 |
| 12-26-2004, at Del's Apartment |
2004 was a very busy year. I was busy at the University because I was “in the show,” meaning that I was performing in the annual departmental faculty concert. As a reward for surviving the rigors of the show, I bought two pricey items: a laptop computer and an Edison cylinder phonograph. My quest for human companionship of the opposite sex had led me to the famous online dating site. This resulted in a series of encounters with unlikeable people. I was on the brink of pulling the plug on the dubious world of online dating when, in a series of emails that started out as ribald, creative and capricious, I finally met somebody I could relate to. We met, had fun, and decided to do it again. Her name is DeLann, but went by Del. She was renting a townhouse in nearby Rantoul. Some of my Dot Com dates had sent me on road trips to places as far away as Terre Haute. I was happy to visit Rantoul. Del met Amethyst on our first date. Luckily, though she’s a dog person, she took to Ammy just fine. We developed a shared language for describing Amethyst’s doings. As she jumped from perch to perch, end table to couch, knocking over books, cups and papers, we spoke of “the cross-kitty expressway.” As she slept upside down, four paws in the air, we shared the term “pineapple upside-down cat.” She followed us around, especially into the kitchen, perking up at the sound of any crinkling package, and she loved those car rides. We tried to find a term for a cat that acted like a dog. “A ‘dat?’, I ventured. “No, a ‘cog’.” Amethyst the cog went up to Rantoul for overnights. She went on rides to the video store, the liquor store, the grocery store, and to just be out on a ride to wherever adult entertainment is sold. She got her share of treats and pets. She always had her say. Perhaps as part of all of this territorial shifting in her life, she began calling after almost every meal or use the litter box. Del said, “sounds to me like she’s saying ‘help, they’re killing me!’.” Eventually, the competition for Amethyst’s attention, acknowledged and joked about, became part of the fabric of our lives. Del felt the depth of my attachment. I always felt a little guilty about it.
As I remember it, our first argument as a couple was about
Amethyst. While Amethyst, once shown, had a very good idea where the cat litter
box was, and always used it, she did have a puking problem. She was not
particular about where she hacked whatever it was up, but she greatly preferred
carpet. Del was renting from a diabolically strict landlord. Her landlord had
crafted the perfect lease: every item on a 5 page closely spaced list of
potential tenant misdeeds was assigned a fee. Not too long after I started
hanging out at Del’s townhouse in Rantoul, she showed me the lease. It was
probably on one of those occasions when Amethyst had just vomited a messy pile
of grass and Science Diet Senior on the pale blue carpet. I likely got a look
at the lease from hell because I objected to the heavy use of spray carpet
cleaner immediately following one of these (if not the first of these)
regurgitations. We got into an argument about this because, in my opinion, the
cat would be walking around in carpet cleaner, licking it off, and, no doubt,
be puking all the more. Although I was fond of saying that Amethyst was on the
“Christian Science health plan”, I had developed a respect for veterinary
expenses. There wasn’t a winner in this argument, as with most of our
arguments. For the serious ones, we usually end up apologetically switching
positions. In this case, Amethyst, through sheer volume of vomit, wore us down.
Del couldn’t keep up, ran out of carpet cleaner, and tired of trying to move
the hacking cat to ground less shagged.
At first I had been completely alarmed by Amethyst’s
puking. I remember Shelley telling me not to call a vet about it, that she had
always had a sensitive stomach. Over the first year and a half that I had her,
I noticed that she always puked under certain conditions. If she’d been outside
eating grass, for example, she’d invariably puke it up in a few hours along
with mucous and foam. I assumed that this might be the point of eating the
grass in the first place. She could not be stopped from eating grass if she was
near any. I grew her some cat grass to see if I couldn’t replicate her
enjoyment without having to expose her to the dangerous outside world. She
wouldn’t touch it. She puked up hairballs, along with any other foreign
material she may have ingested. From time to time, she puked kibble for no good
reason. Then, in September of 2004, she went on an absolute puke-a-thon. She
quit eating and drinking for a two days, and eventually alarmed me to the point
where I called the emergency vet. The vet did a general health profile, a
complete blood count, gave her some Amoxicillin, and re-hydrated her. Ca-ching.
The blood work revealed that she was in amazing shape for her age (estimated),
and that other than dehydration as a result of a vomiting spell, there was
nothing really wrong with her. I took her home, and pondered Shelley’s wisdom.
