Damn
Sorry, and I expect they'll clean that up, but again Damn. Damn, Damn, Damn!
Thank you for your words, by the way. (That sounds awful, doesn't it? It shouldn't. They meant sooooo much to me)
But I really don't have anything to offer you.
You, however, could maybe help me.
My Sadie re-appeared today after a 5 week absence. I wrote about it earlier. But she dashed in. Ate. Said horrid things to the others. All expected.
But she continued to dash about the house. Going back to the bowl and eating. Coming to me. Rolling. Meowing. Things she never did before (she being the all-time 'touch-me-not cat!).
Long story short.... this cat... I have no idea what has happened to her over the past weeks. Nothing physical - she's pretty much the same as when last seen (abducted by aliens? .... Just kidding!) but mentally she is gone. Completely gone.
Now, she was never exactly 'stable' before. But she's completely gone now. Terrified. Horrified. Not at being here. Something else...
I have 'adopted' wild cats before, and while she isn't as bad as Mysh (but who could be?) she's close.
She has buried herself inside one of my chairs. Not on in. IN it. Up into the chair - between the wooden supports and padding. I have called her out twice. She will come, if forced, and will flip herself all over me (something she never did before) and then lie in the sun, and sleep the sleep of the dead. Right up until one of the other kitties knocks at the door. At which point she's back into - as in INTO - the chair again.
I have seen fear in a cat. And hate. And aggression. But not what I am seeing right now in Sadie. (and Mysh WAS wild when I 'adopted' (aka trapped) him. Took us many years to accept one another. 1 before I even saw him as anything other than a black streak. 2 before I could manage to throw a blanket over him and bundle him into a carrier (we were moving) without being bitten (right through the thumb. Ask me some time about cat bites and infection) ......
I have no idea what has happened to this poor girl, nor where she's been. She's the last cat this (whatever it is) should have happened to as she didn't take kindly to being abandoned before. Guess she must think that's what happened this time too.
I, by the way, still want to say good-bye and for the same reasons.
It's been a hellish summer (by the way, Blackcat - the winter does not bring me stress the way you think. I am cold and depressed then, but no more alone) but I did not and could not let this story end without it's ending.
Which - well, is maybe the middle.
I am horribly embarrassed. I should not have written. If you say good-bye, you say good-bye. But, I'm told I cannot resign from this forum no matter what I want (maybe you ought to put that in your registration guidelines?) so...........
I stand by what I said though. I have nothing whatever to offer. I want to help, but never seem able to.
Rattie - I wanted to write afterward and tell you that it doesn't matter a damn what shape their bodies come in (cat, rat, even dog!) - they are all loved and missed. I wanted to tell you of "Rat" - a lovely white girl who accosted a friend of mine one day in a parking lot (it's a long story). She became the lab pet. Loved jelly beans. Ate them very carefully - always gnawed off the outer parts first, then had at the jelly inner). Sky, whatever her body form, is missed and waiting for you there across that bridge.
I have to go now. It's been a horrible summer and yet my Sadie girl - who never really accepted me - is home and holed up inside a chair upstairs. But, you know, at least she's home. To what we consider home, at least. And, given her terror yet apparent relief at being here, maybe for her too.
Good-bye again. Until later.
