Summer Has Come and Passed

Hey, everybody. How’s your summer? Things are fine over here. I killed my company, got food poisoning with my husband, and had to cancel a trip to see Green Day at Wrigley Field because my brother is going to Rwanda.

You know, just an ordinary summer around here.

I’ve spent most of the summer at home, which is new for me. A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor sent me a text in the middle of the afternoon. Was I around? Could I come over and take a look at an injured cat under his porch? He’s not a cat person, and he doesn’t like to see animals suffer.

Not sure anybody likes to see animals suffer, but I didn’t have time for a discussion on human psychology. I rushed over and saw a pretty horrific sight: Mister Snuggles, my other neighbor’s cat, was suffering in a bad way.

Mister Snuggles belongs to a guy who lives behind me in the woods, as much as any outdoor cat belongs to anybody. Snuggles is part of a colony of rescued black cats. They live in the woods because they have nowhere else to go. I love having them around because they eat moles and chase snakes out of my yard. Snuggles, in particular, is a glorious beast. He has long black fur with chocolate undertones, and he likes to sun himself on my driveway and pee on my neighbor’s porch.

So, anyway, Snuggles got into a fight with a car and it wasn’t good. His body was all twisted and mangled. He was crying gobs of mucus from his eyes. To make matters worse, his dad was out of town.

I won’t give you any additional details, mostly because I don’t want you to puke, but I wasn’t sure we could move Snuggles safely. Would he bite? Would I hurt him more if I scooped him up? My neighbor called animal control to intervene, and I worked the phone and email for 24 hours to find the owner. I was also able to zoom over to animal control and check on Snuggles, who was suffering and on a ton of pain meds, and let them know that I was trying to track down the owner.

Eventually, I reached my neighbor. He was able to see his cat before they had to euthanize him. I have some peace about that.

Since that afternoon, I haven’t been able to return to animal control for my volunteer shifts. While I’m sure somebody accidentally clipped Mister Snuggles with their car on the county road and didn’t realize it, I’m just shaken by the experience of seeing an animal suffer. It’s gonna take some time before I can go back to that building.

But there is some good news. Green Day is coming to Raleigh, tonight, and, in the ultimate #treatyoself move, I bought myself a VIP ticket. Snuggles would’ve wanted it this way. Gotta end this summer on a high note with one of my favorite bands. I have a ton of pent-up anxiety that I can unleash in the mosh pit. I want to punch Nazis in the face and chew bubblegum, and I’m all out of bubblegum.