Well, it's time to fess up. It is with great sadness that I must report to you that Sadie the Snowball Princess died on November 20, 2014. She had been living with kidney disease for about 2 1/4 years, and that's about as long as a cat can go with that kind of thing. I loved my little woogums very much, and I hope she is in a better place.
Sadie's early life was difficult. My friend Jason adopted her from the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society shelter. At that time, Sadie had just had kittens, and she was so stressed out that half the hair on her body was missing. She was to be a companion cat for Jason's well-known rambunctious and obnoxious cat, Babu. Jason brought Sadie home, and she and Babu became friends, but not before Sadie spent three days hiding under a claw-foot bathtub.
Sadie lived with Jason and Babu for 6 years, after which the two cats were guests in a number of households, venturing as far away as Jason's sister's house in Houston. In late May of 2012, Jason and his mom endured the miserable 23-hour car trip to bring the two cats from Houston to my house, south of Milwaukee.
I could see that the 19 1/2 year-old Babu was the boss. He called the shots, but also did the heavy lifting. When food was requested, he made the noise, but then always let Sadie eat first. If there was a lap available to sit on, it was Babu's, and Sadie was warned to stay away. Babu soon developed kitty dementia, and he died in July 2012.
After Babu's death, Sadie became the alpha cat, a role she filled admirably. In addition to blogging, she also excelled in mouse-catching, mouse-intimidation, lap-sitting, and napping. We were very close.
In the latter part of Sadie's life, we treated high blood pressure and anemia, in addition to her kidney disease. She did very well with her various therapies, but in the end, kidney failure is kidney failure, and her condition worsened very quickly. I was grateful that we were able to do euthanasia at home, to ease Sadie's journey into the next kitty world smoothly.
Um, I have no new kanzashi photos to share with you at this time, but Sadie has graciously agreed to blog posthumously from her afterlife, and she will be probably be getting to that in the next few weeks.
