The Day Off I Needed

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

♥

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

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. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

the sweetest of Thanksgivings to you all  ♥

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

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.