captainsblog | The Kitten Formerly Known as Sweet Prince

...as in

Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest

The weekend was pretty good for Boz. He was eating ravenously, running around with his bro and then spooning with him happily while we watched the last SNL of the year-

- and even harassing Evil Cat when we had her confined. But, hindsight always having it on us, there are the signs. Look at how much smaller he is, for a kitten born on the same day of the same mommy. And the one eye's not right.

Monday, he seemed a little downer, not finishing the portions we put out and having, um, stool issues. But when Tuesday came around again, a week after our latenight adventures, my first thought was of Douglas Adams-

We awoke, and he was barely mobile. Showed no interest in any food. Eleanor tried an eyedropper with just water and he wouldn't even take that. I had an early appointment, she a noontime shift, so she called our vet and I promised to be home to take him to anything she couldn't.

Ultimately, there wasn't anything: when they finally called back, the only thing we wondered about was whether an antibiotic might help, and they confirmed that, no, unless he was sneezing or showing discharges that suggested a bacterial infection, that would not. All there was to do, short of the intense hospitalization and IV hydration and nutrition that we decided against a week ago, was to keep him at home, and give him a ridiculous amount of love before, one way or another, it was over.

I'd had wicked insomnia the night before even before this turn, so he, the dog and I headed for a cuddle on my bed in the sunshine of the second shortest day of the year:

Boz never moved from there; at bedtime, Pepper and I were joined by Zoey, and he was surrounded with pets with purrs and warm dogbutt as we settled in for the night. Zini had said his goodbyes earlier, before those goodbyes were punctuated by one final attempt to fight with him:

It was around that time that he seemed a little more sentient, took a few drops of water, and even, faintly, gave me a purr.

By morning, he was gone.

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At the risk of overdoing the Shakespearean tropes, all the world's a stage with us the players, and usually without Jim showing us the whole script. When we first went in search of a new rescue this fall, I was surprised at first when Eleanor told me that she would be seeking out a pair of very young littermates. But from the first night they were in our home, I knew she was right. They were two, tiny, two month old, three pound bebbies in a house with a large cat, an Evil Cat and a bumbling dog.

After our first two rescues more than 30 years ago, who we got as kittens nine months apart and were the best of buds for over 15 years, none of our later cats ever bonded with those who were here. Even the one other prior pair, not littermates but older cats from the same house, didn't even bond with each other as promised. So when Krispie and Pop, as they were known on the paperwork and here only on that first night, came home to the twelve other paws, they had each other. They played together, they held off the initial hisses and thundering dog together, and dear gods did they snuggle together. When they quickly became renamed Zini and Boz, none of that changed, even as Pepper grew to understand them, Zoey to mother them and Evil Cat, well? She didn't eat them.

Maybe that's what was destined all along- for Boz to be his little angel only as long as was needed to integrate the bigger little one into the family. I'm not much for religious thoughts of any flavors these days, but if there's a God in any of this, I thank Her for giving them each other for however long it was meant to be.

Zini is now fuller grown and holding his own with the rest of the posse- even today, as we mostly kept him away from the deathbed. Even through the past few weeks of stealing his brother's food and wrestling unnecessarily roughly with him, Zini came of age because he had him. (We've gone back today to calling him by his full name Bronzini; the "Zini" nickname became one he mostly heard when we were yelling at him for beating up on Boz. Kinda like how Michelle thinks her name is "Evil Cat" or "Shut Up.") He has done okay today without his brudda, and if anything it's looking like the real bond is developing between him and Pepper-

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I wasn't sure what the protocol was when a beloved furbaby dies at home; We've been to Rainbow Bridge so many times over the years, we got an EZ Pass for the cat carrier, but Boz was the first ever to pass without the aid of medication in the vet's "Wisteria Room." So I called, and they said to just bring him over whenever. I had another early appointment today- to execute wills, ironically enough, and they wound up being no-shows because the husband just got a positive COVID diagnosis- but I headed over after that.

They were very kind at the vet when I brought the boy over. Only problem is DumDum here forgot to take off that adobo lil sweater Mommy knitted for him. We thought about calling and asking them to remove it, but (a) it's 50/50 they already have and (b) if not, it'll be one of those iconic rites of passage- like my sister's boyfriend sneaking a pack of the forbidden-at-the-end ciggies into my mother's coffin at the funeral home.

Yes, we've reached the Black Humor portion of the grieving.

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I returned to the office to drop off coworker gifts, and that's it for Goddam 2020 except three final workdays next week. I'll begin my Year In Review posts probably tomorrow, on and off until the 31st; all will have COVID's implications included, although no one will be devoted entirely to that. They'll include the usual looks at entertainment, sport, music, work and life. But spoiler alert: wait until the last one to read in full context about our very own beloved Baby Yoda.