R.I.P. Charlotte Bronte 1996-2016

On Friday morning (September 2) I had to have my 20-year-old Siamese cat, Charlotte Bronte (named because at 5 weeks of age she looked like Charlotte Bronte's little kid gloves on display that week at the New York Public Library) put to sleep.  She had fought the good fight and stayed with me on a lot of expensive medicine, but Wednesday she hadn't eaten and Thursday morning I woke up to find her lying in the litter box.

This is the first time I have had to be in a petless house in over 40 years.  Tomorrow will be my 41st anniversary of sobriety in AA.  It was my beagle Paulie, who got me sober.  I stopped drinking because I could see that I was not taking care of him;  he had  epilepsy and I would forget to give him his medicine because I had passed out.  Since then I have had two more dogs and four cats.

My house will not be petless for long.  I filled out an application with an organization that has pets for adoption and if I don't hear from them by the weekend I am going to go to Petco and see who is there.  And my partner has her enormous tuxedo.  (I will only be adopting one cat because I have promised her that if anything happened to her I would take him.)

Here are some photos.

She saw me through two jobs, a complete life transformation when I began singing, two dogs, and two cats.  She sat on my lap when I was working.  It's lonely enough being isolated working here alone.

I feel that her spirit is still in the house.