Alecto's Ophelia

On being catless

Catless is just weird, weird, weird. I’ve had a cat since I was four years old. There may have been a month or two after I left home before I got another but I’ve always had at least one. My daughter, all her life.

 

Now. No cats, no cats nowhere. We haven’t even removed the litter box yet even though it’s perfectly clean because before she went there was nothing going in and nothing coming out.

 

We don’t even know where she is. That’s the hard part. No smell, no sign, chance she slipped outside but hard to say. We know we have to tear the house up sooner rather than later but there’s been so much going on we’re in avoidance.

 

We talked about getting another but now is not the time. Daughter just wants to know it will happen before she goes to college. She has one more year of high school, I suspect we’ll have another rescue kitty by then.

 

Just not now. Now we are catless. Lets see how that feels for a bit.

On muscle memory, mind, body or soul

I am almost positive that I have had the same yahoo account for at least 8 years. Same user ID, same password.

 

Seriously.

 

I set the account up initially for the calendar so that my direct reports could see my schedule and request meetings or appointments. So they had the password.

 

Everybody had the password and as time moved on there were sensitive documents and I never made a change.  Nothing bad ever happened either.

 

The other day I changed the passwords on all of my email and other accounts. I did this for several reasons but mostly because my doctor TOLD me to and I actually listened to him even though it hit more land mines than I care to think about it.

 

So anyway, I changed my password, right? How long before I stop typing the old one automatically? I’d say it’s got a half life of…

 

Anyway, muscle memory, for one thing or another takes some getting used to and discipline to change. Focus and clarity and it doesn’t matter what you’re changing, change will occur.

 

 

9/11 upside down

I didn't know how I was going to watch this today. To start with I thought it was 8 AM and figured, OK, I can listen on the way to the office. Then I find out I'm wrong and I'm thinking I can surreptitiously watch listen quietly on CNN at noon.

And then I got an IM from my boss about coverage in the large conference room and I went, the same way I went on 9/11 to watch with my co-workers as the second plane hit the second building.

The atmosphere was as stunned and speechless all these years later. As many people as possible jammed into this room staring up at that screen.

Except this time it was all upside down. The hope and fear and dreams in that room sucked the oxygen out and fed it right back in.

I counted six obvious nationalities, maybe more I just don't recognize.

We don't show emotion at this company other than anger.

What I saw and sat in today was a level of intensity and hope and belief that nearly wiped out what I saw and sat in not so many years ago.

And then, you know what? This time we went back to work. Hopeful.

On Patience and the things we can learn from ourselves and animals

My mother says, 'wait for it... wait for it...' You know she's speaking in the context of training horses but she applies it directly to me as well and I'm grateful for that (who doesn't want to be trained with the patience and love with which horses should be worked with?).

Reminds me of my dog. The big one, not the little one. The little one waits for nothing and throws himself about in a terrible froth that only he enjoys. My big dog has been patient since he was just a few weeks old (according to his human mom). He waits, watches and then pounces sometimes. Or he waits, watches, thinks about it and maybe walks away, or lays down to forget about it or maybe wait some more. My favorite is feeding time. He knows he's hungry. He doesn't know exactly when he will eat but he knows he will (big guy has complete faith in me, it's a beautiful thing). When I pick up his water bowl first and then put it back he sits patiently and waits because even if he is thirsty at the moment, that's not the cheese he's looking for. When I pick up his food bowl he looks at me, still sitting, and that is all. When I leave the room to go to the feed bin his eyes don't even follow me. He sits waiting. When I come back with food in the bowl and run the water until it is warm (warm water in the food tends to prevent bloat and we don't want that) he sits very still and watches. And when I put the bowl down in it's place he does not rush the bowl or push me aside (although he sure could!). He waits until I step away and then he goes right to it. With dignity.

When Simon was just a baby (not that he's not still a baby, he's just past 4 months now) we kept him on a six foot leash at all times unless he was in the kitchen with us (gated) or in his pen or a crate. We allowed him no opportunity for trouble and an awful lot of imprinting time. And he only fought the leash once, by the way, and that was the first time outside. He did not want to go and so I waited until he was sure he wouldn't be forced and by his choice he came to me and then came with me.

In the morning when it was the in between time from the early morning outing with husband and then the final release from the crate by me I insisted that he not pull at the leash and that he wait for me at every step. I guided him outside and to where I wanted him to potty and then walked around with him until he said he was done (he says he's done by playing with little dog). When we went back into the house and little dog galloped up the stairs I stopped, waited and then we went up those stairs one calm step at a time. We stopped on the landing and then went up the next set up steps in the same manner.

Recently Simon is off the leash for the most part, even outside (although as soon as he hits adolescence we'll be going right back to the leash and the next stage of his training). And the beautiful thing about Simon is that he waits for me when I release him from the crate regardless of the little dog's leaping about. And when I open the door to outside he walks patiently by my side to the potty choice that is still my decision. And when we come in the door he waits for me at the stairs and the landing and we go side by side.

When he needs to go out he sits at the top of the stairs and waits. Sometimes it's hard to tell if he's just laying there or really needs to go out. If we fail to understand him he goes down to the landing by the front door and waits there. If we fail to come right away he starts to dribble a bit but never just lets it go.

Harmony and Balance through mutual understanding, love and gentleness. And of course, paying attention.

These days I am practicing patience in ways that nearly tear my guts apart sometimes. And I wonder, are his guts periodically torn apart when he waits for me? I must try to remember this. And regardless of how I feel I can choose how I react and like Simon, I can stop, wait, think about it and then maybe just lay down and let it go. Or watch some more. Or try something else. But never, never, never cause harm in the need. Just a dribble here and there and if need be find another way.

But you know what else I think? I think that if I was a less than loving momma or less observant, or less caring or even cruel that he would not be the dog he is today. And if I am not a loving person and observant and caring with myself and others then I too will fail to be the person I want to be.

Happy New Year to all and what I want you to know is that You (We) are the miracle.

Happy New Year and good morning and all that

This is a quickie, I'll be back later but I have something that probably must be said.

This will only be meaningful to anyone who has been to the other site. The other site is a journal, often moment by moment, of exactly where I am in this journey. Last night at 1:49 AM EST somebody followed the link from there to here (that I've since deleted). What concerns me is that this may not be a perfect stranger. This could be one of my current readers, it could be my mother or it could have been my husband.

If it was a perfect stranger and you're back here reading again, I remind you that the other blog was very raw and bounces all over the place like a crazy out of control roller coaster. That is my private place where I can have those moments and not get them on anyone who isn't prepared to read them. All I ask is that you treat that with the utmost respect.

If it was one of my readers, welcome to the deep dark world and I hope it wasn't too upsetting.

If it was my mother that's perfectly fine because I'm sure you understand, you told me to set up another blog for this purpose anyway. It's not your fault I used a dormant blog.

If it was my husband, I don't know that you ever need to see those things. It is not that they are bad or negative, it's that it would certainly be a very overwhelming thing to read for you at the moment because one of the promises that I made was that you would have none of that from me when you come home, that I would take it elsewhere. And I did. If you found it, I am so very, very sorry and ask that you let that part go. It is mine, not for you to shoulder or even question.

That is all for now. I've had my full cup of coffee, smoked two smokes (this shit gotta stop soon because my asthma is flaring up again) and will now go fun out the early morning anxiety on the elliptical with both knee braces and a good bit of water.

I'll be back and Happy New Year. It was happy for me.

A Love Story - part 4

I'm going to start this with a statement about this blog which is about to turn 2 years old in a couple of days. This space started out as a way for me to journal the things in my life. You know, day to day events that were noteworthy to me. This rapidly turned into a life blog (which it probably was in the first place) and the entries became raw, painful, sometimes joyous but mostly incredibly emotionally honest. And then some rather extreme events occurred (OK, a lot of extreme events occurred but toward the end of 2007 they got REALLY hairy) and the focused turned away from the rawness of how I experience my life to a more prosaic detailing of what I was doing. There is a big difference between discussing the 'being' and documenting the 'doing'.

Well, we just came full circle and we're back to what most people call TMI and I'm not even going to apologize for that, this is my blog and it's for me. So here I am.

And yes, love's got everything to do with it.

I have another blog, some of you know where it is and you are welcome to go there otherwise I'm not going to advertise it because it is a journal, sometimes moment by moment of what I'm experiencing right this second and I've got to write it down somewhere just to keep myself focused and aware.

So the love story today is about emotional exhaustion. I am completely exhausted. I don't eat much, I don't sleep much and I drive my body to the brink in order to feed on those endorphins whenever possible. I swill coffee at an alarming rate and smoke like a chimney (hey, don't judge it, nicotine is a very powerful drug and I have no intention of keeping it) and at night I drink wine in front of my computer writing in my journal and praying for contact. And I do get contact and lately it's been very nice and I am grateful for whatever he can give me. A simple 'I love you' or 'I love you too' is enough to reduce me to tears and they aren't the bad kind.

I also want to talk about the tube and the cheese because of a comment MC left and my response to that comment. Unfortunately somebody took this metaphor and wrote a book called Who Moved My Cheese and the metaphor became trite and useless (and if you found it useful, I apologize but the version of the exercise (and it's an exercise, not a book) is a very powerful experience.

Rats are smarter than people:

The Rat
Imagine there are five tubes and at the end of tube five is a piece of cheese. The rat knows where the cheese is and every day he goes and gets it until one day the cheese isn't there. The rats sniffs around to see if he's missing something and then heads right back out of the tube. He goes into tube 4 and then 3 and then 2 and then 1 and there is the cheese. He eats it and he's happy. Each day the cheese moves and each day the rat goes and finds it wasting no time wondering why is fucking cheese keeps moving.

The Man (apologies to men, this could equally be a woman but that's not how the story was told to me)
Imagine there are five tubes and at the end of tube five is the mans significant other, committed partner, what have you. Each day on the way to tube five, the man has a look down tubes 1 through 4 just to have a look at the view and see if there's anything better down there. This causes conflict in the relationship and trust becomes a problem.

The Woman (could be a man too but in my case, it's me)
Imagine there are five tubes and at the end of tube five is a man. Each day on the way to tube five the woman rushes right to the tube and throws her arms around the man, or pisses him off, or asks too much or refuses to be responsible or just doesn't keep up with who and what he is or needs. One day the man walks out of the tube. The woman says, no! you can't do this, this is not what we do in a committed relationship! We stay and we work it out. But no, he says, I must go and he goes saying that he will return in a few short days. The woman waits, the days pass and he does not return. There is very little communication. What she knows comes from a third party. Initially the woman fights it tooth and nail. She cries all day, cannot leave the house, picks up smoking again but what she does do, which is unprecedented for her, is call a friend. After that she calls another friend and then another letting them all into her vulnerability and telling her story from as responsible a place as possible (no victim, it's his fault shit). And then she turns outward and focuses on the man. First up. He is not in tube 5. Letting go of that is so hard she bangs her head (metaphorically) against her own delusions until she realizes he's another tube. He hasn't said he doesn't love her, he hasn't said he won't come home, he's only said he can't come home just yet.

The rat goes tube to tube until he finds the cheese. The woman stews in it feeling abandoned and lost until she realizes he's just in another tube. Now, she can go get him, she can go find him, she can join him in the cube or they can go to a new tube together. What cannot, or should not do, is go back to tube five. That didn't work so well.

And that is the story of the rat, the cheese, the tubes and the people.

And I'm so damn tired I have lost the ability to resist. Can we have a Hallelujah chorus please.

A Love Story - Part 3

Love's got everything to do with it.

I recently made a statement (borrowed shamelessly from Grey's Anatomy) that I lived every day these days at an 8. And that was the truth. What I am discovering is that there are 8s and then there are 8s. The second does not negate the first, it's just of an entire other flavor.

To clarify, my original 8 centered around overwhelm, fear and a probable need to have my freaking meds adjusted as well as some unresolved issues and my stubborn refusal to let anything go until I'd reconciled it to something I could understand and live with. What that really boiled down to was my base line belief that I would be hurt no matter what. I recall telling my husband that the 8 didn't necessarily have a lot to do with him directly, it just was what it was. That's hard to hear if you think you're supposed to do something about it and the truth is nobody can do that nor should they be expected to.

Another flavor of pain at an 8 is the physical kind. Turns out I'm really good at dealing with that. I can sink right into myself and either be with it or ride the waves. I am not a screamer when it comes to physical pain. Unfortunately I tend to seriously under report and that's nearly gotten me dead once or twice.

The third flavor of pain is is the pain of grief. As it turns out, for me at least, this is not a suicidal fear or pain at all. It's purely functional, as in how do I get up, work out (because I think those endorphins are the one thing that kicks me off with a fighting chance), shower, shave (because that's normalcy, right?), dress, apply make up, put in my contacts if I think I can keep the tears to a minimum and my glasses if I believe I cannot.

There are moments when I believe I simply cannot bear it one second longer and will do something rash. Not rash as in hurt myself, that need seems to be gone right out the window (maybe it's self preservation or a final surrender, I'm betting it's surrender and THAT is a very reassuring thought). But rash in terms of causing undo pain or harm to others. Of believing I cannot be functional when in fact I know that is not true. Not for me, it isn't my way.

An event is just that. An event. We make of it what we will. We can choose to be mired or we can choose to let it wash over us leaving us engulphed in the truth of it all. This is not a drowning by any means. It's an acceptance. The more I fight it the worse it gets and the harder it is to move through it.

I think of child birth. I've had three children with large gaps in between (five and nine years). With each labor I learned to let go and wash through the waves sometimes chewing the sheets and sometimes just panting. Sometimes there were tears but never any outright crying and certainly no screaming. At the point of transition when the body called mine becomes something else entirely and I have no control there is only one thing to do - push through it. That's a scary thing because the ring of fire we all hear about is exactly that and the only way through is through.

I think of love that way these days. And by love I don't mean the romantic flowers and puppy dog love. I mean the enduring commitment that has us move mountains. I think that in the letting go of the me creates the space for something infinitely greater and quite honestly, precious beyond belief.

So here is an event. I have it. I am in it and the only way to be is just 'is'.

Try that sometime. I am.

A Love Story - Part 2

And yes, loves got everything to do with it.

Commitment is Binary.

kind of like being pregnant, you either are committed or you are not.There are no conditions attached to commitment. And while we're on the subject there is no such thing as 110% committed. That's just not feasible; 100% is the whole thing and anything else is imaginary hyperbole generally designed to disguise a lack of commitment. Rah rah and all that.

Love is not enough you say? Then maybe we need to have a look at what love means. And I'm not talking the romantic kind either although most relationships certainly start out that way. I'm talking about the kind of love that will do the hard things, move the mountains and live through what might appear to be unendurable pain. Love that sees the bottomness in all of us and is the very foundation for the word commitment.

And I'll tell you something scary too; it doesn't necessarily take two to tango. One voice can be enough. Not the easiest approach but possible in a world where we bandy about the word impossible or inconceivable all too freely and we wind up in a consumer top loaded society that chews through people as fast as it chews up what credit can buy.

I walked away from two marriages before I finally got hit upside the head with what commitment really means and well, what love is and what it is not. We live in a me oriented world where if I'm not happy then I have to do something about it or you have to do something about it and it's just not OK. We walk away from our families tearing our children and communities (not to mention properties and anything else with inherent value) asunder. We lose our support structures when we turn our backs and walk away because it's just too hard or I'm not getting what I want or I don't want to give up who me is.

My mother, in her infinite love for me, asked if I really wanted this because she didn't want to see me give up who I am for the sake of a relationship that may not be giving me what I believe I must have. I'm pretty sure by the time I was done speaking she had a good idea where I was headed and it wasn't out of the marriage by any means.

I used to wonder how the hell people stayed married. In some cases maybe it's pure compatibility and there's just magic or no expectation of magic. In some cases maybe it's because there's no viable alternative. And as one dear friend said to me of her marriage of at least 35 years, 'it's inertia, my dear, it gets you through the tough spots.'

Which brings us back to the culture of me. Where in God's name do any of us get off buying that happily ever after tale? Buggers to the authors of the Victorian fairy tales - they just don't cut the mustard no matter how sweat and desirable they may seem.

And life just keeps right on lifing. If it was easy and painless it would be boring as sin and we'd all put our heads in the proverbial oven out of sheer despair.

 

 

And these pretty rings we love to put on our fingers have come to represent something far less than the original hand fasting they eventually replaced (in the Victorian era I might add).

 

I am not giving up who I am. I am making some major modifications because who I am being just isn't working for this relationship and I'm here to tell you that the relationship comes first.

Because I say so and that's a pretty strong statement coming from me.

Oh yeah, and one other thing, we don't always know how we're going to get from point A to point Z but that doesn't mean we can't or won't.

 

 

Waiting

I'm sitting on the couch in my living room with a cat carrier to my right, door right up against my right thigh because it's the only thing keeping my cat from completely losing her shit. Yep, here we go about a cat again.

This cat turned four in October and belonged to my husband's brother Frank who died horribly and alone in his bathroom at home just two years and ten months ago. The last time anybody talked to Frank was Valentine's Day, 2006 and if you want to read about it go here because it's a pretty powerful post and everybody's names are used so please tread with care (I won't edit this post for any reason). Anyway, Nomans found Frank on March 4 and it was as awful as you might expect. It took some time to sort everything out but the net result was a disaster of an apartment full of hazmat that needed to be emptied, the kind of hazmat that happens with a particular flavor of mental illness, and two cats needing homes. Two cats that spent at least two weeks locked up with a body. I'll leave you to work that out on your own.

Shortly after the funeral (and as Jews we should have done this immediately but for what should be obvious reasons, could not) my husband had to go to Switzerland for a week and I, suddenly jobless at that point, chose to stay home. Staying home was the wrong thing to do but half way through the week I put my girls in the car and drove nearly three hours South to bring home what amounted to two feral cats, not much past kitten hood.

One cat made it and one cat did not. By 'did not' I mean he failed to assimilate into the household in any way and had to be removed. His litter mate, named Wicious (because she's 'wicious and fawocious') eventually settled in and did just fine.

A few weeks ago, just as we were becoming painfully aware that we really were in the end game with Chuck, Homer the Dog started behaving badly. He pooped in our bathroom, peed on the couch, peed on our bed and it just went on and on. We assumed Homer (we were right about the bathroom) because it was nearly odorless and Simon can't get up on the furniture by himself to save his life (he just eats it instead). We forgave Homer because he's had a lot to deal with (like a sixty pound baby) and crated him to avoid further issue for the time being. And then there was another odorless puddle on the bed and another after that. You see, she tried the foot of the bed and that didn't work. Then she tried my side and I still didn't pay attention. And then she tried Noman's side when she was accidentally locked in our room and then we knew our last kitty was pretty sick.

And then we noticed that she was always hungry but stopped eating after a mouthful or two and walked away crying. And then we could pick her up and hold her like a baby and she didn't purr and she didn't struggle, she just laid there all snugged up and motionless.

I didn't waste time. I called the vet today, gave symptoms and was told to come in. So the appointment is at 3 and I didn't want to risk not being able to locate or catch her (not like she's moving very fast but she is wicious and fawocious and wiley too. And I'm sitting on this couch with the carrier right against my leg and she's gone to sleep. If I get up and moves she cries like the world might end.

I don't know how this is going to turn out but it can't be good. I only know we love this cat and I will gladly pay the price of fear and pain and possible loneliness to have the right to love and be loved back by this cat. (and the dogs are in the kitchen eating the table legs and I'll probably get over it).

When we all still lived in the castle

OK, I’ve been a total slacker and the Typepad editor is still unusable by me. We’ll see if I can stand the formatting issues that come with a copy paste from Word.

Anyway, Total Slacker has been hanging out over on Facebook like a total addict. It’s OK, I have plenty of company. I’ve been hanging with Cielo and her husband too! There are a few more of you out there but for the sake of anyone wishing to remain anonymous I’ll leave that alone.

I’ve had a Facebook account for about fifteen months. I set it up at the request of friend from middle school who is currently expatriated just outside of London and it seemed like a good way to keep in touch. I didn’t have a lot of hope for it though and even mentioned in my profile that I was more likely than not to forget my user id and password and then that would be the end of me. Or at least the end of my Facebook presence.

Little by little I accumulated ‘friends’. Not too many and I didn’t do a blasted thing with them either. I kind of got it about this ‘wall’ thing and I had myself a vampire and a werewolf and knew how to send a virtual gift. Most of my friends were self selecting, they found me. If I knew them I said ‘yes’. If I didn’t know them I deleted the friend request (I did get some weird ones in the beginning).

Last April when we were in the Au Pair selection process I had this year’s Au Pair set up an account so that she could get to my account and look at pictures because I had been unsuccessful sending her anything. That was as useful as it ever got with the exception of being able to post family photo albums that nobody got to see any other way.

This October, just six months later, the nanny is jettisoned from the house (she was given 48 hours to retrieve her belongings properly chaperoned) and I needed to remove her from my Facebook profile. I needed to remove her, my daughter needed to remove her and last years needed the boot as well. In this process of discovery I clicked something called Friend Finder and boy did I go to town. So, less one nanny and plus forty old friends. Yeah, you read that right. 40. And I don’t like people, remember?

Not all of them are intimate friendships. Some have become passing acquaintances. All of it is worth networking value and the entertainment factor has been very high of late. I have reconnected with people I barely remember from high school, people I can’t believe I forgot from high school and people I can’t believe I ever walked away from at the high tech company.

I found my old best friend. The one I had when we all still lived in the castle and Jeffrey wasn’t anywhere near dead and four of us ran in a pack (we’re still missing one and Jeffrey, well, he’s kind of dead) and the world was young and good and we were all gods of the burgeoning virtual world. And nothing really awful had happened to any of us yet. As adults that is.

And then all hell broke lose and the four of us split right down the middle and I didn’t see her again, well, until yesterday.

And all I want to do is find a way to tell Jeffrey it’s all right now. I found a way to stop being alone. I found a way to get back home.