Pretty Little Rough Patches

Three Years After She Joined Us

2026-02-28T16:16:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite photos ever taken by Mike ♥

Looking Forward to a New Year

2025-12-31T22:24:00.003-05:00

Love and Best Wishes to You All ♥

The Day Off I Needed

2024-01-06T18:23:00.000-05:00

While the year's first snow here has been coming down, Mike, Crookshanks, and I have been nesting inside our little apartment. 'My first baked potato lunch in at least a year, a nap for Crookshanks nose-to-beak with her stuffed chick, chocolate chip cookies for me and Mike, a caramel-butterscotch candle ablaze, and new Christmas present books for me and Mike to begin reading from under blankets in our chairs soon. January bliss!

♥

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. ~ Arthur Rubinstein

2024-01-04T03:14:00.000-05:00

♥

Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time. ~ Maya Angelou

2023-12-02T02:34:00.002-05:00

The green-eyed little clown in this picture has been the brightest spot of 2023 for me and Mike. Meet Crookshanks, a character of a cat if ever there was one. She spent her first month here mostly living under the bed. When she began emerging into the hallway separating the living room from the bedroom, I set up a mirror on a living room bookshelf so I could see her as she started to make her way to the bedroom door and then into the hall. "Shhhh, she's coming," I'd murmur to Mike, and he'd turn down the volume of the TV or music and we'd speak more softly so as not to scare her even more than she already was. She ate out of my hand after two months. She made me wait three months before she allowed me to pet her. Mike had to wait five. It was eleven months--just last weekend--before she joined me while I sat in the wing chair, and she has yet to sit with Mike in his recliner, although we know her well enough now to trust that she will when she's ready.

We had repeatedly seen her photo on the website of the same rescue from which we'd found Cubby, and Thanksgiving week of 2022, the rescue included a description of her that mentioned she was the kitten who had now been waiting for a home the longest. Mike had just shaken his head as I read this aloud and said as if addressing an audience, "This is our next cat. Val wants this cat, she just doesn't realize it yet." And within minutes, I was, indeed, contacting the rescue to say we wanted her. The rescue had warned of behavioral challenges with her and had given her a temporary name that reflected that, so we knew going into it that we had our work cut out for us, but I wouldn't have been able to take in just any cat after what we'd gone through with Cubby: I needed another "project" kind of cat, one who would require me to think and learn the way blind baby Cubby had. (Dear old Stuffed was so easy! ♥ We really had no idea how easy he was until we experienced the chaos little Cubby brought into our lives and then the extreme fear poor Crookshanks felt upon arrival.) Crookshanks was the runt of her litter and had been found under a porch.

Unlike Cubby, who snuggled into both our chests and shoulders as soon as she was picked up to be held by each of us, Crookshanks made us earn her trust. We were hissed at who-knows-how-many-times the first few months and nipped at frequently, as well. We kept trying, though, talking to her--even while she hid under the bed below us--offering her a variety of cozy beds and tempting treats and toys, reading aloud to her so she could get used to our voices--or at least, my voice; I don't think Mike ever tried the recommended-online idea to read aloud--tossing balls toward her when she'd appear at the end of the hallway to try to get her to play, and leaving our just-worn clothes on the floor so she could get used to our scent in addition to our voices. After eleven months here, she now sleeps between us in bed, cuddles with a number of tiny stuffed animals--a Cardinal, a teddy bear, a chick, a bunny, a dozen mice--plays with her toys, chatters at us in various cat-speak sounds, and plops herself down beside us multiple times a day for back rubs and belly rubs. She makes us laugh at her antics all day every day. We often joke in her wilder moments that elder statesman Stuffed is probably watching from The Great Beyond and bemusedly muttering "Yeah, good luck with THAT!"--but she is also a dumpling of a cat who really just requires more than the usual amounts of patience and love.

And although I realize that getting new cats after Stuffed does not betray him in any way, it also makes me feel good to think that Stuffed would like that the two cats we've brought home since him have been a blind, only-weeks-old, and not-even-two-pound kitten and a kitten with behavioral issues who still hadn't been adopted after six months. Cubby, having been rescued from a tree stump after her mother died, would certainly approve, as well. In any case, this striped spitfire has our hearts and home now, and gaining her trust has been the highlight of our year.

♥

I Once Caught a Cubby Cat. . . .

2022-12-29T01:50:00.000-05:00

While suffering through our first bout of Covid this May, I saw a cat rescue's photo of a cream-colored kitten and began babbling to Mike, "LOOK at her! Oh my goodness! If she were mine, I'd hold her on my shoulder all day long! I'd call her 'Cubby' and just cuddle her all her day!" She was blind in one eye and missing the other. I wanted her as soon as I saw her. I had really actually thought, "That's my cat" as soon as I saw her, but I said nothing to Mike about wanting to apply to adopt her. We hadn't even discussed getting another cat in the soon-to-be-two-years since Stuffed's death. Having a new one somehow didn't even seem like a possibility.

A month passed and I hadn't been able to stop thinking about this fuzzy little soul. Was she scared? Was she lonely? Did people cuddle her? She was blind: Was she safe? She was just a baby! On the morning of June 23rd, I woke from a dream in which we'd adopted Cubby. (She was "Cubby" to me from the start; The rescue called her something else.) The plot of the dream was lost to me upon waking, but Cubby had been ours. This was the two-year anniversary of Stuffed's death, and I took it as a sign that we were meant to go for it. More than a month had passed since I'd seen the rescue's last update on her, so it seemed likely that she'd already been adopted, but I emailed the group anyway to tell them we wanted her. And I took it on faith that we would somehow be the ones to get her, just like in my dream, and without waiting to hear otherwise, I ordered two aqua gingham collars--one kitten-size and one for her to grow into--a red heart-shape name tag and a special needs tag that stated she was blind, I began reading articles and a couple books about taking care of blind cats, and I ordered a picture of her to keep beside Stuffed's on the table between Mike's and my chairs. I went ahead and paid the adoption fee and bought kitten food and a few catnip mice to start off her toy collection here. And I waited to hear back from the rescue. And waited. And waited. I babbled even more feverishly to Mike about this kitten, I prayed about it, I texted him about it while he was at work, I wrote in my journal about it, I willed an email to come or the phone to ring and waited some more. At one point while Mike listened and looked at me pityingly, I started crying halfway through saying, "It's okay, I know I'm not going to be the one who gets her," surprising even myself with how gutted I felt at the thought. But almost simultaneously, I would think, "How could this NOT be my cat??? Look at her!" It was every bit as odd as it seems.

The rescue didn't list a phone number, so I emailed twice more the next week but still got no response. I dreamed of Cubby a second time while waiting to hear back, however: In the dream, we had adopted her and I was carrying her into the apartment, but she peed on my shoulder before I could get her over to the litter box and Mike and I were laughing about it. 'Still no word from the rescue, though, and in desperation, I decided to write them a letter and to send it via Overnight Delivery. In three pink legal pad pages, I pleaded my case for our adopting this kitten, feeling decidedly desperate but compelled to do so, and I sealed the letter with a drawing of Cubby. Despite being twenty-seven dollars poorer after paying the next-day-delivery postage and uncharacteristically late for work to boot, I felt a sense of peace as I left the post office: Whatever was meant to happen would happen. I had fought to be gifted with her, but the rescue would obviously choose the person they deemed best for her, and if all I wanted was what was best for her, then it simply followed that whatever they decided was fine. Blind baby Cubby would be in good hands.

On my day off the next day, a woman from the rescue group called and said she'd just received my letter and "I'm so sorry--I thought you knew the cat was yours?!" She had thought someone else from the rescue had already contacted me, and those volunteers all thought that she had. I was already crying while she explained this and mouthed to Mike, "We got her!" so he wouldn't think they were tears of disappointment. The woman explained that the group had received so much interest in this kitten and other people had applied for her but that they had "been extra picky" and had been waiting to find the right person and home for her. After a frantic week of blind-kitten-proofing the apartment--something I'd read online had recommended covering corners with bubble-wrap so a blind cat could explore and form a mental map of a space without walking into anything sharp-edged in the process, so soon enough, I had taped bubble-wrap around all our chair legs, table legs, wall corners, etc.--and buying new beds and kitten-specific things like a stuffed cat that contained both a heating pack and a battery-operated heartbeat, Mike and I made the eighty-mile trip to collect Cubby. At this point, we had seen a video of her and a few more photos, so we were stunned to see how much smaller she appeared in-person. 'Not even two pounds yet, she kept her eye squinched shut but snuggled onto our chests and shoulders as we took turns holding her. 'Love, love, love. ♥

Halfway home, Mike driving while I kept an eye on Cubby in the backseat, we parked for awhile to give her a break from her carrier. As I picked her up to cuddle her, she peed on my shoulder just like in my dream. I carefully cleaned her with a wet wipe and held her awhile longer after I dried her, but when I put her back into her carrier, the innocent-looking little kitten who had pre-bath been facing me the entire trip now turned her back on me and sat facing the car door instead. Ha! 'The furry cold shoulder, we call it. It was the first sign of feistiness in her, and we laughed about it the rest of the way home. (Mike from the front seat: "She turn around yet?" - Val: "Noooope.") Once we got her home, I sat on the floor with her and opened the carrier to let her begin exploring, but instead, Cubby scrambled up onto my shoulder to sleep. We sat on the floor that way for forty minutes--"Getting caught in a Cubby Trap," Mike and I began to refer to it--until she was ready to scout out her new surroundings. "This cat!" as Mike would say. 'Such a love.

So began a summer of what a coworker would affectionately refer to as "Cubby Chaos." Cubby would sit so still and patiently as I wiped her eye and missing eye area every morning, she would gobble down her food, and then: Off to the races! My memory of July is a haze of blearily trying to get Cubby onto a sleep schedule--"Now you know what it's like having a newborn," Mom remarked after one of my been-awake-since-4 a.m. reports--snuggling her on my shoulder and chest--she would lick my face and pat-pat-pat at it with her warm little paw pads as if reading it in kitten Braille--repeatedly running to reach her as she attempted to walk across the air between the arm of Mike's recliner to the arm of my wing chair like Wile E. Coyote nonchalantly stepping off a cliff, weighing her daily to make sure she was gaining weight--and she was! She went from not-quite-two-pounds to almost-five this summer--rescuing her from the tops of chair-backs, bookshelves, and cat trees--she could climb up but couldn't get back down, whether because she was blind and missing the depth perception or just because she was young and little and hadn't yet figured it out, I don't know--laughing as she chased her pink ball around the apartment--we'd hear its jingle and turn to see her marching past with it in her mouth--and texting updates back and forth with Mike. We had rearranged our work schedules before adopting her so that one of us would always be home with her, at least until she was older and able to be alone safely. Now that the sleep-deprivation and constant worrying have passed, I look at the pictures and reread the texts we sent each other this summer and laugh. We only ever knew Stuffed as an adult cat, so this little kitten's energy and antics were eye-opening for us.

And our favorite, a live-action shot from my attempted afternoon nap with her in bed beside me:

By mid-September, Cubby had settled down some. She would either sleep through the night in bed with us or stay out of trouble if she moved to one of her beds in the living room. Always a good eater, she weighed almost three pounds more than she had when we'd adopted her. She was still smaller than she would have been had she had a better start in life--she was found in a tree stump when only a few weeks old after her mother had been hit by a car, and she'd been bottle-fed after that--but she had noticeably more heft to her now when we picked her up and looked more like a tiny cat than a very young kitten. She seemed more than comfortable in her new home and had a bunch of favorite spots and daily routines now. She continued to chase her pink ball and carry both it and a rainbow-striped long-tailed mouse around in her mouth as she ran around. She wrestled a stuffed Grumpy Cat and cuddled up with "Mama Cat," her heartbeat cat, during naps. Her barely-audible meow that we'd gotten used to was now a baby-dinosaur-squawking kind of sound as she got more practiced at using her voice. Her Siamese-mix coloring was coming in darker, so her ears were standing out more against her cream-colored fur, making her even more adorable. As I texted Mom, it was like I had Holly Hobbie's cat. :)

Cubby's spaying was scheduled for mid-October, and the last weekend of September, she began showing signs that we learned were possibly of her being in heat for the first time: Lethargy, lack of appetite, decreased playfulness, and not wanting to be cuddled. She drank but didn't eat either Friday or Saturday, and Sunday October 2nd, we took her to an emergency vet since I figured she might need IV fluids for nutrition soon if she didn't get her appetite back. After the initial exam, the vet's assistant told us we could wait in the waiting room while more tests were run or wait outside in our car, so we chose the latter, and within about ten minutes, the vet called to say that she was sorry and knew this wasn't what I was expecting to hear but that it was time to make some hard decisions about Cubby. Cubby had FIP, which the vet described to us as a "silent killer" kind of illness that typically lies dormant until it's almost progressed to its fatal end. She and one of the assistants had both had a hard time finding Cubby's heartbeat, and the ultrasound had shown fluid already built-up in both her abdominal cavity and around her heart. She couldn't tell us what to do, she said, but there was nothing she could do for Cubby. She continued to talk, but I was already sobbing and told her I was sorry but that I couldn't talk and was passing the phone to Mike. I heard her say, "I understand, and I'm so sorry" before Mike stepped out of the car with my phone. While he walked around the parking lot talking with her, I cried like I have rarely cried in my forty-five years, feeling literally blindsided, and the memory of the sound of my voice as I sat slumped over in the front seat repeatedly howling, "No, nooooooooooooo" remains one of the most disturbing memories of all of this for me.

The assistants and vets who helped us and Cubby that day had all mentioned at various points that Cubby was "really cute" and "very sweet." The main vet was crying with me and Mike while she prepared to put Cubby to sleep. "Poor baby," she murmured to her as she administered the final drug. Mike and I talked to her as she passed, Mike sitting beside her while I supported her little body as the drug took hold. She was still smiling even as she died.

We buried Cubby by dear Stuffed in Mike's mom's backyard, with her blankie, her pink ball, her other favorite toys, and a note, and covered her with Baby's Breath and a riot of roses in both summer and fall colors to reflect the two seasons we got to share with her. It was almost 10 p.m. when we finished in the yard, working by the garage lights and motion-sensor lights. When I told Mike that I was glad Stuffed was near Cubby, he said, "Yes. He can keep an eye on her," and I started crying again. I had bought the baby Cubby figurine below a month before she died, intending it to be one of my Christmas presents from Mike, but he gave it to me after we came home from burying her. With that perfect smile on her face and the pudgy kitten body to go with it, there she is with beautiful Stuffed, utterly oblivious to the "Cubby chaos" she's created. :) O' my cub! My heart, my heart. . . .

Almost three months later, I just ache to feel Cubby on my shoulder again. I miss the warm heft of her soft little body against my shoulder. I miss the way she tilted her head at us. I miss singing to her about how ♪ "I once caught a Cubby-Cat. I caught her in my Cubby trap. And when you catch a Cubby Cat, you cuddle her on your shoulder and lap." ♫ I miss watching her nuzzling into Mike's neck, rubbing her face into his beard. I miss watching her romp around with her ball in her mouth. I miss getting home from work late at night and having her run out from the bedroom toward me. I miss holding her paw when we'd first go to bed so she'd know I was right there. I miss her in her entirety. It will always bother me that I'll never know how big she would have gotten as an adult cat or learn if she would have eventually jumped down from the perches, trees, and chairs on her own. She is the closest I'll ever get to having a baby. The grief is literally breathtaking sometimes, and I force myself to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out until the overwhelming wave rolls out again. I was heartbroken after Stuffed died, but at twenty-one, he had put in his time, and we had been with him year after year as he became an elderly cat. Cubby was maybe six months old when she died, and we only had twelve weeks total with her. Just getting her bigger, stronger, and more confident in her surroundings had been such a mission for me from the very beginning, I still feel lost without it. The day before Cubby died, I had been reading about Robert Kennedy's assassination and how young women who worked in one of his campaign offices the summer of 1968 were witnessed silently taking down its windows' "Kennedy for President" posters and banners. I've remembered that image a lot since October 2nd. I had kept a baby book of Cubby's medical records, daily weights, etc. I'd been so proud of her. (I'll always be so proud of her.) How brave she was! 'Blind and hungry and likely expecting her mother to return to her and the rest of her siblings in that tree stump this spring, not being able to see the face of the person who pulled her out of it or the faces of those who transported her or handled her or bottle-fed her or held her in the months before we got her. 'Having to trust that these new voices and hands and shoulders in July would be gentle and good to her too and this new home was a safe place. She had to take her entire world and lifetime on faith. And she did it smilingly! One of the books about blind cats I'd read before adopting her was a memoir by Gwen Cooper of her time with her beloved "Homer." After he died, she stated that she had known within five minutes of meeting him that he had already made her want to be a better person, and I had felt the same about Cubby before I'd even been approved to adopt her. I think about that a lot too. I think about how as May began, I didn't even know yet that this sweet little soul existed, and how just days later, my heart and my life had been changed by her. And here I am now, in the end-of-year stillness, sorting it all out.

Monday or Tuesday of the week before Cubby died, I had woken from a dream in tears. In it, Mike and I were sitting with a female vet--in real life, Cubby's regular vet had been a man--who was asking us how old Cubby was. "'Between four-five months," I'd answered. The vet said something else I've never remembered, then: "I'm sorry. You only have one more week with her." I woke up crying at that point and told Mike I'd had a bad dream, but I hadn't even thought of it again until after Cubby had died. It all really played out as it was destined to, it seems, from connecting with her the first time I saw her picture to knowing instantly that she would be "Cubby" and not the name the rescue group had given her. . .the first two dreams I'd had about her before we'd even been approved to adopt her. . . .I will ponder it all my earthly days, the wonder of how this precious blind baby came into my life and the part she played in it.

2022 turns to 2023, then, with eternal gratitude for the gift of our ever-smiling Cubby. What else is there to do now, after all, but be thankful for her, hold her in our hearts, and let her teach us how to feel our way forward?

♥

Happy Holidays to All

2021-12-24T13:31:00.004-05:00

Happy holidays to you all, and may you find much to be grateful for in the new year. ♥

December 7th's Book of Good Things

2021-12-07T11:26:00.001-05:00

Yesterday's walk to work was surreally bright, the sky glowing a golden-white despite the many charcoal clouds in it. I had forgotten my gloves as I walked out the door and soon had near-numb hands but was otherwise warm enough in my raincoat, while parents and children around me were emerging from cars bundled up in coats and hats, and a runner darted past me in just a t-shirt and shorts. When there was a pause in traffic, all around me was hushed and stilled save for the leaves skittering down sidewalks and being whipped off the trees by the wind. My umbrella stood up to the weather the entire walk, but I heard an embarrassed-sounding whoop behind me when another woman's began to turn inside-out in the wind just as we approached our building. Yesterday's rain and wildness have moved on now, though, and a morning that began here in the low twenties will end with snow tonight only to disappear again this weekend with temperatures in the low sixties. I give children at my workplace coloring pages depicting "Sesame Street's" Elmo making an igloo--I is for igloo!-- and Winnie the Pooh building a snowman and wonder if they even relate, the weather is so strange anymore and December is so rarely the way it was when I was their ages. My work-schedule for today is an adjusted one that sees me starting four hours later than usual, so I've had precious time to catch up a bit with Mike before I leave for today's walk back to work. The sun is shining. I slept well. My work-day is only eight hours. I will treat myself to a slice of cheese pizza for lunch halfway-through it. This news story keeps making me smile. I am off tomorrow. I feel I'm on an upswing. 'One day at a time, as ever, and today looks good.

Lunch Plans

2021-12-05T23:55:00.034-05:00

One of my quirks that makes Mike shake his head is my habit of eating a variety of snacks over a period of a few hours--sharp cheddar, some almonds, something leftover from supper, carrots with hummus, cucumber salad, a hard-boiled egg, whatever sounds good--as breakfasts and lunches on my days off instead of taking the time to "eat something real." I don't think one way is better than the other, but it occurred to me this past week as I brainstormed ways to make this winter better for myself that taking the time on one of my days off every week to cook a "proper" dish that has some fondly-remembered significance to me would be a sweet habit to get into this winter. Similarly, a friend from high school who is a marathoner mentally dedicates every mile of a race to a different loved one to get her through the hardest stretches and to refocus the endeavor for herself in that way. Yes, yes, yes. I've long thought the finest thing about my life is the beautiful people who have been in it, so why not honor them in the days ahead by measuring out the same ingredients and performing the same steps of measuring and boiling and baking that they did or do. Yesterday I kicked off the project by cooking my grandfather's gnocchi and my grandmother's meatballs. I cried once as I smelled the potato-flour dough and then again when I tasted my first bite. I make the meatballs often, and I used to cook the gnocchi a few times a year, but neither Mike nor I should have the extra potato or white flour anymore, and I'm not interested in the healthier versions out there--I want Papa's heavy gnocchi or none at all--so it had been at least five years since I'd made these foods together. I will modestly but honestly say I hadn't lost my touch: My grandparents would have proudly recognized both their beloved dishes. :) Here's to the best of grandparents, here's to memories of Sunday dinners at their house the first 24 years of my life, and here's to all the LOVE. How blessed am I.

♥

Aches and Pains and Papas and Petals

2021-12-03T23:55:00.001-05:00

After thinking for awhile that I have arthritis, medical appointments the past few months have confirmed as much--osteoarthritis and psoriatic arthritis--and I'm now scheduled to meet with a rheumatologist this winter. "You should consider talking with someone," one of the doctors told me, "because chronic pain is hard." I should take her advice--Trained Counselor, heal thyself!--but I'm not there yet. In a dream earlier this week, my grandfather who died in 2017 smiled at me and said, "I want to see you happy again." There was no disappointment or judgement in his tone. I could feel his own seemingly ever-present lightheartedness same as always, but I understood the implied urging toward action in his words. This was only the second time I've dreamed of him since he died, and this was the first time he's spoken. I want to see you happy again. Well, then! My goodness. I cashed in a little vacation time this week and next to sort myself out a bit and took pen to paper the other day to come up with some Operation See Val Happy Again ideas. Treating myself to flowers every week was one. I've had stretches before of doing it but never consistently for very long, and I'm determined now to indulge myself weekly. The creamy white Hydrangeas caught my eye late last night and seemed a sweet start to this small part of my plan. I have other ideas, but this voluptuous bouquet was enough for yesterday.

Ingratitude is a shabby failing. ~ David McCullough

2021-11-25T16:53:00.002-05:00

the sweetest of Thanksgivings to you all ♥

I'd Be Running Up That Road, Be Running Up That Hill. . . .

2021-11-20T17:04:00.000-05:00

While napping yesterday afternoon, I dreamed that while talking with Mom in her kitchen, I mentioned missing being able to write letters to Grammy and how I always ache when I see pink things in the stores that look like something she'd love. "You can write to her or send her anything you want," Mom responded, clearly puzzled. "She loves hearing from you." It didn't feel at all like a dream, our interaction and the setting were so realistic. I goggled at her a few moments before telling her I didn't understand. What was wrong with Mom neurologically now, I wondered, just as I would in real life, that she didn't remember that her own mother has died? She looked back at me with what was probably an expression identical to mine until I finally explained, "Mom--Grammy died. Or. . .I thought she died. . . ?" She looked both pained to hear me say that and relieved to understand finally why I had been so baffled. I spelled out for her that I had thought--wrongly, it was turning out--that Grammy had died last January, we had all gone to her service in New York, and I had even spoken at it. I told her I could share more details but that I didn't want to hurt her. She said, sounding just how she would in real life, that it hurt her more to find out that I had thought Grammy had been gone going on two years and that I hadn't been in touch with her in all that time. None of it even happened, I realized, a thrill of horror and gratitude sweeping over me: Grammy is still alive! Sommer's cousin isn't on a ventilator post-Covid! Stuffed is still here with us! Mikes' mom didn't have a stroke! It was all a dream! All the other losses of 2020 and 2021 were just bad dreams! I started to cry from the incredible relief of it, and I woke up then for real, and really in tears. Mom called a couple hours later to tell me that one of my cousins has a brain tumor. January 2020-onward: And so it goes.

I pray and rest and appreciate beauty and keep in touch and listen to music and walk and work and cook good food and try to write and try to read, but life has felt more rough-patch-ish than not for so very long now--and for so many of us. I told Mike the other day that although I don't feel like I can focus enough to write very well the past couple years and can't concentrate long enough to read as voraciously as I did before either, I need to keep trying. It will be creativity that saves me this time, just as it has so many times before. Bear with me, then, as I try to find the words to tell the stories. It's been a long hard slog that has almost muted me, but I will keep trying.

I will keep trying.

10 Years

2021-04-15T07:51:00.001-05:00

♥

Easter 2021

2021-04-04T21:01:00.000-05:00

It's been a lovely day here, but I have been floundering in an especially anxious sort of malaise the past few days that has marred my holiday. Ideally, I could have either properly sorted out some of the things I've been struggling with or at least turned off the troublesome part of my brain for the weekend, but. . .no. It was a gorgeous sunny day here, though, warm and with a perfect breeze, and both the dinner and table came together pretty much as I'd envisioned, which is always satisfying.

Tomorrow is another chance to get it right, though, as they say, and if spring and Easter offer nothing else, it is hope for brighter days ahead.

I am still feeling cranky enough, though, to point out that Blogger has already eaten this post once and that despite my choosing a specific font and size for that font each time I've posted since Blogger's change last summer, I have had to wrestle with each post's html and font/size/spacing options every time I've written which is taking a great bit of the fun out of sharing here. It took me so long after Stuffed died last June before I even really felt like writing again, and then when I finally returned to it--and every time I have returned to it--it's been a complete hassle and aggravation. Losing a longer version of this post a few minutes ago hasn't helped my mood any, I will say. Bah! Carrot cake and buttercream await, and they can go into the Positives column, and I'm hoping to join them there soon.

Happy Easter to you all. ♥

The Desk Corner Is Done

2021-03-27T16:31:00.000-05:00

The fact that I recently--for the first time since All Things Covid-Related began--have been able to concentrate enough to write and read again means more to me than finally putting together this little desk corner, but still: Let us admire a finished project. :) I knew when Mike and I moved into this apartment ten years ago that this little corner would be perfect as my desk corner and also for our Christmas tree, and a few months ago, I got to see the vision come-to-life.

For years, I'd been doodling pictures of the desk corner and gathering bits and bobs for it, and last spring, I found a desk and chair that would fit into this spot. As with the hutch re-do and mantel-painting, the desk went through a couple stages before I found the right color for it. It began an unfinished wood--

--was briefly black--

--and then I realized if I love the green of the hutch in the corner opposite from the desk so much, why not just use the same color here? Green it became, then, as did the chair.

I dolled up the front of the desk and the back of the chair with a decoupage paper. I replaced the desk's round wooden drawer knob with a letter V drawer pull. I added pink gingham paper to the sides of the drawer. And I texted photos to Mom throughout the process. :)

The lamp was a rare splurge, a heavy Italian bust lamp I found on eBay a few years ago and stored in the bedroom until I figured out the rest of the desk. Love, love, love. ♥ I found a top hat lampshade for it, jazzed that up with a different shade of green paint, velvet ribbon for the brim, ferns, and Rosemary--for remembrance.

The chair cushion started out as the black gingham pillow Mom had made for me that Stuffed would always rest on on my lap when we sat across the room together, but when I was ready to see it back on that chair without him, I moved it back and bought the black and white ticking stripe cushion to use with the desk. Months of looking for a rug led me to this one on eBay. The seller's mom had made it in the 1940s. The size, pattern, and colors are perfect for this little corner. ♥

The pink gingham desk skirt is actually the skirt I wore to my grandmother's funeral last January. She would more than understand. :) ♥ It is simply slipped onto a tension rod across the front of the desk, which lets me store a bin of rough drafts, index cards, and notes underneath. On the wall above it is an "I Love You" cross-stitch Mom made while pregnant with her oldest, my older brother. She had it in all my bedrooms as a kid and at some point gave it to me to keep. She painted the pink gingham flower pot-turned-pen pot for me years ago too. ♥

The photos on the plant nook underneath the cross-stitch are of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott. The narrow wall to the right contains my collection of silhouettes of women writing.

Well, that only took ten years. :)

♥

A Few Days Off

2021-02-26T01:46:00.000-05:00

I ran into this orange peel heart on my way to work Tuesday and took it as the "Hello, I see you, keep going, hang in there" from the Universe that I always choose to view these found hearts. Gahhhhh, what a week. As I limped up the front steps near midnight after last night's shift, I muttered "Thank you, God. THANK YOU, GOD!" out loud, so glad I was to be home--and for three whole days. I will soak in cocoa butter and shea bubble baths. I will make myself mixing bowl-size "Grandma salads"--endive with oil and vinegar--for my lunches. I will enjoy Mike's homemade chili and finally catch up with him after this aggravating-to-us-both week. I will write some more of my 80s memoir: The house that belonged to our next-door neighbor back then was listed for sale a few weeks ago, and seeing the realtor's pictures of it online has spurred me on anew with my project. I will sleep until I've slept this week's bad mood away. I will treat myself to a new tea: I gave up caffeine more than a year ago and have been trying herbal teas, yet to find one I love, but this could be the weekend. (← I trust you'll all be waiting with bated breath for an update. These Covid Times thrills are endless, I know!) I will walk in near-balmy upper-50s weather for the first time in months. I will read in bed. I will read in my chair. I will read while I do my laundry. And Sunday night, I will cook a healthy lunch to pack for the next day's 12-and-a-half-hour shift. Sunday is the last day of February, so even if next week is as "gahhhhh!" as this one was, at least it will be March. Onward and upward. But first: Sleep. ♥

Late February Haiku

2021-02-20T11:28:00.001-05:00

thousandth dim snow day,

ever-empty cat perch.

pink petals, come soon!

Winter 2021

2021-02-14T23:40:00.000-05:00

Winter drags on with more storms called for this week, but it finds me having received both doses of the vaccine and having visited family twice, so my gratitude outweighs my eagerness for spring. We are all getting each other through it--did you see the sweet love note Monique's grandchildren left her and her husband in the snow?! ♥--and while a number of people in the family have been sick from Covid (my nephew, three aunts, one uncle, and three cousins, at last count) this past year, we are still here as we look forward to the next season together, so how can we complain, really. May spring come soon, though, if I may say so, and may it bring healing for us all.

To Better Days

2021-01-02T17:26:00.001-05:00

I received the first of two doses of the Covid vaccine last week and wish I could bottle for everyone still waiting their turns the hope and peace it has brought me. When I can visit family post-second-dose next month without worrying that I am unknowingly bringing the virus home to them. . . .Well, it will do my heart good. I am already gathering Valentine's Day baking supplies and recipes to try out on them. :) Here's to love, faith, science, and buttercream! May a brighter year be ahead for us all. ♥

Dear Little Stuffed

2020-06-27T17:49:00.000-05:00

Stuffed died Tuesday afternoon, and I have never felt such pure undiluted sadness in my life. Mike and I have been calling it "grief-concentrate": There is no anger or guilt or confusion or denial to dilute it, and there has not been a series of tasks and events (no meeting with funeral home directors to plan a service, no gathering or luncheon with all our loved ones after, etc.) to distract us. It is just us in our little apartment alone now--just the two of us for the first time in our entire relationship--missing him. Stuffed was a few feet away during Mike's and my first kiss; He is just part of our relationship and home. I ache in a way I've never ached before. I've never felt anything like this. Is it because he--even at 21 years old--was still less than a foot off the ground so still seemed like a baby who needed to be looked out for and protected? Is it because we couldn't really talk with each other so I don't know for sure how much he understood? "Doesn't it seem creepy to you that he doesn't talk?" I'd always ask Mike, and Mike would always reply, "He talks. Just in his own way." But that was never what I meant, and he knew that. I was always half-expecting him to talk. Often, Mike would walk into a room or get home from work to hear me chattering away to Stuffed, and he'd say, "You talk to him like he's a person" or "Gee, you talk to him more than you do me." :) "Well, what if he understands us?" I'd always counter. "Of course, I'm going to talk to him." :) Once I got to know him, I never really thought of Stuffed as a pet or as even as completely a cat. He was the third person in the apartment--Mike would joke that I was the third person since he and Stuffed had been together long before I came onto the scene to "girl up" their shared bachelor life--and I thought of him as a soul who was living on earth in the form of a cat, and as a sweet little soul with whom I'd been entrusted. We knew it was coming, but that made it no easier. I had expected it to hurt when the day came, but this is infinitely worse than I had expected. When Stuffed woke up Tuesday morning suddenly unable to stand, we knew it was time to call the vet, and the memory of my own voice saying as much to Mike still sickens me. "We suffer so they don't have to," I read online this week, and I understand, but knowing it was time has yet to make this that much easier.

Around 7:30 am Tuesday, Mike gently lifted him up to hold him one last time, and Stuffed actually tilted his head way back to look up at him. Stuffed did that twice--and it was something I'd never seen him do before--and the two of them kept eye contact for about ten seconds each time. I always called the two of them "Frick and Frack," as Mike was very much Stuffed's Person. He loved me and stayed at my side through every illness I've had since 2007, we posed for a picture together on my wedding day, he loved me and showed it--a gentler, sweeter cat's likely never lived--but Mike was his best friend.

Mike got Stuffed back into his round bed on top of the patchwork wing chair (which he so loved ♥) while we tried to find a mobile vet who could come that day. They were all so overbooked because of Covid, we had no "luck" until the third vet we called said she could be there by 5 pm that day--and only because she would already be in our neighborhood for another appointment. 5 pm seemed like an eternity to us since we weren't sure if Stuffed was in pain or just paralyzed ("just"--how grotesque), but by 1 pm, she texted to say she could be there by 1:30, and there we were with less than half an hour left with Stuffed. We kept his favorite toys around him in his bed and took the picture above while we were waiting. He used his mouse as a pillow, we kept "Girl Cat"--the green and pink once-Catnip-filled toy I'd made for him for the first day I was going to meet him in 2007 (and whom he'd instantly taken to ↓ ♥)--beside him,

the now-held-together-with-packaging-tape "crinkle ball" he and Mike used to play fetch with was tucked nearby, as well, and I pinned our wedding picture to Girl Cat's heart-shaped belly to add some extra love to Stuffed's little bed. These were the things we buried him with later that day, and I like to think they had each been infused with enough joy and love from all the memories to continue to bless Stuffed forever as his floofy little body rests beside them.

The vet instinctively stroked Stuffed's incredible black/white "divider line" from nose to forehead while she worked, which is a sweet memory for me, both that that was her instinctive reaction to this adorable aspect of his face, the same way we always petted it and straightened his fur along the line--"Fix his stripe!" I'd say to Mike if the fur was in disarray while they were playing--and that she was so gentle with him. Stuffed passed easily--bless all involved for that ♥--with our talking to him and petting him in his cozy round bed up on the patchwork chair, and with everything I said and did all day Tuesday both before and after that moment, I remained in constant prayer to Sommer to beg her to be there for Stuffed and to greet him and hold him and comfort him and play with him and explain things to him if he needed it. You can ignore me the rest of my life after this, but don't you dare let him be lonely or scared, Sommer, I mean it. Help him. Help him! 'Prayers with every heartbeat all day and night. The vet explained before leaving that given everything we'd described of Stuffed's last couple days, she was almost positive he'd experienced a blood clot--because cats lose use of their limbs that fast from them. I told her I'd taken a video just the day before--Monday morning--of Stuffed running from his food bowl by the patchwork cupboards all the way to the bathroom--and she said yes, she hears that a lot: "My cat was fine two hours ago and now she's at death's door." She said there was nothing we could have done or that she even could have done, and how especially at 21 years old and dealing with other health issues, there would have been no coming back from it for Stuffed. We felt huge weights lift off of us from her explanation and talked another few minutes before she left. In about twenty years of this work, she had never heard of another animal named Stuffed. :) Hearing that made me feel good, just as seeing her stroking Stuffed's divider-line had. She recognized a couple unique things about him in the very short time she was around him, is all, but it touched me.

I had already set up a cuddly towel-lined container-box for us to place Stuffed into for burial, but watching Mike carry him over to it broke me, and I was soon bent over the table sobbing, "Why are we putting him into a BOX? A box with a LID!?" Oh, my heart. When that wave of pain and nausea broke, I was able to brush him one last time and arrange the mouse, crinkle ball, Girl Cat, and our wedding picture around him. His soft little body was curled up in a ball with his tail wrapped around him, and Mike placed his paw over his eyes--the way he used to sleep--and I was okay ("okay") then: I had tried to close his eyes, but they wouldn't stay as closed as I'd have liked, as the vet had already told me would be the case, but with his paw up, now Stuffed just looked like he was sleeping curled up in a little yin yang ball with his toys. We touched him some more and bawled--"I want him back," I kept crying. "I want him back." Mike didn't want to see me cover Stuffed the final time before putting the lid onto the box and then wrapping the box itself, so he left to go pick up our rental car so we could make the drive to his mom's house to bury Stuffed there. I had a few more minutes with Stuffed then.

I don't write much about my work in this space but will share that I worked for seven years as a caregiver to children of all ages--newborns to young adults in their early twenties, and all of them differing in developmental levels and physical ability--so I know from that that I'm capable caring for a sick, injured, and/or dying person and body. I won a few awards for it in my years of doing it. I did not think I could handle Stuffed's decline and death, though. Something about Stuffed just made it seem like it would be impossible for me when the time came: Impossible for me to handle physically his little fur-covered body, and impossible for me to handle emotionally being around him in the moments before, during, after his death--to the extent that I'd ever let myself contemplate it at all. And instead, now I know about myself that I didn't just manage to care for him both before and after his passing, I did it beautifully, if I may say so, and with a grace I hadn't expected, albeit with a seemingly-bottomless bucket of tears too. That is one of Stuffed's gifts to me: He taught me this about myself. The depth of my love is both what makes me good at it and what makes it hurt so very much--But I can do it even for sweet Stuffed, probably down to 3 pounds when he died, just a little puffball who trusted that Mike and I would always be there for him and help him. And we were. I had been praying the past couple years for Stuffed to die peacefully in his sleep, and now I'm indescribably grateful that was an unanswered prayer: I wouldn't have wanted him to have been alone as he passed, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss the opportunity to take care of him in so many ways this past month and past week, especially.

Before covering him completely, I talked to him and snuggled my head into his fur a final time--I've never felt anything as soft as his fur and likely won't again in this lifetime--tearfully pinned a blanket around the box and a note to its top, and soon, Mike and I were on the road. I kept Stuffed in my lap the during the two-hour drive, my turn now to hold him a last time.

I had bought Baby's Breath and Rosemary--Rosemary for remembrance--and arranged it on the box before Mike began replacing all the soil. Just as Mike couldn't handle seeing Stuffed's body being covered a final time, I couldn't watch as he covered the box. While he shoveled, I stood by my mother-in-law's rock wall and held myself while I cried, shaking and nauseous again at the thought that Stuffed was disappearing right behind me. Once he said the box was covered, I was better again and able to help replace the sod and clean up the spot a little. Stuffed is buried under a Lilac tree ♥ with pale pink roses, Foxgloves, Spirea, and ferns nearby, and with two bird feeders in the Lilac branches above him. In even the short time we were there, my mother-in-law's yard was visited by two cats--hers and another that just sauntered through--a Baltimore Oriole couple, Sparrows, a Cardinal, Mourning Doves, and a Hummingbird. The lovely rock wall is a few feet away. It was sunny but also rained intermittently while we worked, so everything around us was glistening and sparkling and smelled of good soil, fresh grass, and roses. It is a beautiful spot for such a beautiful little soul. Oh, my heart. My sweet Stuffed. It bothers me sometimes that Stuffed's beautiful little body is underground in the dark, but as I told Mike in a calmer moment this week, my beloved Daffodils and roses and Lilacs and Hollyhocks and Foxgloves and glowing autumn Maple trees all start from underground in the dark too, and if that's good enough for them, it is certainly good enough for the body of gorgeous Stuffed.

And then there was this: I didn't fall asleep until after 3:30 in the morning that night, and we got up at 7 to make the drive home. I started sobbing as we prepared to go, and I couldn't calm down, so we ended up sitting in the car for probably half an hour as I tried to get it together. Leaving Mike's hometown meant leaving Stuffed there--and why would we ever leave Stuffed in another town? 'Hideous howling pain. While we talked, I silently prayed to Sommer to let me know that Stuffed was okay. He's so short and little, is he okay, he's so trusting, who's taking care of him, what if he gets lost, he's never been outside, is he okay, he's probably lonely, does he miss us, is he okay, does he understand, who's cuddling him? 'Wild thoughts borne of wild pain. I know better and have stronger faith than this, but this is grief talking. I wish I could see even a short video of what Stuffed's up to now, just to stop my heart from howling. I finally calmed down enough that we could begin the drive to a now-Stuffed-less home, and we were on our way. Maybe an hour later, as we drove under a cloud-filled blue sky, I saw Stuffed in it: There was, quite clearly, a smiling cat resting in the clouds over us. I took picture after picture as we traveled below the clouds, and when the image of the face and body started to fade a bit, a paw print appeared. He is lying down with his face resting on his front paws.

Do you see it? ♥ It's almost like a photograph superimposed onto clouds.

And a close-up of the head on top of the front paws:

Thank you, Sommer. ♥ Now that I can't hear Stuffed talk, I somehow understand what he's saying: We're still here for each other.

He's another of my angels now, and I'll keep talking to him every day of my life, here and hereafter, same as I do with Sommer and Papa and Grandma and my other grandfather and Grammy and Mike's dad (who also loved Stuffed and is undoubtedly loving him all the more now) and others who have gone on ahead of me.

We returned home Wednesday afternoon, a scene too sad to recount, Mike worked the rest of that day, and I returned to work Thursday. Life has gone on. I have another crying jag probably every three hours, although I've told Mike that if I let myself give in to it, I have it in me to cry--to bawl, really--every minute of every day this week. Stuffed came to me late last Saturday night to let me hold him on my lap for what would be the last time, and there was something different about it--he was leaning against my breast in an almost child-like way, and he stayed in that position a long time. I finally reached around him with my phone to take a few pictures--both to see his face to make sure he was okay and to get the picture. I didn't know it would be the last time, but I wonder if Stuffed did, just like he seemed to when he arched his neck back twice to hold eye contact with Mike Tuesday morning.

Sunday--Father's Day--was a bad day for him, and Mike and I discussed whether it was time to call the vet even then, but Monday morning, he was up and running--I even took the video--so we thought maybe it had just been old age plus the 90-something-degree days that weekend that had slowed him down, since he's so floofy and never eats much in the heat. When I got home from work around midnight, though, after a day of text updates from Mike, I was worried and stayed out here with Stuffed until 2 in the morning, sitting in front of him on the ottoman while he slept in his little bed up on the patchwork chair, talking about everything with him, our last long "You-talk-to-him-like-he's-a-person" talk. It was still a shock to be where we were with him just six hours later, but I see now that all three of us seemed to know it was coming and that all the pieces fit together. I met him in June 2007 and said goodbye-for-now in June 2020. You may remember that another vet had told me in the summer of 2018 that Stuffed probably had six more months--and what a wreck I was after hearing that, having to contemplate Stuffed's death in specifics for the first time, and how I soon found a heart-shaped piece of Stuffed's fur by his food bowl. 'A fur-heart before he died and a smiling cloud-cat after. These things do not just happen. ♥

It has not been lost on us this week that one of the unforeseen gifts of All Things Covid-Related was that due to Mike's furlough and then his work-from-home status, Stuffed got four months of having Mike home with him 24 hours a day. ♥ We look back now and see how all the pieces fit together so that just as Stuffed's health declined and he started having real issues, he always had someone here with him--we could not even leave for a few hours for dinner and a movie since nothing's been open, you know--a luxury of time at home with him we literally could not have afforded with both of us working/in normal times.

We know this will feel better in time--and maybe someday I'll even be able to keep mascara on my eyes more than two hours :) --and that we'll bring another whiskered soul into our home at some point. Although we don't yet know who our future cats are, I am already picturing them as part of Stuffed's "litter"--just separated by years in "delivery." He's the Patriarch, as Mike put it, and I keep thinking of him as "Uncle Stuffed" to all the cats who will come after. We will love them deeply too, I'm sure, but Stuffed is forever the One and the Best. 'Stuffed the Magnificent, who won a "Pretty Kitties" photo contest by more than 40,000 votes ten years ago. :) 'Stuffed who could stand on his hind legs for impressive lengths of time. 'Stuffed who played fetch with the crinkle ball. 'Stuffed with the perfect cat-head-shape on his back, angel wings below that, and whose front legs featured a heart. 'Stuffed whose red heart-shaped identification tag on his collar began with the words "I am Stuffed." :) 'Stuffed of the perfect name. Mom found us a Thanksgiving card years ago of a black and white cat being asked if he wants more turkey, and the inside read, "No thanks, I'm Stuffed." :) 'When a little girl in my care a few years back asked me if I had any pets and what their names were, I told her about Stuffed and she immediately responded, "Like stuffed crust?" :) We have so much to smile over now. And he is not really gone, as we have seen. He is still safe and loved and happy and very aware of us, he's just out of our sight for awhile.

There was an awful moment after we returned home Wednesday while Mike sat beside me listening to me when he asked me if I was going to be okay. "Yes, Dear," I answered. "It'll just take awhile." But this first stage of grief is so raw, it was almost unbelievable to me even as I said it. I trust that Sommer and Mike's dad are cuddling Stuffed until we can again, though. And I won't disrespect the memory of Stuffed's perfect little soul by lingering too long in sadness over this separation from him. I will honor the good, beautiful, sweet gift that was Stuffed--and express my gratitude for him--by creating and sharing goodness, beauty, and sweetness in all the ways I know how. But oh, my heart, how I miss him. Dear little Stuffed!

♥

Needing a Better Day (or Thank God for Roses)

2020-05-27T08:02:00.002-05:00

The kitchen sink has been clogged since Sunday. Blah-blah to getting home from work after 11 pm to a night that went into the wee hours and then carried over into early Monday spent plunging, liquid Roto-Rooter blah, Drano blah-blah, a bottle of something else, blah-blah baking soda and vinegar trick, boiling water, salt, more boiling water, blah-blah, dish liquid and more boiling water, blah. Snake #1 didn't work. Snake #2 didn't work. 'Easily $40 wasted at this point, and so my day off Monday became more of the same and then cleaning the apartment to get ready for the building manager to come over--for the first time ever, so what a lovely first experience in our home. And the wall I painted 1/3 black (BLACK!) and ended up not liking (not enough natural light for it, a story for another day) but haven't painted it over yet is--well, it just "is," and how wonderful that he got to see it in all its 1/3-painted (and-with-pink-roses-Wallies-pasted-on-too)! Gah! He worked on the sink a couple hours yesterday and got nowhere. A plumber would be here "tonight or tomorrow." Backing up: I gave up on my day Sunday at 1 pm and let myself just sleep to escape. I awoke at 4 pm Sunday to the news that Stuffed had fallen off his perch in his sleep "but seems okay" and did I know that while carrying containers of the stinky-not-draining-chemical-filled-water back to the bathroom sink to dump it into the sink there (since I was sick of the smell) that some of it had dripped and I had left a trail of bleached-out spots on the carpet leading through the kitchen, living room, and hallway? (Well, I knew then!) And it has been 80° inside the apartment even with our window air-conditioning unit going. I'm not a heat person. 'Am mildly nauseous in it. But windows open for fresh air while the sink is full of chemicals, especially for Stuffed, was my thinking Sunday and early Monday. Gah! 'Decided Monday that obviously, we would still have our planned holiday meal, but what I cooked that I had loved so much New Year's Eve didn't taste at all the same to me Monday, and it involved both frying and baking in the ridiculous heat and humidity--and for nothing. ('Not "for nothing": Mike liked it, but this is a story of my trials and tribulations, so let's focus on me.) ;) 'Decided later that what I really felt like was the rest of my endive with a simple oil and vinegar dressing, salt and pepper on top--yes, a lovely bowl of greens--but who was the dolt who used up all the vinegar on her read-about-online "no-fail" clogged sink remedy?! So no endive. And the store was closed, of course. Dishes being washed in the bathroom sink. Husband cutting himself doing the dishes. 21-year-old Stuffed peed on the living room floor yesterday for the first time ever. 'Such a worry anymore. Will this ever end. And in the midst of all this, to know that it's not only Memorial Day, but also Memorial Day during a pandemic and that that should be enough to keep it all in perspective for me and I should be grateful and happy for all that is safe, healthy, and good--and I *am* grateful and happy for all that is safe, healthy, and good--but it's still been a rotten few days, but that mental wrestling match keeps happening in my head anyway. Bleh. 'Still waiting for the plumber, and I'm leaving for work soon. Work is its own story, and it's one I won't tell, but as we all know or can imagine, days--now months--of masks and goggles are wearying. I bought myself a big bouquet of coral roses yesterday before work, though, and that is a good thing. This saga being what it is, though, I will also report that I didn't budget correctly and forgot that the bank was about to debit the electric bill money, so I now have $5-something in checking until I'm paid and another bill about to be debited from money-that's-not-there. But. . .roses! The ones out front are blooming too. :)

Thursday's Last Bite of Lettuce

2020-05-23T12:23:00.004-05:00

Love Around Town

2020-05-21T08:20:00.000-05:00

43 Begins

2020-05-10T00:42:00.002-05:00

'Surreal days, all of them anymore, but a new year begins and I face it determined to focus on kindness and goodness and gratitude and beauty as always. My seemingly-adult-life-long fight against depression rages on daily (hourly!) these days, of course, but I can lose a few of those battles and still win the war. I have little concentration for writing or reading the past couple months, but I journal a bit, at least, and I can get through about a chapter of a book before finding myself reading more news stories again instead. I usually write a dozen pages a week and am such a fast reader, but not lately. (What's turning into this spring's--and at this rate, maybe this summer's--books, then: Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand and The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson.) The lost time between loved ones is what makes me saddest. I know you know. I have been writing and rewriting this paragraph off and on for three hours. Ay yi yi. 'Alternate blog post title tonight: The Pandemic: I Know You Know.

As in my last post, almost every picture I take anymore is taken on my walk to work or my walk home from work--Essential Workers, unite!--as the only other place I've been since March is the grocery store weekly and the post office once. From what little I see of it on my walks to/from, though, this has been a beautiful spring. I've missed seeing and smelling Lilacs this year, since there are none along my to/from work-route and I've been skipping longer walks until it feels safer to be outside, but all the other spring blooms have been lovely, and I've appreciated spring--both the fact of it and the specifics of it--more this year than any other. Birdsong, for example, is especially lovely and welcome in the wee hours when I'm either still struggling to fall asleep at all or awake too early after another night of nightmares. I have somehow always loved birdsong but never truly appreciated it until this spring--so now, I suppose, I can say I'm truly loving it for the first time. It is one of the good things I will likely most vividly remember about this anxiety-filled time, the tender sounds of the birds breaking into the darkness. There have been more than a few days this year I've gone to work on no sleep or two-or-three hours of sleep. On my days off lately, I sometimes relax enough to fall sleep only after the sun's come up for the day. Maybe I'd never truly loved mornings until now either. Maybe even I, then, ever-determined to live looking for the pretty in the rough patches, will now learn right-down-to-the-bones-and-beyond levels of gratitude.

Take care of yourselves and of each other, Friends. If we can't be kind to ourselves and to each other during a PANDEMIC, though, really. . . Heaven help us. And I do think most people are rising to meet the moment. ♥ I leave you now with not only a flower petal heart,

but also--and this year would be the year I find one--a heart in a roll of toilet paper. :)

Spring 2020

2020-04-15T16:33:00.000-05:00

Well, how are we all doing, I emerge to ask. ♥ 'Not even four full months into it, but this has been such a trying year in my own little world, every month a new heartache and stressor, and now all this. . .in the larger world for us all. Ay yi yi! We focus on the positive as much as we can, though, don't we, and we plod on as always. 2001 still holds the record as the worst year of my life--24 was a humdinger--and I never think of it without remembering that a couple weeks before it finally (Thank God) ended, I was stunned to find myself getting excited about painting pink snowflakes onto my Christmas cards' envelopes before I mailed them: If I could still get blissfully lost in creativity, even in a project as simple as painting snowflakes onto my outgoing mail, then obviously, this sometimes-devastatingly awful world hadn't beaten me. My heart may have been broken many-times-over that year, I realized, but it was still there and still a good one, and I would be okay. These silly bunny-shaped dinner rolls this Sunday were the 2020 version of 2001's hand-painted snowflakes.

"Next time, I'll knead the dough a little longer," I told Mike as we sampled a couple Easter afternoon. (Why? I think they're good, he responds.) "Maybe I'll scratch on some whiskers with a cake-tester or toothpick next time so they look more like bunnies." (He nods while he eats.) "And I think I'll pinch little puffs of dough out of the backs for tails." (More nodding and eating.) "Anyway, they have potential, but they could be cuter." If I'm already looking forward to the next batch of bunny rolls and to future Easters that will find us sharing our meals with our families again, hope is still alive and well here, despite furloughs, family layoffs, face masks, and the seemingly-constant BREAKING! NEWS! that mark all these spring days. I keep you all in my heart and wish you your own dinner roll revelations, whatever it is you need to keep yourself going.

(Always love.)

♥