November 6, 2006

Sophie the motor lover

Last night was Halloween (as you may have been aware). As we do not celebrate halloween, our usual ploy is to avoid being home so as to not have to open the door over and over to the little trickortreaters (and we live in little kid suburbia here).

My sister Renae and her hubby Doug were in Missoula last night. The reason was that they were flying out to Florida early this morning to go on their super cruise to Jamaica (their 25th wedding anniversary present to theirselves) and a bunch of other islands. The reason I bring this up is because we chose to avoid our home by going out to dinner with them. Renae was soooo excited to go. I am soooo jealous. I wish I could have jumped into their luggage and went too, although this would certainly have ruined their romance. They have been gearing up to go all week. Renae must've called me half a dozen times looking for items that may have found their way to my house (shoes, formal gowns...). She started packing a week early. I admire that in her. She is one of the best trip preparer I've ever met. I am pretty much her opposite. More of a fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal. ANYWAYS, on one of the phone calls she only got out ,"Hey Rache", and then she was giggling and laughing and her voice was getting further from the phone (all I could hear at that point was "hang up!!!"). My point is they will have fun.

I don't know where I was really going with this except for Renae was talking about all of the weird cats I've had in my life. I do seem to have a way of picking them out. The first one I ever picked was a beauty who I named Sophie. I thought she was the most beautiful cat I had ever seen. She was pure white and had the clearest blue eyes. She had a very cute personality for many years, very playful. Until the accident.

One Sunday morning we were driving to meeting (church)in Plains coming from Paradise. Shaun and I were in the backseat (I think we were around 11 or 12). We were about half-way there when I just happened to look out the back window and see a ball of white fluff rolling down the road. I shouted at my dad to stop, we went back and sure enough it was Sophie. My poor stupid cat. In her defense, it was the middle of winter and the car motor was warm. But she really was hurt. We took her to the vet and he sewed her back up again. A couple of things changed about her though. For one, her eyes never had a very focused look to them ever again. For another, her tail died. Got STIFF as a board. She'd run around the house and that thing would wave from side to side like a board. It was pretty gross but it remained that way for some time. I think it was about a year until the next "accident". I think Sophie probably had too much brain damage from the first time to remember what had put her into her unfortunately circumstances because another winter day my Sophie went through another motor. She lived. However, the stiff tail was not so fortunate and a complete amputation happened that day. She went from unfocused to completely cross-eyed. She was, however, still a very good-natured and happy animal.

Anyways, I hereby raise my cup to Renae and Doug and hope them a happy voyage.

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