Hi, everyone, and welcome.
First, I gotta confess to you that this week's episode of WYFP? has two preliminary FPs:
- My right wrist is in a cast. That's my excuse for the typos you will find from me in the comments.
- In all of my time here at Dkos, I have been unable to use the word "pootie" (meaning "cat"). It makes me feel unbearably silly. That’s because my best friend’s mom always said, "Do you have to go pootie?" Thus, I am unable to "poot" when it comes to cats. So I will rely on "cat" or "kitty" but I want you all to feel free to "pootie" around all you want in the comments. In the "cat" sense, of course. Now, for the usual announcement (a la CJB):
WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to get things off of our chests. Here we empathize, sympathize and otherwise share the burden. We accept weaknesses, cheer strengths, shed tears and share laughter. We may offer advice, pootie pictures <--(Look, ma! I did it!), favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. If you find value in this shared time, won't you please continue the goodness of WYFP by recommending? </p>
And with that, I'd like to tell you a story:
I fell in love with Vinnie in the twilight of a late afternoon in January of 2006. Back then, his name wasn’t Vinnie, and that day wasn’t the first time I’d seen him. He’d been hanging around our back deck for several days. Back then, he wasn’t the huge, healthy, beautiful orange cat that he would become. Back then, he was dirty and skinny. He coughed horribly, and his fur was dull and thin. We agreed, Mr. CJB and I, that the poor thing must be an old, old man to be so gaunt and frail.
The weather was amazingly cold for Portland. Temperatures in the teens for days. Below zero with the wind chill. But we didn't feed him. No, sir. We did our best to ignore him. He would go home. We knew he would leave and go home. We did not need another cat and besides, we’d just lost the last stray animal that had adopted us. Two months earlier, a sweet, sad dog named Bob had died very suddenly. We weren’t ready to take on another stray. Really!
Darkness was just starting to creep down that afternoon when I stepped outside onto the back deck to empty the garbage. It was right around freezing and the wind whipped the bushes and trees. I stood for a moment and watched the the leaves skittering down the street, the wind teasing them up into the air. That was when it happened. The Cat Who Would be Vinnie exploded out of the bushes on the far side of the street. A dull-orange streak, he hurled his skin and bones after those leaves, and when he caught up with them, he went full-on crazy. He leaped and he jumped and he twisted and he flipped. He just went flat out wacky-cat until the "flock" moved on and left him standing completely still with a mouthful of leaf.
When the show was finally over, I caught myself laughing out loud, cheering and applauding. How could that sick, old, hungry animal have enough energy to play that hard? Someone really ought to take care of him. (((Sigh.))) Whatevah.
So, before it was full-on dark, Not-Yet-Vinnie was eating a decent meal. And before we went to bed, he was on the back porch, safely tucked inside a cardboard box tipped on it’s side; made cozy with a pillow, and well-insulated with towels and blankets inside and out. And by the end of the week, he’d met the vet, was immunized and neutered. ("Old? He’s not old. I’d be surprised if he was more than year and a half, actually.") And then he was let inside to meet Annie, our grumpy, little ol’ pickle of a kitty. And finally, he was given a brand new name: Vinnie. Big Vincent. Vincente del Gato, if you’re nasty.
I’ll shorten the intervening months to this: Vinnie grew large and soft and beautiful. The mischievous, goofy, intense, all-out love that he brought with him grew like fine, relentless roots in all of our lives. My husband, who was raised in a family that never appreciated pet ownership, soon adored Vinnie. If Mr. CJB was out working in the yard, Vinnie was always close by, getting up to follow his pal around from project to project; occasionally insisting on some affection by bestowing his huge, Vinnie-sized Headbutt of Love.
Our son and his friends loved playing with Big Vinnie, who never ran out of energy.
And me? My favorite thing was waking up in the middle of the night and finding Vinnie squeaking out his weird purr at the bottom of the bed. I would quietly flip around and put my head down by him and rub his belly. He was so sweet when he was all cat-sleepy and purring.
He wasn’t around last Saturday evening. Not too unusual. Although he spent a great deal of time indoors, we never could persuade him to be a completely indoor kitty. He needed the bigness of the out-of-doors. When he didn’t show up for breakfast Sunday, we started to worry. Monday morning, my son cried because he was sad and scared for his Vinnie. I promised him we’d make some fliers and put them up when my son got home from school.
I was on my way home from taking my son to school that morning when I found Vinnie’s broken body on the side of the road. From the look of things, I would say he died quickly. I don’t think he suffered much. (Oh, please...)
My husband left work early and brought Vinnie’s body back to be buried. Now Vinnie, our big, sweet lovecat, rests here in the flowerbed cairn that Mr. CJB made for him in the garden that Vinnie loved so much:
right across the street from where I once watched a dirty, starving, Soon-to-be-Vinnie have his hilarious way with an escaping flock of leaves.
So, here he is, our big orange doofus:
I love my Vinnie.
.............................(I always will)...............................
So. That’s mine this week. Please, tell me yours...