TheBanyanTree: Today

[Pam James]

I can't remember what my life was like before I started being owned by
'pets'!  Well, actually, I guess that was another lifetime... I had kids,
and in between I had a few husbands, so maybe my life wasn't ready for them
then.  But now!  Oh my, but now...

Slowly, through the years, I started collecting pets.  It began with a
dog.  ONE dog.  When my last husband moved out, he took his dog and I  kept
Annie, a neurotic Great Dane who HATED car rides and the vet's office.  She
ended up with bone cancer and I had the vet's office come here to put her
down.  She was the dog who taught me what it really means to lose a
'pet'... I had thought before I got it, but I had not!

After a few months I reached out to the Great Dane rescue and got another
dog - his name was Axel, and he was my soul dog!! - he hated for me to
leave him, and he hated other dogs.  (Then is the chance with rescue
animals - you have no idea of the trauma that they've lived through!)  So I
considered getting him his own kitten.  And I vacillated because that meant
cleaning a litter box, and I'd sworn those off when the last cat I had
died!  But then my neighbors told me they were going to the pound to look
at cats, and did I want to go?  There was my sign!  And before we went I'd
already purchased all the 'stuff' I'd need - including a new litter box!

And I found the sweetest little white ball of fluff that I named Ganache,
but called 'Nash'.  Walking by all those cages, this teensy face meowed to
me, and when I picked up its wet little self, it curled into my chest and
went to sleep.  SCORE!  After a slow get-to-know-you period, Nash and Axel
bonded and were friends, and we went loads of places together since they
both loved the car!

We had a few very pleasant months together, and then Axel broke his front
leg walking outside one morning, and during our trip to the emergency vet
we found out that he had bone cancer, the same bone cancer that just a few
weeks before the doctor had told me that he did NOT have - the kind that
spreads all over and can't be cured that Annie had died from - and so I
petted him and bawled as they put him to sleep.  (I just could not bear the
thought of amputating and chemo and all the stress - he hated the vets'! -
for a few more months.)

And within a few months I lost Nash because that sweet little kitty with
the heart murmur also had other neurological problems and the vet told me
that they couldn't be fixed either.   And it was a different vet's office
because I never went back to the SOB who told me my dog was fine when he
was not...

I had had the best dog and the best cat, and maybe I've just been trying to
reach that nirvana again...But within a few weeks of losing Axel, I'd
reached out to be a mom to another Dane who needed me!  I had a hole and
love, and I thought I shouldn't waste it!  They showed me a photo of Bo,
and I jumped at the chance to be his mom.  <sigh> Bo is a moron... A giant
ball of dumbassery that I can't give back!  We've done classes and
training, and even a dog whisperer.  He bit the dog whisperer and I've
never heard from them again.

Meanwhile, this big lug LOVES his mom and doesn't bite everybody.  I
actually can't figure out who he'll bite because he's very choosy.  I
thought it was just men, but then he happened onto a couple of women. Both
were in my home and I was not.  So now I don't trust him with anybody!
Anyway.

Several months after adopting Bo I was reading the Rescue's Facebook page
and they had a female Dane who was deaf, and they said that she'd need to
go to a home with another dog and a fence.  I said, 'well I've got those!',
and we had two dogs.  Now I tell folks I've got two Danes:  one's deaf and
the other is dumb!  (I'm not a nice mom sometimes!)

In between, I got another cat.  Well, I got a cat from a friend of a
friend, and the cat had feline AIDS.  It cannot be around any other cat as
that disease is contagious to other cats.   I said I'd give it a try, but
the cat hated our home.  For more than two weeks it hid under a bed in a
room I closed off just for it.  I gave it space and time but it didn't warm
to me.  I reached back out to the original owner and told her I didn't
think it was working.  She pleaded for me to give it another week or so.  I
did, and I got scratched up trying to get close.  And then the woman
ghosted me.  Nothing.  And so I had to take this cat to the pound.  I knew
that they'd put the cat down, but it had no quality of life with me, and I
had none either.  But no worries!  Guilt got me and I walked out with
another kitty in its place!  This one I called 'Tiramisu', and shortened it
to Mee-sue!  Such. A. Sap.

Somewhere in there my son and his girlfriend broke up.  They had gotten a
little white non-allergenic mixed dude they called 'Everest'.  While he
moved home, she stayed in the apartment with the dog.  After things calmed
a bit, she allowed us weekend visitations with Everest, and then she
realized that he loved us all here, more than being alone during the day
there.  Here he had Bo to play with and there he had nothing.  So she gave
him to us.  Then she moved to California and my son moved back into the
apartment!  Because his job required him to work 12-hour-plus shifts, I
kept Everest with me still!

Then my neighbors who'd taken me to the pound with them a few years before,
went to Georgia to visit their family and found a family of kittens under
the porch.  I got photos, and they asked if I wanted another?!  NO!!!!  But
these sweet babies needed a mom!!  I said to bring me home the white
one...  and I named that sweet baby 'Creampuff'.  (Hilarious now since
there is nothing white about that cat!)

Note to self:  *ALL* kittens are adorable and cute and precious and they
all grow into annoying cats with bad habits!!!  But I get sucked in
everytime!!

And because I just have that face, one day I got a call from a friend who
told me that she had a little Yorkie who needed a home, did I want her?
Well NO, of course I don't, but yes, certainly, bring her over!!!  This
little chick hadn't been to a vet in years and years, nor had she ever been
groomed.  Total neglect.  And, they hadn't trained her to leave the house
to pee, they just put pads down!  Great!

Everest had been trained to ring the bells to go out, BUT!, if Charlotte
(that's her name!) was going to pee inside, why couldn't he?  In fact, why
couldn't he just pee wherever the hell he wanted?!?!?  Asshole.

And now I have six animals.  Two Danes, two yappers, and two cats.  And I
am their slave.  I no longer have carpeting.  I have a few throw rugs that
I can toss those in the washer.  I can't leave anything on the counters or
Bo will get it.  I can't have plants by themselves, they have to be crowded
onto flat surfaces where there isn't an inch for a cat to jump onto because
these bastards will chew off limbs!!  They own me.

This morning as I sat teleworking in my 'office' (the room that was once
the hidden home for the sick cat), Everest started whining.  He starts with
the smallest little sounds from deep in his throat.  And then those sounds
get louder and longer and whinier, and eventually they just become barks!
Wanna know why?

We have routines.  Every morning we get up and I let them all out.  They
come back in and I feed them, and turn the coffee pot on.  Then we all pile
into the office (which is actually called 'The Happy Room' because years
ago my daughter left me with a cat that I didn't want, but she went off
with some boy and I got stuck and the cat owned the whole room with its
litter box and food, gated off from whichever dog we had then, but I
finally made her find it a home and I changed the carpet and repainted the
room and made it new and fresh and happily mine again and I called it
"Happy" once, and it stuck!!)  so I can log on and get started.

Eventually I will go get a cup of coffee.  And that involves getting my
frozen coffee ice cubes from the freezer along with a bag of frozen pumpkin
treats and a half gallon of vanilla ice cream!  I get the ice cubes to
start my first cup, and whoever wants one gets a pumpkin treat.  Then I
have to smoosh four happy pills into a spoonful of ice cream for Bo (it's
supposed to help his anxiety but I don't really think that there are enough
pills in the world for that!) and I walk down the hall to the bedroom where
he went immediately after coming back in from going outside, and I have to
push them down his throat and make him swallow since he's been spitting the
blob out lately.  Charlotte will follow me down the hall and back because
somebody may drop something, and then we race back to the kitchen so
everybody else can get a tiny taste of ice cream also, and then Misu can
lick my fingers.

Our routine... everybody has a part to play, and they all play it
well, including me!  This morning Everest wanted to make sure I didn't
forget my part!

I started thinking about our routines as I stumbled around this morning,
and then I thought I should write about it, and then I started - but it's
turned out to be more about them than the routines.... should I delete it?
start over?

Or just hit send?

Pam