Nine Miles of Bad Road

late

2009-08-24T00:27:00.008-04:00

Well I, for one, am glad the humidity has broken some. It was getting to be pretty standard to go into the bathroom and find both cats crashed asleep in the bathtub. Max has always loved the tub - it is cool and you can also play with water - and has past this love on to the Little.

I am on holiday right now - at the beginning of week two of three weeks off - and am just now feeling like I can decompress. I'm still having trouble actually falling asleep (thus the writing in the middle of the night), but once I'm there I can stay asleep like a champion. The cats are now used to getting fed in the middle of the morning when I finally stagger out of bed.

There is still a little too much whirring around in my brain. And too much of it is not nice. Like, don't say that in public if you ever want people to talk you again not nice. Vitriol. Hoorah.

But here, look! Cute!

It has been good to get to spend some quantity time with the Little over the last week or so. He's getting crazy big for someone who's still so young and his colour is changing as he gets bigger. He started out quite dark gray with some suggestions of tabby markings. Those are now becoming more pronounced as his body gets larger - the dark gray is fading to a light charcoal and you can see more of his tabby markings. I am still kind of amazed by his totally white belly. I am used to the Max - with his orange creamsicle swirls, boldly displayed as he sleeps, completely upside-down.

dead cat, with belly

The other thing I'm looking forward to with the lessening of the heat is using my oven again. This is the first apartment in a long while that didn't have a crazy powerful fan over the oven. Man - the fan two apartments ago was so powerful that I made an entire wedding cake in the middle of August humidity without raising the temperature in my apartment. The fan just sucked all the hot air up and out of the apartment. It was tres cool. My current apartment has a fan but it somehow missed getting all hooked up with electricity. And my landlord, while very nice, has yet to actually get around to hooking it all up. So I am baking-free right now as using the oven will overheat my poor little kitchen as well as the rest of the house.

I hadn't really realized how much I use the oven until I'm forced (forced!) to give it up. It helps that I visited Harbord Bakery today - with eyes bigger than my stomach - and came back with a bounty of baked goods. Empenadas, bagels & cream cheese and two different kinds of jam cookie. (I am completely unable to resist the jam cookie.)

So today dinner was homemade iced tea, bagels, cream cheese and smoked salmon. All chilled. I must wax lyrical about the iced tea for a minute - just look at that colour!

It's African Queen tea from the Tea Emporium. A fruit tea that is delicious both hot and cold. This was six cups of water and just less than half a cup of tea steeped for five or so minutes. I added a tiny bit of honey to the mix but I might skip it next time. It's pretty glorious all on it's own.

It makes me happy to have something that is not water to drink in my quest to avoid drinking juice. I mean, I actually kind of like water at this point but sometimes it's nice to have an option.

Possibly I should attempt to get some sleep now. I've spilled some of the words spinning around in my brain here. That should help. Yes?

teachable moments

2009-08-02T10:54:00.001-04:00

desperately in need of a caption

It's kind of amazing how the presence of a third being in the house has changed things. The little bug has very quickly incorporated himself into our lives chez Rosemount.

Things we have learned recently:

Orange cats are not automatically killed if they remain in the bathroom when the shower is running.
Little gray cats do not learn that when they fall into the shower when it is running that it will be too slippery to get back out themselves.
Max has a special meow that means "We are trapped in the bathroom because the door has closed".
The best cat food is Max's food - being especially delicious if you can eat it out from under Max's nose.
The best way to get a look at something high is to launch yourself at my leg and climb up - which is fine when I'm wearing jeans and not so fine when I'm wearing pajamas.
The best place to sleep is with your head murfed up against Max's tummy. Actually, if you can sleep with at least some part of yourself on top of Max - that is pretty good too.

I sure there's more... It's kind of nuts - the little bug is about twice as big as he was when he first arrived. It's noticeable when he's able to jump up on things that he couldn't before or when he tries to squish himself under the couch and he's getting just a little too big to do it. Ah, the passage of time.

Introducing

2009-07-05T11:55:00.008-04:00

The Right Honourable Bentley Mortimer Russell. Approximately two handfuls of grey & white disaster-kitten. Who might turn out to be a girl-cat (in honour of my family's well known inability to name cats gender appropriately.)

After initial suspicion, the Max has decided that this kitten is very interesting. Which is good because the kitten has decided that Max is the most interesting thing in the house.

Max, of course, now appears to be about the size of a brontosaurus in comparison. My little cat - all growed up.

There is more - over here.

june, june where art thou?

2009-06-19T22:07:00.006-04:00

Man. Yet another month that is slipping past with incredible speed. Ah, but soon it will be July 1 and the client project I'm working on will be live (it's alive!) and then I can go back to my slightly less than all consuming regular job.

The Max will be happy there is no more travel - I abandoned him to the care of my mother the past two weeks so I could gallivant off to the wilds of New Jersey and run client testing. He had much to tell me when I got home. Oh, and in recompense he would like me to spend the rest of my life pouring cups of water down the bathtub drain so he can play.

Is it wrong that this photo makes me think "Damn, it feels good to be a gangster"?

He is currently marauding around the dining room table trying to knock everything that isn't nailed down onto the floor.

Anyway. I am looking forward to things slowing down slightly. My apartment now has a deck, built while I was away this week, and I find I am suddenly in need of a chair to lounge on and limes for a gin and tonic. Priorities people.

snacky snack

2009-05-30T17:27:00.003-04:00

Mmm. Mid-afternoon snack: Rivita Sesame Rye crackers with smoked trout. Cats, I was informed, do not eat smoked trout (contrary to public opinion) but they would like some cracker. Of course they would.

He is a discerning culinarian, my snacky cat.

the view from here

2009-05-10T10:29:00.006-04:00

So. April pretty much kicked my ass. I'd managed to fill it with too many things - both work and personal - that were all important and tightly scheduled. At one point, like the 21st, I looked up and decided I should fill in my timecard for work - I mean, I knew I was behind but... - and when I pulled it up the entire month was empty. Which says much about the previous 20 days.

looking into the living room

And while it has been a long haul to get here, I am finally settling into May and the new house. For all that I hate moving, there is pleasure in setting up house. Last weekend, while awaiting the Bell guy, I dug out the living room. Boxes of books put on the bookshelves, furniture assembled, one room finally felt done. Up until then Max and I had made the bedroom into our little cave. Stumbling in from various obligations and falling into bed. The Max has been very cuddly through all this - in need of much affection and entertainment with all the home-change.

I missed Bird fiercely the first night we were here. Too many boxes, too unsettled and Max beside himself after The Worst Day Ever. And I know I'm supposed to be the grown up here, but Bird was the force of calm with the three of us. Once he'd figured out what this moving business was about and knew that I wasn't going anywhere he was fine. And Max trailed after him - because after all nothing bad could happen if Birdy was there. He was our centre. And that first night with just the two of us it was hard.

But, we have adjusted. And as there are less and less boxes around Max has figured out that this house is his. (Even with noises from the neighbours upstairs.)

Oh, and I have a bookshelf with three shelves dedicated to purses - one for the brown one, one for the red ones and one for the others. It is hilarious.

origin stories

2009-04-10T21:55:00.001-04:00

I started this a while ago - but didn't get around to finishing it. I was reminded it existed when I came across the Bird's original collar, still with the message my mother had put inside it when we were trying to find his original people.

"Hi, your beautiful cat visits us and our cats a lot. We wonder where his real home is.
Could you please call us at ### ###-####. Thank you."

___________________________

To understand how the Bird came to live with me you first need to understand Rosemount. Rosemount is my parent's house - the ancestral homelands, if you will - and it attracts cats. There is something about the wide porch and riotous gardens that says that it is a good place to come visit and perhaps to stay awhile. My mom's cat Gumpy was such a stray - turned up sleeping on the couch and so clearly bedraggled that he needed a home. Another grey cat who stayed for just a while had feline leukemia and had his people come to get him before he needed his next set of meds.

The Bird turned up one morning on the porch. As he had a collar - with a bell - and was clearly well fed and taken care of there were the clear admonishments from my mother to not interact with him. "Don't pat that Jingley Cat! He has a home." At other houses you just didn't have to feed stray cats but my mother knew, from experience, that the first step was not the feeding; it is the conversing. Once you talked to the cat it was downhill from there.

But the Bird continued to come around for a couple of days - "that Jingley Cat" became somewhat of a fixture. We even tried to find his people - put up posters and an add in the classifieds. To no avail. His original people could not be found and Bird had decided that he had new people so what exactly was our problem?

Birdy was allow to stay, Cat #5 at the time, on the condition that he leave with me when I moved out in six months. Which was fine with the Bird - he had already decided that I was his person.

He knew that something was going on when the boxes started appearing. My mom said that he was being extra nice to her - but she knew he was a fraud and was just worried I was leaving. The final straw for him was finding his chair (!) on the porch. He sat in there as all the boxes and furniture went by being completely unimpressed.

He settled after the move, and even forgave bringing a dastardly orange cat into the house. Patience, they name was Bird.

busy busy

2009-03-22T20:30:00.005-04:00

It's looking like April will be my month of too many things this year. There is travel for work, finishing packing for my move, the actual move itself and far too many rehearsals. I'm at the point now where the list of things is long and I just want to get started on doing it. Which is why, at not quite the end of March, I am about 70% packed. Yeah. It's a bit psycho. I have clothing and the kitchen left. Which is by no means a small task - the collection of kitchen related items I have accumulated it getting a little ridiculous. Fun... but ridiculous.

the max, taking advantage of an angry-cat-free moment

I am excited about moving though. It will be good to have my own kitchen again. And I'm looking forward to settling in and setting up a new house. I have not been so comfortable these last months - what with all the changes. I was told the other day that that was OK - it is not human nature to be comfortable in transitions and well, ain't that the truth. I mostly just want it done. Which will surprise no one who knows me.

traveling

2009-02-23T13:44:00.005-05:00

Photos to make you want to come home after a trip.

cats that are mine, and not

2009-02-08T19:36:00.006-05:00

At one point earlier this year I was asked by someone who didn't really know me how many cats I had. I said "Two. One gray and fluffy, one orange and crazy". When I related this to 'Col she said "Um. When are you going to mention the other two cats?" and you know, I was kind of surprised. Surprised that I'd really have to mention them.

gray cats, one and two, mine and not

Somewhere in my brain the cats remained divided into 'my cats' and 'the cats I just live with' even though we'd been living in this house for more than a year at that point. It is odd how that works because the example up above is not the first time that had happened - I might have live in a house with four cats but -I- only had two cats. Apparently I am not so good with the math.

And weirdly, this notion of two cats has remained stuck in my brain even though the Bird is gone. My language choices still speak of multiple cats - which makes sense if you think about the fact I live with three. But I've realized that while sometimes I speak of 'the cats' and I'm talking about Max & the Roo there is still quite a lot of times when I'm speaking with someone who doesn't really know me and when I say 'the cats' I mean Max and Bird.

Yeah. Like that's not slightly crazy.

And sometimes, just to make matters slightly more complicated, I am talking about Max and his hypothetical kitten who we will get when we move to keep Snacky company.

the snacky max, with chair

My life, apparently, is fill of cats that don't exist.

too many things

2009-02-07T22:04:00.007-05:00

I am a little tired of being an adult. I have been being -very- grown up lately and attempting to get my financial house in order, be more fulfilled at work and take care of myself physically. Which has mostly seemed to involve making a lot of appointments and then running around like a crazy person trying to keep everything going.

My mother often says that if you want something done you should ask a busy person to do it and I can see her point. There is a certain momentum gained from the full-frontal assault on the list of things you've been putting off. But I am tired. And I need some of things that are up in the air - booking my flight for work, filling out the novel worth of forms for the nutritionist, doing the homework for the homeopath - to get checked off. Which they will... soon... but until then there is just too much floating around in my head to really feel settled.

Which I know is not exciting. But is true.

pears

2009-01-26T20:53:00.006-05:00

I have been cooking. It is largely an attempt to make myself feel better. And if it is not totally succeeding it is at least giving me delicious breakfast.

meh

2009-01-21T19:45:00.008-05:00

I am tired. And feeling really stuck. Oh, and weepy too. It's really super fun.

The thing is, I'm working on getting unstuck, I really am, but I am not yet feeling like I'm getting much traction. And the longer I feel like I'm not moving forward the easier it becomes to just let myself slide back into the deep dark hole that I know is waiting.

But I am trying to be patient and let things 'process'. I seriously hate that. Process. Stupid talking about your feelings. I hate feelings. Argh!

Anyway, to move on from the less than witty anti-feeling diatribe, I had kind of an interesting experience with looking at what my 'core values' were and what my... I guess I shall call them 'anti-values' were. The core values were ten things that I picked out of a list of perhaps 50 different values that were the things I can't live without. The anti-values were like the 'I hate that guy' of values. You don't like them and people who hold those values highly make you mad.

So. There I was with my pretty lists. Good things/Not so good things.

The next part wasn't as easy. I then had to write down my definition for each of the values (both sets - good and anti-good) and then how much of that value there was or wasn't in my life currently. This seemed a lot easier to do before I sat down to do it. But I made a little chart and filled in all the boxes and the strangest thing became clear. In the current life I lead, rather than having too much of the anti-values kicking around making me upset, I don't have enough of the good values. This perhaps would have been obvious to some but it kind of caught me by surprise.

abruptly

2009-01-06T18:33:00.005-05:00

So. In general, there are very few people in my life I let boss me around. My doctor is one of them. And man, does she ever. I was given strict instructions with this last visit - a referral I was to call today and ensure I got an appointment -this- week before I head back to work, a requisition for blood work to be done this week and strict instructions that I see her again in Feb, no excuses. So there you go. It's kind of alarming except for that fact that she always does this to me. Her conclusion is that all of the various things I've been dealing with lately - tiredness, nausea, this terrible cold - are reactions to stress. That I'm doing this all to myself. And until we fix the underlying cause of the stress it's not going to get better and at this point she's fed up with me trying to treat symptoms instead of treating the actual issue.

So there you go. Stupid uncomfortable realizations.

tidings

2009-01-05T15:02:00.012-05:00

Right now, Max is sitting in the window of my bedroom watching the squirrels. They like to sit directly in front of him - nose pressed to the glass - and look out over the world. Max would like to make their acquaintance but thankfully that is not to be. Wildlife and Max are not really a stellar combination.

I have been slow these last few weeks - the last year of crazy-work caught up with me and I was felled by a terrible cold. It has been... interesting in that I've been slightly trapped in my head and am starting to get a bit stir crazy. There are all sorts of things I need to sort out and talk to people about that I am just not feeling like dealing with. Instead, I draft long letters in my head and then get irritated that I don't have all the answers. It is super fun.

I could do without the semi-fever dreams as well. I have had more than one moment in the last little while of lying in bed, half-asleep and sick, watching Max rocketing around the room and thinking that I wonder what Bird will think of all this when he comes back. Yeah. It is an okay thought until I realize that there is no coming back for Bird. It is startling each and every time it happens.

And I mean, I tell you this not to elicit sympathy. Seriously. It's more that I'm puzzled by how long it takes for something you know in your very logical head to percolate through the rest of your brain. It would be interesting if I didn't keep hurting myself with it.

However. Enough. I must be off - out into the world for once to run errands and visit the doctor. I have a list - to ensure I remember everything I want to talk to her about - and will remember to stop and get a latte before I go into the waiting room so that I will have something to keep me occupied during the, inevitable, waiting.

But enjoy the new year. The max-bunny wishes you a happy holidays - he certainly had one.

glowing

2008-12-12T19:56:00.002-05:00

We got Max a tree. Well, the household now has a Christmas tree but really, who could resist bring such joy to a little orange cat. He is currently lolling under the tree, gently lit by the lights and alternately gazing up into the branches and napping.

This afternoon he came downstairs and hung out with me while I worked. He circled the tree, looking and patting at the branches, all the while giving me the narration. Oh, the chirping. When I went and turned on the lights for him this was another whole dimension to the greatness of the tree. If last year is anything to go by we are in for many an ornament to be found on the floor.

And I only had to yell at him twice today as the tree started to sway and there was a glint of orange higher up in the tree that I was frankly comfortable with. The Max - he is a sweetpea - just an evil sweetpea.

orange

2008-12-09T16:53:00.005-05:00

The Max has woken up. You can tell because there is now thumping coming from upstairs and the chattering has started up again. Max likes to narrate his existence - he will tell you all about the things he is looking at under the bed, the things that are happening at the end of the hallway and, if you have time, he will take you on a tour of the house stopping to point out the landmarks along the way.

I was reading a thread earlier today where a new cat owner was wondering how you stopped a cat from 'yowling in the middle of the night'. I stopped reading shortly thereafter as I realized I had no real advice to give. Because Max has always been noisy and I have always responded to his caroling with "Really? What is Max doing?". Also, I have learned to sleep through the midnight singing.

Bird was different. He'd convinced my mother and I that he didn't meow - only made little breathy meeps or humphs - until we took him to the vet for the first time. He stood on my lap in the car and let out this very sad meow. He looked a little nonplussed when our reaction was more amazement that he could speak than sympathy for his position. And really, that was basically the only time he'd make big loud sounds. He didn't like the car, he didn't like his crate and he wanted us to turn the car around and let him go home.

I'm not totally sure what Bird made of Max when he first arrived. He was certainly very interested in the new smells but I think he was a little puzzled by the amount of energy one small orange cat had. At night he took to sleeping on the top of the chest of drawers because he could jump up there but Max could not. A refuge from the rascal kitten.

I think what I'm missing most is just Bird's quiet presence. The fact that when I worked from home he would sleep on the table wrapped around my computer. Or the fact that he often followed me from room to room to keep an eye on what was going on. The fact that you knew he was really upset if he looked at you and meowed with no sound. It is still very surprising to me that he's not around.

And I feel indulgent in this grief. Like I should be doing something else. Something better. Something more socially redeeming... or just something more. But I don't really know how. So instead, I will tell you Bird stories that you have heard before and follow the orange cat around as he shows me all his stuff.

dark days

2008-12-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

I'm on a bit of a countdown. I'm going to hit the two month mark on the 15th of this month. I said a final goodbye to my Bird - grey cat par excellence - in the early evening of October 15th and I can't even start to write about it without crying. Even now, with nearly two months gone.

Now Bird had a heart murmur - he was diagnosed about 4 years ago and even though the vet said that it was something we just had to monitor and it was pretty typical for boy-cats I knew that this was what was going to get him in the end. We'd seen it with Gumpy - my mother's cat - where there would be a sudden decline as the heart went into failure and then you'd just have to say goodbye. But Birdy was such a big presence that it never really sunk in. I was distressed but it didn't linger because the Bird had decided it was time to go home and lie on the couch - so we did.

The Bird was a big believer in the couch as a place to be. When we lived on Sorauren, just the two of us, there was the side of the couch that was mine and the side that was his. Occasionally, he would come and sit on my lap but mostly he was very convivial and curled up beside me, gently snoring.

When we moved to Dovercourt, that specific couch had to go live at my parent's house as it wouldn't fit up the very narrow staircase. In it's place we got a futon - which didn't divide as neatly in two as the previous couch. So Bird decided that if I was going to lie on the couch he was going to lie on me. We spent many a weekend morning that way - me watching television and very carefully drinking tea and him with his head tucked up under my chin snoozing. Even the advent of the terrible orange kitten didn't change that.

With this last move, the old couch returned due to wider doorways but there were more cats and more people so we didn't fall back into the my side/his side pattern of before. And there were fewer mornings with just the two of us watching tv and drinking tea. But he was happy. He had a whole new set of people and cats to rule over and the occasional different lap.

It all started to go downhill when he woke me up one morning at about 6, panting heavily and generally miserable. He was like that when I got up for real at 8 too. So we popped him in the car and took him to the vet. After a week of being sick to my stomach and daily phone calls from the vet we finally had a concrete diagnosis. He was in heart failure. And while we couldn't fix that we could get set him up with heart meds and a special diet and see where that went.

Sadly, where it went was kidney failure and a week after we'd had him home he stopped eating and we had to take him back to the vet where it became clear that we really had very few options.

So my mom took me up and we said goodbye. And now, nearly two months later I still can't stop crying and it hasn't really sunk in. So there we are.

Dark days indeed.