Yes: It is a purple wrap on the broken left leg of a stray black cat who now
lives in our garage. Unlucky! Yes: He’s been at the vet for the last two
days because he was sitting on the back porch, suspending his leg in the
air, staring at me, waiting…for two weeks. Unlucky! Yes: The vet
told us the cat had been in a cat fight (what cats do this time of year,
turns out), and that the cat’s left leg was broken and dislocated.
Unlucky! Yes: A board-certified surgeon would be very happy to operate for 1500
clams. No, thank you. Unlucky! Yes: He’s sucking on aspirin and
catnip–the feline equivalent of an Elvis cocktail. Unlucky! Yes: He’s been
hanging around since January; the vet described him as a dog-like cat.
Which explains why I like him, just a little bit. And they dropped the eu-word with a $30 price tag, before I asked, "What, won’t it eventually heal?" Yep. It’ll heal, but he’ll be gimpy, slow, stiff and,
well, prone to losing fights. "Maybe he’ll learn not to
fight." D. and Ph. have been calling him Pepe ever since he showed
up in January, made his way to our porch after droppers left him behind. When I picked him up from the vet today, his name transformed homophonic to Paypay. Unlucky! Yes: if I start a photoblog one day, I’ll take comfort in explaining less, letting the images reveal their abundant, ridiculous truths.
You’re a good man.
It’s good to hear that someone didn’t take the “eu-word with a $30 price tag”.
I told my students that bad luck was visiting earlier this semester when the cat showed up. Then, today, when the subject of the cat’s mending surfaced (somehow?), a few of them gave me a really hard time about even mentioning the possibility that it could be laid to rest over a broken leg.
It’s healing well, I guess; working through the spontaneous reflex-twitches like when a cat gets wet and tries to shake off, limb by limb. I should have also explained that the vet’s price for euthanasia was one small itemization in the larger list of surgery options…(blah blah)…pet cemetaries and cremation. I ignored most of what followed her calm reference to the $1,500 price tag for full repair. The cat would have to be able to adjunct one whole composition section at the U. to cover that bill.