The thing about a dying cat is that it brings you to this…

I’m standing in my kitchen, diligently breaking off pieces of cheese to drop to the floor.  I’m here because if I drop more than one at a time, she won’t eat it.  If I give her a plate of cheesy chunks, she won’t eat it either.  But if I tear off a tiny bite and drop it to the floor in front of her, she’ll gobble it up with zeal.  I know when she’s done, she’ll ask for the faucet in the bathroom to be turned on. You see, she likes to drink directly from the stream as it trickles out.  She’s always loved to do this, we just wouldn’t give into her requests before.  Now we do.

And that’s how it is.  Because you come to a point that you can’t spoil a dying cat.  Ever.  And so if she demands to eat tuna and cheese and the salsa chicken I made us to eat for dinner, then that’s what she gets.  She can’t be spoiled.  Not now.  Spoiled is what you become when you have a long life ahead of you and overindulgences have the risk of ruining you.  Spoiled isn’t what you can become when you have very few days left on this earth.  No.  At this point, it’s just living life to the fullest.

I’m happy to do it, give into her demands.  They’re really not that hard.  But I see now that all of these indulgences have removed any self-control she had.  The other morning I was in the shower, rushing to get ready on time.  And who do you think jumped in the shower with me?  Yes… Miss Quigles.  Crazy cat.  I guess she didn’t feel like waiting for me to get out before she started drinking the puddles of water.  That seemed ridiculous to me but she took it too far last night.

Now, I’m going to tell you about this but before you get worked up that I’m sharing too much information, I want to remind you that we ALL pee.  It is a natural thing that every single one of us does and so it is not embarrassing to talk about it on my blog, right?  Ok.  So I was going to the bathroom last night when she jumped on the back of the seat behind me.  I was dumbstruck and  worse yet, I was officially stuck.  If I got up, she would fall into the toilet.  But I couldn’t reach around to grab her and remove her.  All I could do was tell her to get down… and wait.  Do you know what its like to be trapped on a toilet seat by a 7.5lb cat?  Sadly, I do.

I’m scared to see what insane thing she does next.

A long time ago, when I was just a wee little lass, my mother came up with a highly unusual concept.  She decided that she would try to protect my mind from all the nonsense of this world.  Nursery rhymes and fairy tales were never shared with me.  Dr. Suess books were never read to me.  The Bible given to me instead.  Her plan was to spare my brain from all manner of gibberish and in place of all that, fill it with facts and spirituality.  Honing my ability to think rationally and logically.  Her intent, to keep the silly part of my brain void.

But do you know what happens to empty voids?  They get filled!  It’s practically a universal law… any and all available space will be utilized to the fullest extent.  Have you ever seen an empty garage?  Of course, not!  They all have things in them because space wasn’t meant to be be empty.

Devoid of all nonsense that the world had to offer, I was simply going to have to make my own kind.  And so I did.  I went to work creating my own brand of useless ideas and thoughts.  I flexed and flexed my random thought muscle until it was strong.  Strong enough to work on it’s own, independent of my command.  That random thought muscle of mine worked overtime until, one day, I had stuffed as much gibberish into my mind as I could fit.  Then it spilt over.  Into my everyday brain parts, the random invaded until it became impossible to stop it.  Everywhere I went, sights and sounds would trigger more useless thoughts.  Sometimes I’d share these thoughts with others.  A coworker, a friend, on my Facebook status’.  Maybe you’ve even been the lucky recipient of them.

All these years, I’ve never considered that there might actually be a purpose for the soundbites that blast through my head.  How could they ever be of use to anyone other than a chuckle here and there?  Then a funny thing happened on the way to 2012.  A friend and business owner suggested I use them for the benefit of us both.  I would write my random thoughts for their business and they would pay me money.  ACTUAL dinero for my words!

It took a minute for it to sink in… then I answered with a resounding Hellz Yeah!!! (fist pump included)

I wish you adventure.  I hope this new year finds you walking into the great unknown.

Here’s to 2012 and all the possibilities it holds.

This is Quigley, my furry little friend of 15 years.  She came into our lives shortly after Dan and I moved in together.  I remember the day we picked her out.  Here was this small black and white bag of bones with a perfectly pink nose, stretching up as high as her tiny kitten legs would let her, paw reaching out and meowing at me.  She was so adorable.

I heard a family talking about her near me at the pet store.  The adults were debating if they should get her while their kids were loudly yelling they wanted her.  I looked at the children with their dirty, snot dried faces, whining and throwing a fit over her.  If this is how they behaved in a store, how much better could the be at home?  Visions of them chasing and terrifying her flashed through my mind.  Her shivering under a chair while they screeched for her to come out.  I just knew they’d name her something stupid like Gloria or Spider Pig.  Her life would be horrible with these people.  I could not let that happen.  Without thinking, I snatched her up.  

“We’re getting this one“ I told Dan.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“YES!  Let’s go.”  I could hear the kids complaining that I was taking her and I whispered to her not to worry, I was saving her from them.

Watching the fishies

We took her home and the great debate over what to call her began.  Names were thrown around and I pitched hard for my idea… “If we name her Quigley, we can call her Q!”  Which sounded like an awesome idea at the time.

Giant tv, tiny cat

To this day, she’s never been referred to as Q.  Her names do include Quigley, Quigle-bomb, Miss Quigles, Quigley Wiggley, Mrs. Quiglesworth and Quigs.

purring...

From the start, her favorite place to sleep at night has always been on my chest or next to my head.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to roll over in the night only to find I had a kitten in my hair.  Tugging out from under her, she’d start purring.  Readjusting herself, she’d snuggle close.  Her little pink nose practically touching my nose, her whiskers tickling my cheeks.

15 yrs ago

A creature of habit, her and Scout would lay together every morning and watch me get ready for work.

April 15, 2011

Every

May 20, 2011

single

June 7, 2011

morning.

November 29, 2011

She likes to meow outside the kid’s doors in the morning when they should be getting up for school.  I’ve always wondered what she was worried about since cat’s don’t know about being tardy.  But there she’d sit, looking up at their doorknobs.  I could almost hear her saying “uh, i don’t have opposable thumbs.  little help opening the door, folks”.

Chillin' on my lap

There’s a million things I could share with you about my silly Quigle-bomb.  All the things that make her more than just a cat to me and to our family.  I would love to go on and on about the little idiosyncrasies that make up her personality.  But it wouldn’t mean the same to you as they do to me.

7.5lbs of happiness

Somewhere along the line, I really convinced myself that she would outlive us all.  Her appearance belying her real age, it was easy to forget she really is 15.5 years old.  That is until she started limping last month.  We thought maybe she had just hurt herself since she’s constantly falling off things but it kept getting worse and so I took her to the vet.

The truth is… Miss Quigles is sick.  Arthritis is causing the limp but the x-ray revealed a large black mass that has invaded her knee and moved in both directions from there.  A small, hairline fracture lies above the mass.  The prognosis isn’t good.  Bone cancer has weakened her leg and her days are numbered.  She’ll be with us until her leg completely breaks at the fracture or until she’s in too much pain to carry on.

I know the day is coming soon.  I try to not to think about it but her hobbling along on 3 legs is a constant reminder.  So I try to tell myself that she’s just a cat.  She’s not a person, I can’t be that upset about losing her.  My head hears the message but my heart won’t listen.  It knows that you can love a pet.  That it breaks a little from their loss.

And so we wait, trying to enjoy the time she has left.  She still purrs every time I pick her up and I know she’s still happy.  There’ll come a day when she won’t be and we’ll have to say goodbye.  I’ll miss her so much and her furry little face sleeping next to mine.  My sweet, little Quigley.

Today is the birthday of my blog.  Awww… I know.  4 incredibly, long years ago, I wrote my first post entitled Hellooooooo.  A mere 53 words long with an attempt at a humorous picture included.  I had no idea when I typed up that simple post, the journey my life would take in the course of a few years or what I would share with all of you.  In the beginning, it was simply a place to post pictures and (once I figured out how) videos.  Then, a place to vent the frustrations of life or the fun moments we’d spent with friends.  It didn’t take long for the random thoughts to trickle in and well, you’ve seen what comes after that.

In the course of that time, the kids have started school, Dan worked out of state for a few months, we’ve remodeled multiple times on our house, I went back to work as a bus driver, ran three half marathons, began my plight as a writer, etc.  There’s been great times and sad times, really exciting moments and long pauses with nothing.  Sunshine and storms, rain and snow.  Time marches on…

I often wonder about the life cycle of a blog.  It seems that some of them are just flashes in the pan, starting out strong but then fizzling out.  I check on them still just to see if they’ve changed.  They don’t.  Then there are the ones that seem strong and fit.  Fine specimens of what a blog should be.  Out of no where, they drop dead.  I wonder what makes the author stop.  How did they know they were done?  Did they run out of things to talk about or did they just lose their passion to share?  Will that happen to me?  Does this blog have an expiration date on it?

I hope not.  Because, as dumb as the word still sounds, this blog is part of my process.  Part of how I make sense of the jibberish that inundates my brain.  It flutters through my mind and writing about it helps me grasp hold of it, stare at it intently until I make some sense out of it.  Random thoughts become well thought out ideas, emotions get recognized and defined, things that make me giggle get told and hopefully they make you giggle too.  In my mind they do.

I like to think that somebody reading can relate and maybe it helps them make some sense out of the flutters they have in their mind too.  Or if they have nothing to figure out, maybe it shows them there’s another way to see things.  At the very least, I hope it entertains.  I hope you never think when you’re reading my words “blah, blah, blah… shut up!”.   Honestly, I’d probably be a little sad… and then I’d probably figure you have some disease of the funny bone.  A terminal case that makes it physically impossible for you to laugh.  So very tragic.

I don’t know what awaits me down river.  I’ll find out when I get there.  Then, I’ll have to blog about it.

It’s a well-known fact that I despise New Year’s Resolutions.  I’ve written before about the idiocy in making them and the hypocrisy in stating you’ll reform just because the calendar changes.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to rant about that again.  Honestly, I’m spent.  Instead I thought I’d share some hopes I have for 2012.  Let’s call them goals…

Run the 5/3 Riverbank Run

Yes, I have registered for this race a couple of times and because of the curse, I have yet to run it.  THIS is my year!  I hope.  Training starts the end of January.  The race is May.  Wish my health and good luck.  If I’m to maintain my sanity, I must accomplish it this year.

Sew→ a needle pulling thread

It’s not a secret, I’m no Martha Stewart.  I have no love for gardening, crafting or beautifying my domain in general.  But this year, I hope to downgrade my ill-fated attempt at sewing seeds to just plain sewing.  Dan has officially banned me from gardening and I need something to fill the pseudo void.  It seems highly unlikely that I could possibly be worse at stitching than watering and harvesting.  At the very least, no vegetation will be slaughtered in the process.

Purge the unnecessary

Now, I know this has all the markings of a New Year’s Resolution but it’s not.  Why not? you ask… Because it’s a project with a purpose!  That’s why.  We would like to move in the next year or so and I refuse to move all the useless junk that we have amassed in the 11 years we’ve spent here.  A few years ago, I did a purge of all of our closets and IT FELT SO GOOD!  I loved peeking inside them with the smugness that comes from having an orderly cubbyhole.  But with time, comes stuff.  Random items you aren’t quite sure what to do with except put in those pristine cupboards and cabinets.  I promise to resist any Mommy Dearest moments

Learn to break dance

This may seem like a lofty goal for a woman of my age but it has been a deep seeded dream of mine.  Long before I ever witnessed the awesomeness of the JabbaWockeeZ, I’ve had a soft spot for any good pop, drop or lock.

I think it would be a useful skill.  A cherry on the top of my resume.  I can just hear future employers… “well, sure.  john is a strong contender but did you see that chris can krump?!?” I’ll be a shoo-in.  Cleaning the house would suddenly become a full body sport, as entertaining to engage in as it would be to watch.  Dusting would be a new form of art instead of a mind numbing task.  Emma and Gerrit would beg me to let them help.  And like any good mother, I’d pass my knowledge down to them.  What a legacy to leave to my children!  Besides, you never know when you might be faced with an epic dance battle of man vs mascot.  I’d like to be prepared.

Gerrit loves this song.  It is officially his favorite song about Christmas.  We’ve listened to Christmas songs for the last couple of weeks but it doesn’t come on as much as you’d think.  When it does, we love to sing along and laugh at the silly lyrics.  On this Christmas Eve, I wanted to make sure I took a moment to document such a trivial piece of information.

The holidays make you nostalgic and I’m not in the minority.  At the kids request, we’ve been watching YouTube videos of when they were younger.  My heart swells seeing my tiny tots and hearing their little voices once again.  It reminds me of how much they have changed in the last couple of years.  They seem so old now.  I catch only flickers of the babies I once had.  A mannerism here or a mispronunciation there.  All too soon, I know they’ll be gone as well.

My ‘big, little people’ I often refer to them nowadays.  So big in some ways, so small in others.  I forget sometimes that I need to capture them right now, in this very moment.  It won’t last long.  In a few years, they’ll be even bigger and I’ll have forgotten how little they were this year.  That they still believed in Santa and they still wanted to snuggle this morning.  I won’t remember how excited Emma was to buy Gerrit a Webkinz cow with her very own money this year or that Gerrit tells us every single day how Christmas isn’t about the presents, it’s about spending time with your family.  It’ll slip my mind that Dan and I jokingly refer to any mundane event (like him having clean socks or the power coming back on in the kitchen after he flips the breaker again) as a ‘Christmas Miracle’.  I would be sad to lose those memories.

And so I’m putting it here.  It isn’t my funniest post or the most well written but it’s important.  These are the slivers of our lives that we’ll forget with time.  The small, insignificant moments that in the end, define our existence.

Erin & I in the Willis Tower (aka Sears Tower)

It takes laser like focus to write a quasi adequate essay for a contest and obviously mine has been wired in.  With all that attention devoted to writing the best literary work I’ve ever created though, I missed updating you on my Chicago trip!  The REALLY good news that everyone’s been dying to hear is… yes, Erin is in fact a woman.  Phew!  Now, let’s go back to the beginning…

A beautiful morning for a train ride

In true Chris fashion, I realized on the way to the train station that I had forgotten my book.  Four long hours with nothing to do but look at my phone which would have intermittent service… ugh!  But as I was getting on the train, I met a really nice lady.  She was traveling by herself and we sat together.

These fields of red were a happy surprise

Susan (my seat mate) and I got to know each other for the next hour or so.  I found out that she was a mom, author of a breast cancer devotional called Praying Through Cancer and a survivor of breast cancer herself. She found out that I was meeting my friend-stranger.

Old school blogging anyone?

After a while, we resigned ourselves to our work.  She had a lesson she needed to work on for her church group and I had over 1000 words of my essay to finish.

A station along the line

The view from the train wasn’t always the prettiest but this one was great.  We stopped for a few minutes while more passengers boarded and to pass the time, I let my brain ponder on some random thoughts…

• there’s way more leg room on a train than on a plane
• how did they manage to make the lighting in the train’s bathrooms more unflattering than dressing rooms?
• how many people have fallen down the stairs from the upper level to lower level?
• bra’s are so not overrated, particularly if you’re over 50
• what would people do if i just started doing push ups and jumping jacks?
• could i single-handedly start a workout revolution on a train?
• what’s the ruling on Amish people riding trains?

Cool library near our hotel

I finally arrived and after a short taxi ride to our hotel, I met Erin at the Starbucks across the street.  I know what you’re wondering… was it weird?  Truthfully???  Not in the least bit.  It was completely natural and fun, like we’d been friends for years.  Because we have been friends for years.

Seriously? I'm going to the top of that?

After a quick lunch, we headed directly to the Willis Tower which used to be the Sears Tower.  The elevator ride was a little stressful going up.  We were crammed in like sardines and it just kept going and going up.  Right about the time I thought my brain might explode contemplating how we STILL weren’t to the top, the doors opened.

Holy frijoles!

Wow

I can almost see Michigan

It was about here that Erin started telling me about the book she had read in her research of Chicago before the trip.  I think she said it was The Devil in the White City.  Which is a book about a horrific serial killer who used his hotel to torture and kill his victims.  This information fueled me to have a terror filled elevator ride later that weekend when I had to ride alone to the 5th floor of our hotel which was the ONLY floor with an ice machine.  Oh… it was also the ONLY thing on the floor besides three black doors. I could just picture a crazed mass murderer stepping out of one of those doors holding a blow torch and an evil smile.  Ready to maim and murder me.  It was all I could do to suppress a scream by the time I retrieved my ice and the elevator doors opened again.  My imagination gets away from me sometimes…

Holy expletive!!!

It was actually easier to step out on this glass floor to take the picture than riding in the elevator which seems strange.  I think it’s because my brain can’t really fathom how high up this is but it can feel like a caged animal as I’m trapped in a metal box for the longest ride up and down I’ve ever experienced.

Just like at Disney, to exit you must walk through their gift shop.  It was filled with Abe Lincoln memorabilia which confused me until I remembered that we were in the ‘Land of Lincoln’.

Picklebacks anyone?

Nothing honors a dead president better than putting his face on a shot glass… don’t you agree?

I’m not huge architect nerd but I do enjoy a pretty building.

And at night

Howdy, Lego Woody!

We went shopping on Michigan which was jam-packed full of people.  In one afternoon, we managed to see 3 people who had collapsed on the sidewalk.  And I thought I was a hard-core shopper!

These two pictures were the window display to the Lego store.

I could totally build this...

Nom nom nom

This is a 5lb chocolate bar that Erin picked up for her kids as a souvenir.  Yes, you read that right… 5lbs of chocolate.

Even pimps & hoes need some Christmas cheer

Now, I know this picture is pretty blurry but let me tell you… it’s incredibly hard to walk behind someone and take a decent picture without tripping.  Which is exactly what I did.  I get the pimp Santa and his 2 hoes but I gotta say, the bunny threw me off.

We went to the John Honcock for a drink and to enjoy the view.

"We need more pictures of us!"

And attempt to take another picture of us.  We asked our waitress but apparently it was above her skill level.

A city with no shortage of tall buildings or a great place to view them

Second City!

Erin had a brilliant idea to get us tickets for Second City.  It was hilarious and I loved every second of it.

Front row and center

For my baby squirrel and buddy bear

The next morning, Erin had to leave to catch her flight early.  I was left to wander around the Windy City alone for about 8 hours.  I came across an outdoor German Christmas Village with tons of shops and food vendors.  I finally found Emma and Gerrit something good for a souvenir, a snow globe for each.

Puppet cart or nap station?

This was a cart that we had seen a puppet show out of the a couple of nights before.  I was so tired from the busy weekend and walking around by myself all day, I considered climbing inside for a nap.  Instead, I hailed a cab and headed to Union Station.  It had been a great weekend but it was time to head home.