It's amazing to me that ten years has passed since Jeff Buckley was lost forever. I remember that day like it was yesterday - on vacation with my parents before they moved south for good, the phone call with the news I just couldn't believe was true, my dear friend Vicki confirming the worst. It was true. He was gone.

It's ten years later and it feels like yesterday, but a lifetime has passed since then. It annoys me that the Lindsays and Parises of the world live on, but Jeff Buckley made the fatal mistake of going for a swim on a hot spring day, and just like that the world lost an amazing talent, a beautiful soul, and from all accounts, just a genuinely good person. It still stings.

His music remains - the one album released just as he wanted it to be, plus more music that wasn't quite where he wanted it to be yet. Grace still sounds as fresh and new to me as it did the first time I heard it. Timeless. Haunting. Stirring. Beautiful. I am incredibly grateful to have this music, grateful that I had the opportunity to see him play live, but I feel cheated. What more would he have done had he been with us longer? We'll never know.

Good music can make you feel, make you think, can instantly evoke a time or place in your life. As I listen to Jeff's music today, I think back to that day ten years ago as I prepared to let go of my parents and move on myself to a new phase of life; I think of the friends, near and far, who I have shared this music with; I think of the day I sat in heat and traffic on I-94 when I first heard the song Grace, and how to this day it gives me shivers; I think of all that has happened in the last ten years and of how far I have come in my life. This music has been with me through all of it, and I am so grateful. How lucky we are to have had Jeff here, even briefly.

So you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything new about the Teenies in a week now. Sadly, it's because they're gone. We don't know where or how, but we arrived home from work Thursday of last week, and at some point between mid-afternoon when our upstairs neighbors checked on them, and 6:30ish when we went out to the yard, they disappeared.

We spent a couple of pretty frantic hours that evening searching every inch of the yard (along with our neighbors). I emailed our friend at BARC to see if anyone had brought in kittens, and she called us back to report that nobody had. We've never seen any animals in the yard other than cats, birds, and the occasional squirrel, so we really don't think that a dog or raccoon or something could have gotten to them, but who knows.

We prefer the theory that Stumpy moved them again for some reason; perhaps she knew that we were in for a few days of rain and cold, and she wanted them to be in a warmer environment than the shelter we built. Perhaps she was uncomfortable with having them in the yard for some other reason. We will really never know.

I've been pretty upset about this all week, but Stumpy keeps coming by to eat and hang out, and we will continue to keep her well-fed and as comfortable as possible. The kittens, if they're still around, will be 4 weeks old this weekend, so we will probably try to get Stumpy in to get her spayed in the coming weeks. We don't want to do it just yet in case she still has them somewhere and is still nursing them.

Ah, springtime. The tinny sounds of "Turkey in the Straw" (or even worse, that damn song with the handclaps) waft through the air, the breeze smells of lighter fluid and I can't leave the house in anything less than a burqa without getting unwanted comments from creepy old men.

"Pssst. Pssst. Mami. Mami."

Yesterday, I not only got the "Mami" treatment while on my three-block walk from the bus stop, I got "Yo! Maria! I like your hair. Maria! Come back, baby!"

Has being skeevy ever worked for any of these guys? Seriously?

We were a bit concerned about how Stumpy and the teenies were going to make it through the storm that blew through here yesterday evening, but they did just fine, and stayed dry and warm in their little shelter.