Belvedere (aka Belly Cat) died this morning after declining for the past day. We don’t know why he died; as he had been rejected by his mother, he might have had a defect incompatible with life. I don’t know.
In his five days on this earth, he traveled to work and back with me and resided by my bed at night so I could feed him every two hours (my husband took the evening shift so I could pre-nap). He squeaked and rumbled and squirmed, a delightful little creature.
As the days passed, though, he squirmed less. Last night he quit urinating, and I knew he wouldn’t make it to go to the vet the next day.
I was right. When I awoke this morning, he was limp and not moving. No heartbeat.
We did the best we could, buddy. I’m so sorry.
Category: Uncategorized
Happy 56th birthday to me
Today I’m 56 years old.
 |
| This is not me. This is Belvedere the kitten, who’s 4 days old |
For you younger people out there — time just chugs along and you hardly notice it until you get to one of those milestone years — 40, 50, 55. You’re too fixated on things like careers and children to wake up and think, “wow, I’m getting older.”
The grey hairs, the wrinkles, the thickening of the body come gradually, until you look in the mirror and see someone who looks older than you remember being.
You don’t even notice that the cultural touchstones — the music stars, the memes and jokes — flow and change around you, and you wake up one morning to find that the younger people around you don’t get your jokes anymore.
But you’ve survived so much! Everyday events that would panic you before — a flat tire, sleeping through the alarm — you now handle with aplomb. Your fears that you can’t handle crises have been proven wrong time after time.
And you have stories to tell. Middle age (late middle-age?) is a great time to start writing. Or find friends who like to tell stories and swap them.
When you’re older, you have the perspective of years, and that is your gift to the world.
Belly cat and updates
Update:
Belvedere the kitten (Belly for short) is still alive in his fourth day, slurping down syringefuls of milk and sleeping in happy milky drunkenness. He’s absolutely tiny:
I’m not quite getting enough sleep given his every two hour feeding schedule, but this too will pass.
Meanwhile, I’ve gotten a few more rejections from agents and I just don’t know what to do about “this doesn’t really grab me” comments. Still haven’t heard from DAW and it’s officially been six months.
I wrote another short story I’m thinking of posting here but, since my stories are the least read of anything I post (TL; DR?) I don’t know if I will.
Waiting for another idea to come my way.
In other words, I’d feel down except for the kitten. Kittens somehow exude happy chemicals.
I’m Mom to a Baby Kitten!
Life can change at a moment’s notice. One moment the waters are perfectly calm, then a hasty decision can create turbulence that roils the waters for weeks, or even years, to come.
We’ve taken on a foster kitten.
Belvedere (Belly Cat for short) is a newborn orange-and-white kitten whose mother rejected him at birth. We don’t know why; he might have a defect or she might have had too many mouths to feed.
We’re feeding him by syringe every 2 hours, which means we’re waking up for dinner time every two hours. He’s pooped once and peed several times, so the plumbing works. Right now he’s calm, but when he screams, he sounds like a squeaky toy.
The other cats will have nothing to do with him. Girlie gave him a good sniff and then hissed at him (because newborn kittens are threatening).
I hope Belly survives. I hope he’s not too burdened not having a mommy. I hope he grows up to be a cuddly cat. We’re doing our best.
In Search of Small Happinesses
How do I kick myself out of these blahs?
These aren’t bipolar blahs, they’re just plain blahs. Lots of rejections, one dead cat (RIP Snowy), nothing exciting to look forward to. Except my birthday, and I have my psychiatrist’s appointment that day. So lots of reasons to stay blah.
If I want to stay blah, I can rehearse my hurts and aches and pains, hoping that I can win some sort of concession from God (“Look at all this crap that’s happened to me. I deserve some compensation!”). Note: It doesn’t work, and it keeps me from seeing good things that could be happening.
It’s my responsibility to do what I can to get into a better mood. I wouldn’t say happiness is a choice, because that’s unfair to people like myself who face depression. But I can help myself until I feel better or. in the case of depression, till the meds kick in or I can talk to someone else. When I’m depressed, it’s so much harder to think of these, much less do them. Work helps me connect with people, and that helps a little, as does forcing myself to write. These things don’t get rid of the depression, but they take the edge off it.
What can I do? I think I’ve talked about this before, but I need a refresher, so here I go again:
- Gratitude journaling — three things I’m grateful for every night. I admit I fall behind on this, because at night I generally want to sleep.
- Walking — I could walk to coffee this morning. That might be a good thing.
- Pet therapy — with five cats, this isn’t hard to do.
- Getting out — I’m contemplating the Board Game Cafe, as usual.
- Accomplishing something using my character strengths — I have a story I’m writing which I’m not currently in love with; I can send Whose Hearts are Mountains off to dev edit; I could come up with a new story. Or submit more queries/submissions.
- Connecting with people — Board Game Cafe works.
So I’m off to take care of my mood.
Looking for the Good in Today
It turns out we had to put Snowy to sleep yesterday; she had had a stroke as suspected. It’s always a little hard to witness, the anesthesia and then the needle to the heart.
I’m a bit subdued today — a little tired, a little down. It’s about Snowy and it’s about a lot of rejections lately, with no glimmers of hope on the publishing front. I don’t despair as much as I used to with rejections; I’ve become inured to them. I am wondering once more if my writing is unmarketable, and if so, why.
Looking for the good in today — my classes are going well and I’m getting enough sleep. I’ve been productive both in writing and in submitting (short stories and the like). I stirred myself up enough to write this.
For a dying cat
My cat Snowy is dying.
My husband and I think she had a stroke because we discovered her laying in front of the dresser and occasionally meowing strangely last night. We don’t have an emergency vet here, so we have to wait till the vet opens at 8.
The next morning, she hasn’t moved, and she meows piteously when moved. She’s limp, except for her two front paws, which seem curled into themselves. Eventually, she doesn’t even meow, only breathes. Barely breathes.
I doubt there’s anything the vet can do. If she’s indeed had a stroke, the chances of her having another are high, and she may not recover from this one. As I’ve said, it’s highly likely we’ll say our goodbyes at the vet’s office.
I will remember Snowy as a peculiar cat. Black and long-haired with a white locket (we didn’t name her), she carried herself like a diva and sat with her front feet crossed daintily. She had a fascination with doors, and would paw at them trying to get to the other side.
Soon, she will be on the other side of the door, where I am told she will climb a grassy hill to the Rainbow Bridge and wait for us. All pets go to the Rainbow Bridge, it is told, which makes it more charitable than the Christian view of Heaven. We, the humans, stay behind, taking care of our other cats, missing the presence of our Snowy.
Writing Small
Stories have several aspects to them that make things interesting:
- The plot — what’s actually happening; the action. In a novel, there may be more than one plot (designated as A plot, B plot, etc.)
- The themes — these are the wider messages of the piece. They have big implications: man vs. nature, greed doesn’t pay, etc.
- The characters — these are the people in the story. Generally you will have one or two main characters and maybe up to 8 point of view characters in a third-person ensemble piece.
- The setting — people want to know where something happens and what it looks like.
When I write novels, I seem to start with character and plot first. Like “who is this person and what have they gotten themselves into?” Inspiration comes from that kernel of the story and spreads out from there as I’m writing.
Writing short stories, on the other hand, feels strange — all the parts of the story are there, but they’re a lot smaller, with one sentence often carrying the seed to all the parts: For example, “A woman hallucinates about the end of the world — or does she see visions?” With that idea/character/plot, I proceed with the story.
Short stories are harder for me because of motivation. I can’t dwell in a short story for months at a time like I can novels, so it doesn’t tempt me as much. I’m with the characters and the plot only for a short time, and I have to make the best of my time.
Being Bipolar
I’m feeling a bit down these last couple of days, sleeping a lot, probably a letdown from the really successful first week. I hope it’s that and not my moods crashing.
Being bipolar (bipolar II — without full-fledged mania), I worry about these things. I’m pretty stable on my meds, until I’m not. There are a number of triggers that can knock me off balance — not enough sleep, stress, certain medications (pain meds and Benedryl for example), missing a couple doses of meds, more than a tiny amount of alcohol … some of these things I have control of; others are out of my control.
Too much sleep is a sign of a downturn, and I’ve done a lot of sleeping the past couple days. On the other hand, I stayed up late Saturday night, and — did I mess myself up there?
Probably not. There’s such a thing as temporary sadness, or a down mood —
That’s one of the problems with having a mental illness — having moods, even normal ones, is seen as a chargeable offense. Admittedly, losing control of bipolar can result in mania, which if full-fledged scares others with its unpredictable behavior. Depression is its own disruption — it looks less scary on the outside, but can result in suicide. It’s really hard for a bipolar person to know they’re in one of these states because they feel real.
However, even in a bipolar episode, there are things I’ve learned to do to keep me functional during upturns and downturns. The biggest one is to contact the doctor for a medication adjustment. Making sure I’m getting to bed at a consistent time each night, using cognitive journaling to separate moods from real life, and getting to work every day helps until the med adjustment takes hold.
So if this ends up being a depressive episode, I know what to do, and that is to manage things as if this were any other illness.
Labor Day
It’s Labor Day in the US, which these days has less to do with celebrating the worker as it does one last steak on the grill before autumn. Makes sense, as the US is hardly pro-worker right now.
I’m feeling decidedly unmotivated. I have a bit of homework to grade, and a short story (flash fiction?) to tweak. I should probably send out my next set of queries (I have at least 30 to send this time around) but I’m so not feeling it.
Maybe this is a day to rest. My longtime readers know, however, that if I say that I’m most certainly NOT going to rest.
************
8:45 AM CDT:
Ok, I got the grading done. Still don’t know what I’m going to do with myself today, but I do wish I had more coffee.
************
9:09 AM CDT:
Just tweaked the flash fiction. Desperately need coffee even though I had two cups this morning. Have espresso beans, but I just found out my Moka pot is missing a gasket. I don’t know if I want to drink cafe American though.
***********
9:14 AM CDT:
Trying to psych myself up to do querying. Also still trying to solve the coffee problem, because I’m not sure I’m up to going out at the moment to Scooter’s (with its corporate air and its uncomfortable booths) …
Ok, not gripping blogging today. Better go figure out what to do on my day off…
Words Like Me 