Today in Queen Bess's Life

Elizabeth was laid to rest at Westminster Abbey, 1603.

John Stow, English Historian and Antiquarian, was in attendance and wrote of the funeral:

"Westminster was surcharged with multitudes of all sorts of people in their streets, houses, windows, leads and gutters, that came to see the obsequy, and when they beheld her statue lying upon the coffin, there was such a general sighing, groaning and weeping as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man."

One of the two inscriptions on her tomb says:

"To the eternal memory of Elizabeth queen of England, France and Ireland, daughter of King Henry VIII, grand-daughter of King Henry VII, great-grand-daughter to King Edward IV. Mother of her country, a nursing-mother to religion and all liberal sciences, skilled in many languages, adorned with excellent endowments both of body and mind, and excellent for princely virtues beyond her sex. James, king of Great Britain, France and Ireland, hath devoutly and justly erected this monument to her whose virtues and kingdoms he inherits."

What's My Name?

She's home!  And ...  I'm sleep deprived.  Just like any new parent.  Well, except for the fact that a new  human baby doesn't spend the entire night walking over your full bladder, crawling under the covers, and meowing in your face.  A new baby also doesn't growl when it hears activity in the hallway.

A baby also doesn't try to stop you from writing your blog posts my shoving her face between your hands.

I do love her!  Don't get me wrong.  Just a little tired.

But there's a problem.  We haven't figured out a name.  I can't even say it's narrowed down.  It keeps growing.  Though, this morning, I was settled on, "Devil Feline."

Options:
1.  Chloe -- short and cute
2.  Nell -- after my mother's middle name.  I can call her Nell, Nellie, Nella.
3.  Beatrix -- my favorite children's book author AND it gives a lot of options for different nicknames:  Bea, Trixie, Trix, Trixilicious.
4.  Posy -- As in, 'Nosy Posy' because she's into EVERYTHING.
5.  Piper -- Because she has a set of pipes.

Mmmmrfff..  Any suggestions?

I'm in LOVE!

Lookit that FACE!

I made the mistake of going to the local Humane Society's website and I found this little girl.  Then I actually went over to the adoption site at the local Petsmart and spent some time with her.  She didn't want to be held by the person working there, but when I was left alone in the visitation room with her, she crawled into my lap, curled up and commenced purring like a little engine.

I can't stand it looking at her face in this photo!

Why didn't I take her home?
1.  Because it's the time of year to renew my lease and I've not done that yet.  I want to renew here, but it would be less messy to do that and pay the kitty fee at the same time.
2.  I'm going to be travelling a lot in the next few weeks and it seems really crappy to give her a new home and then be gone a lot -- even when there are people willing to stop by and give her food, lovins, and clean her box.
3.  She's declawed (which is required by my apartment management), but I know there might be an elderly person out there who wants a declawed kitty but is like me and couldn't be the one to actually do it.  What if I'm taking this lover from someone more in need.

I could have taken her home right there.  The people pretty much said, "Eh.  No worries."  That bothers me a little.  There is no adoption fee because they get so many cats.  I mean, are they even checking to see if I'm good enough to be a kitty mommy?  Worse, are they checking if someone else is good enough to be a kitty mommy or daddy?  I was very emotional on the drive home.

What do you all think?

You Totally Thought It Was Something Else, Didn't You?

The Spinster's Enlarged Gall Bladder

Yummmmmy!  I'm baaaack!  It's been far too long.  But, because of the drama created by that little thing on the left, I have been very behind and very low in energy.  Originally, I planned to spend the whole week I was recovering writing a whole bunch of posts and being ssooo ahead of the game.

Any idea who difficult that is when you are on Percoset?  There was one day I sat on my couch staring a the corner in my kitchen (open design apartment) for a full fifteen minutes before I realized, "I'm just staring at the corner.  Huh.  This isn't boring."

I had a timer set on my cell phone to go off every four hours so I would not miss my dose of Percoset.  The first day I was home from the hospital, I realized what it meant if I relied on my drug addled brain to keep track of the time.  I found myself standing in the kitchen clutching my mid-section and asking, "When was the last time I took one?"  Oh, four and a half hours ago.  Then I was another half hour behind the Percoset shutting down the pain.  I got so good at it that, when I got out of bed in the morning, I would see that the Percoset I'd laid out for my 4am dose was indeed gone though I had no memory of it.

I thought the only fitting return would be to pay tribute to the procedure that has changed so many things in my life:  the way my whole digestive system now works, giving me no real appetite (my hairstylist commented  that I looked like I lost weight), and making me only slightly more tolerant of those things that used to bother me.  No worries -- only slightly.

Why the big yellow line?  According to the Surgical Resident that helped with my surgery, my gall bladder was supposed to be only as big as the junk to the right of that line.  Totally grody.  She thought it was, 'Awesome' and asked if she could show the photo to the other students in her class.  I was happy to oblige, "Go for it.  Use it in the paper you're going to write."

When you first saw the photo you totally thought it was something else, didn't you?  What did you think it was?

Famous Spinster Birthday -- Susan Boyle

"I live alone with my cat Pebbles ... but I have the support of all of my brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors." -- Susan Boyle

Born:  April 1, 1961