Happy Lammas/Lughnasadh!

Tonight is the holiday of Lammas/Lughnasadh. In the medieval Irish calendar, it was one of the four main festivals, marking the first harvest and was traditionally a time for handfastings, market days, and family reunions. It's generally celebrated on August 1st, but since the old calendar started the holidays on the night before, it is now, officially, Lughnasadh.

In some of the Wiccan/neoPagan traditions, Lughnasadh is the first of the three main harvest sabbats (the others being Mabon, in September, and Samhain, in October.) There are rituals aplenty to thank the lord and lady for their bounty, or the god Lugh for the rain he allows to fall on the crops, but I have to admit, as far as rituals go, I'm a slacker pagan as yet. We are, simply, crunched for space and time, so most of my celebrating, I do in my head or in quiet times snatched between more mundane activities.

I choose to celebrate this Lughnasadh by counting my blessings. To my friends, those I've met in real life and those I've met through the internet, thank you. You helped me immeasurably during the rough time I had with my cat Sochi this past week, and in many other ways and many other times before. Maybe you didn't know you were helping, but you did, and I thank you.

To my husband, who keeps me grounded and keeps me from taking myself too seriously, thank you. I had to go online to meet you (and to find out we lived a few blocks away from each other) but you're still the best thing I ever "downloaded" off the internet. :)

To my daughter, who keeps me from obsessing too much on life by reminding me to find the joy in silly things...thank you. You're three feet (or a little more) of miracle---demanding, laughing, feisty, and loving ---and a miracle nonetheless.

You all have been my harvest of blessings. Happy Lughnasadh, my friends, and may your own "harvest" be plentiful.

Doing the happy dance because it's Friday...

Oh, what a week.

Right now, I've got the sinus cold that will not go away---which means I'm coughing and hacking and sounding a lot like a plague victim. I'm more or less feeling better, but the whole coughing thing is not fun. If it's not gone by Monday, I'll be calling my doc (yes, I know colds are caused by a virus, but I have a bad history with bronchitis and pneumonia too. Eeep.)

On the upside---and there is one---Sochi seems to be on the mend, or at least as much on the mend as a 17 year old cat is likely to be. He's eating, and using the litter box and grooming (not easily, but he IS grooming.)

And tomorrow, I'm meeting a couple of people from the Beauty and the Beast TV online group for lunch. I'm not entirely sure how that's going to play out, but the last time I went to meet someone for lunch that I hadn't ever met before, I met my husband. :) So I'm thinking it'll be fun--and who can beat lunch at Panera, anyway?

Anyway, if you're reading this, have a wonderful weekend. :)

A picture of Sochi...

This picture was taken in January this year. I use it as proof that Sochi and the wee one do, somewhat, get along. :)

A Left Turn at Albuquerque....

...and I know it's just delaying the inevitable, but...

My friend J and I took Sochi to the vet today. The vet---a good country doctor, much as J said---examined him thoroughly and said the only real problem that he could see with Sochi (aside from old age) was that his kidneys were smaller, which is not uncommon with older cats. So we talked about options, treatment expenses, and Sochi's quality of life.

And bottom-line it, I just couldn't put him down. Not today, though I know it's coming; I don't fool myself there. What the vet suggested was a course of fluids, a change in his diet, a cortisone shot for his arthritis, and bloodwork--all of which are not expensive. But if the treatment gives us six months where Sochi is feeling at least somewhat better, I'll consider it worth the little bit extra. He's never going to be completely well, and I know that. At this point, I'll settle for the cat not being in pain and eating.

Conversely, though---if the bloodwork turns out something truly, imminently fatal (like cancer)...then I'll make the decision once again. At least I will know we tried everything reasonable to make Sochi's quality of life a little better in the time he has left.

So, we have time. I don't know how much more, but you can either curse the river or accept what it brings. In the meantime, we have today.

A small chuckle :)

Because I need the laugh just now--and hey, who doesn't?---here's a small chuckle from the other day.

My husband and I were having this conversation in the car.

Him: I like this CD. I just wish all the songs weren't so pagan-themed.

Me: The CD is called "The Best of Pagan Song."

I love my husband. :)

Highway Robbery, Part 2

Well, we have a solution. My friend J's vet was just as she said, and quoted us a price that is much more within our budget. So yeah, this Saturday morning at 11:30 is it. :-(

It feels pretty surreal, I have to say---Sochi is old and ill and failing yet the whole idea of making an appointment to end his life is just so odd. In my mind's eye, I see him launching through the windowscreens to jump another cat who dared jump onto "his" balcony (as he did more than once when he was younger.) Or chasing his tail. Or mow-Wowwwwwing at passersby (or growling at them---hey, I didn't call him my "attack killer watch cat" for nothing.) He was so alive then, and now...yeah. It's hard, because I remember him as he was, but that's not him, now.

I'm trying to focus on the mercy aspect of it, that as my long-time friend, I don't want his suffering to continue (or get worse, which it surely will.) I know we've made the right decision, and it's right that I'm the one who's going to walk that last path with him. But goddess, it's hard.

Highway Robbery, Part 1

Well, I called our local vet's office yesterday to get an appointment for our cat. Turns out, because he is not a patient of theirs, they'll have to do an exam. And if I want to stay with him when they euthanize him, that'll be even more money. And since we want his ashes back...yeah. You guessed it. By the time all was said and done, the total was somewhere in the neighborhood of $400. Eeep. In the same week we're paying rent and car insurance. :-O

The whole exchange left a foul taste in my mouth. Sochi had a bad reaction to a vaccine a number of years ago, and because he's an indoor, and only, cat, he hasn't really needed vet care since then (aside from one ear infection and one blocked gland.) But now, when we want his life to end humanely and painlessly, this particular vet saw only a chance to make a profit. Lovely. Not.

So my friend J gave me the name of her vet, an old country doc who sounds much like the one I remember as a kid (who met us at his clinic late one night because our Siamese had pneumonia and was dying.) I'll call him and another vet today and hopefully, I'll find out that the procedure can be done for a little less money. Conversely, if we find out that $350 really is the range, then we'll still do it...but we'll have to wait a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we'll keep Sochi comfortable.

Hard choices suck.

The Journey to the Rainbow Bridge

This past weekend, we made a decision about our cat Sochi. He's nearly twenty and it's becoming apparent that it's time to let him go...and it's hard. Before I met my husband, he was my most stable (and sane) male relationship---he saw me through two bad breakups, three or four moves and times when I was nearly at the end of my rope. He's been a good friend, and someone I could always count on to be there.

Now, I look at him and his fur is all dulled, and he's not eating often, and I know this is the beginning of a downhill slide that is only going to get worse the longer we prolong it. So it's time, soon, to let him go across the bridge and be healthy and whole. I'm not sure if it's the Rainbow Bridge he'll cross, or go to the green fields of Summerland, but wherever he goes, I know he'll be among friends, the other cats and dogs we have loved and lost. It doesn't make it easier to lose him now, but I know we're doing the best we can for him.

I'll post more on him this weekend.

Drama, Facebook Style

I have a Facebook page. I've had it since 2008 and aside from one too-close-for-comfort email from an asshat from my past (who subsequently got blocked right after he contacted me, because I didn't want to talk to him ever again) it's been pretty trouble-free.

Until today.

It's no secret that I'm a liberal democrat--one of the more moderate ones, but I'm still a liberal (and it says so on my Facebook page.) Anyway, I posted an article from the WSJ about Sarah Palin's recent resignation which sparked a back and forth discussion between me and a friend of mine. That's not the problem. My aunt chimed in, which is.

My aunt is one of my mom's six sisters, and one of many that she has no contact with. Consequently, I've also had virtually no contact with her until a couple of months ago, when she found me on Facebook. I know enough about my aunt to know she's a conservative, fundamentalist Christian. But I figure since my leanings (and beliefs) are on the profile page, and she found me, she also knew what she was getting.

So she cuts into the conversation with a rather snide comment about how Sarah Palin must be too conservative or too intelligent for us. (Yeah. She went there.)

Leaving aside that this kind of thing irritates the crap out of me, because I wouldn't dare go to her page and make a political or religious statement, I didn't quite know how to react. So I thought about it, drank a coke, thought about it some more and said, in so many words, that I respected my aunt's beliefs and her right to have them but I was asking for the same consideration. I told her my beliefs regarding Ms. Palin (which had nothing at all to do with her religious beliefs and everything to do with her qualifications.) I figured that would end it and I went on with my day.

I have now received two more emails from my aunt---one in which she tells me that she is asking for respect for her beliefs (um, yeah, you went to whose page to make that comment?) and another one in which she told me she shares many of Ms. Palin's beliefs and has now realized that Facebook is not the place for political topics. And she said she was sorry.

The thing is, I do talk about politics on my Facebook page--more than I do here (but less than I did around the election LOL.) It's something my friends and I enjoy debating---and for sure, we don't always agree but that's the way of it. I just don't want to be in the position of censoring myself on my own page.

Le sigh.

One Toe Back in the Water...

Yesterday, my husband and I went and looked at a couple of houses---not with our realtor, just on our own. (We're still saving the $$ we'd need for a down payment, so there was no need to get her hopes up or waste her time just now. :)) This was the first time we even looked at a house since the Great House Disaster....

...And you know, it wasn't bad. We looked at one house and immediately scratched it off the potential list as being about two inches away from being razed. The other house, though...that's the one that we both hope is still up for sale when we have the money to go forwards (and in this market, with a glut of short sales, that's a distinct possibility.) It's in a more rural area just outside our city and it's got a huge yard and tons of potential. And it's close to an award-winning grade school.

I'm not saying that this house is The One. I thought the last house was and we all see how well that turned out. But it's a possibility and one we hope to investigate further eventually. :) For now, it's enough to know that gently, we're getting back into it.

Today I Said No...

...and true to the wisdom I learned on Ehell, it is a complete sentence.

Some background:

At work, we are dreadfully short-staffed. So people with my job title were paired with a "buddy," someone who would be assigned a limited amount of the work we do, in the hopes that they'd learn enough to help the rest of us out. For the most part, it's worked out okay; my buddy is a reasonably intelligent person and we get along fine.

(And a qualifier here: I get along well with pretty much everyone I work with. There are days, however, when enough's enough. And today was it.)

So, I was helping one of my co-workers with a new part of the computer system when L shows up. L is not my assigned buddy, but I don't mind helping her when I have the time. I didn't have the time today (remember, we're short-staffed.) And I told L "Hey, isn't M your buddy?"

L says, "But M is busy."

I told her--gently, I hope: "L, I'm busy too."

I don't know whether L liked being told no. But the reality is, I think I'll have to start saying it when I need to---not because I want to be "the mean bitchy secretary" but because I have work to do that I can't do if I'm off helping people who should be trying to help themselves first. And at the end of the road, if I don't get my work done, I'm not doing my job.

So..yeah. "No" is a complete sentence. Who knew? :)

Of bugs, ER trips, and fellowship :)

(Yes, now how's that for a lead-in? :-))

This weekend has been...fun. In the same way that labor is fun, when it's over. :) I had a stomach bug on Thursday and my hubby went to the ER on Thursday night-Friday morning. (He's fine, by the way---just a skin condition called cellulitis, and not the blood clot we feared it might be. When a guy's had cardiac bypass surgery before the age of 40, we tend to get a little paranoid.) The ER docs took good care of him and he was home by 5am that morning.

Which brought to mind all the times he's been at the ER since we've been married---more than I care to count, that's for sure. And it's unnerving, and it makes our world feel a little askew, because---well, who asks for an ER visit?

As to the fellowship....well, I belong to an online fandom community for a TV show that lasted barely 3 seasons back in the late 1980s. They're having a convention in New Orleans this year and San Diego next year, but tonight, those of us who couldn't get to NO went online, in chat, to have an episode discussion. And that was nice, just a few of us from all over the world, chattering away like a bunch of fangirls about what we loved about the episode we watched.

Things are starting to feel more normal now that I write this down. Maybe this weekend won't turn out so bad after all....:-)