One of my cats died the first week in January too. Every week this year just seems to get worse. But we will either live through it or we won’t. I take the dogs out for a truck ride on Fridays. I seem to still wind up going out for groceries weekly. I have plenty long keeping stuff, but I keep running out of oranges. I’ve been eating two a day for breakfast. I should just eat the frozen and canned fruit I have, I guess. I have things I’d like to be doing. I may put in a couple of small garden beds. I don’t know how long I’ll be at the house, so why not? It’s not that big of a loss if I have to leave it behind. And I am still planning to sell both places and leave. My pulmonologist says I need to get out of the house. I trust this doctor. And I want to live out in the country again. I just get overwhelmed when I try to go through stuff. I think, when we get past the lockdown, I’ll get someone to help me. Then I can just put the keepers in one bin, stuff for Quinn in another, and load the truck up with things to donate. I will get rid of a lot more stuff, since it’s just me.

Miss Lon. Don’t much feel like spinning or knitting, even though I have lots of supplies. I take the dogs out a lot. Pretty much everyone at work is working from home. It’s not so much that I mind being by myself at the house. It’s just stressful when I do decide to go out. And we are headed back to wet weather, after a really lovely sunny March. I just hope we can find a new normal soon.

It was the time I was stressing about. Saturday, I picked up Quinn at the halfway mark. We drove to Tacoma and Point Defiance. We waiting at Owen Beach for awhile, until all the nephews showed up. Dean brought Dewey, Lon ‘s macaw, and his new cockatoo, Ace. I had to keep my distance. We couldn’t find a good spot to spread the ashes on Five mile drive, so decided to do it on the Vashon Ferry. Lon used to live on Vashon and took the ferry to work at the shipyard. And we spread his mom’s ashes from that ferry too. We found out that they will slow the ferry to let you spread the ashes. The problem was that they have a different idea of what that means. I opened the bag and let them fly. I was supposed to just heave the bag overboard. I’m glad I didn’t know.

We drove home, after eating lunch. Quinn had Abe with him, which was nice. The baby got a bit cranky, but it’s a long drive. Sunday was the memorial. I’d picked up Lon’s favorite cookies. I bought a small coffee maker and had milk to go with the cookies. The boating friend, the Coots, showed up, as did two of the nephews and a lot of Quinn’s friends.  I had that list of songs Lon wanted to be played. I ran those from my phone to a bluetooth speaker. And I had posters of him, taped up in the room. I think it went off pretty well. Quinn’s sister picked up him, so I didn’t have to do the long drive to the coast.

There’s no easy way to say goodbye and I miss him, every day. Here’s a picture of him from happier times, when he could still go boating, in the time before we met.