September in Review

September has come and gone, and now on this early October morning, I have to share my reading experiences. Well, I do not have to, I want to. The biggest problem with this being October is I am very very far behind on my reviews, I still have books from August to review. I will hopefully begin working on this starting later today. So, on to September. I read 18 books this month. Some were really good, while others were really bad. My favourite read for the month is hard to choose. So, my top five (in no particular order) were:

Mister Pip
Peony in Love by Lisa See
Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda
Golden Fool by Robin Hobb

The break-down. I read four sci-fi/fantasy books:
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (for the Cardathon)
Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green (for the R.I.P Challenge)
Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green (for the R.I.P. Challenge)
Golden Fool by Robin Hobb (Counts for the Cardathon Challenge)

I read some non-fiction, which I seem to be doing very well at lately. I read:
Why We Read What We Read (Which actually greatly disappointed me)
Baptism of Fire (Really interesting)
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda
Be the Pack Leader by Cesar Millan
Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan
The Staircase Letters
The Dangerous Book for Dogs (A parody, but does have truthful information)

I read two of the books short-listed for the Booker:
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (If this book wins, I am never following the Bookers again)
Mister Pip (I hope this book wins. It's my favourite of the three I have read, and the only reason I have not read the other three is because one just became available, one takes several weeks to ship, and one is not available. So, I read what I could easily read.)

I read a few Canadian books:
Baptism of Fire
Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje (for my Giller-a-thon)
October by Richard Wright (for my Giller-a-thon)
The Staircase Letters

(More Giller-a-thon in October, I got a bit side-tracked!)

The other books I read were:
Mademoiselle Victorine (Horrible book)
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (started off slow but was really good by the end)
Peony in Love by Lisa See (Great historical fiction book)

Challenge Break-down:
2 Giller-a-thon books (Diversadero and October)
3 R.I.P. Books (I hope to read more in October. I just was not in the right mood for this genre last month).
2 Cardathon Books (Ender's Game and Golden Fool)
3 Four-Legged Friends Books (Cesar's Way, Be a Pack Leader, and The Dangerous Book for Dogs)

My least favourite reads of the month...
Mademoiselle Victorine
Why we Read What we Read
The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Biggest disappointment of the month?
October by Richard Wright. (Do not get me wrong, I really liked that book, but I have been reading him for years, I always get excited about his new books, but I cannot seem to get into them. I keep expecting a book that is better than his Giller and Governor General winning book, and I have not seen it yet. But, until I do, I will keep reading!)

I will review the books that I have not reviewed already sometime soon!

This month was interesting. I seem to have bailed on the R.I.P. challenge. The thought of some of those books just did not work for me last month. I hope to read a few more this month, but not sure how that will work out.

The biggest thing in September was losing Sandy. I am still having some issues with that. Things are getting better, but when I wake up in the morning I still have moments where I expect her to be there. Then I wake up fully, and I am sad. Sometimes that will happen through the day, I will have moments where I hear things and think 'that's just Sandy doing something' and then it will register with me that she is not making that noise. It has been hard. I also lost two cats, too, and I have similar moments with that. I come home at night and there is no cat to let in, I don't use the top of the dryer because that is where their food dish used to be (habit), etc. I am still not used to having such a quiet house.

So, it would not be fair to review the month without the final good byes.

Snowball
14 Years Old
February 1993-September 2007

Sam
15 Years Old
May 1992-September 2007

Sandy ('Rascal')
12 Years Old
August 1995-September 2007
(Also included in above picture are 'Baby' Atra and 'Baby' Miko)

September was a horrible month. I have had all three of those animals since they were really little, and I was not that old either. I picked them out, named them (well, I called Sandy 'Rascal', but my father named her), and cared for them for years. Thanks to everyone for all your well-wishes! At least I have my challenge going on!

My Animals

I mentioned as part of my challenge posting about the special animals in your lives, so I thought I would give you a run down of mine. These are all the ones I have lost recently, I will post about my three surviving cats in another post. This is a rather long post... I have had a lot of animal deaths lately.

It's about time I got around to posting the pictures of all the various animals that I have been talking about lately. On the right, we have Snowball. When she was put down a couple weeks ago, she was 14 years old. We got her from the animal shelter when she was about a year old. I picked her out and named her. She was not a 'lap' cat for most of her life, but the last few years she became very friendly. I was very blessed in that all the animals in this house liked me, they would jump on my lap when I was sitting down or come and sleep with me at night. I was always covered in white fur from quality time with Snowball. This is my favourite picture of her.

On the left here, we have Sam. It is very interesting that I named Sam before we got Snowball. Sam is much more original than Snowball. Sam was my first official pet, but he was the cat that everyone liked all through his life, so I found myself competing quite heavily for his attention. My parents let me get Snowball after I got tired of never officially having a cat because he was always off somewhere. That is not to say that Sam did not like me, he knew where to find me if he was hungry or needed to be let out. We spent time together too, he was a bit of a brat when he was a kitten, but for the rest of his life he was the most lovable cat ever! When we put him down he was 15. He was the lap cat, always was. He was also the hunter, although Snowball tried but never seemed able to catch anything. Sam would come home crying for attention with some present in his mouth. Actually, he left us a present a few days before my mother put him down.

Mittens was the annoying cat of the bunch. He was too lovable, he would not go away and he would get annoying sometimes. He would have his face in your face with the most delightful kitty breath for you to experience. (ha) We got him the same time we got Sam. He was supposed to be my sisters cat, and when he was younger he was, but when he got older he adopted me. My sister is not an animal person, really. She likes them when they are small. He got very thin and sickly when he got near the end, but I still held him and he spent many hours in this very room with me. He was meek as anything, but he LOVED Sandy. I have so many pictures of him with Sandy. It was the cutest thing ever, Mittens would give Sandy baths and rubbed up against him all the time. And, when I was looking for some pictures for my frame I found pictures of Mittens and Shelby sleeping together. I think Mittens was a year older than Shelby, so they were both pretty little and curled up together. Cutest thing ever! The picture is Mittens and Sandy. Shelby died before digital cameras appeared in my house. We put Mittens down at the end of last year.

Shelby was my first dog. I loved that dog so much. When my parents got divorced my father decided that he could not seem to get at my mother, so he decided to get at me. He took Shelby away with him. I was devastated, and one day I went outside and saw him kick Sandy because she was barking. I fought for Shelby, but all I ever got was visitation. My father rather lacks in the parenting skills. He used to make Shelby pick who she wanted to come to. Needless to say, when she died I felt like I had all ready lost her. The official story is that she was outside and slipped on some ice and went out in front of a car. Whether or not that is what really happened, I will never know. Shelby was developing arthritis, so her injuries would have been too much for her to live with. I have to scan a picture of her, I do not have any on my computer. She died, I would have to say, about 7 years ago. She was only 7 or so. I never got enough time with her at all. Sandy always missed her big sister too. (Same parents, different litters, that makes them sisters, right?)

Shelby was interesting. She was very quiet and she seemed to age quickly, she was an adult very quickly. Sandy still has puppy moments in her double digits. Shelby was the more responsible dog, if you will. She did used to steal Sandy's food, though, because Sandy was scared of the noise her food dish made if it was scraped across a hard surface. I shared Shelby with my father because officially Sandy and Shelby are his dogs, but he always liked Shelby better. While I loved Shelby and I still miss her, Sandy was more my dog. My father abandoned her, and my mother used to mention giving her back to him after Shelby died but I absolutely refused. I might not have paid for her, but I refuse to let anyone tell me that Sandy was anyones but mine. I played with her, spent time with her, fed her, took her for walks, slept with her, read with her, and everything else you can possibly do with a dog.

Then, me and Tom decided that we were going to start getting animals. He is the cat person, I am the dog person. Do not get me wrong, I love cats, but dogs are my first choice. Cats are also easier to move around and find housing for, so we got Lana. Lana was the most expressive and active cat I have ever met. She had a personality that was amazing in a cat. She was Tom's cat, though. It's what happens because they see him more than they see me, so I am just a source of food to them. I normally am also the one that yells at them for getting sick everywhere, missing the litter box, or knocking things on the floor. Tom has adopted the strategy of ignore the throw up unless I point it out, only clean the litter box when he has to, and leaving things on the floor unless they are important. (This is why I think the cats are devils and he thinks they can do no wrong. hehe) Lana was taken too soon, though, she had a presence and you can still feel it in Tom's apartment. I have noticed that Tom is trying to teach Tolkien some of Lana's tricks. I am back to thinking we have a devil cat, he is back to thinking that everything bad that he does is cute. Tolkien was exactly what we needed. Lana will always be missed, though, we put her down in January.

Then, another recent loss was Maggie. Maggie was the princess. She was the last animal that we brought into our house, and for that reason she was special. We were older, if she was still alive now she would be about 11, so we remember her better. She loved cheese, she would climb up your leg for a piece of it. Thinking of her is sad because she was put down for the same thing as Sandy. It was just before Christmas, almost two years ago, and I noticed she was acting strange. I picked her up and when I put her back down she almost fell over. Her walk was weird. Sandy was outside on Sunday and when I saw her walk it reminded me of something, but I was so concentrated on her that I could not place it. Yesterday when she was put down and I learned what was wrong I remembered. She hated the snow. Actually, she pretty much hated the outside. She was the reason we had to get a litter box for the first time because instead of going outside she would pee in the furnace vents. She always loved my room for some reason, in both of the houses that she lived in with us. I have tonnes of pictures of her in both, and it is moving back and forth from my book room to my bedroom closet that she spent her last days.

All of these lead up to Sandy. Today was long, last night was long. My house is so quiet. In about two years I have gone from having 4 cats and a dog to having nothing. There are no animals sleeping on my bed, no animals jumping on my lap, no animals looking for food or to be let out. I went to Tom's last night for a bit because we still have three cats there, but none of those cats are lap cats. They just wanted me to feed them and let them out, so I really did not find any comfort there, it was just nice to have animals moving around me. I feel so lost without Sandy, though. I come home and I expect her to come and meet me and she doesn't. I hate the quiet, you have no idea how loud a dog breathes until you can't hear it anymore. I honestly do not know how I am going to do the no dog thing. When Shelby died I still had Sandy, this time I have nothing. And, I am glad that my animals spent so much time with me, but I seem to be taking all of this a lot harder than my mother and my sister. I honestly do not know how they do the no animal thing, it seems so foreign to me. If you did not notice, the last three animals that we were put down were all mine... they might have been family pets, but I picked out and named the cats. Sandy, well, you have heard a lot about her lately.

Animal Update

Today, well, sucked. My mother changed my appointment that I had made for the dog without asking me, so I was mildly annoyed. Then, she decided that since I had decided if Sandy was really bad I would put her down, she would put the other two cats down. So, I woke up to my mother taking the cats to the vet this morning.

We got one of the cats, Sam, in 1992. He was just over 15. The other cat, Snowball, was my first official pet. She was 14. The cats had long lives, I give them that, but I am not sure I totally agree with my mother putting them down. I keep 'seeing' the cats and then it dawns on me that for the first time in my life, there are no cats at my mothers house.

And, while I have tonnes of pictures of both cats, dating back to the kitten years, I don't seem to have any on my computer right now. As to Sandy, I am not sure. We only gave her a look over, the vet says she is going to need x-rays and tests to find out what it wrong with her for sure, but all of her options are not life-threatening. I thought there was something wrong with her stomach, but the vet does not think that is what it is. Her gagging is a cause for concern, it could be something ver minor or it could be something very serious. It is the only thing that doesn't go with what she thinks is wrong with her, and that is that she has a thyroid problem. Then, she has arthritis, but I knew that already. Her sister had it super bad, and she was younger than Sandy is now when she died.

So, summary, I have no cats in my house anymore which really sucks and me and my mother argued over at the vet, but I might end up keeping Sandy afterall! I need to decide about the tests, though, one of them is 400 dollars. Sandy is 12. I don't want to put her through unnecessary stress at such an elderly age. You multiple by 7, right? That means in people years she is 84. The vet said that other than being overweight and what might be causing her to gag, she is doing pretty good for such an old girl.

The above picture is old, it is Sandy and Atra when he was a kitten. Atra is a HUGE cat now, so it is rather funny. Actually, when we first got Atra he used to stay here and Sandy treated him like her kid. Get this, Atra used to, um, suck and for some reason, even though Sandy should not be able to, he would come away with his face wet... Atra still sucks, but on a blanket. He's a strange cat, and I have noticed Tolkien likes to do that too, maybe he has tried it on Miko and that's why she avoids him...