Welcome to your forever home, floofy dude.

The last time I owned a cat was when I lived in the US, so that’s 2004 and earlier. While in the UK, I’ve co-owned goldfish and a dog, and became a farm cat’s human. They’re all gone now, and after the farm cat passed away this past July, I’ve felt a ragged hole in my heart.

I’ve always had animals in my life. I grew up with pet mice, dogs, fish, cats, and then in adulthood had many more cats, a couple of dogs, numerous ferrets, and rabbits. I volunteered for a big cat sanctuary (which included – literally – lions and tigers and bears, not to mention cows, a camel, pigs, foxes… you get the idea) for many years.

Animals have been a constant for me. Part of me was ok with the non-animal years (I had plenty of turbulent stuff going on), and part of me felt an emptiness. I wasn’t even aware of how deep that emptiness was until the farm cat died. He wasn’t my cat, but lived on the same property we did, was known for being a bit of a dick, and then bonded with me during the early pandemic months as I sat outside during isolation. His death broke me.

That farm cat was an old boy, and I promised him that the next cat in my life would be another older cat, a rescue, and I’d give him or her a beautiful life.

So, here he is. We’ll have updates soon.

I was ever-so-good and went to bed before midnight last night because I had a 9am dentist appointment today.
Insomnia gave me the finger and so I spent the first four hours in bed in an anxious stupor, because my brain decided it was a PERFECT time to try to remember the names of my flat neighbours from 2004-2010.
I could not get to sleep until I 100% remembered at least one of them; she lived two floors down, and was the mother of someone I worked with. We were city living, so didn’t really know any of the neighbours.

I could, however, remember that one neighbour had weed growing under camo cover in his garden (next to ours), and that his flatmate – an older gentleman with great taste in sweaters – died, but I can’t remember if he died because he got stabbed in the neck in a pub toilet, or if something else did him in.

Got to the dentist twenty minutes early. Still no cavities (ever). Might celebrate with a little leftover easter chocolate… and a nap later.

So much more to talk about (pandemic, world events, etc. etc.), but I’m not ready to process it all into words. At least I decided to make this a blog post, instead of a FB post. It’s a start.