Good bye, Kitten

Today I write this with a heavy heart. The past few weeks Kitten had been very ill, losing weight, continuing to get sick once or twice a day, not grooming herself and crying at times in what I can only assume was pain when we picked her up. Last Sunday, the 21st Andrew and Dad planted a nice golden delicious apple tree and dug the hole. Andrew made a poplar box and on Thursday Kitten visited the vet for the final time. I am very sad and miss her terribly. Tweek is lively as ever and while he does not sleep with us all night, he pops up to visit and likes to cuddle in the morning. There really isn't anymore to say I suppose.

Moving on to things less sad, Andrew is less than two weeks away from graduating paramedic school. At the end of June we will be going to New Orleans for the America Library Association Conference. This weekend Andrew worked on his term paper while I got serious about refinishing and oak dresser Dad picked up for me last summer. The drawers inside are disgusting, mildew-y and dirty. I wanted to completely redo those drawers saving only the solid oak fronts but because the drawers are dovetailed, Andrew worries about damaging the joints. He’ll be sanding those. The dresser still needs a lot of cleaning on the inside (grooves of wood hold abandoned wads of spider webs) and the dresser top needs quite a bit of sanding. I will send pictures out soon.

For not “blogging” in a while I guess I don’t have that much news. We’ve hung more pictures and things and the house is really starting to come together. Once Andrew is out of school we’ll begin working on the yard in earnest. I’ve been doing more non-professional writing this past month and in April but now outdoor pursuits will be calling.

As for Reader’s Advisory I am listening to Wendy Wasserstein’s Elements of Style, which would be just another Upper East Side elite love fest if of course, it was written by someone other than the late and very talented Wasserstein. The characters will rarely likable except for a couple, are much more real than the usual New York Society books so popular right now. I read a really great YA book last week called Dead Connection by Charlie Price. It’s kind of a murder mystery set told through the eyes of several characters with a sixth sense like twist. I am also listening to the captivating yet very dark “Geek Love” told by a 38 year old albino dwarf about her childhood in a traveling carnival. Her parents intentionally experimented with all kinds of harmful substances to produce natural geeks like Siamese twins who play the piano and a boy with flippers instead of limbs. I have Ladies in Lavender in the DVD player—it’s pretty cute but also a little sad.