Wahiawa hills trail

The kids came home, tanned and jet-lagged, and threw a tie-dyed Led Zeppelin shirt at me. It's great having them back, and Billy came out from under the bed to apologize for thinking I had traded the family for a rotten kitten. We’re all sad about Sookie, but relieved to be back together.

The next day I was sitting by the Wahiawa water tower, posting this:

I am not a hiker. I am the decomposed remains a hiker stumbles across. After losing him, it only took me 30 minutes of picking my way down the steep mountainside and ending up in a stagnant stream bed to realize I was absolutely the kind of person who would trip on a root and break my ankle and get washed away by a flash flood, so I turned around to head back. On the way, I missed a turn and ended up at the mouth of a dark, overgrown cave. It was the kind of cave that would 100% have a dead body in it, and if anyone had been with me I would have gotten inside to have a look around, but I did not want to be the next dead body on the pile, so I did not do that.

The murder cave I did not investigate and end up skeletonized in

For about an hour, I sat at the trail head, contemplating widowhood and trying to decide how long to wait before calling a rescue helicopter.

He finally made it out, muddy, dehydrated, and suffering from heat stroke. He drank a gallon of water and had to soak in a cold tub to get his temperature down. 

This is the official trail:

 

This is the trail he went on:

 

Let's just zoom in on this bit:

the straight lines are where his phone lost connection completely

 

Hiking is silly unless it ends in a waterfall you can swim in. I want payment for my foolishness.

It is pretty, though. My corpse will leave a beautiful camera reel.

 

Trail?

 

this tree stump had nice hair

beautiful pool of magic milky water, probably full of amoebas

Trail?

 

Trail! 

(it was not the trail)

From here on, sticking to more popular routes, with lots of people to follow around/get carried out by.

… Except maybe to go back and find that cave with a big flashlight.

Sookie

Our sweet old fat cat died last night. She wasn't feeling well, so in the evening I sat with her, brushed her, and wiped her crusty nose. At bedtime she started having trouble breathing, got up to waddle under the bed, and collapsed, crying. I tried to help her, but she died as I ran to the car with her. I don't know if she couldn't breathe or if her heart gave out. We had a quiet ride to the emergency vet, and I made it all the way to the front doors with her before the crying caught up with me. Spent a long time saying goodbye, and went home alone at midnight with an empty towel. 

The kids come home today, I'm so sorry they missed her. But I'm glad they didn't see her go.

Sookie's story

14 years ago, I was giving birth to Leif on Maui around the same time Sookie was born on Oahu. Her mother was scared away by noisy construction workers mid-delivery, leaving two kittens behind. Those kittens were found by a teacher, who bottle-fed them for several weeks. When her dog killed one of the kittens, she was very upset, and brought the surviving kitten to her co-worker, my mother. My mother took the kitten to Maui to visit her new grandson, where I named her Sookie because I was reading Charlaine Harris books at the time, and she stayed with us. Sookie was a cuddly kitten who tried to nurse everything, and she'd make horrible slobbery noises in your ear, trying to get hold of your earlobes while you slept. Once I woke up feeling alarmed that something was wrong with my baby, and found her laying across his face, trying to push him off the boob while he flailed his little fists (she was DENIED). 

Leif and Sookie at 2 months

4 months, going for my mom's eyes

 

As she got older and rounder, she could sense when someone sat down on the floor in another room, and she'd come galloping out like a fat pony to climb on their lap. She was sweet and affectionate, and set the standard for how large our Thanksgiving turkeys needed to be, based on the "turkey shouldn't weigh less than the cat" scale of measurement. She was glorious. 

I will miss you so much, Sookie. 

Thwarting my vacuuming efforts last week

progress report

It has been 2 weeks on this maniac program. I didn't take a picture at the beginning because I was embarrassed, so this is after 1 week vs  2 weeks, wearing the same outfit.

"Pick a power pose," they said.

I am... almost imperceptibly flatter around the middle? I should probably start posing in a tank top instead of balloon sleeves. 

The program tells you to stay off the scale because this is a fluff-to-meat conversion situation, where you stay about the same weight but your size and density change, which is fine by me.

So that's going well, I think. It’ll take a few months, but I’ll be throwing hammers at people in no time.

Less well: the kitten knocked over my sizing glue while I was priming wood for a painting, and I didn't realize he had a blob of it on his ear until it had dried into a shiny leathery scab. Spent two evening slowly coaxing it off, feeling like I was peeling the skin off his ear. Now he's got a bald spot. Maybe the kids won't notice.

Kitten tax (no bald spot visible, phew):

solo

I have been getting a lot of texts with videos of my children driving boats and getting dragged at high speed on inflatable donuts, as well as a cute picture of Zenny posing with a man in a Frankenstein costume while holding a 6 inch knife*. I am glad they are having fun, and I am glad to be staying out of it. I’m the books-and-cookies parent, not the boats-and-knives parent.

Still, there are some things about being up there that I miss.

It's got me listening to Wolfmother and the Darkness again after all these years. Taking my rock credentials back from Harry Styles.

 

my credentials

In the evenings, I've been working on a tacky souvenir painting, thinking about cultural exploitation vs. cultural erasure. Enjoying the shadows and colors anyway.

 Slowly adding flowers, one by one. 

 

First pass, just getting color in there

The Thor fitness program is already starting to do something to my shoulders and pants. I’ll be getting trampled into the mud at a Spartan race in no time. 

(Maybe next year.) 

(On the weenie course.)

* “Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster!” Frankenstein was also the name of the book/film, so don't sweat it.

"Check out my Matrix costume" 

"Actually, the Matrix was the code, not the man." 

 

The knife, it was explained to me, was  a retractable prop knife she bought at a gift shop, which I’m sure the public will note when they report a child running with a knife through Lake George village.

joined a cult

non-cult content:

A few months ago I was driving with the radio on, flipping stations to get to the oldies, and caught part of a song I had never heard before. How is there an oldies radio song I have not heard? It sounded progressive for an oldies. I tried remembering a few lyrics to google later, but I have the short-term memory of a pigeon, and could not find any song prior to the 80s with the combination of random words I tried searching for. It bugged me for months, every time I flipped around the radio stations.

Finally I heard it on a tv show, and sat straight up - AHA, THAT'S IT.

Folks, it was a Harry Styles song.

Yep.

 

So anyway:

Mike signed up for the Spartan race at Kualoa next month, where people pay real money to sprint for 6 miles and climb over muddy obstacles until they collapse and need a rescue IV. 

To be supportive/encroach on his hobbies, I finally joined the Chris Hemsworth Centr app he's been so nuts about, and infiltrated the manically-positive facebook community. While the family is in New York for the next few weeks, I am going at it full tilt; following the meal and workout plan to the letter while there is nobody around to complain about eating fish and pepitas.

Then I'm going to show up at the Spartan race as a one-person cheering squad and embarrass the man in front of all his workout friends.

It's important to have goals and hobbies.

Whiskers on his chinnigan

I was not having a good day. I had an upset stomach because I had eaten too many papayas, and I was mad at my husband about something stupid, so I was sitting at the reference desk staring blankly through my computer, mentally working out how to make ends meet on one income/relocate to Ontario, when one of my library preschoolers walked up and threw a skinny flea-covered kitten at me. “Want a kitten?” 

I have a few rules in life:

1. If someone you trust puts a drink in your hand, drink it (it’s either Christmas or something terrible has happened).

2. If someone puts a baby animal in your hand, take care of it.

3. Buy the good toilet paper and paper towels. 

So yes, I wanted the kitten. Damn it.

Having been manhandled by a 3 year old all his life, the little cat’s defense mechanism was to go completely limp and fall asleep. I wondered if he had been left in a hot car or carried around by the neck, he seemed too lethargic. I drove home with the little guy asleep on my chest. After a few cans of fancy feast and a flea bath, he reanimated into a regular kitten. The kids love him so much. Billy does not. Droopy is figuring out that he gets treats for being tolerant of the little guy.

The kids have named him Finnegan. “He has whiskers on his chinnegan. He pulled them out, but they grew innegan.”

Dafuq

We didn’t need another cat, but maybe I needed him right at that moment.

Lego flowers

I thought it would be funny to do an old Dutch-style floral painting of a Lego bouquet for Leif.

 

It's hard to tell if my kids are humoring me or if they actually like these things, but I think he digs it.

He’s got a lot of Lego models to choose from, if we want to make a habit of it.

On the easel, progress:

I don’t really like symbolism in paintings, but this is one of those cursed object arrangements that kind of came together on its own. The skinwalker knife and the walnuts are from when I was a kid in Arizona; the gun and the hibiscus are from now. I don't know. I liked how it looked, and decided not to overthink it.

Week #2 with the parks dept. kids was a lot better, with more robot destruction, more laser sound effects, and more deadpan turtle impersonations. I used donated money to buy cases of juice (organic) and cookies (peanut-free) for them, and they cheered when I said they'd be back next week. Three of my old toddler time babies (now kindergartners) gave me violent hugs. I AM WINNING. Remembering why I like my job again.

work/life

The library was a wreck when I got back. My boss could not single-handedly keep up with the shelving, checkouts, book drop, and kids pulling entire shelves of books onto the floor. I spent two days putting everything back in order and then prepped 4 weeks of storytime for 80 children (in day camp groups, with masks). 

If I'm a rusty storyteller, the kids are rusty listeners. They interrupted, groaned, and heckled my book choices. I sang them songs, gave them treats, and sent them back to the Parks Dept.

 

It's going to be a process.

 

Now the day-to-day stuff is running smoothly again, and I’m back to my existential crisis. 

Check in. Check out. Shelve. Help people print.

I've been shopping for houses around Albany, imagining having a property large enough to be a stopping point for family on the way to the lake, and close enough to a university for my kids. I’ll never sell my house here, but maybe snow birds are on to something. 

Check in. Check out. Shelve. Decorate the display cart.

In the slow minutes, I trawl through NamUs and think about local cold cases, like the mystery of the toddler fingers in a ziploc bag, and where someone high on methamphetamine might hide a body. Podcasters, come investigate this stuff. I'm not cold calling these assholes.

Check in. Check out. Shelve. Check the mouse traps. 

I've got to work on this, because the whole "adult with a dissatisfying job" thing is just too stupid.

Back at home, the kids have recovered from covid, but the cat is dying. Two and a half years after her tail exploded and had to be amputated, the cancer (because it was, in fact, cancer) has finally caught up with Moura, and she's in kitty hospice until she needs help passing on. It's very sad, but she lived to the age of 15, and traveled from the wastelands of Bakersfield to the jungles of Maui and the suburbs of Oahu, which isn't too bad for a mean old cat.

It's lychee, sprinkler, and s'mores season. I love the summer a lot, and it's time to shake off the hospital and illness funk and get outside again. Homework: adventure. The good kind, not just parking at Costco.

And another one

Leif has been added to the pile of plague victims building up in our household.

But there have been some good things:

1. Mild symptoms

2. No further seizures 

3. Admin chose me to go to Chattanooga for the ARSL conference in September! They pronounce that phonetically, by the way, which means I am the person they decided was best suited to represent the system at the “arsehole conference”. I am glad to finally be getting recognition in my chosen field.

I’m back in isolation because I don’t have infinite sick leave and need to go back to work now that my symptoms are clearing up, so I have to avoid the kids for 24 hours except to mask up and administer meds/food (doctor’s orders for returning to work), and stay away from them until they have recovered. Their dad is coming back from the renovations to watch them, and he’ll probably be infected within a week, so this is going to go on for a while.

I’ve really enjoyed being home, though, even with the illness circulating and the scary moments. The house is cleaner, there has been fresh bread, time with the kids, and a lot of painting. 

On the easel:

At least I get to plan my ghost and distillery tours for Tennessee while I’m stuck at the circulation desk.

Another one down

Zenny has Covid, too. Low fever, low appetite. It’s not great for a kid who already lost weight in the hospital, but at least so far it isn’t respiratory.

Edit: stratch that, she’s not okay, she’s had a seizure and we’re at the ER

Edit 2: we’re home. With her distant history of seizures after her head injury as a toddler, doctor said covid likely lowered her seizure threshold, and she may have more. She needs constant fever meds, constant supervision until she feels better, no activities that could kill her if she has another seizure (baths, climbing, etc). Poor kid.

What happened is that we were eating pancakes for breakfast, and she hadn’t had any ibuprofen yet because she just woke up and her fever was down to 99.6. Mid-pancake, she said, “I just feel…”  and then leaned back in her chair, eyes dilated, went rigid, and started seizing. I picked her up and yelled for Leif to call 911, but he panicked and started looking for my phone instead of using the one in his hand. I put her on her side on the couch, checked her breathing (not good), took my phone when Leif almost threw it at me, and was trying to call 911 when Zenny suddenly sat up and said, “What’s happening?” 

It’s times like these I’m glad we live 30 seconds away from the hospital by car.