Category Archives: pets

Time Flies

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I know it’s a cliche, but the truth of the saying ‘time flies’ seems never more evident than right now.

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m trying to impose some order in preparation for the fall semester, which starts tomorrow. I only turned in my grades for summer school last Tuesday! I spent every spare moment this week rebuilding my classes, because the beginning of school completely caught me by surprise. No, seriously. I thought it started Wednesday after Labor Day. Imagine my astonishment. But both versions of the online classes are updated and in place for a new semester.

In the past, I’ve spent the week before school organizing paperwork and closets so I could feel we were starting with a clean slate. I’m doing my best, but the boxes from the farmhouse, small pieces of furniture from various rooms, and the paperwork from my 2016 taxes are still cluttering the living room. I will just have to continue cleaning around them until some things get back to normal.

Why 2016 taxes, you ask? I always seem to be busy in April and file an extension. Then I do my tax worksheets in the heated torpor of August-September and get them to my accountant in October.

The left-over paperwork from last year is still spread out on my dining table because I haven’t been able to get to the table over the furniture and boxes from two ongoing remediation projects in my life.

Today is almost exactly the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey, which wreaked havoc and mayhem in all our lives. It doesn’t seem possible that it was a year ago. But there it is. And while the damage to my house was relatively minor, my adventures with contractors were hugely intimidating. The furniture is finally back in my master bedroom and the guest room, and my bathroom is completely overhauled. But the confusion and disorganization wrought by the storm lingers in the corners of most every room of the house, and the chaos imposed on my psyche sometimes resembles PTSD.

Complicating matters, Harvey hit just as I had begun tearing down part of the Lexington farmhouse where I grew up, in order to save the rest of it. That was interrupted by my Houston repairs. The farmhouse still has a huge gaping wound plugged with plywood on one side of the structure, tarps on the roof, and piles of rubble all around. I’ve made some headway in cleaning and stacking the antique brick from the chimney. The house has been leveled, and repairs made to the damaged wood on the west side of the house, where a new set of French doors are now covered with weather sheeting until I can address new siding. Boxes of my parents accumulated treasures are part of the ongoing clutter in my living room. The house and its contents haunt my dreams and drain my bank account and still there seems to be little progress.

Time seems to trickle away in every direction. While I stayed busy with school and theatre projects this year, my two cats have increasingly begun to show their age. They sleep a great deal, but I’ve noticed that it is harder for them to jump onto the furniture recently. When Christabel started throwing up and peeing everywhere, I took her in for tests. Hundreds of dollars later, she is being treated for a urinary tract infection and I have medication to sooth her stomach. But the evidence is overwhelming that her kidneys are progressively failing and sometime soon, I will have to face the fact that the quality of her life is slipping away as well. My vet has chosen this time to retire, but assures me that when the time comes, he will come into the office to be with me and Christabel.

And through all this whirlwind, I’ve found blessed little time to write anything new. I cranked out a number of short stories the beginning of this year, and I’ve reworked two on my novels yet again, but I have yet to finish the third novel which I started for NaNoWriMo in 2016.

Increasingly, I want the freedom of retirement. But I don’t see how I can afford to quit my full-time job, even though I could work from anywhere. I have directing assignments coming up, and the short film I did in January is premiering in Austin in September. But it’s been four years since I’ve been onstage as an actor.

Moving back to Lexington to be close to my sister and brother and their families sounds increasingly more appealing. But updating the farmhouse is going to require me to sell my Houston house and put the proceeds into renovations. Where will I live and how can I continue to work remotely in the interim? These are all questions I know I must face soon. And maybe it is for the best that Christabel will not be subjected to that upheaval.

Meanwhile, I drift from project to project, semester to semester, production to production, and time disappears without my noticing or adequately preparing for it. When will moving and rebuilding become too much for me to physically face? Will I wait too long? While I hesitate, time continues to evaporate. I’m reminded of John Lennon’s lyric, “Life is what happens while we’re making other plans.”

 

RIP Blackie

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Some eight or nine years ago, a long lean overgrown kitten insinuated himself into the lives of my neighborhood. Coal black, big sage green eyes, he had a princely air of privilege and ownership that belied his status as a stray. He plopped himself on my patio and began talking to my girls through the French doors. Christabel and Cindy Crawford were a bit flustered, being older divas and not used to young male admirers. But they seemed to tolerate him and almost look forward to his visits. They would slip around him at the door as he munched a handful of dry food, and soon all would be lounging around the patio, pleasantly absorbing the sun.

A natural charmer, Blackie became a regular visitor to houses for a three or four block radius. He developed a route through the subdivision. One morning, when I was leaving unusually early, my garage door went up and I saw him come to attention four houses away and race toward my house. He got his treat.

Generally good mannered, I had to take him to task a couple of times for walking in and taking a tour of my house. After that, he realized he would only be fed on the patio and was satisfied to wait for me there. Often when I let my cats out, he was already lying on the seat of my patio chair under the oak tree.

He came to know which yards were safe and who offered refuge. Another morning, I pulled out of my garage later than usual and discovered two bruisers of dogs trying to pin him down. He raced to the grill of my front entrance, but the mailman had pushed it inward and so the dogs were able to corner him. I came flying out of my car screaming, which distracted them long enough for Blackie to scoot past and along the back of my front hedge. But they quickly pinned him down at the gate between my house and my neighbor Maria’s. They would have snapped him in two in another minute. Perhaps foolishly, I rushed to his aid and was promptly knocked down in the skirmish. My strident yelling sent one dog running, as Blackie disappeared over my fence. The other Rottweiler-mix trotted a few steps, then turned to assess whether I was worth attacking, but finally raced away.

Shaken and upset, I left the car idling and hurried through the house to the backyard. Blackie cowered in a cleft between my tree and the back fence, covered in slobber but without visible wounds. While I went for a treat and a towel, he disappeared into Maria’s yard.

Returning that evening, I found the small pile of food I’d left untouched. I called to Blackie and heard a faint mew from over the fence. Knowing my neighbor was out of town and fearing the worst, I invaded her yard and discovered him huddled in the rafters of her tool shed, where he’d been all day. Coaxing him down and through the gap in my fence, he returned to the safety of my yard, where he stayed for a few days, until he recovered his bravado enough to resume his neighborhood rounds.

My neighbor Bonnie and I took Blackie to the vet to be fixed, and annually to get his shots. He didn’t hold it against us.

Then four years ago, a new couple moved in a few doors down. Blackie walked in the door to welcome them and decided to stay. Anna and Hector adopted and loved him. He became an indoor cat who occasionally went out to  greet his old friends, human and feline. He would still come and wind around my feet if I happened to be working in the yard.

A few months ago, Anna noticed that Blackie returned from his prowl limping. She thought he might have injured himself. On inspection she discovered a lump in the joint of his leg. After a lot of tests and general angst among his friends, Blackie went through surgery to remove his right front leg. He came back looking like a peg-leg pirate.

Miraculously, he seemed to recover his balance and his sense of humor and fun. He still managed to climb and loved sunning himself, but Anna kept him close to home. Then recently they discovered lumps over his kidneys. He became lethargic and Anna discovered blood in his urine, then his gums bled.

He was loved and cared for until it seemed his pain was inexcusable. I visited with him yesterday. petting his almost limp and emaciated body and sharing stories with Anna. A low rumble of a purr and a steady flick of the tail were his only response. His glazed eyes, once green were dark with a slim corona of blue, but seemed to focus briefly and I think he remembered me and enjoyed the slow and steady stroke of my hand. But the time came to leave, and later last night, Anna and Hector welcomed the pet Hospice people who came to end his pain and put him gently and quietly to sleep.

His sweet presence will be missed by many in the neighborhood, but most acutely by Anna and Hector. Goodnight, sweet Prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.