MySpace-October 2009-Happy Cat News!

Last week, Joe and I went to the Central Missouri Humane Society to look at cats to find one that could help make me happy. It was going to be a hard task since Roosevelt was so freaking fantastic.
I like castrated males because they generally are bigger and I love a good big, ol' dumb cat. I really wanted Joe to be part of the cat picking out process since I wanted the cat to like him too. We looked and the first cat was an orange male. He was playful but a little too dumb and not very pretty. The next was a fluffy gray male. He was pretty and still playful but not all that awesome. Joe inquired about Willow a black male I had seen before and luckily he had be adopted out earlier that week. There were four cats that we had narrowed the room down to. An orange male kitten, a black older male kitten, a brown female tabby and a fluffy brown female tabby. I then narrowed it down to the fluffy female and the black male but was certain that the black male was going to be it. We took the female to the room and then entire time she stayed on my lap making biscuits and purring. She loved to be petted and didn't mind being brushed. I was crying because this cat was so lovely. I couldn't pass it up. I didn't even want to see that black male. We filled out the form, ran to school for the vaccination records of the pets and paid my money.
Her name was Teacup. She's sort of tiny-maybe nine pounds. She's fluffy and a brownish copper tabby. She has fluff around her face, between the toes, curlying from her ears and long whiskers. She purrs and makes biscuits happily.
She spent the first two days or so underneath my bed. She'd come out when called and sat happily on my lap at the computer.
Keeping with naming cats after presidents, I decided to go with First Lady names. So Teacup (which admittedly is very cute) became Bess Truman. (We call her Bess or Bessie.)
Bess doesn't like the dogs. She spends most of her time upstairs. She readily comes into the bathroom for shower time though I think she's not terribly fond of it. She sleeps on my bed all day and climbs in at night. She likes to be cuddled and petted. She has a tiny meow. She knows that she's cute and we call her our princess. She likes to play with stuffed mice about 6am.

Yesterday, was the pet costume contest at PetCo. I had just begun making Roosevelt's costume when he disappeared. I had proceeded forward with Riley's costume of a walrus. However, I wondered if it alone was good enough to win as we had in the past. Joe didn't think so. My mom came up to help. After some discussion, we hurridly worked on the penquin costume. Bess was loaded into the cat carrier and off to PetCo we went. There weren't very many people in the costume contest. Maybe 6. Riley looked very cute and Bess did too. She was happy to be held. Everyone was amazed that we had adopted her only a week ago and she was so good. After stripping her of her costume, Bess decided that the carrier wasn't for her. While on the harness, she tried to trot around the store.

We won third place in the costume contest. I was sort of sad that we didn't do better. As always, I had worked hard on making these costumes. But at least I know that the penquin costume didn't go to waste. Bess made a very good penquin.

I still miss Roosevelt.

[EDIT-Originally posted to Blogger on 10/16/11.]

MySpace-October 14, 2009-Sad Kitty News

So after the jackass called and said that he had Roosevelt but wasn't going to give him to me because my reward wasn't big enough, I decided that I still needed to do more. I placed an ad in one of the local newspapers which cost me $20. (I think that's a rip off because if I had free kittens to give away, I wouldn't have to pay! But I do for a lost one? Whatever.) Eventually, I got a phone call that my cat had been spotted on Columbia College campus.

Columbia College is probably about five miles and several busy roads away. But then again, Roosevelt had been missing for almost two weeks at this point. Joe and I go there and look for him. No luck but everyone we asked said that they had seen him and the cat they described (such as laying on the sidewalk lazily watching rabbits hop by) seemed like Roosevelt. Joe and I returned to put up fliers which earned several more calls thoughout the weekend. I also managed to snag a cat, cuddle on it and then let it go. It was pretty-like a Maine Coon or something.

Monday, I recieved several more calls about Roosevelt being there on campus but after a through description, concluded that it wasn't actually him. So Monday, I got out early enough to go to the humane society to check. No such luck. While there, I saw several very cute cats and one in particular that didn't really seem special but he caught me named Willow. The lady there said they had so many cats that they were most likely going to euthanize some. This made me cry and cry and cry. I felt so bad that I couldn't take a car load home right then and start what is destined to be my path of crazy calf, cat and pony lady. I wandered back to the CC campus to have an animal rights activist help me locate 'Roosevelt'. This cat turned out to be a lighter, furrier, less male version of my cat. I caught her, cuddled her, called the number on her collar and returned home. Her owner called me back assuring me that Ginger just liked hanging out there (on campus).

I was still crying on and off about the poor humane society cats and Roosevelt when I got another phone call. This one was saying that they had bad news but a cat missing Roosevelt's description had been found laying dead in a tree near my apartment. I asked for details and was told but promptly forgot them. Joe and I went to investigate. Once to the rough location and seeing nothing, I made Joe call them back. They didn't answer and Joe said it was probably a hoax. I made him call again. This time they answered and we found two people, one was a girl from Ross that goes to vet school with me, standing in the parking lot. They pointed to the trees in the woods where Roosevelt liked hanging out and there he was, hanging in the crook of a tree high above our heads. Sadly, he was dead. Joe took care of getting him down and burying him the next day. That's what fantastic boyfriends are for.

Needless to say, I was devistated. But I feel that at least, now I know. I won't be waiting for him to come home.

I don't think that he had been there for two weeks. Joe doesn't think that he suffered or struggled to get out. I guess he just fell. It still pains me to think though that he was out there stuck in all this rain or had heard me calling for him and wanted so badly just to be back home.

I think I'm going back to the humane society to get a cat. Joe worries that getting one so soon will just keep me sad. I worry that not having one will.

I really miss Roosevelt. Before finding him, I had to take his food dishes out of the bathroom because they were making me sad. I was still catching myself looking over from my desk when studying for NAVLE for him curled up on my bed or sprawled out on the floor waiting to take a bath. I occasionally pull back the shower curtain and expect him to be sitting on the toilet meowing at me. When my alarm goes off, I wonder where the claw to the eye is.

I know no cat can ever replace Roosevelt. He was one of a kind. That first night that I found him, he tried to eat a giant piece of dog food. It was really funny. No other cat will climb the walls litterally like he did. (Admittedly, this had decreased with his increase in girth.) None will tolerate taking baths with the dog like furry naked babies as well. None will lay on top of the dog crate or in front of Joe's digital TV just to be part of the family. None will wake me with a claw to the eyelid, a cold cat nose directly on my eyeball or to be scratched and lean into it so hard that he falls over onto my arm. None will be the cutest sheep ever. None will wear his penquin hat the same way. (His costume still sits unfinished on my sewing table.) No cat will get me for my shower around 10pm the same way. None will let me carry them like a baby or tolerate being held on my lap in such a way that they look like a furry fat old man the same way. None will sit in the windows waiting for me like he did.

In some ways, maybe a cat will. It won't ever be like Roosevelt though. Am I setting the bar too high for this new cat? Yes. Am I allowed to? Maybe. I just have to remember that 1) I love cats and 2) this new cat will provide me with new funny cat things.

I think that finding Ginger on the CC campus and going to the humane society and thus crying so hard had to relate to finding Roosevelt even if it was such a horrible way to find him. I think it was letting me know it was time. It all fit in together. I'm always going to miss Roosevelt. I loved him so much. He was my favorite boyfriend. 

[EDIT-Originally posted to Blogger on 10/16/11.]

MySpace-October 5, 2009-The South's Gonna Do It Again!

For the entirity of this block, I have been with a girl named Jenny, who I have deemed 'The South' (She's from Arkansas.). Jenny went to vet school at St. George, which I believe is the Ross school for those that didn't make it into Ross. While this is a bold statement, I stand by two things I believe to be true (wether they are or not) 1) People from the Carribean schools are either very good or very, very bad and 2) Missouri takes more 'Rossies' than other vet schools. (I really don't know if that is true or not but it seems like it and Missouri is very money hungry.)

Okay, so anyway, I find Jenny to be essentially useless.
First of all, she's older. That's not generally a problem. She wears too much make-up. I guess that's a personal choice but the fact that we are now on theriogenology and spent the day outside palpating and working cows, I think now, make-up isn't needed.

When on oncology, I know some of the clinicians complained about her-about the SOAPs she wrote (one resident said she was going to send emails to some of us about the SOAPs w wrote. I never got one!) Jenny also struggled with writting prescriptions for chemo which in addition to drawing blood was one of the few tasks we had. If this had been her first rotation, that would be fine. BUT she's been through surgery AND medicine. She shouldn't have a problem doing anything any more. AND she was always late (maybe on time but too late to help us and to barely get her own things done) and didn't seem to care to take care of the grayhounds much.

These last two things carried over to ophthomology. AND she always had coffee in her hand. I don't know where she got this coffee, or more importantly when she had time to get said coffee. I was there early and always busy. I didn't have time to get coffee! Then she complained about having to come in one morning for a work up on a cateract case. Yeah, it sucked but 6:30 isn't really all that early. Collectively, Rachel and I had been in much, much earlier, much more often. She always had less cases than Rachel or I and because she often wasn't around was deemed to be the 'ninja'. There are lots of ninjas at school! There were lots of times that I would find her out in the lobby randomly talking to strangers or to Sarah the cashier. That's find, but sometimes I need some help. And she wasn't around.

So now that we are on theriogenology. Jenny still hasn't put down the coffee. Friday, as we were getting ready to go, our patient had to be assigned to someone. Because I was the only one going to be around on Saturday, I had to be the student. Rachel had already arranged to make plans but Jenny had decided that now would be a good opportunity to go to Arkansas to file a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend. What drama!!!! Always drama with her! Sunday, she got called in on emergency and did a surgery. She wasn't here this morning to help with the cow this morning. Anyway, we had another surgery on my patient. Jenny was still the emergency student and she had to be there even though she had agreed to let me go to surgery. She was mad that she had to change back into her scrubs. Whatever. Then today, I had told everyone to meet me at school at 7. Even though we didn't have as much to do with the alpaca, I hadn't told anyone any different. I was running late and Rachel even later. Then Jenny strools in at 7:30 with her coffee and asks what she should do. Doesn't put her coveralls on, didn't put her boots on. Was still holding her coffee. Essentially, she was asking because she had to. Not because she was actually interested in doing anything. Then today, we were at the farm and the entire time she was wearing these fancy sunglasses looking all well, dumb. And in the end didn't want to help much. Rachel was trying to help push up cows and record, while I ran the head catch. Jenny moved a gate. Which while important, could have also been done if she was recording.

Additionally, in addition to being useless, I find Jenny to be stupid. I once heard her telling a visiting student from NC that also had a strong Southern accent, that when people heard her accent they automatically deduct 100 IQ points. I wanted to tell her that they don't deduct them because of the accent but because she actually is that stupid.

I think we have the next block together. Hopefully, we get separated because another block with her, I might punch her. Today, I said something vaguely mean as I was scrubbing boots (Rachel was doing laundry.) and of course, she was right behind her. I don't think it was too mean, I think it was sort of quiet and well, it probably was true.

She just really, really frustrates me.

[EDIT-Originally posted to Blogger on 10/16/11.]

MySpace-October 3, 2009-How Can You Be So Heartless?

Roosevelt is still missing.

Last night, I was sitting on the couch watching The Golden Girls and texting Joe and Jackie. I was on call (and still am) so when my phone rang with a withheld number, I could only assume that it was go time and I was getting called in. I answered it and the man on the other end asked if I was the one that was missing the cat.

I answered yes. He asked when I lost it. I told him. He said that on Wednesday, he and his wife came home from jogging there was a cat on the porch. I described Roosevelt and he said that it sounded like my cat. I asked where he was and he said on Providence. I suggested that I could come over and see if it was Roosevelt. ( I was pretty excited at this point thinking that Roosevelt had been found!)

At that point, he asked how much the reward was. I told him it was $50.

Now he told me that $50 wasn't going to be enough and that I needed to work with him. I apoligized and told him that was how much I had to offer. He suugested that he was going to just sell the cat to a Chinese resturant (I chose to ignore this.) He said that I needed to give him some more. I told him that I loved my cat but this was how much I had to offer. He proposed that he had a $20000 gambling debt and I should work with him. I said that $50 was more than generous and I was sorry that's what I had to offer. I asked if he was holding my cat for ransom. He said no. Then he asked me if I liked ponies.

Then I hung up knowing that I should have earlier.

I love Roosevelt, but I'm pretty sure this asshole didn't have him. I thought it was possible that it was one of my classmates playing a joke on me but even though some of my classmates are assholes, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be so cruel. I figure it was some asshole going through the classifieds on Craigslist and thought it would be fun to be mean and nothing else. (I had my email address (ponygirlrocks) on the Craigslist ad.) Why would someone be so mean? There are lots of sick fucks out there.

Joe went to the Humane Society on Friday and looked at the cats in isolation. The people wanted so much to find Roosevelt. They suggested all of these cats could be him. 'What about that one?' 'That's a female.' 'What about this one?' 'That one is black and white.' But they have the report and Roosevelt does have that microchip. Maybe one day, he'll be like this cat: Cat Returns Home After 10 Years. But I hope I don't have to wait 10 years; 10 days is too long.

[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on October 3, 2011.]