Ode to Izzy

On Saturday, we put our thirteen and a half year old cat down. It was a hard decision, but after a month of searching for a 'cure' we realized we were out of time. We all agreed that it would be selfish to keep Izzy around to suffer a long, drawn out, potentially painful death when there was really no hope for more of a good life.

This was a hard concept to explain to Willa. Normally a very concrete thinker, Willa wanted to know how the medicine the vet would give Izzy would stop his heart. She also wanted to know if we'd have her killed if she got too skinny. She wanted to know what would happen to his body after he was dead. Today she wanted to know why Izzy's dishes were still about, because, after all, he was dead and no longer needing them.

She also wanted to know if we could get another cat. Perhaps harder than explaining the circle of life concept (pets, people, etc) was explaining that we can't replace Izzy. Izzy was the first "joint" possession for Jamey and me, although we didn't possess Izzy as much as he possessed us. For all the cats I've met, Izzy was the coolest, and I'm not just saying that because he was mine. He WAS a cool cat.

Izzy was not one of those aloof "I'll-rub-up-against-you-if-I-want-to-be-petted" sort of cats. He frequently came to the door when we walked in, actively sought our love and attention, and fetched WAY better then the dog. He liked to sit in the window and bark back at the squirrels. He loved yogurt, and would use his paws to steer your spoon away from your own mouth toward his own greedy tongue whenever he could manage it.

Izzy was the first thing I really had to take care of as an adult. After living alone for awhile, then living with Jamey for awhile, there was Izzy. Although he was quite self-sufficient, there was always the consideration for this 'other' every time we left, when we moved to Florida, when we moved to Iowa, when we decided to go for a dog, then a child. 'What about Izzy?' we'd ask ourselves, because he was, after all, our first.

It was weird this morning to not see him slide out of his peaceful slumbers and saunter to the kitchen for his morning attentions and breakfast. Odd to not hear him purring while I slept, pawing at me and seeking a warm space around my legs or head during the night. It will be a long time before I feel his true absence - before I forget to say 'What about Izzy?'

Preparing

Yesterday was one of the CR Downtown Farmer's Markets. CR does these on the first Saturday of the month, but of course we missed a few due to the floods.

With the weather starting to turn, I've been thinking about 'putting up' some vegetables. So at market, we bought extra sweet corn, green beans and peppers. This stash, along with a bag of tomatoes and peppers from Mike, seemed like a good start. I chopped green beans that we'll use for soups; I sliced up hot peppers for chili, I made a little tomato sauce from finely chopped green peppers, tomatoes and basil from my pot out back, and then cut corn from the cob and bagged it. If the weather holds, maybe I'll do some more of the tomato sauce.

I love the feeling of having these things stored away for the winter. I reminds me of Ma and Pa and the girls filling the attic in the Big Woods of Wisconsin full of onions, pumpkins, squash and potatoes. It also reminds me of summers on my grandparents farm. They would plant several acres of sweet corn; on the perfect weekend, aunts and uncles and cousins would join together to put up the corn. Your job depended upon your age and gender: usually the men and younger kids were in the fields picking corn and then sitting on the back of Grampa's old yellow pick up shucking corn. The women and older kids would be in the kitchen, blanching corn, cutting it from the cobs and filling bags. I enjoyed the outdoor work the best. By the end of the day, we'd leave with coolers full of bags of bright, beautiful corn for our freezer. I don't think I ate corn that came from anywhere other than my grandma and grandpa's fields until sometime in high school. 

Putting up my own corn, reminded me of the fun and family togetherness of those days doing corn on the farm.