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Sneezy's story VERY long

Posted By: Pete (65.129.34.33)
Date: Saturday, 27 April 2002, at 7:09 p.m.

I feel a need to write this. Please indulge me, ok?

When my daughter was in 7th grade she started doining some serious acting out and was hanging with a group of kids who were, for the most part, the kinds of kids I was dealing with in my job in juvenile court. I couldn't control her and counselling wasn't terrbily effective even though she liked the counselor and the counselor was top notch. My daughter was sneaking out at 3 am, hooking entire days of school, drinking (I could tell easily) and probably doing other things that I couldn't confirm.

I finally had to decide to send her to live with my mother who lived on a farm with her husband in seatheastern Ohio. The area is very rural with a small town 20 minutes away. To make a long story short, she bloomed out there! Probably cuz it was harder there to get in trouble since it was a small community and my mom/s husband was prettty well-known. Anyhow, bye her senior year she was vp of the tuindt gov, prez on the senior class, on the championship girl's vollyball team, honor student...and nominated for the homecoming court every year until she was a senior and nominated for queen. So I went out there for that, so she'd know I was proud of her, and I stayed a week for both that and her birthday.

There's always s new litter of kittens there any time I visited and That fall there was a new litter of 9 kittens, none of which had the same color. Sneezy was all back and the only black kitten in the litter and the tamest of all of them. It soon spread throgh the cats and dogs that I was a sucker when it came to petting the animals and every time I was outside on the porch, all the dogs and cats came around to get some attention. Only 2 of the kittens ventured out from their nest - they were not weaned yet - and Sneezy was 1 of the 2. Not much bigger than my hand, almost. All that cats out there are smallish and that's why I called her a "little cat," as an adult she was only about halfsized.

The nest was near the porch - about 20 feet away - in a stack of firewood. And it seemed like Sneezy was on the lookout for me. Any time I ws on the porch, she'd come running over, Climed up my trouser leg and got in my lap and wouldn't leave. She'd be the first of all the animals to get there.

I was wearinng double-knit pants so you can figure out the clothes damage...

When it was time to go home, I had to decide what to do and I decided to take her home with me. We leave the farm at 6am and sneezy was up and came over. She had snot all over her nose and was sneezing something terrble. That's how she got her same.

When we got to my house and was unpacking I let her our of the shoebox we had her in and after we got everything out of the car, Sneezy wasn't around. We started looking for her and found her enscounded on my bed! She must have made a beeline to it, guided by her sense of smell!

As a kitten, she would play with the damdest things! I take insulin shots every day and the syringe has gaurds over the needle and plunger and the plunger ones sometimes fell on the floor and she's start batting that thing all over the kitchen. She'd put them in my shoes and pounce on em batting the thing out. Then she'd put them back into the shoes and do it again with her rear end waggling back and forth before she'd pounce. Eventually, we started having a hocky game in the kitchen with a short little stool as the goal. She's fit behind the stool, I batted the syrnge thing to her, she'd bat it out before it went under the stool.

Some of her behavior doesn't seem like standard cat behavior. She never bit anyone nor scratched any one, wasn't very destructive. If she had to be restrained she merely cried and moaned and sometimes hiss, but never got violent and made no real attempt to get away.

She ran out of the house one day and was outside for 3 days. Of course I looked and looked and was very sorried because a lot of cats have been killed around my street and she wasn't streetwise and only had the farm stuff in her head. Finally, I went out in back of my house and called her and she peeked out from underneath a shed back there. Boy was I releived and happy! I couldn't have dealt with it had she been killed on the street. And sneezy never went out the door again.

And unlike other cats, if I called her, she came 90 percent of the time. The other 10 percent meant I had to chase her before she'd stop playing around...a game. And when it was bedtime, she'd be underfoot, yowling cuz I fed her then. (I know it;s a wierd tme to feed a cat, ok?) and if she wasn't already underfoot I'call her and she'd be right there.

She slept with me and I keep my br door shut (fire safety reasons) so her food and water and litter were there. I couldn't keep her away from me with the door closed cuz she'd cry. Loudly.

She followed me where ever I went in the house when she wasn't napping or getting sun and was never more than 10 feet away, and usually no more than 5. Mostly whe was in body contact if I were reading or watching TV. She'd sleep on my hand or up against my back or (very aggrivating) slept on top of my pillow above my head.

She never seemed aloof like a lot of cats and she'd greet anyone who came in.

The first time she came into heat I thought she was sick. (not a cat person, here...) and I called the vet. Of course if I stroked her or something, she'd really get horny. What did I know? They had a good laugh at the vet's when I brought her in. Dogs I knew about; cats were strange to me. So we spayed her.

Sneezy was a little afraid of Doofus at first when I got the bird. Eventually she learned to toloerate Doofus when Doofus was out of the the cages and torwards the end of Sneezy's life she allowed Doofus to groom her. It broke my heart when that first happend cuz I knew Sneezy would normally not allow the bird to be that close to her.

The two of them were jealous of each other. If I were paying atttention to one, I had to pay attention to the other. That meant scratching the bird with one hand and stroking the cat with the other. The two of them had me trained just right.

So, Sneezy was pretty unique for a cat from what I know about cats which was nothing. Sweet, nonviolent, friendly, loved me in a way a cat doesn't seem to normally do.

Our daily interactions seems to have been constant except when whe was napping.

I can't see below my nose and can't see the floor until about five from from me and I had to learn to shuffle to keep from stepping on the cat. I find myself still doing it. I still look downwards before I get out of a chair, especially if I'm in the radio room where all of my radio and computer equipment is...cuz she'd either be under the desk, chair, or right behind the chair. When she was just living here, I had to break her of her habit of jumping on the operating desk and walking over the keyboards. Some of my transmitting modes on the ham bands are digital real-time instant text transmissions and "it happened that someone would see something like this: dasda325avk po ljk ieaufa;dj[pafs. And other other guy would send: "ur sigs grbld om pse rpt k" (Your signals are garbled old man, please repeat, over.)

Then there is the pizza war. I'd always eat pizza while on the floor watching TV. Every time I did this, Sneezy would be there staring at the pizza until I gave her a nip of dheese. One time I got distracted and she helped herself to some. Once I got the Doof, they both would be watching and waiting and taking advantage if I were not paying attention to the pizza itself. They'd BOTH get hold of some cheese and pull a sting of mozzy from the pizza.

When sneezy was younger, she delighted in running up the hallway, coming into the kitchen, dining room, into the living room at high spped and boucning off the sofa and then running back down the hall for aother run. So, I would hear: clumpty clumptycompty boom!
Clumpty cluplty clubpty...clumpity clumptiy columptiyclumpety scritch critch scrichrity (going though kitchen)lumpity clumpity BOOM! Clumpitity clumpity....BOOM!. Now this is at 11pm. Do you know where hour cat is?

I won't even talk about her wanting to play at 3am...

And even though she was sick, she didn't want to be away from me until the very last week when she wouldn't come out of the space she chose for her "cave" So I had to finally confront the fact that she was terminal. I knew after a short obeservation period and listening to her lungs that she was in pulmoray edema (too much fluid in the lungs, swelling them) I know it would not get better and had to make this decision to let her go. I called the vet's and asked if I could bring her in that day, before I changed my mind and she was there in a few hours. I held her as long as I could bare it, but I couldn't bring myself to be there when the vet pushed the ketamine. I just couldn't do it. I had to leave the room

And after paying the bill, before we got out the door, I was crying and spent all that night crying. No animal that was ever around me affected me so much when tney died, but Sneezy was the first animal that was actually mine alone and who never wanted to leave my side, and was constanly interacting with me in one form or another on a daly basis. I'm sitting here at the computer typing this and I just wondered where Sneezy was, cuz she'd be planted on the top of one foot or another.

CAUTION: CHRISTIAN PRAYER AHEAD. IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH CHRISTIANITY, DON'T READ IT. SNEEZY'S STORY HAS ENDED

Thank you, God for bringing us togther. Sneezy was a great companion and comfort to me and we gave each other lots of love. I'll miss her, I already do, but all earthly things change and I accept that and I praise You for both the good things and the bad things. You're in control of my life - I gave it to You long ago - and you never take away without giving something else in return. And though I grieve, the Spirit comforts me and reminds me Who'se child I am. The Jewish criptures say, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Bleesed be the Name of the Lord." So I bless You Lord. Maranatha.

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