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Posts Tagged ‘husband’

The last days of Yin: snacks, adventure and love. Also, more snacks.

Posted in Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2010| 9 Comments »

I received tons of kind, helpful advice from a lot of people recently regarding some difficult decisions my husband and I had to make about our cat, Yin. The statement that stayed with me day and night, though, was one that a fellow Alabama blogger, Bo, shared. Bo’s 15-year-old dog had died in her sleep not even a week before my original post, and his comment struck home: “I really wish I would have controlled her last moment with us.”

Thursday, September 2, was Yin’s final day with us. I gave him a tour of the garage, a spot off-limits to cats for a number of reasons, and spent literally hours rubbing his belly and his soft, silky ears whenever he would put up with it. I baked a piece of chicken so he could enjoy the smell and the anticipation of one of his favorite treats.

As I was putting a few pieces of soft, too-sweet cantaloupe down the garbage disposal, I heard the distinct ka-chunk of Yin jumping down from the refrigerator; he had always loved melon and was sniffing the air, wondering where his share was. I panicked, realizing I had just thrown away the last bit of melon in the house on the last day the biggest melon lover in the family was going to be around. I quickly grabbed a container of homemade coconut-cantaloupe ice cream out of the freezer and patiently sucked the ice cream off of a few cat-sized pieces of melon. Yin enjoyed every mushy bite.

My husband seared a piece of ahi tuna for dinner so that Yin and his brother, Yang, could enjoy their fair share of what has turned out to be their favorite food ever.

It was an epic last day.

I spent the night on the couch downstairs because I didn’t want Yin to wake up alone during his final few hours. I fed him chicken at 1:30 a.m. when he got up to find the litter box, and rubbed his ears until he decided to go back to sleep on the fridge at 3.

Yin died at around 8:30 a.m. on Friday, September 3, as my husband stroked his side and I rubbed his head and left ear.

Not wanting to leave his body to the care of strangers, we drove him to the crematorium ourselves. We wrapped him in a pillowcase that my grandmother had embroidered before she died in June, and outfitted him with two toys, five Greenies and a tablespoon of catnip for the cremation.

A little over an hour later, we left with a small metal tin containing his ashes.

Thus ends the saga of Yin, who we cared for from the time he and his brother showed up on the carport of our rental house in Mobile, Ala., to the moment we left his tiny body in the cremation room.

It was a fun 13 years. I miss him like crazy, but I also feel honored that we were able to help him have a dignified end to a wonderful life.

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Update: Shaggerty General Hospital

Posted in Cats, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

It’s Thursday, and both husband and cat are still alive.

It turns out that Yin’s unwillingness to chew anything for more than a decade makes hiding pills in his food pretty easy. And he doesn’t seem to mind the sub-Q treatment as long as somebody is handing him snacks. So for now, he’s a willing patient who seems to be getting back to his old self. We’ll see how next week goes.

As for the husband, I haven’t had to hide any pills in his food yet. Again, we’ll see how next week goes.

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Calgon? Miller? Anybody?

Posted in Cats, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

14-year-old cat requires four medications per day, plus subcutaneous fluids. Husband has a dermatological bandage to be watched and changed. The refrigerator is making a noise reminiscent of angry bees.

I have never felt more grownup, married or inept.

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When do the decisions get easier?

Posted in Cats, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 23, 2010| 8 Comments »

So my husband says that if I write about this, I’ll feel better, but I’m not entirely sure that’s true because I don’t know what to write.

One of my cats is dying. Hell, ALL cats are dying, this one’s just on a downhill path: chronic renal failure, the kidney malfunction associated with bad luck and old cats everywhere.

Yin is 14 years old. That’s apparently the equivalent of a 70-something-year-old person, so it’s not entirely unexpected that he should have issues. Frankly, however, his brother has always been our “issues” cat, so I didn’t see this coming.

I’m sort of OK with the idea that he won’t be around much longer, more OK than random outbursts of tears and total lack of appetite would indicate. What I’m not OK with is that I just don’t know what to do. We were sent home today with antibiotics, blood pressure medicine and CRV cat food, among other gels and pills.

The most confusing bag, however, contains a big bag of subcutaneous fluids and a box of 100 needles.

Sure, I watched the vet give a demonstration of administering the “sub-Q,” and I’m pretty sure I can do it, but I’m not sure if I SHOULD do it. I don’t want to turn my cat into a patient, waking up each day only to await a needle and a bunch of pills. It seems … undignified. Especially if he’s not going to be himself, and he HASN’T been himself in a couple of weeks. He used to make every step I made, spend at least half the night sleeping beside me and bound upstairs every morning at 5:15 to wake me up. Now, he lives in the kitchen. Preferably on top of the refrigerator. I might add that he jumps on top of the refrigerator himself, so it’s not a mobility issue, just a lunatic issue. He’s always been a bit of a mad hatter.

I never thought I would miss my 5:15 wake-up meow, but I find myself wide awake at 5:20 every morning, wishing he would scamper up by my pillow and voice his discontent right next to my ear (he totally knows what ears are for). I’ve realized that I’m even going to miss the scratches on my arms, just because I’ve gotten so very used to them (Stockholm syndrome + bad cats go hand in hand).

OK, maybe I do feel slightly better. But I still don’t know what to do. Other than text message my mom because I didn’t tell her about the cat this weekend because I didn’t want to send us both on an apocalyptic crying fit that would pretty much screw up both days for everybody.

Being a grownup sucks. Being a control freak faced with an array of decisions with uncertain outcomes sucks even more.

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As Pictured Below: Go and get yourself some cheap sunglasses

Posted in Photographs, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 10, 2010| 2 Comments »

Fine. I’m rough on sunglasses. I drop them, lose them and leave them on the edge of the kitchen counter, allowing cats to do gravity experiments on them.

My go-to plan for sunglasses has always been to simply keep a couple of cheap pairs lying around. My husband, who has had the same unharmed expensive sunglasses for more than five years, encouraged me to buy a nicer pair last year. Meaning a pair that cost more than (gasp) $30.

True to form, I dropped them, lost them and left them on the edge of the counter.

Some things you accept about yourself. Me, I’ve accepted that I go through a couple of $10 shades from Target every year. Really, there are worse personality traits.

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Bringing the past home

Posted in Family, Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 22, 2010| 2 Comments »

I don’t even know what to call this piece of furniture. Spice cabinet? Spice drawers? During its long tenure in my grandmother’s house, it was simply the blue drawers in the hallway; for adults, the holder of telephone books, for kids, the source of puzzles and books, pencils and paper.

I brought it home after my grandmother’s funeral last week, stuffing it into my tiny car along with a few photographs and a handful of handwritten recipes from the bottom kitchen drawer.

I asked for this piece long ago (my grandmother had been assigning artifacts to children and grandchildren alike for nearly three decades), choosing it over the fancier formal china cabinet that resided in the den and didn’t match my personality or decorating style any more than pineapple-topped bedposts.

Seriously, what’s with the pineapple-topped bedposts?

It’s in my office now, slightly cleaner thanks to a brief encounter with Murphy’s Oil Soap, but still bearing evidence of its age. Rather than puzzles and phone books, it holds the essentials of a perpetual graduate student. Mostly, though, it just holds memories, and I’m grateful that my husband maneuvered it into my car with mere inches to spare.

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Pillow Talk, Crow Haggerty Style

Posted in Family, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2010| 1 Comment »

Me: So I might get to have lunch with Tom Wolfe.

The Husband: Who?

Me: Tom Wolfe. He’s a famous author.

H: That’s what you dreamed?

Me: No, I dreamed that I was wandering around a post-apocalyptic Earth in search of chocolate-covered cherries. The English department might actually host a luncheon with Tom Wolfe.

H: Oh.

Me: No, I dreamed that I was wandering around a post-apocalyptic Earth in search of chocolate-covered cherries.

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CSA time draws near

Posted in CSA, Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2010| 9 Comments »

OK, I know I sound like a shill, but you should totally buy a share in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program this summer.

I had the best time last year with my weekly pickups from Dennison’s Family Farm in Elora, Tenn. It really did turn into my own version of Iron Chef, having to work with whatever ingredients showed up in the box each week. And since there are few things scarier for my husband to hear than the statement “I made something new for dinner,” it’s somewhat of a miracle that he had a blast with it, too.

It’s a lesson in the natural cycle of crops for those who aren’t used to the whims of Mother Nature. For example, last year’s rains made for a very short corn crop, so I didn’t get nearly the amount of corn I had expected, but I got tons of tomatoes, chard and peppers of all varieties. And strawberries. Not those tasteless baby-fist-sized strawberries you get at the grocery store, but juicy, delectable berries, so many that you can’t eat them all and will be forced to make the best ice cream ever with them. Darn the luck.

Some folks tell me that they just prefer to go to the farmer’s market, which is cool if you like rolling out of bed before 9 a.m. on Saturdays. Which, truthfully, I have been known to do. But what I find myself not doing at the farmer’s market is buying something I’m unfamiliar with, or buying so much of something that I have enough to freeze for later. (I’ve got two more servings of zucchini/onion/garlic soup base in the freezer, and I just ran out of frozen bell pepper slices in January.) Even if you’re not going to get into canning, you can still have a little taste of summer when it’s 30 degrees outside.

Seriously, it was the best summer food-wise that I’ve had since that summer in the early 1980s when my grandfather and I grew a huge patch of watermelons and I ate my weight in fresh tomatoes.

Head to Dennison’s page on LocalHarvest for details on its 10-week program, or search for a CSA closer to you.

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New purchases beget more new purchases

Posted in Eats, Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2010| 2 Comments »

Buying cookware is the final stage of entry to adulthood, right?

I am SO there.

I’ve been using the cookware pictured here for about 16 years. Liberated from the home of my dearly departed paternal grandmother, it’s likely older than I am. Wear and tear wasn’t really a problem, however, since she hardly ever cooked much more than a can of chicken noodle soup.

It was some kind of enamelware, with hints of an Australian origin. I was always sort of vaguely aware that I should buy something “real,” since who knows what that stuff was coated with.

One of the larger pots developed a small dark spot on the bottom in the late ’90s. While boiling water one day, I watched the spot rise to the surface, followed by a powdery, brownish red cloud. It seemed to have rusted through from the inside out.

Other than that incident, it was incredibly durable. The only reason I had to get rid of it was because of another very grownup purchase my husband and I made recently: a new stove.

It’s a stainless steel model with a ceramic cooktop that, in theory, will make the kitchen sleek and sporty once we’ve replaced everything else that makes the kitchen non-sleek and frumpy.

The only caveat: The safest way to use the ceramic cooktop is not to use it at all.

It is the drama queen of cooking surfaces. No enamel. No cast iron. No aluminum. Only the flattest of flat-bottomed cookware will do. No hint of moisture on the outside of the vessel. If you spill anything with sugar in it on the cooktop, immediately turn the stove off, call a priest and get him to pray that you can remove the spill before it makes a pit on the surface.

I kid. Sort of. It’s actually a really reliable cooktop, once you get used to it, and the oven is the most accurate model I’ve ever used. And it does make one end of the kitchen look very sporty.

I think I’m even burning extra calories, because cooking without the fear of instantaneously destroying your cooktop doesn’t produce any adrenaline at all.

It might all be hype. Several people have told me that they use anything and everything on their ceramic cooktops. But older enamelware seems to be a consistent no-no – the surface coating has every possibility of actually melting onto the cooktop.

So we bought a set of stainless steel, the only “sure thing” to use. I was pleasantly surprised by the price; my husband found a five-piece set of Tramontina, recommended by Cook’s Illustrated, for around $150 at Wal-Mart, a real bargain compared to most of the luxury brands.

I’ve got no complaints about it. Best of all, some lucky thrift-store scavenger is going to get a few more years of use out of my grandmotherly enamelware. Just beware the small dark spot on the bottom.

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And hilarity ensued

Posted in Family, tagged , , , , , on November 22, 2009| 3 Comments »

I just celebrated my 14th wedding anniversary. Fourteen years of marriage … I don’t think that used to be a lot, but it seems like it is now.

The secret? There is no secret.

I can tell you my favorite part of the relationship: We have fun. Probably 75% of “our stories” could end with the phrase “… and hilarity ensued.”

I’m looking forward to a lot more hilarity ensuing.

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