I’m getting ready to head out to my parent’s house for lots of cheese and wine. And lasagna. And maybe some ham, but I’m not crazy about ham. And hanging out with some family from out of town.

Think Jesus will rise this year??

Thursday we got a call from our friend John who, along with his wife Katie, was checking in on Cleo through the week for us. He asked me if I knew someone named Esther; I said yes, and he said she had left a note on our door saying she found Wilson and was keeping him at her place. Holy shit was I ever so happy.

We got home in the early evening Saturday but Esther wasn’t home yet. When she did get home, we went over to retrieve Wilson. She said he had been pawing at her back door, evidently confused as to which door was his. She scooped him up and took him inside, bought him some food and made a make-shift litter box. When we went in her house Wilson wouldn’t come when called, which wasn’t too surprising as cats usually freak out when in a new environment. Esther said his favorite place was under the sofa, so she moved the couch and pulled him out.

Poor Wilson was so freaked out. I took him from Esther and noticed he must have lost at least a pound or two. He smelled me, smelled my arm, then nestled against me and started purring and licking me. His paws were slightly dirty, but there weren’t any cuts or other noticeable injuries.

We thanked Esther a thousand times, then took Wilson back to our place. We put him down at the base of the stairs so that he could acclimate himself and wonder the house on his own. Cleo came down to see who was home and Wilson freaked the fuck out. He started hissing and growling at Cleo and ran into the kitchen.

For the past couple days he and Cleo have not been getting along. He’s the instigator, immediately growling at her when he sees her. Cleo couldn’t give a shit less, though. I’m not sure if he’s just needing some time to readjust, or if he thinks he’s going to gain a step up in the hierarchy. Unfortunately for Wilson, Cleo is not budging as top cat.

Here are some shots The Partner got of Wilson his first evening back home:

Cleo was so not cool with Wilson’s new attitude:

Poor Wilson. We’ve been joking the whole time that he’s suffering from PTSD. Perhaps we shouldn’t be joking about it.

I’m just so relieved he’s back at home, and in good health.

Should I mention we’ll be spending an entire week in a house with (almost) my entire family?

While I’m taking a laptop and the house we’re renting is both wired and wireless, I’m not planning on updating much. I will, however, be taking plenty of pictures.

I’ll see you in one week.

Wilson (aka Will Dawg, aka Big Kitteh Style), my most favorite cat, got out the other night and hasn’t been seen since. We’ve notified friends, neighbors, the local shelter, and posted flyers. But there are so many neighborhoods; he could be anywhere.

The bad thing about this is that we’re leaving this Saturday for a week-long vacation.

I’m terribly sad.

UPDATE: Wilson was found!

Today, however, was an extremely foggy day. The two-to-three inches of snow we got Sunday night did not like the Monday warm up. Our drive home this early evening was INSANE, with near-zero visibility mixed with semis and idiot SUV drivers attempting to go 75MPH. I’ve driven through whiteouts and heavy fog before, but never anything that lasted more than 30 minutes. It was I-can’t-fucking-see-a-damn-thing-foggy the ENTIRE drive home. My nerves were completely shot by the time I turned the car onto our road.

The upshot is that most of the snow from last week melted, and even though our backyard is now a lake, I’ll take it.

My mom was released from the hospital last week, although not without a couple final scares.

The neurologist had come by again to say the MRI actually showed two strokes, the one from New Years and another that looked to be at least two weeks old. Although my mom was fully aware while she was having the second stroke, she couldn’t remember having had a first.

Later a doctor came by to tell us the results of the echocardiogram, which showed a heart defect that obviously had never before manifested, which causes the main flap (I’m no doctor) to not open properly, thus causing clots. Later this week she’ll be going in for a bunch of tests, and we’ll see what’s next.

She was placed on Coumadin, a blood thinner, for life at this point. Which is scary in itself, for if she gets any wound larger than a paper cut she’ll have to go to the hospital.

All this aside, she seems back to her normal self, although it’s now a more guarded, physically aware self.

I am thankful, because I’m not ready to lose my mom.

My New Year’s celebrations went fairly well. I started drinking around nine Monday night and at about ten The Partner and I talked with The Canadian-Down-Under for an hour. It was good to hear he is doing well, and to hear the stories he can’t blog about. (It was not good to hear he had started smoking again, at $11 a pack [I have to bug you, and would expect the same].)

Shortly after we got off the phone, Lauren called to invite us over to her place to join her, Chef, and her friend J in ringing in the new year, so we gathered some liquor and games and walked through the already-nasty weather to her house.

The five of us sat around, drinking too much, playing a game, and talking politics. Chef and The Partner left the room at one point, hiding in the kitchen, because they couldn’t handle our rather heated discussion (but I don’t think I pointed any fingers this time, even though I was sufficiently sloshed). I’m a firm believer in folks sharing their beliefs, philosophies, and politics, because if we can’t and don’t talk about them, we leave it up to other folks, who are probably godbag Republicans, and I don’t know about you, but they don’t talk for me. And how else do you know what you believe until you argue it through with others? It was great to see how different, yet similar, the three of us are.

I think The Partner left around 3am, taking my liquor with him. Fortunately, Lauren and Chef are drinkers, so I took some of their rum to mix with my soda, which I did drink, even though Lauren poured some coffee liqueur in it. She went to bed around 5 or so, I think.

So Chef, J, and I sat around for another two hours talking, although the particulars are extremely fuzzy. Realizing the time, I walked home part of the way with J, appreciating her ability to talk frankly without having hurt feelings or feeling awkward.

I then stayed up until 8, at which time it had become light out, drinking tons of water to allow myself the ability to lay down with getting the spins.

Happy New Year!

Then the phone rang at 11am.

I had partially awoken, and heard The Partner race up the stairs to answer it. He had missed it, but caller ID said it was my parents house. I mumbled something about it being too early, my mom should know I’d still be sleeping, and we weren’t going to the movies until the later afternoon.

The Partner listened to the voicemail, and said it was my step-father. The Partner brought me the cordless so I could listen to the message telling me to call home as soon as possible.

That’s never a good message.

Still rather drunk, I called home. My step-father said my mom was in the hospital, having had a small stroke at 1:30 that morning.

After the shock, I got up, got dressed, made a small breakfast, drank a lot of water, and then called one of my aunts because my step-dad hadn’t gotten a hold of her. I reached her, and told her. I tried to call my other aunt and uncle, but I couldn’t find their phone number in my panic, so I called my cousin Amanda, who didn’t answer, so I left her a message to call me ASAP.

We then dug our car out of the snow and drove to the hospital.

My mom said, “It looks like we’re not going to the movies today, kiddo.”

We stayed until about 3 in the afternoon, long enough for my step-dad to return and for the neurologist to call with the results of the MRI, which showed my mom did have a small stroke. The good news is that she did not display any outward signs of damage (such as one-sided paralysis or memory loss or slurred speech). Any and all damage was relegated to her brain, which seemed to be functioning normally, or as normal as could be. We should find out more later today.

I’m just going to say that this had better be the lowest fucking low of the remaining 364 days of 2008. Or someone is getting cut.

Mixed with this bad, I had called an old friend to let her know about my mom, and in-between our talks of watching our parents get older, she let me know about her New Year’s engagement. While I can’t say I’m excited for another wedding (even though she will be a most beautiful bride and the alcohol shall surely flow at the party), I am excited for her and hope she and her soon-to-be-husband come to enjoy their 1,138 Federal rights and privileges.

The Partner and I decided at the last minute to eschew buying our loved ones more shit they don’t need, so we got creative and handmade them things. In turn, The Partner’s family made things as well (although some things [some very kickass things] were still bought).

Realizing I had less than TWO WEEKS to make stuff for a bunch of people put me into a panic, I will admit. Next year will be much, much better planned, as two, er, FIVE beloved friends have yet to receive their gifts, because I’m still making them. The way I figure it, January is pretty boring after the 1st, so getting gifts mid-month will help make it brighter.

Seeing as how my holiday time was going to be spent with family, I focused on their gifts.

One of my handknits was finished during the week of the 10th, a scarf for one of my aunts:

And then I (amazingly) churned out THREE hats the next week. I do not recommend doing this, it was insane.

This was for my mother-not-in-law, who had worn one of my hats a few weeks prior while visiting and said she liked the fit of it, so I gave to her A Multicolored Hat Much Like the Black One:

For my two sisters-not-in-law, I knit up two very cute hats, which thankfully fit (I was knitting blind regarding size) and they both liked:

A devil hat:

And a kitty hat, which truly was finished at the last minute, and is modeled by my sister-not-in-law, N:

The tails of this one are sort-of rounded circles (which you can’t see in the photo), because I hate pompoms.

From my mother-not-in-law I received a handmade corn bag, which you pop in the microwave for an instant warmer or, as will be happening this coming summer, in the freezer for an instant cool:

I love my bag of corn

For his gift, my father-not-in-law cooked us all a delicious dinner which included beef (still connected to the bones! and parts cooked longer just for me because I don’t do bloody meat!) and yummy twice-baked potatoes.

The most shocking gift was purchased by N for her mom:

Which made her mother cry:

My sister-not-in-law, A, made some TRULY AWESOME gifts:

For N she made this sculpture thing, of some anime/manga/I don’t know character I’m not familiar with:

For her parents she drew a family portrait, characteristically representing all of us:

Note The Partner trying to tickle me, and me motioning to “Fucking quit it”.

But the most awesomest gifts of all were received by The Partner and I from A: Paintings of us!

These are so fucking awesome.

I must say I rather like this Buy Nothing* for Christlessmas.

*Although, I will confess: I did purchase an ukulele with some cash I received, and am impatiently awaiting its delivery from Hawaii.

I hope your holiday was equally as awesome.

Since my grandmother’s death, we’ve all sort of toned-down our gift-giving. A few years ago we started swapping names, only buying gifts for one other person of the family and putting a limit on how much we could spend. This year it’s been suggested we skip presents all together next year and adopt a family to buy for, or volunteer as a family at a soup kitchen.

I suppose we’ve all come to realize that we have so much already. Consumption has become a way of life and we buy ourselves things all through the year so that when we get to Christmas time nobody knows what they would want anyone to buy for them.

The Partner has finally gone 100% Anti-Present — when asked what he wants this year his stock response is “Nothing. Don’t buy me anything.” He doesn’t even want to buy things for our family and friends.

On Thanksgiving, a friend of my parents called to wish us all a happy holiday. His wife was staying the night at her mother’s so that the women of her family could plan which stores they were going to hit up in which order on Black Friday, waking up at 3am to stand in lines. I’ve never shopped on the Friday after Thanksgiving because I don’t think I could handle all the crazy people with their elbows cocked.

I guess I don’t know what this holiday has come to mean for me, except as being another time during the year in which my whole (or nearly whole) family comes together to share food and conversation. Santa Claus went out the door about the same time as God, and I don’t really want to spend a lot of money on things the people in my life probably have no real need for.

While this won’t be a Buy Nothing Holiday, it will be a Buy Not Much Holiday. I’m busting my crafty ass into gear and am making things for my closest friends and those family members who have requested certain knit items. So there’s the buying of frames and skeins of yarn and embroidery floss involved, but that should be it.

Sunday I went with my mom to see 28 Weeks Later, because we both loved loved loved the first one and love apocalyptic films in general. I was skeptical of how good the film would be, as sequels seem to be hit-and-miss. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being shite and 10 being the first film, I’d rate 28 Weeks Later at 8.0. It is much more bloody than the first one (they do that thumbs-in-the-eyes thing again), mostly because folks have guns and helicopters in this film, and there are some really great scenes that made me jump.

I’ve spent most of this week hanging out with friends and enjoying life. It feels so strange to not have to worry about classes or homework. On a related note, I’m getting back into knitting. I have a slew of projects lined up and my fingers are twitching. I’ve also been helping a friend learn to knit (rule #1: No knots!) and we’re working on her first circular knitting project, a basic hat that incorporates ribbing, increases and decreases and moves on to DPN usage.

This coming weekend I have my cousin Amanda’s wedding to attend, so this pattern of barely posting will continue until at least then.

Next week, expect pictures of my pit office as I begin to clean it. Sometime in January my brain exploded and books and papers flooded the office. One project for this summer is to clean house. I’ve managed to accumulate so much shit that it is driving me nuts and moving out is not an option.

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*I had no idea what to type here to describe the relationship. We need new language to describe today’s families!