juushika

Today I broke down and scrubbed out Kuzco's cage and accoutrements, and we went to the Oregon Humane Society to donate his belongings and have his body cremated. I didn't opt for a private cremation (where the ashes would be returned to me) because that wouldn't help me with my grieving. The person that dealt with us referred to this as letting them take care of everything, which was an incredibly thoughtful way of putting it—one that doesn't imply a lack of care by the owner or indicate a lack of care given to the body, but instead says that they will willing bear the responsibility of caring for his remains. They happily accepted all of Kuzco's things, including opened bags of bedding/pellets/hay, which I'd worried they wouldn't be able to take; she said they appreciated the donations, and I imagine small animal-related donations are particularly rare. I'm glad that stuff will be put to good use, as it's great quality and shouldn't just be thrown away. All in all, the best experience that I could have asked for; they were immensely understanding and kind.

They were in the midst of a number of events, including a Home for the Holidays general adoption sale, so the place was bustling. After dealing with Kuzco's remains, Dee and I walked over to look at the cats and dogs up for adoption and it was basically the best way to ... counteract things, I guess. There were adorable kittens being stupidly adorable, and sweet older dogs who let us give them cuddles through the bars, and there's no much better in the world than a bunch of animals finding homes, so.

I'm doing okay. Today wasn't easy, but having it done helps. And there's no regret in it, none—the pain of loss doesn't make me wish for a moment that I hadn't had him for seven pig-filled years, first; him, or the rest of the herd. And stupid adorable kittens and a golden retriever finding a home is good reminder of that.

If you have never lived with a guinea pig, then you may not know that a healthy pig in a paper bag in a freshly-cleaned cage is just about the cutest and happiest thing on the planet.

So I thought I would let you know.

Yesterday evening, Devon came up with Kuzco and Alfie's body.

Kuzco is indeed 100% fine. He's in the dining room/kitchen area in the travel cage set up atop a table, which will work just fine until we figure out longterm arrangements. He didn't exactly love the drive, but he's already warmed up enough to stand against the side of the cage and sniff out, and he's active and has a big round tummy, and it's fantastic to see him there. Yesterday evening he took a nap in my arms while I watched Dee play Dragon Age: Origins. These things are good.

After we got Kuzco inside and set up, I saw Alfie. This is the part I always feel vaguely apologetic for, because we all cope with death differently and there's a certain awkwardness to a corpse. An embarrassment, really--they become all biology, stiff and floppy in just the wrong ways, and you want to apologize: this is not the guinea pig he used to be, and when I loved him he was alive, vibrant, fucking batshit crazy, curious, wary, he put everything in his mouth, he listened to voices no one else could hear. But that's the point, really. For me, that's the point. That awkward physical body tells me that, yes, he did die; that yes, his body is just a corpse, now.

All of my pigs—Chumley, Dink, Alfie—have died without me. With Chumley I was on vacation, with Dink I was asleep, with Alfie I was in another city. I don't understand death well, for reasons that I talked about after Dink died: I don't have a good concept of time, I don't miss what's absent or gone. I hadn't seen the pigs since I came up here, but I didn't miss them—I loved them, and cared for them, but didn't miss them. Death at a distance is unreal, because it's a change that changes nothing. I hadn't seen Alfie for a few weeks. Now I would never see Alfie again. That difference is huge, but with the way that my brain works it was meaningless.

When I unwrapped him (and Devon's father had wrapped him, so carefully, in packing paper before sealing him in a box) and saw that first little tuft of butt fur, it started to hit home that the change did mean something. And petting him, dead and cold and so soft, made it clear that there was a pig here, and now he's gone. I can see the difference, now.

There's a lot of sobbing emotion tied up in this too, and I know I'm not done processing things. I've been keeping myself busy, consuming games and books and films and making sure my thoughts are safely somewhere distant. I'm taking refuge in the coolness and distance when I can get it, and if that makes me sound uncaring—or more fascinated by my own reactions than sympathetic to his death—I'm sorry. This is how I cope.

That, and by giving Kuzco lettuce leaves and bits of carrot. I'm grieving and I'm numb, but I also have a pig, this beautiful living pig, and he's soft and warm, and curious and hungry, and the glory of his life outshines all the rest. Alfie never did much like Kuzco (oh, is that an understatement), but perhaps he won't begrudge me that his legacy is in my love for that other small, furry monster.

Because life is nothing if not ever ironic, I followed up yesterday's journey towards self-actualization post by having a wretched afternoon followed by a sobbing breakdown. I don't even know what to tell you.

Well, that's not quite true. I have lots to tell. For one thing, I understate the frustration which comes with steps forward: each one shows me how long the path is, and it is so long, and that's intimidating and wretched. I am not good at forward progress (call it the story of my life), and so as good as it feels to take each step it comes with a certain knowledge, even if it's one I'm working to controvert, that I will never get to the destination.

For another, Devon's father is back from Arizona. I won't pretend that I made perfect use of the sometimes-empty house while he was gone, but I made some use and even more important was the ability to do so: it was liberating and calming to know that I could leave the room, make myself meals, and visit the guinea pigs without worrying about sharing my space. Losing that option makes me trapped and stressed and regretful, and it's wearing on me. Is that horribly ungrateful? Of course it is: oh hey, thanks for letting me live here without rent, now will you all shove off and leave me alone? I know how entitled that is. But the fact of the matter is that it still leaves me feeling like shite.

For one more, I used the opportunity to the empty house to spend more time with the guinea pigs; now that the house is full again, my relationship with them is in crisis. This is not something I talk about: as honest as I am about my laundry list of illnesses, I find it difficult and shaming to talk about the concrete effects that they have on me and my loved ones. But the fact of the matters is that I've lately been a shitty caretaker to the pigs lately, because they live in a public space and being in a public space exhausts me (and moving them to a private space is impossible). They've been giving a fraction of the care and attention they deserve; I'm convinced Dink's death may have been avoidable if I had been more involved in their lives at the time. All of this guilt has, with no amount of irony, made it difficult to reconnect with them—it makes seeing them that much more taxing, and I continue to miss and mourn Dink with ... with a passion, with a strength that tears my heart to pieces. It's been a long battle to convince myself that I can love and care for them, even as I am, even without him. And as soon as things started to get to that healthier point, Doug came back. I don't know what I can or should do, and it scares the everloving shit out of me.

On one hand, the sobbing breakdown was wonderful in the way that catharsis can be: it's a violent relief but a relief nonetheless, and I felt ... not better, afterward, but pleasantly hollow and clean. But I know that feeling is deceptive: I may feel better about these issues today, but they will still exist tomorrow—and worse, the fact that I feel better about them makes me less driven to try to find a way to solve them.

If they can be solved at all.

Both sides of this are still true. I am taking steps towards becoming myself—the best me. I am still so far away from that goal that getting there seems impossible.

I only answer this because the answers that have been appearing on my flist delight me.

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Woof (the dog): OMG! I love you. Touch me. Touch me more. Is it guinea pig time? OMG I think it might be guinea pig time! Let us pet the guinea pigs! Together! Hey are they gonna eat that?

Maidson (the cat): For I am great queen of the universe, and all lower beings must bow down to me. I think today shall be "sleep on the paper bag day." The paper bag does make beautiful noise, which delights my even-more-beautiful ears. Oh, hello. I didn't realize you were listening. Pet me?

Dude (the cat): I love you. I looooooove you. I love you more than I've ever loved everyone before. Pet me. Hold me. Allow me to climb upon you and shove my purring love in your face. I love you. You are my favorite person in whole world until someone else enters the room. Hold me...

Kuzco (the guinea pig): Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you, that's all I'm saying. Also: FOOOOOD! FOOD FOOD FOOOOOD TIME FOOD!

Alfie (the guinea pig): ...

Okay with Alfie I admit I'm stuck. I can't even pretend to imagine what Alfie is thinking, much less what he would say. I believe he thinks not in desires or thoughts as we know them, but in alien beeps and pauses—like Morse code, only undecipherable, and constantly punctuated by desires for carrots. So if he has words, it is a loud call for food. But the rest is nonsense not even Kuzco could understand.

Jamie (the dog): As far as we're concerned, James does talk in the best human-decipherable English she can manage in silence and as a dog.

Madison is asleep in the guinea pig cage. We cleaned it yesterday, filling it with Carefresh this time, and Madison has decided that there is nothing better in the world. Normally it's Dude who snoozes in the clean cage, but Maddy discovered it this time when I was saying goodnight to the pigs—I was ignoring her for them so she moved to where they are, and damn if she will be moved now. She curled up in a corner of the cage on her crunchysoft bedding and purred herself to sleep. She barely even knows that Kuzco is there—the cats are as blind to the pigs as Woof is obsessed with them. He for his part is sleeping in his pigloo. She'll be out of the cage in a day or so, when she realizes that the wonderful bedding is also used to absorb pig pee, but it sure is cute while it lasts. Dev wants to put some Carefresh in a cardboard box just for her—it would be such a great gathering of awesome that her tiny little heart would probably explode from joy.

Indulge me? Dragon eggs for your clicking pleasure:



I used to collect these back when I was more active on the BPAL forum. I've been browsing the forum lately as I put together a masterlist of my collection and wants, and it's given me irresistible cravings. There are so many new ones since I stopped! But I'm not buying/reviewing enough BPAL to warrant posting (and sharing my eggs) there, so ... yeah. Eggs. That's an awfully long explanation for a silly online meme-ish thing.

Perhaps I can get another few hours of sleep now.

Thank you all for your comments and support following Dink's passing. It's much appreciated.

Devon was an absolute angel yesterday, rushing home to cuddle me when I found out and making sure I was comfortable and comfortably distracted last night.

I am often petrified of the future, but I tend to live very firmly in the present. So much so that it's one of the hallmarks of my depression: if I feel unhappy at a given moment, I believe in my heart that I will always feel that unhappy, that I always have been that unhappy, that change is impossible. It makes one casual depressed evening into a lifetime of suffering. But as a corollary to living in the moment, I don't really miss things. I have a poor, fragmented memory and I don't anticipate the future (I'm more likely to dread it). When I'm apart from a friend, a family member, a pet, I don't miss them. I don't look forward to a time when I can interact with them again, I don't reflect fondly on a past when we were together. It makes me a pretty miserable friend and daughter and sister, really. Not being wanted tends to make people feel, well, unwanted.

I don't miss the family pets that died before my family went to England: not Sunshine, our beautiful and sweet Sun Conure who used to dance to "You are my Sunshine"; not Cokie, our chocolate lab that I had grown up with. I don't miss the friends that I left behind when I came back from England, although Lizzie was one of the best friends that I've ever had and whether or not she knows it, she changed my life. As incredibly displaced as I was at Whitman I didn't miss my family so much as I missed Oregon; I can go months now without going home and I don't miss my folks. When my grandmother died it never really hit home, I never really cried, and I don't miss her now, as fondly as I think of her. Devon is the only exception, the only person I ever really miss—after more than a day apart I yearn for him, so let me tell you those four years lived long distance were miserable. But he is, indeed, the exception to all of my rules.

I cried when I found Dink, cried and panicked and needed help to get him out of the cage. I cried when I let the pigs and Woof say their goodbyes. Cried when Devon came home to comfort me. And now when I visit Alfie I still expect Dink to be a dark shadow in the cage, and it surprises me that he's not there. But I don't miss him, I'm not crying now. I've slipped into the haze of confusion that follows loss; it'll transition next for me into a haze of acceptance, and that's it for me. It makes me feel a little coldhearted, I think. My sister Allie still mourns pets we lost ten years ago, and I admire that, the visibility and vastness of her love. I did love Dink—I loved that little furry eggplant quite dearly. I'm sorry that he's gone. But I won't really miss him. It's not how I work.

And so I move on.

So here's a funny story about Kuzco (the guinea pig)...

I just gave each of the guinea pigs one piece of a baby carrot—a round piece approximately 0.5 x. 0.25 inches in size. Dink and Alfie ate theirs, and I gave them a second little round. I reached up to Kuzco's cage, poked his second carrot bit into his hidey place, and he wouldn't take it. Dink and Alfie finished their second bit and Kuzco still wouldn't take the carrot. I could feel his nose, he knew the carrot was there, but he wouldn't take it from my hand.

Then he ran out from under his cover and he still had carrot piece number one jammed in his mouth. He had bitten into it so forcefully that it was wedged between his top and bottom incisors, and he was stuck, carrot-faced, unable to bite the rest of the way through.

I was somewhere between wordless surprise and laughter.

I caught him, eased open his jaw (his little chin was soaked with panicked open-mouthed piggy drool), and then let him eat the carrot bit safely—and in pieces this time—from my hand.

Oh, Kuzco.

ETA: Some pics of Kuzco, just because. Featuring, of course, his poor beleaguered mouth. Piggy lips are some of the cuter things in this world.



( +2 of Kuzco and Woof )

Woof's infatuation with the pigs of course continues. Kuzco is her favorite, probably because his cage is stacked above the one that Dink and Alfie share, and so is too high to look into from dog height. She can stare at the others whenever she wants, but can only see—much less try to slobber on—Kuzco when I take him out of the cage. Therefore he is rare and desirable, and she is compelled to whine when I go near his cage and stares at and runs circles around him whenever he's out.

I'm enamored with that action shot—before and after Woof licks Kuzco. Woof loves to kiss the pigs but Kuzco in particular has no idea WTF that means and why he's now wet up one side of his face.

My parents this weekend were out of town this weekend, seeing plays, so I housesat and dogsat. It was good timing to be with the dog, because Jamie recently had a few lumps removed, one of which biopsied as cancerous. This is not halfway as bad as it sounds—it's not unusual for dogs her age and breed, she's starting some preventative medication, all in all this is mostly a early warning and she's going to be fine. But we all dealt with cancer in our last dog, Cokie, and that was tough on all of us—so we're pretty shook up. I was really upset when I first found out, but a few days spent cuddling with James has done wonders to calm me. It's not good news, but it's bearable news, news we can act on. And right now Jamie couldn't care less. She things her pills are treats, her sutures are healing fine, and as a dog will, as Jamie does, she is loving every single day.

And when you live every day with all your heart then you can be happy ever after, even if it's only a short time.
—Virgina Lewis, The 10th Kingdom

But I suspect she has many years more to go.

And I took pictures! I suppose that's a perquisite for dog visits. I'll admit that I love this first in part because of all the color in the background. The second is purely sunlit—when sunbathing, she glows. There are also a few pictures of some of the other animals in my life.



( +1 Jamie, +2 Dude and Madison, +3 Kuzco and Woof )

The weather has turned hot—unpleasantly so sometimes, but the animals love it. The cats (Dude is black and white, Madison is the tabby) enjoy the sunbeams almost enough to share the same breathing space—not something they often do. The pigs have been feasting on fresh grass and enjoying occasional trips outside, as per these pics of Kuzco outside. Woof thinks that this last is epic awesome: she's part sheepdog, and thinks the pigs are puppies; when they're outside, she runs circles around their cage and watches them eat. She can get a little overeager (I think all of the pigs have had an overenthusiastic dogtongue explore unwelcome places by now), but for the most part she's an angel with them.

It is warm, the earth is glowing, and while I am a fan of autumn myself it is so far a lovely summer.

I haven't done one of these in a while, so: I come bearing pigspam!

Crossposted to guinea_pigs.

One pictures, of Kuzco in the travel cage, peeking out from behind his blanket and into the sunlight. One video, of (mostly) Kuzco exploring his fresh, clean cage. When I'm cleaning the cage, Kuz goes in the travel cage and Dink & Alfie go on Kuzco's smaller side of the C&C cage. They can't interact from that far away, so it's rather lively when everyone goes back in the big cage. There are some adorable shots of Kuzco popcorning for joy, and also some shots of how they all interact through the bars of the cage: Kuzco teases Alfie, Alfie is a jerk, but they can't fight.

The second video is an amusing recent phenomenon, exhibited by Alfie: all three of the boys have a certain spot, just on top of their bums, that makes them spaz out if you scratch it. It's not unlike a dog's scratch reflex, but guinea pigs groom by scratching, licking their paws and rubbing it against their faces, and bending around to nibble at offending body parts—so when you find their scratch spot, their particular brand of crazy reaction involves nibbling, paw grooming, and squirming attempts to reach their faces around to their backs. It's funny to watch.

Onward, then, to the cuteness.


( +2 videos. )