Californians in the Snow

Good news: We're getting into a routine now that we're all in the same state and things are good for our little family.

Bad news:  Our cat ran away.

Somewhere in between those two things were snow and Thanksgiving.

It's snowed twice since my last post and we were quite unprepared. I had been waffling about which snow boots to buy, mostly because I just couldn't truly accept that I'd be out in the snow enough to justify the purchase of $200 boots that are wildly impractical outside of one very specific weather condition. So I ordered a pair of Bean Boots, which are back-ordered through March 2016 and narrowly avoided breaking my neck while navigating the icy stairs up to our apartment in my J. Crew ankle boots. Lane thought he could just get by with the ultra light down Arcteryx jacket he grabbed from the lost and found at Locanda and a few layers. Elliott was far more prepared than either of us, but we quickly discovered that playing in snow without gloves is not fun. So off to REI we went in the middle of the first snow of the season. Elliott needed a nap, but he needed "glubs" to play in the snow more and I thought it was ridiculous to go out in the middle of the actual snow to get snow gear (why not just wait?), so we were all a little on edge. However, I found a pair of boots I find moderately cute and Lane found some that kind of match mine. The whole family got "glubs" and some hats and we returned home to play in the snow like people who maybe know what they are doing. We made a janky snowman, but mostly really enjoyed pelting each other with snowballs.

Boots and gloves procured, the Milburns make the world's jankiest snowman.

Thanksgiving was a low-key affair, catered by Whole Foods. I thought it would be a good idea to provide homemade baked goods, but by the time the pumpkin pie was out of the oven and the Parker House rolls were embarking on their final rise, I was ready to face plant into my bed. However, I persevered, put on a dress and a little lipstick, and thoroughly enjoyed a lovely meal with my in-laws. Elliott ate a ton of turkey and spurned everything else except the tender insides of a couple of my rolls. Lane made an excellent salad of greens, radicchio, radishes and seven-minute eggs. The pie was a hit and we ate it with scoops of Graeter's ice cream. We spent the rest of the long weekend inside because it was cold and rainy, playing Play-Doh, watching The X-Files and Seinfeld, snuggling, doing the Sunday crossword and eating. On Sunday, we needed to get out of the house, so we bundled up and drove over to Daubenspeck Park to find some puddles to stomp in. We succeeded in finding some excellent mud puddles (and procuring more Play-Doh during a quick stop at Target -- Elliott will play with it for literal hours), but failed in unknowingly letting the cat slip past us as we left, me lugging an Elliott and Lane lugging the car seat down the stairs.

Yes, this is the picture we used on the missing cat flyer. It really captures his personality.

I didn't notice Max was missing until around 4:00, when he usually starts agitating for his dinner. Ted was curled up on the couch, so I just figured Max had found an exceptionally cozy and elusive nap area. Max has managed to find some very obscure hiding spots in his ten years, so I was looking in kitchen cabinets, in box spring linings and behind the couch. After I tore up the apartment, I woke Lane up from his own nap and he went outside to look for him, even though we were 90% sure that he hadn't even managed to get out. It got dark and Max was nowhere to be found, so I cried and freaked out and eventually went to bed, worried about my cat freezing to death. We put up signs all over the complex and I put a note up on our neighborhood message board -- our downstairs neighbors called Monday morning to say they had just spotted him sitting by the little pond behind our building, but by the time Lane got out there, Max was gone. He's been out for three nights now and I'm terrified that he won't come home. He's done this a few times before, twice right after we moved to a new place. I'm hoping he's enjoying an adventure and I know he can survive on his own, but it's my job to take care of him and I feel so terrible that he's out in the cold when he could be inside with us, with a full belly and people who love him. I've been staring out our windows every chance I get, hoping to spot him and I've been obsessively reading my stupid horoscope expecting it to say YOUR CAT ISN'T DEAD AND HE'LL COME BACK TODAY. So please send some good Max-come-home vibes our way. Max has been with me for my entire post-college life and I've gone through a lot to keep him with me during some life moments where I wasn't even prepared to take care of myself, let alone a domesticated animal. It would just break my heart if after ten years together and this bonkers cross-country move, he just sneaks out the door and I don't get to say goodbye.

While trying not to worry about Max, Lane and I unpacked the last of our boxes and found the Christmas stuff. Elliott is super pumped that Christmas (the tree) is at his house, but not excited enough to respect my amateur crafting and not rip up the packing peanut garland I made last year. But he does look super cute with his "Christmas sock" on his head.

Thoughts on pets and loss

A blogger I follow lost her cat to cancer a few weeks ago and, having lost several cats during my 30 years as an animal lover, her loss brought up thoughts of my past losses and made me think about my philosophy of animal care and companionship.

I remember saying goodbye to our cranky cat Buster, who was suffering from leukemia, through the grate in his cage at the vet. I drew him a picture that my mom still has and wrote a note saying how much we would miss him. 

Then there was Boots, my first cat that I was solely responsible for. She was my best friend and would wait for me at our front gate everyday after school. When we moved to a different, busier street, she was hit by a neighbor's car while crossing the street to explore, two days after we had moved in. I screamed and sobbed for days, cursed my parents for making us move and kept replaying the scene of the neighbor jumping out of her car, waving her checkbook and offering to buy us a new one, then of my dad walking into the street with a shovel and a garbage bag. We buried sweet Boots in our new backyard and held a funeral for her where we all said what he had loved most about her and how happy she had made us. 

Sufi scratched at the screen door one night when my dad was out of town and I was visiting my mom for dinner. I opened the door and she just stared at me with her big, watery, ice blue Siamese eyes and cried. She wasn't the smartest cat, so I chided her and pretended to slide the door shut, a surefire trick to get a stubborn cat to make up her mind. But her crying became panicked and I felt adrenaline rush though my chest and knew something was wrong. I scooped her up and her hind legs and tail were limp. I thought that perhaps she had landed weird jumping down from her perch on the fence or was just cold, but when I brought her into the light of the living room, I saw a terrified, confused animal and I didn't know what was happening to her. She continued a low yowl and I did my best to comfort her, but she had gone into that place were sick animals retreat -- the outside world disappears and pure instinct takes over. I called my dad and he was already on his way home from wherever he was. He said to keep an eye on her and make her as comfortable as possible. I wrapped her in a blanket and sat with her all night next to her favorite heater vent. Sometime after I had fallen asleep, she Army-crawled her way into my little sister's bedroom and was shivering, crouched under her desk when I found her in the morning. She had gone completely slack, but still impossibly difficult to move. She kept up her Army-crawl and tried to wiggle her way into a small hole in the bathroom wall that had yet to be patched over after a renovation project. I blocked the hole and then sat with her in the bathroom until my dad came home. We took her to the vet -- me driving, my dad in the passenger seat with Sufi wrapped in swaddling clothes. She had x-rays taken and blood drawn. The vet said she had suffered a massive blood clot that had lodged near the base of her spine, causing the paralysis in her hind legs and beautiful tail that looked like an elegant ink drawing brought to life. He said he could perform surgery to remove the clot, but due to her age (she was 16), she was likely to develop another clot, which would require blood thinning medication, which would in turn put her at risk for bleeding out where we couldn't find her, since she spent significant time outdoors. We are people who go to great lengths to care for our cats and had surgery totally fixed her, we would have gladly scheduled it. However, poor Sufi was confused, in pain and exhausted. In the calculus of quality of life, she would have been uncomfortable and frustrated after any surgery. With tears streaming down our cheeks, falling into the rivulets of my father's wrinkled face, we made the decision to let her go. The vet asked us if we'd like to hold her as they administered the lethal dose and though we hesitated at first, my father reliving past trauma of letting faithful fur companions go, we decided that we owed it to Sufi to be there until her very last breath. Still wrapped in her blanket from home, I held her first as she received the first shot and then my dad cradled her as she received the second shot and drifted away. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do for another living being. As I write this, there is a lump in my chest and those same tears are falling down my face again.

These three losses have made me realize that our animals look to us for everything. We provide love, comfort, food and shelter in exchange for their companionship. They are not objects we own, but equal members of our families and sharers of our lives. When you bring a pet into your life, you make him or her a promise to care for them compassionately and fiercely. Refusing care or abandoning a pet facing major health issues is breaking that promise, but making the hard decisions and sticking it out until the bitter end is living up to that promise. Saying goodbye to a pet is incredibly painful no matter how prepared we may be to face the end. We can find peace in the little life we have given love, comfort and happiness to.