I just sent my husband to the emergency vet clinic to have Hestia euthanized. I feel like such a shit - not about the decision, but about sending J. off for such a horrible errand. What a rotten day for this to happen. Her eyes are dilated, she can barely walk - she can barely hold her head up. She looked miserable. The vet said that these were the signs of liver failure, which happens when a cat stops eating - which leads to some kind of poisoning of the blood that the vet said was very painful for the cat. I'm very sad about her though. If I avoid talking about it I should be okay for dealing with people - maybe they won't ask.

Were dilated. Couldn't walk. Couldn't hold her head up. I made a little cloth for her to lie on and sent him to the vet with her in a carrier and a box for her to come home in, wrapped in the cloth. I figured out what I would have to do last night, that I would bury her under the mock orange bush in front of the kitchen window. Now all I have to figure out how to do is how to deal with me.

The cooking is coming along. I found the hour by hour breakdown of Thanksgiving last year on my old blog and got a good laugh out of the futility of some of my plans. I also got a reminder to do some stuff I hadn't thought of, like baking the squash. Right now I'm waiting for the stock to finish reducing for the stuffing. The moment I added the onions to the bacon and butter mix was just astoundingly mouthwatering. I got a new kind of thick sliced premium bacon (coated in peppercorns!) from the Safeway, and it's just incredibly aromatic. Yum!

In other news ... ( Cat stuff, kind of depressing. Skip if you want to stay in a celebrating kind of mood. )

I thought this was going to be a short day, but I'm barely leaving early. I did get fed by two other people in addition to having my own lunch, so that was nice. Now I have five million errands to run, including getting an analysis done at the vet to see if my cat has any kidney function yet. This could put a chill to the start of my holiday plans, but the rollercoaster of cleaning and cooking will continue whether my hands are held up or down. Fortunately years of practicing emotional repression (where bad things are concerned) will leave me perfectly suited to dealing with guests tomorrow, and of course being busy is good therapy. My guess is that I'll probably wind up having my cat put to sleep on Friday one way or another - it's just the way things are looking right now, since she hasn't eaten since Sunday. I'll just try not thinking about at it until that very moment and otherwise continue soldiering on the next two days. Now I'm going to get the tile.

One of my husband's coworker's has kindly offered to take care of Hestia while we're out of town this weekend (hiding out from what will be a tolietless house). She also referred us to a very good website about taking care of older cats. It looks like it's possible I should take her in for a urine analysis tomorrow to see if her kidneys have finally given out. If they have, I should apparently put her to sleep quickly. ("Once urea levels reach a certain threshold, death is inevitable and unpleasant so most vets recommend euthanasia before that point.")
I haven't seen her eat a thing in two days, though, which means that at this rate, she'll have starved to death before we come back. I feel like I need to make a decision soon - I don't want to have her dying on Suzanne.

I didn't get any of my baking done tonight (although I finished my shopping), but since I went to pilates I think I should really take a shower before I go to bed. I'm planning on leaving work early tomorrow and getting some serious cooking done in the afternoon - and picking up the tile, and possibly going to the vet.

My old kitty is hardly eating any more. I'm cooking her eggs to see if I can tempt her - she only seems to like to lick her food although I can get her to eat ham from my fingers. I have heard her yowling many times downstairs at night - enough to wake me up - and I realized that I hadn't seen any hairballs in a while. I think she's yowling in pain, although I don't know for certain. It's hard to tell if she's in pain generally because mostly she spends all day sleeping in a soft warm place and not doing much. She's down to about five pounds and seems to have bad balance. I'm hoping her appetite will pick up again. Otherwise she looks like maybe she's got two weeks or so left.