Pity, Party of One, your table is ready

I haven't been very funny lately. I know, I know. you come to this space to find the tongue-in-cheek witticisms to distract you from life, and I have been letting you down. in my defense, things aren't hilarious right now. And, since this space is all about me, it's well, all about me.

What changed, you ask? From the fight with the spider to zombie conversations...what made life So Serious? About a week ago, I realized: This is My Life. Just like that. I actually see it in caps. this is what I live. It is what it is, and it won't really get any better. I won't write the Great American Novel. I won't be rich, or glamorous. I won't rise to the top of the glass ceiling. I know, that doesn't seem that important, and I really don't want to conquer Corporate America. But I still want the option.

When you are young, the world is your oyster. Pearls are there for the taking. At twenty, you aren't a bestselling author..it's ok, there's time. In your forties, Time Is Running Out. You're old. You're washed up. You're irrelevant. Leave it to the youngsters, they have more energy, and why don't you just go and find yourself a nice rocking chair there by the fire? Yeah. NO.

I am usually a fairly positive person, though I bitch a lot. I can always find the "blessing" (how I hate that word..how pious it seems, but really, no better word can be found) in the mess. There is always a silver lining. For example: In 2006, we had a house fire. The structure was still standing, but we lost damn near everything.

We had to move out into a rental for six months, with little more than the clothes on our backs. We found ourselves wandering WalMart at midnight on a Sunday because it was the only store open, and we needed underwear, people! How do you put your life back together after that? We had to buy clothes, and pajamas, and toothbrushes and and and. I was in shock. It was awful. I would never wish the experience upon anyone. BUT. And here is where I am crazy: I was blessed. My faith increased, my family became closer, I learned gratitude. I started over. Now I try to keep only those things that as William Morris put it, "...you find to be useful or believe to be beautiful." And my house was completely redone, from top to bottom. For the first time, I had real bedroom furniture! And dishes that I didn't inherit from my mother! And a home that was completely my style, and brand new everything! And that was the silver lining. I didn't blog about it, the emotions were too raw. In fact, I didn't blog at all for almost two years. That experience helps to keep it all in perspective.

Cut to this last Sunday: I had one of the worst days that I can remember. Right now, JNerd is out of town, along with JBug. It's just me and the two youngers, fending for ourselves. Sunday afternoon, our cat started yowling and lying on the ground. He wouldn't walk, and something was wrong. So to the ER vet we went. Verdict: urinary blockage. LIFE-THREATENING emergency. Exactly the reason that vets exist. The vet needed to do some things that required sedating the cat, so I took the kids to Taco Bell for a quick bite. When I went to start the car, my battery was dead. I had to call AAA to come jump it, and hope that, since it was after hours and I couldn't call the vet, they would be understanding in case I was late. (thankfully, they were, and I wasn't). Because the battery was dead, I had to keep the car running while I picked up the cat. Environment be damned. I wasn't going to get stuck there...I had a sick cat to get the after-hours clinic for overnight treatment. And let me tell you, you haven't lived until you have pumped gas with the engine running for fear if you shut it off you will be stranded.

Finally got home after 9 p.m. and my kids were a wreck. Tucked them in. Made myself a drink and opened my laptop to find: nothing. The screen was black, but I could hear it was on. I tried a whole lot of tech support stuff ("Did you turn it off and one again??") but it was unresponsive.

So, a recap.. cat, battery, computer. It comes in threes right?

My point, people, and I DO have one... that day sucked. The next day sucked as I had to get up at the buttcrack of dawn to get the cat from the Night ER vet to my regular vet. Thankfully, I had my husband's car. Once I did that, I had to get my van to Costco so that they could explain to me why my battery had failed after less than two years. Turns out Costco doesn't install or remove batteries, but it doesn't matter because we don't have yours in stock right now anyway ma'am and there's an auto store down the street that can probably help you, have a nice day. Well. Fine.

I drove my van, which by some miracle started, to Pep Boys (who I cannot say enough nice things about, you guys!) Bought my battery. They took pity on the poor married lady who was abandoned by her husband for greener conventions, and took one look at the small ragamuffin in tow who was heat-bedraggled, and had me in and out of there in fifteen minutes! Fifteen minutes! New battery, yay! And, Costco gave me a full refund on my battery that failed.

When I finally got home, and was reflecting upon the events of the last coupIe of days, and it was all feeling a bit like being pecked to death by ducks. Then it hit me... (here is where I get all treacly) I really am blessed. Talk about First World Problems! We had enough money and resources to treat our sick cat. I have an auto club so that I don't get stranded when I have a problem. I have an extra car so that I could get my cat and not rely upon the kindness of my friends. I have enough money to get a new battery, and the resources to get it installed. I am rich compared to much of the world. That thought shut me up. I really have nothing to complain about. No one is dying. These are all transitional worries. I realize how obnoxious this sounds. Who really appreciated when Dad said, "Eat your peas, there are children starving in Africa?" And honestly, I got smacked when I once retorted, "Well, then, send the peas to THEM!" (made sense at the time) I am not telling you to eat your peas. I'm really not. I am telling myself. I am reminding myself that though I just turned forty_ahem ...life is not over. Life is still beautiful. My body may be changing, and my youth may be fading, but life is still good. Life is always good. Sometimes I just forget it for a bit.

As I write this, the cat is still at the vet, and will probably be ok. It will just be expensive. And I hate having to spend the money. But I love the fact that I have the resources to make the decisions that are required. I am not loaded monetarily by any means. It will be a stretch and we may eat cheese sandwiches for dinner for a bit. (more or less) but I am rich, in all the ways that count. And that revelation? Is priceless.

Why you need large balls of fur in your house

Pets are weird. Not as weird as kids, but weird enough. I know so many people who don't want to bother with animals, because they are a pain in the butt. And yes, they are. But honestly? They bring such joy to our lives. No one loves you like your dog. Ever. And cats? Are like little codependent vampires who sort of love you. When they want to.

The beautiful thing about pets? They seem to understand instinctively about kids with autism. We have a cat who is a bit standoffish with everyone else. Except for my son. I would say she is mostly his cat. She sleeps in his bed, and helps him to calm down. She tolerates him better than she does anyone else.

And this weekend, I found out just how wonderful our Newf is. I have plans to make her a therapy dog at some point. She proved she just might be up to that task. JBean was throwing a tantrum (yes, again) and sitting on the floor. The dog was lying across the room. She army crawled to her until her nose was just inches from JBean's feet. Then she just waited quietly for JBean to come to her. And they laid on the floor together, kid and dog, just...being. Yes, she calmed down. It was good.

Like this:

how about you? Are you a cat person, a dog person or do you prefer no fur balls at all?

T, who figures the fleabags are worth most of the trouble they cause

The Dog Days of NOW

It was like Christmas. We loaded into the car, en route for LAX. We were all so tired of waiting! I got to the Baggage Services Office, after waiting in line..I was in the wrong line. Of course. a half hour wasted. Then I got to Priority Parcel Service, the right place, only to be told I had to wait for a half-hour to an hour after the flight came in. Augh. More waiting!

We killed time by taking the kids to the bathroom following a lengthy stroll, and ordering some way-too-sweet coffee at some fly-by-night in-terminal coffee front store. And then walked slooooowly back to the office. Our waiting was over. There she was. After a flight from Illinois to LAX, she was finally ours.

Introducing.. Poppyfield Merriwether.. "Poppy." Our 10 week old Newfoundland puppy who is sleeping at my feet as I write this. It's a whole new world. The kids are beyond thrilled, although JBean was upset that "she can't play yet?! Why not? She can't fetch a ball? I want to PLAY with her!" Gentle reminders that she was still a baby and not only that, had been through quite a stressful day fell on deaf ears. She was sad and a little disappointed. I also think she was tired, too. Tomorrow she will feel better as she gets to know Poppy.

JBear, ever Mr. Eloquence said, "Hey, if we already have Perry the Pee-er (referring to the cat who sometimes forgets to use the litterbox because she is insane) and now we have Poppy the Pooper!" Gee, thanks for that son. Ever colorful, I can always count on you.

And I? I will be playing all-night puppy walker for a while. Just think of her as the baby I ain't gonna have. Here we go!

pictures taken with Canon T1i and edited with Picnik

T, who feels like a little girl again, except the dog is my responsibility

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Something wicked (or at least slobbery) this way comes...

Image via Wikipedia

When JNerd and I married, we were apartment dwellers. Though I had dogs all of my life, most apartments don't allow them. I wanted a pet, so we had a cat. But not just any cat. Kalila was amazing. She was a Russian Blue with the softest fur, greenest eyes and quietest meow I have ever known before or since. You could throw a toy mouse down the hall and she would fetch it, bring it back, and wait for you to throw it again. You know those little brown salt-and-pepper moths that get into grains? We would get them in our little-used spare room and she would lead us there to hunt. After picking her up, she would stand on her hind legs on JNerd's palm, and catch the moths off the wall, often near the ceiling. Think: the Dobie-Matic from Far Side. She would also do acrobatics trying to capture a feather on a wire. Flips, backflips, it was a sight to see. She was very polite, unless you were eating chicken, and then she would sit on the arm of the couch and bat at your hand with her paw. Sort of the cat equivalent of tapping you on the shoulder.

About a year later, we acquired Beleu. Small, grey and fuzzy, his quiet grey eyes missed nothing. He picked me as I walked by a pet store near the coffee house where I worked. He reached his paw out, grabbed on to my sweater. Of course, I had to stop to disentangle and that's when he got me. I took one look at the small ball of fluff with the serious eyes and, boom, I was his. I hadn't intended to bring another pet home: Kailey was pretty happy being on her own. But he just spoke to me, and became a member of our family. He was small enough to sit on our record player and in JNerd's hand. In fact, that is where his name came from, the big gray bear in The Jungle Book who would float down the river on his back. Beleu loved to be on his back, much like his namesake. We were happy, the four of us. In fact, there was a time I thought the two cats would be the only babies. It didn't work out that way, and a couple of years later (four years from the time we got the cats) our first baby was born.

The cats settled in well with JBug. They treated her like one of their own. The day after she was born, JNerd brought a hat and a blanket home with her scent on it. Before she was born, we made sure to let the cats see, sniff and thoroughly explore her room, and her belongings. So once we brought her home, it was really rather anti-climactic. I could almost see the thought process: they sniffed her head, and her car seat, looked at us, then yawned and retreated to the corner to sleep. "Oh, that's what all the fuss was about, hmm?" New addition added, they seemed to say, "What's for dinner?"

When we moved to a one-level house from an apartment (which had stairs and a paranoid mama with a toddler) we decided to get a dog. At that point, I hadn't had a dog in many years, but still remembered the way they lavish affection upon those they love. So we started looking. JBug was 18 mos old and I wanted them to grow up together. After a lot of searching, I found Tess. Given up by a family who was moving to the beach and didn't have a yard anymore, she was just waiting at the shelter. She was 7 months old, and her name at the time was Lady. She looked anything but. Scraggly, tall, half chow-chow and golden lab (which gave her a decidedly rakish terrier-like face). She was gangly, and goofy-looking, and it was love at first sight for us both. Even when the animal control officers tried to tell me that I didn't want her because she was "mean" (she was afraid of men in uniform) I knew she was the one. Because I have a lot of experience with dogs, I tend to trust my judgment. I was right. Tess never forgot that we gave her a "forever home." She was always so grateful and beyond sweet. In fact, there were times I felt so guilty because she seemed to love us so much, that sometimes, I just wanted her to GO AWAY. With little kids,a dog that needed so much love was the last thing I wanted. But, like a child, she was mine, and I loved her. Tess was with us for twelve years, until she died of cancer in 2006. That was a year after we lost Kailey to kidney failure. She was 13 and a half Six months later, Beleu, at 13, perished in the house fire, along with Siobahn, our 7 year old cat, and a 4 month old kitten, Maia. After that, we were done with pets for a while.

Currently, we have Perry & Winkle (Twinkie) a brother and sister who were rescues from the park where we meet every Monday. They were so small we had to feed them by bottle, teach them how to eat and I had to teach them to use the litterbox. They are pretty nice cats, and like us, though they still have a streak of wild in them at times. I love cats, I really do. The warm lump of fur in my lap is one of life's great comforts, it's true. BUT.

They're going to hate me in about a week. I am bringing a new puppy into the mix. And nothing will ever be the same again.

T, who is so excited I can't hardly stand it

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A Burning Question or What Autism Stole

Tonight at the grocery store, they were selling those "in Memory Of" cards for pets. Normally, I pass them up, but I was thinking of the three kitties we lost in the fire going on two years ago, now. So I ponied up and bought three of the cards. I had hoped to finish filling them out before the kids came back from the bathroom, but I wasn't fast enough. Of course little JBean saw what I was doing and wanted to know more. I showed her the tags with "In Honor of..." and showed her that Maia, Bon Bon and Beleu all had their own card. That's when her face crumpled, and she started to cry.

I know that crying is healing, and it is part of the process, but dammit, it is hard to watch your baby cry. It is especially hard because much of the time she tends to lock up verbally and does not talk about how she is feeling, so when she is showing emotion, part of me is thrilled and the other part feels like it has had its heart ripped out. She is just so sad, and really, who can blame her? It was a tough thing for me as an adult to swallow. For a child, and one with autism as well? It was almost impossible. How do you explain why three cats had to die in a fire from smoke inhalation? How do you make it ok? Like I said, it is going on two years now. I am not sure it will ever be...ok.

My beloved Beleu, he was my first baby. He came to live with us when he was little bigger than the turntable on my stereo. J used to hold him in his hand. He was there years later to usher in the births and introduction of each baby. And after a long and pampered life, I knew he was not long for this world. It was just a feeling I had. I thought we would lose him to old age, though. He was over thirteen when he passed. The firefighter was very kind. "They just go to sleep, honey. They don't feel any pain." I didn't believe him, not really. But I was grateful for his effort. At the time, I couldn't even process the horror that I was experiencing. We. lost. everything. And yet, the thing that hurt the most was not saying goodbye to my cats. Everything else? It could be replaced...

JBean asks, "Why? Why did God let our kitties die in a fire? WHY?" And? I have no words. Because, I have no answers. The only thing I can do is hold her tightly, let her cry and pray. We always pray. And we rail at God. It's ok, He is big enough to handle it. I have told her it is fine to be mad about it, it stinks. It's not fair. And God? He knows. And he cares, even if it doesn't always feel like it. After all, he did send us our new cats, and we raised them from kittenhood, with baby bottles after their mother abandoned them. They needed us; we needed them. Presented with a need I couldn't ignore, I was able to open my heart to new animals, something I wasn't sure I could do again.

I learned a lot from the fire and the aftermath of the experience. It changed who I am in many ways. I wouldn't want that taken away. But I surely would want to take away the hurt from my children, if I could. Afterwards, we put JBean in therapy. She scared us, because she just shut down. There were daily fits. She would become nonverbal. There was no interaction. There were times she just retreated deep inside herself and in her world of toys. I guess it was safe there. But we knew she had to deal with what happened. Thankfully, she never saw the house on fire. None of us did. We were coming home from a day of gallavanting around after church, so we didn't know what had happened until we pulled around the corner and onto our street. So she is saved that particular etching on her memory.

But she remembers the cats. She remembers how soft the little grey kitten, Maia was. She remembers how Maia would climb onto her bed and suck her fingers. Maia was four months old. She remembers Bon Bon and her fat, fat butt, climbing onto her lap and hanging over the sides. JBean is small, but it was still a funny sight. She remembers Beleu, the "silver cat", sitting on the bed with her, staring at her when she was a baby. She doesn't talk about these memories, but every once in a while, she opens up just a bit, so I know she has a lot of deep feelings that she just doesn't share. But today? She talked about the cats. She talked about how sad she was and how mad she was. And she cried. And I cried too, but not for the same reasons. Sure, I miss the cats. But I missed my daughter more. And if in this instance, the memory of her pets brings her back to me, if it helps her open up and let me see the private pain that autism locked away, then treasures have come out of darkness. And I find that pure gold.

T, who doesn't have the answers, not this time

Technorati: family, autism, tragedy

Ahhh! Zombie Cat!

This is my cat, Perry. She is a bit over a year now, I guess... She is possessed, as this picture shows. We found her at a park, along with her brother, Winkle (called Twinkie because he is, well, a Twinkie). They had been abandoned and we nursed them with a a baby bottle, fed them by hand and taught them to use the litter box. I apparentently wasn't very good at this last thing, because she used to pee on stuff haphazardly. I was at my wits' end...then I changed litter and she completely changed her personality, goes in the box and is the Sweetest Cat Ever. All because World's Best Cat Litter? Wasn't...at least not to her.

Technorati: Wordless_Wednesday, memes, cat

A Hot Mess of T13

1. Husband had oral surgery on Wed. the day I write, and I was dealing with his needs.

2. I had to pick up my daughter from church.

3. Before that, I had to put the kids to bed.

4. My son didn't want to go bed.

5. I had to 'splain it to him

6..While I was doing that,the pissy cat peed on the area rug!

7. I caught her in the act and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck

8. Bad News: she was still in mid-stream and peed from the rug to the box!

9. I had to refrain from killing her

10.So I locked her in the bathroom

11.Then I had to wash JBean's Littlest Pet Shop toys that had been dribbled on, just in case.

12.I was very glad that they are plastic.

13. That's why my T13 sucks today.

BONUS: 14. Anybody want a cat??

T, who is about to make a cat-skin rug

*no animals were harmed in the making of this post, but just barely

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Technorati: Thursday 13, memes