Owning Your Mouse

[lavendertook]

Today is 2 months since I lost Saki. I'm doing a much better job this month of focusing on being grateful for the 16 years I had in the company of that magnificent cat-being than on the sadness of her ending. There are days, and times, but it's not as raw as last month. I am so grateful for the support from my flist friends who held me up during the worst of it. I couldn't get through without you. Thank you. (((((((FLIST)))))

Below is another favorite pic, this of Herself with a wool catnip-filled mouse an old friend made and sent for her. She tended to love her newest toy and her newest bed most, but her fondness for this mouse lasted many years and it stayed in her latest beds.

It's also 9 years today since my dad died--tomorrow would have been his 88th birthday. The 15th will be 5 months since Mom died. He and Mom have 4 siameses tucked around them, but maybe Saki is visiting with them tonight, too.


Is that a smiling kitten cat, or is that a smiling kitten cat? So fluffy sweet and soft, but look at the strength in that possessive paw. THIS MOUSE. IS MINE. GO ME! LOVE U.



Last Saturday, on zlabya's suggestion, I went to Chessicon in north Baltimore. I was most interested in a session I saw they were having for pet bereavement/loss of a familiar. We were supposed to bring a favorite item of our friend, so I brought the above mouse, and also her collar. I microchipped her about 4 years ago and stopped putting on her rainbow collar, and forgot how much she loved having her collar put on in the bustle of all the meds and special foods I was giving her. I'm sorry I forgot it and I didn't put it on more, just for a little while and then take it off, just for the putting on ceremony that she delighted in. I would whisper to her how beautiful she looked in it as I put it on and she would purr and scrunch up her eyes. So cute. Kind of like she's scrunching her eyes in the below pic.



Anyway, there were just a few of us, and we lit candles for our lost ones, told stories about them and cried together. It was a good ceremony.

And I got to see zlabya and taknukesoul at the con and went to a couple of panels and a reading.

Thanksgiving was really nice. I drove up to synechdochic and sarah's gathering, for delightful company, human, feline, and canine, and a delicious meal. If I ever cook a whole turkey, I am going to use synechdochic's method of cutting out the breastbone and spreading the turkey out over the pan, so you can bake it in 1 1/2 hours. It was very delish.

I am being social on weekends, getting to various sf/f or LGBT social events, meals with friends, and taking walks around the lake, so I'm taking good care of myself, and cooler drier weather really helps lessen my hot flash/shortness of breath/anxious spells. 3 more years of the exemestane, then I'm free, hopefully.

N. Novik's Temeraire series got me though the worst of this autumn grieving--what a fun premise--a world where people have adapted to living with dragons in ways that befit their cultures is a world where Western colonialism does not take in quite the same way--and such feel good relationships, even if it doesn't do as good a job of passing the Bechdel test as I would like. Her Uprooted did pass the Bechdel test and I enjoyed, though it was not as engaging a world as that of the series. I am now reading N. Griffith's Ammonite.

Mooshka is next to me snoring away. Both she and Tuxie are getting more cuddly and I am appreciating their sweet company. They are slowly getting used to having more access to me, now that Saki isn't around rightfully hogging my attention through her attentiveness. They are sweet, sleepy, standard-issue cats, but MY sweet, sleepy, standard-issue cats, and we're working on being a family complete in itself again, while remembering and cherishing our lost ones. I am blessed when I get to spend the day, like today, teleworking with them tucked on either side of me. They make things better. Much needed in our anxious world.


Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/188651.html with comments

Comments

[shirebound]

What a lovely update, my friend. Thank you for sharing with us -- the sorrows and the joys.

look at the strength in that possessive paw.

So true! That is HER mouse. Pippin has a favorite pink hedgehog.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Does she own her hedgehog fiercely? It's so happy-making that we can make our loved little predators happy with toys. Yay for being just a step or two away on the gene ladder. (-:

*squooshes you*

[shirebound]

Pip is totally a predator when it comes to her hedgehog. I'll post a picture of it soon.

*smooshes*

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Have you named the Hedgie yet? *squooshes*

[shirebound]

I like Hedgie a lot! The problem is, I like *all* of the suggested names a lot. I'll ask him what his name is, and see if one pops out.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Or maybe the problem is that Pippin hasn't told you the name yet.

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

Anyway, there were just a few of us, and we lit candles for our lost ones, told stories about them and cried together



That sounds wonderful, I'm glad you got to have that experience.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you--it was helpful. Her loss hit me like bricks again last evening, but day by day I am able to focus on how lucky I was to have 16 years with her a little more.

[grey-wonderer.livejournal.com]

Many hugs for you and Tuxie and Moo. Going on can be hard work. I'm very glad you are managing. I'm enjoying getting to know Saki through these posts. I only wish I had met her. My own dear one is still very much on my mind and sometimes I can't believe she is gone.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you--and I'm very glad to know you are enjoying reading about her. I wish you had met her so much, too. )-: Call if you want to talk about dear Saturn some more. It is so hard to believe they're gone, isn't it? It just hits you, and you feel that's so not right--such adorable, sweet, and vital little beings shouldn't just die like that. How could they be so much older than us so quickly? When it hits me, I keep saying, "It's not right! I want her back!" *squooshes*

[febobe.livejournal.com]

I'm about to try Uprooted...looks promising to me. :) It's my first of her work.

Everything you've been up to sounds lovely. I'm so glad you got to an event to honor Saki and cry and share stories with others who know that feeling. And I'm extra glad you got to be with special friends for Thanksgiving. :) But I hate that you're facing so many anniversaries. Hang in there. And that ex-whatver med sounds rough. They told me about it, but they wanted to use tamoxifen instead if we went that route...but since I ended up getting both off and sentinel nodes done and there wasn't any invasion or any actual breast left, apart from chest wall type breast tissue, they said they won't make me do that. Praying for your time on it remaining to pass as well as possible and for it to annihilate any cancer risk you might have. <3

Love you, sweetie. <3

*hugs*

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I hope you enjoy it. (-:

They put me on aromasin/exemestane both because I'm post-menopausal and because tamoxifen counteracts prozac, which I take. My neighbor, who is several years older than me, and had a double mastectomy and radiation for DCIS is on tamoxifen and she has no side effects that she can tell, so it is possible it could be fine. But you don't need to deal with any bad interactions with all you deal with. I need to review though how many percentage points it really does gain me in the cancer dice roll--I'm beginning to think it may not be worth it. I'm not sure I want to deal with it for another 3 years--I'm really not.

I love you, too, my friend. *squooshes*

[addie71.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had a good experience with bereavement session for Saki and a good Thanksgiving.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you, bb. It sounds like you're having an anxious time for the holidays--I hope it eases up for you.

[addie71.livejournal.com]

Thank you, sweetie. It's getting better. *knocks on wood*

Smiling cats!

[galestorm.livejournal.com]

Anyone who claims that cats don't smile doesn't know cats, or at least have been on the wrong side of one.

Lovely cat smile on that beautiful Siamese face!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, bb. And yes, they don't know. She'd get these little dimples on her cheeks close to her nose when she was looking at me fondly.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to know you're beginning to recover a bit from the grief of losing your companion. She was such a beautiful girl. Being able to share your loss with others who understand must have been such a blessing.

It's good that your other kitties are coming closer to you and that they give you companionship and love.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I lost it again last evening. I'm trying to focus on how lucky I was to have 16 years with such a loving and clever spirit and not focus on the very end--a step by step process. But I'm glad to be beyond that first terrible month when you have to break from the habit of the lost one's company and the shock and pity of death.

They are sweet and good kitties and deserve time to be centered in their folder's thoughts. I'm learning to stop mourning that I am not going home to Saki, and to look forward to coming home to them, and look forward to teleworking with them beside me.

[lbilover.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're staying busy and doing healing, positive things for yourself. It's so important. *big hugs*

What did you think of the end of Uprooted? I loved it.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you, my friend. I'm working hard to heal and get through the winter. I ail want to come up to walk with you again this winter. You are always welcome here if you want to come down.

forgot *SQUOOSHES BACK*

****SPOILER WARNING--just in case****

It was a good ending and I liked it a lot--I'm not sure if I loved it. I loved that her life's work became healing the forest a lot. I liked that so many of the premises she was raised on turned out to be false and she figured her way through it. I liked that she won Sarkan and he was so open to change and that connecting to the forest was good and he allowed himself to root with her. But he started out your typical verbally abusive Rochester type, and I have trouble with the verbal abuse. He is much more flexible (flexibility being Will Lawrence's superpower), and he did SEEM to outgrow it--I'm not totally convinced though because I'm not used to such flexible people. I feel bad for Kasia remaining so alienated, though.

And I feel that things were a bit easily earned for Anieczshka--there wasn't a great cost to herself, and her powers just kept growing, which feels false-ish to me. Because a big part of the story was about rule breaking and that the limits stories impose can be wrong and broken, it grates against the narrative law that you need to set rules to limit magic in your fantasy world for believability purposes. A lot of people died, but it didn't really come at our protagonist's expense at all. So it was fun wish-fulfillment in the end, but lacked some bitter to go with the sweet to give it more depth and make what she gains in the end feel really hard won and earned--there's no sacrifice. But maybe that's the hard-knock school I live in speaking that isn't trusting pure wish-fulfillment.

Addendum: And the weird thing is it was a very tense, dark world to be immersed in (as opposed to Temeraire, which varies between oppressiveness and light-hearted feel-good-ness) to come to such an easy happy ending--maybe that's what didn't sit right with me. It's not like I don't like happy endings--I do. Hmmm.