2013 so far can bite me
Rewind back to Xmas Day. I came out to see Sebastian, a/k/a the Beast, the cat I owned before I met Clark, skulking along the walls. The last time I saw a cat skulking along the walls his name was Puck, he was suffering from liver cancer and we had to put him to sleep. Clark took the Beast to our vet, and she called back to inform me that the Beast had a detached retina and was blind anyway due to high blood pressure. We were given liquid antibiotics, and the Beast gamely endured having a syringe shoved in his mouth, rewarding us by rallying. When I came home after work and gave him my usual call--"A beast! A beast!"--he would come running, his tail held high in the air as happy cats will do, meowing, then purring when I scooped him. He was fifteen, old, but I hoped that the antibiotics had done the trick.
Dad died on January fifth. My brother Michael called begging me to come to Florida. "All four of us need to be together!" he said. I already had a plane reservation for my little cousin Rene's wedding on January twelfth, and providing jetBlue with the name of the funeral home where Dad was at waived the change fee and brought me into Orlando early Monday afternoon. I wasn't feeling well for a variety of reasons so I decided to cancel the rental car reservation I'd made, not being familiar with the part of Orlando that the hotel, the wedding gathering place, was located. I called Michael and told him this.
Did he or anyone else offer to pick me up from the airport? No. I spent over fifty bucks to take a cab driven by a surly jackass who screamed at me "WHAT LOCATION IS HOTEL?!" then grumbling as he took an extremely roundabout route. I gave him a penny tip and the finger. I spent a relatively peaceful night playing online games and eating Pizza Hut (shut up, I like it), and despite getting next to no sleep felt okay on rising Tuesday morning.
Michael showed up early Tuesday afternoon and proceeded to talk at me--notice I write "at" and not "to"--for an hour. He had told me on Saturday that he and my oldest sister Marianne were going to take care of everything, which I was fine with. What he didn't tell me then but came out during his monologue was that my other sister Cindy came along for the ride, and apparently the three of them had quite the hilarious time picking out a box for Dad's ashes, then going out for a raucous, booze-filled dinner ... when all of them knew very well I would be there the next day. When I asked why everything couldn't have been put off until I could get there, I was told "we just wanted everything over with." That was a FAMOUS line of Dad's, and there is a long history of the three of them doing things and leaving me out. I got him to take me to a nearby Target to get stuff, but his stay lasted about two hours and ended with an abrupt "I gotta go." The following day, however, he did come over and we drove to my Aunt Pat's house, him again jabbering at me about trips to Vegas and stuff and me managing to get in a word here and there. Various relatives were starting to show up for the wedding so a nice little reunion ensued. Michael regaled us with all the fun and dinners out he and Marianne and Cindy had had since he got down there. One of my cousins asked me if I'd just gotten there that day and I said "no, I've been in Orlando since Monday." Michael had the good sense to look uncomfortable when Aunt Pat gave him the evils. The day ended with a potluck at yet another cousin's house, and when Michael drove me back to Orlando he went on about how good it was to see me. Back at the hotel I gave him my share of Dad's expenses--it wasn't much and after everything I did consider being a bitch and saying "I'm not good enough to help pick things out but I'm good for footing my share, huh?" But he's oblivious and my breath would have been wasted.
That was the last I saw of my immediate family. I never saw my sisters, didn't even talk to them. So much for "the four of us need to be together." With the exception of an emergency trip to pick up another blouse to wear to the wedding, for the most part my time in Florida was spent sitting in a hotel room in Orlando. To add insult to injury, while no one could be bothered to pick me up from the airport or even offer to do so Michael drove from Kissimmee, near Orlando where he was staying with Cindy, to Tampa--nearly two hours away--to pick up one of my nieces at that airport. No, I can't find the logic there, either. Clark came down on Friday as had been originally planned, and we did have a nice dinner at a little cafe a few blocks from the hotel that night. The wedding, which was held at the Orlando Science Center, was beautiful, and hanging with my cousins is always cool. We had to get up ridiculously early to get the shuttle to the airport Sunday morning, but we were home before noon.
Back to work on Monday--I got a nice basket of plants and a card from my coworkers. The Beast seemed back to himself as well. When I got home on Thursday, though, I noticed him skulking again, the same way he had on Xmas. We still had some antibiotics so I gave him some, but he was very lethargic and that worried me. I checked on him yesterday morning, and he was lying listlessly under one of the living room chairs, though he did eat a little. I went grocery shopping after work, and when I came home Clark said that the Beast had been sitting with his head inside the kitty condo (he did this on Xmas too). I picked him up out of there, and the second I did I knew it was bad. He just flopped back against me, his front paws flailing a little bit but his back legs curled up tight. I brought him into my room and lay him on my bed, and he kept the same position. We were going to bring him to the local vet this morning, but looking at him obviously suffering I knew what had to be done. Fortunately there's a 24 hour vet clinic not far from us, and we brought him there. As we'd done with Puck I held the Beast wrapped in a towel on the way. Except for an occasional ear flick he never moved, just lay with his head tucked under my chin. The staff at the clinic was great--they too saw how bad he was, and they gently prepared him while I did the paperwork. Clark and I spent some time with him, and then it was done as we petted him.
I have to do overtime today, which in a way is good because I need the money to pay what for the most part turned out to be a wasted (and expensive) trip to Florida. Unlike with Puck where there was some uncertainty I'm positive we did the right thing for the Beast. I'm still sad, but he's out of his pain and that's what's most important.
With that being said, 2013 is blowing goats so far.