The First Road Trip 2

Me and Am 2003 Web Cam shot, me doing the Col. Sanders

It being Christmas, the order of the day in the Maryland ‘burbs was visiting relatives. I was not the only one in the procession. My sister in law was visited shortly after my arrival by a relative who was also traveling with a pet, a toy dog in a carrier. The dog in its carrier was set down on the floor in the foyer. Amethyst, still in her carrier wasted no time in offering a back-arched, hiss-and-growl welcome. This was laughed at by all, and tended to prove my assertion that the cat I was with was not tolerant of anything else on four legs. The animals were not amused. I was prevailed upon to take Amethyst down to the basement. The basement was clean, spacious and warm. My brother was working bit by bit on finishing it to match, or at least compliment, the nicely appointed upper floors of their appropriately expensive piece of Montgomery County real estate. I set up the cat box and let Amethyst out. She set about exploring while I went back topside and chatted with my peoples. Eventually, after a few drinks and much chatting, it was time to think about sleeping arrangements. I assumed that my sister in law would not appreciate cat fur on her upper floors. She had never said, as much, but it seemed to me a common courtesy. At the same time, I did not want Amethyst to have come so far only to be trapped alone in a new place. Peeking down at her, however, revealed a cat in paradise, with much to explore. I took my sleeping bag and duffle bag down to the basement. I got my sleeping bag all un-rolled. Meanwhile, upstairs, my sister in law was preparing the guest bedroom. She must have asked a question about it somewhere along the line, because I remember saying something like, “no, that won’t be necessary. I’m sleeping in the basement with Amethyst.” Now, a strange, parallel universe version of the hotel room drama played out. This version featured the human “under the bed.” No sooner had this idea been floated by words in the air then did my brother and sister in law arch their backs and hiss. These are two very different cats, these two. My brother: “You’re what? [Dry chuckle.] His wife: “You will not! You’re not sleeping in the basement!” I: “I really am. I’ll be fine. I’ve got a sleeping bag. I’m used to basements. (I had a basement apartment the last few years I lived in D.C. as an adult.) [My brother looks down the stairs, checking facts.] “He does.” [Dry chuckle.]

I’ve mercifully forgotten the argument that ensued. I lost some of it and won some of it. I was not permitted to sleep in the basement. Instead, Amethyst joined me in the guest room. I don’t remember moving the cat box.  I can think of the excellent argument against moving it, “it will just confuse the cat.” Did she get the run of the house? I wouldn’t be surprised. Amethyst was a stunningly beautiful animal, and one with a nearly perfect disposition. She was sociable (more so than me!), gave her love willingly and demonstratively, and, not to be underestimated as a winning characteristic, she was very chatty. I have to say that I think once Amethyst had a talk with my brother and his wife, they saw her point of view. That was that. We slept together as we always did in winter, sleeping the delicious sleep of the weary travelers. At least one of us knew where the toilet was. Amethyst remained a guest at the Mr. And Ms. Richard Beck’s the duration of my Christmas visit to Maryland in 2003. She was, to my knowledge, welcome back. She never made a second visit, of course. On the way out, the Honda was repacked, and Amethyst was installed, free of her carrier. As I hugged my brother goodbye, she was sitting expectantly on top of the luggage in the back of the car, looking at us out the hatch window. It was A Kodak moment, without a camera in sight. There was my brother, grinning and shaking his head. Me, the artsy brother, always falling short of that worldly success (but few succeed in America, contrary to mythology), always short circuiting the rules of acceptable social behavior, poking holes in what’s left of American patrician Calvinism, disappearing once again into the mists of the open road with another outrageous encumbrance to normality, this latest one could be seen talking to us behind the glass.

The next stop on our itinerary was Connecticut, a long day’s drive up I-95. Now that there was a well-established routine to car travel with cat, my restless, worrying mind was compelled to change it. Approaching New York on I-95, I began to become apprehensive. What if Amethyst became agitated while I tried to negotiate the George Washington Bridge, or the Cross-Bronx Expressway? Memories of New York City trips stretched back to my college days and beyond. My memories all seemed to involve crazy traffic. Amethyst, needless to say, did not know Cross-Bronx expressway from ripped seat in dead van. Her world had narrowed to the interior landscape of the Honda. I darted off the interstate at the Edison rest area and put Amethyst in her carrier. The carrier was nestled in the floor well, right behind the driver’s seat. Once underway, the veteran feline traveler pitched a fit to protest this capricious and purposeless confinement. She began to howl in deadly earnest, accomplishing some vocal acrobatics that were new to me, just about the time the traffic came to a halt in a massive bottleneck. Perched above the ground on a lurching overpass, I sat listening to the cat yelling and rattling the roof of her cage. As always, she found a format and worked it. It was yell, yell, yowl, followed by rattle the carrier door with forepaws. Then came yowl, yowl, yell, followed by rattle the carrier roof –also a functional door – with both front and hind paws. Attentive to the crawling traffic, I could not see the cat, but I could certainly hear what she was doing. There was no opportunity to stop and undo what I had done, but there was plenty of opportunity to realize the error of my judgment. I stuck a finger in the carrier’s upper grate. Perhaps a friendly gesture would calm the beast. Instead, the beast hooked my finger with a claw and pulled hard. It was my turn to yell. At long last, with my wounded finger in my mouth, and an angry passenger in the back seat, the logjam opened up and things got moving. At the first chance to do so, I pulled over and freed Amethyst from the cage. I cranked up the tunes and made it to Connecticut not too far into the evening. Amethyst never held much of a grudge. She forgot all about being caged the moment she was free. She was a sociable, charming pet during my visit at the home of my friend. A pet owner could not have been more proud and full of self-justification.

The drive back, after New Year’s Day, 2004, was completely without incident. Amethyst got comfortable with the idea of hotel rooms. She stayed visible, used the chairs I arranged as jump-ups, and slept curled up in my ventral side, as she always did. The moment came when we arrived back in Champaign. I put her down at the bottom and let her climb the stairs. “Up you go! We’re home! Remember this place?” And up we went. I’d gotten away with it.

Outdoor Road Warrior Cat, 2003

The Argument over Puking on the Carpet

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.

Idiopathic Geriatric Vestibular Syndrome

9-20-2004 Am, not feeling so good.

In 2005, two things stand out amid the wreckage of memory. First of all, I became obsessed with the idea that I was about to loose my job. The crazy Governor was cutting the budget, and I felt vulnerable. Among the ideas I had for withstanding the uncertainty was to plead with my unit head for a more stable form of appointment. How long had I been a ‘visiting lecturer’, after all? Part of my idea about how the levers of the world worked, at least university-style, was to have a second offer in hand to use for bargaining purposes. As luck would have it, another opportunity in my field arose and I set about applying. I had a good set of references, so I got an interview. This meant a plane ride to Ohio. Now that Del was in my life, and seeing as how Del was unemployed, I had a cat sitter at hand.

Amethyst took this opportunity to become truly alarmingly sick. This time, it had nothing to do with vomiting. All of a sudden, she could not walk. I was laying on my pallet, a mattress I had had custom made which I left on the floor without the benefit of box springs, the green blanket pulled up, just waking up from an afternoon nap, looking into the afternoon light, my eyes seeking Amethyst. Here she comes. Not walking, but crawling, towards the bed. Just like that. No balance. It was very much like the drunken cat we had seen in the run up to the road trip. Now, however, there was no obvious reason. The mind races in these situations. It’s not just me. Look at the Internet and type in anything you can think of that might have gone wrong with your pet. You will find page after page on multitudinous sites expressing the racing mind, sinking spirits, heartbreaking questions, and plenty of advice. I was on the phone to the vet. What can this be? The magnitude was beyond my experience, and the outcome seemed potentially terrible. Spinal injury? How? Poison? Well, what? Amethyst, on the bed, is lolling her head around, trying to get a look at me, but not really able to get the muscles together to keep a position. She’ll eat and drink, but you have to do it all by hand. The vets can’t do anything over the phone, of course. For some reason, I don’t trust them. The closest thing I can find that resembles her symptoms is on a canine site: geriatric vestibular syndrome. All of a sudden, your dog can’t stand up. It lolls its head around. It might vomit because it has lost balance. At last, we’re getting somewhere. Amethyst is not vomiting, for once. Loss of balance was not something that nauseated her. Maybe cats don’t balance the way that dogs and humans do. Maybe, in the differences between us as beings, our responses to various situations suit our constitutions. Some people toss their cookies on the roller coaster. Amethyst was a great rider in the car, and her sensitive stomach was not upset by not knowing which way was up. Maybe, though, she knew which way was up. Maybe she just couldn’t get her muscles to obey. That was the behavioral presentation: I had a cat that had no muscular control. It was not that she wasn’t trying. Making for the cat box, there was no mistaking the intention. You had to pick her up and complete the trip. When did I have to be in Ohio? What day was my flight?

Del in my bed, with Thyst

Some of the info on geriatric vestibular syndrome was frightening. Sometimes afflicted animals do not recover. Euthanasia was recommended for these animals. Among the potential causes of the syndrome: infection of the ear, brain trauma, and cancer. An ear infection I could see treating with antibiotics, but the other items sounded deadly. I could imagine an expensive course of treatment ending up with euthanasia. Now we look over at the cat, to see that beautiful, charming animal that has by now totally infused life as we know it, to try to determine the level of suffering. For the life of me, though, I had seen more evidence of suffering, more pitiful vocal expressions of suffering, in the moments just before the hacking up of a hairball. Perhaps the vestibular whatever it is has robbed the cat of her voice. Still, I’m just not detecting suffering from this animal. Am I going to euthanize Amethyst just because I have to carry her to the cat box?  Somewhere, on some site’s discussion, I ran across the comforting term “idiopathic.” There it is: ‘feline idiopathic vestibular syndrome’. Idiopathic = “we don’t know what causes it.”  Might last a week, might last two months, might be something serious. Clearly, this was a case for Christian Science. Let’s have the power of positive thinking.

I went to Ohio. I remember meeting many lovely people, taught a good class, made some good music. In the middle of one class that I was playing for as an audition, a dancer went down, injured. I sat at the piano in the chaotic silence looking out with concern at the crying dancer and those administering first aid. Was there more I could do? Everything is part of the audition process. Later, taking a walking tour of the campus, Spring just beginning to soften the temperature, a faculty member tells of her husband’s medical crises. I blurt out that my cat has some weird disease, and that I’m very worried about it.

Del stayed over at my apartment in Champaign in my absence and nursed Ammy. On the phone, Del says ‘Amethyst is mostly the same, maybe a bit better’. I can pin my hopes to ‘a bit better’.  I didn’t get the job, so we didn’t move to Ohio. Amethyst recovered. She lived on to die on another early morning, several human living spaces down the stream of time. Is it my imagination, working on the memories, trying to make things add up to something? I really do think that after each crisis, there was a little less spirit in Amethyst. She had so much ‘fire’, to snatch a single word from Shelley’s poetic phrase ‘grace of fire’, that her aging process moved forward imperceptibly. She quit jumping up on anything over her floor level by one and a half feet. At first one got the impression that she could, but wouldn’t. Then, one could see that she couldn’t when she tried. At what point did I come to hate the long walks that I used to love as a young man? I am poised now between won’t and can’t. Cats seem blessed because they don’t manifest the modals should, could, or may.

Leon the Landlord

One fine day in the Fall of 2005, not long after a big rain revealed a leaky roof that sent the water down into my funky loft apartment, a bunch of guys in suits came tromping through while Amethyst and I lounged about. I was still in my pajamas. Amethyst always loved company, and chatted these guys up. I was not so amused. They were on what is known in the Real-Estate business as a “walk-through.” My landlord was trying to sell his building to a team of young developers. They asked me if I had had any knowledge of problems with the property. I had the words “leaky roof” right there on the tip of my tongue. This was followed by a torrential list of other problems, including lack of electricity in the galley kitchen and the entry room. I had lived with these problems for the duration of my tenancy. I had wearied of badgering the landlord. I had rationalized these problems away by recalling the relatively low rent that I paid to live in a large downtown space. It was a loft, but not luxurious. The landlord had plans to gut the building and convert it into high rent luxury lofts. I had occasionally suggested that I might be willing to continue to rent from him during and after such a transition. But he always sighed and said that no one would lend him the million and a half he needed to do it. I assumed he had shot himself in the foot one too many times. I knew also that I would not be able to afford a luxury loft - not now, not in the foreseeable future. Now the young lions were in my apartment in force. These were the men that had razed the parking lot down the street and put up a big building that included, among other spaces now filled with upscale restaurants and businesses, luxury lofts. These people had the ears and imprimatur of the city leadership. They could get my slacking landlord in some serious hot water for the many violations of the building code. In a single awkward moment – there I was, Orpheus in his underwear – the writing was on the wall. I was going to have to find another place to live. I may as well make life hard for at least one son of a bitch.

And so it came to pass. But first, there was a struggle to quickly ‘address the issues’. I came home from work to find my landlord’s minions at work on the wiring. With the door left open, Amethyst had a long day’s opportunity to explore the warehouse. She enjoyed that very much. Luckily, she did not find a way out of the building. Had she done so, the story of Amethyst and me might have ended with this episode. Instead, the episode ended with the largest member of the crew falling through the apartment ceiling. I returned from work again to find a note on the door. “Ken, one of my guys broke your roof. Sorry.” I opened the door to find mounds of cellulose insulation covering my possessions. In addition, I now had a view, through a jagged hole in ancient dry wall, of a broken length two by four and the warehouse roof, where workers were “addressing the leakage problems.” Amethyst, asleep on the bed in a room remote from the damage, was alert and talking. She had seen it all, but knew no human words. She was contented as only a thoroughly entertained and pleasantly exhausted cat can be. From my end of the pet/owner bargain, I did not know enough Siamese cat speak to get the point across that we would now be looking for a new nest. This would begin promptly, as soon as the vacuuming was done. Amethyst did not go ballistic when the vacuum ran. She just stayed out of its way.

Later in the week, the workmen patched the hole in the quickest, most slapdash possible way. It continued to leak insulation.  New 14-gauge wire with bright, stripped ends dangled down from the spot where a new light fixture might have gone. It stayed that way for the rest of my time in there.

I saw the landlord in the corridor.

“The deal is dead,” he said flatly.

“Yeah?” I said, a bit too brightly.

“Yeah. They were talking about tearing the building down, since it was in such poor shape. That’s not what I want to have happen.”

“So that’s why the deal is dead?”

“No. They dropped the price.”

“Too bad,” I replied insincerely.

“You know, you should have told me about the leak.”

“You didn’t care about the wiring. I’ve told you about that repeatedly.”

“Yeah, but I care about the leak.”

“OK. I’ll tell you about any more leaks.”

“There won’t be any more leaks. The roof was installed wrong, and now it’s right.”

I moved out in the spring, soon after my year at the University had ended. I didn’t stay through another rainy season.

We Move to Rantucky

Am at the Duplex in Rantoul, moving day 2005

So it was that Amethyst and I moved to the little town of Rantoul. Rantoul is some 16 miles North of Champaign-Urbana. It was the home of the Chanute Air Force Base until Cap Weinberger closed it down during the Regan years. It has a poor reputation among the local towns. While it can be faulted for shortsightedness and impoverishment, its reputation has more to do with subtle misperceptions. The commute to Urbana is easy. The rents are relatively low. Del and I had been thinking of shacking up, setting up house. I rejected moving into her townhouse, so I rented a duplex in the same community. In the late spring of 2006, I packed everything up and moved it all up to “Rantucky.”

Amethyst loved the duplex from the start. Most importantly to a cat, the outside world was right outside the front door. The surroundings were grassy and quiet. There were trees with birds. There were mice and other rodents. There were plenty of squirrels. These were all creatures with which Amethyst had long ago cut a deal of some feline sort, but nevertheless their presence may have reassured her. They certainly were not reassured by her presence. The birds and squirrels kept up an abusive sounding chatter whenever Amethyst was outside sunning. Amethyst also liked the layout of the place. There were three levels, all accessible via a short stairway. She had the run of the place. She had litter boxes and food on two levels. For scratching entertainment, she chose to work her claws out on the lowest stair to the upper level. The shag of the carpet was so thick that the damage she did was minimal.

For the first time, I really noticed Amethyst’s age catching up to her. She was still a 10- pound cat with all of her senses and claws, but she had a much-diminished interest in play. She would still chase the leather-tasseled string, but only for a short time and under certain limited conditions. She preferred it if she did not have to move all that much. Now we slept in Del’s big bed, with an actual frame and box spring, instead of my now discarded mattress that had lain directly on the floor. After a few tries, it was clear that Amethyst could not jump up on it, though she wanted to. We saw her fall a few times in the attempt. I found a cardboard box, covered it with a small folded piece of fabric, and set it up as a jump up. Eventually, she had jump ups to the couch as well. For this reason, she was deemed a low escape risk. She went out accompanied. She mostly liked to find a sunny spot and lie upside down there. She was cute for a moment, but as boring to watch over the long haul as a clothes dryer.

She was so sedate that on a few occasions, Del got busy with gardening, crocheting, or talking on the phone and let Amethyst’s presence slip from her mind. Sometimes that first summer in Rantoul, the sun would slip down on that peaceful scene unawares. Amethyst the cat was always aware, however. In the evenings, the feline mind turns full-force to the hunt. I can imagine that the creatures that lurked low profile by day emerged at dusk and their scents worked their way by her nose. So she went to have a look see. It was well after dark by the time I got to around to asking, “Sweetie, have you seen the cat?” A search commenced. In the dark, Amethyst’s colors were surprisingly hard to see. We reckoned, correctly, that she could not have gone all that far. She was over at the other side of the duplex, our neighbors’ side, sniffing around in their cellar stairway. On another occasion, Del reported that she had made it across the road and was working her way down the opposite sidewalk. Her method was to make some tracks and then pause for a rest. After these incidents, we kept a much closer watch on her when she was out.

Amethyst, outside at 1423 Southpoint Drive

And by the way, it was only after Amethyst’s death that I began web research on adopting cats and thus discovered the general prohibition of shelters and vets aimed at keeping companion animals strictly indoors or on a leash. I can certainly, in light of my experiences with the geriatric warrior that was in my care for the seven years, understand the danger of letting a cat outside. I can willingly comply, and in good conscience endorse the practice of containment as responsible pet ownership. But the cat I had was raised as an indoor/outdoor cat. According to her original owner, she had found her neglect intolerable. At a certain point not too long before I took over her care, she went walkabout. Siamese cats are sociable and bond with their humans. In a situation where this bond is shaken or becomes broken completely, these cats will often rebel in various ways. Some quit eating and decline. Amethyst took a long sojourn. She was spotted some time after having gone missing, prowling around quite far from her original territory. She stopped in her tracks when called by name. She allowed recapture and reintegration into the household, but she had been shaven on one side. The events that lead to this state of affairs will always be a mystery. I developed the speculation that she had been injured, rescued, given veterinary care, and then, before the fur had re-grown from her vetting, had escaped again. Other, more sinister tales of her ‘years of pilgrimage’ -- and it may have merely been months or weeks -- can be postulated. I always wondered what scars existed under her fur. Nevertheless, Amethyst expected to be able to get out, and I did not immediately question her expectation. She had lived a hard life, and she’d emerged brilliant and beautiful. I felt, and still feel, that I owed her that pleasure. We were lucky. No harm came of her short rambles while in our care. We made sure, of course, that she got the attention that she needed. She was the perfect companion animal for us in so many ways. It would have been inhumane not to accord her the respect she deserved in the service of a well meaning, but from this animal’s perspective, completely arbitrary limitation of freedom. There were real limits to her freedom, not the least of which were imposed by her age and her ability to move.

The Last Road Trip

7-2007 Ready to ride.

In the summer of 2007, Del and I wanted to take a road trip back East. Our destination was to be the mountain cabin that my parents own in Virginia. From the cabin, we could visit Washington D.C., and swing by my childhood home in Maryland and visit my folks. Since it was clear by now that boarding Amethyst was out of the question, and since she was already a road warrior cat, we decided to take her along. There was no longer any question of drugging her, but I had questions about her ability to withstand a trip of any sort at her age. A trial run was set up to explore her ability to cope. We took her on a ride of about forty minutes to a place that we were sure would be cat heaven: a lake, a campground, a hiking trail. The day was hot, and the car’s air conditioning had failed. We kept the windows part way down, and kept moving. When we arrived at the lake, Amethyst was already panting, her teeth exposed, and her tongue extended. I’d never seen that face before. It was not good. It was the same face I’d see frozen by rigor mortis about two years later. We let her out and she retreated to a spot under the car. We waited for her to cool down. I carried her a short way to the edge of the lake, and she was uninterested in anything but hiding. There was nothing to do but wait a little longer, with the cat in the shade, and then to head back home. I stayed in the back seat with Ammy while Del did the driving. We kept a breeze blowing, and, lacking any other good ideas, I dripped cool water from a bottle of iced drinking water on her fur. She lay still for this. She conserved energy. She survived the return trip and bounced back, but it was clear that to do this trip we’d need to repair the A/C. We humans would enjoy that repair as well.

Amethyst traveled well, as always. The only moment of tension on the trip East was Del’s “gas gauge meltdown.” I was driving. I mentioned that the low fuel indicator had just come on. Trouble was, there was no gas to be had at the exit we found ourselves at. Del had a temper tantrum. Not to be outdone, so did I. Del insisted, despite the heat and Amethyst’s intolerance for it, on turning off the A/C to conserve fuel. She reasoned, with some obvious logic, that if we ran out of gas, we’d all be stuck out there in the middle of the mountains of Maryland, Amethyst included. The next exit, some two miles down the freeway, had gas. Western Maryland is not the isolated place that, say, Western Wyoming is. Another crisis, albeit mostly in the mind, had been averted.

Amethyst in Virginia, August 3, 2007

Amethyst loved the cabin. Her favorite feature was the deck, perched high above the road below and surrounded by trees. She could go out there, be completely enclosed by railings, and sun to her heart’s content. She had the run of the tiny place. We placed jump ups so that she could join us in the bed. The family had arrived for a visit and there was ice cream and cake. I carried Am down the little hill from the cabin for the meet and greet. She circulated underfoot, as she usually did in such situations. She seemed a little bit disoriented, quite understandably. I returned her to the safety of the cabin’s interior. My nieces spent some time with her. They were old enough, and familiar with the ways of old cats that I trusted them to treat Amethyst respectfully. During the hot days, she had a fan, the cool of the mountain air, and the trees to keep her temperature within a tolerable range while we left her alone to sight see in Washington, D.C. After our week was up, we drove back to Illinois without incident.

Two days after our return from the road trip, Amethyst embarked on the puke-a-thon to outdo all others. She hacked up foam, bile and any liquid she managed to swallow. We tried to keep her hydrated, but she would vomit up anything she drank. She got weak; so weak that she would finish puking and then flop over in the puddle. I began thumbing through the local Yellow Pages for the names of vets. I found one, the nearest one, and called. The fellow sounded pleasant, and his voice was full of what I took to be genuine concern. I set up an appointment. In the intervening 24 hours, Amethyst stopped vomiting. She resumed drinking water and broth in earnest and keeping both down. She was resting, jumping up in the bed, getting comfortable. I cancelled my appointment with what would eventually be her new and final vet.

Our New House

Amethyst in August 2008, 410 South Garrard, moving day (part 6)

The duplex on the old Chanute Air Force Base was crimped for space. It was a source of tension for us, so Del and I started looking at houses to buy. Somewhere in there, we got married. In November of 2007, we put an offer in on a house in another town. Waiting for a response, we were planning to lay back and watch a movie to take our minds off the real estate adventure. On the way back to the duplex, we saw a man emerge from a property we had seen advertised. We jumped out of the car and asked the man if he was the owner. An affirmative response and confirmation that the place was still for sale got us an instant walk through. We loved the beautiful woodwork. We asked for a selling price, and we were astonished how low the figure was. Oh, but that offer in play…

The offer in play fell apart. We had made a reasonable offer in our opinion, but the seller, who felt we had insulted him, did not share this opinion. He did not respond with a counter. In fact, there was no response to our offer at all. As per the rules of the real estate game, when the time for a response had elapsed, our offer quietly expired. Free to do so, we now made an offer on the house on Garrard Street, in good old Rantoul. Our offer was immediately accepted, since it amounted to the selling price. The real estate transaction commenced. By the end of January 2008, we had keys in hand to our new old house. We still had to honor the terms of the lease from hell. We spent until April working on ‘the new place’, preparing for moving day. May was consumed with packing up the contents of the duplex.

On May 31^st, we spent our first night in the house. This was about a month ahead of the expiration of our lease, but this was the day that we took up residence. Amethyst took the short car ride with her bowls and litter boxes. She walked in through the back door, through the kitchen, and took up residence in the wood paneled dining room where we had made up a futon bed. She loved the sunlight that warmed up squares of the brown- carpeted floor. We put her fleece bed in the room with our futon, but she preferred the human bed, as usual. She liked the return, however brief, to having us all on a bed on the floor. Her age manifested itself instantly: she did not do a great deal of exploring at first. It was a larger space than any she had ever inhabited. I don’t think she ever completely covered it as a younger cat would have. She carved out a territory that traced the movement of the sunlight through the day, and eventually the seasons. In those first days of our habitation, she got a look at her new outside territory. She walked, in her ancient, halting way to the edge of it. She spent some time in the grass on the far side of our southern tree and shrub line. I went and brought her back. She liked the deck when it was sunny. She never spent any time on the front porch. In the year and a half she had left of her lifespan, she spent most days in that dining room she took possession of right away on her first day in the house. She died in that room, just shy of 14 months after she first set foot in it.

12-2-2008 Pensive about a new perch.

Amethyst seemed rickety, and ancient certainly when we moved into the house, but she did not seem moribund. She was eating her food. She was drinking, and using the litter box. She was not as playful, but this feature of her personality had been on a long decline. The last time I remember her actually chasing her tethered leather toy was in the living room at the duplex. At “the new place”, she would follow the toy with her eyes and head, but not give chase. She’d bat at it if it came against her fur, but would not turn over to get at it if it was inconvenient. Fair enough, I thought. She’d still go after packages as soon as they were being opened. She still wanted whatever food we were eating. So when I decided to take her to see the vet, the one I had cancelled on during her post road-trip puke-a-thon, I was doing so out of a desire to perhaps get her some meds for her aches and pains. It was the first time I had taken her to a vet for purely prophylactic reasons. It was about 20 days since we’d moved in to “the new place.” Amethyst had just been through the stress of moving, but she had settled in and established her routine. I got an appointment for June 23^rd, 2008.