I told my cat about Sponge dying and promised to pick her up every day when I get home from work no matter how much stuff I have to do or how late I’m running.
Sparky’s cat looks like it came from the Cthulhu mythos. :)
Dude, that’s bad you lost ya cat. 99.9% of the forums feel for you.
I won’t say what the other .01% are doing. Just know the title ‘wanker’ suits perfectly.
on a good note - if you want a cat you can have mine, he’s going through the whole ‘teenage’ stage of life and been a general shithead. Pictures when I scan them. until then - here’s a similar portrait of how he is.
Thanks for the offer Jason and suggestion SuperTanker. Still deciding. :?
And yes, McCullough, I am taking her today to the doctor to look into that possibility. Do I want to subject her to shots when I could find the kitty a happy home and do I want to give up on my Kitty because my kid is a pansy and can’t handle a few nasal issues. [/quote]
For what it’s worth, my childhood improved tenfold once I started allergy injections. I went from feeling like I had a cold every day to almost perfect health year-round. I hated the shots at first, like any kid, but you get used to them, and it teaches a tolerance for needles and pain in general. And really, growing up wouldn’t have been half as nice without cats.
Stick the kid. 
As the owner of 3 cats and a dog, my wife and I give you our sincerest condolences.
Worst part of today: learning to say “Sponge is gone” without getting choked up That, and realizing she died at age 6; I really blame myself for letting her gain all that weight, which probably caused a stroke.
Best part of today: Prin (my other cat and I) got down on the floor today and ate the smoked salmon I got for Sponge yesterday while we looked at some of her toys and thought about her. And she’s not entirely gone - there’s still cat fur all over the place. :D
You better hope he doesn’t run into any ninja cats, or IT’S ON!
Dude, I’ll send you a catnip D20 if you guys want to run a campaign. A little dungeon crawl might cheer her up.
Sorry about your kitty, Jason.
I kind of did the same thing back in October with my cat. She only ate dry food and I had one of those perpetual feeders that I filled up once a week and didn’t think about much. She stopped eating and it took me awhile to notice, and then another day or two to decide it was serious enough to go to the vet. It turned out she had chronic renal failure, she had gone down to 6 pounds 5 ounces, and she was dehydrated.
You know what you get when you google “feline chronic renal failure”? A few informational pages and a whole bunch of kitty memorial pages.
So it became like a cat nursing home around here. I got her back, but I still have to give her subcutaneous fluids every day (that’s basically giving her a needle hooked up to an IV bag). The vet says she’s walking a tightrope and it doesn’t take much to push her off. I’m supposed to teach in the UK this summer and have gotten a roommate basically so there’s someone here to shoot up my cat while I’m away.
I get choked up thinking about losing my cat, and she’s an old fart (18). I’m glad you have another one with you.
[quote=“Sparky”]
Dude, I’ll send you a catnip D20 if you guys want to run a campaign. A little dungeon crawl might cheer her up.
[/quote]
That is the most adorable picture I’ve ever seen. Man.
Dean, I hope your cat lives forever. It’s good to see you taking such good care of her.
Yeah, having another cat around at least means you don’t keep looking for a cat under your feet only to see nothing – that’s what it was like after Bill died after 17 years last year. There were NO kittens available at the time (Cats lose interest in sex during Vermont winters – seriously!), so it was a weird couple of months.
I was holding out for kitten since we had the baby, and adult cats often don’t adjust too well to them. I finally broke down and got Mitty the 23-Toed Wonder Cat from the shelter when it was too weird not having a cat around, and then got Walter (the kitten) about six weeks later.
It’s still weird having a cat around that doesn’t have the personality of Bill. Wally is a great, friendly cat, but the interaction’s different.
[size=2](Mitty didn’t really work out, so we sent him off to live with a nice Quaker couple…)[/size]
YOU NAMED YOUR CATS, IN REVERSE ORDER, “WALTER MITTY”!
Yep. Mitty was about 3, and was named “Mittens” when we got him. Too cutesy, but we didn’t want to confuse him.
Walter came along because I wanted to keep the tradition of my previous two cats’ names going: Willy and Bill. Thus, “Wally” is what we call him. Walter just made sense to go along with Mitty.
Mitty, however, (1) really wanted and deserved more attention than he could get in a house with another cat and a baby, and (2) had the stinkiest cat poo in the history of domesticated felines. One of my wife’s coworkers was so fascinated with him that she and her husband actually took pictures of him because they thought he was so majestic and cool. Then about a month later their cat died from age-related problems. So Mitty went on to a new home, and everyone lived happily ever after.
Meanwhile, poor Bill still sits on the bookshelf. We were waiting for Spring so we could plant something nice over him. So he’ll finally get to go outside one last time soon…
Edit: I should add to that last paragraph that, yes, he was cremated…
Oh, they look sweet, but they are both Chaotic Evil.
The fact that you’ve learned from experiance now? For me, it’s like you have to work through guilt before you can get to a place where you’re richer from the experiance. But experiencing the guilt itself really doesn’t add much to the lesson.[/quote]
But if you don’t have any guilt or sense of remorse, why bother to learn? Just go happily on with your life instead, and forget whatever it was that you might’ve learned otherwise.
I’m not saying that carrying boatloads of guilt around is helpful, but that a small amount, namely, enough to spur you to actually learn, is sufficient. Give it up after that. (That’s where the whole Catholic absolution thing comes into play).
As for Buddhists, if you’ve converted to Buddhism later in life, you’re probably thoughtful enough that you don’t make quite so many mistakes that you’d feel guilty about in the first place :)
Oh, they look sweet, but they are both Chaotic Evil.[/quote]
From cats I would expect no less. Apart from maybe Indifferent Nonchalant. I really love the attitude that cats have, that basic ‘fuck you’ vibe that they put out. When they want food, they demand it. When they want affection they demand it. When they’ve had enough of you stroking and petting they thinking nothing of having a swing at your eyes!! At the end of the day, it is clear that all cats are basically women at heart.
Sorry about Sponge, Jason. I was away on a scholarship when my mum e-mailed me to tell me our had cat died. Somehow really shook me up.
Well, there’s nothing I can really say that everyone else hasn’t. I’ve lost my share of pets, too, and it never gets easy. I am very sorry for your loss, Jason.
There are many reasons to learn, the least of which is to keep from feeling guilty.
I think feeling remorseful or guilty is appropriate if you’ve committed some sort of crime. But I am talking about guilt in the sense of self reproach for a supposed inadequacy that you really had no control over. In that sense, it’s a completely useless emotion. In fact, you often have to get past feelings of guilt to realize any valuable life lessons. If you don’t, you end up learning the wrong lessons precisely because you feel so guilty. In this sense, it’s a liability to learning life lessons.
From The Art of Happiness (His Holiness the Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler):
Background: The Dalai Lama reported that he once casually discouraged a middle-aged monk from starting a particular high-level practice, because it was physically demanding and usually started by monks in their mid-teens. He later found out the monk had killed himself in the hope of being reborn in a younger body to effectively do the practice.
Cutler: “That must have been hard on you when you heard.”
The Dalai Lama nodded sadly.
Culter: “How did you deal with that feeling of regret? How did you eventually get rid of it?”
H.H. the Dalai Lama: (after silent reflection) “I didn’t get rid of it. It’s still there. But even though that feeling of regret is still there, it isn’t associated with a feeling of heaviness or a quality of pulling me back. It would not be helpful to anyone if I let that feeling of regret weigh me down, be simply a source of discouragement and depression with no purpose, or interfere with going on with my life to the best of my ability.”
Like Andrew said, this seems to be saying Buddhists should use the motivational aspect of regret, but let go of lingering self-reproach, as that is likely to be discouraging.
I do believe one can be motivated to learn without feeling regret. I have just finished teaching a course for the first time. I have a lot of notes regarding class changes – exercises I chose, the ways my lectures were organized, and the relative proportion of time I spent on each subject – that I’ll incorporate the next time I teach. These students did not get “the best” of my teaching ability, simply because I had less practice at this subject. I am motivated to make changes and learn from my mistakes, so I can become a more effective teacher. However, I don’t consciously feel guilt or regret for the current class. I tried to do a good job each week (and have no illusions that I was always giving “100%”), but am satisfied with my performance. This seems like motivation without regret to me, at least.
Of course, now I’m feeling regret for the thread derail, but we don’t have a digital camera, so I can’t post pictures of our cat…
It’s not a derail; guilt is a significant part of the loss process.