It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year. At the risk of sounding like an asshole, I’ve always been less sad about his death than mom’s. His life felt done. It’s like finishing a great book that ends as it should. I’m sad that it’s over, but it was time for it to be over all the same.

Saul brought Mom and Dad a bottle of wine, and I let them have a little — in part because Dad loved to booze it and in part to celebrate with them. I wanted to let them know they were going to be grandparents again. Devon and I found out the previous week. I know they would have been excited, especially mom. My brother has two kids, but people who took in 350 foster kids would have gladly welcomed more. When Mom was in ICU, two months before she died, Devon and I told her we were getting married and that if we had a kid and it was a girl, we would name her Aurelia, after my mother’s mother. She cried.

So I poured some of the wine into the dirt and told Mom to go easy, because she’s a lightweight. I sat by the grave for a bit and talked to them about the future. Then I went home.

Two days later I miscarried. It wasn’t very painful and there’s wasn’t a lot of blood, and I’m fine.

Devon took Friday off and we spent a long weekend cooking and watching movies and playing video games. I drank the wine I couldn’t drink at the grave site. We lit the candle over Fitz’s tiny urn and enjoyed the amazing lamb and ratatouille Devon made, along with my cream of mushroom soup and vanilla-chocolate pudding.

A lot can happen in the first three months. We were aware I was pregnant for only 10 days. The embryo would have been the size of a lentil bean. But it was a wild 10 days. We’re not devastated, certainly not like we would be if one of you died. Sad and subdued is more like it. But we’re OK.

Me: I like this one. It’s nice. Relaxing.
Devon: It would be good for gaming.
Me: Yeah, for the forest scenes. Right before a kobold rapes your face.
Devon: <silence>
Me: You know how it is. You’re just wandering thought the forest, all “la la la la,” and then kobolds come out of nowhere and rape your face. It happens a lot.
Devon: I think you shouldn’t talk anymore.

+++++++

This shit is cool. Trust me:

Nigella Lawson’s amazing tits
This 26-pound party Gummy Bear is totally real
Food porn: Twix cheesecakes 

This is what happens when a dude buys $50 worth of M&M’s, leaves them home for two days and expects me to exercise self control.

I considered leaving it there. You know, in case I get locked in the bathroom for days and run out of cat food. But in the end, that M&M never had a chance.

She’d never been able to jump over the child gate we installed by the bedroom door until last night. She finally realized she could get over it if she jumped near the slightly lower edge. Her jumping over might not be so bad if she didn’t do it with claws out, ninja-fucking my face on the way in.

We put up a strip of tape on the door and on the floor where she launches herself, and that seems to have solved the problem for now. But I had another idea.

Devon: What do you want for breakfast?
Me: We could eat Sahrah.
Devon: She’d be kind of stringy.
Me: But it would solve the problem.
Devon: That’s a more permanent solution than I had in mind.
Me: But we’d be able to keep her with us. Forever.
Devon: You’re really disturbing sometimes.

Sahrah, the mad pisser

She’s a pretty asshole, but still an asshole.

Devon had to chuck his old desk chair because he kept getting a pee bath every morning when he sat down on it. He used a wooden chair for a while with no issues, so he assumed the problem was solved.

You know what happens when you assume.

We can speculate on why she pees on the leather chairs but not the other ones, but cat logic is for cats, so I’ll just say it’s pissing us off. Ha! Pissing us off!

The string of profanity that emerged from Devon this morning was impressive and passionate. We have since covered the chair in bags in hopes of warding off the Pee-inator.

Asshole.

Mom holding Fitz

Forgive the potential incoherence of this post. Devon and I are sitting here drinking whiskey and talking about Fitz.

Fitz was not a smart dog. Nor was she a strong dog. But she was all heart and made of 100% awesome. If you wanted a dog to snuggle your side, Fitz was your dog.

Catching the death is not cool, Fitz. Not cool at all. We’ve ordered the cats not to die, and Devon has asked me not to die, and I said OK. I mean, anything to make him happy, right? Devon won’t make such promises because he’s a jerk.

Fitz was 12 years old — three years shy of the average lifespan for min-pins, so we lost her too young. We’re still waiting for the dog autopsy to come back, since it happened so fast the vets were never able to figure out what was wrong with her.

I like to think we gave Fitz a good life. Devon rescued her from the road, where she was tossed out of a moving car, and gave her lots of love and food and even tried to take the fall when she peed the bed. I took her to get her nails trimmed and made sure she was stylin’ in her badass dog hoodies.

Here’s to you, Fitz. You were awesome and I love you.

On the way home from the picnic, we accidentally off-roaded the Prius a bit. The blacktop was a little higher than the edge of the road, and when we pulled it back, we blew both tires on the passenger side. Two busted tires – 1 spare = one busted tire and 70 miles to go.

After several hours at a gas station in Milford, N.J., we finally got a AAA tow back to Brooklyn: 70 miles at $4 a mile. I also need to thank a guy named Steve Hill, who stopped and offered us his spare, but it didn’t fit. It was pretty darn nice of him to go through so much trouble anyway.

Yesterday, we took Fitz to the pet ER because she still wasn’t eating or drinking, and she was on the couch all day, extremely listless. That’s where she is now. Her temperature rose to 104 F, then dropped to 94 F. Her blood pressure and blood sugar are low, and she seems to be in some pain in her abdominal area. The doc is running more tests to find out what’s wrong with her. It could be a really bad stomach ache, or pancreatitis. Or she could have a uterus infection that’s making her septic.

I hope not. Fitz is a good dog. A crazy dog, but a good dog.

Also, we’re looking at about a $3000 vet bill, on top of the $1000 we spent on her mouth and the roughly $700 I expect to spend on the car situation.

Ouch.

You see, Fitz is a jerk.

For the whole 13 blocks between my apartment and the groomer’s, she does her best to stop at every tree, pole and patch of weeds to sniff and maybe leave her mark. I say maybe because she doesn’t always pee. Mostly she’s shooting blanks.

Then she tries to turn herself into puppy chow by taking on every dog and pigeon she sees, like they are offending her oversized min-pin pride by existing. She’s a pretty tough dog on a leash.

Every once in awhile, she decides she doesn’t want to walk anymore, and I have to drag her or carry her. Sometimes she does this in the middle of the street, when I’m walking against the light, like she’s some kind of jaywalking narc.

Rinse, wash, repeat for the walk back.

Like I said, Fitz is a jerk.

But her nails are trimmed now and she is still alive. And I bought her the good dog food, with the real meat. I really shouldn’t be rewarding this behavior.

This is good, right?

We are also talking about getting rid of the big, worn chair that went with the couch. We could replace it with another chair,  but the truth is, none of you visits us anyway, and we have seriously limited floor space. So a second option is just leaving some empty space.

I know. Empty space in OUR apartment. Call me a motherfuckin’ dreamer.

Option #3: KITTY DISCO, BABY!

This is so awesome I can’t even stand it. Sadly, Devon feels the same way. I don’t know why he doesn’t love our cats enough to get this for them. It will keep our cats fit and trim, and it’s an amazing work of art all on its own. I know I want this to be the first thing I see when I walk through the door.

Devon is clearly no fun at all. Try and convince him otherwise, OK?

P.S. If you’re having a seizure and decide to buy this for yourself, clicking on the link there gets me a small percentage.