Communing with the homestead.

Today began here with Gillian's passing.

I hope people realize when I write about my angst here, it is no more than the usual human struggle for existence. I realize there are days when we are all miserable, so please suffer me to whine, without worrying.

I find it hard, sometimes, to think back to what the house was like when two of us lived here. It seems like I've done a lot of work on the inside of the house, and yet still there seems to be so much to do. The upstairs has languished for so long. Then I ventured back up (after sleeping downstairs for two years) and took over the guest room. Well, that didn't work out. The guest room is as silent as a tomb and I feel remote from the rest of the house. So I finally moved back into the bedroom. The thing that made it tolerable was pushing the bed right up against the window, like I used to do as a teenager (which is hard to do as a couple, because someone ends up crawling over the other person).

At night the moonlight streams in, and now and then the cats will watch out the window with great intent, and I'll sit up and watch the skunks and deer wandering out around the front yard. No bear yet, though. :) I actually love my bedroom now, and some semblance of "bedtime" has now come back into my life.

When I start boarding cats in the two upstairs bedroom, responsible cat owners would want to see the rooms, which means they will need to tromp through my upstairs as well. This means it's time to prettify the upstairs. So the pile of summer clothes got stored; the tv/dvd was moved from the dresser to the stand behind the bedroom door. Etcetera.

I moved the daybed into the bedroom as well, and the cats now like to hang out there, instead of all sleeping on me. It's quite comfy in here now.

"Doing something" about the house kept me from dealing with the baggage about Gillian. I actually really glad that I got to know her end. It's the best I (or sadly, she) could have hoped for. Every time she has disappeared for a bit, I always wondered if I would see her again, of if that was it. Poof...gone, always to wonder. If the cats were ultimately gone from the compost facility that would end one more source of stress between me and my ex, since he has been left to feed her during the week. So of course, the loss of Gillian is also tied up in the loss of my marriage, and working on the house makes it only so obvious I'm working on it alone. And then I end up reminding myself that it all really is so much better this way.

A mental "blah, blah, blah."

The longer I live here, the more certain I become that there are things I will never ever use. So on to Craigslist they go. Yet sometimes I let the oddest things linger on. The old cat tree is still up against the window in the hallway upstairs, even though a brand new cat tree sits right next to it. I just need to pull the old one out, and bump bump bump it down the stairs. Fifteen minutes max.

Oh well.

At any rate, it was a melancholy day. It almost became a terror-stricken day when Tyler ZOOMED out the front door, straight into Molly. Molly chased him, and Tyler ZOOMED off the porch around the house into the darkness -- smack into the half finished cat enclosure, where I was able to scoop him up before he darted away into the night.

Then once Tyler was safely in--both our hearts pounding--I went out calling for Bear, and immediately heard an animal scream up on the hill. Fox? Cat? I grabbed my coat, shoes, and flashlight, but Bear immediately showed up. I locked out the night with relish, once everyone was safely in.

My phone has been ringing off the hook with political auto-dialers to the point where I want to unplug the damned thing. I thought I was on the do-not-call list, but perhaps I need to do that again. It feels like there is some monster in my kitchen, ringing and ringing and ringing.

The only blessing has been this wonderful weather. I need to force myself to step outside during the day when I am working, or darkness and chill will creep in by 6:00 pm when I'm done, and I'll feel like the last of the warmth of the year has been stolen from me.