:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 ::

it works!
Well, sort of. I got the VK_ENTER problem solved by using Console.GetKey() and VK_RETURN instead. Unfortunately, now the program goes whacky. Before it wasn't doing anything. So, time to go scour more code before Thursday. {{sigh}}

how sweet: a pet retrospective
We got a flower arrangement sent to us today. The vet sent us flowers in sympathy for losing Marbles. {{sniffles}} They're very pretty. I miss my old guy. He was such a cool cat. All my kitties have been really cool.

Mom had a calico when I was born named Herbie. She used to crawl around on the floor with me as a baby. I used to get her to do high fives when I got older. She got kidney disease and we were forced to put her down when she was 14.

We had a few outdoor cats. Perricles disappeared just before a blizzard, but Marvin showed up later. He was a scraggly looking thing that eventually attached himself to us. We figured he was pretty old already. We don't know what got him, probably just old age, but we ended up putting him down as well. We had to give him pureed can food for a while towards the end after he lost all his teeth. We think he had been a stable cat up at the old racetrack when it was still being used, and that he might have been kicked in the jaw by a horse. His bottom jaw had always looked slightly crooked when he opened his mouth and he was already missing a fang when he first showed up.

Prudy was an interesting acquisition. She showed up just after Perricles disappeared, trying to eat his frozen food on our back step. So, we got her to come in. Little did we know that we'd end up with four additions later on. That's how we ended up with Daryl and Marbles. Daryl had been supposed to go to my aunt, and we never did find a home for Marbles. Auntie Lyn ended up not being able to take Daryl. We were going to send Marbles to the pound, but he cuddled up with Dad (only about four inches long from the tip of his nose to the base of his tail) and ended up staying with us. He knew just who to kiss up to.

Prudy's used to have an attitude. She didn't like people coming in that didn't live here. She was extremely possessive and got very jealous when any of us came home smelling of a cat she didn't know. She's mellowed out in that respect over the years (she's almost 19 now), but has gotten more and more clingy over the last five or so. She follows me around the house, yowls at my bedroom door when she can't find me (regardless of the time of day or night). She only comes in the house when I'm the one to come for her. When she was younger and still hunted on occasion, she'd bring things home (shrews, birds, moles, mice, a baby opossum once) and then come looking for me to show me. Man, that was gross. I'd have to congratulate her, of course, but then quietly get Dad to discreetly dispose of the body.

Her four boys are all gone now. The two that had gotten homes are also gone, though not quite in the easy ways the two that stayed behind went. The third in the litter was cruelly poisoned by his family's neighbors, who decided they didn't like him for some reason. The youngest got hit by a car when he got older. {{sniffles}} Poor guys. When we took them in, we had a golden retreiver named Taffy. She used to play with the kittens, wash them, she would sit in the room with them when Prudy wasn't there. As they got older, they used to climb on her and hang from the long hair she had on her tail as she walked around the house. Taffy was their babysitter. Prudy, Daryl, and Marbles missed Taffy a lot when we had to put her down. She had been paralyzed after a second stroke and there was nothing we could do to fix it.

Daryl wasn't much of a hunter. He liked to sit in Mom's flower bed and literally smell the flowers. Mom always called him her 'hippy cat'. He would visit with anyone who came into the house, sit on their lap, talk to them, say goodbye when they left. He loved parties because people would inevitably discover that he had a taste for potato chips and start giving him some. He developed diabetes when he was about 9 or so. We started giving him insulin injections twice a day. He didn't mind. He was a lovable lump of a cat, all 20 pounds of him. We put him down just about two years ago now (on my parents 25th wedding anniversary... what a bittersweet day that was). He came down with lung cancer and there wasn't anything we could do that wouldn't have overly stressed the poor old guy.

Marbles was the second one in the litter, where Daryl was the first. As kittens, Daryl always pushed Marbles to do things before him. Marbles was the first out of the box, but Mom swore Daryl nosed him over the side. We think he pushed Marbles down the stairs that first time, too. ^^;; He ended up being a hunter, even more so than his mother, Prudy. He'd even eat his catch. He was thin and long legged, keeping his prime form for quite a long time. For a while, he had gotten horribly thin and we took him into the vet. Turned out he had gotten a little overzealous with his recent catch and there were "boney substances" in his stomach. >.<;; Yipes. After that, it took a few years for him to catch up to his 'older' brother, but, one really cold winter, Marbles almost matched Daryl, weighing in at 16 pounds. Neither cat was fat. You could still feel their bone structures. They were just big boys. After we had to put down Daryl, Marbles visibly became "Alpha Male". He got a little bigger, he got a little bossier (though Prudy never quite gave up batting them around like they were kids, since they were... LOL). He also became more vocal and communicative with us, where as it had always been Daryl in the past who did the 'talking'. He also became more sociable with strangers.

Ivy Rose is the youngest. She's not related to any of the others, having been born in my grandmother's backyard (under the deck, to be exact). We brought her home just before her first winter. It has taken a long time for her to warm up to Prudy (or Prudy to warm up to her, probably more in this direction), but they're starting to get along. She and Marbles were rather indifferent of each other. Daryl, on the otherhand, had really liked having Ivy around. When she was a baby, he would actually play with her, sitting on top of the footrest and dangling his tail over the side while she hid underneath and tried to attack it. It was the cutest thing ever. We think she got her love of boxes and paper from him. Ivy also likes some odd foods. While she isn't one for potatoes, she does like her fruit. She'll eat plums, strawberries, grapes, nectarines, and peaches. And don't let her get on the table when you have a dairy product. She'll eat the ice cream and drink the cereal milk right out of your bowl. Of course, she does prefer it if you get some whipped cream on your sundae. Like Marbles did when he was younger, Ivy stands with Dad in the kitchen and shares his piece of cheese at night. She had been the runt of her litter, actually developing a limp as she grew. Turns out her right front leg is shorter than the rest. Ivy doesn't let it slow her down, though, chasing Prudy through the house like she's the new queen of speed. It's not a title Prudy likes the idea of relenquishing. Prudy was always known for snatching the table scraps from the other cats with a burst of speed through the kitchen.

I love my kitties. These last two will be missed when they're gone later in life just as much as I have missed all the others and Taffy. I just hope when I get my own place that I can have a pet. I've had them all my life and I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't have one, especially if I end up living alone for a while. {{cuddles Prudy}} She'll be too old to move by then, I would wager, if she lives that long. It depends on how my financial situations go.

{{sigh}} It's amazing how much you don't realize you care for an animal, even if they do vex you at times.