-Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray

Going Through The Motions

Life has thrown me my fair share of curve balls lately. The most recent has been another bout of unbalanced thyroid hormones. I contracted the flu in December along with a nasty recurring sinus and lung infection that hung on until March. Then the migraines started and exhaustion creeped up on me and before I knew it I’d spent six months doing essentially nothing but going to work, coming home, and climbing into bed like I hadn’t slept a wink in a month.

Tests revealed that my hypothyroidism has once again become unbalanced and they upped my meds, but instead of starting to get better, my symptoms seem to be getting worse. I remind myself that the stronger doses will take time to work and elevate my T3 and T4 levels and it has only been five days.

My entire system is out of whack and I feel like I’ve just been playing at life for half a year…going through the motions…trying to keep it all together and look normal (whatever that is?!).  I worry about my job because lack of appropriate thyroid levels turns my brain to jelly and by mid-afternoon each day my mental capacity tanks and it is only force of will that gets me through the last few hours of the work day.  Actually, it’s only force of will that gets me to do anything these days.  I am exhausted.  Spent.  Completely devoid of energy.  Waking, getting clean and dressed then getting to work absolutely wears me out and that’s after 10 hours of sleep…sometimes more…

All of the things that used to bring me joy just seem like chores now. My home life is falling apart because I can’t keep up with things and the smallest task seems insurmountable. I force myself to do one household thing each work day.  On Mondays I gather the garbage and take it out and it takes me all evening because I have to rest in between collecting the trash from the little cans on each floor of the house. Another night I try to wash some dishes. Cooking all but the simplest of meals is beyond me. Thank goodness feeding the cats only requires that I open a few cans and I’ve been using disposable bowls.  I do feel guilty about not playing with them as much as I used to and I can tell they miss it.

Still, I managed to hang onto my positive attitude until earlier this week when another symptom of hypothyroidism came crashing down upon me…depression. Usually depression is the first symptom to appear when my thyroid is out of whack, but this time it was a straggler. I want to feel like I’m doing a good job at work. I want to plant my garden. I want to make some art. I want to do more than just work and sleep. When I’m struggling like this I want people to be able to see it as a disability (even if it is eventually managed), but instead it is often assumed that I’m just lazy…that I don’t care…that I’m taking advantage in some way.  And that’s untrue. I’m sick and it often takes months to get me back to my own perception of wellness.

Until then I’ll continue to drag myself through the motions and be sad about my inability to find joy in, or even do, the things that used to make me happy. I’m just trying to hold my life together while both my work and home life seem to be falling apart.

I’ve wanted to write about numerous things on this blog in the past year. The first being one of my favorite topics, fat travel, as I’ve taken three trips this year and written about none of them. The first trip was a Carnival cruise that I took about a month and a half before Midian died, but when I came back from the trip, my little guy was so ill that everything else got wiped from my life so that I could be with him and, in the end, be there with him in every way when it came time for him to cross the veil. And after that, there was nothing but crushing grief as I went through the motions of everyday life.

So I never wrote about the Caribbean cruise or the short camping trip in Pennsylvania or my most recent trip up the Danube River through Central Europe.

As Samhain approaches and the veil thins, I’ll place a candle in the window to light Midian’s way and maybe his spectral form will visit me again and he’ll lay his little head in my palm like he used to as I fell asleep at night.

And when the veil thickens again, I’m making myself a promise to come back to this blog and write what I wanted to write over the past year while I’ve been consumed by grief. Because, as Bubbles from The Wire said, “Ain’t no shame in holding onto grief, as long as you make room for other things.”

The Limping Goddess:  She-Who-Survives

by Pesha Joyce Gertler, 1983

She limps into the room
     bent with the cargo of rape, battering
     single-parent mothering and bureaucratic neglect
     if she is fat or gay or nonwhite or Jewish
     the pains multiply;
she has carried them all.

Her lotus feet have trudged this planet
for aeons; torn tennis shoes tell
how far she’s traveled. She hunches
against the winter wind, her second-hand
coat like a blanket she wraps around
her golden body. Occasionally, she flies
over buildings, lands on tree tops,
is mistaken for a fat bird.

And occasionally, she falls,
intensifying her limp. But make no mistake;
that golden skin was mined in the black earth,
her feet, though limping and calloused,
are the lotus feet of She-Who-Survives.
A broken yet shining forgotten deity
returning, and there are millions
like her, multi-colored, limping
Goddesses returning to lay down our cargo
and reclaim our own.

Midian in the Back Window

It is with great sadness that I tell my readers of the passing of my beloved cat Midian on February 28, 2009. He was 13 years, 7 months, and 10 days old when he became so ill that I had to have him put to sleep, on of all days, my 36th birthday. I am thankful that he was vibrant and playful up until just a month or so before his death and he only spent a couple of weeks really feeling ill as both I and his vets did whatever we could to help him to a possible recovery. Finally, it got to a point where his back legs stopped working properly, he could no longer sleep, and he was obviously in pain.

With human beings there is a whole set of rituals for those left behind that are set around saying goodbye and remembering a loved one’s life after their passing. With animals, that system doesn’t exist and if you’re like me, someone who often prefers the company of animals to people, you need a way to remember a pet’s well-lived life and focus on the joys they brought instead of the excruciating pain of their loss.

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks telling stories of Midian’s life to my friends and family and digging through old photos of our adventures together. I knew that a part of my grieving process would have to be telling the story of Midian’s life. So I offer this up to you dear readers as a memorial for my friend, provocateur, protector, and ornery one. He is now and will always be truly missed.

In 1995, I was working at the Edgewood Area of Aberdeen Proving Ground as a contractor doing secretarial work. My roommate Kelly and I were planning and saving for a move from Maryland to Alaska in about a year—it had always been a dream of mine. One day I came back from the bathroom to find a box on my desk with a little black kitten with big blue eyes peering out at me. It turns out the kitten had been making his rounds in the building, being passed from office to office. He had been born to a stray under the soils lab on base and the employees of the lab were working to find homes for all of the kittens and then they were going to get their mother spayed. They found homes for all of the kittens except one. No one wanted a black male kitten (FYI…black animals, both dogs and cats, are the last to be adopted at shelters). Some didn’t want him because he was black and thought he was bad luck. Some didn’t want him because he was male and males spray until you get them neutered.

I told the lab employees that I was planning a big move in about a year and I didn’t think I should adopt an animal at that time, although my co-worker somehow knew better. I went home that evening and I thought about that little black kitten all night. The next day I came in to work and by lunch time the kitten appeared on my desk again. He played and bounded around my desk and had so much fun batting my pen about. I couldn’t stand the thought that if he didn’t find a home by the end of the day, he was going to the pound. I called Kelly and told her I had a surprise. I didn’t even have to voice it. “You’re bringing home a cat!” she yelled through the phone with excitement. So that evening, little Midian etched his paw prints on my heart. I didn’t find Midian; Midian found me.

By the time I arrived home with my new charge in his cardboard box, Kelly had a litter box with fresh litter prepared for him and the house was flush with kitten food and toys and an overwhelming sense of excitement from everyone else who lived there. Kelly and I agreed to split Midian’s expenses (we were both strapped for cash) and he would be our cat. We stood in line at a PetSmart clinic to get him his first shots (Midi stood on my shoulder during the entire wait) and after he sprayed Kelly’s room the first time, we got a certificate from SNAP so that we could afford to get him neutered. When Kelly went to pick him up from the vet after the procedure, the entire staff came out to see who owned the “hell cat”. And with that, one of Midi’s nicknames was born. He acquired many more over the years, from Midi, Midi-Boy, and My Little Man to Pudd, Puddlin and Puddin’ Face (don’t ask). And he knew every one of them.

Midian came to live with us in early October that year and Kelly actually named him. She had always wanted a panther named Midian, but figured our black kitten was as close as she was ever going to get. Midian was the place where the monsters lived in Clive Barker’s movie Night Breed (or his book Cabal, if you’re more of a reader). In Night Breed the monsters were the good guys. The name Midian also has biblical connotations. Moses’ father-in-law was high priest at Midian and the Midianites worshiped a variety of gods. I don’t think I’ve ever known a name to fit a personality as well as Midian’s fit his.

He wasn’t an easy cat to love in the beginning. I had an elderly toy poodle named Bunny at that time and she required a lot of my attention. She was mostly deaf and blind at that point and the only time she seemed to be relaxed and content was when I was holding her. Midian didn’t respond well to that. He was incredibly jealous. During his teenage kitty time, if Kelly or I would try to pick him up or show him affection, he’d go for our eyes with his claws.

At that time, my house was filled with people. We averaged about six residents with many friends who swung by after work or on weekends to hang out on a regular basis. And despite the fact that Midi’s owners were two women, he liked the guys in the house best. So Kelly and I provided the food and litter service and play time while the guys provided warm laps.

Rich and Midian Napping

I’d been a dog person up to that point in my life and adapting to loving Midian was a very different experience. I remember coming into the house once on one of those rare occasions during that time when no one was home. Midian, instead of greeting me, lashed out and tried to scratch me. I went thought the house mumbling and talking to myself aloud about how much I was not a cat person–that I was probably never going to be a cat person ’cause how could I possibly get to love a cat that tried to scratch me for fun. One of the house regulars came in at some point during the rant and I didn’t hear him. I accidentally encountered him with a boyish grin on his face as he listened to me rant about not being a cat person.

I’m not sure who first thought to give him a black leather bracelet with spikes coming out of it for a kitten collar, but he loved it and wore it like the bad-ass he was until he outgrew it. We used to joke about getting his ear pierced (we didn’t, that’d be cruel) because it would fit Midi’s personality so well. Here’s a photo of him in that spiked collar experiencing his first snow. Midian was generally not a fan of snow, but curiosity made him want to check it out when it hit the ground.

In the springtime, he used to go outside with us and we wouldn’t let him out of our sight. I remember being in the backyard and Midian was laying in the alley sunning himself. Two kids came speeding down the alley on their bikes and Midian never moved. He stared down those kids and they zoomed around him. I don’t think he even blinked.

Once, two big dogs from the nearby park somehow got unleashed and they chased after Midi. Midian was so fast. He bolted up a tree and stopped just out of the dogs’ reach. When he realized he was safe he just sat there calmly looking down at them as they jumped and barked and generally freaked out a couple of feet below him. The owners got control of the dogs and it only took a step stool to get Midi out of the tree. He had really only gone up far enough to be just out of reach

Midi used to love to hide in the bathtub and pop out and launch a surprise attack on whomever was on the toilet or leaning over the sink with their back to him. It was a favorite game of his. The bathroom seemed to suffer a rash of bathtub hair trap losses during this time period. I think I must have purchased a dozen or more of them and I had become convinced some mischievous faery had been stealing them. As we packed to leave for Alaska in June of the following year, Kelly found a cache of stolen drain traps in the back of her closet. Midi had been stealing them and hiding them from us for months.

In June we left for Alaska. We packed the pickup with all of our belongings and carved a little niche with private space (a large cat carrier with food and water and the door propped open along with a small litter box on the floor) for Midian in the club cab. Bunny went to my parents to live out her last days. She loved them and they loved her and she had grown up with them. It was hard to leave her, but she would never have made the journey. She took a bad fall and my parents had to have her put to sleep while we were en route. (Another sad story for another day).

Midian thrived on the journey and he had more fun and was more mischievous than I could have ever imagined. It was on that journey that our bonding truly began.

We spent our first night on the road with relatives in Pennsylvania so our camping out didn’t begin until we spent the night in Indiana. We had a harness to put Midian into so that we could hook him to a long leash. We had not tested it on him before we left and when I fastened it around his fidgeting form, it seemed really tight. Kelly and I figured he’d be okay until we unpacked our camping gear and got the tent erected, then we’d figure out how to adjust it. By the time the tent was up, Midi had wriggled out of the too-tight harness. At that point, we knew that whole plan was hopeless. Midian was not the kind of cat that would lower himself to being leashed.

There was a small stream behind our tent bordered by some trees and Midi had a fabulous time romping about and stalking small creatures. At night, we zipped Midian in the tent with us. His small litter box from the truck came into the tent in case he needed it. Midi decided my sleeping bag was floofier than Kelly’s bag so his defacto nighttime sleeping spot was on top of my sleeping bag between my legs. The next morning we awoke and started to pack up camp. Midi, deciding he really didn’t want to get back in the truck, went back to the stream and playfully hid from us.

By the time the camp was packed up and we were ready to go, Midian was nowhere to be found. What to do? I stayed at the campsite and called for Midi while Kelly drove off to the local grocery to pick up a bag of ice for the cooler. We had a little search for him together when Kelly came back and shortly thereafter we found him playing by the stream and thinking this hide-and-seek game was the funnest thing ever. He delayed our departure by about two hours. We decided our next stop would be someplace we could buy him a collar with a bell on it so we’d have an easier time finding him. I have a vivid memory of picking out Midi’s first bright red collar with the bell in a grocery store. He had break-away collars with bells from that moment on and he geniunely loved his collars.

Midian settled into traveling quite well. We had to keep a watch on him when he decided to visit us in the front seat because he often wanted to head down toward the driver’s legs. Whoever was in the passenger seat had to watch for that and redirect him to the passenger’s feet. He found several places that he liked in the cab of the truck. The floor on the passenger’s side was just one. If the road was fairly steady, he liked to sit on top of the cooler on the passenger’s side seat in the club cab. When he sat there, the window was at just the right height for him to look out and watch the world go by. He really seemed to enjoy that. If he wasn’t in either of those spots then he was in his carrier behind the driver’s seat. He often retreated there when he decided he’d had enough of both me and Kelly. It was his private spot and he knew it.

We stayed in Blue Mounds State Park in Wisconsin the next night and that became quite an adventure for all of us. We arrived very late because of our late departure in the morning so it was already dark. The park office was closed so we just found an empty campsite and figured we’d pay the fee on our way out the next morning. We let Midi out to explore a bit while we set up the tent then Kelly got to cooking our dinner (she was the main cook for the journey ’cause she’s just an awesome cook) and I set up the inside of our tent.

A rukus was emanating from one surrounding campsite after another and soon we discovered the culprits…raccoons. They were systematically raiding every campsite. Midian, ever our protector, chased two of them out of our campsite. He really quite enjoyed it bounding about looking all threatening. We finished our meal, packed our foodstuffs back into the truck to avoid repeat visitors and were getting ready to hit the sack when a third raccoon showed up. This raccoon was the largest, meanest, nastiest raccoon either of us had ever encountered and Midian wanted to take him on. For his own safety, we zipped Midian in the tent with us again that night. He was none to pleased with not being allowed to chase that creature out of his newly-acquired territory.

Well, in the dark, we must have spilled some of Midian’s dry cat food out of the truck accidentally and the next thing we knew there was a horrible melee outside the tent. The three raccoons were fighting over it and the big one won. We heard the other two slink past our tent yelping in defeat. I must say I’ve never been scared of raccoons, but that night Kelly and I slept with our hunting knives next to our pillows just in case that big one tried to slash its way into our tent.

The next night we ended up in Sioux City, South Dakota. The campground lost our reservation so we ended up camping directly next to their playground because the campground was completely full. We were right off of the highway surrounded by flat fields of tall grasses. I woke at dawn the following morning to Midian wailing. I got up, thinking that he was either hungry or thirsty only to find him perched atop the high-rise cap of the truck. I tried to placate him, but he was having none of it. Midian didn’t like Sioux City. He was bored and wanted to leave and was trying to rouse us to get us on the road again.

Later that morning we had both doors of the truck and the back hatch open while we packed up. Midi hopped into the truck as soon as we opened the doors. When everything was packed we started looking for him only to find out he was still in the truck waiting for us and ready to go. Kelly and I laughed so hard. Midi really didn’t like Sioux City and being a very intelligent cat, figured that if he got back in the truck, then the next time he got out he’d be someplace else.

We took the scenic route through the Badlands that day and ended up in one of my favorite places in the United States, the Black Hills. Having arrived there on July 3, we decided to spend two days in this campground so as to keep off of the roads on the July 4th holiday. The campground was really nice with pine trees and white sage growing wild everywhere. Midian approved. I think he loved the Black Hills as much as I do. There were all kinds of small critters to chase, trees to climb, and pine cones to bat about.

Midi took off exploring early the full day that we spent in that campground. When he came sauntering back in the afternoon he looked so happy. He hung around the campsite with us the rest of the evening and crashed cheerfully exhausted onto my sleeping bag that night.

The next morning we packed up again, got Midian into the truck, and just as I was getting ready to close the driver’s side door to leave, he bolted. Without even thinking I took off after him. I ran flat out over pine cones, losing a sandal in the process without slowing down. Midian was so stunned to see me chasing after him that he stopped, dumbfounded, and I caught him. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I swooped him up. Kelly was laughing so hard when she took that photo of me carrying Midian back to the truck. You can barely see him clutched to my chest in the image. If you look closely, you can see I only have on the one Birkenstock.

We shut Midian in to his carrier so he couldn’t bolt again and then Kelly had to help me search for my other shoe. It had literally flown off of my foot in a wide arc while I was in hot pursuit and it took us about ten minutes to find it. Amazingly enough, running flat out over pine cones with a bare foot, I didn’t hurt myself.

The next few nights camping passed without much fanfare. We stayed in a horrible campsite behind a truckstop in Montana, then in a really nice place along the Salmon River in northern Idaho (Midi liked it there too, but not as much as the Black Hills), and then a bad-feeling crazy-Christian hot springs in Boise, Idaho.

When we reached La Grande, Oregon, Midi took off again. We had packed up everything that morning and couldn’t find him. Kelly and I both went looking for him along the hills that bordered the campsite, but we had no luck. The campground manager told us there were lots of mice in the hills so Midian was probably off enjoying himself. With everything packed back in the truck, we paid for another night and headed into the tiny town to find something to do. We saw a movie and had some lunch at a local drive-up restaurant and pulling back into the campsite, we found Midian lying were he’d last seen our tent erected. He looked very sad. There was nothing of us there and he thought we’d left him–for good.

We put him directly into his carrier with food and water and he didn’t protest once. He knew he’d been bad (this was the first time he’d delayed us so much that we had to stay an additional night somewhere) and he was grateful that we didn’t abandon him. I really think he had that fear for a few hours when he returned and there was no sign of us. We zipped him in the tent with us that night and in the morning he went right back into his carrier while we packed up to leave.

Midian was better behaved after La Grande. He didn’t run off and while he still went and explored, he stayed much closer to our campsites. Sometimes, we all have to learn a lesson and we were really glad he learned it before we headed onto the Alaska Highway and there were much larger and more dangerous things he could encounter.

We stayed in Seattle next on a ranch just outside the city that not only had horses, but lots of big bunny rabbits running around. Midian made a friend of another black cat at the campground and they had fun playing and stalking the rabbits together. You can just see the rabbits beyond the tree in the first photo. There was plenty to keep Midi entertained there while we saw some sights.

We crossed the border into Canada next and Midi did quite a lot of sitting on the cooler looking out the window. It was beautiful. We camped at Watson Lake in the Yukon a few days later and on our way to the campsite we put up a sign in the signpost jungle (I’ve fuzzed out our last names). Kelly painted that little representation of Midian on the sign.

When we arrived at our Watson Lake campsite and opened the truck door, Midian immediately bolted off into a nearby tree, scaled about 15 feet up the trunk and jumped over to a branch to catch the tail of a squirrel in his mouth. He dangled from the squirrel’s tail and before we could get to him, the squirrel’s tail came off and Midian landed perfectly on the ground with it in his mouth.

I had never heard a squirrel screech like that and I hope I never do again. Midian looked utterly pleased with himself, sauntered back over to our campsite, and plopped down proudly beside us while we went about setting up camp. I’ll never forget the speed he had bolting out of the truck or the way he looked dangling from that squirrel’s tail 15 feet above the ground.

When we made it to Anchorage, we camped for a few weeks then moved into an apartment. Midi adjusted pretty well to apartment living, but he never lost his daredevil streak. The apartment had those old-style push out windows and Midi thought it fun once to walk out onto the outside ledge in pursuit of a raven. From that window, the drop was 6 floors to the asphalt below. He made it back inside fine, but I made sure he never got out on that ledge again.

When the Alaskan cold started to set in, Midi started coughing. At first, Kelly and I both thought he had hairballs so we got him an over-the-counter hairball remedy, but it didn’t do any good. The coughing got worse so I took him to the vet. After a chest x-ray that resulted in Midi being brought back into the exam room with his head and front paws wrapped in a towel (he was never a good patient), he was diagnosed with asthma. For a cat, being diagnosed with asthma that young (1 1/2) is unusual. Most cats don’t develop asthma until after their second birthday. Fortunately, he responded well to the prednisone treatment and he was on and off of it throughout his life.

Later that year, a violent man ended up in our apartment (I won’t go into details on who or how), and Midian, forever the protector who never passed up an opportunity to remind those who entered that this was his territory, scratched him. Midian was an excellent judge of character, but he was also an equal-opportunity scratcher. I was really the only one who could tell the difference between a normal bait and scratch and one that signified that the scratchee was not a good person. This was a not-a-good-person scratch.

The violent man lunged at Midi screaming that he would kill him for scratching him. He meant it. Midi, always being fast, jumped and dodged Mr. Violent and found a place to hide. And with roles reversing for the first time, I became Midian’s protector as I stepped in between him and his attacker. I suffered a hand-print bruise on my upper arm and several other bruises to my breast and torso from being pushed and manhandled until I got to the phone and dialed 911. The threat of police arriving helped to get Mr. Violent out of the apartment, but it didn’t stop him from trying to get back in by breaking the glass to a fire extinguisher in the hallway and using the extinguisher as a battering ram to try to break down the door. The threat of another call to the police stopped him again and he was coaxed out of the building.

Midian was okay and my bruises healed and after that incident, Midi started crawling up on my chest to lay down and purr. He started letting me gently and hypnotically pet his little nose with my finger from tip to forehead until he relaxed and purred himself to sleep. I think it was a turning point in our relationship. It was the point at which Midi realized that I loved him and would protect him despite his “difficult” personality. Some people would say that cats don’t understand things like that and to those people I say…you didn’t know my Midian.

One late night in April, Midian started acting strangely. He was crying and definitely agitated and he kept looking at me and appealing to me with his little chirps. There was nothing I could do to soothe him. A few minutes later the ground started to shake. The whole world seemed to be silent yet in motion. Things fell off shelves, window panes shook, and Midian sidled up close to me. Then it was over and a cacophony of car alarms rent through the night air. Midian had experienced his first earthquake and since our building was on a fault line (the front door was on the 2nd floor and the back door was in the basement), it swayed and rocked quite a bit despite the fact that the epicenter of the 4.3 quake was located out in Cook Inlet. Midian knew the quake was coming long before the shifting started. It took a good couple of hours afterward to calm him down.

At the end of a year in Anchorage, I returned to Maryland to finish my education and when Kelly and I talked about it, we knew Midian should return with me. Kelly was Midi’s play friend, but she didn’t experience the cuddle-up-and-purr with him that I did. Between that and the painfully dry Alaskan winters that exacerbated Midi’s asthma, and my ever-building bond with him, Kelly, as much as she didn’t want to, let Midian go.

During the drive from Anchorage to Baltimore, Midian got to know my father a bit (Dad insisted on flying up and driving back with me even though I desperately wanted to make the drive alone with only Midi to keep me company). My father is as big an animal lover as I am, but he didn’t quite “get” Midian and often referred to him as, “that cat of yours.”

The trip was fairly fast and uneventful. Mostly we just drove…almost 6000 miles in 5 travel days. Midian and I moved into a basement apartment in my parent’s house so I could go back to school full-time without a lot of expenses. Midi loved it there. My parent’s house was seated on 3 1/2 acres backed by woods and a little stream. It was a complete cat playground with fallen trees and baby rabbits. There were lots of squirrels, shrews, mice, and chipmunks to chase and catch and bring back to me as presents. Midian often like to dash back inside when you opened the door before you realized he was carrying something in his mouth. Then he’d let it go inside with great delight and I’d spend hours trying to trap a poor terrified chipmunk. Do any of you know how difficult it is for a human to catch a chipmunk in the house?! I learned that a Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy suggestion made the most sense… “A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.” It certainly helped to catch a chipmunk.

Midian, being my familiar, but not quite in the Pyewacket sense of the word in that I never channeled spells through him, loved being able to be outdoors. He was not, however, an outdoor cat in that he came in and out of the house regularly and slept inside with me except on the rare moonless summer evening when he, being a black cat, could disappear into the darkness. That made it all the easier for him to explore and stalk anonymously.

That did not mean that I didn’t worry about him endlessly and I put a protection charm on the bell on his collar to help keep him safe. That bell came in handy for me as well. Midian loved to bound up and attack your legs playfully from behind whenever you were walking outside. I made a game of it with him. I’d hear that bell bounding toward my back and just when Midi got close I’d spin around and face him and he’d quickly take on a little nonchalant swagger like he was saying, “What? Me? Pounce on you? Nah…How dare you think I’d even consider it?” He’d do it over and over again hoping to get a good pounce in without me noticing and each time I’d turn around in the nick of time and he’d feign innocence.

Midian often stayed near the house when he was outside. He loved lying under the deck on the picnic table or baking himself on the patio bricks on a sunny day. He loved going for walks with me around the property even more. In fact, I think those walks with me were his favorite things. It was like he got to share his explorations with his favorite person.

Midi Snoozing

I started learning to garden and Midian liked to go out with me whenever I would tend to it. Part of the garden was a container herb garden (look behind Midian in the above photo and you can see part of it). I would always go out to the container garden after I got home from work. It was part of my decompression time. One windy day, my Dad had let Midian out before I got home and when I went out to check on my container garden several of the planters had been blown sideways off of the bench they sat upon. Lying on the ground, at the very end of the bench was Midi, passed out, with his head stuck in a fallen catnip plant. I laughed so hard. He heard me, lifted his head out of the plant to look at me, and made the cutest happy noise. Then he put his head back in the catnip and went back to sleep. That’s my little man!

When Midian was inside and he’d go to the door and meow to go outside on his own, I made him go through a little lovey ritual. To be allowed out, he had to let me pick him up, give him a little squeeze, and a few kisses on the head before I’d put him back down and open the door. And while he protested at first and showed me a feigned annoyance, he got used to it and would chirp back at me when I cuddled him and told him when he needed to come back inside. We could have full back-and-forth conversations. Most people who witnessed this could hardly believe it. Midi was always very vocal and you could tell from the differing inflections in his voice that he was, indeed, communicating with me. By the end of his life I understood what every one of his little sounds and inflections meant.

"You are so not my favorite person right now."

Sometimes, there were trials and tribulations associated with Midi’s excursions. One day while playing in the woods behind the house, Midi encountered a curious black and white creature and being the inquisitive cat that he was, he strayed a little too close for that creature’s comfort. I smelled him long before I ever saw him and boy did he wreak of skunk. So I got the blood-letting pleasure of not only bathing Midian, but bathing him with shampoo then tomato juice then shampoo again. Midi was not pleased.

Midian also made some unusual friends on his excursions.  One night, when he was out, I started hearing an awful sound.  It sounded like ababy being tortured…screeching and yowling.  I grabbed the flashlight by the door and headed outside calling Midian’s name.  I heard an unmistakable Midian noise and followed it.  As my flashlight panned the yard it illuminated an almost-unbelievable sight–Midian and a fox sharing a meal of a bird.  Seriously.  They were sharing the bird.  Not fighting over it…sharing…  And both of them looked completely content.  Midian was such a bad ass that he’d made friends with an animal that would typically have been his natural enemy.

I learned not to let those screeching fox sounds bother me.  After all, Midian was just one of the pack.

Kelly came to visit during the holidays about two years after our parting and Midian couldn’t help but remember her and play rough with her again. Although he did supply her with the scratch, hiss, I’m-pissed-what-happened-to-you sequence as soon as she arrived. Notice how carefully and sneakily Kelly is trying to get a stroke in after she’d been allowed to scooch up next to him. Midian definitely got his sneaky streak from her.

Midi also got to know my parents during this time. He’d cry at my apartment door to go upstairs at least once a day where my father would spoil him with a slice of lunch meat–honey ham being his absolute favorite. As much as my father used to call him “your cat”, Dad fell in love with Midian, but refused to admit it. My mother, on the other hand, who is definitely not an animal person, did her best to steer clear of Midi. And both of them were afraid to ever pet him. Midi liked to sprawl near people looking all cute to tempt them to pet him and when they reached over a hand he’d grab hold. It was Midi’s attempt at play, but, thanks to Kelly, he’d learned to play rough. Over the years I was the only one who could play with him and when he got excited and started getting rough I’d have to stop playing and repeat, “easy…eeeeaaasssyyyy…, ” until he eased up and we could play again without my ending up full of bloody scratches.

Occasionally, Midian would surprise my parents. One day, when I was away on a camping trip with friends, Midian curled up on my mother’s lap. She was scared to touch him and didn’t move for over an hour until Midi decided he’d had the closeness he needed and left her lap to find a sunny spot.

"Take Me!"

My parents were always great about taking care of Midian when I went traveling. I was never gone for more than two weeks, and my Dad spoiled him rotten while I was gone. Still, whenever I’d be packing to go somewhere, Midian tried to stow away in my luggage. And if he was found out, he’d make sure that suitcase smelled like him so every other animal it encountered would know they should keep their paws off. I think he rubbed his little face over every inch of my luggage. It’s a good thing they don’t test for kitty pheromones with those wands at the airport.

My mother never got new furniture while Midi lived in her house and I don’t think she ever got over the fact that he shredded the plastic pool table cover. Thankfully, he never hurt the felt except for the fact that he left his hair all over it. See, Midian loved that crinkle plastic sound and the cover made that sound when it wrinkled. It’s the same sound that the plastic safety ring around the sour cream container makes when you chew on it or bat it about. There were many times when I caught Midian delicately removing that ring from the kitchen garbage can without disturbing anything else that was in there. I’d find it later covered in teeth marks hidden in some little nook . He didn’t eat it, he just liked to hear the sound when he chewed it. He couldn’t get enough of that sound whether it came in the form of thick plastic bags, plastic sour cream rings, or pool table covers.

Midian on the Pool Table in Mid-Talk

To the end of his life, I was the only one he’d permit to pick him up and he’d often come to me when I came home and want to be picked up–but he never wanted it to look like he wanted me to pick him up.

To be continued…  This post will be added to when I am able to detail the last few years of Midian’s life, but I felt the need for what is already written about my amazing little man to be out there…

Organizations that advocate, support, or practice discrimination based on age, ethnicity, gender, national origin, disability, race, size, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background are not eligible to participate in this program. Organizations must be willing and able to attest that they do not discriminate on any of these grounds in order to receive donations.

I guess I should expect that not discrimating because of size would be included in their requirements considering that TechSoup is based in San Francisco, but I was still pleasantly surprised to see it in the requirements for donations. Now if we could just get that standardized across the country. That would mean even more to cheer about. Yay for non-discrimination in the workplace.

I like the idea of a giving season, but what I don’t like are the societal obligations put on Americans, in particular, to spend, spend, spend until they are so deep in debt that they can’t dig out…then the credit card company raises your rate to 29.99% and you’re beyond screwed. 

I like giving gifts; I just don’t like being obligated to give gifts, especially to people I don’t like or only see once a year (and there are a couple of people that fall into those categories).  I’d much rather give donations to causes close to my heart or to people in geniune need than spend that money on gift cards and video games. 

This year, the Maryland Food Bank is getting a monetary donation from me.  Food banks can do a lot more with your money than they can with your canned goods.  They can buy a lot more food with your cash than you can.  They use their connections to get that same can of food for $.19 instead of the $.75 you might pay in the grocery store. If I didn’t have to buy/make so many presents this year, the food bank would be getting much more.  I hate that I am forced to spend those much-needed funds on consumerist gifts, especially this year when there are so many in need.

Another reason that I’m such a Scrooge is the glut of time that all of these holiday endeavours eat out of my daily life.  There is no ‘me’ time during the holidays and I am someone who desperately needs ‘me’ time to maintain my sanity. 

I am forced to make a lot of my gifts either through baking or crafting because I am not a rich person and my gift-giving list seems to get longer every year (it’s a whole page long now).  And while I am a very artsy/craftsy person and I tend to enjoy making things, there is something about the rush that takes all of the joy out of creating something to give.  And, to be completely honest, I’m sick of coming up with new ideas.  I’ve given homemade candles, soaps, herbal bath sachets (where I actually grew the herbs the summer prior), jewelry, baskets, herbal oils and vinegars, bath salts, iron-on t-shirt decals with rude sayings (for the nephew for several years running), black bottoms, challah, herb and cheese rolls, shortbread, brioche, truffles, and cookies of all types. 

These gifts are usually well received, but by the time I’ve given them, I’m so exhausted that I don’t really get to enjoy the recipients’ appreciation of them.

Another of the reasons I don’t like the holidays was well put by another holiday-hating blogger that I read regularly so I’ll quote intellectualbabe on this one as she said it so well:

Please refrain from telling me I should be grateful. I’ve discussed this before, but let me bring it up one more time since the “grateful” tends to go hand-in-hand with the whole “How can you hate Chriiiiiiiiistmissssssssss???”. For everything that I do have (friends, roof over head, employment, blah blah blah), there is always going to be a metaphorical hole in my alleged heart that is not going to be filled by friends, roof over head, employment, hobbies, blah blah blah. Platonic love, such as it is, will never satisfy me. Being the wacky asexual sidekick/third wheel doesn’t make me turn cartwheels of glee. I don’t “need” a partner/relationship. I want one. But because of whatever (anonymous commenters like to point out that I’m “angry” and that’s why I’m kryptonite to the male population of the universe), it doesn’t appear to be in the cards. [...] I understand that I am not 99.99999 percent of the universe’s bag. I get that. But don’t tell me that I shouldn’t have moments of sadness, that I shouldn’t be a touch resentful, and I shouldn’t be ANGRY that I ain’t feeling too great about being alone. Mind you, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, I am able to function, entertain myself, travel alone and I won’t be sitting in the house every weekend and I will make do until I kick off. But I will rage about it and I will raise hell about it until the day I fucking die, and if that’s problematic for you? Tough titty says the kitty. If nothing else, feel free to use me as your own lesson in gratitude. (However, I do charge for the privilege. I have PayPal.)

Amen to that!

So here are five songs that help me fight the funk.

1. Women’s Bodies by Rebecca Riots–Check out the Rebecca Riots website for a listen. I prefer the live version just because I love the energy of the performance.

2. Mouthwash by Kate Nash

3. Three Little Birds by Bob Marly and the Wailers–just ’cause it always makes me smile