Thay say "you're gonna miss me when I'm gone," and in out house this evening this is proving painfully truthful. We've been blessed by having a wonderful feline as a member of our family for more than nine years. And today as a family we are mourning his passing. Hummer was just that, a hummer of a cat. A cat that arrived as part of a pair for my husband one Christmas nine years ago, and today we had to bury this very important member of our family and his death has torn our hearts apart.
Many in my family tell me on a regular basis that I'm not an animal lover, but in truth - I am. I just also realize that I do not lead the kind of life that warrants owning an animal, cats being the exception. For cats are truely part human in nature and totally independant and really do not need us at all. We need them much more than they really need us. So I brought home Hummer and Cleo as Christmas presents for my husband who always has had cats in his house. Growing up with cats and dogs, I thought these two cats would be a natural addition.
Right from the start, Cleo proved to be more superior than her human minions. She would situate herself high and aloft from anyone in the family. Only coming in contact with anyone if absolutely necessary. But Hummer, now he was different. He wanted to be close, closer if at all possible. He was happiest she he was nose to nose with one of us.
Almost seven years ago, Hummer decided right off that he was going to be a constant companion to our newest member of the family. From the moment I was preganant, Hummer started sleeping on my stomach. As I would move, he would move with me. The farther along in the pregnancy - the closer he would be to me. He was a constant 'watch cat' for what was being added to our family. When Christopher arrived, Hummer would sleep on the floor next to the bassinet. If not there, he would sleep on my shoulder keeping a watchful eye on his newest human pet. If Christopher whimpered and I didn't immediately respond, Hummer was immediately under my feet getting my attention.
When Christopher moved into his crib, Hummer went with him. Sleeping next to his littlest charge, keeping him safe. When we would have Christopher nap on the couch, Hummer would keep him safely in place, washing his hair while nearby. Many photos are in our albums of Christopher and Hummer, constant companions right from the start.
As Christopher grew older - Christopher started doing things to that poor cat that little boys would do. Carrying the cat from one end of the house to the other - barely holding him by two legs, the back to dragging behind him. We'd find Hummer patiently waiting out his turn of hide-n-seek inside a closet (which Hummer knew how to get out of if we didn't catch on fast enough.) Then there were numerous baths, carrying the cat in baby blankets and driving the cat crazy with a laser light. All Hummer would allow CHristopher to do to him without even the slightest of meows.
As Hummer got older - he'd start to throw his weight around the neighborhood. He's taken on a fisher and won. Brought through the cat door as presents mice, moles, bats, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, frogs, and snakes. He's taken on more than one neighborhood rival and kept them away from our backdoor. And most recently - a raccoon kept him howling while perched high atop the spare refridgerator. But one this he couldn't beat - a passing car. We live on a busy road where most drive way to fast. Hummer is not the first cat we've buried because of a vehicle and I'm sure he will not be the last, but he certainly feels like the most impactful.
For the last 4 hours I have held my two youngest children in my arms as I've tried to explain to them why Hummer would not be coming back. Veronica understands a little better, but for Christopher - Hummer has been a constant in his life. Here from the beginning, Christopher is convinced that once Daddy covers him with dirt, Hummer will wake up and eat again. Even seeing him dead - which I could not handle, my two little ones were convinced to a point that Hummer wasn't dead. His eyes were blinking and he's still alive.
Ron was left with the horrible task of burying the cat. With two children looking on, and making Daddy move the location so that noone could run over Hummer anymore, when the rain started to fall, Ron was placing the final shovel of dirt on the tiny grave. Two small children were heart broken. Ron, usually a rock solid member of the family had to walk away since he was crying so hard. Death is never easy. I know - I've been dealing with it since I was seven. I lost my mother when I was seven. My grandfather when I was nine. My maternal grandmother had a stroke in my arms when I was 16 and died three weeks later. I've been to more funerals than most. Recently to a young niece whose life was cut short tragically too young and a friend who died from a brain tumor. Every death is hard, and every one is missed. But when they are missed by those so young its hard to try and explain the whys.
Christopher is trying so hard to figure out if Hummer is now an angel. And if Christopher himself dies - will he become an angel. And if he's an angel, can he then come back? Such cosmic questions coming from such a tiny little boy who at 5 1/2 is experiencing his first true loss. I'm hoping it will be a long time until he has to go through such a loss again. But for now, we are sad. We will be sad for a while and then we will resume the happiness that Hummer helped to share with our family. A solid memory in our photo album, rest assured Hummer - while you will no longer be sleeping next to us in bed, you will always be with us in our hearts and our memories.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Lond Weekends...
So after a long but short work week I was looking forward to a much needed long weekend. I had made all sorts of plans, had all sorts of things to knock off my 'To Do" list. So as I sit here today doing laundry on my birthday, I'm now wondering if anything at all got accomplished? Let's see...
Thursday afternoon I sat with Ashley and frantically made pouches to plant a small lighthouse series of 25. Now mind you, I knew I was planting these - so why did I wait so long you might ask? Well procrastination IS my middle name ; ) Besides, waiting for Ashley to help me did make the task more fun! So we stamped up each image and labeled them, taping the image to keep it from smudging too much. Made camo bags, and tucked them into the pouches and numbered them as we went along. Not too much of a task, but definitely lots easier when you have an extra set of hands. Of course its even easier when sipping on tasty cocktails. We were looking through a magazine I picked up at the store earlier and started talking about cocktails. Ashley found one on the internet called a Salem Witch. Realizing we had the ingredients, I thought I'd whip one up to try. Need to test these things if I might want to serve them later at another event. Smooth and slightly tart. And it went so well with the grilled chicken Caesar salad we were having for dinner. A great way to start my long weekend!
Printed off the trail map, put all of the camo bags into my boat and tote and quickly realized that would be a bit cumbersome to drag along a trail so I set off to find my fanny pack. This same fanny pack has eluded me for the past month or so. I've needed it when I've gone out planting and boxing with Teacup a couple of different times. I knew I washed it. I knew that at one point it was hanging on the back of the coat rack. I remembered moving it. But still, it eluded me. Hmmm... so much for using it to plant these 25 boxes.
So I got all of my necessary equipment ready; boxes, notebook, pen and headed off to bed. (note my list is relatively missing some much needed things - this too is normal for me.) Friday I got up and put Christopher on the bus and discussed grand plans for the weekend with my Dad. Seems we were going to split some wood, move some stuff around and set up some square foot planters along the edge of my parents house so we could plant things like tomatoes, cukes, and peppers. This grandiose idea came to pass because my husband thought we should plant tomatoes in a five gallon bucket. Now mind you - I have the BLACKEST thumb around. I kill spider plants. So why on earth would he think I could keep tomatoes alive is beyond me. But Dad thought in lieu of the five gallon buckets we could upgrade to the square foot planters that someone gave him at the beginning of LAST summer. We are nothing without our grand ideas!
So plans set for Sunday and Monday, knowing Castine was planned for Saturday and sometime on Sunday we were having a small BBQ birthday for Ron's 50th, Ashley and I set off for a planting trip. First we had to go to her bank to get some money, then to my bank to cash a check, then to another bank to make a payment at which point my teenager announced that she was hungry. Mind you - as soon as she sits in my car she gets hungry. So off to McD's for sweet tea, a bottle of water and some nuggets. Just a little something until we could have lunch. Lunch before lunch???
Off to our location, we pulled in and grabbed our gear. We no sooner stepped foot on the trail than a jeep started to back up to the trailhead, ugh. But with a quick scan of its bumper we realized it was just the local mail delivery. Yeah! So off we started, trying to calculate how quickly to plant the boxes so they would fit on the trail. The trail itself was a little less than a mile, but its offshoot added about a half a mile. So we basically had 1.5 miles to plant 25 boxes. We planted our first couple and a family of 4 deer shot through the woods. A lovely sighting on this quiet trail. Especially since it was almost noon at this point. (Where had the morning gone???)
Trying to stay on task, I did mention to Ashley that she should be happy that I made her put on my sneakers. She thought she was going to plant these boxes in flip flops. Like her feet and ankles haven't had enough trauma this past year! Again, silly teenager! So we ambled along the trail with Ashley ducking in and out of the treeline. She had the task of planting while I scribed the clues. We continued down the middle path towards the water. When we reached the path I pointed out the bridge across the water. Listening as well as she does - she said "That's a little far off the path for the next box don't you think?" I just looked at her. Yeah right Ashley. Unless every boxer can walk on water it might just be a bit too far off the trail : ) So around the point we went and the path started to get a little narrow and sloped towards the water.
At one point I had mentioned to Ashley that we needed to try and plant some boxes on the right as I seemed to have an affinity for planting on the left. With water on our right, we were kind of stuck with left handed plants for this portion of the trail - but with some quick logistical semantics we did manage to get a right hand plant in. Getting closer to the end of the trail we quickly planted the last couple of boxes and made our way back to the car. Now this trail is usually riddled with flying bloodsuckers. But we went in without the aid of bug spray and didn't have to fight off even one! The coastal breeze was perfect, the temperature just cool enough so forgetting bottled water wasn't even an issue. I wouldn't suggest doing both of those things for those seeking this series - we just plain lucked out!
So back at the car - and back to my still icy cold sweet tea (after 2 hours on the trail) we headed back to town to find lunch. Of course on our way off the island we did have to make a quick u-turn to check out a wheeled tiger in some one's driveway. Ashley thought it would be more effective if it was motorized. But then everything usually is. Back in town we stopped at Jen's Place just before they were closing up for the day for a bit of lunch. Just enough to curb the hunger pains. With just enough time to hit Hannafords to order a birthday cake for my husband's 50th 'surprise' BBQ on Sunday.
Now one would think picking out a 50th birthday cake would be simple enough, yeah right! We had exactly 2 choices. One said "Older than Dirt," a title that was bestowed on my Dad more than a couple of years ago by Ashley. So that one was DEFINATELY not an option. The other one was a grim reeper cake. And that too seemed a bit too extreme for 50. So we opted to forgo the 'toys' on the cake and just ask for a chocolate cake with masculine colors that said happy 50th Ron in red. But the lady taking the order threw me a curve ball... did I want traditional or best creme frosting? What? Are you kidding? Damn. Half my family like one type - the other half like the other. Now the odds were not in my favor - I just knew I'd get the wrong one, so I ordered best creme and hoped for the best.
We raced back to the elementary school to pick up the wee people before heading home just long enough to drop Veronica and Ashley off. Veronica was going to a fundraiser with her grandmother (also known as a yard sale - of which give me the whillies) and Ashley had to go to work. Christopher and I had a date with Teacup to pull a series. So we shuffled bodies around - loading the right children back into the correct vehicles and headed back to Brunswick.
Quickly collecting Teacup, we headed back across town towards the needed trail - which is normally a simple task. But we decided to go to a Bowdoin College trail on the same weekend that Bowdoin College was graduating. UGH! The traffic was hideous. Parents in SUVs, and upscale cars with out-of-state plates were plugging along the roads making the locals crazy. So a quick divert down a back road and a cut across a lesser traveled road we managed to park the car. Spraying ourselves down with bug spray - since the breeze had died down a bit, and we were no longer benefiting from the coastal breeze - we headed off to find what was left of this series. Christopher chased a squirrel and said hi to anyone interested in listening to him.
Sometimes a rowdy noisy 5 year old makes it hard to be elusive. But we were pulling the boxes - so its not like anyone was going to find anything after we left. We followed our clues to location after location. Picking up boxes and what was left of boxes along the way. We knew a couple were missing. A couple more were tragically claimed by downed pines that even though Teacup tried - she could not lift and move it to get the boxes beneath! So boxes collected, off the trail we went. A quick hop down a side road Christopher picked up a box and then another quick diversion and we had Teacup getting inky. We then took a ride over a bit farther to knock a couple more off our list that had been overly elusive to us. And wouldn't you know it - it was a raccoon. Little did I know that finding these boxes would be a foretelling of my evening to come.
So once I was finally home again - and quickly getting too pooped to pop, I started carving a last minute plant while printing off clue sheets. Just ask around - I'm famous for those slightly under-the-wire carves : ) I was carving away when I heard this 'bang, bang' over the drone of the TV. A quick peek into the laundry room and our evening diner was back for his nightly chomp through the bag of catfood. I had already duct taped one corner, this pesky fellow was now working on the other corner! I shut the light off so as not to interrupt his evening's meal and calmly walked to the living room to tell my darling husband of our visitor. The next hour or so can best be summed up as raccoon's ability to defeat a big strapping man with a fireplace poker!
So here comes Ron brandishing the fireplace poker. Scaring the raccoon out of the laundry room didn't work the first time - at least to get him to stay away. Why would the critter stay away tonight? We the banging continued - because tonight seems he'd gained a couple pounds and couldn't get thru the door as easily. Bang, bang. He was caught in the screen door and kept going back and forth to try and make it through both doors. A final slam and we knew our friend was inside having dinner on us! I watched as Ron grabbed the poker and the raccoon backed his way out of the laundry room with Ron poking at him. Big man winning round one. And my big brave husband announced to me that the raccoon was gone for the night.
So about 15 minutes later I tell Ron that the raccoon is back. I tell my husband to get dad and a gun. I'd had enough. So off he goes to get dad with a gun. Another 15 minutes later, the raccoon is still enjoying dinner in our house... so off I go in search of the two men. There they were, holding and loading the gun. Good thing we weren't being robbed at gun point - because these men were not built for speed! Ron decided he was going to use the gun - which had me very leery. So he struts through the house with the gun and heads into the laundry room. I wait to hear the gun fire and nuthing. The back doors slams open and shut. And Ron walks back to my parents with the unfired gun. "What happened?" I asked. "Well I hit him with the gun." "Hit him with it? You didn't shoot it?" "No I didn't want to shoot the freezer."
Okay - so that made sense, I guess. So he was out again. Round two over. Raccoon chasing, NOT over for the night. Bang, bang. Guess who's back? Yup - so once again I get my husband and my Dad involved. This time Dad positions himself on their back porch and Ron chases him out of the laundry room with an ax! Two shots later - the coon was gone for good. The question was - did Dad hit it? No blood... but the coon has not been back since. So we're pretty happy about that.
I finished carving my stamp. Pulled together a plant and gathered my stuff for Tour the Fort and made it to bed at a reasonable time - all things considering. Can't wait for the next morning. A full day of boxing and the weather is supposed to be perfect!
Thursday afternoon I sat with Ashley and frantically made pouches to plant a small lighthouse series of 25. Now mind you, I knew I was planting these - so why did I wait so long you might ask? Well procrastination IS my middle name ; ) Besides, waiting for Ashley to help me did make the task more fun! So we stamped up each image and labeled them, taping the image to keep it from smudging too much. Made camo bags, and tucked them into the pouches and numbered them as we went along. Not too much of a task, but definitely lots easier when you have an extra set of hands. Of course its even easier when sipping on tasty cocktails. We were looking through a magazine I picked up at the store earlier and started talking about cocktails. Ashley found one on the internet called a Salem Witch. Realizing we had the ingredients, I thought I'd whip one up to try. Need to test these things if I might want to serve them later at another event. Smooth and slightly tart. And it went so well with the grilled chicken Caesar salad we were having for dinner. A great way to start my long weekend!
Printed off the trail map, put all of the camo bags into my boat and tote and quickly realized that would be a bit cumbersome to drag along a trail so I set off to find my fanny pack. This same fanny pack has eluded me for the past month or so. I've needed it when I've gone out planting and boxing with Teacup a couple of different times. I knew I washed it. I knew that at one point it was hanging on the back of the coat rack. I remembered moving it. But still, it eluded me. Hmmm... so much for using it to plant these 25 boxes.
So I got all of my necessary equipment ready; boxes, notebook, pen and headed off to bed. (note my list is relatively missing some much needed things - this too is normal for me.) Friday I got up and put Christopher on the bus and discussed grand plans for the weekend with my Dad. Seems we were going to split some wood, move some stuff around and set up some square foot planters along the edge of my parents house so we could plant things like tomatoes, cukes, and peppers. This grandiose idea came to pass because my husband thought we should plant tomatoes in a five gallon bucket. Now mind you - I have the BLACKEST thumb around. I kill spider plants. So why on earth would he think I could keep tomatoes alive is beyond me. But Dad thought in lieu of the five gallon buckets we could upgrade to the square foot planters that someone gave him at the beginning of LAST summer. We are nothing without our grand ideas!
So plans set for Sunday and Monday, knowing Castine was planned for Saturday and sometime on Sunday we were having a small BBQ birthday for Ron's 50th, Ashley and I set off for a planting trip. First we had to go to her bank to get some money, then to my bank to cash a check, then to another bank to make a payment at which point my teenager announced that she was hungry. Mind you - as soon as she sits in my car she gets hungry. So off to McD's for sweet tea, a bottle of water and some nuggets. Just a little something until we could have lunch. Lunch before lunch???
Off to our location, we pulled in and grabbed our gear. We no sooner stepped foot on the trail than a jeep started to back up to the trailhead, ugh. But with a quick scan of its bumper we realized it was just the local mail delivery. Yeah! So off we started, trying to calculate how quickly to plant the boxes so they would fit on the trail. The trail itself was a little less than a mile, but its offshoot added about a half a mile. So we basically had 1.5 miles to plant 25 boxes. We planted our first couple and a family of 4 deer shot through the woods. A lovely sighting on this quiet trail. Especially since it was almost noon at this point. (Where had the morning gone???)
Trying to stay on task, I did mention to Ashley that she should be happy that I made her put on my sneakers. She thought she was going to plant these boxes in flip flops. Like her feet and ankles haven't had enough trauma this past year! Again, silly teenager! So we ambled along the trail with Ashley ducking in and out of the treeline. She had the task of planting while I scribed the clues. We continued down the middle path towards the water. When we reached the path I pointed out the bridge across the water. Listening as well as she does - she said "That's a little far off the path for the next box don't you think?" I just looked at her. Yeah right Ashley. Unless every boxer can walk on water it might just be a bit too far off the trail : ) So around the point we went and the path started to get a little narrow and sloped towards the water.
At one point I had mentioned to Ashley that we needed to try and plant some boxes on the right as I seemed to have an affinity for planting on the left. With water on our right, we were kind of stuck with left handed plants for this portion of the trail - but with some quick logistical semantics we did manage to get a right hand plant in. Getting closer to the end of the trail we quickly planted the last couple of boxes and made our way back to the car. Now this trail is usually riddled with flying bloodsuckers. But we went in without the aid of bug spray and didn't have to fight off even one! The coastal breeze was perfect, the temperature just cool enough so forgetting bottled water wasn't even an issue. I wouldn't suggest doing both of those things for those seeking this series - we just plain lucked out!
So back at the car - and back to my still icy cold sweet tea (after 2 hours on the trail) we headed back to town to find lunch. Of course on our way off the island we did have to make a quick u-turn to check out a wheeled tiger in some one's driveway. Ashley thought it would be more effective if it was motorized. But then everything usually is. Back in town we stopped at Jen's Place just before they were closing up for the day for a bit of lunch. Just enough to curb the hunger pains. With just enough time to hit Hannafords to order a birthday cake for my husband's 50th 'surprise' BBQ on Sunday.
Now one would think picking out a 50th birthday cake would be simple enough, yeah right! We had exactly 2 choices. One said "Older than Dirt," a title that was bestowed on my Dad more than a couple of years ago by Ashley. So that one was DEFINATELY not an option. The other one was a grim reeper cake. And that too seemed a bit too extreme for 50. So we opted to forgo the 'toys' on the cake and just ask for a chocolate cake with masculine colors that said happy 50th Ron in red. But the lady taking the order threw me a curve ball... did I want traditional or best creme frosting? What? Are you kidding? Damn. Half my family like one type - the other half like the other. Now the odds were not in my favor - I just knew I'd get the wrong one, so I ordered best creme and hoped for the best.
We raced back to the elementary school to pick up the wee people before heading home just long enough to drop Veronica and Ashley off. Veronica was going to a fundraiser with her grandmother (also known as a yard sale - of which give me the whillies) and Ashley had to go to work. Christopher and I had a date with Teacup to pull a series. So we shuffled bodies around - loading the right children back into the correct vehicles and headed back to Brunswick.
Quickly collecting Teacup, we headed back across town towards the needed trail - which is normally a simple task. But we decided to go to a Bowdoin College trail on the same weekend that Bowdoin College was graduating. UGH! The traffic was hideous. Parents in SUVs, and upscale cars with out-of-state plates were plugging along the roads making the locals crazy. So a quick divert down a back road and a cut across a lesser traveled road we managed to park the car. Spraying ourselves down with bug spray - since the breeze had died down a bit, and we were no longer benefiting from the coastal breeze - we headed off to find what was left of this series. Christopher chased a squirrel and said hi to anyone interested in listening to him.
Sometimes a rowdy noisy 5 year old makes it hard to be elusive. But we were pulling the boxes - so its not like anyone was going to find anything after we left. We followed our clues to location after location. Picking up boxes and what was left of boxes along the way. We knew a couple were missing. A couple more were tragically claimed by downed pines that even though Teacup tried - she could not lift and move it to get the boxes beneath! So boxes collected, off the trail we went. A quick hop down a side road Christopher picked up a box and then another quick diversion and we had Teacup getting inky. We then took a ride over a bit farther to knock a couple more off our list that had been overly elusive to us. And wouldn't you know it - it was a raccoon. Little did I know that finding these boxes would be a foretelling of my evening to come.
So once I was finally home again - and quickly getting too pooped to pop, I started carving a last minute plant while printing off clue sheets. Just ask around - I'm famous for those slightly under-the-wire carves : ) I was carving away when I heard this 'bang, bang' over the drone of the TV. A quick peek into the laundry room and our evening diner was back for his nightly chomp through the bag of catfood. I had already duct taped one corner, this pesky fellow was now working on the other corner! I shut the light off so as not to interrupt his evening's meal and calmly walked to the living room to tell my darling husband of our visitor. The next hour or so can best be summed up as raccoon's ability to defeat a big strapping man with a fireplace poker!
So here comes Ron brandishing the fireplace poker. Scaring the raccoon out of the laundry room didn't work the first time - at least to get him to stay away. Why would the critter stay away tonight? We the banging continued - because tonight seems he'd gained a couple pounds and couldn't get thru the door as easily. Bang, bang. He was caught in the screen door and kept going back and forth to try and make it through both doors. A final slam and we knew our friend was inside having dinner on us! I watched as Ron grabbed the poker and the raccoon backed his way out of the laundry room with Ron poking at him. Big man winning round one. And my big brave husband announced to me that the raccoon was gone for the night.
So about 15 minutes later I tell Ron that the raccoon is back. I tell my husband to get dad and a gun. I'd had enough. So off he goes to get dad with a gun. Another 15 minutes later, the raccoon is still enjoying dinner in our house... so off I go in search of the two men. There they were, holding and loading the gun. Good thing we weren't being robbed at gun point - because these men were not built for speed! Ron decided he was going to use the gun - which had me very leery. So he struts through the house with the gun and heads into the laundry room. I wait to hear the gun fire and nuthing. The back doors slams open and shut. And Ron walks back to my parents with the unfired gun. "What happened?" I asked. "Well I hit him with the gun." "Hit him with it? You didn't shoot it?" "No I didn't want to shoot the freezer."
Okay - so that made sense, I guess. So he was out again. Round two over. Raccoon chasing, NOT over for the night. Bang, bang. Guess who's back? Yup - so once again I get my husband and my Dad involved. This time Dad positions himself on their back porch and Ron chases him out of the laundry room with an ax! Two shots later - the coon was gone for good. The question was - did Dad hit it? No blood... but the coon has not been back since. So we're pretty happy about that.
I finished carving my stamp. Pulled together a plant and gathered my stuff for Tour the Fort and made it to bed at a reasonable time - all things considering. Can't wait for the next morning. A full day of boxing and the weather is supposed to be perfect!
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