If you’ve followed what Lily has been going through following the death of Perry, here’s your eagerly awaited update!
She ate something on her own this morning!
I’m pretty darn sure that before the dental it was her tooth causing problems (and maybe some grief for Perry) and that after the dental the anorexia (and diarrhea) was caused by the meds, especially the antibiotic. She might have some IBD which made things worse, but in general, I think she’s on the upswing.
All that 24 hour a day nursing was worth it!
I’m so tired and she and the house need cleaning. But after she ate today I suddenly wanted to write a blog post about the music I’ve been listening to with Lily. Lots of classic country, and I really started to focus on one song in particular. I’ll write it today and post it tomorrow morning :).
Thanks for all your good wishes and love and prayers for Lily’s health. Keep them coming, but I think we’re outta those dark fairy tale woods.
Scrap: Salvaging a Family garnered a couple of beautiful new reviews over the past few days. I am so grateful for the readers for their reviews.
The book’s reviews have been excellent, but they are coming in very slowly. I don’t think readers realize that even a one sentence review on Amazon helps the algorithms immensely.
It’s tough going to sell a book, even one with good reviews. And then the path to the reviews is kind of tortuous (medical term hah). I like how Ellen Morris Prewitt describes it in her blog post The Kindness of Strangers. She says:
This authoring business is a Blanche DuBois undertaking. Like the heroine in A Streetcar Named Desire, authors must depend on the kindness of strangers. First, an author asks people to come to their event. Then, when the guests arrive, you want them to buy a book. After that, you’re hoping they crack open the book and read it. Once they’ve read it, here comes another ask: will you tell people you like the book? That’s four things you’re asking of a person. Four. That seems like a lot to me.
You can translate that first one, the event, in my case as to read my social media, blog posts, substack notes, etc. So I am humbly asking for those other three things if you’re reading this post: a) buy the book, b) read the book, c) review the book with even one sentence. Actually I am pleased if you do a, and thrilled if you do b. I am downright relieved if you do c.
Anyway, here’s a little pic of the darker side of Scrap as a reward for reading through the above words (mine, not Ellen’s). Then I want to update you about Lily.
Hah, isn’t that cool? Playing around with Book Brush, as you can see.
So Lily. She had stopped eating and I had to bring her to the vet last week. She then had a dental procedure because she had a big resorbing tooth that had to be removed. After the surgery on Thursday, she ate and then Friday she seemed as if she was recovering well. She ate and took her meds.
But then yesterday, Saturday, she did not eat all day. She didn’t act like herself.
Today she still wasn’t eating, and I had to take her to the vet. This new vet is open Sundays, but not Saturdays. Her meds got changed around and she got fluids because she was dehydrated again. Tomorrow I have to take her in for fluids again. I won’t do them myself as I did that with Felix years ago for some time, and it drove a wedge between us as he hated it.
I hate making this about myself (instead of Lily) but actually I’m getting PTSD over my cats.
I don’t want Lily to be part of the prevailing pattern.
For instance, from July 2021 to June 2022, I lost four cats. Three of them were from July to September!
Then in 2024 I lost Kana. Not part of a pattern.
However, in February of this year I lost Meesker and then on June 28 the King of All Cats, Perry.
I wonder if Lily is doing what Pear Blossom did when Mac died in 2015. She stopped eating completely. I tried desperately to get her to eat, but she would not. Our vet thought she was going to die. Then one day she just started eating again.
However, I do think I must have gotten a bit of nourishment down her somehow. Lily is refusing ANYTHING.
What if Lily just doesn’t start eating in time? Cats can only go for a short time without food or they get a life-threatening condition called hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease).
Three and a half years ago my soul mate cat Perry was diagnosed with both a serious heart issue and either IBD or GI cancer of some sort. At the time we thought he’d only have maybe a year. I was broken hearted to learn this because he was only seven years old.
We were blessed to actually get these 3 1/2 years instead. He required several medications. And he suffered with horrible diarrhea most days. But his love was strong so he hung on.
Until Tuesday night when he stopped eating and drinking and began to hide himself away. I realized that Perry was breathing rapidly with his mouth slightly open. The gardener and I were supposed to go on a business trip, so I told him to go without me–that I would stay and take care of Perry. Yesterday, I had to let the emergency vet put Perry out of current suffering. What I was told was that they had exhausted what they could for him, and that I could take him to a specialty emergency hospital. He probably had a few things wrong with him–pneumonia, congestive heart failure, maybe more. What that special ER visit would entail would be lots of nasty testing and then he would be hositalized for at least a few days–with a feeding tube. And the prognosis wasn’t good. I could see the vet was telling me something.
After conferring with the gardener who spoke with the vet on the phone, we decided we couldn’t let his sensitive soul suffer any longer when there was no hope of him actually getting well enough to enjoy life.
So on May 28, 2026. Perry, my very best friend, passed away.
If you don’t know, Perry was a stray in my yard nine years ago. We trapped him in a trapping cage and got him neutered. Then I brought him to the animal rescue where the gardener and I both volunteered. I visited every day and read him his favorite Curious George book. But he seemed feral in that setting, and the rescue asked me to find another place for him as he was too difficult to care for. So I bought a 3 tier cage and brought him home. He stayed in that cage until he felt comfortable hanging out in the room. For two months I read and sang to him for a few minutes every waking hour. I held his bowl while he ate.
Finally one day while he was hiding under the bed and I put my hand toward him, he rubbed against my hand. Then I knew he was not really feral, just a very very scared and neglected stray cat who had been infested with worms and whose paws were thickly callused. Perry’s soulful eyes and gentle but commanding personality quickly made him my favorite cat of all time. He was the most unique and more like a toddler than a cat sometimes. We became a team, Perry and Mama. And more recently when my grandson Hudson would lie on the couch with me Perry would squeeze his way between us all the while licking us both to show that although he had to come first with Mama, he loved Hudson, too.
I wrote this poem when Perry was first diagnosed, and it was published in a small journal that is defunct.
Perry
I call my other cats dear heart names–
Tiger Queenie Princess Mimi
and Meeskeleh Meeskeleh Meeskerelli.
Lily Billy Peaches and Cream.
Perry is Perry.
Perry is a cartoon cat.
He’s Tom of Tom and Jerry.
My other cats look like regular cats.
Those cats hobble into old age
with arthritis and newfound
appreciation for my help.
Perry ignores all boundaries.
He carries his octopus, fish, and squid
upstairs and down, wherever we are.
He stares at the others for attention.
My other cats lie on the couch back,
the chair, the bed, or in the new box.
Perry lies tummy up in the crook
of my arm for the length of a movie.
When I’m mad at my husband I say
I’ll divorce you and marry Perry!
Perry is only lucky number seven.
The others are elderly and wise.
Perry has been imaged inside and out.
He doesn’t know what we saw,
and I can’t feel what I saw, or
I won’t be able to breathe, so I say
Perry is Perry.
Now that the days are not as hot in Phoenix–more like 85 than 105–I started up my daily walks again. I had to stop when my hip got so bad, but now that I’ve had the replacement there is nothing stopping me. I love the smells outside, although the last two days there has been an unfamiliar funky odor (possibly bobcat pee) in the air, as well as the usual perfume of flowers, grass, leaves, and sun-kissed concrete.
The intensely blue sky during my walk
Not being able to “show” you the smells annoys me. I can take photos and write words and even post audio if I want to. But I can’t post scent. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy adding olfactory descriptions in my writing; however, sometimes I’d just like to share how something actually smells. Or smell something my nose can’t reach.
This brings me to what I was thinking when I woke up yesterday. I’ve always loved history and as a kid used to wonder what it would be like to have lived in a different time period. Or to visit, even invisibly. Choose a time period. How about 1515 CE? What would it have stank like? I think even if I arrived in my time shuttle inside a palace that I would be gasping for air. I’d be holding an entire bottle of Gris Dior up to my face. I’d have to keep a little puke bag handy. I’m sure I’d be begging to come back to the present time. And that’s with palace peeps, not inside the hut of a poor person.
Yes, this is the kind of thing I think when I wake up in the morning. Maybe because I’m not writing every day. If I do write daily, then I’m apt to think of a story or poem while I’m still in bed. But I have finished my Remedios Varo-inspired ekphrastic chapbook. Gosh, I hope I can find a publisher for it. It’s hybrid, being both fiction and poetry, so that makes it harder to find publishers to submit to.
And, in other news, my hybrid flash memoir, Scrap: Salvaging a Family, should be available from ELJ Editions in March! Watch for cover reveal and so on in the future. If you are a blogger and would like to participate in a blog tour this spring, send me an email at luanne[dot]castle[at]gmail[dot]com. You can post a review or I can write a companion post to my book for your blog. I can get you a pdf. Here’s a link to publisher’s page: ELJ Editions forthcoming.
On the cat front, it’s been all puke/pee/poo/puke/pee/poo. If you plan to have multiple cats, try to space out their ages a bit so you don’t end up with all seniors at the same time. (just kidding, sort of)
In less than a week my grandson will be 21 months old! I can hardly believe it. He’s such a delight. He went on vacation to the beach and loved every moment.
I know I haven’t written about my kitties for a long time, so I thought I would update about them. We have four, all seniors.
Perry, my true love and favorite fur person (only rivaled by dearly departed Pear Blossom). I won’t say much as I don’t like to “jinx” anything. Gray and white, medium-long-haired.
Sloopy Anne, my best little girl who sleeps with the gardener and me. One of our other cats (Lily) hates Sloopy Anne with a passion, so we have a gate dividing our house in half. Sloops lives in the bedroom half. Tortico–tortoisehell from the top and calico from the bottom.
Lily, one of my son’s cats who I took in. She is so mean to Sloopy so Lily is confined to the front half of the house. The reason this is fair is because Lily is a dominant cat in great need of human touch and companionship. Sloopy is more reticent and happy in back. If the gardener sits down, Lily climbs on his chest up to his neck and sticks there like velcro. She can’t get through the gate because she’s fat. Orange and white long-haired who knows she’s beautiful.
Meesker, the other one of my son’s cats. He’s shy and was bullied by Lily for years, so for the last couple of years he’s lived in the back of the house with Sloopy Anne. However, just recently, he decided he likes it out front with Perry. Lily doesn’t dare bully Meesker out here because Perry keeps her in line. Perry is the benevolent king. Meesker is so skinny (GI issues) that he slides between the bars of the gate we put up so he can come and go as he pleases. (Actually so can Perry when he really really wants to do it). All black with black whiskers and toe beans.
The boys, Perry and Meesker:
###
The wonderful journal Gone Lawn has published two of my micros: “Nature’s Ways” and “The New Girl.” The first one is fanciful. The second is kind of heart-breaking. It’s in honor of all the new girls who didn’t come into a school with the best clothes or nurturing.
Ethel hoisted herself off the old, webbed chair with one hand and a sigh, grabbed her muddy gloves, and slipped on wet grass toward the garden at the back wall. Her dear Buttercup had passed in her arms the day before, and her enthusiasm for her garden, even life itself, had seemed to die with the little marmalade cat.
“The New Girl” begins this way:
The school secretary handed you off to Miss Dixon, as if you were a slippery, prickery, stinky fish, and you sat in that front row seat where nobody else wanted to sit and didn’t look around so everybody could stare at you until lunch, and I admit I was no different, noting your limp faded dress,
###
Two of my micros were finalists in a contest by The Ekphrastic Review.
If you go to that link you will find all the finalist stories as well as the winning story.
Here are the two inspiring art pieces that I wrote from with beginnings of the stories.
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Rogue Agent published two of my collages at https://www.rogueagentjournal.com/lcastle along with a written description of each collage and some comments I make about them.
Silver Birch Press has a new series, My Favorite Things. In such fraught times moments of joy are so important. So without further ado, here are one of my favorite things, my boots:
I spoke too soon in my Kitty Cat Update post last week. Sadly, one of my cats has passed away. Here is my eulogy about Kana.
Our girl Kana has gone to meet her furfam over the rainbow: Pear Blossom, Felix, Tiger, and Isabella Rose. The first night in early 2015 when the Gardener and I started volunteering in the cat room at the shelter, Kana was in a cage and pushed herself into the front corner, against the wires, begging me to take her home. At the time, I couldn’t do that because Mac was sick and needed a lot of care, and we had other cats as well. Kana waited for us for months because the progression of Mac’s illnesses dragged on. Nobody asked to spend any time with her. The shelter sent her to PetSmart, hoping someone would take an interest in her. Nobody wanted an 8-year-old black cat, and I saw her get more and more depressed. As soon as Mac passed, I picked up Kana from the shelter. By this time, she was very cantankerous and didn’t even want to go home with me any longer. We discovered that she not only had IBD, but the ultrasound showed that at one point her back had been broken. She lived with chronic pain. After a few months, Kana realized that she was home, and that she could relax. Her final illnesses really took a lot out of her. We now realize she was in a LOT of pain and feeling very sick, but she was always brave and fierce, a real hero.
Since I haven’t been able to blog much because of caring for grandbaby (missing you all!!!!) I know I haven’t blogged about my cats in a long time. So time for a cat update!
I still have five cats: Perry, Kana, Lily, Sloopy Anne, and Meesker.
Perry, of course, is the closest to the grandbaby, but he’s also the one that gets the most jealous. Therefore, I often have my arms full of baby and cat at the same time! Say hi, Perry!
Perry is still on his meds for GI and heart and getting lots of hugs. His ruff looks greasy because his medicine is oil-based. He’s the youngest, but even Perry is a senior. All my cats are old.
Kana is at least 17 and has failing health. She has kidney disease. She has a hard time walking. I have to lift her up on the couch when she wants to lie next to me at night–and lift her down again. She spends her days in a kitty playpen (not zipped in—it’s by choice) near the sunlight.
Lily is Lily. She’s the worst cat I’ve ever had. She’s also the most beautiful (long-haired orange and white), vain, and we love her a lot. Hah. She’s the reason we had to build a gate in the middle of our house, to protect Sloopy Anne and Meesker from her. And when she feels like it she pees on the living room drapes and kitchen rugs. She needs lots of attention, whether from us or anyone who stops over.
Sloopy Anne lives in the back of the house, an independent tortico (tortoiseshell and calico markings), and she is the cat who sleeps with us. In that way we make up to her for giving her the least attention during the day.
Meesker lives in the back of the house, but has his own room that he can be in when he needs to feel secure. It has a gate on the door (open most of the time during the day), which he could jump over if he realized it. We’ve never told him about that fact though, so he doesn’t even try. The gardener spends some time with him almost every afternoon and almost every evening. My physical therapist (don’t ask–another mobility issue) wants me to lie on my stomach for five minutes a couple times a day, so I started doing it in Meesker’s room. He lies next to me in the same position, just like a little copycat.
Lily and Sloopy Anne prefer the gardener. Kana and Perry much prefer me. Meesker is a happy bouncy guy and likes us both the same.
Here’s a pic of the baby who refused a nap all afternoon and then conked out the second he went into his jumper.
I’m closing comments because the little time I have for blogging today I would rather spend it reading some of your blogs.
Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested we write a syllabic poem using synonyms for the word “work” and “play,” and to contrast the two for this week’s #TankaTuesday.
I have to admit that the synonym prompts are not my favorite. I prefer a little looser prompt, and this was even tighter by the need to contrast them. So go ahead and hate my poem, which is three Badger’s Hexastitch stanzas put together. I used that form because I LOVE the name. It’s like a cross between something a witch does as a hobby and the town that Loretta Lynn sings about in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (Butcher’s Holler).
For work I used the word “toil,” because it reminded me of two of my favorite poems (see below). And for play I used “entertain” and “rest.”
To toil
seems poetic
like Hopkins and Shakespeare.*
Entertain sounds lazy
as if I should
do more.
The cat
does not toil much
except to wash himself
or hunt food if he must,
but entertains
us all.
I hope
that I can be
more like the cat than me
and rest when I need to,
toiling just as
needed.
Hopkins is the Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “God’s Grandeur,” and Shakespeare is Will himself, “Song of the Witches” from MacBeth. I loved to entertain my kids when they were little with the latter.
Here are both poems and you can see where I got “toil” from.
GOD'S GRANDEUR
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
###
SONG OF THE WITCHES
by William Shakespeare
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Notes:
Macbeth: IV.i 10-19; 35-38
Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983)
Now if you’re still reading, here’s a sonnet that I wrote based on the Hopkins poem which was published in Last Stanza Poetry Journal by editor Jenny Kalahar. After that you can see a pic of my cutie pie Meesker.
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod* by Luanne Castle
and I am shackled to the backlit screen, subjected to technology’s caprice, my feet immobile, hidden, and benumbed, my thoughts dispelled by cumbrous messages of discounts, password problems, and a troll, and so I scroll my Twitter notices and scan What’s Happening, then Google God, procrastinating still and find, alas, my spirit drifts away, mere haze, but then the images of light dividing clouds is how we see the brightest wings and warmth and you appear and take me by my hand to share the garden, smell the sweetbush, hear the cactus wrens, and trill for butterflies.
My mother gave me my baby book which I have started to go through. I found a photo in it that I have never seen of the person who was my favorite when I was a kid: my maternal grandmother. In this image I am 20 months old. I also read in the book that for my first week of life Grandma and her other daughter, my sweet Aunt Alice, stayed with my parents and helped take care of me. She was the best grandmother anyone could ever have. The grandmother poems in Rooted and Winged are about her.
For months now I have been writing this post in my mind. The reason is that the post is meant to help clarify my thinking about a matter.
I grew up in an era where people still believed that it was important to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and to “put a good face on.” I also like to be seen as strong or even tough. Most importantly, there are always people worse off than ourselves. Some people have such horrible “roads to hoe” in life. It makes me cry to think of what some people go through.
Further down there is going to be a “but.”
Without boring you with too many details, underneath a lifetime of many and varied illnesses, I have a few chronic conditions that are a bit extraordinary. One of these is primary congenital lymphedema, particularly in the lower extremities. It’s what used to be known as elephantiasis.
Additionally, I have a migraine disorder that for the last 25 years has not (for the most part) been headaches, but a sudden and extreme set of symptoms. Because the symptoms didn’t fit neatly into a specific type of migraine, I was told they were “complicated migraines.” Most recently, the diagnosis is that I have genes for more than one rare type of migraine—and that they work together to give me symptoms of more than one disorder. Most likely these are vestibular and hemiplegic.
An extra issue in the mix, and I’ve written about this before, doctors at Mayo Clinic discovered that I had a very rare tumor in my right foot (rare meaning at that time medical staff couldn’t find any medical literature of a tumor in that particular bone). This was a nightmare that went on for 1 1/2 years and was complicated by my lymphedema. There were only two surgeons in the United States that Mayo considered competent to do surgery on this tumor, and it was performed by the AMAZING Dr. Eckhart at UCLA orthopedic hospital (RIP to a wonderful person and doctor). Five years after the surgery, he told me he never thought the surgery would work but he watched over me so carefully. Since the surgery I am not allowed to run, jump, hike, or do most aerobic activities.
I write about these details to give a little context. Back to putting a good face on and all that. Because I am a writer and keep up with current events in the writing world, I am more aware of new ways of thinking about things than I might be if I weren’t writing and especially reading new work. My view of myself that I have had my whole life has been as a blessed person–certainly privileged in many ways–and that I needed to stay tough and “power through” everything and then set it aside. Another way of putting it is to say burying it down deep. Perhaps what best fits is that I never made space for my health issues. I let everything else in my life intrude and take over the space they needed.
But (I told you there would be a but!) reading young writers, I am beginning to change my view of myself. I am disabled. Any time I go out I must have a hat and sunglasses with me for lighting situations (migraine trigger). I can’t go to concerts or sports games because of flashing lights. I can’t travel alone because it’s become too dangerous with the migraines which occur in a moment and are completely incapacitating. I must bring my lymphedema pump with me to travel–as well as lots of other things for the condition, and it takes a lot of time and energy every day. Most importantly, lymphedema affects much of the rest of my health, and as I age (arthritis and other deteriorations, for instance) it will become more and more of a problem.
So, while I have no ridiculous illusions that my situation is comparable to the tragic illnesses of so many others, I am finally realizing that disability has nothing to do with comparison between one person and another. And it isn’t negative or counter-productive for me to finally understand that it’s ok to admit that I am disabled, that it’s just a useful way to communicate with others. If people don’t realize that I am disabled, how can they be supportive?
I wish I had had this epiphany years ago when my son was still young. He has an exceedingly rare disorder that doctors misdiagnosed for decades. It’s so rare that in the NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders) list it is lumped in with other disorders and diseases instead of being listed separately. At the most, only a couple thousand people in the U.S. have his disorder. The reason it’s important to note the rareness is because the less others know about your disability, the less helpful they are–even if they want to be!
You see where I am going with this? If I had been better about making space for my disabilities, it might have been easier for my son with his own situation. It’s hard enough when people see you from the outside and say, “Oh, it’s not such a big deal,” with absolutely NO understanding of what it’s like to live that life. So, while the gardener and I always respected the importance of his disorder (which I first noticed when he was nine months old, and the pediatrician practically laughed at me), we didn’t teach him to make space.
Now I see everything differently.
Have you ever had a big shift in how you viewed yourself?
OK, ending on something a little lighter. Perry is very unhappy about the cane I’ve been using since I injured my knee more fully when I got home from Michigan. Yesterday, I was walking in the living room, and Perry came up from behind and crashed into the cane, forcing me down on the bad knee. Yes, it hurt like heck, but it was funny, too, because what cat does something like that? A dog might do that if he’s frustrated enough. But Perry was just being Perry! And then we had the hugging session afterwards where he apologized to me! Sweetest, funniest little goober.
