Just as we wrapped up a particularly challenging spring/school year, summer presented its own challenges. Within days of school getting out, our dear elderly Kiki had what I believe may have been a stroke or a seizure. We went off to the emergency vet straight away, but by the time they were able to see us she had mostly recovered from the initial symptoms. A trip to our regular vet yielded very normal bloodwork and no answers but it was obvious she was not her usual self. She was wobbly on her legs, sleeping all day and just “unable to cat”. Those of you with cats probably know what that means. After a week of watching her struggle and holding our breath every time we approached her sleeping (for fear she’d be dead), we made the difficult decision to have her put down. We adopted Kiki in 2009 a month before our wedding. She came from a dark smoky apartment and had had at least 1 litter of kittens. When we got her she was dirty, skinny, and had a smoker’s cough, but she was oh so affectionate. By our best estimate she was 16-17 years old when she passed and 15 of those years she spent with us living what most would consider a pretty perfect life. Her death was sad but also beautiful thanks to an at home vet service that came out to our house. Kiki passed away peacefully in my lap in early June as the sun came up on the back patio and we listened to the birds and smelled the roses. I think it would be admirable if we could all die peacefully being held by someone who loves us without prolonged suffering. The boys did better with the whole thing than I thought they would. It was nice that we had a week to say our goodbyes. We’ll miss our queen, but she lived a good long life.
Summer always brings on new projects. After garden planting, Jason got to work repairing the overhang of our covered patio. One of the lawn sprinklers had been hitting it (probably for years prior to us owning the house) and the wood had started to rot. Then we fought off carpenter bees for a couple summers and the wood was essentially shot. Jason managed to take off the eaves and metal wrap, and replace the rotted wood with new pieces. One project leads to the next project so over father’s day weekend I decided the weather was right for painting the underside of the patio. The wife of the original owner had painstakingly painted all of the trusses pink by hand. Just the thought of all that overhead painting made my neck hurt so we started the day with a borrowed hand paint sprayer and ended the day with a full blown paint sprayer rented from Home Depot. It was perhaps the most frustrating project of my life. (In hindsight I’ll admit that hunger and lack of experience contributed to this). After masking the entire area I quickly realized the hand sprayer was too small just in time for the wind to pick up and mess with my masking. Once we got the sprayer from Home Depot we were back up and running, but I came closer to giving up than with any other project.
Mid patio painting I had the strangest experience when a pigeon showed up and landed on my head! I almost had a pet pigeon–the cats would not have been impressed. It was the strangest thing. It hung around the yard all afternoon following us from place to place, and was still there the next morning! We put it in one of our cat carriers and hunted down someone in the area who had pet birds. Thankfully he came over straight away and got the bird. He picked it up and observed it was definitely someone’s pet and in very good condition. It was an interesting little learning experience about birds.
At the end of June we added 2 new kittens to our family! It was pretty quick after Kiki’s passing, but also perfect timing with the boys home for summer. After Kiki’s passing I had been looking at kittens up for adoption and was finding it very therapeutic. I happened across a pair of siblings (from a litter of 4) that would be at the local Petco with one of the local rescues and it was love at first sight. Our 2 new family members were renamed Matilda “Tilly” and Winston “Winnie”. They are everything you expect from kittens. Due to Theo’s lazy demeanor the boys had never really experienced kitten energy. Watching them play is a riot. Although Theo and Kiki never really bonded, Theo took to the kittens almost immediately and they are now the happiest snuggle pile on earth. The kittens also give lazy Theo some exercise which he desperately needs. It’s been a great experience all around.
In July just as summer got rolling I suddenly found myself with crippling anxiety for no apparent reason. Have I had anxiety most of my adult life? Yes. Am I very familiar with what is normal for me? Also yes. I knew that my anxiety had been creeping up for some time and we were actively adjusting some medications to try to compensate. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say and I now realize July was a terrible combination of a medication that didn’t work for me and anxiety likely caused by hormones/perimenopause. Perimenopause is no joke friends! I found myself waking up at 5:00 AM with crippling anxiety that I just couldn’t shake. Even my emergency meds barely touched it. Not knowing what else to do, I would go out for a walk at first light–usually nauseous and anxious–so if you saw me out for a morning walk in July just know I was NOT having fun. Fortunately the whole experience had some benefits. 1) It sent me back into therapy which was super helpful in unpacking some things bugging me behind the scenes, and 2) It got me back into a good work out routine. Just know that sometimes you can seemingly be doing everything right (eating, exercising, sunshine, therapy, good sleep hygiene, 2 new kittens!) and still feel like you’re going crazy. If anyone is interested on learning more about the wild ride of perimenopause I’d recommend the book “The New Menopause” by Dr Mary Claire Haver. I’ve learned a ton and after a few rough months am happy to report I’m feeling better than ever.
Otherwise July for us was pretty routine: Fireworks with friends, hosted the block party for Midvale Harvest Days (thankfully WITHOUT covid this year), an outdoor concert (Ben Folds), and the dahlias started blooming.
After a semi-project-free July my parents came in August and we (with my dad’s help) decided to pull up our bedroom carpet to investigate the hardwood underneath. When we bought the house we didn’t realize there was hardwood in the main bedroom until after our carpet was purchased and the installers were installing it. At the time we were both at work and elected to just have the carpet installers proceed as planned, so we hadn’t actually gotten a look at the hardwood. 12 years later I decided the carpet was worn and dirty enough that I wanted to give the hardwood a chance. Luckily it was in great shape (much like the rest of the house). My dad pulled up the old carpet and re-did our bedroom trim. I got an area rug and a new wardrobe and it really cleaned the room up. I’m super happy we took a chance on the project and love how it turned out. In fun project tidbits, I knew the wardrobe was a tight fit…but with my dad’s expertise we only had to remove the wardrobe top and 1 side of the door jamb to get it around the corner. Score!
August always flies and school started on the 19th so it felt like as soon as my parents headed out we were back to school. Hopefully we have a great year (or at least better than last year).
