One of our two cats passed away last night, Laverne, survived by Shirley. We've had these two cats since late 2001 -- I don't have a date in the notebook, just a note that Laura's previous cat, Edna, died on April 4, 2001. We picked up Laverne and Shirley at a no-kill kennel, where they had been abandoned. I picked out Laverne because of her friendliness. She would come right up to complete strangers, hop onto a lap, and start kneading her declawed feet -- she was a lap-dancer. She was described as a "Siamese Flamepoint" -- white, with light tan markings on her face and tail. Lovely cat. Shirley is a slightly larger all black cat. They had lived together before the kennel, and were caged together when we got them. The kennel people prevailed on us to keep them together.

We always assumed that they were about a year old when we got them, which would make them five or so, but they could be older. (Don't know how to tell.) They were pretty frisky when we first got them. Less so now, although Shirley can move pretty fast. Laverne took ill several months ago: lost weight, became very dehydrated. We gave her antibiotics and fluids, and she bounced back a bit, but never regained her weight. Took her to the vet day before yesterday. She had abcesses in her gums, white cells in her urine. Doctor lanced and treated the abcesses, and gave us medicine. She seemed better that evening, but weakened a lot yesterday, and looked to be in bad shape last night. After we gave her medicine last night, she jumped down to the floor, then laid down, spreading out. We found her this morning where she was last night, quite stiff.

I bought Laura a digital camera this past Xmas, figuring it would mostly be used to take pictures of cats. She didn't take many, but we have a few. We haven't gotten the hang of this technology yet -- haven't managed to print any of the pictures, but I managed to get one picture scaled down and uploaded. In the future I'll get some more pictures up -- isn't that what websites are ultimately good for? So this picture is about six months old, before she got sick. Looks a little bleary-eyed, but all the pictures do, except the ones that show her eyes in weird reflections. She had faint blues eyes, but when the light hit her right they'd turn blood red.

Laverne spent much of the last few years sleeping on top of Laura's monitor. When Laura got a new computer with an LCD screen too narrow to sleep on, we bought the pedestal you see in the picture. But in the last couple of months Laverne discovered my CRT monitors and moved in with me. She bugged me a lot. Miss her already.