I had a cat named Spock for over 15 years, now I just have memories of the years we shared and the empty spaces where he isn't.

Spock passed away today. My da and I buried him in the back yard right next to Audrey Pupburn, his canine sibling. He will sleep by his sister, under the apple tree and the ferns. The apple tree that I spent much of my childhood in its branches that reached up to my bedroom window and which nearly died when I moved away started living downtown for college. I'm glad my da was here to help me bury him, I definitely thought it might be just me trying to do it on Saturday (they leave for Montana tomorrow night right after work) and I am not very effective at digging. Comically ineffective at it -- like Bugs Bunny jumping up and down on the shovel but it won't move at all comically ineffective. it's the one part of gardening I always need assistance with -- digging holes. It's like the Earth knows I don't ever desire to do her injury and so my effort leaves no marks on her even though I am trying to return to her what is hers to nurture and to take back into her ever fruitful womb of the cycles of life and death. It always adds a bit of comic relief to burials to watch me try my damnedest and get nowhere before handing the shovel back to those more effective at digging than me... Even with the ground warmed and two days of rain before this, it would have taken me many hours what my da dug in under 15mins.... I also didn't know if I'd be able to move the large alder stump onto his grave afterward without my da's help because it's heavy, but if it and to be done on Sat without assistance (because it couldn't have waited over a week for them to get back after all) I would have found a way to do it so nothing could dig up my boy from his final rest.

From yesterday:

From today:

 

 

 

And he's no longer suffering. This last week was hard on him, he was such skin and bones having such great difficulty breathing these last couple days but whenever I asked him about if he wanted help to go early he would hide -- and it's the only time he hid from me until this morning which is how I knew it would be today. He was hiding under the Spare Oom bed this morning and then he was on the mattress of the futon (which smells of renal failure now and so I will curb it and get a new queen size futon mattress at some point (I've had this one since college)) but then right at the end despite his weakness and difficulty breathing dragged himself to the doorway to die across a threshold and was kitten crying for me so I put Waffles in her kennel (her choice) and I was laying on the floor with him in his last few hours and his last breaths even though like all cats he had hidden himself while he was suffering earlier in the morning. It was after 3:30 I texted my mom and after 4 by the time I was in an emotional state to wrap him in his blanket shroud with my shorn braid and his tinsel toy to go drop off the dog at work and see if my da could join me at their house right away to bury Spock or if I should try to start without him until he could come help me.

He didn't have as much buried with him as Audrey did -- it's not like I could bury my reading chair or the piano with him and certainly not any of his favorite foods as that would attract critters to dig him up. In the end, I buried him wrapped up in the red chenille blanket I've had since college and that he loved to snuggle with in the reading chair (with and without me) and over the years it had many pulls in it from his claws while he would knead me and with my chopped off braid in his arms and one of his tinsel toys beneath his chin.  And he is right next to Audrey, they are once more together as they were for 13 years of their lives that overlapped as my fur baby familiars. 

We had robins hanging out checking in while burying and turning over the soil and then a mourning dove came and sat with me while I was colelctiving flowers from the yard and sitting with the gravesites. And then I had both one of my crows and a hawk friend check in on me and I talked to them both about being kind to his soul and fiercely protecting the burial site to be sure nobody else came to dig him up and to let their fellow crows/hawks know that he is mine and the Morrigan's and they're not to eat his body or let any other scavengers try to fig him up to eat of him but to let Mother Gaia reclaim him. And then I had a hawk fly over me my whole drive back and one of my crow family descended of Jon Snow waiting for me at work and keeping protective watch over me until the sun went down and he had to return to his nest.

I'll wash my hair tomorrow morning see what a hack job I did on it and when I see how much it curls up to hide it I'll do what I can to make the layers/curls passable for an at home hack job. It will have to grow out a few weeks, maybe a month, before I get it properly fixed and cut at a salon. Whenever I cut my hair to bury with a loved one, I braid it at the base of the neck cut straight across with a pair of sharp cloth cutting shears and get a pretty clean inverted bob (longer in front angled up to shorter in back) when I do it.  I intentionally don't wash my hair and do a low braid (not a French braid) when I can tell the last days are approaching to make it an easier/better cut. Fresh washed, the curls looked about between collarbone and nipple length (depending on how tight the curls with the humidity) but when brushed out the curls pulled out to their full length were longer than my bra strap, nearly to the narrowest part of  my waist/belly button, before I hacked it off at the base of my neck today. So Spock got a long braid of my hair for his last sleep just as Audrey did 2 years and 4 months ago.  It probably would make more sense to cut off the hair that contains the time of grieving (both pre and post death) but it's to show that a part of who you have been and who your energy/power has been is no longer a part of you is buried alongside the one you dearly loved and is a holdover for me from past lives where you show your grief by cutting off your hair to bury with the loved one -- be glad I don't go to the extent of scarring my cheeks with a knife to leave me tears that will never disappear extent like past lives on both sides of the Atlantic have done.

I've been at work since the neighbors came home were in their backyard interrupted my time with the grave talking to Spock after picking some lilacs and lily of the valley for the stump marking his grave (and I also put some lily of the valley on Audrey's grave.) I told my mum I didn't want to hang out until after I was done burying him but that I'd be back afterwards. I got back about 5:15ish. We made some jalapeno limeade and frozen strawberry spicy margaritas and a snack of pretzel bites with beer cheese (I hadn't eaten anything all day because I knew it was my last hours with Spock still this side of the veil, if I'm fully transparently honest) and then my mum and I had two half bottle of rosé while working until my da was ready to head out. I'll make some tomato soup and toast some bread for later dinner after I go check on Henry spend some time with him while Crissy is out of town. 

I'm grateful that it was before my parents leave for Montana tomorrow night. I'd have found a way to do it myself if I had to, when you have no other choice you always find a way and strength you didn't know you had, but it's better that my da was there to help me move the stump and to dig the hole -- because what took him quarter of an hour would have taken me most of a day and I would have been very sore for me struggling to move the heavy stump off the spot for Spock next to Audrey then back after digging a hole by myself for my less than 8lbs at the end beastie boy feline familiar. I miss him but also I miss him as he was before, not the way these recent days and weeks and months had reduced him. My parents and coworkers (including Sarah who is like family and who understood what I wasn't saying when I told her last Friday that he's having a hard time breathing and he smells now of his renal failure) and I texted Mikaela directly because he's her bonus cat most of her life since she was 5 but I haven't told anyone else and haven't yet posted on facebook. I will. I just haven't yet. I'm sure I'll post om facebook by midnight and some time tomorrow I'll email Erin to let her know, but maybe not until after I get the car stuff taken care of (which I had planned to do today until Spock was hiding form me this morning and I realized today was his last day and I wasn't going to abandon him and leave during his last hours of drawing breath on this side of the veil) which I would like to have done before my parents leave for Montana... because otherwise I'm kicking it down until June...

I'll be holding onto those I love with a stoic open hand ready to let go rather than hang on and wearing a lot of black and quite a bit emo for a while until I'm out of the hollows where nothing hurts but also nothing feels like anything, and that's just part of how I process my grief similar to me chopping off my hair and not wanting sympathy/empathy until after the burial last good deed to offer the lvoed one is done.... But also, I will no longer be dreading coming home to a (quite literal) Schrodinger's Cat situation and then watching him suffer trying to draw each breath but simply glad to be in the place he loved with his person with him and his spirit team surrounding him (including his canine sister) and his beloved George Winston playing as it has for the last 2.5-3 weeks. My poor boy, this has been a hard week or three and I knew it was coming before we got here -- but also it means knowing there's only emptiness waiting at home and  no purring living guardian of the home and hearth waiting for me and the dog to come home. (of course I will get another cat, or another will find and pick me, just not quite yet and it will be so empty and silent until the time is right and the animal is right to find me....)

Even knowing doesn't help the hurting -- precogs are shit at stopping the hurting, you just deal with it out of sync with other people. I've been dealing with the hurting all month (and for several months now) but last night was the "I will never say again to Waffles, "You ready to go home see Spocky?"" realization of "coming soon" is "now" and arrived here not just foreseen on the horizon inevitable coming down on you like a tsunami as inexorable as time itself these events you have foreseen will happen to you.

Over the last week or two, there have been a LOT of major tornadoes, floods, fires, earthquakes, volcanoes, and major x class solar flares affecting major areas of the globe, some of them people have died in, and they're not being covered at all across old school media or print news emails or served up in people's newsfeeds on socials (unless you follow a lot of environmental, meteorologists, and storm chasers like I do.)

As in, people who are normally fairly well informed look at me like I'm crazy when I talk about the floods and severe storms (but not yet hurricane) in Miami, the blackouts across Portugal/Spain, the devastating floods in Maryland, the earthquakes that leveled major areas in Myanmar/India, the uncontained wildfire in northern Minnesota burning over 200k acres so far and 0% contained, the earthquakes in Kentucky and how seismologists are saying the fault line in Appalachia/New England is becoming active again in a way it hasn't been for over 150 years, major dust storms coming up from Oklahoma/Kansas blanketing all the way up to Chicago which hasn't been seen since dust bowl in the 1930s, the tornado that went through central St. Louis barely missing the zoo and you can see footage taken by the camera mounted on the Arch, the other deadly tornado that took out swathes of forests in Kentucky (but at least people around here now that there were 4 tornadoes through Dodge County alone on Thurs) , the volcanic eruptions in Indonesia forcing thousands to evacuate and redirecting major air traffic routes, the major droughts in UK and Ireland.... And that's just a very small fraction of things that should be major news stories and people just don't realize have happened in the last week or two..... Local near these events people seem to be getting some news about them, but they're not the major headlines that should be -- especially the Miami and Maryland floods, the wildfires across northern Minnesota (which is NOT known for wildfires) and the E3 tornado that ripped through St. Louis. You have to actively search now for "natural" disasters of weather and flood and fire and earthquakes to learn about these things.

It's like "if we don't report on the extreme weather, than the climate change isn't really happening" ostrich type behavior.  Which, given the fact that both El Nino and La Nina are stalled out AND the jet Stream is so week that the heat rising off the Gulf is stronger to push it around deform it AND the polar vortex has currently shifted WAY off the pole is sitting over Europe AND the Atlantic Conveyor Belt ocean currents are idling, this gets significantly worse before it gets better.  And I know the human created/perpetrated deaths and violence in Ukraine and Gaza and Kashmir/India/Pakistan and the deportations/illegal roundups within the US... But pay attention to how Mother Earth and Father Sky are speaking and the destruction that's come and coming and will come from it. Even if you have to look for it yourself. (Seriously though, 150 trapped in a kids school needing rescue in the flash floods in Maryland and an E3 barreling through St. Louis destroying thousands of homes leaving over 50k people without power over the weekend but everyone looking at me like I'm crazy slipped Universes when I bring it up. But just look up "Maryland floods" or "St. Louis tornado" and if you search for the events you will find it....it's just that people aren't being told it's happening unless you know to look for it.. And I have to assume it's intentional to not cover it or let people know unless it's local to them because it's happening across all media platforms, even international news sources, and social media platforms.....)

And there are supposedly MORE cuts coming to NOAA, which post-DOGE rampage is already running skeleton crew not able to predict accurately major storm systems that haven't been seen in any of our lifetimes. Soon, your phone apps and weather apps won't have the datasets to warn you in time before any of these major events. Which will just make everything more dangerous.

Just. Seek out the information -- because there's a lot of death and loss and people losing everything to extreme weather right now and it's hardly making any news outside the areas it is happening but it's going to be a huge problem in rising insurance costs and large groups of desperate hungry homeless populations with nothing left to lose and feeling forgotten by everyone else without hope. And that is always a recipe for socio-political disasters. FEMA isn't just because it's the right thing to do, it helps cap the potential for violence when people lose everything.... Especially if they feel like nobody cares about their losses/suffering.

Also. This is all pre hurricane season.... By hurricane season, especially with the waters around Florida already over 90F, it will be so much worse than now during tornado season.... I... I would not want anyone I loved living anywhere within the hurricane landing zones, not this year. Now with the weather systems so charged and volatile and the systems and analysts unable to get the data needed for accurate predictions even without the systematic destruction of the means to destroy dissemination of the warnings in a timely manner. If you choose to live east of Appalachian or anywhere along the Gulf during this hurricane season, expect that you will have no warnings of the hurricane barreling down on you and no accurate forecasts until too late to get to safety and even too late to prep for hunkering down trying to ride it out. You won't know until it's too late.... And don't ask what I've seen -- this year's tornado threats and their uner reporting and lack of earnings in time for people is nothing to what I've precogged coming during hurricane season.... 

P.S. Literally, the influencer Asta Darling (she makes historical clothing) posted to all her socials just now to have people call family/friends in Kansas to wake them up to head to shelter IMMEDIATELY because she was awake watching the alerts for herself in TN and her brother in MO about the storm system happening tonight and severe weather chasers were warning that the NOAA warnings and sirens weren't going off yet despite active tornadoes on the ground in Kansas..... Wild she's the one doing it because it's not coming through normal weather/news channels at all right now....

 Spock is still alive but I'd be astonished if he makes it to the Solstice, at the rate of his decline I don't expect him to make it to the end of the month and may not even make it out of Taurus season (though if he does, I am hoping he won't die while my parents are visiting their Montana cabin the last week of the month because it will be very difficult for me to move the large stumps and dig a second grave to bury Spock alongside Audrey Puburn as I told them both. If I have to do it by myself I will, but moving the heavy stumps off the spot and back and digging the hole (I'm surprisingly bad at digging) would be much easier if I have someone to help me with Spock's burial.) Mostly what brings him joy now is being near me and he's only eating small amounts at a time, not enough. I've been feeding him a high calorie supplement with vitamins/mineral since he stopped eating much. I'm trying, but there's so little I can do for him now other than love him and be with him.

But he is still here with me. For now.

For the last week or so, every time I come home and every time I wake up, there is a dread upon me that this may be the time that I will find his small body stiff and his soul gone from it.  He's under 8lbs now, less than half the weight he was just a year ago. His creatine numbers looked great so Erin was cautiously optimistic about his stage if we could get his weigh loss in check, but creatine numbers improve in ckd as you lose muscle mass and Spock has lost much of his muscle not just extra weight -- he's skin and knobby bones covered in fur at this point. He's also developed a worsening cough over the last week or two, and a dry cough in a cat with ckd is usually a sign that thee ckd has progressed to the body being unable to regulate water so fluid can build up around the lungs. It's possible it's a respiratory issue from the off gassing of the new carpet based on the timing or that he somehow picked up a bug of some sort, but most likely it is the progression of his ckd.  The vet did run a thyroid panel on his most recent blood sample and his thyroid looks good so that's not part of the weight loss. The next step would be a full geriatric blood workup and spending several hundred, maybe a thousand dollars on chest x rays and ultrasounds to check for masses/growths -- but what would be the point of finding out if he has cancer when he's too old and weak to even consider spending thousands of dolalrs on surgery he may never wake up from the anesthesia? And his health is too frail and he's already eating so little (I have to tempt him with soft food and shredded chicken now to get him to eat these recent weeks) so he'd not be able to handle chemo or other harsh medications.  He's a 16 year old cat, which is like an 80 year old human.

 Is what it is. It's the peril you must always accept giving pieces of your heart to mortal beings -- even though the soul goes on and you may have them again, they will be different and you will be different, and there is always a sorrow and the empty spaces in your heart and life when those you love end their time in their current body. trying not to love and give of your heart freely to mortal incarnations is worse damage, but it doesn't mean it ever stops hurting the loss and empty spaces where once was an embodied soul you loved.  My heart is and has been a rather bleak colorless stoic space these recent weeks -- and it will get more desaturated by the emptiness of loss as I make my way through the hollows of grief before it gets better. 

Anyway. I need to try to see my cousin sooner rather than later because her triple negative breast cancer is non-responsive to chemo and so my time with her is also measurably finite -- but right now she's in a space she's looking for those to remind her of joy and to bring her happy encounters and with everything going on with Spock, that's not me right now even though it's normally me.  She would understand, but I need Spock to either improve or pass on before I reach out to her because she needs a better version of me than the one whose first thoughts upon waking or coming home is, "Is my sweet cat still with me or is today the day I must dig his grave?" and who spends the time at home watching the cat breathing to make sure it hasn't stopped and spending up her energy/prana/chi to make sure that he's in not in pain since he's beyond energy healing his failing organs shutting down. I'll have the better version of me for Shauna soon, or as much as I can be while I'm in the hollows of grieving deaths, but I'm not there yet and I don't want to reach out to her just to weigh her down when that's not what she needs. I should also visit my grandma, she doesn't have any appointments til the dentist in June, but she is also wasting away and her mind isn't there anymore and I try to give her of joy when I see her in these her twilight years.

Both of them deserve better versions of me if I'm going to spend time with them within their own battles than this waiting for Spock to die hospice for my cat version of me. 

But anyway, if you're trying to reach my heart right now on the psychic or 5d or dream space level, it won't be the place you're used to reading and it's not in a stubborn refusal to give up because it MATTERS mode, it's a bleaker place on the outskirts of the hollows and it's prone to sorrow and stoic acceptance about letting go because sometimes there's no other choice.... 

Just know and expect that is where my heart is and it will take time for it to heal and bloom back into its normal greenness and stubbornness -- it's not about you but about what else is going on in my life and in heart right now as this point in my life. If there's a fight to be had to hold on and build something real between your heart and mine it's not in me right now to be the one holding the line and fighting for it because of the stage of grieving and letting go my heart is in as I'm watching my 16 year old cat who has been my companion and familiar for over 15 years slowly lose the battle to hold onto his body and this life and to move on to wherever the next stage of his soul's path takes him. I've invited in Audrey and the Morrigan and Hecate to help him across his threshold and to help him achieve it in peace with as little pain/suffering as possible -- but it still is what it is. I'm sure my neighbors are hating on having George Winston playing 24/7  for over a week now but I'm not taking that away from Spock turning it off while there is life in his body and it is giving him comfort/joy in his sleeping/waking hours.

Anyway, I have a concert on Sunday (Bridge City Sinners at High Noon Saloon) then checking on Henry all next week while Crissy is in Kansas City for DI (I will be checking on Henry Monday til Monday) and making sure I take care of the car stuff this week and then my parents will be driving out to Montana next Fri (taking their dog Sophie with them so not staying there as much as I'm at home -- just bringing in mail and checking on things) so I'll be spending a bit of time by myself  with my books and Waffles and Spock for as long as I have him. If/when Spock passes, I'll write at least a short post acknowledging it even if I can't much words right then. Expect that no writing here means that nothing material had improved the situation for Spock to rally make me expect him to continue longer in his life nor has Spock passed on yet. It means I'm still in this bleak stoic liminal heart space between what was and what will be and making the best I can of the threshold and pouring love/release from physical pain within my sweet Spocky boy while he's lingering on with me.

It was really lovely to see Rhiannon Giddens again in Chicago on Friday -- there's just such a glow at her shows. Not always happy, but when it's not happy it's honest about the hard truths (past and present) in this world and there's a light in facing the hard truths straight on acknowledge them that always appeals to me. She's also doing this tour (and her most recent album) with Justin from Carolina Chocolate Drops (how she first crossed my consciousness as an artist I love and see every chance she's driveably close.) They actually had a full proper reunion with Hubby as well recently at her first inaugural Biscuits & Banjos festival down in Raleigh (which very much tempted me to go because adore her and I would have loved to see the Carolina Chocolate Drops reunion since they are my favorite Carolina band even though they're generally broken up pursuing their own projects separately -- it used to be a hard choice between them as I told Hubby when I ran into him at a late night restaurant after a Delta Rae show in Minne but for me Carolina Chocolate Drops (even broken up) have been my easy hands down favorite Carolina band  since everything got fucked up by the girl's choices in 2018 blocking me on the Delta Rae insta account. Delta Rae is dead to me because they have made it so clear they don't want to exist to me and nothing they can do this side of fixing the mess they made and unblocking me and acknowledging what happened being honest is going to stop them from being dead to me. I don't listen to their songs, I don't read their emails, I don't wear any of their shirts I own -- and I have no intention to do so unless or until they're willing to have honest communication about what was done in the band's name and maintained across all these years. nothing else they do will matter or do anything toward healing the distance without being willing to be honest and address the mess and make things right. I don't give a fuck what they do or don't do without them exhibiting the integrity to be honest about the choices the girls made and the messes they have made -- without honesty there's nothing worthwhile or good they can do as a collective or that will reach me with anything other than immediately putting it back into the "this band is dead to me and I can't even listen to any of their songs recorded by the band or involving either of the girls in the recording at this point." They're a bit on my mind because they sent out emails over the week that I read then deleted as a "Nope. I won't be there. I want nothing to do with this.  Zero chance of me spending money on that where I'm not wanted or welcomed."  But anyway, back to my actual favorite north Carolina artist/band Rhiannon Giddens and Carolina Chocolate Drops, as tempted as I was I did not go down for Biscuits & Banjos last month because I had too many other plans around it to make it happen.) 

It made me so happy that she sang towards the end one of my favorite songs At The Purchaser's Option and even though she didn't go into the whole story behind writing it after seeing a real historical advertisement from a slave sale with the new born baby available along with the mom at the purchaser's option, I know the story of it from past shows storytelling and her intro that in observing the horrors in the current world we need to call on the strength of our ancestors who somehow survived to fight see our way through and then they went into the song.  And then they also did We Could Fly as the encore -- and that is my favorite favorite of hers, it makes my heart feel full of light and magic. They had to restart it because the cable on the guitar was problematic but the guitar actually sounded richer rounder tone playing it into the accordion mic rather than the direct feed. 

I bought too many shirts, but I didn't know how to choose between them and I've been needing to pick up the new album and  the book she wrote based on the legend behind the song We Could Fly for a while now. The bag was free at least, lol. Waffles approved of ital l, she kept rubbing her face into the shirts.

Also, nobody fainted right nearby that I had to bend space/time to catch so she wouldn't hit her head on the cement and the guy in front of me heard my mental call loud enough he turned around and interrupted the opener to say, "We need medical" and help make the path through to the back of the room so that medical could reach me where I'd caught her and was keeping her upright so she wouldn't choke on her tongue or aspirate if she started to throw up and medical could take her form me to pull her to the back area to take a better look (her friend who had freeze reaction went with her they were both very young) like happened at the Milwaukee Arcadian Wild show. Apparently it was all very cinematic and everyone was just glad I caught her and gently helped her to the ground when she went down so she didn't hit her head -- but from the stage the opener (a very young Christian couple, not even 21 yet, who look more like siblings than the married couple they are and are now in Nashville originally from Missouri) also had a complete freeze reaction didn't know what to do with it. The girl and her friend didn't come back (we were at the front of stage, like in the 2nd/3rd row of the gen ad standing. Not actually the first time I've bent space/time to catch someone as they fell, but it was interesting the way it happened at the Arcadian Wild show... Glad nothing like that happened at Thalia Hall for the Rhiannon Giddens show though, would have been much harder to get medical assistance even if everyone on the stage found my shiny bright light energy right away even though I wasn't right up front for Rhiannon Giddens because Chicago parking is awful and Crissy was driving her car (Spock's sudden medical decline derailed me taking care of the Prius sale/title/plates on the timeline I had intended) and she's not very good at parallel parking.

Um, in worse news, Spock isn't eating now... It's been several days now since I could get him to eat much.  The only thing I can get him to eat at all the last couple days is small amounts of butter. It's very much like Audrey's last short while. When I talked to Erin (my vet I've had since Audrey was a small puppy) she said that Spock's kidney numbers actually looked great but his weight loss is a major concern (he lost 3lbs since Nov and is now down to 8.5lbs) and she had a theory he might have thyroid problems as well so I approved checking his blood sample already at the lab for thyroid -- but she emailed me tonight that his thyroid numbers came back fine. Next steps would be full geriatric panel and chest/abdomen imaging for cancers but right now he's not showing pain but he's not eating and unless I can get him to eat, I don't see any reasons to spend the money trying to solve the weight loss. he's 16 years old, his body is failing. I'm going to try to pick up a soft food he might eat but I'm not very hopeful because he has never eaten pate style soft food and he's always preferred soft dog foods of shredded meat types... If I can't get him to eat, then it doesn't matter what else is going on because he will die from the not eating. And I can't get him to eat anything but very small amounts of butter... Mostly he just curls up in the reading chair or the dining table chair by the plants or in a patch of sun or on my lap or on the floor near me wherever I am (EXCEPT he won't sleep on or near my bed anymore, Audrey did the same thing as her life force was fading.) I've also been pouring way too much of my own energy into him to make sure he's not in pain.

He's gotten so skinny...You can feel every notch of every bone through his fur now... And these pictures are from earlier in the week, when he was having such a hard day on Tues and then following up on Weds.

 

He's gotten so skinny that even though he's not eating, he looks like a very young kitten now, not like an old man of 16 years old.

I will admit I set this to private because of feeling too much right now but not having words to put the feelings into form and I have been internally pushing the bond away again. Not because I don't want the comfort of the bond, but because I've been feeling for the last month or so very strongly that nudge/intrusive thought "you are no part of his life as he has chosen to build it and no part of anything he wants so the right thing to do is to cut ties and let him go to find whatever he is seeking with whoever he is choosing to be with and for you to go seek where you are wanted to build a life together with someone else." And part of it is because of Spock and the grief and worries around saying goodbye to him because he won't eat. And part of it is because it has felt to me internally like Eric is pulling away and his attention is distracted elsewhere in ways that make it so there's no place for me in his life and the choices he's making for it. I have assumed it is because he has gotten interested in another girlfriend, but I suppose it could just be that he's been working with the band and everything dealing with his band is a "you're not welcome here and nothing he does with this has any place for you in his life" conclusion I've been forced to draw since 2018. Either way, my internal intuitive feeling across the last  month has been that he is making choices that leave no place for me in his life and I must accept that. So I've been spending this time the last month or so making me accept those are his choices. 

I don't know if that's fair or unfair of me toward him, I'm just being honest now that I've been doing it over the last month or so. It's a mess that has never been resolved. And so without actually knowing his truth, this is something I tend to BELIEVE is his truth (or maybe more accurately fearing is his truth) whenever there's anything that reminds me of why I can't see the way to squaring the circle to find a place for me in his life given the ways things have been since 2018 as far as the band as a collective account has treated me. Or when my emotions get straining toward a breaking point and I feel I can't bear more pain/grief being laid on me as a surprise it's easier to choose the worst case scenario and be a stoic martyr force me to accept it because then it's me accepting truth as it seems to me to be rather than him rejecting me conclusively and I can tell myself I am doing right by him which makes it easier to force my heart to accept what it doesn't want to be true -- and once I'm in the hollows of grieving (which I will be soon enough again if I can't get Spock to start eating again) it doesn't even hurt to make me be so stoic and ruthless with myself because I go quite numb don't deeply feel much of anything when mourning/grieving and so what is a little more loss when you're already so deeply steeped in loss you can't feel it or anything at all? I've been making me accept that is his choice, whatever his reasons, and letting him go and not letting him reach me via the bond. I could be wrong, but that's how it's been echoing inside me recently regarding his choices and that I need to let him go.

That said, it's probably not good for me to be reading so much Cassandra Clare -- where the lines of good and evil are clear and love is the sort of thing that shines through despite anything else or the plot that gets in the way and the heart once set is always certain "this is my person" and love always wins out regardless any damn thing else. 

It makes me think of Eric with too much hope because how could I have been so wrong with what I saw? I haven't let me think on Eric these recent weeks/months (which is why I've not written here about him or the pull of the bond) and that has been deliberate. 

What after all is the point in thinking on someone you only see in dreams and who becomes so certain that every girl he dates and lists for is the one he's been waiting for and looking for? What is the point in letting him back in to reach me if he's only going to break my heart again when I have to shut him off and cut off means for him to reach me every time he meets someone he thinks might be the one? It's exhausting and it's been so long waiting and hoping and holding faith and I'm just so tired of always going through the same circles and the same patterns... I'm ready for a new story and if I'm honest I've been wanting a different story than the same patterns now for several years. If he has nothing to offer me but running the same tired circles and the same storylines then my life is better not letting me think on him and doing my best not to reach for him down the bond. 

O, I'm still going to keep reading them and it's a massive page commitment so I will be reading them for quite a while yet. I'm invested back in the world and after I finish reading the Edwardian trilogy I hadn't yet read before and I'm halfway through the second tome already, I intend to reread both of the two more modern series in the Shadowhunters world. I'll just need to watch myself or I'll be as bad as ever believing without any proof or foundations for it that there's a way for our life paths to twine together still and the pull of the bond is mutual and he recognizes it too.... I'll have to keep beating down my natural optimism and the spring of hope in me that always seems to bubble back to the surface no matter how hard I try to bury it. 

I'll just have to read some very heavy dark existentialist something to balance me back out remind me to look at things as they are not in the light of the ideal desired way you selfishly want it to be. 

The world knows enough ways to break the heart, especially right now in the end of an age before the dawning of the next -- I don't have to go lying to myself about things I want to be true and breaking my heart over reality bitch slapping me with cold hard facts again. 

Much better for me to go do something rooted in reality that makes me smile like rewatch the newer Onoir social media posts to love on Diarmaid's new black kitten Jean Claude and how sweet and adorable he is.

 

 

 And yet, in a very different vein from the ways I've been thinking/feeling that his focus is elsewhere and I need to make me let go for this life because there's no place for me within his life and the choices hes' making to fill his life with.... This is this week's Astro Poet Horoscopes:

 "Week of 5/11 in Libra: So much love is here. And when you take a bit it multiplies. The sun is sunning in its midst. And so are you. Let the words fall out over everything gentle."

 "Week of 5/11 in Pisces: It can be found in a night. And then again so can its hardest part. So it is with blue you know it truly. It can be found in just one night. Go there."

 Well, Spock is still alive. Rough as the morning was and as close as he seemed, he's still here with me. He spent all day sleeping in my reading chair, even while Mikaela and Crissy came to visit him. His breaths were slow and shallow but he didn't have a recurrence of the pain and distress of the morning.  I stayed home instead of heading to work (I got 16 hours jump on the week over the weekend) and poured healing energy into him while he slept until he was purring about having the piano music on all day and having the dog and I stay with him still. 

I did get him to eat some, he actually came running to the kitchen like his normal food motivated self when I went for late dinner to reheat some of the Glass Nickel pizza my maman had Mikaela bring me at lunch and I gave both animals some of the chicken from the thai pie -- I tore the pieces for Spock up very small and he gobbled it all down. A bit later he ate some of his renal failure special diet kibble and the most recent cuppa tea I made me he jumped up on the bar stools asking for some greenies. 

I'm staying up reading though still to see if he shows the same sort of vomiting/arched back pain/diarrhea type problems he had for most of the four hours this morning. It will help me figure out if maybe it was a stomach bug he picked up from me or the dog that just him extra hard due to the ckd complications or if it's the CKD degeneration causing it.... If it's the CKD, I'll be looking at hard choices because I won't keep him alive in that much pain as he was having this morning but if it was a fluke then we will see what his blood work on Thurs will show. 

He's still painfully bony and skinny where you can feel every notch and crevice of every bone and he's sleeping a lot even for an old cat. Still, T least he ate even if it wasn't much -- when an animal stops eating isn't excited even for treats/scraps, then you know they are in a bad way on their path to death. 

But he did survive the day and didn't have any further incidents of how bad he was the four hours of the morning which were when I thought he would die or I'd have to put him down because I'm not so selfish as to keep him alive if he hurts that badly... 

 I'm still gonna stay up for a bit longer to keep reading and keeping an eye on him but he seems out of that danger he was in yesterday morning. 

Curiously, both Mikaela and Crissy we're woken up quite suddenly at 4:30am when Spock was in such a bad way. 

But anyway, I still have my 16 year old boy and the appointment is rescheduled and hopefully if it was stomach flu or anything like that, he won't be communicable by Thurs so he won't get other people's animals sick. I will bring it up to Erin though. Because it was all very unexpected and distressing. 

But he made it through the day and we will see how tired/weak/sick he is on the other side of sunrise, y'know? Back to reading nowand watching the cat purr in his sleep of slow shallow breaths laying right by me.

 Right. Before I forget. Here are the Astro Poets Horoscopes that came in on Sunday. They didn't suit the last post at all which was about my concerns for Spock. But in this one I can share them since it is the post of good news that perhaps it's not as bleak and he's no as close to his last breath as I feared this morning.

"Week of 5/4 in Libra: A light and airy remaining feeling. Is everything that is the whole world. You can feel love soft and pink. Soft and sweet. The perfume of love is what remains."

 "Week of 5/4 in Pisces: The fault of one thing is not another. And that is why you must learn it truly. So many animals. Take one into the other room. Be with it."

 

 

 I believe that today may be Spock's last day with us on this side of the veil....  16 years and 1 week if that's his truth. 

He was already scheduled for his 6 month Feline CKD checkup for 11 today, but early this morning at 5am he woke me up with the sound of him trying to vomit up bile, and when it happened a second time I went to go check on him. He's spent the morning arched back trying to make bowel movements but only watery/bloody smelly liquid or vomiting or laying down on his side, sometimes with his head in my hand purring sometimes wanting to be by himself, in doorways panting his bowels still trying to move. I've spent the last few hours of the morning following him around cleaning up after him and trying to keep him off the Persian rug and his favorite upholstered places because of the difficulty of cleaning them.... I've been telling him I love him and have always loved him and will always love him and when his time is done his body will lay to rest with Audrey's under the apple tree. I already called on Audrey and the Morrigan and Hecate to come ease his passage and hold his soul in love and after I called on them he did have a bowel movement that was still mostly solid partially digested and undigested food.... He eventually went over to the piano between arched back episodes and pawed lightly at the piano bench looking at me with the saddest eyes I've ever seen in his face and I realized he want d piano music to soothe his passing as well.  I didn't have the heart to try to plunk out anything for him today, so I took out my old laptop (my current one I left at work right now) and put on George Winston. And he's currently laying calmly now across the threshold of the bathroom with a pile of his favorite blankets nearby (that isn't the aran islands merino I can't put in the wash),he has his back end on the tiles for me to clean easier than the bamboo floors and gently sleeping with big slow heavy breaths. But he has his George Winston and he's as comfortable as he came be.... 

The vet doesn't open until 8am and while he was in distress, I wasn't going to bundle him into a carrier to distress him with travel to an emergency vet he doesn't know... If he doesn't pass peacefully at home the way Audrey did, it's better for him to be put to sleep with me at the vet he knows and loves who has cared for the him across most of the 16 years of his life same as she did for Audrey. 

I haven't called over there yet to see if they want me to bring him in still or keep him comfortable since he is comfortable right now.... I was going to give Spock a few more hours before I call to let them know if I bring him in it may be a harder visit not a blood draw...

I'm sad but I've known it's coming and CKD gets progressively worse never better and he's gotten so frail and gotten so skinny barely holding on and he was in a lot of distress this morning which I don't want for him. If he can't pass quietly at home in a doorway listening to his George Winston music the way he wants, then I will take him in for euthanasia because I don't want him spending days in the sort of physical pain he was experiencing this morning as his kidneys shut down further and further..... 

My plan for today was to drop off the dog at work, take Spock for his appointment, join my parents for lunch and sign over the Prius title write the check then go to the DMV this afternoon get that done and reward myself with Crissy joining us for Cinco de Mayo margaritas for cocktail o'clock at work.... But somehow I have a feeling whether we make that 11am appointment time or not, today will be saying goodbye to my Spocky and digging a grave -- and the car stuff I need to get done can wait for another day....

Is it bad of me that there's a part of me that is also sad mourning my curls to be buried with him? I know it's a me choice, not a modern cultural practice, but my curls have been really beautiful recently and yesterday after wash they were absolutely gorgeous. Part of it is the length they've gotten so they can curl up, my hair gets tighter curls the longer it gets and right now they curl up to anywhere between shoulder and armpit length but when you pull the curls straight they are past my bra strap over halfway down my back, past my lowest rib in front. I shouldn't be thinking about my hair with Spock's passing so imminent, but I am because I'd regret not cutting it to bury with him some physical part of me and these years we've had together.... It's just the curls have been so pretty recently it's a pity to cut them off now which it wasn't at the time I chopped off my braid to bury with Audrey Pupburn -- my hair was pretty dark and straight and emo right then from grief because she had a longer time sick towards the end and I'd been spending days with her because she didn't want to be alone and so my hair was braided back in need of a wash anyway. It's stupid, but it would be easier if my curls weren't so pretty right now.

 I know me and I would forever regret if I don't cut off a braid to bury with him, it would just be easier if my hair wasn't so pretty and happy right now..... And I feel so stupid and petty and vain even thinking that right now, but I can't help it....

I haven't called or texted anyone to know yet. Though I've been warning them it's coming soon, and my da (he's a Capricorne sun and I'm a Capricorn moon, so we are stoic carry our grieving in similar ways) understood my between the words of what I wasn't saying when I told them last night when I picked up Waffles the level of bony Spock has gotten over the last few weeks. Not the vet, not my parents, not Mikaela, not Crissy. They will all need to know, but I'm waiting and giving Spock his hours of peace to transition quietly at home if that's what he wants. Right now I don't have news for anyone other than he's had a rough morning and his already scheduled visit and blood work might need to be a euthanasia office visit.... I want to know more concretely before I start other people's days off with the sort of morning I've had, y'know? Maybe he just has a stomach bug and still has months of life to live and today was just a rough morning for him.... But this feels to me like more than a rough morning and I've told him multiple times all morning whenever he's wanting my company laying his head in my hand in his exhaustion (instead of wanting to be alone) how much he is loved and he can let go whenever he's ready if it's his time.

I'm going to go check on Spock again now, see if he's still in the bathroom door or if he has moved to another doorway cozy spot of his and make sure he's peaceful and resting. Audrey died with her head in my hand the entire morning me laying on the kitchen floor with her head across the threshold and her body as comfortable as possible on own of her favorite blankets. Spock is sometimes wanting love/me near him and sometimes wanting to be private in his passing because that's what cats do so I'm making sure he's comfortable and checking in on him often spending as much time pouring love into him as he will let me. (Waffles is mostly sad keeping her distance while this morning he was in distress and I was cleaning up behind him everywhere, but she seems to understand and now he is as comfortable  as he can beshe went with me a few times and when I told her with tears in my eyes, "I love you but you can't be a jealous beastie today sweet puppy girl, this may be our last morning with him to tell him we love him and say our goodbyes and so it has to be about and for him right now" she looked at me looked at him and delicately went up to him and licked his forehead and ears to tell him she loved him, then looked up at me and wagged her tail a little before going to lay in her bed and wait/keep me company.) I'm glad to at least have the George Winston music on for my piano obsessed Spocky boy. (Though just like when I put it on for Audrey's passing, it will probably be 6 months to a year before I'll be able to listen to it without tearing up feeling grief in me. I will get past it to listen to it with love and remembering the joy it brings me and brought my sweet fur babies, but once Spock passes it will take time and a mourning process to get there. It always does.

Anyway. I'll add an addendum if he passes or what the vet says when I call and/or take him in for his appointment. (And just as a reminder how I grieve, while I'm in the hollows I'll be pretty emo again wearing mostly all black for a time and likely won't be writing here until I heal up enough to find words once more.) But I'm gonna go check on him now.

My sweet prince.... My prince of cats.... My piano loving food motivated baby boy.

9:05am addendum: 

Spock did finally feel well enough to get up from where he had curled up on his favorite blanket (that I plan to bury him in/on) and come drink some water. And then while I was making me coffee, he stole my reading chair (which he loves to sleep on and snuggle on my lap their -- if he dies on it and it gets stained from bodily fluids release I can't clean, I will let the chair go and try to find a new one. As comfortable and perfect as it is, I've had it for over a decade now and with how much Spock loves it, it would be fitting if his passing meant I should let the golden reading chair go too. And. Once he was doing enough better he got up for water then stole me chair, I did text Mikaela to let her know and to ask if she wants to come say goodbye to him if she can and there's time. Because she's only 20 and Spock will be the first cat she ever met and knew and loved who has been central to her life -- she's had dogs die, but Spock is her first cat with how much time she spent here with her bonus sister unrelated to her as she's has grown up. And if she wants to see him, then I will see if the vet will let me reschedule....

10:10am addendum: 

Spock is still drinking water and cleaned himself up (I had paper towel cleaned him but he's a cat so him grooming himself is good.) he's back to sleeping peacefully nearby and grinning to have George Winston on -- I'll probably just leave it run even if I do go into work this evening. (At about 16hrs in from across the weekend and no concert plans til Fri heading to Chicago to see Rhiannon Giddens.) everyone agrees the car stuff can wait and to prioritize Spocky and spending time with him today. I did call the vet and they understood and agreed that if he's sleeping peacefully best to let him rest not stress him out putting him in a carrier or anything since he's no longer in active distress and were able to find a spot for me to see Erin on Thurs morning. She said they were actively overbooked today running behind so it's good for them to reschedule me today just in the hopes that they can get a proper lunch break. 

Mikaela has life drawing til noon and then Chinese tonight (which she can attend online if need be) but definitely wants to see Spock say goodbye so is going to bus to MCW and her mom will come drop her off here to spend the afternoon. And we will figure out her ride/pickup situation so she can attend her Chinese class online at least.  Crissy said she can stop by after her 4pm meeting ends to say goodbye just in case. She has a lot of work to get done tonight anyway was only going to be able to stay for one cocktail as well as stuff to drop off at MCW (which she could drop off here and I can bring in if we don't cocktail at all .) My mam would like to say goodbye but not if it would stress him out so will keep in touch maybe. Stop by after work. 

Which is the best that I can do. 

10:35am update: Spock sniffed at his food considered it but didn't actually eat anything. Drank some water then hopped up on my lap for some snuggles.

11:37am update: 

Honestly, Spock hasn't shown any signs of being sick (other than his butt smelling and him not eating) since about 8:30am. Maybe because I know he has ckd I over reacted in my concern over the level of distress he was in, but he was being constantly I'll throwing up bile and/or watery diarrhea constantly and his stomach/sides having with leakage for 4 hours straight and he's never done that before.... My mom did remind me on the phone that both of the dogs had some sort of stomach bug over the weekend and I myself had a very upset stomach end of last week but assume it was something I ate.... Maybe it's just a rotavirus or noro virus both of which can make cats incredibly ill with gastroenteritis.... I still stand by my decision to reschedule once he was sleeping peacefully though -- especially if it's a communicable stomach bug rather than spread it to the vet office. Maybe Spocky still has a lot of time with us... I guess I'll know based on if/when he eats or if he starts being sick all over again like he was....

I would love to find out that as sick as he was for 4 hours this morning, it's a stomach bug and I was over reacting and his CKD isn't suddenly gone from stage 2 to end stage and I still have months maybe years more time with my sweet kitten boy. I would love to find out I was wrong and he is going to recover. (You have no idea how much healing energy and taking away his pain I blasted into him this morning before he was peacefully sleeping away, first curled up on the blanket in the hall then him choosing my reading chair and/or my lap and/or a patch of floor near me. It would make me so happy to have been wrong and upset everyone over nothing! I don't think I am, but I would be very happy to have been wrong. Still better people are coming by to see him though. Just in case.

2:02pm addition: 

Mikaela did take the bus to work and then get dropped off and brought pizzas that my mum ordered for both of us for lunch. Spock hopped down and came over in his normal begging for food he loves way, but when I offered him a very small piece of crust (he adores carbs) he sniffed at it and rubbed his cheeks and forehead against it but wouldn't even lick it and didn't mind the dog eating it. He went back to drink a little water then curl up to sleep in the reading chair before we finished eating lunch, a thing he has never done before. Mostly he's been tired and his energy very low faded and sleeping in the chair, occasionally getting up for water, and okay with people coming over to tell him they love him pet him a little.  And he hasn't had any of the physical pain and distress and spasms/incontinence related issues he had for the first four hours of my morning. His energy is just low and flickering and he's so tired, curled up sleeping enjoying his favorite piano music.

I should not be left to my own devices, They come with prices and vices, I end up in crisis. I wake up screaming from dreaming, One day I'll watch as you're leaving, 'Cause you got tired of my scheming. (For the last time) It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me. At tea time, everybody agrees. I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror, It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

Sooooo, on the scale from 1 to "Dear Lord woman, you're fucking incorrigible" I'm definitely quite firmly in the incorrigible camp tonight.... 

On Saturday when we were there for Indie Book Store Day, as we were leaving I noticed the hours on the door for InkCap (in Stoughton) are until 7pm and I told Crissy, "Ooh! If we have time after out 5:30 dinner reservation at Wendigo, we can come back and go book shopping until they close before the show because the concert at Stoughton Opera House doesn't start until 7:30 and it's just a few blocks up the street." She just laughed at me and told me we'll see. But then, tonight, we had about 35 mins or so after we paid the bill so off we went across the street and down the block or so had half an hour for book shopping. And of course being me, I somehow managed to find a small stack of books (about 1 for every five minutes browsing in the store if we're honest) I hadn't even seen or considered on Sat.... 

Whoops. I'd say I'm sorry, but honestly? I'm not. Not even the littlest bit guilty feeling about a May Day Beltane book haul after such a large Indie Book Store Day book haul -- just giddy happy joy over finding these books.  Does this look like the face of a woman who feels any shame that she overspent her book budget and then spent more and so will be living on a lot of dried pasta/rice/beans for the next while to compensate?

 

 

I mean, in my defense... I definitely stayed under $100 this trip. And three of the six are ones I've been actively looking for once they were available in paperback and two of the three were on major discount (pink stickers -- like $4.95 and $5.95) both works by authors I've read and like but don't own these books (my Phyllis Wheatley is just a couple poems in the Norton Anthology of Amrican Literature from college) AND the last one is a Sir Walter Scott collection of supernatural stories that I didn't even know he had written!! I mean, so none of them are me taking a chance on unknown authors or anything.  I actively did not see any of these on Saturday though -- and I checked for three of them after all...

O!!! AND, tonight I started a history and tea book club that spans time zones from Hawaii to Gettysburg. It started with me mentioning to Erin in a text that she must have heard me thinking of her this afternoon as I was reshelving/organizing nonfiction and saw the Chernow books I own (Hamilton and Washington) and thought, "Man, Erin and Debbie would be so disappointed in me that I haven't read either of these yet.. I'm sure they have read them. But they're SUCH commitments. I miss Erin and Debbie!" and just thinking about me missing them when I unshelved and then reshelved the books. Shortly after that Erin texted me a meme about missing me needing to go on a coffee and book buying day with a bestie. But after I told her about having thought of her and Debbie when I saw the Chernow books, Erin admitted she also had never read either but Debbie had read Hamilton and Grant. So then when she said she was thinking of reading Washington because it had been a while, I suggested we book club them read a chapter a month then zoom/face time about it and to just have tea and chat because that's the only way I was likely to make the commitment to read either of those tomes in the near future. She got super excited about the idea and I asked Crissy since we were in her car driving over to Stoughton at that point and before I even finished explaining she said she wanted in on it and I suggested we include Debbie (Erin's sister who is a history buff and works/volunteers at Gettysburg National Park)  if she wanted and she was immediately excited and in. So we decided on Washington first (which neither Crissy nor Debbie owned (I found it in a free little library) and Crissy bought it online tonight) and our first meeting for the Preface/Chapter 1 will be on June 2. (Crissy has to drive to Kansas City and back for a week long of DI Globals later in may (I'll be cat sitting) so we decided to start June but early June for the first one. It is, by far, the easiest I've ever had 4 disparate schedules across a 6 hour span of time zone differentials magically align. We are all super excited for it!!!

Anyway, the Arcadian Wild show was gorgeous and delightful as expected! If you love newgrass (think Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers) and nice harmonies, you will like them -- mandolin, fiddle, acoustic guitar, upright bass. I'm very excited to see them again tomorrow night at Vivarium, totally different vibe space.  Their opener (River & Rail) had pretty voices and songs but I ain't never in any life been Christian enough for that level of trad wife and youth pastor duo where she literally said, "This is my husband. Not my brother. I like to make that clear at the start of the show that we're married" Pretty songs, seem like nice people, but I expect they'd pray for my soul try to save me bring me to Jesus if they knew I was a Jewish pagan witch with a lot of spiritual gifts who remembers her past lives and thinks the greatest sins of modern religions all are born from the concept that sins are transferrable.... 

But it was a lovely super long set and show! Absolutely delightful! And excited to see them in Milwaukee tomorrow! (NOT planning to visit any Milwaukee area bookstores, lol.)  

Um, just because you've not seen her recently and you got pictures of Spock yesterday, here is some of the cuteness of my Waffles O'Whoofigans trying to convince me she's way cuter more interesting than my stack of dead trees right now at work with me to get the deposit done now I'm back from the show and work til sunrise to get things done get my hours in.

 

 

 

 O, and before I forget, you want this weeks Astro Poets Horoscope for Libra and Pisces? Yes you know you do. And they're lovely ones this week, the both of them!

 "Week of 4/27 in Libra: Curving around a night. The roses fill the air with dreams. You are going somewhere. And yet you are perfectly at home. The stirrings of violets are everywhere."

 "Week of 4/27 in Pisces: Love surrounds you always. That is because love is contained within your green heart. Let it be known what is. You may say so. Let it be known."

 

Now aren't those just lovely for this week? 

[Post title: lyrics to the Taylor Swift song Anti-Hero]

March/April Book List

Happy Beltane!! How is it we're already at the cross quarter betwixt vernal equinox and summer solstice?!  Crazy...

I decided I would share this after all because of reading a lot end of April and Indie Book Store Day purchases. That said, I only had one book acquired (from a little library) and that was the book of poetry by Galway Kinney before Indie Bookstore Day. Everything else I bought that day.... 

Um, because I can, here are some pictures of my Indie Book Day haul.  Spock was very excited, he's in the pictures because he sees new books that come in as gifts for him (as if my library were his collection not mine) and his to inspect (he rubs his cheek on ones he's excited for, and somehow he found and pawed out every poetry book to rub his cheek on, lol. Monday was his 16th birthday and I've been spending a lot of time with him this week because he wanted it and he's gotten so thin and frail you can feel every notch of every bone now which is skinnier than  was at his last vet visit -- and he only weighed 11.5lbs at his last vet visit (before his age caught up with him and his ckd started, he weighed around 16lbs) and he's lighter than that as well as bonier now. And his energy is lower and he's not eating as much though he always has food available and he's throwing up more often. His 6 month followup vet appointment in on May 5 for more bloodwork to assess his current level of ckd and if he needs any form of supplements due to not getting enough of certain vitamins. I hope he will make it for a while yet, sometimes he seems like his old self but he's starting to get the way Audrey was during her last several months where you could feel her body's exhaustion even while her love and soul burned brighter. He's not yet refusing to eat completely like she got at the end, but it's a slow progression in pet hospice stage.  I actually haven't seen any humans since Sat night and picking up my dog after the Penny & Sparrow show -- I've spent the entire time either alone at home with the animals (playing LOTS of George Winston to make the cat happy since piano music and especially George Winston is his favorite -- I actually stayed home with the animals listening to George Winston all day/night on Monday for Spock's birthday because we were maybe going to have bad storms and/or tornadoes and/or hail -- the worst of it was all to the west and north of us, but we did have some intense winds) and cramming in hours of work with my dog for this week. but I have concert plans to see Arcadian Wild on Thurs and Fri night and then on Sun brunch plans before Don Giovanni -- so will definitely be breaking my streak of not seeing any living humans as soon as tomorrow, lol.  Anyway, Spock is fading and I can tell but not to the point of considering putting him down instead of letting him die at home and I don't know how tenacious he will be hanging on for how much longer -- cats can be in their fading stage for months or years once they have a ckd diagnosis and/or aging catches up to them.

 

 Anyway. Indie Book Store Day Haul (including the book for my da that Spock tried to convince me I should keep even though he had 35 other new books to inspect, even after I told him I would be buying myself a copy in the future but wanted to give da his copy first) and sorry some of the pictures have weird greenish light in the white balance -- I had the migraine light on preemptively due to the barometric pressure shifts:

As you can see by his close watch over the new books before I could take them away from his purview so I could catalogue them and put them in the correct tbr stacks/shelves, Spock viewed all my book purchases as birthday gifts for him. (He likes when he is read poetry or anything Shakespeare of anything in French, but especially French poetry.  He also loves to pull off the shelves any fantasy books about magic/witches/wizards/warlocks, history books about the witchcraft trials, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and a lot of occult books and tarot card decks. And, he loves to pull off the shelves try to get cat sitters to read him Proust BUT only the editions En Cherche du temps perdu in French and not my copy of it in English translation -- and none of my cat sitters have ever spoken or been able to read to him in French, lol. He was most interested in and protective about the Mary Oliver poetry book so that may jump the queue so I can read it aloud to him while he's still living.)

Books Read:

~Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet (305 pgs) [this is a book of broken beauty to break your heart, only read it when looking for something to help you cry or when trying to wrap yourself around your own grieving process.]

~Diana Wynne Jones, Dogsbody (242 pgs)

~Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls (291 pgs) [I really wanted to love this book, but I started it multiple times in the past and never got into it. It's not long or difficult and once I got far enough into it I made quicker headway, I just don't think it's very good at the start (the part she was passionate to write is later in the book when it improves, but it's very hit or miss throughout and you can tell the parts that are forced filler and not what she wanted to be writing) and I'd rather do other things than read it so it took me forever to finish despite being under 300 pgs. I love Greek myths and the resurgence in retellings of them -- but I didn't like her writing style very much to start and don't know that I want to buy any more of hers even if her feminist retellings of Greek myth are what made her famous as an author. I enjoyed the second half to two-thirds of the book far better than the start which was harder for me to get into than I expected and led to several DNF attempts and restarts before I decided to just plow through to finish it.... Knowing this is now the first in a trilogy (it wasn't when I picked it up) I'll probably try to find the other two (gently) used and then re-read it before reading them, but it won't be a high priority for me to try to find them or invest a lot of money into it.]

~100 Favorite English & Irish Poems Dover Thrift Editions (90 pgs) [I had mixed feelings about this, because it says it's English & Irish poems but it also includes Scottish, Welsh, and Cornish poets and that's a HUGE cultural faux pas and slap in the face (especially to the Scots...) but I picked it up anyway because it had poems I didn't own elsewhere and it's been a convenient purse book for me across all the recent shows due to its thin size and poems being easier to set aside than longer stories/non fiction books.]

~Andrea J. Buchanan & Miriam Peskowitz, The Double-Daring Book for Girls (277 pgs) [This was very all over the place with the information in it, VERY hit or miss... Now I understand why it was in the little library I found it in, lol. And why I likely intend to return it to some little library now that I read it. I feel like it would be really great for a specific age group, like late Brownies through Juniors aged Girl Scouts, trying to find things to do or new topics to learn about....]

~R. F. Kuang, Babel (546 pgs) [you know those books that you were told were amazing and people who know you best tell you that you NEED to read it because you will love it and based on descriptions you believed the hype but for whatever reason the opening pages/chapters just didn't quite click for you and so you delayed reading them until one day you decided to just drive in and then once invested in it you had to immediately devour the entire novel cover to cover and do nothing else (not even eat or sleep, nothing except make another cuppa tea and a pee break while the kettle is on) until this entire book is done? Yeah. This was one of those books for me. Highly highly recommend, even if fantasy and/or historical fiction aren't typically your favorite genres, read this one. And now I definitely need to invest in picking up for myself the books in her Poppy War Trilogy.... Genuinely, I haven't loved a standalone novel this much since my first time reading Guy Gabriel Kay's Tigana and before that finally reading the unabridged Les Misérables which are both, respectively, my favorite fantasy and classic standalone novels. Which probably says more about me and my unwavering idealism and my souls journey through the many millennia of incarnating on this planet than than anything else to anyone who has read any/all of these novels.]

~T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland ( pgs) [Annual re-read because April is the cruellest month...]

~Marilynne K. Roach, Six Women of Salem (445 pgs) [The Salem witch trial day of remembering is March 1 when the witch hunts began and March is women's history month, so this seemed like the perfect book to start as my non-fiction purse book start of the month. It's just long and thick and heavy and it was a purse book, facts which are rather mutually exclusive for a lot of things like shows where I don't want the weight so I brought the poetry instead.]

~Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel (479 pgs) [I decided to re-read the Infernal Devices trilogy so I could (finally) read The Last Hours trilogy which is a follow up about the next generation. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to re-read Mortal Instruments series and the follow up trilogy or not while immersed in the world. It's a lot of pages, but I do always love the Shadowhunters universe while I'm immersed in it, even if her style is obvious/repetitive for the plot arcs and romances in them but the central characters are all always darling loveable uniquely individuated. On verra. But I was saving my re-read of the London based late Victorian trilogy and then finally reading the Edwardian trilogy for when the weather would suit -- a series of cold rainy gray days with my schedule free enough to allow binge reading bouts. Last autumn never lined up right for it, but right NOW end of this April it felt like the right thing to read after the alternate Victorian fantasy world of Babel AND the seasonal weather is perfect AND I have lots of unclaimed free time to easily read 500+ pages in a day, lol.]

~Elie Wiesel, Night (109 pgs) [I didn't really want to interrupt my binge re-read of Infernal Devices, but I finished Clockwork Angel early the morning of Holocaust Remembrance Day and I'd been thinking before I started my rereads I should finally read my copies of Elie Wiesel (matched Bantam Books paperbacks of Night and Dawn) since I never had it as required reading. And since the timing lined up and everything going on with the Magats into his country, it seemed right to honor the remembrance day by finally reading this even if it hurts to read it. There are times when there is nothing you can do to stop the brutal cruelty humans inflict on other humans, and in those times you must bear witness that it happened and that you will do whatever you can to prevent it recurring. Sometimes, bearing witness to the stories, told and untold, is the least of what you can do.]

~Elie Wiesel, Dawn (102 pgs) [I decided in the name of bearing witness, to also read his novel of the aftermath and the process in Israel of victims dehumanizing others in the name of never again being victims. Perpetuating the tragic cycles.]

~Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince (500 pgs)

~Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess (570 pgs)

~Plutarch (the Dryden translation), Plutarch's Lives Volume 1 (764 pgs) [this took me a very long while to finish. It's long and dry and while interesting, the way it's written can be difficult or make one sleepy. Too many words with too little content or too much content in too compressed a space. And I'm the one saying that! I did enjoy it, but also sometimes just trying to slog through paragraphs made me fall asleep despite myself. Now on to starting Volume 2, lol]

 

Books Acquired:

~Anna Akhmatova (translated by D. M. Thomas), Akhmatova Poems

~Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

~Attar (translated by Sholeh Wolpe), The Conference of the Birds

~Algernon Blackwood, The Wendigo and Other Stories

~Olivie Blake, The Atlas Paradox

~Olivie Blake, The Atlas Complex

~Dee Dee Chainey & Willow Windham, Treasury of Folklore: Woodlands & Forests

~Hafsah Faizal, A Tempest of Tea

~Susan Fletcher & Rebecca Green, A Bear Far from Home

~Stephanie Garber, A Curse for True Love

~Genevieve Gornichec, The Weaver and the Witch Queen

~Joy Harjo & Michael Goode, Remember

~translated by Yoel Hoffman, Japanese Death Poems

~Friedrich Hölderlin, Selected Poems and Fragments

~Henry Hughes (editor), River Poems

~Hollie Hughes & Sarah Massini, The Girls and the Mermaid

~Galway Kinnell, Strong Is Your Hold

~R. F. Kuang, The Poppy War

~R. F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

~R. F. Kuang, The Burning God

~Ursula K. LeGuin, The Unreal and the Real

~George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie

~Noah Medlock, A Botanical Daughter

~Jean Menzies (editor), Dragons, Wyverns and Serpents Myths and Legends

~Jean Menzies (editor), Witches, Wizards and Sorcerers Myths and Legends

~Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

~GennaRose Nethercott, Thistlefoot

~Seán Ó Ríordáin, Apathy Is Out Ní Ceadmhach Neamshuim

~Molly O'Neill, Green Teeth

~Mary Oliver, Devotions

~Jini Reddy, Wanderland

~V. E. Schwab, The Near Witch

~V. E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light

~Irene Vallejo, Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World

~Karen Van Dyck (editor), Austerity Measures: The New Greek Poetry

~William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats