It came down to this question at the Friendship Hospital for Animals today:

"If the choice is between a home for him anywhere here in the U.S. versus taking him with us to Malaysia, which in your opinion, is the best for him?"

The vet hardly paused before she answered, "He should stay in the U.S."

Mr. Ashbless has been with us since we lived in Los Angeles. We found him in a pet store, but he was an adoption case--having been turned into the store by people who couldn't or didn't want to deal with finding homes for him and his siblings. I think he cost me $20, plus what I spent weeks later to have him neutered and front claws removed (this was 1990--we didn't know better back then, or at least, we fooled ourselves into believing that. At least it was done correctly in that the entire nail bed was taken out). He annoyed the hell out of Jill's cat, Megaera, who had been used to being the sole fuzzy thing in the apartment before.

He survived earthquakes and Pizza Delivery Men in Los Angeles, and then the move from LA to Colorado in the Honda Accord (the "Gold Bug") when I had to run the heater to keep the engine from overheating. He stayed with me in a small bedroom in Colorado for the six months that I had to stay to finish my degree after Jill moved to Washington state.

I put him on a plane in Denver that Christmas, after having him sedated--a flight that took him through Salt Lake City for a four-hour layover before finally being transferred to Pasco. When Jill picked him up at the airport, he had lost his voice after meowing so much. He spent the next months hiding underneath the covers of the bed during the day and only coming out when we were home at night.

After Megaera died, we thought he'd be happy as a bachelor, but every evening we would come home and he would greet us at the door very piteously. That's when we picked up Morgan le Fey, the second of his parade of girlfriends. When we drove from Washington state to Washington, DC, the two of them would huddle in the passenger side floorboard where Ashes constantly groomed Morgan, more to solace himself than her, I think.

Morgan died early three years ago, and since then Ashbless's girlfriends have been a series of foster cats: Blanche du Bois, Storm, Tanzania, Olivia, and Ziggy Stardust. In all these years, eighteen of them in all, there was never a question that wherever we went, Ashes would go with us.

Until now.

If he was a younger cat, we'd be working now with the relocation company to arrange for the import paperwork and reserving his spot in the quarantine kennel at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, as well as talking with the airlines about the best way to take him. But his health isn't what it used to be. A couple of years ago, the Vet identified that his thyroid had swelled and he was put on hyperthyroid medication. He also has a slight heart murmur. The combination of all that means that the 30 hours of flying, and its accompanying limited access to water and food, would likely kill him, not to mention the trauma, which he's already indicated that he's not above.

And so we are stuck. We are cat people, and so are most of our family and friends, but that means that they already have cats and can't handle a geriatric addition. Or they travel as much as we do and thus can't take the responsibility.

We plan to set him up with medical insurance and a small trust fund to cover his food and litter, but the issue isn't money. It's situational. There's no situation available for him. We have one last idea of a possibility, but we're clutching at straws.

The vet asked me if the choice was taking him with us to Malaysia or euthanasia. The latter isn't a possibility--we'll kill him with the plane trip before submitting him to the final solution. But there's got to be a better choice out there.

I think this is what the Interwebs call a bleg. If anyone knows of someone who would provide a good home for Mr. Ashbless, the need is dire.