from a man to mush

[Patch]

A short wrap-around the finger story.

 

In 04 I agreed to build a parkade in a small but busy town which kept me away from home the better part of a year. Tough times, boom times here in AB, steel prices through the roof, concrete and delivery, winter and early spring charges, negotiations and more negations. Also had something like 28,000 cubic yards of dirt to give away sounds easy.

To add to these pressures I was asked to and negotiated cost and subtrade contracts for the above structure which I wouldn’t be the prime on.

One evening I get a call from the boys, dad - can we keep a kitten we found? It was early March of 05 and I was scheduled to be home in bed for 2 months, now just weeks away and I replied; sorry but no, we already have a cat and a dog! Well dads I don’t have to explain the deafening silence that fell over the house extensions for the balance of that call!

Later that month I was home, snoozing often in the family room those first couple of days, just feeling high on the sounds of quiet. This one afternoon I open my eyes to find this tiny grey kitten napping on my chest, its head tucked in under my unbuttoned shirt! There too was Tigger our dog sleeping between my legs with his legs point strait up. Charley our cat nowhere in sight, typical (there’s an interesting story about Charley).

And so as it was meant to be, our family grew one more member.

We settled on the name of Miss. SnoopKitty. She was to become our new Second Lady of the household.

Miss. SnoopKitty took much of Tigger’s characteristics, they became inseparable and together enjoyed walks in tall grass, sun up to sun down days at the beach with the wife and boys and greetings at the front door were equally shared! Also together they kept our green spaces free of any unwelcomed mammals, at days end together they’d be waiting on the stoop till all have checked in.

Lots of changes have come and gone in the past 13 years, Tigger and Charley left us, the wife and I…

Yet Miss SnoopKitty stuck around and through it all!

Funny how she divided her days between each of us we usually knew where she was by what time of the day it was.

She has traveled a lot with us, not in the back seat mind you, her Throne one of many was right up front on the dash, in front of the wheel, as our nagging second set of eyes.

She really enjoyed the fifth wheel, we always took our work boots off outside at days end! And every morning there’d be her idea of breakfast waiting and neatly served up in a row right in front of the boot rack! And every morning she’d come in squawking like an alarm clock, and we’d squawk back acknowledgingly respecting the First Lady of the fifth wheel in need of attention and in want of her treats; we then head out and her off to a still hot bunk.

So Miss SnoopKitty over the last month all but stopped eating. This is one of those man to mush rarities. I /we tried every label out there, just a couple of treats is all she’d effort. First I thought a cold, maybe a flue, and then we thought about this old tomcat that Miss SnoopKitty had been visiting with and, has since moved on; like when Tigger did, broken hart, plausible right?

Vet time yesterday, O-M-G there must be a sucker field we walk through as we cross that threshold!?

Well the good news is that Miss. SnoopKitty had a little to eat last night, and again this morning. Now it’s not much and yes too early to tell, but an improvement!

The Vet had a label not found at the local markets “ Oh but this food will help heal “Kitty”s” stomach”! hmm? At that price I’m thinking it should knock us off a couple SnoopKitty clones;)

Anyway, not sure how long she’ll keep me in the mutt house as punishment for all the poking, shots or allowing a total stranger to humiliate her as never before is going to last but, sometimes: a man just has to man-up…

 

Patch

Edited September 19, 2018 by Patch