Da Goddess

I came home from San Diego to a sick cat. Barfing up everything he ate. Lethargic. Just. Not. Right. Sir Fletch is sick and I don’t like it!

I’ve been watching him closely since Wednesday evening, and while there has been improvement, he’s still not himself.

Frankly, I’m worried as hell. He’s still a young’n. He’s only seven!

He’s done so well this last year; losing weight, becoming more active, and generally just being a super dude. Now? This is not good.

There are days when I struggle to get up to feed Fletch, but I get up nonetheless. He comforts me when I’m hurting most. He’s my little Bubba.

Seems weird to ask for prayers for a cat, but he’s so much more than “a cat” — he’s my fuzzy lovekin. If you’re so inclined, please send some healing vibes his way. Thanks.

Signed, an internally panicking guardian

If head jumping were an Olympic sport, Fletch would have a bazillion gold medals.

He loves to jump up next to me at around 04:15 every morning, sniff at my face, and then leap over my head, running away furiously after.

This is his way of saying he’s ready for breakfast. Breakfast isn’t served until 06:00.

When he doesn’t get the response he wants, he’ll repeat this routine until he realizes I’m not budging, at which point he climbs to the top of his cat tree and meows pitifully. When that fails to get a response, he paces around me. Then he tries head jumping again. Or head butting me. Or purring.

Sometimes, only sometimes, he’ll begin this song and dance at 03:30. When he does this…grrr… when he does this, I do my level best not to yell at him. For one thing, it wouldn’t do much good. For another, it would wake King Arthur, which would not bode well for anyone. And, lastly, it would kind of be like reinforcing his bad behavior.

It takes great patience and willpower to ignore begging kitty behavior. Mostly because some of it is rather adorable. Like the meowing. It’s so girly! And a little pathetic. But mostly girly. And he’s not at all girly. Plus, the leaping is really athletic. Irritating, but wildly athletic.

Sigh.

I love Fletch. He’s a nut. He’s a crazy, relentless, furry, adorable nut and I’m glad I’m his guardian.

(But he really deserves some Olympic level medals.)

You’ll thank me for title=”awesome cats”>this. You will.

I. Fucking. Did. It.

I’ve made it to 50! And the last 14 of those years included blogging. Crazy, isn’t it?

This past year’s been a rough one. Frustration, pain, and heartache seemed to be around every corner. My own health issues, my family’s health issues, deaths of friends and my sweet Celia, and having to say goodbye to Mojo as she packed up for Alaska. But this is all part of life and we get through it, don’t we?

So I’ve survived and am grateful for making it this far. Of course, I wish things were easier, but without sadness I’d never appreciate happiness; without pain I’d never appreciate pleasure. It’s all part of life. LIFE. I’m still here! I almost feel like hunting down that vice principal and a few friends’ parents just to say, “you were WRONG!”

Heavy sigh, deep breath, and many prayers I get to try writing another post like this next year!

My current project is training Fletch to feel comfortable in a harness and on a leash so we can take him with us to faire. That’s the plan. Fletch, however, is decidedly undecided about the entire endeavor.

He doesn’t mind being in the harness, thanks to treats and patience. Being outside is sort of okay, too, but just barely. Put Mr. Kitty down on the sidewalk and he loses all confidence. He turns into a wimpy cat, barely moving, almost crawling/slinking his way closer to me. Treats don’t help quite as well when he’s on the sidewalk.

Thankfully, we have time to get him used to the idea of being outdoors, on a leash, and dealing with the myriad of scents and sounds.

God willing, Fletch will soon be a great little travel buddy.

My darling boy, you are one of the silliest cats I’ve ever known. You are also one of the clumsiest cats I’ve ever known. And yet, you are also one of the vainest cats I’ve ever known.

Fletch doesn’t do it often, but when he does, he does it for hours. Doing what, you ask? Examining himself in the mirror. He’s prone to sitting in front of the mirror for long periods of time. Adjusting his position, this way and that. Stretching his neck. Moving his tail. Turning his body. Practicing poses. He’s like a teenage girl prentending to be a model. When he finds the one pose he prefers for the session, he gives himself a good long look in the mirror, blinks, good long look again, slightly turns, adjusts the pose to get it right, looks at himself in the mirror again, and then when he gets it exactly right, he stares. Stares. And then he stares some more.

I stand off to the side and watch him do this. I try to get his attention in every conceivable way, but he just wants to gaze upon himself. His very lovely self. Not even the promise of food can lure him away when he’s in one of his vanity trances. One of these days, I’ll record him doing this and post it online. One of these days. We’ll see how that works for me.

This is going to be a rather quiet and somewhat sad weekend for us. Come Monday morning, we’ll be taking Celia in to the vet’s to be euthanized. She’s been so sick these past few months and her treatments don’t last as long and are becoming more difficult to give her. So it was decided yesterday afternoon that the kindest thing we could do would be to let her just fall asleep and never wake up again. We’ll cry (I already have — several times) and we’ll say our goodbyes and be there as she goes.

The vet had listed a few options of treatment, all costly, of course, but none of the courses of treatment were guaranteed to help her at all, or to help her long term, or to even heal her. If we were rich, sure we might consider some of the options, but eventually we would have to make the tough decision and do what was, ultimately, the best thing for HER.

I think she knows what’s up. She’s come out of deep hiding and is in visible seclusion instead. She’s no longer flinching when I approach her because she, again, seems to know we’re not going to bother her with meds any further. All I want for her is to come out, spend time where’s she’s most comfortable, and be her lovely self as we prepare ourselves emotionally.

Celia is our gorgeous, furry princess. After she got over her initial shyness and distrust, she became very loving and exceedingly insistent we pet her. It was funny. Whatever it took to get us to bend to her will, well, she was willing to do it. And so were we. On the rare days when she was in play mode, Celia was hysterical. She’d chase and leap and skitter across the floor, she’d meow and make a big deal out of it. And then, five minutes later, she’d be done. Most fun was watching her play with Fletch. They were funny as hell together! Fletch loved it and he was always sad when she’d end the game sooner than he wanted.

There will never be another cat as beautiful as Celia. There will never be another cat as unique as she is. We’re going to miss our Baby Girl.

It’s been a fairly shitty couple of weeks around here.

We said goodbye to my darling Mojo and have been dealing with her absence, fretting about the drive. She arrived in Alaska safely and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

I ended up in the emergency department twice in one day for my back. Spent much of the next six days fighting back tears because I hurt so damn bad 24/7.I’m only now getting to a semi-comfortable place.

Then I get word that a friend’s cancer has spread and gone from survivable to inoperable and terminal. That was after finding out two other friends are battling cancer, too. It’s heavy on the heart, y’know?

Celia had to be rushed to the vet on Thursday as she had stopped eating, drinking, using the litterbox, and went into hiding. Her ears had bubbled up, as had part of her nose and a paw. Luckily, we found a new vet who said it was likely a food allergy, treated her with steroids and antibiotics (secondary infection from open wounds), and sent her home with us. Once home, we closed off the rest of the house so we could get to her and, lo and behold! She ate. And she started acting like our little princess again.

Of course, all that was manageable…and then I get The Call. My sister called to say my mom was in the hospital after having what they thought was a stroke. Now they say it was likely a T.I.A. or two. Her left arm, hand, leg, and foot are weak and she’s complaining that there’s some weakness on the right as well. At this point, I simply lifted my eyes to the heavens and begged for all her pain and infirmaty to become mine. I don’t care that she’s 80! My mom deserves better.

And now here I sit…praying like there’s no tomorrow.

If there’s another shoe or two? No, thanks. I have plenty. Besides, my feet have been swelling.

I’ve been battling a sinus thing most of the week. We had some glorious rain and chilly weather for a couple weeks and then got slammed with Santa Anas that dried out everything and everyone. In the past, I’ve had sinus problems go into my lungs rather quickly. Now? Well, it seems as though it goes straight to my vocal cords and leaves me without a voice. On top of my almost constant sensation of throat thickness (because my neck is jacked up) this makes it difficult for me to swallow. It’s a very odd feeling.

Obviously, I also have sinus pain and pressure. I’ve been vigilant with regards to take my Benadryl and doing my saline washes. It’s pretty much all I can do to keep the symptoms in check. It doesn’t always work, but I keep at it in hopes that it’ll keep things from getting worse. I also drink plenty of fluids, including decaf tea. Have to try everything. Thankfully, I’m not at the Rudolph stage and I aim to avoid that as much as I can.

Sadly, I’m not the only sick one in the house. Fletch has been vomiting all day. He’s lethargic and warmer than normal. He won’t even attempt to drink. I’ve managed to get a few drops of water in him via a 5ml oral syringe. 20 minutes later it all came up. This time, instead of vomiting all over the floor (carpet, tile, it’s all game), he managed to get it into his food bowl. Poor guy! We’re doing all we can to make him comfortable, but if he’s not better in the morning he’s going to see the vet. I wish I could just hand him some Gatorade and chicken noodle soup, some crackers, and Tylenol and let him sleep it off like you would a person. That doesn’t work for kitties, though.

Maybe this week we’ll all get better. I’m putting that at the top of the TO DO list.

Miss Celia is doing much better these days. She still has a problem with her mouth and you can tell it bothers her when she yawns. Otherwise, she’s been doing really well. She’s eating. A lot. And is very vocal when she thinks there might be some food available. Especially chicken. She’s grooming herself more frequently. Her coat looks AMAZING and you can tell she’s putting on some weight because she’s looking more like a red panda than a scrawny cat. She’s playing more. She’s more affectionate. But…

She’s a fart monster.

Whenever she lets one go, she kind of jumps and looks at the spot where she was sitting as if to say, “what the hell was that?” As if she couldn’t have possibly caused that noise. Or the smell. Sometimes it makes her run away. It’s really funny. Except that it stinks. And she has a habit of sitting with her butt angled toward someone’s face. Or she is always swishing her tail toward us. It’s gross, but super funny.

We’re going to take her back in for a recheck to let the vet see how well she’s doing. We’ll also be declining more antibiotics. They wanted her on antibiotics again at the last visit and we declined. Poor thing needed a break from the torture of us shoving the meds down her throat. She HATES that. I mean, she REALLY REALLY HATES IT! Since we stopped the antibiotics she’s been happy and doing everything a cat should do.

We’re coming up on a year of having cats. They’ve changed our lives in wonderful ways. It’s taken them almost this whole year to really settle in and act like they feel they belong here. We didn’t expect them to adjust overnight after living in a shelter their entire lives, but we certainly didn’t think it would take as long as it did. With patience and lots of love, it happened naturally and has been a delight to watch them thrive. I told King Arthur the other day how happy I am that we adopted these two weirdos (including Little Miss Fart Monster) and how much it means to me that we have these furry little friends in our lives. The house feels so much more like a home with them here.
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King Arthur’s daughter is pregnant again. I mentioned on Facebook that I’d dreamed she was giving a bath to a baby boy, and then told her about the next day when we got together for dinner. She mentioned she’d just started to bathe Baby Emma in the tub after she started making such a mess in the kitchen sink so I attributed the dream to that. But then she called the next weekend to tell me she realized she hadn’t had a period since Thanksgiving and took a pregnancy test and…TA DA! Preggers. Lady M and Lord R are fantastic parents to Emma; Emma’s a wonderful child and I’m sure their next baby is going to be just as lovely as the first. If they end up with a boy, though, I’m going to have to start paying more attention to my dreams and charging people for my services.
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We have a new hummingbird nest on a support leg of the carport next door. It’s closer to the front of the house than the last one and I can see it a little better from the window next to my chair. Mama hummingbird is almost always on her nest. I’m pretty sure she’s the same bird we had last year. She flits off to eat and returns quickly. I’ve taken a few photos of her, but only when she’s not looking because I want her comfy in her nest. I can’t wait to see the babies, though! They are always so adorable.
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Just finished a book for my book club. It was wonderful. Tell The Wolves I’m Home is about a young teen girl in 1987 who loses her uncle to AIDS. After his death, the girl must deal with her grief, the discovery of his boyfriend, growing up, and learning what it means to love those around her even though they may have hurt others deeply. I can’t explain it more than that at the moment. I’m still digesting it and collecting my thoughts and feelings. All I can say is check it out for yourself. It’s a good read. Some in the book club weren’t nearly as happy with it, finding some of the characters and behaviors unimaginable. But as someone who grew up in the 80s, it all rang true for me. So, here I am, recommending it to you.
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One of the gifts I gave KA for Christmas was 2Cellos music. We’ve been listening to a lot of it lately. The video below is for one of my favorite songs on their In2ition album. Enjoy.

Okay, maybe we weren’t really washed away by all the rain, but it has been very rainy and it’s been lovely. California needs the rain and I happen to like it immensely.

I’ve been doing my best to try to get over the holidays and focus on getting something, anything done. A photo project? I’ve been working on gathering supplies for that, but whilst doing so I lost my studio space as the spare bedroom has become filled with stuff. Stuff that can’t fit anywhere else in the house. Stuff that just doesn’t need to be there…or here…or really anywhere. In other words, if we can’t actually use it and it has no real value, do we really need to keep it? It’s for King Arthur to decide. In the meantime, I don’t know where I can set up a studio. That means no photo project. Vicious cycle, really.

We spent the evening at KA’s daughter’s. Had pizza and salad for dinner. Played with Baby Toddler Emma. She’s such a delight! Silly, smart, sweet.

Been gradually adding photos to 500px.com as I’ve decided Flickr is a junk heap. Half the time the site won’t display photos (you get an error message) and when it does manage to work I find myself less than pleased with the quality of work on there. As well, they did away with subscriptions and, to me, that says they don’t much care anymore about the quality or type of work that’s uploaded to the site. It’s just a repository for anything and everything from everybody. 500px is proving to be a much nicer environment for what I’d like to do with my photography. The feedback I’ve received in the past couple months has been encouraging. Not only that, but people actually take the time to seek out other artists and discover new work. That alone is enough for me to want to upload my own images there.

Oh, something else I did this weekend: I finally watched some of the Veterans Day documentaries I’d recorded. The Last Patrol was my favorite. I wept at times, cheered at other times, and spent even more time contemplating the world and the men featured in the doco. If you haven’t seen it (or a trailer), I won’t spoil it for you by interjecting my thoughts other than to encourage you to see it by whatever means available to you. Here’s title=”Guillermo Cervera on The Last Patrol” target=”_blank”>an article on Guillermo Cervera to [hopefully] pique your interest.

Time for me to go try to trim more of Celia’s matted fur. I’m tellin’ you, this cat is full of dreadlocks! I spent an hour carefully cutting away bits and pieces of matted fluff. It was a bit harrowing, but we survived and there’s still more to do. It calls me.

From our home to yours, from our family to yours, may this time of celebration be full of love, joy, and giving with an open heart. May all you give and receive be cherished always.

For King Arthur and I, we’ve spent the past week quietly picking up small gifts for family, lounging around in anticipation of the drive we’ll have later. Monday, Mojo came up to spend some time with me. She brought a project along: baking little Christmas tree cakes and then decorating them. It was heaps of fun and it was delightful to spend time with my girl. Sadly, we did not get together with KA’s grandkids for cooking baking this year. They were such amazing help last year; I could have used their help again this time around. Never fear, we’ll find time in the future to do some baking. I adore them and sharing a family tradition with them is good times for all. Even without them, I managed to make four batches of fudge, two batches of sugar cookies, and two batches of gingerbread cookies.

Also, since Fletch and Celia never spent a Christmas outside of a shelter until now, we’ve been introducing them to the joys of tissue paper pouncing and shredding. Fletch has taken to it like a champ! Celia’s eyeballed it, yet remained wary. She’s back on antibiotics at the moment and is none too pleased with me for giving her the meds. Such is life with cats.

On my Christmas wish list: one day…just ONE day of walking out of the house not covered in fur; one day off from litterbox duty; more lap time; more cuddle time; and healthy kitties from now on.

I hope your holidays are warm and exciting!

Merry Christmas!

A while back, Celia had to go in to have her teeth cleaned. It was at that time all her blood tests had basically come back to relatively normal levels. Me, being me, of course, had to take photos when she came home. This would be them.

Yep. This is my little princess kitty. I love her. Even when she has poop stuck on her tail, I love her. Not enough to let her climb all over me with the poop tail, but I do love her. However, now that we know she can handle the shower, she doesn’t have poop tail any more.

I’ve been sick for a week now. Laryngitis, headache, occasional fever, some congestion. You know the drill. And I’m sick of it. I’ve exhausted all my patience with being sick, of having to strain to be heard, of getting dizzy when I move. I’m so done with it all.

On the plus side: I’ve seen a bunch of good movies, binge watched some shows, almost caught up on all my regular TV shows, read some books, snuggled with the cats, and managed to NOT get King Arthur sick.

Bad news: I got this update from the San Diego Zoological Society in my mailbox:

We regret to inform you that over the weekend we received terrible news: Suni, one of the last remaining northern white rhinos, passed away at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, where he was living with three other northern whites. Poaching is not suspected as the cause of Suni’s death.

This brings the total world population of northern whites down to only six: three remaining in the preserve in Kenya, one at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, and two here (including our Nola), at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

As profoundly devastating as this news is, with your support we will continue working to save and protect the world’s most threatened species.

You know how I feel about rhinos and this makes me exceedingly sad. For anyone (like you, title=”Pamibe” target=”_blank”>Pam!) who has watched the Stephen Fry series Last Chance to See, you will likely remember Fry’s trip to Africa (and to the Czech Republic) as he documented the efforts of scientists to move two northern white rhinos to Africa in hopes of getting the few remaining animals breeding. Personally, I hate to think of us losing a magnificent animal in our lifetime simply because humans have hunted them out of existence. And that is exactly what’s been done. Sometimes we humans suck. For more about the death of Suni, Nat Geo has an article very much worth reading.

To end on something more positive, I found a sweet series of photos of stray cats by the same guy who did the series of photos of his neighbors (sans their consent — of which I’m not a fan and find his intent to profit from it a bit exploitive, but no one’s asked my opinion). Anyhow, I figured I’d send you off to look at both and see what you think. (I adore the Strays series immensely as it totally captures the essence of absolute catitude, and while I’m not a fan of the method of capturing the images of The Neighbors, I do see the beauty in the images.) So, go on…have a look, then come back and share your thoughts. I’ll be waiting here with my nasal spray and tissues and remote control.

Well! Where to start?

Let’s see. Friday we headed down to San Diego to get set up for Ren Faire. The drive itself was okay. I’m still having a hard time with drives. It makes me hurt. Plus, it was hot. Very hot. And humid. Now, don’t tell me 30%+ humidity isn’t humid because you live somewhere it’s always 50+ humidity-wise. When you live in a normally dry climate, humidity in the double digits is ALWAYS a shock to the system, especially when the actual temp is like a dodgeball game between high double and triple digits. We’ll add to that equation a lot of dust and leaves and pollen and tons of manual labor in a largely breezeless environment. That should put you in the rough neighborhood of where we were. It was not pretty.

While I mostly did little more than “supervise” setup (poor King Arthur and our guild guys had the all the heavy lifting), I did have small jobs to keep me busy in between chats with friends. There’s really only so much I can physically do at this point. I felt rather useless. I was the albatross around their necks. I don’t like not being able to help more. But them’s the cards I be dealt.

Once we got to the motel, I showered off, noting the changing level of brown in the water as it gradually stripped the dirt away. It’s amazing how dirty you get when loose soil and leaf detritus mingle with sweat. After the shower, I settled into bed and actually fell asleep without any trouble. That may have been the first time in many months it’s happened. I still dreamt of pain, but I wasn’t waking up every 30 minutes! Hallelujah! We take our victories where we find them.

Saturday was a beast. A BEAST, I tell you. I barely made it through 40 minutes of gate duty and that was with shade. Only it wasn’t just the heat getting to me. My pain level was threatening to derail the entire day. Common sense dictated I head back to the guild, take my meds, and sit the hell down. Which I did. Gladly. Attendance was fairly light due to the insane temps. 104° with humidity over 30% again. In. the. shade. Oh joy! Because of the light attendance, faire became more of a kind of gig just for ourselves. I missed the usual flow of kids and families, but it was fun to be able to take in a show and talk with friends from other guilds. (Best part of the day was getting a wave from the stage from my new little toddler friend, Zoe. She’d been super shy earlier and would only smile after I started playing peek-a-boo with her. Her mom and dad are Old English folk dancers and are new to this faire. Mom had her in a sling during one of the performances. Very cute!) However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy and relieved to be back at the motel. Ahhh, air conditioning (kind of — the a/c was being somewhat cranky at first)! Shower! Food! Bed! And then I couldn’t sleep. I may have had a full hour’s sleep at some point.

I had planned garb pretty well for the weekend. No long sleeves. No leather. Saturday’s garb was double skirt, blouse, sea vest, boots. Elizabethan enough to be period appropriate, so maybe “bethan” as opposed to ELIZAbethan. Sunday? I was barely “bethan” adjacent. Single skirt. Blouse. Boots. No bodice. No sea vest. I felt for everyone who had to wear full garb. Like our queen and her court. And the knights who were in battle gear (including armor). Saturday, 15 people (all guests, I believe) were treated for heat-related symptoms, three of which were transported to the hospital. Don’t know the count for Sunday, but my guess is there were fewer incidents as the medic had time to be a-wandering and a-visiting (see below).

Sunday (yesterday) was just as hot and just as humid and just as sparsely attended. Again, the nice thing with light attendance is the opportunity to hang out with other people and get to know each other. We have a new guild member. She was our waitress at dinner a month or two ago and we invited her to come play…and she did! She’s a great addition to the guild. We also have two prospective members who jumped right into our literacy gig and played alongside us with a nice family who stopped by. Then there were my favorite musicians at faire. I had a chance to get to know them better and I don’t remember the last time I laughed that much while feeling so awful. They’re a delightful couple who are just loads of fun and talent. I even got serenaded! As well, I got to spend time with our faire neighbors, listened to wonderful stories, heard a couple of disgusting tales from a medic, drank the equivalent of a lake of water and gatorade, and survived it all. Teardown went quickly and the drive home was uneventful. Thank God! Shower at home was one for the record books. Extra special plus was Fletch crawling up into my lap when I finally got to sit down. It was sweet. Fell asleep early, but I woke up wracked with pain (isn’t that a funny saying? I mean, the definition of wrack is to cause extreme mental or physical pain and yet we say “wracked with pain.” This, it would seem, means I’m in extreme pain with pain. Hmmm.). King Arthur, too.

Today’s been a challenge. Celia has conjunctivitis and went to the vet to be treated. On the way home, she pooped everywhere. She was covered with shit. KA called and had me prep the shower. Who was elected to brave giving the sea witch a shower? Me. And you know what? Celia was an absolute rockstar throughout! When we were done and it was time to dry her off, I wrapped her in a towel, held her close, and she just melted in my arms. Rarely does she allow one to hold her so close. I’m sure she was relieved it was over. Now she’s clean, dry, well-fed, on the road to recovery from conjunctivitis, and snuggly.

Our recovery day didn’t start out easy, but we’re now all mostly settled in for nothing but rest. I say mostly because there is laundry. I figured I was already wound tighter than an eight day clock, in pain, etc., so I may as well just get it done. My hope is to finish the second load and leave the rest for tomorrow, provided I can move then. Until then, I’m sitting still as much as possible, slathering myself with Benadryl cream because of the heat rash on my legs, drinking lots of fluids, and watching TV and movies.

Oh yeah. One last thing: I took my camera out of the bag Saturday and never took a single photo. Sunday? The bag remained closed. Ummm hmmm. It was THAT HOT.