Week 27 - Zero Productivity Days

With it being the last month where I'd be at max vacation, I took Monday off so started off with day 3 of a 4 day weekend. Nice.

I had plans with Anne and Rene on Monday, starting with using guest passes to do water aerobics at Rene's gym then eating lunch at Rene's before going to Asteroid City. But when Anne had to make an emergency vet appointment, it all fell through except the movie, which we'd already bought tickets for. That was fine by me. I went downstairs and finished the last squares for my crumb quilt. Now all I have to do it sew them together and get them to the quilter. Asteroid City was a typical Wes Anderson movie so quirky and fun but Anne wasn't impressed. I hit Aldi before heading home for an evening of crazy fireworks all over the neighborhood. Just one more day before that's done. Can't wait.

Luckily, I slept late on Tuesday and had a nice, relaxing day. Andrea stopped by but it was otherwise quiet. Evening storms had nixed fireworks all over eastern Nebraska (worked for me) but when the skies cleared at 10:00, they started up in the neighborhood again. My new neighbors across the street must have spent hundreds. Such a waste but don't get me going on that.

On that cat front, despite Tot standing guard beside the barricades, the kittens had figured out how to get around them (chair to printer to desk and around the screens) so I'd taken them down and they had free range of the house. I was a bit worried about that when I went to work on Wednesday and since it was cold and cloudy so not condusive to swimming, I skipped lunch and left work early. They had done fine and other than knocking over a plant, it wasn't bad. Pixel and Tot were still pretty put out but I also noticed them reclaiming some of the places Gansey had made her own. Gansey was a bully to them so they may not be missing her at all. Still, I spent Wednesday night listening to an audio book on my bed and loving on them. Trying to make up for the kittens with some quality time.

The rest of the week was uneventful. I count vacation days as campus days (my own idea that my boss didn't balk at) so I worked from home Thursday and Friday. I was perfectly busy at work, puttered outside at lunch picking up branches that came down in the storm and cooked some taco meat for the freezer and yummy dinner. Friday was taken up with a new report so went quickly plus it was raining again (how long will it take of normal rainfall before it stops feeling special?) so I enjoyed a full pot of tea that afternoon. Then with Hoopla finally fixed, I watched The Detectorists movie. If you've never seen that show, it's one of my absolute all time faves.

It was another quiet weekend, which I could get used to. I did do chores, a bit of yard work and took a load to the burn pile but otherwise, you guessed it, it was more streaming, knitting and playing with kittens. They have 2 speeds - full on and full off. The full on are getting longer and crazier and they're growing fast.

So the kittens were doing their job of distracting me and it's been 3 weeks so I can think about Gansey without tearing up. Progress.

Week 26 - Distracted by Kittens

I was still mired in grief for Gansey but I also had 5 kittens in the house. I had high hopes that they'd be a good distraction and would help me move on.

The kittens came to me with snot noses but on Monday, Hazel was really croupy and seemed dumpy so I made an appointment and took her to the vet that afternoon. They gave me pink liquid antibiotics - enough to dose them all should any others get worse. Within a few days, I was dosing them all, which had me covered in pink goo and changing my clothes with every dose. But they all seemed to be getting better so worth it.

It was a gorgeous day on Monday so we ended up knitting at Nan's cabin on the Platte instead of inside at the library. It was lovely. Tuesday was busy work day and we were having a food day on Wednesday so I made pasta salad after work and took out a pie crust from the freezer, which I prompty forgot about until I was getting ready for bed. I threw a quiche in the oven and stayed up late until it was done. The alarm would be a rude awakening.

Since I would be gone for 13 hours and didn't trust the kittens in the backroom, I decided that they'd be better off in the bathroom than in their playpen. I started grabbing them and got 4 pretty easily but Willow, the most skittish of the bunch, had me chasing her for 20 minutes. I was dripping with sweat so splashed water on my face and got in the car, where I blasted the AC on max all the way to work.

Work was hard with people giving me their condolences but I managed to hold it together pretty well until I saw the counselor who I'd talked to last week, who was inivited to the food day. I had to leave the room and pull myself together then went back to talk to her about anything but Gansey. I did some thrifting before swimming and was happy to get home to let the kittens back into the backroom. They were unscathed but I wouldn't be putting them in the bathroom again.

I had a dentist appointment at 11:15 on Thursday so didn't drive into work until after that, which meant the kittens would be unsupervised for 8 hours. I left them in the backroom and they did just fine so I left them out all night. I was done with the stinky playpen thing and it would be going outside soon.

As usual, not going into work on Friday was a treat. I ran errands at lunch, including picking up a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut for lunch, and I took the playpen down and arranged the kitten paraphenalia around the backroom after work. I had a brief bit of panic when I couldn't find Pixel at bedtime but she was back sleeping on the deck when I got up an hour later. Things are still raw but the kittens were doing a good job of distracting me. 

I woke up to rain on Saturday and spent the entire day in my nightie while chatting with friends then streaming, knitting and playing with the kittens, of course. I discovered that dubbed foreign shows were perfect for when I was knitting and I watched a Danish police procedural called The Chestnut Man. I did something I rarely do and went to bed in the same nightie I'd woken up in. My shower first thing Sunday felt great and although I got dressed, I did more of the same on Sunday with the bare minimum of chores thrown in.

So the kittens were doing a good job of distracting me and it had been almost 2 weeks without Gansey so I was coming to terms with it. My other cats were less than enthused and I felt a bit guilty to have sprung these kittens on them when they were getting used to no Gansey but it will all work out eventually. In the meantime - kittens!

Week 25 - Mourning Gansey Girl

I have been putting off writing this post because what can you say about a week when you find your cat dead in the street? Nothing good. But it's been almost 4 weeks since Gansey got hit so it's time.

I made a strawberry/rhubarb pie at lunch on Monday to take to knitting at Andrea's suggestion because someone new had tried to come to knitting the previous week and we'd cancelled but hadn't told the library. Oops! So with pie in hand, I went to knitting and the new person did come. I spent 2 hours trying to teach her to do a simple knit stitch with zero success. I was super frustrated and then to top it off, no one wanted pie so I didn't bother to cut it just for myself. I was halfway home when I doubled back to see if Ed was at the Vets' Club because he loves pie. He wasn't. 

I went home and let the cats out for one last roam before bedtime but when I called Gansey, who always comes in to sleep, she didn't come. Sometimes she wouldn't when I went to bed but would meow at my window to come in a midnight. When she didn't, I called every few hours all night and hoped she was stuck in Cara's garage, which has happened before. I took benadryl at midnight but still didn't sleep much worried about Gansey.

Cara leaves for work before 5:30 so when I heard her leave the next morning, I went to the slider, fully expecting to see Gansey waiting to come in. When she wasn't there, I started looking for her and found her dead in the street. She'd been hit but not run over but was stiff as a board so had clearly been hit the previous night. I held it together long enough to bury her by the garage but when I went inside, the sobbing began. And it didn't stop.

I had called Cindy first thing and she assured me it was OK to call in (it's not like I could work) so I did at 8:00. I went outside as soon as I called in and started tearing apart my half-rotted potting bench in an attempt to hold off grief with manual labor. I had just finished and was back inside sobbing in my chair when I looked up to see Cindy at my door. She'd driven into Lincoln to get my favorite pastry and then come to Wahoo. What a good friend. She listened to me sob and when she left I called people and cried with them. I was experiencing more grief than I'd ever felt in my life and Gansey was missing everywhere - my chair, my bed, meowing for water when I went to the bathroom.... everywhere! Only then did I realize how much she followed me around and was always nearby. I was devastated. I couldn't fall asleep that night because Gansey wasn't sleeping on the other side of the bed. I got up and took more benadryl but still only slept in fits and starts, reading whenever I woke up. I read a lot.

I had already arranged to work from home on Wednesday because there was no way I could face people. I managed to get some work done that morning but took the afternoon off and went outside to putter in the yard. I broke up sticks behind my garage, fixed some hoses and then ran some errands. One stop was Saunders County Lost Pets (our local pound) to check out a litter of orange kittens they had, which were freaked out and wild. When I got home, I called Becky, who had bottle fed Gansey as a tiny kitten, and arranged to foster a litter of kittens. I had told her I was considering it before Gansey died but now I NEEDED kittens. It was another night of barely sleeping and I was going to campus on Thursday.

The only reason I was going to campus was because the office would be deserted. I still wasn't ready for people but the few who were there were nice to me so made me cry, of course. I was also in a dark place, looking for someone to blame for Gansey's death. It wasn't pretty but my friend Layton was wonderful, helping me focus on the joy Gansey had brought me in the 7 years I'd had her. I called EAP and made a zoom appointment to see a counselor the next day, which was a first for me. Before swimming, I went to Becky's to meet the kittens and we made arrangements for her to deliver them on Saturday. At swimming I vented to Anne and Mark but by the time I was driving home, I was able to understand that my blaming was ridiculous and thankfully my dark mood started to dissipate. 

I was back working from home on Friday and was beginning to heal and had slept some better. Lacey sent me flowers, which were delivered at lunch time. I work with the best people. It was city wide garage sales so I put the blue chairs that used to be in  my front room but had been languishing in my garage since I got my Ikea wall unit out at the curb and posted them on a couple of Facebook groups. They were gone by the time I was done with my EAP zoom session, which I can't say was super helpful, but at least the chairs were gone. I had a glass of wine at 5:00 and was totally buzzed. I was ready for the weekend.

I got up Saturday and made a big to do list. I'd accomplished nothing all week (not even knitting!) and had chores to do before the kitten delivering that  afternoon. I was a machine! I got all my weekend chores and all the kitten prep done before noon. Becky didn't arrive until 3:40 (I'd expected her earlier in the afternoon) and we got the kittens all set up in their playpen in my back room and offloaded all their supplies. they were pretty freaked out and not ready to be touched by me so I made tuna casserole for supper and streamed all night, finally able to knit a bit on a new project of socks for Becky. I had high hopes that the kittens would distract me from my grief, which wasn't at sobbing all the time level but I was still tearing up or crying a lot.

Well, I woke up Sunday feeling profoundly sad. Like from the minute I opened my eyes. I talked to my sister and cried a bunch and with all my chores done, spent the rest of the day just feeling crushed. 

It had been a long, horrible week. I was still going out to look at Gansey's grave several times a day and frequently gasped when I realized she was gone again after managing to put it out of my mind for a bit. Like I said, I've never experienced this level of grief in my life, which I guess makes me lucky. As I type this almost 4 weeks later, I'm still tearing up but that hasn't happened recently so it is getting easier. The kittens have helped a lot but more on that later. Thanks for listening (reading). 

Extra - Goodbye Gansey Girl

There is intro here. No sugar coating this. Gansey, who was the dearest cat I've ever had, was hit and killed on Monday night, June 19th, and I am heartbroken. I was unprepared for this level of grief that I have never experienced, not even when my parents died. She left a hole in my life that I could never have anticipated. I cried for days and am still prone to tearing up twelve days later. This post is dedicated to Gansey Girl.

Gansey was my constant companion for the past seven years - from when she woke me up and demanded that I turn on the water in the tub until I went to bed at night, with her sleeping on the opposite pillow. She followed me around, both inside and outside. She had her hidey holes that she slept in during the day while I was working but if I was sitting in my chair, she was on the back or sitting on the arm like in this picture. She was bonded to me rather than another cat and it showed.

I chalk this up to the fact that she was bottle fed so thought of humans as her momma. She walked right up to anyone who came into the house and demanded to be petted. Any other cat I've ever had, and I've had a few, ran and hid. That was special.

She had the softest fur I've ever felt on a cat. She was the only round eyed cat I've ever had and that took some getting used to when I first got her. I called her my freaky round eyed kitty. I also called her little baby kitty even when she was far from little and pesty baby Gans.

She had a super loud meow that could clean your sinuses and wasn't afraid to use it. She was very insistent when she wanted something.

She was constantly on the watch, sitting in the cat bed I knitted for her looking out the back window or jumping onto the back of the recliner to look out the front window. During lockdown, I would put on bird TV on YouTube and she'd spend hours watching the birds on the screen, sometimes stretching up to try to reach them.

She wasn't perfect. She chewed anything knitted she could get her hands on - from hand knitted socks to clothes left on the bed by mistake. I always left something 100% cotton on the bed for her to chew (usually something she had already gotten her teeth into) so she'd concentrate on that. When it got too holey, she'd find something in my craft room in the basement, like a felted sweater.

She didn't like being picked up and it was a trial getting her to the vet. I'd have to pick her up by the back of her neck to get her in the carrier. She didn't like bacon, like no cat ever, and was picky about the milk left from my cereal and I never knew if she'd drink it or turn her nose up at it.

I took her presence for granted and when she died and was gone, I missed her everywhere. I couldn't sleep because she wasn't on the bed. Sitting in my comfy chair just reminded me that she wasn't sleeping on the back of it. She wasn't there to eat the wet food I put out in the morning so I was washing it down the sink before bed every night. I looked for her everywhere for days, gasping each time I realized she was gone forever.

The tears I cried left me dehydrated and exhausted. It's been 12 days since she died and I still go out multiple times a day to look at her grave. And while I'm not sobbing uncontrollably like the first couple of days, I tear up all the time. I know I will never have another cat like her and it just makes me sad. She was one in a million. RIP Miss Gansey Girl.

Week 24 - New Normal Week

I'm settling into my new summer routine and this week was perfectly normal.

On the work front, with Ben now in charge of Payroll and flying blind, I'm pitching in to work on all kinds things to help him out. That works for me because I like being busy with new projects. Working on campus on the days I can swim after work - Wednesday and Thursday - is getting easier despite the long days. I try for a mix of socializing and errands/thrifting over the other lunch hour and finding something fun to kill the hour between work and swimming. I end the week working from home again on Friday. It's beginning to feel normal.

I had lunch with Dodie on Wednesday then met Darla at the Vine Street Goodwill after work, where I scored a bunch of good quality yarn. Get a load of this score! Swimming on Wednesday is fun because the sisters who teach the class are a total hoot. I drive home in my wet suit then shower and have cereal for dinner. On Thursday, I ran to Trader Joe's at lunch and scored some thrifted acrylic yarn for Dottie. I was early to the pool but there are worse things.

Saturday was spinning in Fremont, where I knitted socks while everyone else had a drop spindle lesson. Andrea and I did our normal Fremont run, ending at Aldi. I did a big yarn sort when I got home, finding some that needed stashing online and putting some into a box to ship to Dottie. All good.

My goal for Sunday was to get the craft room ready for quilting. I had started making crumb quilt squares the first summer of lockdown and was fairly obsessed, making squares at lunch and again after work. I did it again in summer 2021 but didn't make a single square last year so wanted to get back into it since I almost have enough for a queen size quilt. It didn't take long to get my table, ironing board and sewing machine cleared and ready. Once the summer heat and humidity settles in, I'll start quilting again. 

So I'm ready for the summer heat and am looking forward to a few normal weeks before fiscal year end at the end of July. Who knows what work will be like then so being recharged and into a routine will help. Wish me luck.