Although I’m not the strongest believer in numerology and related sciences, I do think that they deserve paying attention to, and that made this past week and a half so odd for me. It started with the second Friday the 13th in as many months a couple of weeks ago, then moved straight on to Pi Day (remember, I was always much better at maths than English growing up, so I still note Pi Day and Mole Day and all of those things), and then…
One of the stories I’ve been reading recently is set at a dinner party. It’s not exactly Mrs. Dalloway, but it is good, and I can relate to it better because it’s set in America, albeit 1950s America. There is something about the 1950 American dinner party that seems so remote to me; at first when I was reading the story, it was hard for me to identify with the kind of upper-class people being depicted in the story, the whole idea of “summering” away…
When we took in Spookytooth last year, we also took in his mother, a calico cat we alternately called Cali, Hobbes, and Mikeneko. After Spooky’s death, Mikeneko took on even more importance in our lives. Sadly, recenly she had begun to show signs of the same disease that claimed Spooky (Feline Infectious Peritonitis, or FIP), and last night we finally took her to the vet for tests. When the vet said this morning that Mikeneko had either FIP or a severe brain tumor (most likely…
Monday will be one year since Dad died. In a lot of ways, though, today feels like the anniversary, because the 23rd fell on a Saturday last year. Having his death on a Saturday afternoon was especially painful for me, because when we were younger he’d always take me out to the mall to shop and play video games. (I’m only now beginning to realize that this was mostly done to get me out of the house for a few hours so Mom could have…
My apologies for going dark on the .org for the past few weeks. By mid-December I had already become quite frazzled, and the confluence of the semester ending (and me having sixty student portfolios to grade in a very short period of time), Spookytooth’s death, the holiday season, and a cold on top that all, just left me feeling out of it. The combination of emotions resulting from Spooky’s death, going through Christmas without Dad for the first time, and feeling lonely since I didn’t…