Good-bye little friend

Well, my eighteen year relationship with a good friend is over. Not by choice, of course, but by necessity. She couldn't go on any longer, and I understand that. We had a good run though, from what I hear, most cats don't make it to 18.5 years as she did.

She picked her time well, and when people say that someone or something chose as good a time as any to die, I now know what they mean. Our house had been on the market 3 days when she died. We had our first "showing" the day after she died. I know she'd have hated to have people she didn't know rooting through her "area" and interrupting sleeping/eating/grooming routines.

We miss her, but the ones that miss her the most are me....and the dog. They didn't seem to be very good friends or bitter enemies, and they had their spats, particularly over the dog's food which she would occasionally snitch while the dish was being prepared. Since she died however, the dog has been moping around, sleeping more than usual, and generally looking distressed. We've been trying to make more of her, with extra pets, treats, and walks, but she knows something has happened even if she can't define it.

Who'd have thunk that a little cat could make me feel so humble? She liked everyone in the house but she out and out adored me, and followed me around like a dog. I often joked that I should have named her Shadow, for she was mine. Cats are very choosy (we've had 3 and all had their favorites) and I still don't know why she thought so much of me. Even at the very end, the night before she died, she was sitting on my husband's lap, so she could watch me and every time I got up to do something, she tried to follow even though the legs weren't working hardly at all.

I feel as though I let her down at the end, probably because I couldn't bear the thought of the inevitable and I waited too long to bring her to the vet so she could be put to sleep. By the time I recognized her imminent death and called for an appointment on the last day, she was going too fast. I got home early from work and she was in a coma and died at home an hour later. I wondered if she had waited for me to get home.

For the first time in 19 years, I don't have a cat. There is a hole in my life but I can't get a cat until I sell my house and move. Cats hate moving (ask mine who moved 5 times in the first 4 years I had them) and I don't want to get a new one until I am settled in a new place. I will get another cat though, I am a self-described "cat person" and my husband always refers to the fact that I, with my innate curiosity, am pretty much like a cat.

While I know I will love any new cat that comes into my life, I am acutely aware that there will never be another like the one I just lost. So, thank you little friend for your love and companionship and know that I treasured every minute of it all.

Sighing Over Summer

For those who don't know it, I'm a summer person. I love the heat, humidity, and all that goes with it. That doesn't mean that I won't complain in the 4th day of a heat wave occasionally, but I wait all year for summer and, here in New England, it seems that it is here one day, gone the next. This year is no different.

I had the opportunity (well, it was more of a your turn) to take my youngest to football practice the first week of September. While I know, academically, that summer isn't really over (at least not until September 22nd), and there will be more warm days ahead, the bulk of summer is over and I am now looking at fall. Luckily, football practice was held that day at the field that abuts the local swimming hole. While he practiced, I walked disconsolately around the pond mourning another lost summer. As an aside here, my husband hates to have me take the child to football as I never can "report" on how the practice went as I never pay attention - but that would be a subject for a whole other post.


The signs are all there. The maple trees are starting to show their faintest orange tones, the grass by the pond is yellowing and laden with seeds, there is goose doo all over the beach - a sure sign that it isn't being used any more, and the crickets and other insects are singing louder and louder as if it were their last hurrah. One can even detect a different feel and smell in the air. And, of course, we're at football practice, there's no getting around it, fall is coming.


There are two sayings that I have particularly remembered regarding the end of summer. One was in a book of columns by Andy Rooney, the column in particular dealing with the month of August: "Never return in August to what you love". This saying always resonated with me as I feel - with my love of summer - that August is the end of everything. I don't mean that literally, I mean that as a person who looks forward to summer all year, the end of the summer - August - is a time of bittersweet feelings. It is still summer, but it is all unraveling so quickly.


Later, as an adult, I went looking for the rest of that poem and found that it was written by Bernice Kenyon (devilishly hard to find), is apparently titled "Return", and the part that speaks to me is:

"Never return in August to what you love,

Along the leaves will be rust,

And over the hedges, dust,

And in the air vague thunder and silence burning,

Choose some happier time for your returning."

The other saying is a somewhat shorter quote by Maxwell Anderson:

"Oh, it's a long, long, way from May to December, but the days grow short, when you reach September."

For me, both of those quotes align perfectly with my feelings of loss at the end of the summer. I miss all the extra daylight I had in May, June, and July, I have a vague feeling of foreboding for the upcoming colder months, and the knowledge that I will have to wait another year for summer to arrive is overwhelming. It seems that I feel the same sense of letdown at the end of summer that some people seem to feel over the passing of the Christmas holiday. Frankly for me, once Christmas is over, I am relieved - we are almost through the darkets part of winter and summer is coming once again. By the beginning of February when I can see the extra daylight, I am getting happier and by the beginning of March and daylight savings time, I am almost giddy.

Unfortunately I live in a family that is consumed by sports so for them, the end of summer is a good thing - fall is coming and so is football and soccer. When I mourn for the passing of summer, I mourn alone alongside several males who are looking forward to crisp air and games. The debate over the relative good of the fall and summer seasons will go on forever in my house although my husband agrees with me that being cold is not his pleasure. We shiver together from October through the beginning of May. Long underwear and layers are what get us through the colder months while we both long for warmer weather again.

Luckily there are things to like about all of the seasons, a crispness of air and gorgeous leaves in autumn, the first few snows and their serenity in winter, the breezes and fresh greenery of spring. I enjoy aspects of all the seasons but summer is my favorite and I am always reluctant to let it go. While I know in my heart that I would not like to live somewhere where the climate is generally temperate, the ending of the summer season always makes me question this belief...for a time.

I Can See You - I'm Just Ignoring You

This has happened before. I'm driving along to work hitting the speed limit or slightly above on the usual back roads I take. One minute I look in my rearview mirror and there's no one there, the next time I check, all I can see is a massive grill to some vehicle that would really like me to be going faster. Usually this startles me, I go a little faster, but the grill stays stuck there so then I slow down and go back to my previous speed.

At this point I wonder - "what's the hurry back there?" I don't see any flashing lights so I know it isn't some volunteer firefighter or a police officer on the way to a scene, then I get annoyed. Alright so I know that the person behind me wants to get somewhere faster than I am going and they want me to know it too, but why? Is there some medical emergency? Are they rushing to pick someone up from school? From sports? From work? What gives?

If I knew that they had a legitimate reason, I'd pull over (and sometimes I do if it is a particularly large SUV or person giving me the finger as I plod along) but my overwhelming response is to go the same speed I've been going and avoid getting pulled over. That happened to me once before when I, panicked by a large pickup pushing me along, went faster and then got pulled over by a police officer for speeding. The pickup truck? Just went along merrily - and I'm sure, sped up to twice as fast once I was gone and the cop was engaged with me.

So, seeing as I have no explanation, I just figure most people either: a.) left later than they should and are trying to make up time on my expense or b.) just want to go fast, irregardless of the fact that they may get pulled over. There is also the possibility that some of these people in large vehicles just want me to know that I'm cramping their style by being on the road at all. It isn't just the SUVs and pickups that bug me, there are also people in small sports cars who hug my bumper as well.

Is everyone just so cramped for time that they need to rush everywhere? I know we are all busy and need to get places but we should have an eye out for safety. If you are hugging my bumper and I need to stop for a child falling off a bike, a dog in the road, or a deer taking a walk across the street, then we are in for a nasty accident. I've been behind people who have driven me crazy with their slowness or their inability to find the street they are looking for, thus necessitating that they nearly stop at all intersecting streets and it is frustrating. Particularly if I am on my way to work and left later than I should or if I told one of my sons that I would pick them up at a certain place and then it takes longer to get there than I remembered.

I try to not follow too closely, I've been rear-ended and it is a terrible feeling. I'd rather not have to hit my brakes too frequently because that just wastes gas and gas isn't cheap anymore. I've just come to the conclusion that there are simply too many people on roads that don't support the amount of traffic that they are subjected to on a daily basis. People are frustrated, especially when they feel they are wasting time, time that they could be better using somewhere else. Where do we think road rage is coming from?

People get in their cars and feel that they are in their own little world. It can be a powerful feeling, especially in a large car. What needs to be remembered though, is that there are a whole heck of a lot of us out there in our own little worlds sharing the road. We aren't alone and need to remember that - these are public roads after all. Road rage seems to happen when someone infringes too heavily on another's own little world.

So, where am I going with all this? I'm not sure. I think, for now, with the price of gas and all, I'm going to keep going the posted speed limit, try to leave on time so that I don't need to rush, and twist my rearview mirror so that I see nothing, nothing.....

Waiting on a Cat

I've been spending more time lately looking at our old cat - when she deigns to come up and spend time with us. Being a cat, she frequently prefers her own company but will come up and lie in the middle of the floor when I am trying to get dinner on the table.

I am looking at her more frequently now to see how fast she is failing. Not a pretty thing, but after putting our other two (elderly cats of 17 and 15 respectively) to sleep in the past year due to kidney failure and diabetes, I know we probably don't have much time left with her. She is 18.5 now, and while in better health than the others (I guess females do live longer - the other two were males) I don't think she'll make her 19th birthday. She has gotten shockingly thin, particularly deaf, and her hind legs don't always seem to do as she wants. She can still hop up on a couch or chair sometimes, but the counters she used to hop up on so easily even last year, are now beyond her. So is walking sometimes as the hind legs will frequently give way on even the shortest jaunt. She spends a lot of time collapsing on the floor in the kitchen, and then snoozing. And don't even mention the litter box - missing it seems to be the bane of the elder cat's existence.

We picked her out of a litter of 3 kittens many years ago. She was the runt, and had the most peculiar (and ugly) color coat. There was a calico - already bid on by someone else, a black and white - taken by some friends of ours, and this little black cat with no other colors but a slash of cream on her nose, a cream paw, and a cream curl up the rump. Of course, the ugly duckling kitten grew to be a beautiful tortoiseshell cat whose coat was remarked upon by many as being gorgeous - especially as she lay in the sun.

It seems hard now to compare the little cat who climbed up my nylons (to my dismay) and the little old cat who can now only walk between the den, kitchen, and cellar. To my son's delight, she will still play with string held by them, but the huge leaps and falls she took as a young cat have been replaced by slight pawings and sinkings to the floor.

It is remarkable that we don't really feel the passage of time within ourselves, but we see it so acutely in others. How is it possible that the sons who were only just babies are now on the cusp of adolescence and one is as tall as me? How could it be that the cat we brought into our home when we were so newly married is now frail and elderly? Have we really been married that long? Where did the time go? And why don't I feel much different than I ever did? Time plays tricks with the mind. As I said when I was home with my sons when they were tiny, "the days are long, but the years pass quickly". I don't know how, but this is so.

That being said, we are waiting on a cat, waiting for her to give us the sign that her time is through with us. I'd so much rather find her curled in a cold ball some morning or eve rather than having to take the familiar trek to the veterinarian's waiting room and then the kindness of ending the cat's life through euthanasia. With my other cats, when they started to look as though they were suffering, we brought them in to "put them to sleep." We'll do the same for her should the need arise but it is such a sad trip - and she hates the car.

So, we'll watch and wait, and hope for the best. But she'll always be my "pretty kitty in the sun."

Painting

Due to job and other issues, it turns out we are going to have to put our house on the market again and see if we can sell it to get out from under a hugely staggering mortgage. While we did pay a full 1/2 of the price down, the rest of the payment is just too much, better to cut and run now before we become yet another statistic.

Now, we are walking about the house with a running list in our head of all the stuff we need to do to make the house look marketable. Painting is on our list. Granted we only moved in last year so most all of the house was painted by us shortly after we moved in so it looks OK. Two areas are in desperate need of attention though, my upstairs hall and my deck. Both need painting, which I loathe.

I attacked the deck with the vengeance last year, getting it about 90% done. We have a huge deck and I thought that once I had it all done, I'd be all set. Turns out that latex stain on an area in which water may pool means that the paint will peel. Well, at least we know that now. In order to make the deck look good again, I should really scrape the whole thing and start over with an oil-based stain. Yeah, right. If it ever stops raining this summer, I may get to the scraping part and then just patching up with the same old stain again to see if it won't last until someone buys it and we leave. Cheesy and cheap, I know - but who would do otherwise?

The hall upstairs is going to be more problematic. We don't have staging for painting and the whole thing up there really needs it. When I look at all the painting we've had to do, I wonder why we ever bought a house in such a state. We had painted our old house in it's entirety prior to putting it on the market so it would look better. Then we stupidly go and buy a house that needs to be painted again - and I hate painting!

Somehow, hopefully it will all get done, and we can get it on the market. Then comes the hard part - keeping it clean for prospective buyers.

Assignment 1

Surely everyone has heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I know I was hit with it innumerable times in virtually every education and psychology course I had throughout college.

Lately, I've been trying to figure out why I've never been able to get to the highest peak, the most attractive one - that of self-actualization. Frankly, I'm stuck way down at the second one, looking for the safety that I don't seem to be able to find.

I was talking with a new acquaintance the other day who was bemoaning the fact that she wasn't able to spend the summer on the Vineyard this year like all others because she is taking care of her sick mother. For someone like me, who rarely gets a vacation, watches paychecks barely meet the needs of the household, and is constantly wondering whether the money to pay the mortgage will be there, listening to someone bemoan a non-Vineyard summer was one of incredulousness. (As in - like that's a real problem?! Try being $300 short of the mortgage honey.)

Now there is someone who doesn't have to worry about the mundane and doesn't know what a gift it is. I live in the mundane - and I want to get out.