MaddyWatch: Snacky time!

Oh hai, Mama! Do yu haz nomz? I noes yu do!

Nomnomnomnomtunanom!

Nomnomnomnommoartunanomnom!

Enough with the kitchen. What is there to eat out in the dining room?

Milk? Meelks?!

MEELKS!!/1!!!1!!!

Ehn. Gonna have to hang out here in the closet and let that settle. Hold my calls.

Note the medicinal catnip mice at her feet. Maddy has cancer in style, peeps.

MaddyWatch: well, we knew it was coming.

The vet oncologist confirmed this afternoon that Maddy's cancer is back. There is nothing left to do but keep her comfortable and monitor her closely so that when her time comes, we can help her along in a kind and timely fashion. She made an amazing go of fighting her cancer--she lasted 18 months, which is about 12 more than they originally thought she'd live past diagnosis. Guy offered to go to today's appointment with me, but he has a deadline so I didn't make him. However, when it comes time for that final appointment, I think Guy's going to have to go with me.

Maddy and I have had a good run. This March would be12 years I've had this tortie ball of awsum and win in my life. A constant companion around the house: on the toilet, on the balcony, in the bed (much to Guy's chagrin), at the computer, wherever--there she was, meowing and purring and following and even occasionally tapping me with one of her big, white paws or even giving me a nibble on the hand or wrist, as if to say, "Knock off whatever you're doing and pet and feed me, fool!" She could be a real pain in the ass, to be sure, but ultimately it was such a wonderful thing to know that someone unequivocally loved me, missed me, and was glad to see me when I walked through the door at the end of each day. Whether she was perched in her cat tree in my cruddy ground-level cinderblock grad school apartment in Florida, snorfling up under the covers and spooning with me in my chilly downtown Denver loft, or perching on the back of the chaise here at the Happy Kitten Highrise and purring while I read, she has been a fixture in my entire adult life.

And it seems so unreal that in a time which hastens ever nearer, she--one of the few constants of the past twelve years--will be gone from that adult life. No furry, sneezing creature crawling up on the bed just before my alarm goes off, no yowling from the other side of the front door as my keys jingle to go into the lock, and only one food bowl in the dining room floor...it will be Hazel and Hazel alone. Not that Hazel will mind--Maddy's been kicking her ass ever since they met in the summer of 1998, and Hazel's probably had more than enough of it. Right now as I type this, Maddy is curled up under the heat lamp in my bathroom while Hazel lolls in the living room floor, taking a bath and occasionally chirping and rubbing her face on a catnip toy. As Maddy has declined these past couple of weeks, Hazel has become more social, more present in the public areas of the house. I wonder how she'll be after Maddy's gone. Even though Hazel seems to be enjoying her new status as soon-to-be top cat, I occasionally have seen them curled up on the futon together in the TV room, and now and again when Maddy's on my bathroom rug, Hazel is curled up on a nearby rug, about two feet away.

Maddy and I have to go through a process that may be as hard as death--we have to separate from each other over the coming days and weeks. We must adjust to the reality that she's not running to the door anymore and I'm not going to have to fight her off of whatever I'm eating if I'm on the futon watching TV. And by "we", I mean "I". She will spend more time in the closet and in my bathroom (both very warm places in the condo), and I will read alone on the chaise and only have Hazel to bother me as I work on the computer (which she has started to do, interestingly enough). It seems unreal that at some point soon, I will no longer be able to snap a picture of her or put the phone down to her so Grandma can hear her loud "MROWR!" in the kitchen. Until that time comes, I can only be as kind as possible, kinder than I've ever been. I can only attempt to repay the kindness she has shown me for the past twelve years by helping ease her pain as needed, and ultimately by letting her go.

Architect worried, please stand by...

While working on my conference presentation and meeting with Gestalt last week, I suddenly noticed that Maddy wasn't very interested in, well, anything. She's lost a pound in the past month and her appetite and activity levels have decreased, plus she's started fighting me every night when it's time for her medication--something she's rarely done. In her almost-twelve years with me, she's been an easy cat to medicate and an easy cat to find. Just turn around or look at your ankles, and there's a kitteh.

She's going to the vet oncologist Monday to be looked at and have an ultrasound done on her bibbin. While it's possible that something else is going on (cancer can weaken a creature's immune system and make them more susceptible to opportunistic illnesses), it's probably that the cancer is back, and I'm not so sure that she's going to beat it this time like she did last summer. She's already lived a year past the vet's original estimate, and it was a great year. She had put on weight and was still whippin' Hazel's ass. (Hazel would look up at me from the floor from some of those feline beat-downs as if to say, "Dammit, I thought you said she was dying?!") Sometimes she acts normal, well, low-key normal, and sometimes she acts like Things Are Not Well At All. Mostly, she's kinda meh. So, we're having her checked out to be sure.

I know that cats and dogs (and most domestic pets) aren't supposed to outlive us. We only have them for a brief amount of time, and then we must let go of them and release their little souls back to the Universe. I know that as a caretaker of such a wonderful little furry soul, it's my job to care for her as best as I can, which includes providing that release when it's time to send her on and not to prolong the agony. I am extremely thankful that I've been able to keep a job through this economy, because without it I could not have afforded the chemo meds for Maddy. Now I pray for the ability to accept her eventual passing--which has seemed so abstract for the past several months--and the wisdom to know when it's time to let her go and help her along.

Meanwhile, Maddy says, "If you're going to be sitting there sniffling, Mama, how about some more treats?"

That sweet kitteh sure is a sweet talker. =^..^=

Oooooh...shiny! (and well taken!)

Many of the websites in my sidebar are good for a mental break while I'm working on all my aforementioned deadlines. I've added a new one for your (and my) enjoyment: Photo Bludger is by this guy in Denver who has a real eye for interesting details in the built (and accidental) world around him. (Check out the picture of the Shaggy from Scooby-Doo action figure on the sidewalk--it's like something from a magazine. You could write a short story about it.) Also cool is that he describes the pictures a little bit--where they are or how they were taken--but he doesn't belabor the descriptions. They're just enough to understand what you're looking at but not so much that it detracts from the visual poetry.

Architect busy, please stand by...

So I have a deadline coming up for the industry conference thing I was accepted to last year. Plus, Gestalt wants to get rolling for the umpteenth time on their master plan of the Evans/Bierstadt campus, so all my work and free time are about to be absorbed by work, work, and work. The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty light posting here on WAD, so please be patient with me as I spend a little while getting caught up on my work and para-work obligations.

Helping out in Haiti, architect style

There are many good charities and organizations helping out in the chaos and pain that is Haiti right now, such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. I'd also like to mention Architecture For Humanity as a cause worth supporting during this and any time. Generally, AFH provides services to developing countries and communities to help them get the building and infrastructure they need to improve their citizens' lives. Right now, AFH is working towards the reconstruction and shelter effort in Haiti, since as many as 2-3 million people are living out in the elements. I know times are tight for everyone, but remember that every little bit helps your neighbors. And by neighbors, I mean fellow humans schlepping this pebble.

Neverending Maaaaster Plaaaan... (with apologies to Limahl)

A master planning project I started over a year ago has come back again, and it's back with a vengeance. I should first explain this client so I can finish the project: Gestalt HMO has several clinics in Denver and around Colorado, and DA does a lot of work for them. I'm working on a master planning project for one of their Denver campuses, which has two buildings on it: a low-rise medical office building (MOB) called Evans and a high rise MOB called Bierstadt. Gestalt tends to name its Colorado buildings after mountains. Cute.

So the master planning is really two parts. First of all, the master planning project that I was doing before is is still in place. We and the higher-ups of the Gestalt Colorado facility managers as well as the medical program higher-ups at the Evans/Bierstadt campus are all sitting down to figure out what departments need renovating and what to do with these departments while the renovation is going on. We're also having to figure out if there are any departments that should leave these clinics and if any should move into them. As we're working this stuff out, we're working with the contractor that Gestalt has selected for the remodeling projects (and with whom DA has worked many times before) to figure out the best way to sequence the construction. We can't do all the departments at one time, but doing only one at a time will take too long and cost too much in remobilization costs (i.e., the cost of bringing the same subcontractors back to the site over and over again).

The second part is that the Evans/Bierstadt campus is landlocked; no one around them wants to sell, and all that urban land is expensive. All the departments that are at that campus want to stay there, but the services are growing and the site can't handle any more building--there's no room to add on, and the buildings can't handle adding more floors (we've already added on as many as we can). So Gestalt wants to eventually replicate Evans MOB and Bierstadt MOB in another part of town, a little farther out. So they need to know how big that building will need to be. But in order for us to tell them how big it needs to be, I need to know more specifics about the new building: will you have the same number of doctors as you have now at Evans and Bierstadt? Will you literally have all the same service lines? Will you have more, less, or different services within those services lines? (For example, will you have all the same machines in the new radiology suite as you have in the old one, or will you add a PET CT, or will you have the same kinds of machines but different quantities, etc.?)

While all this is trying to be decided, the facility development and management people are trying to keep our contact with the departments to a minimum. Why? Because when lay people talk to architects about their spaces, even in the most generic of senses, they get excited and think that renovation is coming in the next year, and Gestalt doesn't want to get their hopes up. The more immediate renovations that we'll be doing will take two to three years to complete, and the duplicate version of Evans and Bierstadt could be ten years out. So because we can't really talk to anyone directly and get the info we need in one fell swoop, this master plan project is dragging on.

Not that I'm complaining. At least i have something to do.