And So They Were Married....After Some Sushi

My brother's wedding was last night and it was quite nice. And a bit odd. About 30 people in a private room at a yummy restaurant. (The food was amazing.)

But the whole night was a bit weird. The bride and groom were mingling before the wedding. Invitations said 6 pm. The ceremony didn't actually start until 7:30. Before the ceremony, the bride and groom were a bit peckish so decided to have appetizers first. So we all sat down at our tables and ate sushi, pulled pork sliders, and calamari. I think husband and I have a new private joke....would you like some sushi or would you like to get married?

After some yummy sushi, brother said to me "well, let's get started." So we mosied over to a cozy corner of the room and called for quiet. We were going to start the ceremony when the bride realized she'd forgotten her flowers across the room so said "wait" and scurried across to grab her bouquet.

She got her flowers, walked back, and we started.

My family and free alcohol. A bad combination. I think Husband and I were honestly the only sober ones there. No, really. But nobody was obnoxious. Just very happy.

Considering the fact that I finished the ceremony at noon yesterday, I think it turned out well. It was personal and romantic, a bit funny and relaxed. Brother and new sister-in-law said they were thrilled. I also put together a few CDs of background music which seemed to be a big hit as well.

After the ceremony, things were equally relaxed (OK, disorganized). Several of the guests had already left before the cake was cut. (I never did get any cake!) But the room was beautiful, the bride was gorgeous, and the groom was beaming. When they said their personal vows both were near tears. And the night was full of laughter.

And more weirdness. Someone hit the wrong photo slideshow and dinner was accompanied by the photos of the happy couple -- at Alcatraz. Nothing like a picture of a morgue to put you in the wedding mood.

Catching up

Some links I thought you might like...

First off, I don't even like babies. (Or this song) but this had me cracking up.

Speaking of music, here's a French music video with cool animation, a fun sound, and a scary storyline.

Seriously one of the sweetest, most joyful things ever. I watch this every few months and sometimes it makes me so happy I cry. No, honestly.

Greetings

Yeah, it's been a while. Bronchitis followed by mono. Trust me to get mono. Here's a quick update:

- We have a rat. Scrabbling in the walls behind our kitchen cabinets. Fun. Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) just noticed today. We've heard it for a week now. We've bought some ratsbane and are keeping our fingers crossed.

- Next week: book group, Husband doing an interview at a San Francisco library and, oh yes, my brother is getting married, I'm performing the ceremony and I haven't written it yet.

- Mom is sometimes OK with her new place. Sometimes not. Eldest sister is freaking out big time and seems to be having a harder time than mom is. We're visiting her and doing our best to help her settle in. The people there are doing a wonderful job of making sure she has plenty of company and things to do. When I went the other day one of the managers was sitting with her doing a puzzle. He left when I arrived and when he saw me leaving later he told one of the aides to go up and make sure she wasn't alone. It's hard seeing her there. It's weird because at home she was just mom but when I go there and see all the old people with walkers it makes me realize how fragile it is. It's only been two weeks but so far it seems to be going as well as can be expected.

- I went to dog training night at the shelter so now I can help at mobile adoptions. I haven't signed up for my first one yet as I have so much going on, but I should be scheduled for one by the end of the month. I'll still be concentrating on cats, but at the adoption events I'll be helping out with both cats and dogs. I can't wait.

- This is perhaps the most boring update I've ever written.

Trick, No Treat

The siblings have decided on a senior home for mom and we're moving her in on Halloween.

After weeks of talking about it, it suddenly seems to be happening quite fast. My brother is organizing things and there are e-mails flying. My eldest sister is taking mom for a ride on Sunday and the rest of us are moving her things in. I haven't seen the room, but apparently it's nice and sunny. There's room for her bedroom set, a chair and TV. A small dining area. She has a mini-kitchen with fridge, microwave, coffeemaker and toaster oven. And her own bath. There are lots of windows and she'll have a view of SFO, which will make her happy as she loves to watch the planes take off and land.

And I feel like crap.

I've been dealing with bad daughter syndrome for years now because I'm not closer to her. And egged on by family guilt at not doing more, I've had it worse and worse. But it's finally sinking in that we're putting my mom in a home. Oh it's a nice one. Not a hospital. More of a retirement center with very nice people and lots of activities. I think it'll actually help her to have regular stimulation and company and things to do doing the day. But it remains that we're moving her out of the house she's lived in for nearly 60 years.

And she doesn't know. We haven't told her because 1) we don't know how and; 2) they advise us not to upset her until the last minute. They're the experts and know what to do. We've gotten some anti-agitation medicine and we'll all be there to show her around and make sure she's comfortable before we leave. Plus she's lost so much of her memory that even if we did tell her she wouldn't remember when she got there and we'd have to tell her all over again.

I know it's the right thing. We all do. She fell again the other day and bruised her forehead. Not seriously but, again, proof that she need more care than we can give her. They'll check in with her regularly, make sure she socializes, give her her medicine on time and, all and all, seems like the best solution.

But I still feel like crap.

Superstitions

Husband, who is normally a very rational man, has definite superstitions when it comes to sports. His all revolve around hats.

At the start of every hockey season he buys himself a new Philadelphia Flyers cap. This must be worn at all times when the Flyers are on the ice. However, if the Flyers should start to suck, the hat comes off because (obviously) the hat mojo isn't working. Of course he doesn't actually believe his headgear affects the outcome of games, but it's a superstition nonetheless.

At the start of tonight's playoff game between the Giants and the Phillies, Husband was wearing his Giants cap. However, the Giants soon began some form of suckage and the hat came off. And Husband (who didn't wear the cap last night, when the Giants won) proclaimed this a no-hat series as far as he's concerned.

Superstitions are odd things. I started my college career as an acting major and that's a profession overcrowded with superstitions. No whistling backstage. Saying "good luck" is bad luck. And, the biggie, you must never, never, never say the name Macbeth in a theatre. If you even quote from it, the production is jinxed until you go out of the theatre and turn around three times clockwise. (Who comes up with this shit?)

I don't believe in these, but I adhered to them because everyone else did and I didn't want to piss them off. But it's a weird thing.

I don't know that I have any superstitions. I work around tons of black cats. I've walked under ladders. I've broken mirrors. I don't knock wood or throw salt over my shoulder. But I respect other's superstitions so I don't do things to upset them. But it's odd how these things start and continue.

I Am Not Crazy

I've always harbored a bit of a resentment towards those who think I'm "a crazy cat lady." This New York Times piece explains it nicely, thank you.

Scenes from Silver Creek: The Hiram House

I think every town has, or should have, a haunted house. With Halloween approaching, it seemed fitting to tell you about Silver Creek’s.

It was called the Hiram House and, sadly, it is no longer there. With typical Silver Creekian respect for the past it was torn down to build a picture-framing store. There was a movement to save it, but it was so dilapidated that it was deemed a fire hazard and, in spite of some civic spirit, there was nobody willing to fund a restoration. And, really, no point. It was just a shell. A shell with an interesting history, and some weird architecture, but beyond hope really.

Hiram House was one of the first five buildings in Silver Creek. Part of the original Spanish land grant to a man named Israel Hiram who did some dubious service and was rewarded with a plot of land in an as-yet-unnamed part of what would be California.

Hiram brought up a fat wife and some skinny cows from Mexico and started a dairy. And he built a house. It was just a square of four rooms at first. But as the dairy grew, and his fortunes along with it, he added rooms and kids at regular intervals. Eventually it was two stories with porches all around and mismatched windows. Some tall and skinny. Some arched. Two in one room. Three in another. Nothing matched and yet it all seemed to fit somehow. As if their disunity was what united the whole.

But, as with all good ghost stories, there was a tragedy. In this case an influenza epidemic that wiped out the fat wife and the numerous children. Only tough old Israel was left. He lost interest in the cows and stopped building the house and grew old and died. End of story.

But Hiram House sat there while Silver Creek grew up around it. The building falling apart. The land that the dairy was on turned into subdivisions and fast-food joints. And the old building of adobe and pine settled into lumps and ruins; an anomaly in suburbia.

As a child I lived about four blocks from Hiram House and walked past it on my way to Our Lady of Angels or the library. My friend Sean, however, lived on the same street, Hiram Road (imaginatively enough) and could see the old place from his bedroom window.
Being imaginative kids we, of course, invested the place with all sorts of specters. Not content with old Israel wandering about the place mourning the loss of his family, we came up with everything this side of Anne Boleyn wandering the place “with her head tucked underneath her arm.”

But we didn’t really believe the place was haunted. Not really. Sort of.

It was a hot August night when Sean, his elder brother Nick, and I were walking home after a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We were in high school and not afraid of anything. Certainly not walking past the Hiram House at 2 am.

We’d sort of run out of conversation by then and were just enjoying the warm night and good friends. I was walking in-between the brothers, holding Sean’s hand. Nick was whistling "The Time Warp" quietly. Then we walked past the overgrown lot where the Hiram House stood. And we saw the man.

He was pale and scrawny. Seemed to be covered in dust. And was illuminated perfectly by the blue light of the moon as he stood staring at the empty house. And I stopped. And I looked. And then we all looked. And then he turned from the house and stared at us. He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. Sean, always a chicken, made a sound like a wounded spaniel and high-tailed it for home. Nick and I took off after him without thought.

And once in the safety of the Logan house, we said nothing. And we never did. Not to each other. Not to anyone else. We all three saw him and all three knew the others had seen, but it was never spoken.

About six years later Hiram House was torn down. The only reference we ever made to that night was that Sean always referred to “The Haunted Picture-Framer” as the business that moved in.

Into Compulsion

I've been reading Jon Krakauer's fascinating book Into Thin Air. For those of you who don't know it, it details the 1996 tragedy on Mt. Everest in which nine people were killed. He's a great storyteller and it's a page-turning read.

It's also one of those books that makes you think about what you'd do in a particular situation.

In this case, I wouldn't be in that situation.

When I was a kid I decided that I was going to climb Everest. I think I saw it on The Wonderful World of Disney and, of course, planned on making the climb. After all, how hard could it be? You climb. End of story.

But somewhere in between Tinkerbell flying over the castle and my reaching the age I am now, I've changed my mind. I got smarter. Or lazier. Or something. But looking on it now, I wonder that anyone wants to do it. Forget "because it's there" it's insane!

You're sick all the time. You're exhausted. You alternately cough up blood or feel like you're otherwise going to die. People do die, every year. And you pay at least $75,000 for the privilege.

In many ways I'm in awe of people who achieve this. The discipline required to get your body into shape for an Everest climb is beyond my comprehension. And the drive necessary to achieve this one goal through pain, deprivation, fear, and threat of freezing to death is equally mysterious. Frostbite is nearly certain, apparently. Who really needs all 10 toes? And sure I'm willing to forsake family and friends for three months while I acclimatize my body to 29,000 feet. Sure, I want to live at the altitude that planes usually cruise at.

The whole thing seems both pointless and admirable -- crazy and and fascinating. I'm glad I read the book, but equally glad i'll never do it myself.

Plots
Ah, fall. The Giants are kicking baseballbutt (go Giants!). Halloween decorations abound and I have an excuse to accidentally eat two peanut butter cups. And the countdown has already begun for NaNoWriMo.


Last year I started a book with the deliriously bad title of Anton Schickler Sings Bad Songs of a German Childhood. I am still in love in love with title. It went no where, which was helped by my flu. So I started but didn't finish. Husband, however, being a stud not only wrong a book in a month, but he wrote a damned good one. He published it through Blurb and sold about 50 copies. Mostly to friends but a few times to total strangers (with good taste).

So we're coming up on 2010 NaNoWriMo and I am already panicking. No idea. None. Not a clue. No setting. No characters. No genre. Not even the merest hint of an idea. Should be fun.

Now With Platypus Liver!

I find cosmetics marketing hilarious.

First off, I don't really understand it. Aside from an insane high school addiction to root beer lip gloss I've never worn make up. The only so-called beauty product I buy is moisturizer.

But most women wear cosmetics and advertising it is a huge market. But what gets me is when they suddenly announce that an ingredient you never heard of or never knew would make you beautiful is suddenly touted in TV ads.

Now with Platypus Liver! They'll proclaim. Really? Who knew platypus liver was good for you? The big thing seems to be random oil. New Like Me Mascara enriches your lashes with Aspidistra Oil. What the heck is aspidistra oil when it's at home?

Men's products don't seem to suffer from the same problem. You never see an ad for shaving cream that's now made with trout scales or oak cream.

And since I'm on a rant (and when am I not?) what is it with too many made-up flavors. Nothing is chocolate anymore. It's Belgian Chocolate Creme Originale. Vanilla Bean Tahitian. There's always one weird geographic reference, I suppose to make it more cosmopolitan. But it's too much. Canadian Caramel Dream is not a flavor. It's a stripper.

The Genius that was William Topz McGongall

If you are unfamiliar with the poetic oeuvre of Mr. McGonagall then you are in for a delight. Billed as "McGonagall the Prince of Dioggerell: and "The Worst Poet in the English Language" the poor man more than lived up to his name. This 19th century hack was firmly convinced of his Divine Talent and his duty to his Muse. He had no sense of humor regarding his work. At one point he wrote with great seriousness that while reciting his verses, people began throwing peas at him. And when you read his works, you really ca't blame them. His favorite subjects were train disasters, burials of famous peoples, bridge crashes, fires, and various other lyrical calamaties. Here I give you but a sample of the magic that was William McConagall's "talent":

The Late Sir John Ogilvy

Alas! Sir John Ogilby is dead, aged eighty=seven
But I hop his soul his now is heaven;
For he was a generous-hearted gentleman I am sure
And in particular, ery kind unto the poor

He was a Christian gentlemen in every degree
And, for many a years, was an M.P. for Bonnie Dundee,
And while he was an M.P. he didn't neglect
To advocate the rights of Dundee in every respect

He was a public benefactor in man way,s
especially in erecting an asylum for imbecile children to spend their days
Then he handed the institution over as free
As a free gift and boon to the people of Dundee

He was chairman gentlemen in his time,
and he now lies buried in the family vault in Strathmartine
but I hope his sould has gone alonft where all troubles cease
amonsgt the blessed saits where all is joy and peace

to the peple around Baldovan he will be a great loss,
because he was a kind hearted man and a Solder of the Cross
He had always a kind word for every one he met
And the loss of such a good man will be felt with deep regret

Because such men as Sir John Ogilvy are hard to be found,
Especially in Christian charity his large heart did abound
Therefore a monumentshould be erected for him most handsome to behold
And his good deeds engraven thereon in letters of gold

CD Pick of the Week: Salif Keita

Salif Keita's new release is a must-have for fans of Afro-pop. This Malian superstar has struggled his whole life against intolerance shown towards his albinism. In this release he sings about his life experiences as “a white man with black blood.” Featuring rhythmic guitar riffs and stylish kora groove plus his gorgeous voice set against a female chorus, this is all delicious.

Even better? All proceeds from the sale of this CD benefit his charity Salif Keita Pour Les Albinos which helps to combat the stigma that albinism has in Africa.

Musical Updates
KZSU has announced its Fall Schedule and I'm still on Tuesday nights, with a bit of a time change. You can listen to my show, At the Cafe Bohemian, from 5:50-8 pm. Tune in and listen to what the rest of the world sounds like.

If you have iTunes you can listen that way as well. Go to iTunes -> Radio -> Colleges & Universities -> KZSU.

Don't Call it Frisco

I'm very proud of my San Francisco roots. My great-grandparents came to SF in the 1870s. My grandmother lived through the 1906 earthquake and I remember her stories of what it was like. My father was born and raised in an area of the city then known as "Butchertown." It wasn't because it was a rough neighborhood (although, sadly, it is now). It referred to the large proportion of butcher shops in the area. It was predominately French. So much so that the neighborhood church had Sunday masses in French.

The SF Bay Area is a mecca for people who want to work in high tech or are searching for a more diverse community. Those of us who are born and raised her are something of a rare breed. One place where I worked I was on a team of 12 and I was the only one who was from here. Everyone else had relocated from another part of the US or another country.

I adore the SF Giants and am a Niners fan (even though they suck). I have great memories of raiding SF when I was in high school. We'd borrow a car and drive around the city. Dancing under the rotunda at the Palace of Fine Arts. Picnics at Land's End. One memorable night we stole a whole bunch of orange cones, blocked off the top of Lombard Street and drove up. Yes, we drove UP Lombard Street.

San Francisco is my city. And I hate it when people call it Frisco. Nearly as bad is when they call it San Fran. Would it kill you to add the other two syllables? Calling it SF is acceptable. Here it's merely called "the City." If you say "there's this great Basque restaurant up in the City" nobody would ask "what city?"

But people (mostly sports announcers who, in spite of their annoying-ness, still qualify as people) insist on Frisco or San Fran. No. Bad announcers! No cookie!

I'm not sure if other cities have this problem. Most of them don't get abbreviated the way SF does. Husband is a Philadelphia native and he's fine with "Philly." Other cities seem to have nicknames rather than abbreviations. And people seem to be OK with them. Folks in New Orleans don't get peeved when you refer to it as "the Crescent City." Detroit is proud of their "Motown" label. Chicagoians use "the windy city" themselves. (By the way, did you know that doesn't refer to the wind? It's because politicians from that city were very long-winded while pleading their case to host the World's Fair back in the 1880s.) But they don't have annoying shortening of their names that pisses off the locals.

So please, don't call it Frisco.

Scenes from Silver Creek: The Ballad of Queenie and Skeeter

Champion Victoria of India Star was a purebred Pembroke Welsh Corgi with an impeccable pedigree. One of her grandmothers won Best of Breed at Crufts and a littermate took the group at Westminster.

Ch. Victoria (known to all as Queenie) was, in spite of her breeding, a dog of the people. Much to the dismay of her owners. Her owners had no such pedigree, just the pretention.

Mr. and Mrs. Donald Wright were two of the biggest snobs on the planet. They were British and you’d think they’d invented the concept. They weren’t Lord and Lady Wright. They weren’t titled. But they acted like it. They were known about Silver Creek as “the always Wrights.”

They drove a succession of wildly unsuitable Jaguars that they insisted you pronounce in the English way of jag-you-are. They name-dropped English institutions with hilarious regularity. The finals at Wimbledon. Royal watching at Ascot. Phrases like “in my Oxford days” and “you can’t get real marmalade here can you” would be greeted with varying degrees of patience amusement or eye rolls.

Their greatest wish was to make others feel inferior, but they never once succeeded. And Queenie was no help in this matter.

Anyone who was unlucky enough to get stopped long enough heard all about Ch. Victoria of India Star. Her breeder had sold corgis to a “someone high up in the English royal family” but of course they couldn’t say whom. Queenie herself had won several Best of Shows and could have gone to Westminster, if the Wrights had been so inclined. But they showed her only until she got her Champion status and then retired her. Their intention was to breed her, but before they could, fate intervened.

Fate in the guise of a sweet but ugly mutt named Skeeter.

Skeeter was sort of a dirty water brown and looked as if he’d been put together by a committee. Eddie Collins, who lived next door to the Wrights, adopted him from a local shelter because; as he explained “something that ugly has to have some redeeming qualities.” And he was right. Skeeter was loyal, loving, and smart. He knew dozens of tricks and was devoted to his owner. Every kid in town knew and loved Skeeter. Eddie would keep his pockets full of dog treats and whenever a kid came by he’d hand over a few snacks so we could all feed Skeeter and get lots of lovely dog licks all over our faces.

Eddie couldn’t have been more different than his neighbors. He was a Marine. (Of course he was a Marine in WWII but I remember him saying there’s no such thing as an ex-Marine.) He was friendly to everyone and seemed to be on a first name basis with the entire town. He was a hard working plumber and proud of it. And he no pretentions at all. He loved a cold beer at the end of the day. Loved Monday Night Football. Loved Maybelle Reiter, who owned the Sunny Day Hair Salon. (And she loved him back.)

And loved sitting on the lawn, endlessly throwing the ball for Skeeter. Which is how the trouble started.

Champion Victoria of India Star should have been the pampered diva princess of her parent’s dreams. Instead, she liked nothing better than to roll in something deliciously stinky. She liked to knock over garbage cans and see if there was anything to eat inside. And she loved to burrow under the fence between the two yards and chase balls with Skeeter.

Skeeter was the love of her life. Her warm brown eyes positively glowed when his ugly shape ambled out into the yard. They would great each other rapturously, eagerly butt-sniffing and alternately rolling around and nosing each other.

And Eddie, well aware that Queenie was on the lam, would nevertheless make sure he threw the ball for her too. In his opinion, Queenie was a deprived animal. No ball chasing. No running in the sprinklers on a hot day. No getting dirty and being hosed off in the front yard.

Queenie was on a strict diet of homemade dog food and holistic treats. So of course she went nuts when Eddie shared his beef jerky and cheese puffs with her.

Usually Eddie was good about lifting Queenie back over the fence before the always Wrights knew she was gone. But one time Donald Wright came looking for her and nearly had a stroke. There was his Queenie, his Champion, eating cheese puffs and getting artificial orange dust all over her muzzle. Worse, she was sitting next to that….that mutt as if they were equals!

There was what Mr. Wright would have called “a scene” and Eddie called a “freak out.” Mr. Wright shouting, climbing over the fence to retrieve his precious girl and take her away from such ruffians. Eddie laughing and telling the man to calm down. Mr. Wright making vague mentions of the police. Eddie making distinct mentions of various places where Mr. Wright could put his police.

For a few days afterwards, Queenie was not left in the yard. She was taken for nice, decorous walks on her nice, decorous leash. The Wrights were careful to always turn her right down the block, away from Eddie’s place. And Skeeter, ever the romantic, would run hopefully along the fence line, no doubt calling to her in his best doggy Don Juan way.

And, as love will, it prevailed. One muggy summer night when the Wrights were watching Masterpiece Theatre (“My dear, the only thing worth watching on American telly!”) Queenie nosed open the screen door and made her escape. Within minutes she had bellied under the fence and was reunited with her Skeeter.

Later, when Queenie was safely delivered of a litter of scraggy dogs with short Corgi legs. The Wrights decided that she wasn’t the dog for them. We always wondered whether they sold or gave her to Eddie, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Queenie and Skeeter were together.

And from them on, we kids had two dogs to give treats to.

Photo of the day: Lucky

This is Lucky. She redefines adorable.

Photo of the day: The Condo of Love

This is a band of 3 and 4 month old kittens that like nothing better than to sleep in a pile. Every time I walk by their cage they are curled around each other like furry yin and yangs.

Another Planet

My mother's mind is now another planet. And sometimes that planet goes out of orbit.

Dementia is a horrible process. I went through it with my best friend. He had AIDS-related dementia. The day I walked in and he had no idea who I was, I felt little bits of my heart break inside of me.

Mom has senior dementia. At times it just manifests itself as having absolutely no memory. At times it's worse. Last weekend she took me on a tour of the home I grew up in because she thought I'd never been there before. She also talked about her kids like I wasn't one of them.

Saturday night the switch flipped and she turned aggressive, paranoid, and violent. I wasn't there. My poor nephew and his girlfriend were on grandma watch and went from being fine to asking who they were and what they were doing in her home. She accused them of trying to rob her. She said she hated them. She threw things. Worried she might hurt herself or someone else, they called 911. That made it worse. My mother, my nice mild-mannered mother, bit a cop. (Somehow I always thought if a mom bit a cop it would be Husband's mother. The ex-hippie and still political activist. I can see her biting a cop as he tries to drag her away from a protest.) But my mom? Nope. Too much a scaredy cat to cross authority.

Apparently it took a cop and two EMTs to get her to the ambulance. And once at the hospital she calmed down a bit and then went off again. She ripped out her IV and her ID tag and yelled at the nurses. They sedated her and she was able to go home a few hours later.

The siblings and I are working out when we can all meet up to have "the talk." We've come to realize she needs more care than she has now. My exceptional big sister lives with her, but I don't thinks it's just a matter of making sure she has company. She's getting worse. Unfortunately my mother's insurance doesn't cover in-home care. We've looked into care agencies and they charge $25 an hour. I'm not sure even with all of us chipping in we can afford that. Nobody wants to put her into senior care but we may have no choice.

It's tragic, because there are times when she's her. When she knows us. When she loves puttering around the home she's live in for close on 60 years. Where she was so happy with my father. And when she's her, she'll hate not being at home. She'll hate being someplace strange, surrounded by strange people. Of course we'll all visit and make sure she has as much family time as possible, but there will be times when her kids aren't there.

I am staying detached. Partly because I am and partly because I know from sad experience that in times like this, someone has to be. When I was Steve's primary caregiver I had to force myself to stay detached. If I let on how much it hurt, I wouldn't have been able to sign the papers to have him put into an AIDS hospice. So I put my feelings in a hurt locker and carried on.

This is easier. I've never felt exceptionally close to my mom, not like my siblings. I know it's much harder for them than for I. While they do what they can for mom, I'll do what I can for them. I'll go to the family conference, I'll give an opinion, I'll check my budget to see how much I can chip in for care. If necessary, I'll give up my volunteering and go back to work to be able to contribute more. But my job, as I see it now, is to whatever hard work I can. I'm OK with signing papers and being the one who makes the hard call. If my siblings will let me.

But they won't. Because to them I'll always be 9 years old. I will always be the baby of the family and incapable of being a responsible adult.

And for now we take care of mom as best we can. And hope her planet doesn't spin out of orbit while we're on duty.

Lazy on a Saturday

When Husband is out of town I lose all desire to leave the house. Not out of misery at being a bachelor girl for the weekend. I do get to spend time alone here during the week. But there's something special about having a weekend alone. Don't get me wrong, I miss him big time. (But I'm loving his coverage of the Monterey Jazz Festival. Check it out at Jazz Observer.)

I'm watching movies he would have no desire to see. Taking lot, hot baths. Eating junk food. Having a great time. Sure I can do all this while he's here, but there's an illicit pleasure in doing it while he's gone. Like I'm doing something wrong.

Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) misses him more than me. When Husband is gone she follows me around like "I let one of you out of my sight, I'm not letting the other one leave." She's currently sleeping on his side of the bed. And last night, at her usual play time, she brought me her favorite toy. It's a stick with little crinkly bits on it. The problem is she only wants to play with Husband. Apparently I don't do it right. I did my best, but she gave me a pityingly patient look that said "you loser" and would not bite. Then she did the cat equivalent of looking at her watch to figure out when Husband was going to be home. I find it amusing that I spend most of my week playing with cats who can't get enough of my attention yet my own cat refuses to play with me.

So while Husband is gone Cipher will have to put up with a second-rate player. And I'm indulging in an orgy of the British show Top Gear. I'm going to have popcorn for dinner. Cipher will have tuna (her favorite). And Husband will have a full day and night of amazing music.

Kitten update

It's been a while since I've updated you about things at the nursery.

We're in quarantine due to a possible positive test for feline leukemia and ringworm. The second leukemia test was negative, which is a good thing, but we're still keeping an eye out. Luckily the litter in question is thriving. Getting fat and happy and playing like crazy.

Because of the quarantine there are no litters in or out, so we've got the same full house we've had for the past two weeks. Everybody is doing great. Some should have been moved to adoption last week so they're huge and far more active than a little cage can hold. Their close to breaking out and we have to be extra careful about securing the cages because they can break out.

We're coming to the end of the season. Last year the nursery closed the first week in October. We'll probably shut down once this quarantine is over and the litters are moved to foster or adoption. And we've already broken our record for kittens. Last year we had 62. This year we had 86.

I'm going to miss the nursery when it shuts down. I'll go back to doing cats four days a week, but there's nothing like working with the kittens.

Next year we'll be in the shelter's new building with a separate nursery for the kittens, not just a small out-building. We'll be able to have more kennels and can save more kittens. I can't wait.

Husband, if you're reading this, thank you for making it possible for me to do what I love.