Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Vanessa's Xmas Performance
Vanessa’s class at school gave their Xmas performance on Wednesday. It was all very cute.

It was held in the auditorium of the church which houses the (non-religious) school. First Vanessa and some of her classmates were led out, all of them decked out in dress clothes. They sat down on a mat in front of all of the assembled parents, since they were going to watch the first performance from their classmates. Their classmates did an Xmas-themed show where they pretended to be dogs and reindeer visited by Santa. Vanessa’s group did their performance, which had an evil stepmother and a good fairy who doled out Hanukah dreidels which turned into presents (illustrated with pictures drawn by the kids). This was followed by three short seasonal tunes sung by all of the kids. All lots of fun.

Erika caught it all on videotape, which she showed to her mother, who stayed at her place looking after a sleeping Annie. David Roy turned up for the performance briefly prior to heading to work, and was beaming smiles about as much as Vanessa was.

Putting Naomi Down
This all happened yesterday.

Erika and I talked things over about Naomi’s ever-deteriorating state the evening we got back from Deloro. We agreed that the time had finally come to put the poor old girl down, since she was obviously suffering and not likely to get better. So we decided upon Wednesday, which would be my first day off work for the holidays. I volunteered to take her because we both agreed that Erika would most-likely be a mess if she did it – Naomi was her cat after all.

Erika made all of the arrangements. First thing in the morning on Wednesday, I was to take Naomi over to Banks Veterinary Hospital to be put down.

We informed Vanessa what was going to happen prior to her bedtime, and she had started crying. Erika ended up having a long conversation with Vanessa, in the end answering all of her questions as to what was going to happen to Naomi and why.

So in the morning I found the cat carrier, put in a towel for comfort and warmth, then scooped up a feeble little Naomi and gingerly put her inside of it. She was so weak that I had to adjust her so that she was lying down comfortably on the towel – at one point I noticed that she had tipped over and was lying rather awkwardly on her side, unable to right herself.

So at about 8am I started out for the veterinary hospital. I arrived just prior to 8:30am, and I found I was the only “patient” there. The receptionist was nice, and did her best to be consoling. I signed a euthanasia release form, and handed over the fee. I had assumed I would be needed to be there as Naomi was put down, and realizing that I was feeling choked up, I was glad when I had the option not to witness the process. I sat down, and in less than 5 minutes the vet came back with the cat carrier.

“She was a mess” he said. Not said accusingly, just matter-of-fact. I mumbled something about wanting to have done it sooner, and that it was Erika’s decision, but I realized that none of that mattered now. I was simultaneously saddened and relieved as I stepped out the door.

Later that morning, when Erika and Vanessa were out of the house, I took the scrawny little body out of the carrier, put her in a plastic bag and then into a freezer. The plan is to take her up north to Deloro and bury her somewhere alongside the riverbank, close to where “Moon”, Erika’s mother’s dog, was buried several years ago.

Naomi has the odd distinction of having been – to my knowledge anyways – the second cat (after Bill Clinton’s “Socks”) who had a Web page. This was circa 1995 or thereabouts, and when I did it – largely as a joke – I was pretty thorough about checking this fact out, as much as it was possible given the state of search engines at the time. I probably have a copy of those files somewhere – if I find them will look into posting them somewhere as something of a memorial to a fondly remembered and loyal cat.