Back when my furkid Pilot got sick with cancer, had a leg amputated, an eye tumor removed and then died I desperately needed my friends to gather around me. To my surprise the ones that did show up were the ones that I didn’t expect, like my college friends who don’t entirely get my love for my cats. They sent me cards, called and even came by my house to cheer me up.

There were friends of mine I really expected to want to be there for me and weren’t, I don’t think our relationship will ever be the same. The hardest part was how many times I’d been there for them over the years. This all really opened my eyes to something I didn’t really want to see but I can’t unsee.

I’m also trying to build a relationship with my brother from pretty much nothing. We were never close and we’ve come to realize that we’d like to be have a relationship. It’s not easy and will take a lot of work on both ends. We’re 7 years apart, which is a much bigger age gap than one might think. The older we get the more the gap closes and we can communicate more like adults. As long as we both want to get to a better place I believe it will happen.

I suppose I really need to learn to stop expecting anything and just live with what is. Though I do think the world is changing quickly into a place where people take things and others for granted. I guess there isn’t much I can do about that, I just have decide what I’m willing to live with and what I can’t. It’s a daily adjustment but I’m figuring it out.

Share and Enjoy

Here it is:

1. Clean your nails off, wash them with soap too helps.

2. Buff your nails.

3. Put on a bottom coat of Orly Bonder.

4. Put 2 coats of nailpolish, doesn’t really matter what brand from what I can tell.

5. Put a top coat of Orly Won’t Chip

I swear this isn’t a paid post for Orly, this is just what my friends showed me and it works. The  last 2 times I’ve followed these directions my nailpolish has lasted 5 days to a week but I also file a lot so I put a lot of wear on my nails during the day.

So give it a try and leave a comment and let me know if it works!

Share and Enjoy

I haven’t officially made the decision to delete my instagram. Many are fleeing because they found out that Instagram owns their pictures, or something like that. I’m not pissed at Instagram because of this, I realize all my pictures online aren’t safe, which is why I try to post stuff nobody would ever care about (ie. cat pictures and pictures of my food).

My issue with Instagram happened a couple weeks ago when I realized that they are not connected to twitter anymore. What does that mean? It means that when you post a photo to Instagram and have it also sent to twitter, it now only shows up as a link whereas before it would show up as a picture and would be featured in your twitter gallery. Now, my twitter gallery, is nearly empty. This pissed me off a bit.

So I started to think about how I could resolve this, since I like to post pictures to twitter and not just Instagram. I thought maybe I could post to instagram and then separately post to Twitter, but that is way too much of a hassle. I could just post my pictures to twitter, which I will do sometimes, but I miss the gallery and gropu aspect that I got with Instagram. Then I realized many people were moving to flickr and I already have a flickr. At first I didn’t want to post my crappy mobile pictures to flickr where I put my pictures I take with my digital camera but then I thought, why not?

So I’ve decided I’ll probably take down my Instagram but I kind of want to send the pictures to somewhere online even though I saved all the pictures on my computer already. I don’t want to put all my Instagram pictures on flickr because I don’t want to flood it with the shoddy pictures I have on Instagram.

All I know is, I used to love Instagram and now…it’s lost it’s luster.

Share and Enjoy

I’ve actually lost a couple good friends due to social media for the most part. Because of Twitter and Facebook it’s so easy to unfollow or unfriend someone and write them off without a second thought. You don’t have to confront them or address any issues, you can just push a button and they are basically out of your life.

A friend of mine and I had been drifting apart for a while, even though we had more than a decade of friendship behind us. These things happen, we change and go in different directions. The thing with us, even though we were best friends for a very long time and very close we chose to hide behind social media and just shut each other out. To this day, we never talked about what happened or even attempted to salvage our friendship because quite honestly, it was easier to just walk away without saying a word.

Recently I had another falling out. My friend and I had been close for a long time but over the past year or so I’d felt us not connecting like we used to. I think we were both sick of each other and didn’t feel the same friendship that we once had. One day, after something she posted that hurt my feelings I blocked her on twitter, because I needed a break from seeing her in my feed. The next day I saw she’d unfollowed me and I figured it had something to do with me blocking her, maybe Twitter automatically unfollowed her from me or maybe she just decided to take the plunge and dump me.

Either way, again we never talked about it. I think about it but it’s so childish I wouldn’t know how to start and quite honestly I never communicated with these 2 people to begin with. When I know that if I confront someone about something that they will automatically get defensive I tend to avoid it because it just escalates to a dangerous place.

I’ve made more friends than lost friends through social media but the friends I’ve lost will always leave a cloud over my online world.

Share and Enjoy

My husband, who I playfully call Manly Man, is the most authentic man I know. Many guys who have this idea of “masculinity” might think he’s not a man because he doesn’t conform to how the majority might think a straight guy should be. My husband wears jelly bracelets, colors his converse, sometimes puts on nail polish, does the majority of the cooking and is by far the most emotional person I’ve ever met (including me).

On the other side of it my husband is a very hard worker, back when he had a career at all. He also can fix almost anything in the house except for things like plumbing and electrical stuff. He knows how to change a tire, check my oil and basically just takes care of me on every level. That’s what a man is, a guy who makes you feel safe and protected.

Share and Enjoy

• We adopted a new cat, his names is Miles. He’s named after Chris Miles from Skins, because that character was both badass and sweet as hell. Miles was a stray for most of his life and was eventually brought into our local shelter. I loved him right away, though he’s a bit difficult having SO much energy at 2 1/2 years old and crying all night. We’ll figure it out as we’ve done with all the other cats in our lives.
• Manly Man still doesn’t have work and it sucks. He’s trying and there is nothing even remotely near us and small places just won’t seem to hire him.
• Photography is mostly on the back-burner as I just haven’t had the emotional energy to deal with people.
• I’m going away for a couple days to visit a friend in Vermont and I can’t wait. I need to get away and refresh, very much.
• British television is still wonderful and frustrating as hell. You can see everything I write about it here.
• Work is, work, not much new there except the traffic has been a fresh new level of hell.

Share and Enjoy

I’ve never really lost anyone really close to me before. I’ve lost grandparents, which was hard but I didn’t spend every single day with them. I’ve had breakups but usually none of them lasted longer than a year. Losing my baby boy Pilot was the most painful thing I’ve ever gone through in my 34 years and I’m still going through it.

I’ve had to figure out how to deal with this pain and continue on with my life. I know it may sound crazy but part of me just didn’t want to keep going without him. You see, he was what I looked forward to every single day when I came home from work. He loved me and never judged me, for how badly I feel about myself I felt ok with him, he loved me for me. Granted my husband loves me for me but the love you have with other people is complicated but the love you have with a pet is anything but complicated.

So to try to deal with the pain a few things have helped for me personally and maybe they can help someone else someday.

First off we made sure we had a last day with him but it was a hard last day as he was really sick at that point. I think Pilot was not well but he was glad to have some time with us, at least I hope that was the case.

When we brought him home after that last vet appointment we buried him in a special place in our backyard. We buried him with a blanket he loved, his favorite “taily toy” and the collar he wore when he went outside. That next weekend we picked up a bush and some plants to put around his grave, they’ll bloom in the spring. I have had a hard time going to his grave though but I know it will be something I’ll cherish eventually.

I also made sure to write about him and my feelings, I want to remember what I went through, I don’t want to forget it. I’m going through pictures and videos I have of him and plan on putting them all on a DVD. I even picked out a song for him. Haven’t been able to work on the pictures yet, it’s been too hard.

Also I ordered myself a necklace from etsy for myself and I hang it from my rear-view mirror so I can see it everyday. I even have a stamp of his paw from before I plan to someday get as a tattoo.

Being open about what I was going through online and to family and friends helped a lot. I got some wonderful cards and gifts that helped me with the process enormously. Grief is a very personal thing and we all go through it at our own speed but it helps having people care.

I still think about him every single day and it’s hard to explain what I feel, it’s a bit like I’m in this mixture of denial and depression, sometimes anger. Can you go back and forth between different stages? When I think that he’s gone I can’t help but feel it’s not possible, he can’t be gone forever. I can’t fully accept that I’ll never see him again, which makes it all that much harder. For all the pain I’m in now I don’t regret any of the time I got to spend with Pilot, I was very lucky to have him in my life. I read recently that grief is the price we pay for love and it’s worth it.

Share and Enjoy

When we first got him.

When we first got him he got a scratch on his eyeball, we have no proof but it was probably caused by Aurora. We were told he would have a 50/50 chance of losing the eye all-together and he recovered completely.

His poor left eye.

Years later he was sitting on our bed and I was petting him when he suddenly cried out in pain. I looked closer under his fur and found a huge gash on his side, I was in total shock. It was 10:00 at night so we rushed him to an animal emergency room. It turned out he had been cut somehow (probably another animal from outside) and now had an abscess. They had to keep him overnight to clean it and stitch him up. I happened to be home from work that week so I got to sit with him all day long as he healed and we bonded like never before. I think at that point he realized I was his mommy.

Snuggled with mummy.

Several years after that he had a urinary blockage, which is deadly in cats. Luckily we caught it right away because we noticed a difference in his behavior. We rushed him to the doctor and changed his diet and he came through like a champ!

Back on my lap again.

Pilot has always been an adventurous cat. Many times he’s stayed outside long past his bedtime, once he stayed out for a day and a 1/2! He loves to get on top of things, into things and genuinely loves everyone.

Can I go out and play now? Please?

Wandering the neighborhood.

Chasing a chipmunk.

On top of a canopy.

Bust most importantly, he loved us…even Aurora.

A rare moment together.

To fully express Pilot and what he meant to me isn’t even possible so this will be the best I can do for now. I have a page for him on Facebook (The Fighter Pilot) and there I can share pictures from over the years and remind myself of what a wonderful 9 years I had with him and I wouldn’t take it back for all the pain I have to go through now.

On Monday September 17th we had to say goodbye to him and he died in my arms. I was his mommy and he was my little boy. I miss him so much and of all the cats I’ve had in my life I’ve never connected with a cat like I did with him. I miss him every second of the day and would do anything to have him on my lap again or looking at me from the floor like he needs a cuddle.

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart).

Goodbye my Moonpie.

His last moments with us at home.

Share and Enjoy

When we brought Pi back to the vet they said they had to take it out right away. We were told during his surgery he would lose his bottom eyelid but luckily they were able to do it so it looks almost like nothing at all happened. He’s doing amazing, it just blows my mind every time that he just recovers so quickly.

We were asked when they did the surgery if we wanted to send the tumor to be tested like we did with the tumor on his leg. We both decided that we weren’t going to have this one tested because spending another $150 to find out if it was cancerous wasn’t going to change anything. We already decided we will not do chemo and we also decided we aren’t putting him down until his quality of life has diminished or until we have no other choices. We’re assuming it probably was cancer since it was only 4 months ago he had a tumor that was cancerous.

So now we’re just helping him recover from his surgery and going back to enjoying every single moment we can with our little one. He brings so much love and joy to our lives it’s worth going through this stress and pain to have as much time with him as we can. He’s so tough though and more of a fighter than I could have ever imagined. All I know is other than the stupid “cone of shame” he’s happy to be home and with us, that’s all that matters.

Share and Enjoy

I once watched an episode of Arrested Development years ago, it was just a random episode and I thought the show was so weird and I didn’t get it. Then after so many people going on and on about how great the show was I decided to give it a try. Watched it from the beginning I just loved it, beyond words. The humor is so dry and so clever, sometimes I’m amazed at how good the writing is. Still, the best part of this show is definitely Buster Bluth.

Hey brother! (gif post)

I don’t know what it is about him but I love him so much. I love him in a brother kind of way that I want to hug him and defend him. His facial expressions are the key to his charm and the fact that while he appears to be really innocent he shows how not quite innocent he really is.

I love the scene where he hides, I can’t explain it.

After my love for Buster of is of course the chicken dance because clearly the Bluth family has never seen a chicken before.

http://youtu.be/N9TXVMkQ29g

Share and Enjoy