|
| I am not responsible for the content of the above ads, which are often hilariously mis-matched. |
|
|
Monday, October 31, 2005
Dennis' first national magazine cover story:
Sweet!
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Got photos of the Fairy Godchild in her costume. This is right after it arrived. She found a really good rock, too, so it's just a good day to be two years old.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Today's typo for the youth website I maintain:
You'll have a chance to catch up with old friends and meet new ones as we explore what it means to hunger and thrust for righteousness.
It's fixed now.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Monday, October 24, 2005
Another Clyde moment - sharing lunch with Dennis
I've been busy; I made a fairy costume for the fairy godchild and I need to mail it to Montana tomorrow. It's so froofy it stands up by itself.
That's a lot of tulle under there. Of course there's a headpiece, modeled here by Dennis. It's made with iridescent beads and ribbon roses over millinery wire.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Clyde engaging in the practice of rolling about on warm cement, which was pretty much her definition of Going Outside.
Look at that white belly! She had the softest fur.
Which stage of grief involves puking? I forget. I'm not enjoying a full and rewarding relationship with food this week. Bleh. Dennis is taking very good care of me, though.
It's impossible for us to forget that Clyde is gone for more than a couple of minutes at a time when we're home. There's that compulsive glance to where the food dishes would be...the stretching out toward the foot of the bed to look for her weight on the blankets...the eating without having to share whatever the Clyde wanted...there was so much good kitten love in our house.
Dennis came into the office this morning to tell me that there are little baby squirrels running all over the church grounds, getting scavenging lessons from their parents. He thought Clyde would have enjoyed the show. Not that she really hunted; I think if one fell into her mouth, she would probably bring it to us and try to trade for some chicken or tuna. Not much of a creature of the wild there.
I'm just really sad right now.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Thanks for all the kind words.
What's weird is that I keep thinking that I hear Clyde messing with stuff in the next room. Or I think I see her dart by.
I fell asleep in front of the TV at around 3:00 a.m. I don't think there's anything left on tivo - I watched it all. I have to fast forward through the beginning of Law and Order (when tivo has been bad and recorded a bunch of things that get deleted with extreme multi-thumbs-down prejudice, it repents and grabs a half dozen L&O episodes to pander to my endless appetite for dead body shows) because we used to add to the preamble. "...the police, who investigate crimes, and CLYDE!" Actually, about half the time we would say, "and YO MAMA!" but it still makes me miss her.
Ryan and I had planned to spend the day doing a blitz-unpack on the rest of the moving boxes in the bedroom, which mostly house sewing stuff and had better have my AWOL knitting books in there somewhere. I didn't want to be at home, though, so we went to Stacks for a late breakfast (oops, I forgot to eat yesterday), and then on to mindless entertainment. And you can't get much more mindless than The Fog. Craptastic! Exactly what I needed today.
I cleared out the litterbox and got more of Clyde's stuff packed up this afternoon. There will be another kitty, or more likely a pair of them, here at some point. I saw kittens for adoption at the pet store on my way to breakfast today, and stopped to look at them, and they were cute and sweet but none of them were mine. I know kitties pick us and not the other way around, so it will happen when it's time. There's just no way to have a cat like Clyde and not want another cat; giving that kind of love opens your heart up and takes the door off the hinges. There's no going back.
I can talk about Clyde casually now without tearing up, but I'll probably lose it again when Dennis gets home tomorrow. I know we're both holding back some of the grief until we can be together.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Friday, October 14, 2005
Clyde is gone.
She hadn't been acting right the last week or so...wasn't into being a snugglekitty, wouldn't sleep on the bed or hang out with us. Then she started spending all of her time under the dresser a few days ago, so today I packed her up and took her to see the vet.
Turned out Miss Kittenpants was diabetic, and was declining quickly (the colors on her little pee strip were all in the Very Very Bad range). Our options were pretty much to put her into the hospital and pump her full of insulin in the hopes of getting her to a point where we could start injecting her ourselves twice a day. Or, you know, the other thing.
In past purely hypothetical discussions, Dennis and I had agreed that we wouldn't do anything drastic to prolong Clyde's life (or ours, for that matter) in the event of a serious illness with dicey chances for a good quality of life. Which, I have to say, is a pretty easy decision to make when you're sitting with a lapful of purring kitty. Less easy when your husband is out of town and you're sitting on the floor of an examining room looking at a sad, ungroomed kitty who has wedged herself into the back of her carrier and won't come out.
The vets (Pet's Friend of Sunnyvale) were awesome. They let me sit in their little room and cry and talk to Dennis on my cell and cry some more. This was my first visit there, so I was just some random sobbing person. They were good to me.
They brought Clyde back to me, and I thought she had been sedated, because she let me wrap her up in a towel and snuggle her on my lap, and she purred a bit and licked my hand. When I was ready, the vet came back in and told me that Clyde wasn't sedated at all. That made me feel a little better, like maybe she knew that we were giving her up so she wouldn't have to suffer more. Or that's me trying to justify something to myself. I can live with that.
Then she got the shots.
Ok, I probably shouldn't write this...
Clyde stuck her tongue out of her mouth as she died. Like, almost all the way out, with her mouth closed. So my last memory of her is that, in death as in life, Clyde was not a dignified cat.
She'll be cremated and we'll scatter her ashes around the memorial garden at St. Ned's.
I'm going to miss her so much.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Thursday, October 13, 2005
The beautiful story of Jesus and his puppy.
We must love Jesus' puppy as we love Jesus himself. We must love his puppy for his compassion and understanding of Jesus' purpose on earth. It is with this love that we may greet Jesus and his puppy in the kingdom of heaven.
Of course, using the same level of scholarship, I could probably prove that Jesus had a house-elf.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Monday, October 10, 2005
Sorry for the radio silence. Nothing that I've been writing lately seems like something to inflict on the world.
Which is to say that I'm in one of those weird, un-moored, flaky places where I don't really know what's what. This usually means that I'm undergoing (yet another) giant shift, that more stuff I don't need is dropping away. But before I get there, I always have this time of re-assembling myself.
I also usually get sick as part of the process, which explains why I have a splitting headache this morning.
One of the less-charming aspects of this time is that I'm really flinchy and really insecure and constantly convinced that everything I'm doing basically sucks and I'm only being tolerated out of misguided Christian charity. Again, it's that temporary loss of grounding, that feeling of picking up the mental toybox and dumping everything out. Makes me a little crazy.
I'm definitely moving toward something good, toward a deeper appreciation for the fullness and blessedness of my life and a deeper acknowledgement of where it's coming from. There's just all this shit in the way that I need to clear out first.
In other unexpected developments, I'm going to be working in a cubicle again, and I'm actually excited about it. We're re-configuring the main office space so that I have a little fortress of solitude hidey-hole. I got us some surprisingly swanky cubicles off freecycle. Our current open office plan really isn't compatible with video editing, which requires a level of focus I just can't maintain for very long with all the distraction.
We had a lot of parishioners off at an event yesterday morning, so I only had three kids for Godly Play. I think I made one kid's day because I gave him ALL the clay during response time. He had a blast with it. Crayola Model Magic: best clay ever. I know that it's more crunchy to make your own, but this stuff comes out of the carpet and stays soft week after week, so we love it. There are big tubs of white Model Magic in every room. Party!
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Monday, October 03, 2005
I tried to stay off the computer for anything that wasn't work-related this weekend. I spent yesterday afternoon finally reading the new Harry Potter book, which was highly entertaining. And then it was over. Wah.
I had a huge class for Godly Play, and I was afraid it was going to melt down with that many kids, but again they stayed relatively engaged. So I guess this is how it's going to be. There was some helpful commentary on the correct way to put the animals into the ark, because apparently I didn't do it right. It made me happy, though; the kids know that wooden ark well enough to know that I could have put the animals inside of it instead of stacking them on the deck. Deck-side is easier for telling the story, so meh. I heard a bit of anxiety from the kids about floods, which I guess is normal for anyone these days. I mean, we have a new appreciation for what that looks like, right?
We showed the stewardship video I made in church on Sunday, and it...pretty much didn't suck. It's the first one I've done with the video-editing software instead of just the slideshow software, so I was a bit worried about how it would play out on the big screen. I could point out a couple of sound and edit issues, but I've been told that is really, really boring and no one wants to hear it. I have another one to crank out for this week, and it will be better, or at least will have new and interesting mistakes.
I've somehow talked my way into doing an Anglican Rosary workshop at our women's retreat next month. So now I need to figure out an easy way to make them, and be ready to demonstrate it. And pull some other materials together so I sound all smart and holy.
I'm down about five pounds since Operation Don't Be Such a Pig started. This is good.
Dennis was at a show last night, so I was by myself when I discovered the remote key to the car on the floor behind the old man chair. It's probably best that there were no witnesses to the very dorky victory dance that ensued. The key had been missing for a week and half, during which I discovered that my other key is the valet version, which doesn't open the trunk. I had been weighing a trunk-free life vs. paying a couple hundred bucks to get a new remote. Now I'm going to unlock and lock the car and open the trunk as many times as I want, just because I can.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
current
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
|
|
| |
