Liluminai

So we took her back to the vet on Monday and all we really learned was that it wasn’t kitty leukemia. The corona virus is really hard to detect, so vets generally go by symptoms, and she had ’em all. So if it wasn’t FIP, it was something else that was destroying her liver and making her so anemic that even if we force-fed her, she wouldn’t really be taking in anything useful. Essentially, she was starving to death. So we made the decision to have her put to sleep, but first we took her home for one more night and day, to say goodbye and give the boys the chance to decide whether they wanted to be there when it happened. Initially, both said yes. In the end, neither came with us, and DrBob postponed a few appointments to come with me, which was really helpful. But I still cried a lot.

I know that you sign up for this when you get a cat. But we really thought we had another five years before we even had to think about losing her. This blindsided us.

No song today.

about a kitty

I’ve been collecting pictures for months, planning to update y’all on how Miss Lilu has adapted to life in Heidelberg. Don’t know why it took so long to get around to writing it… (oh who am I kidding, of course I know why).

As you’ll no doubt recall, getting her here was a bit of an adventure. But with a new home and the vertical adventureland kitty paradise forest in our back yard, we hoped she’d settle in in relatively short order.

And she did. We established with the Utrecht move that she attaches to people, not places, so we had no qualms about letting her out. She really liked Out – she spent so much time there in June that we thought she might have adopted another family. She also brought a lot of Out in, in the form of rodents – 6 in a single week, once. That was… thrilling.

Lilu supervises the unpacking

Lilu graciously accepts tribute of chair

Lilu helps us organize our books

She really enjoyed the balcony in summer

really, REALLY enjoyed the balcony

Kitty of the Wild Front Yard!

In which a therapist mysteriously happens to me

So, um. Wait, what? You know that bit in the Talking Heads song where he says “You may ask yourself: Well, how did I get here?” Yeah, I think I have that moment way more often than I want it.

I’m trying to reconstruct how I got into this situation (another thing that I do far too often, frankly). My Dutch doctor prescribed birth control pills to try to control my migraines, because we thought they might be a cyclical hormonal thing. They didn’t help, but they solved some other problems so I kept taking them. So far this all makes sense.

Then we moved back to Germany, and my German doctor referred me to a gynecologist to ask if the Pill was a reasonable response to chronic migraines. The gynecologist said that migraine patients with aura had a higher risk of stroke if they took the pill, and she took me off it and referred me to a neurologist. Then December happened, and I got too busy, but this week I used my health insurance’s Doctor-finder app to locate the neurologist nearest my house and it pointed me to a doctor in Ziegelhausen, across the river.

Here’s where we enter the Twilight Zone.

best-laid plans and bad lighting

I was going to go to Stitch n Bitch today, I had my knitting with me and everything! But, um… well, DrBob offered to drive me down because he had an errand to run, and when we got to the garage we found he’d left Fünferl’s door open overnight, uh-oh.

You don’t know Fünferl? Oh, no, I must’ve posted that on Facebook instead of here! Okay everybody, say hi to Fünferl, she joined us sometime in late summer:

the newest member of the family

So anyway, Fünferl’s battery was mostly dead: she had lights, but wouldn’t start, so we had to push her out of the garage and point her downslope (good thing we live on a mountain!) to get her started, and then of course you have to drive awhile to recharge the battery, so uh-oh, accidental emergency ROAD TRIP! WOOHOO! Erm, I mean, um, oh noes! (heh heh)

It was rainy enough, and late enough in the day that France was not such a great idea, so we went to Hirschhorn and visited the castle instead. And walked through the super-cutesy town center and had coffee, as you do. I’m sorry I missed knitting, a bit, but it was good to hang out with DrBob for a bit. And take pictures with my camera phone, even though it wasn’t a good day for photography.

The only other car in the parking lot. Camouflage?

Castle, exterior

Castle, more exterior

Restaurant + hotel. Interesting painted-on columns.

Courtyard

Is this the cutest little house, with its lacy curtains?

View

Locks. Locks are cool.

Town. Note giant upside down pretzel on the right.

Song du jour of the day: River, by Emeli Sandé

Christmas was

Well so we got the Weekend of Awkward Relationships out of the way early on, which was great. Aaaand then I was felled by a migraine, which was…not. But other than that, Christmas was a fine, peaceful, low-key affair and its location on a Tuesday/Wednesday placed New Year’s also on a Tuesday/Wednesday which makes for a very long vacation which is superfantabulous because it will definitely be another 6 days before I’m willing to face my German class again.

Also, German? I’ve forgotten it all.

And now it’s New Year’s Day and I am resolving to blog more, because I keep forgetting so I hope if I write it down I’ll remember. That’s all, really.

Song du jour of the day, courtesy of  a Best Beloved who may or may not want to be identified here: Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky, by Allen Toussaint.