Resurrection: NOW!

I watched "The Loved One" recently. You might think it would be a rather insensitive film for someone who's grieving, but if that someone is in L.A. with an insight to "the business" that my tenure at the Hollywood Reporter gave me, it's a cathartic laughfest. Steve and I could put each other into fits of laughter by simply working "Mom's Big Tub" into the conversation. If you haven't seen it: See It! If only to get the title of this entry.

Things are plugging along. I'm starting to get quotes on all the work to be done on the place and on the costs of the move. I keep up on the comps' sales prices in Pasadena and the home prices in La Crosse. When I get a quote on the work or the move, I crunch the numbers against my estimate; then I get another quote and recrunch the numbers, and it always turns up the same: This is going to work, with lots of wiggle room left. I'm safe, at least financially. And it looks like the move is going to cost as much as the remodeling to be done on the house. I'll pack the house contents when it's time, but I'm paying someone to do the shlepping.

And I'm contemplating just what's worth shipping. I look at an object, from Furby to furniture, and ask myself two questions: 1) Do I want to take the time to pack this; and 2) Do I want to go through unpacking this at the other end and finding a place for it?

The second question seems to carry more weight than the first, though I'm not sure why. So far, I have a nice haul for Out of the Closet (the local AIDS thrift store chain) to pick up. There's an Ethan Allan corner shelf unit, a desk, a desk chair, a standing paper screen, an end table, even more books, quite a lot of framed artwork and hundreds of CDs and their storage cases.

Another thing I'm not attempting to move is Marcel, the pig-headed 14-year-old cat I inherited from Steve. He sheds worse than a cheap feather boa and he hasn't washed himself in over a year. He's also arthritic and totally deaf, so all he produces are long, loud banshee-like yowls: I communicate with my own sign language (a wave for "hello," flipping the back of a hand for "go away" or "stop"). He's also taken recently to regurgitating his food once he goes upstairs, and on several occasions he has crapped completely outside the litter box.

No one can touch him to do something so wicked as untangle the hair mats that cover his entire hindquarters: he bites hard, and for keeps. Don't attempt to touch his paws, much less trim his talon-like claws: he does not scratch, he rends flesh. He's never liked me and I've never liked him. Since Steve died and I've become sole provider, he's invoked a sort of grudging glasnost. I daily pet his head and brush his back and upper sides (the only regions I'm allowed to brush) and make sure he has food and water, a litter box and two very nice nests, but I have no trust or love for him at all.

I will try to get Pasadena Humane to take him, as they're a no-kill facility; failing that, it's euthanasia. When Steve and I contemplated retiring to Eureka, we both assumed Marcel would have departed long before we made the move. Still, I feel a little guilty not caring for his horrible cat until its last gasp of breath.

I was looking at my calendar today and realized that I have numerous things, both social and realty, listed this month. My insomnia is improving: some days I'm asleep by midnight, others I'm up until 3 or 4 a.m., but don't see the sunrise before going to bed anymore. And the mornings when I wake up in thick depression are fewer and fewer.

I'm coming out of this dark sad place and suddenly realizing I'm semi-retired and that's just fine! As a grieving widower, it's my duty to be in this horrible, lonely repressive place, but I've spent enough time there. I'm ready to be done. Just like I can start beginning (see entry for 05/25/14), this new life chapter, I can also finish ending the last one. The grief needs to be put to rest, the sadness embraced as another texture in my being alive.

Wow. I think I'm emerging from something, like an Addams Family chrysalis cliche.

The one last list that I'm making for the move is the stuff that I don't trust the movers with; stuff I want to take in the car with me. Currently on the list are Patty the cat (who will not harm you), the art glass (including my 80-pound phallic paperweight) and a gathering of the more precious Christmas ornaments. What route I will take or how long it will take to get there I haven't even begun to calculate.

Oh, and Steve's leftovers box will ride along with me, of course.

He always did like a road trip, especially when I drove .