Goodbye My Friend

When we woke up this morning, we discovered that Bomber had crossed over the Rainbow Bridge sometime during the night. At least my baby isn't in pain any more.

Bomber
1998-2008

You know it's that time of year...

...when you spend your entire weekend writing tests, getting lessons prepped, and avoiding grading but you forget to do one very crucial thing until 10pm on Sunday night: the laundry. I knew I had to do laundry today especially when I dug through my drawer and could only find the "emergency" underwear (come on...we all have at least one of those). *sigh*

Only four more weeks.

I have now officially entered the Last Month of the Semester. My brain is fried and I haven't even started the stack o' grading on my desk from the term papers the little brats handed in a few weeks ago. *sigh*

Only four more weeks.

People have started asking me what I'm doing for the holidays. Holidays? What the fuck are the...oh...you mean the four weeks off I get in four weeks? Thanksgiving hasn't been much of a holiday to me. Too many years of spending that one alone especially since almost my entire family is numerous hours away. I enjoy spending the day with Bear and my in-laws but my brother-in-law always wants to cook (something to be avoided especially since he almost burned the house down a few years back). With the stack o' grading I have, this holiday will most likely be spent with the Red Pen O' Death and a nice pitcher of something incredibly alcoholic.

Only four more weeks.

Some bad, some cute

It has been a very long couple of weeks. I wish I could say that all my stress is due to school but it isn't. We found out a week ago that Bomber is dying of cancer.

Bomber is my little mush cat with only one eye and one hip (long story). I got him after my kitty Xanadu, who was my first kitty that was mine, passed away back in 1998. I figured since Xanadu was a mutt, I would get another one. The shelter I went to gave me a hard time because I had a cat that was declawed (mind you, I got it from that particular shelter) but it wasn't going to stop me. I walked around meowing, seeing who was going to respond. Two kittens did: a little white female kitten and a little black male one. As I went closer, I noticed that the black one only had one eye. When he was brought in as a tiny baby, all the kittens from the litter had developed ulcers on their eyes. His was so bad that he lost the eye. The volunteer told me that nobody wanted to adopt him because of it. I took him out of the cage and held him. He immediately started making happy feet and I knew he was mine. The volunteer seemed to forget that I had a declawed cat. :)


Over the past month I noticed him losing weight. We call him "Fang" sometimes because one of his fangs sticks out a little (you can see it just a smidge in this picture. All of a sudden we could see both of them. I knew something was wrong so I took him to Dr. Country Bob. After an exam, he found a lump in his belly and then did an x-ray to make sure it wasn't a foreign object (we've already had one kitty eat a door stopper). When Dr. Bob confirmed it was a tumor, my heart just sank. We lost Ayla a little more than a year ago to some nasty cancer. I don't know if I could go through it again.

We don't know how long Bomber will last. I would love him to make it through the holidays but it all depends. It seems to be an aggressive tumor considering how quickly he lost the weight. Dr. Bob is giving him cortisone shots to help with the inflammation and make things more bearable for him. He seems to be responding well to the shots so we'll see how it goes.

It was bad enough with the stress from school but this brought me over the edge. I've been feeling my depression kicking in big time since I got the news. However, yesterday, driving home from work, I had a depressive episode. Basically, I just couldn't stop crying. When this happens, the best thing for me to do is crawl into bed after taking some major Klonopin which is what I did. I hated taking another sick day from work but I was in such bad shape I'm thankful I even made it back home.

Today wasn't much better for me but there was a ray of hope.

When Bomber was diagnosed, I thought that we would not get another cat. We have nine for pete's sake. However, as the week went on, I realized what a hole Bomber is going to leave in my heart. He is my "comfort cat." He curls up with me at night and lets me cuddle him like a teddy bear. Whenever my depression acts up, he is there for me. I thought about getting a shelter cat but the past few shelter cats we've gotten have turned into huge spaz-monsters.

Bear and I have talked about getting a Ragdoll kitten for a few years now. They are described as being huge mush cats. I figured that was what I needed so I started doing some research. However, after about three hours of searching, I couldn't find any places withing three hours driving distance that had kittens or planned future kittens. My heart started to ache but then I finally found a breeder just up the road from us. She had kittens ready to go home immediately. Both Bear and I rode up there on Wednesday but I was doubtful I would find the "right" kitten for me. Boy was I wrong. After picking up a couple of kittens, only one stuck with me. Actually, he fell right asleep in my arms. We put a deposit down on him and picked him up this evening.

Ya, I'm nuts. But welcome Nermle to the family:

Yes We Can!

Oh man. There are few times when I am moved to tears (good ones that is) when I hear a speech. Maybe it's because we've been so disheartened by having Dubya as our president and the poor public speaker he is, but damn was that a good speech. Now I know how the American people felt when JFK gave his inaugural speech back in 1961: the power, the belief, the hope.

Maybe I just drank a bit too much of the Obama Kool-Aid over the past few months. Whatever it is I feel good. I have hope. Damn. Even the pessimistic and cynical side of me can't fuck this feeling up right now.

Interesting Articles...

As I'm going through today's New York Times, I found two interesting Op-Ed pieces.

The first is in regards to John McCain and what has happened to him over the past year. Ironically I liked the guy back in 2000 because he did go against the Republican grain. This piece describes what happened to him and how he was transformed into a Bushie.

The second is a piece about the legacy of Bush and who you should vote for (without naming names). The last paragraph is my favorite part:

Vote for the candidate you think has the smarts, temperament and inspirational capacity to unify the country and steer our ship through what could be the rockiest shoals our generation has ever known. Your kids will thank you.

Remember to vote on Tuesday!