"I took her for a second opinion. Vet number two tested her blood and phoned me a few days later suggesting I consider euthanasia.
I hadn't heard that word since childhood, and immediately recalled a mismatched pair of Japanese schoolboys standing alone in a deserted schoolyard. . .
The doctor's voice called me back from the Japanese schoolyard. "So. The euthanasia," he said. "Are you giving it some thought?"
"Yes," I said. "As a matter of fact, I am."
In the end, I returned to the animal hospital and had her put to sleep. When the vet injected the sodium pentobarbital, Neil fluttered her eyes, assumed a nap position, and died. My then-boyfriend stayed to make arrangements, and I ran outside to blubber beside the parked and, unfortunately, locked car. Neil had gotten into the car believing she would live to experience the return trip, and that tore me up. Someone had finally been naive enough to trust me, and I'd rewarded her with death. Racked by guilt, the Youth in Asia sat at their desks and wept bitter tears.
A week after putting her to sleep, I received Neil's ashes in a forest-green can. She'd never expressed any great interest in the outdoors, so I scattered her remains on the carpet and then vacuumed them up. The cat's death struck me as the end of an era. The end of my safe college life, the last of my thirty-inch waist, my faltering relationship with my first real boyfriend--I cried for it all and spent the next several months wondering why so few songs were written about cats. "
Hey Cory. You should try and make it out here tomorrow.. it'd be great to see you.
click here for official website 2008 World Festival of Sacred Music The Music & Shadows of Bali September 14, 2008 2pm FREE! Center for the Arts Eagle Rock, 2225 Colorado Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90041. Phone: 323/226-1617
(some scientist man)defined domestication as a process by which a population of animals becomes adapted to man and the captive environment by some combination of genetic changes occurring over generations and environmentally induced developmental events recurring during each generation. therefore, a grizzly bear that grew up in a log cabin is not domesticated, my dear Mr. Beers, and neither are wolves.
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