Boo! It's Halloween!

 

 

 

 

 

Cheerleader

Monday Monday

Another very pleasant Monday morning in Towano. As usual lately, Rinko woke me up by appearing in my room before school. She has a new hairstyle from the date yesterday, and looked very cute...

She cooked breakfast for me, which looked like an omelette, toast and a cup of tea.

Wow, Rinko is a fast eater. She must be a growing girl!

And here's my cute little girlfriend, walking along the road to school with me. No matter how many times I do this, it's still enjoyable. ^^

The food theme continued when Rin-chan met me at lunchtime and shared a box lunch with me up on the school roof.

There was an event in the afternoon, where Rinko walked home with me and chatted about something. Probably another To-Do item...

And I finished off my first day "back" in the game with a late meeting in the classic date spot, Fountain Park.

Rinko looked kinda sleepy...

And here she is, very sweetly saying goodnight.

No real plans for the rest of the week yet. I'm still getting back on my feet after this past week, so I'll just take it slow and enjoy playing my favourite game. I'm glad that it's still part of my life.

Sweet Date

Well, today is the first time I've felt like posting on this blog since my beloved cat, Tootie, died last Thursday. It's been a tough week, with so much grief every day. I still miss her so much! I've kept playing "New LovePlus" on and off, but without much enthusiasm. T_T

Still, it's always been my aim to keep this game going for a year, so I thought I'd knuckle down and do a proper date with my neglected Rinko today. And it turned out to be quite a sweet date, at that.

It was raining when Rin-chan met me at the station:

And still raining while we walked to Dixies for a bite to eat.

Here's Rinko at Dixies, looking pretty thoughtful. I think she's missed me.

Lunch was a beef bowl and some miso soup. Itadakimasu!

But Rinko enjoyed the food, and even offered me a a bite...

Our main date was at Karaoke. This was fortunate - because, as I've mentioned before, you can't kiss your girlfriend much when it's raining. But Karaoke is always good, because I get to sit close to Rinko. And of course, I didn't waste the opportunity.

With an extra date location remaining, I took Rin down to the bridge, with a nice walk along the beach first. Not quite the same as summer, but still romantic.

And here we are, walking back from the station.

Finally, a couple of long shots of Rinko to show the cute check skirt she wore, with black Mary Jane shoes. If it wasn't for the cap, this would be pretty close to the perfect Rinko outfit.

So, nothing spectacular, but a nice date nevertheless. I'll try hard this week to get back into playing and writing up my play every day. If nothing else, it helps to remind me that life goes on. But for me, life will always go on missing my dear friend Tootie...

Tootie

Yesterday was a truly sad day, because our much-loved cat Tootie passed away at the age of 13 1/2. The pain of losing her is still so strong, but I wanted to put together this post as a tribute to this wonderful creature who was part of my family for such a long time, and who was so much more than just a "pet". Tootie gave us so much love, and so many happy memories (with a few sad ones, too).

I adopted Tootie from Pets' Paradise at Eastgardens on 17 April 1999. My family had always loved cats, and usually we had two or three at any given time. During those years we were down to just one cat - Sam, who belonged to my mother. Sam died at the ripe old age of 14, and the next day I went looking for a new kitten because it just didn't feel like home without a cat.

A litter of five kittens had just arrived at Pets' Paradise that morning, and I chose Tootie because she reminded me of another cat, Lenny, who I'd also loved very much. Tootie cost $75, and her adoption card described her as "torti (tortoiseshell) and white". The "torti" somehow morphed into "Tootie" and the name kind of stuck.

Here she is as a tiny kitten, the day after I adopted her:

And this is her "glamour magazine" shot, taken a day or two later...

Tootie was so very tiny when I adopted her. That first night, I made a box for her with some warm blankets and put it next to my bed for her to sleep in. But Tootie must have been scared that night - the first night away from her cat family - because she climbed right out of the box and got down into bed with me. I don't think I slept very much, because I was too scared that I might roll over and squash her! But you know, she didn't ever sleep inside the bed again - just that first night. After that, Tootie and I were family.

As a kitten and young cat, Tootie loved playing games and was so full of energy! Anything and everything fell foul of her teeth and claws. In the next photo, she is sleeping on top of a piece of my paper that she'd almost ripped to pieces:

You can also see in the above photo that Tootie's coloration was unique and cute. The pads on her feet were different colours, and her lower lip was half brown and half pink too. She also had a really long tongue. How many humans can touch their nose with their tongue???

Tootie was often funny:

She would play in the washing hanging over the back of a chair...

And her favourite toy was this pink pompom on a string, which I would pull along the ground and she would chase for HOURS. In fact, I often got tired before she did. I tried buying more expensive cat toys for her, but she just loved playing with this cheap thing instead.

We kept Tootie inside the house for about the first six months of her life until she was desexed. As she got older, her favourite thing was to climb up into the highest places she could get to! Especially at the top of curtains. She would claw her way to the top and sit there like the queen of the world.

Tootie was also a champion at catching mice and rats. She must have killed literally hundreds through her life, starting off when she was only with us for a few days. She was always very proud and brought her victims to show us.

Tootie always tried so hard to be a good cat, and would do anything if she thought it would please me. I remember the night she came home after her desexing operation. She was still drowsy from the anaesthetic and couldn't walk without wobbling uncontrollably. Even so, she made her way right across the living room to use her litter tray.

After Tootie was desexed, we finally let her go outside. Before long, she was equally at home in our garden (and our trees). She still loved to climb:

We were worried because she wandered away from home quite a lot. Once she went missing overnight, and I found the next morning that she had been locked in a neighbour's garage. After that, Tootie stayed close to home.

Part of my reason for adopting Tootie was to be a companion for my mother, who was not working and had just lost a cat of her own. But just a month or so after Tootie was desexed, my mother became very sick and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. We were away from home for long, long hours having tests and seeing doctors, and poor Tootie had to spend a lot of time alone. She was always able to deal with it, though, and was always happy to see me when I returned. Most of the time, she just slept while we were away.

After a few more months, my mother's condition deteriorated to the point where she had to go to a nursing home. I packed her bags, then came out the next morning to find Tootie sleeping on the top. I think it was her way of saying goodbye.

After that, Tootie had to adjust to living with just one person (me), and was forced to fit around my working hours. In the warm months, she slept outside in the garden and would always greet me when I came home from work. In the colder months, she often slept inside the house. She loved her freedom, caught lots of mice (and, very occasionally, a bird), but hated windy days and thunderstorms.

Time passed. Tootie enjoyed remarkably good health, kept out of trouble, and was my constant companion during the two years my mother was in the nursing home (until her death in 2004). A couple of years later I met a wonderful girl, Phuong (Blue), and we were married in 2007. Tootie had always kept her distance from other people who came to the house, but she quickly made friends with Phuong and loved having two "masters" to take care of her.

Actually, that should be the other way round. It always felt like Tootie was the boss, and we were there to serve her! Even more than most cats, she had some pretty eccentric habits - like banging on the screen door early in the morning to wake us up, or finding the weirdest places in the house to sleep. But she always gave us lots of love, always was caring and concerned that we were ok, and we loved her a lot in return.

Here are some shots of Tootie from around that time.

In action...

And at rest inside the house, looking out through the curtains.

In the garden:

And up on the roof of our house!

The next shot is kinda scary. Tootie was able (at that time in her life) to get up and down from the roof by jumping onto a low brick wall in our backyard. She did this every day, time after time, and we often heard her running around on the roof at night.

And here she is, jumping again.

A year or so after Phuong and I were married, Tootie developed a limp in one of her back legs. I can't be sure what happened, but I suspect she may have slipped during one of her adventures on the roof. The injury healed, but each winter her leg would hurt from the beginnings of arthritis, which would become more of a problem in her later years.

We took many thousands of photos of Tootie, because she was always around and always so photogenic. Forgive me for including a few more favourite shots. Such as playing with my Nintendo DS:

Sleeping in the washing basket:

And checking out the stuff we were cleaning out during our home renovations:

Everything in the house belonged to Tootie, and she left her mark in quite a few places, too. One day, during bathroom renovations, the builders put some cement down to level our the floor. This is what we found the next morning:

Every change to the house during our renovations had to be personally inspected and approved:

Tootie's manner was always to be close to us, but not too close. She sat on my lap from time to time, if the weather was particularly cold, but most of the time she liked to maintain a certain degree of independence. The exception to this rule was when either of us were sick or upset. She would always come and be close to us, checking to make sure that we were ok.

This is one time when I was sick in bed:

And another time with Phuong...

Tootie could be a "people" cat when she needed to, especially later in life - but only with those she really trusted. Here she is with Phuong's mother:

Tootie often looked like a very serious cat (maybe because she grew up around me), but she really looks happy and smiling in these shots, sitting on my knee:

I've already mentioned Tootie's strange sleeping habits. Rather than choosing nice comfortable places, she preferred to sleep on our stuff and be part of whatever we were doing. Sleeping on my sketch book, for instance:

And the fence just outside our window was another favourite spot, maybe because the bricks kept her warm:

 Tootie often slept with one arm stretched out in front. We called it her "Superman" position. Not really sure why she did this, but it was a characteristic of her that we'll always remember.

By the way, that red leather lounge you see in our living room cost a LOT of money, and Tootie scratched it by sharpening her claws on one edge just a few days after we got it. T_T We forgave her, of course. She also slept for a while on this plushie cat from Hikosen Cara (and scratched it, too).

Here's Tootie on our driveway:

And Tootie in "extreme close-up".

Sleeping on our bed by herself:

And also with me.

And she was even clever enough to read some of Patrick White, too.

Sitting just inside the screen door at the front of our house was another favourite place. Tootie could watch everything out on the street this way, but still felt safe.

As the years passed, Tootie's arthritis slowed her down, and she spent more time sitting inside, often in places where she could feel the warmth of the sun.

And here she is, finally sitting on Phuong's lap for the first time. It took a long time for Tootie to get to this point of trust, as she'd only ever done this with me before.

This is one of my favourite shots of Tootie, because her eyes are so expressive:

Here she is as a small cat in a very big garden.

Tootie loved to sit on our front steps as well, but she'd only do this if we were home with her. When we weren't home, she usually spent her time in the safety of our backyard.

And here's Tootie on our bed again in the sun. Around 2010 she reached a stage with her arthritis where it began to affect her health. She wasn't eating well, lost a lot of weight, and became quite frail - to the point where she had to be lifted on and off the bed. 

We took Tootie to the vet and started her on a course of injections and tablets. Luckily, she responded well and got back to a normal level of functioning quite quickly. She was even able to run again, and often raced through the house at great speed...

Just a few months after her recovery, disaster struck. Tootie came to the door dragging her two back legs, totally unable to move them. We took her to the vet, and it seemed that she had developed a blood clot in the arteries going down along her spine. She had no feeling in the back legs at all. The vet gave her about a 10% chance of survival and suggested that we could have her put to sleep. We opted to keep her in hospital for a few days on drugs to thin her blood.

All our thoughts were with Tootie, and we really prayed for her to pull through. Miraculously, when we checked with the vet the next morning, the blood clot had shifted and Tootie was getting some response back in the lower half of her body. On the day we visited her, the vet was worried because she hadn't eaten anything. But as soon as Tootie saw me, she very obediently started to eat some food. Such a great cat.

We brought her home a few days later, with her little legs shaved and scarred from IV needles. She was a fighter, though, and showed such a strong will to live. We knew that Tootie loved us and wanted to be with us just a bit longer.

Once again, Tootie fought back and made a full recovery. The next year or so of her life was happy, healthy and incident-free. Here she is curled up in a perfect ball, and you can see the two little "fingerprint" marks on the back of her neck that were so easily recognisable...

My wife says that we look like father and daughter in the next shot.

At the start of winter this year (2012), we took Tootie to the vet for her routine arthritis injection. But the vet discovered that she had developed a serious heart murmur, probably related to the blood clot problem she'd been through a while ago. Tootie had to undergo an x-ray and ultrasound to work out how serious the problem was. Remarkably, she didn't need sedation for either procedure.

The tests were hopeful. Even though Tootie's heart problem was serious, her lungs were clear and her blood pressure normal. But she would have to take heart medication for the rest of her life. The medication came in human-sized tablets, which we were supposed to break up and give her one eighth of a tablet three times per day.

We tried and tried, but Tootie fought against taking the tablets every single time. Looking back, I think this was another sign of her strong and independent spirit. We did our best, but most of the time one dose every two or three days was the most we could give her. We also knew that the stress of giving her so many tablets couldn't be good for her heart.

Despite being shaved on both sides of her body for the procedures, Tootie was still a beautiful cat.

These next two photos are from the day before Tootie died. They're the last photos we have of her, so they're very precious to us.

In the next shot, you can see Tootie's hair starting to grow back on the side facing the camera.

On Thursday, 4 October 2012, I was home sick from work with a bad cold, and Phuong also had a day at home. We were cleaning out a spare room at home when we heard Tootie give a loud cry from the front of our house. We ran outside and found a large, ugly dog (a bull-terrier or something similar) with Tootie clamped in its jaws, shaking her from side to side. We struck the dog repeatedly, pulled at its collar and legs, but it had a tight grip on her body and wouldn't let go. The dog wasn't on a leash.

With our combined efforts, we finally managed to get the dog to release Tootie, and I grabbed her and carried her into the house to get her away from further danger. Though there was no obvious external damage, her body felt broken as though there might have been internal injuries. When I put her down, she gasped for breath a few times. I think the shock of the attack had been too much for her poor weakened heart, and she was going into heart failure.

We rushed frantically to get her pet carrier, but Tootie had lost consciousness by the time we put her inside. We raced her to the vet, but by the time we got there it was too late, and Tootie had already passed away. There was nothing the vet, or any of us, could have done. I really should express my thanks to all the staff at Animal Medical Services at Kingsford for their sensitive handling of the situation, and for the wonderful care they gave Tootie throughout her life.

We took Tootie's body home and buried her in a sunny place in our front garden, so that she could always be close to us.

The suddenness of Tootie's death was a great shock to us. It was also a great irony. She'd been such a fighter, through arthritis and heart disease - but she just wasn't strong enough to fight off the dog that took her life. It's also hard to direct our anger anywhere, because we don't know the irresponsible owner of the dog, and were in too much of a hurry to get Tootie to the vet to ask for a name or contact number.

In the end, we decided that reporting the attack to the police or the Council was a waste of time without specific details, so we're going to contact the local newspaper in the next couple of days and see if they will print a story about Tootie as a warning to other pet owners. I think that's the best we can do, and it will be another memorial for our dear friend.

The day after Tootie's death, I was at home by myself (still sick with a cold), and started preparing dinner in the kitchen at the same time Tootie would usually scratch on the door to be fed. I felt her presence with me very clearly - I'm sure it wasn't just my imagination. I think she stopped by to check on me, and make sure I was okay before moving on. She'd always done this in life. I told her, in my heart, that she'd been a very good cat, that we loved her and missed her, but that things were fine and it was alright for her to leave this place and continue on her soul's journey. I felt that she was at peace after that.

Tootie was a warm and affectionate cat, and the very best pet I have known in my life. Her death was tragic and sudden, but her life was long and worth celebrating. I've missed her and cried for her a lot in these past few days, mostly for her absence: the way that she's not waiting when we drive home in the car, not scratching on the door to come inside, not sleeping in the garden when I look out the window. I think it's going to take a long time before I'm ready to love another cat - and even when I do, that cat can never replace the friend I've lost.

But Tootie is here now, in this blog. She's in my heart as I write these last few words, and always will be. We love you, Tootie.