Sophie

(Warning:  If you are opposed to sappy pet memorials, you might want to skip to the end of this post.)

This is normally about the time I'd be putting up a new post.  I know you were all probably expecting something funny, and I'm sorry.  If you don't have a pet or don't like pets or have a similarly unfriendly disposition toward animals, you probably won't get this at all, but the cat I've had since I was eleven years old, Sophie, is having kidney failure and will probably die within the next few days.  She's lived at home with my parents since I moved to North Carolina four years ago, but I still consider her partly mine.  They've been keeping me posted as Sophie went through what we thought was a series of severe urinary tract infections, which didn't respond to antibiotics.  On her last vet visit, they finally determined it was irreversible kidney failure.  My mom now faces the task of deciding when it's time to end it.  Sophie is in pain, and it's only going to get worse.  I asked her not to tell me when she decides to do it… I'd really rather not know until it's over.  So even though I had some ideas for posts for this week, I just don't feel right working on them.  I think I need to take a day and just do nothing. 

I've literally known this cat since the day she was born.  Her mother was a stray that we'd been letting sleep in our garage, and one day I got home from school to discover she'd had a litter of kittens in the little bed we'd made for her.  It was November, and it had been getting pretty cold at night, so we brought the kittens inside and bottle-fed them.  They all got in the habit of sleeping in my bed at night (once they were big enough), but Sophie in particular would always be sitting at the foot of my bed when I came in at night, waiting for me.  Eventually, we found homes for her two siblings, but we kept Sophie.  As she got older, she started standing guard outside my bedroom door when she wasn't sleeping with me, making sure our other two cats weren't stealing her spot in my bed.  For no real reason, I got in the habit of calling her Sophie-Jo.  She'd be twelve years old this November. 

Here are some pictures I took of her when I was home last month.  She's a Siamese mix.  In the last few years, she's also had thyroid problems and has gotten really thin, but she's always been a tiny cat.  She was the runt of her litter.  People have always mistaken her for a kitten.

I'm sad that I won't see her again, but I always knew she wouldn't live forever, and my family gave her an awesome life.  She and I had a great human-cat friendship, and she knows she has always been and will always be loved.  It sounds ridiculous, but I talked to her on the phone this morning, and I like to think even though I wasn't able to make it home to see her one last time, maybe she's aware of the fact that my voice mysteriously spoke to her out of a weird little box.

(End sappy pet memorial.)

Conveniently, in this week that I don't feel up to writing an original post of my own, MOV over at Mothers of Brothers tagged me in another fun viral blog-thing.  This one doesn't involve promoting any of your own stuff, but just tagging other bloggers that you feel deserve the attention.  So if you're disappointed by my lack of content, try these guys in the meantime.

Mothers of Brothers - Thanks for including me and making me feel special!  MOV is… like… the coolest Mom ever.  She has a super top-secret medical job where she gets to wear scrubs, and did you know she majored in architecture?  =)
Just Inappropriate - I didn't get to tag this one last time in the Blog Challenge, since she was the one who nominated me for that.  Everything she writes makes me laugh.  She definitely deserves some attention.  Be sure to tell her how pretty she is.
GweenBrick - I just started reading this one a few days ago, and it--is--funny, you guys.  Some of it is the kind of funny where you feel like you really shouldn't laugh, but then you do, and it's so wrong, yet so right.  Just read it.  You'll see.

I hope you enjoy checking out those blogs.  Thanks for bearing with me and not leaving any mean comments about my lack of a real post (because if you do I will post a blog about how you made me cry, and everyone will get mad and call you a meany-head and probably some other names).  I promise to be funny again by the end of the week.  If you're a cat person, keep Sophie and my mom in your thoughts.

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