Voce I

The voices I’m listening to here are often gravelly from smoking and talking at length over coffee or on the telefonino, and exhaust fumes from tiny vehicles (the Twizy beats them all in size – and it still seats two people!).  Pitches are all over the place, but by far the deepest one yet has come from an unlikely source:  our new Italian veterinarian. 

Everyone who spoke at any length with us about our new living/working adventure knows that yes, we brought our family.  Our furry children are Smokey – a more or less reformed feral, long-haired 14 year old feline – and Salvador – my ‘I don’t need a man’ Humane Society adoptee.  He is 21.  Sal is a ‘classic tabby’ who is, by most standards, a large framed cat with what I’ve heard vet techs call ‘the Garfield gene.’  At his largest, he weighed almost 18 pounds.  When the Spouse and I were just beginning to date and he first met Sal, he exclaimed, ‘That’s the biggest cat I think I’ve ever seen.’  (NB:  he’s a veterinarian too)  More recently, Sal has slimmed down to between 15 and 16 in the last couple of years.  He was never a human-food-eater or a fanatic for treats.  Heck, he has never even been partial to soft food.  He doesn’t gorge or hound us for meals.  He grazes. 

And he sleeps.  A lot.  It's what you do when you're approximately 105 years old.

6 years ago, Salvador was diagnosed with diabetes.  For 5 years, we administered insulin twice a day and kept him on a special diet (low calorie food that reportedly tastes so awful, his doctor would say, it’s a miracle that anyone would eat it…and of course because she defies logic as well, Smokey adored it).  Last year, when he dropped two pounds and his diabetes went into remission, our home veterinarian shook his head in disbelief:  how can he possibly be this old and still more or less ‘maintain his figure’?  Older cats tend to lose weight and become hyperthyroid.  Not this guy. 

The weight has taken its toll in other ways, too.  His lower spine and knees are quite riddled with arthritis.  So, he does have pain meds.  We have adjusted our home environment here and there to promote his comfort and mobility.   

But we packed him up and flew him and Smokey here with us.  I won’t go on and on about what he means to me.  A 20-year relationship is commitment defined, I think.  

And because the Spouse is sure that his new job will entail travel, it was important to him that we establish a relationship with a Roman vet, get all of the medical records transferred well ahead of time, and then visit the clinic together…in advance of said travel.  This way, if something happens and I need to take one or the other old cat in for aid, the groundwork would be laid.

So off we went, on July 4.

Best buds.

First lesson learned, before we ever left the apartment:  don’t try to phone for a taxi and use perfect Italian to do it when you are unprepared for the rapid-fire response of the taxi service.  Haven’t many of us done this kind of thing before?  Master and confidently utter a sentence or two of the native language and then become utterly stumped at the response, which is neither textbook nor slow enough nor perfect in enunciation.

Second lesson learned: there is a taxi stand very close to our apartment.  The taxi rule in Rome is that you never flag one down; you find a taxi stand and get the one that is next in the queue.  This cuts down on traffic hazards (of which there are plenty, already).  Lucky for us – and probably because we are so close to the Italian Senate – there are a couple of stands, and one was close enough to help make up for the time lost when The Spouse was learning lesson one. 

Third lesson:  not only will Italians concern themselves with overweight people, they will also concern themselves with their overweight pets. 

He barely fits in this carrier.

So here we are, with Dr. G.  A tiny Italian with a booming, deep voice, giving Sal the once-over.  She made quite the loving fuss over him.  If he spoke (and he does talk a lot, loudly – because he’s now as deaf as a post), she cooed in response with a ‘mi amore.’  She kissed him on the head several times.  And she patted his girth, remarking:  ‘Eez lihke a PEEH-loh!’

Sal is heretofore unfazed.  Lots of people want to rub the Buddha belly.

But then the amusement was over.  The Q&A:  what did we feed him, how much did we feed him, was there anything other than cat food involved, did he get exercise…and the questions came more than once, as if we American owners, so guilty of gluttony on a national level, could not properly see ourselves and our own behaviors.  Surely we let our 21 year old guy get like this, and surely we could do something about it.

How appropos that a friend of a visiting friend would choose this restaurant for a meet-up and Neapolitan-style pizza.

10 years ago, I would have (and should have) faced this fact and taken charge.   I could have fought the valiant battle of putting a large cat on a diet.  I could have tossed the softball more often for him to chase (what – your cat isn’t into softballs?  I’m telling you, mine is BIG).  I could have leash trained walked him around the neighborhood house.  But now?

The Spouse can tell a story from his vet school days, in which a well-respected professor was dining at home with some grad student guests.  A few of them noted the little, very old overweight family dog lolling about underfoot.  And they observed the dog’s ‘butter-loaf’ appearance (the analogy for a dog that is so fat that it resembles – from above, along the back - a loaf of bread split and buttered down the top).  The professor defended his pet, saying that the dog was old and happy, and it just made no sense to put the dog on a diet just so she could die thinner and less happy.

We can see the rationale for Sal.  His warranty is long expired, he's on bonus time, and so if he wanted cake for breakfast, heck, we’d probably let him have it…on his birthday, maybe.   Since he issues no call for cake for breakfast, we are keen to just manage his arthritis pain. 

We could tell that Dr. G was not buying into the philosophy of the our transplanted Rest Home for Geriatric Cats.  But she prescribed a ‘not-drug’ drug (check in later for what that means, because I’m still puzzling over it) for what she suspects is partly a neuropathic issue, and wished us well. 

We’ll let you know if it merits serious consideration.  A few days have elapsed since Sal’s taxi ride, and he’s still resting up from the excitement.

While Sal naps, we take our passeggiate. For those who asked for 'more pictures,' how about a gratuitous shot from a bridge over the Tiber?