Let me introduce you to Puppet.

Yesterday was a bit of a whirlwind day.  We had to put Isis down, the very first cat my partner and I had together (she had Isis before I moved up here, so Isis was with us when I first arrived in Minneapolis).  Isis had essentially just given up, and my mother believes that she died of a broken heart because Loki was gone.

So, while sitting in the car at the vet, we both decided that there was no way we wanted to go home to an empty house.  We thought, “Let’s go to the humane society, see if we can find a cat we like.  If not, no big deal, it might mean it’s not time yet.  But if we do, then you know, we should bring home a new cat.”

A couple of amazing things happened after that.

When we got home to get directions to the shelter, I got a call from a place I had done a phone interview with.  I’ve been out of a job, only for like a week and a half, because I had a temp job.  So I had done a phone interview that morning before we had to take Isis in and was told, “We’ll let you know by Monday.”  Instead of calling on Monday, they called literally five minutes after we got home from putting Isis down, wanting to schedule an in-person interview.

With the prospect of a new job, we definitely knew we could afford to get a cat.

So my partner and I went to the shelter.  We saw some cats, visited with some – three, in fact.  They were cute, but we didn’t really warm up to them.  We went in the last room, set on picking a cat named Alice that my partner had saw.  Before we could go to her, this beautiful cat called Baby rolled over on the bed she was laying on.

We both kinda looked at her, like, “… are you exposing your stomach to us?”  We started petting her like, on her side, and her head, and she was a purring mess.  I noticed that she was shaved on her tummy, which my partner explained meant that she had been fixed recently, touching the area without thinking.  The cat didn’t care, in fact, we both got to pet her tummy and she didn’t care.  So we decided to visit with the cat, my partner picking her up.  I headed to the door and she started whining, not wanting me to walk away.  I actually had to tell her, “I’m just going to the door so we can visit with you.”

Interesting fact:  "Baby" is the name of the stuffed animals my partner and I gave each other before we moved in together, when we had started dating in college.

So we visited with the cat and she was playful, and lovable.  After a moment we thought of the name “Puppet” for her.  So I called out “Puppet” and she walked over, rolled around, purred, and just went nuts.  We knew this cat was the cat for us.

Interesting fact:  not only does she have a cold (so should be kinda sick and miserable), but she was so friendly we thought she was declawed when she was batting her paws around.  She is NOT declawed, she just had them retracted to play with us.  She also has a bad liter box history which she has shown NO signs of in our house, she uses the liter box just fine.  Also…

… the dream my partner had before, of the third cat in the house that we didn’t have.  We have two theories with that.  The first being that the cat was her parent’s cat, Raja, who had passed away a year ago, coming to the house to kind of tell the kitties that it was o.k. for them to leave.  OR the third cat was Puppet, introducing herself to the cats, and showing them that she would be there to take care of us.

By the way, the third picture is totally her “Assassin’s Creed” pose.

Second time this month we had to put a cat down.  I had better words for this on my facebook but… I’m kinda worded out now.  So, love you Isis, both of your mommies will miss you.

I need some sort of distraction, I’m worrying over Isis the cat who’s been to the vet twice in the span of a couple of days.  

So… throw a pairing in my ask, or something, or make some sort of request or headcanon or that whole “send me a pairing in my ask and I’ll answer questions about them” thing or… something?

A story about the two cats my partner and I have that I think is really interesting. We’ve had them both for years, but Isis (black and white cat) was the first and we got Loki (brownish cat) later.

A few months ago, my partner woke up from a weird dream she had.  In it, she said that two cats were in the house with us, but along with them was this third cat that – clearly – wasn’t ours, because we only have two.  It was sort of like a ghost kitty?  Not harmful or anything, just there, like a normal cat.  I kinda shrugged it off, because my partner has weird dreams like that sometimes.

After coming back from a convention in September, we noticed that Isis wasn’t eating as much.  In fact, she was actually letting Loki eat before her.  As the weeks passed, Isis was eating less, and was even letting Loki eat her share of the food.  She was also letting Loki sleep in bed with us, opting to sleep in this little corner of the bedroom.  It was a bit strange, but we thought that it was good that Loki was able to be around us more and that Isis was letting her.  

Cue to a week ago and we find out from the vet that Loki is really sick and we have to put her down.  After coming home without Loki, Isis starts to sleep on the pillow where Loki use to sleep when she would wander into the living room.

That’s when we realized all of the signs.

I think Isis knew that Loki was sick and that she wouldn’t be around much longer.  So she was being nicer to here, letting her eat, and – to a certain extent – letting her eat her share of the food as a way to try and help her somehow.  She also let her sleep in the bed with us, I think, to give her some time with us.  Before, Isis was always the cat in the bed and Loki would sleep downstairs somewhere.  Suddenly, she was sleeping on my partner’s pillow, which is where Isis use to sleep.  And the third “ghost kitty?”  I think that was a sign, too, of what was to come – especially since we plan on getting another cat at some point.

Some time has passed and we took Isis to the vet today.  She’s having liver problems and we were about to prepare for the worst, but as we spoke to the vet we told her about what we had done on Thanksgiving (of all days).  My partner and I were so desperate to get Isis to eat – since she flat out stopped after Loki passed away – that we gave her bits of the turkey I had made (first time making turkey, too).  Miraculously, Isis ate a piece.  Then another.  And another.  For the first time in a long while, she was eating!  Not only that, but she kept all of it down and drank the water in her bowl.  The fact that she had started eating, according to the vet, is an extremely good sign.  We were told to take her home, give her the medicine they prescribed, and try feeding her the turkey again (since she’s eating it).

So, we tried that today.  She ate half of her food – more than we’ve seen her do in all of the times we’ve tried feeding her – and, when we checked later, the rest of the food in her bowl was gone!

I realized in all of this that people aren’t the only ones who grieve for a loved one, but so do pets.  As much as I believe in my pets being part of my family, it seems that pets feel the same way.  

I also realized, once again, that dreams definitely mean something.  And karma can be rather… interesting.  We lost Loki, then my partner got a free turkey in a raffle from her job.  I have never, in my life, made turkey, but it was free so I decided to give it a shot.  Not only did I make a good meal for Thanksgiving, but I ended up making the food that Isis finally started to eat after so much time of picking at food then not eating.

So… urm… there, have a random story about cats?  And dreams?  And karma?  And turkey?