At times like this, words don’t come easy. Thank goodness for poets. For the full poem, “The cat’s song,” go here.
Junior was euthanized at about 5:15 PM on Thursday, September 14, 2023. A clinical exam revealed that what we thought was a stubborn case of chronic rhinitis, was in fact a huge mass pushing aggressively through his nasal cavity, causing not just congestion but also swelling along his nose and pain. All options except one promised more suffering without any guarantee of relief.
My big boy was suffering big time, and the best we could do for him was help him over the Rainbow Bridge. At least he’ll be in good company with Maxine, Luisa, Mikey, Elodea, Joshua, and Smokey.
I’m going to miss … I am missing his sweet, sweet face, and his utter dependence on us. I miss how he would sit in the kitchen, an hour or so before lunch time, and wait for his midday meal. He was often underfoot in the kitchen, pushing me to scold him and even chase him out. Except he always slipped back in, his stubborness always making me give in to him.
I miss how he would join us for our meals, knowing that my husband could be counted on to slip him a bit of meat or cheese. I miss how he would lounge with us on the loveseat while we enjoyed a stay-at-home Happy Hour. I miss how fickle he was about which lap to lie on when we were watching TV, sometimes switching laps a couple of times over the course of a movie.
He entered our lives as a fully grown “neighborhood cat” around early 2009, Greg patiently earning his trust with kibbles and shelter. Fourteen years sounds like a long time, but it went by too fast.
Here’s a few of my favorite photos of Junior.
Back in the day when Junior had at least one tooth.Junior toothless and showing off his long tongue.Junior wasn’t much of a reader, but he did enjoy lying on top of magazines.A winter routine was for Junior and Maxine to lie on my husband’s lap while he drank coffee and read. This particular morning, Junior decided my husband’s chest made a good perch.Junior posing for a centerfold.Keeping my toes warm on a cool March morning.
Junior loved heat, especially from the sun, to the point of trying to lick it.
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While I considered Junior to be my “big boy,” he was partial to Greg, inclined to go into full sleep mode while straddling his leg.
When the going gets tough, I get my hair dyed. Here’s my latest do courtesy of Chelsea Salon and Spa.
A selfie I sent to my husband to give him a heads-up about my dye job.
So what’s so tough?
Firstly, about ten days ago my mother fell while on her way to bed. Broke her hip. My brother found her the next morning. Yes, folks, the scenario we all dread when our elderly relatives live alone. She is fine right now. She had a simple surgery and was in hospital for a couple of more days before they scurried her over to a rehabilitation facility. My family has a long history with this facility.
It’s the same facility where my sister Shirley spent a couple of months recovering from a broken ankle. Also, a long, long time ago and known then only as “the infirmary,” it’s the same place where my father was cared for until his death. And it’s the same place where my surrogate grandfather Ted Albers was cared for until his death. It’s now called River Ridge Living Center.
My mother is in a safe place. She’s not quite the happy camper, but her see-saw moods could be post-anesthesia blues or side effects of morphine or the realization that her days of independent living are over. My brother visits her a couple of times a day, other family are there frequently, pretty much the same or more as when she was living in her trailer, but now we have the benefit of knowing that she is getting the kind of care she has needed (and resisted) for a long time.
I am hoping and praying that she relaxes into her new life at River Ridge. Even before her fall, she was already living in the “here and now.” She wouldn’t remember what happened yesterday or maybe even a hour before. She can’t conceive of the future. If you try to tell her about something that will happen the next day, she’ll just shake her head and tell you she won’t remember that.
So my brother (her primary caregiver) is doing all he can to make sure that all her needs are being met and will continue to be met. I don’t believe she will or even should go home again, not without 24/7 care which she can only get properly at River Ridge. I said as much to my brother, and it wasn’t easy. I’ve never wanted my mom to wind up in a facility, but it’s really the best place for her now. She has said she is being treated well, and that gives me hope that she’ll become more comfortable with the place as time goes on. I’ve only talked to her a couple of times. Talking on the phone tires her out quickly. I miss our daily phone calls, but as long as others are there with her, I’m okay.
Secondly, Junior’s chronic condition has worsened. He was getting better, but then the lining of his left nostril became swollen and inflamed. With Dr. C’s permission, I started giving him steroid nose drops again, but with no appreciable improvement. Worse, he stopped eating on Tuesday. He had been getting picky with his food over time, preferring dry food to the wet, then treats to the regular dry, and then skipping meals altogether.
His left nostril is congested. We suspect he stopped eating because he can’t smell his food or the congestion makes his food unappetizing or both. We have used a baby aspirator to suck some of the snot out of his nose, but apparently not enough to give him comfort. I take him into the bathroom with me when I shower, hoping the steam will loosen the mucous up. The problem is that he’s not sneezing, not expelling the mucous himself, and our efforts at aspiration are probably too little too late. I’m angry with myself for not scheduling a recheck, instead waiting until we were in panic mode.
In the meantime, my husband devised a system where we essentially force-feed him using a syringe and pureed wet food. We’ve done this successfully a few times now, although all of us wind up with squirts of cat food on our hair and fur.
His appointment with Dr. C is a drop-off, meaning I drop him off at the hospital in the early morning and then wait to hear from Dr. C. I try to avoid drop-offs because I don’t like leaving my cats at the hospital all day (separation anxiety), but this is the earliest we could get him in.
So stay tuned and thank you for reading! Here’s a few pics of Junior from this morning, obviously taken against his will.
To quote my recent Facebook post: Hurricane Idalia made landfall this morning, a bit further south than expected. Good for us, not good for others. We feel very lucky. However, we don’t have power so I’ll be turning my phone off soon 🙂 Just wanted to give you all an update.
You know, it really wonderful to have so many people care that I worry about running down the battery on my phone 😉😊❤️
Some of you may be following Hurricane Idalia. She’s shaping up (and over) to be the first major hurricane to hit the Big Bend area of Florida, where we live. In fact, weather experts are calling it an “unprecedented event.” Tallahassee is a band or two out from the purple in the image below, but close enough in that we are under a hurricane warning.
Thankfully, we live far enough inland that storm surges will not be a problem for us personally. But wind will be.
Am I scared? Yes.
We prepped as much as we can, but I’ve never ridden out a hurricane of this magnitude before so I can only hope we’ve done enough. The cats will be getting anti-anxiety meds with their evening meal to keep them from bouncing off the walls.
Last I heard Idalia should make landfall in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, so I guess I won’t be getting any sleep.
We’ll hunker down and hope that our little piece of property won’t get too torn up. I don’t expect miracles. I do hope this will not be a new normal for Florida. If we had wanted to ride out hurricanes, we would have moved to South Florida or the coast when we came here.
I used to joke that, thanks to climate change, we might eventually have beach front property without ever moving. We’ll see if I still have a sense of humor tomorrow.
Although I’ve been more absent than present on my blog over the last few months, I felt I should come on and say something about Hurricane Idalia. If I’m able to (depending on power outages, of course), I will do what I can to update this post once the wind has settled. That’s one good thing about Idalia, I guess. She’s supposed to move through fast.
See you on the other side of the hurricane!
If we live here long enough, Raji might get to enjoy a blue bayou right outside our door.
Last time you all saw me here, I shared a recently published micro-story of mine from Flash Fiction Friday. My submission had to be 100 words or less. I “complained” that a longer version of the story was better. But now I’m not sure if either version is particularly good. You be the judge because that’s what readers do.
Original, 147-word version, untitled:
The dinner party was in full swing. Six women sat around the small table with glasses of wine and plates dirty with scrapes of spaghetti. Megan, the seventh woman, sat at the end of the table, blocked by her best friend. Megan watched as her hands became translucent. Conversation revolved around when Dawn and her friends were in college, long before Megan met Dawn at work and latched onto her as one would a lifesaver.
Dawn had wanted to come to this party, see her old friends, but wouldn’t come without Megan. “I’ll go if you go,” she said. “I don’t want to go alone.”
Megan watched as her hands, arms, and body slowly disappeared, replaced by quivering energy. She rose, the women deep in reminiscences of bygone camping trips, walked through them, the women twitching only a little as she passed by and out the front door.
The edited, 100-word version at Flash Fiction Friday is here: Invisible.
Update on Junior: First, he’s fine. But earlier in the week he seemed to take a turn for the worse with lethargy and copious discharges from his nose. When he turned away from his breakfast on Wednesday, I called the hospital, in a bit of a panic and demanded asked if he could see Dr. C as soon as possible. Dr. C is Junior’s primary vet; she knows him well. The new vet, nil. We got an appointment for the next morning, and I elected to stop the stereroidal nosedrops. I mean, if he’s having worse symptoms after two+ weeks, then surely the medication is not helping. He slept most of the day and by evening was starting to eat again. Plus the nasal discharge had slowed.
We love Dr. C. She’s bright and bubbly, doesn’t shy away from talking about tough issues but doesn’t jump to conclusions either. She did a nasal swab and ordered a culture (we’re still waiting for results). Generally, though, she suspects Junior is just one of those kitties that develops chronic rhinusitis that will sometimes respond to treatment and sometimes won’t. The condition is not life threatening, but is something to stay on top of.
While Dr. C had Junior in the back of the clinic for the nasal swab, she took advantage of the fact that he has no teeth and stuck her finger in his mouth to palpate his soft palate for a tumor. Nothing. Then she took a bulb syringe and sucked a bunch of snot out of his nose. She showed us his snot.
We love Dr. C.
While we’re waiting on the culture results, we have him on antihistamines again. Aside from a super cruddy nose in the morning, which I clean up with wet paper towels and Q-tips, you wouldn’t know anything was amiss with Junior.
My green-eyed boy.
On Instagram recently, I shared a couple of photos of butterfly larvae that’s taken residence in our passionflower vine. We’ve counted at least 11 of these critters. We’re excited that we might truly have our own “butterfly garden” soon.
More butterfly larvae
Butterfly larvae
It wasn’t easy but I also managed to film a Gulf Fritillary flitting around the passionflower vine. This is what the larvae should develop into.
Other than stressing out over Junior and taking photographs, I’ve been weaving a scarf on my new toy: an Ashford Knitter’s Loom. It will be a long while before I share any photos of that adventure. My husband is impressed with the result but, to be honest, I almost ruined the project before I even started it. I remembered why I eventually gave up weaving. Some of the work is tedious and involves … math. But weaving by itself is a joy and worth the tedium of warping and angst of math.
Thank you for reading! Here’s a photo of Raji from this morning in his favorite sleeping pose … except here he is giving me the stink-eye for waking him.
Flowers, potholders, and cats are three of my favorite things. Well, cats will always be at the top of my favorites, but flowers and potholders are running close.
The past couple of weeks have been like the previous weeks, so-so with an occasional meltdown. Sure, I’m still grieving, but I do get tired of it. I have so much to do and not as much time left (and less every day, of course), so I get impatient with myself. I enjoy being creative, but I often hold back because I can’t share my creativity with my sisters, especially Shirley.
Every time I think I’ve rounded a corner, find myself practically skipping with glee over the flowers blooming in our garden, some time later I’ll again find myself in a deep gloom. The heat hasn’t helped. Today (this morning) is the first time in weeks that I didn’t feel like I was being scalded when I stepped outside. And yet, I am so lucky to be here and not Maui or Phoenix (sorry, Luanne). I could be luckier and be in upstate NY or (preferably) the West Coast, but best to count my blessings and not push my luck.
Reading and book reviews are high on my list of things I must do. The reading is ongoing, the book reviews are in my head. Right now I’m reading an advanced copy of Love in the Archives by Eileen Vorbach Collins, a compilation of essays about the loss of Collins’s teenage daughter Lydia to suicide. I’ve read some of these essays before, but Collins’s writing is such that I always find something new in her words, her insight, her humor, and her heart. Collins’s words stitch together a delicate balance between horror and humor–not laugh-out-loud humor, knee-slapping humor–but that wry, dry, honest humor that comes with living with grief. Her words make me cry and yet they are a balm. Love in the Archives will be published in October but you can preorder a copy at Amazon or (my preference) Bookshop.org.
In the meantime …
I have been enjoying the amazing blooms in our garden. These are flowers I’ve often admired elsewhere, never thinking I would ever enjoy them in my own backyard.
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I also managed to make a number of potholders and “mug rugs” or coasters in the past two weeks. The lavender and silver potholders came out of a kit I bought from Acorns & Twigs, a small family business that offers a huge assortment of crafty things. I used rectangular rings for the end loops because I could not find circular ones (seriously, I checked both Joann’s and Michael’s and only found ugly plastic rings). I like how these look, though.
Lavender and silver potholders.
This next collection was made with wool loops from Carol Leigh’s Hillcreek Fiber Studio. Carol uses natural dyes with the wool loops so the colors have slight variations, making the designs look that much more interesting and attractive. Hillcreek is another family-run business, and the only one I know of that offers wool loops for weaving. Cotton loops are easy to care for: I machine-wash mine and then air-dry them, but I could probably machine-dry on a low setting. The wool requires handwashing, but I love the feel and weight of these potholders and mug rugs. Usually, I weave in the last loop, but I wasn’t able to do that effectively with the mug rugs so I used buttons to finish them.
Four mug rugs in color combination of reds, pinks, blues, and purples.
Close-up of mug rug in colors of reds, pinks, blues, and purples.
Two potholders in a color combination of light blue, reds, pinks, and purples.
Finally … cats.
Here’s Raji in his favorite sleeping position.
Raji in full sleeping mode.
Junior has been causing us a bit of a concern lately. His left nostril has something blocking the opening. You can barely see it in this picture.
Junior wondering why I’m taking his photo when he would rather eat.
The bad news is we don’t know what it is, and it’s response to steroid nose drops has been so-so. Sometimes it seems to shrink, sometimes not. A few weeks ago, the mucus was tinged with blood, so we made an urgent visit to the clinic, and, for the time being, we’re now stuck with a newbie vet. He’s a very nice, young man, but he didn’t waste time in suggesting that Junior might have a tumor pushing through his nasal cavity aka cancer. Of course, tests would need to be done, but we’re holding off for now.
Junior is at least 15 years old, more likely 16, and we really don’t want to put him through a lot of poking and prodding, anesthesia and complications. At his last recheck, he did show signs of improvement so we’ll have another recheck in a couple of weeks. The good news is, other than the nose-thingy, he’s well. He’s always early for his meals, eats everything, and is generally alert and affilitative. Yes, he sleeps alot but who wouldn’t in this heat, and he is 16, fairly close to my mom’s age. So, we’re putting off the big conversation for now. Fingers crossed the steroids work their magic.
And now truly finally, I have a 100-word story up at Friday Flash Fiction, titled Invisible. Interesting thing about this story. I worked a much longer version for a SmokeLong Quarterly Community Workshop, then pared it down to about 150 words for a workshop with Meg Pokrass, and then further edited for Friday Flash Fiction to fit their 100-word limit. To be honest, I think I should have stuck with the 150-word version. Que sera sera.
Today–August 2–is my sister Shirley’s 77th birthday. If she were still with us.
I wrote this micro memoir a few months ago.
Sister
It wasn’t that hot, not that day. But a line of white crusted her open mouth, and the white hair capping her head was damp with sweat. She leaned sideways as if she would fall out from the passenger seat. I reached out to her, but she waved me off, holding onto the car door as she pivoted on the seat. I held down my scream as she jerked her body up and out of the car. A puppet missing a few strings, she was no longer its master.
I hovered behind her, torn between rushing up to her, making her take my arm, and running away, getting back in my own car, and flying south, away from the sight of her decline, away to my old photos of her when she was a teenager, holding me on her lap; or a young bride beaming next to her equally young husband; or the farmer’s wife, posing for the local newspaper with her husband and three boys; or a contented grandmother, toddlers on either side of her, intent on the book she was reading to them.
She walked through her house, me and our husbands close behind, but not so close to make her angry. She picked up one, then another of the shawls I had knitted for her. Purple, gray, and brown lacey patterns draped over the backs of chairs, ready for when she felt a chill or when she wanted to feel the love that grew within me as I ran to catch up and close the gap of 11 years between us.
When she called several years ago and told me she had Parkinson’s, I felt time fall away. I couldn’t be that mysterious hobo of a little sister anymore, a role I luxuriated in, so different from her openly traditional wife-and-mother. My heart ran ahead of me, trying to make up for the years when I was too busy living my own life, never realizing we couldn’t run fast enough.
My sister doing what she loved most. Here she is holding a relative’s baby. She wrote: “Lousy picture of me, but at least the baby is good.”
Well, it’s Tuesday here but I had to really think about it this morning. Am I going to yoga today?Or can I linger a while longer in bed?
Yes, I was going to yoga, which I do almost every Tuesday and Thursday morning so, no, I could not linger. I sprung out of bed, a bit surprised at my agility. Not to worry. My arthritis kicked in soon enough. But still, I powered through yoga. Did all the Vinyāsas and the chatarungas. Went to the local co-op and did some shopping. Thought about my mother. A lot.
I’ve been calling her every day. She’s fine for the most part. She has her moments when she doesn’t feel so good, but it seems to pass, and she’s still quick to joke. She has a poem that she recites to me every once in a while.
I’m so tired I could cry.
Let me die.
The first time she recited it to me, she asked me what I thought about it. I said it sounded sad. Well, that’s just the way she feels. Only three months shy of her 100th birthday, I guess she would feel tired. A lot. And after losing two of her daughters, I can understand that she might be ready to leave this world.
And yet, when I called her close to 6 pm one evening, she couldn’t talk long because she wanted to watch her TV programs (the news followed by Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, etc.)
Today she told me that as my brother was leaving, he said to her, “If you need anything, you know where I am.”
Her response: “Well, yeah, of course I do. You’re standing in my doorway.” Ha ha.
One of my cousins was testing my mom’s balance the other day and, while they were standing next to each other, she asked my mom to pick up her right foot. Mom did. Then my cousin asked her to pick up her left foot. Mom: “Well, I can’t pick them both up at the same time.” Chuckle.
My mom’s sense of humor is quite literal. She knows what you mean (like she knew that my cousin expected her to put her right foot down before lifting her left), but she gets a kick out of taking you literally and making you sound silly. Works every time.
I tell myself that I’ll be ready to let her go when she’s ready to go, but I know I won’t be. I enjoy talking to her too much.
In the meantime, I’ve been busy making potholders and “mug rugs.” The blue and yellow ones have found homes, but I’m undecided if I’m willing to give up the other two. And I really need to learn how to take better photos. These look better in person than they do in the photos.
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The ones below are too small for potholders but make nice mug rugs or coasters.
Berry Pie bundle of hand-dyed wool loops from Hillcreek Fiber Studio.
Ocean bundle of hand-dyed wool loops from Hillcreek Fiber Studio.
I joined a very creative group of potholder weavers on Facebook. I don’t think I’ll live long enough to do all that one can do with this simple art. Especially since I bought a rigid heddle loom yesterday. I can see myself on my deathbed now … “But I had one more dish towel to weave!”
Yes, I do plan to weave dish towels. It’s a thing.
Thank you for reading my strange, somewhat morbid, but hopefully colorful post. Here’s your reward:
This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is hosted by Dawn of The Day After. Dawn invites us to share our photos of fences. She shares a lovely variety of fences in her post so please pay her a visit.
I hesitated to join in this week’s challenge because I don’t have a lot of photos with fences in them. I’m almost always trying to keep fences out of my photos. That will change. After seeing what others are contributing to the challenge, I’ve realized that I need to look at fences more closely.
That said, generally I don’t like fences, especially ones like this:
No Trespassing sign affixed to fence gate.
The gate closes off private land from Elinor Klapp-Phipps Park. Maybe I shouldn’t complain. The park was developed in cooperation with the city, the water management district, and the property owner (Phipps) and has over 600 acres for recreation. I guess I can’t begrudge the Phipps family for keeping part of their land.
This next photo sparks some good memories for me. Taken during one of our trips back to San Francisco, we had walked up Strawberry Hill in Golden Gate Park. The walk was one that we often took when we lived in San Francisco back in the late 80s. I love how the fence was built twining fallen branches around posts.
“Natural” fence at Strawberry Hill in Golden Gate Park (San Francisco).
Chain-linked fences are popular in my neighborhood. They’re easy to put up, inexpensive, but pretty boring except when a young Red-Shouldered Hawk decides to take a break on one.
Young Red-Shouldered Hawk perched on a chain-linked fence.
Some fences are built to let people know where they can and cannot walk. The photo below shows one of our favorite resting places at another park in Tallahassee. Beyond the fence is a lake and where’s a lake (or any body of water), there’s likely to be alligators. Best to stay on the right side of the fence.
My husband sitting at one of our favorite resting places at a park in Tallahassee. The fence serves to keep people away from the alligators that might be hanging out in the lake.
I do like this wrought-iron fence, another good place for a hawk to perch. The fence has seen better days, but it still serves a purpose, for the hawk anyway.
Yet another hawk perched on a fence, this one a wrought-iron fence that has seen better days.
Finally, our fence. Starting late last year, we had a string of contractors tearing down and building up our property on the west side of our house. We had 15 trees taken down, hardscaping for a patio and walkway put down, a privacy fence with a barn-like gate put up, and a bunch of plants put in.
The metal contraption is for our gate, which slides like a barn door. Seems like a bit of overkill but we’re used to it now.View from our little side porch off the garage.Our fence is 8 feet tall, our neighbor’s roof just visible. Everyone, including our neighbors, is happy with this fence.A view toward the garden.
By the way, my husband built that green bench in the foreground. It’s long and wide enough for him to lie down and do his exercises.
Thanks to Dawn for joining as host this week. Please be sure to link your responses to her fun post here. If you choose to join in, remember to use the Lens-Artists Tag so your post appears in the WP reader.
After months of berating myself for falling behind in blogging—both writing and reading—this afternoon I made a concerted effort to “catch up.” Usually I work on my main computer, a laptop hooked to a 20-inch monitor. The large monitor allows more flexibility than working off my iPad, and I prefer to type rather than hunt and peck with my index finger. Yes, I have a separate keyboard but it’s old and finicky. (Excuses, excuses, I’ve got a million of them.)
But this afternoon I decided to do things differently.
My main computer is an excuse to procrastinate; as in, “I don’t feel like turning my computer on and having to sit properly, as if I were at work.” You see, during my last year of paid employment, I worked from home and, even though that was over two years ago, I still experience some traumatic memories. That’s not my rant, though.
My rant is this: I’ve been unable to share any of the WordPress posts I read this afternoon to Twitter. Not a one! Now, I know my posts no longer automatically go to Twitter when I publish. But, at least on my main computer, I could easily share posts to Twitter.
Maybe it’s not important whether I share on Twitter what I read on WordPress. Goodness knows I’ve muted more people than follow me on that platform. But I’m a creature of habit. I don’t like it when I can’t follow my regular routine. So, who’s to blame. WordPress or Twitter?
I blame Musk for mucking things up to begin with. Never have I seen anyone who so acts like he wants to destroy a company.
Well, if it’s an app problem, then it is what it is. If it’s a Musk problem, then … life will go on.
Thanks for listening. Your reward is a photo of my brother-in-law’s newish dog, Bailey. No, she was not named after me. Bailey was my sister’s maiden name, and it’s a fine name for a dog, too. Only 4 months old and already pushing 40 pounds, she’s an energetic and lovable pup.
