Squiggly is sunbathing under my desk lamp. In the process he’s also
scattering a stack of my paperwork, which I’ll have to reshuffle afterward. But
he looks so dam’ comfortable.
He’s stretched out, all 24-plus inches of him, face up, resting on the
back of his neck; his forepaws crossed left over right, his hind legs
paralelled. The tail, another 13 or so inches, is curled between the desk clock
and the computer speaker. The lamp lightens his long gray fur and makes his ears translucent. Apparently he’s
dreaming, because he twitches, and judging from the action of his feet, he’s
dreaming he’s running.
Sadly, that’s the only running he does or is likely to get to do. He’s
a house cat. He doesn’t get any further outdoors than the short footpath
leading to our apartment door and the flower bed in front of the patio wall. He
occasionally gets to pounce at a tiny lizard that lives there but, old and out
of practice, he never catches it.
From what we were able to learn at the shelter, he was probably a
house cat before, and the evidence certainly points that way. He had made it to
age 13 when we adopted him, and I doubt many feral cats would have survived
that long and in the good shape he was in.
Last year, though, he was
diagnosed with diabetes and I had to give him insulin shots. He took them with
no indication that he even felt them, and at times I wasn’t sure I was getting
the needle through all the fur. I guess I must have done it right in spite of
myself because the vet declared him in remission.
Does that count as one of his
allotted nine? I wonder if he used up any before we got to know him.
- - - - -
That was September. I guess you don’t want to count your chickens if
you’re dealing with diabetes, because in January Squiggly started to show the
symptoms again. The vet confirmed them, so it’s back to the insulin shots.
I see lots of advertising for diabetes treatments on TV, and the
humans there always come out of it enjoying bicycle rides or picnicking on the
grass with smiling beaus. Not sure what the equivalent would be for a cat, but I’m hoping that’s how it’ll turn out.
