Coconutdawn

The other day I had to deal with the loss of my beloved friend Lupin. He was my cat.

Lupin was like no other cat I have ever known and I have had cats my whole life. He was so caring, loving, funny and a delight to be around. This year has been the most difficult of my life and he was one of the only rays of sunshine in it. 

A few years ago I was attacked and hospitalized by a stray cat that was terrorizing my own two (Loki and Lupin). Afterwards I found it extremely difficult to get other the psychological trauma of being so badly injured that I couldn't stroke my own cats. Lupin took it upon himself to resolve this.

He spent weeks gradually rehabilitating me. At first just sitting beside me. Then sitting with his head upon my hand. Then encouraging me to stroke him. After several months I was once again able to stroke his gorgeously patterned belly. 

On Monday evening I went to pick up my father after work. He told me my wife had phoned and I needed to head to the vets. I drove to the vets as fast as I could but it was too late, Lupin had died in my wife's arms after being hit by a car. 

My life has been so diminished as has that of all those who knew the truly unique loving and full of life Lupin. I have never cried so much in my life. I feel like my heart has been torn out. I loved Lupin not as a pet but as a dear friend and Son. 

I feel truly lost. 

As those who follow me know, I don't do journals often, but I felt compelled to now. Usually nothing comes from them but I would genuinely like peoples opinions here. 

Following a conversation with my older brother I am seeking others' opinions too. My bro and I have what you could say is a strained relationship. We are two sides of a coin, so similar but opposite. We can't agree on anything. literally. 

We talked about art today on FB. He was ranting against hyper-realism. He says "What is the point?"

This was my response:

because nature does something we can't get close in any medium. Mimicking that beauty is to pay homage to it. Besides I am incapable of expressing myself in any meaningful way. I may not like your art bro but even I acknowledge that that level of expressionism is something that you assuredly have. Those of us who don't have to be content with attempting to replicate the beauty we see, it makes me feel closer to it than I normally can. It's not about a message, its not about something new, or other people. It is about me wanting to be closer to the beauty in the world, be it in landscapes, animals or people. Does that make any sense?

So please, does that make sense?

You know I find it really odd. I have never been so happy for such a prolonged period of time. And to add to my happiness I have recently seen three movies I utterly loved.

First was "Chef" starring Jon Favreau. I loved that film made me smile almost all the way through. The relationships were brilliant. 

Second was "How to train your dragon 2". IT was a beautifully shot film with gorgeous environments. The characters were great including the incredibly realised dragons. In particular was the main dragon Toothless, who's cat like nature was an exact match for the real things. So much emotion in this film, the only let down being Cate Blanchet's inability to hold on to one accent for more than a minute.

Third and the most shocking to me, was "Begin Again". I adored this film. The music in it was beautiful, the acting was sweet and not over dramatic and the friendship between Ruffalo and Knightly was just brilliant. James Cordon was actually very good as well. It was such a nice movie and ended in the perfect way not the cheesy way a lot of films end. Also "Lost Stars" is such a great song thats stuck in my head!

Any thoughts? Has anyone else out there seen these films? I would LOVE to hear from you  

I am really in a grove of drawing maps again. I am currently drawing the map from the Wheel of Time novels by Robert Jordan (my all time favourite novels).

I was wondering to myself about what to do after that. I have come up a blank. Any ideas?

Well I've had the pre-holiday week from hell. It started in the early hours of tuesday morning.

At 3:30 on Tuesday Sam heard cats fighting downstairs. I went down to frighten the invading cat away. And that's where things started to go wrong. Lupin ran upstairs leaving me to deal with the invader.

The cat was in the kitchen and so scared it couldnt find the cat flap. it was on the kitchen side smashing itself repeatedly into the window trying to escape. Being barely awake I thought "right I'll grab it open the door and let it out." This turned out rather obviously to be a bit of a mistake.

I tried to grab the cat by the scruff of the neck as any cat owner knows this immobilises them. As I was about to grab it, it flipped onto its back and in the space of maybe 3 seconds it proceeded to dismantle my left hand.

I screamed like a banshee in horror watching it ripping my hand apart at which point it mercifully let go and ran away UPSTAIRS past Sam who was rushing down to see what happened to me. How she didn't freak out I don't know since she entered the kitchen to find me on my knees and the whole kitchen literally covered in blood and me cradling my left arm with blood pouring out.

With the help of our neighbour who Sam had got, the cat was evicted and Sam drove me to A&E. I was given antibiotics and after 2 hours went home. Getting home I found that as well as mauling my left hand I had large scratches covering my right arm from hand to above my elbow and a large gash on my right thigh.

By the Wednesday infection was spreading in four places; my left index finger, wrist, right elbow and right thigh. I went back to hospital where I was put on an IV drip and had to spend three days lying with my left hand strapped above me. Doctor told me that the cat had bitten my index finger through to my tendons and had damaged my index finger which was now twice the size it usually is. to make matters worse the infection had by now spread to cover my left hand and was spreading down to my wrist.

I was told that if the infection and movement wasn't returned by friday they would have to open my hand up and flush my hand out manually. Not a pleasant thought. Thankfully the massive amount of antibiotics they were pumping into me did their job and the infection was beaten off. I got out of hospital yesterday with instructions to keep my hand raised and to exercise my index finger to try and restore movement in it fully which is very painful.

Now all I need do is wait until Monday before going on a well deserved Holiday to Lanzarote with Sam, Chris and Vivi. 2 weeks of sunshine is much needed me thinks