Heartbroken

My companion for 16 years, Miss Kitty, was euthanized Monday Oct 12, 2009. Miss kitty came from a rough background. When we lived in Denver Ginny had to live with us because her MS was causing her seizures and she could no longer live alone. She was a grown woman but she needed us. She volunteered at a Rescue Society for cats on the farthes other side of Denver possible. One weekend she came back and said there was a cat there I just had to see. She was so tiny and athe silkiest fur shed ever felt. So Phil and I went and Phil saying all the time no cat no cat no cat. Miss Kitty was called Little Fast Streak and she was in a special room where they kept the especially feral cats, the ones who just wouldn't calm down. She'd come from a hoarders home with most of the cats euthanized when they been taken from the home by Animal Authority. Miss Kitty, thought to be a kitten, was given to the Society. They discovered she wws older than that by her teeth and she'd had kittens. They thought she was 4 but a runt and practiclly starved. Ginny has been the only person who had been able to get near her cage without violence. By the way--Ginny didn't tell me that until afetr wards. I went into the rooom and Ginny took her out of the cage and she was so tiny I could hold her in my one hand and she purred and rubbed her head against me and her tiny little black body was mine. She even let Phil hold her a moment but her eyes were never off mine. We took her immediately. I'd never felt such silky hair except in a babys head.

We got her home to our big house of many floors and let her out of her cage and she ran into Ginnys old woooden dollhouse and we never saw her her again for two years.We even fed her in the dollhouse. Although at night she would come into the bedroom and sleep curled up at my neck purring so loudly she'd wake up Phil.

She was a deeply damaged cat. the horrors she had lived through I can't bear to think of. Eventually she let Phil hold her and we saw finally she was a tuxedo with a frill of white on her tummy and half a mustache in white and goatee. She weighed about four pounds. When we could catch her to get her to a vet she was slowly growing and she eventually ha to quit living in the empty dollhouse. I had her for sixteen years and she never loved anout person, never shared even an inkling of interest in what anyone else was doing. Food did not entice her. Just my voice. Eventually we found her name. She'd come in to me and and rubbed her self around my legs and then bounced off and I said Who do you think you are Miss Kitty? And she stopped and turned around and talked to me. That was her name. She'd been waiting for me to find it. She 'd talk to me all the time. Just me though. Nobody else.

My how things change. I'm in college--forever. I have a great grandchild I adore. I'm old enough to be able to scream "GET OFF MY FUCKING GRASS!" and I mean the yard. I am still in the fly-over state---but if things get any worse I will soon be living anywhere I can in the car. I've been sicker, and far more sane, than I have been in years. It could be because there are no teenagers in the house. They are in my life since most of the students in college are teenagers--I am, however, not the only ancient one (GOD I HATE being called MA'M.) I have had two stories published and two poems published in the college literary magazine--okay--no money--BUT I'M WRITING! I'm working on a book that until now has been written on napkins, paper towels, envelope backs, backs of school papers and several random notebooks that I can't find. I'm trying to get up the nerve to put it on the computer. It does nothing if I can't/don't get it on the computer. Except make me really proud that I'm writing again. The Universe has been doing all it can to make my self humble and feel regret--it ain't working. I'm old, I'm hard and I'm not giving in to the Universe until I damn well feel like it. Oh yeah--and I'm angry too.Things are NOT beautiful, things are NOT fine, things are NOT going to get better unless I CHANGE THEM. I'm no 4.0 student. I'm barely a student. I can't do anything even resembling math and algebra is ---just hell. But I do okay in everything else. I met someone I thought I could have as a friend, turns out I can't. I met someone I don't want as a friend, turns out they want to be friends. I bitch a lot. A LOT. The hell with Christmas cards. GOT ZERO--SEND ZERO. I'm on Facebook, having a ball with all the snarky one liners my little stupid non 4.0 brain can come up with and loving every minute of it. My credit score is lower than my IQ. Broke is now part of my name. And my soul. I did---and this one made me actually cry once I was out of class---see my own DNA. It absolutely blew me away. That was me! Not what my parents did to me, not my grandparents, not my kids none none my husbands--it was ME in about 15 to 20 little white cloudy coils I could see ME! I've been in tears over math class cause I can't do it--I was in tears in History of Nebraska because an Indian man told of being beaten in the White Indian School--I had to leave the room--but this was happy crying. I was moved beyond anything--and I mean anything in my life. I saw me! Not an image or a reflection--no one else on earth looks like my DNA--so no one else is ME. There are very good things in college. Not a lot--but some--make the hell part worth it. Nobody I told cared I saw my DNA but me. Oh well, that's Kathy's life.

Long Time No See

It is 11 months since I last wrote. Maybe by now no one looks and I can write with no one getting their knickers in a twist.

I am in therapy. I am doing nothing at all but ironing, cleaning a little and cooking. I am wearing the first new clothes I've had in years and I'm almost what you could call "happy". Not "HAPPY!" just "happy". I'm not crying at comercials, although I do cry at good sad movies. I'm laughing a little and I'm not so caught up in crap I can't get out of that I can't get out of it. Maybe.

Actually that is what is still wrong. This one little thing is screwing with my life and though I know how to get out of it I can't make the moves necessary. I am frozen. I feel it every day. I know I need to stop it but...

Oh and don't go thinking I'm on drugs or drinking or something, it isn't that. It is people who need me. I can't let go of people who need me even when they are toxic. I can get rid of people who care for me, people who don't give a damn about me, people who I love and people I hate. But I can't let go of someone who needs me.

I will, eventually. Really. Maybe before I have a complete breakdown. Their needs are so great. But I already know this and can't act in any way but self destructing and self value-ing (is that even a word?)it's an emotional addiction. I need to be needed. I work hard to make the person NOT need me and then die a little bit when they show me they took the lesson to heart and need me less. Sigh.

Oh well. Welcome back Kathy, long time no see.

My pastor is really mad at me for putting out there that she is nuts--however, I've said it to her face many times. The bad thing is my son John--the girls Dad-- called my pastor and she is mad about that. All I get are hang up calls and His trying to get on the girls face books etc. My Pastor ---he actually speaks to.

John--DON'T CALL THE PASTOR!!!
DON'T CALL US!!!!!!!

Your daughter is as safe as she wants to be and doesn't want to hear, see, or know you. Drop it. It's bad enough the heritage you and Gina left them with---that is the biggest problem Alyssa has. Six years of a frightening and unstable life with drugged out drunks and fear fear fear! And she is still afraid. I will not put anything else on about the girls. Ever. Man when we screw up we do it good huh?

Somebody says "Give me the child from birth to five years and that child is mine forever. "

We got one child in time, but not the other. And she is paying a bigger price than she can bear.
She needs to come home and finish school--not follow in your footsteps.

And yeah--I've talked to lots of therapists and psychiatrists and I am not nuts--I'm eccentric, creative to a fault, bored, sick and in pain but none of those is nuts. My Pastor is every bit as nuts as I am. But I am sorry she felt it was wrong to put it on my blog where no one has ever visited except family members.

And I'm getting rid of the blog too. I want to really write now. And then get the hell out of here.

Thanks everybody--I'm so pissed off now I should write a best seller.

hell in untied tennis shoes

We are having the worst years of our lives--health and the hormones of teenage girls. The oldest is now living with our Pastor who apparently never heard of grounding --she was cutting herself and is madly in love with a tiny 21 year old twerp who can't spell or read--Alyssa failed her classes by simply not turning in her homework she actually did--She was an honor roll kid for the last 10 years--now she wants to live with this jackass and we all have to go to therapy evey week and she refuses to speak. I'd slap her face if I could do it and not get put in jail for abuse.

Annie went to Europe-last summer for three weeks with the state of Neb. best band kids-- is still on the honor roll and is only driving us crazy with all the colleges she is hearing from--she is only in 10th grade!She goes to Chicago this June for a big orchestra event. Just to be friendly with Alysssa Annie cut herself too but she quit--meanwhile Alyssa plays tic tak toe in light little cuts on her wrist. But she ran away, and when we called police and they saw the cuts they took her--oh--I GUESS I'd better tell why the police took her--I'd said when we got her grades that she was really cutting her chances for jobs--she won't work in food, that's disgusting, she doese'nt want to work reatail because she hates people, she can't actually get a job with her requirement that no one ever tell her "no". That leaves being a prostitute, if her price is right she won't hear no. Phil said she'd need math (she failed it) I said well you actually just give the money to your pimp. That pissed her off. And she told the police that I called her a prostitue--which I didn't--we have gone on trips to phychitrists in North Paltte who said we were not abusing Alyssa, and she needs to straighten up--we had Social Services in our no abuse and Alyssa needs to straighten up( by the way all the psychitrists and therapists nearly fell on the floor laughing at my job choice description--and one guy slapped Phil on the back and said good comeback--that's hilarious!)--but we have to pay for her to go into foster homes so our pastor said she'd take Alyssa. And now I know what a nutcase she is. The Pastor. I think the Pastor is nuttier than I am and that is saying something!

I" m on enough drugs to kill a good sized horse.Fortunately I'm not a horse.

But I've lost weight, have my diabetes under control and actually want to write again.Being pissed off is usually why I write. And I'm really pissed off.

Is It Love ?

For reasons I've no need to go in to I was discussing something nice my parents had done for me. I had two examples, one about my Dad and one about my Mom but by the time we got around to it I couldn't remember it. It was gone. I'd thought of it for almost a week and when I needed it---GONE.
As soon as I was in the car I remembered it. I turned on the air conditioning backed out of the drive turned the wrong way and then turned around again the right way (also a metaphor ? allegory? for my life).

Because it wasn't really something my Mom did nice for me.

So--here's what happened. I was in third grade at Bradley Elementary. I do not remember my teacher--I remember only three of my teachers in my whole life --and obviously--up until this point in my third grade life I'd made no dent in her brain, either. We were doing our grade school talent show for the parents. The third grade was going to sing the # 1 Hit Parade song of the season--Perry Como's Catch A Falling Star. If you don't know the song let alone the singer it doesn't really matter except that it required all of the 30 children in the 3rd grade Bradley Elementary class to bring a cardboard star with glitter on it that we would move over our heads as we sang. Mimeograph instructions were sent out with dimensions and suggestions for brands of products to buy and please every one's star must be THE SAME SIZE. (God I loved mimeographs--I'm surprised anything resembling purple ink got home to my house a few blocks away I'd sniffed so hard and so deep and I always regretted handing it over to my mother. )

Any way--mother read the instructions, swore and screamed that she didn't have time, money, ability or desire to do it as she always did over everything I wanted or needed or must have. And then she did what she always did--She called Dad at work for the list of things to buy, set up a card table in the living room, taped newspaper on it, screamed at us all until we went to sleep and while we slept she did her magic. I had the most stunning five pointed silver glittered star you ever saw. It even had a handle on the back so I didn't have to hold the edge and make the glitter come off. There was no square inch of that old grocery store carton cardboard that wasn't THICK with silver glitter. She always did that. Better than anybody. Bigger than anybody more perfect than anybody. I don't know 'who' at the time all that meant--I just knew it.

There was so much glitter on my star that when I took a step with it the glitter left a trail. Mom called Dad at work and made him come home and take me to school so the glitter would not be gone by the time I got to school. The program was at 3PM so he just went back home and helped with all the babies.

At 2:55 we all left our classroom to a full auditorium (well--I was what--7?8? thirty kids--two parents each --full auditorium.) We were behind the velvet curtain all standing where we had stood every day for two months practicing for the moment. I was so small I was always in the front row. I held my star out and the teacher did an absolutely classic double take and took the star from my hands. She looked up in the back row and called out for Susie Gunther to come down and "bring your star, dear!".

Susie Gunther was Shirley Temple. Really. Somebody took her from the movie screen and froze her and put her in my class. Blond hair with natural curls that fell in angel kisses around her perfectly round rosy pink face. She had lips that looked like bee stings and she was dressed in velvet and lace. Susie Gunther. My --what--opposite? I was small to the point of emaciated, I rarely smiled unless I was performing (I performed most of my child life) I sang like an angel but I looked like a starving orphan from Europe (a big thing at the time--my kids had starving kids in Bangladesh--their kids will have starving kids somewhere God knows). Susie's star was pathetic. It was too small. Cut from a Tide box, and IF Mommy made it she might have done so while watching Perry Como sing or perhaps after drinking another Martini--you could see the few odd squiggles of glue and not even a handful of glitter on it--not only that--the bright Tide box design showed.
Then my teacher did something I bet she will never forget eve if I did for a little while.She put me in the back row with big beautiful Susie Gunther's horrid star and Susie in the front--CENTER FRONT--with my star. The curtains opened, the teacher bowed and turned around to direct us.
"Catch a falling star and put it in your pock----"

That is as far as we got. My mother , all 5 feet of her was stomping on toes, screaming --screaming AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! as she got out of the middle of the row about 3/4ths of the way back. Her hand bag swinging her high heels clunking. She made it up to the stage and pushed the teacher out of the way and grabbed my star--uh--HER STAR-- out of Susie's hands and screamed for me "KATHY BEGLEY GET DOWN HERE THIS MINUTE!" She couldn't see me in the back. I squirmed through the group, mom took my hand and dragged me off the stage. By that time Dad was holding the auditorium door open... and we left.

I absolutely do not remember what happened after that but I do know both parents had to go back to school with me the next Monday.

And Susie Gunther and I never spoke again.

ON HOLD

Everything in my life is on hold. The ironing, the floor mopping, the dishes, the laundry, the dusting, the vacuuming. Can anybody see WHY my life is on hold? I DON'T WANT TO DO IT!
I want to go to the lake and have a picnic. I don't want to make the picnic you must understand. I want it to be there waiting for me. I want to go shopping at some huge mall. I'm talking malls that are bigger than the town I live in! I want to have a face lift. I want the LIFE STYLE lift which the ads claim doesn't hurt like the other kind. I don't want to hurt. I have enough of that.

Actually, I don't want any of the above (well maybe the face lift) I want my creative self to come back from where ever its gone. I want my life back. The one that disappeared. I really want my life-mind-creativity back.

I want to write again and paint again and make a few cards--I haven't made a card in months. I'd like to put new pictures up on this blog . Actually I'd like to know if anybody is actually reading this other than family members who get pissed off and call me to let me know. I'd like to see a new review of a book I've written in Publishers Weekly. I had one there once. It was so exciting.
All right I've had my pity party.


Now--politics! That oughta piss em all off!

I can't believe the crap that is being said by the Republicans now. I never could but lately it is so far out there in gaga land I'm worried a new party is going to be formed. The R (USH)
L (IMBAUGH) Party. And the ordinary everyday far right Republicans will have to really dig in to find a leader--(Oh please not the guy from Louisiana--can you imagine the editorial cartoons that one would make?) I can't believe nobody sees that Cheney is making his pre war criminal trial defense statements already! I can't believe very much of anything I see or read. Except in my little weekly newspaper where the editor makes me feel --normal. I don't know his political persuasion for sure--but I do know he makes me feel that I'm not the only one looking for old time stuff like ethics and morals and truth and goodness.

Yeah--that oughta piss off the relatives.