margoeve: (Sad)
Ginger was my grandfather's cat. My mother took her in after my grandfather passed away a few years ago. She had the most stunning markings around her eyes. I wish I had my new camera over the summer to do them justice.

She was one of the things that made my stay there 'ok' this past summer, because I desperately missed the purr of my own cats. It was amazing to see how openly affectionate she turned since first coming to my parents house. It was a comfort that only a cat owner can really understand, to be curled up with a rumbling ball of fur on your lap or by your side.

We have no idea how old she was, but she was old. Easily over 16. She apparently stopped eating 4 days ago, and couldn't move at all. She was so spry and full of life this past summer... I'm just sort of in shock.

I don't want to have to make the decision my mother had to yesterday morning. I think, had she been a younger cat the choice might have been different, but money being as tight as it is I just don't know. I don't want to think about it. Miko is 5 and a half and Tyler is 3. I don't want to think of it for a very long time to come.

Goodbye Ginger-kitty. You made my grandfather less lonely, when you looked after him, and my family very happy with your meowy-purrs.

                                           
Ginger kitty: ?-10/30/2006
Ginger kitty: ?-10/30/2006
Be well purry one.
margoeve: (Academic Masochism)
...people STILL don't know the difference between a Crocodile and an Alligator.

This is a Crocodile:

This can be found on The Crocodile Hunter.

This is an Alligator:

This eats golfers in Florida.


Sorry Steve, you tried.


.
margoeve: (Honor)
It's very difficult to be supportive of another person when they have sat in judgment of your method of dealing with the same problem they have. It would be one thing to say, "I'm going through my own stuff and can't deal with yours right now." It's another to project one's own issues about how to deal with something onto another's way of dealing with something similar.

Their dealing with issues of XYZ is "sharing and being open about their issues to promote healing among friends."
Their take on your dealing with issues of XYZ is "airing dirty laundry that they don't want to know about."

Even though the methods were equally valid, though through different channels of communication.

It reminds me of someone once telling me, "My stuff is stuff, your stuff is shit."

Yes it's very difficult to care when in your time of need they turned their back on you and gave you a rather cruel-in-its-dismissivness justification for it.

Maybe it makes people feel better when they are in pain to look down upon others for experiencing similar pain. "Well at least I'm not handling it like them! Look at how horrible they are with XYZ."

Trainwrecks aside, it boggles me how cruel friends can be to others they've called "friend." And I wonder, how they can possibly ask for support from people they've done this to? Is it gall? Cluelessness? Self-absorbment? Or something entirely more insidious?

I'll never know, because I do not care to have such people in my life. So I will never bother to ask them.
margoeve: (Honor)
Earlier today [livejournal.com profile] schrathe made a post about a TV anchor just not getting what this day is about. She basically said to a bunch of Service Men and Women, "Smile, it's Memorial day."

For those very few of you on my Friends List who may have forgotten that this isn't a day just for BBQs and a day off from work, Memorial Day is a "holiday" in which to remember those who have fallen while in service to our (The USA) country. Not to be confused with Veterans Day, which is for ALL who have served.

So needless to say, the TV Anchor came across as "just not getting it."

But it got me thinking. (Always a dangerous thing.)
Cut to save your Friend's Page from my rambling on why such holidays exist. )

Do memorials, funerals, and other remembrances need to be filled with somber sorrow and tragic loss?

I think of stories I hear of Irish funerals that are filled with drinking, dancing and storytelling about the deceased, and I think, "No, no they don't."

So yes, this TV anchor was flaky. I didn't see the broadcast but there is a good chance that this anchor, like me, can't remember a time when it wasn't observed on the last Monday of May as opposed to May 30th. Like me, this anchor is probably a "babe of history" and so I say "Out of the mouth of babes..." because her on-air gaff actually contained some accidental wisdom in it - "Smile, It's Memorial Day."

Yes, smile. Smile because you are alive and someone cared enough about your life, liberty, and freedom to make the ultimate sacrifice in ensuring it. Smile because you knew someone who sought the honor of protecting those they love by serving a cause greater than themselves. Smile, because of them we can have our BBQs and our parades and come together and enjoy the company of those still living. Smile because they would not want you to weep more than you have to.
Smile because they will live forever if you tell their story. Tell me a story and make me smile. Tell your child a story and make them smile and they can know the person that is gone. Tell the world a story so all can smile and they will not have died in vain.

So, I choose to remember the fallen not by how they died, but by how they lived. If I am a flake or "not getting it" because of this, then so be it. I prefer to believe that it's the smiles that make all the death and destruction that come in times of war and conflict seem less senseless, not the tears and silence.

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