New wall hanging? Probably not.

There was a story on cnn.com today about a cat who had hitched a ride from its home here in the States over to France via a shipping container after she wandered away from her house. When the container arrived in France the dockworkers called the vet's office listed on her tags and she's now being reunited with her family. Cats... I miss mine. I had to give up my two tuxedos when I moved to Brooklyn. They made me sneeze uncontrollably on a daily basis, made my eyes red and itchy, made my sinuses feel like they were stuffed with cotton, but I loved those little furballs. I wouldn't say that I'm a cat person, per se. I'm definitely more of a dog person, but I loved my own cats. So, I was saddened when my mom told me last weekend that their cat died.

She'd get these bursts of energy in the afternoons where she'd tear through the house and run up and down the steps like she was trying to beat her own best time trials record or something, she did it every day. Well, one day last week she sprinted up to the living room where my dad was on the 'puter and starting heaving like she couldn't breathe. My dad yelled up to my mom to come quick, my mom got downstairs and Kitty (I kid you not, that's her name) looked at her, heaved a couple more times, then laid down and died. It all happened in like 3 minutes. My mom felt terrible because there was no time to take her to the vet or do anything for her. She said it was like she was having a heart attack or something. She was on the floor and it looked like she was just sleeping, but her eyes were open and she was dead.

That afternoon my dad took her to the vet and paid for her to be cremated. The vet sent a sympathy card to my folks, which was super sweet, but my mom said to me, "And they sent something else with it that I'm not sure about. I don't know what to think about it yet. I haven't looked at it and I don't know if I will... it's just weird. You know how little kids press their hands into plaster and you hang it in the kitchen or something, well, they pressed Kitty's pawprint into plaster and I think it's strange. It's like, 'Here, have your dead cat's paw print.'" She said this to me while the man and I were in the liquor store last Sunday (stocking up for Wilma's impending thrash-fest) and I laughed so hard it echoed. I could tell that when she was saying all that about the plaster she was trying not to laugh. It was great. She misses that damn cat, though. What's funny about it is that cat never liked anyone. The only person she ever even acknowledged was my bro, and I think that's because she knew he's the one who picked her out at the pound. She was the runt and she was the only one who played with him, so he picked her even though she was raggedy and goofy looking. *aww* Poor Kitty. She was 10. They got her when I left for college and now she's gone. It will be strange to be there over Thanksgiving and not see her lurking under the dining room chairs, watching to see if any morsel of food drops onto the kitchen floor while deftly avoiding any human contact. R.I.P., Kitty.