The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

–Tom Clancy

Around 9 p.m. Husband found Sophie lying on the floor, not breathing, without a pulse. She just died. Sophie May was not quite eight years old. She was born September 1999, one month before I met Husband. I knew Sophie from her birth since a friend rescued her pregnant momma. Now she’s just…gone. I am crazed with grief, anger, bewilderment. There is a Sophie-shaped space in our lives now, and we’ll feel it keenly for a long time. She loved to nap in sun spots.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.

–Jean Cocteau

[cross-posted at Knit Together]

I bought ingredients for dinner tonight (chili con carne, rice, and salad) and a couple extra items for lunches (soup, fruit). Below is an itemized list of what I bought and the price. It seemed like a lot of moola. I should be used to prices by now in California, but sometimes I still gape at the total. What’s your estimate for the same shopping list where you live?

2 28-ounce cans store brand diced tomatoes: $3.38
2 16-ounce cans store brand pinto beans: $1.54 (sale, reg. $2.38)
4 19-ounce cans of store brand soup: $6.00 (sale, reg. $9.56)
5 pound bag of store brand white rice: $3.66
2.6 pounds of 80% lean ground beef: $7.42 (sale, reg. $8.66)
.96 pounds of orange bell pepper: $3.83
2.04 pounds red seedless grapes: $2.04 (sale, reg. $6.10)
1 head Romaine lettuce: $1.69
.86 pounds tomatoes: $1.71 (sale, reg. $2.57)
1 pound bag baby carrots: $1.50 (sale, reg. $1.99)
3 pound bag of yellow onions: $3.49
8-ounce package of shredded reg cabbage: $1.99

TOTAL: $49.30
Subtract Club Card Savings: $11.05
TOTAL PAID: $38.25

Even though it was running up on the third floor.

It’s 5:06 a.m. as I type this, and I’ve been awake since Monday morning. I simply do not sleep with any regularity anymore. I hope I can sleep soon, as I have a 1:30 p.m. lunch date with a friend and would like to be conscious enough to drive there.

If you see only quotes posted over the next few days, it’s because a) I think they’re really good ones and b) I’m preoccupied with shopping for baby stuff or resting. My ability to sleep fades in and out, so I’m sleeping whenever the urge strikes (except while driving and such, of course).

We had our baby doc appointment yesterday. All is well. So far I have only gained a total of four pounds, which is in keeping with my goal and with health recommendations for women who are significantly overweight. The Doppler heartbeat was loud and strong, and the doctor found it instantly, whereas last month she had to search awhile and it faded whenever baby moved. We’ve got our visits scheduled almost to the delivery date (their calendar couldn’t go that far ahead). We meet her once more in early May and then three weeks later (end of May), followed by several visits two weeks apart, and then weekly visits beginning in late July. Tick tock! On Sunday I reach the halfway mark (20 weeks), and I’ve a feeling life will fly after that.

I’m one big hormone these days. Not crabby, but easily schmoopy and moved to tears. A woman brought in her six week old boy to the yarn store the other day. He was so small and perfect, I couldn’t take my eyes off him (those amazing tiny fingers!). Then it hit me. Soon I’ll have a baby of my own, and the idea of this becoming reality overwhelmed my tear ducts. I’m showing now, too, very suddenly. It’s as if I popped like a Butterball turkey thermometer. A friend looked at me and said, “Your body has said yes.” This happened the day or two after the good news about the amnio. I know, some of you want photos. I haven’t been diligent about taking them weekly, though I’ll try.

I must scoot, as I’m to meet a friend soon to discuss the baby shower. (A baby shower! For me!) She loves coordinating such things and she was the first to ask/offer, so how could I say no? She’s a gem.

That we have not heard about the results of the medical test done two weeks ago, and I am unraveling around the edges. They said it could be up to three weeks but that we would possibly hear at two weeks.

So maybe relief will come today, or tomorrow. Until then, I continue to try to focus on the present, but my disturbed sleep and the tension of the unknown have depleted me. I’m grateful Husband has been so sweet (I called him yesterday sobbing and basically incoherent), and my friends at Purlescence have also been a compassionate presence.

My mantra these days is: Breathe.

I played again this week. Curious ones can read the poem here.

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.

–Irish saying

Oh, to sleep, perchance to dream, etc. etc. I am wide awake at 3 a.m., and this is not unusual. If one of the best cures for what ails is a long sleep, how does apply this to the insomniac? Or maybe I need to laugh myself into exhaustion…

Having heard of Poetry Thursday long ago, I don’t know why I never checked it out.

I did today, and was prompted to participate in the week’s exercise, which was to write a poem based on an image. You can read what I wrote.

In time you’ll find that some things
travel faster than light
In time you’ll recognise that love is larger than life
And praise will come to those whose kindness
leaves you without debt
and bends the shape of things to come
that haven’t happened yet

–Neil Finn, Faster Than Light

Thanks to all of you for your heartfelt concerns. The test went well, although I need to take it easy for the next 48 hours. This means staying mostly horizontal and moving as little as possible. Husband is waiting on me hand and foot. I might be tempted to stretch this out a little longer. 😉

The appointment involved discussion of risks and possible results. I’ve been stoic up until this week about the potential outcome, but today especially found me easily moved to tears. Frequently. There is nothing to do, because if there is a problem it’s already happened. I can only wait, give myself a little space to cry when the urge comes, and apply effort to focus on only what is real in the moment. In a few weeks I will have the results, and if they are good I will be all the more delighted.

Until then, you can expect to see the usual posts. There’s another one coming up about my religious experiences (rather long, because, well, I’ve lived awhile!). I’ll be interested to see if it generates comments and what it touches in you.

The Bean Scene in Sunnyvale, California is a spacious, light-filled, relaxing café. It’s also close to my favorite yarn store. 😉

Today radiated warmth; it reached 79 degrees! I knit at Purlescence a couple of hours, and the beverage of choice was iced coffee or tea from the nearby Peet’s.

When I returned home, I went in the loft to watch a movie with Husband. Soon I was sweating, because it’s on the third floor (of course, it’s a loft) and there are no windows other than the jammed window in the roof. The repairman can’t come until March 20. We estimate the temperature in the room was at least 90 degrees. My sister-in-law was planning to sleep on the futon up there, but it doesn’t feel comfortable. We opened the windows in the second and first floor rooms, but there are fewer than at the old house and there’s just not the cross-ventilation we used to get.

So we went to our friends’ to borrow their air mattress and compressor for the guest room, just in case she decides the loft is unbearable (I wouldn’t be able to sleep there). We then went to Orchard Supply Hardware to look for a window lever, because we thought the lever might be broken. (We’d also borrowed our friends’ six-foot ladder.) Husband climbed up to examine the window while I held the ladder (the ceiling is 10 feet high at one end of the window and 14 feet high at the other end). He dismounted the crank box and discovered the internal gears are ruined, probably from prior efforts to force it open after it originally jammed. There’s no way to fix this tonight; nor is it safe to prop the window up with a stick. I’m a tad exasperated that this was never examined before we moved in (there have been a lot of these small problems). Husband is going to try to find a new box from a supplier and replace it himself. I just wish we had a taller ladder.

Ah, the joys of home rental.

Tomorrow evening my sister-in-law (my brother’s wife) arrives. The forecast assures us that we will have sunny skies and balmy weather (mid-70s as the high) through the week. I’m looking forward to a schedule-free, spontaneous visit where we talk until the late hours and do whatever strikes our fancy. I have an idea for a picnic lunch, perhaps at the beach. And perhaps some good home cooking on our brand new stove. Husband is working on a project deadline and won’t be around a lot, but that’s just fine. (Oh, we’ll miss him, but we like the “girl time.”)

Spring is on the way!

I mean, really… why under a chair in the guest bedroom??

This is one reason I love cats. They have their own reasons and purposes.

[via Eden]

The previous tenants left the candle holder hanging from a lemon tree. Husband thought about trashing it, but I thought the rusty iron had a certain wabi sabi quality, and it was still serviceable. I bought new votive glasses and and candles, lighting them Saturday evening, after we finished sprucing up the patio. It’s lovely back there.

Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet — that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.

—Chado, the Way of Tea