Pining for the Fjords - October 2022

I've been thinking for a while about what to do with this website since I'm now employed. So, with the encouragement of my friends, who seem to think I'm far more windswept than I am... I'm going to start a blog... of sorts.

Now don't get your hopes up, I might just write this and be done with it. I mean, I am not by any means interesting; I am clumsy, opinionated, easily disgruntled, and prone to fits of righteous indignation. I also harbour grudges. I still have some moored in my mind since the year 2000. F**kin' Denise.

Right, I best just get into it then. It's the start of November, so naturally, I'm going to begin this traumatic recap in October, just to let you know how everything's going for me these days.

I had started a writing prompt thing, like an Inktober but for writing. I was quite enjoying it, and was on day four; had just uploaded a limerick about a snake called Randell who couldn't blow out his birthday candles. It's funny, I swear! Settling in bed, I felt quite satisfied with myself, over how funny I was, and am... consistently. Suddenly I got a call from my Sister, which isn't uncommon these days since she got married, but, it was after ten, and everyone knows good news rarely comes after ten PM. I answered and paused knowing some sort of fuckery was about to be dropped on my doorstep. I was right. Also, something that isn't uncommon. The dropping of fuckery on my doorstep and me being right. Just to be clear.

My younger sister, tells me that our Nineteen-year-old cat has to be taken to the vet - and now!

"What do you mean now? What's wrong with Casey?"

She replies, in the strange tone she only uses when she decides she's my ambassador at our parent's house, she is the second oldest daughter after all. It's a mix of faux confidence mixed with dread and a splash of panic. My eldest sibling senses be a -tingling now, and I sense that this call is for me to grumpily remove myself from my warm bed and any notion of having "a comfortable night TM" and to "sort everything out TM".

Having sorted out as much as I could over the phone with my parents - Telling them what would be happening. Not might. Not in the morning. This is what is happening now. Now. Mum starts to cry. I start to cry. We're both crying because we know what's happening next. If I hadn't already made that bloody crystal.

So from our parents' house, my unofficial second in command came with our cat to pick me up and then go to the vet. By this point, it was close to eleven at night, if not a bit after. Younger sister also brought along baby sister. Baby sister is baby sister, and does what it says on the side of the box. A bubble of sweetness and light in an otherwise horrid world and to be protected at all costs. Again, my phone screams at me, and I answer. Younger sister through the groans and anxious laughter of baby sister, requests I bring down a towel with me.

"and some hand sanitiser... and some kitchen roll, if you have it."

You see on the car ride down to my place, baby sister, who is always a sweetheart. Picks up the cat crate and places it on her lap in a bid to comfort a now very disorientated Casey. The crate which Casey is in has metal-grated sides and a metal-grated bottom, and she sits upon a very comfy pillow within. While the baby sister is doing some comforting, Casey decides to have the most epic of pisses, it must have felt like nineteen years worth in one stream. Mostly for baby sister who is now drenched in hot cat piss, younger sister is most likely silently pleased baby sister soaked up most of it rather than her car's upholstery. I can tell you the seats did not come out of this unscathed. We all agreed not to tell Dad.

Luckily the 24-hour emergency vet was only a five-minute drive from my flat. We got there and I was volunteered as tribute to carry the crate, not by the handle, no no. That would be too easy. The handle was broken and the crate had to be lifted with both hands while supporting the bottom. I'm also now covered in cat piss. Baby sister was dealing with the sensory overload of the cold autumnal wind hitting the large wet patches of Casey juice on her sodden skinny jeans. My younger sister had the important job of pressing the intercom and announcing us. We were told the diagnosis would take as long as forty-five minutes and to wait patiently. The vet was back within five. It didn't take them long to conclude that Casey was past any medical intervention. A pretty bad diagnosis, not pretty actually. 100% not pretty, it was ugly, like Brie Larson's big toe. We spend thirty minutes crying, debating, and ultimately saying goodbye to our Casey. I looked at both my sisters, and baby sister was visibly distraught, and my younger sister was putting on a very brave face. I suggested, that if they wanted to, they didn't need to be in the room while it happened. I would do it. Baby sister was slightly relieved she didn't have to witness it, and the younger sister took it upon herself to care for baby sister in the waiting room. I bundled Casey up in my arms from the vet's table and sat her down on my lap. Her body was rigid and uncomfortable, she shuffled to find an agreeable spot before settling. I pet her head and massaged her ears while the vet crouched beside us: "this might take a minute" she said. It didn't. The syrupy-looking green liquid took less than thirty seconds to do its job. Casey's tiny legs relaxed, she then half closed her eyes and slipped away. Through tears, I asked the vet if we could close her eyes completely as I didn't want to scare baby sister. Turns out, cats' eyes when they die don't close completely. They almost have this very sleepy look to them. My sisters return and we all have another big cry.

It's now after midnight, and we finally left the vet. Getting back into the car we are hit by the stench of cat piss, and we all start to giggle, choking on tears and snot. We all remind each other not to tell Dad. Casey's limp and fragile body stayed on my lap on the journey back Home to our Mum. The next day we buried her together. I would tell you about the funeral but, I won't. Apart from this, it provides a very good example of the difference between me and my younger sister. We stopped at a supermarket to get flowers for Casey's grave. I got a reduced bunch of... eehhh, yellow and white whateverthefucks, and my younger sister chose a bunch of hybrid luxury roses. I thought they were for Mum. said as much. "yeah, I suppose Mum would like some too" she said. I loved that cat, but I'd be out of my mind to spend ten quid on flowers to throw on the ground in my parent's back garden.

You'd think that would be it right? That's enough fuckery for the month, right? No. Wrong. I'll tell you about my hamster, John. Believe it or not, he was an internet sensation with many international friends. Little shit was more popular than me! No seriously, there was even talk of merch. Before all the Casey stuff kicked off, he had also been to the vet and had been diagnosed as having a uterus ( turns out he was intersex, I'm not changing a rodent's pronouns). His uterus was infected and he was on antibiotics twice a day. You already know where this story is going, you're smart people. It wasn't just an infection, it was a tumour the size of a plum. My little dude was dying. There was very little I could do, except make him comfortable...and I did. For two weeks he got buttered and jam toast, sugary cereal, popcorn, and all the grapes and apple slices. What? Like diabetes was going to kill him quicker?

He went out in typical John fashion though. Faked his death. On a cold but bright Friday morning, I found him stone cold and unresponsive. At least he passed in his sleep I thought. I picked him up and held him. I cried and I said my goodbyes. I found a nice herbal tea box that he just about fit into - he was a big lad. A chonky boy. I was just about to close the lid and he took a large rasping breath, inflating his entire body, his chubby sides distending the cardboard coffin even more. I had an undead hamster! I tried everything to get him to come back around but nothing was working, I put him on a hot water bottle and turned him every so often like a chicken kofta or something. I took him to the vet within an hour. They couldn't even register his temperature. That's how cold he was. That's why I thought he was bloody dead, OK...and as you guessed I had to euthanize another one of my pets. Life's unfair innit?

He was always spoiled but during these last days, he was even more doated on. Ungrateful till the end he was. That's a joke. I do that. My hamster is dead.

Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to hold him like I did Casey. Hamsters and other small animals are given gas because their little bodies struggle to metabolize the anaesthesia. Sometimes they just don't wake up. That's why operations on rodents are so risky. I had to hand him over and just wait. Luckily my younger sister was there to comfort me. She did this by fiddling with the hydraulic examination table - up it went and could she stop it? No. Not initially. She, through the process of "pressing all the buttons", managed to line the table flush with the work desk then announced that she helped the vet because "look how much better that looks", moving her hand over both like a carpenter admiring their work. Once John was solemnly handed back to me and reminded that I had until the end of the month to pay the bill - (but you know, no rush) Younger sister drove me home with John wrapped in a tea towel.

The most expensive tea towel I've ever bought... or is it more like a souvenir of my pet's death? For every pet death get a free tea cloth or fleece? We got a free fleece with Casey. On the ride home, I accused my sister of wanting John's death so I wouldn't have an excuse not to go to her Halloween party.

Yeah, the night before she called (before ten PM) to ask if I would be able to make it, I said with John being so poorly I best stay at home and make sure he was okay.

"So", she asked, "Will you be able to make it now?"

"I suppose I can, it's what John would've wanted", I reply. I think. I think that's what he would have wanted. He was a hamster, I doubt he had any concept of Halloween or parties. He knew what his wheel was and that I was the human who brought him nice things. When I got him home, I placed him back in the teabox and this time he fit. He didn't look cramped at all this time.

The next day, just as we did with Casey, we buried John in the back garden of my folk's house, under an Elder Tree. Dad's sciatica was giving him jip, so I had to dig the grave myself. A small hole for a small friend. I still have the mud on the sides of my boots. I can't quite bring myself to wash it off. I filled the hole with dried dandelion hay, the last of his yoghurt drops, and I stuck a whole rich tea biscuit in the opening of the manuka honey and chamomile coffin. He liked Biscuits. He would steal whole ones from me, not just nibble or take a piece. He always wanted the lot, it didn't matter if he couldn't carry it.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I miss that little guy! Stupid uterus.

So now after my brief stint as the Grim Reaper, you'd think I was able to concentrate on myself and my new job, right? WRONG AGAIN! I went to my sister's Halloween party, dressed as a homicidal clown, and got into a fight with a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit and a 6 foot 3 inches tall Fidel Castro over my stolen horn. I won't get into it right now. It wasn't my proudest moment, and believe me, the irony of the costume choices was not lost on me. It's a story for another day friends.

I did other things in October too, which I'll save for part two.

See you then. Maybe.