200717 Blurs

July 17

Fig pushes his bowl off the bed (where he is fed) onto the floor, as if to say, "Done. Nice dinner." and he washes his face and paws. (He has been given dinner on the big bed (ours) since he was six weeks old because he would not eat with Betty, our bouvier mix, because she was the alpha dog.

But also because he didn't know how to eat and was hand-fed for some days.

He has a heart murmur which makes him cough. He fell over twice today, from coughing.

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There is always a paper clip in the telephone cupboard: our version of kitchen drawer. It was called the telephone cupboard from the beginning because it was next to the telephone in the kitchen so we kept the telephone books there. On the inside of the cupboard door was a list of emergency and frequently-needed  phone numbers. This predates cell phones and the internet. (We moved here in 1990. Now, even though the phone is no longer there and there are no phone books anywhere, the cupboard retains its name.

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Robin heard that Rick's father, Pop, was coming to visit. It was the day that i damaged my knee. He said to Nick, "Pop doesn't know that gramma's in serious pain, does he?" and in the field, when they returned from fetching their bikes, he said, "Indre and I are worried about you gramma."

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I mentioned in 200703 summer, that I felt I had crossed over to an alternate universe. I had a similar "universe crossover" experience when my mother died. She suffered recurring brain tumours from the age of 54 until her death at 74. She was wonderful as mother and grandmother during those years, though her ill health hampered her involvement and ability. It was not until she died that I glimpsed a vision of the woman she might have been, or was, in another time-space. She might have given so much more to her grandchildren if she had been in good health, taught them about cooking and flowers and birds. She would have made them laugh: she was very good at that. She might have lived to meet Rain, who was born seven months after her death. I mourned the mother I had lost and the mother that might-have-been. I seldom look down the path not taken or not given: wish and regret come to nothing and you still have to get up in the morning. But perhaps they prompt a lesson for moving forward. Be thankful for all that you have, be at peace with what you cannot have, it's a bitter and poisonous longing. Bring a good lesson into today, here. 

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For the first time ever, since I was a child, I put the little dog that my father gave me in my pocket and carried it with me. It was perhaps the only gift he himself ever gave me. Later in the day I recalled that it was Father's Day. Weird.

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Why does one put off the mending - sometimes for months! Most mends take 10 minutes max. I have two animals (stuffed) in for surgery right now, a large rabbit and an old bear. I must mend them tomorrow.