The last 24 hours have been a mixed bag of emotions for sure. Yesterday afternoon after meeting up with Dad and Sandy at Club Cappuccino where Rob and I had delicious hot chocolates with whipping cream (a very rare treat for me these days), we went home. Rob had been decluttering and tidying the house and had an old office chair that he'd put in the back yard. I fed the birds and decided to put the chair into the old garage we're going to tear down soon. As soon as I opened the garage door, despite holes where the windows had been and holes in the roof, I noticed the place reeked. I looked around. Lying on an old mattress was our neighbour's ginger tom, Reddie.  I just saw his back but the poor cat was obviously dead. My heart went out to the children next door whose mother had died suddenly about six weeks ago. 

Rob had gone straight back out so I had to pace and wait for him to come home before I could do anything remotely practical. I had ideas of somehow tending to the cat ourselves but Rob immediately went next door and talked discreetly to the children's aunt, Jamie, who said her and her brother would come by the next day when the children were in school and collect Reddie. The children were resigned to the fact that Reddie had run away. He'd been missing for 2 weeks. So Jamie saw no need to tell them otherwise.

I felt so sad for the children, for Reddie, for Jamie and Frankie for having to deal with the body, even for myself for finding him which was a shock. I know that cats will often go elsewhere to die and tried to comfort myself with that fact and with the fact that he had at least found a dry and comfortable place to do so. I was further comforted by that this morning when Jamie's brother said that Reddie seemed to have been sick the last time he saw him. I just wish I had found him sooner.  Although I sprayed him with water when he tormented my cats, Reddie was a sweetheart, a gentle soul (to people--a scrapper with other male cats) who tried constantly to have his way with my (spayed!) cat, Spook, even though she never wanted anything to do with him. He had obviously been well-loved. May his little spirit rest in peace.

After Jamie and Frankie gathered up Reddie's remains, I had to race to the vet's (the irony not lost on me and even though I found myself shaking after their ordeal) to try to catch Sandy to give her some address labels that Rob had printed out for her and Dad. Rob stayed home from his accounting job this morning so I took his car. Rob likes to listen to talk shows on his radio. I turn the CD player on as soon as I get in usually but today the theme song from Murder She Wrote was playing so I kept the radio on and was treated to a delightful interview with an almost 94 year old Angela Lansbury. My usual route was closed so I was in the car even longer, catching more of the interview. I have cosy memories of watching Murder She Wrote the first time it came around (oh how I longed to be Jessica Fletcher, not so much solving mysteries but being a published, well-respected writer! And of course living in beautiful Cabot Cove which according to a BBC study would be the murder capital of the world were it a real place.) then watching reruns with a lady I was looking after and even now catching the odd show. 

The rest of this day I'm going to be gentle with myself. It's free until this evening when I have LUNA (Lakehead Unfinished Novels Association) at Glenn's house. So I plan to create. I have ATCs to finish. Yesterday I received the names of some new people to send to for a year. Brother and sister teens this time. And I have art lessons to work through for Ever After, Moonshine, A Year of Rumi and a Creativity and Lifebook 2020 Summit.  An art overload you say? There is no such thing! The first thing I will do though is colour this pretty, season-neutral  outside flag that I bought from Vanderwees last week. Then I can put it up in the front yard and take down the heron flag which, though also pretty, is not necessarily fall and winter appropriate.

9/11 seems like a strange day to write about magical moments. But maybe not. Despite the absolute terror, some miracles arose from the devastation. And maybe 9/11 is also a good time to remember not only sadness but hope too. Like most people, certainly on this continent, I remember exactly what I was doing on 9/11/01: delivering our little publication Superior Coffee Talk all over town then going to a specialist's appointment. Everyone in the waiting room was stunned to silence watching the images over and over on the TVs. In remembrance of the day, I wanted to watch one of my favourite movies today, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. So I plan to do that as soon as I finish this post. I had to run to the library to pick up the dvd as I've lost my pvr recorded copy for some reason. If you haven't seen it and aren't too triggered by 9/11 references, you might like it. Meanwhile, this photo that I took at the Marina on Sunday seems to be full of hope.

That was a magical moment, for sure. What I had wanted to write about happened last week. I'd had a strange dream about my friend Nancy weeks ago and shared it with her on Monday through email. The bare bones: Nancy and I were in a mall and on the second level we found a place to eat, a pizza place. Nancy chose pizza. Smart move. I chose...well, I don't know what it was supposed to be but it turned out to be Eeyore and Piglet, small and felted like cat toys, on a plate. They tasted like felt, too! Nancy kindly shared her pizza. Then to cheer me up from such a dismal lunch, she pretended to be Tigger and bounced backward out of the door, imploring me to come and shop with her. I warned her about the stairs, but she fell down them all. I cried out her name and raced to the bottom. She was standing up, her head buried in her arms, saying she was ok but her arm was twitching. Then I woke up and couldn't get back to the dream. 

In telling Nancy, I said I understood the stair reference (a Baroness Von Sketch skit) and I was obviously thinking of Nancy but I didn't understand the Piglet and Eeyore part. 

So that was Monday. The next day I went to my friend Val's house.  Val  pulled a mug from the cupboard to make me a cup of tea. I just saw the back at first, plain except for a small font quote along the bottom which read, "Thank you for noticing me." Val told me she'd bought it cos she thought it was cute and she turned it around. There was a picture of Eeyore and Piglet hugging each other! A magical moment which made me laugh and laugh.

The other magical moment I wanted to write about happened a couple of days later. Bright morning sunshine made one of the beads in Rogue's prism sparkle so extraordinarily that I wanted to take a photo of it. But I couldn't really capture it after taking a few photos. However one of the photos I took had the pawprint part of the prism reflected twice behind it. When I saw it, it took my breath away. I've had three pets that I've had to say goodbye to in this house: Rogue, Whiskers (cat) and Trixie (dog). Make of it what you will. I choose to take it as a magical moment of love and memory.