Morrissey helps

It's been a rough week (without going into too much detail, one of my students told me he's REALLY unhappy with my class, and that always makes a teacher feel wonderful), so I'm grateful this CD that I ordered from England (it's out of print in the US apparently?) came in on Tuesday: 

My enjoyment of this album is twofold: 

1. I first heard this album when I was visiting Leah in Paris, where she had it on record. So, fond memories. 

2. Morrissey's voice is a tonic. It SPEAKS to me! Literally and figuratively. 

I know I wear a lot of black, and I chalk it up to living in New York City, where black goes any time of the year. But today I wore one of those accidental outfits where I wore literally head-to-toe black. I looked like a cat burglar. 

How apropos.

One (kind of) sick kitty

A fairly big development in my life that has gone unmentioned on the blog is the fact that I started fostering a cat this past summer. I'm working with a cat rescue group called Anjellicle Cats, and they are amazingly organized, considering how much of a mess these groups often are, logistics-wise. They set me up with Johnny, an orange male that some of you may have seen on my Instagram now and then (I try to avoid copious cat postings for the most part): 

That picture is from the good old days, when Johnny was generally healthy, and therefore eating normally and acting friendly. However, he started to have weird allergies, which freaked me out a little (he was scratching his ears till they had no more fur) and then inflamed gums, which REALLY freaked me out (he stopped eating for several days because his mouth hurt too much). I took him to the vet to get everything treated, each time thinking that would be the last of it. But the gums issue kept coming back. By the time he had his most recent vet visit last week, he hadn't eaten for a whole week. I was force-feeding him water! 

These are all the cat meds (from about five vet visits) that I've gathered so far. 

So at the most recent visit, the vet ended up pulling out ALL of his teeth, except for three canines. Apparently he has a disease where the gums just get irritated by his teeth? So he's eating again with just his three teeth (phew!), but at this point, I'm just too stressed to deal with the possibility of a recurrence of the mouth trouble. So I made the tough decision to call the rescue center yesterday and ask to find him a new foster. It took a lot of time for me to reach this decision, because I really like Johnny and I think he's made himself at home in our apartment. But I just can't cope with the potential stress of a starving cat again, which would lead to scheduling more vet visits while still teaching a full schedule. Thankfully the people at the shelter were really understanding when I made the call, and not angry with me at all, which I was weirdly worried about beforehand. 

So, Johnny's going to stay with me until he gets his check up in early November, and then he will be "re-homed" with another volunteer. Then, after Thanksgiving, my extremely understanding boyfriend Ari has allowed me to get another foster kitty. Hopefully one without so many health problems, but I know it's never a certain thing. 

Until then, Johnny's pretty much back to his normal, cuddly, purr-y, self. He seems to have recently decided, however, that the ONLY place he will sleep is on my pillow. Whether or not my head is on it. So I wake up to this a lot, pressed up against my face: 

Poor wonky kitty. Here's hoping Johnny finds a "forever" home soon. He deserves it.