Anna lived to be nearly 21. It was hard, really hard. I got her when I was 16, she was there through a lot and I realized I could have been a better pet owner for her in a lot of ways but she still loved me.

I hate thinking about my brother's dog, she's an awesome dog and my nephew is crazy about her. But she's getting up there in dog years and my nephew has already known so much loss, I just wish I could keep him from losing any other living thing.

Um, I'm not entirely sure if the Natter thread even is the place for this (not that I have any idea where is), and I already apologize that it's once again in a skipping-lots-ignoring-ongoing-conversations-and-poking-my-head-for-a-short-time manner, but it's that time of year again, and, yeah, still in a risk of sounding a bit strange:

On Tuesday evening (as most of you clever people probably already know) starts the Jewish holiday of 'Yom Kippur', which means 'Day of Atonement'.

This is a day of soul searching, of trying to better define our faults to ourselves, and try to accept it upon ourselves to become, at least a little, better people. A day of repenting past wrongs we did, looking and finding it in our hearts to forgive wrongs done to us, and trying to remember to learn from this process in the rest of the days of the year. The holiest day of the year for practicing Jews.

On a rough division, there are two kinds of wrongs people can do: against G-d, and hurting their fellow human beings. In Jewish tradition, if the person committing a sin against G-d is truly sorry for what they did, repenting and taking it upon themselves to try and avoid repeating it, G-d forgives those sins.

The deeds which hurt other people, though, are not so 'easily' and personally forgiven. If somebody did anything to harm another person, they would not be able to cleanse themselves from that deed, no matter how much they'd pray and be sorry and repent and try to do good in the future, unless they make amends with the person who was hurt by that deed. As long as peace between people is not achieved, the 'sin', so to speak, is not 'erased from the books' above.

Regardless of the date in the year, I'd hate to think I'd offended somebody here (or everywhere else, for that matter). I don't think that the attempts of becoming a better person than one already is, is something that needs a date or a certain holiday for it, of course. It's just that, for me, having a certain day in the year to stop my daily runnings around, and think of nothing else but the really important things, is a good reminder of the order of priorities I'd like to have in my life.

So, since Wednesday will be, for me, this day of soul-searching, of trying to create a new start in my on-going effort of 'becoming a good human being, or at least a slightly better one', I would like to ask all of you here, if I offended anybody, or hurt any of you lovely people, to tell me about it, and give me the opportunity to apologize, fix it if possible, and also learn from my mistakes, and try to not repeat them (there are so many new ones to practice, why repeat old ones, you know?).

In case I offended anybody, and can't communicate directly with them about it (for whatever reason, especially with my ongoing absebce from the computer in the last few months), I can already say that I'm truly sorry. I can honestly say that I didn't mean to - you're all so considerate and thoughtful and generally all-around lovely, that there's absolutely no room for such a thing here. However, I might have had a slip of a keyboard, or mistaken somebody's intentions, or many other possible so forths. Y'all are so understanding, you probably tried to find excuses for me and didn't take offense anyway, but I want to make sure, all the same.

Please don't get me wrong - I'm definitely not trying to go around in a 'holier-than-thou' show off, or force my personal beliefs on others, or make statements which may be understood as criticizing anybody else's beliefs (or lack thereof) and way of living. If anything, being around here, among such a rich versatile group of kind and clever people, has exposed me to a lot more ways of choosing to lead one's life than I've ever had a chance to see before, and has shown me much more of the beauty and richness that is the world we live in.

[Edit: this is especially true this year, with my oh-so-short computer time and internet access, which gave way for too many opportunities to unintentionally miss stuff or seem to ignore (undeliberately!) people or their posts. Even the one thing I tried to maintain posting, their birthdays, didn't work (and I don't even have any excuses for that. I mean, yeah, I get less and less time in front of a computer, but for fully two weeks now — since my regular phone started making scary I'm—getting—broken sounds each time I dared attempting using it, I'm trying to get used to a phone which is able to talk to that internet thing, so we'll see how that works).

Sometimes in absence you can hurt people just as much as when you're present. Or even more so, only differently. And at the same time, you guys are always so there-for-anybody-who-needs (including little me - even when I don't get to get to the computer, I still know that you're there, that no matter what, if I ask, you're there for me, even after all my absence and lack of giving back).

So this is a chance to also post: Thank you.]

Slinky lives to purr another day! She has a serious UTI, so she got an antibiotic shot for that. Unfortunately, she has fairly severe kidney disease. Two of her test values were so high they were above the top limit of high. Not good.

She's very dehydrated, so we have to give her subcutaneous fluid once a day for 2 weeks. We also have a liquid medication to lower her phosphorus level. And she has special expensive prescription food for kidney disease.

She is our special expensive anniversary present.

Hang in there, Slinky! I hope the fluids and meds and special food help her muchly.

I'm trying to get used to a phone which is able to talk to that internet thing, so we'll see how that works

Well, if it leads to more Nilly for us, that's very exciting!

Rock on, Slinky! Kitty kidney ~ma for you!

Nilly, it's always a delight to see your font! I cannot imagine you causing anyone offense, honestly.

Dang, that really is an eternal cat.

Yeah, after reading that the current record-holder is only 26, I realized that there's a small but significant chance she might have been the oldest living cat at the time she died.

We've only had to put down one cat, but we had one disappear on us (I hope she was merely snatched rather than run over) and gave another to a farm along with the less independent of her two kittens. I'm hopeful mine will have a good decade or more before health problems start cropping up.

Timelies all!

Yay for good Slinky news!

Nilly, as usual, has said it much more eloquently than I could. If I have hurt or caused offense to anyone here, I ask your forgiveness.

Nilly, so wonderful to see you and your post.

I'm glad Slinky will be with you for a while longer, Steph. And it's good to see your pixels, Nilly.