Dear Holmes, Rest in Peace

I write out rest in peace above because, well, I feel like RIP just doesn't capture the beauty of the concept. The acronym means "to cut or tear apart in a rough or vigorous manner" (dictionary.com). That just doesn't capture the mood of "rest in peace," though it does capture another side of death, just not the well-wishing part.

Anywho, Sherlock Holmes was my parakeet. When I woke up yesterday morning, he was no longer with us. After initial shock, tears, texting my boss I would be late for work, and a day feeling distracted by thoughts of "what did I miss?" all I can think is that I was responsible for this tiny creature, and I failed.

Needless to say, I won't be leaving my cat with my parents for the week that I stay with my sister and brother-in-law. I am feeling particularly paranoid, so cat needs to be with me. I will be back to waking her up every time she falls alseep because she sleeps so soundly and looks dead sometimes. I did that all the time in grad school. I was paranoid that my cat would die because I was too busy to really pay attention to her, so I would shake her awake in a panic.

With bird gone, I'm wondering, is there something wrong with my apartment that I should be worried about? Is he the canary in the mine? Or was I feeding him too much? Parakeets are prone to obesity and little birdy heart attacks. Was something wrong with the most recent millet spray I gave him as a treat?

And as much as I am sad that my bird who was happily tweeting the night before was not alive the next day, I am also worried about cat. Who will keep her company all day while I am at work? That clever little bird loved tormenting the cat. He'd hop down to the bottom of the cage where she can just barely reach, and then he'd hop away. They both really seemed to enjoy having the other around, which is good because I really worried about the impact of getting a cat on my parakeet, but he definitely seemed happier with her in the picture.

Now I have to worry about her being lonely, but I think it's time to ditch the giant bird cage, which is hard to move from place to place, and it's time to just have cat since she is a good road-trip buddy and can travel with me much better without a bird in the car. No more birds.

Enough melancholy. It's laundry and baking time. I mean, I just conquered all of those dishes I was dreading cleaning up all week. I need to make more.

Working on My Project

I'm putting all homework, etc on hold until I get my project done. I'm not nearly far enough.

I was reading through The Amber Spyglass again to mark the major points I want to talk about, and I got hooked re-reading about the land of the dead. I was thinking about Pullman's argument about death. He describes the land of the dead as a prison camp, where the souls of people are kept cooped up in a space crowded with spirits, and it's dark.

For Pullman, a more beautiful death is the release of the souls to nature and the material world. The souls fall apart and become a part of the larger world, losing their individualistic identity as they return to nature.

In rereading The Amber Spyglass, I was reminded of the Parsee/Zoroastrian death described in Cracking India. Parsees build towers where they place their dead to be fed upon by birds. It sounds kind of gross, but they think their bodies belong to nature after they pass.

I really like that idea. Oddly enough, it might have more appeal to me than even cremation and spreading ashes. Ash is good and all, but bird poop might be better to spread. No one is going to let me get away with that though. Bummer.