Sunday Serenity - Sads & Hugs - LOLcat Therapy - ROW80 Check-in

 

Yooz doing it alls wrong
visit and vote it up :)

So, I used to illustrate my posts with LOLcats.  Some made by others but mostly made by me.  I would spend hours on the cheezeburger.com site choosing pics and captioning them.  The antics of kittens and babies were my secret joys.  I treated them like mood medicine.  Then our Merlin crossed the rainbow bridge in 2014 and it just made me too sad to hang out there.  I just recently started dabbling on the site again and made this LOLcat for a post I had in mind but before I got that post ready, I got an email from cheezeburger.com informing me that my creation had been voted up to the front page. 

I was almost embarrassed at what a silly delight I took in that news.  But I so needed a dose of delight as for the first time in many months my mood had been tanking.  I was in the middle of trying to figure out if this was just something I needed to ride out or did I need to consult with my Rx nurse about going back on the meds.  I was pretty sure it was the former.  I was pretty sure it was partly related to all the #metoo dreck I was digging up while journaling and partly related to passing the second month-a-versary of the day I broke up with my husband and having never yet cried about it.

Then there was the fact I had been fudging on my sleep requirements big time every since Mom got home from the hospital. So until I'd tried putting that right again and finding it didn't set things back on an even keel I would not resort to putting my feelings back in a chemical straitjacket.  

The real problem was that in one way or another since infancy my feelings and I were divorced from one another.  Some of it due to the way autism made it difficult to identify emotions.  If you can't name them you can't claim them. If you don't own them they will own you.  But a great deal of it was due to the rules about emotions created by my parents' parenting style and that was all mixed up with the strictures on expressive behaviors created by the churchcult I was raised in.

I'd reached these insights in the process of journaling and was hanging on in anticipation of my weekly phone appointment with my counselor.  But then the Internet and some of the phone systems in our area went down for twelve hours Thursday and I not only lost the emotional anchor of my fifty minute phone chat with my counselor but I lost access to the ROW80 support community, missing my midweek checkin rounds because I'd been sick on Wednesday and was in the middle of prepping my checkin post Thursday morning when we lost the Inernet.

Then Thursday night during my part of Mom's bedtime routine as I was about to shut out the light and take her water bottle back to the bathroom, she started trying to say something.  'You need.....You need...You need...... Awwwwrgh!'  She said.  And repeated a version of it three more times before I asked if there was something I forgot to do as I went over in my mind : set the bed position, start the bed vibrator, supervise drink of water, speak the goodnight ritual.  Everything accounted for.  

In order to ask my question I'd taken several steps back towards her as we'd already taken her hearing aides so I couldn't just stand in the door to converse with her.  Suddenly I found my right wrist gripped by her strong left hand and my arm being pulled inexorably toward her face.

What the...

And then she said 'Hug....Hug...Hug...'  funny how her speech efforts tend to come in threes when she is struggling to get a stubborn word past the aphasia bulwark.

'Oh!'  I exclaimed.  'You need a hug!'

'No.'  she said emphatically.  'You need...You need.  You need...'

'Oh.  You think I need a hug?'

'Yes!  Yes!.  You need....hug.'

I let her pull me in and found my face pressed between her face and shoulder as she reached her left arm over my back and pulled me all the way down.  That's when my eyes first started stinging.  But I got through the rest of the lights out ritual before they did any more than shine a bit.  I got all the way back to my desk before tears started falling.and my face started feeling like melted wax.

Now the hug has become part of the lights out ritual and so has the tearing up. And melted wax face.

Until today though the associated emotions were relegated to Mom's bedtime routine and for fifteen to thirty minutes after.  But today they started up over my morning coffee and had nothing to do with thoughts about Mom or bedtime.  I think the mood came from whatever I was dreaming about when my alarm went off but I can't remember anything about it.  I also think it has happened fairly frequently of late that I wake up in a mood rooted in a dream I can't remember but usually I"m able to deflect my attention on to one of the many distracting activities--crochet, reading, research, sorting projects both virtual and physical, social media, writing, videos, video games, podcasts, audio books, music.  

The thing about that list is there are few things on it that don't depend on vision to at least get it started and with my eyes tearing up uncontrollably I can't see well enough to unlock my screens to access the aps where even the audio only activities reside.  I do have video and audio books on non-computer devices but if I don't already have a DVD, CD or talking book cassette locked and loaded and the device plugged in or otherwise set up so that I don't need my eyes to prepare it for use... Well I'm afloat on a mood sea with nothing to deflect the crashing waves.

The moodiness this morning was accompanied by restlessness and I had no safe way to discharge that.  Besides I'd woken with a deep ache in my right hip that had me limping and I was hoping that there was nothing more to it than having slept wrong on it.  If so it would dissipate if I could 'walk' it off.  But as I said there was no safe place for that.  

Except my mini-tramp.  But altho I'd finally cleared it off during the big sort while Mom was away for three weeks in July, I'd begun setting things 'out of the way' on it again within a week of her homecoming.

I realized that having been 'sheltering in place' since mid March I'd not been out of the house but twice since (once to retrieve my stuff from my husband's apartment and once to fetch a Joann.com order) I knew I was at as much risk as my Mom post-stroke of loosing muscle mass and joint lubrication if I didn't establish a better exercise routine.  I decided that clearing my mini-tramp off again, decluttering my desk and craft table and setting up my LOC talking book machine and my DVD/CD player within easy reach of one or more of those locations would be my project this morning.

I finished in time to spend five or so minutes swaying and gently bouncing with one hand on the wall for balance before time to fix Mom's lunch.  I discovered that there is something about that activity that is going to encourage not deflect the tears.  I had a difficult time getting Mom's tray ready.  I had to keep leaving the kitchen to go in the hallway or bathroom to wipe my eyes or face and neck and get control back.

The whole time I'm wondering.  Is this simply too long repressed sadness?  Or am I just feeling sorry for myself.  The answer is important because apparently sad is an legit human emotion and naming and claiming it is necessary for emotional health.  But 'feeling sorry for myself' well that is loaded with shaming messages.  

How is one to tell the difference?

Well it's about time to start dinner so I better post this as I won't get another chance until Mom's in bed between nine and ten.

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2020

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

2020 Round 3 ROW80 goals check-in:

* Sleep 7.5 hours Daily Minimum --  Unsatisfactory effort

* Move/Breathe/Meditate 15 min Daily minimum  -- Satisfactory effort

* Storydreaming with note-taking tools at hand. 15 min Daily Minimum -- This is a technique I learned from Robert Olen Butler in the book From Where You Dream. -- Unsatisfactory

* Read Fiction 30 min Daily Average --  Above and beyond

* Read/Study Craft 15 min Daily Average --  Above and beyond

* Social network activities 30 min Daily Minimum (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) -- something I've a strong resistance to.  --  Above and beyond

* 30 min Daily minimum engagement with a scavenger hunt though all my creative writing files including Joystory looking for better than shitty first draft scenes, sections, stories, poems and essays and edit, organize and make hard copies. --  Unsatisfactory

* To prep for self-pub: Gather all my poems into a single Scrivener file. Minimum one poem per day until all accounted for.  Adding new ones encouraged. --   Unsatisfactory

* Personal Journaling 45 min or 1000 words whichever come first Daily Minimum -- This is the heart of the writing challenge.  The preceding provides the structure and the nutrients that nurtures and honors the work which I've learned over time must exist to ensure that this becomes more than just dabbling.  --  Unsatisfactory

For an explanation and links to backstory see the ROW80/Camp NaNo Goals post.

Read more...

Sunday Serenity

I made it the full 24 hours again.  First time in 2 years.  Before spring of 2013 doing the 24 hours was easy breezy.  It was my thing.  The thing I could still do with the best of those who could.

With my visual impairment it is no longer possible for me to excel at reading fast or reading long so my metrics on number of pages or completed books are sad.  So I would always, since the first Dewey thon in 2007, take pleasure and satisfaction from being one of the few who could breeze through the 24 hours.

After all I'd had a lot of practice since my tween years.  It's always been my thing, staying up all night.  And usually gone hand-in-hand with reading.

But spring of 2013 I was put on a new antidepressant, Trazadone, which made me groggy and kept me that way for 8 to twelve hours.  Skipping doses would have nasty repercussions--headache, dizziness, vision issues and anxiety attacks--so for the last four thons I had to quit two to four hours before the end.

The end for me here on the Pacific Coast was 5am today. I made it.  As I hoped I would the moment I got the OK from my med nurse to withdraw off the Traz.  But when I was unable to sleep the night before that put me already 17 hours awake when the thon started for at 5am Saturday.  Thus I've been awake for 41 hours and it looks like it will be at least 42 before I'm actually asleep.

I did manage to read one book cover to cover for the thon: How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy) by Julia Cameron and Elizabeth Cameron (artist). 80 odd cartoons illustrating quite LOL the many excuses artists use to explain why the aren't doing their art.  Too many of them too true of me:

• Demanding 15 hour blocks of free time before considering getting started while using scattered 15 minute chunks for frivolous things.
• Preferring to watch the movie on the screen over watching the one on the back of your eyelids. (your story)
• Feeling depressed you don't have time to write.  Then turning on the TV to make yourself feel better.
• Acquiring high-maintenance relationships that suck time and energy and overload you on drama that doesn't belong to you and leaves no room for the drama of your stories.
• Surrounding yourself with negative naysayers.
• Setting yourself up for failure by planning a project to big and complex for your current skills.
• Getting stuck in the research stage forever.

OK that last wasn't in the book but it should be.  It is one of my things.

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Hope & Dread

Hope & Dread
The traveling companions who make the trip feel like forever

Busy preparing for a quest that's full of equal parts hope and dread.

Sometimes you just have to go after answers even if they might be something you don't want to hear.

Wondering can sometimes be wonderful.

But there are times it can be torturous.

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Sunday Serenity -- The Old Woman Who

She'll Swallow Almost Anything

This afternoon that old song was playing in head relentlessly and I couldn't resist playing with the words.  I suspect it isn't finished as a few more concepts have arisen I might play with but mostly I've been tweaking word choice, punctuation, rhythm and verse order for hours and I'm still not happy.

The Old Woman Who
by Joy Renee

There was an old woman who swallowed a sigh
I don't know why she swallowed a sigh
she just might cry

There was an old woman who swallowed her pain
to stop it infecting her kith and kin--but all in vain
for she's gone insane

There was an old woman who swallowed her pride
it squirmed and burned and pricked her inside
there's nowhere to hide

There was an old woman who swallowed a lot
that gurgled and curdled and clotted her gut
it moves not a jot
just sits there to rot

There was an old woman who swallowed a lie
that took her for a twisty ride
now her mind is fit to be tied

There was an old woman who swallowed her words
they scratched and sliced and stabbed her innards
she wants to holler and howl and curse
perhaps she'll burst

There was an old woman who swallowed her voice
to keep the peace she had no choice
now it's choking to death her joy

There was an old woman who swallowed her story
said it was boring but she feared its glory
now they grapple in purgatory

There was an old woman who swallowed her fate
which ate and ate
until it escaped

There was an old woman who swallowed her name
hoping to hide herself from shame--
for having no name there's no one to blame

There was an old woman who swallowed her face
it can't be replaced
she won't be embraced
who'd have the grace?

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What's Important Is --Author Quote -- ROW80 Check-In

Now that the restart is done I've got journaling worked in to some of my days.

My Round 1 intentions: seek to regain my joy/Joy in writing and to prepare the soil for its blooming with these time investment goals:

• Storydreaming 15min Daily (I never lost this one since instating it in my first round in 2012.  A ROW80 win!) 100%
• Read/Study Craft 15min Daily 100% (reading blog posts on topic)
• Move/Breathe/Meditate 15min Daily 50%
• Personal Journaling 15min Daily20%  [this should be added before next check-in. yep, it was the needed restart making me reluctant to open another ap, file or tab beforehand]
• Read Fiction 30min Daily 100%
• Social network activities 30min Daily (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) 50% 

Current Joy Meter: under 30%  That is down from mid week.  Mood has been volatile.  Tho my mood is low I've still avoided a meltdown going on two weeks now.  Two weeks as of Tuesday.  The last one started on Sunday evening and lasted through the wee hours of Tuesday.

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Not Even Crawling -- ROW 80 Check-In

Eggs Catly.  No Yolk.

I haven't checked in for over two weeks.  I've got little to show ROW80 wise for those two weeks.  Yesterday's post can explain some of it.  But the primary issue has been the high level of drama in my personal life.

But on the other hand that drama might have been less intrusive if the issues I discussed yesterday had not become issues again.

As I said yesterday, I have a choice to make...

My Round 1 intentions: seek to regain my joy/Joy in writing and to prepare the soil for its blooming with these time investment goals:

• Storydreaming 15min Daily (I never lost this one since instating it in my first round in 2012.  A ROW80 win!) 100%
• Read/Study Craft 15min Daily 10% (reading blog posts on topic)
• Move/Breathe/Meditate 15min Daily 10%
• Personal Journaling 15min Daily 0%
• Read Fiction 30min Daily 20%
• Social network activities 30min Daily (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) 20% [posting to ROW80 fb and replying to comments there are among the activities I engaged in.]

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Sunday Serenity

Helper Elf or Gremlin?

Bradley and I are both obsessed with this wannabe beanie.

Am experimenting with stitches to gather the excess up that won't look ugly.

The yarn I used for the brim does not do well with taking out and reworking so any fix must avoid that as I don't have enough of that yarn left for a redo.  It was left over from a shawl I made four years ago.

Maybe I'll just designate it a cat toy.

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Crochet Oops!

The Beanie I Wanted

The 'Beanie' I Got

Bradley approves.

But he hasn't seen it on me yet.

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Sunday Serenity

Bradley's Not Too Sure About This Thing

 Bradley joined in on my quiet afternoon of reading ebooks and organizing ebook files and metadata on three devices--Blaze, Nexus and Aspire.    He'd been nudging my hand holding the Blaze up to the Nexus camera, jostling my shots.  Then one of my alarms went off.

He backed off and crouched like he was guarding a mouse hole with a lion inside.

I also had to do some maintenance with the Blaze as it was screaming about low memory after I reinstalled Amazon and MoonReader Pro and several other aps that had been on the sd card that died a couple weeks ago, crashing the phone and taking to its grave the over 200 photos stored on it.  Along with the dozens of ebooks and half a dozen audio files.  And the aps.

Those were all just copies of files safe on other devices or in the cloud.  The original before edit photos taken with the Blaze had not been.  At least not by me.  I discovered later that most of them had been backed up by Google and/or Picasa but there were over a dozen missing--pictures of the bookmarks I gave my Aunt and cousin when they visited in October, a series of pictures taken as I repaired the hole in the afghan Mom crocheted as a teenager, some of the pics from the beach, some from the box sort project in the basement, some from my split chin, some from the run on the dike with my cousin's wife.

I had blog posts in progress waiting for me to edit the pictures and upload them.

The Entertainment Desktop
on My Blaze

As you can see I have six book aps and no games.  I find the screen too small to enjoy games.

My MoonReader Bookshelf

In the pic at top the Blaze is showing the Kindle bookshelf.  I found some of the memory I needed to allow backups again and a reinstall of Chrome by removing dozens (hundred+?) of books from the Kindle and GDrive 'keep on device' files which apparently aren't stored on the sd card.

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CATcerto

CATcerto

Nora the Piano Cat with

the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra

conductor/composer Mindaugas Piecaitis

Clips from  Nora the Piano Cat videos which first hit YouTube in 2007 are spliced together and accompanied by an orchestra playing a composition by Piecaitis.

What is unclear is whether the splices were created to fit an already existing piece or one composed for Nora's compositions.

Either way its amazing.

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With Ears for Eyes..

...the World's his Symphony.

Oskar was born without eyes.  He was six weeks old when brought to his new forever home where they introduced him to toys with bells...

Just watch.  Words can't do it justice.

Then, if you're as inspired as I was, go on over to their YouTube channel and watch him grow up and have adventures with his housemate Klaus.

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Kits N Giggles

I think the music in this vid increased the feel-good factor exponentially, adding humor and happiness.

Yes I'm still on my daily vid vitamins.  My happy pills.  I don't think it's my imagination that it is relieving the grief over loosing Merlin.

I'm also remaining on the hiatus of regular programming here and I'm fairly sure I won't return to the way it was.  Things have been shook up and, in a sense, it feels like it woke me up and I'm groping for a new normal.

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So Long Mr Wizard

So Long Mr Wizard

by Joy Renee

Merlin our impish wizard kitty,
named for that Camelot wizard of yore
(escape artiste par excellence),
just escaped from the nitty-gritty
where pain and weariness stole his zest
and with it all his bright eyed joyance.

Like his name-sake, our sly escapist
broke free of all constraints--duffle bags,
zipped up jackets, two-armed embraces,
tucked blankets, leash, box, cage, door--he'd best
them all. Now, with this, his last escape
o'er Rainbow Bridge, he's loosed his traces.

No more picking him up by the nape,
cat fishing with feathered toys on strings,
comforting purrs throughout lonely nights,
nor witnessing his excellent japes.
Now he plays where string-free feathers float,
running's but a whisker width from flight,

and stars ride rivers of light like boats.
See them skitter, jostle, bob and roll?
What fun is yanking the river's tail!
Hear his skirl join the dogs' adagios,
calling for Moon to play bounce-n-pounce.
Watch as he drapes yarn on Libras scale,

jerking it once to give it a jounce,
braids ninety braids in Leo's mane,
shoots rubber-bands at Scorpios jaw,
pulls strutting Peacock's feathery flounce.
Now see him walking beside dark browed
Raven, hunting worms to fill his maw,

Keeping Trickster Taleteller endowed
with all he could conceivably need,
so his stories flow like River Lethe.
Wanting a nap, he leaps on a cloud,
catching an angel in mid refrain.
Curled on her harp, she strums him to sleep.

Rest in Peace Merlin
You are so missed!


Note: Merlin lifted his head when I checked on him at 8am but when I checked again at 10 he was already stiff and cold.

I started this post on Wednesday June 4th but just now got the poem finished--afternoon of the 10th.

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Mysteries, Appetites and Mea Culpas

The Amaryllis leaf Merlin may have chewed on Tuesday morning.
It was hanging over the scratching post pedestal he loves to sun on.

 Note: I started writing this on Monday night but this line of thought took me to a very dark place and I was unable to get any coherence out of myself so I let this sit and opened a new tab for Tuesday's post...and again for Wednesday's post... 

It is now Thursday night and I'm trying to get all three in posting shape.  The maudlin morass I'd been writing through was not publishable tho.  So I'm rewriting, keeping the topic intact but aiming for the Joe Friday "just the facts Mam" approach.

[][][][][][]

Every post since I found our elderly Merlin unconscious on the floor last Tuesday morning has been about the ongoing vigil over his last hours/days.  This is no exception.  The vigil is still ongoing.

Merlin is still drinking copious amounts of water and his kidneys are still expelling it.  But to the best of my knowledge the last bit of food he took was the several slivers of salmon off my plate Tuesday evening.

That incident gave me such a burst of hope.  Especially since he'd started drinking again that evening on the upteenth time I pushed a water bowl near his nose.  But this was even better, he'd actually defied the lethargy he'd exhibited all day to follow his nose out to the living room where I was eating with Mom and climbed onto the couch and arched his neck over the edge of my plate.

In response I defied my sister's disapproval (tho I might not have if she'd actually been there) and broke the rule we'd imposed on him when he came back with me last May.  I let him take those slivers off my fingers.

Hope was short-lived as a soap bubble in a room full of kittens tho.  It was the last time he did more than sniff at any of his favorite treats that I tried to tempt him with.

He'd been in such bad shape Tuesday morning and into the afternoon that I was sure he was in his last hours.  Tomorrow morning will be one week.

We'd been assuming it was old age organ shutdown but new developments--or should I say realizations--have cast the whole scenario in a new light that makes me wonder if that wasn't the primary issue.

Mom posing with the Amaryllis in bloom.

 When I sat down to eat lunch with Mom today I found a newspaper clipping on the couch beside me.  It was about protecting your pets from common house and yard items that are toxic to them.

What it said about Lilly toxicity for cats alarmed me as the symptoms resembled what he'd exhibited Tuesday morning.  Vomiting, lethargy, refusal of food and water.

This reminded me that my sister had told me during the three hours I held Merlin after finding him unconscious that she'd found a spot on the hall carpet that looked like vomit.  Mostly water with a green sliver in it.  It didn't look like grass though (from the potted grass for the cats) and she asked if I'd given him anything green to eat.  I said no and thought little of it.

Until I read that article.  Now that vomit with a green sliver haunted me.  "There's no Lilies in the house are there?" I asked Mom.

"Only that one." she pointed at the plant table in front of the front window.  "That blooms once a year."

I knew which one she meant.  It had been blooming a couple months ago (around Easter) and now its long leaves arched over the the other plants on the table and two of them hung their tips over the cat's scratch post.

I went over to examine them and found on one...what you see in the top picture. That's after nearly seven days of healing.

The Amyrillis blooms without leaves.
After the bloom falls off the leaves shoot out.

After lunch I started researching pet toxins and symptoms online. Reading the info on the Lily toxicity and symptoms I was less sure of the hypothesis as kidney failure usually follows in one to two days.  So how could he still be alive after a week?

When my sister got home, I showed her the chewed leaf and called it a lily and she said it was an azalea amyrillis*.  So back I went to the pet poisoning pages where I'd remembered seeing amyrillis on the list.  I found it's symptoms similar to lily toxicity tho not as severe and not always fatal if the lingering lethargy and anorexia can be overcome.

The list of symptoms were also closer to what Merlin had experienced.  That unconscious state I'd found him in could have been the sudden, dangerous drop in blood pressure and my picking him up had revived him.  The subsequent three hours in which I held him and fussed over him could have kept him stimulated until he was over that hump.

Single Hippeastrum
Order: Amaryllidaceae
Genus:  Hippeastrum

This led to hours more searching trying to pin down exactly what plant it was.  I got a crash course in plant nomenclature.  I finally settled on this one because one of the pictures way down the page on the right most resembled Mom's plant.

If I'd put all this together on Tuesday I might have made different choices.  A visit to the vet might have made sense if we hadn't assumed this was the inevitable organ shut down of an elderly cat and death in short order was inevitable.

But if he wasn't already in organ failure last Tuesday, he is now.  He'd already lost a lot of weight over the last six months and now picking him up is like picking up a fur bag full of toothpicks and twigs.

The lethargy has been exchanged for extreme fatigue and weakness. When he walks he has to stop and lay down after a few yards and rest.

I'm in an agony of shame and guilt.  Not only over this incident but over the mistakes I'd made over the whole last year decade.  Especially in nutrition needs.  His weight loss over the winter may have been due to his not getting enough of his needs met through the brand of cat food we used.

There was nothing wrong with his appetite before last Tuesday morning. He was constantly dogging my feet in the kitchen.  Begging for whatever I was handling.  I often gave him slivers of this and dollops of that. Turns out my sharing my food with him and letting him clean my plate had been as potentially dangerous for him as having a toxic plant's leaves arching over his favorite sunning perch.

The list of toxins for cats in people food is long.  Among them is garlic, cinnamon, chocolate (at least I knew this) raisins, grapes, macadamia nuts, onions, and Xylitol.

There were dozens of other plants in his reach as well and I'd even seen him nibbling at several of them before and no alarm bells went off.

Putting the slime icing on the compost cake of mea culpas is the fact that after two decades of having fur babies in our home I had remained this ignorant and incurious about what it takes to keep your pet healthy.  Me!! The obsessive researcher had not bothered to collect the data!

These are the thoughts that led me into the maudlin morass that turned the rough draft of this post into its mirror image rendering it unpublishable.

[I was zipping around the links too fast to take notes or save links or I would be linking to the toxins and plant information.]

*My sister, Jamie, corrected me in comments on the name of the plant.  The mistake was an editing glitch.  My sister, Carri, called it an Amarillis.  I did all my research on Amaryllis and Lilly.  Even the image file names have it as Amaryllis.  And the linked phrase 'this one' is to the Wikipedea page for  Hippeastrum which is a Genus in the Order, Amaryllidaceae.  

I added the image from the Wikipedea page with links to the article and the JPG  as part of this correction, as well as changing the word in all three of the other images and in the text, leaving the word azalea in strike through only in the first instance.

The editing glitch was a combination of: fatigue, distraught emotions, passage of time, having used "A" in the rough draft and having been talking to Mom about the bushes in her yard.  How embarrassing.  Thanks, Sis, for correcting me.

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Sunday Serenity #391 -- Remembering Merlin Moments

Merlin Sitting Pretty

Merlin is still with us tho fading fast.  Still drinking but no food since the several slivers of salmon Tuesday evening.

This is another photos essay with pictures from better moments.

Merlin Loving the Light

Merlin Resting after Playing

Merlin's Throne
My Phoenix Office

Merlin Asleep on Arm of Ed's Recliner

Merlin Satisfied with Himself
[cropped from a pic of him sprawling on my crochet as I attempted to photograph it]

Merlin Thumping the Stuffing out of His Ball

Merlin Rests on His Laurels

Merlin at Freeway Reststop
Between the big dog nearby and the scolding bird strutting a circle around him, he had nothing to give.

Merlin Struts His Stuff

Merlin Getting Allover Skritches from the Driveway

Merlin Meets Bradley

Merlin Eating

Merlin Claiming His Latest Throne [My Longview Office]

Merlin Scoping Out the Front Porch at Mom's

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Quote

yore memreez ai rewryt 4 u k?

I've been inundated by a flood of memories this week as I've been tending to our dying fur baby, Merlin.

It has struck me that memory is crucial to story.  It is in fact story telling.  Your memories are stories you tell yourself.  But the moment you put them into words you are telling a story to others as well as yourself and its no longer the same story.  It seems you can't avoid fictionalizing your memories when you capture them in words.

This flood of memories has dominated the theme of the last three posts:

• Merlin Moments
• 164th ROW80 Check-In
• Of Magic, Memories and Coping Mechanisms

This makes four.

I've also been contemplating the role my memories have played in my fiction and poetry and noticing how this current flood has been stimulating ideas for more poetry and fictional stories.

I've been holding this vigil with Merlin since Tuesday morning.  He's still with us.  Barely.  He's still drinking water but to my knowledge has not taken any food since the slivers of salmon off my dinner plate Tuesday evening which gave me a burst of hope.

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Merlin Moments

Merlin's Perch

This has been a rough day.  I slept in this morning as part of my attempt to catch up on that large sleep deficit.  When I got to my desk just before ten, I kicked into something in front of my chair.  It was Merlin laying out flat and still.  He hadn't stirred to move out of my way or even to look up at me.

With my heart in my throat I reached down to pet his tail. Relieved to find it warm, I lifted it but it flopped back down like a weighted rope.  My panic increased as I kneeled so I could reach his head and shoulders under my desk. With one hand under his thighs and the other under his shoulders, I began to lift him as I called his name and several nicknames--Mers, Mr. Wizard, Merlinsky, Mer Mers, Nutter Butter, Baby...

That's when he finally lifted his head and opened his eyes.

Filled with relief like helium, I paused giving him a chance to move himself but he just let his head fall back to the floor and his eyes closed.  So I lifted him to my chest.  He was limp and so light.  He opened his eyes again but only halfway or less.  He was minimally responsive.  His ears and paws were cold.

I tucked him inside my vest and zipped it halfway to make a pouch for him.  He stirred enough to poke his head out.  But he didn't struggle.  He has never cooperated with my attempt to get him to settle inside my vest or jacket like my Gremlyn, who crossed the rainbow bridge in 2007, did.

Merlin in the Mirror

With him snuggling inside the pouch I managed to send a text message to Ed who is the one who adopted Merlin from the shelter in the Silicon Valley Thanksgiving week 2001 when he was 6 months old.

Ed texted back from his cell phone saying he was waiting on the bus across town (Medford OR) and it would be over an hour before he got home for our vid chat.  I told him I thought Merlin was dying and was hoping he was back already so he'd have a chance to say good-bye.  He replied Oh no!  Then I gave him the play by play of the last half hour for me and Merlin in brief bursts of text.  He replied before my last two messages, that the bus was approaching and that he would hurry as much as he was able.

It was well over an hour--close to eleven-thirty--when he messaged from his computer.  Meanwhile I had not stirred from my chair and had moved about as little as possible so as not to irritate Merlin.  Even though I'd not gone to the kitchen before coming to my desk and hadn't eaten for over 14 hours.  Even though my water jug and tea mug were running on empty.  Even when my bladder began niggling and then screeching.

Merlin stayed put until our vid chat was ending an hour after it began. During the chat I took off the headphones and held them around Mer Mers head so Ed could talk to him. A few seconds into it I felt his purr, which had been spotty, restart and rev up.

As Ed and I were saying our goodbyes Merlin started pushing himself up and out and I let him.  He climbed down off my lap and began lapping up the water in the peanut butter jar lid I'd put down for him last week after he leapt up and grabbed my arm with both paws while I was guzzling out of my 2 liter water jug.

Merlin Drinking

He finished that in short order and then asked for more.

Merlin: More Please?

Look how skinny he is.  He's been loosing weight steadily since last fall even though his appetite seemed good right up until last Friday.  Holding him is like cuddling a fur wrapped skeleton.

He finished the second lid full and then headed for the door.  I followed him out and down the hall and into the kitchen where he passed by his food dishes without a glance or a sniff and kept going.  I followed him through the kitchen and into the dining room where Bradley's food dish sets beside their water bowl.

Merlin Drinks, Bradley Eats

Mers had to step over Bradley's tail and nudge him aside to get to the water.

He drank for a long time.  I never saw him use the litter box or found a spot on the carpet either so I'm not sure where all that water went.

From the water dish he turned left and headed into the living room and directly to the scratching post in front of the window and leapt up on it.

Merlin on Post.

This is one of his favorite spots in the house and especially during the time of day the sun is shining directly on it.  Which this week is between 8 and 10 AM (ish) and again for a little bit around noonish.

Merlin Birdwatching

He seemed inclined to settle there so I took advantage to get some things done.  (See 3rd paragraph under Merlin in the Mirror above)

Every time I checked on him over the next half an hour he was still there.

Merlin Sunning

When he finally did get down he headed directly for my office where he promptly crawled under the drawer tower of my Mom's desk.  I was afraid he was crawling into a cave to die so I pulled him out and stuck him back inside my vest.

That's when my sister came in having been informed by Mom that I thought Merlin was dying.  I told her I'd just dragged him out from under Mom's desk.  She asked if she should bring his crate upstairs.  Thinking of needing to fix lunch soon and thus unable to keep close tabs on him I nodded.

Merlin's Cave

Spreading my black nightshirt over it created a dark cave for him.

When I went in to fix lunch I put the gate on and took the crate with me a put it under the dining room table so I would know if he started fussing.

After lunch I returned to my office with him and when he indicated he wanted out I opened the gate.  Then I closed Mom's bedroom door and the stairway door to limit where he could hide or make a mess and let him roam while I started work on this post.

Ed and I had our evening vid chat between five-thirty and six-thirty and in anticipation I had Mers inside my vest again.  I gave Ed another chance to talk to Merlin who again started purring as he listened.

This was my Tuesday Duty day so I was on for dinner as well. I'd left the room briefly after vid chat and when I returned I found Merlin asleep on my desk chair.  I'd planned to put him back in the crate while I fixed dinner but hadn't the heart.  So I left him there.

I fixed salmon patties and Normandy veggied mix for dinner.  While I was eating with Mom in the living room Merlin jumped up on the couch beside me and arched his neck over the edge of my plate.  Back home I'd been in the habit of feeding him off my plate while I was still eating but this had offended my sister so I broke him and I of that habit.

But I couldn't stick to that rule this time.  He was interested in food!  I broke off small slivers as fast as he could eat them until he turned away.  He probably took a quarter teaspoon.

Such hope in that moment but I've not seen him take another bite of anything since and I'm wrapping up this post Wednesday evening as I was unable to get the photos ready last night and today has been similarly wrapped up in Merlin.

I had intended to put him in the crate at bedtime too as feared him going off to hide in the many caverns, caves and nooks in this house and then having to locate him by our noses in several days.  But when I got back from reading to Mom he was sleeping on my chair again and I hadn't the heart to disturb him.

In the wee hours of the morning he joined me in bed snuggling next to my heart.

He has been more active today but he hasn't taken a bit of food and I've not seen him drink water either.  My sister said she saw him drinking tho.  But we've each found wet spots in the hall with no odor that appear to be vomited water.

So it seems certain Merlin will leave us any moment.

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Desperately Seeking Sleep

Insomnia iza nawn senz wurd.Sleep less? R U dysturbd?

Past my bedtime so no time to linger.  Woke with 7.5 Tuesday morning, breaking the more than two week chain of less than 7.5.  Woke with 6.5 Wednesday and 8 this morning. Hoping to make that 8 the first in another unbroken chain like the one I'd had towards the end of April.

Just spent the last  hour or so looking at pictures of sleeping cats on cheezburger.com and sleep quotes on Brainy Quotes and Pinterest.   Hope something rubbed off.

Tho my issue is not so much insomnia anymore.  Not if I take my meds on schedule.  I mostly fight the need for it, hating to give up my day.  But I need to take recent lessons seriously.  The 'productivity' I gain by dissing sleep is an illusion.  There is always a pay day and the cost is high.

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Sunday Serenity #389

Shero Cat, Tara, Saves Boy from Vicious Dog Attack
H/T Cheezburger Memebase

Stories like these give me that warm glow that lasts all day.




The full security camera footage H/T Cheezburger Memebase Pet of the Day:


BTW it was not a stray dog.  Rather the neighbor's guard dog unrestrained by fence or leash.

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For Net Neutrality SNIPS InterTubes

Net Neutrality = Neuter the Gatekeepers

The FCC's Net Neutrality Proposal Is Out: It's Time to Make Our Voices Heard: 'via Blog this'

Net Neutrality on Wikipedia

This is a more complex topic than I thought going in and after reading arguments on both sides I feel incompetent to make my own with cogent logic.  So I admit flat out that I'm taking my stand on gut feeling.

Just based on the lists of proponents and opponents to Net Neutrality legislation and regulation I would have to choose the proponents to stand with as I respect the range of philosophies and political affiliations of most of the names I recognize whereas I cringe at most of the names I see on the opponents list.  Some of whom I know think library users are freeloaders and would consider me a parasite for needing tax payer support and like to talk about boot strapping yet are now advocating for having those bootstraps cut just as I'm about to lift myself up by them.

A partial list of proponents and opponents is in the Wikipedia article.

I find the idea of an ISPs ability to discriminate data transmission based on ability to pay a downright deathknell to the inde startup entrepreneurs like I'm hoping to be.  That they have and thus could be allowed to use the technology to decide how fast data between my business sites and my customers and clients can move based on whether I can afford to compete with billionaire corporations able to pay for premium service that provides their data cutting edge speed makes me alarmed that my prospects for success have been neutralized.

Even more alarming is the ISP capability of censoring data according to content or the application it was created by and for.  Audio Visual, including VOIP, being slow-streamed for non-premium customers for example.  I imagine with horror what that could mean for my vid chats on Google and Skype with Ed or the book trailers for my self-pub ebooks.

What if they can discover the political or religious views contained in the data and censor it according to their own preferences?

And there have already been attempts by ISP to redirect traffic to a premium client from their competitors.

What would all this mean for the non-profit organizations?

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