An Independent Scotland. I Hope.

In about 4 hours, polls will open, allowing the people of Scotland to vote for or against independence. To decide their country's future.

It's been fascinating watching them get to this point. I've paid close attention to Scotland ever since my grandmother's Scottish relatives claimed little toddler me as one of their own, and in recent years have visited regularly, but I've spent the most time there over the past year and half that Jody and I've been together.

When we first discussed the independence referendum early on, Jody joked that it was my job to figure out how he should vote. Since then, he's gone from someone who was disillusioned with politics to a registered member of a party and an active Yes campaigner. Which is about how the rest of the country has progressed as well. Last year, when the subject came up, everyone was undecided, taking the wait-and-see approach. As we got a few months closer, the most common sentiment I heard around Edinburgh was a lack of trust in the information coming out of both parties: "I wish someone impartial would give us the real story." People just wanted to know what would happen in the event of yes or no, and they didn't think anyone was telling them.

Jody's campaign efforts - photo from @YesScotBorders on Twitter

As the day of reckoning approached, impartiality was still lacking. People moved into their Yes or No camp, and those groups diverged. With the rest of the UK and all the major media outlets behind it, the No campaign went for standard political tactics of press and big names. The Yes campaign went grassroots. And as could've been predicted, No pushed fear and big media misinformation, while Yes pushed hope and social media fact checking.

When the headlines said the Royal Bank of Scotland was leaving if independence went through, I learned on Twitter that actually only an address on some paperwork would change. When the big heads came out of Westminster and offered more powers for Scotland, the internet pointed out there was nothing specific on the table and found the posts of MPs vowing to block any new powers anyway. While the news is pushing people to No, Pub conversations are converting people to Yes.

But either way, big media or grassroots, something's working. It has been reported that 97% of those eligible are registered to vote in the referendum, and the turnout is expected to be over 80%. Eighty percent of the population showing up to tick a box next to Yes or No. Whatever the outcome, people are engaged. People are talking about their country, about how things can and should be. And that can only be good for Scotland.

I decided some time ago that I'm all for Independence. If I could, I'd be voting yes. There are so many good reasons to vote yes, but to my mind, the only reasons for voting no are sentimentality, fear, lack of awareness, or being wealthy enough that the Tories' shenanigans actually benefit you. I can forgive the first and last reasons; if you really feel -- heart over head -- that you need to be a citizen of the United Kingdom, or you're driven by your vast finances, then fine. I don't agree with you, I think it's a selfish way to vote, but I can forgive it. The other two have no excuse. If you're voting no out of fear, or because you haven't gone out to investigate the issues for yourself, you're playing right into the hands of the No campaign. Like Republicans and their Fox News here in the States, they want to keep people afraid of their own shadow, because that makes them easy to manipulate with misinformation. Voting no for those reasons means you're willing to keep being controlled and shat on when you could have better.

I don't get a vote. I'm not a citizen. I don't live in Edinburgh. Yet. But the Scottish people are deciding my future  tomorrow too. Because Scotland is my part-time home, where the man I'll marry lives, where I'd be living full time now if at all possible. So I'm counting on 5 million people I don't know to make the right choice on my behalf.

Vote Yes.

Kitty Hospice. Again.

There's a piece of wisdom among those with multiple cats that they all come in separately, but they leave together. Unfortunately I'm finding that hold true as, 3 months after losing Zooey, I have another cancer-riddled cat with a grim prognosis.

For the past few weeks, Selby has been having issues that pointed first to her lungs, and then to her throat, but no medication was giving her more than minor improvements. At a loss, the clinic called on a specialist who looked at her x-rays, gave her an ultrasound and did needle biopsies of 2 large masses, both of which came back malignant. She has cancer spread from her back into her ribcage and in one lung, with possibly more we haven't seen up toward her nose and throat. She's 15 years old. Based on what they found, chemo isn't an option, and surgery (which would be pretty hard on her given the tumor locations) usually gives less than 6 months before it comes back.

So I was offered the contact information for an oncologist, but I don't know that I see the point. I'm going to pick up more medication tomorrow to try to keep Selby comfortable in the time she has left, which the doctor said would be a month, then paused and added with forced optimism, "maybe more."

I've had animals all my life, ever since my parents brought me home from the hospital to meet their two dogs, and if I was able to choose just one to live forever, it would be Selby. Maybe because I've raised her from 6-8 weeks old until nearly age 16, or because she's been with me through all the best and worst times of my adult life, or because I grew into the person I am today with her always sitting in my lap, but she's more a part of me than any other cat or dog has ever been. I can't imagine life without this talkative little Canadian beast demanding I drop everything and be her furniture.

I remember taking her in to get spayed when she was a few months old, and they had to keep her overnight. When we went to pick her up, the person was gone for what seemed like a long time, then returned and asked me to come in the back. I had a flash of worry, what could possibly be wrong? I found Selby stubbornly clinging to the rear wall of her kennel, refusing to let anyone touch her. As soon as they opened the door, she leapt out into my arms. That's the moment I knew that no matter how many people or other cats I loved (who she treated with something between tolerance and affection), it would always be me and Selby against the world.

Which just makes me have more superstitious guilt about naming her after the brilliant writer Hubert Selby Jr, who was also one of a kind and has meant a lot to me, but also had his share of health problems. Here's some of his bio on biography.com:

Hubert Selby Jr., perhaps best known for his novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, was born on July 23, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York.

Selby went to sea as a merchant marine while he was still in his teens. Laid low by lung disease, he was, after a decade of hospitalizations, written off as a goner and sent home to die. Deciding instead to live, but having no way to make a living, he came to a realization that would change the course of literature….

Selby died of chronic pulmonary disease on April 26, 2004, in Los Angeles, California. At the time of his death, he was working on an autobiographical novel and screenplay, in addition to teaching a graduate writing class at the University of Southern California.

My Selby came out of the SPCA as a young kitten, underweight, with parasites, a respiratory infection, gastro-intestinal issues, and no training from her mother on how to be a proper cat. From there she went through fatty liver disease (which nearly killed her), multiple eye infections, loss of a couple infected teeth, chronic inflammatory bowel syndrome, and asthma. If she nearly died and fought back through the health issues like her namesake, I just hope she goes out still active like he did too.

So to that end, I'm off to resume my hospice nurse duties, give Selby a cuddle, and see what I can do to improve her day.