Ah, my first pet. Ever. Well, not exactly. I always had fish and hermit crabs but those don’t really count, do they?
We adopted Marmalade just a week after my mother passed away. I was 12 and a half years old and my father was speaking to our veterinarian (later, my boss) who mentioned they had a hospital cat looking for adoption. My dad thought it was time to give me a little more responsibility and get my first pet.
Actually, one of the veterinary technicians I worked with owned Marmalade (known as Samantha (ick!)) but she moved away to an apartment where she couldn’t keep pets. This all happened around the same time my mother passed away so it really was fate that Marmalade landed in our lives.
She is 15 years old and grumpy. I’d chock that up to age except that she was always grumpy. She was a 10 year old cat in a 1 year old’s body. She pretended she disliked everyone but really was a social, loving, maternal cat.
It’s weird to think she could have been someone else’s cat. I don’t think she would have been as wonderful with someone else. When I take a nap, she protects me by screaming and slapping anyone who tries to wake me up. When I’m ill she does not leave my side. She actually follows me around at my heels, which may or may not be a good thing as I constantly trip over her. If I’m bed-ridden she either sleeps by my side or stands guard outside my door. If I move or yawn she comes running to me, sits on my lap and stares at me to make sure I’m not on Death’s door. She won’t eat or drink or use the litter box until I’m asleep and immediately returns so I don’t miss her.
But, of course, when I am a-ok all she wants is her fishes!
Hi, my name is Monica and I have RA.
There are many beliefs about why they do this.
Saachi was always food-anxious and one morning, as I prepared their meal she just snapped. The way Affie’s injuries turned out we figure she had jumped up to say good morning and Saachi just switched.
The dental specialist told us this was the most complex surgery he had done. Her entire lower jaw had separated from the rest of her skull. The right break was clean while the left side completely shattered. Thankfully, the muscles remained intact so it was just a matter of her bone healing properly. Unfortunately, there was a 50/50 chance Affie would be paralyzed on her left side.
She went into a second surgery to remove her rotted teeth (we couldn’t brush them while she was healing) and wires and we found out that everything healed perfectly well. She was 100% healed, no paralysis!
What if dogs relied less on instinct and just spent a few seconds more thinking ideas through?? I guess life with them would not be as entertaining.
I noticed him hanging around the window for about a month before I named and penned him my pet. He was old so he no longer glowed but he was smart. He hung out on my plants to get water then he’d wander around the room.
During the day he hangs out on the drawers next to where I sit. He feeds on crumbs that I leave him. He especially likes chocolate. When I try to take it away from him but he aggressively waves his antennae at me!
I was an only child and there were few other children my age in the vicinity so my parents let me play outside most of the time, running around, playing in the trees, chasing bugs, birds and other wild life. I thoroughly enjoyed my time outside.
But nature was not just abundant outside the home. We kept plants in almost every room of the house. My favorite was an aloe vera plant that probably got a little too much use. I was a curious and clumsy kid. Whenever I fell down and scraped my knees, or cut myself on a tree branch my mother cut a portion of the leaf and rubbed the gel over the wound. That was probably one of my favorite things ever! It was just so neat how a little leaf could produce that cool, soothing gel.
Now, so many years later, I still keep an aloe vera plant in my room. It does not get as much use because I am too terrified of my autoimmunity (I run the risk of infection every time I cut myself) but it’s a nice reminder of my childhood and my love of the outdoors.
