Sunday 18th (day 15)

This American Life was on this morning but it didn't make any sense as I missed last weeks audio documentary on the healthcare scrum. The past episode was online so I listened to it there.
Fascinating.
And scary.
When Kevin finds himself awake we play Scrabble and talk to the five-year-old Nina staying with her family. She is showing off - getting stickers and making me count them in English and Spanish.
The rest of the work day feels like stirring chili and doing house chores, making the house perfect for my 5:30 pm relief. The cornbread mix I use requires only water which is all I have.
I heard once from somewhere, probably This American Life, that when instant-made producrs came to be after World War II housewives shunned them. When manufacteurs decided to tweak the powder mixes so you had to add oil, eggs, milk, whatever the products became much more popular. Any instant-product where you have to add more that water is a tactic to make you feel like you are doing something, which you are, but barely.
When relief finally comes two big pots of chili simmer on the stove and the corn bread is pulled out. Kevin & I leave.
At home there is some expectation of a Birthday party for a one-year-old of a friend but Kevin doesn't seem driven and I am not motivated to motivate him so we take off our clothes and lay in bed.
A knock at the door and the quick throwing on of clothes Kevin says, "that is a Lia knock, I bet it's Lia," but it's Mom.
"Give me 2 entire minutes to prepare myself."
She knows. I am not embarrassed.
2 full minutes later they come with cake, frosting and the ashes of my cat Snowball.
"You said you were going to be busy this evening," Dad says.
He ices the cake, I put the urn on the dining table and light candles around it displaying pictures of Snowball during various parts of her life. I pull out the scrapbook, "Snow in Springtime" -- pictures of Snowball when I first brought her to my own apartment 2 years ago - pictures of her discovering the house for the first time, climbing on the counters, full of awareness and hush. I pull out the book Cat Heaven.
"That cat meant a lot to me - even if she was a little shit," Dad says as Mom and I put snowflake sprinkles on the white cake.
"I hate sprinkles," Kevin mentions.
Mom puts one candle on the cake.
Dad says we need 17 candles for every year Snowball was alive (we estimate).
"Don't you have 17?"
After a pause my Mom says,
" ... she's dead hon."
My Dad, turns to Kevin,
"KEV?! HOW MANY DO WE HAVE?!"
We settle with the one and I blow it out after we talk to Snowball a little, a seance around a deathday cake. Do we sing? No.
Mom reads Cat Heaven which is absolutely fucking fabulous.
"If you have ever been lucky enough to have a special cat in your life, then you know there is a place called Cat Heaven."
Mom and Dad leave with tentative plans for going to the Pumpkin Patch next week.
Kevin and I go for a walk, I get the Little Mermaid at the video rental store, lose my cell phone and find it, Lia comes over, then Peter, then Billy - my ex-boyfriend who I haven't seen in about a year.
I don't think I was drinking but I felt drunk and we sit around and make jokes and then I go to bed.