Kitty in Death's Driveway

Our sickly kitty.

We are waving our arms like lunatics, chasing her up the sidewalk, and diving under the azaleas to steer her away from Death's actual Door, but she's hunkered down on Death's Deck wedged between a pretty swank Weber and a glass-topped table that still has ice-tea glasses on it maybe from sitting outside in the evening listening to the robins chortle across the yard and whinny goodnight, and the cardinals zoom like Cupid's arrows across the yards and fences home as the arborvitae blackens and the cool comes up from the earth and ferns. The ice-tea glasses on Death's glass-topped patio table all have slogans on them. They say, "Florida! The Sunshine State" and "Connecticut: The Nutmeg State," and "Arkansas! The Toothpick State," which is odd in a way, but not if you think about it, I guess.

Tomorrow we go to the Annandale Animal Hospital where Dr. Paradise, which is her real name, will teach us how to administer fluids subcutaneously.

I hadn't really grasped the gravity of the situation, and said, "Oh. I'll bring the cat then." And they said, "Good idea, Ms. Kirchner."