juushika

CW for pet death and COVID-19


We decided to euthanize Gillian on Tuesday March 28th. All these updates come late; this was an exhausting process that began with his dental work in January, went downhill in April/May, and turned terminal in March. Everything is padded out by weeks of doing the work or being exhausted from having done the work.

We were told that if infection were the (primary) issue, we'd see improvement after ~2 days on the second antibiotic; improvement would mean decreased swelling and less visible third eyelid. Symptoms waxed and waned, but there was no significant, permanent improvement in those key areas and there were new symptoms like congestion. This meant there was something else going on, probably cancer, but he wasn't a good candidate even for the exploratory work that would have confirmed the source. As his quality of life was never going to improve, it didn't make sense to prologue moderate annoyance and suffering while courting an inevitable decline.

So I took him off the antibiotics, we scheduled an appointment, and then he had a fantastic last day. No force-feeding meds! Still high on painkillers, great appetite: he ate four meals. (I had a lot of feelings about his "last meal" at dinner, and then felt stupid about it at midnight and then 30mins before the euthanasia, when he ate "last meal, reprise" and "last meal the third.")

August is a blanket-tent cat provided that I'm creating the tent, but Gillian for his entire life found under-blanket discomforting and claustrophobic. He preferred to sandwich himself between two warm/soft things in an arrangement we called the "hotdog." But when he started to get sick, probably because he was always running a minor fever, he discovered the beauty of the blanket tent. He spent most of his last months wrapped in my comforter (easier to wash when he drooled blood on it), only leaving to eat. But on that last day he took a break from the comforter to curl up under my blanket while I watched Devon play video games.

I'm happy about that last day. Taking him off antibiotics was a sign of commitment that made it easier to go through with the euthanasia itself. He had a day with less tummy upset, and there was no reason not to feed him a frankly ridiculous amount of food. He felt safer around me without the threat of another dosing. There's no way to know how long that golden period could have lasted, but he had that day and he never had to get worse.

Insofar as I took Mamakitty's end of life experiences forward into this situation, that reminder that attempting treatment may not ultimately be the best option, I feel like I didn't do anything here I regret—I didn't wait too long, but neither did I overcorrect and give up too early, which I worried might haunt me. The primary vet I worked with told me on one phone consult that it's never too early to consider euthanizing a ~15 year old cat, which was the best single thing that she could have said. Euthanasia isn't just giving up, it's also a compassionate and proactive choice, especially in the face of age and preexisting conditions that render not just treatment but even diagnosis difficult or impossible.

Anyway, ( the actual appointment. )

And then I was done!

⁂

The house feels so empty. This is the first time in a decade that I've lived with just one cat, the first time August has ever been entirely alone. The grieving period of "replacing" a cat is different when there's still multiple cats in the home. Just one is ... small, vulnerable; I can't shake the impression that if something awful happens it will happen to August, as if multiple cats randomizes the recipient of a catastrophe instead of just ... opening avenues for more catastrophes.

August for her part yells to empty rooms the scream of "I have but a cat-brain, and I can't track events in order to comprehend loss, but there's Less Others here and I'm lonely." At the same time she's velcro'd to me, reveling in uninterrupted mummy-time. It's two halves of nascent separation anxiety. She's a one-person cat who's never liked, oh, well, anyone but me. But she's stimulated and enriched by others in her life; she benefits from them, in a begrudging way.

I browsed a lot of cats up for adoption during Gillian's decline to keep my spirits up in an albeit morbid way: at least when he dies I can get a new cat! I expected to wait a while after he died before actually doing the thing—but, you see, I am/we are miserable. But it's an awful time to want a cat, because I can't just go to a humane society. Adoptions are appointment-only, cats are moving fast particularly in urban areas, and the lag of site listings/application processing/overworked and underfunded shelters doing their best but not always the best is, uhhhhhhhh, it's bad. It's exhausting and demotivating when I have no energy, only want and grief.

I've tried for three cats and got a bite on the third, who I'm driving down to meet next week. After missing the first two, I'm not even going to talk about this one until everything's finalized. I can't keep getting emotionally invested in cats I might never have.* But fingers crossed.

* Except I am invested and am thinking of names. Percy? Burdick? Mouse? Munkustrap, Quaxo, Coricopat?

I was, frankly, fine with quarantine—worried about family, worried about Gillian, but fine re: personal health and socialization. But cats can carry COVID and regardless it's not wise to touch things outside the home, and so it turns that while I can peacefully go months without seeing flesh-people, I can go about a week of touching only one (1) cat before I start to fall apart. They're my real social network, and with just August, in lieu even of neighborhood cats, I'm lonely.

One adventure in apartment living:

I woke to weird splashing sound to find that the inside of a windowsill was dripping because the upstairs neighbors had a leaky tub. Two weeks of ~daily maintenance visits + two fans and one massive, incredibly hot dehumidifier followed. Needing to be here to cat-wrangle for maintenance plus heat plus noise made for a lot of sleepless anxiety. (I've relied a lot on white noise to fight anxiety, but the ultra-fan combo was a smothering, anxiety-inducing sort of white noise that I didn't even know was possible.)

One weekend after the bathroom was rendered usable, the other bathroom had a backed-up shower. It was resolved that same weekend by a very-satisfying/-gross hair clog removal. But! please will things calm down for like five minutes!

Our major takeaway from all this is that communication is hard (we never seemed to get warning phone calls or time windows, and Dev had to make a number of trips to the office) but the complex moves quickly on structurally damaging things and the actual maintenance crew are personable and considerate. Forever grateful for the maintenance guy that was actively angry at the neighbors, who he suspected should have seen the leak (I'm sticking strictly to no assumptions/no ill will, if only to avoid second-guessing everything they do from now on, but the man had opinions), and told me "oh, this started a week ago? it must feel like a month, with us coming in and out all the time." I appreciate the reminder that no one wants to deal with this sort of thing, although my (not-)dealing was absolutely impacted by being big-time crazy and therefore overwhelmed by the need to masquerade as a grown adult for any length of time.


One victory in apartment living:

We reached critical (anti-)mass in our unpacking to just a few boxes and a few more donation piles, which gave us incredible impetus to finish sorting and actually take in donations and buy our last storage shelves and just be done. There's a part of me that wants to live in the domestic clutter of a Miyazaki film, and a center of me that has a lot of anxiety re: not having things and is hugely emotionally attached to specific things I do have, and part of me that is weighed upon by possessions and liberated by space. Devon comes from a family of hoarders, and so—at least while recovering from that, and determining how he wants to operate his own spaces—has a distinct "miles of open, empty carpet" aesthetic. I think we're finding a good balance: functional, no obsessive minimalism, but empty—clean—so much room to breathe.

The cats love it. Cat furniture is on our to-buy list, and an actual cat tree will reclaim some of that freed space. But open spaces have transformed August into a new beast who sprints the length of the house. There's a garden window reserved for growing sun-warmed cats. They have things to look at out windows, but more than that have safety and space to roam and play in.


Adventures elsewise:

I have a deep ambivalence over summer, because I hate sun and heat—but the summer's ubiquitous, intense* sun and heat create evocative atmospheres and memories. But my usual fear/anticipation has been colored this year by headaches. I've always had light-/heat-/tension-/dehydration-/stress-/exhaustion-headaches, and this feels like a combination of all of the above; and my usual remedies chip away, but nothing eases it completely. We're looking into blackout curtains; in the meanwhile, it's curtailing what I can do, like use the computer or my eyes at all TBH. I'm grateful for audiobooks, but frustrated. I've fallen behind on book reviews, personal correspondence, journaling.

* In as far as "intense" applies the Pacific Northwest; insofar as a PNW resident views any heat or sun at all as intense.

I've been watching a lot of JessiMew's LPs to wind down when my eyes/head feel better, especially in the evenings. I've always enjoyed her videos, but their gentleness is working particularly well for me just now.

TW emetophobia, pet injury, cancer, death, suicidal ideation, fucking hell what a really optimistic opening to a post!!



A belated but sincere thanks to those that commented on my post about my father's cancer; that I haven't responded is just because talking (in general, but about that in specific) is hard, and not especially personally productive. But one-sided condolences are. Cancer has been the worst thing in my life for too many years now—

which is such a truism: cancer, this one equalizer, this pinnacle of disease; I've never read it and now you could not pay me to do so, but I always hear in my head "the emperor of maladies." Not because cancer is worse than other diseases, but because it's so prevalent and diverse and always life-changing. It killed the first pets I ever looked after on my own (rats); killed my grandmother, killed my family's dog, killed Mamakitty; changed my sister's life; and now this. It's so common as to be memetic, which rouses its own sort of anger as I transform into the person whose anxiety is triggered by "this post is giving me cancer" jokes

—so it helps to have it validated as being as awful as it feels. I mean, I know it's awful, insofar as I can internalize anything. But validation and confirmation helps, even (especially!) from halfway-strangers who have no reason to lie to me about how awful cancer is.



Cancer on the day-to-day is pretty unremarkable, though. Chemo is going; I'd hesitate to say "going well" because my dad doesn't cope well with discomfort and has always aggressively treated his health concerns, and now here's something effectively untreatable where discomfort is a baseline. ( Borderline navel-gazing re: chronic illness. )



We had a traditionally non-traditional family homemade pizza night for Thanksgiving; my uncle flew in for the weekend. And because literally nothing can go right, Devon got sick that evening with a stomach flu! and then I caught it a few days later, despite that we spent like four days in separate rooms with zero in-person contact and I was really lonely. Mine was comparably mild; either way I think we both prefer this to a chest or head cold. Throwing up sucks, rather a lot, but there's almost a sense of pleasurable privation to be limited to broth and eggs and crackers, and being able to breathe while sick makes it far easier to sleep it off.

Prior to that, Gillian had bitten his own damn self while going after a flea (and I knew cat mouths were full of nasty, but had somehow assumed that they were immune to their own nasty even though that makes very little sense; and indeed, I was hugely wrong because) and gave himself a huge abscess! which cleared up on its own, and in fact the vet didn't even treat it*, just the fleas (thank goodness, as Frontline/Advantage weren't working); so while the bald patch is now growing in beautifully and the fleas are almost dead and none of the cats are, my summary here is

could unrelated things stop being shit for, like, five minutes

we are all very tired, all the time.



* The vet ripped out mats and with it fur surrounding the wound, ripped off the scab that was forming, and said that because it was plenty open and the tissue looked healthy we could let Gillian look after it just like cats had been doing for thousands of years, not even an ecollar required. A vet after my own heart! as I am also of the school of "supervision is good but nature knows best for dumb stuff like this".

So tired.

August has gone from: rejecting bland wet food and reluctantly eating increasing quantities of bland dry food > rejecting bland dry food and eating increasing quantities of normal dry food > rejecting bland dry food, also rejecting normal dry food, and eating increasing quantities of bland wet food. She's still not up to normal intake even with these aspects combined, but is no longer having issues vomit or diarrhea problems. She will sometimes eat more if I sit with her or hold her in my lap. Otherwise, she looks and acts entirely normal. The dry/wet preference seems indicative of recurring periodontal disease, but the vet checked for that and ruled it ongoing, tooth cleaning sometime, but shouldn't be causing issues now, and her blood tests/symptoms did indicate some sort of minor gut upset. Maybe teeth coincided with gut upset, and the vet underestimated how bad they were? The vet said things would be fine if they continued to improve/didn't get worse; they're not getting worse, they're technically slowly improving, but in weird and out of character ways that seem to indicate ongoing problems.

The labor that is feeding August is complicated by the fact that Gillian is a problem eater (needs to be locked in with his food to keep from wandering off and forgetting to eat it, but hates being locked away; yells until I come sit with him while he eats dinner, which is spoons I just don't have) and that Dare is so far the opposite as to become a problem (eats fast enough to make herself vomit, so I have to take her food away 2-3 times per meal to make her slow down) and also needs her open eye socket cleaned around food-time because that's when it gets goopy. So I spend two 1.5h blocks/day hopping between cats to multitask their food intake—

—while trying to figure out, always in the background, what to do about August. (switch to other wet food semi-permanently? revisit vet? can either/both be budgeted? I am intentionally uninvolved with finances and money is my foremost anxiety trigger, so I find it difficult to account for that aspect of these decisions).

Cat management is my only responsibility and real contribution to the universe and it's comparably limited in scope, but I am nonetheless not coping well and perpetually exhausted and prone to taking long walks, which is an outlet, which gets me away from here; right now, away is all I want.

Mama just had her initial vet visit! She got a microchip and flea treatment and rabies/distemper vaccines; she is also FIV/FeLV negative; she's in fantastic overall health, at a good weight, no ear mites, good heart and insides and yay. This is the best of all possible outcomes, and she was even good at the vet—skittish, happiest if mostly covered by a towel, but surprisingly calm and not at all aggressive.

I've provided bits and pieces of Mama's backstory, but now that Dee's adopted her we've heard a bit more detail from the neighbor who was looking after Mama. ( There's still gaps in our knowledge, but as it stands... )

We're still planning to do a two month quarantine, like we did for Gillian. Gillian had a possible (but unlikely) previous injury when we first found him, so there was a bit more concern about incubating viruses; Mamakitty isn't at such high risk, but a two month quarantine will give her, as it did Gillian, lots of time to bond with us, explore the house without interacting with other cats, and learn August and Gillian's scent. Gillian's introduction to August was largely drama-free, and I think his quarantine contributed to that. Hopefully it'll have the same positive effect on Mamakitty.

Dee'll buy a FURminator soon and I can begin the gleeful process of taming Mama's crazy fur; she also has a few mats that need trimmed out. The vet trimmed her nails; we'll want to upkeep that if at all possible.

Mama has been doing beautifully in the bathroom. She prefers to hide under things—the bench, the towel rack: low-down, covered safe dens. But she comes out for pettings, and she's learning to put most of her body in a lap so she can purr and drool and cover your nice black clothes with calico fur. So far she's been quiet and relatively uninterested in leaving the one room; this may be subject to change as she adapts.

All in all, healthy safe happy cat who will continue to be one. This is the best news.

Real autumn broke a few weeks back, and was a long time coming—so many sunny days—but we have rain now, and deep blue skies behind the yellow foliage. Gillian has been out and about for an hour or three every day, while August is busy with her daytime sleep and locked safe in my room. I have played American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns while sipping hot apple cider and buried under a blanket, with an open window (letting in wind and the sound of rain) at my back and a cat in my lap.

Indeed it feels as if lately the only thing I've not done sans lapcat is breathe. Cool weather brings August to me; at night she curls up between my legs while I read or watch TV before bed, finding the most awkward possible spot on the bed (hogging as many blankets as she can) so that when I finally turn off the lights I must twist myself around her into whatever space and bedding is left. When they're not cuddling, they're yowling: Gillian mostly, who—now that he has discovered the world outside the bathroom—complains mightily whenever he's trapped in that stifling prison. He has another month of quarantine, and so he shall just be forced to cope.

Odi is afraid of Gillian, who weighs eight pounds and is front declawed. We're not sure if this is because Gillian has the scary confusing soft e-collar of doom, or because Gillian has a few times actually gone after Odi when Odi gets too close. (Mind, August has swatted at him with actual, albeit blunted, claws, and he's not the least bit scared of her).

Autumn is for walking dogs. Dee's been walking Odi in the rain since the first day of it; I finally went with them a few days back, on a day when threatening rained turned into sprinkles turned into a jean-soaking downpour, and I would not live in any other climate in the world than this. Yesterday we walked down to St. Johns proper, went to Starbucks and took our drinks and the dog to the Willamette waterfront, blue and cool; we went to the library where we each had a book on hold, because autumn is for reading.

It's not all beautiful: my wrist issues have been flaring and thus I have a lot piling up that I want to do and can't—and moreover the fact that my body's throwing up yet another chronic issue just frustrates me—and the needy cats are lovely but also draining my energy. But: autumn. I can't argue with that, wouldn't want to; it is so beautiful, here.

Last weekend was fantastic and hugely busy. On Saturday, Dee and I made a day trip down to Corvallis. We brought Odi to board the day in grandparents's outdoor dog kennel, and went with Devon and my family (parents and sister) to the Fall Festival, an outdoor fair of local artists. I usually go just with my father, or sometimes with my sister as well; having such a large group was a bit like herding cats (oh, the yelled cell phone conversations), but it was also lovely. The weather held at mostly sunny but not hot, my parents bought some metal work for the garden, and I got to show off one of my favorite artists, Cameron Kaseberg. When we were done with the booths, we split up and Devon, Dee, and I went across the street to the library book sale, where everything was half price for the end of the day; I am absolutely drowning in books over here, but I still managed to find Dracula, some Atwood and Woolf, and a Southern Gothic novel of questionable potential for $6, and who can say no to that. Then we went out to a delightful dinner.

Back at Devon's grandparents's house we discovered that—true story—as soon as we'd left, Odi had managed to pull up the chain link sides to the kennel, wriggle underneath, and follow Devon's scent trail across the yard and back to Devon's house, where he had found Devon's father and invited himself inside and spent the day gorging on found bags of cat food and playing. We're exceedingly lucky that he wasn't hurt in the escape and that he immediately found a safe place to go (as a one-eyed dog he's pretty identifiable, so Devon's folks recognized him), but: WHUT.

On Sunday, Dee and I took the bus to Hawthorne—one of my old Portland stomping grounds out in SE—for the Under Wildwood release party. The Wildwood Chronicles take place in St. Johns (our neighborhood here in Portland) and the vast park visible from the neighborhood; at the release party we got a pre-release signed copy of the second book in the series, and the author and illustrator did a joint talk which was all about the book as a collaboration—their joint approach to creating its world, and then exploring it in their respective mediums as author and illustrator. Afterward, we went to an early dinner at Chez Machin—I'd never had savory crêpes, and they make theirs with chewy robust buckwheat; mine was filled with mozzarella, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and topped with a pesto sauce. I'm an extremely picky eater, mostly in regards to texture and new foods, so it was a bit of a risk but a complete success: A+, would love to eat again.

On one hand this is exactly what I want of autumn: more to do, more desire to do it, the delicious exhaustion and enthusiastic downtime that follows having done it. That said, we noticed this week that Kuzco has been having some troubles eating: he lost a top incisor a bit ago, which is totally normal, but I think he lost this one way down at the root and the root got infected. It's just broken through, so he's probably fine, but he's lost a bit of weight in the meantime and the infection may still linger. He has a vet appointment tomorrow just to make sure he's fine, but here's the thing: Kuz is 7 years old, and guinea pigs live between 5 and 8 years. He's developed a cataract in one eye; when he's eating well (which is usually) he gets rotund but the weight is all in his tummy—he's never been a very plump pig, but he's on the bonier side now. What I'm saying is that he's an old man, the last of his herd. This tooth issue is probably unrelated to aging, but it sort of makes his mortality hit home. I'm not dreading or even anticipating his death—Kuzco has had a good life, and he can stick around for as much more of it as fate determines—but this comes while we have a cat in limbo and while I just feel ... exhausted.

It's money issues (even if Devon doesn't seem to think there ... are any), it's fear of commitment and responsibility, it's general exhaustion and the need for some downtime. Two weeks ago I was exhausted and went to escape in Corvallis, and spent the whole time having an extended nervous breakdown. Then there was cat, then there was social stuff, now Kuzco, and I haven't showered in a couple of days and when I'm not surfeited with distraction (making stars while watching a show, reading a book while watching video games) I'm on the verge of a crying jag.

Gillian is fine! He managed to groom the section that he had groomed to the skin, so that's still healing, but most all of his scabs have flaked off and he's no longer vibrating with itchy frustration. No other health problems, he's on the second half of his preventative medication course, and really the only thing he hates is being trapped in one room. I'm just having a hard time bonding, because right now I don't see "cat I love"—I see "ongoing responsibility and monetary investment." That's selfish, and it doesn't mean I don't love him, but it's a connotation I can't shake right now.

If sleep were easier (not having nightmares, just sleeping restlessly), I'd want to sleep for a week. Devon wants me to come back to Corvallis for another try at downtime, but it depends on what Kuzco's vet visit turns up. I just wish there were an off button for the world, or for me.

This is your Gillian update post:

He's a he, and he's seven years old (who knew?), and he's had at least two previous owners, and he's ours now. The name isn't changing, since Gillian is unisex—the pronunciation, however, which was wavering between "Jillian" and "Gillian," is now firmly set on "Gill."

He was mircochipped, and they were able to contact the registered owners (which is moderately rare). Gillian was their son's cat, adopted six years ago at about one year old in Hillsboro, Oregon, which is about twenty miles and one river away from here. It seems like the son wasn't a permanent resident with his parents, who ended up as de facto caretakers; the cat was indoor-outdoor and reportedly quite sweet, but went walkabout; we don't know how long they had him. They were NOT the people that declawed him; there's no record of those owners.

The registered owners don't want the cat and are happy to transfer legal ownership, which is a blessing: the best of a possibly tricky situation. Gillian has some sort of skin issue—they didn't find fleas but he did get a flea treatment; his constant grooming may be fleas or allergies or a nervous habit. He'll have to wear an e-collar while things heal, and we're taking a basic approach: treatment and improved living conditions, and we'll wait and see how the condition develops; it seems equally likely that it will improve when he can't bother it, or that it may need further treatment. He tested negative for FIV/FeVL, and got basic vaccinations. Tonight he'll begin a basic antibiotic course, because who knows what he was exposed to outside. Because of his age, we will eventually want to get complete bloodwork done just to have an general measure of his health.

So: fairly healthy adult male cat, ready now to spend a few weeks in the bathroom, and then we'll start introducing him to the rest of the house. And then as soon as we're done with Gillian and ready to start anew, we get to go through the same process with Mamakitty. (Send help.)

Right now I think that Gillian just wants to spend a few hours curled up beside the toilet, not being molested. I'm exhausted myself, underslept and nauseous. August is curled in my lap, and she loves me. (She's been fine with all these changes, so far—curious, but fine. I expect she'll be fine with Gillian actual, too—she's lived with cats before, and so has he.) But as though she knows she has competition, and because I was out of town for a few days, she has been the cutest and most cuddly of cute and cuddly beasts, let me tell you. And she's so soft, like a bunny. And full of sleep.

So. Food and mediocre TV time, to settle my stomach and my spirits. But hey, guys. We have another cat.

This is in-Corvallis do-nothing low-stress time and I will be damned if I've not had constant nightmares every time I go to sleep: I've been in college, been on a cruise, attended a college on a cruise ship; people have died from exploding intestines yes it was as gross as it sounds, I hid from a werewolf-cum-madman attack, and my parents got divorced. It's not the vivid, winding, surreal dreams I have upon waking, but a constant parade of them all fucking night long and I remember them all.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm anxious.

Got a quote for Gillian's initial vet visit; Devon will cover it. Will make appointment soon. Corvallis Fall Festival is next weekend because timing is shit; my father invited me and I'm not even sure yet if I want to go, least of all what's feasible. I am a constant bundle of nerves, so frazzled that I cannot concentrate on a video game (but I can read for two straight hours; I don't even know). I just.

1) Getting August was this stretched out thing and this is so fast and it's scary; it's a big responsibility and it's just sitting there in front of me, being vast. 2) In getting August I convinced myself that you could adopt a cat normally; they didn't have to show up, bedraggled and hopeful, on your doorstep for it to be magical and meaningful—AND THEN THIS ONE DID, after I'd finally dismissed that ideal. 3) I hate money. 4) I hate it a lot, you don't even realize; any issue of money triggers my anxiety, but this is like a dozen in two weeks and I hate it goddamn. 5) Everyone makes all this sound easy. Unfortunately, we're not in a magical world wherein something that ought to happen easily does, and I feel like the only one seeing the difficulties and then I have the stress of not being understood on top of the stress of being stressed.

I want to run in circles and punch things and scream and then sleep for a few solid days without even a single dream.

If it were reasonable to take in a hundred billion cats, or if we didn't have our hearts set on giving Mamakitty a home, I would adopt Gillian. I can't tell you much about this cat other than it turned up on the porch about the time we started putting cat food there. I've been calling her a she in part because of her small size, and named her Gillian after the Practical Magic character and the black cat she sometimes carries. As far as I can figure Gillian's not yet full grown; she must at some point have been domestic because this is the friendliest cat you have ever met. She comes to the porch and meows in the window so that I will go out and pet her; she jumps in my lap. She gives lovebites, honest to goodness, and I adore her. In many ways she's also a fascinating mirror to August—I just really, really wish she could be mine; in the meantime, I'm looking into having her spayed/vaccinated/ear tipped, and, well, we'll put out food.

Every good picture I could get was of her on my lap. Guys, she's a lovely cat.

( +3 )

Don't let the Japanese maple tree in the background fool you: autumn is just starting, and not yet in full swing. But Devon was here this weekend while Dee went out of town, and we went into St. Johns proper for lunch, and I ran out halfway into the meal in order to stand in the thick full raindrops that I'd seen through the window. It is here.