Our lousy house

The mystery of my health prevails. I was still having some symptoms up until yesterday. But today I seem to be back to my normal self. Just in time for our next big adventure.

The cat.

My dear, sweet, terminally ill cat.

Who always lives inside and yet somehow contracted heartworms. Maybe. Or maybe she just developed the antibodies and the worms never got a chance to reproduce. The story goes that she has antibodies and the vet insists that we have to have the aforementioned feline cardiac ultrasound to confirm or deny that she has heartworms. (But if she has them, there's nothing we can do about it. So, what's the point of the ultrasound?)

Which leads me to my next big mystery. How our cat, who always stays inside and never is in contact with other animals, managed to contract LICE while we were away for a month to Brazil. She's in the house, with no other animals, and has someone coming to check on her each day. When we come home, there are clumps of cat fur and little, tiny, grain-of-salt-looking white balls on every horizontal surface. We noticed yesterday that if you give it a day, you also get some black stuff. And that the black stuff moves.

FUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK.

I've never had to deal with lice, whether the human or cat variety, before. Stella's birthday party is tomorrow afternoon. Children are coming to my house. And we can assume that there are little tiny bugs on every single textile in the house.

Let the de-lousing begin. Every bed, every couch, every sheet, every rug, every carpet, every surface, ugh. At least the house will be spanking clean for the party tomorrow, right?

Can someone out there please tell me whether I have to shampoo the cat? Because everything I've read seems to indicate that I do.

One of you out there will say, why don't you just take the cat to the vet and ask your questions there? Mostly because our vet costs a fortune. We take her there because she freaks out around other animals and this vet only treats cats. So we accept that it will be about $100 to walk in the door. But here's the ironic part: the only place I can think that the cat has been in contact with other animals in the last 2-3 months was at the vet's office! I wanna call them and tell them they need to pay for all my delousing paraphernalia plus give me our next visit free.

I think I'm never taking my cat to the vet again. All they do is tell me she's getting more ill and that I need to have really expensive tests done that we can't afford. And the trip to the office makes her freak out and that makes the heart condition worse. And now, she seems to have contracted lice at the office. What is the point?

Grace has to vacuum her room, sort all the laundry and then fold the clean laundry when it comes out of the dryer. Stella has to steer clear of lousy areas of the house. I have to go to the pet store and get lots of shampoo and powder and anything else I need to deal with this issue. And then keep sweeping, vacuuming, laundering, bleaching, and on and on. As for coping with this, I need to keep my head firmly attached to my shoulders. And I will visit my therapist this afternoon.

What next?

We've been in Brazil for 10 days now. It's a good break. We get to let go of connections and no one expects us to reply immediately. There's still this mystique associated with international travel (outside Europe, at least) that communication is difficult. In reality, it's an illusion we choose to uphold because it gives us a break from our regular life.

Stella turned 11 months old yesterday.

This morning, at 5a, she woke up crying. This is weird for Stella; she almost always sleeps through the night. As soon as we picked her up out of her crib, we realized she had a fever. We took off her pajamas and put her in a short-sleeved onesie. Then we gave her tylenol (don't worry, the generic kind; we know about the recall). Then I nursed her and hoped she went back to sleep. She slept for another two hours and then was up again. I tried to comfort myself by deciding that this readily apparent illness explained her lack of appetite yesterday.

It's almost lunchtime now and she's slept on and off, nursed on and off, and her fever hasn't broken yet. She still doesn't want to eat real food.

How worried would you be?

It's not so much worry that's getting to me; it's the seemingly never-ending string of inconvenient things happening. Three weeks ago, the baby had hand-foot-mouth disease. Not fun at all. She broke out in hives everywhere, including a lovely patch of red sores on the back of her throat. It was only once Stella was correctly diagnosed that we realized Grace had also had the virus a week earlier. Poor kid took Benadryl for days for no good reason.

Before that it was a bizarre episode of damage to the front door of our house because a candidate for state congress had left a slick, colored flyer in the door jamb over a weekend while we were gone out of town. One night and one rainstorm later, the flyer had nicely adhered to the door paint and upon removal, took the paint right off the door. The candidate, understandably, took measures to have the situation rectified. But the work is still not finished.

Before that it was a roller coaster ride about what to do with the cat while we were out of town. She's at high risk for congestive heart failure, as per her veterinarian visit in May. It wasn't until I found myself on the phone with a feline cardiologist that I realized, this is messed up. Our family is leaving for a month; what is the likelihood that the cat will not survive this length of time? No one could tell me without a feline cardiac ultrasound. The veterinarian finally told me I should put the cat in the care of someone who would be calm in case of an emergency. I calmly hung up the phone and cried a bit by myself.

And then just three days before we left on our trip to Brazil, 4:15p on a Friday, car accident. We were the middle car in a three-car rear-ending collision. It wouldn't have been bad except our car is a compact and the other two cars were a minivan and an SUV. Did I mention everyone was in the car? Including Stella in her car seat? Brand new car seat, now rendered worthless because it was in a car collision. So I found myself not just trying to find a body shop on Friday afternoon, but also a vendor where I could buy a new car seat asap. The body shop stayed open for us to drop the car off and told us it wouldn't be a problem to leave it there for a month. The insurance adjuster said he was sure it would all be fine. I keep having the sick feeling the car is totaled.

Lordy.

Back to the feverish sleepy baby. As a mom, I've always been a believer in letting the kid sweat it out. The fever is doing its work killing the bug. Provided it stays within normal limits, it's not hurting the kid at all. But now that it's happening to Stella for the first time, I'm having flashbacks to being with Grace in Russia when she was about the same age as Stella is now, when she first showed signs of motion sickness and abdominal migraines. I felt just a tad helpless. Granted, I'm in a much better situation now. I'm older and more experienced, I can actually communicate in the language of the country I'm in, and, oh yeah, my husband is a national of the country. Needless to say, the situation is better. But still, today I find myself not so confident in letting the fever run its natural course.

On the positive side, it's the middle of winter here and the highs are in the mid-70s. And everyone in our family got their flu vaccinations. I think I'm trying to find the balance in the whole thing. Life, that is.

"Grace, there's a big chore you have to do."

Grace just came in the door from school at about 3:30p. It's Friday afternoon and she's ready to kick off her shoes for the weekend and relax. Frankly, I think she's already bummed that she had to go to school today since I think she and all her classmates were hoping for more snow overnight. They didn't get enough for the district to call a snow day, but there was enough to make our already snow covered driveway unable to be traversed by our little Honda Civic. My husband left town yesterday (in the middle of the storm) and thus clearing said driveway is left to us women of the house.

As Grace was pulling off her newly acquired varsity letterman's jacket, I told her I guessed she realized there was a big chore to do before the sun went down. She said yeah, she would get right on it after she got a snack.

Wow, that was easy.

I told her to remember to clear the front and back walks, too.

Huh? she asked. What do you mean the front and back walks?

She thought the big chore was cleaning the cat litter. Oh my. Imagine her reaction to understanding that in addition to her regular afternoon chore of cleaning the cat litter, she would have to clear our driveway.

Nevertheless, after a bowl of popcorn, she pulled her boots and jacket right back on and went at it.

Here's the view from my bedroom window:



Just so you can get some perspective of how long the driveway really is, here's two views from the first floor. I include the picture of the school bus going by for the full effect.



I stayed safely inside the garage to take these pictures. I didn't even put on shoes, I just slipped on my slippers. I snapped the pictures quickly before my arms got too cold since I was only wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt.

Imagine the joyous reaction I got when I snapped this last one out the back door:


By the time she was finished and came in, she called to me, "I know you took more pictures of me." Thrilled, she was, I tell you.

God, I love that kid. She's the greatest.

"As for where I've been" and other details to tie you over...

Yes, I'm here. Whoa, we've had quite a couple weeks here in my little corner of the world.

Yes, Ginger the Cat's birthday party is still coming. But much like Grace's birthday this year, I'm finding the rest of life getting in the way of throwing a proper party. Thank goodness the cat doesn't know or care. As for the rest of you who DO care...it'll be up in the next few days. If you still want to wish Ginger happy birthday from your own beast, send me your greetings via email asap.

Yes, I have been writing. If you are dying to read something from me, head over to Midwest Parents. I'm posting there all week. And hey, there's swine flu and Veteran's Day and discussion of the horrible mother-daughter communication we all know and love and even a recipe for Orange Cranberry Muffins. No lie. Check it out.

Cat birthday party

We adopted our cat, Ginger, on Grace's 5th birthday in the middle of February 1999. She was a small kitten then, estimated to be about four months old. So let's do the math. A kitten that is roughly four months old in the middle of February was born sometime in October. But we don't know the day. We've always said her birthday was Halloween.

So this Halloween our cat Ginger will be 11 years old.

We've never done anything for her birthday in the past. It's kind of a corny thing to do, right? Besides, what are you going to do that's not going to freak the cat out? Invite the neighbor cats over? Or maybe the strays? Better yet, let's invite the neighborhood dogs over! Or maybe just a bunch of our loud, raucous human friends who happen to like cats!

She'd be hiding in the closet throwing up within 15 minutes. Some birthday party.

We did think of inviting all the creatures in our backyard over for a party. The stray who comes around every afternoon and starts a hissing match with her, some squirrels and a few chipmunks, three birds, one of the deer, a rabbit and a mole. I told my husband it sounded like a Disney movie. Or rather, a mash up of Disney movies.

I have a better idea. Let's throw her a party here at my blog. Here's how it'll go:

1. Create a jpg a picture of your pet. You can make it a simple photo and send text along in an email. Or you can jazz it up to the max in photoshop. It can look anyway you like. Just make sure it's a jpg file.
2. Send it to me, along with your name as you would like it to appear and the address of your blog or other website you'd like to link to.
3. Get it to me by midnight, Oct 29th. (Meaning, the END of the day of the 29th, not the start.)
4. I'll post all the submissions here on Halloween and we'll have a birthday party for our family's cat, Ginger, that day here.

Very good? Very good. Help an old cat out and give her the party she's always deserved and never gotten.

Her Majesty, The Lioness of the Manor

She doesn't look at all miffed over her near brush with supplantation, right?

The fifth member of our family

One member of our family has been completely neglected. I can completely imagine that some of you out there think our family only has four members. My husband and I, Grace and Stella. Four, exactly four. Except for cursory comments, any acknowledgment of the fifth member of our family has been omitted entirely from my blogging content for quite some time now. That member is The Cat. The saddest part about her absence from my writing is that the last time I wrote about her was when I decided not to have a cardiac ultrasound for her. Because I had just found out I was pregnant and had satisfied my desire for something else small and cute in the family. God, I suck.

Since I don't have a toddler or other small child to react to the new baby in the house, I think life has cursed me with a cat that is playing that role in our home. The jealousy, the regression to earlier stages of development, the temper tantrums...it's all there. I can only assume I'll see sibling rivalry in a few years.

Now that we've established how neglectful of a cat owner I am, let's move on to what she's been up to. After successfully navigating a move to our new home last November, she decided in mid-May to stop using her litter box. It was in our basement. First, she deposited her packages in each of the bathtubs in the house, first in the master bath, then in the guest bath, and finally in the hallway bath. We closed the doors to each bathroom. Then she starting using the guest room floor, right behind the bed where you couldn't see it from the doorway. Fine, close the guest room door. She then moved downstairs and starting using the carpet in the den. Where there is no doorway to close it off. Arg. Since this time we've been trying to retrain her to use the litter box. Oh my God. Yes, it has taken more than four months to do this. We've managed to get her to use the litter box if it is in the hallway right next to the stairway to the basement. But only if the top is off of it, because she's finicky that way. She wants her litter exposed to the air; she doesn't want to have to crawl in and out of the box like some kind of lowly domesticated animal.

Then Stella came along. We knew she'd take a backseat as soon as the baby was outside of me. The Cat really is a baby to us, see. We hold her like a baby, we take pictures of her and send them to friends and family, we talk baby talk to her, we marvel at her cuteness. So as soon as something smaller and cuter came along, of course our demonstrative affection for The Cat would abate a tad.

Truth be told, we didn't even know where she was half the time, or if she was home at all.

When things quieted down a bit after Stella's arrival, The Cat gingerly approached her. I noticed it one afternoon when I was holding Stella in the nursery. Stella was wailing her head off about something. The Cat was in the hallway and peered into the room through the doorway ever so subtly. Then carefully, step by step, she ventured in. When she finally reached the loveseat that Stella and I were sitting on, she rested her front paws on the seat cushion and let out a tiny kitten cry. I couldn't help but stop and look. Sure enough, she was empathizing with Stella. She stayed there in the room with us until Stella settled down. When Stella was laying in her crib and falling asleep, The Cat stepped out as quietly and carefully as she had entered.

Since then, I've noticed that she's taken up camping underneath the crib. She never went in the nursery before. Now she walks under the crib to the center, curls up against the wall, wraps her tail around her body and goes to sleep.

I was amazed that this was The Cat's reaction to the new baby.

And then the day came. I should have known it would come, but still, when it came, I was unprepared. The day that we realized we couldn't find The Cat.

I had seen her the afternoon before. My husband had come home late on Tuesday night and didn't find her anywhere. I hadn't opened any of the doors, so she must be around somewhere. Or...maybe not. She could have slipped into the garage when I was loading Stella into the car and then walked right out into the outdoors when I opened the garage door. However she managed to get out, she was gone. She was nowhere in the house to be found.

I called the Humane Society. They took a report, asking me all about her. She's an orange tabby with patches of gray stripes. She has a lightning bolt black streak on her forehead. She's ten years old and she's spayed and declawed in the front paws, and, oh my God, she's been outside by herself for over a day and we live on the woodlands and anything could have gotten her and she would have no way to protect herself! Calm down, the woman told me. She said she had a cat by this description that was 11 years old. Eleven years, you say? And then I realized, The Cat is actually 11 years old. I'm so negligent I don't even know how old The Cat is anymore. No luck, though, that cat was a male. The woman on the phone told me to come by the shelter the next day to look at the cats there. The next day Stella and I spent 30 minutes looking at cats and kittens one by one. I'll bet we saw over a hundred. All of them were so sweet and needy. I reached out and pet some of them through their cage wires. I told each and every one of them that I wished I could take them with us and give them a home. But we didn't want a new cat, we wanted our cat. None of those cats was The Cat.

As I was leaving, I asked to see the report to make sure they had all of our information correct. They did. And then I asked them if there was anything else we could do to help her come home. The woman at the front desk said to put pieces of our clothing outside, clothing we had worn that was rich with each of our scents. With no other ways to turn, I decided to try this.

That night we all went to Grace's swim meet. We spent the whole meet wishing we could go home and search for The Cat. After the meet was over, we four rushed home to see if we could lure family member number five, the outcast. Grace ran to the basement and got some of our clothing from the laundry pile. My husband started walking around the backyard calling for her, shining a flashlight into the trees and bushes to see if he could see the reflection of her green eyes. Stella and I fixed yet another bowl of tuna fish to set on the back porch overnight. No luck. We couldn't find her.

After about an hour, we woefully looked out the sliding glass door into the backyard. The temperatures were dropping; could she survive out there for very long? We turned on the back porch light to see if there were any other critters around. There, right next to the door, sniffing our clothing, was The Cat. We quickly pulled her inside. She was fine, happy in fact. My husband snuggled her in his arms and asked her if she had had fun while she was out on her adventures. Then we all retreated for bed, relieved.

For the last couple days, The Cat has been sitting by the sliding glass doors in the afternoon, basking in the sun. A stray cat keeps coming around and taunting her through the glass. You can hear The Cat's hisses and screams through the whole house. She's protecting us and her domain. And all this while I thought I was protecting her. I'm wondering whether it would be wrong for me to put out tuna fish for the other cat and lace it with gasoline...

The Weekly Slug: 34 weeks, almost 35, but who's counting anymore because we're going to have a baby in not more than 11 days.

I thought I'd give you guys some fun stuff to savor since events have been a bit on the heavy side around here.

First, a picture that my husband took of me right before I was taken to triage at labor and delivery last Wednesday night.


I look terrific, don't I? Like it's really not 11 o'clock at night and that I'm contemplating a delivery at 34 weeks? Like I'm not sitting there having contraction after contraction thinking, 'hm, these are starting to hurt a bit'? You guys are too kind. Thank you for reassuring me that I look just fine.

That trip to the hospital did have one good effect. It woke us up to the reality that we were completely unprepared for a baby to come into the house. Or even into our lives. Here's a picture of every first-time dad's nightmare:


That car seat wasn't even out of the box last Wednesday night, much less in the car when we left for the hospital. I guess we figured that if the girl was born at 34 weeks, it was highly unlikely she'd leave the hospital right away with us. Still, the stroller has no wheels and we still really have no idea how to put the car seat in the car safely. I am POSITIVE that when Grace was a baby I was one of those 4 out of 5 people who had the car seat installed incorrectly. Positive.

I still don't have a bag packed for the hospital. For myself or for the Slug. Oh my.

One good thing about Papai going to Brazil just a few weeks before his Slug's birth is that he brought back gifts and gifts and gifts and, oh, did I mention? Some gifts. Here is one of my favorites.


This is from one of my sisters-in-law. It is one bottle of shampoo and one bottle of lotion specially formulated for both mommy and baby. They both smell amazing. She sells products from the entire line of this company. It is like a woman's dream-come-true to have someone in the family constantly supplying green-friendly beauty and health products. She is fabulous.

Even better as a dream-come-true is that I got these babies all prettied up this afternoon, while also having my feet scrubbed and massaged and pampered:


I can't keep my toes from looking like little sausages skewered onto the end of a pot roast, but I can at least get them to be cute. And feel cute. I cannot tell you how amazing of a treat this was. I haven't been able to reach my feet for weeks now, consequently my podiatric hygiene and care has been less than acceptable. Given that I only wear flip-flops now, it was grossing me out a lot that everyone could see them. So I got myself to the mall, went to one of those nail-only places, made good use of the back massager in the treatment chair and relaxed for about an hour. At the very least, by the time this picture was taken my ankle bones were showing a bit. That's a distinct improvement over their normal appearance of late.

And now for my confessions of guilty pleasures. The entire bottom drawers of my nightstand is filled with my stash. Witness it in all its decadent glory:


I wish I could tell you that this is just a symptom of pregnancy but alas, I am a big wimp when it comes to resisting sweets. So there you go. The caramels were just purchased last night on a distinct pregnancy craving. The juicy fruit is going with us to the hospital. When I get around to packing a bag. Assuming that is before the Slug is actually born.

Enough for now about the Slug. I've been neglecting discussion of Grace. Also of The Cat. They will get some good dedicated posts soon. Because they are both pretty awesome.

A bit melancholy

I'll tell you friends, it's been a long week. A lot of things that have gone on are things that would normally have sent me spinning and carping, but right now these are causing me just to have a short temper with people and write them off, tell them to grow up and get a real problem.

My father-in-law is dying.

We've spent the last 2-3 days trying to get a reasonably priced fare between Michigan and Brazil for my husband, while both of us deal with the oscillating emotions of whether he should go while I'm this close to delivery. But the truth is, if he doesn't go, he'll miss it all, whatever "it" is, that is. Holding his father's hand while he's doped up on morphine and comatose, holding a sister while she cries, getting to attend a funeral, who knows.

And so it is that I find myself before 6a in the morning, unable to sleep any longer despite the first persistent migraine in two months accompanied by severe pelvic pain and one reluctant dose of vicodin, watching the sun creep slowly into the horizon.

I'm realizing that dealing with all this is another way in which I have discovered how much I love my husband.

I want my daughter, the one that's not born yet, to at least be heard by her grandfather, even if that's only over the phone. But I'm afraid it's far too late for that.

The fender bender that happened to our car a couple weeks ago and the ensuing repairs that are taking over a week, that seems unimportant. That I repeated that fender bender almost perfectly with the other car two days ago also seemed like a dream, like it was life passing before me. Everything seems trite and banal. My sister's jealousy over my pregnancy, my ex-mother-in-law dissing me to Grace day by day, the cat suddenly staging a protest over using her litter box and using the carpet in the den instead...all this was really important a week ago. Today? Not so much so.

I'm wondering if being in the midst of clinical depression is making me more melancholy about the whole circumstance. But maybe it's also allowing me to be more in touch with my feelings and be more sensitive. Maybe it's making it possible for me to feel my emotions more accurately than if I was busily distracting myself with the normal overstimulation and hyperactivity I regularly feel.

We saw Grace at a swim meet yesterday afternoon. It was the first time she'd seen my husband since she learned of his father being ill. When she was done with her first event, she came to us and gave him a hug. It's the first time she's ever done this spontaneously, without someone telling her she should (like on Christmas after receiving a gift or sometime like that). The gesture was not unnoticed.

I suppose life is like this. You live, you experience, you feel, you learn. Somewhere along the way you realize, this is what living is. I guess right now I'm wishing that living didn't include the dying part, the dying of people around you and of yourself as well.

On this Mother's Day

I can't remember the last time I spent Mother's Day with my mother. My two sisters and I live in entirely different places geographically from one another and none of us closer than 1500 miles to our mother. So though she may travel to see one of us on Mother's Day, if we invite her, even if she did this every year, I'd only see her once every third year. This year, she's at home in Florida with my dad. On Wednesday, they will both come here and visit with us. For Mother's Day, I sent her a card, I'll make her a cake to be ready when she arrives, and I'll call her this afternoon. Yesterday she and I spent two hours talking on the phone.

She and I are like most mother-daughter pairs in our demographic. We drive each other a little crazy. We've said things to each other that were really mean throughout my life. I went through years where I decided I just would never ever like her, understand her, or have any kind of meaningful relationship with her. But in the last couple years, I decided to revisit all that. She's a likeable person, even in the midst of things she does that drive me crazy. So despite the things that I could say negatively about our relationship or about her personally, I think I have to dwell on the positive.

Why? Because she's my mother.

The best stories I could tell you about my mother are the things she does in private when she's not "on" for the public. It's those moments behind the scenes, when the perfect hostess fudges details while saying things like, "oh, shit. Well, I'm sure they'll never be able to tell." I'm sure Martha Stewart has these moments too, but not when the cameras are rolling.

Yesterday we talked about how all Muslims are liars and agents of Satan, President Obama is not a Christian and has never done anything remotely reminiscent of what a Christian would do, that Rick Warren is a wolf in sheep's clothing because now he endorses gay marriage (he actually doesn't), and that most assuredly the United States will fall as the most powerful nation on earth and Armageddon will undoubtedly ensue. We also talked about a new book she's discovered, The Element, that she's giving to every one of her children, how she's wondering how my sister's kids will fair at Catholic school next year after being exclusively home-schooled for five years, and how she thinks babies shouldn't share a bed with their parents. Ever. And they definitely should move out of their parents' bedroom quickly as soon as they can pull themselves up because they might wake up and see things. And we talked about a cute blanket she wants to make for our new baby. She also asked me to explain how our baby will figure out that everything has two names and which name she should use (like, how does she figure out that the cat is "that cat" and "o gato" and that those are the same thing).

I like her because I can talk to her for two hours and she doesn't get bored or boring. I know I do things and say things that make her crazy. So I can put to the side the things she does and says that make me crazy.

Happy Mother's Day, all.

Cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...

Back to the cat. She still is the best cat ever. No, really, she is. She is the best. She is cute and little (less than 8 pounds), and always up for playing. She follows us humans around the house and doesn't like to be left alone. At night we close the bedroom doors and she sleeps in the hallway, but if we sleep in too late, she reliably comes to the doors and starts bumping them with her head. She's not too rude; she bumps a few times, then stops. A few minutes later, she'll bump again. If you calls out her name in a stern voice, she'll stop...and come back bumping about an hour later. She even learned how to knock on the doors. Think I'm kidding? She really figured out how to knock at a door. She slides her front paw under the door, scoots her hind legs under her belly for support, then uses her wrist to 'knock' on the door. She was so stealthy about it, it took us years to even figure out how she was managing to do it. I'm sure this isn't an innate instinct of cats, so I am impressed with her continued ability to adapt to her surroundings and survive.

She is more than 10 years old now. She has a heart murmur. It's getting louder. If we never took her to the vet, we'd never know anything was wrong with her. She's active, she plays, she eats normally, she's a pest when she wants to be. But a slowdown in her activity? Signs of cardiac distress? Nowhere to be seen.

Back in November, the veterinarian strongly suggested we have a cardiac ultrasound done to determine the nature of her worsening heart murmur. Price tag? $275. And note -- that's just to find out what's wrong with her. The treatment prescribed to correct the problem after that is a whole other ball of wax altogether. $275? That seems high. My ultrasounds are only $500, and that's just because we're in the United States. In Brazil they came to the hearty total of....$62. And no, that's no because of a currency exchange difference. The equivalent of $62 in Brazil buys about the same thing it would in the US. (I know, it's sick that I know the going rate for ultrasounds not only in the US but abroad, but when you have 10-15 a year, you get to know this kind of stuff.)

So $275 for an ultrasound for a cat? This seems steep.

Nonetheless, we scheduled it for the first week of January. And then...I found out I was pregnant. I thought, I can't work expenses like this into our budget! And what the heck, an ultrasound for a cat?!?!?? Like, did this even exist ten years ago? Is it really necessary for her to have an ultrasound? She's not showing one single sign of cardiac impairment, yet I'm going to pile her into her kennel, freak her out and drive across town to the Rolls Royce of cat veterinarians, listen to her squall in panic as they prep her for the exam, deal with the side effects of the necessary sedative, and then fork out $275 to find out...what? That she's got a heart murmur that isn't causing her any symptoms?

Let me back up. One of my good friends told me she's not the one to ask about this. She paid $150 to have the veterinarian cremate her daughter's guinea pig. Out of respect for her daughter's love for the guinea pig. And I just found the blog of Scout's Honor at United States of Motherhood, where she talks about how they are lamenting the horrible loss of their beloved dog Grendel and how they can't not ask the vet to do a $1000+ surgery to extend her life possibly one more year despite the her inevitable passing due to metastasized cancer. So in light of these stories, I just feel like a slug (no, not that kind of slug, the slimy kind you find in your garden and consider a pest) even to consider the possibility of skipping the cardiac ultrasound for our dear cat.

I talked to the vet. She was not happy with me, I could tell. I asked her, is my cat any worse off if we wait to have the ultrasound and start treatment for whatever problem she has until she actually shows symptoms of cardiac impairment? She said, possibly. I explained to her that the price tag was high, and though we loved our cat very much and cared for her well-being, we didn't see any evidence that she was suffering at this time. The vet said, you can't be sure; she might be suffering and you can't tell because she's hiding it.

Oh, the guilt. The guilt.

Maybe, if you'll recall, maybe I was hasty in deciding against the ultrasound because I was in euphoria over finding out I was pregnant. If you'll recall, the news of the recommended ultrasound coincided with the vet's recommendation to not adopt a new kitten. And it hit be like a ton of bricks -- I just want to have a big family, add to it, and make it feel warm and full. Not only am I dealing with infertility, now I find out that I can't adopt a kitten and that the cat I have may be dying. What's next, my only child has some previously undetected congenital defect and she's gonna die too? It was really a blow. All I could think about was, save the cat. Keep the cat. Do anything we can to help the cat. Then I find out I'm pregnant, and all of a sudden, the cat's medical problems don't seem to be quite as threatening as they were just a few short weeks earlier.

Callous? Fickle? Uncompassionate? I've considered that I am all of these.

What would you do if you were me?

Children and divorce, a.k.a., "a post I have been avoiding"

I conducted a poll here months ago and the results have just been hanging over there on the lefthand sidebar ever since. The brief question: "Do you think that the negative effects divorce has on children should cause a parent to decide against divorce?" I've been avoiding discussing the results in a post because it's a dicey issue, one that touches upon a topic near to my heart -- that is, the balance every parent faces of what is best for them and what is best for their children. We know the two are not always the same thing, especially in the case of separation and divorce.

When I was newly divorced and a friend would come to me saying their spouse was cheating on them or being rude to them or just plain being a jerk, without thinking twice I would say, "Get out, it's not worth it. Get out now while you can." Very quickly, though, I came to realize that separation and divorce, and the lack thereof, is never the same story twice.

Friends, family, neighbors, passersby, when you're getting divorced everyone has an opinion. When I was getting divorced, the comments I got can largely be summarized in one of two statements: (1) "What a jerk, leave him now" and (2) "Wow, this is unlike anything I've ever seen or heard of." The first is because despite my ex-husband giving the appearance of the doting father and loving husband, he was, in fact, living a double life. He played like he was in love with me...and then went out to the strip clubs and picked up women for one night stands. That wasn't all. Apparently he had also had about 10+ relationships during our short 8 year marriage. In order to explain frequent absences, he would use the excuse that he was needed in an emergency on-call situation, since he is a social worker with mental health patients. So when people found out about the massive extent of his lying, they were shocked, and very supportive of my wanting him to move out. The second comment came largely out of the speed with which the whole thing came down. On Friday night, I thought everything was normal and my then-husband left to go out with friends for the night. By Monday morning at 2a I told him I wanted him never to sleep at the house again and that I wanted a divorce. Really. That fast. It was shocking to me, and to everyone else too. But the choice seemed straight-forward to me, and I never considered doing otherwise once enough of the facts were in.

But...there's more. See, it wasn't like the marriage was just two people. There was a little girl involved, one who had just turned 8. And one who, like her mother, had no clue that anything was amiss in her family. Her family did things together and sometimes daddy had to be away for work. And daddy had lots of friends, men and women, close friends who were very familiar, who she knew and met. Nothing seemed strange, and it definitely didn't seem to her like everything she knew about her family was about to get blown up into pieces.

Within a couple weeks of us telling her we were separating and divorcing, she saw a family counselor with me. When asked who was in her family, she drew a picture of herself, me and the cat. She came home and drew the same picture for me with markers and colored pencils on handmade paper, which she wanted displayed in the living room. Within a few more weeks, she was acting out in anger. Then I said I wanted for her to see her own counselor to work through the situation. And that she did, every Saturday for a year, at $150 a pop.

My ex-husband's parents, at the time of the brief separation before I filed for divorce, had one conversation with me over the phone. They said they knew everything that was going on and were praying for a miracle. A few months later, my ex-father-in-law told me over the phone, with the disclaimer that it would probably be difficult for me to hear at that point, that Grace would grow through the experience of having her parents divorce and would be a better person as a result. After the divorce was final, I heard secondhand that the in-laws had said I was unforgiving, that I had kicked my ex-husband out despite his enormous devotion to our daughter and his willingness to want to work things out, and that he (not I) was having to work overtime to make sure our daughter was doing well. (There was no mention that he might have done anything wrong.)

I didn't pause then. I was still angry as hell and thinking, how could anyone not see that I am right in this situation and did nothing wrong? How dare anyone suggest that I messed up things for my daughter and that I am the one to blame for her difficulties emotionally!

It was only years later that it occurred to me, I never considered Grace's feelings in a deep way. My thoughts at the time were, take care of me, pull her under me, and deal with her emotional reaction to the situation afterward.

Hindsight is 20/20, so they say. I can look back now and breathe a sigh of relief that I ended the relationship and got divorced and got on with my life as soon as I did. Despite this, I wish that I had been superwoman. I wish I could have given Grace exactly what she needed at that time and not for a moment let my own hurt in the situation interfere with what I told her. I didn't bash her father, or speak rudely of him, or tell her any of the wrong things that he was doing. I didn't yell at him or talk about him on the phone or in the house when she was within earshot. Still. I didn't defend her father. I didn't say anything when she said she missed him. And I definitely didn't want to hear word one about his girlfriend. I just thought, if I leave well enough alone and just let events unfold, she'll come to realize I was right and he was wrong and she'll want to be with me and love me and enjoy all her time with me and she'll realize that he's not worthy and that I am the one who really takes care of her.

Um, right. She was 8 at the time. The truth of the matter is that almost seven years later, she desperately wants intimacy with her father and has a real fear that if she doesn't call him to ask when she'll see him next, she may never see him again. She has no sense that anyone was wrong or right, she just wants everyone to get along and put the past behind them.

So that being said, let's examine the poll. 18 people surveyed, top four answers are on the board. Here comes the question: Do you think that the negative effects divorce has on children should cause a parent to decide against divorce?

Number 1 answer:
"No, because children are worse off living in a household with two adults who are unhappy than they would be having parents who are not together."

50 points to the team that guessed that.

Number 2 answer
"Yes, but not if the children are in danger. If one adult is abusive, the other parent should {move out, separate, divorce} and bring the children with them at all costs."

I see the number 2 answer as the same as number 1, just a difference of degree. If the parent is unhappy, the kids' come first, but if the unhappiness extends to physical danger to the children, then the unhappy parent gets to get out. See how it's a matter of degree? I'm not downplaying abuse or physical danger here -- of course I think a parent should leave with the kids if there's an abusive situation. I'm just saying, if the marital relationship is falling apart and the kids are subjected to that, half of you think that's "danger" enough to justify ending the marriage without any further discussion of what's good for the kids.

Only two other answers, one vote each. Polar opposites of one another:

"No, because I think divorce is wrong."

and

"No, because adults have a right to make whatever decision is best for them."

The first, I can only guess one must hold some other value that goes along with this. Like, only marry after a 10-year courtship and you know the person inside and out. Or, never have children. Or, never get married. Or, you're a member of a religious sect, your spouse is too, and your whole life revolved around this religion since the moment you met, and there is no situation the god of this religion can't handle and you will be damned for eternity if you even consider divorcing. If you voted this way, lemme know what's on your mind.

The second? I can explain perfectly. That was my vote. And I think it's what I did. I have spent the last 5+ years of my life building a relationship with my husband that I hope never puts me in the situation of having to make a decision on this question again. I do want to defend the answer a bit, though. There's nothing about doing what you think is right for you as a parent that means you don't care about your children or that you're not looking out for their good. I interpret it to be something like, I have to take care of me and make myself healthy, and only then am I able to take of those under my watch. If I am sacrificing my own good too much, I am doing no one any good.

The next time I put a poll on this site, I'm going to think twice before putting up such a weighty topic.

A Bubblewench Exclusive: Up close and personal with the author of Comparative Childhood

In case you've just tuned in, or in case you're a long time reader who has more questions about all I write here...

Bubblewench of The Blogs of Life has interviewed me at a very special setting, here at my blog. Imagine that the two of us are sitting in big, deep garnet chairs with lots of throw pillows and a plush rug under our feet. There is a roaring fire in the background (oh yes, warmth) and we look stylish, well-coiffed and completely relaxed, poised with glasses of merlot. She has the interviewing talent of Barbara Walters, I tell you, and I, the ability to charm like Angelina Jolie. Between good-hearted laughs, we have the following conversation...

Bubblewench:
When you recently merged households you talked about all the duplicate things. Was there anything neither of you had that you had to go get? Like no one had a slotted spatula?

Heather:

Oh, with all we have gone through to get everything in one house, I wouldn't begin to imagine that there were things we didn't have! My husband and I, along with my daughter, finally moved into one household together after almost four years of marriage. We maintained two households in two states for more than three years of marriage, waiting to find a home that would be ours together. And that would hold all of our stuff.

So, what did we not have? Surprisingly MANY things. A funnel. A milk frother.

Yes, the milk frother is so we can make cappuccino by using an Italian espresso pot and then adding the milk after instead of having to make the espresso in an American-style pressurized machine.

(snickers heard off-camera)

Are your cameramen laughing at me, Bubblewench?

A queen size bed. A bed frame. We've been living in places that are limited on space, so a queen size bed never made it into our lives. But now we have the space for it and, ah, um, well. My husband is tall. And I kick a lot in my sleep. So we don't have a queen size bed even though we do have four beds.

A couch. We have four love seats and no couch. This goes back to that thing about small houses. We just didn't have the square footage to commit to a full size couch. So right now at our house no one curls up on a couch for a nap unless they are small. Like the cat.

Bubblewench:
Did you ever let Grace see Sweeney Todd, the movie? And how did she like the stage version?

Heather:

(laughing with a slight lilt of embarrassment in her tone)

No, haha, I never let Grace see the movie. I'm traditional like that, you know? It's rated R, and she's only 14, and I just don't want her getting the idea that it's ok to see rated R movies. I also heard it was pretty bloody.

She watched the stage version of the musical on DVD and she liked it a lot. She also got the soundtrack from the musical and listened to it. (you know, I like that Johnny Depp, but he cannot sing! I am so surprised!) But her enamorment with Sweeney Todd stopped pretty soon thereafter. I think she thought it was kind of depressing, you know? She went to the library and checked out a bunch of other Broadway musical CDs -- You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, Grease, and Little Shop of Horrors. I guess she likes more upbeat kind of themes. With some comedy.

Bubblewench:
Living in Michigan, is it true you have to have a whole room full of long johns, sweaters, gloves, hats, scarves and all sorts of winter gear? Do you have snowshoes?

Heather:

Well, now, come on! Bubblewench, I know you're way down there south of the Mason-Dixon, but Michigan isn't a foreign country where it seems like you sorta suggested! It seems like, wow, how could you be in touch with the rest of Washington DC when you're...

oh, wait. That was inappropriate. I'm sorry. That was just me channelling my inner VP-hopeful.

OK, now that we have a house, we really do have a mudroom. I never thought I'd say that! It seems so Martha Stewertish! Still, we do. All the snowshoes stay there through the winter. That is, if what you mean by snowshoes is just shoes for the snow, not those eskimo things made of wood that you see in movies about sledding and hunting like Iron Will. Right now there're probably about 8 pairs of snowshoes in the mudroom even though there are only 3 of us living in the house. I really like that mudroom, you know?

As for me, I have two pair of snowshoes, my L.L. Bean gumshoes and an old pair of Rockports that are falling apart.

We don't have a room for all the gear. Every closet and dresser serves as that. Oh, but I do have something I swear by as a Michigander: silk long underwear. If you ever find yourself in a cold climate and need to layer, get some. I have at least 5-6 pairs of bottoms and 8-10 tops. On top of that and the rest of my clothes, I do like to have matching hat/scarf/gloves sets. Of several colors. I mean, you can't wear black gloves with a brown coat. And you can't wear a black coat with black gloves/hat/scarf with a brown outfit, or a blue outfit, or a green outfit...

Bubblewench:
I heard a rumor that you are a conservative. I also heard a rumor that you secretly dress up as wonder women when no one is around and also think you have an invisible jet. Are these true?

Heather:

Ah, well, um. Am I a political conservative. Hm. I always think I'm more conservative than I should be. I was raised in a very conservative climate, you know, right in the heart of the religious right, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy and the whole National Day of Prayer, overturn Roe v. Wade, true-love-waits crowd. It was somewhat nice to be in a culture where everyone agreed on everything and every issue was black and white. You never really had to think about anything too deeply in that world.

I voted for a democrat for the first time in 1990, but I think it was more of an act of adult independence than it was an informed choice. I'll confess, my move from the right to the left came fairly recently. I lived in Texas in 1998 and I...oh, I can't believe I'm going to tell you people this...I voted for George W. Bush for his re-election as governor. I'm ashamed to say that I can't even remember if I voted in the first election when he beat Ann Richards in 1994. I think I may have voted though, and in some Christmas tree method, because I didn't know much about the candidates. Ann Richards scared me a little. She was like no other woman I had ever encountered. Maybe the bad things that the politically conservative Christians I knew had said about her were true. In the 2000 presidential election, after I pretty much left the church, I voted for Nader. I was of the mindset that the effect of having Gore or Bush in the White House wouldn't matter. Nothing in Washington ever changes what really happens on a day to day basis. I was very typical of my Gen X demographic. Both major candidates were white, men, rich, born into families of power and influence, named after a father who was in office in Washington, southern, Ivy League educated...could they really relate to ME? I mean, did anything these guys stand for set them apart from each other? So I voted for Nader. I think the Dubya years have pushed me way to the left. Right has become insanely illogical. Do I think the same might happen if the left got too much power? Hell, yes.

(takes a sip of wine slowly, then rests it back down on a table close by)

So to answer the question: I am a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. And I think bipartisan politics is bad for a government. I kinda fit in with my cohorts of the same generation in saying, couldn't government work to make good rather than making war (figurative or literal)? People like Coulter and Huckabee and Palin make me crazy; they are way too divisive.

Bubblewench:
Wonder Woman. You darted the Wonder Woman question.

Heather:

Oh, did I?

(smiles)

That Linda Carter, she was something, wasn't she? Who didn't want to be that woman when she was growing up? There are rumors that I dress up like Wonder Woman when I think no one is around? And that I think I have an invisible jet?

Look, if I do have an invisible jet, and I'm not saying I do, let's just say it's getting good fuel mileage and has low carbon emissions. OK? 'Cause otherwise the Legion of Doom would be able to detect me within four seconds after takeoff, duh!

Bubblewench:
Are there any shows on TV you watch regularly?

Heather:

Oh, wow. What a great question! It reveals a kind of quirky part of my daily life, though! Yes, there are shows I watch regularly, but I don't watch them on TV. The truth of the matter is that we just got cable for the first time a few months ago. It was mega-powerful DVR first with over 400 channels, then less powerful DVR with 100+ stations. Now it's a satellite, and we still have a lot of stations and the machine does all kinds of things I am ignorant of. Every time I try to change the channel, I screw something up. I'm so embarrassed about it that instead of asking for help, I just slink away until Grace comes and fixes it.

I watch TV shows online. Every week I watch some of the broadcasts of The View, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I know, I'm a news junky and I love hearing about current events! These three shows mix it up with just enough smart wittiness and comedy to keep me laughing.

But while we're on the topic, there are so many show out there that I have never watched and have absolutely no desire to ever see. It's all these shows that have a saga like quality to them, and lots of drama. Lost, Heroes, 24, The Sopranos, Big Love. I can do without them all. There's just something about the ongoing drama that doesn't appeal to me. There's also the chick shows, like Gilmore Girls, Sex in the City, and Desperate Housewives. I'm not turned on by these either. I rarely go to the movie theatre or watch a movie at home because so infrequently is there one that I think is worth two hours of my time. I like movies that have a subtle message, one you have to find in the midst of an exciting plot. Like Jumanji or Forever Young. Or one that just gets you on every level of your soul, like The Notebook.

(they both nod knowingly and the cameras pull away to show that their conversation continues...)

(lights fade to fireplace only, and then out of focus to....black)

Thank you, Bubblewench, for a great interview!

The cat is freezing. So are we.

It's -1 degree outside. Fahrenheit. No, really. It is. That's like, negative a million on the celsius scale, right? It doesn't matter. It is cold, really cold, bone-chilling cold, WAY TOO COLD FOR A GIRL FROM THE TROPICS.

This is what our cat has taken to doing in order to keep warm:


I really can't blame her. I myself, while standing next to the stove to keep warm, turned on one of the front gas burners just to warm my hands over it. Screw the power bill, I can't take this.

The cat is apparently prepared for earthquakes too:


Either that or she's figured out that this position in the house is directly over the furnace in the basement. If I spent all my time of the floor, maybe I'd realize this portion of the floor is warmer than any other too.

In the meantime, I'm rethinking that philanthropic blanket donation.

I am not regretting my decision to go to Florida now. Funny, that.

Home

We successfully packed, moved, and unloaded most of our household in 48 hours. I feel emotionally relieved. The whole thing happened with very little incident.

• The cat got lost and was found. She spent about 24 hours in the heating ventilation. She's fine now, but was very gray for about 2 days.
• One bottle of hot sesame seed oil shattered in a box full of spices and oils. Many spice bottles were slimed. But nothing was seriously damaged, including the books that were in the box below.
• The heat in the master bedroom is not as effective as we would like. The first night we felt like we were camping. The second night it got a little better. Hopefully it will keep improving.
• Thanksgiving dinner will be catered by the ever reliable and tasty Honey Baked Ham. Thank god.
• The Christmas wreath is on the front door. It seems to make the house feel cheery.

Home at last.

Kittens, cats, cardiac ultrasound, and hope

I spent an hour at the vet's office with the cat. When I left I called the kitten foster mother and told her we would need to cancel our appointment with her. We are not ready to adopt.

The cat has a heart murmur. It showed up a few years ago when she was 7 years old. Never before heard, and then bam! Heart murmur. I thought it was no big deal.

This morning the veterinarian rated it 4 on a scale of 6. She said it was very loud and recommended, if we could afford it, cardiac ultrasound. I scheduled an appointment for six weeks from now, our first chance to do the test locally.

The vet explained it to me in this way. There are many explanations for heart murmurs, and depending on what the cause is will greatly affect what a treatment should be. All indicators point to this not being a congenital defect, but rather a worsening condition where the heart muscle is thickening. Over time the muscle will thicken so much that the amount of blood the heart is able to pump to the rest of the body will be greatly decreased. And that, of course, is bad. If this is the situation with our cat, she would need to take medication for the rest of her life that would allow the heart muscle to relax more. This in turn would allow the heart to pump adequate amounts of blood throughout the cat's whole body for her to live a normal life.

The vet said, don't stress her out by adopting a kitten. Find out what's going on with her heart first and then reconsider the kitten adoption.

I've been wanting to add a new cat to the family for awhile. Actually, I've been wanting to add a new member to the family for awhile. Since I haven't been able to make that new member a human baby yet, I've been distracting myself by thinking about a cat baby. And now I find that instead of adding a member, I might be losing a member. I know, she's a cat. Cats live short lives, relative to humans. You adopt a cat knowing that you will outlive her. But I had gotten used to the assumption that she was a healthy cat of 10 years and would live another 10 more. And the defeat of once again facing disappointment in building our family makes me sad.

That's it.

Halfway through

Alright, I was really nervous about doing this "post every day" thing for NaBloPoMo. I really don't like being under pressure to say something thoughtful and kind. I'm actually quite shocked that for the first 14 days of this month have actually included decent postings. I'm not sure about the next two weeks. It just feels like a lot to do! I'm buying a house next week, moving, and then there's Thanksgiving. Somewhere in there we want to adopt a kitten. Am I going to be able to keep up with this?

And I don't even consider this as a post that "counts."

This morning the cat has to go to the vet for an annual visit and then I'm off to visit 11 kittens at a foster home. The foster mother suggested letting our cat "pick out" the kitten she wants. I hadn't thought of THAT before. As usual I feel somewhat inexperienced at what I'm getting into. At least I'll get to see some cuddly lovey things.

More later...

A deep longing for cuddly things

I wrote two days ago that I developed some of my love of cats with a childhood friend whose cat had two litters of kittens. They would stay in a bedroom closet until they were old enough for their eyes to open. For me as a kid, there was nothing more amazing to me than to see those little blind kittens fall asleep in my hands and feel their relaxed respiration. What an amazing display of calm trust. And simple life. One of grandmothers has a special affection for cats too. She passed it to me. Even though I wasn't allowed to have a cat at home, she would send me pictures of cats and kittens from magazines, and every little decoration she saw that had a cat on it, she would send it to me. Pencils, notepads, little placards for my bedroom wall, embroidered pillows from the thrift store, you name it. I couldn't wait to grow up and get my own cat.

I have been wanting to adopt a kitten for the last few months. It's not that I don't get enough love and attention from my dear cat. She is unbelievably wonderful. Here is a sample picture of her from this fall.


She is the sweetest most wonderful cat you can imagine. She just had her 10th birthday a few days ago. Ten years old. When I found her, she was four-months-old, a little 3 lb ball in a wee cubby hole in what the shelter called the kitten corral with the remaining two siblings from her litter. I came to pick out a birthday gift for Grace, a gift for my five-year-old. Grace wanted an orange cat more than anything in the world. And so it came to pass that I found the cat. She's not exactly orange, more like a cross between a gray striped tabby and an orange and white tabby. But nonetheless, she was the only orange one in the kitten corral that day, so I asked to hold her. I cradled her like a baby and she immediately nestled into my chest, closed her eyes and started purring. That pretty much defines her personality. Very cuddly, very calm, always wanting to be intimate with a person she trusts.

Well, 10 years have passed since then. She's lived in three different states and survived ear mites and a heart murmur and a few not very attentive owners (us). But she is patient and forgiving and endlessly affectionate. We have come to understand that we may never find another like her as long as we live.

Lately it has come to my attention that if I hold on to the cat I have and wait for her to die, not only will I be devastated by the loss, I will never feel like another cat will do. The solution? Get another one now. The new kitten will bring out the cat's nurturing instinct, will spur her on to be active in her older age, and will be well integrated into our family at the time that our dear old cat's time on this earth is over. So the task has become to find a kitten whose disposition is suitable to the cat's and will blend with her well.

A few weeks ago I saw a picture of this sweetie on craigslist.


I took that picture. She was being fostered by a local no-kill shelter going by the name of Pearl. She is cute, no? I fell in love. I emailed the poster and asked if I could come see her at Petco the following Saturday. When I got there that morning, I held her and played with her for 45 minutes. I told them that there was no way I could adopt her that day; we're living in an apartment with a one pet limit and we weren't moving into our new house (hopefully) for another 6 weeks. They warned me, she will be adopted before then. But still, I just kept playing with her and hoping. She even looked like our cat with her mixed tabby stripes and splotches of color.

Alas, I got an email before the day was out that she had been adopted. Sigh.

Every couple days I comb through the listings on craigslist and freecycle. (Yes, one of my local freecycle lists allows free pet postings.) I spent weeks looking for the right kitten ten years ago. Now I want to find her perfect daughter. And I want to make sure that the daughter likes to cuddle with me as much as the cat does.

Happy Halloween

My best buddy when I was a kid was Derek. Derek lived down one street, around the corner, and four houses down on the right. He lived with his older sister Lori and his mom.

From birth to age 5 we spent almost every day together. We climbed trees, we played games, we went swimming together. His family always had cats, and it was at Derek's house that I saw newborn kittens for the first time. I loved going to his house and playing with the cats. Derek's house was one of the places I developed my love for cats. Derek's birthday and mine were only three weeks apart and until we both started having sleepover birthday parties, we made sure we were at the other's party. For most of those years, I was the only girl at his party and he the only boy at mine. But our mothers made sure we each felt welcome despite the gender imbalance, I always getting a special princess hat at his party and he getting a king crown at mine.


There was one event in the year that never was missed at Derek's house -- Halloween. Every year his mother planned the Halloween party to beat all Halloween parties. She dressed up like a witch and Derek and Lori devised equally ghoulish costumes and the three of them transformed their house into a mansion of terrors and screams. Spider webs clung to the walls, those cardboard post-ups of skeletons were on the doors and hanging from the dining room chandelier, and the lights were all dimmed while a haunted house album played continuously on their stereo system. They served good eats for kids, brownies and cookies, blood red Hawaiian punch (I think they added red food dye) and of course, lots and lots of candy. Lots of games, lots of gross games involving eggs and jello and creepy masks and dark rooms, as I recall. Every kid in the neighborhood came. There were so many of us, we were just squirming past each other, spilling out the back door onto the patio and into the backyard. So I went with both of my sisters and joined in every year.

One year Derek's family came up with the idea to transform their garage into a haunted house. It was simple enough; they put up some cardboard dividers to make a maze, played some creepy music and made the room almost pitch black. Derek hid under a table and rattled some chains and then Lori screamed and jumped out and grabbed you at the end. But I didn't know that beforehand. All I knew was that I was dressed up like a ballerina and Derek's-Mom-As-A-Witch told us all that we had to go through the haunted house alone before we could have our treats. One by one, each kid went in and I heard the screams and the scary music. When they emerged afterward they looked pale and relieved. I was standing with my sister Wendy. She had already gone through long before and was laughing again. I just remember thinking, I am not going in there. Almost everyone had gone through by the time I stood at the doorway. Wendy tried to reassure me that it was fine. I said I didn't want to go. I didn't care whether I wouldn't get snacks or if I had to go home, there was no way I was going through that haunted house.

I think it was at that point that Derek's mom realized there was no getting me over this. She said she would check out the haunted house to see how things were and then slipped through the garage door. She emerged a few seconds later and told me I could bring Wendy along. We went through the door and the music didn't sound so bad. Derek rattled his chains and then peeked out from under the table and smiled a big grin at me. Lori was less merciful and screamed loudly, then bared her bloody vampire teeth at me. I ran as fast as I could for the door, out of the Garage-Turned-Haunted-House-Of-Horrors, yanking Wendy behind me. When I burst through the door back into the light, Derek's mom was there in her witch costume smiling. She said she knew I would survive. The other kids (mostly boys) teased me and made fun of me for being a chicken, but I didn't care. And knowing my sister the way I do, she probably pulled them to the side and with a steely glare threatened to beat them up if they didn't knock it off.

Derek's mother remarried when we were about 9 or 10 years old and he gained two older step-siblings. We went to different schools and went our different ways. I hardly knew him by the time I graduated from high school. I have no idea where he is today. Derek's family and my family still live in the same neighborhood. All of us kids have long moved away and our parents became senior citizens together. My parents and Derek's kept a close relationship well on into the 21st century. Derek's mom and stepdad became successful realtors working together, smiling all day together. They could not have looked happier through their life together.

Derek's mom developed pancreatic cancer a few years ago and died within months. Her husband was devastated. They had about 25 years of marriage, built a blended family together with their four children, and then in what seemed like a blink of an eye, it was over. My dad and Derek's stepdad talked a few times and learned that it was a great and sorrowful loss for everyone in their family.

What a wonderful woman she was, always opening her home to me, always looking out for me, always making life a joy for her children and for the other children in the neighborhood. I was drawn to tears as soon as I heard the news, and am now again just thinking about her. I remember her in many ways, but the first memory I had of her upon hearing of her untimely death was of her compassion for me at that Halloween party and how she helped me get past my fear of the unknown without making me feel a fool for it.

Happy Halloween, everyone. I hope your night is full of fun, excitement, and memories to last a lifetime.

Feeling much better

Now that a month has passed since the last time I downloaded pictures from our camera, it has traveled to a water polo game with Grace and to Europe with the husband. In that duration of time I forgot that some other pictures were taken. I just managed to download them. In the collection is one good shot that gives me perspective of how much better I feel today than I did a month ago. So if you want to know what bedrest really looked like, here you go. Hope you enjoy.


At least the cat enjoyed it.