Goodbye, Skilly

Heartbreaking news: We unexpectedly lost Skilly on July 5, and it's taken the wind right out of our sails.

Literally the world's most beautiful cat -- inside and out.

The short story is that he went from perfectly fine to NOT FINE in less than a minute on the Fourth of July, but never did I think that whatever he was dealing with would be life threatening. We got him into the vet on July 5 -- he wasn't really able to stand by then -- and learned that he had a blockage in his bladder and was in kidney failure.

This has hit me hard, and I was feeling kind of sheepish about that until my acupuncturist told me that people often feel the deaths of their pets harder than that of humans because we have a very different relationship with them -- they're always there, and it's a very intimate relationship, i.e. lots of pets and hugs and you sleep with them, et al.

So that made me feel a little better.

Final resting place in the garden, by the blueberries. I like to
think he would approve, as he loved to help us pick them.

But it's still really hard. We keep looking for him. We had routines built from morning to evening that were Skilly-centric. He was the best cat ever, and he's left a huge hole.

Johanna is all for getting another cat right away (and naming it Pickles after her favorite cat in Neko Atsume, which has caused nightly fights between the girls because Abby hates that name, apparently), but Eric and I aren't in a hurry. We need some time to heal and just be.

Life is pretty boring when it's free of cats, but that's our reality.

I wish I was this cute...

"Art," look at these pictures of Skilly edition

I had SUCH  a good streak going this month of actually posting on time, and that was on purpose, 'cause August was such a waste. But the world was against me this week, or, at least, time was not on my side, so here we are: A post that isn't even a real post. Well, we do what we can.

Which is to say: Skilly pictures!

Eighty-five percent of my Instagram account is pictures like this. 

'Cause LOOK AT THIS FACE. 

He's kind of terrible about keeping up with his assigned chores, though.

(Busy at work is all. That's what I get for trying.)

The end.

Village idiot

Today I went out on assignment to a youth camp, tripped over the stairs twice and then ran into a table, all before I even had a chance to sit down and conduct my interview. Well, dignity is highly overrated anyway.

So I was feeling pretty awesome as I introduced myself to one of the camp directors, who then introduced me to the main director with a pleasant, this is a woman from the newspaper. But the director just looked confused and said, all I heard was "woman," because we were in a loud dining room. I stuck my hands over my head and was like, yay! Here I am!, but all that happened was that she looked even more confused, so I hastily added, I'm not usually heralded in like that, it was nice, but that seemed to only make everything more awkward, so I shrugged and started asking my questions.

Success!

Der.

The end.

Oh, wait, no. Skilly caught another mouse last night, at 10:30 this time, which is way better than 2 a.m. This one was also alive and kicking, and Skilly actually started growling at us (as if we wanted to steal it) when I went to open the screen door in a desperate attempt to get him the hell out of the room. He didn't understand what I was trying to accomplish (dude, you could have been free!), but he finally dropped the thing and Eric scooped it outside with a dustpan and then I freaked out a bit as I watched it scuttle away and then we went to bed.

Now it's the end.

Wednesday "Art," look at my cat edition

Out of order

You guys, this has been a good week at work, but a long and hard week too. And I'm totally not complaining because A) so many words! and 2) that's kind of fun. Oh, and C) the words are actually behaving themselves, so yay!

But I'm kind of at my limit as I write this. My plan is to crank this post out (it's Thursday night) and just go to bed. It's 6:46 p.m. I'm kind of impressed I've stayed awake this long, to be honest.

I was going to stay at work and get a couple of my stories (due tomorrow for a special section coming out in April) all wrapped up, but I just couldn't. You know when you can't even think anymore and your eyes are all blurry from looking at a monitor for seven straight hours? That happened. I figured the Universe was telling me to call it a day.

Confession: I was so tired that our dinner was take and bake pizza. Totally processed (sorry about that, Jesus), but it was all I could manage. But the really sad part is that, when confronted with the list of choices, my brain couldn't even process any of it. So I just got cheese.

The girls didn't seem to care.

In conclusion, here's a picture of Skilly being a brat this morning:

"I see you have food! I also enjoy food!"

The end.

Saturday "Art," Skilly's sticking his tongue out edition

My boy has an attitude...