She expired in the living room with no signs of distress - we think it was a heart attack.

RIP - April 6, 2006 (approximately) - April 17, 2020

She lived a good long life after one serious illness when she was 6 months old and was given a clean bill of health on March 30, 2020. It is because of that very recent clean bill of health that we think it was a heart attack.

From Valentine's Day, 2011:

Hello Mechelle (NOTE: my first name is spelled "Michelle"), I hope that you know that I am often thinking of you
Even though it may seem that the contrary is so.
What you might not understand, is that Im often playing games as often as
I can so I often neglect to show my feelings for you right off hand.
So if at times you feel unloved and neglected
I hope that you will understand that if we made time together
A bigger priority than and our main objective
Then we would both have to spend less time on our computers.

(NOTE: we have nicknamed my computer "Michelle's boyfriend" and my hubby's computer "James' girlfriend")

From February 15, 2011 (he finally finished this poem on February 16, 2011):

ONETRUELOVE

This is a poem to my one true love for whom I thank the Heavens above
And whom I will never forget and whom for making a part of my life I will never regret
But right at this moment I must confess there is a problem at the moment I must address
It is impossible for the poem to further progress although I could ramble on at best
As embarrassing as it is for me to admit a more dumbfounding dilemma I could never invent
The name of this lady who is so fine has simply slipped my mind.
I know in my heart she is a magnificent lover and also smart
So with the letter "M" her first name must start
In fact Mensa recognized her for her intelligence
So the second letter of her name must be an "I"
She also loves and takes care of her car, her cats, and her computer
So the third letter of her name must be a "C"
And every now and then she even takes care of hubby
So the fourth letter of her name must be an "H"
I also know she is an excellent speller and was a spelling bee
So the fifth letter of her name must be an "E"
She is also likable and lovable and her taste in men
Since she married me is excellent also
So now there is no doubt in my mind
The name of this lady who is so fine
The one who is my true love
The one whom I am always thinking of
The name of the one I'll spend the rest of my life with and know so well
The name of my one true love is "Michelle"

For those of whom I have mentioned my cats to in the past, they know I got Miss Kitty (a female gray striped Domestic Short Hair) in early June 2006 and Lieutenant Starbuck (a male gray striped Domestic Short Hair) in late October 2006. Well, just about 2 months ago, I started catsitting Midnight (a male black Domestic Short Hair) and started catsitting Vanessa T (a female calico Domestic Short Hair) about 2 weeks later. I adopted Midnight as of October 23, 2009 when I had to take him to a very necessary vet visit and put him on the Wellness Plan through Banfield (I put all cats I adopt on the Wellness Plan) and will be adopting Vanessa T in late November 2009.

Midnight has always been a very sweet cat (he is currently 1 year 0 months according to the vet), just needed a forever home. Vanessa T, on the other hand, was previously owned by my hubby's and my back door neighbors who abused and neglected her, so I had to put up with a few scratches and bites when I would pick her up for necessary things, like showing her where the litter box and food and water were or when I would attempt to pet her but she has since calmed down. She also is the only one of the 4 that I had to constantly work on getting her to use the litter box - took over a month but she is now using it whenever the urge happens.

As to why Vanessa T is the only one of the cats that I talk about on here and have an initial after her name is that the neighborhood kids named her Vanessa and I use the initial to differentiate between whether I am talking about the cat "Vanessa T" or my granddaughter "Vanessa I". In future if it is extremely apparent which I am talking about, for example mentioning Vanessa going in to be spayed, I might leave off the initial but otherwise I will use the appropriate initial.

Apparently, I got all bent out of shape over a bout with the flu that hubby brought home. Apparently, the flu lasted 3 days for me and only triggered needing the loo just after I ate each of those days which is different from the last few times I had the flu because those times the flu symptoms only lasted about 12 hours of feeling extremely bad then went back to feeling like normal. I am still eating normal including some dairy and am fine as long as I stay within the amount of dairy I am allowed each day.

During the last 4 days, my husband and I went out to eat 3 times and each time I got food allergy symptoms (had been successfully eating out with extremely few restrictions since about 2007 after being extremely restricted on what I could eat from about 2000) so I will be going back on the allergen elimination part of a 2 part diet to try to ferret out what foods I am currently allergic to. The first part can take 2-4 weeks to make sure that all allergens are out of my diet and to note how my symptoms are reacting to that. After that, I will enter the challenge phase of the diet by adding 1 food that was previously eliminated every 2-3 days and noting whether or not any of my allergy symptom returns with each food. Depending on how many foods I can successfully add back to my diet, this phase of the diet can take well over 2 months to accomplish. I am hoping that by doing this I do not end up with as restricted a diet I ended up with after I did this back in 2000 - at that time I ended up only able to eat 7 "single ingredient" foods which made it totally impossible to eat out except at 2 restaurants that were extremely compliant about cooking in the extremely unusual ways that I needed them to.