Fran's Ramblings

The power of comfort food

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. 

We slept in, did Lillian and I, and we slept until we were ready to get up.  It worked out nicely.  What a great day!

But what that meant was that by the time that I hit the sack last night, there was no way I was ready to sleep, which set up a whole 'nother night of insomnia.  Eh, it is what it is, right?

And we had a good day at work, Girls' Day, with Gretchen and Adele and me, enjoying Black Friday and having fun.  Tomorrow's going to be another fun, jammin' day with Janine and, I believe, Junior Bookseller, Rae Helmsworth. 

Of course there's a catch, there always is, isn't there?

It's shaping up to be a busy week next week, what with J. A. Jance signing her new book on Monday (which is the day before the on-sale date, but hey, we got connections!), and then Caitlin Kittredge signing on Tuesday.  I haven't read Caitlin's new one -- I'm working my way through Jasper Fforde's latest and it's different from the others -- but I know I'm gonna love Caitlin's.  I always do.

And it's the first of the month, which is always kind of a big deal.  Lots of paperwork, things like that.  Then too, it's coming to the end of the year. . .

Damn, I am SO not ready for that!  *sigh*

Then on Saturday next Andi Marquette is signing, and Joan Opyr's gonna be by, and well, we're gonna be busy.  Although Andi and Joan and Lillian and I are planning on going out to dinner, which will be a bona fide BLAST!

Oh, did I mention sci-fi superstar turned mystery novelist Greg Bear is gonna be in tomorrow to sign?  Fun and hectic.

Which is good, makes the time go by quickly, but here's the catch I was talking about.

One of my colleagues called today, and he's come down the the pee-new-monia.  He's gonna be fine, but he's in no shape to come to work, probably not for a while. 

And the boss's family has flown in from other parts of the country.  So that means that I'm gonna be at it for over a week again. 

But it'll be fun and fast.  However, because I didn't sleep well (at all) last night, by the time I got home today, I was tired.  Bone tired.

So I had comfort food for dinner, and Lillian just rubbed my back and nodded.  I reverted to the days when Lou and Ty and I had "munchie night" and I had food that I probably shouldn't have but it made me happy. 

And tomorrow?  Tomorrow I'll hit the ground running, leftover turkey for lunch, and all will be well.

But man, I do love the restorative powers of comfort food!

Thankfulness

On FaceBook, lots of people have been listing what they're thankful for, and that's pretty nice reading.  And I'm thankful for lots and lots of things.

But I gotta tell you, I'm really thankful that Lillian and I have been extraordinarily well behaved because payoff is here!

A little background so you understand just how deep the joy is.  For some of you this is rehashing and old news.  Get a cuppa something nice and skip to the new-to-you part.  Surely you've got something yummy, right?

Okay, Lillian's diabetic and I'm pre-diabetic. 

Most people think that just means we can't have refined sugar and candy, and that if we just have diet everything and sugar-free stuff, we'll be fine.  Au contraire, my friends.

I mean, that's true, yes, we should and we do and we're careful about our refined sugar intake.  But that's just a part of it. 

The other part of the equation, and the really, really, REALLY sucky part is carbs.  Carbs are sugar.  They're a different kind of sugar, but sugar they are and we have to be careful about those.  It's harder than you think

Stop to think about what has carbs. 

Bread, yeah, but it's bigger than that.  Anything made with flour, so no dumplings, no cookies, no cakes, no flour tortillas. 

And a lot of vegetables are starches and starches are carbs and carbs are what again, class?  You got it!

So that takes out most tuber vegetables.  Potatoes are worse, sugar-wise, than chocolate.  How's that for funky?  So no potatoes -- baked, fried, mashed, nothing. And, as I discovered one sunny afternoon, very few carrots, which have a hugely high sugar count.  As does sweet corn.  Well, it's sweet for a reason.

Okay, so that's' no refined sugar, very few carbs (ya gotta have some, your body needs 'em, but they've gotta be carefully regulated), and some veggies are not your friends.  Oh, and some fruits too, come to that. 

But we've been being good, and we've been working hard, and our overall blood tests are way better.  Our A1Cs have dropped dramatically, and we're MOST pleased.

Because it's Thanksgiving.  And you know what Thanksgiving is? 

Carb Central!

Think about it.

Okay, turkey with it's happy tryptophan, which we love!.  But with that comes stuffing/dressing (carbs?) and cranberry sauce (carbs and sugar), mashed potatoes and/or sweet potatoes (carbs) and sometimes there's a marshmallow component there (sugar on steroids).  There are dinner rolls.  We have a weakness for sweet gherkins and those are small, green carbs in pickle juice.

And pie.  Pumpkin.  With either ice cream or whipped cream. Or just on its jolly lonesome, if it's really good.  Although I do admit to a weakness for pecan pie too.

Oh, and a veggie besides potatoes.  I used to make corn. 

It was a nightmare of Mustn't Haves.  We were kinda dreading the whole thing.

But we got our bloodwork back and we're better.  Not healed.  I'm a ways away still, and I'll never be able to eat like I did when I was 20.  Lillian will always be diabetic, at least until they come up with a cure.

However.  Nonetheless.

We're better, and that means that we can be a little naughty.  Not outrageous, but for this one day, we can let our guards down a bit. Especially if we go for a good walk after, or hit the bike.  Exercise is also our friend.

So we've got turkey lined up, and a little stuffing.  A small bit of cranberry sauce.  No potatoes of any kind, but our vegetables are going to be broiled asparagus and grilled zucchini.  Two gherkins each.  Maybe.  Some black olives.  Celery with spinach/artichoke dip. 

And pumpkin pie.  Not a lot, but enough for us to feel like it's a regular Thanksgiving meal. 

There's a lot to be grateful for right now, friends, family, the things we're always aware of on one level or another. 

But in our house?  We're thankful for the ability to truly savor the food we've been graced with. 

I hope if you have the day off, that you enjoy it thoroughly.  If you have to work, I hope the time passes quickly and with laughter.  And I hope that this day sets the pattern for your days to come, filled with all those things you love, and just enough of the ones you don't so that you appreciate what you've got.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.

More incivilitiy

Back in September I talked about incivility, and I'm still appalled, but not on a national level this time.

This time it's personal.

Well, okay, not totally personal, but it's not political or religious.  And I hope to all the gods it's not national, but I have a sneaking suspicion it is.

What set me off today was the amount of indifference people have to their surroundings.  It's not just the ubiquitous litter that pervades the entire planet -- and have you SEEN the pictures of the huge garbage patch floating out in the middle of the Pacific?  Oh. My. Gods. It's literally an ISLAND! And bigger than the continental United States, if I'm reading that right! I can't help but wonder if there's a new form of life growing out there!

And it's not just that people are offended when you listen in on their cell phone conversations, even though they're shouting at the time. 

Don't get me started on the people who text and drive.  Just don't.

Or the people who spit, or heaven help us, blow their noses onto the sidewalk, although that's close.

No, what ticked me off today was the fact that people have seemingly forgotten how to flush.

I don't get it!

I walked into the restroom in our building, pushed open the door of the stall and there it was, someone's. . .leftovers.  Solid.  If you catch my drift.

And this is not the first time this has happened.  Someone in our building doesn't know how to flush the toilet, and I don't quite get how that happens.  Were they raised by wolves?  If that's the case, who taught them to take a dump in a porcelain bowl? 

Nope, not buying it.

Now I thought for a moment that perhaps someone thinks that our toilets are the automatically flushing kind, although if anyone has, oh I dunno, LOOKED at them, it's pretty obvious they aren't.  No sensors, no odd tanks, just an ordinary, traditional set-up.

And even if they did, even if it was one of the people who went to the hair salon next door and not one of my neighbors, don't you think that they'd notice that there hadn't been that splooshing sound by the time they finished washing their hands?

Oh please tell me they're washing their hands. . .

Or were they talking on the phone so they just forgot?  Because -- and this is truly disturbing -- people DO take their cell phones into the john and keep talking.  And maybe they don't want to flush because they don't want their BFFs to know where they were?  Or, more likely, didn't want to miss one second of the scintillating conversation they were having, which generally seems to consist of "Did not!  No way!  Dude!".  But even so, no flushing?

Excuse me? 

The fact that this has happened more than once just irritates me.  Why do people assume that it's someone else's job to come along and flush for them?  I know there are a lot of rich people in Seattle, and we have a lot of lawyers in our building, but damn.  Even they should be able to flush on their own.  No one I know has a personal valet who follows him or her around, flushing.

And I assure you, from the size of the deposit, this wasn't a kid who just forgot.  Oh my no.  

So that's my plea for today.  Let's bring back a little civility, shall we?  I'm not going to ask for the impossible like no littering.  Well, not today anyway.  But I'm going to ask that you pass the word to everyone you know.

FLUSH!

Thank you.

Twisting sideways

While I was driving around today, I was mentally composing this post, which was to be a "Dear Abby" letter to a friend voicing some concerns I've had.  But now that I'm here, it just sounds whiny and petulant, and while the concerns are still valid, somehow the "voice" I had while writing it just wasn't right.

I'm not a professional writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know when I'm not hitting the mark, and this was definitely it.

Some things are like that, aren't they?  It's not just writing, it's pretty much anything.  Sometimes things work out right, and then there are times when it doesn't matter quite what you do, it just slips sideways somehow and doesn't behave.

For example, on Saturday I knocked my lunch bowl off the counter.  It was unfortunate, and at least it wasn't as messy as it could have been, although it broke the bowl.  But from that point on, everything I touched, I dropped.  Knocked more things off, and some of them had the potential to be unpleasant, since SMB operates under the premise that little pieces of paper make the world go 'round.  So we have LOTS of pieces of paper!

No way around it, and in fact it was contagious and after a while Janine had the same affliction, although not nearly like I did.

Anyway, that's the way my writing went today.  If I was going for thoughtful, it came out petulant.  If I went for humor, it transmogrified itself into pedantic. 

And before this slips and twist and slides away, I'm signing off.  But I do hope you had a great Monday and a fabulous Tuesday.

If you took this week off, may I just say -- with all love and respect and honor -- ttthhhppppttt!!

This is not that day

Let me admit to my inner baby-geekdom.

There are times when I adore the Discovery channel and the History channel. 

There.  I said it.

For example, today I had the opportunity to watch Alien Resurrection, and I turned my back on Sigourney and Winona for "How the Earth was Made".  In my defense, of all the "Alien" movies, that's my second least favorite (the third was an absolute -- you'll pardon the pun, if you've seen the film -- DOG of a movie, and has no place ever on anyone's screen unless you're throwing popcorn), so it wasn't really a hardship.  Sigourney notwithstanding.  Sorry, Lil.

So I learned about seismic activity in Yellowstone and how the Great Lakes came to be, and I was thoroughly entertained and enlightened.  Do I remember all of it?  Hell no. But I know more than I did before, and that's a good thing.  I figure any day we learn something new, it's a good day.

I wasn't sure I was gonna be interested in the third segment, though, since I'm reasonably indifferent to Krakatoa, or Krakatau as I understand it's properly spelled by the folks who know.  But I was more interested in that than anything else on, so I stayed with it.

Okay, so I knew it was a volcano and it erupted in the not-too-distant past.  Not in my lifetime, but not too long ago as the world exists, so okay, interesting. 

(Krakatoa lithograph, 1888)

And I learned.  I learned that the eruption was the loudest natural sound ever recorded.  Ever. Recorded.  Wow.  It was heard over 2000 miles away.  Can you imagine?

Bodies washed up on the African shore up to a year later.  That's both amazing and more than a little disturbing.

Weather patterns were disturbed for up to five years after.

All in all, it was the most amazing volcanic display around for centuries.  So I was properly impressed. 

But what I didn't realize is that, not only is it still active, it's on the verge of erupting again.  I mean, really on the verge, not in some geological future, but any time now. 

Up here, we're watching Mount St. Helens, and we should, since it's doing the same sort of thing.  She's been spouting out some steam, her lava dome has been expanding, and there was a time last year when we went on Mt. St. Helens watch around here.

But even when she spouted off back in 1980, Mount St. Helens didn't do near the damage that Krakatoa did.

Now when Krakatoa blew, she took out her entire island, but she also had a baby, Anak Krakatau.  And Anak is growing at the rate of 5 inches a WEEK.  That's 22.3 FEET in a year!  That's incredibly fast by anyone's standards, but from a geologic standpoint? 

Well, you get the picture.

Now, to the best of my knowledge, no one is living on the three islands that comprise the Krakatau area, but they're a hop, skip and a jump away from Java and Sumatra, and if she blows, as it looks like she's getting ready to do, the problem isn't the immediate lava flow, although that'll suck.

It's the tsunamis and ash in the air.

And it's entirely possible that the ash blowing about from Anak Krakatau would blanket most of the earth, if it's anything like what Mama K did.

So I found myself wondering about people who live in areas where they know that  are likely to be overrun with lava at any moment.  I know there are people living near Mount St. Helens, and I was puzzled.  If you know things are going to be smashed, why stay?

Okay, obviously some folks can't leave.  I mean either physically or financially.  I do get that.  And there's the emotional attachment as well. 

But then I thought about it some more. 

I mean, here where we live, we drive past "tsunami evacuation route" signs as well as "volcano eruption route" signs all the time.  I'm one of the people I'm questioning.  And while I do want to move back to New Mexico (where there's a diminishing water table, so that makes NO sense), my reasons for wanting to go back have nothing to do with wanting to avoid being here if Mt. Ranier blows.  Or if a tsunami comes barreling in from some other explosion out on the Pacific Rim.

It occurs to me that we all live in a deliberate state of denial, and honestly, you have to or you'd never get out of bed. 

We all, subconciously or not, are right there with Aragorn when he says that the courage of men may fail, but this is not that day.  People will continue to build and rebuild despite horrific odds and in the face of the sure and certain knowledge that things are going to eventually fall apart.

Eventually.

But this is not that day.  And so we stay.

Talismans

Some time in the late '70's, I started wearing a silver band on the pinkie of my right hand.  No idea why, probably because I like silver jewelry and I found one that fit that finger. It was kind of unobtrusive and I liked it, so there it stayed.

I've had a silver band on that finger ever since.  That's about 30 years now. If I ever have to go into witness protection, that's one thing they're gonna tell me I have to change, and I'm not sure I'll be able to.

Such a small thing, really.

Obviously the ring has changed over the years.  I've worn through several, I'm reasonably sure I lost one.  I know I gave one away to someone as a sort of protection. 

I'm not entirely sure why it's become so important to me, but it has.  Weird, right?

Today I lost it.  I've lost weight, enough to have an impact on my fingers, and it slipped right off.  I've lost other rings this way -- I still miss the one that got away from my left thumb, and that's been three years now -- but they've never had quite the impact losing this ring had.

I even had one ring slip off while I was packing books, not the favored pinkie one, just a ring, and I didn't even notice.  Later on, when I did, I had no idea where it went, and I shrugged and moved on.  A week or so after that, we got a call from a customer in Texas wondering if there was a reason we'd sent him a silver ring (except for my wedding set, my rings have all been silver).  I was tickled he'd found it and he mailed it back up.  Such a nice guy.

And yeah, I could get another one, but this one is one Lillian and I found for me after my last one snapped.  It's thicker and it has "amore" written on it, and I love it.

Fortunately I found it, it fell off in my purse pocket, the one where I keep my bus pass, and I'm pleased that I did find it.  Inordinately so, considering it's just a silver band. 

I've deliberately taken off the ring on that finger a handful of times.  Like when I had my MRI.  You've gotta then.  And when I had surgery.  They insist, which I find unreasonable, but there ya go, they do, and since I had to have the operation, the ring had to go.  But as soon as I woke up, that was the first thing I put back on.

Same was true when I had Ty.  I thought having to take off my rings was nuts, but I was in so much pain, I let them have their way.  That ring was the first one back then, too.

Now, of course, it would be my wedding ring and the attendant engagement ring, but the silver one would be the third.  And then recovery could begin. 

I'm not entirely sure how this ring came to mean so much, but somehow I have it in my head that as long as I have it, everything will be fine.  When the last one snapped, I kept it with me until we replaced it.  I carried it in the little coin pocket thingie in my jeans, so I could touch it.

Anyway, I'm glad I've got it back.  I'll try to be more careful of it, since I really will be grembly and distraught if I lose it for good.  I'm not sure why that is, but I'm absolutely sure that it's true.

So then, do you have something similar?  Some small item that you can't do without, even though on the surface it seems silly?  I suspect I'm not alone in this particular quirk.

Have a lovely weekend, my dears! 

Sorry, my dears!

It's no secret I don't sleep much, but generally I can shrug it off, at least the first day, and just get on with things.  Not today.

I think it's partly because my sleeplessness wasn't caused by just ordinary insomnia but because my knee was bugging me.  It got hit yesterday, and while it's no big deal, the thump was in an inconvenient spot for sleeping.

No, I'm not explaining more than that.  Just was.

So I've muddled through the day, came home early, and now that we've eaten and seen the latest episode of Bones, it's bed time.  Not an ounce of inspiration to be had, I'm afraid.

So I leave you with this video.  Just be glad it didn't happen to you!

 

Expletives NOT deleted

First of all, let me warn you that there will be FOUL LANGUAGE in this post, and if you're easily shocked -- or just not in the mood -- consider this fair warning!

If you're looking for something gentler or funnier, you can go surf LOLCATS or LOLDOGS or motivational posters if you wish.  Here, however, I'm gonna be talking about cussing, and I will even participate. 

You've been warned!

So okay.

I'm reading Cornelia Read's new book, the advance of Invisible Boy, and I found myself in awe of how frequently her protagonist, Maddie, says "fuck".  Okay, if you click on that link and go to her webpage, you're going to think I'm making things up.  That's one of the prettiest pages around.  And doesn't she look like the sweetest person?

Okay, that part's true, she is.  But look at what she's wearing.  That black leather jacket should let you know that she's not all roses and antique lace and gentility.  She's got an edge.

If you've read her first books, you know what I'm talking about.  There's a reason Lee Child crossed publisher lines to take Cornelia around with him to introduce her to booksellers for her first book.  And he was right, she's completely fabulous.

But this isn't about Cornelia, much as it seems like it.  It's about how she made me think about my own history of invective.

Well, and she showed me this snow globe, which I still covet.

However, as I was saying, I was in awe at how often Maddie and her friends used the word "fuck".  Now I'll grant you, it's a great all-purpose word.  Like shit.  It can be used in most of the parts of speech.   

Noun -- I don't give a fuck. 

Verb -- It'll fuck up your day. 

Adjective -- You're a fucking moron. 

Adverb -- How fuckingly awsome!

Gerund -- Fucking up is his forte'.

It's a good, all-purpose word.  I certainly have used it on more than one occasion, and I will again.  It's a bit harder edged than "shit", but they can be used interchangeably, for the most part.

Still, I don't cuss as much as I used to, and I got to thinking back about it.  Cornelia's book, Invisible Boy, is set in the early 1990's.  Did I curse more then than now?  Hell yeah.  But not nearly like I did in the late 70's and through the 80's, when invective was a way of life. 

I found myself wondering if I cut loose then because I didn't cuss as a teenager.  I really didn't, not much.  I was far too repressed.  It wasn't until the freedom of college that I learned pithy phrases like "needle-dicked butt-fucker" and the irrepressible Carlinism "Mongolian cluster-fuck", which is still a favorite.  Could that man turn a phrase or what?

Okay, so some of his original seven aren't a big deal any more.  Nobody cares about "piss" and "tits", except in a personal way, naturally, and "shit" and "fuck" are pretty much standard fare now.  Unless you're lying or repressed.

And while "cocksucker" is still used, it doesn't get the general usage that "motherfucker" does.  But they do flow well together if you're on a rant, don't they?  Cocksuckingmotherfucker just flows off the tongue.

I tend not to use "cunt", but that's personal preference.  I just don't like it.

But one thing you've got to grant cussing is that it truly is non-sexist.  Nowadays people don't care what gender you are when they're calling you names.  A man can be a cunt, and a woman can be a prick.  It's equality at its very finest! 

And anyone can be a douche, although I bet if you asked the average kid on the street what a douche or douchebag is, he's not gonna know.  And when you tell him (you DO know, don't you?  I don't have to explain this to you, do I?), the chances are incredibly good that, at least at first, he's gonna be grossed out.  Which is kinda funny in its own way.

But aside from church, when was the last time you blinked when someone looked at someone else and said in disgust, "Oh bullshit".  Bet you didn't even blink twice.  In fact, I'll bet you were either analyzing what was said (was it, in fact, complete bullshit?) or you were framing your agreement or dissention. 

What you weren't doing is being offended by the word.  You were probably more upset if the argument was stupid.  I know I would be.

Now perhaps that comes from having a college costuming advisor who was a strong influence.  Marianne Fearn (who was trained by Theoni V. Aldredge, and if you don't know who she was, that's fine, but costumers do) was a class act.  Always in a dress, shirtwaist as often as not, flats or low heels, tortoisehell glasses, swear-to-gods pearls sometimes, she could've played Marian the Librarian, totally rocked my world one day when, as things spiralled out of control, looked at us and solemnly pronounced, "It is time to call on the patron saint of all costumers, St. Fuck A Duck."

I lost it.  I whooped.  And it worked.  We all laughed and attacked the problems again, and they lined themselves up and behaved.

Now I'll grant you, the whole reason she got such a strong reaction was because it was so very atypical.  She didn't cuss like a sailor, so when she did, it had impact.

But it also made her more approachable and human, and I didn't feel so bad when I crumpled up a flame-colored piece of chiffon and threw it across the room (and believe me, you have to be seriously pissed to get any distance with chiffon), and snarled, "Rotten motherfucking piece of useless shitty garbage."  She didn't frown or disapprove, just retrieved the garment, smoothed it out and waited until the next day to hand it back.

I did finally finish it, by the way.  And there was much cursing along the entire process.

Anyway, I don't cuss as much any more, and when I do, I'm as likely to use something Shakespearean as anything, although my current fave word is "piffle".

I know.  Shocking.  I did warn you. 

But given motivation and a certain head of steam, I can let loose like the old days. And I think that by the time I finish Invisible Boy, which will be soon -- it's an amazing book, I may be back in the fucking swing of things.

I mean shit.  Well hell.  Dammit, sometimes that's just how the fuck it goes, right?

 

 

Andi's other thought

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, guest blogger, Andi Marquette:

I taught anthropology and history at a community college for a brief stint during my scholar days. My anthropology courses (cultural anthropology) were pretty popular, which was encouraging and interesting, since I was teaching in rural parts of the South. I always made it very clear at the outset of every semester that I "didn't care what anybody's opinions were, and I didn't grade people on opinions."

But I DID care how well they backed their opinions up, and how well they presented their arguments. Basically, I said, have opinions. Don't believe everything people tell you. Do your own research. Learn which sources are trying to be fair, and which have an agenda. There's nothing wrong with an agenda, I said. But be aware when someone has one and when you do, too, and don't pretend that an agenda is objective.

So we'd start talking about religion and about the differences between religion and spirituality. At the beginning of the class, I'd have a map of the state on the wall (southern state X). I'd say: "Okay. How many roads do you see to [City X--the capital of the state]?"

And the students would study it and think about it and say that there were many possibilities for the route you could take to get to that city, depending on where you started, and what you were doing.

And I'd say: "So if there are many roads to a city, can we take that metaphor and suggest that there are many roads to God?"

Well, invariably, they'd all sit there, quiet for a moment, and then they'd nod and say that yes, this seemed reasonable, given all the religions in the world.

At this point, we'd then discuss the origins of beliefs and rituals, and why humans needed them and expressed themselves that way, and we'd talk about the different types of human societies and the patterns in the religion of those societies and by the end of the segment on religion, quite a few of the students would at least have assessed their own beliefs, and tried to put themselves into a wider context--something that I think is missing in many discussions that incorporate religion as a justification for a viewpoint.

Because many people don't think about the context in which a religion came to be, or that people developed it and developed its rules and rituals. They aren't able to see outside themselves, and to see the value or beauty, even, in disparate beliefs, and in those other roads to God (or whatever deity/forces one incorporates into one's worldview). They don't see the flaws in their own beliefs, or some of the hypocrisy in religious traditions.

And that is myopic, and doesn't bode well for sharing the love. Religion is the attempt to codify spirituality for larger and larger populations, and there are different characteristics to religious beliefs the more industrialized a society is.

That said, there's nothing inherently wrong with following a particular religious doctrine. Millions of people throughout history have found comfort and hope through various religions, and religious orders have helped millions more in moments of great need.

There IS something wrong, however, when you use that doctrine to denigrate and hurt others, whether emotionally or physically. As I told my students, that's just bad ju-ju. Anyway. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. And yes, when religion proves a vehicle for politics or vice-versa, people invariably end up getting screwed. And if anyone's interested in exploring, some anthropology of religion links: http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/419/419www.htm

peace out!

Thanks so much, Andi!  I now see where your protagonist, KC, gets a lot of her anthropological info.  Good stuff!

"It's just a cat"

I spent part of today talking to a friend whose cat passed away not too very long ago. 

Okay, backstory, just a bit.

When Lillian and I first got together down in Las Cruces, I mean got together as a couple (we'd been friends for years before), we bought a kitten together.  Jack is a really beautiful grey tabby, and he was a pistol.  A true handful.  We got him fixed and spent all kinds of quality time with him.

And Valerie walked into the house to visit, and suddenly we didn't have a kitten any more.  He leaped -- quite literally leaped -- into her arms, took a swipe at us, and refused to budge.  He was hers, through and through.

Then too, we were moving up here to the Pacific Northwest, and Lillian had an older cat, Tiger, the perfect cuddle kitty, and we knew Tiger wouldn't make the transition up here well, especially with two dogs he'd never met.  So we introduced Valerie to Tiger, and the rest was history.  She had two beautiful cats.

Now she just has Jack.

It wasn't just Lillian's perception of Tiger, Valerie agrees that he was the perfect kitty.  Jack still lives up to his full name -- Jackass -- but Tiger was the best.  However, time caught up to him, and Valerie had to let him go, although she's still got his ashes.

It's only been a few weeks, and she's still hurting.

So we had a long talk today, because she's been getting a lot of puzzled stares and hard comments.  Things like the post title, "It's just a cat, for pete's sake.  Get over it." 

And when she realized that this would be her first Christmas without him, she got all teary, and her mother was unsympathetic.  "It's been long enough, you should be over it." or something to that effect.

It's almost a year since Dante died -- November 23rd -- and I'm still not entirely over it.  I can talk about him, of course, and I don't get drippy about it, but I'm still not ready for another dog. 

That's another thing, people are offering her kittens.  She's not at all ready, and she's still at the point where no kitten can measure up to Tiger, and neither she nor Jack is ready to have another furball in the house. 

So she and I had a great long talk, and I told her to take her time, grieve at her own pace.  Some people don't take as long to get over the death of a pet as others, and I told her she can't be rushed.  It's still too fresh.

I know most, if not all of you, can relate.