My wife and I had to put our beloved 17 year old cat this morning and are not prepared to attend the show any longer. We are asking $150/ea. for the tickets, which is under face value. Transfer would be via Seat Geek. The seats are on the end of a row up above a split for accessible seating (section 228, row 6, seats 7 & 8).
Ina (EE-nuh) came to me with her sister, Lila back in October 2008. My brother and I were getting our first apartment together and we wanted to have pets with us. His cat, Smokie, had a couple of kittens who were a few months old. The kittens would be mine (and Smokie eventually when he moved out a couple years later). We brought the three of them from Nashville, TN (where my brother was living) to our hometown of Columbus, IN in my tiny Chevy Prizm along with my grandma. My brother sat with the kittens who were in a carrier together and Smokie sat up front in my grandma's lap. Smokie was very anxious unless my grandma was singing to her; she happily obliged.
Once in Indiana, Lila was a bit sceptical of me in the beginning (not for long). Ina took to me immediately. She was the most loving, affectionate cat. When she bunted you, the force was incredible. I always called her my "little battering ram". And she always wanted to be with me. When I worked near home I would often go home on lunch. She would come lie on my chest and try to pick the buttons off my shirt with her teeth like they were loose treats. I always thought "Ina Eats Buttons" would be a funny name for the fictional cat band of which she was, naturally, the frontlady.
Like most cats, she was quirky and funny. She stole a AA battery from me on more than one occasion. She loved to chase the reflected sunlight off my phone's camera lens when I'd let our dog Mocha outside. And she was very chatty. Sometime I would be on the phone and people would ask who was yelling at me...it was almost always Ina.
Finding out she had lymphoma in November of last year was difficult. She had lost a lot of weight and had frequent accidents outside her litter box. But we did everything we could to keep her happy as we were assured she wasn't in pain. For six months she received multiple medicines daily and anything we could do to have her eat. She bounced back for a while, but the decline was evident. Then, just in the last week it ramped up dramatically.
Ina was with me for my first "on my own" home, job changes, my engagement and wedding, the loss of many family members, two states, two apartments, four houses, the addition of another cat and dog...all of my adult life, from age 23 to 41. And when it was time, we had to make the hardest decision: to mercifully end her life and face the rest of ours without her.
We made an appointment for 11 a.m. the next day. I spent a lot of time with her. I put her up on my desk with me at work. She laid on my chest for a long while that night and then she got so much worse. We took her into the emergency vet at 3 a.m. and then our family was 1/7 smaller. The vet and techs were great and I commend them for the difficult work they do.
Keeping Smokie (who is now 19), Lila (18 in July), and Ina together for this long has been the best thing I've done in my life. These small, furry creatures make immeasurable impacts on us. They deserve to be remembered.
Leave your link and I'll send an exchange request.