A Weekend in San Diego

Hey look, a travel post!

Prior to the COVID pandemic, Bill and I loved to travel and made sure that we did so as often as possible. Now that we’re both fully vaccinated, we decided that we were ready to try flying again.

My parents had booked a camping trip in San Diego, staying at a campground that we used to frequent as a family when I was growing up, so we decided to plan a trip to California to spend a few days with them. I hadn’t seen my parents since pre-pandemic, and we had all promised each other that once we were all vaccinated that we would find a way to get together.

Even vaccinated and masked, I admit I wasn’t wild about our first experience with flying. I didn’t realize that TSA will make people lower their masks when going through security, so I was a little surprised and not super thrilled to have to do that, but I didn’t really have a choice so I went with it. The airport terminal at SeaTac Airport was under construction and half closed, so there were a lot of people and it was really crowded. We did our best to find a secluded corner away from everyone else so that we could eat a quick snack and sip some water.

We pretty much exclusively fly Alaska Airlines, and they’ve been really good about health protocols. On the plane itself, we got seats in Premium Class and Alaska is still blocking off middle seats in that section. Bill and I had the row to ourselves which made me feel a lot more comfortable than I ordinarily would have, and I just watched Grey’s Anatomy on my iPad and read a book and didn’t look at anyone else around me.

I still don’t love the idea of a larger hotel, so we opted to book a condo on Airbnb instead. The condo we booked was one street over from Mission Beach, and I liked being able to smell the salt air and hear the waves when we opened the windows. The place itself was really cute and nice. We had two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a nice bathroom. It was only fifteen minutes away from Campland on the Bay, where my parents were staying, so it was an easy drive to go visit them each day.

At my parents’ campsite, we were able to sit around a campfire in the evenings, and they had a great view of Mission Bay. At night, we were able to watch a fireworks display from across the bay at Sea World. A few things have been updated, but for the most part Campland is exactly the same as I remember it from when I was little. They’ve updated a couple of areas to be nice dog parks, which is really cool for campers like my parents who bring pets along.

On Friday, my parents took us to their favorite spot on Coronado Island, the Coronado Dog Beach. It runs along Ocean Blvd all the way up to the border with the US Naval Station, and offers great views of Point Loma and the Hotel del Coronado. And, we got to see a lot of really cool and adorable dogs! That trip was definitely one of the highlights of our weekend.

On Saturday my sister and brother-in-law drove down from their house in Beaumont to spend the afternoon with us. The weather was decidedly chilly and windy, so we retreated into my parents’ camping trailer and spent the afternoon blissfully playing cards and laughing ourselves silly. My sister brought Cards Against Humanity and insisted we play it. I was not sure at all how that would be received by my conservative parents, who are in their seventies, but they were very good sports and really got into the game.

Even though we had a condo with a full kitchen, somehow we never actually got around to stocking said kitchen with any food. Instead, when I got up in the mornings I would make a pot of coffee and sip it while I watched glimpses of the waves and surfers from our living room window, and when we got hungry Bill and I would walk down Mission Blvd to Sara’s Mexican Food, a little walk-up stand that sold tacos, burritos, and other Mexican fare. We instantly developed an addiction to their Chorizo breakfast burritos, which were big enough that we could split them and still have a hearty breakfast and that made for great sightseeing fuel.

Our trip home yesterday wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I expected it to be, but I was definitely more anxious because we weren’t able to get seats in Premium Class and I knew that meant we’d be sharing our row with a third occupant. Because Bill is so tall, I always end up having to sit in the middle, and I don’t love being squashed in between him and a random stranger under normal circumstances but I expected to dislike it even more now that I’ve been social distancing from strangers for the last year. I had to repeatedly give myself a pep talk and remind myself that I’m vaccinated against COVID, that I was going to be double-masked (for crowded places I wear a disposable mask under my cloth one for some added protection), and that people fly every day and that they haven’t seen any trends or spikes in COVID cases in people that have flown recently. When we got into the terminal at San Diego International, it was super crowded and I didn’t like it at all, but then we remembered another wing that we’d walked toward when we’d headed to baggage claim when we’d first arrived the previous Thursday. We walked over there, and sure enough it was totally deserted (AND I found a little store that sold healthy snacks and had almond milk so that I could mix up my Shakeology shake, which made me very happy). We were able to sit all by ourselves, with no one anywhere around, and we waited until we absolutely had to leave before we gathered up our things and walked back to the gate where our flight was departing from. Our seatmate turned out to be a teenager who put his head down on the tray table and napped for the majority of the flight, so being in close quarters wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Overall, flying was a little uncomfortable but I was very grateful for the chance to visit with my family again, and our weekend in San Diego was a pleasant one!

9-Week Control Freak: Day 1

Today is the day that everyone in my Beachbody group has been eagerly awaiting: the new 9-Week Control Freak program is now available in the On Demand library!

9-Week Control freak is the latest program from trainer Autumn Calabrese. When I first joined Beachbody On Demand, Autumn’s 21-Day Fix was the program that I followed and I really liked it, so I’ve been excited to try the latest workouts she created. 9WCF is a 9-week at-home workout program, with each workout lasting around half an hour. I love getting my workout over in 30 minutes, and Autumn is great at kicking my ass quickly!

There are two versions of the program so that anyone who works out at home can follow it. The first one includes equipment like door- or wall-mounted resistance bands, a core ball, and a step, but the second one is a dumbbell-only option called Off the Wall. Bill and I are following the second one, because we work out in our living room and we just don’t have room for all of the other equipment that the first version requires (especially the control tracks with the resistance bands – that is, unless Beachbody can figure out how to come out with a set that attaches to the back of my sectional couch). The only thing that some people may not like about Off the Wall is that not every single workout is unique; it offers five workouts for each of the three phases that can be cycled through to complete the nine weeks.

Of course, Beachbody is a business, and they want to sell their products, so there are lots of supplements and nutrition containers and all kinds of other stuff that they encourage using while doing the program. I’m a calorie counter for life and I don’t have any desire to change that, so I’m opting to stick with my LoseIt app for tracking my food. I do drink Shakeology every day because I like it, but I absolutely don’t believe that doing so is vital to success with this or any workout program.

Bill and I did the first workout this morning, and I really enjoyed it. The main workout consisted of completing a circuit of five different moves, twelve reps each, as many times as we could in twelve minutes. After that was the Tabata Cardio portion. Neither of us knew what the heck Tabata was, but we now have learned that it’s a form of high-intensity interval training that forces you to work at a very high intensity for short periods of time. For the first workout we did eight rounds of mountain climbers, working for ten seconds and then resting for twenty seconds before going into the next round. I liked that because I typically do not enjoy cardio and really have to push myself mentally. Knowing that I only had to do it for ten seconds at a time helped me to work harder and faster during that time.

I’m excited to be doing this new program and am eager to see what benefits I get from switching it up!

Figuring Out My WFH Style

Now that I’m officially working from home full-time (at most, I might start going into the office one day a week at the end of the year), I’m trying to address something that’s been on my mind for awhile – my wardrobe!

Working in my company’s corporate headquarters, I would wear dress pants and pretty tops or dresses to work each day. I rarely wore jeans and only own a few pairs of them, all of which I bought secondhand.

Before the pandemic, outfits like this were my normal office attire.

For the last year, I’ve pretty much lived in Victoria’s Secret leggings and oversize sweaters or t-shirts that I got on clearance from Target. When the weather got warm last summer, I bought three sundresses from Old Navy to wear for work clothes. I kept my purchases minimal, because I had no idea what my long-term working situation would be like and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on more casual clothes if I was going to return to an office environment.

Now, though, with my situation looking more permanent I feel like it’s time to figure out what my new, more casual style is going to be. I don’t really want this tee and leggings look to be all I ever wear, but I’m still trying to figure out what I do want.

What I want to know is, whatever happened to fashion blogs? Ten years ago, the Internet was crawling with twenty-somethings eagerly sharing their outfits with the world. Now it seems that no one has written an outfit post since at least 2019, and all those old blogs might as well have a stray tumbleweed bouncing along their once-frequently-updated homepages. Maybe they’re stuck in the same leggings-and-oversized-shirt funk that I am?

To try and get inspired, I packed away my sweaters and winter clothes and brought out my summer things from storage. While some of my dresses are definitely in the “formal” category, I do have some that I think I can dress down with a jean jacket, a sweater, or some sneakers. I don’t love wearing shorts, so hopefully being able to wear some of my dresses styled more casually will get me through this summer as I transition to a WFH style.

But if anyone knows of an active fashion blogger these days, send me the link!

One Year in Quarantine

It’s been a year now since Washington state went into lockdown in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In some ways it feels like it was so very long ago since things felt remotely normal, and in others I can’t believe I’ve actually spent a year of my life working from home, barely seeing friends, and hardly ever wearing pants that aren’t largely made of stretchy.

I felt a little sad thinking of this anniversary, of the year of normalcy lost and the months stretching out ahead of us until Bill and I are eligible to receive the vaccine. We’re both healthy and we work from home, so we will likely be some of the last people who can get it, which I’m very grateful for even as I feel a growing impatience to regain some of our old life. It can be easy to feel like I’ve lost a year of my life, but I try not to think that way and instead think about what I’ve gained. Having so much stripped away made me realize what really matters to me and what things I want to include in my life going forward. And I can recognize that I definitely took things for granted, like being able to go out to eat in a restaurant, or going to a movie in a theater, or seeing a band live. There were times I had tickets to shows and didn’t end up going, not for any real reason other than that I was tired after a long day of work and decided I wasn’t up to going back out once I got home.

My hope is that we can find a new way to live, where we go back to the things we used to love doing with an even greater appreciation for them, and where our priorities reflect the lessons we learned in lockdown. Although I do miss some aspects of going to work in an office, my stress levels are a lot lower now that I get more sleep, regular exercise, and more time because I’m not sitting in traffic every day. I get to spend more time with Bill and with our cats Ernie and Saturday, and having more family time means the world to me.

Last Friday night, Bill and I went with two of our friends who are in our little quarantine bubble out to a winery. We were able to do a wine tasting while still following all COVID guidelines, outside in the fresh air. It was one of the few outings we’ve had in a year and it was the first time we’ve gone anywhere with friends since last March (although we do see these particular friends at least once a week now, either at our house or theirs). It was a simple thing, but it felt SO good to go and have fun doing something we enjoy and sharing an experience with people we love. I will never take things like that for granted again. I won’t allow myself to.

I’m not saying the past year hasn’t been one of the hardest years of my life. It definitely has been, for many different reasons. I have been reasonably unscathed in comparison to people who have lost their lives, their loved ones, their health, or their jobs – or a combination of these losses – because of COVID. Watching helplessly as so many people suffer has taken a toll on me. I want to help, but all I can really do is keep following guidelines and wearing my mask and keeping my butt at home when I can. It isn’t much but it’s what I have to offer. And when it’s my turn, I will get my vaccine, and I will keep following all guidelines as long as I need to. And hopefully by this time next year things will be a lot more like the world we remember, but with a lot of lessons learned.

We’re not done yet, although it feels like there is a lot to be hopeful about.

Reflecting on Four Years of Marriage

Today Bill and I are celebrating four years of marriage. Four years married to my best friend and the love of my life seems so unreal to me. I feel just as lucky to be with him as I felt on my wedding day four years ago, and if it’s possible I might actually be more in love with him.

Following our wedding, we spent a relaxing night at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle before heading off to Cabo for our honeymoon a few days later. We celebrated our first anniversary at the same hotel, and in 2019 we spent our second in Scotland. It was still one of the best vacations I’ve ever taken. Last year, our third anniversary coincided with Washington state beginning to lock down due to the pandemic, so we got creative and spent a day driving out to the Olympic Peninsula to visit Ruby Beach, the place we got engaged in 2015.

This year, we wanted to do something special but between the pandemic and our anniversary falling in the middle of the work week, we decided to celebrate early by spending a night in Mukilteo at the Silver Cloud Hotel. We’ve spent the night there a few times in the last several months and we adore it. The hotel offers a room with a Jacuzzi tub, overlooking the waterfront and the ferry terminal. We like to take our firestick so we can watch movies, and we can get room service from Ivar’s next door and enjoy fresh, delicious seafood without ever having to leave the comfort of our room.

Because it was our anniversary, I was excited to find out that the hotel offered an upgraded package with the Jacuzzi room that came with a bottle of sparkling wine and chocolate truffles. I thought it gave our getaway a little extra romantic touch.

On our way to Mukilteo, we took a little detour to Snohomish to pick out cupcakes from Simply Sweet, the same place that we got our wedding cake and cupcakes from. They’re still my favorite cupcake place ever! I chose a pink champagne cupcake and Bill got a vanilla coconut.

We loved our anniversary getaway and enjoyed the chance to have a mini-vacation, even a local one.

For our actual anniversary today, we exchanged cards (Bill always hand-draws my cards which I love, he is an amazing artist) and Bill bought me a gorgeous bouquet of two dozen roses.

I am so grateful for our relationship and marriage. Bill shows me every day what it’s like to be truly and unconditionally loved and that feeling can still take my breath away. Sometimes I have no idea how this kind, smart, funny man could have ever fallen in love with me and he definitely has the patience of a saint, but the two of us fit together perfectly. The last year in particular came with some incredibly difficult times, but having Bill by my side helped get me through and I feel like we’re stronger than ever.

Beauty in Simplicity

A fond memory I have is of my weekend routine when I was in my early twenties. I lived alone, and for the first time in my life I had a job that gave me weekends off. I liked to get up on Saturday morning, start laundry, and go to the gym to work out. From there I’d do my grocery shopping and run any other errands I had, and then return home to finish the laundry I’d started and to clean my little apartment. Although the place was nearly 900 square feet and spacious for a one-bedroom, it didn’t take much more than an hour to thoroughly clean it. I don’t love the experience of cleaning, but I do love the finished product. I would put on music and light a fragrant candle, so the experience wasn’t unpleasant. Once I finished, I’d take a shower and get ready to go out either on a date or with friends. Sundays were usually just spent relaxing at home, reading a good book or catching up on TV shows while I snuggled with my cats on the couch. It was a simple life, and a very satisfying one, at least as far as I was concerned.

Even though that was over a decade ago, I still remember the happiness I felt during the time in my life when I had that little routine. I know that I am a person who finds the greatest joy in simple pleasures, and I like that about myself. Having more things, even when they’re nice, just increases my anxiety. When I moved out of that cozy apartment and into a lovely, brand-new house a year later with my then-boyfriend, I thought that living in that lovely home with him would increase my happiness. Instead, I found myself feeling very stressed out – by the high price of the mortgage, by the tensions in my relationship with him once we were living together, by feeling very trapped in a job I had grown to hate but that paid me well.

Longtime readers of my blog know the rest: I ultimately left that big house in California and that relationship behind. I’ve learned that I crave an uncomplicated life and have spent the last several years building just that. My relationships with my husband and my friends are loving and free of dramatics. The home Bill and I share is much smaller than that first house I owned, and I love it so much more. Our little place is cozy and comfortable.

My routine these days looks different now than it did in my little apartment, but in many ways it’s the same. I like to get up first thing in the morning and exercise before work. These days my workouts take place in my living room and not in a gym, but I still feel just as accomplished when I finish them. Because I work from home now, I have more free time that was once spent commuting and I can put on music, light a scented candle, and clean the house during the weekday (and now I have Bill’s help!). Our condo is spacious for a two-bedroom but we’re able to do a pretty thorough cleaning in about an hour. On Fridays on my lunch break I pick up our groceries curbside, which is a lot quicker than doing the shopping in the store. Weekends are a relaxing time for us; we can sleep in, and watch movies or go for a drive or take a long walk together.

It’s a simple life, and a satisfying one.

10 Good Things in 2020

This week we will be saying a very gleeful good-bye to 2020, which I think most people can agree was NOT the best year ever by a long shot. And even though there was a lot that made me sad and broke my heart this year, there was also a lot to be grateful for, and good lessons to be learned. So in that spirit, I decided to make a list of 10 good things that happened to me in 2020, so I can close the door on this year with positive reflection.

I got to spend the last six months of Oliver’s life working from home and seeing him more. Prior to 2020, I commuted for hours each week in horrible traffic and my workdays were long. But in 2020, I worked from home exclusively beginning in March and that has allowed me to spend a lot more time with my sweet kitties. Although losing Oliver was by far the worst thing that happened to me this year, getting all that extra time with him when I otherwise would have been at the office meant SO much to me. I think he loved having Bill and I around more and the memories we made with him this year bring me so much comfort.

I practiced gratitude. In the early days of the pandemic and as it has worn on, it’s easy to focus on all the things we’ve been forced to give up, but I choose instead to look at how much I still have. I deeply miss spending time with friends and family, but we’ve found many creative ways to see each other either in socially distanced ways or virtually. I feel such a deep appreciation for all of the blessings in my life and I make a point to spend time every day just to reflect on those things.

I reassessed my priorities. Although I loved my life prior to this year, I admit that the day-to-day was busy, exhausting, and relentless. Being forced to stay home made me realize exactly what things bring me the greatest happiness, and what things were really just clutter that didn’t especially add to my life. Even when things do go more “back to normal”, who I am and what I make time for will be different.

I got to enjoy my home more. Bill and I bought our condo in 2018 and I’ve probably spent more hours here this year than we did in the first two years combined. It’s been an adjustment having our home also serve as our gym and our office space, but we’re making it work, and I am extremely grateful for this place.

I improved my financial health. Having more time on my hands gave me an opportunity to assess our monthly bills and to restructure them, including refinancing our mortgage to get a lower interest rate and save a ton of money per month. I also paid off my credit card and car and am debt-free (minus the mortgage, of course) for the first time in my adult life. Paying off debt was a huge accomplishment for me and it gives me so much peace of mind to finally be out of the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. My goal going forward is to set a little money aside every month, so that by the time I need a new car I can either pay cash for it or put down a big down payment.

I stuck to a workout routine and got stronger. When our gym closed, Bill and I knew that we couldn’t just sit around or our mental and physical health would decline rapidly. We committed to getting up before work and exercising four mornings a week (on Fridays we get up and do our housework so that the house is clean going into the weekend). We also made a habit of taking daily walks – we started off going after work, then switched to lunchtime walks as the days got shorter and colder. Although it hasn’t been a perfect practice, we’ve been extremely consistent and I’m really proud of us. I feel stronger and healthier because of our efforts and I’m excited to continue our routine in 2021.

I became less high-maintenance. I was one of those people who wouldn’t leave my house without my hair and makeup done, and for work I would usually have on a dress or a nice sweater and slacks for the office. Now I have my “nice” leggings that I wear as part of my workday outfits, and I’ve only worn makeup a handful of times since March so my skin is better. My hair is longer, healthier and shinier because I rarely heat-style it anymore. There are definitely days where I feel plain but for the most part it’s nice to have a simpler routine.

I got to eat In N Out for the first time in years. Bored and needing something pandemic-friendly to do, Bill and I drove to Oregon in November, waited in the drive thru line, and thoroughly enjoyed a lunch of In N Out Burger while sitting in our car in a Target parking lot. It may seem silly to drive four hours each way for a fast food burger, but I’m still a SoCal girl at heart and wow did it taste good!

I discovered a love of cooking and made new dishes I was really proud of. Growing up, my mom did teach me the basics of cooking, but she didn’t really enjoy it the way she did baking and our family wasn’t particularly adventurous when it came to food, so cooking was more a chore so you didn’t starve than a fun activity. When I got older and did find a love of trying new foods, I still wasn’t inspired to try and learn to cook things (in part because my boyfriend at the time, who was quite talented at cooking, was also quite talented at being unsupportive and was very critical of my efforts when I tried to make anything, so I learned quickly not to bother). Although I have since discovered that I’m not actually a lousy cook and taught myself some basics, this year was the first one in which I really found how much joy I get in making a nice meal. My friend Jeanette got me a really nice cookbook for Christmas and I’m already bookmarking the recipes I want to try first.

I got to see beautiful new places in Washington. Bill and I love to travel and were a little sad that we couldn’t take any vacations this year, but we made the best of it by planning and taking day trips in the car. We spent time on the Olympic Peninsula, drove up north for a picnic lunch overlooking the very beautiful Diablo Lake, and saw the abandoned Vance Creek Bridge (to name a few highlights).

Quarantine 2020 Pt. 2

We’re back on lockdown here in Washington state, with numbers of COVID cases climbing higher than they ever were last spring. It seems like the shutdown won’t be as bad this time;  a lot of businesses that were closed altogether last spring are allowed to remain open at 25% capacity, and a lot of places are already set up to offer curbside pickup and alternative purchasing options. But it’s still a tough hit to places like restaurants that can only be open for outdoor dining and takeout, and gyms and movie theaters that can’t be open at all. It makes me worry for my friends who are back on unemployment again, and it makes me worry for all of the places we love that were already struggling this year. And although right now the lockdown is only supposed to last until December 14th, if a lot of people go against guidelines and have big family gatherings for Thanksgiving and the number of COVID cases doesn’t drop, I don’t feel confident at all that the date won’t be extended out.

I see people on social media saying that the lockdowns shouldn’t be happening because they hurt small businesses. Others counter that without the lockdowns we won’t be able to stop the spread of the virus. To me, it seems like we’re in a position where the lockdowns really are necessary, but I can’t help but feel resentful toward the people who resist wearing masks and following social distancing guidelines because I feel strongly that we wouldn’t be in this position now if everyone had taken recommended precautions. I also am aware of the reality that there are a lot of businesses that barely survived the first round of quarantine that may not be able to make it through this one, and that people who are back on unemployment are struggling both financially and emotionally. We’re in a tough spot with no easy answers…and it didn’t have to be this way.

I’ve been feeling beyond burned out and, pandemic aside, part of that I’m sure is because Bill and I haven’t had a full week off since August 2019. Since then, we’ve taken some long weekends but not a full week of vacation time. When we first started working from home last March, we delayed taking much time off because at the time we didn’t realize just how long life would be different due to the pandemic. Now we know that we won’t be traveling anywhere too far from home anytime soon, and the latest update we have from work is that we won’t be returning to the office until at least the end of June. And so, we decided to take next week off even though we can’t really go anywhere. I want to get started on my Christmas shopping, as I have vowed I’m spending money locally this year and not on Amazon, and we have some house projects we’d like to do. I’m hoping the time off helps us to feel refreshed.

I’m trying to hold on to hope. Hope for a COVID vaccine and a return to something resembling normal life, hope that our new US president will restore empathy and rationality to the country, hope that this is as bad as it gets.

Grief

It’s been two weeks since we lost Oliver. It’s been a really difficult two weeks of missing my boy and just feeling absolutely heartbroken that he’s gone. I cry less than I did that first week, but I feel sad a lot and everything seems just so difficult to do. On the outside, I think it looks like I’m doing reasonably well – I’m getting up for work, showering, doing normal tasks. It just feels like I’m doing all of it from underwater.
What I really wanted was just to take some time to gather myself and get my head in a better place, but my job has been so busy that I wasn’t even able to take the day after we lost Oliver off from work. Every time I try and schedule any time, something happens and some deadline requires that I work it. I took the Friday off before Labor Day weekend to give myself a nice four-day weekend…and ended up working part of Saturday and Sunday. I’m beyond burned out and there’s nothing I can do about it right now. I try to look on the bright side, that I’m beyond fortunate to have a job right now and at least work is a distraction…but I feel like it’s taking a lot more effort than usual to be present and none of the quality of my work is as high as I’d like it to be. I guess I’m doing well enough, because no one I work with has seemed to notice.
I’m trying to do things that make me happy. Bill and I have resumed our morning workouts (we had taken a brief hiatus while Oliver was sick because I wasn’t sleeping much at all), and it does feel good to accomplish something at the beginning of the day. I find so much comfort in our other kitties, Saturday and Ernie. Their sweet, affectionate, and silly selves never fail to make me smile and I think they are truly the best part of me. Our friends have been beyond wonderful to us and we received thoughtful flowers and well-wishes, and a couple we’re close with even threw us a celebration of life party (just the four of us), complete with a specially-crafted menu of gin drinks because we decided that if Oliver were human he would be a gin drinker. The last two weeks have been filled with very nice times, and I do feel loved and very thankful for the wonderful people in our lives.
Last week Oliver’s ashes came back, along with an imprint of his paw in clay and a lock of his fur. Whoever clipped it even made sure to get both orange and white fur, an attention to detail that I thought was really nice. When I tried to pay the final bill, I learned that my vet had covered everything – the euthanasia, the cremation, all of it. I am beyond touched that he would do something so nice for us and so, so appreciative that when we had to go through this hard time that we had such an amazing vet and vet tech by our side through every step. Dr. Chris and Jill, you are the best. Just absolutely the best.
Grief is a funny thing and I know this, some days I feel more like myself and others I spend most of the day hurting. I try and focus on all that I have and not on the kitty I’ve lost, including the memories of him that I will have forever.
 

Oliver

On a sunny Sunday in May 2006, I drove to the animal shelter “just to look”. I was newly single and had just transferred from my old 411 operator job to working in the sales and billing call center of the phone company, and with that job came a bunch of overtime hours that I was grateful for because I needed the money but that left my Siamese, Angel, alone for 10+ hours every day while I was at work. I had convinced myself that in order for this new lifestyle to work out, Angel would need a new friend.
Of course I didn’t “just look”; I adopted a spunky little orange kitten that I knew the minute I laid eyes on that I had to have in my life and that I would name Oliver after the Disney movie Oliver and Company. He was just too cute. He would eventually grow into his ears but at that stage he definitely hadn’t yet and he looked a little bit like baby Yoda.

Angel was not even a little pleased at the new arrival and made her introductions to her new brother by biting his neck and trying to carry him around. For the first few weeks that Oliver lived with us, I had to separate them when I went to work so that I didn’t worry that she’d hurt him. Luckily things got easier as we adjusted to being a family of three, although Oliver proved to be a very mischievous little kitten. He liked to jump up on my kitchen counters and then get behind the stove. This was problematic because once he got back there he couldn’t get out, and I had to stretch out across the stovetop, stretching my arm as much as I could to try and reach him, all the while thinking that maybe this time he’d learn it was a bad idea to go back there but at the same time knowing he probably would learn nothing at all. I was relieved when he finally got big enough that he couldn’t fit back there anymore.

Oliver kept me on my toes for sure. Once he was too big to get behind the stove, he would amuse himself by opening the bottom cupboard door to my pantry and chewing a hole into the bag of cat food so that he could help himself to snacks, and getting up on the table and grabbing the dining room light fixture and ultimately pulling it out of the ceiling one night while I was at my parents’ house for my mom’s birthday celebration. He was awfully lucky he was so cute and that I loved him, because more than once his hijinks had me in tears. But looking back, I know that part of the problem was that I had never had a kitten before and didn’t know what kinds of toys and puzzles and things to give him so that he could channel his energy in ways that didn’t make me want to pull my hair out. He was a very loving little guy and was super patient with me, even when I didn’t feel patient with him. I would affectionally call him my handsome lil’ man, even as he grew up and at one point was over 20 pounds.
Oliver had a lot of personality and he was very sure of himself and what he wanted. He was very talkative and would wake me up in the morning with his meows for his breakfast. Whenever I left the house, I knew that when I returned he’d come marching to the front door to tell me hello and receive pets (and, if he had his way, food). He loved napping in the sun and when I started working from home I learned that he had a routine of going into our room mid-day because that was when a sunbeam shone through the skylight in our bathroom onto the bedroom carpet. He knew exactly what time of day the sunbeam could be expected, and on cloudy days he would yell at the floor because he wanted his sunshine. When Bill and I started working out in the mornings, Oliver would march over to Bill and wait expectantly to be placed at the top of the cat tree so that he could get some morning light and snooze while we exercised.
My orange boy’s best friend was our Maine Coon, Saturday. I have countless pictures on my phone of the two of them snuggled up together, fast asleep. Earlier this year I got into the habit of letting them have a paper grocery bag to play in, and once they had had their fun of hiding in the bag they would squish it down flat and nap on it. I can’t say I understand the appeal of sleeping on a paper bag, but Oliver and Saturday believed it was one of the best places ever to nap.
Last year, while Bill and I were on vacation in Chicago, Oliver suffered what our friend and pet-sitter initially thought was a stroke but turned out to be vestibular disease. We rushed home to be with our boy at the emergency vet, scared that he wouldn’t even know who we were. But the minute he saw us he began talking to us. The first few days of his recovery were really hard; he was incredibly dizzy and couldn’t stand or walk on his own, so we would hold him up while he ate, drank, and used the litter box. I slept on the couch next to him each night so that he could wake me if he needed to get up. We weren’t sure that he would ever get well again, but slowly the dizziness subsided and he began to be able to do things on his own again. The vestibular disease left him with a permanent head tilt and his balance was never quite as good again, but every time he relearned to do something we were overjoyed. He was so brave and determined through the whole ordeal. Slowly he started being able to get up on the couch by himself, and he began to play again. As he continued to get better it was such a joy seeing him loving life and doing all the things he loved again.
Over the last year, Oliver’s health declined and particularly in the last couple of weeks he definitely wasn’t feeling well anymore. He spent most of the last week under my desk in my room, where he could be by my side while I worked and could see me when I was in bed at night. He would get up briefly to have a little bit of food and some water, but his energy was gone and he would go right back under the desk afterwards. I moved his little bed under the desk with his favorite blankets, his special little pillow, and the stuffed squirrel that was his favorite toy.
On Tuesday we made the very difficult decision to say goodbye to Oliver. We took all of his favorite things with us when we loaded him up to take him to the vet for the last time. His last few moments were peaceful and warm, as I snuggled him and told him what a good boy he was and how much I loved him.
Since Oliver died I’ve been so heartbroken. I miss my lil man desperately and I hate it that he’s gone. I know time heals all but right now I can’t make it through the day without crying, without thinking I see him lying in the hallway before remembering that I will never see him again.
I want to remember the happy times I had with my first boy, and the times that certainly weren’t funny to me fourteen years ago but make me laugh now. Oh how I loved my Oliver, my lil man, my orange squish. He changed me forever in the very best of ways.

You and me together we’ll be
Forever you’ll see
We two can be good company
You and me
Yes, together we two
Together, that’s you
Forever with me
We’ll always be good company
You and me
Yes, together we’ll be
You and me
Together we’ll be
Forever, you’ll see
We’ll always be good company
You and me
Just wait and see