150 Steps...In the Present Moment

Our 14 month-old niece (A) sounds just like a Wookie. A is a gorgeous towhead with enormous blue eyes and a huge grin. She looks like a lovely, sweet baby that one might find in a magazine ad or a television commercial. She's that gorgeous. And then she opens her mouth and out comes this amazing sound that one can only liken to that sound that a Wookie makes. It's bizarre and hilarious. Our little Wookie. She is also DESTRUCT-O BABY. My sister-in-law tells me that A hates to have any container full...bags, boxes, drawers...all must be emptied out onto the floor. And I have seen this in action over the last two days. And A can't just dump things out either. She must fling all objects violently onto the floor. It's a good idea to not be sitting too closely to the baby when she is in flinging mode otherwise you might get clocked. Hard. When A is denied access to the object or objects of her DESTRUCT-O tendencies she lets out a blood-curdling shriek combined...

The turkey is in the fridge. All 8 tons of it. The desserts are all still out on the table and it's just way too easy to grab a cookie here and a macaroon there as you wander by. I'm sitting in my brother-in-law's GIGANTIC overstuffed chair - sideways with my legs up on the arm just the way G sits in it. Chris is downstairs getting a little quiet time. My mother-in-law is showering. Breakfast has already been consumed and the kitchen cleaned. My teething 14 month-old niece is down for her post-breakfast nap after an up and down morning of crying and laughing and crying and laughing. The dogs, exhausted from all of the activity and from 24 hours of constant hoovering up of crumbs and dropped food items have collapsed into contented heaps in the living room and kitchen. The living room is a chaotic riot of children's toys and  sippy  cups in various stages of being consumed. My 4 year-old niece is wandering around from adult to adult looking for playma...

I'm in Macaroon Hell. No, not really. My fourth batch of coconut macaroons is baking away. The first two batches - chocolate covered - are setting up in the fridge. The whole house smells of coconut and vanilla. It's rather intoxicating. I'm not much of a cook...mainly because I've never really had the time or inclination, but I do love to bake and I have a modicum of talent with flour, butter, sugar, chocolate and the other fattening yummy ingredients that one makes into sweet treats. My sister-in-law C put in a request for coconut macaroons for the Thanksgiving holiday. In honor of  Babci  (Chris' and C's maternal grandmother) who passed away in April. Babci  always made macaroons for family occasions - knowing how much I liked them. She would always grab my arm to pull me down and whisper in my ear, "I made these just for you." Knowing how much C also loves macaroons, I can't help but wonder now if at the same family gatherings t...

I have never really been one of those "I'm thankful for..." kind of people around the Thanksgiving holiday. In truth, even though I can be a very emotional and sappy kind of gal, I always found the whole "I'm thankful for..." exercise at the Thanksgiving dinner table - well - just a bit hokey. I suppose until this year I took the Thanksgiving holiday and my life a bit for granted. Thanksgiving was always just about getting together for a crazy big sumptuous meal and a day of family fun (and/or family drama...) But in this difficult year when there has been so much turmoil, so much sadness and uncertainty, when so much has happened in our family... The loss of Chris' maternal grandmother -  Babci . My mother-in-law coping with breast cancer, chemo, surgery, radiation therapy and the loss of her mother all in the same year. My father dealing with a second and much worse melanoma, surgery and a difficult recovery with complications that no one ex...

We were done. We were sure of it. Everything was in. The home study report will be finalized this week or next. All the paperwork was submitted. We sent a CD of photos of everything imaginable in to the placement agency. What do I discover when I get my e-mail today? A request for 16 more photos! Good lord! We already sent in 60! This is getting ridiculous. It doesn't help that the samples of the additional types of photos they need are exactly the kind of photos we typically mock because they're so cheesy and so posed. I keep expecting to see one where someone actually went in and used Photoshop to add a silvery, sparkly starburst that just shouts  gleam!  to these people's teeth. I'm feeling like we should just go to the local Target, distract the employees, and abscond with all the fake photo inserts of picture-perfect couples that they stick in picture frames.. It looks like all family members will be dragooned into serving as photographers over the T...

I can't seem to erase Annabel's pill schedule. It's still on the little white dry ease board on the fridge. On Sunday when I was cleaning the kitchen I just couldn't keep looking at Annabel's Bowl sitting empty on our dining table. So away it went into the storage room. But I just can't seem to bring myself to erase her schedule. I tried to do it yesterday and ended up in a heap of sobbing tears leaning against the fridge. I finally just had to walk away to do something else. It's like somehow if I do it... I'll be admitting that she's really and truly gone. I have to pick up Annabel's ashes today on my way home from work. Maybe afterwards...

I feel like there's something I should be doing right now. After months of effort to collect everything for our home study and then placement agency profiles along with lengthy discussions and musings, we're now simply waiting. Everything's submitted. It's in the hands of other people right now who are finishing the home study report, preparing our profile, etc., and we have nothing to do but wait -- wait to get the final report, wait to see what our online profiles look like, and then wait to see who chooses us and when. I'm not very good at waiting. My wife can attest to this. She has to restrain me when I get her a really cool birthday present and want to give it to her early because I'm so excited. I'm definitely (and unfortunately) an impulse purchase kind of person. Having to sit quietly and wait while other people do their work around me? Nope, not so good at that. I'm also now faced with an entire week off as I take some vacation prior t...

pants on fire! I did not get out of the house today to run errands as I said I would in my last post. I sat on the couch all day and wallowed in my grief. Stupid. Now am getting off my ass to clean the kitchen (which desperately needs cleaning.) And to bake. Years ago, when I was very depressed and when I discovered that I had some small talent with sugar, flour and butter, I would spend many of my "down days" perfecting my toll house cookies, attempting to re-create my Grandma Yetta's chocolate chip cookie recipe (never written down anywhere and yet to be re-created) or baking the infamous Flora's Apple Cake (infamous because of its amazing richness and fat content and the fact that it is humanly IMPOSSIBLE to eat just one slice.) The problem with baking when you're depressed is that you tend to eat the fruits of your labor. We'll see if I can manage to refrain from downing 3 dozen chocolate chip cookies later this evening. Wish me luck. I...

Forest is sound asleep in her chair just a few feet away from where I am on the couch. She dreams a lot and as a result of her dreams she twitches and makes numerous funny noises - little snorts, sighs and just a second ago - a long, low growl. She makes me laugh. I'm so glad that she and Cecil are here because their goofy and wonderful presence helps with the pain of losing Annabel. It's been such a strange couple of days without Annabel. I wake this morning to see the valley between my pillow and Chris' pillow empty. No warm, purring grey body there to pet and adore. So strange. Yesterday...I spend the morning writing my long post, weeping and weeping some more, and talking on the phone to so many of my very kind friends and family who are so sympathetic. Finally, after a while I say to Chris, "I can't do this anymore. Could we just get out of here and go see a movie?" Just to sit in a dark theater with theater treats and people who don...

Dear Plus One, I know you're out there and sometime in the hopefully not too distant future, you'll be coming home with us to our little family. We have a house filled with color and art and books and music and cats. Especially cats. We've always had cats and I expect we always will. We'll definitely be adding a dog or two in the future but might wait on that until you're old enough to help pick him or her out. On our placement agency application, we made sure to indicate that we hoped you wouldn't be allergic to cats and dogs because we want you to experience the joy of having pets to cuddle with, play with, curl up and take a nap with. Our cats are a little on the older side now but they love us and we love them. I think you'll like them. I'm just so sorry you won't have a chance to meet one of them. Annabel was the best cat -- warm, loving, gentle, occasionally crazed. She talked a lot, often with a  chirr-upp!  sound that I've never he...

We lost one of our cats yesterday. Annabel, our lovely 19-year old and perhaps the sweetest cat I've ever known, became suddenly ill and we learned to our dismay that it was a fast-moving cancer. It was a tremendously hard thing to do but for her sake and her comfort, my wife and I sat gently stroking her fur as she purred quietly and finally went to sleep for the last time in the vet's office. The last 36 hours have been so strange. She's been a central part of my everyday life for more than 9 years and I first met her when she was just a kitten. For my wife,  Annabel was a beloved companion  since she was 4 weeks old, almost half my wife's life. I walk in the house expecting to see her. We still have her pill schedule on a white board in the kitchen and I can't bring myself to erase it. She was doing so well, perhaps a little arthritic, maybe suffering from a bit of kitty senility most notably when she'd forget where we were, but for a cat who was 19 years, ...

Annabel arrives in my life on a warm Saturday morning in early September in 1990. I am the weekend receptionist for veterinarian Dr.  Crenshaw . It's actually a quiet Saturday with relatively few appointments. One of Dr.  Crenshaw's clients calls. "Hi, this is Mrs. X," she says. "Hi, Mrs. X. What can we do for you?" "Well, there's a cat that's been living in our garage. My husband wouldn't let me bring her into the house." Mrs. X's husband won't let Mrs. X bring the cat into the house because the X household is already full up with three dogs, four cats and a guinea pig. "The cat had two kittens a few weeks ago and she was killed by a car last night. I want to bring the kittens inside, but my husband will kill me. I'm not sure what to do with these kittens." "You can just bring them right to the Humane Society shelter. Somebody should adopt them quickly there," I reply and provide her the ad...