November 2, 2005

• Tub

  I’m a cat person. Mainly because I work and cats do better with time alone during the day than dogs do. About 12 years ago, I became a homeowner for the first (and maybe only) time in my life in a quiet neighborhood with enough yard for pets to have room and be safe. Somehow over those years the space came to include five cats in all, and Tub was the last to arrive about three years ago. The first two were hand-me-downs from family members who couldn’t keep them, the last three were strays who majorly lucked out when they showed up in my yard. Tub was a honkin’ big guy that looked like he’d been eating well for years and was now in his mid-life. After him I drew the line. What could I have been thinking? I take these little creatures’ care seriously, and it gets pretty darn expensive some months if anything at all goes wrong. Tub, it turned out, had a medical condition that was going to require expensive medicine for the rest of his life and occasional trips to the vet to treat it. Nevertheless, he was a sweetheart. And yesterday, when I came home from work Tub was not first at the trough as usual. In fact, he was nowhere to be found. Never happened before. My neighbor called to see if I wanted to go for a walk and we set out to the east for a half hour walk, finally approaching my house from the west. Then I saw the large black object laying on the grass at the side of my neighbor’s house. (BTW, the photo is from happier summer days.) It was really hard to look closely enough to determine that it was indeed Tub. He had clearly met a violent death. His collar was gone. There was blood near his head and his other end. He was stiff as a board. He looked like he’d been whirled around somebody’s head and just tossed there. I couldn’t touch him. I went and got a wheelbarrow and a shovel and managed to lift him into it and wheel him back to my back yard. I dug a big hole in a spot where I knew the earth was soft enough and wrapped him in a beautiful blue towel and laid him in it and covered him up. I stuck one of those butterfly garden stake things in the ground to mark the spot and came indoors. I felt mad and sad and dark. I could tell there was absolutely no point trying to figure out what happened – dog, car, Halloween prank? When I went to bed, there was no bounding thud when Tub landed at the foot of the bed for the night and walked over to peer at me before settling down. I don’t know what happens to cats when they die, just like I don’t know about us. I do know it will be awhile before I forget what it felt like to lift him and scratch his head and look at his trusting face. Maybe forever. Thanks for listening. I had to tell somebody.
  

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  Deep Thought: “I think a good movie would be about a guy who’s a brain scientist, but he gets hit on the head and it damages the part of the brain that makes you want to study the brain.”
  Today I am grateful for: Apple carts
  Guess the Movie: “In the world I see – you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.” Answer: Fight Club, 1999
  The True Cost of War
  by Cindy Sheehan
  This immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost the world so much. George and his reckless war of choice have cost the American taxpayers billions of dollars that could be better spent at home. Judging from Katrina, Iraq has cost our country much of its security. It has cost the US any good standing we enjoyed in the world community. It cost America the post 9/11 good will from almost the entire world. We Americans are the laughing stock of the world community. Not only is our callous and careless leadership disdained, but we the people are scorned because we “re”-elected George for a 2nd term and not only that, we are allowing him to continue to mislead our country into ruin. (Rest of article here.)
  End of Day: 8:07 pm
  + = I so much appreciate the sweet comments everyone left today.
  - = A witness came to my door who said it was two dogs who got out of their yard two blocks away, but apparently it still cannot be proven that they actually killed Tub, though they were the ones who were tossing him around right before they were shooed away.

  • 9:06 am
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