fountain of food still flows twice a day.

What more could a kitty want?!