One Month Seems So Long and Yet, Time Flies

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Yesterday marked the one month anniversary of my father’s death.

I found a book, Healing After Loss, by Martha W. Hickman. It’s a small book, small enough to fit in your pocket, and has daily meditations – one for every day of the calendar year.

You don’t have to read a page a day – and you don’t have to start on today. Some of the days I’ve just opened up to a page to see what it had to say. Sometimes I read the day’s paragraph – and sometimes I read a few pages.

It sits on my bedside cabinet, next to a replica Faberge egg that holds the rosary from my father’s funeral. Dad got the rosary on a trip to DC at the National Cathedral. We needed a bunch of rosaries for the funeral and that’s the one I used. I asked Mom if I could have it.

Mom also asked me if there are other things of my father’s that I might want. I had no idea back then but now there are a few things I think I might like to have. Things that I gave Dad for various Christmases, Father’s Days and birthdays – a Ted Drewes t-shirt that he used to work out in [very ironical, I know!], maybe one of the sets of US Mint coins [he loved collecting coins].

I haven’t quite decided if I want those things… or if we’re having a memorial service here so Dad’s extended family who couldn’t make the funeral can pay their respects… but I know that I got through the first month. And that’s something.

I love Netflix

It’s so neat to come home and have a movie waiting for me. I’ve set up my queue and put over 200 movies on there, to start going through. There are a ton of movies that I’ve never seen that everyone says I should see (like all those “classics” on the AFI list and such).

The other day, the movie I found waiting for me was Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Have you seen this one? It’s so great!

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This is one of those movies that I wanted to see in the theatres when it came out but somehow never was able to find the time. I’m so glad that it came up on my queue because Frances McDormand and Amy Adams are amazing!

Set in 1939 London, Guinevere Pettigrew (McDormand) is an out-of-work governess that ends up as social secretary to starlet Delysia Lafosse (Adams). Pettigrew helps Adams out of many a predicament over the day and ends up finding love in a place she least expects.

It is such a smartly written, beautifully acted and so much fun to watch! It’s a great girls movie – make a cosmo and have at it!

*Disclaimer* I was not compensated in any way for this post. I just really like the service.

Five Question Friday

Kaitlin @ Ah, My Married Life posted this quizlet today and since I had nothing better to write about it, I figured it was a good idea. :)

1. What is one food you could eat everyday?

I could eat Switzer Cherry licorice bites every day - Husband can attest to the fact that I almost have eaten it every day for the past few months. It's probably going to give me cancer or something but I love it so much. It just hurts my jar after a while.

2. Are you working in the career you thought you would be when you were 18?

When I was 18 and looking at colleges, I thought I might be a drama teacher - but definitely would have drama in my life. Well, I ended up not using it in my career, but I sit on the board of a local theatre, as well as serve as a judge in the local professional theatrical awards. So drama is still around but it doesn't pay the bills - I'm not sure I ever thought it would!

3. What is something that you wish you would have done when you were younger and you didn't?

I wish I had studied abroad in college. It's an experience that Husband had and absolutely loved. If I could turn back the clock, I would have studied in London or Rome or another amazing place for a semester.

4. What color are your kitchen walls?

Boring renter's white. Ugh.

5. Do you remember what your very first favorite song was?

I think my first song was Third Rock from the Sun by Joe Diffie. I spent part of my childhood in Texas, give me a break. It was either that or something by Selena. I don't remember. Joe Diffie was the first tape I can remember having... or at least one of the first.

I can't believe I just admitted that...

I really wanna be here...

I really wanna be here right now...

And drinking one of these ...

When can I go back?

The Cat That Looked Just Like Coffee

The other cat named Coffee that is.

Someone asked me the other day if anything weird had happened since Dad died.

I decided on the drive home from Kansas City on Sunday afternoon, I would have to write down the story of the cat that came to hang around my parents house for the past few months. It’s just too weird not to remember, but I want to have it for posterity or something like that.

When I went home to surprise Mom for her birthday in March, I noticed a beige-colored cat hanging around the house. She would hang out under any car parked out front. She even ran into the house when I left the front door open for a few minutes, waiting for someone else to come in behind me.

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The cat looked just like the cat above. I never thought to take a picture of the real one.

Mom said that the cat had been around a few weeks, and that Dad insisted he was not going to adopt her. They had had enough taking care of my dog, Freckles, when I went off to college and it was easier to travel if they didn’t have a pet at home. So that was that.

On the day that Dad died, I was trying to get home as quickly as possible. My uncle had picked us at the airport and was dropping us off pretty late at night. Sure enough, that silly cat was sitting on the front porch, like always. She mewed at me, but I was careful not to let her in the house. We slipped past her and carried on.

The next night, the family was sitting around the table talking about things, and that cat came and sat by the back door and mewed for HOURS. The weirdness started – that was exactly where Freckles used to sit and stare at us to beg us to let him inside.

My cousin told me that he saw the cat watching us as the whole family piled into cars to head to the funeral that Saturday and that when we all came back a few hours later, the cat was nowhere to be seen.

Mom has said that she saw the cat one more time after that, when she had finally decided that maybe she ought to adopt her after all. That was a Friday night and she was going over to my uncle’s house to eat dinner, and was going to pick her up when she came home.

We haven’t seen the cat since. She’s disappeared.

Want to know the weirdest part? The neighbors have said that when they saw the cat, they thought she was feral – because she was NEVER affectionate towards them. She wasn’t mean, but she never came up to their house and mewed, or wanted to come inside, or even hang out on their front porch. Apparently that was only at our house.

The final weirdness? This cat is the spitting image of the cat that my mom had when my parents first got married.

STRANGE.