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"Midnight's Fascination" is spun from superwash merino wool part of the maul from Ursula's Alcove at the Ohio ren faire, plied against cotton crochet cord. The first skein also has small glass beads in the ply. These are strung on a nylon monofilament and spaced randomly throughout the yarn. The second does not have beads. I ran out of beads, and frankly, the little ones I was using are a pain to work with. The yarn includes some coils and a deliberately unbalanced ply. Dominic named the yarn, for our little boy cat.
Midnight was a small, amazingly lovey little black cat that Dominic and I adopted together. He was one of the cats that hung around in Dominic's yard, and he'd gotten into a fight and got his paw beaten up pretty badly. Well, the cat decided that it was time to come in. Dominic didn't agree, so Midnight worked on me.... He's be outside on the porch, waiting for food, then play like he was too weak to eat on his own, so I'd end up outside, sitting on concrete, picking choice bits of chicken off old bones while he sat in my lap and ate out of my hand. Dominic finally relented when I started to wig out about the possibility of Midnight's injured paw becoming infected, so we took him to a vet to get him looked at, and took him in. We were keeping him upstairs, away from Dominic's other cats, just in case. Midnight limped around his new digs for a bit, and apparently was satisfied that we'd given him a home, because he shook himself and started walking around (without a trace of the limp that had been there five seconds before) like he owned the place. And, basically, he did. We totally got played by a cat. Midnight became Dominic's little boy, and I was downgraded to "that annoying human who clips my claws". He was the absolute sweetest, lovey-est little thing you'd ever meet.
Midnight started getting sick back in November. First it seemed like a head cold, or a reaction to something he'd eaten (he had been munching on the flower's I'd gotten Dominic). But it kept getting worse. The first vet Dominic took him to said it was cardiomyopathy, and recommended putting him down. (Actually, that vet had recommended putting Midnight down when he tested positive for FeLV, without even mentioning the idea of a second test. I never did like that particular vet.) A second, much kinder, vet came up with an even worse diagnosis: Fluid buildup in the chest cavity, and lymphoma. Kitty cancer. She said that there was really nothing she could do, as it was fairly advanced, and recommended that he try herbal treatments, since we're both into that.
Being a cat, Midnight really wanted nothing to do with any of it. I was a little better at getting various hateful smelling concoctions to stay in the cat that Dominic, so I spent as much of my christmas break as possible at his place, sitting on the bathroom floor with a sick cat who refused to eat or drink. And then, right before christmas, he started turning around..... He was moving. He started eating on christmas eve. He was happy and energetic, and hungry, christmas day. Dominic said it was the best christmas present ever. I wish I'd been there to see it. I guess christmas miracles only last for a day, sometimes.... Midnight stopped eating after that. He got weaker. I went back out a few days after christmas. I remember both of us waking up over and over during the night, every time we couldn't hear Midnight breathing. He was so thin, and so weak he wobbled when he tried to walk. We spend new year's eve at Dominic's, so we could keep trying to get herbals and pedialyte into the cat. New year's day, in the afternoon, Midnight got up, walked shakily into the kitchen, and started quizzically at the new fountain style water dish. Then he walked over to Dominic, to be held. For a few minutes, he acted just like a normal, healthy cat. We had him tucked up in a blanket in the living room later that evening. He perked up every now and again to watch me spin, and I got up every now and again to give him more water. He started coughing right after the last little bit of water I gave him, and I picked him up and tried to pat his back to help him clear his breathing, like you do with babies, but then he stopped breathing. And I held him in my arms while he died, with his little kitty head on my chest and his big kitty heart right over mine. I think I knew we were out of christmas miracles, but I never understood, and can't explain, how much it can tear you up to be right there and not be able to do a single thing to change the present, to affect fate, or how something small and furry that you've only known for months can become so much a part of your heart, or how hard it is to realize, in that moment, that the cat in your arms is dead and it doesn't matter if you put him down because he's already gone, or how hard it can be to go tell the one you love that his prayers aren't going to be answered and there's nothing left to hope for and that you couldn't do anything to give him the one thing he really wanted.
So two skeins of yarn are the only tangible thing I have to hold on to and remember him by. I can still feel the weight of his little kitty body on my shoulder, and see the faint little kitty smile he had on his face after he died. I told Dominic that, knowing our little rocket cat, Saint Peter is having a hell of a time trying to slam that gate shut before the cat slips through. And I'm not a very religious person, really, and I don't have a lot of defined beliefs on the afterlife. I'm pretty big on reincarnation. I'm not sure how it works for people, since we take so long growing up, but I think animals do try to find us again when we have been their family. I hope so. I hope we're keen enough to recognize him if he does.
If you have furry children, give them a little extra love today.
Beaded yarn stats: 10-11 WPI, 2 ply w/ beads, 50 yds, some coils
Unbeaded yarn stats: 9 WPI, 2 ply, 60 yds, some coils
