I intended this post to be a belated 2nd Blogiversary post and to have a contest in order to give away a couple of skeins of sock yarn.
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\nAnd I’m still giving away the yarn. I’ll randomly pick two commenters to this post to win the yarn, but I have a more serious purpose. My brother requested that I tell you about my family’s cat, Rip, who lives with my brother and my parents, because as my brother, Thomas, put it, “Knitters are nice people, and they like cats.”<\/p>\n

Here is Rip, named after Rip van Winkle, in the prime of his life, a very proud Burmese “with papers.”
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\nRip (aka Rippy, The Ripster, and Rippity-Wippity) turned 20 last May. Sadly, now Rippy is dying. He has had a wonderful life, and he has truly been a Great Cat. He has always been playful, friendly and loving. He has been a champion lap cat.
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\nHe has liked hanging with my mom (he sleeps on her side of the bed every night), and he liked to “help” her garden.
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\nHe even taught my dad, who grew up with dogs, to like cats. It may have helped that he was good at playing fetch. But his closest relationship has been with my brother. They have been best buds for 20 years. This photo captures their comradery so well.
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\nRip often seemed an extension of Thomas’ arm, and they both seemed quite content with that relationship. Now Tom’s and my parent’s hearts are breaking as they watch Rip slip farther and farther away. He doesn’t seem in much pain yet, but his decline has really accelerated, and my mom won’t let him suffer in pain. So they watch and wait, knowing that time is rapidly running out.<\/p>\n

If you could leave a comment of condolence, it would mean a lot to them. I know I don’t have to give away yarn to get knitters to do a nice thing, but I would like to. We are so seldom rewarded in this world for doing something kind and generous, and I would like to change that here just a little bit. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I intended this post to be a belated 2nd Blogiversary post and to have a contest in order to give away a couple of skeins of sock yarn. And I’m still giving away the yarn. I’ll randomly pick two commenters to this post to win …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7pEGF-2A","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}