Too Much and Not Enough

Yesterday I weighed the cats, and it was sad and depressing.

I've been weighing Pan semi-regularly for about 18 months, keeping an eye on his weight for the vet. These last few months, it's been more like, how much trouble are we in?

I don't weigh Harold regularly, but he was there, and since I had just put him down to pick Pan up, I was curious to know exactly what the difference was, other than "a lot".

Pan weighed 8.8 pounds, or Not Enough. Not Nearly Enough.

Harold weighed 17.6, or Too Much.

They always weighed the same. Always, usually to the ounce. Once, a tech told me she'd double-checked, to make sure the machine didn't get stuck after the first one, but no, they just weighed the same.

A couple of years ago, Pan lost some weight and Harold didn't. Harold kept gaining, while Pan lost and stopped, lost and stopped. He dipped under ten pounds when he wasn't eating for most of September, but during the three weeks he was eating again, he hit 10 again. Then he stopped eating again (other than a few bites last Saturday), and now... now I'm depressed.

What is it like, shrinking so much? Is he self-aware? Does he look at Harold and wonder what happened?

A few times in recent months, Harold has tried to jump on Pan, playfully, to start to tussle the way they used to, and Pan makes this awful sound, meow and groan and emphatic No. Poor oblivious Harold can't understand why I'm yelling at him for doing something normal.

It's not normal any more. Normal has changed. I pick him up and murmur, "Come here, sweetie. We can't do that any more. Pan isn't strong enough."

I start my new job tomorrow. That's good. But it doesn't fix some things.

Pan and Harold, July 2007