Heartfelt

Good cheery sunny wintry day, my friends, Boy and Girl, I know you’ve been bereft and probably devastated at the dearth of chatter over here at rundogcatcatme.  I’ve missed you both terribly, I thought of you at least twice in the past three weeks or so and by this you can tell that I am very torn up.

Chunker is currently hauling her poor ratty baby (formerly some fuzzy squeaky toy) around, mewing at it as though it will somehow animate and become the baby her un-baby-making body is apparently yearning for.  Who knows why, maybe she has some hormones still hanging around?  Years ago I had a cat whose ovaries grew back.  What the hell?? I asked the vet, can she get pregnant?!?  He rolled his eyes slightly; pointing out that her uterus no longer existed even if the ovaries were trying to make a comeback.  Well, the damn ovaries are growing back, how do I know the missing uterus might not suddenly become sentient and return to sender?  For the rest of her life, several times a year, she hauled her little babies around for a week or so, mewing sadly.  Just as Chunker, she was a poor mother, leaving the helpless and hapless babies strewn about the house in high traffic areas, ready to be stomped deader.

Chunk and (soon to be abandoned on the stairs so I can nearly break my neck trying to avoid slipping on it) Baby

Speaking of slipping on the stairs and not breaking my neck, that is exactly what I did a week and a half ago, and I’m still hurting and still have a good-sized bruise for the experience.  Suddenly I wish we had carpeted the stairs.  The one thing I’ve been most worried and cautious about – and of course it happened.  Why did I not spend all that effort worrying I would win the lottery, if that’s how the gods are going to handle my life?  Just as I got to a point that my foot was mostly pain-free I returned to constant pain – the first couple nights it hurt so much that I woke every time I turned (or tried to turn) over.  I managed to land on two treads at once so mid-back to upper hip were one large pain fest.  But, hey – sh*t happens, right?

The first of December, bored out of my un-exercising mind and needing something to focus on (not that I’m OCD, I just have a one-track mind at times which, oddly, Hubs pronounces “stubborn”) I had the brilliant idea of knitting scarves for some of my progeny.  Five, in fact.  Five 7-foot long scarves.  Hey, easy breezy, right?  Four-five hours per scarf, gives me something to do in the evenings while repeatedly scanning 573 channels for something – please Baby Jesus, anything – to watch on TV, an effort I quickly abandoned and set myself up, instead, in front of Netflix where I watched three seasons of Chuck, finally surrendering even that attempt because my match-maker heart could no longer stand the ever-dangling relationship with Sarah.  Unfortunately it turned out it was more like 10-12 hours per scarf but I’ll be damned, I started it, I’m finishing it, so my life faded into a tunnel-visioned knit 2 purl 2 with some life crammed in around the edges trying to get ready for Christmas.

While getting ready for the holiday was a bit of a rush, the week of Christmas was great as we did something we’ve never done:  the entire family met in Gatlinburg for the week, except for number 1 son and our great new daughter-in-law, whose work schedules prevented them from coming.  We had a 4-1/2 bedroom cabin in the mountains outside Gatlinburg, beautiful views of fog covered ridges; Christmas Eve it snowed a bit and we woke Christmas morning surrounded by snow frosted mountains.  We’d agreed no gifts except for the B’ster and did Dirty Santa instead, although as mom I felt compelled to give a few little gifts such as the aforementioned marathon scarf knitting.  Later that morning we hiked, even the B’ster and I were able to go along for a couple miles of easy trails to a waterfall and an abandoned cabin.

Thanks to T-1’s girlfriend I have become a jigsaw puzzle convert and while I am not OCD I did spend several hours peering through my trifocals at the brightly colored shapes, feeling a bit like a little kid getting a piece of candy every time I managed to complete a section.  Very self-rewarding, at least for a while.  I brought along knitting, Christmas cards, two books and several movies as though I were going to have time for all that; I managed to knit about six inches of an attempt at a boot cuff, read three paragraphs one night before collapsing into a dreamless sleep, and the only movies we watched were B’sters – which were more fun anyway.  We played games, hiked, shopped, went site-seeing and ate about every 3 hours.  It was perfect.

Yesterday morning we woke bright and early, the twins and girlfriend were heading back to Chicago; T-2 will spend the week there and fly back to NYC January 1st.  I watched them drive away, tears rolling down my cheeks, my heart and my heart driving down the road.  Everything changes, everything stays the same.