And another “I can’t believe they spent time/money researching this“.

Georg Steinhauser of the Vienna University of Technology has spent the past four years studying navel fluff

I mean really.  REALLY.  Four years?

You ever get the feeling that maybe something out there doesn’t want you to have certain things?  Don’t ask  me to define “something”, I’m not in the know on whether it’s God or Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the universe, no idea.

Anyway.  Remember how a couple years ago I got to the very last month of a pregnancy, the *bing* gone.  In one year, I gave up/lost a shitload of things – not just a baby, but my job, my home, most of my stuff.

I was finally starting to get into a better frame of mind, where I thought things might be going ok.  Not like Wow great, but not bad really.  Then Twinkles got pregnant, and after the initial “aw, crap”, I started to get excited about it.  I could feel the little babies moving around inside her, and the idea of having little Manx babies was kinda neat.  I even had homes for some of them already.

She went into labor on the 17th, I noticed her acting odd and took her into the bedroom and lay down with her.  Hours later, she had delivered 5 leetle kittens, right next to me on the bed.  Kinda ew, but man they were cute, and Twinkles was so relaxed.  She kept rolling over on her back, as if to say, “look!  isn’t this neat!”.

The next day, we shut her in the room with the  babies.  We were worried a bit about Lola bothering them, she’d been showing a little more interest than we were comfortable with.  When I came home, Twinkles was thrilled to have the door open, to have the option of coming and going.  The next day, I put up a barrier to keep dogs out but allow cat passage.  It worked, until later in the day.

When I came home, there were two dead kittens on the floor directly in front of the door.  There were two more on my bedroom floor.  Another one was on Lola’s blanket, but was still alive.  I scooped it up and put it close, tried to warm it up.  It was cold and wet, but still breathing, still moving a bit.   Twinkles wouldn’t settle down with the kitten though.  I think that Lola had licked the kitten, trying to “mother” it, and that is all it takes to put the mother off.  I sent the kiddo back to work for kitten milk, kept trying to warm the kitten.  Kid came home, we tried to feed the kitten, but she wouldn’t take the bottle.  I took it into my room, tried some more.  Twinkles kept coming over, like she knew that something was happening that concerned her, but didn’t know what to do.  She smelled the milk on the kitten and started licking it’s face…which gave me the idea of dripping a bit of the milk on the kitten to get Twink to lick it off, get her scent on the kitten again.  It worked, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough.  The kitten wasn’t strong enough to suck, or maybe it hurt too much.   I don’t know, but she wouldn’t eat and Twink didn’t know what to do.  She kept bringing the kitten to me, but there was nothing I could do either.  I put the kitten on my chest, Twink curled up beside me, and we went to sleep for a while.  Around 1 am, I woke up.  Kitten was cold.

I have to give credit to my kid.  She buried the kittens for me.  I couldn’t do it.  I got some flowers to plant over them.  I just planted them today though – I tried a couple other times before, but I only got as far as standing there and feeling loss all over again.

I know that to some people, getting all upset over the loss of an animal is silly and stupid.  I don’t care.  I’ve been hurt over and over by people, animals have never done to me the kinds of things that people have.  They put their trust in us, and give us so much.  Twinkles put her trust in me – enough to have her babies right next to me, and then to keep trying to bring me her dying baby.  And again, I failed.

I know – “not your fault blah blah blah”.  It doesn’t matter, not on the inside.  I have this deep feeling of dread about babies, like I’m not supposed to be around them.  Not supposed to have them around me.  I’m afraid to touch Carrie’s baby, she probably thinks I’m crazy but I can’t do it.

And what if it doesn’t stop at babies?  What if “the universe” or whatever is planning more loss for me?  Where does it end?  Where does it become more of a liability to keep me around than an asset?  Am I going to destroy everything I love, everything I have deep feelings for?

It doesn’t really matter.  I mean, it’s not in me to just give up, at least not for too long at a time.  I will keep on going, because that’s what I do.  In the short term, I’m considering getting baby chicks…but what if I kill them too?  I don’t know.   I’m in a stupid place right now.

So today, I planted flowers and catmint over the kitten grave.  Toaster wallered all over it, acting silly.  It helped.

My kid is taking a class on HTML, and it seems that she has shown this page to some of her friends in the class.  I guess it’s cool for your mom to be semi-geeky.

In order to ensure that her friends are duly impressed by my blog, I thought I’d share some interesting pictures.

Her birthday in '04

Halloween '04

A few years later...

flashing back a little...

Gotta Dance!

Panda bear

12th birthday

yeah.

So there we are. This way, all of her friends can see her progress. Isn’t this fun?

Oh – and Taka, before you get too miffed, be happy that I didn’t find the tequila picture.