Good Grief

I've debated whether or not I should plague my readership (however small it may be) with what is undoubtedly the most difficult thing, emotionally, I've had to struggle with in my short life. I have decided that I definitely should. It is my blog, after all. And you don't have to read this post (although I think you should, because everything I write is gold, naturally).

Friskies has been my friend and confidante since I was 10 years old. Although I was the one who got to choose her rather unfortunate name, I never personally took it upon myself to claim her as my cat. She, however, took it upon herself to claim my bed as hers and so our relationship grew. She watched (actually, maybe napped is the better verb here) while I awkwardly made my way through middle school, high school, and puberty in general. When I came home from university she was always there, ready to provide cuddles and gentle indifference. She got kicked out of the room the first couple times I kissed a boy, and she dutifully stood guard at the door until she was welcomed back. Soon after a somewhat resentful chirp and some annoyingly slow stretching and chin-rubbing on the threshold of the door, she would reliably be right back in her middle-of-the-bed station, purring as though she were part 1969 Ford Mustang, muffler-free.
The only time I've had to deal with anything bad happening to her was when she was six or seven and she had to have a small operation to remedy a bladder issue. Now I have to deal with something of a more sinister nature. She has become increasingly rotund through the middle and bonier in the shoulders and hindquarters. Not long ago her appetite started dropping off, so I made an appointment with the vet. I took her in on Thursday and, after having x-rays done, I was told that there was a mass of some kind in her abdomen. It could be either a tumor on her spleen that has just become very large or a tumor that has formed around her intestines, making digesting food difficult. The former possibility is what we are hoping for, because spleens are superfluous organs for cats. The latter is, in most cases, inoperable. Either way, she is in pain. We won't know exactly what the problem is until an ultrasound is done. Hopefully that will be tomorrow.

So this situation is, understandably I think, the only thing I have been thinking about since Thursday. I've had a bit of time to mull it over and get used to the idea of her not being around anymore, although that is obviously the last thing I want. She has been my friend for so very long and I have been so lucky to have her in my life. In fact, we've been friends for most of my life. Normally not a particularly sentimental person, I am surprised by how many things trigger an emotional breakdown for me. On Friday at work before my shift, I was reaching into the cupboard for a mug. A co-worker came into the kitchen and said "Hi, how are you?" and I burst into tears. He was completely stunned and said, after a pause "Can't find a cup?". I then exploded the whole cat story onto him and he stood there, very kindly, listening to me, likely thinking "Wow, that new girl sure is a fruit loop". I doubt he'll ever ask me how I am again!

Friskies has an ultrasound tentatively scheduled for tomorrow, although I haven't a confirmation heard from the vet's office. She is barely eating anything and today I had to actually place her in her litterbox for a pee because her energy is so low that I was afraid she might not make it. She is definitely not herself. It's a very sad thing to witness, the slow decline of one of your best friends. I don't give a fuck if people think I'm crazy for calling her my best friend. They obviously, and unfortunately, have never had the incredible experience of becoming close with an animal. It sucks that I have to make these kinds of decisions now, and deal with this overwhelming sadness, but if this is the payment I have to make for the unconditional love I have received from her throughout her entire life, I think it's more than worth it.
Please, friends, keep positive thoughts for Friskies in your mind. If you're the praying type, I'm sure she'd appreciate that too.

My Cat (Again)

I received an email this morning from PetSmart. Before you rush to conclusions (I'm not really sure what conclusions you'd rush to, given this information, but sometimes I like to cover my ass [other times I like to leave it bare, obviously]), I'd like to give you some background information: I signed up for the frequent shopper thingie at PetSmart, where they give you a keycard thing that they swipe and, supposedly, you get a discount for shopping there frequently (sorry for the long sentence and the absurd amount of brackets/parentheses contained therein). I have yet to see this discount, but I will continue to shop there when it is convenient for me. Given that PetSmart is a huge chain that is soaking up the pet merch money from the other small pet supply businesses in town, I only shop there if I know they have something the other places don't. I just like to support local businesses, y'know?

Anyway, I was talking about Friskies... Um... I forget... Oh yes, I got an email this morning from PetSmart about nutritional supplements for cats and dogs, and I'm not sure what scares me more: how excited I was about PetSmart now carrying GNC pet vitamins, or how efficient PetSmart's marketing tactics are.

Yesterday I spent more money than is defensible on food for my dear feline. I justified this by the fact that she is getting older and creakier (she is 13 and I remember when we got her, so that makes me feel old too) and she needs good quality food so she doesn't die so soon, and she is also fat, so she needs special low-cal food, and she needs cranberry extract because she has pissing problems from time to time. Maybe I feel like I have to buy her love because I feel guilty about keeping her indoors.

In summation, I fucking love my cat.

Ode to My Cat and Delicious Meals

**DISCLAIMER**

I already know I'm a crazy cat lady. Blog posts about my cat are the least of my psychoses, so no need to notify me of this.

A noble companion.

I am perpetually heartbroken at how cute and sweet Friskies is. She's here right now, laying on me and making squeaky snoring sounds. GP says cats don't feel love, but I disagree. I don't know why she would do some of the things she does if she didn't love me. For example, there have been times when I've been a sad inconsolable wreck of a person, sobbing uncontrollably (not lately, but definitely during my first year of uni, especially at Christmas time, for reasons Sarah knows) and Friskies would gently hop onto whatever surface I was sitting/laying on (bed, desk, or other) and start licking my face. She could tell I was sad and she wanted me to feel better. It wasn't because I was being noisy, either, she just wanted to be unselfishly lovey.

I'm also thankful I can have a cat because I'd go crazy (crazier?) if I didn't have someone to talk to or pay attention to during the day. Having a pet has made me more responsible and less selfish. I can't sleep in until noon anymore because she needs to be fed. I have to vacuum regularly now because otherwise our house would look like the inside of a wool muffler and GP's allergies would cripple him.

As much as I love my fluffy feline Friskies, I also love dogs. I don't, however, understand those people who prefer cats over dogs, or vice versa. Cats are independent; they don't want or need you to constantly pay attention to them. Friskies and I have a mutually beneficial relationship that seems to work really well: when I want cuddles, she capitulates as much as she wants and when she wants cuddles I capitulate as much as I want. When she wants food I capitulate as much as veterinary recommendations allow and when we both want cuddles at the same time, well, that's wonderful. I would love to have a dog. Dogs make it socially acceptable for you to go on walks and swims in the lake alone (not that I wouldn't do that anyway) and they are fun to train. Both dogs and cats are good company for TV-watching, but neither compare to GP in that arena. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my personality is sufficiently ying/yang that I'm overjoyed to have either a cat or a dog, or both. I fucking love animals.

Now, the title of this post also contains the words "delicious meals", and I don't intend to disappoint. Without further ado, I'll show you some photos of what we've been eating lately:





A few nights ago we had lemon/molasses roasted chicken thighs with grilled local crookneck squash and a salad of heirloom tomatoes and basil, lightly dressed with olive oil, balsamic reduction and some fleur de sel.


To the right you will notice some aromatics. The basil, onions, garlic and lemon zest were some of the flavour components in the mussel and prawn dish below.


















Instead of the pasta usually served with this kind of recipe, I substituted some steamed local streaky-purple runner beans. It was a good experiment but I think next time I'll split them in half length-wise to make them feel more pasta-esque.

As you may have noticed, I've become a bit obsessed with all the fresh fruit and veggies that are in season now and I've been buying most of our produce locally because it's so effing delicious and cheap. Both GP and I love eating nectarines with homemade yogurt and some toasted almonds as a slightly healthier dessert. It's so nice to have fresh juicy fruit to eat and it's really a lot of fun to cook with these different-looking veggies (the crookneck squash is a favourite). We've been using our BBQ for almost every meal because I find grilling veggies brings out so much of their flavour. In fact, below is a picture of GP grilling up a storm of local turkey sausage and a close-up of the purple runner beans I was talking about earlier:


Those beans are fantastic on the BBQ- way better than steamed. If you don't do anything else new in the way of veggies this summer, do this:

1. Trim and wash beans- big thick local runner beans, or normal ones if you can't get good ones, but if you can't get the big ones I'm not sure you should bother.
2. Toss with a dash or two of grapeseed oil, S and P and a bit of garlic (fresh or granulated, doesn't matter).
3. Throw 'em on the grill at medium heat for a few minutes (four minutes total?), or until they show slight grill marks.
4. Eat them all quickly, before someone else does.

Last but not least, here is the dish I made last night:

Courtesy of Nigella Lawson and her book Forever Summer (thanks again, Monsieur Andrews), it is a chicken and parsley salad with toasted almonds. Simple enough, with a lemon juice and olive oil dressing, it was just what the doctor ordered as GP wasn't home, I wasn't very hungry, there was leftover chicken in the fridge and I didn't have enough parsley for two people. I ate it outside in the sun because it seemed like that is where it would've been enjoyed best. I wasn't wrong.

What is fair?

My friend Shelder recently posted this article on her Facebook: http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/95973419.html and my friend Liz commented on it, expressing her frustration that someone who goes and rapes little girls in developing countries only gets twelve years in prison. I agree with her, that a 12-year prison sentence doesn't seem long enough for someone who has done something so atrocious as taking advantage of people who are, no doubt, the most vulnerable in the world.

This got me to thinking about an article I read in the local newspaper (when I was washing windows, as it happens, because I use old newspaper instead of paper towels). Turns out the article wasn't as old as I thought it was: http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/cowichannewsleader/news/94192384.html . It's about a man in the area who killed someone's cat with a broom handle. Read the story if you want more information. What got me was that he only had to serve thirty days in prison. THIRTY DAYS! That's less than Martha Stewart got, and this guy took a life! Needless to say, I washed the window with the mugshot of this awful guy, making sure I really put some elbow grease into making a hole in the paper with the Windex and the wiping. Maybe as a (GP says overprotective, I just say doting) cat mother I place more value on the life of a cat than other people do, but jeez. I would place the severity of this crime with AT LEAST that of the rape of a person. Seriously.

I was talking about this with GP because it obviously had an effect on me (besides making me even more lovey with Friskies). As a lawyer, he tends to know a bit about the penal (ha, funny word) system. He agrees that it doesn't really seem like long enough, but it's as much (or more) about rehabilitation as it is about punishment. The more likely a criminal is to re-offend, based on past criminal behaviour, precedents, studies, and other evidence, the longer they have to be put in the slammer.

I guess that makes sense, but damn, how could anyone ever hurt this?

What's your excuse for not exercising?

My new excuse for not exercising: Since yesterday, I have a blog. That means, in addition to my other excuses (cooking, knitting, brushing my cat, baking, watching Say Yes to the Dress, homework [ha]), I can rationalize keeping my flabby butt on the couch by telling myself the world needs to know about my life.

Since I only have school two days a week, I have recently taken up hobbies again. This trend seems to be contagious as GP is now seriously interested in bonsai cultivation. He spent most of his day yesterday trying to find a ficus plant (a failed mission, unfortunately). Anyway, I actually do have quite a bit to do for school. I have to finish reading a novel for tomorrow. I'm around 1/3 through, so this would actually be a possibility if I stopped writing this right now and didn't want to start the front right part of the cardigan I'm knitting and didn't want to play with my cat.

One procrastinatory (oooh, new word!) tool I have in my arsenal of many is cooking. Last night, in fact, GP tried to ask me if I had "too many pots and pans". He said he had "never seen anyone actually use the drawer underneath the oven for storage on a regular basis". Clearly he also doesn't know anyone who worked at The Bay for longer than she cares to admit and, consequently has a lot more "homemaking" devices than most other 20-somethings do. I told him if he tried to get me to get rid of my cookware I would castigate him on my blog. However, as you're the only one who reads this, GP, (and only because I told you to), I doubt this is very much of a threat.

What do I write for a blog whose audience is the person who knows everything about me already? I will think on that.