status of our kitties

Four months ago, one of our family went missing. At the time, we were looking at other places to move, but when our kitty went missing, we put our search for a new home on hold. 

After Djarfur had been missing a couple of months, we realized we couldn't wait forever, so we started looking again. We found two solid possibilities near where were already living, applied for them both, and got the one we wanted. 

Moving is stressful of course, especially for kitties. Our two remaining kitties, Feiminn (Djarfur's litter mate) and Noodle didn't really get along before we moved. Feiminn was the tender and sensitive kitty and Noodle was the proud, outgoing, athletic kitty. Their roles completely flipped when we moved. Feiminn settled into the new house right away - especially since we have our own private back yard that is fenced in. Noodle was freaked out for days, and by the time we started letting him back outside, he kept going back to the old place. 

Here we are more than a month later, and Noodle still keeps going back to the old place. We have a routine now. If we can go get him before 9am, we do. After 9am he is on his rounds (?) and is not available. If we don't get him in the morning, we get him between 8 and 9pm. 

At first Noodle *hated* being in the car, so we switched to walking the two blocks with our cat carrier and each taking a handle on the way home (Noodle is not a light kitty). Every time we passed Cafe Niche, he meowed in complaint. 

We did that for a few weeks and then it was clear that this wasn't going to keep him at home either, we went back to driving over and bringing him in the car. Weirdly, it has had the effect of habituating him to the car and he no longer complains in the car. That will be useful the next time he goes in for vaccinations. 

Meanwhile, Feiminn is super chill. He has lots of places in the house where he likes to hang out, but he spends a lot of his day underneath the back deck, rolling in the dirt. He has never been happier. It's been wonderful to see, because he was nearly despondent in the months after his brother disappeared. 

Noodle is very lovey and attentive when we are home. He even goes to bed with us sometimes. But then, sometime between 12pm and 1am, he decides to meow loud enough to shake the house and starts bouncing on me and Dan. Between my earplugs and Dan's CPAP machine, it's hard to get us out of bed but that about does it. So we shut Noodle out of our bedroom. By the time we wake up, he is gone. 

I don't know what it will take for Noodle to stay home and get used to his new neighborhood. My animal communicator friend noted that Noodle has a high status in the old neighborhood (he is very popular there among kitties and humans) and no status in the new one. Also, it seems we only have one other kitty on this street, and I believe I saw that kitty leaving out of our pet door last week. 

Dan figures that 'when it gets cold', Noodle will stay home. I want to believe that, but still, that seems like several months away (we have averaged 97 degrees for the last six weeks. Averaged.) 

I welcome your advice. Also with finding Djarfur. We miss him still, and every day I grieve his loss, wishing I knew how to get him home. 

and now I write

People have been telling me my whole life 'you should be a writer'.

Now I know, I am a writer.

Yesterday I completed the second of two sessions in a Creative Writing Bootcamp put on by Lifelong Learning at the University of Utah and it blew my mind.

I learned, aside from everything else, that I'm pretty good at this. In fact, after reading one of my pieces out loud, the instructor said "fuck that was really good".

I know I began this year, 2018, as my 'year of art exploration', and then it morphed into many things. I started out with drawing with the intention of painting, but the class I signed up for was terrible (I never did get my money back, yet they kept sending me bills for subsequent months). Then I joined a choir, rehearsed with them for 9 weeks, performed, and dropped that choir. Two days later, I was in another choir, one that fits me much better. We performed two Easter services (Holy Thursday and Good Friday), and then we prepared for our big concert in May where we performed Mozart and PDQ Bach. That was a lot of fun, they are nice people.

At that concert, my friend Jenn told me that my favorite author, Michael Ondaatje, was coming to Salt Lake City the following week. A dream come true!

I pre-ordered his newest book, Warlight. I lined up outside the venue 45 minutes before the doors opened (I was the first in line). I got a seat front row, center. I was eight feet away from my literary hero. He read from his book, took some questions from the moderator, then the audience. Several people asked him about his writing process.

One of the things he said that stayed with me - which was a light bulb moment for me - was when he said he didn't know at the beginning of a book where it will end, he just starts writing.

I thought, I could do that!

So I cast around looking for writing events in Utah. I came across the League of Utah Writers Summer Symposium in Logan, and I went.

Already at the first session, I felt like I got my money's worth, it was so useful. I got some validation there about my writing ability. I met some people, but mostly it turned the gas up on the fire that had been lit within me.

After that I looked around for what was next.

Having spent so much of my life in academia, naturally I looked at what continuing ed at my institution had to offer (as an employee, I get a 50% discount). I found this Creative Writing Bootcamp, that was two Saturdays, four hours each.

It got me doing Morning Pages again. It got me thinking Yes I can write stories. One of the things I have been struggling with in this writing journey was wondering if I could do fiction and then how. This workshop has given me the confidence to do that. Next I wonder how to get published. I like to put the cart before the horse, you know. But I can't publish anything until I write it.

I have since joined the League of Utah Writers (LUW) but have not been to a writing group yet (we moved last month, our life is still somewhat chaotic and we haven't completely settled in).

Something Johnny Worthen said in the Bootcamp - he asked us all what our writing experience was. I had never considered that before. I wrote hundreds of teenage poetry (sadly, long since burned), I have been writing a journal for 23 years (I still have all of those), I had an English Lit degree (60 essays), blog, Morning Pages, and 9 years of Twitter.  Johnny said Twitter doesn't count but journals do. He quoted a famous author having said you aren't really a writer until you've written a million words. I'd say I have long since done that. I am a writer. And oh my goodness I have just signed up for the Quills Conference next month.

If I have any readers left, thanks for sticking around. I'll be spending more time on my laptop, possibly working out my ideas here.