Requiem

Yesterday this blog went from being the official chronicles of a geek, his cool wife, their cute kid, and their three pets to being the official chronicles of a geek, his cool wife, their cute kid, and their two pets. Our most recent four-legged acquisition (sometimes known as our backup cat) had to be euthanized.

Charlie was in a position to be rescued by us (unequivocally to be read as "my wife, with my shrugging assent") after two different families ditched him upon discovering that his favorite "substrate preference" (place to pee) was on people's clothes on the floor. He did that a few times to us, too, when we slipped in our vigilance to keep all soft fabrics tucked away in dressers or hampers at all times. He also was a bit skittish and antisocial, had to have several fang-ity teeth removed due to abcesses ... the cat had problems, but none of them were game-enders. But over the weekend my wife, in rapid succession, noticed Charlie was looking thinner, felt some weirdness in his abdomen, took him to work, and ran a battery of tests that indicated kidney failure with a probable root cause of cancer. By Monday he was getting worse rather than better despite receiving round-the-clock veterinary care, so we decided to let him go mercifully before his condition deteriorated even more painfully. He was seven and a half years old.

I don't really have anything else insightful or even snarky to add, but just wanted to acknowledge the event and the fact that, despite being a deeply weird and often difficult animal, Charlie will be missed.