Thread 5 - TalkExiles: "The Planet Goes On Being Round"

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous lifeboat threads (thread 4).

Gather here all ye refugees from the JTT Flat Earth Society, welcome to the reassuringly oblate spheroid of MN! Ye all already know the answers to the questions "How the heck do I format my post?" "Why can't I edit my typos?" "What do those acronyms mean?" and most importantly, "Where is everybody that I used to know?"

So really we're all here just to chat randomly.

Sorry to hear about Tofu, Angelico; what an awful thing.

They break our hearts, but we wouldn't be without them.

I'm sorry about Tofu, Angelico.

So sorry about Tofu @angelico53 and sending general good thoughts to other poorly thread pets (I know there’s Phoebe and the greyhound but any more have gone from my mind to be replaced by the cat in the picture posted by @Tricyrtis2022 which has probably amused me more than it should).

So sad when our beloved pets get old and ill. When we got a new pup followed 4 months later by two kittens, it was so LOVELY to have youth and vigour in the house again, to not look at them sadly and worriedly, not to think about them dying all the time. Now Dottie is 9 and the cats will be 9 in April, and that’s knocking on a bit. What’s sad is that macman and I agree they will our last pets, as we’re of the opinion that at least one of us should outlive them all.

So sorry @angelico53 and I hope your pets are ok @UnfortunatePoster and @Kucinghitam

@MavisMcMinty I'm trying to convince my husband these should be our last cats too. They are nearly 16 now so we probably won't have them for more than four more years, by which time he will be 84 and I will be 77. He's unconvinced so far though.

Sorry to hear the sad cat and dog stories today; I hope that those can recover do.

So sorry about Tofu. I find that it's harder because non cat and dog people think you will get over it in a few days and nobody wants to talk too much about it.

Brindle greyhound and Phoebe, you really need to get well immediately so that your people can get back to just loving you and not loving you with added worries.

Yes, pets. Listen to the wisdom of The Crow. :)

Non cat and dog people don't know what individuals they are. They think if you get another animal it will be the same relationship you had with the one you lost. But they are all so different.

When our last springer died, we found another springer puppy 2 days later, and got her home 10 days after that. She couldn’t have been more different to Molly! In every single possible way! Then when our old cat died a few months later, we “reserved” 2 newborn kittens who’d been dumped at the vet’s on the same day Beanie Boy died, so I am clearly an “instant replacer”, compared with a neighbour who takes 5 years to mourn each of her dogs who died.

My 5-year old nephew asked - rather judgily imo - “Do you think Molly minds that you replaced her so quickly?”

Poor Tofu. And so sorry to hear of Phoebe and brindle greyhound woes. We love our pets so much so they are such a worry.

I follow a woman Instagram who rescues cats in Brooklyn. She recently rescued a kitten so small that hadn’t opened his eyes yet. He was rejected by his street-cat mum. He’s the most adorable little baby. Last week he caught an upper respiratory infection so she had to set up a nebuliser for him. The video of him hanging on, resting his little head on the side of his carrier broke me and I ended up having a full-on sobbing session (OK there are other things going on in my life right now but this was the final straw). She posted an update yesterday and he’s doing much, much better to my enormous relief.

Then and now:

How unbearably sweet!

It's never a replacement though, is it? My second husband, who I married 18 months after my first husband died, is not a replacement and the relationships are different. Molly was Molly and the new one is the new one.

Not a replacement, no, but in my case something to fill the huge gap they leave in the house. And as they are filling the gap of an old animal, it’s always so lovely to have young healthy ones again! Obviously I worry for the first year of their life they’ll be killed by their lack of experience/silly youthfulness, but once they hit that one year landmark even that worry disappears.

Though sometimes a bit of someone else comes through. Oscar seems at times to be channeling Suzy (ca 1964-1980) my first great cat-love.

Oh definitely! As my cats were born on the day Bean died, I like to think a bit of him flew into them, and I also like to think that they were born at the exact moment he died. I’m a total atheist, btw.

What a beautiful little kitty.

I am grumpy as we were kept awake most of the night by a car alarm. Also ly Sunday plans to pot out seedlings have been thwarted by the weather getting really cold again. So I am off to fiind a tray to house them in the spare room for a few more weeks.

I’m spending my Sunday answering questions about a paper on L. amazonensis treatment. I had a day off yesterday so went to visit my friend for a bracing walk in Cuckmere Haven. We saw a heron and some helicopters.

That's lovely, Mavis. I'd have been thinking the same.

When Toby was still alive I had one of my death dreams - me and Mr T were both dead and we were standing on a causeway that seemed lit from within, while all around us was darkness. As I came to, I realised there was a young man standing between us and that he was an angel who was there to guide us. I asked him who he was and he said 'I'm Toby' and I replied 'Yes, of course you are'.

Oh @Tricyrtis2022 - that made me cry. xx

Me too

Oh dear, sorry! Tbh, I found it, and still find it, enormously comforting. It would be so lovely if my boy was there to meet me.

Can't find a bigger pic at the moment, but here he is warming his old bones in the sun.