a wolf angel is not a good angel

While looking at flamingos (acceptable plural, -gos or -goes, if you were wondering):

Look, mommy, ducks!

No, honey, those are flamingos.

Wow! They only have one leg!

Califia’s daughters, Leigh Richards (better known as Laurie R King) — an interesting but not, in the end, entirely successful novel set about 150 years from now, after some wars and bioattack destroyed much of civilisation and now there are about 10 women for every man (boys are born less often than girls, and have a very high death rate in childhood), so women have to do everything because the men are too precious to be risked.

The Know, by Martina Cole. Silly, enjoyable little read.

Case histories and Not the end of the world, both by Kate Atkinson. Nothing will ever come up to Human Croquet, one of my favourites. But both good books.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Finally. I adored the book. About 150 pages in I fell in love; the last 150 pages or so I refused to move and all-but-snarled at people who interrupted me. (Or maybe snarled snarled. But people who interrupt me when I’m reading deserve that.)

I know lots of people hate Disney World. I am not one of them. I love the total unreality of it. I am not going to defend it, or that I like it: please don’t accuse me of anything. I also like vacationing at real places, I spend far less here than I do anywhere else, blah blah blah.

Well! Now that we have finished “not defending”: a story.

When I was little, we used to go to character breakfasts on a paddleboat at the Disney Village, the Empress Lily. And just after I had learned to write (I think it must have been when we went just as Epcot opened, when I was 4ish), we went to one. They used to give you little certificates that the characters signed, and so I carefully got all the characters to sign it.

Pluto, however, refused to sign: apparently, being a dog, he couldn’t write (because, of course, mice and ducks are well known for their beautiful handwriting). He drew his pawprints (with a pen! come on!) and I was so very irritated that he wouldn’t sign, I carefully printed his name below the pawprint.

In the 20-plus years since, Pluto has learned to write his name.

Dialup is excessively slow. How did I ever live like this?

A bunch of photos from the butterfly gardens here. About half of these photos I took and the other half my sister took. Hers are generally better than mine, but if you can guess which I took and praise those more — well, it’s *my* blog, right?

The first few rooms are filled with butterflies everywhere. Since it was cool, they were really active, more than in the other butterfly gardens I’ve been to.

They also have these odd flowers. Very few of them were in bloom, but some were.

There was also a hummingbird room.

They are cool birds. We once had a hummingbird feeder, but I guess we’re too far north.

And roses!

Roses that don’t die immediately, either because I can’t keep plants alive or, my new favourite excuse, because my cats like to munch on any plants they ever see.

There’s a lorikeet room, too, where you go and pay to buy food for them and then they all jump on you, fighting for the sugary syrup, then poop all over your clothing. Yes, you pay to be pooped on by birds.

When they’re tired of biting the stuff they don’t poop on, they rest.

I was going to post nice butterfly and bird photos, or about today’s retail therapy, but (and this is me on vacation):

Apparently my boss forgot when I said I was leaving for vacation, so I left “early”. (I did: at 3 instead of 4:30, because of the cat situation, but the end-of-the-day thing wasn’t new.) Whatever.

I realise that, actually, I hate my job. I feel sort of shitty about that, because of that screwup beforehand, but — yeah. I’m doing very mindless work, and though I keep getting promised better work, it never actually appears, because something else mindless is more important. And though I understand that every job has boring bits, only boring bits?

I don’t really know what to say here. I have a few plans for ways to change jobs, or jobs to change to, but I just feel sick about all of it. I sometimes feel I screwed up my entire life, and the past 8 or 10 years have just been spinning it out further and further so that now it’s unsalvageable.

Last night was fun, for some definitions of fun that include a total utter lack of fun.

I couldn’t sleep. Now, I also slept probably 14 hours in the car (happy! (otc) sleeping! pill!), so not being tired was sort of expected, but being awake until 5 or so? Not really. What was particularly fun was the part where I woke almost everyone up by crying so hard.

Yes, of course I’m hanging some other grief on my cat’s death. But in part it was just being there when she died. I was sick right after it, and pretty much have spent 2 days crying. This is — a lot. It’s about so much else, I think. I know. (Actually, she was 16, not 17.)

Of course then I actually *talked* about (somelittle bit of) it last night — amazing, sometimes, how much that can help. Not that I stopped crying or anything after talking about it. I’m not sure how much better I feel. But it’s (comparatively) warm here and breathing in some fresh air might help. I’ve made some plans, things bloggable and not, but all in the future, once I’ve thought some things out a bit more, I can finish making the plans in writing. But I need to actually sleep on it instead of stay awake overnight on it first.

Time to go, time to go. Butterfly gardens in my immediate future.

I went to the vet to say goodbye; I patted her head while she died. And cried and cried, the rest of the day and much of today, too. It’s better in many ways, that it was now, and it’s not at all unexpected — but still.

I’m in Florida now — we left shortly after having come home from the vet — and it’s good, I think, to be away. Internet access is here-but-slow, and I hope to be out doing things a lot, not thinking. Enjoying warm fresh air.

Thank you for the kind thoughts.

It’s cancer

Brady is at the vet. We’re leaving for two weeks, and she’s at the vet, and they don’t know what’s wrong. Kidney failure? Cancer? Could be.

My mother couldn’t find her this morning. Eventually she found her, hiding under a table in the furnace room. She’s never done that before. So they brought her to the vet. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. And I think this is goodbye: she’s 17, she maybe weighs 4 pounds, she’s just a bag of bones.

I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Gus, either, when we brought him to the vet and he died during a routine liver test. I didn’t think I had to say goodbye to him. I don’t want to say goodbye to her, either. She wasn’t in pain. She wasn’t getting sick. She was just old and slow and skinny.

I need to go to the vet to say goodbye. I don’t want to: I want to think if I don’t go she’ll have to survive a bit longer so I can say goodbye then, later, when I’m ready.

I remember when we brought you home. We were in the process of moving, and we were living over the holidays in my grandparents’ house (they were away). You spent the car ride there hiding under the front seats. I can’t remember how we got you into the house, but you hid near the washing machine, and eventually we tempted you out with barbecue chicken. You always loved barbecue chicken best.

Oh, Brady. I just hope you’re not in pain. I love you.