Christmas Day is, as always, experienced with one foot in the past and the other in the present. It is and always has been an emotionally-charged holiday for me, as much as it is for many others, I'm sure. As such, I have tried to start this post three times and have failed each time, deleting paragraph upon paragraph of writing just to start over again.
Before I go further I do want to say that Daisy and I had a wonderful Christmas, both in our own private time at home as well as with her parents. The day itself was nothing special; we went to the parents' in the morning for breakfast, watched the Chiefs game on Netflix, had our taco lunch, and came home in the evening to open our presents for each other and to watch a Christmas movie together (Robert Tinnell's Feast of the Seven Fishes) with the cats. It was a very peaceful, very relaxing day -- just like Christmas should be.
As I talked up a big game about it before the holidays, this is the list of what I got Daisy for Christmas -- because I can now share it here:
Total cost was about half of what I spent last year on Christmas for her; she wanted a "Treat Christmas" and I gave it to her. If you've never heard of half of the candies/treats above, you should likely look them up. I'm not going to link them. They're all good. The first item was purchased in early September and the last item(s) were purchased and delivered on 12/23.
Here's what she got me -- all that I can remember, anyway -- I'm sure I'll leave something out here or there:
- A new parka, with the money received returning the Anbernic game system that was faulty. Technically I guess this could count as a late birthday present, but it didn't arrive until 12/31, so whatever.
- A box of Aloha bars
- An advent calendar full of snacks/nuts/chocolates
- A large art print of a tattooed, bearded merman (that very much embodies my spirit)
- A giant pack of the Dickies socks I like
- The latest (2024) Uncle John's Bathroom Reader
- Various chocolate bars
- A set of flavored instant coffees
- Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department, Anthology edition, which was a Target exclusive and apparently hard to find
- A cat t-shirt that she designed the art for and printed herself via Printify
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Criterion collection Blu-ray
Again, I'm sure I'm missing some little things here and there, but you get the gist of it.
From the parents, we received a cat stroller so that we can take the kids on walks, and a new set of wonderful bamboo sheets for the bed. Daisy got both her parents an array of items -- jams, marmalade, and a really nice footstool for Dad, and a bunch of Torrid clothing for Mama -- this was in addition to the homemade/handmade lip balms and body butter that Daisy made for both of them as well, and all of the tie dyes I made each of them -- including many pairs of tie-dyed underwear for Mama.
I am completely done with tie dye now and I don't care if I ever make another tie-dyed shirt again.
For my own parents, I sent them (you guessed it) a box of tie-dyed shirts to help their collection grow ever larger, a stack of comics for my dad, and a non-slip shower mat and new showerhead with sprayer for my mother's bathroom. I also later sent them a doormat that says, and I quote, "Hope You Like Loud Ass Birds."
The box we received from them, on my birthday, came with a lot of treats for us, Tim Hortons K-cups, slipper socks (a standby of my mother's, and I love them so I'm not going to complain), some bracelets, bourbon scented soap, and a pie-and-bundt-cake maker machine that looks like a nuclear device with how complicated it is.
We have yet to send the presents we have to Daisy's sister in Ohio, and her other sister in Denver (the one who brought her germ-factory kids to Thanksgiving and infected all of us) has not yet returned to Omaha, so their presents also remain unwrapped and un-delivered as of right now. I guess they both have stuff for us we haven't gotten yet either; it is what it is.
In the time since I have been mostly exhausted; I have accomplished almost nothing that I wanted to do during the last two weeks of December, and instead spent a lot of time feeling like each day was slipping in and out of consciousness and doing little else. When I returned to work on the 29th, to work the 29th and the 30th, I was simply there, going through the motions -- sometimes as little as possible -- waiting for the clock to hit 7am so I could log out. Both were two very long, dismal, slow nights for me that felt like I was watching paint dry for eight hours straight each night. I did my job, of course, but my heart wasn't in it. I wanted to go sleep upstairs instead.
During this time, this limbo week, both Sadie and Pete had vet appointments -- Daisy found blood clots in Sadie's urine when cleaning the pans, and we took her in to get medication for a UTI (which she does have). When Pete began attacking her every day and then began peeing on the floor, Daisy took him in as well to check him for a UTI (which he does not have, he's just a prick and kicking Sadie while she's down). Last night, in the lead up to the ball dropping, Sadie had what appeared to be a seizure and peed all over the floor. I did not see it happen; I only saw the pee and how dazed she was for a few minutes afterwards. She recovered quickly and seemed mostly fine, though a bit slower for the rest of the night.
It's becoming very apparent that Sadie is not going to be with us much longer. She has been struggling a lot as of late, and it seems like she's holding on for our sake only -- holding on because she doesn't want to leave us. It's a losing battle, though. Aging comes to the lucky. Sadie has had a great life, a long life, but even with the antibiotics we got from the vet to combat her UTI (which, amazingly enough, she really seems to not mind) I don't know that she'll live long enough to fully recover, or if her body will allow her to.
It's hard for us, of course, but it's also not -- we have known her time is coming for a very long time and both of us have tried to mentally prepare for it. Maggie went quick, and it was traumatic. Sadie is not going quick; she's been steadily declining for a while. Knowing that, and seeing it every day, isn't really making it any easier, though. I don't want to help her off this mortal coil unless I know that she's not going to have any quality of life left. Daisy is wondering if she'll just die peacefully at home -- just wink out one night (or day, for me) when we're sleeping. I don't want to be premature and take her to the vet saying "I think it's time" if it's really not. So yes, it's hard. Sadie is my shadow and always has been since she was a kitten; wherever I am, she's been by my side since the first week I had her and she bonded with me. I don't want to let her go, but I know I will soon have to. I'm sick about it.
Last night -- New Year's Eve -- was my last "vacation" day off for the foreseeable future. I wish I could take another week off to rest up and refresh myself, to not have to work the remainder of this week as customers and clients slowly return to work and the post-holidays status quo resumes. I am intensely tired at almost all times, and the longer I work in my job, the more it wears on me. I have a wonderful team under me and a ton of experience in my field, but I also feel like I've accomplished all I can in that job from multiple perspectives and that I need to move on into something new and far easier as I get older. 2025 will be my 11th year working there, with nine of those years spent on overnights.
I'm also not a fan of New Year's -- I am incredibly wary every January now, waiting for the first things to go wrong in the new year. 2024 was an awful, absolutely dismal year, and I am just so tired of having awful, dismal years. That being said, I hope your new year is a good one and that you can manifest what you need to be happy and healthy.
I've been trying to manifest a winning lottery ticket and a 1977 Bandit Trans Am in my driveway, and so far it's not been working, sooo.....
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