So, Phin has a new routine I’m not thrilled about. He is my blind black cat who is a little badass and Brave Little Toaster. He likes to get on the back of my desk chair and sleep, but lately he’s been sleeping sleeping and subsequently falls off. If he’s lucky, he falls onto the back of my neck, sometimes digging his claws into my head or neck. If he is really asleep, he stays there for a while without waking. If he’s not lucky, the poor guy falls to the floor 😞. However, along with being a badass, he is extremely stubborn, so he just walks around the chair, feels for the arm of the chair, and jumps up and climbs back onto the chair back once more. Rinse and repeat. All day while I’m working.
Now, some might say, Why don’t you come up with something so he won’t fall off? And I say to them, We did. Well, we tried. First, I put my panda hoodie on my chair back, zipped it up, and put Mom’s Steelers pillow in the hood. When he fell, theoretically he would fall onto the pillow, and the hood would keep him from thumping to the floor. Theoretically.
So stubborn that he would lay the wrong direction, with his butt against my neck
That was not the case. He just fell onto the pillow, then trampolined to the floor. I went to the spare room/closet to brainstorm while looking at all the wood and disassembled furniture I kept for such things. I had an idea! I told Adam what I wanted, and he started building. I’m the idea-er, he’s the implementer. The finished product was awesome. Adam used some metal rods from a cart and some wood and his handyman know-how to make a platform that went over the back of the chair. It was an incredible eyesore, but I loved it. I put my hoodie on top, and it made a lovely little, sturdy bed with plenty of room.
I may have written about this before.
That little jerk refused to stay up there. He tried it out, said, Nope, and got down. I put him up there repeatedly whenever he would come to get on me, but he was having none of it.
So, this is where we are now. We feel bad for him every time he falls, but then remember how he snubbed a great thing and…feel bad for him anyway because that’s what it is like to have kids.
Well, it’s a good thing I set my book deadline for November. Just putting it together is so much work! I had it organized by theme, but so many of my chosen poems are from when I was a teen, so I wanted to highlight they are my early works and hopefully show some growth over the years.
I didn’t write for years because so much of it was too painful to think about, let alone write about (everybody dying). The other things — the good stuff like falling in love and finding some happiness — I was enjoying the moments and not writing about them. Admittedly, I am prone to writing during the darker times when I find the motivation to sift through it all.
So, instead of themes, I decided to do a Wonder Years part, poems I wrote when I was a teenager and going through some things, and The Reawakening part, when I started writing again in the last few years. There is some light stuff to go with the darker stuff, so I sub-parted (I don’t think that’s a word) the main parts into The Light and The Dark. Good? Bad? I don’t know. I doubt I will even have an audience. I want to realize my dream because it is my dream, but I am also doing it for Mom.
I am terrible at building an audience and socializing offline and online, so the word-of-mouth is going to be awful. I know Adam will appreciate it because he is super-supportive of whatever crazy ideas I pursue.
Speaking of, things are going better here. Adam subscribes to my blog, and he also knows I do not talk about him behind his back. If I can’t say something about him near him, how is that healthy? He feels the same, but his irritation comes out only when I am fussing at him about something 😒. I guess there’s a reason he fell so hard for a volleyball player 🤣🤣.
He’s been getting the dishes done and the laundry, both big chores because Ollie is not too keen on potty training and he is going through my towels like a public pool. I really dread replacing every single floor in this house, mainly because I have no idea what I’m doing and no one to help. I helped replace a bedroom floor once in a single-wide trailer, but I was on nail duty and just had to hammer the nails in. Having double vision and terrible aim, that was hard enough for me!
Open your eyes, Dad!
I do have some very upsetting news that I am not looking forward to. Piper Paws is going to be put down soon. She has not fared well since we brought Merlin in and her health has gone downhill from there. Somehow, she is 22+ pounds although we never see her eat. She really hurt her back leg a while back, which the vet completely ignored and blamed on her weight, but the day it happened, she was lying on the floor crying and would not walk at all. We just laid there crying at each other.
Pretty Girl
She also has a weird patch on her back that is from me treating a sore on her back and I had shaved a small patch so I could treat the sore. That patch has never been the same. The sore healed up, but the fur doesn’t grow in normally and she is sensitive to touch back there. For that, the (worthless) vet said it was fleas, but none of the cats have fleas and haven’t since living with us because they are all flea-treated indoor cats and this was way before Neville happened, let alone Ollie. We don’t always get a stupid vet but we did for her appointment.
Enjoying the outdoors.
Piper Paws is the cat Mom made Adam promise to get me before Mom died. She is also named after Mom as Mom’s initials are PAWS. I don’t know how I am going to handle losing her. It’s unbearable grief now and she is not gone yet. She has started using the bathroom exclusively on the kitchen table and she can’t walk well because of her (untreated thanks to the vet) leg and her weight. We watch their food, but I cannot put her on a diet food when her siblings are all healthy weights.
She turned 10 years old on my brother’s birthday. Even though she was for me, she is Adam’s cat. I think she is a one-cat-household cat, so I don’t think she has been happy for quite a while. I really failed her when I took Merlin in. Girl can hold a grudge, just like her mother. I am really going to miss her but the poor thing has had a rough life, dealing with cats she doesn’t like and then dogs. At least the pups don’t bother her physically. And now I’ve upset myself. Until next time!
Cari R Esta 