How to know when a day stinks

Today was the day I took Favorite Maid’s cat Romina for spaying and feral outside kitty Penelope for killing to Veterinarian Lorraine Sellers in Mulege. I felt not unlike the Grim Reaper. Lorraine’s last surgeries were today. She will be leaving for California in 8 more days.

We were at last able to capture the white cat Penelope who had developed a huge growth on her head. When I described the cat’s condition to Lorraine last time I saw her, she asked me if Penelope had any white on her head and then she said—ah, often white cats can get cancerous growths on their heads. Penelope displayed bizarre behaviour such as hissing at me sometimes while I fed her, but I could see her behavior was radically changing lately to the point she that was constantly hissing and even fluffing up her tail in anger but still pursuing me to get the food. It was getting to the point that she was menacing to feed. I told Esperando that I thought she needed putting down. We’d made several attempts to trap her in the past, but she never was around those times. It was as if she had an inner sense that told her not to show up on a given day. This time she was easy to catch. When I shut the door on her, she immediately started hissing and her companion Mrs. Moustache raced away, but came back to hang around the crate and talk to her friend when we went back inside.

At the appropriate hour, I packed Romina and Penelope into the car and off we started to Mulege. I had not noticed Penelope’s crate reeked of cat urine. In any event once I got into the car and started away, I almost gagged. I wasn’t looking forward to this drive. I wasn’t 20 minutes down the highway when my next act as the Grim Reaper was to murder a roadrunner. As I drove into a deep dip, he was flushed onto the highway. He couldn’t gain enough altitude and smacked into the windshield. None of this seemed very propitious. It was a beautiful sunny Baja day, but an increasing crappy one for my state of mind.

I was still feeling rotten about the roadrunner, when Romina started crying and scratching at her crate. Now Penelope joins her and both cats are meowing, although I think Penelope must have a tumor in her throat too, as her meow is very hoarse. It seemed odd she was no longer just hissing, that she now remembered how to meow. I thought, ok, they have both been really calm until now, but were tired of being in their crates. I made reassuring nice person noises hoping they would calm down again. Then our already foul air is permeated with a richer essence of hot cat poop. Poor Romina is in a tiny crate and can’t distance herself from her excrement. She keeps trying to bury it which makes the truck even smellier. It struck me then, this is what they mean about ‘stirring up shit.’

When I arrived at the clinic I apologized for the smelly state of my charges. One helper put Romina into a different crate and handed me the filthy carrier like it was all my fault. Lorraine took one look at Penelope and agreed she was a goner. Poor kitty! As it turned out, they found several more tumors developing on her head; I think her body was probably riddled with cancers too. So maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, perhaps she has been spared more suffering.