catiecake.

Nose

Dear Kittens,

1. I really need to get the rest of our vacation photos posted.

2. You kittens are so remarkably loving and supportive and I truly appreciate all of the kind words you've lavished on me in the last week. It means so much. It's been a week since Petey was killed and we still miss him tremendously. Really, I can't imagine NOT missing that cat. He was pretty flufftastic.

3. I've been dog shopping. And doing general dog research. It's a nice distraction and at first I wanted a dog immediately, but then I realized it will be much better to do this after the holidays when there is much less chaos.

4. Obviously my new early schedule has taken a powder tonight. That makes me sad, but sometimes a person needs to stay up late.

5. I FINALLY finished A Prayer For Owen Meany. I loved it and was irritated by it. The political commentary was tiring and didn't quite seem necessary, but it was still a great story and I loved it.

6. I am not going to require people to take their shoes off when they come into our house, but I did buy a bunch of inexpensive slippers in various sizes from Old Navy. Let's see what happens. There are going to be two baskets in our entry way. One with the slippers in it and one for shoes.

7. My sinuses have been horribly dry and uncomfortable lately. Just tonight I bought saline nose moisturizer and I feel so much better. I'm going to put vaseline in my nose before bed. Because lemme tell you this- having a dry nose is awful! My boogers are so hard and sharp I could use them as tiny booger daggars. Or something.

I'ma get ready for the bed. Staying up late is stupid.

Love,
Catie

Lounge

Dear Kittens,

1. I've lost people I've loved before, but they were never small and fluffy and black. And it was never someone that I saw every day and that kneaded my left boob several times a day. Grieving Petey Pants is hard. The overwhelming sadness had lifted and has been replaced by waves of overwhelming sadness. The non stop crying is gone, thankfully. I still cry, but only a couple times time for a short while each day.

2. We've wanted a dog for some time, but having an old, sick cat (Roo) and a cat who hated dogs and would often CHASE AFTER THEM (Petey) it didn't seem like a good idea. The leftover cat (Seamus) likes dogs, actually, he's pretty friendly to everyone and will only fight with a cat if the other cat starts it. So, we're seriously thinking about a dog now. And another cat. The only thing worse than our own grief is Seamus'. He's really sad about losing his running buddy and it's clear to use that he's not meant to be an only cat. He needs someone to play with and go adventuring with.

3. The breed of the dog is not that important to us. We want a certain personality and energy level. We want a dog who is playful, but not crazy energetic. We want a medium size dog- no bigger than 60 pounds and we want a dog that will like having a human name, like say, Ed. Or maybe John or Greg. Or maybe Arlene, Barb or Gladys. Also, NO PUPPIES. Puppies are cute, but I am not interested in dealing with puppy bullshit. Unless of course, I lose my mind and fall in love with a puppy.

The new kitty should be affectionate, tolerant of kisses, not black, and playful, but not bitey or scratchy or overly jerky. We've only ever had boy cats, so I'm thinking about getting a girl cat, but we don't really care.

4. I started this post several hours ago. We just got back from looking at a couple cat adoption fairs. Just to meet cats, we were not going to come home with a cat. The first place we went the people were very cool. They let us meet a couple of cats, we chatted. The second place we went was a different story. The woman made me fill out an application- when she found out that Petey was hit by a car they refused to let us meet any cats. They adopt to strictly indoor cat households. And then as were we leaving the woman said, "well, your cat got killed by a car, see?" I started crying. Of course she doesn't know that my cat just died last Tuesday and maybe if she did know, she would've worded the whole thing so she did not come off as an insensitive asshole. Or maybe not. We'll never know. The thing that blew my mind, at each location there were a lot of cats that do not have homes. And yet, they will say no to us because we let cats go outside, as if they were animals.

Also, it was clearly too soon to do this.

5. Our new furniture was delivered today! I am so happy with it. You will see photos, but not right now because I am busy lounging on the new furniture.

6. I'm on this whole early schedule thing which means my computer gets turned off in the 7 o'clock hour and then I get ready for bed around 8 pm and I'm in bed by 9. I get up before 6 am without an alarm. And I'm awake and I feel good! Of course, tonight I am an hour late on that schedule, but the point is the farmer schedule is my perferred schedule. The thing I love most is being able to take a walk before my neighborhood gets going.

Love,

Catie

The kitty love of my life.

Dear Kittens,

Thank you so much for all your kind words of condolences. It really means quite a lot. I'm sure I've experienced this level of sadness before, but thankfully, I do not remember it. Of course there is never a time where one would sign up to lose their pet, but the loss of Petey on the heels of Roo's death is particularly shitty timing. It's tempting to button is all up and pretend that we're coping okay, but we're really not. The tears are endless, our grief is huge and the sadness is unrelenting. I am truly glad for Andy that he gets to leave the house and go to work. It will be a relief for him to put his focus into something else. I've got a couple projects I can work on, but I have no joy for them. I think I should just do them even without the enthusiasm so I can keep my brain occupied.

I am grateful for some tender mercies.

I'm so grateful that my kind neighbor collected Petey and put him in a box. Seeing him on the street would've been a thousand times worse.

I'm grateful that he died quickly and we did not have to agonize over spending money to fix him or put him down.

I feel really good that he had a good life with us. From the second I first picked him up he purred and purred and purred and he never stopped. We lliked to say that Petey loved love and it was true. He didn't want anyone to miss out on an opportunity to pet him. He brought such love and sweetness into our house for the 8 years that we had him.

Petey had exactly one trick. The Fake Out. He would show interest in something and when it was clear you were not going to be cooperative in giving it to him, he would pretend to not be interested and quickly go for it. This worked for running outside, any sort of craft project I worked on and toys.

This photo was taken of March this year. The cats were not happy to be held at the same time, obviously, but I loved it. And I love them. Even with the pain of losing Roo and Petey, it was totally worth it.

 

Love,

Catie

Petey

Dear Kittens,

I had a very different post planned for today. While Andy and I were out tonight, our sweetest kitty, Petey, was killed by a car. Our next door neighbor found him in the street. She said that Seamus wouldn't leave his side and she was worried Seamy would be hit too. She kindly gathered Petey into a box and put him on our porch with a note.

Our hhearts are broken and just when we think we've stopped crying we start up again. Petey was the kitty love of my life and while I know I will eventually get over this sadness I feel right now, I cannot really imagine that ever happening.

Oh Petey. I love you so much.

Catie

Bulgaria

Dear Kittens,

Do you know what is a big job? Editing photos for a 15 day trip. I just finished the Bulgarian photos and so I will now share my Bulgarian story.

Firstly, Andy's dad is Bulgarian and his mom is Polish. They met while Rangel was studying in Poland. They fell in love and were married very quickly. Rangel finished his studies and got a job with the governement in Bulgaria. Andy was born near the Black Sea in Bulgaria. His parents escaped communism with Andy and Rangel's mother when Andy was three years old. 

When communism fell, Andy's parents went back to Bulgaria and reclaimed the land that had once been Rangel's parents farm. They tore down the old house that was in serious disrepair, started a vineyard, bought even more land and now Eva's vineyards support their part-time life in Bulgaria. She sells her table grapes and wine grapes to sellers throughout Europe. Every year, Andy parents make a few different wines, but my particular favorite is the Mavrud. There are similar grapes grown in other places, but the wine that Rangel makes is very good. Full bodied, deep, rich flavor, balanced and seriously one of the best wines I've ever drank. He also makes various (grape, apricot, etc) brandies called rakia. I am not such a big fan of the brandy, but people in the know say that his rakia is very good. Andy's parents spend a good portion of the year in Bulgaria now.

This was the first time Andy been back to Bulgaria since he was 3 years old.

Rangel and Eva's home is in the tiny village of Markovo, just outside of the second largest city in Bulgaria, Plovdiv. We spent 3 days there, which was just long enough to let us know that we definitely wanted to visit again.

Here's what I noticed:

There are a lot of young people in Plovdiv. My in-laws say this is because there are a lot of college students in Bulgaria. Apparently Bulgarian medical school and dental school are cheap and so it attracts a lot of students.

There are also a TON of babies. I've never seen so many strollers in one place.

Our hotel was near a shopping area that had a lot of outdoor cafes, that were packed by midday and plenty of the same style shops you'd find at any American mall.

The young people dress mostly in jeans, but there were some things I noticed that we don't see in the states. A lot of women wear lace thong body suits. There was a lot of crimped hair and a lot of big hair. People get sort of dressed up to walk through the shopping area. Big sunglasses are big in Plovdiv. Several girls wore short shirts with their pantyhose pulled up right under their bras, so instead of seeing a bare belly, you saw pantyhose.

Plovdiv is poor, but also thriving. In it's efforts to grow and expand, they've uncovered Thracian, Greek and Roman ruins.

A surprising number of people spoke at least a little English and everywhere we met people were patient with our lack of Bulgarian and extremely friendly.

My favorite part of Plovdiv was walking around "Old Plovdiv". The streets are hilly and cobbled making walking a sweaty chore, but it's all so charming! We saw a Christian Orthodox church that was built in  36 AD, a Greek amphitheatre where they continue to have summer concerts and loads of kitties roaming around.

The food is an interesting mix of Greek, Turkish and Middle Eastern. Bulgarians like to start out each meal with an impressive selection of amazing salads and then go to main courses with vegetables on the side. The food is simply and deliciously prepared and the produce is super fresh and with lots of interesting varieties of things we don't get in the US.

Photos can be found here.

Here is a map of Bulgaria.

Love,
Catie 

Home

Dear Kittens,

I thought I'd be blogging my way through Europe, but that was not to happen and now I'm glad for it. I had more or less a 15 day media fast. No internet, no TV, no radio, no newspapers. I loved it, but I think it was hard on Andy because he read every newspaper within reach as soon as we landed.

I've got a lot to tell you, Kittens, and it will all come out over the next week or so, I'm sure. Firstly, I will get the bad news out of the way so we can move on to only good news. The worst news is that at 4:30 am (Italian time) on Nov 1 we got a phone call from our cat siiter. Our 18 year old cat, Roo died. It was the only thing I did not want to have happen. I even asked Roo to not die while we were gone, but I understand that he could not wait. I am unsure of all the details and quite frankly, they do not matter to me. Even though he was old and very sick and very skinny and very rickety, I am heartbroken over his loss. That cat did not even like me, but I loved him.

We got him November 1, 1990. Two months after Andy and I started living together. The guy we got him from brought Roo to our house in a cardboard box strapped to his motorcycle.I could hear him meow before the guy ever got into our apartment. He was so tiny that he fit in the palm of my hand. The fur along his spine stuck straight up and if you flipped him over, the stripes on his belly looked like his skeleton. The guy billed Roo as "playful", but really he was meaner than a snake, but Andy and I found his biting and general poor behavior hilarious. We're easily charmed by naughty. I really hope this does not continue with human babies. When Roo was a kitten he loved to sleep at the bottom of our bed, under the covers. If you dared invaded his space, he would bite the piss out of you. He LOVED riding around on our shoulders, so we would routinely be climbed so he could get to favorite perch.

For the first 5 or so years of his life, he went everywhere with us. He was an excellent road trip partner. He was super loving in the car, he loved beef jerky and except for one time when he was brand new, he never once peed or pooped in the car. He was always sleek and attractive and social. Whenever we had a party, Roo would find himself a spot where he could be admired, but he did not want to be petted. He allowed petting once he was super old, but in his younger days he did not tolerate such ridiculousness.

When I would cry, Roo would come to be with me. Not to be petted, but just to offer comfort by sitting near(ish) me. He tolerated being held like a baby would often lick the tip of my nose when I held him like that.

He LOVED people food. We would let him sit in a chair at the table while we ate. Even when we weren't having food he wanted to eat, he would regularly keep us company at the table anyway. These two leftover cats are awesome in their own right, but they will never be Roo.

Love,
Catie