Sometimes you need comfort food and good company

We didn’t talk much on the ride down the highway to Gretna, a town about 12 miles south of Altavista.

Earlier that day, we had heard from the vet’s office: Sam’s ashes had been returned from the pet crematory. So we had picked up the small, cedar box, gone home and sat together for a while.

We knew we needed to get out of the house, so Larry suggested we go for an early dinner at C & E’s Restaurant.

This restaurant serves Southern, country cooking and includes a buffet. Mashed potatoes with butter, macaroni and cheese, pinto beans, stewed tomatoes, green beans, fried chicken, baked chicken, cornbread—comfort food.

I figured Larry needed comfort food. And I did, too.

So we drove to Gretna and entered the restaurant, quiet before the dinner rush. Soon we had our plates piled with the good food.

A side note: I was raised in the South and in the country, just one county north of where Larry was raised. But there’s a dish that I had never heard of until I met Larry and learned about C & E’s: pig’s feet.

Larry grew up eating pig’s feet occasionally, and he loves them. The only place we know of that serves them is C & E’s, on Fridays.

So last Friday, Larry got his bowl of pig’s feet. He put vinegar on them.

As we started eating, the man who had seated us returned to the table.

“I noticed that you were eating pig’s feet,” he said to Larry. “Have you ever tried them deep fried?”

Larry hadn’t, so the man described how good they were breaded, then deep fried for a few minutes. It gave them a different taste, he said.

“Would you like me to fry you up some?” he asked.

Larry said sure, so the man went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned with a basket of the fried pig’s feet.

Larry thought they were delicious. The man seemed so pleased with Larry’s review and so interested in food, I had to ask him about it.

“It sounds like you enjoy food. Do you love to cook?”

“Well, it’s one of my loves,” he said, laughing.

We chatted for a few minutes. We learned that his family runs the restaurant. He’s an electronics engineer by trade, he said, and has a business in Atlanta, but when he comes home to Virginia, he puts on an apron and helps out at the restaurant.

He talked about fixing turkeys for takeout for Thanksgiving and a little about the process he goes through to get them ready for cooking. He talked about the taste of deep fried turkeys, something Larry and I have never tried.

We had a nice visit with him. And good food.

As Larry and I left the restaurant, we were both smiling.

We had eaten our comfort food. And we had enjoyed good company.

What’s your favorite comfort food dish?

Changes

   Thank you for listening to me while I work through changes.

Chase Bird

“All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.”

--Cecil Frances Alexander

When Larry and I got married almost 10 years ago, we formed a blended family. But not in the way the term “blended family” usually refers to.

Larry has a daughter, but she was already married and had two children when I married Larry. I didn’t have any children.

We blended our cats.

Larry had Thunder Cat and Sam. I had Waddles. Waddles and I moved into the house Larry already had in Altavista, and we became the happy family we had dreamed about.

Or not.

The cats didn’t get along. We should have known it wouldn’t be easy.

We really didn’t know what we were doing. We immediately introduced Waddles to Thunder and Sam—face to face in the same room. A lot hissing and growling ensued, as you can imagine.

We learned. Usually you have to gradually introduce cats to each other. It can take days—weeks—months before they will spend peaceful time together in the same room. Sometimes it never quite happens.

But eventually, it did happen with Waddles and her two new siblings. They could, for the most part, remain at peace with each other.

One of the happiest times I remember is when all five of us—Larry, me and the three cats—were together in the den, sitting around, hanging out, calm.

Sam was the last of our “original” cats. When she died last week, the group of cats that we started out with, which we formed our family with, was gone.

“O heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath: guard them from all evil and let them sleep in peace.”

--Albert Schweitzer

In 2007, we added Chase Bird to the family. He was a stray that started living under one of the bushes in our front yard, and eventually we took him in and adopted him.

The other cats didn’t like him. He and Thunder Cat had a growling row one time. So we kept Chase in his own room. Larry put up a gate so that he could see what was going on, but we couldn’t let him out with the other cats.

We worked on introducing Chase to them. But as time went on, it seemed less workable because first Thunder Cat, then Waddles, got very sick and fragile.

Chase and Sam had more interaction, usually through the gate. But we were very careful about unsupervised meetings. Usually, if Chase was running around the house, it was because Sam was in a part of the house he couldn’t get to.

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.”

--Anatole France

Now Chase Bird is the only cat we have. He has full run of the house. It has been an adjustment for all of us. We’ve had to get used to a cat that is young enough to jump up on kitchen counters and dresser tops and bathroom sinks. He is getting used to a freedom that he hasn’t known.

He is a blessing and a comfort. We are fortunate to have him.

But so many changes. 

Sam

Samantha Adair "Sam" Barbour

Our Sam died this morning.

I thought she was getting better. But her health deteriorated quickly Monday.

On this blog, I share much of what is important in my life, and you know that our cats are very important to Larry and me.

So many of you expressed concern about Sam as she went through her health issues over the last two weeks, and I want you to know that I have appreciated it.

I can’t write anymore now. I will be back as soon as I can.

On the road

Sam in 2011.

Sam seems to be on the road to recovery. She is still not as active as she was, but she is improving every day. She is not totally healed, but she is so much better than she was.

She has been through a lot: constipation, arthritis and body pain, infection. Our vet used the words “life threatening” on Saturday.

We were reminded that Sam is 17 years old this month, and that any illness in a kitty that old can be serious.

Our plucky girl didn’t give up. She bravely withstood repeated vet visits, needles, x-rays. She put up with the worried attention Larry and I gave her. Poor baby probably needs a vacation from us.

And Larry and I didn’t give up on her. We shed tears and paced the floor. We lost sleep and had a lot of worried conversations. We held on to hope that Sam would come back to us.

And we are grateful that she is on that road back.

I appreciate your comments and messages of concern you sent.

I haven’t missed writing a post, but I feel like I’ve been away for a long time because I haven’t been keeping up with YOU. I have missed you and hope to get back to the routine I enjoy so much—reading your blogs and catching a bit of what you’re doing in life.

I’ve not been following my regular routine lately because of all that has been going on. My emotions have been all over the place. I hope I’m on the road back, too.

Let’s start with the comments section: what’s one thing YOU have been up to lately?

Update on Sam

I snapped this photo as Sam came out of her bed to drink some water.

Late last week, we thought Sam was doing better. However, late Friday night and early Saturday morning, we found blood in her urine.

We took her back to the vet on Saturday morning. She had a temperature and blood work showed high white cell counts. She was also very depressed, reacting very little to the work of the vet and her assistant.

The vet said she had an infection that seemed to have gone into her kidneys.

She said it was very serious and life threatening for a cat Sam’s age.

She has been on antibiotics and pain medication over the weekend.

The vet suggested that we offer her sliced chicken or turkey or baby food, or perhaps some roast chicken, to entice her to eat.

She loved the roast chicken we bought and the sliced turkey. She didn’t like the baby food. She likes dry food soaked in water.

But her eating has been erratic. Sometimes she eats, sometimes not.

They gave her subcutaneous fluids at the vet’s office on Saturday, and then Larry and I gave them to her Sunday morning. She’s drinking water on her own, too.

She’s mostly staying in the bed we made for her in what we call the futon room, right off the den. We don’t want her high up on furniture because we’re afraid that she will fall.

She comes out to use the litter box and to drink water, occasionally to eat, but goes right back to the bed.

Larry took her into the den Sunday night and sat her on the couch with him, but she wanted to get down. He put her back down on the floor and she walked back to her bed.

We have an appointment to take her back to the vet Monday morning.

We are concerned, of course. We’re very worried and very anxious. It’s hard to keep the anxiety at bay. We are hoping for the best.

I am trying to remind myself that healing takes time, that Sam needs to rest and perhaps she needs to stay in her bed.

Thank you for all of the kind comments you left on Friday’s post. Please keep Sam in your thoughts.

P.S. After I wrote this post and put it in Blogger, I heard a noise just as I was ready to press publish. I looked up and Sam was getting out of her bed. She walked into the den to find Larry. She walked around a bit, then went back to her bed. That's reason for hope!

I'll be back when I can.

Random 5 Friday: Our Baby Sam

Hello, dear readers, and happy Friday to you! I’m joining in Random 5 Friday, hosted by the wonderful Nancy of A Rural Journal, when, as she says, “you can share 5 random facts about you, your day, your pets, your kids, whatever!”

One

Our cat Sam has been sick this week.

She has an ongoing problem with constipation which sometimes requires intervention by the vet. On Monday night, we had to take her to the emergency animal hospital. She was in pain and had struggled for hours to poop.

The treatment apparently aggravated her arthritis, which left her barely able to walk. She saw her regular vet on Tuesday and Wednesday. X-rays showed arthritis in her spine, hips and ankles, but no fractures or dislocations, thank goodness.

She has been on pain medication, and she’s moving around a little now and is looking better.

Sam in the carrier right after the procedure Monday night, before we knew that her arthritis was flaring.

Two

Sam will be 17 years old in October. Larry has had her since she was a kitten, before my time. He said she was so tiny as a kitten, he could carry her around on one hand.

Three

I came into Sam’s life when Larry and I started dating in 1999. I became her mom when we got married in 2003. Sam likes me and trusts me, but she adores her Larry. It is very sweet to see.

I think I've posted this photo before, but it's one of my favorites: Sam and Larry.

Four

Wednesday was a really hard day while we waited for results from Sam’s X-rays. Larry asked me to discuss things with the vet because he was too upset to talk.

It’s hard to accept the fact that your cat is an “old lady,” as our vet called her. It’s hard to accept that you are going to lose her someday. It has to be accepted, of course, but it’s hard to lose a loved one, as all of you know.

Sam is doing better, for which we are so grateful. I hope that she has more good years ahead of her. And I hope that I have the good sense to cherish each day I have with her and Chase Bird and my Larry.

Sam in her fluff bed. I call her Baby Sam sometimes. She seems to like it.

Five

Larry and I seem to trade off being the strong one when needed. Not that both of us can’t be strong at the same time. But when Waddles was so sick, Larry was the stoic one while I cried myself sick. With Sam, though I cried, too, I kept it to myself and tried to be upbeat and positive for Larry.

It works for us. We lean on each other when we need to. That’s a comfort.