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| MerLois of the sea. |
Last weekend was filled with the happy, fun sorts of things. On Friday I went to my first book club gathering (at which we discussed The Happiness Project) and had a delightful time with a roomful of smart, interesting women drinking wine and munching on lovely munchies and talking about kids and work and life and what brought us joy.
Last Saturday was the annual "Recycling Christmas" party I've been going to with my sister for about five years.
The event consists of three main parts:
1. Fabulous food and wine
Caprese salad, guacamole, pasta with butternut squash and chicken meatballs, darling little crab cakes, tender bites of beef with yummy sauce, miso black cod, little bits of cheese and scrumptious teeny crackers, chocolaty things, tiramisu, key lime pie, espresso chip meringues ... too much yum.
2. The Project
Project particulars vary every year, but the basics include some arts and crafts activity, presentation of the work and voting. The first year I went, we had to design an article of clothing. We had a marketing executive and a former model on our team. We won. Another year, we had to come up with an invention. Our solar-powered hooter-booster/thigh-master took first place. Last year, we designed hats. This year, we were challenged to create a piece of art. An array of supplies and various reclaimed items had been set out for our use. We created MerLois, painting our mermaid on two new canvases and an existing painted one and adding wine corks, yarn, raffia, STYROFOAM balls and little sparkly pom poms with a whole lotta glue gun sticks. We were pretty happy with the results, but MerLois came in second - a close second, we hear.
3. Recycled gift exchange (hence, the party name)
For this, each guest is supposed to bring a gift that "just wasn't you." Our host gets really upset when people bring nice gifts. The point is to be able to hoot and holler at really awful, tacky things. But the first couple of years, I got gifts that I really liked - a sparkly, gaudy fish ornament that hangs in my bathroom year-round and a kooky Patience Brewster reindeer ornament that I put out every year. Last year, my sister got an awesome giant pig watering can. This year, I got an neon owl birdhouse.
New this year was an ugly sweater contest, but I missed that on the invitation and did not participate. I was not the only one. There was a nice selection of traditional, truly ugly sweaters; however, this one from my office ugly sweater contest remains my all-time favorite:
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So that was Saturday. Sunday was filled with laundry and yard work and general house activities. I made soup. Did some of my book club reading. And then the work week started and proceeded with all of the basic work week stuff.
On Tuesday, I got a text message from my great nephew out of the blue.
And then there was this:
I've been passing this sign for a couple of weeks now, puzzling over the "with goat" part. I wondered ... lambs and bunnies and chicks not available? What is the First Communion connection? The biblical references I recalled are not so um, flattering to goats. I know some people EAT goats at Easter. I really want to call for info, but sadly no number is provided on the sign. One of life's unanswerables.
A week full of good, happy, mundane, sweet, curious ...
And then today was sad. I had to say goodbye to my faithful feline companion, Claudette.
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| Claudette 2/02/2000 - 4/12/2014 |
The decision to take her to the vet for a final visit was one of the hardest things I've had to do as an adult. Even though most of Claudette's 14 years had been healthy and seemingly happy ones, I was feeling like a bad pet parent. But the doctor was wonderful. So gentle and kind. (And not our regular vet.) Instead of the usual bare metal table, the attendant had put a soft blanket there to lay her on. She mewed softly. The doctor looked at Claudette and gently checked her over. He said I was right to bring her in - that it was time. Said she must have been very pretty. It wasn't until then that I cried as I thought of how pretty and playful and kittenish she had been for more than a dozen years. Five years ago, she was plump. Today she was a fragile bit of fur in my arms.
He gently told me what to expect: that he would shave some fur off her leg to expose a vein and then would inject her. He said she would be gone before he was finished.
The fluid in the syringe was pale pink. Claudette relaxed as I stroked her and said goodbye. It was quiet. And quick. And then she was still. I stayed to kiss her ears and the top of her head and picked up the bits of fur from the table. Those I wrapped in a tissue and took home to bury in the back yard with her brother Pierre, who died in 2008 after eating ribbons from Lizz's graduation presents.
Other than a few weeks in 2000, I have not been without a cat for 28 years - starting from the nanosecond my childhood allergy disappeared. That first cat, Masha, developed a mysterious illness at 14 and died within a couple of days. As Claudette's "issues" have advanced over the past year, I was beginning to learn what it was like to deal with a geriatric cat. Still, I had hoped we would have many more years together.
This afternoon, I went for a long walk. It was good to see people walking their dogs and raking up dead leaves and puttering in their yards, getting ready for new growth and new life. Later, my sister whisked me off for dinner in a noisy sports bar with the family. I got lots of hugs. When I came home, there was no insistent meow to greet me. The overhead light in the kitchen burned out. I'll need to fix that in the morning. Tomorrow will begin a new rhythm, but there will be laundry and various house things. I will finish my taxes. Maybe make soup.
