I was originally planning on doing a longer entry about Kitkat, but oddly enough the more time passes, the less I want to write about her. I can't remember what month it was when she first came to us, but it wasn't long after we moved into my mom and dad's new house at the end of 2003/early 2004. I think it must have been February because I remember it being cold out, but it could also have been March. Anyway, this cute little orange furball came to our back door during Winter 2004. I was kinda hoping she would move on to the next house, because we weren't sure how our cat Sheba would feel about sharing the house with another cat. My mom eventually decided she wanted her in the house, so we got her in the house. She wasn't real receptive to anyone at first. I started to get her attention by tapping my fingers really fast on the edge of the couch cushions while I was sitting and watching tv, and I'd let her scratch the shit out of my hand. That's how I managed to domesticate her, and probably why she chose me as her daddy.
She stayed with mom and dad during the two times that I moved out, but I decided to take her with me when I moved out this last time because she was old and I knew she didn't have a lot of time left. She had a hyper thyroid, and just a couple of years ago she went from being a chonk to being skin and bones, and our cat Rascal was starting to see her as prey. I knew she'd get more love and peace being alone with me.
The last week of October, she stopped eating. That Thursday morning, I noticed fluids on the bathroom rug and her bed. I took her to the vet. The vet said that her kidneys weren't doing good, she had ulcers in her mouth that would make it hard to eat, and that her body temperature was low despite not being hypothermic. I asked about euthanization, and he said that would probably be the best thing for her. I got to go inside. I had been preparing for this moment for two years and didn't think I was going to cry, but once the finality hit me, I really broke down. Hell, I had Kitkat before I joined Louisville Mojo, meaning that I knew her longer than I've known the majority of my Louisville area friends! I got to spend a little bit of time with her before the injections, and continued to hold her while the vet gave her the injections, and while she passed away. I had her cremated, and got her ashes in an urn and a clay paw print less than a week later. It took me a good while to get used to not having her around.
That weekend was not only Halloween weekend, but that was also my shift's Saturday to work. I might have went ahead and worked had it not been Halloween weekend, but since it was Halloween, I called in both Saturday and Sunday, saying that I had a death in the family. This was absolutely true, because I loved that cat more than my own dad, or a lot of our extended family for that matter. I went to a show that Saturday night, my first indoor music show since seeing Slayer in November 2019. I knew virtually no one there, and while it sucked not having anyone to talk to in between sets, it was honestly the most fun I had had in years! As for Halloween day, I spent it the way I like to spend all my Halloweens, watching horror movies. I had to stop for a little bit to take a trip to my Amazon "locker" because my Scream Factory UHD/blu-ray copies of the first three Halloween movies had finally arrived. My movie lineup went like this:
- Frankenstein Versus The Space Monster (via Svengoolie)
- In The Mouth Of Madness
- Street Trash (celebrating the twentieth anniversary of my seeing it at the original Alamo Drafthouse)
- Nightbreed: The Director's Cut
- Halloween (1978), the broadcast tv version via the new Halloween blu-ray.
