Poem for Saturday and Cinnamon

Arise From Sleep
By Kobayashi Issa

Rise from sleep, old cat,
And with great yawns and stretchings
Amble out for love

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We lost our almost-22-year-old beloved cat Cinnamon on Friday. She came home with us in 2001 when we stopped to buy hamster food and the ASPCA was at Petco with kittens, and Daniel cried at the idea of leaving her behind. She had been declining over the past few months and particularly over the past week, but we thought at first that it might be stress from all the work going on with the basement and all the dust in the air. We tried to work in the waiting room but it's impossible to concentrate there. 

In addition to the respiratory infection we guessed she had, the x-rays showed more significant lung problems and the blood work indicated advanced kidney failure. Older son wanted to see her, so we Skyped briefly with him from the animal hospital, though she was pretty lethargic and sleepy although they had had her on oxygen. We knew the only fair thing to do for her was to let her go. Here are some photos from over the years -- we didn't even have a digital camera when she first arrived at our house.