My lap is empty, but my heart is full

The vet told me it was the last best decision I could make for my baby girl. The one that would close her eyes. End her life.

So it was.

 

She had a bladder tumor. She could not find the litter box. Sometimes I would wake up covered in her urine because she’d lost control in the middle of night—so I would change the sheets, my pajamas, and go back to bed.

She could not stop it, so I did not get angry. I just cuddled her, sighed “Oh, baby girl”, and did what must be done.

Now she is gone.

Puck. Pucker. Bak-bak. Old girl. Grumpy Puck.

She was mine, from 8 weeks old. Mr. Alexander locked me into a room with three kittens. Naturally, we went home with one.

Those first few months I carried her in my 1990’s overalls front pocket or in my arms to keep the older cats from beating on her. Once she’d been assimilated, she was into everything, full of mischief and fire and trouble.

Puck. From A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

She also followed me everywhere. Cuddled on my lap. Slept on my chest overnight. Curled up in the curve behind my knees when I slept on my side.

19 years, she did this.

At 17 years

 

At 7 years

She also took years off my life when she climbed onto the screen of my 6th floor apartment, knocked out the screen, and then clung to the brick until I rescued her. She took another year off when nearly got hit by a car racing across the road after she’d escaped from our first house.

She played with laser pointers and had the highest jump of any cat I’d ever seen. She came when I called, knew how to ask (demand) food or fresh water. If you petted her long enough she would drool with satisfaction, and when she napped deeply, she would snore.  She would patiently follow me around until I found a seat so she could jump up on my lap, find a comfy spot, and take a little catnap.

 

2015

Even more, she would let me hold her like a baby. Utterly trusting as I carried her about the house, whether she was three years old or thirteen or nineteen.

In the last days I would put her in the litter every few hours, just as if she were my toddler. I cleaned up after her when she used my bathroom rug or Mr. Alexander’s blue jeans instead. I fed her special prescription food for kidney disease—and she was excellent about telling me when it was time for food. She’d sit in the center of the kitchen, staring at me until I got out the can. Even if it took 10 minutes because I was putting dinner together, she’d stay there. Waiting for me.

And on the morning of her trip up the rainbow to the Great Kitty Playground in the Sky, I laid on the couch with her for an hour, letting her sleep and snore and drool with happiness on my lap.

When the moment came, I held her until her eyes closed. I wished her luck. And I let her absolute trust fill my heart.

Pucker was mine. She always will be.

But when I went to bed last night, there was no kitty curled up on my chest.

 

 

Goodreads Giveaway!

To celebrate the upcoming release of A DANCE WITH SEDUCTION, I’m hosting another Goodreads giveaway! This time, 5 autographed copies of IN BED WITH A SPY are up for grabs. The giveaway only lasts a week, so be sure to enter soon!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

In Bed with a Spy by Alyssa Alexander

In Bed with a Spy

by Alyssa Alexander

Giveaway ends July 15, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Goodreads Giveaway!

 

 

I’m thrilled to announced a giveaway on Goodreads of The Smuggler Wore Silk! In celebration of the third book in the series, A DANCE WITH SEDUCTION, which releases on July 24, autographed copies will be sent to 5 readers. The giveaway ends on June 23, 2017, so be sure to enter soon!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Smuggler Wore Silk by Alyssa Alexander

The Smuggler Wore Silk

by Alyssa Alexander

Giveaway ends June 23, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Adventures: On The Underground and About Town

For those of us growing up in the Midwest of the US, subways, undergrounds and mass transportation are just not a part of life. Sure, the downtown areas might have buses, and if you go to Chicago or Detroit, there are trains or subways. But where I live, everyone still has a car. If I didn’t have a car, I would have no way to get to work. Mass transportation just doesn’t come out to the rolling fields of farm country.

So imagine my terror of using the London Underground. Sure, everyone in London does. Sure, it’s clean, safe, easy—well, mostly. If you don’t have any idea where in the city you are, it’s a bit tricky to figure out the different lines. I can’t tell you how often I stood in a tube station for a good fifteen minutes staring at the map on the wall.

Or using this one:

 

IMG_20161004_212627

 

Which made me really look like a tourist (as if the camera hanging around my neck didn’t do the trick), so sometimes I would surreptitiously used this one:

IMG_20161003_212115

 

 

Which, as you can see, was well-loved and ended up in multiple pieces.

Still, navigating the Underground made me feel very independent. I got lost repeatedly, but I always found my way to my destination. Eventually I was competent enough switching lines at the stations that I fancied myself indeterminable from the locals.

Ha. The camera. And, really, I’m very American-ish. They picked me out without me having to say a word!

Anywhoodles, I was utterly terrified the first time I stepped onto the Underground. I kept reading signs that said “Mind The Gap”, and I thought for sure I would be the one to fall into the gap and get run over by a subway car.

Headline: Stupid American Author Didn’t Mind The Gap!

Newspaper headlines and overactive imagination notwithstanding, it was lovely to ride the tube and then change my mind regarding destination partway through the trip. Traveling alone means that if you decide to take a detour, there is no one to consult but yourself.

 

April 15, 2016
8:30 am
Breakfast

.               .               .

For now, it is time to put my big girl panties on and brave the Underground!

.               .               .

9:25 am
On the Underground

Apparently going the right direction.

I love the signs. “Mind the Gap” on the door. Also, there is an advert that says “Love Your Ladyparts. Text Ladyparts 2 to #####”.

What would happen if I texted Ladyparts 1?

.               .               .

4:00 pm
Chandos Pub
Trafalgar Square

The Underground—no idea why I was so scared! Easy-Peasy-1-2-3sy! Minus the fact that I switched trains and went the wrong direction. Oops. So it took me 3 stops to figure that out, at which point I got off, hemmed and hawed, then found my route.

But partway to Charring Cross for the National Portrait Gallery, I suddenly decided to go to Westminster. I mean, I was so close. [According to the very small map. Turns out when you shrink the city onto a 5¾ x 11½ inch piece of paper, things are not as close as they seem!] So I got off at the station, pulled out my map to figure out where I was.

DSC_0188

DSC_0206I step out, and there was the bleepity-bleep Big Ben. OMG. It’s BIG. So I start to take pictures, walk around and Holy. Hell.

Westminster this moning was utterly divine. It was mostly cloudy, just shy of rain, in fact. The building was utterly amazing. The architecture was so detailed, so exquisite, it was nearly impossible to believe it was real. It was like looking at a fairytale building. Gargoyles, saints, crazy-pretty carvings.

First, who dreams this? Second, who builds it?

Gargoyles

Gargoyles

DSC_0199

Crazy Pretty

Saints

Saints

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That, my lovelies, was one of the thoughts that ran over and over in mind that morning. I thought not of the architect so much as the builders. The stonemasons. The carpenters. The laborers. The men who shifted stone into place, who fell from the highest heights—because you can’t tell me they were tied and buckled to the building. Someone had to have fallen to their death. For as many people who have trod the stones of Westminster, so, too, has blood been spilled there in the name of beauty.

I felt sort of like I was at the Beast’s castle in Beauty and the Beast—minus the police and men with machine guns.

Selfies

Selfies!

A bit off-putting, to say the least. [But as the first bombing in Brussels occurred just a few weeks before, Europe was on high alert.] And I’m sure they all thought I was nutty, snapping a selfie or otherwise taking pictures all across the building.

But there I was, totally nutters, wandering at a snail’s pace, zooming in on every bit of architecture I could. God, it was divine. Utterly, utterly divine. I can’t wait to look at the pictures.

Anyway, I wandered, snapped, wandered. Then I saw a building in the middle of Westminster that was clearly Middle Ages. Clearly. And the sign in front said “Open Daily.” Naturally, as it was a day, and I was here, and it was Medieval, I went. But more later on that.

First, I walked in a little park south of Westminster, took some selfies, met some pigeons.

DSC_0260 DSC_0261And I found some little white and yellow flowers. I took a picture. Why? Aside from the fact that they were pretty, in Hyde Park [the day before] I came across an Arabic woman probably about my age. She was taking a picture just as I passed. She said to me, a little sheepish, “They are pretty flowers.” And I said, “I thought the same thing this morning!” I had. I’d looked at them during my initial walk through the park and thought how pretty and cheerful they were.

So there we were, she and I. Me in my Old Navy clothes, windblown and sweaty, she in her traditional garb and with an English accent, both of us marveling over pretty yellow and white wildflowers. That’s a moment I’m not likely to forget soon. Continents apart, and yet human in the same way—we stopped to smell the flowers. Or take a picture, anyway.

It’s more or less the same thing when you think about how few people ever stop.

Later that day I toured the Medieval building, St. Margaret’s Cathedral, and the National Portrait Gallery (more later on all that, of course, as I’ve loads of history to share). When I left the NPG, I went to Chandos Pub on Trafalgar Square for a pint and to journal. I met a very nice man there at the counter next to me, who directed me to the Charring Cross subway station. It was, apparently, right on Trafalgar Square (which was actually a roundabout). If I just went counter-clockwise, I would find it.

Yeah. I went around the roundabout three times. In the pouring rain.

If I just went counter-clockwise… Pshaw.

Still, soaking wet or not, I will always remember the woman in Hyde Park. Have you ever met a kindred spirit? One that you just knew you’d met in another life? (Assuming there is such a thing, which I have yet to rule out). She and I looked down at those flowers and I knew we were kindred spirits, 3,700 miles apart.