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.
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.
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:
In the past few weeks I’ve been mostly off the grid; only recently have I started taking baby steps to rejoin my favorite online communities. After my last post, I began to mentally prepare for a trip to see family in central New York State. It had been almost a year since my sister Shirley died. While I was looking forward to seeing her family, I also knew it would be painful. So I gave myself two weeks to plan and pack.
Adding to my anxiety was an invitation to speak at a Celebration of Life for my cousin Elaine who had died a month before my sister. Her daughter Lia, her only child and her primary caregiver when she became ill, asked me to speak. I couldn’t say no. A few months before Elaine died, Lia gave me the opportunity to share memories with her through email. Elaine and I have an interesting history. She is why I moved to California. For a few years, she was my employer, and it was at her candle factory that I had an accident that upended my life. (You can read about the accident here.) It’s a memory that haunts me, but it wasn’t what I wanted to share with Elaine.
For the event, I revised what I did share with Lia and Elaine. I printed it out, in large type, fully prepared to read it calmly. When we got to New York, I was distracted by family issues and didn’t think about the event until the morning of. And then I thought I would simply fall apart.
They held the celebration in the visitor’s center of the Auriesville Shrine, the gift store on one side of the low round building, a cluster of tables and chairs on the other, facing a bank of windows that looked out onto the Mohawk River.
It was a true celebration of Elaine’s life with her sisters, her daughter, and our cousins taking turns sharing memories, often through tears. There was singing and music and a slide show highlighting moments of Elaine’s life.
When it was my turn to speak, I tried to be relaxed, greeting the crowd with “Hey, everybody.” But with the first two words of my speech, I started crying. I thought I wouldn’t be able to read it at all. But I got through it. It was important for me to do this for Elaine and for Lia. Here’s what I had to say:
Elaine and I have so much history together and yet so little compared to others. I don’t remember Elaine from before I was 15 and she came to NY from California for a visit.
My memory is not good, and others’ are likely better than mine, but this is how I remember it:
We were all at my sister Shirley’s farm, having some big family get-together.
At some point in the evening, Elaine sat outside with us “kids” in a circle and told us stories about her life in California.
I remember feeling in awe of her, this warm, smiling woman who had managed to escape small-town life and survive.
She was living in California, a place as exotic in my imagination as France or Spain would be in real life.
She must have had the candle factory starting up because I said something to her about working there. She invited anyone and everyone to come work there.
After a few years, I took her up on it and our history began.
While those years in the beginning were rough for both me and Elaine—she was trying to keep her business afloat, I was trying to keep myself afloat—because of it all … because of Elaine, I eventually met the love of my life, my best friend for life, the man I’ve been with now for almost 40 years.
What a gift Elaine gave me when she said, “Sure, come on out to California.” She helped set my life in motion. She set me on the path I needed to go on.
And what a gift she gave the world in the form of her beautiful, brilliant daughter Lia.
That’s what I’ll always remember about Elaine, the gifts she gave.
Elaine and me in 2007.
When I came back to my home in Florida, I found out that a piece I submitted to Visual Verse had been accepted and published. You can read it here: Still Life. Of course, it’s about cats. Here are my muses:
Wendy
Raji
Junior with his catnip-stuffed sock. Taken on July 6, 2023.
I’ve been finding a lot of ways to avoid writing. Firstly, I challenged myself with a new-to-me method of knitting. Well, not entirely new to me as I had knitted “top-down” sweater patterns before, but those patterns always resulted in raglan sleeves … you know, the ones with a diagonal seam from armpit to collar. Not the best design for someone with a pear-shaped figure like myself. This new-to-me method, designed by Julie of Cocoknits, has a tailored yoke and pattern variations for different body types.
Are you all still with me?
I bought the Cocoknits sweater book and workbook and even a work stand (which I haven’t yet used but it came with a nice hemp bag that I could put all my tools in so that was handy). I do have some issues with the book as it was written in a narrative style, and I spent a lot of time flipping pages to figure out what to do when. I also had three false starts (meaning I started knitting and then had to rip out and start again because I misunderstand the instructions). Eventually, I also realized that it would be best to use the stash yarn that’s been wallowing in my cedar chest for the past 20 years. If the sweater is a failure, no great loss then.
And I persevered … much better than I do with my writing. For some reason, I rarely, if ever, give up on my knitting. Following is the result of my labor. Yes, this is a selfie. I do NOT enjoy taking selfies but my husband was busy and I just wanted to get it over with. The “pose” is simply to show a sleeve, not my hair, but … whatever.
Me wearing Prototype 1 of Cocoknits Emma Version B, posed to show sleeve
As if that were not enough to distract me from writing, I decided to weave potholders. Yes, you read that right. Potholders.
Many, many years ago, long before I moved to California, I learned to spin yarn and weave at a college I briefly attended. I fell in love with both activities and when it was time for me to pay tuition for the Spring semester, I decided instead to buy a 4-harness floor loom and move back home. The loom I bought is similar to the one below, but mine had four treadles instead of six.
Four harness, six treadle floor loom from Harrisville Designs.
I wove a few things, dragged the loom across the country with me, wove a couple of more things, then sold my loom to a friend when I moved into a studio apartment that simply didn’t have enough room for it. Since then, I’ve wanted to resume weaving, but haven’t felt like I have the space for it or the dinero. And now I feel totally out of touch with weaving.
I subscribe to a magazine called Little Looms which promotes weaving on small, even tiny, looms. A recent issue had an article on weaving potholders. I know I wove potholders when I was a kid, but my memories are vague. That said, I was hooked (no pun intended) by the article. I promptly ordered a potholder kit from Friendly Looms (which just happens to be affiliated with Harrisville Designs, the company from which I bought my floor loom all those years ago). Of course, I also had to buy a pattern book. Of course.
Wendy wondering what all this has to do with her.
Here’s my first potholder.
After I shared these photos on Facebook, two of my relatives asked me to make a couple for them. Cool.
Weaving potholders is a meditative practice. It also doesn’t take long to make one. It’s almost instant gratification compared to knitting a sweater.
But, in truth, I have been writing. I joined a group in the SmokeLong Fitness Community and have written a bit. I want to share what I’ve written here. I just need to figure out how I want to do that.
And if you’ve read this far … here’s your gratuitous cat photo.
My little boy Raji loves snuggling up to my big boy Junior.
A couple of months ago I signed up for SmokeLong Fitness Community Workshop. It’s all flash, all the time. I’ve since learned that I can write to prompts quite happily if I’m given an example of a response. My creative battery is apparently sparked by other people’s creativity. We’re given relatively small word counts (for example, less than 500 words), challenging us to make every word count. The word counts also make it manageable to read and comment on my group’s drafts.
I participated in September and October and am taking November and December off to work on my so-called novel. I do miss the community. Although we were put into different writing groups at the beginning of each month, each group quickly created a safe, supportive environment.
The other big thing I’ve done was write letters for Vote Forward. The organization provides the letter template and voter names and addresses. In turn, I provide a handwritten message encouraging the letter recipient to vote as well as envelopes, stamps, and the printer to print all the letters. (If you cannot afford to buy your own materials, Vote Forward has letter kits you can request.)
Based on their research, Vote Forward found that voters who receive these handwritten, personalized, and NONPARTISAN messages are more likely to vote. Yeah, I cannot encourage anyone to vote a certain way. Just. To. Vote. I managed to send out 250 letters on October 29 to voters in Florida and Pennsylvania.
My nicely packed box of letters encouraging people to vote.
Currently, Vote Forward has a call out for letters to Georgia. Guess I’ll have to participate in that too.
When not writing, I’ve been playing with photography. Although my husband knows I’m saving for an iPhone 14 (for its mega-megapixel camera), he’s given loaned me his last acquisition: a Lumix GX85. It’s smaller than the Canon T3i that I bought years ago and is fitted with a macro lens. The key is learning how to use it. In fact, he handed it over to me because he got impatient with trying to figure out how to use it. I have a steep learning curve with this one, but I’ve started playing around.
Below is a photo of an orb-weaver that has built a home between a corner of our house and a Sabal palm. This was taken with my iPhone 8 Plus, using the wide-angle lens, and is about the closest macro shot I can get with good detail.
An orb-weaver fixing up his/her web.
Now here is the same spider with the Lumix:
Spin little orb-weaver, spin it, spin it.
Obviously closer, but still not as detailed as I’d like.
But I’m working on it. The next two photos were also taken with the Lumix. I edited them slightly.
Macro of one of many Georgia Asters blooms.
Camilla from a neighbor’s tree (or bush … it’s pretty big so … tree).
Finally, here are a couple of photos I took of the Blood Moon with my iPhone and my husband’s big-ass binoculars.
First shot of Blood Moon on Election Day.
The Total Lunar Eclipse, or Blood Moon rising on Election Day.
I’m really not a morning person, but given that we could see the moon from our driveway, I got up with my husband at about 4:30 AM to watch the eclipse and take photos.
This brings me to the other “thing” that’s been going on with me: my chronic neck pain. It was pretty bad a few weeks ago, enough to send me to the chiropractor for treatment and guidance. During the next two-and-a-half weeks I applied a heating pad to my neck for 20 minutes several times a day and did stretching exercises. I also tried an assortment of anti-inflammatory drugs and CBD salve with mixed results. Trial and error. Finally, we got me to a point where my pain has lessened and my range of motion has improved, but I’m not 100%. In all likelihood, I will never be 100%. This isn’t “woe is me.” Now that the worst is over, I can always say it could be worse.
What I need to do–besides taking NSAIDs intermittently and applying heat and stretching regularly–is avoid activities that aggravate my arthritis. Activities like looking through my husband’s big-ass binoculars at the Blood Moon or working too long at my computer. I have to remind myself to take a lot of breaks … something I’m not really good at.
And, last but not least, I’m still grieving. Some days I’m okay. Maybe I can say most days I’m okay but as I type this, I feel the tears start to well up. Writing helps somewhat and since my last blog post, I’ve written two more essays about my sister for my publication on Medium:
An alternative title to this post would be The Great Escape. Be assured this story has a happy ending, although the experience probably shaved a few years off my life.
Last Sunday I was minding my own business, sitting in front of my computer checking email, when I heard my husband calling for Raji and rattling the dry food container. I thought to myself, “Why is he doing that? He gave all of them lunch just an hour ago.” At that moment, I turned to my window which looks out onto our deck. I saw Raji’s ginger-striped bum sliding between two of my potted plants. I didn’t react at first. I only remember thinking, “Oh.”
Then my heart made a nose-dive to my stomach. I ran to my husband who was outside, trying to encourage Raji to turn around and come back inside the house. Quietly he told me that Wendy had also gotten out. He had managed to sequester Junior in one of the back rooms, all while I was busy reading and writing emails.
Naturally, I was calm and not at all worried. HA! I call BS on that!
I was totally freaked out. I ran around to the front of the house where Greg had last seen Wendy. I couldn’t find her. At all. I hurried to the back yard where Greg was still talking to Raji as our little innocent kitty explored. For the next two-and-a-half hours, we followed Raji as he investigated the perimeter of our property, occasionally jumping a fence to a neighbor’s yard.
Meanwhile, Wendy had disappeared.
Every so often I’d return to the front of our house, walk a ways up and down our street, calling her name. All our doors were open, including the garage door, an invitation for them to return. Junior continued to protest, shut up in the back room, his voice plaintive and distant.
We couldn’t get close to Raji. Generally he doesn’t like to be picked up so we knew if we rushed him, he would run away from us. At one point, he started talking to me and seemed frustrated by his attempts to get back in our yard. While he could jump onto our neighbor’s chain-link fence, he didn’t like the fences and kept trying to find ways around them. Finally he was back in our yard and he ran up to the back porch! Unfortunately, he went to the one unopened screen door, the screen door that we rarely use because the porch has settled over the last thirty years, and the door is difficult to open and close.
It started to rain.
At first, just sprinkles and then a downpour. By this time, Greg had gotten the other screen door open but Raji was sheltering under a group of ferns. I went back to the front of the house. Still no sign of Wendy.
I sat down on a stool and tried to think of what to do next. I had alerted our neighbors across the street, and I managed to put an alert on the Nextdoor app. Raji seemed to want to stay close by, for which I was grateful, but I was perplexed that Wendy had simply disappeared. Greg came around to the front, and we started to talk about next steps.
As we talked, I heard a small noise. I looked at Greg. He had heard it too, but couldn’t tell where it came from. I started to call for Wendy and then heard a distinct “Meow.” She was in the garage, but where? We couldn’t see her. We were cautious in how we looked for her, not wanting to make any loud noise or sudden movement. My fear was that she would get spooked and run off.
Finally, I looked into the recesses under Greg’s work bench. Wendy was sitting in the middle of a considerable amount of clutter, behind a large board that was propped against the bench. She had chosen the one spot where she couldn’t be seen. Greg moved the board, and Wendy looked at us like she couldn’t imagine what the fuss was all about. We closed up the garage, keeping our eyes on Wendy in case she decided to bolt. She didn’t.
Once Wendy was safe, I went inside our house to close the French doors that opened onto our back porch. As I started to close one of the doors, Raji sauntered in. Yes, he sauntered. In disbelief, I watched him cross the back porch and enter the dining room, acting as if nothing had happened. I immediately closed up the house and let Junior rejoin us.
How did this happen?
We know that our cats, Raji in particular, enjoy hanging out in the garage. I don’t know why. They just do. A side door off the garage leads to the great outdoors. We keep it closed for the most part, but, sometimes, especially when, for whatever reason, one of us is going in and out, the side door is left open for convenience.
Greg was going in and out, taking care of some minor yard work. He was on his way out again and didn’t see that Raji and Wendy were right at his heels. By the time he realized they were in the garage and the side door was wide open, it was too late. Junior was also following the group, but he’s not as quick as he used to be, so Greg was able to grab him and put him back in the house.
Lesson learned
Keep the side garage door closed at all times, and make sure we know where the kids are before entering the garage.
Theories as to why we didn’t lose our cats
Wendy probably never ventured far. The garage is a safe place for her. After we first got her in August 2013, we had a couple of episodes where she escaped through the front door. The trick to getting her back was to open the garage door. At the sound of that door opening, she would hurry back to us. And it’s likely that when it started to rain, she came back to the garage for shelter. She just didn’t bother to let us know right away.
Raji probably wondered where we had gone. For over two hours, we had been calling and talking to him, following him around. Then, all of a sudden, we were no longer there. As long as we were talking to him, he was content to be outside. But I think it worried him when he no longer knew where we were. He had to come inside to find us.
We are still amazed at our good fortune: that our kids didn’t go far, that they came back inside of their own accord, and that the horrible experience (for me and my husband) only lasted a few hours. We are also grateful for what this experience showed us: that our cats are truly domesticated, that they will choose home if given the choice.
I don’t think I could go through something like this again, though. I felt utterly helpless. My husband felt deeply guilty. Neither of us wanted to imagine life without Wendy or Raji.
Thank you for reading. Here’s a few post-adventure photos. Well, actually the first one is pre-adventure, taken the morning of.
Raji and Junior in the window.
Raji catching up on his naps. Yes, those are my feet, and that is Wendy’s fleecy blanket he is lying on.
Wendy still not understanding what all the fuss is about. She just wants to snooze.
Marie at 1 Write Way 