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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At a Loss

 

 Loss seems to be the theme of the day.

I'm at a loss for what to post because I'd reserved today's post for the review of Josh Henkin's The World Without You which is a story that is a meditation on loss as a family gathers for the one year anniversary of their brother/son/husband/father's death in Iraq and each member struggles with personal losses, chief among them marital harmony.

But I didn't finish the book yet.  As I lost too much time to a search for my lost library card which I haven't seen since our move the day after Christmas to the brain fogging effects of the heat, and to tending to a stubbed toe which is likely to loose it's nail which has lost its grip on its bed and keeps loosing its bandaid and starts bleeding again when I keep restubbing it usually on the cat who seems to think he's going to loose me again if he doesn't walk an inch in front of my toes.

And during the search for the library card I lost the LED light I was using to search the shelves under my desk and the boxes in the closet and lost an hour in looking for it without its help, finding it finally in a box on the back edge of the shelf under my desk.  (the 'desk' being a board across two bookshelves turned to face each other)

And while tending to my toenail I lost more time in a search the anti-bacterial salve that was nowhere to be found and I could not remember having seen it since the move either.

And to add insult to injury I've lost hours--the entire night actually--while working on this post to a bratty browser that kept freezing me out, to a mysterious download and to several brief losses of internet connection.  And now it is nearly

Of all the losses tho the one that has me the most anxious is the library card as between the move and Xmas prep in December and the several months stay at my Mom's between then and now I've not been able to send for any of the dozens of books I've got bookmarks in for six months.  I'm going to loose my memory of what's what and have to start most of them over.dawn.

Now Ed is up and brewing his coffee.  The birds are singing and I've got to decide whether I'd get more use out of these cool hours by reading, writing, crocheting or sorting boxes and bags from the move and the trip hoping to find the library card, the anti=bacterial salve and the numerous other things I've lost track of during the move or the trips to Mom's

Or would I do better by catching up on all the lost sleep before the bedroom looses its cool and sense of identity and begins practicing its imitation of an oven.

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Yaaaay!!!

Am back on my laptop. My husband had it powered up again by noon. I didn't claim it again until after four though. Between the need for more sleep and wanting to reward him for his efforts with a few hours of its use, I rolled back over and went back to sleep after witnessing the power light on the front light back up again.

I am so grateful to be back on the familiar territory of my keyboard and files and desktop preferences. The PC was once familiar territory and I could have once again gotten used to the clunky, oversized keyboard. I could have moved all my files, including my browser bookmarks and reconfigured my old personal desktop on the PC to accommodate my visual impairment with larger fonts and higher contrasting colors than the family uses on its desktop. I could have and I was prepared to if it had become necessary.

I had talked myself out of the initial urge to roll over and play dead for the seeming inexorable series of misfortunes--loosing my fur baby, Gremlin, companion of fourteen years; loss of access to the library; my husband's grandmother's fast failing health; severe money stresses; a number of health issues, including vision, which have taken slides recently; breaking the ear piece off my reading glasses and damaging their lenses somehow which permanently fogged them--I could go on. Suffice it to say that it has been a daily struggle to stay committed to the vision I have for my writing and the web presence intended to give it an audience. The loss of the power cord Wednesday night was especially frustrating as at first it seemed insurmountable. My first reaction had been panic followed by temptation to despair. But I managed to resist the the lure of despair, a once too familiar companion.

I had developed contingency plans and begun to envision adapting to the new situation. It was heartening to discover that the habits of commitment to my writing which I had been developing since January 2004 had taken strong enough root to resist the old tendency to fold at the first sign of adversity.

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A Burdonsome Day

The library doors were locked until further notice at 5pm Friday evening. I took back the final two bags full of books and DVDs. The bags never weighed so much.

I wish I could say that the very last item had been returned. For about five minutes I could have but as I was visiting with one of the librarians and confessed I hadn't finished the novel I was reading she fished it back out of the return stack and said I could have until Monday morning before 9 to return it without incurring a fine. So Blessed Are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch went back in the bag.

In a way, I regret bringing it back home because I had made my peace with letting go of it and I was all primed to move on to all those neglected things I listed in my TT this week. There was no way I could read Friday night as the headache that had been simmering all week went to a full boil by the time I got home from the library besides which I had slept only two hours since Thursday morning so sleep had to take priority. Then today visiting the TT participants who visited me and then some and getting their links onto the front page took priority. Tomorrow is a family get-together starting in the afternoon but preparations for it begin in the morning. So essentialy I have tonight to try to finish it.

One of the librarians took that pic of me from behind before she helped me get the bag off my back. My white cane which I am carrying in my left hand is completely hidden. But the picture that shows the cane doesn't show the top of my head. That was the heaviest I have every carried that backpack on my back. My arms trembled for hours afterwards. It took me over thirty minutes to make the walk that averages about 25 minutes for me if all the traffic lights go my way.

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Grief Doth Howl and Rave

January gray is here, like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,
March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps - but, O ye hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers.
~~Percy Bysshe Shelley

Gremlin: July 4, 1993-March 18, 2007




Fresh grief is yet too raw for words for even the sweet memories are like heat applied to a sunburn.

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More Loss on the Horizon

Our family, more specifically my husband's family, is bracing for the loss of his 92 year old Grandmother. She went back in the hospital in the wee hours of last Thursday morning during the snowstorm that dropped five inches on the valley floor and felled trees and knocked down powerlines. Her trek to emergency was not precipitated by any of that, it was just another of the more and more frequent attacks in which she can't get her breath. She was sent home from the hospital this afternoon on the hospice plan. There will be no more hospital visits. They consider her to be in endstage lung failure after years of fighting both asthma and emphysema. I thought I would post this quick announcement for those few of you who have been following her story as I've blogged occassionaly about sitting with her while my in-laws run errands or have an afternoon or a week-end rest or recreation. My father-in-law has been her primary caretaker for the past two years, moving in with her nearly eighteen months ago while I was up in Longview, WA attending my father's deathbed with my family.

Loss looms large in the picture of the last six years of my life. This is not a small one.

Prayers for our family are welcome.

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I Was So Bummed...But Now Hope Springs

When I went to the Thursday Thirteen meme hub just after midnight Thursday morning after spending over six hours preparing my TT on supporting the troops and learned that the creator and hostess of the meme was closing it down and that this was the final edition, I was so bummed. It felt like one more thing that was special or meaningful to me was being taken away. Like our library system planning to close its doors due to lack of funding April 6.

I instantly tied my emotional reaction to the loss of TT to the immenent loss of the libary which has obsessed me since I learned of it in early December. I mean, I really don't need any more losses right now. But I was surprised at how strongly I felt about losing TT. At first I thought it was just that it was one more loss to add to the list of recent losses. Relative to loosing my Dad in September 05 this seemed like a trivial loss. But then why was I hit so hard by it? I have spent quite a bit of time contemplating that over the last 48 hours. I think that it is the loss of the sense of community that developed as week by week I would visit other TT and get visits in return. I 'met' a lot of interesting fellow bloggers. I found insight, chuckles when I most needed them, uplift, helpful information on their blogs and the comments left on my TT encouraged me.

TT served to improve my stats, it kept me motivated to post at least that one time each week even as other posting dropped off as my focus turned to the dozens of library items (books and DVDs mostly) I needed to tend to as D-day approached, it became a kind of discipline, it lifted my mood, it forced me to overcome my shyness and de-lurk as commenting was a req and now I've started to find it easier to leave comments impulsively unrelated to TT.

Well, last evening I set to making the obligatory return visits to the commentors on my TT and getting their links posted to the front page. And on one of the last of those I read in someone else's comment that the word on the meme hub was that TT was under new ownership. I went and checked it out and Lo...it appears to be true. Other than the title of the post, there is no info, just the message to stay tuned.

Now, if only the library system can find the funds to stay open before April 6. I might start believing in miracles again!

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Thursday Thirteen #11

Thirteen Things I can do to compensate if Jackson County Library Services shuts its doors: Read the books I own, neglected in favor of library book due dates:. 1. Of the backpack full of books that I managed to bring with me when we fled the Silicon Valley streets in August 2001, I have yet to finish at least 50% of those which are not primarily reference books. 2. There are a couple dozen books that I picked up cheap over the last six years or were given to me by those who took pity.. A few of them are even novels. 3. There is the 1999 World Book Encyclopedia set which I bought from the library at $1 per volume. Sure some info would be dated but not a very high percentage. I used to love to read encyclopedias and the World Book was my favorite from an early age. Which is why I bought this set in 2005 by dipping into the funds I was saving for my laptop. The drawback is that I always ever used encyclopedias as curiosity wetters, a jumping off place--anything that grabbed more than momentary attention sent me running to the library card catalog. 4. The creme de la creme is the Britannica Great Books set, also bought at $1 per volume from a library book sale. In this case it wasn't pre-owned by the library but donated by a patron who had never taken the shrink-wrap off more than ten of the volumes. We used to own the set and I got hooked on the Syntopicon which indexes the Great Ideas of several millennia of literature and allows you to follow the centuries-long dialog/debate on a great many topics. I bought this a week or two after the World Book set out of the same funds. The major justification was the use I had been making of them since 86 to inform a major fiction project (multi-volume) whose theme is the fruits of the Spirit. Read the books loaned to me: 5. I borrowed a couple dozen books from my Dad's library after his passing last year. They are mostly from the fundamentalist/dispensational viewpoint. I wanted them for reference for the same Fruits of the Spirit fiction project which is concerned with contrasting dogma and piety with the actual behaviors of individuals rooted firmly in the fruits of the Spirit. I haven't looked at these books much since I brought them home. It has been too painful on too many levels. I'm still not sure I'm ready. 6. My niece loaned me the first 12 volumes of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and Harry Potter and The Half-blood Prince last July and I've only read the first three Lemony Snicket's. Make better use of the Internet: 7. Read the free e-books I have downloaded and go after more. A lot of classical fiction is available this way. 8. Explore the web for more free resources. College and University sites are one good jumping-off point. I've been collecting them in my favs for years but not making much use of them. It is the personal pages of professors that are often a goldmine. 9. Use the free resources I've found online to study HTML and Webmistressing--design, managing and promotion--and turn Joystory, Joywrite and Joyread into the awesome sites they were in my first dreaming of them. All three currently fall seriously short of my aspirations. Write more: 10. Write more stories. (the fiction in my collection--not counting that in the Great Books set--won't last more than three months so I would have to write my own stories to get my fiction fixes) 11. Post more regularly to Joystory, Joywrite and Joyread. 12. Return to the serious journaling and writing exercises that were often the source of insight and fodder for my more formal writing--fiction, personal essays and poetry. Misc.: 13. Get more balance by increasing activities unrelated to reading and writing: fine needlework; meditation--a creativity stimulant among other things; daydreaming--the wellspring of my stories which must be primed months if not years before a word is committed to paper or screen; mentally stimulating games; listening to music--another creativity stimulant; walking--something will have to replace my weekly trek to the library if I'm not to become bed-bug fodder! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Tink 2. Rashenbo 3. JohnH985 4. Gattina 5. dawn 6. Jamie 7. amy (leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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Shocked, Stunned. Undone?

I am still reeling some fifteen hours after receiving news that ranks right up there with the major losses in my life: learning I was loosing my sight; learning I would not be able to return for my final year of college; learning that I was infertile; learning my manuscripts, research notes and personal library were unrecoverable along with all our other belongings after payments on our storage unit fell behind; learning I could no longer acquiesce to the belief system of my childhood and loosing the pure fellowship of that faith community; learning that the building that was once the Bible Chapel in which I went to Sunday School and later taught Sunday School and later yet was married in had been burnt to the ground as a training exercise for firemen; learning that the high-tech company my husband worked for was closing shop instead of going public just weeks after his stock options had vested; learning we were being evicted from the first nice house we ever lived in and then five months later from the motel room we'd exchanged it for onto the street.  And yes, this ranks right up there with learning that my Dad was loosing his battle with cancer--tho not with the actual moment of his loss.

What could be so dire?  Our public library system lost it's funding and will most likely be shutting its doors next month.

I had already been awake for 24 hours at the moment I learned this about two yesterday and I have yet to sleep.  I think I've been in a full-blown anxiety attack ever since.  I developed a migraine about six hour ago.  This has prevented me from writing the thoughtful explanatory piece I had planned.  But if I don't post something about this event, I'm afraid I will never post again.

Understand, it is not just that this story addict is loosing access to her regular fixes.  Everything I have planned for Joystory, Joyread and Joywrite is dependent on free access to good resources.  I have dozens of projects in various stages of unreadiness that cannot be completed without access to the resources.

How many times can the reincarnation of my hopes and dreams be kicked in the teeth before they stop rising from the ashes altogether?

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Those Were the Days

Those Were the Days
by Joy Renee

Those were the days
When the sky blushed blue;
When the grass grinned green;
When birds sang true.
Those were the days
Love groomed my heart;
Trust bloomed my spirt;
Joy grew unfettered.
Those were the days
My soul sang Gloria;
My eyes saw clear;
My dreams soared.
Those were the days,

I was Daddy's delight;

I was Mama's eyeshine;

I was little brother's guide;

I was baby sister's glee.

How I miss those days Daddy.
How I thank you for them.

Richard Wayne Coon
d. September 24, 2005

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2996: Contours of Courage

Francisco Miguel (Frank) Mancini

age 26

died at WTC 9/11/01

Your name was Frank Mancini. I never knew you; nor anyone who did. Yet I have been touched by your life as surely as if I’d met you face to face.

All I know of you is found on this page established as a memorial to you after your life was taken--one of nearly three-thousand--in that great wounding of our nation, our world, on September 11, 2001.

On this page, from a few messages left by friends and family and a single photo with a caption relating your status as confirmed dead at the WTC at age twenty-six, I gleaned this much:

Your life was a thread woven into the fabric of your communities--family, neighborhood, church, workplace, city, nation--a thread cut too soon. But in that short span the fiber of your character lent its strength to each thread that your thread touched. For as son, brother, grandson, nephew, uncle, parishioner, student, father, husband, friend, colleague, citizen, mentor and neighbor you entwined your thread with many others and in that way you live on in the life of your communities as they continue to weave their many threads into the futures. A future that will be what it will be because you were who you were--which was a man of generous vitality and zest for life with an integrity of spirit that first revealed itself on the grade-school playground.

All of this I know from the messages left for you on that page. I learned more from many hours of gazing at your photo until I began to viscerally understand the belief of some primitive cultures that photography steals pieces of your soul. It began with the simple impulse to smile in response to your smile and progressed to the sense that you were about to speak to me and then became this all-suffusing sense of wordless communing with something much more than photons on my computer screen. Once I was amazed to discover my cheeks wet with tears and realize that I was grieving your loss as one who had known you.

Was it just my imagination? I am a fiction writer after all and often have such ‘encounters’ with characters I have created. Maybe. But does it matter? Either way, my encounter with your story has woven your thread with mine, lending its strength and integrity to the fabric of my life. In gratitude, I offer to you and your communities the following poem inspired by that long gazing at your photo:

Contours of Courage

In your face I see
The contours of courage--
A nose pointed towards
A future trusted to be
Worthy of your hope;
A chin thrust forward
With confidant grace;
Cheeks that must have been
Offered in trust to the
Caresses and kisses
Of mother, grandmother,
Wife, daughter, friends…
Eyes aglow with abundant
Kindness, witnessing
A willingness to give
From the well of your
Being without calculation;
Lips curved in humor
Testify to a sustainable
Joy in life and its
Grounding faith, without
Which such joy would be
As flashes of lightning
Extinguished in the
Moments of their birth
And humor would dry
Up in the face of absurdity.

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