InNice

Merci Mitzi

Today 20 dec 2010 at 5 pm we said good bye to Mitzi.

 

I met her in Radda in Chianti, sometime in the summer of 1997. She allowed me to take here away.

She remaind briefly with me, but later shifted to my parent's house.

Here she was, confortable, on Renato's (my dad) legs.

She saw him dying, some years ago.

And then she became my mother's cat.

Here she is, christmas 2007....making sure noone could disturb her life with Grazia...

 

...well...almost. Sometimes it was better to sleep (after all myself and Anto were only taking photos).

When my mother also passed away, she remained  all alone at her home, for some three months, before finally allowing us to take her to Como

...I'm not sure she really "allowed" me to. Hers she is, about to hit me with a paw...

Anyway, after about 15 days on the balcony, at -3C, she finally moved into our Como home...

...she wasn't exactly slim, was she ?

We spend almost two years in Como together, before moving to the Cote d'Azur

...and yes, as "Riviera Radio" kept saying this summer, "there's no better place to be".

Of course we named our company after her: NITZI Sarl is really Mitzi Sarl, as almost everyone keeps calling it (I still wonder why...but it is always so). Can you spot her on this photo ?

(hint: she is in TWO places!)

In august, after spending three days of vacation in Corse, she did something strange after taking her lunch. A funny movement with her tongue.

We did not get it, but it was the first sign that the same thing that took my mom away was about to do the same with her.

In October it was clear she was not ok.

In November she lost one of her eyes, almost all of the vibrisse on one side, but never stopped eating her food or purring at us.

I decided that - as I was the one to take her away from Toscany - I would also be the one to try to understand when she would have said "that's it".

With Anto, we kept looking at her, to try and understand when the joy of being alive (and well feed) would be superseeded by the pain caused by her cancer.

On december 17 she looked very said. She kept reaching for the bed, and laid there for hours.

Hardly she would purr at us.

Saturday night I thought the moment had come.

Today we went to the doctor. She felt asleep for the last time on my left hand, while anto was petting her. 

In her last post, here, she said that she is well...now.

And yes, I agree.

 Somewhere at this very time she is there, with Grazia and Renato, watching tennis on Tv, "tutti insieme".

Thank you Mitzi. 

We loved you. And still do.

 

 

Mitzi Update (Mitzi non sta bene)

I think it is time to update on Mitzi. 

In part, because some friend asket us for it. In part, because only the BLOG allows to go back in time, and will keep track of this in the years to come. Facebook is just for telling the others what's going on now, not to rember things.

E' il momento di raccontare del lento (o veloce?) progredire della malattia della mitzi.

Here are the facts. We first noted something strange (her  behaving in a strange way after eating) when back from Corsica, that is about august 19.

It took us long months, about two, to understand that something was not right. The left part of her head starting to became bigger, and the eye to...to....ok have a look here:

At the same time she had her usual cystitis problem, so we could not really understand that something more important was going on.

(abbiamo notato il primo comportamento strano al ritorno dalle vacanze, metà agosto. Dopo mangiato faceva strani versi, ma avendo anche uno dei suoi problemi cassici, la cistite, non ci abbiamo dato troppo peso)

We went to the Vet in november. He gave her something, and ask us to come back in two weeks....when, upon seeing her, he sait "c'est très grave"

Era la solita malattia.

It was ths usual thing, biting on her.

Now, she keeps getting worse by the day.

I'm trying to figure out when it is the right moment. I look at her, but she will not tell.

(siamo stati dal vet a novembre. Ha detto che era molto grave. Ci ha dato qualche palliativo, ma quella malattia non si cura. Ora la guardo, cercando di capire quando dirà basta.Non e facile.

Today, when Anto was finally setting up our christmas tree, she was sleeping on the bed.

Her time (with us) is not up, yet.

Not today.

 

Stasera, mentre Anto preparava l'albero, dormiva contenta sul letto.

No, oggi non e' ancora il momento.

 

One Year, hier.

What was the exact moment we left Como, and therefore Italy ?

I can see two of them.

The final one is for me the exact instant I took a photograph...that I will post on december 8 (that is, the very day we moved Mitzi to the Cote).

Quale e' stato l'esatto momento in cui abbiamo lasciato Como, e l'italia ? 
Per me i momenti sono stati due. Quello finale e' stato il momento in cui scattavo una fotografia...che pubblichero' l'8 dicembre (se la ritrovo!), ovvero il giorno in cui abbiamo trasferito la Mitzi. Ma un'altro momento simile era gia' avvenuto, qualche giorno prima. 

 

But there has been another one, happening just a few days before:

I wrote about it on dec 11, 2009.

It was 9 pm on november 30, 2009, one year ago, yesterday.

The lesson was over, and everybody had left the room. I came back, to shoot the wall clock, while Anto was gathering her things, as she always did....But that was the last lesson, in Villaguardia. In a way, the last lesson in Italy. 

Alle 9 del 30 novembre si chiudeva l'era delle lezioni di Anto alla WetLife. Ho preso questa immagine quando tutti avevano gia' lasciato la sala, dopo l'annuncio di Anto che quella sarebbe stata l'ultima lezione. L'atmosfera era triste, per la prima volta notavo che la parete era segnata, e che i le barre non erano affatto al loro posto.

C'era silenzio. 

Ho molto amato le lezioni dell'Anto, specialmente quelle del lunedi', piene di energia e di gioia. Molte cose sarebbero cambiate, nei dodici mesi successivi. Non posso lamentarmi di nessuna di queste cose, ne avere nostalgie, tranne per una cosa, il corso del lunedi' a VillaGuardia.

.

I loved Anto's lesson, with all the energy that she gave us, and the joy that I could feel in everyone around me.

In the following 12 months, a lot of things were about to change, about to happen.

Being in one of the best part of the world. doing a job that I like, it is very hard to be sad. 

In fact, I'm not. Except. of course, for monday's lessons at Wet Life.

But then, Fitness is still with us, day after day, here like there, as always have been.
Ma il Fitness e' ancora nella nostra vita, giorno dopo giorno, qui come la, come e' sempre stato. 

(TopFit Antibes, 28 november 2010, h. 12.55)