RIP Pumpkin (2002-2014)

It's been a bad year or so for cats in our household.  We're now down to one from four, that one being (thankfully) Martha, Thomas's most beloved.  However, we just lost her sister, Pumpkin (full name Pumpkin Prudence - Martha's full name is Lavender Martha.  The Beatles supplied half their names, Thomas the other, but it was a different half that stuck in each case).  We noticed a lump in her "udder" a month or so ago, but she was otherwise fairly fat and healthy, but I came back from Prague and she seemed completely diminished.  I felt her (she only really ever let me touch her) and you could feel that something where her kidneys should be was the size and hardness of a golf ball, and she was skinny and greasy.  Sure enough, the vet confirmed that she probably had kidney cancer and probably would die this weekend if we didn't do anything.  So... RIP Pumpkin.  I won't say she was a nice cat - she bullied her sister rather.  But she didn't deserve to go out like this.  Here are some photos from her first year with us, starting in September 2002:

 Martha behind, Pumpkin in front.  We couldn't tell them apart but looking back, Pumpkin is obviously darker.

 This was when what is now Frederick's room was still our "study" and this desk was in it.  We locked them in there while we were out so we wouldn't lose them, and then came home to find we'd lost them.  We couldn't work it out until we opened the drawer.  We still don't know how they got there - we presume they climbed up the back, but the drawer was closed the whole time.

 The Siamese side of her family was a lot more evident than it is in her sister.

I am already working on Jami to get a kitten.  "But Martha will be LONELY!"