Novem 9 sort of

The topic for this month’s blog chain is novem which means nine. So what do I write about the number 9.

Okay, well, um, it’s a nice round shaped number. It looks like an upside down 6, or maybe 6 looks like an upside down 9.

It’s a square, meaning that you can divide it by a number and have that number be the answer. In this case 3 X 3 = 9. So 3 is the square root on 9.

I like square numbers. 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100. They were always the easy ones to learn when I was learning multiplication. That was at least 9,000,000 years ago, so it’s pretty neat to actually remember them.

Well, back to 9. Um, err, ah… 9 … Okay, cats. They have nine lives. I can talk about my cat. He’s 14 and used one of his when he was a kitten.

I was at an event 1 ½ hours away staying over night. It was in November. My son called me in the morning telling me that Snookers was hurt. I said I’d come right home. It was Sunday of course. Everything happens on Sunday.

We’d had the first snow of the season: about an inch. My #2 son went to call the kitty inside and heard him meowing from the yard. He went over and Snookers couldn’t move and the back of his left paw was skinned to the bone. With the help of #1 son, they got him into the house. Father isn’t a cat lover and also pretty much worthless with injuries and that sort of thing.

They had him wrapped in a towel when I got home. Snookers saw me and, just like a hurt child seeing its mother, started meowing for me to help him. We think he had be hit by a vehicle on the road.

We live in a rural area and the vet is both a large and small animal vet. He was willing to come into the office to see Snookers. The cat could move his front paws but not his back or tail. The paw was skinned clears to the bone of the joint. Deciding to X-ray him the next day we left him at the vet.

I received a call from the vet in the morning. His voice was stiff. He said that there was swelling around the spine and only time would tell if Snookers would get movement back. When I said that I’d come and get him, the vet’s relief was evident in his voice. I think he was afraid I would tell him to just put the cat down.

Well, over the course of the week, Snookers gradually got more and more movement back. It took much longer for his paw to heal. Today, you wouldn’t know anything had ever happened. The only thing is that the joint is fused stiff. It doesn’t seem to affect him in any way.

He’s my little buddy. Both sons are grown and gone. Snookers is still here and is such a good kitty. He may only have 8 of his 9 lives left, and I hope he’s here for a long time.

So much for my blog on 9, novem, which turned into a story about my cat.