Arduinna

December 01: the_shoshanna: I'd love to just hear about how you've been filling your time, what's been interesting you lately (or challenging you, if you want to talk about that), your basic Christmas-letter kind of update, I guess?

What a perfect prompt to start the meme off with! <3

Now let's see if I can think of anything that I've been doing. It's all a blur of just getting through. I'll go with categories to make it easier.

Work

Work has been busy. When I posted in April I said I thought my job was safe but that my boss might be told to take retirement; both those things turned out to be true. Unfortunately, my boss did a fair chunk of our little team's work, and the woman who took over for him, while a good manager, doesn't have the time to do much of the actual editing. So the editing load has gone up on me and my other co-worker, while at the same time I've been tasked with some labor-intensive project work. I like the project work a lot, and it's something I volunteered for, but it does keep me hopping.

Media

I have been watching what feels like endless media, mostly tv, mostly not terribly fannishly. It's generally either older procedural-type shows that I can just pay surface attention to, documentaries that are interesting but not research, so again with the mostly surface attention, or fannish shows that do take attention.

therienne, mollyamory, and I watch an episode or two of something together most nights, most usually one of the procedurals. In the last year or so we've gone through 7 seasons of The Closer, 5 seasons of Major Crimes (which I inevitably call Criminal Minds even though they're nothing alike, because apparently my brain thinks it should be "The Closer and 3-syllable-phrase". idek.), a season and a half of Medium (because the actor who played Joe the husband was in something new and fannish, and identifying him reminded us of Medium right when we needed a new mindless show), a few episodes of Ghost Whisperer when Medium was feeling too grim (but then Ghost Whisperer was too - hmm. it's not that I didn't like it? But it feels like a Lifetime Christmas Movie every episode and I can only take a bit of that at a time), and some other things I'm not thinking of right now. Off in my office on my own later at night I've been watching Saving Hope, Time Team, and documentary movies of various sorts.

Fannishly, I'm still in love with Good Omens, although the pandemic put me right back into fannish stasis again so I haven't actually done that much about it, which is a little annoying. But also, it's the hugest fandom I've ever been in and I'll just be over here in a nice quiet corner by myself, thanks. ahem.

The three of us are watching Mandalorian, which I love -- the original trilogy is my Star Wars, and the show is such a love letter to that. <3 I know I'm missing tons of references by not being up on Clone Wars and SW Rebels and whatnot, but I don't care; I'm enjoying the hell out of it all.

We're also watching Star Trek Discovery, which I was not expecting to love after bailing on first season after the first few eps. But mollyamory and therienne stuck with it and I wound up seeing some of second season with them last year then catching up on that whole season, and we're caught up to live right now. That's good stuff.

Oh! And therienne and I are slowly watching Chicago Typewriter, after I was reminded of it when I was sorting vid downloads and rewatched Our Ghost by ryfkah. I'm not really fannish about it, but I'm enjoying it.

It feels like everyone I know is into Guardian and related shows, but I haven't dipped a toe there yet. I may not be doing much in GO fandom, but it's still my warm fuzzy blanket and I want to just enjoy that for a while before being pulled in another direction. (It seems like a safe bet that I'll fall hard for Guardian.)

We spent Thanksgiving weekend watching the LotR trilogy extended editions, which I haven't done in ages and which was a blast. It's seriously hard to believe it's been 20 years since Fellowship came out. It's been years since I read the books, too, but in RotK when they're in the Houses of Healing a woman walked past and my brain instantly went "oh, Ioreth!" so I think that my many many years of annual re-reads is still in there somewhere. (OTOH she was too young to actually be Ioreth, but still. Go brain.)

We watched Hamilton when it was released in July. 💖💖💖 Still love that so much. They did an amazing job bringing it to film.

Life beyond media

Life has been really fast and really slow all at the same time. I've assembled some storage cabinets; done a whole lot of weeding; done some lopping of small branches (I bought a lopper! so much fun); organized a couple of small sheds; organized all the random cables I could find lying around and separated them into clear plastic drawers with labels on them so we could find what we needed (I bought a labeler! I am turning into my mother at an accelerating pace); organized my vid downloads, tapes, and dvds - you may be sensing a theme. Creating order in a chaotic time is very soothing.

Anyway. That's kind of it? It's just been life in a pandemic, with not enough brain for lots of focus, but plenty to things keep myself occupied, even if it's mostly on autopilot.

And now I'm going to stop typing and go find some string cheese to use to lure the dog in from outside, so I can get to bed at some sort of reasonable-for-me hour...


Go here for the full list of prompts and open dates -- more post prompts always welcome!

My company made donations to FRNSW and RSPCA this week, and has also offered to match any donations employees make to any group dealing with the bushfires. I'm not going to pass up something like that, and would be happy to direct my donation(s) to local places if you guys have anything specific to point me at.

I've been writing (and rewriting) up a post about this for a solid week and more now, trying to get it Just Right. Perfection, man, the enemy of the good. So screw it, I'm just gonna wing this right in the posting interface in one shot.

kass asked what it was like living with friends, and shoshanna asked me to talk about the move where I started living with friends.

We start with today's first example: I was vaguely awake and poking at things on my phone in bed this morning (...ish) when therienne showed up in my doorway and said "Get up, or I'm feeding your bacon to the cats!" So I got up and got dressed and went downstairs to where she and mollyamory were sprawled in front of the tv with plates of bacon, shirred eggs, and toast, with a plate of the same waiting on the coffee table for me.

I loved living by myself for 30 years, but it must be said, the fairly regular appearance of bacon and eggs on the weekend for me to eat just because therienne believes in weekend breakfast is a pretty damn good tradeoff.

(I fed bacon to the cats as I was eating. I'm not a monster.)

And honestly, that's mostly what it's like. Yesterday we had friends over for a potluck/hangout kind of a day, which we started doing well before the move; the difference for me is that I don't have to drive over to it, or drive home after. Today was that lovely breakfast, then hanging out in my office doing my own thing while mollyamory gamed in the living room and therienne ran errands. Supper was a joint effort at tacos, eaten on the couch in front of a couple of episodes of this year's Great American Baking Show Holiday Whatever. Then there was the nightly cleaning-up bustle where between us we get things generally tidy for tomorrow before bed. After that mollyamory and therienne head upstairs to wind down so they can get to sleep at a reasonable hour, and I head off to my office to putter around for a while later, since I'm on a later schedule than they are.

I'm making the biggest adjustment on this end of things with never being able to leave and go home to my own place, but they already did the seriously hard work a decade ago when they moved in together and sorted out how to be roommates. I had that whole decade of having their house as my second home, getting used to the rhythms of things. We've been on vacations together, been on roadtrips together, roomed at cons together; we've sat in hospital ERs and waiting rooms for each other; we're used to each other's ways.

It's a little weird not being 100% responsible for everything - meals, cleaning, trash, you name it - but it's also nice not to have to be 100% responsible for EVERYTHING. And it's really nice living with other people who were socialized as female growing up; none of us actually ever wants to clean the bathroom or scrub stains off of things or empty the trash, but we all know those things need to be done regardless so we do them as we see them. We never run out of milk or toilet paper, even though there isn't a single one of us in charge of those things. We check in with each other before any of us goes to a store in case someone needs something, even though we're each responsible for our own groceries. We each provide dinner at least one night a week, more if we're in the mood, so no one has to do all their own cooking.

It's good!

As for how we got here:

I had pretty specific requirements for moving in with them; mostly, I needed space. I had a 4.5-room apartment to myself for 25 years. I didn't want such close quarters that I couldn't get some space and alone time if I needed it. We'd been sort of idly thinking about it for years -- the big retirement commune we'd get one day, where I'd have a wing or an outbuilding to myself but still be close enough not to have to drive over for bacon or tv. (While you're thinking idly, you may as well think BIG.) I'd been amused by the idea originally, then had come around over the years to thinking it would probably happen someday on a smaller scale as we all got older - it makes sense to combine households to save on expenses and make chores and such easier. But it was all way out there in the distance someday, because they were perfectly happy in their little house and I was perfectly happy in my little apartment and we lived less than 2 miles away from each other anyway.

Then this past February, therienne decided it was time to move to a bigger place, for Reasons. I was ready to help them look, when somehow the planning turned to "big enough for us and Arduinna". ... Okay? Sure? I didn't actually think we'd find someplace that big within budget, but agreed in general to the idea, figuring if it didn't work out I still have a very comfortable apartment I was happy in.

Three weeks later we'd found two places: the first was charming but needed some reno work to get it to tick all our boxes, and the second ticked all our boxes but had no charm. Being practical women, we decided to go for the practical house that met our needs. ... For a couple of hours, until actually thinking about living there cause therienne to break and admit she wanted the charming house, which mollyamory and I were both totally on board with, with bells on, because seriously SO CHARMING. The timing on everything worked out pretty much perfectly, and by June it was ours.

It's not perfect, but it's pretty amazing, with enough space for all of us to have our own areas as well as shared space that's really comfortable to hang out in. The previous owners were meticulous about upkeep and improvements, so we have some things we would never in a million years have done ourselves but that are awesome, like the complete de-leading they had done when their grandkids were born a few years ago.

The reno work we need done involves some plumbing, which I'm braced for being a nightmare. Parts of this house go back almost 240 years, and the basement was dug out sometime after the main house was built. It's tiny and cramped and doesn't extend under the entire house, so running pipes is, uh. Yeah, it will be fun.

It's going to be weird in a good way for me this winter. At my old place, I only had street parking, and winters were grim. I tried to leave my house as little as possible, and when I did leave, I did my damnedest to have someone come get me, because I hated losing my parking spot. Like, hated. Got insanely anxious about. Ugh. (The endless snowy winter of 2015 consisted of my car not budging from its spot for three months - even though I paid to have it dug out after every storm just in case - while therienne and mollyamory came to get me every Saturday afternoon and bring me shopping, then back to their place long enough to do a couple loads of laundry, then home again as the snow started back up for the next round.)

Now, though, there is a driveway. With space. Enough so we don't even need to shuffle cars around for someone to get out. We can just... go. My god, the luxury of not having to worry about being ticketed because I forgot to move my car. <3 On the downside, now I have to worry about people being able to get out to work in the morning, which I just... don't do in bad weather. But again, being practical women, we looked at the driveway and what winters around here are turning into, and bought the biggest snow-blower we could, so hopefully it won't be too awful.

Anyway! Living here is just nice; it's a good house with good friends and it feels right. Which I admit is a bit of a relief; I thought it would work out this way or I wouldn't have done it, but it would have really sucked if this had sucked. *g*

Second post for today, catching me up to today...

For eviltammy: cats! With mandatory pictures!

Oh, I can talk about cats for days. But I'll restrain myself. *g*

My current cats are a pair of same-litter brothers that I got from a shelter almost two years ago now (wow). I dithered over their names back then, settling tentatively on Darien and Hobbes, which not only stuck, but turned out to be prophetic.

Hobbes, in particular, matches his namesake: he's a bit skittish, a bit paranoid, a lot jealous, and very cuddly.

The jealousy is the thing that cracks me up most. Hobbes wants all the attention. ALL of it. All the time. Even if he doesn't want it right then, if Darien's getting any attention, he needs to come take it away.

( For example! )

( For another example! )

Dari gets his own back, though. He's a burrower; if he were an outdoor cat, he'd be digging all the little rodents out of their dens. So when he thinks Hobbes is under a blanket, he loses his little kitty mind and goes full-on hunter, digging and digging. He manages to pull the blanket away enough to get a paw in under and start whapping at Hobbes, who gets very annoyed -- usually Dari is so hunter-focused that he's whapping too hard, so Hobbes winds up crying and running away.

This is all a little disconcerting when it's happening in your lap, I must say.

( Dari goes all dramatic when he sleeps, like he thinks he's performing Shakespeare or something. )

( Hobbes... does not think he's performing Shakespeare. Ever. )

They seem to still like each other fine, Hobbes' little jealous self aside; there's lots of chasing and wrestling most days. But they're also totally prepared to entertain themselves:

( Dari contemplating how to catch the bug on the ceiling )

( Hobbes doesn't want to contemplate, he just wants that bug )

But sometimes, togetherness is where it's at:

( Hobbes and Dari pondering the best way to tag-team the bug on the wall )

( And if not always cuddly, at least comfortingly nearby )

♥ ♥ ♥

---

Full request list here, still open!

Today was kind of a cranky day all around, involving a total lack of hot water at home (that eventually turned out to be something that cost me a boatload of money, rather than something my landlord would have to pay for, joy), going into work early for a meeting that didn't go as smoothly as it should (not my fault, at least, but it made for a kinda frustrating morning), staying at work late for work that never actually came in, and getting the bill for said hot-water-fixing dealio. So bah.

But on the other hand, I have hot water again, woo!

And Maru and Hana continue to make me happy as they bond in ever sweeter ways <3

And there is new Person of Interest tonight! \o/

Also, there is this boy here, who never fails to crack me up:



Yeah, that's pretty much my life. If I'm eating it, he wants some of it -- the crunchier and saltier the better. The completely crazy eyes are because he'd just spent about 20 minutes chasing Tostitos all over my living room and begging me to throw more for him, before he decided he'd have more luck if he came closer. IDEK.

I still haven't watched this week's Blacklist or Sleepy Hollow, and I'll probably miss SHIELD tonight, too; work's too crazy and I'm too tired. But I'll watch POI (yay!) and The Voice, at least. So possibly there will be more posting later. (Or possibly not. *g*)

So as happens from time to time I had a birthday a little while ago, and therienne, mollyamory, and I went out to a nice dinner tonight to celebrate, at the Wayside Inn, one of my favorite restaurants, where they have amazing prime rib, yum. This place is a historical landmark about an hour away from us, where you can sit in the 200-year-old section of the restaurant and soak in the atmosphere while you eat. It's also a really popular place for weddings, and when you go on Saturdays in the summer you're almost guaranteed to see the big tents set up, and more than likely the horse and carriage driving around the property, which I love. And sure enough, there it was this time, heading out of the entrance and down the road while the wedding party had their photos taken on the grounds. It was a really pretty beginning to the evening.

Other than the incredibly loud table of four next to us for the first half hour or so, it was as lovely as ever, and the prime rib cooked as perfectly. Then we wandered out, leftovers in hand, just in time to see the horse wander out of his barn and start chomping on grass.

( horsie! )

He let us get close enough -- mostly mollyamory to pet him:

( petting the horsie! )

Which really is a pretty awesome way to end a dinner!

(Oh, rats, I think those are sideways; I have no idea why, they should be vertical. I'll fix them later; I'm on a borrowed laptop that can't adjust them, and I want to get this posted before midnight.)

And then it was back to their place for Hot Fuzz, champagne (because why not), presents, and pastries.

mollyamory wanted to be sure that I'd know which presents came from who, so wrapped accordingly:

( guess who, she said )

And therienne remembered how much I love the chocolate pots from the local bakery (... possibly because when she said "what do you want?" I said "chocolate pot!", ahem).

( omg yum )

That's chocolate mousse, with a bit of chocolate cake in the middle of it, inside a big candy egg shell, drizzled with chocolate on top.

I am now very full, and happily looking forward to a long weekend with my new Raksura books (\o/) and Burn Notice DVDs.

I keep writing up posts about last week in Boston, then deleting them for an excess of rantiness. But I also don't seem to be able to move past writing up that kind of post.

( So I will just say, in short: )

*deep breath*

Okay, that took five days to get down to a plus-and-minus set of paragraphs. Now maybe I can move on to fannish things. Which I will take to another post, so as not to mix it up with the RL stuff...

Icon particularly appropriate!

I took some random time off this week, partly just to use up some vacation time, partly to spend some time with my dad, and largely to "hermit out" and get some extended time inside my own head, which I haven't done in... years, it feels like. Since my sleep apnea got diagnosed a few years ago I've been a lot more functional (looking back, I'm horrified at how non-functional I was for years, even decades, without ever knowing it), and less desperate for total alone-time downtime. Plus I've just been busy, with most of my downtime spread out between crises, mourning, and visits from friends.

But after most of a week mostly alone, with very limited interactions with people, my head is in a better space than it's been in ages. I think I could use another week or two of this, but that's never going to happen, alas. Still. This is a good reminder that I really do need to just shut down every now and then, and play with my cats or watch mindless tv for a while, or even just sit quietly in the silence.

It helped a lot that I did what I almost never do on vacations, and actually front-loaded all my errand-y things into the first part of the week. Usually I plan to do that, and then my agoraphobia kicks in silently and I never quite make it out of the house, and the need to run those errands builds up over the week and stresses me out, even as my brain comes up with a million reasons for me not to do them. This week, though, I made advance plans for Monday and Tuesday for the crucial stuff, after which I didn't leave my house again, but that was okay because there was nothing else I had to leave it for, so there was nothing to stress about. \o/

What I did on my spring winter vacation:

Monday:
Spent the whole day day with my dad, getting myself put on his bank accounts and safe deposit box in case of emergencies, and "fixing" his computer by showing him how to forward an email.

Watched the pilot ep of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which I'd heard good things about and had bought on impulse at Costco.

Tuesday:
Brought the cats to the vet for vaccinations.

Brought the car to the mechanic for a new headlight and spiffy buffed lenses over both headlights.

Bought all the cleaning supplies and kitty litter in the world. Or at least in my local grocery store.

Watched a couple more eps of the Lady Detective, checked the Festivids site to see if there'd been any vids made for it. Alas, no.

Wednesday:
"Fixed" my dad's computer remotely, omg yay.

Cleaned the "pantry", really my oversized storage closet and kitty litter space. Cleaned it a LOT, down to washing the walls. Threw out seven giant bags of crap, one normal-sized bag of kitty litter, and one normal-sized bag of regular weekly trash. (This was baffling to me. I had done a massive cleanout on this room out a year or so ago, turning it from a junk dump to a functional room where I could get at everything easily. I had no idea there was still so much crap in it.)

( Proof! )

Moved my car to a safe spot on a side street in the face of a rumored storm, even though from the sound of it it was mostly going to fizzle, maybe a couple inches total.

Watched another ep of the Lady Detective.

Thursday:
Rested on my laurels after admiring my awesome clean pantry for a while. Played endless rounds of broken-toy games with Hobbes, with Darien jumping in any chance he could.

(Seriously. Broken toy. Hobbes loves feathers on a string, but they keep chomping the feathers off. Then Dari somehow yanked the remaining feathers out of the little plastic holder thingie, which swung empty at the end of the string and turned itself into the most exciting toy EVER OMG. They've been playing with that broken bit of plastic for days. I don't even.)

Watched tons of Storage Wars, Auction Kings, and Property Wars in a zoned-out haze of relaxation. (Time to give up on Storage Wars and Property Wars, though -- I've seen enough of both to be fed up with the way people jerk each other around and bid things up just to make it harder/more expensive for other people. Bleah. Auction Kings is more fun; it's about cool stuff, not obnoxious jackasses. And since they seem to have given up on the annoying Whatever Brothers from last season, it's back to being pure entertainment for me.)

Admired the pretty weather, with constant snowfall in temps warm enough to keep the roads clear.

Watched POI. \o/ Started writing reaction post.

Friday:
Got woken up by my boss, who had lost power in the storm that had decided to stop fizzling and morph into a heavy wet giant of doom. Covered for him for a couple of hours till his power came back, cranky but resigned - crappy way to end a vacation week, but he's given up vacation days for me when I've had emergencies, too.

Sucked it up and called an insurance company to request a quote for auto and renter's insurance, after years of being vaguely dissatisfied with my existing company. Dithered for a couple of hours, then actually went ahead and did it, go me!

Watched lots of Law & Order: SVU, weirdly; that used to be a go-to mindless show for me but I haven't watched it in a couple of years. Guess the burnout finally wore off. It's perfect for days when I want a storyline to follow but don't want to devote the energy to actual investment in anything that happens.

Watched Grimm, which is finally back, in its most bizarrely-scheduled year ever. (... out of two years.)

Rediscovered my deviantArt account and actually started using it a little. I still don't really get how dA works, but hey, pretty fanart.

"Rediscovered" Tumblr, which for some reason I'd stopped checking -- I think because I was behind and wanted to catch up before I... went back... I don't know, blocks are weird. And turns out Tumblr's still very time-suck-y.

Saturday:
Shoveled. A day behind the rest of the neighborhood, because my landlord's son told me he wasn't shoveling till Saturday morning (which for him meant 4am, apparently - his sleep schedule is even weirder than mine), so the front walk was buried until then. Surprisingly, this turned out to have been a good thing for me; I'd been resigned to having to shovel very heavy, wet snow after a warmup, but instead I got out to my car across the street and discovered that the people parked around me had done a kickass job, and left me barely any work to do. \o/

Finished and posted the POI reaction post, for a miracle. I start so many posts I never finish.

Watched another ep of the Lady Detective.

Spent lots more time on Tumblr and deviantArt.

Sunday:
Completely failed in my attempt to adjust promptly to Daylight Savings. Oh well. It's always a couple weeks of misery and oversleeping for me, soothed by the lingering daylight in the evening. It's going to be light tonight till almost 7pm!!

Planned for the rest of the day: roast a turkey breast, finish a more rambly POI post, finish the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series (short series), write a story, clean the rest of my house.

Hopefully I'll at least manage to roast the turkey breast. The rest is icing.

As always, there are a ton of things I'd planned to do and never did. I was going to organize my bookmarks (and sync Pinboard and AO3 bookmarks), update links on my recs pages, maybe make some new recs for the first time in years, maybe work more on my months-old VVC DVDs review so I could post it, write a story or two. I was totally definitely going to at least spend an hour every day working on things like the bookmarks and the recs pages. I was going to read tons of fanfic, and catch up on books I've been meaning to read for ages, and watch at least one vid every day.

Yeah, not so much. But that's okay. It's as important to be quiet sometimes as it is to be busy. And I forget too easily how much better I feel when I'm quiet.

*contented sigh*

Almost two months ago, I asked for today off from work, because I know what Vividcon deadline day is like, and there is no way a few hours in the evening is enough time. This was meant to be a day of panic and flail, with last-minute fixes to the vid (or, worst-case, still filling in black space), and then dealing with exporting and aspect ratios and tech fail.

Instead, it's day of rest*, because therienne and I finished our vid last night, exported it, and uploaded it more than 24 hours before the deadline.

Vidding Deadline Threat Level: KITTENS.

Unfortunately, Vidding Deadline Threat Level Adrenaline Reaction: BEARS

So we spent the next hour having little bursts of panic at each other, because how is it possible to be done and uploaded before the deadline? Vid farr is not over till the deadline passes!

Then I went home and we got on the phone and panicked at each other more. See above, re: vid farr and bears.

Then I fell asleep in my chair before I could manage to write a post. I may have been a little tired.

And now? I am home, lounging about my apartment with my cats for the first time in weeks. I can clean my pit of a place, and buy groceries omg, and maybe watch some tv, or read...

I still don't quite believe it, and am braced to find out that therienne has gotten word from Lum and Ian that we screwed something up horribly, and need to fix it right damn now.

But until that email comes in, it is kittens all around. Yay!


* It is not actually that restful a day so far. I got home last night after midnight to the sight of a van from my oil company pulling away from in front of the house, and the scent of oil in my apartment, but no message from my landlord's son, so I figured it was a problem with his tank that had been handled.

Then this morning I got woken up a bit after 10 by a call saying that he'd found a leak in my tank last night (just a tiny pinhole leak), which had been plugged, but today they were coming to drain & remove the old tank, and install & fill a new one.

So now the basement under my feet is full of oil-company guys yelling and banging and drilling and otherwise using implements of destruction to scare the hell out of my cats.

But still. I am not at work! And I am not over at therienne's! I am HOME! \o/

( So have some kittens )

For the past couple of years, I've been clearing stuff out, slowly; I'm a packrat by nature, so there's been a lot to do. I've donated somewhere around 2,000 books, hundreds of CDs, bags and bags and bags of clothes, furniture, lamps, electronics... you name it, particularly over the past year.

The one thing I haven't touched is the old computers. I have several, and they've been piling up in corners for over a decade -- partly because it used to be so expensive to buy new computers that I wanted to keep a backup around in case my new computer died, and partly because recycling them was a pain in the ass.

Best Buy has a pretty good recycling program now, though, so a few months ago I asked therienne to remove the hard drives for me so I could recycle the systems. But the drives didn't want to come out, and we had to be somewhere, so I said screw it, let's finish this later, and that was that. The two half-pulled-apart computers took up residence in my bedroom under a blanket so I didn't cut myself on the metal edges sticking out, and I put them out of my mind till a more convenient pulling-apart day.

( That day was yesterday. )

And now my apartment is that much cleaner than it was. \o/

Some of you have met my cat Frodo, or have heard tell of him the years; he was small and brave and smart, and cute as could be. He lived a ridiculously charmed, and charming, life, and up to the day before he died, vet techs were looking at him and saying "he's how old??" He made it to 20, and never looked it.

But chronic renal failure can't be stopped, in the end, and this weekend was the end.

He was my cat for almost my entire adult life; I got him a few months after I moved into my first solo apartment, and we'd been together ever since. He was the best little guy ever.

( pictures under the cut )

Three days ago, he was crashing around my kitchen trying to catch a mouse that had gotten in. Poorly, mind you, because he was unsteady on his pins because of other illnesses (yeah, on top of the kidney disease; one way or another, this was going to be his last summer), but he was bright and alert and ready for action. I miss him like crazy already, but I can't regret a death that came so fast and fairly peacefully, letting him live his life right up to the end.

♥

Romy is being taken today to a foster home that everyone involved is hoping turns out to be permanent. The woman taking him already has several animals so we're not positive how he'll adjust, but we're going to give it a week or two and see how it goes. If he integrates with the household, this is an ideal home for him; she's known (and loved) him for years and is familiar with his needs, and he knows and trusts her already.

If it doesn't work out, at least he won't be lonely in the interim, and we can start exploring more options. But I really hope it does; she's a wonderful woman, and would be so perfect for him! And it would be such a relief to know that all three cats are in good homes.