Saturday 24 September 2022--I have a message from home early this morning. My kitty, who has not been well, has taken a bad turn. I've never felt good about leaving her to go traveling, but this time I felt particularly uneasy. She's been in good hands with the housekeeper, but it appears the worst-case scenario has come to pass. I briefly think about getting home as quickly as I can, but it would take at least two days, and there's no point in letting her suffer any longer. I discussed options with the housekeeper before I left, and now I can do nothing but authorize her to do what must be done.

Get out late...I haven't been very good at getting up and out when I really wanted to do things, and at this point of the trip, I am not feeling at all ambitious. It's a gorgeous day, so I decide to take the funicular up the mountain. There's a long line at the terminal, as one might expect on a lovely Saturday. I suppress my queue anxiety and join in. It moves very quickly.

Hang around the viewing platform for a while, then hike down one of the trails. There's some sort of cross-country race going on, participants running through the woods, climbing over obstacles, wading through a pond, slogging through mudpits. There's a café on the other side of the pond where I have coffee and a pastry while watching masochists sliding through a tube into the water.

Hike back to the viewing platform and hang out a while more, then ride the funicular back down. Go back to my room to chill for the rest of the afternoon.

At 6:30, I receive confirmation from the housekeeper that the cat has been put down. I cry, more than I did for my mother, who knew what was happening and was ready for it. All the poor kitty knew was that I went away and never came back. I've been thinking a lot about her these past days, about how happy she would be when I got home. I dreamed the other night about cuddling her. She deserved at least to have me there to comfort her at the end. I let her down. It's funny, it was me dear old mum who wanted to get a cat, to keep her company when she was bedridden; I wasn't keen. Part of it was that I didn't want the responsibility. But the big thing, in the back of my mind, was that I knew she would break my heart eventually. In fact, she broke my heart more than once. Ironically, after Mom was gone, the cat kept me company through the two lockdown years of the pandemic. A last gift, in a way, from Mom. Now she's broken my heart one last time, in the way I always knew she would.

I go to Henrik to drown my sorrows. Have a nice chat with the owner, Johnny (not sure he spells it that way). I'm leaving Norway tomorrow.