more land mines....this one is a month long...

oh, all you creative people out there with ageing furry family members, beware the "create your own calendar" landmine...... In December of last year, I made a calendar on Snapfish (better than Shutterfly...I did both one year to compare) of my own photos so that I could have my own pictures at work...and even BETTER, have a new one every month! Well, as you loyal readers know, I had to euthanize Teatea on February 1st of this year..... I have a photo of her at my desk that I see every day, and because I know it's there, I'm prepared for the visual reminder that she's not with me (physically) any longer..... BUT back to the calendar. You know where this is going, don't you...yep. The month of October is a photo of Teatea sleeping with a toy mouse. It is literally a land mine that triggers tears every time I look up and have forgotten it's there. Husband says cover it up. Can't. Guilt and homage to her unconditional love would never let me do that. Take it down? Never. So once every so many days I have to close my office door and let the tears flow....good thing I don't have a cubicle......

my first thoughts in the morning.....

Even with teatea being gone for over 6 months now, the other morning I woke up thinking of her....it was a startling thought to begin the day with, and even though we now have two furballs living with us (see www(d0t)fuzzyjoy(d0t)blogspot (dot) com) it didn't soften the blow.....and i'm surprisingly kind of glad that even though we have the 2 new weans that they haven't "taken the place" or "filled the hole in my heart" left by teatea. They keep us busy, sure, but the missing is still there. As the kittens (4 months and 5 months now) rip around the house, shredding, biting and generally misaligning everything they come in contact with, I miss my quiet old lady in a very different way. When someone runs across our heads at 3am ....4 times in a row to wake us up, i miss my quiet old opinionated teatea even more!!! So here's to you and your elderly years, teatea....they are appreciated as much now as they were when you were here. xxxxxx

...6 months later...did i actually make it through this long???

...last weekend i realized that it had been 6 months to the day that I had to put Teatea down. Funny how i can't remember someone's name I just met, but yet i can create an internal clock that reminds me of a painful half-anniversary and not even know that I did. bad brain. ]= When the realization hit me, I found myself blank-staring at the wall in my room, sitting on the bed where we had her put down. Then the tears came. I never stop them from coming...they seem to honor her and how very important she is/was to me in the course of our everyday life together....so the tears came. Then i realized i didn't have any kleenex....all i had was this single ply seventh generation toilet paper that disintegrates on contact with water, which eventually became hilarious as I picked shreds of tear-soaked toilet paper from all over my face and the bed around me. So I laughed and cried until the headache came (from crying) and laid down and took a nap....what else was there to do? sigh....such a rough and melancholy journey we're forced to go on when we love and lose like we do. I still have some of her hair that I cut from the back of her neck before the creamatorium came to pick up her body.....I put it in a ziplock bag and stuffed it into my jewelry box....and haven't worn a piece of jewelry from that drawer in 6 months. I can't get myself to look. But I know it's there....and I'm glad it is. I'm also glad that I had Teatea creamated. She hated outdoors and only knew the world that we were in together, so that's where she'll stay forever. I don't exactly know how you can get your pets ashes mixed in with your own when you die, but that's my plan. If I'm lucky, by the time that time comes, I'll need one heck of a big urn for me and all my well-loved critters..... sigh. i miss Teatea. And I'm sure she knows it. (By the by, I asked her to send the next one that needed us =^..^= and she has.....she is hell on wheels and only 4 months old. See www.fuzzyjoy.blogspot.com to watch how well we cope with a kitten who's going for partial global domination by the end of this year. I think I'm going to have to resort to clicker training on this one....sigh....thanks Teatea...we did ask for it though, didn't we?! [=

misses....and lots of them.

I can't believe that teatea has been gone for so long. In the quiet moments when I sit and remember her face on the bed it feels to painful to have been as long as it has been. Memories don't fade, but life does go on, and i miss the comfort my weird old cat brought me. I miss how she would hear my crying and come up to see exactly where my face needed touching with a paw. I even miss her nasty old lady breath. I hope she knows....wherever she is.

time might stop the bleeding, but it won't heal the hole in my heart....

...it's been exactly 4 months that teatea hasn't been around in the physical sense.  Of course, she's in my thoughts, my laughter, my tears and everthing else (even in my work, as her photo is on my desk and sometimes is the only thing that makes me smile there...it's a miserable place currently) but my innies still ache when i think about her.  I still wear her collar every day, and it's show it's wear, but I can't decide to stop wearing it to save it or to keep wearing it because it brings me comfort....  I don't burn a candle every night anymore (mostly cuz we're having to run fans all the time because it's so hot here) but i do leave the music on for her every day.... so many little memories stay with me....she used to love canned peas and I'd roll them across the floor and she'd chase them like little edible bugs.... how she used to drag that "rabbit fur mouse on a long spring attached to a round carpeted circle of wood" thing around the house with the wood thing between her back legs so that she walked like a drunk, meowing the whole time with that silly hairy mouse in her mouth.... how she was mortified of helium balloons (it was the only time she EVER passed on leaving teethmarks on ribbon, trust me!) ....so many things that are missed.  I have a foster cat currently, and although he's a sweet old man (7 and a recent front leg amputee),  I can tell he won't be with me for the rest of my days....I reckon there'll have to be a little of teatea in the next one.....i sure hope so.  

...time passes, but memories stay...

...it's been awhile since I've posted, as life has been busy. Teatea is never far from the front of my thoughts, and always in my heart. The kittens in the back room are now 8 weeks old and full of WAY too much energy (well, compared to a 18+ year old cat anyways!) and I love them all dearly for their personality, joy de vivre and hilarity...but none has the power to help me completely numb the pain of losing my best furry friend.

Teatea's most memorable (and at time mortifying) traits was her ability to scare the bejeezus out of just about anyone. One time she chased a construction worker out of my home (we were adding a wee bathroom onto our small one bedroom home)...he had to hide behind a laundry basket and wave it by his feet to get out unscathed. It happened again with a home repair guy....this one used his tool bag to escape. The funniest (and possibly scariest) was when I was minding my own business doing sit ups (yes this was a long time ago) on my floor....Teatea was about 15 or so and I think she had a sanity break, because all of a sudden she was on my face ~grabbing my head with her front claws, biting my face and rabbit kicking under my chin...with great intent. One minute I was doing situps, the next minute my face was being attacked my very own cat. Who even knows what was going through her mind at that time. I know what was going through mine though!! "WHAT THE??!!!!" [= I still miss her...despite the regular blood draws. She still makes me smile...... =^..^=

rainy day and loving thoughts....

....i had a good cry last night about teatea.....someone I know asked me how she got her name and I explained that she was constantly stealing tea out of mugs left unattended....the only sign that she had been there was little "unexplained" puddles of tea around the mug....i miss her.