Beware...a very long story.

Well, this looking for a cat has reminded me that I never did get around to
the next in the series about Shadow kitten. That would be The Big String
episode. I thought for sure I had sent it but can't find it on Google so
guess I didn't.  Will take a while to get there, be patient please.

So, Shadow kitten spent the first few months of her life as a traveling
kitty.  Mommy didn't like the awful places we lived in and Mommy wasn't too
crazy about the new hubby either, so we traveled :) And she loved it.

"Have litter box, will travel" was her motto!  She went to relatives' (loved
Grandma's though she wasn't crazy about having to go all the way down to
the basement to use the bathroom, but use it she did :)

We went to hotels.  She knew her litter box could be found in the bathtub of
hotels and that she would be fed (tender vittles was her traveling food) on
the dresser each morning and evening.  Odd, but I never kept her box in the
tub when we lived in a home (although it was almost always in the bathroom)
and I never let her on counters at home and you would never find her on a
dresser either and she never ate tender vittles at home, yuck...but she
always knew where everything was at a Holiday Inn :)  I remember a trip to
Connecticut.  To in-laws.  Didn't like them.  It was a long trip in wicked
hot weather (car not air conditioned) and I tried to keep Shadow cool in
her carrier with ice packs under her binkies.  well, got to the inlaws and
I set her up in a kid's bedroom with her litter box in the bathroom
routine.  well, the damn kids wouldn't leave her alone!  They had animals,
knew better but would not leave her alone.  When I caught them trying to
pull her out from under the bed by her whiskers I vacated the premises
promptly.

The trip home was too long and had to stop for the night at a Holiday Inn in
a big city - Shadow for all her traveling ways would never use a litter box
in a car, she would burst first.  I remember her looking out at me from her
carrier on the luggage cart.  I told the clerk we were headed for a cat
show LOL  They all thought she was so beautiful and asked what kind of cat
she was.  I told them a Russian Blue Cream.  And people bought it for her
whole life LOL

Anyway, fast forward about six months, she gets spayed. Me and the
not-Ex-then were living in a cute but hellish apt.  Second floor.  Many
many trees and many many birds and squirrels.  It was at this point I
figured she imprinted. Her whole life she had nothing to do with other
mammals but squirrels.  Even rescued kittens on her own porch meowing their
heads off.  However, she really believed she was a squirrel :) when she got
back from the vet, I made stairs so she could reach her favorite windowsill
and talk to her friends.  She promptly ignored it and jumped up herself.

Shadow was a good kitty.  Always used her box.  Ate pretty much what you
gave her (as long as it was the two flavors of Ninelives she liked :) and
her only big vice was ripping furniture to SHREDS oh, and killing xmas
trees.

Fast forward to summer.  Memorial Day weekend.  That Saturday night I went
out with a GF and came home after the ex (worked graveyard) had already
gone to work since I was not in a mood to see him... saw Shadow had not
touched her 9-lives veal in gravy. hmmmm

But being several sheets to the wind figured she was just ticked off that I
had gone out and was sulking.  

Next morning, RAGING hangover.  Look for the cat.  No cat.  rut roh.  I then
noticed the puddles.  Here, there, everywhere in that little stifling apt.
Not food.  Not hairballs.  Bile.

Rut Roh.

I searched.  It was a very small apt.  I had given up finding her when I
went into the claustrophobic bathroom and found her in the tub.

A tub was no place Shadow would be except when traveling.  She looked up at
me with a pathetic chirp from her spikey furred face.  This was a sick
kitty.  I picked her up and she was actually shedding a lot.  This was a
kitty that got very sick very fast.

Hungover mind worked overtime.  I took her temp.  No temp.  hmmm....called
our regular vet.  Like any holiday he was gone and had as backup the most
expensive elitist veterinary hospital in the northeast of the US.  Joy.
Called them.  At first I just told them I had a sick vomiting kitty.  They
wanted me to give her some pepto and call back Tuesday.  I had already
tried pepto and she had the pink on her white bib to prove it.  She was
still vomiting up nothing.  So I lied.  I said she had a raging fever.  and
they of course said bring her right in and bring the credit card (we didn't
have one :(  Walking in was $200.  (this is 1980 and that was a lot of
money and we were a lot of poor).

Brought her in, seen by a kindly very young vet who at first didn't think
there was that much wrong with her - no temp (ladadadada) and then she gave
a sickly chirp and opened her mouth enough that it made him curious about
something under her tongue. String.  He cut the string.  Said they would be
keeping her after xrays to see what passed through and they would call.
Meantime, I go home with an empty carrier to the now sleeping
Eventually-Ex.  Told him the cat was sick, I just spent two hundred dollars
we didn't have (my mother gave me a check and she didn't have it either)
and I was waiting for a call about what was going to happen.  He mumbled
then went back to sleep.  Hangover continues raging and I continue downing
ice pops and tylenol.

Vet called.  Her intestines were bunched.  She needed an operation and there
were no guarantees.  Except it would cost another $400.  I was quite matter
of fact, we were poor people, we couldn't do it.  And he said he understood
but I had to go down and sign the papers to put her down.  I didn't want
her to suffer.  Oh, putting her down was another $200.  Told my mother as I
was getting ready to go down there and she said to try and work out
something with them.  Finally making this a short story.  I begged and
pleaded with the receptionist to let me pay them a little from my sewing
money for the next couple of years.  

Shadow survived.  For the rest of her life I was a maniac looking for loose
strings, cellophane, you name it and picking them all up like a woman
possessed. She was one of those kitties with a perverted appetite for them.
I did sew and knit then, but they gave me the string in a jar when I picked
her up.  I had no thread or yarn that color!  It was the color of ALL our
home furnishings.  Rug, carpet, drapes.  eventually-Ex and I scoured the
apt looking for a stray end and never found it.  I don't know what she got
in to.  Many years later there was another close call.  Same vomiting bile.
Took her in (and unbelievable or not, the same vet was on vacation and the
same elite animal hospital on call LOL) they xrayed her and thought this
one would pass.  She did perk up in another day and then I caught her.
Eating a broom.  Aargh.  My Shadow kitten.