*sobs*

With that glass coffin, it's only a matter of time before 7 dwarf hamsters arrive.

This reminds me. I got a small hydrangea and the perfect place for it is in the location where we have two cat graves. I really really do not want to put my shovel in to that soil, in that the locations are not that specific at this point.

On the other hand, the hydrangea will do very well, probably.

That's why I can't keep hamsters anymore. It tears me up too much when they die.

I'm such a weenie, I'm crying now.

Why did I look at that.

I took one of my cats to the vet early this morning for her yearly shots, and we got delayed because a couple came in with their cat, which looked like it was having a seizure. All I could see were the cat's stiff legs sticking out of a blanket they'd cradled it in, but it was meowing loudly, so I figured it must be some kind of seizure.

The couple were in their late 50's or early 60's. They were both in their sweats, like they'd just gotten out of bed. She was holding the cat, and I heard her say, "Come on, now. We're going to make you feel better. Hold on, now." And the cat kept yowling, but stayed rigid.

They were hurried into one of the exam rooms, but a tech took the cat from them to "put a catheter in." I knew what that meant, from when we brought our Lola in many years ago when she was dying from a cancer in her leg muscle. When the couple came out of the exam room, they were empty-handed, and the woman was crying. What a horrible way to spend a stormy Monday morning.

The day we took Lola in, we'd planned it in advance, because she'd stopped eating almost a week before, and we had been looking for various options to treat her for over a year. (It turned out there were no good ones.) I took a day off work so Lola could lay out in the yard all day, which she usually only got to do for a half hour or so at a time. She was asleep on the front porch when we woke her up to go to the vet. I think she had a good last day just like this hamster did. She was 17 years old, and happily, the cancer only really gave her problems in the last few weeks.

Giving our animals a peaceful end is one of the hardest things we'll ever have to do, but we owe it to them, I'm convinced of that.