Cookie

Grief is a vivid, living emotion. It is not controllable, it has a mind of its own. I've heard it described as a sharp pain, or as a dull, consistent ache, and I have felt it as either, or both. Bringing a pet into your home is easy. Giving them food, shelter, and love is easy. Giving them room in your life is easy. But I'll bet few of us who bring those babies into our warmth think at that instant about the time they will leave it. We don't think, in those moments of bliss, about the pain of leaving, the feelings of regret and loss, the terrible, debilitating, breathtaking ache of seperation. Not that anyone ever said that losing them would be easy, but who could ever have guessed it would be so hard.

We lost Cookie today. She'd been with us for all of our marriage, for so many of our wonderful moments, and our darkest ones. We will remember her walking the ledge in our old house, dragging whole loaves of bread to the basement when we weren't looking, littering the house with socks rescued from the laundry during the long hours of the night, draping herself over my shoulders, my lap, my head, my computer, or any part of me just to be closer, regardless of my feeling about her plans.

We will remember with geat tenderness the way that she let Calvin climb all over her, drag her around, tackler her, and still come back for more.

She was not your typical cat. She greeting strangers with aplomb, she came when she heard her name, she was always present. One of our old neighbors described her as "more friendly than a woman on elimidate". She was so present in our lives that she leaves an immense, gaping hole in her absence. Healthy until her last week, when a tumor closed her throat and began depriving her of breath, the most we could give her in the end was her freedom from suffering, as graceful a retreat as possible, and that is always a difficult gift to give. As I discussed with Calvin, when her suffering ended, that was when ours really began.

It is not for her that we weep, but for ourselves.

Notes...

...that appeared around the house at various times this week.

Spring, obscure tv shows, and how to make a universe

Obviously I have had little to say for the past few weeks. Either that or we've been doing little to talk about, or maybe I've been taking fewer pictures. Part of the impromptu hiatus was due to a sudden influx in book review assignments. Having to spend my evenings reading? You got it. But at least some of those evenings were spent giving in to an obsession with a few obscure TV shows (both Psych and Mad Men returned a couple of weeks ago, plus we've discovered the prowess of BBC shows, mainly Sherlock and Dr. Who). Watching TV until the wee hours of the morning? Not our finest moments, but it's been fun nonetheless.

In the time that I've been basically gone, though, it's amazing how very little has happened. In fact, that's been the real story of the past month: more of the same all over again. Since the last three years have gifted us with warm, early springs, the lethargy of this year's season has been somewhat of a shock and disappointment. Looking back at pictures from this time last year we were in shorts and tees, while this year I was still running in long pants and a fleece until just this week.

Additionally, not much has happened on the home front, and right now I think that's really a good thing. Winter is busy, summer is busy, but spring and fall almost demand a dragging of feet from me. Forget the whole spring cleaning thing, there's plenty of time for that during the long winter months when we're cooped up inside. Spring is for daydreaming, for watching the birds return, for lazy afternoons with a good book. And apparently for late nights with obscure television shows, but that's an anomaly, I think.

For Calvin, on the other hand, spring is about being outside in as few clothes as is bearable, and for as long as possible, no matter the temperature. Or at least that's what it's been about since the first day that even suggested warmth, especially if chalk was involved. Thanks to the frequent night rains, the driveway has been much like an etch-a-sketch. It has accommodated a map of Africa, a slideshowesque how-to on creating a universe (don't forget the black holes), and a map of a unique solar system and planet from said other universe. Which obviates the current household interest: astrophysics. It's like an obsession for the kid right now. If it has anything to do with black holes, antimatter, subatomic particles, or the elements, he's all over it. In fact, he's planned out a rather elaborate project for the 4H fair in July. Which means that things are promising to be a little more engaging around here soon enough, since a few weeks of lethargy are about all we can stand.

Play

Play means many different things to many different people. You can play pretend, you can play a game, you can play at learning, you can play on stage, you can play with things, or play music. I think play changes as we get older, too. When I was young there was nothing I loved so much as to play at being a teacher with the chalkboard in our basement, or to play house in the tunnel of foliage on the berm in our backyard, while now my play is focused more on hobbies.

As an adult, and wife and mother, when we moved into our new home we did not have enough furniture for it, so our front room, ostensibly a sitting room, remained empty except for the piano and a few bookshelves of toys. We took to calling it our play room. It has changed a bit since then—the bookshelves grew like weeds (they now reach to the ceiling!), and we added a dress-up chest, a shelf doubling as a window seat, and now a dog crate—but really we've left it open so that it could continue to be our play room.

There is an etiquette book somewhere that says we shouldn't have the front room, the very first room visitor's see upon entering the house, filled with the things that make the most mess. But in the dead of winter, when the house is chilly and the outside uninviting, the afternoon sun streams through the front window and warms the play room floor. It calls all of us to spread out and bask, so we do. On any given day the floor is strewn with books, art pieces, Legos, or felt sets, and likely a young boy and a couple of dogs, too. That's where we sit to discuss history, run science experiments, read favorite books, or just simply play, with the piano, with dogs, with toys, with each other.

Today it was a building spree—the construction of a pool on a riverside, to be visited by all the fairy tale creatures Calvin could divine, or rummage from various sets, before their return to the castles...and parking garage. And, while Jon was off teaching lessons, for me it was playing with the camera, experimenting with that beautiful afternoon light and falling in love with my hobby all over again. I am still considerably under the weather, so it was nice to lay on the floor in the sporadic sun and just watch the boy play, listening to things those characters said and watching the things they did, and possibly I fell asleep for a few minutes, because I think I was awakened by a spotted pink tongue and a giggling little boy. 

Monday

What did Monday look like?

Awaking to the delicious smell of whole grain waffles thanks to an awesome father/husband (another big checkmark on our resolutions list: finding healthier breakfast solutions than our usual bagel and cream cheese).

Calvin practicing piano at 8:30 in the morning with songs like Ain't it Great to be Crazy? (definitely not before coffee).

A first thing-in-the-morning trip to the library so that I could put out a few proverbial fires raging in the sale room while Calvin did math and spelling worksheets.

Wine bottles and science! The Vacuvin wine saver and an empty bottle, a balloon, a glass of water and a straw, and a vacuum were all we needed for a lengthy discussion about air pressure and vacuums ("think of you, daddy, and me floating around this room bumping into things, then think of the three of us crammed in a closet trying to float around? Which situation is under higher pressure?").

Sentence diagramming. Strangely enough, he loves it.

After lunch it was off to gymnastics, the private homeschooling class version with friends (and the solution to the gymnastics issue? He has opted to switch his second class from the Wednesday melee to the Thursday private class filled with more homeschooling kids—it was a no-brainer when the instructor told him how many of his friends from HAA were in that class as well).

Back home Calvin cuddled under a blanket and lost himself in Greek myths. I went for a run, then spent the next ten minutes trying to regain feeling in my fingers. I knew winter would be back.

Tea, scones, and some photography practice—playing around with ISO (I have the greatest, and most inquisitive, model in the world, but it occurs to me to wonder what we did before the age of digital?).

ISO in order: 250, 400, 2000, 6400, 12800, and 25600

Then we made pizza together, and ate pizza together, and read aloud together from The Two Towers, because after work there's always together time.

And that's what Monday looked like. It's a cool job, isn't it?