I’m feeling disoriented and I badly need to get back into a routine. Lydia and I went to Stockholm on Friday evening, and the trip started off with a whimper. Our flight was the last of the day, and due to thunderstorms in and around Stockholm, planes had been delayed all day. By the time it was our turn to go, the airline was running an hour behind schedule. We landed at Arlanda just after 9:30pm (by which point I’d intended to be already settling in at our hosts’ home), and grabbed a quick bite at McDonald’s before heading for the bus stop for the first leg of our bus-train-bus trip. Unfortunately, it turned into a bus-train-foot trip because we missed the second bus and had to walk to Chad and Hélène’s, which wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been both dark and raining. We recovered quickly enough once we got settled in, though, and the rest of the weekend went quite well (more on that another time).

Our flight home on Monday night was scheduled for 10:45pm, which would have put us home at midnight. When we got to the airport, we saw that the estimated time for our departure was 11:15. Fabulous. We didn’t end up taking off until 11:30, and after collecting our bags and making the short drive home, we walked in our front door at just before one o’clock in the morning. Olof’s mom was here at our house keeping an eye on a sleeping Tage, and she told us that the cats had been clamoring to go out so she’d let them out through Olof’s office door. I sighed a little inward sigh because they’re not supposed to be out at night, but it was late and I was absolutely exhausted so I went straight upstairs and collapsed gratefully into my own bed.

Yesterday morning we got up at nine o’clock so that Lydia could get ready to go to soccer camp at ten. Olof left to walk her up to the soccer field and I sat down with a bowl of cereal, which I was in the middle of eating when Olof came in and said, “Bad news. Pia.” I knew immediately from the look on his face and the sound of his voice that she was dead. He told me that when he was out with Lydia, one of the neighbors called him over to see if he could identify a cat that had been hit by a car (thankfully, he had sent Lydia on ahead with a friend and she missed this part). He could tell from a distance that the cat was one of ours and he brought her home and came upstairs to deliver the bad tidings.

We spent the next couple of hours dealing with the practical details (burial) and surrendering a bit to grief and dismay. In accordance with the Law of Maximum Suck, she had to be killed on the one night out of literally hundreds that we didn’t bring her in before bed (it’s happened often that one or the other of us has stayed up an extra hour or more waiting for her to come inside, we’re that obsessive about it), so I’ll be beating myself up about that for some time to come. Not only that, but she was all of our favorite pet and the loss is particularly hard. It would be difficult, of course, to lose any of them, but we were all especially fond of Pia. She was just that most excellent sort of cat. Lydia was so shocked and upset when I broke the news to her that she got a nosebleed. That almost tore my heart out.

Anyway, that was a strange, long, awful day, but then Lydia and I went to Asbjørn’s first day of agility class, and that turned out to be pretty fun, aside from the fact that we were nearly eaten alive by mosquitoes and biting gnats. There were six dogs there, and Asbjørn was more than twice as big as the next-biggest one. When we were jumping over hurdles, the five small dogs would line up and go over, then we’d take a little break while she changed the jump to big-dog height so that Asbjørn could take a turn. He did amazingly well, and even went through the tunnel thing (after about ten minutes of prompting and many, many dog treats). I think he’ll get the hang of it without too much trouble.

This morning I didn’t get up and take him for our usual walk, and after Lydia went to soccer practice, Tage and I stayed in bed until 10:30. My days are so unorganized now that Lydia’s not in school and I don’t have anywhere in particular to go or anything in particular to do. I need to implement some sort of schedule before this whole summer slips by in a haze of daze and confusion.