kithrup

We got Polly back in mid-2008. She was 8 months old at the time, and, it turned out, pregnant. Then she got spayed, and I'm pretty sure this was a large part of her personality-formation.

We got her because we'd just taken Leo in, and he was too annoying to the senior cats -- not aggressive, but he wanted to play. So we got a younger cat, in the hopes they'd be helpful.

And they *were*. My strongest memory is, after Polly had been allowed free in the house, of Leo sitting in front of her and putting his paw on her forehead, to tell her "Stop what your doing, young lady." He taught her how to *cat*.

And she did well at it. She respected the cat-rules of the house: Norman was the boss cat, and he got the special spot on the bed by me, and that's what made him the boss cat. When we lost Norman, Leo took his spot... but he was not boss cat. He was just a respected cat. He didn't keep the other cats in-line. So Polly did. And she claimed the spot by me.

Polly was a very good boss cat. When other cats would fight, she would run over and hiss and thwack them, and then run away. Running away was her main thing, really -- she would quickly run into the bedroom, and under the bed. We called her our little goth teenage girl. But who still *loved* us, and especially me. In addition to sleeping next to me (making room for Leo, and later Barry), she would also crawl on me on the couch, which we called "velcroing" because she would just *stay* there. Either stretched diagonally across my chest and shoulder, or curled up on my shoulder with her head tucked into my neck and hair.

In summer 2018, she was officially diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma. Same thing that Barry was diagnosed with a few months earlier. I did not handle this well. When we lost Barry, about the only thing that got me out of bed was knowing that I had to keep Polly medicated. (At the time, we were taking her to the nearby vet to be pilled every two weeks, and an injection every four weeks.)

Then we moved to Oregon. And I was very worried about how she would handle this. It ended up being ok -- found a specialist in Portland, and a more local vet who could handle the bulk of everything.

We settled into a schedule. She ate, I could drug her every 2 weeks to pill her, and take her to the vet every 4 weeks.

Then we lost Leo. And got kittens a couple of weeks later. And then that January... she stopped eating as well. She got down to somewhat over 6 pounds. A lot of experimentation, and we got settled down to a schedule again, and she got over 11 pounds!

And then the steroid use, as was inevitable, caused her to become diabetic. And she lost 1.5 pounds in about four or five weeks.

She stopped eating. Last night she lost control of her bladder while on the bed. Today she couldn't walk. I took her to the vet, and her blood sugar was dangerously low, explaining a lot of things. The vet did not think it was going to be possible to stabilize her in such a way we would be able to avoid an extended hospital stay followed by the same emergency when she came back home.

Polly was the best girl. She was an excellent boss cat. She loved me fiercely. She was a beautiful, pretty cat who only tried to love me. I hope I loved her well enough; I will never think I did.

I held her and told her what a wonderful girl she was. I told her to tell Bastet this or I would kick Bastet's ass.

Once upon a time, not long enough ago, there was a boy and a girl. They lived in a place called "San Jose," and they had two cats: "Silly" Selena Kitten, and Norman diCat. One day, while the boy was out getting the mail, he saw a beaautiful house panther across the street. The boy said "Hi Beautiful House Panther!" and the beautiful house panther came over to greet the boy! The boy was very charmed, and went to get some food for the beautiful house panther, who enjoyed the food *very* much, and purred very loudly and let himself be petted by the boy. The boy called the girl out, and she, too, was amazed by the beautiful house panther, and how friendly and lovely he was.

For the next week, the beautiful house panther came by the house to see the boy and girl at the same time every day. The boy always gave food to the beautiful house panther. After a couple of days, the boy also gave a present to the beautiful house panther: a pretty necklace, with the phone number for the boy and girl. The beautiful house panther wore this necklace as long as possible, but after several days, it broke while the beautiful house panther was examinimng a garden elsewhere. Since they did not know the beautiful house panther's real name, they called him Little Boy Cat.

At the end of the week, the boy and girl brought Little Boy Cat inside, where they had a special room made up, with food, water, and a comfortable bed for him. They petted and played with Little Boy Cat for a while, and then let him go to sleep.

The next day, they took Little Boy cat to a very kind doctor, who examined him, and made sure he would not get sick or into any trouble. The very kind doctor told the boy and girl that they had to keep Little Boy Cat for a few days, and keep him calm. So they took Little Boy Cat back to the special roomn for him, gave him some more food, petted and told him what a wonderful boy he was. And almost immediately they realized how much they already loved Little Boy Cat, and decided they would keep him with them forever.

After much discussion with him, they realized that his real name was Leo Pard, Beau Chat. They asked Leo several times if this was truly his name, and he agreed. So with that, the boy and girl had a third beautiful cat, and Leo found his home.

Continued in Part 2.