Posts in category "Photos"

Liliana, or Lili, as she's known

When Byron crossed the rain­bow bridge, we knew the fastest way to fill the holes in our hearts was to adopt a new kit­ten, anoth­er crea­ture into which we could pour our love. It was­n’t long before we start­ed apply­ing to res­cues, but with the pan­dem­ic in full swing, peo­ple had been snatch­ing up all the pets from both shel­ters and breed­ers alike. Heather even­tu­al­ly found a res­cue orga­ni­za­tion in Quebec with a goofy look­ing cat avail­able for adop­tion, so we made an appoint­ment to meet him as soon as pos­si­ble.

Unfortunately, he remained a per­pet­u­al loaf in a dark cor­ner dur­ing all the hours we stayed. Without being able to inter­act and phys­i­cal­ly check his con­di­tion, we decid­ed not to take the chance. A few oth­er kit­tens were also wan­der­ing around this mod­est coun­try house-cum-cat-gym, includ­ing one with dilute cal­i­co colours that remind­ed me so much of Dolly. She rolled onto one side to present her bel­ly as soon as I start­ed pet­ting her, and I knew she was the one right then.

Lili at the shelter

The day we met her, with­out any idea of what to call her. She was­n’t list­ed on the shel­ter’s web­site because she was­n’t yet old enough for the surg­eries required for adop­tion.

Lilana Vess from Magic: The Gathering

And her name­sake, Countess Liliana Vess. Even though she’s a mas­ter necro­mancer and heal­er, her use of mana strict­ly remains in the black domain, which seemed quite fit­ting for Lili’s mys­te­ri­ous nature.

The inspi­ra­tion I get for pet names usu­al­ly comes from cre­ative influ­ences or per­son­al heroes, but this time we went with a char­ac­ter from the Magic: The Gathering uni­verse. It’s a hob­by Heather and I have shared for so long (and into which we’ve poured an embar­rass­ing amount of mon­ey) that it felt appro­pri­ate to have a name relat­ed to some­thing we both enjoyed. And since we tend to think of our cats as roy­al­ty in some way — espe­cial­ly since they treat us like fur­ni­ture — it also made sense to name her after a per­son of nobil­i­ty.

There’s no way any­one could mis­take her for Dolly though. She’s the small­est cat I’ve ever owned, like­ly because she’s not moti­vat­ed by food in any way. With Dolly and Byron, it would be a con­stant bat­tle to keep them off the coun­ters1. Cooking any kind of meat would have them beg­ging at my feet, scream­ing to get my atten­tion. Dolly would even knock uten­sils out of my hand if I was­n’t pay­ing atten­tion. She’d eat flies, spi­ders, bee­tles, while Byron would some­how con­sume foam balls, rub­ber bands, objects that were both inan­i­mate and ined­i­ble. Lily, on the oth­er hand, is only inter­est­ed in her reg­u­lar meals and the occa­sion­al dry treat. Not bacon, sushi, but­ter, or any oth­er form of kit­ty kryp­tonite.

Lili on my lap

Our after-din­ner rit­u­al (the start of which is sig­nalled by the sound of dish­es being put away), when she climbs on me for some ear rubs or time with the de-shed­ding brush. She prefers it when I stiff­en an arm to make a guardrail for her lap-bed; oth­er­wise, she’ll keep walk­ing loops and refuse to get set­tled.

I like to think that the warm purring against my bel­ly aids in diges­tion, so it works out for us both.

Her per­son­al­i­ty could­n’t be more dif­fer­ent either, as she’s quite aloof and inde­pen­dent com­pared to how clingy Dolly was. Her favourite place to sleep has always been under the bed, so we usu­al­ly don’t see her for most of the day. She’s so shy that she’ll hide there the entire time guests are over, which is why Heather and I are the only ones who tru­ly know her and how affec­tion­ate she can be…when she’s in the mood. And unlike all my oth­er cats, who are accus­tomed to being picked up and cra­dled like a baby sev­er­al times a day, the only way she accepts being held is if I’m sit­ting with my knees up, with her lying back against my thighs so she can get both her chest and bel­ly rubbed.

When she wants atten­tion, she’ll walk into the room and demand it from me with pierc­ing meows, or flop onto her side with an exag­ger­at­ed stretch (what I call “giv­ing me a sweet roll”). It’s a rit­u­al she’ll repeat a few times, with a huff thrown in every now and then to let me know her dis­plea­sure, if I’m not giv­ing the atten­tion fast enough.

It comes as no sur­prise that she gets along with Percy, since he has a habit of groom­ing every­one — regard­less of size or species — as if they’re a lit­tle sib­ling. Still, a dom­i­nant streak will run through him every now and then, usu­al­ly man­i­fest­ing as an attempt to clamp onto her scruff and mount­ing her like he’s in heat. We don’t mind his attempts to chase her since he’s get­ting rather tub­by, while we sus­pect she’ll always remain the size of a kit­ten.

Admittedly, I’m still get­ting used to her reclu­sive­ness, espe­cial­ly com­pared to my pre­vi­ous cats, who all spent the major­i­ty of their time in my pres­ence. I always appre­ci­ate hav­ing a feline with­in arms-length so I can touch them when­ev­er I need a quick hit of dopamine, which means mak­ing sure there are always com­fort­able nests for them near­by. With Lili though, she’s always the one to ini­ti­ate, and inter­ac­tions are decid­ed­ly on her terms. As soon as she’s had enough of me, she’ll quick­ly leave and dis­ap­pear until she’s crav­ing atten­tion again. Combined with my aban­don­ment issues, it means I nev­er have the heart to get up or move once she’s decid­ed to sleep on me. Fortunately, Heather does­n’t mind being the bad guy, and will pick her up so I can remain the favourite par­ent.

  1. Leonard died too young before I could tell what kind of per­son­al­i­ty he had, while Percy is some­what in between. [↩]

pana-vision

I chose to brave New Year’s alone this year. The tim­ing of my seda­tives worked out where the option of tak­ing one was avail­able, but I even­tu­al­ly decid­ed against it. Isolation was some­thing I need­ed to face head-on, when every­one else was cel­e­brat­ing with friends and loved ones. If I could make it through (rel­a­tive­ly) sober, I could sur­vive the great­est fear I’ve had since I was a child: aban­don­ment.

alfie

At the casu­al box­ing day gath­er­ing I had the plea­sure of meet­ing Alfie, Cristina’s dap­per res­cue mutt who deals with the same social anx­i­ety issues as I do. Maybe that’s why we got along so well.

Probably also the fact that we were both dosed up.

It did­n’t end up being any­thing spec­tac­u­lar. Just a night with a gen­er­ous three hour win­dow to catch up on Nolan’s lat­est work1 and some extra time to fin­ish a cam­paign in Halo’s Master Chief Collection2.

Normalcy end­ed up being a gift I did­n’t real­ize I need­ed. The approach of each hol­i­day sea­son has been a loom­ing spec­tre ever since I cut the pow­er cord off a stand­ing Ikea lamp and made a noose to hang myself from the ban­is­ter 10-ish years ago3, and the anniver­sary effect still hits me hard.

Being alone was a way to prove to myself that I’m not so help­less now, that I don’t have to be trapped in a past that still haunts me. I’ve come a long way since that fate­ful morn­ing, when I was inter­rupt­ed by two cops who would­n’t leave unless I agreed to let them dri­ve me to the hos­pi­tal. Developing a wider emo­tion­al vocab­u­lary, nur­tur­ing healthy rela­tion­ships instead of tox­ic ones, work­ing with a ther­a­pist every month, and con­sis­tent­ly step­ping out of my com­fort zone so I can learn and grow are all things that have giv­en me bet­ter tools and resources to sur­vive.

opening presents

A new set of match­ing paja­mas for the whole fam­i­ly each year is the kind of tra­di­tion I’ll nev­er get to have for myself, a fact that was much more painful for me to accept before I start­ed look­ing for ful­fill­ment in ways that don’t depend on oth­ers. Instead of feel­ing a tinge of sad­ness, I can now enjoy and appre­ci­ate expe­ri­ences like this.

Spending Christmas with Aaron and his fam­i­ly this year cer­tain­ly stayed any feel­ings of lone­li­ness.

When I told him how scared I was of being iso­lat­ed over the hol­i­days, he insist­ed I stay with them or risk dis­ap­point­ing the kids. It was a touch­ing threat, as well as a sign of how pro­tec­tive Aaron is of the peo­ple he cares about (and some­thing I would­n’t have noticed until Heather point­ed out).

A few years ago, I might have believed it was a ges­ture out of char­i­ty or pity. Now I’m con­fi­dent enough in my self-worth to know the invi­ta­tion was extend­ed because he gen­uine­ly enjoys my com­pa­ny and believes I’m a pos­i­tive influ­ence on his chil­dren (who have referred to me as “Uncle Jeff” ever since they could talk).

hand drawn Christmas cards

I col­lect my birth­day and Christmas cards, one of the few tan­gi­ble things I receive from the dwin­dling fam­i­ly I have left, and prob­a­bly a sign that there are lin­ger­ing inse­cu­ri­ties. Hand-drawn ones like these are par­tic­u­lar­ly spe­cial; I feel seen when some­one appre­ci­ates the meals I make them or my gam­ing abil­i­ties or sim­ply myself as a per­son.

To be loved by chil­dren and ani­mals — beings who are too inno­cent to have ulte­ri­or motives for express­ing such feel­ings — is some­thing I’ve come to cher­ish a great deal after a life­time of emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion.

Being around four kids and five adults left me so wired that I had to leave a night ear­li­er than planned so as to avoid burn­ing myself out, even if years of unbear­able lone­li­ness meant I des­per­ate­ly want­ed to stay. It was com­fort­ing enough to see me through one of the most dif­fi­cult nights I’ve annu­al­ly come to dread.

When I thanked him after­wards, he told me it would mean a great deal to every­one if I joined them each year, but no pres­sure. Having a place to go, but more impor­tant­ly, know­ing it’s because my pres­ence would be val­ued instead of an oblig­a­tion due to rela­tion, has giv­en me a feel­ing of accep­tance and belong­ing I thought would be for­ev­er beyond my reach, and a sense of hope I believed was eter­nal­ly lost.

  1. Oppenheimer was the first of his films that was­n’t my thing, but as with Scorsese, Malick, Anderson, Tarantino, and Villeneuve’s oeu­vres, I’ll always be pay­ing atten­tion. [↩]
  2. I’ve nev­er owned a Microsoft con­sole, so while some mechan­ics and lev­el designs are extreme­ly dat­ed, I’m still enjoy­ing my delve into the his­to­ry of such a huge cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non as the Halo series. [↩]
  3. Dates and mem­o­ries tend to be very hazy around that time, espe­cial­ly when I try not to think about it too much. [↩]

blood simple

Byron died.

It was sud­den and com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed; one after­noon we noticed that he kept to him­self, curl­ing up in dark spots that he was­n’t known to fre­quent. We knew there was a prob­lem when he would­n’t eat, then he passed away at the vet that day. That was almost three years ago, but I haven’t had the strength to prop­er­ly eulo­gize him. It’s too painful when I already spend my days either cry­ing or cried out.

Byron in a ball of yarn

I did­n’t even have a chance to say bye.

That’s why these drafts keep pil­ing up. I miss writ­ing as much as I miss the hairy lit­tle com­pan­ion who would jump on my lap for atten­tion every morn­ing, but tak­ing the ener­gy to cre­ate feels so mean­ing­less when I bare­ly have the spoons to cook for two peo­ple and keep a clean house. I don’t even know if I’ll be alive in anoth­er year. The jury’s still out, and I’ve decid­ed they can take their time for now instead of rush­ing towards a ver­dict.

It’s also why I’ve been on a reg­u­lar dose of seda­tives since last win­ter. I used to have to lie down for blood tests1, while vac­ci­na­tions were total­ly fine. After all, there’s noth­ing being drawn, no crim­son essence I can see rush­ing from my body into lit­tle vials. But when I almost passed out, then vom­it­ed, at a clin­ic for a boost­er shot last year, I knew mind­ful­ness tech­niques and breath­ing exer­cis­es could do only so much.

Continue read­ing “blood sim­ple”…

  1. I’d get so light-head­ed that I’d faint. [↩]

(be)longing

I wish I could say I made the deci­sion not to do any­thing for Christmas this year, but the truth is that I no longer have a place to go after becom­ing orphaned in ear­ly adult­hood. Then Shirley’s divorce broke the tra­di­tion of vis­it­ing her fam­i­ly when I first moved to Ottawa, and three years of a glob­al pan­dem­ic haven’t helped either.

Heather could have gone home on Christmas Day but decid­ed to stay with me, know­ing it would be espe­cial­ly cru­el to be alone when every­one else is exchang­ing gifts and enjoy­ing the com­pa­ny of oth­ers. I’m glad it was some­thing she could intu­it; telling some­one to be apart from their loved ones for my sake is some­thing I would nev­er do.

christmas card

The pho­to we used for our Christmas card this year, tak­en when we went shop­ping for my birth­day. Her Oma, who’s too old to have a com­put­er, let alone a social media account, always appre­ci­ates a phys­i­cal copy.

She spent so much of her pre­cious time and ener­gy buying/making thought­ful presents that I felt she deserved all the cred­it, but it was impor­tant to her that peo­ple knew they were from both of us though, so I acqui­esced to her request of “+ Jeff” on each card. It was a gift itself that did­n’t go unap­pre­ci­at­ed.

Even though I’ve come to shirk the oblig­a­tory con­sumerism of such occa­sions, she gave me a stock­ing stuffed with good­ies from my favourite choco­lati­er, some lux­u­ry teas, and three pairs of classy socks to go with with the new pants I got ear­li­er this year. It helped make up for the fact that I could­n’t accom­pa­ny her on her trip home the next day. I’ve been anx­ious­ly wait­ing to intro­duce her mom to more music and meet Max’s new dog, but I’m still too dam­aged to leave the house for more than a few hours at a time before seduc­tive thoughts of eter­nal peace creep to the front of my head and I can no longer breathe.

Among the presents she brought back was more Moselland Cat Riesling that will like­ly become a cus­tom ever since Max spot­ted a bot­tle in a store. Her dad, whom we pre­sume is on the spec­trum, includes the same things in each of the kids stock­ings every year — cheap floss, mint Tic-Tacs, a bot­tle of lock de-icer, vit­a­min D tablets, and win­ter cloth­ing that would be too big for Shaq. I’d nor­mal­ly feel hurt if some­one kept thought­less­ly giv­ing me things that I have no use for, but in this case it’s a nice reminder that I’m part of that fam­i­ly, even when I’m not there.

like it's a holiday

I final­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to join Trolley and Steph at their cot­tage, after a dri­ve of rough­ly three hours through scenic coun­try roads. I did­n’t even real­ize how close we were when we passed by it on the way to the farm 17 years ago, although it may as well have been 17 cen­turies. How strange it is to think of those as my sal­ad days when I had already expe­ri­enced enough heartache and trau­ma for a life­time.

cottage

They call it a cot­tage but it’s real­ly a house when there’s a full kitchen, laun­dry room, sev­er­al guest rooms with queen-sized beds; even glass show­er stalls.

Since then, I’ve loved and lost and loved again, taught myself to play gui­tar, and gained an unhealthy obses­sion with canine com­pan­ion­ship. If you asked me back then where I would pic­ture myself now, I might have giv­en you a few guess­es, but none would have been close to cor­rect.

lake

The view of the lake from atop the stone stair­case. Not seen: rows of wood­en reclin­ers and a var­ied col­lec­tion of water­craft — includ­ing a pad­dle boat — at the dock.

roasted veggies

One of the high­lights of a cot­tage week­end is the din­ner Steph spends hours cook­ing for every­one on Saturday. This time, it was falafel, toum, and roast­ed veg­gies, all pre­pared from scratch.

And she always knows how to plate a dish like a New York chef.

I kept myself mild­ly sedat­ed most of the time, but being away from my home for more than a few hours was scary enough to cause a pan­ic attack that left me star­ing dazed­ly into a buck­et once the ter­ror reced­ed. When con­stant com­pa­ny isn’t enough to keep the dark­ness at bay, it’s a sign that I’m still bro­ken and need to occu­py myself, lest I be con­sumed by the void of depres­sion.

Regardless of how dif­fi­cult it may have been, I was grate­ful for time I got to spend with my friends and their dog1, espe­cial­ly after all the iso­la­tion I’ve faced through­out the pan­dem­ic. It was also the per­fect chance for Trolley to try out his new drone while I played around with my new set of poi. If I had more spoons, per­haps I would have record­ed some music or tried to cap­ture the night sky, but I’m try­ing not to shame myself for mak­ing small­er goals and tak­ing the time I need to sur­vive.

  1. I make it a point to give Toba a treat and toy every time I see him, but this time I bought a bag of small­er pig-skin twists so I could sur­prise him through­out the week­end. He also got a bacon-scent­ed throw toy, cause he’s the good­est boy in the world, yes he is. [↩]