What Happened?

I have not posted in a while, I know, but I did not realize it has been over 6 months! Things got away from me, I guess. Thank you for not hounding me about this.

Last couple of months have had a few changes. I was laid off from my job, which is pretty big. I still work, now as a personal assistant, but still, a change.

My husband has a new job, one I think he really likes and likes him. He has had a few of those - jobs he liked - but circumstances beyond his control take away the opportunity. The best was the newspaper for which he was selling advertising space folded - end of job! He was doing well - they were not.

On our kitty front, many changes. After all, our cats are a part of our Pocono Life, so when these things happen, we are deeply affected.

We lost Star - a little girl cat who woke one day unable to stand up and when she did, could only walk in circles. Very scary to watch. We rushed her to the vet, who diagnosed her as having a form of inner-ear abnormality and showed us the office cat with the same affliction. He said she would get used to it and live many years, but she was so terrified of what was happening to her - you could see it in her eyes. Two hours after we got back from the vet, she died in my husband's arms. I think the changes were too much for her little heart and she could not take it.

Next came Scottie, who was older and had not been happy since Ike passed. He died quietly in his sleep.

Then, Sunshine, who was being treated for hyper-thyroidism for the past year. She was so skinny at the end, but had the heart of a lion, never giving up. Sunny came to us as a 2 week old kitten, abandoned by her mommy cat in our backyard, on the first day of summer, laying in a sunbeam. We bottle-fed her and made up a box for her, but her motto was "You cannot hold Sunshine." We eventually had to progress to a refrigerator box; when she escaped that, we knew she was ready to be a part of the group.

Sunshine would allow you to pet her and hug her as long as you did not pick her up. She was a princess and had to be in control. I knew it was time to give her peace when she lost control and allowed us to hold her and carry her around on her last day. The vet was amazed that she lived as long as she did when he gave her her release. It was the first day of summer, 12 years after we found her.

The hardest one for us has been Little Bear. He actually died a week before we had Sunshine put down. We think he had a massive coronary. We love all of our babies, but Little Bear had a special place, particularly on our bed, next to the headboard above our heads, where his thunderous purr would soothe us to sleep every night. This was important to my husband as he went through a year of chemotherapy. After his weekly shot, my husband would feel very cold, but would be sweating profusely (cold sweats). Little Bear made a point of sitting on my husband's head to keep him warm until he would fall asleep - summer, fall, winter and spring. He showed he cared, I believe. The night Little Bear died, he was particularly affectionate, holding my head between his paws, which he had not done since we first adopted him. I did not know why. I found him the next morning on the floor.

So we have adopted some new kittens - Sweetie, Fancy and Guy. I think we needed some energy in the house, and now we have it. We still miss our passed babies, and we are not replacing them, but these little creatures needed a home and we needed the love.

Cannot rush this stuff!

I cannot believe it has been 2+ plus months since I posted anything here. Good thing I am not getting paid for this. Then again, if I were, I might write more. Truth is, I did write about a month ago, but my system or the Internet or the site or something 'dumped' an hour's worth of material to the vast wasteland somewhere. Frustration and all that, so I never got the itch to post anything else and figured out other things to do in the meantime.

The summer season is here in the mountains. The first couple of drownings occurred in the Upper Delaware and one of the lakes. DWI's are up - ah, Summer! These occurrences have become a regular part of the main tourist season. Still, up until last week we had frost at night. I guess a few warm days and nights brings out the crazy in people. It also brings the requisite flies and mosquitoes to annoy us and we expect all this.

We painted our living room - finally. A warm antique white. Looks very cottage-y and clean. Next stop in the painting tour is the office. Funny thing about a spring clean-up - you find things! The worst/best was discovering the hiding place for the infamous blue disc to reboot our old PC. I am sure when I put it there, I thought it would be someplace where I would not lose it. Mission accomplished! Now a new conundrum - restore the old PC or donate it. It looks so big next to the new laptop, which is faster and does more. But the old PC was a workhorse for graphic applications and printing stuff. My husband wants to boot up the old thing and have the option of taking the laptop with him when he does sales calls or whatever. Esthetically, I do not miss the thing on the desk, but he is probably right. Your thoughts?

I also found out why the poor old thing crashed - the hard drive got over-heated. I have come to this conclusion after reading an article from the NY Times. Could have saved it by putting the hard drive in the freezer - who knew? I know it overheated from excess dust (isn't all dust 'excess?') from our covered kitty litter boxes which are on the other side of our office, behind a heavy curtain, on the other side of our washing machine and dryer. Read a previous post regarding my thoughts on a dust-free litter - there is no such thing!

So now I will cook our dinner - something I know I have control over, barring anything unforeseen. Of course, if it were 'foreseen' you could stop it - like giant oil leaks - or maybe not.