Endings and beginnings and in between....

Today is the Kentucky Derby. 

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, a totally American holiday that parades as a Mexican one. 

Monday is my daughter and her husband's first anniversary. 

A week from tomorrow is Mother's Day. 

A great niece graduates soon from High School.   

It's a busy month.   

A year ago this weekend. 

Aren't they darling?

Also, this coming Wednesday, I leave for Florida and then to Saint Thomas. Traveling with both daughters and the son-in-law, we will water taxi to Saint John and board a catamaran that will then take us through the British Virgin Islands. I joke that the SIL is taking his "harem".   He knew when he married Belle that he was getting a "sister wife"-the little sister that comes along for everything. Bless his heart, that did not deter him and he has graciously (mostly) included her in many trips, parties, meals and more meals.  I got a text from him saying it was "my turn in the rotation" to come along for a trip. Wait! What? There's a rotation? If I had known, I would have signed up earlier.  Anyway, I'm spoiled/fortunate/lucky AF.

This will be "home" next week

But. This trip also could not come at a better time. After a lovely trip to Texas to see the eclipse (where apparently we were in the only cloud covered area of the U.S.), I made the decision to end my five year long distance relationship. Love the man dearly but we had opposing agendas and there was no way forward. We wanted different things. It was time. I knew it. But still, it leaves a void. 

Texas was beautiful but clouds everywhere. 

Then last week Mina Kitty quit eating. She started hiding in the corner of the office. The kitty box was intentionally missed. Weight was obviously lost.  

A visit to the vet gave me all sorts of options.  She will be 16 in July which is a ripe old age for any cat, even more impressive for a kitty that has been in renal failure for the last 3 years.  I went with Plan B which was treat the symptoms and see if she recovers. She spent a few hours getting antibiotics and IV fluids along with some pain meds and came home much perkier. She even ate a bit last night. This morning she isn't quite so chipper.  She licked up a bit of baby food and is doing her best bread box impression here in the corner of the office.    

Mina with a captured catnip toy

Plan C was multiple diagnostic tests and labs, not feasible for a kitty of this age. I have opted for "above and beyond" in attempting to keep animals alive before and it isn't fair to them. Never again.

Which leads me to Plan A.  Plan A is euthanasia which I'm afraid is where we are headed. This is complicated by my impending departure. Do I put her down possibly a week sooner than needed to spare the house sitter the worry? Is that fair? Am I giving her enough opportunity to recover?  Or do I leave her with the nice house/petsitter who will possibly have to make that decision?  But that isn't fair to Mina either. She deserves to have me with her in her final moments.  

Using up one of her nine lives? 

Is she in pain? Some, I think.   It's hard to tell with cats. I know she is feeling off. SHE knows something is wrong.  So does Carlos who is also getting older, himself. His eyes are clouding with cataracts and his hearing is fading. He sleeps like a dead dog and sleeps a lot. But Carlos, who has always been afraid of Mina, has been hanging close to her.  When she walks by, he sniffs her head.  I've seen him do it multiple times. What can he sense that I can't?  

Six months ago they wouldn't be in the same room, 

much less this close.

You can see how skinny she is under all that fur. 

Six pounds, down from nine.

Hard decisions. 

And Mother's Day. It's coming up and I'm realizing I no longer have a mother. Cards are everywhere. Gift lists are everywhere. As my brother says "We are orphans".  As such, I'm feeling the loss of my mom who was a steady presence for almost 68 years of my life. 

Me with JeanMom-probably on a Mother' Day

So. An exciting week coming up for sure. But I'm also feeling a lot of loss. 

Which leads us to this post.  My SIL (How fun that is to type! Trying to come up with a good nickname for him...) has requested that I blog about our trip every day. A document of our adventures, like an old fashioned diary or a travel postcard home.  I must admit he was/is probably my most ardent blog reader.

I'm starting here. I'll get through the kitty dilemma and hug Carlos goodbye and hop on a plane.

As they say, when one door closes, another opens.

Can't wait to see what is beyond that doorway...

Voilà! I'm in Asheville...

 Voilà! I'm in Asheville, North Carolina.

O. If only it were that simple. 

I am in Asheville. Sweet friend Roger drove me here and by that I mean he DROVE every single mile of the trip to Asheville and then down to West Palm. The little Subaru was on a car hauler behind the RV, loaded with my stuff. 

This was terrifying. One of those situations where you better hit your mark.

Eeeeeee!

I did it! Whew!

Carlos, Mina and I sat in comfort in the front seat of the RV and helped navigate. Well, I sat in the seat and helped navigate. Mina sat in my lap most of the trip or under the emergency brake and she tried to sit in her most preferred spot- under the brake pedal-but I think we convinced her that was a bad idea. (That involved the hand brake and some yelling with me butt up trying to pull her back out.)

Mina Kitty tucked up in my lap. Like having a nice warm blanket.

We FINALLY convinced her this was NOT the place to sleep.

It wasn't pretty though.

Carlos slept under my feet, for some reason terrified that the "house" was moving. He was ok on the highway but the stopping and starting absolutely put him over the edge. 

Eventually the animals settled under my feet and under the emergency brake.

For about 2000 miles.

We left Saturday, April 17 from Golden with one minor problem. The RV stabilizers did not retract so they were dragging on the ground causing Carlos much anguish. What a racket! A quick stop at Camping World where Roger pulled in, asked the first people he saw if they could help and they did. I'm not even sure those people worked there but they knew what to do. 

The first night was spent in Salina, KS at the Hog Valley RV and Treehouse Resort. Expectations were low but it was actually a lovely spot.  On our way we stopped at the Dish Room in Burlington, CO for dinner. OMG. Out in the middle of nowhere and they had Wagyu beef and seafood and it was excellent. Definitely recommend if you are going that way.   We arrived at our campsite at 3am due to the delay with the stabilizers. Roger was still smiling. I was in awe. 

Next was Bentonville, AR and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Please go. Alice Walton of the Walmart family founded it as a non profit charitable organization and it is admission free due to her. The visit is worth it just for the buildings and grounds. Dogwoods and redbud trees were blooming as we walked the extensive trails that were dotted with  sculpture. Inside there was a special exhibit of Crafting America which sparked a debate of what was art and what was craft.  Definitely most of what was in the exhibit was labeled craft but qualified as art in my book.

Crystal Bridges Museum

Look at those red buds. The blooming trees were magnificent.

That ceiling!

The landscaping! 

I had never heard of this place.

Now I want to go back.

In Memphis the next night we stayed at the Graceland RV park right across the street from Graceland. We figured we would just take Lyft into downtown Memphis, have some Barbecue and then Lyft back. After a lovely messy dinner at BB King's BBQ we stayed for the live music. Wandering outside at 10:30pm (granted it was a Monday) we tried to order a Lyft to go home. Nada. Crickets. Nothing. I tried Uber. Nothing. We wandered over to the Peabody Hotel thinking maybe we might have better luck there. Nope. I asked the valet and he gave me the number for some taxis. Nope. A couple of policeman were walking out of the hotel and I stopped one, asking if he had any suggestions. At this point it was almost midnight and we had come close to resigning ourselves to just getting a hotel room and going back to the RV in the morning. The police conferred and finally offered to take us back to the RV park as long as we didn't mind sitting in the back of their patrol car. Being desperate, that sounded like a splendid idea. 

After over an hour of trying to find a ride home, 

we finally were locked into the back of a police car and returned to the RV park.

Let me just say, the back of a police car is not limo material. Pretty sure no AC was coming our way. The seats were the plushest molded plastic, no seat belts. At least the plexiglass divider was clean! And no, there are no handles on the inside of back seat police car doors, so we had to wait for them to let us out. They even managed to miss the turn so we were treated to a flash of the lights and a squeal of siren. Even though we assured them it was perfectly fine to drop us at the entrance to the park, they insisted on driving in and letting us off at our door at almost 1 in the morning.  The neighbors were giving us the side eye the next morning. So. While there has been plenty of police brutality and police aggression in the news recently, there are good cops out there. We had two of the nicest cops ever. 

We did make a run through Graceland the next morning as Roger had not seen it and EVERYONE needs to at least see the Jungle Room once.

Me, in the Jungle Room, at Graceland.

I am not wearing suspenders, that's my iPad guide.

And obviously, RV travel is not the best for hair styling. O well.

A stop in Nashville was uneventful because apparently everything shuts down on a Tuesday due to COVID. That's ok, we were ready to have a quiet night. 

Finally we arrived in Asheville.  We unloaded my Subaru which had been lounging in back of the RV on a car hauler. All of the stuff inside was dropped at the apartment which will be my home for the next few months.  We took my "landlady" out to dinner at the Lobster Trap that evening as a mini thanks. Yum. It's been ages since I've had lobster and this did not disappoint.

And then....

the trip continued. 

Sixteen hundred miles down. Another 700 miles to go in the RV before Roger and I parted ways.

More to come.

Home

Home is where I am....


Back in March of  2017, just when the house was ready to go on the market, the nice staging lady suggested an upgrade for the master bedroom bedding. Somehow she did not feel the threadbare quilt that covered the queen bed conveyed the "upscale, cozy, homey" atmosphere that the price we had put on the house warranted. I hightailed it to the store and bought a fluffy comforter, pillow covers and in a spontaneous moment threw in a pillow that was embroidered with one word:  Home.   I was hoping for some subliminal advertising. See this bed? Doesn't it make you think of YOUR NEW HOME?

Subliminal advertising.

Bunny came in, saw the new bedding and glared at me. "Take this back. We no longer have a home."
There might have been just a little anger at her house being sold out from under her.

Never the less, the house sold, the bedding was packed up and brought to Colorado and Bunny survived the summer and eventually returned to school in Mississippi.

Loved that gray stripe. 

Carlos loved it too.

Perfect place to wipe the mud off his paws.

The bedding stayed on my bed until the comforter was ruined by Carlos. His dogged attempts at catching gophers rendered the quilt mud stained and no amount of washing would get it clean. I dug up an old down comforter, an even older duvet cover and remade the bed. The "Home" pillow was unscathed. It remained front and center.

A different duvet. 

A silly little three legged dog. 

And a pillow that says "home" 

A couple of weeks ago, while making the bed (a morning ritual that ensures I will come home to at least one clean room) I plopped the "Home" pillow in place and stopped. It hit me. That pillow IS home. So am I.

I just spent last week in Texas. It was fun to see my friends, lovely to visit with my mother, fabulous to go shopping, delightful to see some new art.  It was also overwhelming and frantic and hectic. So many cars. So many people. So many crazy drivers.

About the third day into the trip I was ready to go home. Not Texas home. Colorado home. Home where my things are and where Carlos is and where the fun neighbors live and where my work fills my weeks. Home where the mountains loom out my front door, where Mina plops into my lap as soon as I sit down, where the deer graze on the side yard.

This view. 

I'm still giving myself a year to fully decide "Should I stay or should I go?" That was a deal I made with myself when I moved up here full time. A year to get a job. A year to make friends. A year to put down roots.

I'm about halfway through the year.
The worst part of the winter is over. Spring is teasing, although surely there will be one more snow.
And more and more, this is looking and feeling like home.

Dining with the President

Dining with the President...

O Lord, no.  Not THAT President. I have better things to do with my time.


This President....

Thomas Jefferson, 

our third President

Ok, maybe I didn't exactly dine WITH Mr. Jefferson himself (which would have been a little creepy since he's been dead since 1826) but I did dine with his dishes.  Or maybe dishes named after him. Doing a little research now, what I always thought were reproductions of the White House dishes might just be dishes named after the Pres. O well. 

Anyway, back at Christmas time, Belle showed up and saw Mina eating off a saucer in the kitchen. 

Fluffy cat eating off the good 

Lennox Jefferson china.

Now, these are dishes that I have had for Belle's entire life. 

She exclaimed "Wow! Where did these come from? Why didn't we ever have decent dishes? We only had the crappy pottery ones."  

And then it hit me. These are the "good" dishes. The fine china. Got the set when I got married, got the set when I got divorced. And in that 31 year period, those dishes were probably used maybe ten times. Obviously Belle did not ever remember seeing them.  WHY?? 

Tonight's dinner. 

Using the china and silver.

On the gorgeous antique dining table.

(Click here to see the table refinishing project) 

These dishes are beautiful. I love them. Even after 31 years. Bone china is practically indestructible. I know. I've dropped them on the wood floor. Hand washed them in my sink which is legendary for chipping dishes. They don't break or chip.  Yet, they've been safely tucked away in their little quilted storage bags waiting for "special occasions". 

Salad from Moonlight Pizza, 

napkins from Target's Dollar Spot, 

silver from old family friends.

And at that moment, Belle opened my eyes. 

Why am I saving the things I love? Why am I not using them? 

I vowed that starting in February for President's Day, I would get out the good china and use it all month.  Now that February is almost over,  those dishes aren't going anywhere. 

Sometimes even Carlos gets to use them.

Seize the day. Spoil yourself. USE the good stuff.  Break out the crystal for that glass of wine. Put on the diamonds. Wear the silk and cashmere.

What's the point of having beautiful things if you don't enjoy them? 

Thanks, Belle. 

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

And speaking of enjoying beauty, look what I have on my windowsill. 

My own private Spring. 

The temp out right now is 20º.

It is the dead of winter in Colorado.

But back when I moved here, I brought this Aloe Vera plant from Texas. In my travels, the plant tipped and dirt spilled out.  Once I got settled, I went to the shed and grabbed a handful of dirt out of a plantless pot. 

Guess there were some petunia seeds in that dirt. At first, I thought there were weeds coming up. Then I recognized the leaves. 

Beautiful, no? 

•••••••••••••••••••••••••

I'm headed to Texas at the end of the week.

Probably won't post the first week of March. 

See you when I return with tales of rodeos 

and friends.

A Life Lived...

A Life Lived Long if not Lived Well....


Last week our orange tabby Manx cat had to be put to sleep.

He was 20 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 1 day old.

That's old for a cat. VERY old for a Manx cat.  It's also more than a third of my life, all but two years of the Big Guy's life and neither one of the girls have ever known a life without Max.

Maxy Cat No Tail- 

one of Belle's friend's nicknamed him.

Max came into our life after the last of the four cats the Hubs and I owned when we got married died. (I had two cats, he had two cats, we got married and had four cats. Often it looked like a cat bomb had gone off when you walked into our house...cats everywhere.)

I had always wanted a Manx, ever since I was 8 years old and read a story about them in a magazine. In my 20s I had friends that had two Manx cats. That sealed the deal. Great personalities, beautiful cats.

So Max came to live with us. The Big Guy was 2 ½ yrs old.

 A very patient kitten.

The two of them grew up together.
Max was a hunter. There was not a chameleon safe in our yard. One morning he brought a baby bunny into the house. A live baby bunny. The Big Guy and I chased around after Max and the bunny until Max dropped him. Bunny was safely returned to the outdoors. Two days later I opened the back door to find the bunny deceased. Max was tireless in his efforts to protect us from small moving animals.

Toddler and teenager.

Then Belle and Bunny came along and we moved to a new house, but Max was always there.

When Bunny was 4 (and Belle was 6 and the Big Guy was 10) we got a dog.  A wonderful fabulous intelligent Golden Retriever  named Jake.  While Jake was being house trained he stayed in a puppy pen. Once Jake graduated to "official house dog", Max decided he was just too old at 7 to play with a puppy all day, so he moved upstairs. Jake was not allowed upstairs.

Jake, the anti-cat.

Jake loved Max but the feeling was NOT mutual. 

So Max stayed upstairs. For six years. In that time, we replaced all the flooring downstairs. Max wouldn't come downstairs even to see the new floors. 

In 2008, Belle brought home another kitten. It was a stray, it was her birthday, sometimes these things happen. 

Mina, a very lucky rescue.

Mina was NOT afraid of Jake, even though he was much larger. She was not afraid of Max. She went upstairs and downstairs and outside and never thought that maybe she was supposed to be afraid of other animals.
And Mina taught Max a lesson. Mina wasn't afraid of Jake, so maybe Max shouldn't be either.
The sight of Max standing on the tile floor that had been installed five years earlier is etched in my brain. One evening Max just decided to come on downstairs. And after that, he went up and down and in and out just like any other cat. He was 13 years old.  Guess you can teach an old cat new tricks.

There was a truce amongst the animals. Max and Jake didn't love each other, but they also didn't fight. Mina on the other hand LOVED Jake and thought she was a dog, but that's another story.

But Jake got cancer. He had surgery, he had his leg amputated, and he had 11 more months with us, before he died too young.  Mina was devastated. Max was probably pretty happy.

Another cat came around. Marley. Again, no one got too friendly but also not too much fighting.
Three cats, no dog.

 A somewhat peaceable kingdom.

Marley, Max, Mina.

Then, Carlos appeared. Unbidden. Unwanted. Unexpected.

I did NOT want this dog. 

But how could you send this little face away? 

Max at this point was almost 18 years old. He just wasn't having it.

He started eating all of his meals on the dining room table. 

Max was 18, we didn't think this would be an issue. How much longer could he live? 

Ha!

Eventually Max started sleeping on the dining room table, too.

Yes, this made holiday meals a little complicated.  I just moved the entire dining room table into the office and put another table in the dining room. Easier than upsetting the elderly cat. 

Max started getting a little wobbly. We went ahead and put his kitty box on the table, also. 

We kept saying this was temporary. How much longer could he live? 

Apparently, he could live a while.

For over two years Max lived his entire life on our 40" x 90" dining room table.

The centerpiece cat.

He was the first thing you would see when you walked into our house.

A few weeks ago the Hubs called and said Max was having trouble walking. I warned the girls that possibly his end was near. The next morning Max was up and walking as if nothing had happened. 

Then last week, Max was on the floor by the back door when the Hubs woke up. He couldn't walk.  It was time.

The Big Guy and the Hubs took Maxy Cat for his last ride. 

Max's ashes will be coming up to Colorado for Thanksgiving so that we can all say goodbye to him together. 

A long lived life. A constant in our lives. 

Bye Max. 

We will miss you.

Max.

R.I.P.