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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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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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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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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Author Interview: James Zerndt

Today I'll be sharing the Q and A exchange between James Zerndt, author of The Korean Word For Butterfly , and myself.

James Zerndt lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and son. His poetry has appeared in The Oregonian Newspaper, and his fiction has most recently appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal. He taught English in South Korea in 2002 and still loves kimchi.

Jamie’s short story, “The Tree Poachers”, recently won WCCHA’s fiction award. Some of his short stories have also won Honorable Mention in both Playboy’s and The Atlantic Monthly’s Fiction Contests.

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James and son Jack

Joy: As someone raised across the river and 40 miles west of Portland, I can't help but wonder whether you were raised in Portland and if not how you ended up settling there.

James: I’m not sure exactly where I’m from. As a baby, I was left on the doorstep of a church in downtown Chicago. I was found by a cleaning lady who happened to be working that morning who subsequently took me home with her. For years I didn’t know I was an orphan. Not until I found an old photograph that had apparently been tucked into the basket I’d been found in. In the photo a young woman in a white dress with a purple Mohawk stood peering into the camera. Her face was gaunt. Her skin pale.

Oh, wait. This is non-fiction stuff, right? Sorry. I was born in the Midwest.

Joy: What drew you to spending time teaching in Korea?  And how has that experience changed you?

James: Adventure and money drew me to teaching in South Korea. The experience taught me to appreciate what we have in America. Prior to this, I took a lot of it for granted. I think most of us only tend to appreciate things once we no longer have them. Sad, but usually true.

Joy: How long have you been practicing the craft of fiction writing?

James: I really wanted to be a writer when I was in my early twenties. I gave up on it though. I had potential, was told I had potential by numerous teachers, but I couldn’t seem to write anything decent. Back then I was reading all the heavyweights: Dostoyevsky,  Tolstoy, Carver, Hemingway, Camus, etc... I think the problem was that I wanted so badly to write the next great American novel that I ended up intimidated myself into silence. It was only later, in my thirties, that I took it up again.

Joy: What led you to choose self-pub as your route?  How do you now feel about your experience with it?

James: I had a great literary agent for my first book, The Cloud Seeders. We had a big Hollywood production company (Gotham Group) interested in the movie rights and for about two years we waited for something to happen, but nothing ever did. It was an ulcer-ridden two years, with a lot of ups and downs as one producer then another said they were interested. But, in the end, nothing ever came of it and the publishers backed out once the movie deal didn’t happen. The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth so when I finished The Korean Word For Butterfly I decided I didn’t want to wait around. Even the process of finding an agent can take six months to a year. It’s kind of ridiculous. And, so far anyway, I’ve enjoyed being in control of sales. What I don’t like so much is trying to promote the book. It takes up time I’d rather spend writing. Or sleeping. Or...

Joy: How big a role has reading fiction played in your life?  Who are your favorite authors?

James: Fiction has meant everything to me. My teen years were extremely lonely, so I took refuge in books. I still love all the old Russian authors. Today some of my favorite writers are Brady Udall, Roddy Doyle, Tim O’Brien, Thom Jones, Carson McCullers. Those are the first that come to mind anyway.

Joy: What are your rituals, routines or habits that promote creativity and  productivity with your writing?

James: I have only one ritual: sitting down. I don’t need much to get me writing, just time. I don’t mean that to sound pompous or anything; it’s just how it is right now. I have about six different projects on the backburner because I’m busy teaching and watching my two-year-old son. It’s incredibly difficult to find time to write now that I have a kid. It makes me appreciate the time I do get, though. It tends to come out in a big rush now when I do write because, like right now, I’m afraid I’ll be called away so I have to hurry to get it in. (Jack is napping upstairs as I type this.) Not that what I’m writing is all that great, but it doesn’t matter. What matters in my humble opinion is getting something down on paper or screen, so you have something to work with later.

Joy: What one habit or tendency does the most damage to your creativity and productivity as a writer?  Do you still struggle with it? What have you tried to mitigate or eliminate the damage?  What did and didn't work?

James: Time is the only thing that I struggle with these days. In the past it was insecurity, comparing myself to other writers to the point that I felt unworthy or incapable. Now that I’m older, I don’t care about that nearly as much. I try my best. That’s all any of us can do. And, besides, I don’t have the luxury of time to worry about it all that much now.

Joy: Have you ever had any pets?  If so would you please share a picture and/or anecdote?  Especially any where they did something that either hindered or helped your writing.  (singular or plural or none. whatever you are comfortable with)

James: We have a dog and a cat. I write down in the basement, so they usually aren’t an issue. I do seem to remember my dog pooping on a rough draft of a short story I was working on once, though. For some reason it was left on the living room floor and he planted a good one on it while we were sleeping. It’s true what they say, I guess. Everybody is a critic.

Thanks so much for the questions. This was fun!

The Korean Word For Butterfly  (linked to my Feb 4 review)
by James Zerndt
Publisher: Create Space, March 27, 2013
Available in: Print & ebook, 329 pages


From the Publishers:

Set against the backdrop of the 2002 World Cup and rising anti-American sentiment due to a deadly accident involving two young Korean girls and a U.S. tank, The Korean Word For Butterfly is told from three alternating points-of-view:

Billie, the young wanna-be poet looking for adventure with her boyfriend who soon finds herself questioning her decision to travel so far from the comforts of American life;

Moon, the ex K-pop band manager who now works at the English school struggling to maintain his sobriety in hopes of getting his family back;

And Yun-ji , a secretary at the school whose new feelings of resentment toward Americans may lead her to do something she never would have imagined possible.

The Korean Word For Butterfly is a story about the choices we make and why we make them.

Follow the blog tour for more reviews, giveaways, author interviews and guest posts: 

So Many Precious Books Feb 3 Spotlight & Giveaway
Joy Story Feb 4 Review
Joy Story Feb 11 Interview
Every Free Chance Feb 5 Spotlight & Giveaway
She Treads Softly Feb 7 Review
The Book Diva Reads Feb 10 Guest Post & Giveaway
Let’s Talk About Books Feb 12 Review & Giveaway
Indies Reviews Behind the Scenes Feb 14 Blog Talk Radio Excerpt/discussion 8 pm cst
Tracy Riva Feb 14 Review
Tracy Riva Feb 17 Guest Post & Giveaway
The Princess Gummy Bear Feb 17 You Tube Review
Serendipity Feb 19 Review
Reader’s Muse Feb 18 Review
Reader’s Muse Feb 14 Interview
From Isi Feb 20 Review
Deal Sharing Aunt Feb 21 Review
Deal Sharing AuntFeb 24 Interview
Book Dilettante Feb 25 Review
So Many Precious Books Feb 26
Carole Rae’s Ramblings  Feb 27 Review
Margay Leah Justice Feb 28 Review
Margay Leah Justice Feb 28 Guest Post & Giveaway
Romance & Inspiration Mar 3 Review

http://www.virtualauthorbooktours.com/

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Post Op Purrrrrs

Our Merlin had surgery today to remove rotten teeth and inverted eyelashes.  It was hard being 500 miles away awaiting the news.  Ed was going to pick him up from the vet's and drop him at home, grab his laptop and trek the mile to the library where he could use the WIFI to start a chat with me.  But instead he dropped Merlin at home then walked two doors down to his folks and phoned me just after 5pm.

He said everything went as expected but he had not anticipated how wobbly Merlin would still be and did not want to leave him alone for the two hours he would be gone.  He said Mers was falling down every few steps and bumping into things.  He is wearing a funnel to prevent grooming his eyes for a few days.

The picture above was taken while I was in Phoenix last week and Mers was 'helping' me pack.  I just nabbed it from the photo essay for last Monday's post.  The one I had started working on just before our Internet went down there and then did not get to post until we got back to Mom's Tuesday night.

He is not looking his best in that photo.  He had not been grooming, had lost a lot of weight and his eyes had been nasty with goop before Carri got baby wipes for Ed to wipe them.  That was the day Carri took him to the vet and found out about the inverted eyelashes and the rotten teeth and infection.  Or was that Tuesday?  It's all starting to blur in my memory.  So much went on those four days.

Ed started him on antibiotics on Wednesday and he was telling me by chat Sunday afternoon that our Merlin was back.  Meaning he had started grooming, was eating like a pig and had started chasing his balls all over the house again.

Carri and I will be bringing him back with us next trip later this month or into early May.  Ed is still not sure where he'll end up when he has to vacated May 15th.

We are so grateful to Carri and my Mom for having him tended to for us.

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Sunday Serenity #328

Remembering My

Gremlyn 6/4/93-3/18/07

Our Abyssinian/Siamese/Tabby Gremlyn passed on the Sunday following St. Paddy Day in 2007 and it was in her honor that I started these Sunday Serenity posts so that Sunday could be something besides a reminder of loosing her again.  So today I'm recycling the list of 13 things I wanted to remember about her from a Thursday Thirteen post a year after her death and adding to it.

1. The way she rode on my shoulder from a tiny kitten to the last week of her life.  She could stay put as I vacuumed, washed dishes, typed, worked needlepoint, did gentle mini-tramp workouts, played computer games, folded laundry, read, watched TV played card games with Ed.
2. The way she would groom the tears off my eyelids and cheeks.
3. The many 'conversations' we had that would go on for as long as I replied for she always had the last word.
4. The way she slept in my lap while I read or sewed or wrote or...see all sit down activities in #1.
5. The way she kept us in stitches with her antics chasing shadows and dust motes if there was nothing more substantial; literally climbing the walls and launching herself into backflips off them.
6. Finding her asleep in the salad bowl on the second shelf up above the kitchen counter. More than once. (Tho I'd rather not remember having to wash every last dish on those two shelves each time.)
7. Having her land on my head or shoulder as I passed through a door or by the fridge or mantle or the living room drapes.
8. Having her purr next to my ear as I'm falling asleep.
9. The weight of her curled in a ball on my hip, or chest as I slept.
10. The way she would climb a door and ride it back and forth as she pushed against one wall and then the other until that moment she miscalculated and didn't get her front paws back under her in time so that her belly was arched over the abyss as she howled. And how if her front paws happened to be on the top of the doorway she would hang from the molding screaming until rescued but if she had just pushed off against the wall and did not jump down before the door closed then her hind paws would be shoved off as the door closed and she would fall and if she had trapped herself in the room would howl and scream until rescued.
11. Having her snuggled inside my fleece jacket or windbreaker with its bottom tied off to prevent her from slipping out and its front zipped up but not far enough to keep her from poking her head out at will. She would stay there for hours as I typed at the computer or as I paced up and down the driveway or as I did laundry, dishes or housework or sat on the front steps reading.
12. The way she would put a paw on my face to turn my head to face her so she could 'tell' me something. Occasionally the 'telling' was emphasized by a nip on the nose.
13.  How I once found a strand of embroidery floss trailing out from under her tail and tugged on it and tugged on it and tugged on it until a full 18 inches of thread with the tapestry needle still attached came free.
14. The way she always knew when I was in distress.  Even when I wasn't home.  Like the night I crashed on a cement roller rink in a town 40 miles away and she went berserk at home chasing the windows and hanging off the front door handle howling and would not be comforted.
15.  The way she constantly escaped the  house by clawing through window screens.  Even the one six feet above the bathroom tub.  It took us a long time to figure out how she did that.  Her route: floor to toilet tank to towel rack to shower curtain rod to four inch deep by four inch tall window inset.
16. How tiny she was.  Even full grown she was smaller than our Merlin when we got him at the shelter at 6 months.
17. How she snuck food off my plate.  I think she knew I couldn't see from the side.  She would seem completely relaxed and uncaring and suddenly one paw zipped out with one claw extended and grabbed.
18.  The way she sounded like an old typewriter talking to the birds out the window
19.  The way she treated Ed's dirty socks like her paramour.
20.  How she boxed the vacuum cleaner, the vibrator, and the electric razor into submission when they were turned on or how she would approach them when they were off as tho they were cobras, prowling a circle around it, tail big, belly on floor, hissing, growling.  Until one of us would turn it on so she could knock it silly umn silent. We called her our adrenaline junkie.  She sought out occasions to get hyped up.
21.  How she and her sister Shekinah once teamed up to herd my parent's Chow Tia across the living room and into the corner by the front door which was closed so she climbed over Ed in his chair trying to get out the closed window behind him.
22.  The way she talked to her food.
23.  The way she came running when I clicked my tongue.
24. How she would never tolerate a closed door between us.  Not even the bathroom.  Not even the shower door.
25.  Her funny face.  Or faces.  She had as many expressions as humans.  And I could read them better than I could most humans except maybe babies.

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Sunday Serenity #322

Can't begin to say how much I needed this today.

The first version I saw on facebook via wimp was played at half speed and that was uber hilarious and I shared on my wall which I so rarely do.

Am celebrating a milestone on the Secret Santa crocheted crafter's tote today.  I finally finished the Mushroom rounds on the last of the eight strips.  Sometime this coming week I should have the five strips of the second panel joined and have pictures of that to post.  I'm targeting Thursday.

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Writers and Their Kitties

Writers and Their Kitties

cheeseburger.com had an interesting post the other day featuring pics of authors with their cats.  There must be more than a dozen but only three or so are featured on the front page.  You have to click the 'more' to see the rest.  It is worth it if you are into either writers or cats.  Among them are Twain, Faulkner, King, Capote and Gaiman.  I would have embedded the post as usual but I couldn't choose the pic that way and I wanted Joyce Carol Oates who is near the top of my lists of fav writers and most influential to my own writing.

As for the cat who had the most influence on my writing--sleeping inside my jacket when I typed in the wee hours of cold nights, sleeping on my shoulder as I read in the easy chair, performing antics that got written into scenes--that would have been Gremlyn, my Siamese/Tabby/Abyssinian cross who never got bigger than your typical six month old kitten. We were constant companions form August 1993 until I lost her on St Patrick's Day 2007.  And I mean 'constant' literally.  She was never far and often in actual physical contact.  Even riding on my shoulder as I walked around the house and sleeping in my (at the time very long) hair.  She followed me around crying for me to sit down to be her bed.  She carried on reciprocal conversations with me that were often as inflected as human dialog.  I'd lost all the pictures taken of her and of us together in our 2001 move and no more had been taken before she died. Sometimes I'm startled by how much I still miss her.  Other times I'm stunned to realize I've gone days without remembering her.

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Shoulda Had That Second Cup

Tuesday was one of those days it might have been better to never have gotten out of bed.

When I got back to the room with my coffee and got settled with it with pillows piled high behind me and a DVD in the TV my Merlin climbed into my lap which at that moment consisted of mostly bare legs. He's a kneader. Ow Ow ow.

So one-handed I forced a wad of my fleece blanket under him and I thought he ws going to settle so I pick up the remote with my right hand and bring my coffee cup to my lip with my left and at the precise moment the cup rim touched my lip, Merlin head bopped it and it poured down my front.

Ow Ow Ow Ow

I spent the rest of the day with my chest bright red from collar bone to sternum and constantly having to pull the fabric away. No blisters ever formed. It just looked like a sun burn for hours. Thank goodness I hadn't hit the 3 on the microwave when heating the water. I know 3 minutes will bring cold tap to boiling and remain scalding hot after adding cold milk. But I was impatient and the tap water felt more cool than cold so I took a chance on 2 and then added a good wallop of milk.

It was also a good thing my coffee cup has a lid. I call it my sippy cup.

All day long I set out to do one thing and ended up doing something else. That DVD still sits in the TV machine. All I got to watch over my coffee after getting up to clean up and make sure I wasn't going to need medical attention, was the previews.

After drinking my coffee I switched to a library book that needed to go back today as soon as Ed decided to make the run to the library. Then as he left for the library I started to get out my crochet projects but discovered the electric cords to my computer, 2 lamps, clock, printer, netbook andUSB hub and the USB cords to my printer, DVD player, external hard drive and USB hub were all in a tangle....

And some of that tangle was also tangled with the pile of overflow from the hamper which supports one end of the board that is my desk. Oh, I thought, time to get a load of laundry going. So cleared the board off, piling books, printer, netbook, crochet and misc onto the bed. I separated the dirty clothes from the cords and stuffed them in the hamper, intending to sort out a load after I got the cords sorted out and the stuff under my desk reorganized.

But by the time I got that done my back was screaming obscenities and I needed to sit or better lay down but the bed was covered in stuff so I had to put my desk back together first which puts the board over the hamper.

By then I was exhausted and it was less than an hour until the call for dinner so it was even too late to start the movie.

Dinner was stew which is one of the things that always gives me a nap attack even when I'm not already weary. I fought it off at first but as I was getting ready to start this post I suddenly could not care a whit less about it. My eyes were crossing. Then Merlin was doing something with the blankets that forced me to reorganize them and the pillows supporting my back and I suddenly did not want them to be supporting my back but rather my head.

That was around 8pm. Next thing I became aware of was Ed's snoring and that it was pitch dark in the room with the TV and my lamps off. It was almost 2am. I had not even been aware when Ed came to bed and he had to clear a few stray items off his side and probably fight me for his covers and pillows and his share of the mattress real estate.

I was thinking about making another cup of coffee while I was doing the dishes. Wish I had now.

Now I'm trying to decide if I should go make one now or lay back down after posting this.

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But What About the Fur Babies?

Watch a Japanese woman reunited with her fur baby after the tsunami

As I watched video of the tsunami last Friday,my first thoughts were for the families and their terror, loss, injury, grief and the irrevocable upheaval of the survivors lives. But it wasn't more than a few breaths later that I began to worry and wonder about their fur babies--family pets. Probably because my imagination instinctively went to the What if it happened here scenarios and I live in a household with a cat and a dog, our neighbor on one side has several cats and our neighbor on the other two lap dogs.

And I remember vividly our two weeks living on the streets of Santa Clara County California after Ed lost his tech job with our two cats in crates and being ineligible to sleep in a shelter as long as I was unwilling to give them up.

I know many would see this as far far from a primary consideration. It would never be something we could expect a government agency to take responsibility for so that is why not-for-profit organizations who set up to provide rescue and support for animals in crisis--including post-catastrophic events--are so appreciated by those of us who know the profound bonds that are possible between a human and their fur babies first hand.

The icanhascheezeburger.com is recommending Japan Earthquake Animal Relief which is accepting donations to help animals affected by the earthquake.
I assume icanhascheezeburger.com has vetted this agency so I'm rushing to post this before doing so myself. If I should learn anything to the contrary I will update this post.

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