Sharp Curves Ahead

My Orange Pal left me…

As you’ve read below, Tigger Marie has left us. Left us physically, but not in our hearts.

And that orange fur ball carved out quite a large space in my heart.

When Tina and I met, Tigger decided to meet me as well. I never knew that Tigg avoided people like the plague because, frankly, she made her self known to me from day 1. I was sitting in the brown chair in our den, watching TV and talking with Tina when Tigg jumped into my lap, my life, and my heart all at once. To say Tigg and I had a special thing going on is putting it lightly. She believed it was her unalienable right to sit in my lap whenever the mood struck her, whatever dog already there be damned. Tigg also never believed in waiting to be petted. She did the work for you if you weren’t making an effort, jamming that wet nose under your hand and working her head so all you had to do was keep your hand in place. She was up front about her needs like that.

When I went to bed, Tigg went to bed. She never understood that planting her nose in my ear with her purr-box set to “high” wasn’t conducive to a good night’s sleep for me. She also had trouble with the concept of sharp nails being uncomfortable on my skin, but we managed to clip those nails every now and then so I wasn’t constantly bleeding.

As Tina already mentioned, Tigg felt that she was a dog. She would jump into bed with me at night and hop on my chest, turning a few times to get the angle right and then she would plop down on her side, legs positioned perfectly so I could scratch her tummy. I never knew a cat that enjoyed a tummy scratch quite the way my Tigger did, but I never knew Tigger. I sang the “Tigger’ song to her from Winnie the Pooh. She oftentimes decided I’d been reading long enough and put her body between my book and my eyes, leaving me no choice but to pet her. In the long run, though, petting the Tigg was more important than any MechWarrior novel. She taught me that.

I’ll miss the purring in my ear, the belly scratches, and all the other wonderful things she and I did. I believe in a cat Heaven, where the trees are filled with salmon and balls of yarn, and the streams run with milk. I know she’s there.

But she’s probably scratching at the fence, trying to get over to the dog section.

Take care, Tigg. Mom and I will see you when we get there.

And you can purr in my ear all you want……..

I first got Tigger when she was three days old.
Her eyes weren’t even open and she slept a lot. I thought for sure she was just a lazy kitten. Her mother had gotten hit and I had to bottle feed her and get her going. She thrived and got a lot more active. She never acted like a true cat. Wasn’t fond of outside. Thought she was a dog. The dogs constant in their harassment of Scrapper, never bothered Tigg. Spike would take a hump at her occasionally but she would swipe him and he would act remorseful and all was well.

I’m sitting here waiting to tell Brad that Tigger is dead.

We house sat two dogs for my Sister-in-law. They didn’t know the Tigger wasn’t a cat rule and barked at her. She must have left for a bit to cool off. I begin getting worried as it has been a few days and she hadn’t shown up. She normally hides in the garage or somewhere in the house as she is a master of disguise. I’ve had friends I’ve known for years and years, look stricken when they see her creep around the corner. They ask - “did you know you have an orange cat in the house.” Yes I did know. She’s stealth like that.

But not with Brad. He and her became bosom buddies. She loved that man almost as much as I do. Always with the laying on him and the rubbing and the love. I’m very sad right now. Everyone knows that over the years I have shifted from cat to dog person but Tigg - we went back many years. 13 in fact. Possibly 14.

But she didn’t come around and that concerned me. E-mails were sent, calls were made, searches were taken on. But I found her this afternoon, and she had passed on to the next world.

I’d like to think that it was just her time. I’m not sure that was the case. But I’m going to miss her and I hope she went quickly and painlessly.

As always thanks for teaching me about life my friend and I’ll see you when we meet again.

Found this on Ffffound.

I am like Sparker - back when she mused on a somewhat similar phrase to this - when she said what. the. hell. does. THAT. mean.
Because it’s just so there. So zen in it’s taunting of you. It’s like a Kōan that you have to noodle over a bit until you stumble across it like a thorn in your eye. Oh it is what it is. You don’t have to drape your perceptions, your statements, your fears, your emotions or your anything on it.

It, whatever it is, stands as it is. Apart from you and your reflected knowns and unknowns.

I’ll have to fill you in but philosophically speaking the other shoe dropped and I hit a very hard place in my head. I’m stubborn. But I mentally, spiritually, physically hit a spot that just felt like the end a week or so again.

I have to start again. Do something different and I’m working on that plan. Sorry for the radio silence but it’s been a hard three weeks. I’d love to discuss it more and I will be on my new site tinawinslow.com where it’ll be more out there work and thoughts business. I am in new territory but for sure it’s there. This growth.

Like the movie There Will Be Blood - There Will Be Growth and Change. I am trying to get passionate about the possibilities and it feels good if not a little shaky.

I’m African-American. For my father’s Father’s Day gift I got him a National Geographic Genographic kit. You may not have heard of this project but it goes like this -

The Genographic Project is seeking to chart new knowledge about the migratory history of the human species by using sophisticated laboratory and computer analysis of DNA contributed by hundreds of thousands of people from around the world. In this unprecedented and real-time research effort, the Genographic Project is closing the gaps of what science knows today about humankind’s ancient migration stories.

You can buy a kit and submit your DNA and then get a customized report of where your ancestors came from. And not like a fifty years ago or like two hundred years ago but 50,000 years ago.

Based on these results, I can say the following things truthfully.

I am African, I am Middle Eastern, I am Indian, I am European.

These results put a new spin on racism, war on terror, land grabs, first nation status and a lot of other things in my head.

I throw this tribute out to all the stains I’ve known before. Most of them are on my boob too.

And here is mine where I bark sort of into the stain’s voice.

My cave has been pretty cavilicious lately. Warm snuggly and thanks to the rain this last week, covered in dog shaped mud-prints. Marble I’m looking at you.

But today. I woke up at 7:15 a.m. Yes you read that right. Me. Popped up out of bed. I’m telling you - if this is what morning people feel, then damn, I need to be on your train. Bright-eyed, I tidied a bit and was at the office like pre-8:30 a.m. And before you think what a freaking slacker you are.

1. Well yes, I usually don’t roll into the office before 9. But I rarely leave the office before 8 p.m. I’m a night person. Usually. I’m training myself for the earlier days but since I’m my boss, I yell at myself to get going and then I hit the volume and get to the office when I get there. It’s a perk. Of owning your own business. That and sleepless nights, grey hair, worry lines and all the other blessings that go with it.

2. Also I have a Blackberry/Crackberry that wakes up unlike me at 7:20. I tend to answer, handle situations, return calls, get on the computer if I have to get something out then but rarely arrive fully dressed early-like before say 9:30.

3. I don’t have hours really and so when a client needs things taken care of, me or my team routinely handles things at all hours. For now, it’s what works.

That being said, today it’s like I am coming out of my cave and the bright light is fantastic. The music is perkier. I want to hug everyone and it’s just a great day. That’s even waking up with a headache and having to dose with Dayquil.

So that being said - I want to be grateful. My tribe has been on my mind lately and I wanted to shout out to you. I know I haven’t seen you lately, peeps, (and since I sickly like slept through the party on Saturday) I just wanted to give you a heads up that you are in my thoughts even in you are in California, Seattle, Lakewood, Oklahoma City, Coppell, Lower Greenville, Florida, less than a mile from my office and Oak Cliff. You are valued, loved and have my good blissfully grateful thoughts dripping all over you. Yes you. Thank you.

I noticed today as I was casually looking at my hair ends.
What?

You know when girls (or long-haired hippie boy types) have hair that is long enough to study the ends for split ends or just examine it for variances in color. Whatever you do when you look at it. I should side note that I am now at the place that I have hair long enough to do this. Most of my adult life or even really my youth life, my hair has been shoulder or shorter length. So now that it’s longer I’ve been known to contemplate the ends a bit.

Today I noticed that why my hair is now long enough to do it, I can find greys this way. Normally I would hunt and peck the greys from the top. But due to my lack of coloring lately and letting it go it’s natural way, I now have full grown ass grey hair. LONG ass grown out grey hair. So long in fact, I can find and eliminate them from the bottom rather than the top. Which it turns out makes it easier to actually find and eliminate them - that is until there is more grey than brown. Ahhhh such is life in the nearly 40 lane.

Thank god because I already go to bed in the middle of parties, forget what I was saying mid-sentence and have to have things repeated due to my fading hearing. What’s next, highwaters, dinner at 4:30 and jello cups?

I think I can add bald spots to that list of things making me crotchedy. I can practically hear the kids walking on my lawn from here.

This is a quiz.

Any guesses? The answer is a trick one.
They all have freaking layers. All of them. Now some would say that most have at least seven layers, specifically the seven-layer dip and the weird topographic stuff and the onion cause yah it’s like Shrek said. There are layers in an onion.

Where there is a difference is that a bed or specifically my bed when I was a singola chicola. I luxiuriated in the luxury of a full queen natch and with my three measley dogs we kicked it European style and had just a duvet. With no need for a straight sheet. Just the fitted one and duvet. Making the bed was a snap and the mess was minimal. Shazam.

Strike the new scene in Casa Hudlow. My husband is a fan of bed stuff. Not pillows which would make sense. Cause pillows are fantastic and seven or eight make the bed. So duvet, dogs and pillows. No -now we have layer upon layer and layer of blankets. I kid you not, we have a fitted sheet, a straight sheet, a blanket, a duvet and then two or three blankets for the “dogs”. Good lord there would be people in Alaska going, where the hell is my blanket. Oh it’s in Dallas on my bed.

So the answer to the question is that. My bed has many many many layers.