Stars on Ice - United States

I don't think is likely that my excitement from the Olympics will die down any time soon. As I mentioned in my last post about Sears Stars on Ice in Canada, I was hoping to convince Mr. V to go with me to Smucker's Stars on Ice, which is the American version of the show. Its actually the exact same show. Its produced by the same people, group numbers are choreographed exactly the same, etc.... The only differences are the people who perform in the show (and since they do their own routines, that's obviously different too). Mr. V appeased me by agreeing to let me buy tickets to the show and since he could care less about ice skating we balanced out the weekend by spending one night in Seattle and touring the city before going to the show. In the 2 years since we've lived here, that was actually his first visit to Seattle (excluding the airport) so he enjoyed seeing the sights there, and I enjoyed my skating show. All in all it balanced out quite nicely and we both had a great time.

So this time around I got to see Meryl Davis and Charlie White (Silver Medalists in ice danicng - They also train with, and share the same coach as Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Gold Medalists and my favorites!), Evan Lysacek (Gold Medalist in men's figure skating and 2nd place in this season's Dancing With the Stars) and Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao (Gold Medalist's in pairs skating), and a handful of other world champions and Olympic medalists from years past.

As expected, everyone was amazing and it was another great show!

The Canadian version of the show was awesome because of the fact that there was a free autograph signing session the day before the show. Not only was it a free event, but we were also all given fairly large posters to have autographed, for free. The American version worked a little differently. Instead of having free autograph sessions, you have to join the fan club and apply for a Meet and Greet pass. There is really no benefit to the fan club, other than the fact that you're guaranteed at least one meet and greet pass a year. So since I'm a starstruck person obsessed with the Olympics this year, I shelled out $30 and joined the fan club. The other difference is that you aren't guaranteed to meet the entire cast. You're only promised that you'll meet one skater and you won't know who that person is until the meet and greet actually takes place. I definitely prefer the Canadian version of meet and greets better. The show's website has a message board that I had been following because people were writing about their meet and greet experiences in cities around the country. Some people met several skaters, while others met just one. The last post that I read before heading to Seattle was from someone who got to meet one skater, and it wasn't someone super exciting. So I was hoping for a good meet and greet, but I figured I'd most likely be meeting one of the random people in the show that I didn't even really know of.

After the show, people with meet and greet passes met in one section of the arena, where we were prepped for how it was going to work. Everyone there was shocked and thrilled when the lady in charge told us that it would be Evan Lysacek that we would be meeting! I have to honestly say that I wasn't expecting that! He's definitely the most famous and most well known of the cast, so having prepared myself for meeting someone uninteresting, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I'd be meeting the best person there!

So....here's my picture with Olympic Gold Medalist Evan Lysacek!

Stars on Ice-Canada

After going to the Olympics back in February, I found a new love of ice skating. I always watched figure skating when I was younger and was always fascinated by it, but somewhere along the way, I lost interest and stopped watching. The 2010 Olympics is what jump started my love of it again. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I was lucky enough to get tickets to see the compulsory dance portion of the ice dancing competition and my friend and I had a blast!

When I found out that the Sears Stars on Ice show was going to be coming to Vancouver, and it had Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (gold medalists in ice dancing) and Joannie Rochette (bronze medal in figure skating), along with a handful of other really talented skaters, including Kurt Browning (who I remember watching when I was in elementary school!), I had to get tickets :-). Mr. V wasn't lucky enough to go to the Olympics with me. He had to work that day so he had passed his ticket along to a friend of mine. I had hoped that he would be able to come to the Stars on Ice show with me, but of course the Navy had other plans. He's in San Diego for an exercise right now, so his ticket again got passed along to my friend. I was a little disappointed that he couldn't go, but to be honest, I really don't think that he cared so it ended up working out perfectly. My friend who came to the Olympics also came with me to Stars on Ice, but she almost didn't. She was supposed to be gone over the weekend too, but her plans changed, so we got wrapped up in Olympics excitement again and headed off to Vancouver!

The day before the show, I found out that the skaters would be at the Sears in Vancouver signing autographs. I had nothing to do that day, so another friend of mine (Mrs. M) and I headed off to Vancouver for Day 1 of ice skating fun.

My mom used to take me to autograph signings when I was younger, and she's the one who always waited outside of Broadway theatre stage doors with me. Plus, working in my high school's television production program gave me the opportunity to meet and work with some pretty famous people - actors and athletes. So based on those past experiences, I can say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the way these skaters acted.

I have honestly never seen people who seemed so genuinely happy to meet and talk with their fans. Obviously, I didn't expect them to be mean, especially at a planned autograph signing. But I truly got the impression that they enjoyed being there, that they wanted to be there and that they actually appreciated their fans. I went there expecting nothing more than an autograph and hopefully a picture, so when it was obvious that they were really there to have fun with their fans it made the whole thing so much nicer. I feel like that kind of appreciation is really rare in most cases, especially by athletes who can be successful without even having any fans. I mean you may not be famous if no one comes to see your movies, but you can still win a gold medal even if the world hates you, you know?

I'm glad that I went to the autograph signing because I already really liked most of these people (I have to be honest and admit that I didn't know who they all were at first), but I like them even more and have so much more respect for them, now that I've had the chance to meet them and see how they interact with the people who support them. To me, it made the show the next night even better. I guess I'm just a person who has more respect for people who actually respect others and appreciate their fans.

So the autograph signing was great, and the show the next night was fantastic. I like watching competition skating, but the show was interesting because it wasn't a competition, and it definitely seemed more like entertainment rather than work. It was definitely full of energy and we definitely left the show full of energy. I'm already looking forward to going to the show again next year! (plus the American Stars on Ice is coming to Seattle in 2 weeks, so I'm hoping I can convince Mr. V to go with me to that show. A handful of the American medal winners will be in that show.)

Here are some pictures from the autograph signing. My friend has a great camera, so she has some amazing pictures from the show itself that I don't have at the moment to post here. So for now here are the autograph signing pictures, and when I get copies of the other pictures from my friend I'll post those too.

(with Cynthia Phaneuf and Kurt Browning)

(Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon)

(Shawn Sawyer and Jeffrey Buttle)

(Scott Moir - I love this picture)

(with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir - gold medalists in ice dancing)

(with Joannie Rochette - bronze medalist in figure skating, and Adam Rippon)

(another one with Kurt Browning - he hung around for a while after the others left)

A Military Wife

One of the new blogs I am following is hosting a contest right now. Check out Married to a Sailor: The Journey of a Navy Wife for details. The contest is to write a blog about what it means to be a military wife. Since I am sitting here right now, silently fuming about how the Navy has messed up my plans for the week, I thought this would be a good thing to write about right now.

I've been a Navy wife for 2 years now. My husband and I were dating for about a year before we got married. In just 3 short years I've learned a lot about this life. It has its pros and cons. It has its high moments and its low moments. I've learned that the pros and cons and highs and lows become woven together, and it all becomes life. My life. The life of many others married to a man in the military. So without further ado...

Being a Military Wife is:

~knowing that nothing will ever go the way you planned, and learning to accept that fact.

~throwing a silent temper tantrum, while only allowing your husband to see a few small tears, when he tells you that you will be moving 3000 miles away from your family and friends...and you have just 3 weeks to prepare for that move.

~accepting the fact that the career path that I chose to follow years ago, is a career path that I won't be able to follow in this life.

~a last minute vacation in Hawaii, at a 5 star hotel, for just the cost of a $1000 plane ticket, when your husband is sent there for a week and you can go visit him.

~not having a real honeymoon, but taking an amazing 3 week trip/move across the entire country, seeing things I would never have had the chance to see otherwise.

~getting settled into a new home with the knowledge that in just 3 short years, you will have to pack up, move again, and get settled into a new home once again.

~understanding that your furniture will always have scratches and dents on it and that those scratches and dents are memories of all the moves you have made.

~learning how to become a plumber, electrician, chef, veterinarian, doctor, mother AND father, because your husband won't always be around to do these things himself or to help you with them.

~waiting by the computer each night, hoping Skype will work, just so you can say "Hi." "I love you." and "Goodnight" to your husband while he sits in the hot dessert of Iraq and you sit in your comfortable home in the United States.

~understanding Murphy's Law, and welcoming Murphy into your life, because anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, while your husband is deployed.

~celebrating anniversaries, birthdays, holidays and special occasions alone.

~accept your role as a "dependent" while living your life independently.

~learning to smile through the tears.

~knowing that there is always another military wife to call... That there will always be someone who can cook you dinner when you are sick, drive you to the ER when you break your ankle trying to fix a ceiling fan, and listen to you and understand you when all you need is someone to listen and understand.

~learning how to ask for help.

~hearing "I don't know how you can do it" over and over, but taking those words as a compliment, not as an annoyance.

~bursting with pride for the job your husband does and the things he sacrifices daily for you, your family and his county.

~learning that even when you feel weak, you're stronger than you think.

~celebrating your husband's accomplishments, and beaming when he tells you that he couldn't have done it without you.

~making new friends, only to have them move 3 months later, then making new friends again, and then you moving 4 months later.

~enduring pain and loneliness time and time again, but knowing that your time spent apart will lead to even better times spent together.

~praying every night for God to keep your husband safe and out of harms way.

~slowly starting to realize that the question "where are you from?" gets harder to answer, each time a new move occurs and another home is left behind.

~feeling anger towards your husband, knowing that it is entirely unwarranted, and that the things you are angry about aren't his fault.

~making plans and being "guaranteed" that your husband will be home for those plans, only to have plans change just a day before they happen.

~knowing that a wife should be number 1 in a husband's life, but accepting the times when he has to put you as number 2, because sometimes duty trumps all other plans, wants and desires.

~learning how to talk in acronyms.

~embracing the slogan "Home is where the Navy sends us", because as long as you're together, you'll always be "home".

It may seem that many of the things I wrote were bitter and angry mixed in with a little happiness and fun, but the truth is, I'm not bitter or angry. At times I feel like I am. At times I feel like screaming "I hate the Navy". At times I tell my husband that I do hate the Navy. I cry. I get irritable. I wish for my old civilian life back. But in the midst of all that, I look at my husband and the love I feel for him is overwhelming.

There will always be a small part of me that longs for the easy life I had before.

There will always be a small part of me that wishes I had taken the path to follow a career goal.

There will always be a small part of me that hates the fact that I have to mow the lawn and scoop the litter boxes when he's gone.

There will always be a part of me that will cry and scream and stomp my feet (but only in my head), while smiling and nodding at him when he tells me where we are moving to next.

I'll always cry when he leaves, but I'll always smile when he returns.

The truth is, I love my life, because I love my husband. When I married him, I knew what I was doing. I knew what I was getting into. I knew the basics, but I never dreamed it could be as hard as it is. The funny thing is, I wouldn't want it any other way. Being a military wife has forced me to be strong and brave. Its forced me to do things I would have refused to do if I had a choice. Its forced me to broaden my horizons and appreciate the little things in life.

Now, I can't imagine life any other way. I lived another life once, but it seems so far away. The truth is, if my husband ever leaves the Navy, that will scare me. I don't know how to make the transition back into civilian life. I know that kind of life is easier, but the truth is that it doesn't even appeal to me anymore. I'm still going to get mad. I'm still going to have moments when I wish we could just be a "normal" couple. But those moments will pass, and as our lives move forward I'll embrace every new opportunity, every new home, and every new friend and every new challenge. I'll continue to stand beside my husband, supporting him and loving him. Because that's what being a military wife is to me.

Tulip Time!

Every April, tulips bloom in Washington. So far the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is one of the things that I love most about Washington. Last year it was absolutely beautiful. This year it was absolutely beautiful. Now we're in the weeks after the festival and the tulips are all dying off, so I'm already looking forward to next year's festival!

The "festival" really isn't a festival per se. Its more of fields and fields of tulips all over the Skagit Valley area. 2 large farms open up so visitors can in and look and all different types of tulips, and buy local Washington artwork and crafts. Mr. V and I went to check out the tulips a few weeks ago, back in April, so here are some pictures from this year's festival:

A little A-Z about me

The best thing about this blog hop I joined is that it gives me ideas about what to write about. I stole this survey from one of the blogs I read. I copied it, to come back and fill out later, and now I can't remember which blog I stole it from. So if I stole this from you then thank you (and sorry for not giving you credit for it)!

A little about me:

A to Z of Me

A. AREA CODE: 360 - That would be Whidbey Island, Washington

B. BED SIZE: Queen. Though I am trying to convince Mr. V to upgrade to a King. 2 people and 9 cats don't fit very well in a queen :-(.

C. CHORE YOU HATE: Making the bed. I despise it. I've actually slept on the mattress with just a blanket just to avoid making the bed.

D. DOG'S NAME: I don't have a dog. And even though this is supposed to be an A-Z survey, and "cat" doesn't start with a D, you're going to learn the names of my cats anyway :-). Wendy, Patches, Sheena, Moses, Oreo, Phantom, Oscar, Marmalade and Samantha...and I also have a rabbit named Peter

E. ESSENTIAL "START THE DAY!" ITEM: My cell phone. I check my email on it before I even get out of bed.

F. FAVORITE COLOR: Blue.

G. GOLD OR SILVER: Silver or white gold

H. HEIGHT: 5' 2"

I. INSTRUMENTS YOU PLAY: None right now, but I played the clarinet in elementary and middle school.

J. Job: Babysitter/Nanny

K. KIDS: Not at the moment...and probably not for a while...if ever...I love kids and I love babysitting, but I'm perfectly happy with it just being Mr. V and me for right now (and the fur babies of course) :-)

L. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: I own a home in Oak Harbor. Its me, Mr. V, the kitties and a rabbit

N. NICKNAME: Brooklet

M. MOM'S NAME: Kim...and don't call her Kimberly (its not her name and it makes her angry)




O. OVERNIGHT HOSPITAL STAY: No overnights for me, but I've had 4 same day surgeries and spent a day at the hospital




P. PET PEEVE: Burnt out Christmas lights. Seriously, they drive me insane. I hate looking at houses that have lights burnt out at Christmas time. I'd be more than happy to change the lightbulbs for people and I begged my parents to let me go door to door to do this when I was little (they told me that would be rude). I realize this is weird, but it seriously drives me nuts.




Q. QUOTE FROM A MOVIE: "There is such a thing as fate, but it only takes you so far. Once you get there the rest is up to you." - Can't Hardly Wait

R. RIGHTY OR LEFTY?: Righty

S. SIBLINGS: No actual siblings, but I have 2 step-brothers from my dad's new wife, and one step-brother from my mom's new husband. I spent my entire life as an only child though so even thinking about having step-brothers is weird. They came once I had been in college for a few years already.

T. TIME YOU WAKE UP: Usually between 8 and 9am. Unless Mr. V isn't working. Then I'm awake at 5:45 because the cats insist on waking me up demanding to be fed.

U. UNDERWEAR: Victoria's Secret low rise bikinis...thats probably more than you wanted to know about me huh?

V. VEGGIE YOU DISLIKE: Squash, eggplant, radishes, beets, okra (and for the record, I never even knew what okra was until I moved to North Carolina), and my #1 disliked vegetable - lima beans...yuck

W. WAYS/REASONS YOU ARE LATE: I need to have reasons? How about this reason - I'm me. I'm just always late. Most of the time I can't even tell you why I'm always late. I just am. And thankfully I have friends who know this about me and they don't hate me for it :-).

X. XRAYS YOU'VE HAD: Teeth and sinuses (well the sinuses were a CT scan, but thats sort of the same thing), I've also had a brain MRI done, and my arm was x-rayed years ago when I sprained it (I thought I broke it)




Y. YUMMY FOOD YOU MAKE: I'm really not a good cook but my favorite, and easiest thing to make is roast beef and mashed potatoes - the easy way. I boil some brown gravy, take some deli sliced roast beef, drop it in the gravy to heat it up, mash up some potatoes, add some cajun spices and you have a full meal :-). I also make my grandma's chicken nuggets. Small pieces of chicken breast, dipped in butter and then rolled in Ritz crackers and then baked. Soooo unhealthy but so yummy :-).

Z. ZOO ANIMALS YOU LIKE: Tigers, Lions, Otters, Penguins....basically I'm an animal lover and like them all. Except the monkeys. They kind of gross me out.

Life on an Island

This morning I was stomped on by 9 cats, because Mr. V slept in and didn't have to go to work at 5:30am. However, he usually feeds the cats at 5:30 when he wakes up, so needless to say, by 5:45 the cats were pretty ticked off that they hadn't been fed yet and they chose to take it out on me. Why they didn't stomp all over him is beyond me. That coupled with the fact that Mr. V snored all night long, while I laid there wide awake, has made me a pretty cranky Brooklet today. For those of you who don't know me. You don't want to be around me if I haven't had a good night's sleep - trust me.

Being cranky gives me a good excuse to vent about random things today...mainly life on a small island.

There are definitely some downsides to living on an island in the middle of the Puget Sound. The biggest downside being that there is only one way off the island, in the form of a really old bridge, that while pretty with a nice view, looks like it can crumble to pieces at any second. That's the only "normal" way to get off the island. The other 2 ways are via 2 ferries. One at the south end of the island and one sort of in the middle of the island.

Problem #1 is the Port Townsend-Keystone ferry. Its small. Very small. But its the only way to get yourself to the Olympic Peninsula (big thumb-like part of Washington on the coast) without spending 5 hours on the road. Reservations are a must because getting a spot on the ferry without reservations is hit or miss. I've managed to get on it without reserving a spot before, but that's never guaranteed. In fact, once I was the very last car that they let on. So if you want to take a trip to the Peninsula, you can't do it spontaneously. Even if you get on the ferry with no reservations going TO Port Townsend, there's no guarantee that you're going to get on the ferry coming back.

Aside from the reservation issue, this is the smallest ferry in the area, and Whidbey is prone to some horrible windstorms, which also shuts the ferry down (this happened to my friend about a week ago as she was trying to come back from Port Townsend). The larger ferries run fine in the wind. This tiny one, not so much.

It also shuts down if the tides are too low too.

I've heard stories about the ferry shutting down for various reasons, but I never experienced it for myself until a few weeks ago. Mr. V and I took a weekend trip to Forks and the Olympic National Park (pictures to follow in another post). Everything went smoothly on the way over there. The way back, however, did not go well. We had everything planned. We had our reservations. We even got to Port Townsend early enough to possibly get onto an earlier ferry if their were spots available. But when we got to the ticket window, a very bored looking man told us "Sorry no ferry." That took a second to process. What did he mean "no ferry"? We could see the ferry sitting right there. He seemed bored and annoyed as he explained to us that the ferry was broken and he had no idea when it would be working again. Fantastic. Mr. V asked him what we were supposed to do. He told us to go to Kingston. For the record, I had no idea that there was even a town called Kingston in Washington. It turns out that Kingston is about an hour south of Port Townsend, on the Puget Sound side of the Peninsula. From there you can take a 45 minute ferry to Mukilteo, and then hop on the ferry there, land on the south end of Whidbey Island and then drive for 45 minutes home. All together this put us back home 3 hours later than we originally planned. I suppose thats better than the 5 hours it would have taken if we had driven down the whole Peninsula, through Seattle and then back up to Whidbey. The kicker of this all was when I got a phone call as we were halfway to Kingston from a woman who told me "I am just calling everyone with ferry reservations to tell them that the ferry is broken." Well thanks lady. You were about an hour too late. That phone call would have been helpful before we got to Port Townsend! Needless to say, I never knew how much I appreciated bridges before that day.

Problem #2 is the lack of stuff on the island. I'm sure many, many people can argue that living in a quaint area, without lots of suburban development is just grand. I would agree to a point. However, I think I would function better in an undeveloped area, that had a well developed area close enough so I could get to it without wasting an entire day in the process.

This past Friday Mr. V and I went to Mt. Vernon, a good 45 minutes to an hour away, depending on traffic. The road leading off of Whidbey is a 2 lane road so getting stuck behind an 18 wheeler is basically my worst nightmare as I drive off. So what's in Mt. Vernon? Everything. Whidbey has a Walmart. A very small Walmart. Walmarts that aren't Supercenters are typically 5 times the size of the Walmart here. Mt. Vernon has every restaurant you can imagine and every major retailer. However, it just seems like such a hassle to get there all the time. Whenever we go into town we have to arm ourselves with a list of stores we need to go to because it never fails that we end up back home, having forgotten something important.

Usually we spend an entire day in Mt. Vernon, but on Friday we actually made great time! I wanted to go to Joann's and Michael's for some crafting needs, and for the first time ever we made it back home before 4pm. But then I looked in our bags and realized that we didn't have one of our bags. It turns out that the lady at Joann's had actually given us 2 bags. But she only handed us one. I guess its partly our fault for not noticing that she had put our stuff in 2 bags, but in the end, she did forget to hand us one. Thankfully, we called and they still had our bag of stuff. Mt. V wanted to just return the stuff in the bag so we didn't have to go back, but out of our 2 bags, that was the bag that had everything we went in there for in the first place. The bag we took home had random stuff that we bought on a whim. So yesterday, we drove back to Mt. Vernon, got our bag and came back home, feeling like we wasted a few good hours of the day.

So thats my random venting for the moment. I miss living somewhere that had roads connected to it in all directions. I miss living somewhere where I can have all of my necessities met without needing to spend my entire day getting to those necessities. I like being in a smaller town, but you have no idea how much I wish a larger town was at least close to us. That would be my ideal living situation.

On that note, I'm going to go take a nap, if the cats will let me. Maybe I can manage to lose this crankiness for the remainder of the day.

Rest in Peace Meepers

On April 27th we lost an important member of our family. Our 2 year old cat Meepers died very suddenly and very unexpectedly. Mr. V and I took his death pretty hard, and just over a week later, we still miss him more than ever.

Meepers was the only cat that we had from the very first day he was born. Back in Jacksonville we trapped his mother, a semi-feral cat, and she gave birth to him about a week later. She was a young cat, who didn't know what to do with her baby, so when he was born Mr. V was the one who had to cut the umbilical cord and bottle feed him to supplement the lack of nursing he was getting from his mother. He was the only kitten in the litter, and as soon as he was born, his mother tried to get away from him. There's just no possible way that he would have ever been able to survive in the Florida swamps alone like that so I take comfort in knowing that we gave him a life that he never would have had elsewhere. He probably would have died on the same day that he was born.

Out of all of our cats, Meepers was definitely the most spoiled. When he was born I had read articles about kittens that are the only child. Everything I read said that they actually function a lot like humans that are only children. They didn't have litter mates to socialize and play with, so they liked to be alone a lot. Even though we had other cats in the house, Meepers was definitely an only child. Once we moved to Washington he claimed our office as his room. We keep this room cat free, but Meepers was allowed in. He would meep at the door to let us know he wanted to go in, and he would meep loudly when he wanted to go out (can you tell we were original with his name? He always meeped and never meowed.) He spent most of his days just sleeping in a patch of sun in the room. He did get along with the other cats, but he spent most of his time in that room just happily enjoying his life and his time away from the other cats.

He was also pretty spoiled and looking back now, I'm glad that we spoiled him. He was the only one Mr. V tolerated on the counters. He got to eat our table scraps. He got one on one attention from us when he was in the office and we were sitting at the computer. As I'm typing this now, I miss having him sitting in my lap here purring.

About 2 weeks ago we noticed that Meepers seemed lethargic. Since that's never a good sign with cats we took him to the emergency vet. There he had x-rays taken and the vet suspected heart disease, but couldn't be sure with just the x-rays. She recommended a follow up appointment with our regular vet and a possible visit to a cardiologist. The x-rays also showed that he was constipated, and a urine test showed he had a UTI, so we assumed that was the reason for the lethargy. She sent us home with some medicine and everything seemed ok for the moment.

That weekend we went on a short vacation to the Olympic Peninsula and Meepers came with us. He seemed to be having a blast spending time with just us and no other cats. He seemed to get better with each day that passed. The day after we got home from the trip, I took him in for his follow up appointment with his regular vet. That's when we got some bad news. This vet couldn't detect any heart problems, but he did an ultrasound of his kidneys and diagnosed polycystic kidney disease. PKD is a degenerative disease that has no cure. I was devastated. However, with a special prescription food and medicine cats with PKD can live many years past their initial diagnosis. Its basically a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off, but no one has any idea when it will. So we went home with this news.

Over the next week Meepers acted even better. He loved his new food and he was playing and acting completely normal again. Then on the 27th, I took him back for another follow up appointment. The doctor was supposed to look at his kidneys again and figure out what was going on. The week before he was still on some antibiotics so he waited until everything was better before really taking a look at the kidneys.

And thats when it happened. Everything was fine that morning. He played. He ate. He drank. He used the litter box. Then we got to the vet. Within minutes of putting me in an exam room, my poor little Meepers made a horrible sound, and just collapsed and died. It happened so fast. No more than 15 seconds could have gone by. The vets and vet techs were fantastic though. They moved fast and tried to revive him, but they were unsuccessful. I didn't understand what happened. I was crying. And of course it figured that Mr. V had had his flights canceled for about a week straight, and that day he was flying.

The vet came in to talk to me and told me that the only thing that could have caused this was his heart. The emergency vet must have been right in suspecting heart disease, but its so hard to see and diagnose. He talked with me for a while, and I learned that even if we had known, there would have been nothing that we could have done. Heart disease is the cause of 90% of all sudden deaths in cats. It was slightly comforting to read that collapsing and dying that quickly is pretty standard with this disease.

I guess I was just shocked because I had expected his kidneys to kill him eventually, but I NEVER thought that he would die that quickly and from something other than his kidneys. I'm thankful that it happened at the vet though because I don't know how I would have handled that if I had been home alone with him.

I think the saddest, yet happiest thing for me is that it seems clear that Meepers was never meant to live in the first place. I mean look at the facts. His mother tried to abandon him moments after he was born. He had kidney disease. He had heart disease. The poor little guy was so sick right from the beginning and we never knew it. In fact, until a few weeks ago we thought that he was actually our healthiest cat. But I guess we gave him 2 happy years of life. At least he got to live a life at all, and I like to think that he was happy with us.

I read that cats with HCM (the heart disease that he had) live an average of 736 days. That breaks down into 2 years and 1 week. Meepers was exactly 2 years, 1 month and 1 day old.

I miss him so much and so does Mr. V. We had him cremated and tomorrow afternoon I have to go pick up his ashes and I am dreading that because I know its really going to become real at that point. He was our little buddy. He was our baby - the only cat we had from the day he arrived in this world.

So to honor him, here are some pictures of our little boy Meepers:

(one day old)

(one week old)

(a rare occasion - snuggling with his mom)

(baby Meepers)

(sorry for the picture of my butt but I always thought it was cute when he laid like this)

(always a new way to be comfortable)

(hide and seek)

(sleeping Meepers)

(I always thought he had an angry old man face :-))

(this is where he hung out every night while I got ready for bed)

(another angry old man look)

(teenage Meepers exploring the outdoors for the first time)

(He was an inside only cat, but since he was born inside, we took him out one day, and this was the first time he ever saw what outside was)

(yes we're those people...we had a birthday party for him. And I'm glad we did - it was his last birthday :'-()

(relaxing after his birthday)