T-Minus 4 Days

Today is Dec. 15. That means several things:

- Austrians arrive in four days;
- Today is my last day in my current job;

- Loki's been missing for 11 days;

- Tomorrow is my first day at my new job.

Some of those are happy and some are obviously not.

In spite of our recent tragedy, I've been able to accomplish many of my listed items in advance of xmas.

On Saturday I went shopping with my mom and bought one of everything I saw. Or so it seemed. Christmas shopping has now tipped the scale from mostly-not-done to mostly-done.

On Sunday we cleaned the house. Most of the house. It's gotten to the point where we're only cleaning the visible areas - the basement is now at the bottom of the priority list. Each area we approach we ask ourselves "are our guests really going to see this?" and if the answer's no, we leave it a hairy mess.

Also on Sunday, I fixed a few things in the bathroom. It now is almost presentable. However, the décor is rather strange; it's like two rooms in one. If you turn one way, it's a vivid green room with lots of knicknacks, if you turn the other, it's a study in subtle browns and off-whites. I will make my mind up some other day.

Also also on Sunday, I baked cookies. Four kinds of cookies, not all successful. I bought waaay too much butter, so I can re-make some of the cookies if need be. My 'Chewy Ginger Cookies' became 'crispy burnt ginger pancakes', as I guestimated the amount of butter I used. Hubby says they're wonderful so he gets all 96 of them. The pecans on the bottom of the Swedish Tea Rings burnt, and so I yanked them out of the oven and then added the jam too late, so it didn't get to cook into the cookies. Half of my lemon-poppyseed-cranberry cookies were burnt on the bottom, and the ones on the other ends of the trays were under-cooked. I have determined that I need a new oven, or need to be more on top of the one I've got. I have to watch it like a hawk.

Another thing I have to watch like a hawk? Rosie, my soap-eating dog.

Friday night I bought a big pack of soap bars and put them in a big jar with a lid on the bathroom vanity. Two bars didn't fit, so I opened the drawer, put them in the back, and closed it again. Rosie was watching me the whole time. I went into the kitchen to speak to hubby, and about 10 minutes later Rosie came wandering in smacking her lips. I said "what have you got there?" 'cause she's always chewing on something or other, and I hooked my finger into her mouth. It came out frothy and smelling of lavendar. I yelled "oh shit!" and ran to the bathroom, where I discovered the drawer open, and BOTH bars of soap lying on the ground. Or rather, 1.2 bars of soap. She ate the other 0.8, paper and all. We called the emergency vet line, and they said "unless you can deal with two to three days of diarrhea, you should induce vomiting." So we did, with hydrogen peroxide (gross), which made her visibly recoil after she drank it.

She sat there, looking as green as a black lab can look, ears pinned to her head with sad little eyes. Then she belched.

Then 3 minutes later she barfed. It came out like a milkshake, mixed with her dinner. It was a frothy white puddle of lavendar-smelling puke, really pleasant to clean up. She did it once again after I went to bed - with soap chunks this time - and then she was totally fine. Lesson learned: get kiddy locks for bathroom drawers, in case she acquires a taste for toothpaste, allergy pills, hair gel, tylenol, or any other potentially-deadly bathroom things.

She is clever, my Rosie: clever enough to open drawers, but not quite clever enough not to eat soap.

One other new development before I head off to my new job - Sasha, my female cat, has become a lot more tolerant of Rosie in Loki's absence. Who knows what goes on in their minds or their communication, but Sasha's become a bit more self-confident and she can now comfortably lie on the couch with the dog, without any claws or chasing or anything. This is big news. Sasha's lived on top of the red chair and on the kitchen table since last February, as she never developed the required sense of humour to deal with the puppy. Hence she weighs about 25 lbs - from all the sitting around and the stress eating. Rosie's more mellow now (imperceptibly, I'm sure), and they're coming around.

I may or may not have time to write again before my holidays (17 days off woooooo!) so if I don't, have a happy one.

...And a big dose of bad news

Our wee family has experienced an enormous tragedy: Loki has gone missing.

I don't even really know how to write about this. I've never imagined it happening, while at the same time I've always imagined it happening. It was always my worst possible scenario, the thing I would lay awake at night and worry about.

Turns out, I was right to worry. Generally, I didn't even think about it during the winter, when he didn't love staying outside long, and predators are fewer and kept at bay by deep snow. But last Friday, he went outside at lunchtime when my mom went to feed the dog (as he always did), and wasn't there at 7 p.m. when we got home (like he always was). We called and called. Hubby stayed up all night. The next morning, we called all the neighbors. Nobody'd heard or seen anything. Not a trace! We searched the forests, but the falling snow made everything disappear. We've put up signs, but nobody's called.

I have had a rotten week. I have a deep hurt, and it feels like a hole in my chest. I swear it gave me a respiratory disease - last weekend I couldn't catch my breath, it felt like someone was sitting on me. I've had a busy week at work so I haven't had a lot of time to think about it, but every horrible eventuality pops into my head, and I can't deal with it. I really cannot deal with this.

Loki was the world's greatest cat. Bar none, apologies to the rest. He was wise, intuitive, wiley, sensitive, hilarious, independent, patient, and a terrific partner to Sasha. He was quick-witted, and we thought of him as the King of the forest. After 7 years of prowling the woods, he knew every stick and leaf. We never knew where he went, but he was at home everywhere, supremely confident and calm. Every autumn, when the days got shorter and the temperatures colder, Loki would grow visibly depressed, and spend his days curled up on the bed or in his red chair. He'd go out for a bit, but would mostly mope around the house. Come spring, he was reanimated, and the birds of the neighborhood suffered for it. I have seen that cat training Sasha to hunt, and bringing a mouse home as a gift to her. For a couple of years, dead rodents would turn up on the deck just as we went out to light the BBQ, and we always suspected he was asking us to grill up his dinner.

When we had people over or even large parties, Loki was always in the middle, getting to know everyone, laying in their coats - especially if the guest wore cologne - and generally enjoying himself. He was very popular among humans. I have actually picked him up upon return from one of his adventures, and he smelled like perfume or flowers. He would demand a shower from the bathroom tap every night before we went to bed, so we'd scrub water into his head while he stared at himself in the mirror, purring. He was very debonnair. He loved to eat people food, especially garlicky things like hummus, and loved to nibble on chives. He made his dislikes known as well - two weeks ago I was using a lightbulb tester on my xmas lights, and it emits a weird beeping when the tested circuit is good. After I'd been at it for 5 minutes, with Loki staring at me impatiently from the table above, he hopped down, quickly and lightly bit my hand, and ran away. Some mornings, especially weekend mornings when we were slower to get up, I'd feel something strange on my face and find Loki staring at me from 1/4 inch away, his whiskers tickling my lips. He'd then hop off the bed and tip over the garbage can, scrunch up a few plastic bags, knock chapsticks (or water glasses) off the bedside table, and generally be a pain until we woke up and fed him.

When he was just a kitten, and we lived in our apartment, every night he had what we would call 'Monkey Hour', when he'd just run up and down the hall for no apparent reason, and don't get in his way because he'd plow right into you. He'd get crazy eyes, and would run sideways he was so keyed up. After that was done, he'd settle in for the night. We worried about the Christmas tree the first year, but he knocked one bulb off once, and that was it.

He never had any health issues. He disliked the vet ferociously, and when poor Dr. Fro would hear that Loki was coming in, he needed to gather his special equipment. A heavy blanket to cover him up, and long falconer-type gloves to wear. Once upon a time Loki had his anal glands expressed by the vet, and he never forgot it. He would act like a total embarrassing jackass - panting and moaning all the way there (a hellish 10-minute drive), and snorting and snarling once he was on the table. I would feel like an embarrassed parent, repeating "I swear, he's not really like this." Still, he went in for all his regular appointments and shots, and was the picture of health. He lost a lot of weight this past year, probably due to the dog, who had him on the run constantly, but also probably because he was on diet food since Sasha is morbidly obese.

His last year wasn't the best of his life, and I feel guilty about that, because Rosie was just starting to leave him alone and be a nice companion for him. They were actually starting to like each other. I knew it would happen - didn't know it would take so long - but I feel like perhaps Loki felt he was getting short shrift, that he'd been knocked down a peg in the attention game. That could never be the case. Every morning I would cuddle with him for a minute and remind him that I loved him. I know he's not reading this, but for the record, I paid him less attention because I knew he could withstand it, and I knew he understood. He knew intuitively that Rosie was a puppy, and had great patience with her. He watched where he put his claws.

Loki will be missed by all of us. Our friends, our family, everyone who knew him. I won't focus on the specifics of what may have happened to him, but I feel like he went out like a warrior, doing what he loved best to do. He's gone to Valhalla, as it were, and I hope whatever happened was brief and worthy. Farewell, brave Loki. I love you.

1998 - 2008.

A Little Good News

Work has been a total pain in my ass lately.

Not only am I spending all my spare time preparing for Christmas in the usual harried ways, but I am also working overtime to make the house function/look decent in anticipation of our Austrian guests, who arrive in 16 days. You can imagine that I am feeling a bit stretched – I seem to fall asleep around 8:30 p.m. every evening for a short bit – especially when you take into account that I have four events to organize next week and one the week after. These aren’t cakewalk events either; they’re high-stakes.

I’ve been doing this job for just about five years. In February, it will be my anniversary. It’s the type of job that requires a good deal of energy and inspiration, both to come up with new and exciting ideas, but also to see through the administrative/financial/political things inevitably get in the way and to push through with any enthusiasm left. I have liked this job quite a lot and been proud of my accomplishments. It has afforded me many opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise have ever had, and for that I am thankful. I have traveled. I have met really really interesting people. I have stayed in very nice hotels and eaten at top-drawer restaurants and stolen all the best hotel toiletries (I never buy soap!). I have been to Rideau Hall on a number of occasions, and have a black-tie section in my wardrobe to prove it.

Lately though, people have been getting plucky. Emails are getting ruder and ruder, things are being forgotten or overlooked, and colleagues are getting snippy or emotional. Maybe I am guilty of this as well, I can’t tell. It happens at this time every year – the year is a cycle, and we are at the end of it and all ready for vacation. We are all bone weary and like siblings stuck in the back seat of a car on a long drive, we’re starting to pick at each other. On the 19th we will have our Christmas party (excuse me – Holiday party) and everyone will sit together in their little groups and lick their wounds, and drink like fish at lunchtime, and pull the curtains and pretend it’s evening so the dance floor fills up. Everyone will then go their separate ways and heal themselves before returning for a new cycle.

So a week ago, when the Human Resources department called me up to tell me that I’d won the competition for a new position, I was beyond happy. I am ready for a change, but not so much change that I would leave the organization, and not so much change that I don’t want to have a fall-back position. I will fill a two-year term as a program officer in the Visual Arts section, which means I will manage several of the granting programs in that discipline. I get a new office, a new batch of coworkers, a new floor and even new art on the walls. I get exciting new duties and lots of contact with the arts community. I start on December 16, and will come back to my current job on March 30, 2011, unless something catastrophic happens. This is a big deal for me – I have wanted this job for a long time.

Yay to me. I am thrilled. I am trying to pack up my current office in the midst of all these events, figure out what my successor will want or need to use, and still deal with the demands of coworkers, run all of my errands and do all of my shopping in between. The house is a complete disaster but I’m saving that task for a later date. I only have two hands and 24 hours in a day.