As of August 5, I am . . .
1. Slowly preparing for college (as a teacher, and as the mom of a freshman leaving the nest)
2. Rehearsing the sixth and final Quonnie The Musical with my talented young cast
3. Celebrating another birthday (along with Loni Anderson and Patrick Ewing)
I hope you're having a great week!
Boo-Boo, where are you?
What to do if your cat goes missing, as Boo-Boo Kitty did on June 25.
TO DO: 1. Go ahead, panic. WHERE IS HE?? WHAT HAPPENED? Boo-Boo Kitty was a homebody who came and went as he pleased, never traveling more than a quarter mile from the house. Oen afternoon he just took off like shot, like he was heading toward something. He never came back. That's not like him at all.
2. It easily could have been you who let the cat go out, and you've already forgiven him, but be a little angry at the guilty-looking husband who was so busy working that he didn't realize Boo-Boo had been missing for over 24 hours. He just assumed that he came inside at night and went to sleep. You drove 15 hours (it should have taken 12) from Columbus Ohio, walked in the door, and immediately realized the cat was missing. Start searching and calling together in the dark, to no avail. (Husband keeps up the search even when you are thousands of miles away in Europe. He's a keeper.)
3. Scour missing pet websites, including www.missingpetpartnership.org. List your pet as "missing" with RI Lost Pets, Craigslist, and other online groups. Bring posters to the local shelters and veterinarian offices. Try not to notice how many other pets are missing, too.
4. Don't shake your fist at karma too hard when you think of how you spent a vacation's worth of savings on your cat's teeth only two weeks prior to his disappearance. You rationalized, "Hey, he's only nine years old, he's going to be around for another ten years at least, let's make him comfortable." Be glad that even though he has far fewer teeth Out There On His Own, at least you know he has his shots, and he always did like to gum the grass.
5. Make eye-catching signs for the neighborhood telephone poles. Cut sheets of neon poster board in half to double your supply. Include basic information only: "LOST CAT, GREY/WHITE TABBY, CALL ME." Use plastic sheet protectors to keep your color photo looking nice for weeks on end, even though you devoutly hope the posters will be coming down in a few days, when you find him. Be sad but glad, weeks later, that the posters are still up and still looking good. Glad but sad.
6. Hang the posters at major intersections in your community, and be amazed and relieved that no one rips them down. Instead, all the walkers and joggers and bikers stop, read, and they start calling. It's high summer and there are many, many people around to help look. Feel hopeful.
7. Hand out little flyers to all neighbors in a half mile radius. ALL of them. Accept their sympathy while trying to get access to their garages, sheds and backyards so you can conduct a thorough search. Keep flyers in a Ziploc bag with a pen, so you can add a personal message like "Spotted near your driveway on 7/14, please keep a look out."
8. Talk to the lady down the street who feeds ferals. Five of her seven ferals went missing about a month ago. She saw the coyote take one of them in his mouth. Also discover there is a chicken coop not too far away from your house and the coyote likes to park there and shop for dinner. Be sobered by this information, but also realize that there are several other cats who walk about the neighborhood completely unmolested. It's luck, it's chance, and it's also geography.
9. Make your sleepless nights productive. When you awaken at 3am worried about your cat, put on your shoes and go out with a flashlight and softly call him. Hope that your neighbors are sleeping soundly. Flash the light into closed garage windows and sheds, hoping but also not hoping to find him or hear him trapped there after three weeks of being missing. Cats can survive that long but you hate to think of the suffering.
Crazy Cat Lady In the Vintage Bathing Suit At The Independence Day Parade
10. Leave your family's holiday early because you are heartbroken and anxious about your missing cat. You got a possible lead the moment you arrived at their home, six hours away from yours. Go home and keep searching after the lead turns out to be false. At the Independence Day Parade in your neighborhood, hand out more Lost Cat flyers while wearing a vintage bathing suit because this year's theme is "Living History." Own the title of Crazy Cat Lady.
11. Begin a desperate search for ways to keep your two remaining cats safe. Invest in an indiegogo scheme that will build GPS pet collars trackable on an iPhone. Get your Invisible Fence fixed but balk at training Cecilia the Huntress Cat to stay inside it. Instead, buy the Loc8or, a kind of LoJack for cats, and put the little radio units on your cats' collars. Be happily amazed at how well they work. Teach everyone in the family how to locate Lou-Lou and Cecilia with the little monitor, that beeps faster and louder when you get closer to the cat or the cat gets closer to you. Play this game of feline Marco Polo every night at dusk. It now takes you five minutes to locate Cecilia in the back yard, or one street beyond. If it took any longer you would be immediately alerted to trouble. And now you know Cecilia gets around so much she should have a passport.
12. Hire Marge the Missing Pet Detective to bring her dogs to your yard, to see if they can pick up a cat scent. Try not to be too elated to have the help and support, and try not to be too discouraged when they don't lead you straight to your pet after three outings. The process itself is very interesting, even if you don't get the result you want.
MOULTRIE DIGITAL GAME CAMERA
MOULTRIE DIGITAL GAME CAMERA
13. Deploy wildlife trail cameras (on loan from Marge the awesome pet detective) in your yard. Put out a Kitty Buffetof smelly mackerel, cat food, and dry dog food to attract diners to the camera. Do this so many times, you can do it by feel and not even need a flashlight. In the morning, see that the plates are empty. Bring your laptop and check the SD card from the camera. See raccoons, possums, birds eating your food . . .and a few cats you've never seen before. But not Boo-Boo.
14. After several weeks of not seeing any cats in your own yard, convince neighbors and vacant home caretakers to let you put trail cameras in their backyards. Check them daily. When you get no hits after a few days, find new neighbors to beg.
15. Leave used kitty litter at the lawn's edge; they'll smell their way back.
16. Put a can of tuna in a crock pot with water. Heat it up. Load it into a spray bottle and spray it on trees and shrubs near your home, hoping the smell will lure your cat home. (This even impressed Marge.)
17. When you find cats on camera, prepare humane traps and hope to catch them -- maybe catch your own. Trap two giant ferals within 12 hours . .but release them when you realize it's a Saturday night and you have nowhere to send them to be neutered. Damn, damn, damn.
Pharrell the Big Mean Feral. He looked . .Happy . . when I released him.
18. Follow up every lead. Try not to be too elated when a caller insists they saw your cat. Text them a photo of your cat to confirm. Try not to be too agitated when they don't call back right away, and then you have to call them after waiting an hour to find out that, "no, I guess it wasn't him, so I didn't call you." They weren't even going to bother calling back; that's the part that hurts. Don't they know you are sitting on tenterhooks waiting for their response, while they think they're making it easier on you by just ignoring you? What do they think you are doing, thinking about something else? Learn to send out more than one photo -- send out three photos, like a kitty lineup, and see which one they choose. It makes it a little more likely they'll call back.
19. Start a Facebook page called "Cats Of Quonnie" to keep track of all cat sightings, and to keep people looking. Upload videos from your trail cameras, which are really kind of entertaining. Give the feral cats cool names like Kanye, Pharrell, Greystoke, and Christian Grey (he had many different shades of, well, you know). Upload photos of every cat you can find in your neighborhood, so when people call and swear they found your cat, you can direct them to the Facebook page where they will either exclaim, 1. "I really did see your cat" or 2. "Oh, I guess it was that one who lives down the street, sorry." Two other local cats are now missing. Add them to your page.
20. Practice your calm demeanor when someone casually mentions, "You know, my neighbor found some kind of small animal intestines on her front lawn a month ago, that same place where we thought we saw your cat. But she didn't call you about it because she didn't want to upset you." You're not upset about a dead animal's intestines; you're upset because you're thinking this ordeal could have been over a month ago if someone had bothered to pick up the phone. Your phone number is all over the telephone poles in the neighborhood. Swear to yourself that you will never do that to anyone else, out of fear of upsetting them.
21. Go to that house and check out the property anyway. Find no evidence of fur or anything that would suggest a coyote kill. There are coyotes and fisher cats in the area, but there are also many places to hide, and you've had potential sightings (even though nothing has panned out). Be aware that lack of despair is not the same as hope.
22. Feel tremendous sympathy when your neighbor's cat suddenly goes missing four weeks after yours. Share your advice, your kitty buffet, and your cameras.
23. Let your heart race four days later, when you get a solemn call from a friend two blocks away. She has found part of a cat in her backyard. The landscape crew was mowing her lawn and blowing away the freshly cut grass when they noticed fur in the air. They remembered your signs and they told the homeowner. Shake as you drive to her house. Follow the bits of grey fur -- a sure sign of a coyote kill -- until you come upon the remains of a cat -- a tail and a leg, nothing else. Scrutinize it carefully and realize it's not your cat. Gently take the remains to your neighbor's house, and hug her as she identifies them as her missing cat. Be sad for both of you. Her ordeal is over; yours isn't.
24. Acknowledge that Boo-Boo could have met the same fate. Keep looking for evidence of death, as well as life.
25. As weeks turn into months, and the sightings are further apart and each trail goes cold, begin to face it as much as you dare. You worked so hard, you did everything you could. Your neighbors are amazed and slightly appalled at your tenacity. You attracted every cat in the area, except him. The sightings could have been him, or could have been Greystoke, a feral cat who had some similar markings. Boo-Boo could be eating plates of wet food and purring into the neck of someone only a few miles away, or he could have died the night he went missing. You will probably never know for certain, but more than likely it's the latter. You never had control over any of this. If he returns home, it will be a miracle that will be shared on the missing pet blogs for years. But you don't expect a miracle anymore.
26. Return the traps and the cameras to Marge the pet detective. Start to take down the signs in the neighborhood. It's very hard to do this so you do one at a time, every few days. Keep one trail camera for yourself, just in case, and because it is still kind of interesting to see the wildlife in your own yard. You hear that some vacationers adopt a cat for the season, then take off in the fall, leaving the cat to fend for itself (horrible). Maybe you can catch these homeless cats on the camera and start a feeding station. Maybe Boo-Boo strayed that far and he'll show up there. Maybe you can still salvage this experience.
I miss our not talking together.
27. Be always grateful you were never conducting a desperate search for your missing child.
28. Be satisfied that you were able to dispel many misconceptions about missing pets; it might help the next grieving owner. So much of the folk wisdom is dead wrong and it reduces the chances of cats coming home. FACTS: Even confident cats can become scared when they are out of territory, even just a few feet. . . . Even friendly, social cats can appear feral when they're trapped, which can lead to them being euthanized in a shelter instead of being reunited with an owner. . . . Lost cats will not come when called, at all; they shut down into survival mode even if their beloved owner is three feet away with food in hand and calling for hours. It can take a week or longer for these cats to break cover and move. . . Cats who show no signs of ill health or age do not just go off into the woods, "fixin' to die". . . .Cats do not just decide they want to live somewhere else and take off like hobos; they will warn you first by detaching, and by disappearing for a short time. And all of this applies to dogs, too. They are creatures of habit.
Boo-Boo in his usual spot. I miss hearing him.
28. Cats who are one Pounce short of a can, cats who started life rough in the barn and were grateful to live in a warm house, cats who were declawed as kittens and didn't have great hunting skills, cats who sleep all day behind your back, cats who are first in line for the crunches, cats who look for chances to purr into your neck -- they do not just run away. They are missing, they are lost, they are gone. You can do a lot of things to help bring them home. One of them may work. All of them may work. Or not.
29. You have used your hard-won knowledge to help others. It just couldn't help Boo-Boo. Be sad about that for as long as you need to be.
30. Admit that the girl cats are not exactly crying into their Meow Mix about Boo-Boo's absence. They get more food when they want it, the litter box is a lot cleaner, and both of them have become more social with the rest of the family. Boo-Boo hogged the spotlight, like Rebel before him. But you miss that wonderful, quirky male feline adulation. You are already cruising the PetFinder website, looking to save a cat from a shelter. You just want to save something.
31. Oh, how you wanted to end this post with a little update saying Boo-Boo had been found and was purring contentedly behind your back as you were writing. Maybe that's why you didn't blog for three months. You were hoping to write a happy ending. Good night dear Boo-Boo, and sleep well, wherever you are . . .
Goals for 2013 What I resolved, and how I did:
I want to learn how to prepare a few more healthy foods. I didn't learn how to make the Thai rolls, but I did make a lot of smoothies. That counts, right? I learned the hard way that kale doesn't blend so well in my blender. Bleech.
It's time to say goodbye to brown clothing -- forever. Khaki, you're next. I ditched all the brown, AND the khaki pants! I could never find anything to wear with them! Gray and black are my neutrals. What's more, I've said goodbye to about half of my closet. I just kept giving away stuff that didn't make me feel good, didn't fit well, or didn't fit my life anymore. It felt wonderful. I'm no minimalist, but I am really tired of managing crap I don't care about. Really tired. Let it bless someone else's home and life.
I love teaching, and I love breaks from teaching just as much. Keep doing this. I did this! I welcomed many new students into my studio, and I also started using Genbook to schedule lessons, which allowed me to schedule downtime, too. Genbook rocks!
Pray more and more and more . . . because prayer works. Yes. Yes it does. Prayer saved my brother in law's life in November. While my mother deals with the effects of Multiple System Atrophy, prayer keeps me from despair and overwhelming anxiety. Prayer is the most powerful way I can express gratitude and thankfulness. I pray in the shower, when I'm driving, when I'm running, and yes at church. Pray to whomever or whatever you want. Just pray.
Run a half marathon. Run a 10K. Run a 5K. Run. Or just tone up. Or just look like I've lost 10 pounds. My emergency trips to Ohio this fall did result in a 7-pound loss, so I ate 7 pounds of Christmas cookies to compensate. I ran a 5K on New Year's Day in Phoenix, and I ran a 5 mile race in Narragansett in October, but didn't run anywhere else. I promised my husband I would run a half marathon with him in 2014 so I'm beginning to train again. Happily, my 13 minute miles are quickly decreasing to 11 minute miles. How on earth did this happen? I blame the extra conditioning I have been doing with Fitness Blender and the LoloFit 7-minute HIIT Workout app.
Restrict Facebook and other cyber time wasters. The best thing I did: I removed the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone. It is very hard to care about tweets when you can't see them on your phone. Glorious.
Say a long goodbye to my 20 year old cat Rebel, and have him make a peaceful trip over the Rainbow Bridge. After the big blizzard last winter, we both got terrible colds. I got better, but Rebel got worse. On Friday, Feb. 22 at 2pm we took him to the vet and said goodbye.
Five hours later I was onstage singing a recital. I had water, cough drops, and tissues on the piano, not sure what was going to come out of me besides music. When I walked in, I asked the (dear) organist Joey if he knew a certain piece. He did, and so I ended my Valentine's Day themed recital with "For I Will Consider My Cat," a love song by Benjamin Britten that was perfect for him and for us.
I'm writing a short children's musical about Saint Francis. I wrote it, I directed it, and it was performed in May. My son stepped in to play Francis, only two weeks after playing Oliver in his high school musical. You can perform Francis Makes A Scene at your church if you like! I dedicated it to Rebel the Cat.
I also wrote a third edition of "Quonnie The Musical," and created a website for the show, and the theater camp that preceded it. It was our biggest cast, and our best show yet!
Paint some landscapes. I aspire to be Winston Churchill. Paint some walls, too. And the garage doors. I painted nothing, not even my wagon.
Travel more. Last year I enjoyed short trips to New Orleans and Montreal. This year: Colorado? Key West? Graceland? India? Nah. I made a lot of trips to Ohio to be with my family. Each trip was worth it.
Figure out that contact lens prescription once and for all, and write it down so I can find the right contact for the right eye. I think I keep mixing them up. Fail.
Plant a smaller vegetable garden, to make room for more flowers and trees. This happened and it made me happy. Eden can only handle so much garden! We demolished most of the vegetable garden and decided to support local farmers' markets instead. I planted more bushes and trees this year; it will be fun to watch them grow. And I think we're getting asparagus this year!
Continue to celebrate the end of orthodontia payments, car payments, and house payments (ALMOST!). My Michigan house finally sold at the end of January 2013, almost three years after it hit the market. On the night of the closing, we went to eat at a restaurant I had been saving for just this celebration. The restaurant turned out to not be worth the wait gastronomically, but emotionally it was the feast I had been waiting for.
Be at peace. That's my resolution for 2014, and my wish for all 8 of you who read this blog. Well, that and . . .
Once a year I get to jam with the neighborhood band, in my own back yard. They come to support my husband's fundraiser for Fred's Team, a charity that supports the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. We eat, we drink, and make noise. Our set list includes "Kansas City," "The Girl From Ipanema," "Route 66," "Oye Como Va," and anything else we can convince the rest of the band to try. We rehearse about four times a year and play a few local parties each summer. It is great fun.
Here we are performing "Your Cheatin' Heart" by Hank Williams, in the key of Patsy Cline. I think I look a little too serious here, but I was concentrating on playing the bass line, trying to fill piano riffs and singing lead. (Oh shut up, Eden. Elton John can do it, so can you. Bring me another White Pumpkin Russian and I will!)
This website is still under construction, but I've been hammering away elsewhere! I taught a camp for young actors and oversaw the vocal health of 120 singers, wrote and directed a musical for the third time, played organ at church and filled in as a singer here and there, became the vice president of a pancake company, hosted friends and relatives, and have spent time with my family here, in New York, Ohio, and Indiana. It's truly been a Summer of Love, doing what I love to do with people I love to be with. What a blessing!
For my summer vacation, I'm writing "Quonnie: The Musical 2012," teaching voice and acting classes at three different summer camps, prepping new classes for the fall in three different locations, and communing with my fellow Somatic VoiceWork voice teachers in hot, humid Virginia. I'm trying to brush the mats out of my 19 year old cat's fur. I'm ordering books for my high school freshman son. I'm cheering my daughter as she practices ice hockey. I'm also doing some weeding in the garden, growing pumpkins and radishes (I ate my own radishes yesterday!), doing some weeding, trying to grow sweet potatoes, and doing some weeding.
I haven't written much since I completed the first "Quonnie" script a year ago. I was looking forward to researching the history of my area again, and actually yes, that part is fun. But the scriptwriting has been difficult. I told myself the only way to improve on last year's show was to write my own music, in addition my own lyrics. I forgot that Elton John had Bernie Taupin, Lennon had McCartney, and even the Captain had Tennille. I was alone and adrift.
Seeing my distress, my husband asked, "Why are you trying to write a first draft perfectly?" He had described my thought process exactly. I gave up trying to control what came into my head, and as soon as I did, ideas and lyrics pushed their way into my brain and onto the page. I may still have time to write the music, but if not, there's always next year.
In the rear view mirror, all writing is easy. I wrote Bride and Flatulence three years ago and finally got a performance of it up on YouTube. I had read Austen's books, and wondered about the private lives of all the genteel men in her literary universe. I wondered what they were like when the women were off catching butterflies and planning balls. Then I stumbled onMr. Darcy Takes A Wife, an R-rated fan fiction sequel to Pride and Prejudice. The Darcys' "compleat delight" in each other, energetically expressed in several locations in and around Pemberley, resulted in the production of an heir, plus a few more progeny. Instead of exploring their most intimate pleasures, I imagined Darcy and Elizabeth's most intimate . . . embarrassments.
Mr. Darby and Miss Bennett in "Bride And Flatulence," 2010. Click on the photo to watch the whole play.
Looking at the video, I think it turned out well. I look at the video and recall happy rehearsals and sentimental thoughts. But, digging a little deeper into my memory, I also remember writing feverishly through the night before the play's due date. I emailed updated versions of scenes into the wee hours, until my future husband finally said, "Good night, and send me the rest at 6am!" I remember the first reading was at 9am and even the adrenaline could barely keep me awake. I was out of . . . gas?
Writing is like childbirth -- you forget the pain, but if you think long enough, you'll remember it. (And still be glad you did it.) And, there's no way to do it perfectly -- just get on with it, take all the help you can get, and hope for a happy ending. It usually works out.
And now, back to writing . . or teaching . . or weeding.
