Enthusiasm? Well, that's one way to put it. But I do like you, you petite newbie, so I will share some of my further "enthusiasm" for the "meaning of Life" with you and the rest of the group.
Both my cats, Ceenyonuk the female and Peepuss the male, brothers, had been gotten for free from my American Italian mafioso landlord, Frank LaFranza, on Lexington avenue, in Chicago in 1989.
When I came back from the States, in 1992, I brought them with me. Jet Lag and all. Kennel full of vomit, pee and shit from the distressing ups and downs, but they were there. Waiting for me, patiently at the service desk. (As if they could do otherwise, anyway).
One of the commonest, if not fully explainable, psychologically, dreams, is the "elevator descending to hell" dream.
During one of those despicable times when the dream actually manifested to cause additional mental coffee brews in my mind one night, I was offered the companionship of Ceenyonuk. A rare event, considering that cats have mental spaces of their own and rarely visit the human subconscious.
The elevator was going down fast. And I mean REAL fast. Oh, it did stop, eventually, but, like, you really don't care to know what the place or floor it stopped AT looked like. Dante's inferno would be Disneyland in comparison.
As I was desperately pushing the stop button, I notice a little dark crevice at the bottom of the elevator car. Ceenyonuk winked at me, and communicated clearly that behind the crevice was something that she should attack. Something severely nasty, which should not by any chance enter the car. Now or later.
Before I could make a move to stop her, she attacked the thing behind the crevice by inserting her left paw in there and furiously doing all the regular cute clawing that cats do when they feel threatened.
Six days later, with Margaret at home, drinking coffee and smoking until our asses were grounded for good, I noticed that Ceenyonuk was limping. After I took a closer look at her paws, I became aware that three of her nails had turned 180 degrees and had inserted themselves into her left paw.
The vet next day did not reassure me. 4 times a day baths with Betadine povidone iodine, plus antibiotics plus watching her up close 24 hours, continuously. "You are going to lose her, unless you are VERY careful. She's got gangrene. Unless it goes away, it will eat her leg up..."
So for the next 3 weeks, I stop all programming, and indulge in the usual routine: Iodine everywhere, from the carpets to the walls, on the sofa, on the floor. Prepare the antibiotic for her twice a day, for which I had to use a small syringe because she despised the taste so much, she foamed with disgust every time I gave it to her, leaving large trails of white saliva everywhere.
Saliva and foam everywhere, with her making funny sounds, like munching marshmallows, every time I squirt it in her mouth.
Her paw actually stunk. Pretty bad. It stunk of ptomaine. The entire apartment was stinking for a week. The usual. The sofa had huge blobs of iodine and puss and Margaret could not sit on the living room chairs because they, too, were full of puss stains.
And then the baths: 4 times a day I had to pick her up, by force and squeeze her little stinking paw so that the puss would come out.
I found myself praying to unknown saints and demons asking for help: "If you save my kitty, I will do anything you ask. Name it. Name it you fuckers, you filthy fucking saintly pieces of shit. I will go and pay my respect to monasteries. To churches, to Mount Athos, for crissakes..."
Nobody answered of course, except a little tiny voice in my mind:
"I want her back. I love her too much. Let her go..."
"NO! NO you fucking piece of shit! Not yet. Not my kitty..."
"She is too old and tired. She wants to go..."
Then I get up and go an look Ceenyonuk in the eyes:
"Do you want to go?"
Ceenyonuk makes a strange purring sound, which my paranoia immediately translates as:
"Yes. I am tired. Let me leave..."
Then I start crying, in front of her.
"Ok, I will give you till Thursday. If by that time you don't warn off the gangrene, I will put you to sleep."
This is fucking insane. I am talking to my cat and she talks back to me. I mean what the...?
So the baths continue, for one more week, after I am totally exhausted by the conundrum, foam and iodine everywhere. The cleaning lady almost refused to clean the apartment. On top of that, after the baths, Ceenyonuk would go immediately and sit in her litter box, reinfecting the paw.
Shit everywhere in the apartment, because I had to keep the balcony door shut. My morning routine changed from coffee cigarette, to pick-up-the-stools, first.
Today was Thursday, so I took her to the vet. He told me that I almost burned her paw with the iodine, but the gangrene was gone. The paw is alive, although quite deformed.
I had to hold her in my arms coming back, through the elevator trip. For some reason she was very uncomfortable inside the elevator. She tried to climb up to my head with the persistence of someone who had a very bad experience in this very same elevator, somewhere else, at some other space and time.
So what's the moral of all this? I don't know. Quite possibly either that compassion and love hurts like hell and perhaps this IS the meaning of life or that in fact, under the elevator crevice hid some sort of very nasty demon, called "death", who Ceenyonuk decided she had to confront and attack in order to make an honorable exit.
In any case, _nobody_ takes away from me the ones I love without my permission. Not even death. Cause, you see, even death respects you, when you respect and love death as much as life itself.
Please visit The National Anti-Vivisection Society and help abolish the exploitation of animals used in research, education and product testing.