I took Miss Clarabelle to the Anti-Cruelty Society this morning to get spayed. It turned out to be a late-term abortion instead. For all the inappropriate jokes I've been making about Clarabelle exercising her right to choose, I was kind of bummed that she really was knocked up. She had shots a couple weeks ago, so if she had given birth, there's a chance the kittens would have had birth defects. And if I couldn't deal with a litter of kittens in my apartment, I sure as hell couldn't deal with a litter of special-needs kittens. I don't deal with sad very well, you know? And God knows there are enough homeless kitties already. But still. I feel a little bit like a kitten killer.
Clarabelle did great with her abortion and is convalescing in my bathroom, on account of the post-surgery rules specifically including "no roughhousing." And you know how her big brother likes to roughhouse. She didn't require stitches, so hopefully her incision will heal quickly and she'll be back to wrestlin' with the Montenator in another few days.
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current book: I'm trying to read Destinations, a collection of travel essays by Jan Morris (originally written for Rolling Stone in the late 70s). Morris comes highly recommended by one of my creative non-fiction peers, but I'm just not getting into her. I'll try again when I'm not nodding off at 2am before I put it down for good.
current music: can't get The Stills' "Still in Love" out of my head
current socks: white with little hula girls all over them
Filed under: clarabelle by admin2
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Filed under: clarabelle by admin2
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Some friends of mine in Indianapolis found this little girl hunting for breakfast beneath their bird feeder one morning. It wasn't until the kitty snuggled into my friend's neck that she realized somebody had cut off all her whiskers–even the ones on her eyebrows. So of course my friends took her in, gave her a bath, got her dewormed, and began searching for a home for her. I was in Indy over Easter, and I met her, fell in love, and took her back to Chicago to meet her big brother.
Monte was named after Monte Hale, the last of the singing cowboys, who starred in a number of B-westerns in the 1940s and 50s. (My Monte doesn't sing, but he does do all his own stunts). I'd been calling the new kitty "Gorby" because of the silly-looking black splotch across her nose, but making fun of somebody else's birthmark doesn't really make me feel like A Good Person, so I did a little noodling around the internet to see if I could find something that would go with "Monte." Turns out that Monte Hale starred in a 1946 movie–as himself, natch–called The Man from Rainbow Valley, in which he has a kid sister named Clarabelle. And, of course, there's the old Disney character Clarabelle Cow, and this little black-and-white girl does make you want to mooooo at her.
Introducing….
Clarabelle Gorbachev
Monte couldn't be happier. The two of them chase each other, wrestle, tumble, play through the dust ruffle on my bed, and then chase each other some more.
And no crazy cat lady jokes, please. Two cats does not a crazy cat lady make.
Filed under: clarabelle, monte by admin2
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