Romeo and Juliet

How did I forgot to tell the Internet about my boy cat becoming a girl cat? It's not the kind of thing you're supposed to forget.

While we were in Cape Cod this summer, I got a call from our cat sitter who thought Romeo was acting a little out of character. She came over one day and all of a sudden he wasn't eating, and was curling up next to the litter. She kept an eye on him for a couple hours and then decided to take him to the vet.

Back in May, he had a urinary blockage that prevented him from peeing. He was in a lot of pain and we got him to the hospital before any permanent damage was done. The bill was high but we had pet insurance, and were hopeful it wouldn't happen again. The vet said that if he was blocked again in future, the process would be the same and he'd likely keep getting blocked for the rest of his life. Lots of pain, lots of expense. In that 'unlikely' event, they'd consider surgical options. Well Romeo had been motoring along just fine (once I stopped torturing him by holding him down to force pills into him) but the stress of us leaving again for another vacation was the straw that broke his furry little back. He was blocked again in August but this time they couldn't unblock him, and the previously unlikely surgery was now necessary.

So while away in the Cape, we made arrangements over the phone for him to go straight into surgery. That surgery was very expensive but was very effective and worth it. He's now the happiest cat in the world, back to his old self, and peeing up a storm. He's so happy to be home, and we're happy he's back.

The surgery itself is something that no one hears about, but can't be that uncommon for male cats. Since he was never going to be able to lead a normal urinating life like his brother, they had to remove his boy parts and give him a girl part. That's right, Romeo is now Juliet.

Wackadoodle

I didn't realize, until someone pointed it out recently, that I hadn't posted in two months. I'm not sure where the time went or why I didn't feel like posting anything. Things are great at home and at work. Those courses I was dreading teaching? It kills me to admit this but I got a lot out of them, and perform my daily duties that much better because of things I learned from my own course material. We teach another session in Toronto at the end of November, I'm looking forward to the trip.

Apart from that, Ken and I are keeping busy like usual. Ken more so than me. For the first time in a while, I had a season where I just couldn't find the right activities to join. I'm looking into solutions but I've felt like a bit of a bum only having one scheduled activity a week this fall.

The reason I've come running back to post is because I once again need to pour my sense of outrage onto the Internet. Reading the news does that to me. Apparently if Ken were to start dating someone else, I could just kidnap her and try to kill her because the punishment? The punishment is two days in jail. TWO DAYS. What the hell is that, Internet? I'm asking you.

I didn't bother reading the full article. It's the crazy astronaut love triangle story that I followed when it happened, and it's popping up in the news today because I guess the nutjob got sentenced. One assumes that if she got two days, there must be a story behind that. But I don't even want to read it. I don't want to know why a judge would turn her back out on the street immediately and give her a year's probation. Probation is nothing. This woman has three children but pre-meditated a crazy scheme to kidnap and kill someone.

It really gets me that we all have to control our impulses every day but other people can just let their crazy out and get away with it.

I've been undecided about whether to post about Natasha. Natasha and I worked together for a while at my last job. She was such a wonderful person. The few times we got to hang out away from the office, we had a great time. She was such a pleasure to be around. And not just smart and fun, but beautiful and a cat person too. When do you see that kind of combination?! Ha. But what happened is that she moved back to Montreal and was kidnapped and killed in early October. She was missing for days before her body was found. The newspaper hasn't said what happened during those days, but there thankfully was a DNA match found at the scene that matched a convicted criminal. Someone she didn't know, and had never met. Someone who got to her as she was going to her car after a long day at work.

This man has been arrested and jailed for a few short years for trying to kidnap a young girl. But now? Now he has been out a couple years and then he kidnaps and kills Natasha. No wonder these horrible, disturbed people do what they do. They know there's no consequence. Not a consequence that is enough of a deterrent to prevent them from these horrors.