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i don't wanna
that's what i told the copy chief this afternoon, when telling her i'd just made an appt. with the vet for wednesday morning. i don't wanna, but i'm taking the old guy in. my intention is see what they can do for him, if anything, as he continues to lose weight and is increasingly unsteady on his feet. but i figure at the very least they're going to tell me what my eyes can see for themselves: he's in pretty bad shape. i'm having trouble imagining coming out of this appt with any good news.
then tonight i looked down where humph & katherine "manny" mansfield were lazily playing, and i saw that chet had (no doubt) stumbled in to watch the end of adam's rib with us. he's probably seen it before, truth be told, but, you know, the young ones hadn't. and anyway, sometimes the heartbeats in a house just like to cluster together. you know?
he's just a sack of bones, dear readers. i can barely comprehend it, beholding him, holding him. despite how bloody obvious it is.
chester k. pester will be 19 any day now, if he's not already. summer of '88, several lifetimes ago, this dyke friend named tina, who was a student at the community college where i worked, went with me to the crazy cat rooms at a place called defenders of animal rights, and he came to live with me on e. 41st. doesn't sound like a baltimore address, does it, baltimorons. well it is. a little one-way uphill street north of waverly, across greenmount from the big brick wall cordoning off the richies in guilford. at the time it was a surprising little queer residential cluster, my street, as the two (gay male couples of) landlords who owned, between 'em, maybe a quarter of the houses on the street used word of mouth to find tenants.
my 2nd floor pad was the overall least appealing space i'd lived in as an adult--- equalled later only by the spring st apt here in A2, i'd say. i called it the brady bunch apartment cuz it had ugly shag carpet and (until i replaced 'em w/blinds) absurdly ucky burnt orange and yellow curtains in the bay window in the living room. i sat in that bay window with chet as he watched his first snow, thinking how silly it was to be noting it, but noting it, and loving noting it, nonetheless.
lordy, that was a long time ago. how can i have lived this long?
chet's first year and then some, he had a male role model in the household: bill. bill's dead now. he wasn't then. in fact, he's singing in this number, along with freddie mercury, me, my ex-, and the houseguest i have coming toward the end of august:
.mp3 --> "Crazy Little Thing (Called Chet)" -- Us Guys, with Queen (1988)
you know, bill's dead, and chester's dying, and i don't even want to imagine what's become of the denz, but listening to that old tape still makes me laugh.
earlier tonight i was singing the first chester song to him:
little baby chester
bop shoo wah do wop
little baby chester
bop shoo wah do wop
little baby chester
bop shoo wah do wop
little baby chester
little baby chester
little baby chester
bop shoo wah do wop
i've been telling people that chester is by far the living creature with whom i have spent the most nights under the same roof. i'd have to do some math to figure out whether he's overtaken my mother as the creature living or dead with that distinction. i think mom may still have a little something on him, what with summers, and me (& then denise too) living with her through the fall of the year my father died. plus occasional short visits after that. plus the night she died.
goodness sakes, people. it's hard. it's hard already, and it's only gonna get harder.
then tonight i looked down where humph & katherine "manny" mansfield were lazily playing, and i saw that chet had (no doubt) stumbled in to watch the end of adam's rib with us. he's probably seen it before, truth be told, but, you know, the young ones hadn't. and anyway, sometimes the heartbeats in a house just like to cluster together. you know?
he's just a sack of bones, dear readers. i can barely comprehend it, beholding him, holding him. despite how bloody obvious it is.
chester k. pester will be 19 any day now, if he's not already. summer of '88, several lifetimes ago, this dyke friend named tina, who was a student at the community college where i worked, went with me to the crazy cat rooms at a place called defenders of animal rights, and he came to live with me on e. 41st. doesn't sound like a baltimore address, does it, baltimorons. well it is. a little one-way uphill street north of waverly, across greenmount from the big brick wall cordoning off the richies in guilford. at the time it was a surprising little queer residential cluster, my street, as the two (gay male couples of) landlords who owned, between 'em, maybe a quarter of the houses on the street used word of mouth to find tenants.
my 2nd floor pad was the overall least appealing space i'd lived in as an adult--- equalled later only by the spring st apt here in A2, i'd say. i called it the brady bunch apartment cuz it had ugly shag carpet and (until i replaced 'em w/blinds) absurdly ucky burnt orange and yellow curtains in the bay window in the living room. i sat in that bay window with chet as he watched his first snow, thinking how silly it was to be noting it, but noting it, and loving noting it, nonetheless.
lordy, that was a long time ago. how can i have lived this long?
chet's first year and then some, he had a male role model in the household: bill. bill's dead now. he wasn't then. in fact, he's singing in this number, along with freddie mercury, me, my ex-, and the houseguest i have coming toward the end of august:
.mp3 --> "Crazy Little Thing (Called Chet)" -- Us Guys, with Queen (1988)
you know, bill's dead, and chester's dying, and i don't even want to imagine what's become of the denz, but listening to that old tape still makes me laugh.
earlier tonight i was singing the first chester song to him:
little baby chester
bop shoo wah do wop
little baby chester
bop shoo wah do wop
little baby chester
bop shoo wah do wop
little baby chester
little baby chester
little baby chester
bop shoo wah do wop
i've been telling people that chester is by far the living creature with whom i have spent the most nights under the same roof. i'd have to do some math to figure out whether he's overtaken my mother as the creature living or dead with that distinction. i think mom may still have a little something on him, what with summers, and me (& then denise too) living with her through the fall of the year my father died. plus occasional short visits after that. plus the night she died.
goodness sakes, people. it's hard. it's hard already, and it's only gonna get harder.
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Maybe the doctor will have some ideas for prolonging him with some modicum of comfort. I'm hoping that not only for your sake, but even for my own. I never could really win that little guy over, and I'm still trying!! That's was actually the first truly alarming red flag for me in terms of his health--when he didn't even have the energy to scratch me for touching him anymore. I can still get some pretty angry growls, though.
Let me know if there is anything you need from me.
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"*sigh*" isn't right... i'm not taking in deep enough breaths to sigh...
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first i gotta make it through this day at MR.
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I know I've said to you before: why do we do it? Why do we invest so much love and devotion to pets knowing that we will, likely, outlive them by a long shot? Of course the answer is the joy they give in those few precious years greatly outweighs the pain we feel at their loss.
You provided him with the best possible life you could. A long one for a cat too. That doesn't make it any easier, I know. He's been there through think and thin, ups and downs, followed you across the country (how many moves?), and never complained once. He's been the constant.
Do you think, if Chester could write a little tome of his/your life he would write in third person omniscient or third person objective? I'm kind of thinking omniscient. Either way, it would be an interesting book.
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Right now I'm quite ready to credit him with omniscient. But it might be funnier if it were from what he might really know, with a little of that anthropomorphic shared linguistic assumption tacked on. And that book might be more fun to write. Want to see it in serial form?
But, wait, is that what Rita Mae B does with those cat books---are they a conceit for memoir? Wait, maybe they're mysteries. Not that memoir isn't mystery. But, you know. Kinda don't want to invite Rita Mae's voice into your own, even in playtime.
8. Chet's lived in 8 of the 10 domiciles of my post-college life. Plus twice he spent a month at my mother's while I went kicking around the country. So I guess you could say he's lived 9 places.
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I was just thinking of Chester in the fly-on-the-wall respect. "Oh, the tails he could tell!" respect.
Yes, I think it would be fun in serial form! Like "Chester's Travels". Or "Chester: Livin' in the Lap of Luxury" Or "The Incredibly True Adventures of Chester" or some more creative title.
Some good entries: "What the Hell are Those Noises from the Bedroom" and "On the Road Yet Again"
Also, I would be sure to include some chapters on observation from the perspective of only being about a foot tall. Like "Mommy Never Cleans uder the Couch" or "I'm Afraid All Those Books Will Collapse On Me"
9's a good number. Is he the type that settles right in, or one who is a little wary of a new place?
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Empathy and hugs from afar...
(Anonymous) 2007-08-01 03:36 am (UTC)(link)Re: Empathy and hugs from afar...
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you two have had a great life together! funny thought, thinking
about how many nights you have spent together. he's been your
steady guy!
i did notice how thin he was, but it made his thumb mitts look even bigger!