Indulging Joy

It Was Calling My Name

There was a jewelry display case next to the register at the restaurant where my sister and I ate after our nutrition class in Battleground Washingtion Tuesday evening.  We were admiring the many pretty things many of them handmade.  Most of them outside our price range for such not needful things.  But one wasn't.

I'd been complaining recently that I needed accessories in colors other than blue.  I especially have an abundance of auqua/turquoise/teal shades in my small collection.  In my wardrobe as well.  Pretty much all through my belongings.

I definitely didn't need this one.

But I could almost hear it begging me to take it home.  I knew if I walked away I would think about it all night.

So I indulged.

One Word 365

After consideration over the next day or two I decided that, in the spirit of the One Word 365 campaign which I joined at the first of the month, I needed to indulge more often.  Not necessarily by buying jewelry and other frivolities but by treating myself occasionally; by finishing (and starting) fiber art projects intended for myself; by pampering myself a little; by finding ways to get to some of the places I like to go instead of holing up at home because I don't want to be a bother.

I chose the word 'joy' for my 2015 focus at One Word 365.  This social network for those wanting an alternative to New Year's resolutions encourages you to pick a word that represents that which you wish to increase in your life and commit to looking for ways every day to incorporate it.

No major efforts, grand projects  or other life upheavals are necessary.  Small efforts exerted daily add up to big changes in a year's time.  Or so the theory goes.  Just contemplating that word and its significance to you is enough as such focus tends to invite in whatever you are devoting thought to.

One thing such focus is guaranteed to accomplish is an accumulation of better choices as you are drawn to make the choice most likely to increase whatever you have made your theme for the year.

I chose 'joy' because I lost mine last summer--mood disorder? lifequake? death of our fur baby, Merlin?  Who knows?  Does it matter?

With the word choice I intended the pun on my name as I was loosing myself as well. Probably part and parcel of regaining joy is bundled in with the same things necessary for regaining Joy Renee--taking care of myself, healthy choices, occasional indulgences.

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ROW80 166th Check-In -- Round 2 2014 Wrap Up

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 2 2014

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

I haven't checked in since May 31st in the midst of Merlin's illness.  He lingered for 8 days.  One of the hardest days was Monday June 2nd when I discovered that it was likely that the morning I found him unconscious he had recently nibbled on a toxic plant.  I went into a tailspin of shame, guilt, and self-recrimination.

He crossed the Rainbow Bridge on the morning of June 4th sometime between 8:30 am, when he looked up at me when I lifted the lid off his crate, and 10:15 when I got up the final time that morning and found him stiff and cold.  

I'd been unable to lay down before 3am because around midnight when I started to I found Merlin laying in front of my feet with his head on the toe of my right shoe. His crate door was two feet away. He had not left it on his own steam since mid-morning. All day I'd lifted him out to put fresh pads in his crate and wipe him down about every three hours, helping him drink water and then cuddling him for awhile before putting him back in.

He was chilled so after I'd cleaned him and the crate up, I cuddled him inside my fleece vest with one of my raggedy T-shirts wrapped around him, telling him the stories of the special moments he'd given us until I started having hypnogogic episodes and loosening my hold on him before startling awake again.

During those eight days I'd put caring for Merlin at top priority and let everything else slide, including my early bird schedule.  Between the morning I found him unconscious and the weekend after he passed I'd fallen off nearly all of my new habit horses.

The spreadsheet I'd been featuring in check-ins for over a year would have had zeros or Ns across the board  for most of June except for MISC WORDS which began to soar the last week of May as seen in the last check-in.

But then I fell off the habit horse of updating the spreadsheet.  And partly due to that, the check-ins.

I didn't make much effort to get back on any for over a week either.  With my June 10th post, Time to Find a New Normal, I declared my intent to take a hiatus from my normal posting lineup and lower daily posting's priority several notches until I'd caught up on things that impacted physical and emotional health and personal integrity.  Since then I've been running several days behind on getting my posts up though I've been beginning the drafts nearly everyday.

One of the things I began doing the day after saying so long to our Mr Wizard was purposefully seeking out things online that were uplifting, motivational, useful, inspirational, amazing or hilarious.  These then became the subjects of my posts. 

I've done some mood elevating activities as well.  Like pulling out the box of summer clothes I'd packed away last fall.  And pampering my feet with a pedicure and new running shoes.  And then setting the date and time to go running with my cousin's son's wife who runs 5 kilometer races--Sunday June 29 at 3pm.

Several of the things I found on my mood elevating explorations online were directly related to story or writing.  I've posted two in the last two Friday Forays in Fiction and have another in the works for this Friday:

• Friday Forays in Fiction: The Dark Thread in Stories for Children
• Friday Forays in Fiction: Lighting Your Writing

One of the habit horses I fell off during the ordeal was fiction writing.  But I didn't write less only different.  And a great deal more.  Beginning that first morning while sitting still with Merlin inside my vest I tapped into a well of memories that became a gusher.  Memories of Merlin's 14 years and those entwined with them soon tangled with earlier and earlier memories many attached to insights I had to record.  

But when I found them invading posts they didn't really belong in I moved those paragraphs into my WhizFolder ap and began following the threads where they took me.  It's a bit like journaling for some stretches but more like storytelling in others and occasionally segues into poetry.

So I'm not going to fulfill either my ROW80 writing goals or the JuNoWriMo ones.  Now Camp NaNo is about to start and I've not yet set my goals or signed up and thinking about it makes me feel weary instead of enthused.  Tho if I declared my NaNo project to be memoir I could just keep letting those memories flow onto the screen.  I'm sure I exceeded 50K in June with that...whatever it was...as I was frequently exceeding 2K a day.

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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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A Time to Weep and a Time to Laugh

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

I finally got Monday's into postable condition late last night. It is now Friday night and I'm working to get the Tuesday thru Friday posts into shape.  The maudlin morass I'd fallen into on Monday kept it's hold on me on Tuesday.  Which had a dramatic but cringe-worthy effect on my writing..  So I'm rewriting, keeping the topic intact but aiming for the Joe Friday "just the facts Mam" approach.

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It was a full week as of 10AM today since I found Merlin unconscious under my desk and the vigil over his approach to the rainbow bridge began.  This has been my primary focus and for much of the time my only focus since that moment.

It was bad enough Tuesday through Monday afternoon when I was convinced the explanation was irreversible organ damage due to old age--14 years July 6th.  But, as detailed in Monday's post, evidence of possible poisoning came to light along with the implication that there could have been a happy outcome if we'd gotten him medical attention immediately.

But it was obviously too late by the time I understood this last night as Merlin had stopped making the effort to move away from his beds to empty his bladder by Sunday evening and would just lay in it until I discovered it.  This tumbled me into the the maudlin morass of mea culpas.

Today is my Tuesday 'on duty' day when my sister is away and I'm responsible for dinner as well as lunch.  Also to be available for whatever Mom needs help with.  So today I can't spend as much time holed up in the office with Merlin.  Every time I leave the room I'm anxious about what I'll find when I get back.

This morning he was so weak he couldn't stand at his water dish.  He tried twice and gave up, laying down beside it.  So I lifted him to his feet and kept my hands under his belly so little weight was on his legs.  He drank and drank.  But his nose kept hitting the water as his head drooped.  I wasn't very surprised when he started refusing water this afternoon.

Yesterday and this morning I was replacing the wet pads in his crate every two or three hours and at the same time wrapping him in a towel, blanket or old T-shirt to dry him off before and after I wiped him down with wipes (like baby wipes but for cats and safe for the face) and then holding him until I was sure he was dry.

I spent a lot of time coo-talking to him.  Telling him the stories of the good times we had.  Thanking him for the laughter he gave us with his kittenish antics, for his love and patience and playful zest for life until late 2012.

One of the hardest things about this whole past week has been the effort to keep my emotions on an even keel when in this room with him.  I knew that if I let the grief take over he would be disturbed on my behalf and have added stress over not having the energy to comfort me.

I know this based on his previous behavior whenever I was sick or upset.  He would hang around me more and attempt to get as close as he could to my chest or head.  He might even tolerate being held so he could rub noses and chins, purr and knead though he preferred it when I was laying down so he could do all of that without being restrained.

So to keep the blubbering at bay, I told him the stories about the things he did that gave us laughter and joy.  Like how he learned how to shoot rubber bands soon after he joined our family at six months.

The first time was an accident.  He was playing with one he found on the floor and got one end in his teeth and the other hooked onto a claw.  That time he let go with the claw first so he shot himself in the face. Instead of running away and shunning rubberbands forever more he pounced on it and took his revenge, picking it up in his mouth and shaking it then grabbing it with a claw and stretching it taut.  This time he let go with his mouth first and it shot across the room a good ten or twelve feet.  He chased it, wrestled with it again and again shot it across the room.  From that moment he was hooked on shooting rubberbands.

I told him the story of how he got his name.  We got him from the shelter with the name Skippy in honor of his peanut butter colored fur.  We didn't really love that name so over the next week we tried out a number of others: Nutter-Butter for the color and his antics, Jiffy for the color and his running speed, Doofus for his silliness.  We had him over a week before we settled on Merlin.

We had to keep him isolated from Gremlyn until we were sure he hadn't contracted a virus at the shelter.  So we kept him in the master bedroom suite--this was when Ed had the tech job in the Silicon Valley.  Since we wanted him to know he was primarily Ed's cat, I ignored him all day, avoiding the bedroom as much as I could.  Then Ed would spend a half hour socializing with him alone in the bedroom after he got home from work.

One evening Ed got home and headed back to see Nutter/Doofus/Jiffy and could not find him.  After Ed had done a thorough search and still not found him we had dinner and then we searched together.  We had ourselves a looked room mystery.  Ed finally gave up and went to sit in front of the TV with his nightly bottle of wine.

I went to my office but soon had another idea and went back to check it out.  I'd remembered hearing skittering across the underside of the boxsprings at night and wondered if he might have ripped it enough to get up inside it.  So I got down on the floor to look from all three sides.  No strip or corner of gauzy fabric hanging down.  But something was odd on the floor against the wall at the head of the bed.

I had to move the queen sized Hollywood framed bed away from the wall.  The odd thing I'd seen was the out of place framed picture that still hadn't been hung which I'd pushed against the wall at the head of the bed to cover the floor vent whose cover was not screwed down.  Silly Doofus had pushed it off the vent and gotten the vent cover completely off and apparently had disappeared into the ducts of the defunct heating system.

I brought Ed in to show him.  There was nothing to do about it that night.  If Doofus had not found his way back to the open vent by morning we might have to get park maintenance involved.

He had not shown up inside by the time Ed got up but when he went outside for his first cigarette the little rascal sauntered up meowing and rubbed against his legs.

Before he left for work Ed said Houdini was now on the list and in first place.  Then I suggested Merlin after the teleporting wizard from the Arthurian cycle which was one of Ed's favorite stories.  He liked that too and said he would think about it.  By the time he got home that evening he'd settled on Merlin.

_______

Well it was nearing 10pm when I realized I still hadn't cleaned up the kitchen which I'd meant to do directly after reading to Mom. I also needed to sort Mom's pills for the next three weeks before I went to bed.  My sister could be home anytime after midnight and I didn't want her to see the mess.   So I pushed away from this still unedited rough draft but when I tried to stand I felt something on my foot and looking down saw Merlin stretched out flat on his side in front of my feet with his head resting against my toes.  I thought for sure it was over but once again he stirred when I lifted him.

He had crawled out of his crate for the first time since before lunch and got himself across the two feet . He tried to meow but it was whisper soft and raspy.  He was damp again from thighs to tail.  I dried him off with the T-shirt, wiped him down with the wipes and wrapped him in the blanket and held him against my chest.

I cooed to him while gently massaging one paw between thumb and index finger.  He responded by starting to knead the air.  I almost started blubbering but instead started telling him the story of the rainbow bridge where it was warm and beautiful and he'd be free to run and play, chase balls and shoot rubber bands and tease Gremlyn who would be waiting on the other side.

After an hour of this I reluctantly lowered him to the floor, removed the top of his crate to put a dry pad in, settled him into the nest I'd made and replaced the top before leaving the room.

It was 3am before I finished my kitchen tasks.  I was preparing myself to find Merlin gone when I returned but he turned his head toward me when I lifted the crate top.  I was going to go to bed but decided I'd return to this and tell the story of finding him at my feet and the subsequent cuddle.  It is now 5am and I really must go to bed.  I'm in no shape to edit this before I've had some sleep.  I've still not edited yesterday's post either.

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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.

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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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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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Looting the Library

Library Loot from today's visit--NF

I got to go to the Longview library to check out on my sister's card again.  Last time was on my birthday, November 13th.  I suppose I should get my own card since I've been here 13.75 months and still no end to my 'visit' in sight.

I intended to get back several of the books I'd had out last summer and last fall and raid the stacks for more titles I've been thinking about but I ended up spending the whole time at the new books shelves.

Top row left to right (all first time checkouts):

The Golden Thread: A History of Writing by Ewan Clayton This the story of the alphabets and writing tools from the early stone tablets to the digital age.  I'm excited about this one.  Third below words and story in my interests obsessions is the technology of writing and reading

American Heretics: Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and the History of Religious Intolerance by Peter Gottschalk  The history of conflict between the major religions since the inception of America, the country whose constitution guaranteed freedom of religion but in practice, at least at the local level in many areas, attempts by one religion to marginalize the others were rife.

Think: Why You Should Question Everything by Guy P. Harrison An apologia for skepticism and the scientific method.

Bottom row left to right:

Merlin.  What is it about cats that they need to be in the middle of what you are doing?

Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights by Marina Warner  This is the third time I've had this checked out since late last summer.  I think I need to own it.  Warner is a respected authority and theorist in mythology, fable and legend and how they shape our cultures and how they are shaped by the cultures that encounter them.  This book is a study of the reciprocal influence between Western Civilization and the Arabian Nights.

Library Loot from today's visit--Fiction

Top row left to right:

Merlin.

Cartwheel by Jennifer Dubois  The story of an American girl studying in Buenos Aries who becomes the prime suspect in the brutal murder of her American flatmate.  Yes it is modeled after the Amanda Knox case.  But it is not just a tabloid titillation.  It is a literary exploration of perception and bias and naivete.  The story's narration alternates between the girl's father, the boyfriend and the prosecutor.

The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble The story of a young anthropology student in the 1960s whose affair with her professor resulted in a baby.  As a single mother she is surrounded by a community of women through whose eyes we watch her raising the baby girl who has a disability unspecified in the cover blurb.  I think this is what is known as a comedy of manners.  Drabble is often compared to Austen.  This is the second time I've checked this out since last summer and is the only one of the fiction that is a repeat.

The Book of Heaven: A Novel by Patricia Storace It was this line from the inside cover blurb that hooked me:  "...a stunningly original novel of heartrending lyricism about four women who invite us to enter into a new and powerful imagination of the divine: what if "a woman's point of view" were also God's?"  And these lines pulled me in: "Eve speaks about what we are told happened in the Garden of Eden, a story she hardly recognizes. She tells her version of events."  And then introduces us to four more women and their stories: "...a metamorphosis of Sarah, Abraham's wife; an invented polytheist cook; Job's wife; and the queen of Sheba."

Bottom row left to right:

Wild Ginger by Anchee Min  A coming of age story of a young girl in 1960 China during the height of Mao's power.

420 Characters by Lou Beach  A beautifully made book physically.  With beautifully wrought prose composing several dozen flash fictions told in 420 characters or less counting spaces and punctuation that were originally published as status updates on fb.

In the Moors (A Shaman Mystery #1) by Nina Milton First in a mystery series featuring shamanistic counselor Sabbie Dare.

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Purrroled: A Photo Essay

Merlin was finally paroled from the laundry room where he's been incarcerated since we brought him back with us from Phoenix OR on May 11.  My sister just went ahead and treated him this week for worms, though we never saw any, as it was cheaper to treat than to take him to the vet again to get tested which would have cost close to a hundred bucks.  This way we can be sure he is safe to mingle with and share a litterbox with Bradley, the family cat here at Mom's.

Merlin had actually made a jailbreak tonight.  I had been in the laundry room with him to make sure he had food and water and his litterbox was clean and to love on him.  Then when I ducked out the door, shutting it behind me, lo there he was already on the stairs heading up.  Yep, that's our Merlin.  Our Mr. Wizard the escape artist.

It is no accident he was named for a wizard.  For when we first got him, while living in Sunnyvale CA in November of 2000, we had to keep him isolated from our cat Grimlyn for a week and several days into that week he disappeared out of a closed room.  It was hours before we figured out that he had pulled the cover off the heat vent under the bed in our trailer house and crawled down into the ducts.  We worried he would get stuck somewhere in there under the floors.  We called and called but heard no answer back.  We saw nor heard nothing from him until the next morning when he casually walked up and rubbed against Ed's leg when he was out on our front porch having his morning cigarette.

We had been testing out half a dozen names for him before that incident but that morning Ed said it had to be between Merlin and Houdini.  Because we were both huge Arthurian Legend fans that was an easy choice.

Yesterday, when I brought Merlin back in from his walk, he got off his leash while I was distracted by going around a chair leg to get tension on it and then stripping out of his harness much like Houdini would out of the straight jackets.  Then he led me on a wild chase around the upstairs.  The kitchen, dining room and living room are connected in a big circle and he ran me around the circle at least ten times before he stopped at the stairway door and waited for me to open it and then led me back to the laundry room downstairs where his food was.

I was afraid he was about to repeat that performance but when I reached the top of the stairs my sister said to let him stay.  So instead of chasing him down to return him to jail I followed him around with the camera for an hour.

After their fairly energetic greeting, Merlin and Bradley settled down with Merlin on the floor studiously ignoring Bradley who had gone up on the back of the couch just above him to gaze down upon him like a parole officer.

Bradley had wanted to groom Merlin but Merlin wouldn't sit still for it so Bradley bit the back of his neck to hold him still and Merlin struggled and the two ended in a standoff with paws raised and ears laid back.  But Merlin showed deference by lowering his head  below Bradley's.  He was willing to allow Bradley dominance but he was also willing to defend himself.

Here Bradley is looking past me to watch Merlin drink from his water dish in the dining room.  See that narrow path around the end of the couch?  That was part of the circle Merlin led me around last night.  The kitchen is to my left as I stand there.

Here is the other side of the circle where the kitchen meets the hallway.  The door to the stairs is straight across from that doorway there and the living room to the right.  Mom's room, the office and the room I'm using as my office and closet is down the hall to the left.

Carri wanted Merlin's food dishes set up in a separate place from Bradley's so I chose this spot as there is a light above it and Merlin like's caves.  What he is standing under is a wrought iron produce stand that is nearly shoulder high on me with three swinging baskets for holding fruits and vegetables.

The laundry chute through which I would chat with him during the day over the last weeks is to my left where I'm standing.

Here Mers has followed me down the hall and into my 'office'.  For the first hour and a half that he was roaming free, he didn't let me get too far away.  The box he is strolling past is one of the more than a dozen boxes that I sorted today.  Well that one isn't done yet.  Never got back to it after Merlin's getaway and now I won't before tomorrow.

Now he is exploring the cushions on the mini-tramp which are there because I'd planned to set there to sort that box after I got back from tending to Merlin.   Change of plan.  Instead I settled there to work on this post so that Merlin could sit beside me.  I haven't used the tramp for working on the netbook since I finally got my desk area working nearly two weeks ago.  But besides wanting Merlin to be able to stick close, my desk over in the cubby has a sorting station set up and I didn't want to dismantle it.

I had planned to take the netbook into the  bedroom tonight since Mom is spending the weekend at my brother's.  But the only place to sit in there now is the bed and before I can do that I need a shower as I got rather scummy during my six hour box-a-thon.  I was up and down the stairs and in and out of the garage and opened at least twenty boxes, unpacking, repacking, emptying, lifting, stacking....

Below Merlin checks out one of the boxes I unpacked today.  My magazines, which I decided to store under my desk like this in the box's lid so I could access them.  The other half of the box is now part of the sorting station, holding household items for including in boxes going back soonest.

I had two main goals for this project today.  One was to identify the content of all of the boxes from my house in the garage and in the rec room downstairs and to shuffle them until the garage stacks were all boxes containing household items for going back on the first trip after Ed is into a place again.  Which could be much sooner than we anticipated.

This involves many trips up and down the stairs and some unpacking and repacking to make sure that things I need to keep with me here were not in the boxes going back.  That project is still in progress.  But all of the boxes in the garage now have been gone through and are ready to go back when the time comes.  And downstairs I've set aside all of the boxes containing household stuff--bedding, towels, dishes, appliances--for bringing up to the garage.

The other goal was to locate all of the elements of my sorting station that I'd had set up in my office at home before the move.  I needed all of the boxes containing stuff still to be sorted and all of the shallow boxes that served as trays or drawers for sorting into.  Many of these are just the right size for holding 8x11 paper and I have a HUGE paper sort to start working on as over the last week I've been consolidating all of the loose unsorted paper into a single large box as it came out of the boxes I'd unpacked.  Today that box overflowed and I had to start a second one.  There wasn't room for one such box in here let alone two.

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Merlin Explores: A Photo Essay

In the house Merlin must stay locked in the laundry room until we're sure he has nothing nasty to share with Bradley and to get Bradley used to the idea of the new family member.  They are already talking to each other through the door.

I went down several times today to cuddle, play, and brush Mers.  Then just after lunch I decided to wipe him down with a wet rag.  When he was sick last month he had not been grooming and though he has been now for a couple of weeks he is still playing catchup.  I knew from experience I can't get him near a sink or basin of water but he will sometimes allow me to use a sopping wet rag on him and then he'll groom off the water.

Once I'd done that though I hated leaving him on the cold cement floor so I put on his leash and harness and took him outside where he spent the next hour exploring Mom's front yard.

Digging and rolling in the dirt totally undid his 'bath'.

He was completely obsessed with the laurel hedge surrounding our neighbor's yard and almost went down the four foot drop off into the thicket of branches before I tugged hard on the leash to turn him around.

Out on the sidewalk his attention is split back and forth between the hedge and the cars going by.

For several minutes he conducted a torrid affair with the sidewalk

The lawnmower had him enchanted for awhile. I think he wanted the grass he could smell

The porch was next.  I'd taken out a book, notebook and crochet along with my coffee thinking we's just hang quietly like we did at home.  But I never got to do more than sip the coffee a couple of times he kept me so busy chasing after him and tugging his leash to get him out of spots he should be.  There was no relaxing for either of us.

He would have jumped off the back of the porch if I'd not kept the line taut.  The drop off to the back yard is over my head.

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