{"id":4804,"date":"2013-02-03T09:47:59","date_gmt":"2013-02-03T14:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=4804"},"modified":"2014-03-22T06:28:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-22T10:28:16","slug":"sugar-turns-twenty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=4804","title":{"rendered":"Sugar turns twenty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a bulletin for Sugar&#8217;s distributed fan club, the hackers and sword geeks and other assorted riff-raff who have guested in our commodious basement.  The rest of you can go about your business.<\/p>\n<p>According to the vet&#8217;s paperwork, our cat Sugar turned 20 yesterday.  (Actually, the vet thinks she may be 19, but that would have required her to be only 6 months old when we got her which we strongly doubt &#8211; she would have had to have been exceptionally large and physically mature for a kitten that age, which seems especially unlikely because her growth didn&#8217;t top out until a couple of years later.)<\/p>\n<p>Even 19 would be an achievement for any cat &#8211; average lifespan for a neutered female is about 15, and five years longer is like a human hitting the century mark.  It&#8217;s especially remarkable since <em>this<\/em> cat was supposed to be dead of acute nephritis sixteen months ago.  Instead, she&#8217;s so healthy that we&#8217;ve been letting the interval between subcutaneous hydrations slip a little without seeing any recurrence of the symptoms we learned to associate with her kidney troubles (night yowling, disorientation, poor appetite).<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re trying not to let our hopes about Sugar&#8217;s continued lifespan rise too high,  but she&#8217;s making it difficult not to be optimistic.  She does <em>not<\/em> look or act like a doddering relic.  She is cheerful, active, and bright-eyed &#8211; more so than many cats half her age, if the truth be known. Some days her arthritis makes the basement stairs a little difficult, but not most days &#8211; and that&#8217;s still about the only obvious sign that she&#8217;s geriatric for a cat. Her amiable disposition, exceptional sociability and ability to charm humans have diminished not at all.<\/p>\n<p>This is an occasion for quiet celebration.  Go, I say to you, find a friendly cat and make nice at it.  And hope with us that Sugar keeps beating the odds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a bulletin for Sugar&#8217;s distributed fan club, the hackers and sword geeks and other assorted riff-raff who have guested in our commodious basement. The rest of you can go about your business. According to the vet&#8217;s paperwork, our cat Sugar turned 20 yesterday. (Actually, the vet thinks she may be 19, but that&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=4804\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sugar turns twenty<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-4804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-sugar","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4804"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4806,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804\/revisions\/4806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}