Changes

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This is a scary word, isn’t it?  But most of us are used to changes happening in life and have seen a few if we’ve lived very long.  Sometimes they can leave us stunned and surprised, or sometimes filled with sorrow even though it’s expected.  The problem with the unexpected is we don’t know when that ax will fall, or the shoe will drop.

I got hubby from his cataract surgery on Monday.  When he was settled, I went to get a prescription at the pharmacy in our workplace.  I was met by fellow coworkers who were in different states of grief, anger, sorrow, or disbelief, as they all related to me that our beloved boss of seventeen years had been fired that very morning.  I was shocked too, although I expected this for quite a while now because there was a real personality conflict between her and the new regional manager that had been brewing going on two years.  I probably spent way too much time consoling employees, but this was a big deal and still is.  No one’s job is safe at this point and everyone there is on egg shells and, of course, wondering what we can do to reverse the situation.  I couldn’t help but wonder if the regional manager took the coward’s way out and informed our boss by email, or text, because it was her day off.  I prefer to think he met her someplace and discussed this face-to-face.  But I’m sure we’ll never know all these details.

 It's hard to stay quiet when your insides are screaming at the injustice of recent events.

Right now we're all looking for the positive and hoping we'll find it.

 

One gal was to the point of tears because this boss was like a second mother to her.  Our boss was strict but fair in her dealings with us.  She knew all of us so well without us having to tell her this or that.  I feel so bad that she’s gone when she needs this job to survive.  As we all know it’s hard for older workers to get hired at companies.  Of course I was ready to go home and throw things, or step out into the desert for a good scream.  I believe it’ll be quite a while before everyone is over this.  It’s not going to help matters that we’ll all be seeing way too much of the regional manager in the coming days and weeks.  My gut feeling is that he’ll eventually bring in an outsider to manage us, but we’ll see.  The job is supposedly open to anyone who wishes to apply.

 I guess this is our dear boss now.  She had a contagious laugh and now all that is gone.

 

So work has lost its pizazz and fun in the blink of an eye.  Now it’s just a job like any other.  Go there, put in your time, mind your own business, be acutely aware of protocol and get your paycheck, nothing more.  Before we were always family, but all of us still respected the boss and were eager to abide by her rules and do the job to the best of our abilities for her.  I’m sure before all this over; we’ll be losing more of our “work family” by either them resigning, or given their walking papers.

 I do believe in karma so it may take a while, but Karma will step in eventually and make amends in some way.  The way people are treated is important so we should do our best to remember that at all times.

 

I don’t know what the future holds for any of us.  I’m still working there, so I can’t give any more details than that at this time.  At some upcoming time I intend to write about my experiences doing this job.  I think it would make fascinating reading for some of you that have no idea what this kind of work is like.

A furry friend says good bye

It’s been a difficult few days around my house.  I finally have sense enough to sit down and write a post.  My house has been filled with grief and so much sadness that I didn’t even want to get on the internet.

 Tootie is five in this picture

Last Wednesday, the seventh of September, we had to put down one of our cats.  It was time.  And though we hate to see that time come, it always does.  Animals have a shorter lifespan than us even if we wished it was different.

Our oldest cat, Tootie, has been on a downhill slide for a couple of years now.  She was pretty ill on Wednesday morning when we got up.  She had diarrhea and was meowing a lot and moving her mouth around as if she had something caught in there.  She threw up multiple times during the night.

 Tootie at age four.  Cats's always love boxes.

Hubby took off work and I had the day off anyway so we took her to the vet once they opened.  We knew she had dementia and would get lost in the house.  She also had limited hearing, which I think contributed to her being so vocal about everything.  On top of that was arthritis, so we were giving her joint medication for that.  It looked so painful for her to get up and down even with her medicine, although the situation was a bit better.  I knew she wasn’t very comfortable because she would move about the house to different spots trying to find one that suited her best.  She drank lots of water, but the vet said that was typical for an older cat on a previous visit.

 Tootie at age two

Little did we know once we left the house with her that morning that it would be the last time.  The other two cats knew something was up because they came to hang around her and watch her that morning.  Raven has been her best friend because they are both very social cats.  Koki is more of a loner and prefers to hang out by herself upstairs most of the time.  But that morning, she was downstairs too checking it all out.

 Here she is posing in the cabin we had in 2005

Once at the vet we discovered Tootie had a broken tooth.  We decided against having surgery for that because he said her kidneys were beginning to fail and she’d lost about three pounds since her last vet visit.  He told us the end was near, which means it could be weeks, or a month or two, but we had to think about her quality of life at that point.  She’d had sixteen-and-a-half years with us and had lived the best life we could give her.

 Looking majestic under the Christmas tree

Out of all the cats we’ve had, Tootie is the only one who adopted us.  When she was a kitten she came to our door in California and wanted to be let in.  She did a cute little cat dance with her fluffy tail curled in the air and repeated this performance four days in a row.  On the fourth day, I opened the door and let her in.  She walked into the house as if she’d always lived there and commenced to play with Comet, our youngest female cat at the time.  These cats played for three hours straight until they both collapsed on the floor exhausted. 

I found out later that hubby went looking for her in the neighborhood on his way to work.  She was later showing up at the house that day and he was worried about her.

 Posing on the dining room chair

The rest is really history.  She fit in good with the family becoming cat number four, at the time, and giving us two girls and two boys.  The rest of our cats were rescues.  I could go on and on with cat stories as I’ve had cats all my life and probably will have until the day I die. 

But this post is about Tootie and how wonderful she was, although we had some trying times over the last couple of years once she began to lose her mind and get bad arthritis in her legs.

This is one of my favorites.  Cats love to get on anything you put on the floor, or anywhere else.

Tootie was most photogenic cat we’ve ever cat and never has taken a bad picture.  She would also put up with me, like Raven, and let me put birthday hats on her.  She never knew a stranger either and would make friends with anyone who came to visit.  Raven is much the same way and misses her so much, as we all do.  He’s been looking for her in the house, although I know he knows she was ill when he last saw her on Wednesday.

 Tootie always seemed to know when I got the camera out.

I can’t tell you how sad and quiet it was around the house that day.  We cried most of the day and couldn’t eat.  I was so glad we didn’t have to go into work.  We threw ourselves into cleaning and cleaned the whole house from top to bottom to keep our minds busy and off things.  My house is so clean now I hardly recognize it.  But it’s so quiet because Tootie talked all the time and the other cats rarely do.

 She thinks she's hiding in this pot but still posing for the picture.

The next day it was back to work and although neither of us felt like it, it was probably what we needed to get out of the funk we were in.  We’re having her cremated so she’ll join the other urns in the house when we pick her up in a week.  Meanwhile, I hope she’s young again, free of all her woes and reunited with the other cats in the Summerland, (as I like to call the afterlife).  To me the Summerland is a wonderful place with flowers, butterflies, constant spring/summer weather, beautiful blue skies, lots of green grass and trees filled with happy birds, among other things.

 Give a cat a sack or a box and they're happy

I hope you’ve enjoyed all the pictures I picked out from Tootie’s life.  We were blessed she picked us for her human parents.  Rest in peace sweet girl until we meet again.

This was her tenth birthday

March 30, 2000 – September 7, 2016