headier days around this household have not been felt since this very part of june, 1999. there are fabulous things in the works, there also exist a couple of seemingly insurmountable hardships. everything changes, seemingly every hour. of the good things i will speak little right now. of the difficulties, i can speak of one.

a week ago, on an afternoon off, jennifer the cat ran into problems. diabetes in cats often suddenly reverses, and that's what happened. my beautiful girl one moment was nosing about the place as always, and a moment later was obviously in serious trouble. seems her six units of insulin i'd given her at 11 that morning conflicted with her pancreas rebooting. my beautiful jennifer went from viable to insulin shock over the course of half an hour, by the time i clued in she was very far gone.

it was eight blocks from home when i realized we weren't going to make it to emergency. limp in her carrier, with her eyes fading quickly, i diverted to the closest vet, the fairfield clinic. and suddenly there we were, right in the middle of the situation i'd planned for for months, but had by this time determined would never happen.

mad props to the folks at the fairfield veterinary clinic, who without charge gave her oral glucose. and then it was rush hour traffic all the way to the hospital cross town. it was at the intersection of blanshard and bay where she slipped into oblivion, her eyes rolling back in her head and her body, already limp, slipped into coma. no one should have to die that way. the near three hundred horsepower of the yellow car is nothing in the face of late afternoon traffic.

when we got to central victoria, it was dire. they were waiting and they took her from my arms and disappeared behind the doors of the business end, and then it was a matter of waiting. a half hour later, in an incubator, there was jennifer, sugared, warmed, brought back to life.

recovery from insulin coma, severe hypoglycaemia, is very much a study in rebounds, in instability. she spent the night, came home the next morning, the dslr/massage therapy fund some six hundred poorer, quite the feat as it was sitting at less than two. and her kidneys are damaged, and we're spending an awful lot of time together these days. it's dim; i love her very much.

we're both doing the best we can. her pancreas is going in fits and starts, like a poorly tuned outboard motor. when i have to inject her there is much finger crossing. the insulin that has given her life since last september is now both her best friend and her worst enemy. hard decisions over the next week or two are in order. for the first time ever last week in her nearly 17 years, jennifer spent a night away from home. i hate knowing that far too soon there will be far too many such nights ahead, and nowhere to head to to pick her up, no one to phone to see how she's doing. for now, i'm certain she is happy still being here, just as i'm certain that she's almost ready to move on. she's docile and a bit clumsy, it's harder to make her purr, But her eyes are still full of love, and it's up to me to make all the right decisions at the right times to honour that.

we humans, most of us, can and do form these crazy bonds with our domestic companions. and i think that goes doubly so for those of us who can't see ourselves for sure having human babies, for while a cat or a dog is not a child, is not many of the things about humans that are so wondrous, they activate inside us many of the same attachments, form so many of the same bonds. and while i don't for a moment equate the terminal illness of a 17 year old pet with that of a similarity aged human child, that in no way negates the simple and amazing relationships we form with our furrier friends, and what their loss means.

this warm summer evening, jennifer the cat, still vital after a fashion, is sitting behind me on my diningroom table, i can see in the reflection of my screen that she's staring at the back of my head. and now she's on my desk, i had to help her over. she is beautiful, there is still fire in her eyes, she is also very, very old. i hate that soon she will be taken from me, but i am grateful for the time we have right now. small mercies.

in the coming days, there's an extrametrical solstice homework submission from florida to share, and maybe, just maybe, i'll get to tell you about some of the wonderful things that are going on in spite.