Hiatus

November 3, 2014 was the last time I wrote on this blog.

My heart and mind are full of stories from all the experiences I've lived since then.  Stories of heartbreak, loss, unforeseen change, plans and dreams shattered...
...but I've also got stories of hard work, perseverance, resilience, triumph, and hope.

I am excited to share these stories with you. Part of me feels awkward sending readers back to this blog, because I know that some of my older posts may not reflect who I am today. .. but I guess that's just proof of the journey.

I'm hoping to start updating this blog, with the possibility of transitioning to my own website sometime this year.  I want to become more of an "official" writer, and follow my heart and dreams in this area of my life as well. 

Let's get to it.

At the Laundromat

I'm at the laundromat right now.  Yup, even laundromats are jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon.  In my case today, it's handy because I've been in a blogging mood.  

Anyway, so yes, I do my laundry at the laundromat.  Partially because it's easier for me to do it all at once, and partially because I never got enough money together to buy myself machines for home, plus I was afraid of buying machines because I thought this somehow made me "permanent" in my duplex and that it would be more difficult to move later on, should the time come to find a different place to live.  

(I've actually finally gotten a hold of some machines, but now, I'm just too comfortable with my routine.  After all, I've spent over 2 years doing this! Isn't interesting how we form habits?)

I've used public laundry since graduating from college.  I was fortunate enough to have free laundry at my dorm on campus for 4 straight years (ah, the advantages of a small Christian college in the Midwest!).  Before that, my parents always had machines in the house. I only remember the washer breaking once, ever.

Anyway, I've gotten to observe lots of different people over these 2 years.  Some, I recognize, but not always.  No, not everyone in the laundromat is "dirty".  I think that's a huge misconception, and perhaps even one that I was guilty of having.  No, not everyone in a laundromat is "scary".  Just because there is a single man over folding his socks all by his lonesome, and he may look a little raggedy, doesn't mean he's out to get you (or steal your laundry detergent).  

Once, about a year and a half ago, I observed a rather impatient man.  He seemed very frustrated, and as I watched, I became pretty worked up.  Turns out a different man, one who may have seemed a bit "eccentric" or "different",had accidentally put one quarter into the first man's dryer.

The first man was throwing a fit! He was yelling at the second man, complaining, "Yeah, you just put that in MY dryer" with this horribly demeaning tone of voice.  This guy didn't seem to notice that he had gotten the attention of several of us around him.

The second man just remained quiet.  

I stayed quiet over at my folding table for about a minute, and then I felt moved to act.  In the olden days, Won't Take No Crap Gilda probably would have engaged in a yelling match with Impatient Man.  I felt a little bit of that rage; I tend to stick up for the vulnerable if I see them being attacked.

Instead, I walked over to the Quarter Man, and I said, "Here's your quarter back", handing him one of my own quarters.  He smiled and thanked me.

My heart was pounding a little bit.  Maybe jumping into cruelty like that, with a small act of kindness, is all that has been required of us all along.  

About 2 minutes, the owner of the laundromat, a lady with a long, blonde braid, walked over to me and said, "This is for you.  I saw what you did."  And she handed me a coupon for $2.00 off my next wash at the laundromat.  

It was pretty cool.

I felt such satisfaction in my heart that day.  I knew I had done the right thing, and somehow shown the man that he still mattered, that he wasn't a nobody like this bully was trying to make him feel.

Perhaps I continue to come to the laundromat in the hopes of more such encounters.  Not so that I can receive something in return, but just so that I might never grow so jaded and hardened that I can't see the simple needs of my neighbors.  

After all, people are people.  

Mom-ish Friends

05-04-14

“Mom-ish friends”

I know I use this term a lot.  

I think I may have coined the term, actually.

You see, not all little girls grow up with a mommy to look to for answers to life’s questions, or to pick them up when they fall down.  Some little girls grow up meek and quiet, watching their life go by in a whirlwind around them, across two states, two schools, and two homes, with two parents who were together, yet not, and always seemed to have something to argue about.  

Some little girls grow up with all their basic needs provided - food, clothing, transportation, schooling, pets, even - and so, they never even realize that they are missing something.  They don’t even know what entitlement is, so how can they feel it?

These little girls grow up into pre-teens whose friends want to be all huggy all the time, and they realize this is the first time they remember giving and receiving hugs.  So then these little girls start building their identity around their friendships.

Then boys want to start giving and receiving hugs, and these little girls realize they don’t ever remember hugging their fathers.

But then these little girls get stuck living with their father, while the person who holds the title “mother” is in and out, back and forth, across two states, working, making whirlwind decisions at very loud volumes.

So, trust begins to build in father-daughter relationships, but then mothers get jealous and make up lies and stories and do everything in their power to rip away the relationships that they never cared enough to build themselves.

So then little girls end up confused and caught in the middle of custody battles, not understanding why they have to choose one parent over the other, upset and experiencing separation anxiety when it’s a “mom weekend”, but not sure from which person they feel anxious about separating, the mother or the father.

These little girls eat too much and don’t get enough exercise, but rely on Nickolodeon and Disney Channel for company.  (They fight too much with their sisters to ever get along peacefully for any actual amounts of time)

Dads win the custody battles and little girls continue with schooling.  When boys want to start holding hands at lunchtime, there’s no mommies to ask for advice.  There’s just daddies to hide information from.  

Little girls find their peace in books and schoolwork, spelling and arithmetic, and get a “Good job, mija” when they bring home a good grade, which by the way, is always an “A”.  

Junior high goes by with no more from Mommies than demanding questions and high expectations when they come to visit.  

By high school, little girls have found some more of their identities and escapes in sports.  Building bonds with teammates is easier than building bonds with family members.

The schoolwork gets more intense, and little girls grow more confused and feel more pressure.  By this point, they’ve mastered the “Thank you for cooking dinner, Daddy” and help with housework and take on more responsibility than they maybe should.

By age 15, little girls have seen how some of their friends interact with their mommies.  They’ve seen the hugs, and the eye-rolling, and the kisses on the cheek, and they hear the “Love you’s” and they wonder, “Why is my family so different?” But by this point, they don’t really care.

Because by this point, they’re getting hugs and kisses from boys and doing well with sports, and algebra and biology and theology at their Catholic high schools, and they’re headed toward a college scholarship.

Then Daddy dies and leaves Mommy in charge.

And there’s so much anger and hurt feelings all over the place that little girls don’t even know how to handle themselves.  But they don’t have to, because they get college scholarships to faraway places like Kansas, so they get to run away.

But every time they come for a visit, it’s fireworks, and not the good kind.  And all along, they don’t know who they are, or who they’ve been, or known guidance, or a mother’s love.  For Mommy was too busy figuring herself out to pay any attention to her Little Girls.  

It wasn’t completely her fault.  She just didn’t know how  

Thank goodness for Mom-ish friends, who step in when Little Girls are 20, 25 years old and help answer all the questions; who stand by and offer words of repair and wisdom, gestures of healing and kindness.  For it’s not the Little Girl’s fault that she wasn’t given what all Little Girls should have.

Thank goodness for Mom-ish friends.

"Unstable"

“I hate when people refer to marriage as ‘stabilizing yourself’. There’s nothing ‘unstable’ about being single.”

--Me, today, on Twitter     (this Tweet inspired by a comment that my godmother made on the phone to me last night)

 

The thing with me is, I try not to talk down about anything.  I’ve come to this point in life where I become frustrated when someone tries to impose their beliefs on someone else. 

 

It frustrates me when we judge other people because they don’t make the same choices we do. 


It is infuriating that we always have to be at a constant war of telling each other how we’re right and wrong. 

 

I don’t hate marriage, or feel resentment toward, envy of, or anything else negative about my friends who are already married.  Good for them.  My plea is for the judgment to stop. 

 

I basically just stick with telling people how I feel about a subject; what I’ve learned about that subject while on my journey, and how those experiences have shaped me.  I share my thoughts because I think that there is always someone out there feeling pressured by society to think a certain way, and I just wish we could all accept that we are all different, and that maybe, if they read my thoughts, that person will feel a little less alone.  Each person has their own unique path to walk. 

 

I don’t have a smartphone; I tweet from my basic phone (my tweets go directly to my Facebook page as well).  So, I couldn’t monitor all of the comments being thrown at me for my above statement.  But, I could feel them building up, or rather, the anxiety building up about what people were going to argue with me for. 

 

When, in reality, I wasn’t trying to argue about anything.  I wasn’t trying to say “I’m right, you’re wrong, this is how it should be.” 

 

I was saying, “Hey, let’s all stop calling unmarried people ‘unstable’.  It’s rude.”

 

Anyone can make bad choices, married or unmarried.  Anyone can make a really messy bed for themselves and then have to lie in it.  Being married won’t save you from making bad choices.  Discernment will.  Wisdom will.  And these skills can come, even to an unmarried, single person.

 

I wasn’t even trying to argue about anybody’s financial status (which, by the way, money is such a small part of life; get over it already).  But here’s my thoughts on that: there are plenty of single people out there (myself included) who have stable jobs, with stable income, and pay all their own bills, have their own house and car, and/or maintain whatever lifestyle is pleasing to them.  Thus, stability. 

 

(If they find that their current lifestyle is not pleasing to them, then they take actions to change it.)

 

So before you judge someone as “unstable”, examine yourself first.  Your story is not theirs.  Theirs is not yours.  Look up “stable” in the dictionary, and then ask yourself what your personal definition of the word is.  Chances are, we all have a different definition.  

Earth Wanderer

11-15-2013

I grew up on the road, kind of.  My parents worked for a big-name agriculture company out West, and we followed the harvest.  During the summers and fall, we were in Salinas, California; winters and springs were in Yuma, Arizona.  The drive time between the two cities is somewhere between 8 and 11 hours.

I learned to be a very calm road-trippin’ child.  Packing up the car every season became a familiar ritual.

I remember staring out the window a lot.  I used to play a game with the rain drops on the windows, watching them to see which one would “win the race” to the bottom of the window.  I read every road sign: those about mileage, tourist traps, construction zones, speed limits – all of them. 

I memorized the places we stopped along the way, our familiar “rest areas”; the Mcdonald’s just outside L.A., that giant tree somewhere near Paso Robles, nestled amidst the rolling hills of what must be equivalent to prairies out West.

I drank in scenery from all of our family drives: the rows of lettuce fields on the way out to my dad’s “office”, the city parks, the trees along the freeway.  My favorites were the drives up to Monterey, Watsonville, Castroville, and Santa Cruz.  I now know these drives were essentially out to and up the California coast. 

In California, I learned to love the ocean.  I learned to recognize the feeling of the almost-too-cool breeze up on the rocks.  I memorized what the sun felt like beating down on my bare skin on warm days down in the sand. 

In Arizona, I learned to watch sunsets.  I became familiar with people of all different skin tones and cultures.  I was accustomed to hearing at least two languages everywhere I went, sometimes sprinkled with some Korean or some Middle-Eastern dialect. 

The music and food I grew up with were reflective of the cultural whirlpool I grew up in. 

I always used to hear my mother say she was “ready to go somewhere exciting” or “wanting to see something different”. 

I was used to being on the move, and to being around different kinds of people and culture.

I think this was how my peculiar sense of wanderlust started.  It started very small, very innocently, and then it grew.

It turned into wanting to be in Times Square, waving up at the TRL studios, instead of watching MTV from the living room television.

It turned into wishing with all my being to be out on the dude ranch with Mary-Kate and Ashley, and then go with them to see Paris.  And then London, and then Rome, and then Australia.

I even opted for books that were set in different places.  I loved the “Drina the Ballerina” series, and being a part of tea time or the metro rides in London.  I traveled to Stoneybrook, Connecticut (a fictional city) and sometimes New York with my friends in The Babysitter’s Club.

In the spring of 7^th grade, when we went back to California as a family for the first time in 4 and a half years, I held on with every heartstring to the reliving of my childhood travels.

In high school, I got to travel all over Arizona and Southern California for my athletic competitions.  The hours on the bus?  Bliss.

And then, I moved halfway across the country for college, and have traveled around the Midwest for my track and field career out here. 

I have traveled to Bolivia and Grenada for volunteer trips, neither one of them long enough, each time falling in love with the native people and connecting with my soul in a way I did not know to be possible.

I don’t think this really boils down to never being happy with where I’m at.  I think some sort of a gypsy soul or spirit was instilled in me a long time ago. 

Today, my love of travel and culture largely encompasses my being.  I have travel plans, wishes, hopes, and dreams.  They are not really tourist destinations, so much as places I want to go to connect with people who carry within them a part of humanity’s history.  I long to breathe the air my ancestors have breathed, and experience the emotions of trial and triumphs from before my time.  I am a lifelong learner, and a lover of all that is human.  I want to understand the connection that Earth has had with its inhabitants over the centuries. 

Some people are content never stepping beyond their front porch.  Not me.

“And miles to go before I sleep; and miles to go before I sleep.” –Robert Frost

"Gilda"

3 Nov 2013

 

Gilda means “God’s servant”.

I learned this in high school, in my freshmen Morality class (I went to Catholic high school), although now I can’t remember what language that meaning has its origin in (I think it’s Gaelic).

Looking back now, I know it was divinely appointed for me to learn the meaning of my name at this specific time of my life.  Think about it: the beginning of high school is when our independent identities start to set in; yes, it’s when we start rebelling against our parents, and talking back a little more than usual, but really, it’s because our adult personalities are starting to form.  At 14 or 15, we are old enough to start forming our own opinions, and pay attention to the world around us; we are no longer “kids”, both in our own minds and in the minds of those who start giving us more responsibility and holding us accountable for our choices.

So for me to learn, even if on the most superficial of levels, that I was made to serve God, changed everything.

 I say this now, without even having thought about it before! I think this knowledge, of what my name means, in one of probably hundreds of interpretations, subconsciously set me up for life.

I carried that label with me proudly for a couple of weeks after learning about it.  And then, I think it just settled into my soul.

My high school had a community service requirement worked into the curriculum; each student had to complete a certain amount of community service hours during each school year, or by graduation.  I threw myself into that.  I spent my Spring Breaks working the Knights of Columbus food booth at the county fair; over the summers I found festivals to work at, and over winter break, I decorated churches for Christmas.  I know I exceeded the requirement my school set forth.

But I know I struggled with wanting to “serve the most” and “be recognized for all the hours I put in”.  I know now that I was a very insecure teenager, and wanted desperately to be admired for something, anything.

 

I know now that back then, even though I was serving because it was what I was supposed to do (for God and people), I wasn’t serving because I wanted to hear God say, “Well done.”

 

I wanted to hear people say it.

 

And even though I am so grateful that I spent my teenage years looking for ways to help other people, instead of dozens of negative activities I could have taken part in; even though I now see how I spent my teens practicing for my adult life, for the time I spend now in the service of others; even though I love that at the age of 14, I had already decided that I loved to help, and that I loved people;  I know I still struggle with this recognition thing today.

 Lately, I’ve been bothered by the fact that I “haven’t found a place to serve in the church.”  I think it’s a mixture of pressure from the Christian society (to find my “ministry”), and pressure from myself to “be a leader”. 

 I’m learning that this is split-thinking. 

I can’t be a servant if I want to be a leader.

I’m reading through “The Purpose-Driven Life” right now with a friend, and the last few days’ chapters have been about serving, and how it is part of our design.  It’s been really eye-opening, and at times, nauseating, because it’s been shedding light on the parts of myself that are really ugly and that I don’t want to see.

 

I have learned that I am petty and competitive and that I compare my service to that of others.  I have learned that I am panicky and envious and that I “want to be seen” and “want to be associated with” and “want to be known for” serving in a certain setting.

 I want to hold on to the memory of learning what my name means as a high school freshman, and use that knowledge correctly now, for the first time ever.  I know I have always had the right intentions, so I will try not to beat myself up too much. 

 
But from now on, I want to enter into true servanthood. 

 

Aluminum Cans

10-11-13

I saw him walk up with his bike and lean it against the wall.  I wondered what he was doing, hoping his bike wouldn’t get stolen while he went into the grocery store.  I was on my way out of the grocery store parking lot.

Then I saw him lift the lid on the trash can.  Then I saw the small plastic grocery bag in his hand, already full of aluminum cans. 

Immediately, my heart moved with compassion.  I thought to myself, “Here I go home, with my 8-dollar salad, and this man is collecting a day’s worth of cans to scrap together some change.”

I made the left turn I was waiting for and headed out of the parking lot.  Then I remembered it: the giant Hefty trash bag full of aluminum cans, sitting in my backseat, in my peripheral vision, placed strategically so I wouldn’t forget to take them to the recycling center tomorrow morning.

And I felt it, that familiar, still, small voice, in the back of my head yet oh, so clear:

“Give them to him.”

How quick my brain was to make excuses!  “But I have such a big bag of them, I wonder if he could even manage it on his bicycle.” 

“There’s plastic bottles mixed in with the cans; he won’t want those.”

In about 3 seconds, I found the solution: pull into that empty gravel parking lot, pop the trunk of my car, fish the plastic bottles out, and leave only the cans in the bag.  In the next 2 seconds, I was doing it.

I pictured him putting his small plastic sack inside this big, strong, heavy duty trash bag, half-filled with cans….money. 

I placed the white bag up front with me, and drove back to the grocery store parking lot, expecting to still find him at the same trash can.  He wasn’t there, so I drove in a circle to find him.  I tried to think logically about which direction he may have gone in.  I couldn’t see him, so I stopped and asked the Knights of Columbus representative, who was standing outside the grocery store door collecting change for his cause, if he had seen which way the man had gone. 

“Sorry, no, I didn’t.”

I jumped back in my car and continued to drive slowly the length of the parking lot, and then I saw him through the cars! He was at the end of the parking lot, turning north, heading to the two large dumpsters sitting behind the back doors to a bunch of stores in the little shopping plaza. 

The street and the area behind those stores were completely empty.  No cars, no people.  Only open space and two dumpsters.

I pulled my car into those empty parking spaces and turned South to walk to him.  He was poking his head into the first of the dumpsters when I got to him.

“Sir?”

He turned around.

“I want you to have these.”

“Oh, are these from that liquor store over there?”  (Thinking I was an employee handing him our throwaways, I assume)

“No, I had them in my car.”

“Oh, and you just passed me? Thank you…”

“I was just going to recycle them, but I want you to have them.”

(Laughs, a chuckling laugh, like Santa Claus)

“Well, that’s mighty nice of you, thank you!”

It was like he’d won the lottery.

I walked back to my car, got in, and smiled to myself.  I gave thanks for my open eyes, and for my open heart.  I thought how divinely arranged it all was: the fact that my cat ran out of food just this morning, forcing me to stop at this very grocery store on my way home from work; the fact that I had gathered these cans at F’s house in Ellsworth this week, and he had them all sorted and ready for me to take today; the fact that the recycling center in Ellsworth was already closed, forcing me to bring them to Salina to recycle; the fact that I took a brand-new trash bag from F to bring them in, something I normally wouldn’t have done. 

All for that Santa Claus laugh. 

Road to Orlando: Workshops 1 and 2

Sunday, October 6, 2013

 

I wanted to write a little bit about my Orlando workshops thus far.  In preparing for Orlando, we have monthly workshops.  These workshops are meant to help us prepare the material we will perform in Orlando.  As Ms. Kim told us at auditions, nothing is done in Orlando that is not prepared ahead of time.

 

So, August 17^th was my Orientation.  We spent lots of time reviewing the Contestant Manual, and practicing appropriate runway walking and “model stance”.  We also went through TV commercials and received our assignments for the next months’ workshop.  We took measurements, and tried to sort through which categories everyone would be in.  There were more people than I expected at Orientation.  The Kansas City location serves as regional center for Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska contestants.  Altogether, though, there were probably about 40 actual contestants there, and then parents/spouses. 

 

It was an exciting, full day; I packed my car with my lunch and learning materials, and drove to Kansas City at about 4:30 am.  I definitely stopped for coffee. 

 

My assignments for next workshop were to bring 3-5 monologues I could present, along with 3-5 songs I could present; the singing and the monologues need to be approved before they’ll let us do them in Orlando.  I also needed to memorize my TV commercial for next time.

 

Our next workshop was on September 22^nd.  We spent the morning reviewing the Contestant Manual, and practicing our introductions for the Photography Competition (for this category, we walk the runway and introduce ourselves into a microphone, while our pictures are shown on a big screen behind us).  We also practiced TV commercials.

 

After lunch, we presented monologues and songs, and I was approved for both categories.  I was so nervous to sing in front of our Fashion Man.  He is a little intimidating, but I know that in this business, if you don’t tell your charges how it is, they won’t work.  He definitely tells us how it is. 

 

So now, my current assignments are: prepare 6 outfits for my photoshoot coming up on October 20^th; continue to practice my commercial and monologue daily; and to find someone who will help me find the correct key for me to sing my song in, and then find someone who will do a piano recording of my song. 

 

Our next and final workshop will be two days long: November 9^th and 10^th. 

 

Showtime is December 18^th-22^nd!  It will be a full week for me, but the exposure I will receive will be so worth it.  I’ve already got my room reserved at the resort, and am booking my flight this week. 

 

Trying to keep myself balanced and sane throughout this process is interesting.  It’s tiring.  I’ve noticed I am taking more interest in my appearance on a daily basis.  I also notice I crave more sleep.

 

I'll keep you posted!

Crazy Cat Lady: Lindsay

Lindsay

 

            My mom and her then-boyfriend came home with her one May afternoon.  They said they found her over by the school, and decided to bring her home as a birthday present for my younger sister.  She was still a young kitten, her gray and white fur was soft, and she was friendly.  My sister named her right away: “Lindsay”.  This was my sister’s 9th birthday.  I was 11.

            Lindsay was there through my awkward pre-teen years.  She was there while we (my sister and I ) were both preadolescently chubby and acne-filled.  She witnessed our chickenpox.  She adjusted to a home that already had two dogs in it.

            Then she was there to greet me when I came home from after-school basketball, track, soccer, and volleyball practices, curiously sniffing my bags and shoes.  She saw good days, bad days, sad days, stressful days; fad makeup and hairstyles.  She saw everything that had to do with two girls being brought into their teenage years with essentially a single dad.  The mom that initially brought her into our home was seldom around.

            She was a companion; she came meowing and headbutting whenever she heard tears or sobs.  She purred happily when brushed or petted.

            In the summer of 2002, she had her only litter.  They were born on July 3.  There were four altogether: Cupcake, Liberty, Bell, and Shamu.  She adopted Smoky, the rescue kitten brought to us by the neighbors.  Smoky was the first to be adopted, after the ad we placed in the Super Shopper announcing “Free Kittens to Good Home” was seen.  Shamu and Cupcake also found homes, but we decided to keep Liberty and Bell.  Liberty was around for about 1 year, then went missing.  Bell was around about 4 years, then went the same way.  We were never sure where they ended up, but searched frantically for both of them.

            All of them were always inside/outside cats, so a couple times, Lindsay didn’t come home for about 2 days, and we freaked out, thinking she was gone forever.  I stressed, cried, and prayed that she would come home.  She always did.  She had her favorite playing spot across the street in the neighbor’s hedge. 

            I took my anger out on Lindsay once.  I think it was high school, and I was crying and she wouldn’t leave me alone, so I threw her onto my bed. 

            When I left for college, it was hard to leave her, and the two dogs, who were also both around at the time.  But, every time I came home to visit, Lindsay was there to cuddle.

            Lindsay stayed at my mom’s house the whole 4 years that my sister went away to college as well.  My mom never took very good care of her (this was after Dad died).  She said her fur flew everywhere, so she kept her mostly outdoors and in the garage.  Her fur got matted.  Still, she never ran away.  She was always loyal.  My sister finally got smart and moved her to Tucson to live with her last year.  She shaved her down and made her feel safe and loved again.

            Lindsay is still alive as of today, August 14, 2013.  However, she has had a few vet visits lately, due mostly to my prodding my sister to get her in for a wellness check.  I have a cat of my own now, and encourage my sister to be a responsible pet parent since this is the first time she has had Lindsay on her own.  The vet was concerned about Lindsay’s overall health.  She had mites in her ears; some of her teeth were questionable and look like they’re on their way out.  She also found an abnormal amount of fluid in her stomach, and told my sister further tests would be needed.

            Now the vet is worried that Lindsay has cancer.  Lindsay will have an ultrasound tomorrow to determine what’s next. 

            My sister just had her 23^rd birthday.  That means she’s had Lindsay for 14 years.  I wish we had kept her healthier, like more routine vet visits.  She never went to the vet for wellness checks ever, and hasn’t even had vaccination boosters for like 10 years.  But we were kids.  Our parents were supposed to take care of us and our pets. 

            They didn’t.  So now, we do the best we can to continue to care for ourselves and our animals, making up the ground that was lost. 

            Lindsay wasn’t our first cat, but in a way she was.  (We had Mota and Zeeper before them; I was 9 ish and Sister was 7 ish; Mota had a litter that all died at birth/shortly after/went missing; Zeeper disappeared.  It was a family legend that certain neighbors to the back stole all of our cats over the years.  We’ll never know)

            She’s been such a good cat.  I hope she feels as though she’s had a good life. 

 (Lindsay, 12/21/2012)