Losing Stella

 A few weeks ago, our beloved cat Stella had to be put to sleep.  She had had some months of ups and downs.  It was startling how quickly the final decline took hold, though.  One day  I was telling Scott that we needed to bring the cat sitter over to show her where Stella's food was ahead of a trip we were planning.  The next day, she stopped eating and didn't start eating again, no matter what we offered her.

I think euthanasia is one of the odder duties of pet ownership.  Nobody wants to have to make the decision about when an animal will die.  Yet, very little of it was truly in our hands.  Stella stopped eating when she stopped eating.  Ironically, it was a couple weeks before both Scott and I would be free for the summer, and not a great time for either of us to miss work.  But since death was inevitable, we wanted it to be quick and humane.  The vet who ultimately came to the house to euthanize her cautioned us against waiting too long.

The bright spot in the sad situation is that we both got to spend time with her at the end.  Due to a primary election in the district where I work, I had the day off the day before Stella died.  I had the opportunity to check in on her and see that she truly wasn't eating.  The day she died, Scott and I both made the call to just stay home.  We spent time with her until the vet arrived, and stayed with her, talking to her and petting her, throughout the process.

Perhaps inevitably, losing Stella made me think of when we lost our old cat Laila.  She was also euthanized after a series of ups and downs.  With Laila, I was less aware of signs of decline in cats.  I also didn't think to arrange at-home euthanasia, so one of her last actions in life was taking a car ride, which no cats really like.  I was also in the midst of my dreadful grad school 2.0 program, so I went to campus, and even dealt with a bunch of tiresome drama, before heading home to spend time with her before we took her to the vet.  This is a regret of mine.  I'm grateful that things were different this time for Stella and that I am no longer under such pressure to minimize actual life events (the principal at my school, who only rarely responds to emails I send when I need to take time off, responded about how sorry she was about my cat and encouraged me to stay home with her).

Right now, it just seems way too quiet at home.  We even miss the things that drove us nuts, like Stella consistently waking me up ten minutes before my alarm and yowling during our phone conversations.  She and Laila both added a lot to our lives--two very different kitties with very different quirks.  I think the best tribute to both of them is to give a home to another kitty, and I know in time we'll be ready to do that.

A Gift Finally Enjoyed

 Over 40 years ago, on the day I was born, one of my aunts and her then-husband bought me a bottle of wine.  They used the label on the bottle as a sort of gift tag, so it was easy to distinguish from any other bottles of wine my parents may have had around.  I think this is a clever gift for a baby, provided the parents have space to store it.  It spent decades tucked away in my parents' linen closet.

The one funny thing that nobody could have predicted is that I'm not much of a drinker.  I'm not a complete teetotaler, since I will drink, but I have a hard limit of one drink per occasion.  Often, on occasions when I drink, I'll do something like have half a beer and let Scott have the other half.  I like the taste of some alcoholic drinks, but they're not as much of a treat for me as some other things (like chocolate!).  I also don't seem to get the buzz that most people get from drinking.  And, even at my advanced age, I've never truly been drunk.  My recollection is that nobody remembered the bottle of wine by the time I turned 21 (which happened when I was studying in Mexico anyway), and even if anyone had, I wouldn't have necessarily made a beeline for it because being able to drink legally just wasn't that big of a deal for me.

It did resurface at some point, though, and my parents brought it up a couple of times when I visited.  Finally, maybe a year or two ago, they asked me to take it with me when I left.  I took it, and it sat on my kitchen counter.

Then we decided to move.  There is nothing quite like moving to make me thin out my belongings, and I decided that this bottle of wine shouldn't move with us.  So, I decided to give it a try...and it tasted really good!  I was surprised by how good it tasted to me, since as I said, alcohol is typically not a big treat for me.

We've been drinking small amounts of it with the chocolate we eat for dessert most nights.  The flavors go well together, and it's fun to think of people picking out a bottle of wine for a new baby.  I'm glad I'm getting to enjoy this gift at long last, after all these decades.

Person First, Spouse/Parent Second

We have a new-to-us professor for one of our summer classes.  He wanted to learn more about us, so on the first day of class, he had each of us stand up in front of the classroom and answer questions from our classmates for 60 seconds.  I wondered what questions I'd be subjected to, and hoped none of them would be too awful.  The first question I was asked wasn't awful, exactly, but it was interesting:  "What was your maiden name?"

My classmate looked startled when I told her I'd kept my name when I got married.  Then the next couple questions I got (from another classmate) were about Scott.

I'm not expecting my classmates or anyone else to show interest in any specific areas of my life.  But since I personally believe there is much more to my life than my marriage, I found it telling that that was the area at least two people found the most interesting.

This incident made me think back on a t-shirt I saw in the window of a bridal shop some time ago.  The slogan on the t-shirt was "Pour me some bubbly, I'm getting a hubby."  That slogan made me cringe at the time for reasons I couldn't fully articulate at the time.  But I realize now that what I find so distasteful about it is that it's treating marriage like an achievement.  To be clear, I think that happy marriages are a wonderful thing and that weddings can be celebrated as a joyous occasion.  But treating them like an achievement brings to mind images of people training for some sort endurance event and carrying spears to hunt a spouse and bring him/her home as a trophy.  I also feel that the "marriage as an achievement" burden falls particularly heavily on women--no matter what else you do with your life, nothing quite lives up to getting your M.R.S.

Parenthood is similarly treated as an achievement.  Just like with marriage, I feel that this burden falls particularly heavily on women.  Also, like with marriage, I believe that becoming a parent is an occasion to be celebrated, but I really can't view conceiving a child as an achievement.  Being a good parent is an achievement, but that is a process rather than a single event (and unfortunately, much rarer than conceiving a child).

With both marriage and parenthood, there is a lot of luck and timing involved.  Luck and timing are just that--luck and timing.  They may be joyous occasions, but they are not achievements.  Treating them as such implies that people who don't get married or don't have children are lacking in ambition or talent.

I've come up with some t-shirt slogans of my own to replace that cringe-worthy "Pour me some bubbly, I'm getting a hubby."  I think they may be particularly useful for women, whose true achievements that they have worked for often fly under the radar.  But men may feel more pressure by these cultural ideas than I realize, so I've created ones that should work for everyone:

Start a commotion, I got a promotion.
More champagne for me, I got my degree.
Bask in my glory, I published a story.

Scott came up with an additional one:
It's no longer a prob, cuz I got a job.

The more milestones to celebrate, the merrier.

North Carolina Beach Pictures, December 2019

We went to North Carolina for Christmas, and made our usual trek to the North Carolina coast.  It really is the perfect time of year to visit the beach--no crowds and no sunburns!  Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Vacation!

I'm happy to report that I finished my summer science classes and was rewarded with a vacation to Washington and Oregon!  In addition to sightseeing and getting a break from an icky mid-Atlantic summer heatwave, I also saw a lot of my family, and we had a picnic in honor of my grandma.  It was wonderful to see relatives and generally get a break from daily life--I think it will give me the energy to finish the last couple weeks at my job and start my life as a full-time student.  Anyway, here are some pictures!

A perfect dungeness crab shell.

Bridge into Astoria, OR

Haystack Rock in Oregon

One of many jellyfish I saw washed ashore in Oregon.  I felt sorry for them and kind of wanted to help, but...you know...

A slightly frightening number of wild turkeys

Sahalie Falls, Oregon

Clear Lake, Oregon

The largest morels I've ever seen in Pike Place Market in Seattle

Amazon Spheres!

Chihuly exhibit

More Chihuly sculptures outdoors in the garden

Cool Things I Saw In North Carolina

Happy holidays to everyone!  We got back late yesterday evening from spending Christmas in North Carolina with my family.  We started out in my hometown of Chapel Hill, NC, and then went to the coast before heading back to Maryland.  As always, I had a great time.  Here are some pictures of cool things I saw.

A twig palace in Hillsboro!

Seagulls have to eat, too.

These Christmas trees will be placed in the dunes to help prevent erosion.

Juniper berries!

My mom said it best: It was a good thing I wasn't wearing flipflops.

This was a lot of fun to watch, but none of my attempts to photograph it really panned out.  The plastic bottle at the bottom of the tank was filled with pieces of apple and served as a sort of "food puzzle" for the otters at the aquarium.  It reminded me of a food puzzle we give to Laila, which is a ball that dispenses treats as she rolls it over the floor.

Even oyster shells can look surprisingly festive.

I Thought Only Human Children Objected To The Concept Of Bedtime

Cute cats are way more fun than politics, especially these days.  Besides, Laila has a proud grandma (catma?) who requested more posts about her.

When we first brought Laila home, we didn't let her in our bedroom.  Scott is allergic to cats, so we wanted to maintain a relatively allergen-free area of the apartment.  Fortunately, though, Scott has not been having as many problems with allergies as we had feared.  Also, Laila had been meowing loudly at night, and we thought she might be calmer and quieter if we let her into the bedroom at night.  We tried this a couple nights last week.

The first night, she was very excited to explore.  She walked all around the room, sniffed everything, then got up on the bed and stomped around for a while.  Then she decided to leave only to sit outside the bedroom door and meow loudly.  We decided that she must have misunderstood the tacit agreement that bedroom access = no loud meowing.  We closed the door for the rest of the night.

We decided to try again the next night.  Big mistake.  The most restful part of the night for me was when Laila was crowding me on my side of the bed and hitting me with her tail.  The rest of the night was punctuated by loud meows at fairly close range.

As I stumbled around the next morning, a theory came to me:  Laila had spent the night hunting and wanted to let us know.  I found a catnip mouse from the living room on the floor of our bedroom, and one of Scott's socks from the laundry basket in our bedroom had somehow made its way to the living room.

Laila, of course, was feeling perfectly refreshed in the morning, and wanted to further refine her hunting skills by playing fetch with me.  When she got tired, she curled up by the living room window.  No time like early morning for a good nap!

She caught a catnip mouse!

Unfortunately, we have had to ban Laila from the bedroom at night once again.  We have also started using a white noise machine, which we purchased years ago to drown out noisy human neighbors.  We've also tried to be more conscious of her routine.  We try to make sure she gets exercise when we get home from work, somewhat like the parents of young children taking their kids to the park to wear them out before bed.  Later in the evening, before human bedtime, we make sure to have some quiet petting time with her.  We've also started leaving a light on in the living room so that our apartment looks less like a spooky hunting ground for cats.  This is sort of working...some of the time.  It's just too bad that most of us humans don't have so much freedom to nap during the day.

Making Vintage Jewelry More Wearable

I haven't posted in a while about anything I've made.  I was dragging my feet on photographing pieces, but I finally went ahead and photographed several today.

I inherited some of my paternal grandmother's jewelry when she died several years ago.  Today's piece of jewelry began with a fabulous fly pin that belonged to her.

There is wonderful detailing on the fly's wings, which, frustratingly enough, the picture doesn't show very well.  It also has a purple body.  Purple is my favorite color, and it was my grandmother's favorite, too.  I thought it was an extremely cool pin.

The only problem is that I'm not really a pin person.  I think it may be a generational thing--I've seen lots of older women wear pins with a great deal of flair, but when I try it, it just doesn't feel like me.  Truthfully, I can only think of one woman around my age who I ever saw wearing pins on a regular basis.

So the pin sat unworn for a number of years.  I finally decided it was time to remedy that and make a necklace from it, since I wear necklaces very regularly.  I started by buying a bail to convert the pin into a pendant.  The bail is simply a piece of tube that goes over the pin back with a large loop on top.  You can get these bails with either a vertical or a horizontal tube, depending on the direction of your pin back.  My pin was thus turned into a pendant.

I thought just putting it on a plain chain would neither do the pin justice nor having pleasing proportions.  So the next question was how to design a necklace that would complement the pendant without overwhelming it.  Inspiration came in the form of a package of seed beads that came as a free gift with some other beads I had ordered.  The seed beads were a mix of soft purples and whites with a matte finish.  I thought the soft, matte beads would allow the pendant to really shine.  I also thought that using matte beads would bring the overall shine of the piece down a bit, and make it easier to wear for everyday occasions.

I also wanted to incorporate metal into the necklace, so I bought gold-filled chain, wire, cones and a clasp.  Gold-filled is a good affordable alternative to gold.  I shudder to think how much solid gold would have cost.  I made four strands of wire-wrapped seed bead links, and used cones to link them to the chain.  I then connected the clasp to the ends and slid the pendant on.

Since the loop on the pendant bail is so large, I can easily remove the pendant if I want to wear the necklace without it.

And, since I left the pin back intact, I could remove the pendant bail and wear it as a pin again if I ever wanted to.  I'm glad that in one form or another, the fly pin will get worn again.

My Grandma

My maternal grandmother died this past week.  It happened while Scott and I were in England.  For some reason, having someone pass away while I'm out of the country seems particularly surreal to me--I also felt that way when my paternal grandfather died while I was in Kazakhstan. 

In Grandma's case, she was 91 and had lung cancer and dementia.  Things were not going to get better for her, and her last few days were challenging.  Though I will miss her, I feel relieved that she will not have to suffer more.

As a small tribute, I decided to write a few of the many Grandma-related memories I have.

1.  We went to a family reunion in Montana, where Grandma was living at the time, when I was 11.  When we got to her house, Grandma took me outside and showed me a lawn chair she had placed under a weeping willow tree.  She told me I could go there any time I wanted to be by myself.  I was a very introverted kid (who unsurprisingly turned into an introverted adult), and since I had been an only child for the first ten years of my life, I was used to spending a lot of time alone.  I still think how thoughtful and insightful it was for her to provide me a place to get away when I wanted quiet time.

2.  When I was 13, my mom, sister, and I went to Montana to visit Grandma.  I stayed behind after my mom and sister went home.  Grandma let me make myself a root beer float every day.  She also let me watch soap operas that I would never have been allowed to watch at home.

3.  One time when Grandma called me to chat after Scott and I moved in together, she asked me if we ever fought.  Before I could answer, she said, "You're not normal if you don't!"

Rest in peace, Grandma.  We'll all miss you.

Lifting My Spirits With Silly Pictures

My grandfather passed away yesterday, just shy of turning 99.  Given his age, this was not unexpected, but it's always sad to lose someone you love.

I had been planning to post these pictures for a while, and decided that today might be a good day for a lighthearted blog post.  Plus, I'm traveling soon, and hope to come back with new pictures and stories.

I had never seen such a quantity or variety of artificial trees before moving to Astana.  I'm also not really sure why they seem to be so popular here.  Maybe it's because many parts of the city don't have a lot of "natural" trees, since Astana is young and a work in progress.  Anyway, check these out:  an artificial floral tree and an artificial fall-themed tree.

There were other artificial trees with flowers in other colors nearby.  What's odd here is that there are real trees in the background.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but in addition to orange lights, this tree is covered in artificial maple leaves.

Also, check out these critters!  I photographed them near Astana's circus building.  I don't plan on seeing any circus shows that incorporate animal acts, but I don't mind taking pictures of these sorts of animals.

Finally, a sign that reminded me somewhat of home.  Our Russian-speaking friend who was with us that day said this was for English classes.

Enjoy, and have a great weekend, everyone!