Etc & So On

Princess Ok I think.

My room is a new room now for her, as well as an older and less sorted version of a place she previously lived/stayed in before clearing out for Across The Road. 

She stayed limp on the bed yesterday. She had a pretty good feed. Not eating quite as much as previously, inside of front legs and on the neck shaven.

I took her over the road to stay at Jos's place last night. She drank some water and stretched and prowled and purred and went outside for a wee. I picked her up this morning. She would have probably been agreeable to staying outside & I didn't want to think of that with the arthritis.

So her day has been first a rest. Then an explore. Then a matter of going into hiding. Then I go to the kitchen. I return. She's back on the quilt. The tortoise shell is almost camouflage within the crotchet squares.

It's a day of rain and cold freezing weather. Feels like the snow is close. It's hard not to be annoyed with the person who pinched my collected firewood from Max's throwout earlier this winter.

The cats are mostly inside out back. The room brightens. It is sunshine and earlier than I think. I should do a lunch thing. I miss my lunches out, I must say.

More writing work. Sent an email to The Age about The Rivers.

I'm doodling with snappy summaries of favourite sites and blogs.

I love John Elder Robison's latest blog from Asperger's Land:

John Elder Robison

 

After a lifetime of exclusion, what do I get from the very crowd that purports to help people like me?

 

John Elder Robison’s blog about managing his speech to the Shrinks (and managing to hide the card that describes him as a ‘non-member’) is very funny.

 

This is the man who designed Pyrotechnics for rock band KISS!

Musing

I've taken a break from the computer today.  There are factors to digest.

There's a local book publisher who advertises a 'pitch day'. Last week I sent info about a novel I'd begun in the nineties when Ariel was a young cat living in Melbourne with Anna. I mentioned my essays and radio scripts too, but it's the fiction they asked to see.

I don't usually write fiction but I was fascinated by the machinations of the local music industry which had recently changed radically here in Australia at that time. I did a lot of voluntary work in music back then and I  the range of characters I met was extraordinary. Therefore it was easy enough to transpose the intensity of such a world onto wholly imaginative people.

The reason for launching into the tale of a young singer and her manager was simple. There was a very juicy prize available, several thousand dollars, a CD Rom, a Dictionary  and a case of French Champagne.

I remember now that my friends, (including my musical friends) liked the work and were asking for the new chapters to an extent that I got well into the story.

My essays have always been the main focus of my work, so when I found the novel during one of my sorting days, I was very surprised. I thought at first that some long ago person had shown me a manuscript. 

I began to read it and then I remembered.

I remembered how all my old jobs had dried up in those times and that I'd been mad for some kind of project where I'd both feel functional and earn some livelihood.

It's clear that the novel knew where it was going. It's not Patrick White quality, but it's pretty good and I had to wrack the brains to remember why I stopped working on it on that occasionally borrowed computer. 

The competition details were with the manuscript and as soon as I checked the dates, I remembered. The judging dates were in the year and the month when my younger sister died, an awful, awful time, an event which meant everything else had to be put to one side.

When such things occur, it may be years before a certain lightness of heart returns.

Funny, I've had dreams of her reading a book of mine.

I'd like the book to be published and if it is, she will be remembered in a dedication. 

I thought I'd start publication with my autistic memoir which is more literary as it were, but there you go. The music story and with its pictures of early nineties Bondi is interesting. The email was very cheering and I'll be spending a few hours per day on this project from now on.

I'm listening to some new music at present, David Byrne and Brian Eno have a new album out and I'm listening off MSN. It's pretty good.

A few updates. Last night, I discovered that I left my Organiser at my next door neighbour's place a few days ago. It was a relief to find it. I had to ring and ask the dentist for another appointment though.

It's bad enough being on the pension, but to travel without a card and face the probability of those Railway cop people was too too much.  

I made a grovelling apology to the dentist.

I haven't found the folder relating to my counselling yet, the next session is on Wednesday next week.

I borrowed a book on the founding of Melbourne's Montsalvat Artists Colony from the neighbour.  He's related to the founders of that amazing place.

news flash

Stanley says:

We have Another Cat!

Why?

Who?

How?

Evening

I love the whisker washing time when they are all fed and happy.

Zorro and Sylvio shown above.

And So On...

No Mail Today, Why Ask?

Counselling yesterday and I talked about the circumstances which caused the destruction of the muscles in my right shoulder. Life was very interesting indeed in those times. In fact back then I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening and I was busy pretending that everything was just fine when it wasn’t. I only ever talked positive because that make the world right. Of course I complained in my Journals, and that didn’t help as much as it should have.

 

It’s not just the physical damage or even the trauma that I inherited from those times. The shoulder isn’t going to get better (which is annoying because I was once pretty good at Pool). The fact remains that there is still so much to sort.

 

The Counsellor asked me for a definition of ‘breakdown’ and I was quick to quote Piaget and ‘cognitive dissonance’, thinking at the time that it’s more than just cognitive dissonance, it’s an emotional and social dissonance which also follows in the train of Domestic Disaster.

 

Yesterday I was supposed to bring the questionnaire to the session. I’d filled out the sheets several days previously and thought everything was ready. Then, as I was dressed and about to depart, I couldn’t find it. Neither could I find my Organiser.

 

These are two of the growing number of items which ‘have their place’.

 

A horrible truth has dawned today.

 

The Princess is being released from Vet Hospital tomorrow.

 

My room is supposed to be cleansed.

 

The mind, however, has not yet coped with or re-filed all the paper work which was hurled about my place on a regular basis during the difficult years.

 

When I began to clean the room, the big question on that day was, What To Do with that paper work which includes poetry, a funny music novel, (hard copy only), versions of essays, old fashioned letters and cards and various business details all mingled promiscuously.

 

There’s no doubt that mornings are complex times in this place.

 

The cats prowl about checking that there’s no dinner from last night remaining in the various rooms. They have been shut in separate rooms for the night and they need to explore the place again. I bring some cats in and take others outside. I also have to supply affection for some  and I also provide this one or that with extra biscuits.

 

So I too do a morning circuit of the place and even with my glasses on, I see that there’s no sign of either folder or Organiser in any of the rooms.

 

In recent months there have been guests and a celebration. In terms of the major cleanups, I’ve got into the habit of bringing boxes of Stuff into my room, (hence the aforementioned disorder which was exacerbated by mischievous cats creating their own re-sort).

 

Well on the tidying up day, I didn’t file very much at all. I put several works and categories into folders and reduced the number of boxes by exactly one.

 

Although the said covered boxes now sit neatly against the wall, forming a hiding place for The Princess in the money corner, I think the they may now possibly contain an Organiser and a folder more recent than the rest.

 

There’s another dental session later today. I want to take the Organiser.

 

I write because I’m mentally sorting another examination of the boxes.

 

A major filing day is definitely on the cards. Mental preparation is now in operation for yet another examination of the three remaining boxes.

 

The best thing about the recent Dentals is that the headaches and vision problems are much relieved. Thankyou Labor, thankyou Medicare.

 

Counselling has helped too.

 

Thank God For The Salvo’s! 

Tuesday PM

I'm cleaning my room to prepare for The Princess. 

In one of her past lives, she was bullied by another cat and so is scared of her fellow felines.

Therefore I'm thinking about dynamics. 

I hope that in a clear large cleansed room, smell dispersed, the two cats may be able to cope.

Scrap rightly considers me to be her person  and rules the roost in here.

 Ariel's movement is limited. Scrap's movement is defined.

Scrap is the Queen who finds it hard to relate to other cats. She could well avoid Ariel as she now avoids even her remaining children.

Previously I had Tabs in here with Scrap and eventually I moved Tabs to the lounge room, where I have to split a number of them down there into the dining room at night times because they do more mischief en masse than they do with fewer numbers.

(I go to the Lounge Room in the mornings. Tabs says 'Get me out of here.' and I feed her outside. More on Tabs and her story later!)

Only today am I cleaning the paper messes Tabs and Scrap made in the courses of their quarrels.

Tabs would definately like her own person. She  tolerates other cats better than Scrap does, though.

I have Ariel's old electric blanket.

I'm cleaning my room so that two cats will have clearer paths.

Ariel is not keen on jumping at present.

Ill keep her to her warm area in the room. The tray is on the hearth, easy to clean around.

Scrap looks out window at night, then settles for a time on the earth of this plant or that. Early in the morning she sleeps on my sore hip or beside my sore shoulder and accomplishes much relief. She's also a warm soft presence at the foot of my bed.

Scrap is outside in the daytimes, the first one of us all to be up and about.

Ariel can have my bed in the day.

Great her kidneys are OK.

I work in my room & I know that's not supposed to be good Feng Shui, but my room is HUGE with lots of plants and different spaces, more of a salon.

I am closer than I ever was to old age. I have to learn about it.

The Princess

"I hope you realise that I too am related to Gods...."

Saturday Morning

 

I awake early intending to clean. Anna has said she'll she’ll come by Sunday instead of Saturday this week. I worked at essays, contacts and connections on Friday & it was one of those days when I got all caught up in research and totally didn't get to the housework.

I think on a housework plan (after a swoop on the net) as the cats get their biscuits and I fill and turn on the kettle for my first cup of tea. Since a couple of teeth got a bit better, I'm getting better with housework and that makes it all easy to be social. 

Then I  pour the milk into the hot tea before I realise that the milk has soured and clumped.  It’s a freezing morning. I haven't figured out what to wear yet. I get back into bed to contemplate the dynamics of a run to the shop and luckily I am at the front of the place, because there's a knock at the front door.

 

It’s Jos with The Princess, AKA Ariel the elderly cat who is co-shared by Jos, Anna and self. Princess, snuggled weakly in Jos's arms, isn't the girl I've tried to bring back here before. 

She is sick, very sick and Jos is weeping as she explains that Princess can't even stand up or get around. 

She's like a baby wrapped in Jos's warm woolly jacket. 

Since we have changed vets recently for a place farther afield it’s going to be a matter of cabs.

 

Ariel is eighteen years old and up until now, she's remained bright eyed and talkative and maintains a busy social life with her friends over the road.

 

Jos says that Ariel threw up the night before and then went straight to her nest to rest.

 Ariel, noted for throwing up (when upset) as a youngster, has grown out of the tendency in more recent years. (Acupressure helped her to get over said tendency.)

 

Jos said that last night she realised Ariel's illness then,hoping it not too serious, simply cleaned up without reprimand.

 

Then this particular morning, the little thing isn't even able to raise herself on her front paws.

 

I take Jos and Ariel into my bedroom. I get a clean towel for the limp little cat to lie on on my bed with Jos's coat blanketted around her. 

She is gasping but she still purrs. I give her some points, tummy points (leg joints) and also heart points. She crrr’s with recognition and tucked up, she goes to sleep. Her fur is fine, her eyes are bright, she just doesn’t seem to want to move.

 

 I think of starting homecare emergency treatment, and there’s then there's no time to plan it or even consider it seriously.

Anna, who'd so hoped for a sleep-in is roused, the vet is  called, and I quickly blog   before the milk is bought.

Enroute to our local servo, I encounter a young couple talking to Stanley, Grace and Sylvio.

'Have you seen Bill?' they ask.

I ask who is this 'Bill' who should be known to the cats?

Turns out 'Bill' is he who we call Black Tom, playmate with my mob.

Black Tom is due at the Vet's for an appointment. He knows the word Vet, they reckon, because he's out of there and not to be found in any of the usual hangouts around my place.

Then tea is drunk, the post quickly checked, the cab arrives with Anna and thus we set off to the vet (me in pyjamas and overcoat) where it turns out that Ariel is  dehydrated and needs a drip.

 

(One of her friends over the road said later that Ariel had been sneezing last week. Cats have trouble with sinus and when symptoms are bad it becomes difficult for them to drink. You can deal with it by adding fluids, the cat’s head held up in the crook of the arm and you pour from a small cup a few drops at a time while stroking and reassuring. Weak Comfrey Tea if enteritus is suspected.)

 Ariel doesn’t live here in the menagerie and I haven't seen her too often in recent weeks with my Dental dramas.

 

Considering symptoms of her collapse along with her her age, stroke & heart attack are to be considered and I can't consider home care realistically yet.

 

It’s found that she has very healthy kidneys. There's a problem with her back. 

(She hurt her back during one of her famous escapes a few lifetimes ago).

At the Vet's she gets painkillers and a thing for bunched up muscles and now she's eating, drinking and resting and also walking round.  

That's the news, anyway.

 

She’s still at the hospital.

 

They Are Keeping Their Eye On Her.

Dramas

Just as I think I’m calmer, this past weekend, it's Full Moon time and things happen: 

Friday Night

 

I am asleep in my room somewhere after three AM.

 

I hear a car hoon roar approach outside.

 

Weekends at night there is occasionally a speeder, thankfully they go by fast.

 

This one loudly goes crunch into the cars outside my place.

 

Hoon tries to re-start car, red car, two lots of cops, talk, lights, no sirens, They knock, one of the cars is neighbours’, show them neighbours’ place, come inside, Scrap at the window watches the lights, fascinated and the tow truck next she watches,and me, coward I am, inside, listening.

 

I can’t find my glasses and I don’t think of the camera, not once.

 

 

I concentrate on good things for a long time and around he time of dawn when birds are singing, I dream that I am riding with good horses and good friends.