On November 8th my cat, Sir Philip, passed away. I'm late in blogging because I honestly haven't had an extra ounce of energy in me since the day he died. I can't really put into words how devastated I am about his death and the sad thing is that most people wouldn't really understand even if I could find the words to adequately describe just how sad I am. I was always terrified that I would come downstairs one morning to his lifeless body laying on his favorite blanket, or in his bed, or curled up at the foot of the stairs where he waited for me every morning, but it didn't happen like that.

   I was in Radford for a fundraising event for the Radford Society and I got a call from my mom Sunday morning. She asked me when I was going to be home and I just knew something was wrong. I asked if she had seen Philip and after what seemed like a 10 minute pause she finally choked up and told me he was dead. Seriously, I felt like I was drowning. I had thought that hearing the news of his death was the saddest moment of my life, but actually walking in my front door and seeing my mom and Chris sitting next to Philip's body on my kitchen floor . . . that was the saddest moment of my life. The horrible thing is that I felt guilty. I felt guilty that I was more devastated by my cat's death than I was by the death of any aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends. I felt guilty that somehow I didn't know he was going to die that morning. I know it sounds crazy, but I scooped him up in a blanket and curled up on the couch and just cried for about three hours. My mom just sat there and cried and watched me.

   Finally she told me I needed to put Philip in the box so I could take him to the vet. I unwrapped the blanket from his body and the moment I felt his fluffy fur on my hands I was sad all over again. The thought of never getting to pet him again, or carry him around the house, or wake up in the morning to give him breakfast made me want to curl up and die with him. At some point that night I did finally wrap him up and put him in his box. After I took him to the vet I felt a void. Like somehow even his lifeless body in my house was better than no body at all.

   About a week after Philip died I got a card in the mail from the vet's office. All of the vets, vet techs and staff wrote me messages offering their condolences, recalling the first day they saw Philip after I found him in the parking lot, telling me I was one of the best pet owners they have ever seen, and so on. It made me cry all over again, but I took comfort in knowing that Philip wasn't just special to me. I know they didn't write letters like that every time a pet died. One of the receptionists called Philip a "King of Cats". It seemed fitting, because no matter how much you try to tell someone that Philip was just different from other cats no one ever understood until they met him.

So here's to you Sir Philip. I love you so much and Christmas (and life) will never be the same again without my mitten kitten here.

My blog title is courtesy of the guy I went on a date with tonight. It turns out that he's a big fan of Thoreau and really liked my collection of old editions of Walden. It's probably one of the funniest/nerdiest pick-up lines I've ever heard.

Here's the link for the trailer to The Men Who Stare at Goats. It looks pretty funny:

The Men Who Stare at Goats

As someone who comes from a long line of people who haven't survived cancer, I'm always grateful for the ones who do. In 2001 my great-aunt Betty survived breast cancer. She was the first person in my family to ever survive cancer and outlive her remission. Since then, we've beaten colon cancer, brain cancer, ovarian cancer, and cervical cancer.

The picture below has three cancer survivors in it. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal to most people, but my family doesn't survive cancer. At least they didn't until 2001. I've lost family to lung cancer, esophageal cancer, bone cancer, every kind of cancer and last month I lost a cousin to brain cancer. It's devastating, but it's also so important for people to know about early detection. Please do self-breast exams, don't smoke, get your HPV vaccine, make sure you protect yourself against the sun, it's all so important. Also donate. Researchers can't do us any good if they don't have money to fund their research. I don't care if you donate in the form of buying a pink blender or a yellow wristband, but please donate. God forbid it should ever be one of your family members, you'll be grateful.

Movie Trailer

I'm in the middle of revamping my blog (call it a facelift). I do this every five or six months in hopes that a pretty, clean blog will encourage to me to come back more... it never works like that, yet I remain optimistic. Please note, that up until this point I've only managed to delete all of my posts, my half-written posts saved in the archives (kind of like leaving half-eaten pizza in a box in the fridge), and steal an image I was supposed to pay for on the internet (my cat, I shouldn't have to pay to make him black and white). Anyway, I got bored and stumbled upon an exciting piece of news: Radford has had a change of heart. They have decided to give Mike Dunn and Marc Jacobson their jobs back. In Laurel's Perfect World, they should have given Mike Norleen's job, but that's another conversation. I feel really happy an excited that so many people pushed back against the administration and won. (Yes, they might have done it to save face, but they did it, right?)

And can we talk about how happy I am to see that this sign was up in Radford?

Big stretch!

The upside-down face

His new favorite spot: On top of the incredibly uncomfortable chest in my bedroom.


Big mittens.

"I'm so confused. Perhaps you put one too many water bowls out?"