tollipop

yo yo

Some relationships, once gone, leave the heart with an ache and permanent sense of loss.  In our home, grief over a departed hamster is intense yet blessedly finite. 

Meet Yo Yo.  He is not named for the toy nor the casual greeting, but rather after the great cellist whom Caroline admires.  

In case you're wondering, Tin Tin was properly enshrined after his much extended wake.  We miss him and his little ways, but it is rather uncanny how much Yo Yo resembles him and seems to present many of the same habits. 

So life goes on...

We left the pet store with only Yo Yo in hand, but Izzy made sure to text this picture to her dad and let him fret for the next several hours that a certain Mr. Collins would be eagerly awaiting his homecoming that night with more than the standard amount of drool.

nothing says happy birthday quite like keith the lizard

Dear reader, how are you doing?  I think, rather than a bona fide break, I will probably find myself posting here on a less regular basis.  My slice of Tollipop pie in the chart is such an elusive sliver these days, and I am wanting to use it on other projects as well. Hopefully I can keep stirring all my pots on the stove.

Why am I alluding to food when I'm really talking about writing?

At any rate, it was Izzy's birthday recently.  I made her a little card to go with her gifts.  I thought it was nice.

But I thought Sophie's was brilliant.  I want Keith the lizard, don't you?  An orange lizard walking around with a glazed expression, holding a balloon and saying he loves me...I think that would fill every gap, every longing.

And in case you're wondering who Posie is...voilà.  

Presenting the world's fluffiest hamster.

we went to the pet store for tadpole food and came home with tin tin

Yes, dear reader, there's a backstory.  

But I'm on my way out the door to take Sophie to a volleyball camp in Utah.  It's going to be just me and her for the next several days and I'm really excited.  I love having one child all to myself.  And she is fabulous company.

On a slightly related note, I acknowledge how neglected this blog has been lately and wish I had more time to share the thoughts and observations which make the harrowing journey through my brain.  But for all the loveliness of a summertime schedule, it is in many ways more occupying than the regular school year.  

I still love it, though.  I love these easier yet fuller days I'm spending with my family.

I hope you are having a wonderful summer, too.

one hamster and a funeral

Yesterday we went out into the desert to bury a dead hamster.  It felt like the sun was leaning over my shoulder with the breath of a thousand chili peppers, basting me with its molten, searing tongue.

I think we need to revisit the issue of boundaries, the sun and I.  

The heat wilted whatever sense of grief might have otherwise accompanied the outing.  Rather, the mood was one of dark humor mixed with the girls' flagging resolve to brave the elements one nanosecond beyond what was absolutely necessary.  

Needless to say, it was something of a no frills funeral.

Still, when it came time to go, I was touched to notice Sophie paused to endow the grave with a memorial of her own design. It was very original, to say the least.

Not everyone appreciates the importance of a hamster funeral, dear reader.  Indeed the death squad has, on occasion, provided me with numerous less sentimental methods to dispatch a lifeless pet.  

But I am of another opinion.

There is no prescribed method for grief, certainly, but I think the experience of loving something, even something that is little and furry and smelly, is somehow less complete if you don't see it through to the very end.  And whether we laugh, cry, complain about the heat, struggle to dig the hole, and eventually decorate the grave to look like a WWI internment camp is immaterial to me.  

I just want my girls to see this thing through.  I just want them to be able to do it.

happy face, sad face

 
Dear reader, as you may have expected, Mr. Viotti did not survive the night.  So it was another slightly surreal moment the next morning, embalming the body while turning on Christmas lights and preparing for the girls to come downstairs. 

Still, Izzy made a decision to enjoy the day and it turned out to be a very lovely Christmas after all, filled with smiles and treats and cousins and one of the best dinners I've had in my entire life. 

And at the first available opportunity, we returned to the pet store and Izzy selected a new soulmate: Percy.  And he seems like just the right little soul.  We love him already.

 
Caroline, also, is coming right along.  She doesn't think her stitches make her look very pretty, but I assured her they were the prettiest stitches I'd ever seen. 

I honestly think that made her feel a bit better. 

two birthdays and a funeral

 
Dear reader, where to begin?  Perhaps it is easiest to say early in the morning of Caroline's birthday, a very distraught Izzy came to my bedside waving her lifeless hamster in my face. 

Needless to say, it was an unusual way to come to one's senses. 

There are many reasons I'd refuse to get out of bed in the early darkness, but the death of a pet is not one of them.  With my own memories of tears shed over tiny, stiff rabbits, I felt very tenderly toward Izzy's sorrow, even though it entailed locating a proper casket, taping it shut to her exact specifications, and making a trip into the biting cold desert at 6:00 in the morning. 

Sometimes you just have to do these things.  You have to freeze your head off while scouting for proper burial grounds, you have to get on your hands and knees and dig through bedrock, you have to search for just the right stones to build a monument.  And if you don't want to do these things, you look at the tears welling in your daughter's enormous blue eyes and remember the first time you felt such a loss, how difficult it was to accept, how bitterly impossible to pretend everything became in that moment. 

And afterward, what could make things better than a cup of hot chocolate and a trip to the pet store?  Why, as it happens, very little indeed.  And we are now happily making the acquaintance of one Mr. Viotti, who would almost certainly stop to show you his pretty manners if only he could just shove this pretzel in his mouth first.

 
And that is pretty much all I have to say on the matter.

 
But as for Caroline, however, on that topic I could regale you for quite some time.  She came into the room this morning, surveyed her reflection in the mirror and announced, "This outfit needs a flower!"  Then she rummaged through a bag of accessories, came up with this turquoise bloom, and plopped it on her head.

"There," she said, regarding herself with immense satisfaction, "Much better."

Oh, dear Caroline--much better, indeed.

Throughout this weekend of food, family, and fun, we've found a few moments to celebrate Caroline's birthday.  There have been gifts and singing, cake and cousins.  Really, is there anything better than cake and cousins?  Dear reader, if you could only see how many cousins are on the loose around here, you would surely lock your doors and draw the curtains. 

But I rather expect they'd hardly notice.  They're too busy having a grand old time.

weekend update: the hammies

 
Priscilla was quick to observe the latest hemlines from Paris and made a mental note to have her seamstress make a knock-off, one that showed her figure to its greatest advantage, on the double.

over the weekend...

 I rode my bike.

Dear reader, you would not believe the snake I saw out there!  Yes, I stopped to check it out.  I very nearly fell off my bike in awe.  The poor fellow was the victim of a badly timed road crossing, and all the little desert creatures trying to snack upon him were in risk of a similar fate, so I used a stick to relocate the luncheon to higher ground. 

The weight of the carcass snapped my stick in half. 

Snap!  Flop!  Wiggle!

Dear reader, imagine how high I jumped because really, weren't you wondering if that snake was faking it, too?  I think we're all familiar with a snake's capacity to play dead, when in reality it may be waiting to wrap its coils around a conscientious cyclist and drag her down to its lair of bones, laminate, and ironic décor.  The serpentine penchant for shag carpet is a well known fact around these parts. 

Just to clarify--this one really was dead.  But I swear it wiggled. 

By the by, do I really think people come to Tollipop hoping for a good snake story?  Probably not.  But this much you should know about me: some of my fondest moments have been spent chasing snakes, catching frogs, and running with wolves. 

Yet I still adore Jane Austen. 

What can I tell you?  Some people are just special that way.

I made the girls clean their room.  Finally, a culprit for all that mysterious clutter was discovered!  What a relief, as I was beginning to consider my young charges to be on the slovenly end of the spectrum.  Note to self: have some faith.  I should have known it was the hamster all along. 

 

I worked on more sad, wistful girls.

 

I wish I had a dress of this color.  If I had a dress of this color, I would never be sad.  I would only be wistful.

Caroline lasered this minuet into smithereens with her look of intense concentration.  In other news, we attended her friend's violin recital...a boy with a similar capacity for musical expression.  One day they may play a duet together and their collective ferocity will cause a nuclear meltdown.

 
Finally, we started another project.  I hesitate to mention this as I consider my (temporarily) stalled Hundred Dresses Project, my lagging goal of weekly shop updates, my ludicrous plans for a tidy studio...why should I further reveal my penchant for failure?  Why should I hold myself up to the scrutiny of the world?! 

Because this project is really cool...can you guess what it might be?  The girls and I are working on it together.  Hopefully they will help me see this through but let's face it, we are related--a fact which doesn't bode well in anyone's favor.

I will certainly give you updates if, indeed, there are any to be had.  But in case this is as good as it gets, isn't Sophie's gingerbread house a sheer delight?!

sophie's getting a ph.d in friendship bracelets

Friendship is when the friend who reluctantly agreed to adopt two male baby hamsters from your litter calls back one month later to inform you Despereaux and Toby are now the proud parents of five. 

I'm taking that phone call to mean we are still on speaking terms.  I think.

I don't know what to tell you, dear reader.  Needless to say, my credibility as a farm girl has suffered a mortal blow.  We checked and double checked those hammies.  We did not see any dots. 

That said, does anyone have any ideas for a nice gesture of apology/shower gift? 

dealing with things as they are and not as you wish they would be

Dear reader, remember when I was telling you about Izzy's hamster and the key piece of misinformation given us by the petshop associate at the time of purchase?  Well, since then I've made a few gentle hints to Izzy on the matter, only to meet with such staunch denial that I felt forced to acknowledge perhaps I was wrong after all...only in the meantime please don't let Nellie play with the other hamsters!

At any rate, a few days ago Izzy came into the kitchen and said, "Mom, I guess I might as well deal with the fact that Nellie's a boy.  Shall I name her something else, then?"

So we've been giving the matter no end of deliberation--names are a serious business around here!  Humphrey.  Nigel.  Charles.  Sebastian.  All upstanding choices, yet nothing quite captured the depth and essence of this furry fellow.  Finally we narrowed it down to something Izzy really likes, inspired by a composer of great talent and personality. 

So without further ado, please update your iPhones with the following information: the hamster formerly known as Nellie now answers to Ludwig.

Ludi for short.  And it's best pronounced with a decrepit German accent. 

It just is.