Sleep well, Toddson.

Toddson,

we had a foray into toilet paper in natter. If that doesn't cheer you up, nothing will.

Family time can be summed up in two words for Christmas Eve this year.

Pet. Psychic.

Good luck, Toddson!! From what you said in Good Riddance, there are a number of other Buffistas with diabetes, who I'm sure can commiserate and/or help.

Anyone have advice for dealing with my mom? I feel bad because she just wants to spend lots of time together, but I also want to hang with my sister and do stuff with her (without mom). And mom tends to think "ok, everyone drive up to our house and sit around and eventually eat dinner and then sit around and maybe watch some Tv none of us are super into!" is going to get us revved up to hang? Um, no. And my brother, who lives on another CONTINENT is acting like my sister and I are crazy and he's besties with the folks. Yeah right.

Last night, in bed, I was copying sections from books to the laptop manually, as future references for my seminars.

And then there were some pages in the book that I couldn't remember I was ever reading. But they were marked! They had a pencil mark next to them, and the page had an improvised bookmark (a torn piece of paper I reused). So I thought, hey, I'm probably losing it, and kept reading to refresh my memory.
Then it hit me. The pencil marks were a bit heavier than my own. I looked closely: nope, I never marked sections in the book like this. I checked the torn piece of paper that's been used as a bookmark: the tiny bit of sentence that's been left there wasn't mine.

Someone was using exactly the same marking technique as me! It took me about 12 minutes to understand that. I thought I was losing it, at a point, as I tried very hard to remember why I supposedly marked those sections to begin with. Unfortunately, that someone didn't take out the bookmarks s/he was using, or erased the pencil writing.

You have no idea how confusing that was.

NO. Golden Age, while large and interesting to wander around, has a history of price gouging

Lame! I only said that since we went there.

The Dreaming in the University District and Comics Dungeon in Wallingford are both good stores.

Ooh.

Sleep well, Toddson.

ND, I continue to be astonished by your family. I hope that the pet psychic is the craziest it gets.

Black cats are the best...makes me sad other people don't think so.

I think they are gorgeous, but I've never had a black cat choose me.

I don't know whether I recommend getting a new pet soon after losing a beloved pet, or not. The right timing is so individual. Pachisi was my ... I like the phrase "soul cat". She died a week and a half before Harvey was born. The only reason I went to sleep that first night was that my heart ached so physically I thought it would simply stop. I was surprised to wake up in the morning.

Silver, Harvey's mom, was a young cat that Pachisi adopted out from under our next door neighbors. Silver got pregnant between the time they transferred her into my custody and when I could scrape up the $50 to get her spayed.) After Pachisi died, Silver clung to me as I to her. She would lie on my lap, purring, and I would pet her and feel the little ones squirming inside her. I knew there was a Harvey in there. After they were born, and I figured out which one was Harvey, I did not want to keep him. The color of his points was the same as Pachisi's main color (she was a muted calico, all blue and cream with white bib and feet). But he had an umbilical hernia - so short of turning him in to the humane society, I could not give him away.

When I took Harvey to the veterinarian to see about repairing the hernia, the vet was so taken with him that he dropped hints about what a great office cat he would make. A year later, their star vet tech confessed that if I had not been able to swing paying for the surgery and had to give Harvey up, she would have offered to take him. Over the years of being a patient at that clinic, Harvey was pretty popular with the staff there. Whenever we came in, all the techs would get excited and come to see him, not just whoever was to work with him for the visit.

But I kept him, and when he was little I carried him around everywhere I went at home. Yet I loved him like he was just a cat - I gave him food and water, played with him, petted and brushed him, but kept him (and the other cats of the household) at a distance from my heart. I knew he was special - I would bring individuals from the group home over to see him, and he would purr for them, tolerating noise and sudden movement and unskilled handling. In so many ways Harvey made it plain that his mission in life was to make me feel better. He was four years old when I finally realized I wanted to love him as wholeheartedly as possible with a heart that was still broken from losing Pachisi. And three years after that, for all his patience with my broken love, I gave him a Daniel.

I don't know whether the moral of this story is, "If you get a new pet quickly, it can comfort and distract you from your grief," or "If you get a new pet too soon, you might not be able to open up to their love for a while," or "It'll all work out in the end." My wish for you, bonny, is that when the time is Right (not by my perception or anyone else's) the Right Dog (or cat, or parrot, or lizard, or whatever kind of soul is Right) comes to you. If there was a way to bottle Harvey's healing love, I would send you the biggest bottle I could.

Thank you so much Andi. You are an angel of calm and comfort.

I haven't yet been able to respond to the scores of wonderful messages I have received. Some of them contain so much profound wisdom that they take my breath away. Others are just so kind and 'present.' I will answer every one as I am able.

I fell ill Wednesday night with a horrible uti and the medication I got for it is not working, so my misery is compounded.

Last night was the first time I've slept more than an hour at a time since Wednesday, thanks to a friend's very mild sleeping pill.

When I woke up, all I could think was, I have no reason to even be conscious right now, but then I remembered that my best friend calls me from Tucson every morning to tell me that she is waiting for me to call when I am ready.

I shambled into the kitchen to find the fancy mac and cheese that a neighbor I don't really even know brought me last night because he heard that I was having trouble eating. On the way to the kitchen, I passed the lovely little bouquets of flowers that two clients brought me. My fridge is stuffed with food and there is a stack of beautiful sympathy cards on my desk.

Last night, a friend from the March called and the youngest son of my surrogate mom called.

My March friend is so worried for me and said, several times, that she does not want me to be alone. I told her that I've invited friends to bring their dogs over and that energy has been good for me.

Ultimately, I said,"I have my invisible friends. I'm never, every, really alone."

So. Thank you all.

Andi, I'm certain that your experience will be mine. "If I ever get another dog" has been replaced in my mind with "When" because these last few days have taught me how much I don't want an empty house. BUT, in this moment I can't imagine loving another as much as I love Bartleby. I just can't see that as possible.

Still, with any dog that comes to me, I will be honorable and kind and thank him or her for helping me to get along.

Bonny, I think when a pet like Bartleby passes, you never love another animal the same way or maybe as much, but there is love in a different way.