New Years Day 2011

Slept in...that was nice. But then not off to a good start. Big surprise. Going on line to check my e-mail and write a little turned into hours. I was going to reorganize my craft space, also looked on youtube for ideas on that. I didn't even get dressed until 4:00.

My ex called, twice. We had many, many years of hell, with him being a total asshole, but we get along pretty OK most of the time now. As long as we don't talk about anything too important, and I don't have any opinions different from his. Mostly he wants to talk and have me say "un huh, and oh really". I can barely get a word in, he has no interest in hearing it, and will get pissed if I disagree. Gee, if I could have mastered all that, we could have stayed married. I get bored just listening. Esp. cause he says the same stuff over and over. Why does he call? We just got into it, and I finally hung up. I should have hung up way sooner. I am just too nice to say don't call any more. He has been with wife number 2 way longer, like 5 times longer than with me. So why call me? Obviously he is the one that knows how to be married and raise 3 kids, not me, so just leave me out of his life. I don't need him or all his shit. If he has something to say, he can e-mail it. I am not the relationship type. We have been divorced over 30 years. We seldom fight any more, yet the minute he got riled up about my differing opinion he goes right for the jugular. Why? My opinion does not affect him at all, what difference if its different that his? I don't get what is to get so upset about. Just leave me alone.

Back to organizing. I did see some good ideas. I have organized many times, but it just gets harder and harder. The more crafts I get interested in the harder it is too pull them all together. My current favorite...has been for a while is collage. How the heck to organize that? I have tried filing pieces, but so many are multi category or tiny scraps, that show up almost every day. I can't keep up, or find what I need. Looking for certain words and phrases today. Eventually found some that worked OK, but it took a while. Drives me nuts! I am a pack rat any way, but collage makes it worse, cause I need all those little bits and pieces to make interesting pieces, but how to keep them organized too find when I need it?

Finally lit the pilot light on my heater yesterday. Its been about 34 at night, and sadly my house is not nearly as well insulated as it should be. The heater is set at the lowest possible setting, but I still heard it kick on a couple times last night. So far not tonight, but I have been numb for a while, so hopefully soon.

Now its almost 8p.m. and I am hungry. So much for me making something healthy. I need something NOW!

Happy New Year to me.

New Years Eve

I always stay home New Years Eve. It is usually less a big celebration, and more of a time to take stock of where I am. What happened in the year, what are my hopes and dreams for the next year
.
I like to have a clean house (not that that happens much). I like to have the bills paid, and lots of food on hand. I feel it starts me off in the right direction for the new year.

Do I make resolutions? Kinda. Not on paper usually, unless I put them in a journal, but I make some. The usual one for me is to eat better. I am a vegetarian, but often eat pretty bad. My favorite food group is the desert group, followed by the pasta group. I need to put more veggies, fruits, and whole grains in the mix again. They tend to go away when I am stressed or depressed. Am I still depressed. Oh, yeah. But I still need to try and eat better.

What happened in my life in 2010 that was unexpected? Well, I knew there was a good chance my cat would die this year. I did not expect Mark to die this year. The thought had occurred to me that Skip might die, when he was not doing well. But when I saw how well he was doing in Oct. I really did not expect him to die in Nov.
Most of all I never thought I would be duckless. I knew some would probably die of old age/natural causes. I was afraid I might loose one to a night time predator. But never ever did the thought of having them all killed in broad day light in June, ever enter my mind. Now it may never leave my mind. Still afraid to get more.
I did a lot of work in the yard having my big tree trimmed, and moving plants. I expected it to be looking pretty good by now. I did not expect to be unable to bring myself to do much at all out there after June. It looks like crap. Its a sunny day, supposed to hit 61 degrees. The ground may still be soft from the last rains. I should do something...but even if I make myself, there is no joy in it. Will that EVER come back?

Oh, and while I think of it, a year ago I was encouraged about making all my charitable donations on line this year. The few I made last year went well. It took a while to set it up, expected to just add in the rest, and I would be good to go, and next year would be a snap. Wrong. There is now a $10. minimum donation on the site I used and a few others I found. Again, I know the ones that I send $5. or so to are not sitting by their mail box crying that I did not send them their $5. this year, but I still did not want to leave them out. So that was a pain in the but...I had already written what I wanted to send who, and recycled all the many donation requests I receive when I discovered the minimum. What did I do? Well I discovered most of them can be paid (anonymously if you want) on Pay Pal. So that's what I did. It was not at all user friendly. Each had to be done as a completely different transaction, no shopping card, all at once thing. So it was time consuming, and annoying. I did it, but not looking forward to how I am going to handle next year.

Physically I am way worse that a year ago. One new problem I don't want to mention showed up out of the blue. Its very upsetting, and hoping eating better may help some...getting more exorcise may help some, if not I don't know what I will do. Its quite annoying.

I am not terribly surprised my hip got so bad so fast. It had been very slowly getting worse, but after the way the other one speeded up, its not a big surprise this one has. Pain is depressing, and exhausting.
I will probably have a hip replacement in 2011. I am so unattached, I don't even have a ride to the hospital. I do not want to take a taxi. The person who took me last time is dead. Who do I know that lives in the area that has a Tues, or Weds off, and would do it? No one. The person that took care of my animals last time is no longer a part of my life. I only have a mear 4 now. I can pay my pet sitter, for the bunnies, but the turtle tank is really gross and disgusting and takes quite a while to clean. Hate to ask her to do that, even if she may be willing. I will need help with the bunnies for at least a few weeks, and help cleaning the turtle tank about 6 or 7 times. No idea who to get to do that. A ride home from the hospital may be a little easier, it hopefully will be on a weekend. Then the visit back to the Dr's. in two weeks, again on a week day? Again no one. I can take care of myself when I get home. I can get some one to pick up groceries. But its good to have someone make sure I am still OK when I am recovering. Not looking forward to this. Kinda thinking I will do it in June. It will be here soon, too soon.

What is better now, than a year ago? Not much. The only thing I can think of is the house smells better, maybe looks a tiny bit better. After Suzy died, I started cleaning, and have made some progress. Marks bunny is here and doing OK with my girls. That was an ordeal. They were fine without him, but he was home alone a year ago. Even though I had not yet met him, I was concerned about him. Yeah, that about it.

What do I hope/expect to be better a year from now? I expect to be in less pain. Then I can do more, or at least walk more. That will be good. Otherwise? Can't think of anything. All my joy and optimism of a great new year is gone. Will I ever get it back?

And Again....

I picked up my cats ashes today. It was strange....of alllll the pets I have had over the many years this was the first time I ever did that. It was different. Its been almost 4 weeks since she died, so the feelings are less raw.

It came with a cute little paw print, and a nice certificate. The only thing I did not like on it was I had guessed her birth month to be Jan. 1994. It said July 1994. Maybe someone could not read the Dr's. writing, and at least the year was right. But it had comforted me to think at least she was almost 17, and now years from now I will look at it and may not remember that. I wish I had a really good pic of her to put on it. Maybe I will find one.

The other thing I did not like was it had the cremation date....and it was 16 days after she died. It bothered me that it took so long. Not that being cremated is much better than the cooler she was in, but something was disturbing. Maybe cause I am so used to burying them the next day, and I can't even begin to feel any better until then, that sending her away where she had to wait so long was troubling. Did they take a nice long Thanksgiving Holiday?

The part I did like was it came in a cute, very little ceder box with a name plate with her name on it and a lock and key. That was nice. My grandmas dog Duke is under her bed in some plastic (I think) container. Don't know what to do with him, so I do nothing. I wanted to put him in with Grandma when she died. But she died in Calif. I had her shipped to Ariz., then I flew over, and I forgot to take him.

I did find myself carrying the cats ceder box around the house talking to her. Can you tell I live alone? She is currently "sitting" in her favorite chair. But I am not yet nuts enough to keep her there. Its just for now.

The house is getting back to normal. Still a long ways to go, but the biggest part is done. It was great to empty out my steam cleaner and see all the gunk that is no longer in my carpets, and see improvement in looks and smell each week. But I still talk to her some, think I hear her, think I have to buy cat food, invite her onto my lap, etc. Yeah, well it was 15.5 years. That's a lot of habits to let go of.

Another human friend died 16 days after Susie. My friend Skip. He had just turned 73. He had diabetes, and leukemia, then got pneumonia. Not sure what the actual cause of death was. I saw him 6 days before he got pneumonia. He looked so good, and was feeling good, that I expected him to have quite a few good years left. I walked away pleased and relieved. Then I hear he is sick, but I fully expected him to recover. But he did not. He was my friend for 20 years.
I can count on one hand the men in my life I could depend on. Skip was one of them. I have always thought of him when I hear the song "Can't find a better man".
His memorial is on Sat.I have to go, but it will make him being gone more real. I still think I need to send him this funny e-mail, then stop myself.

Will I have any one left in my life? Loosing people/pets is almost like the ricther scale. 14 looses are WAY more than 7, etc.

When A Pet Dies

This web site has a great article on dealing with the guilt when a pet dies. I always have some. Sometimes more than others.

This site has some good info also on cats, and coping with their death.

http://www.catsofaustralia.com/coping-cat-death.htm

My cat, Susie died yesterday. I knew it was coming...sort of. She had problems for quite a while. In the past 1.75 years maybe close to a dozen times she had pretty much stopped eating. Became very inactive, not said much, got down to skin and bones. I would think oh, oh. Here it comes, and brace myself for the end. Then she would come out, demand dinner, and start putting on weight again. She would be good for a couple more months, than slide down hill again. She could only walk a little a large part of the last 1.75 years, but she seemed happy enough. Actually maybe happier than she had been a good hunk of her life. She had been pretty much a bitch much of her life before her body started failing. Then she become a sweet heart. I took that as her way of saying..."Please don't kill me." So even though she became incontinent, and I hated living in a giant cat box. I dealt with it. I knew it would not last forever.

Her favorite thing in the world was to sit on my lap while I read in the rocking chair. I did not always encourage that. When her legs worked fine, she would constantly want to stand, and turn around which was quite painful for my legs. After she became incontinent I had to cover the chair with plastic. Lure her over to the cat box, and try to express as much urine as I could, than wrap her in a couple towels (in case she leaked) before I would let her in the chair with me. If I did not do this she sat by feet and loudly whined the whole time I tried to read. Neither was an easy option. I read a lot less.

When she started having another of her "bad spells" recently, I kept telling myself "tomorrow I will put her in the chair with me and read for a while, I know how much she loves it". But I was busy and did not do it. I wish I had.

The past week she started getting weaker. Was it cause she was not eating again, or more than that? Were her kidneys shutting down? A major cause of death in older cats, I knew that was a strong possibility. It had been a couple years since we had checked the levels at the vets. With her other problems it did not seem important to know. I never knew for sure what caused her problems walking. Several theories were suggested. The last year and a half, her vet thought the most likely cause was a tumor inside her spinal column. She would have to have and MRI, see a spinal surgeon, etc. She was 15 by then. The vet did not really recommend it, and even if she survived the surgery, she could have easily died of old age before I paid off all the bills. She did not seem to be in pain, and managed to get around. So we let it be.

My Grandmother adopted her in fall of 1994. She thought she was so beautiful. By spring of 1995, Granny was not doing well, and her and Susie came to live with me. Granny died in the summer of 1995, and Susie stayed with me until yesterday. So I had her 15.5 years. My best guess is that she would have been 17 in January. Old, but not ancient. But considering her other problems, a decent lifetime. I had asked her to stay until Jan. Hang out with me over the holidays, but I guess she was ready to go.

I wish I had taken more pics of her. I hardly have any. Until the last couple years, when she was on pred. she had scratched her face/ears constantly. She was frequently scabby from it. Drove me nuts! Different foods, or allergy meds did not seem to help. She had chronic ear infections. She ripped me to shreds every time I tried to put medicine in. Between the scratching herself and me, the "accidents", the terrorizing my other cat, Misty, I was too pissed at her to want to take a pic of the annoying scabby cat. Then the last couple of years, when that all changed, I hated to take pics of her while she was declining. I still don't have a digital camera. But hopefully have a couple decent ones on the actual roll of film in my camera.
This is not her but it looks A LOT like her several years ago I "borrowed" it. (thanks, I will hopefully give it back eventually).


I normally spend the day digging a big deep hole to bury my animals. I think my grandmother would have opted for cremation. (for years I referred to her as Grandmas cat). Plus it was about 95 degrees today, and I need a new hip. So for the first time, I choose cremation. Not sure how I felt about it. There is something healing about digging the hole, putting some flowers and herbs in with my animal and knowing they would be here, dust to dust, in a yard they had played in. But....I did not know I would still be here 32 years later, and my yard is very full of buried pets now. May sound silly, but I felt the need to clean her up before I took her to be cremated. Her back end needed a good grooming. I don't have good nursing skills. The rest of her, not as bad, but there were still mats to be cut out, and a good brushing needed.

When I came home from work yesterday and saw she was still alive, but not doing too good, I took her outside. I laid her across my lap, and started to groom her and pet her. That was where she died. I don't know that it comforted me, but I think it comforted her to be in my lap being petted when when died. It was not too awful. It was kinda peaceful, she looked pretty relaxed. I was greatful I did not have to take her in to be put down. Glad she did not seem to have much pain.

I took her to the vets office today. That was hard. The cremation place picks her up from there. I opted to have her ashes returned. It was a lot more than not getting them back. I don't really want them back, but did not want to not get them either. I always liked the idea of imagining them "sleeping" in my yard forever.
The whole end of life thing sucks..

Yeah someday I will get another cat. But not before I recover from major surgery...probably next summer. I needed to wait until after the cat was gone.

Damn! 11 ducks, 1 friend, and 1 cat all in 4.5 months. That is way too much loss all crammed together. I am almost never lonely, but it sure feels lonely here now. Its way too quiet and empty here. The holidays will suck more than usual this year. Now I can gradually work on cleaning the place up after all the cat accidents the past 1.75 years. I can pull up the plastic floor mats, etc.

The quiet emptiness is really hard now. This afternoon I went to see the movie "Hereafter". It seemed appropriate. Just what I needed today. I will go back to work tomorrow. Then the empty weekend will begin. Much as I am looking forward to getting the house cleaned up, each little bit, will be almost like erasing a part of Susie. But I need to do it.

Rest well, Susie. . I hope I did enough right to make up for what I did not do right. (its not like you were the easiest cat either). Love you kitty.

Rainy Day

It has been raining all day. Not that common for Southern CA in October. I usually love the rain, as long as I do not have to drive in it.

Its yet another thing I love less now. One of my favorite things to do on rainy days is to sit at my table by the window with a cup of tea. I love to look out and watch the ducks play in the rain. But there are no ducks now. I love to watch things turn green, and our hard earth soften up. I look forward to the first Sat. I will get to go out and garden after a good rain. Not so much now. I like to make cookies on rainy days. Though I have not in a while, I still think of it on rainy days. But cookies call for eggs, and that reminds me of the duck eggs I have used for so many years. Another sad reminder.

My friend Mark died Oct. 4. He would have been 55 two days later. I saw him Sept. 19. He was not doing great, but maybe a tiny bit better than last time. Oct. 3, I got a phone call that Mark had been back in the hospital with pneumonia, but it was clearing up and they were sending him back to the nursing home. They were calling in hospice. I thought that was good, hospice would see that he was better taken care of, but that did not mean he was going to die soon, just have a terminal diagnosis, and he did have that. But I thought now that summer was over, I need to smuggle his bunny over to see him when I went on Oct 10. But then Oct 4 I get the call that he had died that afternoon. I feel bad I didn't get another visit, and really bad he did not get to say good bye to his bunny. But I had no idea it would be so soon.

When the ambulance took him from his home to the hospital 16 1/2 months earlier, he expected to be coming home again. Who knew that in such a short time, the ALS would just about completely paralyze him. The average ALS person lives 3-5 years after being diagnosed. Mark did not even get two years. He could not move much except his head by the end. It is such a horrible disease. Granted he would not have wanted to live like that for too many years. But he would have been happy to live another 6 mo. or so. He had not given up yet. One more visit (and a goodbye with the bunny), knowing it might be my last would have been helpful to me, at least. But I did not get it. The one good thing, is his sister, who lives back east, managed to be with him when he died.

He made quite an impression on people that got to know him, the grace, and courage he had in dealing with his illness. I don't think I could have handled it half as well as he did. I would have either been super depressed, or furious, but not graceful.

There was no funeral. There may be a celebration of his life later on. But for now its like he just evaporated. Yet another who disappears from my life. Happy Trails my friend. You will be missed.

Hunk a Hunk of Burning Love

OK, call me a cynic, but this pic says a lot to me. Of course it could be taken in a nicer way. Like a burning passion, etc.

Someone elses babies

These are not my babies, but they look just like them when they were a few days old. Cute huh? Nothing cuter than a baby duck.