It was Alice's trip to the vet. We knew what would happen, but a part of us wanted to think there would be a different outcome.

We took her in and talked about how her condition had worsened. The cancer hadn't gone into remission, and chemo just made her sicker. Her vision in her eyes was failing, she could only react to brightness. And her hind legs were failing. She hadn't crapped in days because she had hardly eaten in days. All she would take was the juice from a can of cat food.

Beth said "if it's time, can you ask about cremation? I don't think I'll be able to stop crying." Thankfully, once it became obvious what was the only humane thing to do, the vet mentioned it first. I guess they handle this situation a lot, so they're used to it.

We stroked Alice, talking in soft voices to her as the vet and her assistant injected 100ml of her final injection. She nuzzled up against our hands, and exhaled with her eyes open. We knew she was gone, but we still stroked her. We wanted her to know that her breathing may have stopped but we weren't going to let her fade to black without knowing we were still there for her.

She was seventeen years old. Beth is heartbroken, and I'm close to tears typing this. I know that I'll press play on the video I'm about to link, and the dam will break.

Good night, sweet princess.

Listen : I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab For Cutie.

I turned forty at the beginning of the year. Time marches onwards, but it's not really that big a deal. I mean: it's not as though I'm sitting here saying "oh no, I never got to see the world or fall in love or do any of the things I've wanted to do" because I have. And had a really good time doing it too.

What this diary entry is about is this wee lassy here. Alice. And time marching onwards.



Alice is almost seventeen years old, which is old for a cat. And not long ago, she developed a sudden and large growth on her hind quarters. It's cancer.

The vet drained it of fluid, but it filled up again. He recommended against radiation therapy because killing all the cells in that area will just mean her body has to process that amount of dead material. And surgery is fraught with complications too: if she didn't survive, the last memories she would have are of the inside of a cage at the vets, followed by being put under for surgery, and then...? Then she'd be miserable for weeks. And the vet says there are two main forms of cancer (and this isn't the slow, staid, not a game-ender type).

To cut it to one sentence: she has around a month to live. She's not in any pain right now, but she has lost 2 pounds (around a kilogram) in the last two months.

We won't be replacing her. We couldn't.

I'm feeling a little sad right now. Beth just took Alice to the vet, and she has cancer.



Alice is almost 17 years old. Beth found her under a hedge as a kitten. She wouldn't come out for ages, and then she would hide for days until Beth coaxed her out. For years, she treated me like an inconvenient piece of furniture until one day she decided I was OK. Now the cat will fuss me when I'm fussing her (rubbing her head against my hand, twirling her tail around my fingers when I'm stroking her).

I know cats have the life expectancy they have. It doesn't make it any easier. And I'm being the strong one here: Beth is distraught.

I'm posting more and more on Facebook now. My sisters have been on it for months and they insisted I join. So I did. And it's really nice to have all manner of family and friends keep in touch. It's nice. I think I already said it was nice.

So if I don't post on here a lot, it's because I'm killing time with semi-regular updates on Facebook.

I just came in from outside with my telescope. The light pollution's too much to see things pointed north right now. The baseball field at the bottom of the hill has a huge spotlight shining right up the hill... I don't know what the purpose of the light is: there won't be any games played there for six months, there's not much foot traffic down there when it's dark, and it's strange that they have that much light leakage all the way up the hill. And cars come up the hill on a regular basis, which is understandable because it's a Saturday night. So I settled for looking at the Pleiades. With the naked eye, it looks like a smudge in the sky, but with a telescope you get to see hundreds of stars.

There's something very relaxing about standing in the dark and watching the stars. The light takes years to reach us, so in effect we're seeing them as they were, not as they are now. Of all the directions the light from those stars could have travelled, we get to see the photons that just happened to have been sent in our direction, and they arrived here when it was dark enough for us to see them. A chance in a billion, but it happens every night.

Listen: Out There In The Universe - Spacetribe ... Castles In The Sky - Ian Van Dahl featuring Marsha.

Over the past week, we took the dogs swimming...



...and we also went to an Oktoberfest. No video or pics of that, so here's a picture of some Germans drinking far too much.



Oh, and in just over a week's time I'll be returning to expand my computer knowledge. I'm taking classes in the Java programming language at the University.

And I'm playing far too much QuakeLive online than is good for me. But it's free, which is good, and there's nothing like having computer opponents run into a carefully planned ambush.

Listen: Bulletproof - La Roux ... Swimming - The Terrordactyls ... Java - Nestor Torres.