It is a little after 3:00 p.m. and Cayce just ran up the stairs to the third floor at a surprisingly fast clip for a chubby boy, after standing in the middle of the living room bellowing his guttural two-part meow. He’s been doing this strange meowing several times a day since Cody left us […]
Valentine’s Day 2019
Wednesday, 2:30 p.m. Cayce, our plump middle cat, rolls his big body back and forth on the throw rug in front of his favorite spot in the house—the open doorway between the living room and the second-floor porch (this is a cat that likes to keep his options open.) Despite being “very sick,” (the cancer specialist’s […]
The Final Straw
A raw day. Cold, windy, soaking rains on the way. Got a warm cat and a good book to read but there’s an interesting show opening today at the Ruth Funk Textile Museum, a big, tan block designed to withstand gale force winds, smack in the middle of the campus at the Florida Institute of […]
One Sick Cat
Tuesday, December 18, 2018 Okay, so my original idea for this final blog post of the year was to write about a couple of really stupid things that I did this year. But then Cody, our oldest, one-eyed cat (his cancerous left eye enucleated in August) barfed. So what you may ask? Don’t cats barf […]
A Colonoscopy—A Tale of Gratitude (really?!)
Jim and I were supposed to have follow-up colonoscopies in 2010 and 2012, respectively. However, we decided to ignore this recommendation, to practice conscious denial, if you will, partly because of the explosive elimination involved (what Jim calls, “peeing through your butt,”) but also because of the odious prep solution, a hideous concoction tasting like […]
A Death in the Family
Note to Readers: Spoiler alert. You may want to skip the last paragraph if you are going to read American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West. I don’t know exactly when it will happen, but I do know from past experience losing loved ones that this sharp, acute, spiky grief will […]
God Speed, Guacamole
I live in a cool place. Well, not temperature-wise cool, God knows, (as I write this in the early a.m., it’s already a steamy 83 degrees), but cool, meaning residing in one of the premier places in the country that blasts rockets into space. Have to say that watching a launch never, ever gets old. […]
Somebody to Lean On – Laura, Lila, Jim and the Old Woman in Cocoa Beach
Monday Night, 6:55 pm: Jim arrives home from work. I hear music blasting from his car radio out in the driveway before he turns the car off and enters the house. In the bedroom, he changes out of his work jeans and polo shirt into shorts and another polo shirt, one that is way too […]
Happy Birthday, Joan!
July 12, 1989, Jim celebrates his 40th birthday. I know him, but not well. We are both employees at The Washington Post, he a Tech guy on the 7th floor, and me a Personnel gal on the 4th. We are still a few years away from both showing up at the same Texas-themed party thrown […]
Don’t Mope
“Hi, I’m Sarah,” says the young blonde women at the Sea Turtle Preservation Society orientation. I am early (like always) and the first one there. “Where did you park?” she asks, as I sign in. “At the CVS,” I say, and I can feel her frown before I look up and see it. “Is that […]