The bummer about being in Mountain Time Zone is that it is too late to call a friend and no one I know seems to be around to message. The cats listen, but don’t offer good feedback. They mostly just stare at me and demand food or something while I sob and realize that she really is gone. Call me crazy, but I think I just realized that this isn’t temporary.

The lovely white kitty in the post below was stolen from ratemykitten.com. She is one of my favourites. Yes, I have favourites. Nothing like looking at kittens to make you feel better.

I was going to go to sleep, but decided I better blog some thoughts so I can sleep first.
I was home from work today with a migraine. The migraine actually started last night and continued into today. Now it is just a dull thudding. I suspect it is the hormone injections. I always feel like I should yell when I say injections. Like, tonight Mark gave me my sixth INJECTION. Anyhow, hormones are a bitch for my head. My poor head. The cats and I reveled in the dark quiet together today. I will go back to the office tomorrow.

I was thinking of some Shonda memories tonight. So much reminds me of her and every time the phone rings in the evening it is still impulse to look at the call display expecting to see her number.
For a few years after we graduated from university and before Shonda moved to England for a while, we lived 2 blocks from each other. We spent a lot of time together eating Subway sandwiches and drinking diet cokes. We rented movies, shopped, watched Star Trek and ER. This was before the problem with drugs got really bad. There was a convenience store kitty corner to my apartment that we frequented. It sold pop and chips and rented a few movies and had tons of porno mags. One day while at the store I saw a porn magazine with the headline of “So much pussy you can almost taste it”. I was impressed at such a daunting promise. I called Shonda to let her know about it. The message I left on her machine simply said; “So much pussy *pause* you can almost taste it”. She called me back later and of course knew exactly what I was referring to. From then on we started calling the convenience store “So Much Pussy”. The same way you would refer to “7-11″. “I am running over to So Much Pussy for a bag of chips”. I had to be careful not to tell my parent’s that I wasn’t there when they called a few minutes ago because I was buying smokes at So Much Pussy. Sometimes people would get it wrong and call it Too Much Pussy, and I would have to correct them. The name stuck for the 6 years or so I lived in the apartment until So Much Pussy pulled up its porn and outdated VHS tapes and left. I was sad, it was so close and the owners of So Much Pussy were nice. I drove by SMP the other day and it is now some satellite frat house and had beer cans lining the windows. At least there is probably still some porn in the place.

I am still feeling a bit raw and sad and not myself. I am not “over my tragedy” as my mom asked me yesterday. Mom would prefer to not dwell on the negative, but I don’t have super regenerative powers when it comes to grief. I would likely be more of a mess without my Paxil. God bless my SSRIs for keeping me numb when it really counts.
Thursday afternoon I went to Shonda’s place and looked through some of her things with her mom and sister. It was actually good for me to go. Provided some finality that I needed since there will be no funeral or service or anything until the memorial in the summer. There wasn’t much left at Shonda’s. She had sold everything worth anything. The place was a mess, but had been mostly cleaned up by her mom and sister. We talked about Shonda, good and bad. How we had started to avoid her phone calls and wonder what could ever change for her. We talked about her sense of humour and how she would tease her sister for not knowing all the intricate pop culture references that Shonda was famous for. I took a few things to remind me of her. Not that I will ever forget. I missed saying goodbye to her dogs as her brother took them back to home to Calgary that afternoon. They will likely need to find a more permanent home, poor pups.
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Also on Thursday, I started taking the injectible fertility drugs. I tried to give myself the needles, but Mark ended up doing it for me. It didn’t hurt at all and I was embarassed for having a little crying hissy fit about them before he did it. I go back to the doc tomorrow for an ultrasound. Doing the injectible drugs means I am monitored more carefully. I will admit that this week has tried my every nerve. Between grief and needles.
It also snowed here today. Motherfucking Edmonton. It was gorgeous last week, in the 80’s and now this. My poor tulips are all covered in wet snow.
I did go to a nice greenhouse with Michelle and Janet on Saturday. I bought a little stone kitty for the yard who Mark and I have named Rumsfeld or Rummy for short. Michelle also bought some celebrity sweetpea seeds that we had a good laugh over. She bought Sir Cliff Richard and Dusty Springfield sweetpeas. Seriously.

Michelle and I are fascinated by celebrity flowers. Last year we were saying that we should plant a JFK rose near a Marilyn Monroe rose on a grassy knoll. Perhaps you have to be a gardener to find it funny, but it made us giggle.

http://www.petoffice.co.jp/catprin/mainichi/

I know I haven’t done photo round up in a while and this will be a pale substitute, but I have a few photos to share tonight.

These are species tulips “kaufmania” that are the first things to bloom in my garden. They brought me almost unreasonable happiness this weekend. They are planted against the back of the house facing south, so they are early risers here in the tundra.

This is my shelf with grow lights where I start annuals for the garden such as impatiens, tomatoes, pansies, zinnias, marigolds, etc. With such a short growing season I start a few things inside to make them bloom earlier. I already spend a small fortune on plants every year. This shelf faces the alley and gets south sun, so it is a good spot. My only concern is that the people walking their dogs in the alley think I have an illicit weed growing operation. On the other hand, if they think that and no one had ratted me out yet, it is a good thing.

I received this Elvis tapestry thing as a wedding shower gift from a good friend. It now covers up all sorts of holes from a previous dartboard. Check out the snazzy wood paneling in our 1970’s basement. Woo!
I am going to bed now…..
peace out

I go back to work tomorrow. After having some time off for Bessie’s funeral and the Easter holidays. BioMom (bio-mom) left this morning and I feel as if I am supposed to go back to work tomorrow and pretend that everything is normal. Shonda’s family is not having a funeral or a service. I guess Shonda told her mom that she would have wanted something like an Irish wake, a big party. Shonda and I did talk about dying, but never really the funeral parts. I wish there were prayers or something. Something to honour her. Something. Going back to work tomorrow makes it seem real. I guess it is.
I was irritated with Shonda for the last little while. The drug problems have been going on for years. Lots of problems. To be honest, I was having trouble seeing hope for her. A lot of people had stopped talking to her. It was hard, she was almost always stoned and the drugs wiped out so much of her short-term memory that having coherent conversations was difficult. For anyone jealous of our wonderful Canadian health system, here is a shortcoming. Shonda could get free prescription drugs because she was on welfare. She could go to many doctors frequently, also for free. There seem to be very little checks and balances, this ultimately aided Shonda to die sooner rather than later I believe.
But let me tell you a few fabulous things about her. She was a beautiful singer. She sung with the opera here for a long time, before depression and addiction interfered. She sung at my wedding. She sung on my balcony in my first apartment, an aria from Carmen I think. Her voice was amazing.
She was the strongest person I ever knew, man or woman. We once went to pick up some rocks for my garden at my parent’s farm. There were several that she heaved onto the truck that Mark and I had to roll off and onto the yard. We used to call her Shonda von Magnusson after some dude who was always on those World’s Strongest Man competitions. She helped me in the garden the last couple of years removing sod and ripping out a dead rose bush with much ceremony and grunting.
She loved loved loved dogs. She had two dogs named Buttercup and Sweet pea that are now homeless and a little lost. She spent a lot of time at dog parks, on pet websites, and would talk to anyone with a dog. I once watched the whole freakin’ Westminster Dog Show with her on teevee over the phone. Like me, Shonda watched too much tv and we would often call each other over some horrible outfit on the Oscars or to clarify some pressing Star Trek miscellany.
Good God I can’t believe she is gone. It seems stupid and wrong and a huge waste. I don’t understand. I am sad and hurt and angry. I told her if she ever killed herself I wouldn’t be sad, I would be so mad at her. Pissed off. I am. I know she didn’t mean Thursday to be her last day, but she still died at her own hand. I am going to miss you Shonda.
Damn you.

Apologies for anyone coming here looking for happy news or anything lighthearted, funny or otherwise. My traffic is going to go to zilcho soon.
My friend Janet lost her mother last week. It was been difficult. Janet is fabulous and hopefully we can continue to support her.
Yesterday, my friend Shonda died of a drug overdose. Poor dear Shonda had been struggling for a long time. She was at a point where I was pretty much the only one she talked to. It was a painful journey to watch and I am filled with grief.
I am not sure what the Universe is doing right now, but I wish it included less sorrow right now.
Clarification: the drug overdose does not appear to be intentional.

Thanks to Meredith for sending me a fabulous CD and some “i hate your SUV” stickers for my car, and other people’s cars as well! Kisses to you.
And mucho tard thanks to Cait for sending me cookies, and candies and monkey bobble heads oh my! We can’t get Girl Guide samoas here in Canuckland and it is a travesty of womankind. Thanks for the sugar!
I owe lots of thanks and return gifties all over the place. Pardon my tardiness; I am a bad internet friend. I have a spare room with little bags of special goodies for special people and I haven’t gotten my ass in gear.
Tonight I go to the prayers for Janet’s mum and tomorrow is the funeral. I am taking tomorrow off. I might even take Thursday off since BioMom (bio-mom) is coming Thursday-Monday for Easter and I have to clean and shop, etc. It should be an emotionally scarring several days. I will write a big tell-all blog entry later.