*attempts to lay out fabric and mockup and pin them together*

*shuts cat in bathroom*

*proceeds apace*

Jack was a cat who was always in the middle of my projects. In the way that he was very much a Gumby cat, and, well, the fabric was smooth and flat. He was essentially a feline paperweight, which I didn't much mind. Provided he didn't use his claws on my patterns, which for the most part he didn't.

Paris, however, is an attention cat. She is interested in what I am doing in a way that she wants to be part of it. Namely, she wants to be the center of my attention. This doesn't work too well with laying out and pinning and cutting fabric. Ah well. At least I'm getting her to be a lap cat now and again.

Not had much of a fun week, but at least this coming work week's going to be shorter.

Haven't got much writing or sewing done this weekend, but I've found and cleaned the mythical object known as "My Desk," balanced my checkbook, paid bills, found the bank book for my savings account, and tossed rather a lot of unnecessary paper into the wastebin. Wonderful Husband has done arcane techy things to my computer so that I can download and watch things on it, so I'm now caught up with Rozen Maiden. (And the end of episode ten... oh, like the audience didn't call that three episodes back? Anti-climactic. Though it does leave it wide open for where it goes in the next episode....)

I've also come to the point where I'm probably ready to adopt a cat. I still love Jack, and miss him terribly, and probably always will, but I want/need a pet. Someone to scratch and cuddle and have purr at me once in a while. Someone to make the house a little less empty when I get home after work. So I've started researching local animal shelters and rescue groups. Wonderful Husband and I have agreed that we want to get an adult cat. A grown cat won't need as much attention as a kitten would (we both work full-time), will have a settled personality already, and, frankly, probably needs a good home more. People love adopting kittens because they're small and cute and whatnot. Adult cats are less likely to be adopted. Of course he and I have differences--Wonderful Husband wants one, preferrably short-haired, because he's asthmatic. I'd prefer two so they can keep each other company, though of course if I fall in love with another "solo" cat like Jack, I'll be happy with just one, and I like the soft feel of a fluffier cat. But it's all moot until we can go to a shelter and find "the right one." My main worry now is, how will I know which one is "the right one"?

Went to a Christmas party last night. I'm not, at the best of times, the life of a party, but I went nonetheless (family obligations, whatnot) and managed a relatively decent time until the hostess' god-daughter took some of us up to her room and showed off her Christmas present--a six-week-old gray tabby striped kitten. She was adorable.

She was the same age as Jack (also a tabby, albeit orange) was when he came to us.

Took me about twenty minutes to stop crying.

Unrelatedly, hooray, huzzah, etcetera, Wonderful Husband and I have finished Christmas shopping. Unless we find anything else.

Bed now.

Did I mention the part where I have an annoying dry cough and I'm leaving for England on Friday?!

I want to know who it was at the animal hospital that thought sending us a combination condolence/Christmas card would not hurt like hell. Because, you know, it does.

Have been working on my Christmas list and I think I've got it mostly bashed into final form. And it's really depressing this year because there isn't anything I actually /want/ as presents. Well, aside from a pair of slippers, but I've asked for those three years running and never gotten any, so I'm taking them off the list this year and buying them for myself. I mean, sure, there are things that would be useful and maybe even pleasant to have that I can ask for, but do I actually want anything? No. More dance lessons with my Wonderful Husband and my mother to teach me how to make bread is the sum total of things I actually /want./ Everything else is just feeling like so much social obligation at this point.

Maybe it's just the card.

Thank you to all my friends who expressed condolences (and those who didn't but still thought them). I have a request--if any of you have pictures of Jack, could you mail me copies? We don't use the camera much around the house, only for events, and so I'm finding I don't have many pictures of him. I'm still very upset over his death. I know it'll get better over time, and some day there will be another cat (maybe even another flea-ridden kitten yowling his head off), but right now his absence still really, really hurts. I know he's in a better place, but I suppose it's not so much for the dead that we mourn but for ourselves, left behind in a world they no longer inhabit.

Jack had been my cat (affectionate, kneading, drooling orange fluffy dork) for eight years. He'd always been in fairly good health. This last month he'd gotten a little lethargic, and had had a couple episodes of wheezing, so I took him to the vet on Saturday. She gave me some antibiotics for him and a price sheet for more involved testing. Sunday his breathing had become very labored so Wonderful Husband and I, as well as racerxmachina and roseembolism, who were visiting, took him up to the Emergency Clinic in Garden Grove. They put him in an oxygen chamber and did a few x-rays, discovering fluid around his lungs which was causing the difficulty breathing, and a lump on his lungs. He stayed there overnight and they drew off some of the fluid to make breathing easier. The next morning Wonderful Husband and I brought him back closer to home, to an animal hospital just up the block from us. He stayed there while we had to go to work, and had a few more tests done. The doctor called me on my cell and let me know it was cancer and it had already spread through his lungs. Even if we expended all possible treatment options his chances of survival would be fifteen percent or less. After work Wonderful Husband and I went to the hospital to say goodbye--my mother and sister had gone earlier in the day to see him. He was alert and didn't appear to be in pain. We spent probably about a half hour petting and cuddling him. He was happy to see us and get the attention--he was purring the entire time. He's always been a very friendly cat: his nickname among my friends is "the whore" because he so shamelessly adores their attention. But eventually we had to let him go. It was the best thing to do, for him and for us. The doctor gave him two shots through his IV--the first put him to sleep, and the second let him go painlessly. He passed away on my lap, being petted and loved by my husband and myself. The staff at the hospital were very kind and I need to write them a card thanking them for trying to make a very hard decision easier.

I'm still crying. I'm probably going to be crying for a long time. Jack was the first cat who was really "mine." And he was mine for far too short a time. So I'm still saying that it's not fair, and why were we made to love things when they only go away. Because love is quiet and subtle, but when it smashes against an ending, it's with all the cumulative force you've put into it over the years. At the same time, though, I know that death is not an end, only another step. Not believe, please note, but know. My mother and I have both had dreamtime visits from her father, and my sister has had a dreamtime visit from her cat who we also had put to sleep about five years ago. So I know that somewhere Jack is waiting for me and we'll meet again and it'll all be okay. But at the same time I can't help missing him terribly. Even with my husband beside me, holding me, I pretty much cried myself to sleep last night, something I haven't done in years.

There will be other cats eventually. There will never be another Jack.