Dear Internet,
My ToDo list for Sunday looked like this
- Return the growing pile of phone calls
Clean out my personal inbox and respond/follow up to emailsPay billsGet .ca/.us passports prepped to send- Get caught up on work related readings
- Start draft of article due in a little over a week
- Do laundry
- Get caught up on reading
- Write letters (Pete, Alice, et al)
That’s what I wrote down at least.
What was completed are the items with a strike through and those three items took up most of my day — and I started after watching Canada kicked Sweden’s ass in hockey this morning.
The passport stuff was daunting as I thought I had lost my US social security card and my short form CA birth certificate, which sent me into a tizzy for an hour ripping things apart until I realised they were binder clipped together with other important cards that I had moved to another location on my desk.
TheHusband cheerily quipped, “Don’t worry! I won’t let them deport you!”
The US passport stuff is ready to go and that will get dropped in the mail on the morrow. CA stuff, however, is a bit confusing. I had to provide two non-relative references, an emergency point of contact of someone whom I don’t travel with so that became my brother, and then I need to track down a guarantor to prove who I am. The confusion is the wording on whom the guarantor is because it alludes it could be my husband but that he must hold a position [list of positions] in addition to knowing me for at least two years. It’s not clear then if I choose to do a guarantor by profession, such as a notary, why the sworn statement on the application states they must have known me for at least two years while the documents say this is not true. I aim to call Canada’s passport office in the next few days to get this all sorted so that I can get my passport updated.
So while I felt tremendously pleased with myself for getting the big stuff out of the way, my email was a brute, I couldn’t believe it took me almost the entire day to get completed. Because I knew I was going to spend the day working on cleaning out my ToDo list, a few days prior, I spent a few hours getting my office sorted. What this really came down to was shifting piles of paper everywhere.
If Wednesday was here, she’d be having a fit she couldn’t get to some of her regular lounging spots.
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Wednesday has been gone for three weeks. I picked up her urn last week, with TheHusband in tow. I cried when they handed me the bag that contained her urn and paw print, TheHusband was sniffling in the car when I came out of the vet’s office.
There is a very definite stillness of the house without her here.
We’ve been doing okay, says the girl tearing up writing these words. TheHusband started writing Requiem for a Pug, which was to be her life story starting from her birth as a poor Spartan Pug up to her death, but he got as far as chapter two and then stopped because he got too depressed. I’m prodding him to continue because the photoshop jobs he’s done of her on various famous figures through history alone is worth the posts.
The house is quiet and I still catch myself looking for her in her usual haunts or hearing her nails click on the floor. We’ve started barking at the other when we return home from outings, because that would be what Wednesday would do to admonish us for leaving her alone longer than 2 minutes.
I had to stop looking at my personal Instagram and Flickr feeds and moved all of her pictures to a cloud storage so I couldn’t randomly stumble upon them, for when I did, I would burst into tears. I put her tags on a chain to wear around my neck, and it has now become my touchstone when I need comfort.
Even if in slight silliness, it this all sounds sounds slightly sad and pathetic, but you cope.
To help with the grieving, TheHusband bought me Fat Tuesday from squishables.com:
Fat Tuesday is perfect for snuggling, doesn’t tear holes in the bedsheets, hogs the bed, or randomly farts you out on a daily basis. We don’t have to feed her, walk her, or worry about being gone too long when we leave the house. She also fits perfectly in-between the two pillow mountains on the bed. And there is not a quick flash of guilt if you accidentally kick her if she gets under your feet.
She also has no personality and is filled with stuffing.
Yet having Fat Tuesday has helped, tremendously, with our loss.
We’ve decided to hold off on getting another pet at this time, until we know what my job situation is going to look like in a few months. Even more poignantly if we need to move or travel considerably. Plus Wednesday was beloved by all that met her and incredibly special, replacing a living being that loved you so unconditionally seems crass and maybe a tiny bit cruel.
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In other cruel things:
That’s our weather forecast for the week, in the last week of February. Where the fuck is spring??
xoxo,
Lisa
I’m told that spring is coming. Sometime.