In Memoriam

This past sunday I had to put Boo-Boo Kitty to sleep (we was 19!!) as his kidneys were failing and it was just an all around sorry state of affairs with the poor little guy. He had pretty much lost use of his back legs and was losing use of his front paws rapidly (by the time Sunday morning rolled around he wasn't even dragging himself around anymore, he was just very limp and prostrate on the couch). This all started early last week with a sort of steady decline over a short few days. On Friday last, he refused food (I think the last time I actually saw him eat anything was Wednesday or Thursday) and I knew there was nothing more to be done when on Sunday, he refused to drink water. Starting Friday night, I had to bring water to him in a small dish, and though he had received a subcutaneous fluid injection at the vet on Friday, he was still thirsty as ever (a result of renal failure, I imagine). So this will serve as a little memorial testament to my favorite cat in the whole world ever (alright well, Magee was pretty damn good too, not to mention Boonday and Bad Kitty). Despite the fact that he was LOUD (apparently the cat doesn't fall far from the staff he keeps *ahem* that would be me) and sometimes annoying (again, apparently not falling far from the company he keeps) I will certainly miss him very much.
Thanks to Popi (my dad) who came with me and supported me during this sad time. He stayed right there through the whole thing and was ready really quickly when I called him on Sunday to say that I needed to take him up on the offer to accompany me to Aminal Medical Center. Initially, I was really trying to be a big girl and all, thinking that I could "handle it" on my own , but I rapidly realized thst I needed to just throw that idea right out the window as I was just a giant, teary, sniffling mess and really did need support. So, Thanks, Popi!!
And I must say that the people and Animal Medical were pretty great. They took me right away and I didn't have to wait around in the waiting area. Pretty much as soon as I walked in, when I informed them that I had to euthanize, they put us right in an exam room and we were seen by a doctor within ten minutes. They also are willing to send a bill, instead of adding insult to injury by making you pay right then and there. Considering how bad it could have gone and what a debacle it could have been, it was all very smooth. Except for the freaking out and crying a lot between Saturday and Sunday, the whole thing went off without a hitch.

So, bye-bye Boo-Boo Kitty!!! We'll miss you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

on birthing

As I am not a mother, nor have I ever had a baby (which would actually relegate me to the category of motherhood by default, no?) the title might seem a bit strange to those of you who know me. You might well be considering now (at this very moment even) if that actually IS a cat you hear in the background while we're on the telelphone and not a screaming child as you had originally supposed. Side Note: it's really scary how much like a baby the cat can sound at times. End Side Note. However, though I am not a "traditional" mother in the strictest sense of the word (as already mentioned, I have no human babies), I am of the opinion that one can birth ideas, creative endeavors and other such sorts of things. Even paintings, sculptures, collages, guache <---- (one of my personal favorites) and/or books if you are so inclined. I think that this is part of the reason why men are so interested in creating things: they will never have the opportunity to have life come forth from their bodies, and are thusly forced to come up with some surrogate method of metaphorically giving life to something. They are rampantly (and at times indiscriminately) involved in invention, creation, innovation, and art.

Murphy's law in action

the highlights of my day:

1. I was late to my morning class as I had to dig my car out this morning (ask me again how much I LOVE the snow) and so I took the shovel with me to school (just in case I found myself in any other such situations that would be requiring me to dig out) but on the upside, I got a good workout at 8.30 in below freezing temperatures (ask me again how much I LOVE the snow)
2. My prof cancelled his classes today (even though he was in fact on campus...go figure) so I had a huge lapse of time staring me in the face (think six hours or better) however, I had to stick around to tutor at 12....
3. Now I'm in a quandry: it's 11 am.....Do I: a) Go home now and blow off tutoring only to return to school at 5 for my late class? (cause I'm thinking seriously, who's going to show up for tutoring in the freezing ugly weather especially if profs are cancelling classes at their discretion and whatnot) b) Do I stay on campus all day and find something to do in my off moments? c) Do stay for tutoring and go home for a bit afterwards, having to return for my late class? d) Is my late class even going to happen?

Needless to say it went down like this:

I chatted with the lady (Lori, she's really great!) in the European Languages and Literature Department for like a half hour.....we bantered back a forth speculating about the liklihood of Haller actually cancelling his class (will never happen....Hell would actually have to freeze over for that to happen, but it's cool, he's a really interesting and knowledgable professor, so I don't mind hanging around for his class). So after my little chat with Lori, I ran to the student union (but happily I got to leave my heavy bag full of books that I didn't end up needing AT ALL in the closet in the office) to grab a coffee.......came back to the office and picked up my stuff and then went to tutor (tutoring is in the same building as the ELL Dept so at least I didn't have far to go). As it turned out, it was good I hung out and amused myself because two (count them!! two!!) people actually showed up!! one hopeless case (but I mean hopeless) who's taking Ital 111 (we covered basic stuff but I mean really basic: articles, 1 elementary verb conjugation the verb "to be", nouns, adjectives, how to construct a sentence, how to answer a question, blah blah blah) and another girl (with whom I have had class before) who brought me a really interesting piece by Pico della Mirandola on humanism and the nature of god and god's relationship with man. Guess which was more entertaining for me?? HINT: it was not the basic verb conjugation of "essere".........
So I'm here at school (apparently, this is one of my off moments in which I had to amuse myself) waiting for 5 to come so I can go to class, learn, be educated and go home.

Alas,

Poor Yurik (alternately spelt Joreg, depending on what country you're from...not to mention the fact that I'm too lazy to make it over to the bookcase and find out how Shakespeare actually spelt it) I knew him well....
(ok well, maybe not so well, but it's always fun to quote Shakespeare and I try to whenever I can....he appreciates it, I'm sure)

I have reached a very important conclusion: Life is too short _____________________ <------ fill this in like a mad lib (you remember mad libs, right?). Alternately, there really could just be a period at the end of that sentence (fragment) and it can stand all by its little old self just fine.

Life is too short to bumble through it with no direction. In the rare case that you are under the mistaken impression that in fact, you have no direction, you inevitably find something that you so completely and utterly did not count on, which then leads you into doing something else (thus you are now not on your same directionless path as before) and **POOF** there, now you have direction! TA DA!!! wasn't that cool? ok ok it wasn't really, but humor me will you?
anyway......I have been so miserable lately and I wonder if it wasn't something in the water (the horrendous, slightly green, probably radioactive, certainly chlorinated, delicious, upstate mountianly purified (is that anything to do with computerly generated?), lead-ridden, toxic waste laden, sparklingly polluted New York City water) but alas, it isn't something in the water; rather, it was something in my heart (blackened like chicken<-----what's with the recurrent theme of chickens recently??) that was pulling me under. I have managed to figure out an excellent way to relieve myself of a psychically oppressive situation recently: I have been released (thankfully) from my services at my former "job" (though admittedly, it was more like a year-round day-camp for idiots).
This is simultaneously liberating and terrifying. I will be able to get SO much done now! I will be able to concentrate on school (from which I am on holiday Monday coming), I will be able to concentrate on making things (like I did today), I will be able to look for a job that will potentially further my actual career (which had nothing to do with what I was doing), I will be able to not develop any further weird allergic reactions or other health issues (I've discovered that exposure to toxic chemicals on a daily basis is not healthy, did anyone else know about this?), I will also be able to dedicate my energy to the things that really matter......
One of my famous quips about work (after actually having worked in an emergency room I felt completely justified in saying this) was that no one is waiting for a vital organ, a pint of blood, or the operation that will save their life: whatever it is, no one will die if it doesn't happen right at this instant. My job was famous for "catastrophes". Everything was tragic; a calamity; and wrong. Happily, I have a relatively thick skin, and thus was able to tolerate a lot (but I mean a lot) and upon reflection, I really wonder why I stayed there so long. I mean, I really wonder......
But, the nightmare is well behind me and the only two thoughts I have about this are:
Onward...........and UPWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's to new beginnings, folks...........................................

in the mind of the mind....

I have heard it said that the blogs are not interesting in the absence of accompanying imagery. I do believe that this is not always the case. I have read many a blog that is word-heavy and image-light which I have found interesting/funny/inspiring (and no, I don't just say that because I am heavy on words and light on images). While I can appreciate a fantastic photo or an inspiring image, I must confess that there is something cathartic in the act of writing, and of course then there is reading others' catharsis that too can be inspiring. Maybe I should take a lesson from Susan and focus my attention on the richness of images around me.......she recently completed a thirty-day project that I found particularly inspiring.........
Creativity is often elusive; creativity is often staring you in the face from behind your own eyes; creativity is all around, everywhere, all the time; sometimes to find it you have to look out, and sometimes you have to look in. I think it takes a special sort to delve into the realm of the unexplored, to be daring, to try something new (even it has been done by others a million times over, if it's your first go at it, it's new to you), to try something old again as thought it was something new, to challenge yourself and stretch your own limits....
I have a professor who has said that it is poetry that stretches the limits of language: poetry's responsibilty is to take the language to a place it has never been before (this is my interpretation/extrapolation of what this prof has had to say). In word: experimentation. Life is art is life is art. And life, like art, like poetry, like all its creative expressions, is about experimenting and pushing the limits......