Schedules again -- A little sad
I haven't started writing yet.It's been a month now, so I guess I can say something. Last month when I was pushing hard on Heart Dance, my cat Diva suffered a seizure. I took her in the next day and they found nothing. That night she had another, longer seizure that definitely affected her brain. I took her in the next day and put her to sleep. That part went well. She totally trusted me and actually slept (this is not like previous times).
What this has to do with schedules is this: Diva (Drina in Heart Choice) ruled the household. She and the day job kept us on a schedule. She made sure I got up and fed the cats at a certain time. She started lobbying for dinner an hour before so I'd come to the end of my patience and feed them even if I was working.
Mistral (Samba in Heart Thief) is fat and lazy and will eat at any time. She has NOT taken up the reins of the schedule keeper.
Bittersweet, a new tom who came in this winter (I'd fed him for many years), is now the schedule keeper. But he has different ideas of what should be done. With Diva, after I fed the cats, I got free time for quite a while -- the day job reinforced this because I would leave.
Bittersweet thinks that Cat Admiration Time, most particularly Bittersweet Admiration Time, should come directly after Feeding.
So we are testing our wills against each other. This morning he won, and I read on the bed with one of my RITA books that I am enjoying enormously. Soon I will take a bath, and then I may get to writing.
I don't anticipate having a problem making my word count because I've kept it low -- 1250 words, and the book is going well, and I'm sending Tinne after Lahsin and First Meet will occur. Tinne has to be at the bottom of the barrell for this, since the secret garden will only let in desperate people, so I've been torturing him. Yesterday it was breakfast with his Family, the Hollys. ;)
Anyway, I haven't grieved much for Diva, and I don't know why, so that bothers me a little.
May you torture your characters and not yourself today.
Robin
posted by FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens | 9:23 AM
3 Comments:
First, let me say how sorry I am for your loss. Pets have always been part of my family and I know how hard it is to lose like that.
Grief, to my way of thinking, is always a very liquid kind of thing. It kind of ebbs and flows... and maybe you haven't started down that path yet because to do so would make what happened real to you. There's no right or wrong way to grieve someone's loss; it'll come in it's own way and time. And in the end, all that really matters is the love they gave to you and you gave to them.
Take care,
Laurie
Dear Robin,
I'm so sorry to hear about Diva. She must have been very special, as all our furbabies are. I'm sorry you had to let her go, but you did the right thing for her--the compassionate, if wrenchingly difficult, thing.
I know exactly what you mean about Diva keeping your household in order and on schedule. My senior cat, Martha, was the same sort of character. She died two years ago yesterday, on January 18, 2005. I think I'll always miss her sweet little face and huge personality. How ironic to visit your blog and find you discussing your own recent loss.
You have my heartfelt sympathies.
Sorry about your gatita.
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