Ravings Ramblings and Ruminations

My partner and I finally moved cross country after a year's preparation and hard work. We had multiple hurdles and issues but we overcame each of them. We found the *perfect* house in a good neighbourhood and prepared everything so we could move with the least amount of disruption in our lives and in our cats' lives.

So on Friday the 24th of June we picked up our babies at the kennel where they were boarding during this process to reduce the stress on them. They both looked unhappy to be in the carriers (again), but we got them to the terminal without issue. We signed them over for their flight to Phoenix and went on our flight.

When we landed we learned our little girl Phoebe died on the Pittsburgh to Atlanta leg of the journey.

Delta Airlines has been very helpful in having her autopsied at the University of Georgia and a pet funerary service handle the cremation and shipment of her ashes to us. I am anticipating the results of the examination to see what possibly has been missed or what may have occurred on the trip.

So I have been thinking about the ten years and more that Phoebe has been a part of our life.

As a kitten she spent her first night so terrified of the new place she spent it in the bathroom with her face to the wall sandwiched between the vanity and the wall. Hugh found her there again after work and picked her up and snuggled her close. After that she always went to "Mummy" when she was scared.

When she got more confident she "disappeared" from sight. The only hint she was still alive was the lower levels of kitten chow, and more disturbingly the lower level of coffee in the cups on the counter when we got back from work. After picking the sweaters up off the closet floor and putting them back on the top shelf we decided that coffee from now on had to be dumped.

Never a lap cat, she one time came sucking up to Hugh so sweetly we had no idea what was going on until she grabbed the spool of embroidery floss from his latest cross-stitch project and vanished from sight. Later we recovered the badly mangled spool all covered in cat slobber.

We have surmised that she may have had a heart condition. When she was a young adult we took her to a feline cardiologist to check out a heart murmur. She came back normal. They did shave her chest, and she was mortified.

She was a lithe, fit cat with an amazing vertical leap and a very sweet disposition...unless it was time for medication. We learned that she had an unbelievably piercing yowl that always made the other cat (Newman) run and hide. I still have an image of Newman under the bed with his paws in his ears.

I will miss Phoebe on the bed at night playing peek-a-boo with me as I pulled the covers over my face. I will miss her getting so happy being petted that she would shake her head and fling slobber all over the place. I will miss her getting on the back of the chair and leaning over my shoulder looking at what I'm doing. I will miss her expressing displeasure by barfing on something important (such as my chair or Newman's food dish...she could be very vindictive). I will miss her looks of disdain as Newman did something goofy (which was pretty much hourly). I will miss seeing her curled up on anything dark green, particularly an old ratty acrylic blanket she absolutely loved.

I regret not being with her at the end holding her close and reassuring her as she slipped away.

I don't believe animal souls have quite the same fate ours do. I do believe they receive grace, but the vehicle of grace for them is vastly different from ours. I do believe God has given Phoebe the grace for a cat who provided joy and who had a difficult kittenhood. She definitely was loved and will be remembered as long as I have the memory to do so.

Requiescat in pace.
Phoebe
August 28, 2000-June 24, 2011

High stress jobs breed people who daydream about being laid up. No, really, they do. In the middle of some horrific or involved problem or issue the overwrought individual takes a moment to look up (or down if he's seriously misguided) and sigh about having a week or two with absolutely nothing to do. It's momentary, heartfelt, and its frequency is directly proportional to the length of time consistent high levels of stress are inflicted on the poor soul about to crack.

I am one of these people. I work on phone systems channeling phone calls representing millions of dollars of business every day, where an issue can have far reaching consequences. I've been working on a high profile project now for 10 months, and it has dominated my life for the past three months. Add to that issues with a ruptured disk, a forced transfer across country, home renovations to prepare the house for sale, and the money issues that go with that, and I have been dreaming of being out of commission on the frequency of every eight nanoseconds or so.

Well, my wish came true. On Tuesday I had surgery to have my ruptured disk repaired. I now have been four days into a forced recuperation where I may not report to work. This is a dream come true.

I am bored.

Usually I don't have time to do extensive Facebook postings. I am doing them now. Usually I don't take the time to update LiveJournal. Hm, look, I'm writing in LiveJournal now. I usually get on a chat programme once a week. Uh, it's been twice a day every day. Let's not count the bad TV, the naps, and talking to the cats and expecting an answer. The Christmas presents are all wrapped (except the one over ten pounds...a box of Tide powder...don't ask), and the dressing changed (oh, now that was a good half hour drama!).

Since I'm bored I will tell you about the dressing change. If you don't know me, let me introduce myself. I am Lee and I am a rug. A medium-pile wall-to-wall rug front and back. My surgery was on my back, so I had a small patch of hair shaved from my ass to my mid-lower back. Well, apparently it wasn't enough. There was enough that there's no hair in the wound or under the gauze.

But there's the small matter of the shrink wrap.

Yes, I was shrink wrapped on my back. One end was taped down on my ass hair where the, um, crack just starts, and the other up on my mid back. The rest stuck to the hair in between. My hubby, Hugh, worked to try to pry this diabolical arrangement off my back without hauling up a layer of skin. OH MY GOD, did my eyes water! I held my breath. I kicked my feet. I pounded my fists. I gasped. BUT, I did NOT swear. I almost screamed. At the end, he gave up and ripped off the last corner.

I think I saw God.

Still bored? Oh, hell, yes.

These interludes are highlights, but that's all. Stayed tuned. Bored people have a tendency to raise mayhem.

"Rejoice in the LORD always, and again, I say, Rejoice."

This third Sunday of Advent is where that strange pink candle gets lit. Why is it pink? Because it's officially a Sunday of lifting our heads and remembering that the second coming is not really so bad after all. Grace abounds, Faith perseveres, Hope does not disappoint. We must accept the grace, have faith, and hope in a better future. Oh, there's this little thing about working for the better tomorrow. No matter how hopeless, how useless, how futile, work for it. I've been told in the past it is a Christian's duty to manifest a little part of the Kingdom of God around him or her, no matter how wrecked the world becomes. A gentle word, food, shelter, clothing, a shoulder to cry on, contributing to the greater efforts to eradicate the evils of this world. It's up to us to show what this world will be like when the LORD makes all things new.

I know many of my friends have no warm feelings in their hearts toward the God of Israel, whether they met the LORD via Judaism or Christianity or Islam (sorry, I know my Muslim friends don't identify with Israel...I ask their indulgence as close relatives), but the old adage, "LORD, save me from your followers," is the honest truth. We are supposed to bring the Kingdom and what we do instead is assassinate body or soul, we cut down, we oppress, we demean. Trust us, disillusioned friend, we will be called to account for these failures. We will have to answer for why you and the LORD do not have a good relationship.

If you adhere to another religion, I send you greetings this season. We may never see eye to eye, but I wish you the best this season and every season. I still cherish knowing you and believe I am richer for it. I hope you feel the same way about me. Regardless of how we feel or believe, let us all embrace each other in peace and joy. May you be blessed for ever more.

I enter Advent this year looking forward to the Christmas holiday and to strengthening my faith and spirituality. There were some challenges this year, some fun times, some sad times, and some stuff for which I really am thankful.

I would hope that I have more appreciation and willingness to reach out to the hungry and the sick as I now have no gallbladder and fatty food is a recipe for suffering. I hope I have more compassion as I had to nurse Hugh through a kidney stone and pneumonia. I hope I have more endurance and skill as I had to endure the project from Hell at work. I hope I have more sympathy and compassion for the bereft as I lost three great-aunts in the space of the past year.

I am thankful my surgery went well and my surgeon, Sharon Goldstein at St. Margaret's, Pittsburgh, is so skilled and sympathetic. I am thankful Hugh is recovering and merely is dealing with his arthritis and post-nasal drip. I am thankful that the project has concluded successfully and I am ready for the next challenge and that I have a job in this uncertain economic climate. I am thankful I still have so many of my family, plus a new nephew/godson, a new brother-in-law, and more friends than ever before.

I miss my friends and my Church family in Cincinnati, but I have gained so many in Pittsburgh. It is so providential that we found a parish so much like Calvary, Clifton as we have in Redeemer, Squirrel Hill.

I have been able to travel more this year than any year previous. I am so glad I have had a chance to network with new friends and old. I am glad my husband is with me and that my cats are healthy, even if they can't stand each other. I am glad I have transportation, food, shelter, clothing, and utilities. So many of us have so little. So as we Christians look forward to the immanence of God in the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany, as my Jewish friends celebrate God's mercy and providence in Hannukah, and all my other friends are caught up in the general cheer of the season I wish you all many blessings this next year and in the years to come.

I saw I hadn't posted a while, so now is a great time for me to put something down and get it off my chest.

I was off at the end of May for a full week for surgery. I returned to work, determined not to overdo it and really balance work and home. This worked fine all June and into July.

I spent a week at Provincetown for, you guessed it, Bear Week. Again, a great time, met some great new people.

I get back to work to find everything had gone into the crapper. So I was stuck yet again fixing other people's negligence and trying to spin gold not out of straw but manure. I have begun to get quite good at that, thank you.

The downside is I seem to have backslid into some bad habits. 54 hour work weeks became the norm.

Well, I'm off on vacation again, this time for two weeks. Let's see what happens when I get back!