Jealousy
“Dude. They didn’t get ME a saucer…
Can I have a turn?”
BDH Returns to Work
BDH went back to work yesterday. So it’s been just me and Stinkerbelle and the cats all day. We’re coping just fine, as you can tell by this instant messenger conversation today:
Cinnamon Opus says: Hi
Big Damn Hero says: Heya
Cinnamon Opus says: Everybody is yelling at me
Big Damn Hero says: Oh no
Big Damn Hero says: You ok?
Cinnamon Opus says: Everybody is bossing me around
Cinnamon Opus says: If I look at anybody, they boss me around
Big Damn Hero says: Maybe you shouldn’t look at anyone…?
Cinnamon Opus says: I’m gonna go hide in a closet or something
Cinnamon Opus says: Only the cats would follow me.
Big Damn Hero says: Are you ok?
Big Damn Hero says: Are you upset?
Cinnamon Opus says: Not upset. Just pretending I am invisible.
Cinnamon Opus says: Maybe if they don’t see me they will stop bossing me around.
Big Damn Hero says: Maybe you should just tell them all to shut p
Big Damn Hero says: Also up
Big Damn Hero says: SHUT p!
Cinnamon Opus says: I did.
Big Damn Hero says: Like that
Cinnamon Opus says: I yelled.
Big Damn Hero says: SHUT P!
Cinnamon Opus says: Bubby ignored me.
Big Damn Hero says: Bubby can’t hear you
Cinnamon Opus says: The baby laughed and blew a raspberry.
Big Damn Hero says: She doesn’t understand English
Cinnamon Opus says: Nobody takes me seriously here.
Cinnamon Opus says: The baby has taken up yodeling.
Cinnamon Opus says: And how did I get stuck in a house full of people who don’t understand English?
Cinnamon Opus says: I feel like I am a tour guide.
Cinnamon Opus says: Is there NO ONE who speaks English here?
Big Damn Hero says: Que?
Big Damn Hero says: <– funny
Big Damn Hero says: me
Cinnamon Opus says: YOU = HILARIOUS!
Big Damn Hero says: See what I did there
Cinnamon Opus says: You brought Teh Funny.
Big Damn Hero says: Oh yeah
Cinnamon Opus says: That baby just looks at me and tells me to do stuff.
Cinnamon Opus says: And then she blows raspberries as if to say “Feh, that broad is DUMB.”
Big Damn Hero says: Nono
Cinnamon Opus says: Of course, she gets crosseyed and hypnotized over the stripes on her sleeve, so, you know, we can’t take anything SHE says as fact.
Big Damn Hero says: Well she is a little nutty
Cinnamon Opus says: And right now she is having a conversation with her forearm.
Cinnamon Opus says: So, I mean, I’m a tour guide and all the tourists are from Mars.
Big Damn Hero says: Well Queen of the nut farm
Big Damn Hero says: I have to run
Cinnamon Opus says: Oh damn.
Cinnamon Opus says: OK
Big Damn Hero says: Sorry
Cinnamon Opus says: Is fine. Surrender me to the nutters.
Cinnamon Opus says: I can take it.
Big Damn Hero says: I am going so I can come home and save you from the nutters
Big Damn Hero says: Besides
Big Damn Hero says: You are part of the club *duck*
Cinnamon Opus says: Shuddap.
So, you know… business as usual here.
Business As Usual
So, here’s how our day is going this morning:
- Our girl, who had a rough afternoon yesterday what with the sneezing and the coughing and the boogs, went to sleep last night at 7:30… AND DIDNT WAKE UP AGAIN UNTIL 5:00 THIS MORNING. (I know. Calm yourselves.) We changed her bum and gave her a bottle. And then? SHE WENT BACK TO BED AND SLEPT UNTIL 8. Of course, she’s feeling poorly again now, but for the long night of sleep BDH and I got last night? TOTALLY worth it.
- The phone has been ringing NON-STOP since we got home. Dude. We don’t KNOW that many people. It’s driving us crazy. Except for Stinkerbelle, who gets all excited because she loveslovesloves the phone. She has learned, in a few short days, that the phone is a MAGICAL thing — because it means she and Grammie can have a talk.
- I sat down on the floor beside The Girl on her blanket while she played, armed with my laptop and a cup of coffee to do a bit of posting. And I was doing really well, too… she was playing and I was type-type-typing away… until I looked over and there was Opus, standing on the coffeetable, dunking her paw into my cup of coffee, and licking the coffee off her paw. She looked up with a “WHAT?” look on her face. The baby laughed. I threw my coffee down the sink.
- My daughter takes after me, in that she feels waking up is some sort of cruel and unusual punishment. She takes waking up VERY personally. She will start fussing and crying (I would do that, but it is sort of frowned upon by a grown woman. But I understand the sentiment.) Anyway, unlike me, whenever SHE cries, Duncan comes running to see what is wrong with His Baby.
- BDH finally filed for EI today, for his parental leave time. Which means we should be seeing a cheque for a buck fifty or so sometime in 2009.
- This whole being sick thing has its benefits. For example, we do not have to go out, which means we do not have to hear The Mayor hollering inappropriate questions across at us, such as “HEY! Whose baby is that?” and making such astute observations as “HEY! She’s BLACK!”
So it’s business as usual here at The House of Peevish.
Stupid Abounds
Sometimes, people make me so angry.
Did you ever want to just make a scene because somebody was just being so stupid, you could barely stop yourself from going off on them? I had this experience this morning at the vet.
I had stopped in to pick up food for the gang, and it was busy. In line ahead of me was a woman who was picking up her cat from boarding. Now, we go to a fantastic vet that specializes in cat care. It is what they DO. So when you board a cat there, they monitor your cat, how much he eats or drinks, his behaviors, whatever.
The office manager working the desk was ringing this woman in, and told her that during her cat’s stay there, the cat was drinking a lot and peeing a lot — a sign of diabetes in a cat that is, from what I could tell, quite old. So the office manager said that the vet had recommended that the cat be tested for diabetes. She went over the cost with the woman, and when the woman hesitated, the office manager went back into the vet’s office. She came back and said the cat really needed the test, so they would work out a deal. Still she hesitated; but the vet’s office was very busy, so the office manager suggested she take a few moments to think about it while some other customers were served.
In the meantime, the woman went outside. It seems her husband was outside, and the woman wanted to talk it over with him, because she came in with an obnoxiously loud man of late middle age who was tied to his cell phone as if he were someone very important.
One of the techs came out to explain the problem to them. She told them very clearly that this cat in all likelihood had diabetes. She explained the test, and explained what diabetes is, and what the testing and treatment would entail. But the man refused to believe her, saying the cat is fine and happy and he’s just old and old people sleep and drink and pee a lot. I admire the tech for firmly sticking to her guns and saying No, that’s not the case, repeatedly. But he kept on, and said they were going to take the cat and leave. The tech gave in and went to get the cat.
Now, this man just would NOT shut up. He started going on about how the vet has been billing over a million dollars a year since they opened, how they were going to have to find another place to board the cat because they were just coming up with ways to take their money, blah blah blah.
I shot him a look, one I hope reflected all the hate and disgust I felt for him. I don’t know, but at least it shut him up.
These are not people who are short of money. They could afford the testing and the treatment, if they are able to afford to board their 20-year-old cat frequently. This couple is a mousy woman who seems unable to stand up to her husband, and a husband who is an asshole of epic proportions.
And the cat is going to suffer, and likely die, of something that could have been readily treated, rather than live out his old age in comfort.
I paid for my things, making sure the couple sitting there knew that I was spending a fair bit on my cats, willingly. We are on a very tight budget, but we do what we can for our cats. When you undertake pet ownership, you take responsibility for a life that depends utterly upon you. It is your responsibility to do what you can for them, within reason obviously. If this couple had been short of money, I would not have thought twice. But they are not.
The loud man left to answer yet another cellphone call. I took my armoad of bags and cans and prepared to leave.
The woman jumped up to help me by holding the door for me, as her husband had walked out and let it slam in my face. I felt bad for the woman, because clearly she was struggling with this decision. But I could not look at her. She did not fight to do what is right for their pet. I was so angry and upset for their cat.
I understand that many people don’t take pet ownership as seriously as we do. And I understand that it’s a fact of life that, while many people try to do what’s best for their pets and care for them as well as they can, there are still many more who don’t. I understand, but I don’t have to like it.
It was all I could do NOT to get into it with this obnoxious, hateful man outside the clinic, away from the poor staff that probably have to deal with shit like this on a regular basis. Clearly he thinks of himself as a big businessman, a big wheel. He’s one of those old men who thinks talking loudly on his cellphone is a sign to all that he’s IMPORTANT and RESPECTED and a BIG MAN. But he’s nothing but a stupid, smallminded, cheap asshole.
I’d have taken on the care of that poor cat in a second, if circumstances were different and we could afford it, and it meant he no longer had to live with this guy. This man could afford it, and was just too stupid and cheap to do so.
All I can do is hope the cat does not suffer too much in what is left of his life. And that the wife grows a backbone before it is too late to help that poor kitty.
Backupuncture and Cross-Dressing Cats
Yesterday was the day I was going to try acupuncture for my 20-years-old back problem. (Yes. I changed my mind and switched from massage. No, I did not tell you. But it was in the comments! Read the comments, people!) It was also a billion degrees outside.
I wilt in the heat. I grew up with a pool, so unless there is the option to jump in a swimming pool or go into someplace air conditioned, I wilt like so much lettuce. I also sweat out the top of my head more than anywhere else, so you can imagine how warm it gets, not to mention the effect on any hairstyle. And, to help with that, my car’s air conditioning died sometime around 2006, and we cannot afford to get it fixed this year. So the half-hour drive to the acupuncturist was a warm one indeed.
Add to the heat my nervousness at the prospect of letting a stranger stick needles close to my spine, and you can imagine how incredibly, uncomfortably warm I was.
When I climbed up on the exam table, I was melting. And lying on your stomach in such circumstances does not help matters. And I had needles stuck in my lower back in short order, followed quickly by electropulses, so finding a comfortable position was nigh unto impossible.
I was so warm that the paper they put on exam tables literally disintegrated beneath me. It melted.
And I am not good when I am uncomfortably warm. Not good at all. So that hour was not my best day ever.
The backupuncture was fine. Acupuncture is a weird sensation — needles are stuck in but they are not pointy so much as putting pressure on points in your body, like a strange micro-massage. And he’d stick them in to test how deep to go and wiggle them around and it was strangely uncomfortable. And having these things pulsing with electrical energy was an unusual feeling. I cannot describe it. It was occasionally quite painful, almost. But once he had it set to the right amount, and I was cooling down and was able to just relax, it was not bad.
I don’t think it did much, but then, this is a very old injury and one treatment of any sort will not do it. But I think it has potential to help me, and so I am willing to give it a go — for as long as we can afford it, anyway. It’s not cheap, and not covered by the provincial health plan. But I am booked in again tomorrow, so we’ll see how it goes. And I am praying for a cooler day.
I got home, and decided to start washing and putting away the billions of baby clothes we now have for Mystery Baby Girl. I took a box of 6-12 month clothes upstairs, started streaming an episode of Coupling on the computer, and began sorting by colour. I would take a bunch down to start the washer, and come back to find Cinnamon rooting through the yellow fuzzy stuff. I would go downstairs and into the baby’s room to look for more things of a certain colour, and come back to find Lucy tunnelling into a fleece somethingorother.
Finally, armed with a squirt gun and waving my arms frantically, I shouted at the lot of them, “These are NOT! YOUR! CLOTHES! These are BABY CLOTHES! You! are! not! BABIES!!”
You can imagine how effective such a speech would be on a room full of cats.
Lucy gave me a look of “No habla ingles” and flopped down on a pair of overalls.
I sighed.
I did a couple of loads of clothes and went to bed.
This morning, we got up and BDH pointed to the basket full of pink things sitting in the bathroom and asked, “Are these clean?”
I told him yes, they were.
“Not so much anymore,” he said.
It seems BDH got up to pee in the middle of the night and went into the bathroom. It was dark. In the dark, he heard the “peep peep peep” sound that Duncan makes when he is talking in a friendly way to somebody. He switched on the light to find Duncan happily relaxing in a pile of pink.
“You’re not a girl,” said BDH.
This morning, I added, “No, but he IS a baby. And perhaps he feels he looks good in pink.”
Some men do, you know.
Random Tuesday Thoughts
It’s one of those days.
- It’s a billion degrees with the humidex outside. I await thunderstorms with great anticipation. Although we’ve lived in the Bermuda triangle of weather during the past 5 years or so — weather that is forecast hits everywhere BUT here, passing just north or south or east of us — this year seems to be different. We’ve had big snow and big storms and twisters so far this year. So maybe this summer will be a stormy one. We can hope — it beats the promise of rain that never comes, and seeing my plants and lawn die of drought.
- I have decreed: Next year, we are finishing our basement, buying a rollaway daybed, and moving into the basement for all of June, July and August. (Maybe.) It’s so nice and COOL down there, and we wouldn’t have to worry about running the A/C as long to cool the rest of the house.
- My cat has been barfing. Not that this is a serious thing: she barfs a few times a week. Usually it’s because she’s hungry and she either can’t remember where her food is, or she knows where it is but decides “DO NOT WANT” and then goes and drinks water until she barfs. So that’s quite normal, actually. The problem is that she’s been barfing on her blankie, which then has to go in the wash. This causes Yelly McScreamsalot to walk around doing her MADMADMAD thing and shrieking her fool head off because she has no blankie to sleep on. When she’s not yelling because she’s hungry, that is — completely forgetting she just barfed 14 minutes ago. Ah, the joys of senile geriatric cat management.
- I filled a bird feeder with seed. The birds are happy. The squirrels are happy. The lemon thyme below the feeder? Not quite so happy. BDH? Will not be quite so happy when he sees the condition of said lemon thyme.
- We have been watching a lot of streaming TV. Specifically The Tudors, Season 4 of Doctor Who, and Mythbusters. Good doG, how I love the Internets.
- 6 or so years ago, we planted a honeysuckle vine at our back fence. The intent was for it to grow and cover the back fence, hiding a bit of the weediness of the conservation area and attracting butterflies and hummingbirds. We planted it, we put a trellis in for it to start on, and we walked away. The thing took off like a shot, growing up and all over the trellis, and blooming and thriving. But no matter what we did, it would not crawl along the fence. I have each year fed new runners through the fence and not one has ever grown along the fence. So, this morning I went out and checked on some of the vines I had thread through over the past few weeks. Sometime during the past few days, each one has been almost surgically been snipped off, right at the fence. And then I realized: there are no vines within about 5 feet of the ground, on the other side of the fence. It seems certain wildlife, who shall remain nameless (*ahem* DEER *ahem*) have been partaking of my honeysuckle as a tasty snack, walking along and… NOMNOMNOMNOM… there goes my honeysuckle. Oh well, at least they’re doing it while I am not looking — unlike Charleston, who stands there and shamelessly noms all my daisies RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, with a “WHAT??” look on his face.
- I was going to buy some clearance items at Victoria’s Secret today. But I realized we haven’t got a lot of spare cash, and I need a clothesline more. Good grief, I am becoming a MOM.
And, on a serious note:
- Some loved ones have received some terrible news and are currently coping with a heartrending situation at a hospital down East. We think good thoughts and say our prayers for them, but it’s one of those situations where there is nothing we can do to help. It’s a horrible feeling, knowing people you care for are in such pain and you cannot help them. All we can do is hope and pray.
Jackpot
Well, Mystery Baby Girl seems to have hit the jackpot, wardrobe-wise, thanks to Heather and Sue. (click photos to embiggen)
Although, I am sure we could put a different pair of pants on her every day and she STILL wouldn’t run out…
Same thing with onesies…
There was, however, a slight problem with the shipment. Every box seemed to contain a Duncan.
Who needs MORE Duncans, I ask you? One is PLENTY.
In the end, though, a Duncan can be VERY helpful.
The wreckage…
Cold Snap
It’s cold here this week. Although it’s bright and sunny outside today, it’s going to be a week of cold temperatures, below 10 degrees, and rain (they were calling for flurries! – ACK! — but that has passed) before warming back up to the high teens and twenties on the weekend.
So that means we’re inside for the week. And the natives are getting restless.
Our cats are relatively simple creatures in terms of day to day stuff. They have a routine, and they like to stick to it. Changes in routine are met with concern, confusion, peevishness… almost always expressed in a loud vocal fashion by certain members of the committee.
The change in routine brought on by the cold weather is that the windows are closed. Now, to an indoor cat, open windows are a source of great amusement. They like the breeze. They like to sit in the window and smell smells. And they watch birds and bugs, and leaves scuttling across the lawn, and it’s endlessly fascinating. So when the windows are closed, the indoor cat is suddenly BORED. Their schedule is OFF. They are DISPLEASED.
And their displeasure is voiced in one very tiny yet very loud kitty doing the rounds of the house, shouting her head off.
I’m being stared at right now, which is a welcome change from the last hour or so of hollering around and around the house, up and down the stairs. She’s like one of those trucks with a loudspeaker on it, roaming the neighbourhoods and blaring messages to all and sundry so loudly as to be incoherent.
But right now, it appears that she feels a campaign of intimidation is her best bet. She’s sitting across the room on the box that holds Mystery Baby’s high chair, staring at me with a LOOK on her face that would shoot daggers, if she knew how, and if she knew what daggers were.
It’s as if she’s trying to use the power of her mind to WILL ME into opening a window. Or maybe she’s calling upon all her powers of kitty telekinesis to 1) open a window and 2) cause my head to explode. It’s hard to say.
As soon as I look at her or make a move, she starts lipping off again. So I am careful not to move more than is required to work on my laptop and periodically reach for my coffee. If any sudden or large movements are needed, I wait until she is lost in thought or taking a moment to doze.
I am careful to keep my eyes hidden behind my laptop. Do not look directly at the Bubby.
The chill outside brings about a fairly frosty reaction inside, our own personal cold snap.
Hope Springs Eternal
You’d think we’d learn. But no. We stroll headlong into situations where we are willingly going to find ourselves disappointed. It’s like we are genetically programmed with a really strong stupid gene.
We have a house in which our little, elderly, often sickly cat has left her mark on the world numerous times over by peeing on the walls. Not just the walls, mind, but any vertical surface she can back her bum up to. For reasons both medical and behavioural, she’s stunk the joint up but good.
In recent years, she’s been better. Part of this is because we’ve addressed the health issues behind the peeing. Part of it is because we keep her in the luxury kitty cage for the entire night and whenever she is unsupervised, to curb the peeing but also to encourage her to eat and put some weight on. And part of it is because we watch her like a hawk and divert her whenever we think she is looking for a place to happen.
But recently, she peed in a most inconvenient place: the cat tent. Now, this is a cheap $12 nylon tent from Ikea, but the cats? They LOVE it. They have all their toys in it. They play in it all the time. (We call it “going camping”.) It is endless hours of amusement.
And Bubby peed in it. Recently. At least twice. The little bastard.
It’s disappointing when that happens because she HAS been getting better, for the most part. And we’ve been really vigilant about cleaning up after her. And we have shampooed carpets and washed walls and baseboards and, for the most part, gotten rid of the smell. Of course, cats can smell pee that is — literally — decades old. So we keep going over the same spots, trying to get rid of it all.
So today, I was out at the vet buying cat food, and I saw they had tents on sale. $30 fabric tents. Luxury camping. So I related the story of the peeing and the Ikea tent and how I want a new tent but can’t rationalize paying $30 for a tent that’ll just get puncture holes in it and barfed in and peed all over.
And the office manager mentioned a new cleaning product they had, an enzyme cleaner that they use for all their pee stink needs. Only $18. And she said that it works like a charm for them, and it’s the only thing they use.
I was skeptical.
Over the years, we have seen it ALL in terms of cleaning products when it comes to cleaning up after Opus. We’ve tried soap and water. We’ve tried Lysol. We’ve tried all sorts of household cleaners for all sorts of surfaces containing all sorts of ingredients. We’ve tried OxyClean. We’ve tried those crazy-ass orange extract-y scented cleaners. We’ve tried other enzyme cleaners. We’ve tried cleaners that basically said, right on the bottle, “LOOK. THIS CAN EVEN CLEAN UP AFTER TINY TABBIES WITH BAD ATTITUDES AND RIDICULOUSLY POTENT PEE.”
And yet? Has a single solitary one of them worked?
YOU go sit over there in the corner and take a nice long sniff, and you tell ME.
SO.
Did I just turn and walk away, safe in the knowledge of experience? Did I tell her no, and keep the 18 bucks for groceries? Did I make a deal whereby I would pay her only if it worked?
Oh no I did NOT.
I walked out of there with a big ass bottle of enzyme cleaner, with promises that if it works for the vet’s cleaning needs, it will work for US.
And I came home, and started scrubbing the tent, and wiping some walls, and testing it on stains on the carpet. It’s still early. The jury is still out.
I am not optimistic.
What a maroon.
Spaceship Boy
Duncan has taken to sitting and playing in a plastic storage container. We call it his spaceship. He runs and makes flying leaps in and out, he takes his toys in there, or sometimes he just has a little rest or a little bit of quiet time in there.
It’s in the foyer. It was supposed to be there only for a few minutes, but he enjoys playing in it so much, we just left it there.
Shock and Horror, Not to Mention Pain
Another Monday has arrived, and not a moment too soon. For it has been a weekend of rude awakenings. A weekend of shocks to the system. A weekend where my comfy existence has been shaken, not stirred.
Okay. Maybe it hasn’t been SO dramatic as all that. But still, once I recount the events of this weekend, you will shake your head in knowing agreement and say “Tsk, tsk” in an entirely sympathetic manner to yourself, safe in the knowledge that is was not YOU, and for this you are grateful.
For my weekend involved (but was not limited to): excruciating pain, a glimpse into my own future, and a naked strange man.
Oh yes. That’s right.
A NAKED STRANGE MAN.
I know.
(This is going to be a LONG one. And involves nakedidity and toilets, among other things. So be forewarned.)
First, let me start from the beginning, for that is a good place to start.
On Friday, as I mentioned in the Friday Fun, it was 25 glorious degrees outside, so it was a good day to do yardwork. So I got out the various tools of the yardwork trade: my little weed basket, some hand tools, a rake, some gloves. I started by cleaning leaves and debris out the front garden and trimming the shrubs which had been so unceremoniously chewed down to nubs by the rodents over the winter. Then I raked the front lawn of all the dead grass, and moved to the back lawn and raked a little bit of that as well. But the back lawn is too big, so I decided to clean out some gardens. I pulled leaves and dead grass and some early weeds out of the side garden. I started on the back garden, pulling weeds and trying to get a start on taming the unruly periwinkle which is slowly taking over.
While I was working, Duncan was at the screen door watching. Now, Duncan is a big boy, but he has a very quiet little baby voice. He chirrups and peeps rather than your standard cat meow. So he sat at the window and peeped and squeaked at me while I worked. I wandered to the back garden. And I heard this strange noise. It was a cat, but none of the cats I know. I know all my cats’ sounds, and this one was unfamiliar.
And then I turned around and realized: it was Duncan. He had found his “big boy” voice, and he was shouting for all he was worth for me from the window.
It was odd. It was this strange yodelling, and a volume I was unaccustomed to hearing from our baby boy. Now, for whatever reason, all our cats speak in “sentences” and “paragraphs” — rather than utter single meows like most cats do, they often string a whole bunch of sounds together, like “meowmeOWmyowMEEEEEowmyowmyowMEOWmeow”. It’s quite a cacophony when they all get going. And so, here was Duncan, hollering in paragraphs in his big boy voice from the patio door.
I laughed. Silly woman. I didn’t know.
When I got tired, I went inside. And when BDH came home from work, I went out to help him bring his gear inside (as I have been doing of late, since he has his arm in a splint). And when I turned from the car to go back into the house, there was Duncan, trotting off across the porch, through the porch rails, and racing away between the houses for freedom, tail in the air and looking as happy as Larry.
Little bugger had ESCAPED. All that yelling had been him stating his NEED to go OUTSIDE.
None of our cats are allowed outside. We believe there’s no need to let cats outside — they are perfectly content inside, they live longer and healthier lives as indoor cats, and the world is too dangerous a place for housecats. But they still WANT to go outside, from time to time. This phase passes, but Duncan is still very young, so that has not happened yet. Thankfully, I caught up with him without too much trouble, and ushered him back indoors with much scolding. And we all settled in for the evening.
On Saturday, we were getting up early to go to Buffalo for the day, so I thought it best to get to bed early. My arms were a fair bit achey from the day’s work, particularly my forearms, so I took some extra strength Tylenol before heading to bed. But I could not get to sleep, and the pain in my forearms was getting steadily worse. After an hour and a half of tossing and turning and trying to sleep away the ache, BDH came down to go to bed. I was exhausted, and by this time, my arms were really sore. The pain started in the ends of my fingers, and throbbed all the way down each finger, through my hands, through my wrists and into my forearms, right up to the elbow. And I was irrationally tired.
So BDH got some ice packs from the freezer, wrapped my arms and hands in them, and read to me until I was ready to go to sleep. Finally, around 11:45, I was ready for sleep.
At 1:30 am, I woke with a start. The Tylenol had worn off, and I was woken by pain. This was excruciating pain like I had never felt in my life. Here’s the thing: many of the pain receptors in your body are concentrated in your hands as an evolutionary early warning system to protect the body from danger. So when I tell you it was hurting, every. single. nerve. in my hands was feeling it. I was in wretched shape, and seriously considering waking BDH up to take me to the hospital.
But I knew that it was just strain from the yard work, and they’d laugh me out of the ER. Hells bells, even BDH was saying I was a pansy. So I took some extra strength Advil instead, and an antihistamine — hoping it was enough to knock me out. And I went to bed with my arms wrapped in more ice packs and a freezer pack clutched between my hands, like I was praying (for pain relief or death, I didn’t care which).
I slept through the night, and got up the next morning very, very early. And I ate Advil for most of the day, which was actually quite a good day.
But it had been a long day, so yesterday we just planned to relax around the house and watch movies. So at intervals during the movies, one or both of us would head downstairs to get beverages and food and whatnot. And on one of these jaunts downstairs, mid-afternoon, I thought about how nice and sunny it was outside, and we still had our curtains drawn. I decided to pull the curtains so the cats could sit in the sun.
I opened the curtains to see our neighbour, suntanning naked, on his back deck.
EEK. I was, to say the least, stunned. Fortunately, he was lying on his stomach, so the damage to my retinas, not to mention my psyche, was minimal.
I have seen men’s bums before. Truly. However, generally speaking, they were bums I actually WANTED to see. Not bums of 50-year-old neighbours. I mean, EW.
I went up to the bathroom. BDH was using the bathroom, so the door was closed.
“Ummm?” I said to the crack in the door. And then, since the windows were all wide open, I very quietly related to BDH what I had just witnessed.
“You want I should go down and close the curtains again? While you go bleach your eyeballs?” he asked.
I thought it best. And I went upstairs and tried to dispel the image from my mind with a whole lot of snacks and John Cusack (who, to his credit, in the 20-something years in which I have been the unrequited love of his life, has yet to show his nether regions on film or otherwise. It is a relationship that works well for both of us, I feel.)
I slept hard last night, what with the not sleeping on Friday and the long day on Saturday and the ocular trauma on Sunday. And I got up this morning and headed into the bathroom, as one is wont to do when one gets up. And, as I went to sit down, as one is wont to do at times like this… I felt a searing pain through my knee. And I crashed down onto the toilet seat with a thud.
Just the act of bending my knees and supporting my weight to sit had caused me real, significant pain. And when the time came to get up, it was no better.
I’ve had bad knees since my late teens, the result of many years of hard sports training and an incredible amount of pounding during years upon years of jumping. So knee pain is familiar. But lately, it’s been getting worse. And suddenly, the future flashed before me: Grip rails on the wall beside the toilet. A house without stairs. Knee replacement surgery. My future looked pretty inevitable, and — let’s face it, my vanity kicking into high gear — pretty nasty.
I shuddered. The future is almost here. And I am GETTING OLD.
So, no walks for me today. Safe to say, no gardening either. And the doors will stay closed, in case any errant cats feel the need to explore. Probably I should keep the curtains drawn, as well.
Help Yourself
You can’t turn your head for one. second. in this house.
I am sitting in the living room writing my blog posts. I’m sitting in my comfy Ikea chair with my laptop on my lap, supervising various and sundry cats — specifically Opus, making sure she doesn’t pee on anything, and waiting while she eats breakfast, and second breakfast, and elevenses, and what have you.
We’ve all been here for, what, half an hour. And it’s been mostly uneventful.
I settle my laptop comfortably, since I’ve got 3 or 4 posts to write this morning, and I set my coffee cup down beside me on the tile floor. And I get to writing.
Periodically I glance up to see what Herself is up to, which is mostly milling about the room, smelling smells, and having a bath. So I can focus on the task at hand, which is a press release that I need to post this morning on one of my vball blogs.
I look up and look for Opus. She’s not in the room, apparently.
I look over the arm of my chair.
Bubby is sitting on the tile beside my coffee cup with coffee all over her face and paw. There’s a puddle on the floor around her paw. And little coffee-flavoured footprints on the floor.
She’s licking her lips.
And her paw.
“Mrph?” she says. Which, I assume, roughly translates to “What??”
She’s apparently been enjoying a cup of coffee. Her little hand is all brown. And her chin. And she’s all happyhappy.
And I’m not drinking out of THAT cup again today.
Life Lessons, Old and Young
I am trying to learn patience. It’s a hard lesson.
I have a cat — Opus, also known as The Bubby, star of stage, screen and watching movies with BDH — who is 18 1/2 years old. She’s my best friend, and I love her more than almost anyone on this earth. She’s also driving me slowly insane.
She’s as deaf as a post. Well, not deaf in the “I can’t hear” sense — cats don’t work that way. With cats, hearing loss is cognitive. So she’s deaf in the “I-was-thinking-of-something-else”, senile old man sort of way. In the muttering-to-herself-and-not-paying-attention sort of way. She can hear when she HAS to — things that kick in her self-preservation instincts, like sharp noises and vacuum cleaners and such. But most of the time, for all intents and purposes, she is as deaf as a post. Getting her attention is nigh unto impossible. Things she used to love — putting on music and having dance parties, having big games of chase — she can’t do anymore because she can’t hear.
Plus, her English isn’t as good as it used to be. (I know you think I am kidding, but hear me out.) That’s a problem. It’s part-and-parcel with the hearing loss, obviously. But when she was younger, Opus knew MANY words. She responded to a huge vocabulary — and she’s a VERY smart cat, even by the vet’s standards. We had many words as cues, much like commands you use with a dog. So things I used to do by simple speech — getting her to come to me, telling her what she could and could not do, all sorts of interaction — I can’t do anymore. All the simple commands we lived our life by are no longer working.
And she shouts all. the. damn. time. Part of it, I think, is that she can’t hear so she can’t tell how loud she is being. So all her communication is at full roar. But also, some odd behaviours are kicking in as a response to the hearing loss. She howls like she is in a cat fight whenever she wanders off alone to the litter box or to eat, almost as though she is trying to scare away anyone who might be a threat to her, because she cannot hear threats coming very well.
And she knows something is wrong too. She follows me everywhere. She needs much more attention than she used to. And she is slower and more frail.
And it is hard, dealing with her some days. It’s hard dealing with the constant shrieking for what seems to be no reason. It’s hard being patient with her when I want her to obey me and she doesn’t, in situations where she used to do so. Her neediness is hard. It all can be a bit wearing on me. And I lose my patience with her, and I shout at her, and she’s gotten more than a few little (soft) pats on the bum and time-outs in her cage when I get frustrated with her. Which all comes to naught, because she doesn’t hear and doesn’t know what I want anyway. She’s got the attention span of a soap dish, and she has no idea what I am going on about.
It’s not her fault. She’s so old. She’s something like 90 years old in human years. But she is a challenge.
So I have been trying to take it all as a lesson. I am trying to learn from her. I am trying to be patient and learn what’s going on and give her what she needs. Because I figure, soon enough, there will be a baby here with equally poor grasp of the language, who will cry when he or she needs something, who is unable to respond to what I tell him or her, who will need constant attention and whose needs I will have to figure out. And that, too, will require patience.
And it seems to be working, in some respects. For example, one of the reasons I am finding that Bubby is shouting a lot of the time is that she’s hungry. She’s not being obstinate — she’s ravenous. And even though there’s food out, she’s not got the cognitive skill anymore to figure out where it is. She gets confused. So I am trying to learn to distinguish what her yelling means and respond when she is hungry. And that is making it quieter around here.
Another thing I am trying to do is be patient and understanding when she wants attention. For one thing, she’s not going to be around forever, so I am taking the moments when I can get them. But also, it must be very confusing for her, this new state of being, and she’s probably a little scared when she wanders off into another room and finds herself without someone she trusts to comfort her. And if I get upset with her then she gets more upset and confused. So I am trying to be patient and understanding. How much does it cost me to give her some love and cuddles when she feels she needs it?
So I am looking at my little elderly girl as a test run for caring for a very small child. I am trying to learn what I can from this situation so that hopefully, when our child comes home, I can respond to the stresses and the crying and the upset with a good deal of patience. I am trying to learn to pay attention and listen, to learn what the crying and the behaviours mean — because with a child, crying happens for a reason. Fussing happens for a reason. Smiles happen for a reason. And they won’t have the English, the words, to tell me what they need.
And I am trying to be patient and just give Opus as much attention and cuddling as I can, because soon we will be in a similar situation with Mystery Baby. I know that when our child first comes to us, he or she will be scared and confused and need comfort and time to bond.
I am trying to learn to be a better geriatric cat owner, and hopefully, by extension, learn valuable lessons I can carry over into parenthood.
We almost lost our kitty a few years back to kidney failure. But I went into hospital a few days after she did, and she suddenly, surprisingly, got better. I always liked to tell myself that it’s because she knew I still needed her.
And in situations like this, when I am learning from her, sometimes I still say Opus knew I’d still need her. And so she’s sticking around, until she knows that her job is done and I’ll be okay on my own. She’s not finished with me yet.
Just So You Know, Part 2
This?
Is how we’re feeling after digging out through metre-high snowdrifts this morning. We’ve got snowbanks 2 metres high at the end of the driveway.
I hate winter.
Just So You Know
THIS?
Is how we’re feeling about winter in general around here.
As we get yet another 30+ centimetres of snow…
Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned
Just so you know… the Apocalypse is upon us. (I am only telling you this because I care, and I want you to be prepared. But it IS coming.)
Now, you may ask yourself, how do I know this?
I had always thought there were Four Horsemen to warn of the Apocalypse. Turns out, it’s actually FOUR CATS.
Oh yes. FOUR CATS.
And I saw them this morning. (Well, starting last night actually, when Cinnamon climbed up onto my bed and actually SETTLED IN as opposed to behaving like a GIANT WEENIE.)
There are definite signs:
- Lucy ate CAT FOOD this morning. (I know. I hope you are sitting down.) The most finicky cat in the universe ate what was OFFERED.
- I bribed Bubby to eat by giving her a couple of teaspoons of the high-test regular cat food instead of her special diet food. She thinks she has pulled a fast one on me, and has been positively HAPPY and JAUNTY all morning. NARY A SHOUT TO BE HAD.
- The aforementioned “Cinnamon-doesn’t-behave-like-a-weenie” incident of last night.
- Duncan was actually SCARED by something this morning, and is now walking around with the poofiest tail I have ever seen. He’s like Pepe Le Pew over there.
Oh, there are other signs, too:
- BDH did all the dishes yesterday. Voluntarily. Cheerfully.
- We have a LONG WEEKEND in FEBRUARY. Like I have been wishing for my entire life.
- I am getting significantly more sleep with my mask on these days.
- It’s still early days, but it looks like this may actually be a month in which we are spending less than we make. And in a tax month, too. (I know. Crazy. Staying within budget. Us. Hard to imagine.)
- BDH ate TOFU last week. Happily. AND SQUASH.
But you KNOW the Apocalypse will be upon us if we get the biggest sign of all in the near future: A REFERRAL. If that happens… well, all I can say, is pack some water and canned goods and run for the hills, man.
And In Other News…
Kitchen floor conflict intensifies
It’s the story of OUR LIFE here in a house full of Duncan and Lucy.
And, I’m sure, in the lives of any other multi-cat household…
(Except around here it would be more likely to be skirmishes over the warm spot on the blankie. Or the cat tent. Hard to say, really.)
Objectivity
I’m thinking of entering some pictures in a photo contest. The magazine I read is doing a Pet Photo contest, and goodness knows I take enough photos of mine. So I thought I’d enter.
The thing is, how do you choose which ones to enter?
It’s hard to be objective about pictures. Every photo I have of the cats is because they were doing something cute or funny or whatever, so I took some pictures. I think they’re cute. I think they’re charming. But I know, from looking at other people’s photos of their pets or their babies or their kids, that beauty is quite often most definitely in the eye of the beholder. Painfully so, in some cases.
Cute just doesn’t translate well in many cases if you don’t know the subject intimately. I mean, I love my cats, so everything they do is cute in my eyes.
The same thing goes for pictures of people. We are usually very harsh on ourselves when it comes to personal photos. Personally, I absolutely hate getting my photo taken. I avoid it like the plague. And that is because I am unfortunately really, really not photogenic. Not. At. All. Or maybe it’s that I am really that unattractive in real life and it’s only in photos that I actually am faced with it. Either way, there are precious few photos of me around. And I am horrified to the point of panic at the thought that others might have pictures of me in their possession. Seriously. It really upsets me.
So when it comes to choosing a photo based on the merits of “cute” or “attractive”, it’s hard to say what is and what is not.
Then I thought maybe I could choose something that is a nice photograph. You know, where there’s good light or the subject is framed well or whatever. But the problem is, I don’t know sweet Fanny Adams about photography. I realized in looking at all these pictures that I wouldn’t know a well-framed shot if it jumped up and bit me. I have no idea what it means to have good composition. I know when I see a photo in a magazine or a book that there are certain things that catch my attention, and that certain pictures are pretty, but I could not tell you WHY. And I certainly couldn’t say if any of my own pictures have those qualities.
So in the end I’m just going to choose some that I like best, and send them in. Because it’s just for the fun of it.
Besides, I don’t ever win any sorts of contests I enter — no winning lottery tickets, no shouts of “BINGO!”, no big stuffed teddy bears at the fall fair. Not. One.
So why enter at all?
Well, it’s simple. If YOU owned the cutest pets in existence, wouldn’t YOU want to spread the joy of seeing them around??
Uh oh. There’s that objectivity thing I was talking about…
Tagged Again
Well it looks like once again I’ve been tagged for a meme on the blogs, this time TWICE! Ricki and Shannon both tagged me to list 6 random things about myself, so here goes.
- I get my hair coloured quite often. I like the change. Sometimes it’s lovely, sometimes it’s just a bit funky. I let my hairdresser do whatever inspires her. This month, it’s kind of a dark purply-brown with bright blonde peek-a-boo highlights underneath. I mean, why not? Hells bells, it’s only hair. It’s not life or death.
- I currently have a pan of cinnamon buns and a loaf of cranberry-raisin Portuguese sweet bread rising in my kitchen.
- I am afraid of fish. Not on a plate, where they are wonderful, and not in an aquarium, where they are quite pretty to look at. Just in their natural habitat. I won’t swim in lakes or the ocean because of fish. I won’t go on a cruise because the boat could sink and then I would be, if not most certainly dead, which would suck, then stuck out in the middle of the ocean with FISH, which would also suck. My thinking is, if whoever created this planet wanted us to actually BE where the fish ARE, he would not have covered it up with water. He would have made it LAND.
- One of my feet is a full half-size smaller than the other.
- I have wanted to adopt since I was a teenager. I never imagined that I would have kids that were NOT adopted, and Ethiopia always appealed to me. Early on, I just felt that one of my children would be born in Ethiopia. And my life has presented nifty connections with Ethiopia time and time again. I had students who came from Ethiopia. I did a post-grad project on Ethiopian language. I became fascinated with it’s position as the cradle of human life during class on Bioanthropology. Some of my favourite cultural icons have a connection with Ethiopia. Things happen for a reason.
- I have dance parties with my cats.
Now, I don’t do a lot of social networking on the internet, so I don’t really have anyone to tag. But I can tag YOU — yes, YOU, reading this right now — so feel free to add your random things about yourself in the comments if you like.
An Announcement, Brought to You by Duncan’s Staff
You may have noticed, I updated the photos. The ones over there. ——–>
Everyone kept asking, “Where’s Duncan?”
I was beginning to feel guilty.
It’s not that I didn’t want to give you photos of Duncan. Oh no, that’s not it at all. Hey, I’d be more than happy to give you All Duncan, All the Time if that is what you wanted.
(In a photographic sense, of course. You cannot have my baby boy. He is mine.)
Heck, I am ALL FOR you becoming the President of the We Love Duncan Fanclub, if that is what you want.
And believe me, he’s such a cutie, I’ve been taking many a photo of him since he arrived, what, 6 months ago? Who could resist?
However.
It has taken me THIS LONG to figure out exactly WHERE those photos had to be uploaded to.
We’ve changed things around some, technologically speaking. So much so, that I had no idea where this blog actually was anymore. And by that I mean, where the heck was the software?
I knew it was here somewhere. After all, I look at it every day. I write in it nearly as much.
And yet…
I was lost. And you were without Duncan. Duncan-less, as it were. Duncan-devoid. Lacking in Duncan-ness.
BUT NO MORE!
I broke down, and asked BDH. In the middle of Casino Royale, I might add. That is how much I wanted to amuse you all. I interrupted BDH in the watching of an action movie. For YOU.
So that you might have all the Duncan you desire.
And so, once BDH gave me the technological equivalent of “It’s over there, on the second shelf, beside the sugar”, I was able to
BRING THE DUNCAN!
OH. And also, the other cats too.
Enjoy.
Vacation, Part Two
We’re home. And while I love being on vacation, it is quite nice to be home.
I find we miss things when we’re away, just little things about our daily lives and routines and such. All our stuff is around us here, so there are myriad options of things to do and things that you might need. When you’re away, you’re in someone else’s home or cooking in someone else’s kitchen or sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, and no matter how wonderful the place is that you’re visiting, you still miss your stuff. So it’s nice to be back for the familiarity of it all.
We had a lovely week away. Relaxing. Surrounded by loved ones. More food than could feed the Prussian army. Endless glasses of wine. Sleeping late. And a crossword puzzle for every day of the week! It was wonderful.
But still, we’re happy to be home. We missed the cats. We even had little cameras set up so we could log in and watch them while we were away. We saw lots of sleeping. Mostly Lucy. And we did not see Duncan ONCE during the entire week — and we worried that his sisters had killed him and buried the body in one of the litter boxes. BDH missed Duncan, his Little Buddy, in particular. (It’s a guy thing.)
So there was much snuggling and scratching under the chin and cats-on-laps when we got home.
And The Bubby. If you can believe it, we missed the Incredible Shrieking Bubby. BDH got up early yesterday morning — he let me sleep in — and went out to the 24 hr. grocery store and picked up groceries for the week and bought me a coffee from my favourite coffeeshop and then he went to the vet and picked up Opus. He had really missed her. She had been boarded all week because she is so old and fragile and… well… DEMANDING… so she had a staff to attend to her every whim. So he brought her home and we gave her many, many cuddles and lots of love.
And it only took her about 45 minutes to begin shouting her fool head off at us again. But that was okay.
So BDH has been preparing every meal since we got home — I think he’s enjoying puttering around his own kitchen again. We’re not answering the phone and we’re staying indoors as much as possible. And we’re enjoying the quiet and futzing around on computers and laughing at the cats’ antics and generally relaxing.
It’s like a vacation after our vacation. Two vacations in a row.
I may even nap.
Fuzzy
It is a day of fuzzy things.
My head, for example. I have that fuzzy head this morning, that feeling that you get when you are on vacation and you get up WAY earlier than you wanted to (even though it was much later than the rest of the house) and you feel a bit dopey. It’s like your head is a movie theatre, way back in the day when you were still allowed to smoke in the theatre, and what you see or think is like a movie trying to project through all the smoke and haze to the screen.
My eyes are a bit fuzzy, like there’s schmutz in them. I think my mask sprung some leaks overnight and little blasts of air were blowing in my eyes all night. So I am blinking and rubbing my eyes and generally feeling like I am looking at things underwater. I hate that feeling.
I put on a fuzzy sweater this morning, because as the day progresses, we’re in for a storm. A fair-sized snowstorm is forecast to blow through Nova Scotia this afternoon and tonight, dumping 20 cm of snow on the region. GREAT. Just in time for us to drive to the airport for our flight home tomorrow. Won’t THAT be fun. I guess I had better pack my bags accordingly today, so that I’ve got something fuzzy and comfortable for tomorrow too — in case we’re stuck in the airport for an extended period of time.
And I could use something fuzzy today — specifically, my cats. I miss them while I am on vacation, and although we set up webcams to watch them while we are away, the little stinkers have been studiously avoiding their usual haunts, which we set the cameras up specifically to watch. If the storm comes in, today would be a great day to sit in front of the window with a big cup of tea and a Lucy on my lap, watching the snowfall. And BDH is missing the girls too — at least Cinnamon sits in my chair in front of the camera at home from time to time, so we get to see her snoozing or having a bath or what have you. But there’s been no sign of Duncan since we’ve been gone, and BDH misses his little buddy.
Maybe I should while away the time watching Hot Fuzz today — that would make my fuzzy day fuzzier still.
Duncan Learns About Christmas
Who knew an 8-plus pound cat could wreak so much havoc at the holidays?
Our little man, Duncan, is not so little any more. At 9 months, he’s almost bigger than any of the other cats. And I think he’s going to get bigger still.
But he’s still a kitten. He’s still learning about his world and everything is still new and exciting. He touches everything, and smells it, and tastes it, and watches the most mundane things with wonder and astonishment and curiosity. And we forget that he’s still such a little boy inside, because he’s so big.
For example, snow is new to him. He stands in the foyer, sniffing the cold air when we come in and out. He sat in the window this weekend, just amazed at the falling snowflakes. He watched it fall for hours, tracking individual snowflakes. He eats the snow off our pants and boots when we come in — it’s something new.
And so is Christmas. Unfortunately.
He’s endlessly fascinated by the tree. We brought it out in stages, so he would have a chance to get used to it. He investigated the branches as they lay on the floor, tasting them from time to time, hiding in them to ambush his sister at other times. Then we put the tree up, bare of lights or decoration, so he could lay under it and look at it and get used to its presence. Then we put the lights on it.
And that’s where it began to get REALLY interesting.
Duncan was fascinated by the illuminated tree. He would flop down under it, roll onto his back, and gaze up at the lights. Maybe he thought they were pretty. He occasionally tried to taste one or two, but with a stern “NO!” he left them alone pretty quickly.
And then, on Friday, we decorated it.
For as long as I can remember — my entire life, actually — we have put cheap, indestructible ornaments on the bottom boughs of the Christmas tree for our cats. It has always been that these ornaments are THEIR ornaments, so they have their own special part of the tree, and if they bat them or knock them off, it’s okay. They have their spot, and they generally are content. And they get bored pretty quickly. Once they mystery is gone from the tree, they could care less.
For the last 18 Christmases, we’ve had 2 jinglebells that we hang on the very bottom branches of the tree. They are Opus’s bells. Ever since she was a tiny kitten, they have been her bells to swat and jingle whenever she wants. She’s too old to care now, but every now and again she’ll walk by and you’ll hear a little tinkly noise as she trots away from the tree (giggling to herself, no doubt). Also, they act as an early warning system that something (read: cat) is causing a ruckus around the tree, so we know to watch for trouble.
And Duncan? He LOVES bells. He spent the first hour the tree was up just endlessly swatting at the bells, having a heck of a time. So we put the rest of the ornaments on the tree, the cats snoozed underneath on the tree skirt, and all was right with the world.
Or so we thought.
We went to bed Friday, and slept right through. I woke on Saturday to find the cats in all their usual spots, mostly lounging in front of the bedroom door waiting for people to wake up. I went upstairs to grab my laptop, and noticed…
Ornaments. All over the floor.
So, I let BDH know about it. He went upstairs.
He came downstairs.
The words “little bastard” escaped his lips. Although, not in an angry way. More in a “what are you going to do”, defeated sort of way.
Now, we have an artificial tree. The branches? They’re made of wire. Wire that is designed to support lights, and glass balls, and little angels, and other pretty little ornaments.
NOT a large, fuzzy, mobile ornament. Certainly not an 8-plus pound ornament.
As it appeared to us, doing a little crime scene investigation afterwards, it seems our little man took the middle of the night as an opportunity to do a little tree climbing.
There was a huge, gaping, Duncan-sized hole in the branches from ground level, up through the branches, and out to the front, where there was another huge, gaping, Duncan-sized hole. All the branches on one side, about 2/3 of the way up, were flattened and bent down. The tree “stem” was bent into a bit of a curve. And there were ornaments scattered all over the floor.
It appears he tunnelled up through the branches, and attempted to lay across several of the boughs. Either the sparkly exciting new things were too irrestistable to his little kitten eyes, or he thought it might be nice to snooze at elevation.
Either way, our tree needed some repair work.
You can’t get mad. Cats climb trees. It’s what they do. And I’ve known plenty of people — my sister, for example — for whom cats in the Christmas tree is just a normal, everyday part of Christmas. But it’s the first time in 40 years that one of my own cats has done it.
But from that day on, Duncan and the Christmas tree have had an adversarial relationship. Since that day, Duncan has found that whenever he’s started fussing at the Christmas tree or the ornaments, there’s a lot of shouting of “NO!”, and he gets very, very wet.
And Santa will probably be bringing squirt guns for Christmas for the people in this house.
The Rules: Pre-Christmas Edition
There are rules in this life.
- If there are homemade cookies, they will get eaten.
- Corollary: If you have plans for said cookies — gifting them, eating them yourself — sooner is better than later.
- Telemarketers should not be surprised by rude responses, especially during dinner time, after 8 pm/kids’ bedtimes, and on weekends.
- Corollary: Telemarketers should not be surprised that they get no responses at all if they call using an 800 number, a made-up number like 012-345-6789, or a number that shows up as “unknown”.
- Corollary: Whoever invented call display should be knighted.
- When it comes to pyjamas, chocolate and breakfast, the time on the clock is irrelevant.
- Corollary: Drinking does NOT come under the above rule.
- Corollary: Phone calls do NOT come under the above rule. Especially see “telemarketers”, above.
- Drop-ins are never cool.
- Corollary: See “pyjamas and time”, above.
- Yoga is a very old Indian word, meaning “Contradiction”.*
- Corollary: When your yoga instructor starts talking about “focus” and “being present” and “concentration”, that is when there will be interruptions.
- Corollary: You are implored to relax in poses that require you to be upside down, supporting your entire body weight with your hands, or standing on your head.
- Corollary: It is impossible to breathe deeply in most poses. Especially with a belly in the way.
- “Christmas Classic” and “National Lampoon” should NEVER be in the same sentence.
- Corollary: Almost anything containing Bing Crosby is completely fine for the holidays. Even if it’s a Western, set in Bali, or has a strange Robin Hood plotline. Or all of the above together, even.
- Cats are non-traditional lovers of Christmas.
- Corollary: The more you spend on something for your cat, the higher the disdain your cat will have for an item.
- Corollary: Cats are fuzzy, mobile ornaments you can find in manger scenes, under Christmas tree skirts and in Christmas trees.
- Corollary: Wrapping paper rules.
*Note: I totally just made that up.
High-Tech Yoga (Cat Not Included)
I’ve been on a yoga kick lately.
With the gift of an iPod for an early birthday present, I’ve been exploring the world of podcasts. I watch and listen to all sorts of things — news, history, BBC, National Geographic — but what has been really big the last few days has been yoga podcasts.
I’ve explored a few, and found one I really enjoy. The instructor is gently humorous and easy to follow, and he has a wide variety of lessons. Some are easy, but most are a bit more advanced than I am accustomed to. They challenge me, at the moment to just keep up, but also because they are pretty tough and there’s new poses to learn.
So each day, at least once a day, I pull my laptop over to an open space in the room, and I start the podcast. I get settled and ready to start. I do a few preliminary poses. And then the inevitable happens.
CAT.
Now, a lot about yoga is to be present in the moment, and to be conscious of your breathing or your body as you do a move. This is easier than it sounds when you have cats.
If Opus doesn’t suddenly find this the perfect opportunity to a) start shrieking her fool head off or 2) start sniffing around as though she is looking for a place to happen, then one of the others will surely distract me. Lucy will try to snuggle in under me as I do a child’s pose. Duncan will come and lay down in the space and lazily stretch a paw out to tap your hand while you try to do a pose. Any one of a number of cats will walk through, around, and under a downward dog. I get cold noses in my armpits as I lay on my back or purring in my ear.
The cats? They love the yoga, it seems.
So, we haven’t worked out all the kinks yet in this high-tech yoga workout thing. But I am happy to say that this new class is kicking my butt and I really enjoy it.
And apparently, so do the cats.
Paper Towels Are Your Friend
Today, so far, has NOT been my Best Day Ever in Kittyville.
*****WARNING: Much talk about BARF ahead! Not for the faint of stomach!*****
I was doing laundry, and came downstairs to find a Cat Alarm going off. That’s the good thing about multiple cats: when one cat gets into trouble or does something unusual, there’s always another cat sniffing around the mess to “tattle”.
So, yes. There was Duncan, sniffing around a small toonie-sized spot on the tile.
Opus had barfed.
Okay, well, it happens. So I grabbed a paper towel and cleaned it up, and then I checked on her to see that she was ok. She was upstairs sitting on the stairs looking a might peevish and forlorn, but she was fine. I went in to make a bed and she jumped up on the bed, and I noticed she had some barf on her face. So I cleaned her face and she went about her business and I went about mine.
I came back downstairs into the kitchen, and happened to glance over at the living room. And I saw some barf on the carpet. GREAT. Well, I thought, at least it’s only a small barf.
Oh, how wrong I was.
I looked a little to the left, and saw it. Opus had gone into their little nylon kitty tent and BARFED ALL OVER THE TENT. And not just the tent, mind you — oh no. We use the tent like a toybox for the cats, and so she had also barfed on a bunch of the toys.
FABULOUS.
A whole lot of kitty barf inside a confined and covered space. EXCELLENT. And who, do you think, has the job of cleaning that up?
Yes. You guessed it. The one with the opposable thumbs.
So, I grabbed some paper towels and began mopping. And mopping. And mopping. It was HUGE. It was an Exorcist barf. And, thanks to the modern miracle of nylon, it stayed FRESH! And ICKY! (And, on a more serious note, thanks to the modern miracle of nylon, it stayed put and did not soak in and ruin the tent or the carpet beneath it.)
I salvaged what toys I could from the mess, and pitched the ones that were beyond salvaging. Goodbye, Mr. Moving Mouse! Goodbye, Mr. Jute Ball That Makes All The Exciting Noises! Goodbye, Mr. Fuzzy Ball That Is Unpredictable And Fun To Chase!
I got more paper towels, and I kept mopping. The stink, I am sure, rose to high heaven. However, I am blessed with never-ending allergies, and there are days when having a perpetually stuffy nose is a boon. And this is one of them.
More paper towels. Some soap and water. More mopping. More soap and water.
Thank doG for nylon. And thanks, too, for plastic toys.
Once I got everything cleaned up, there was much inspection and consternation among the residents of Kittyville. Duncan was sitting forlornly outside the tent, wondering what had happened to his toys and his tent, and why his toys were all in a pile outside the tent and he could not go in it. Lucy was standing at the door of the tent, looking inside, and then looking at me with That Look that only Lucy can give, one of shock and concern, eyes wide and head tilted quizzically to the side. Into the tent. At me. Into the tent. At me.
And Opus.
Opus wanted desperately to be picked up and to sit on my lap and be cuddled. Her tummy was upset and she had barfed and she was upset. And now she just wanted me to make it better.
So I picked her up and sat down on the chair and tried to figure out what happened. My best guess is that she woke up hungry and had eaten way too much, and it came back at her. (She does that.) So at the first sign of barf, she panicked and tried to run away. Over to hide under the footstool in the living room. BARF. Run away and hide in the tent. BARF. Run away from that and hide over by the stairs. BARF.
The old “something is wrong and so I must run away from it” cat routine. I know it well.
Well, as I said to BDH in chat, I am sure this will not be the last time I clean barf off toys and bedding and other stuff. This cat stuff is good training for being a mom. Opus and the others are preparing me for baby. Peeing, pooping, barfing, crying, cuddling… It’s like having one of those Rent-a-Baby dolls that you practice parenting on, only with fur. And slightly longer nails.
Oh well. Barf happens. And so I cuddled Opus. And I noticed, she had barf on her tail.
Sigh. That’ll have to be cleaned.
Good thing I bought all those packs of paper towels for the Air Miles a few weeks ago.
Edited to add: AGAIN. The barfing. This afternoon. More paper towels. This morning I could laugh about it, but now, I am kind of worried that the girl is actually sick. Poor old thing.
Uh-oh, make that THREE times. There she goes again.
Positively Monday
It’s cool and clear and sunny this morning. It’s completely quiet in my neighbourhood, which is a rare treat with house construction going on around the corner. Despite waking up tired, it’s put me in a contemplative and somewhat optimistic frame of mind, which I am the first to admit, is a rather unusual way to start a Monday.
- My husband spent the day yesterday tidying up around the house, doing laundry, and cleaning. It was so kind of him. He said I am so busy writing these days that he wanted to help out, and he said sometimes he feels like he doesn’t help out enough around the house. So he put things away and threw stuff out and vacuumed and did laundry, all unasked. It’s such a treat to look around and see so much tidied up. It makes my job easier during the day, certainly. But it’s also so lovely to have him take the time out of his weekend to do this for me, just because he wanted to. He really is a wonderful fellow. I’m very lucky.
- I lose sight sometimes of all that my husband does for me, and not just cleaning up on a Sunday afternoon. He works so hard every day so that I can stay at home and be a mom and write — fulfilling two dreams I have. Without his support I’d never be able to stay home and write, for no money and little more than praise and internet hits, because it is all I ever really wanted to do in life. (Except, of course, for the money bit. I’d love to make some money at it.) And without his support and strength I’d never be able to have made it through the last few rough years. And I’d certainly never have been able to get to the point where we’re anticipating the arrival of the first photograph of our child. And I certainly never thought I’d be able to be a mom.
- My little old kitty turned 18 years old last week, and the staff at the cat clinic signed and sent out a birthday card to her. Now, we all know she can’t read, or read a calendar, and that the card is really for us, but still… it was so kind of them. Bubby has been at the vet so much these past few years, and I think there were a few times when they thought she wasn’t going to make it. I know we certainly did. And I think that they’ve grown a bit attached to our tiny old girl, despite her occasional peevishness and bad behavior when she goes in for visits. So it meant a lot to us to get this card, signed with all their little personal messages and good wishes. It’s funny how this little 6 1/2 pound bundle of peevishness and sweetness has touched so many lives.
- My elderly old kitty, with hearing failing and confusion a regular part of her day, wants nothing more each day than to climb up into my lap and just sit and be cuddled. (Well, that and her dinner and a nice bowl of milk.) She sits and purrs and happily puts up with me kissing all over her and cuddling her. There was a time, not so many years ago, when sitting still like that was Just. Not. Done. And especially not for all the kissing bits. And so while her health is slowly failing her and her mind is not as sharp as it once was, her innate sweetness is what is beginning to come to the fore. And one of the nice things about that is that, as I see her through these last days or months or years of her life, I also get to show her how much I love her and thank her for being such a good friend to me in ways that I never used to be able to do. And I am grateful for that.
- I’ve been invited to go to the gym tonight to talk to a group of 15-17 year olds about their futures — specifically, whether they want to play volleyball in university and at what level, and how to go about it. My purpose is to get them started at least thinking about whether they want to play, and if they do, to kick-start their teenage butts into action. People wonder what I get out of it, especially since it’s a lot of work for no monetary gain. Well, it’s very rewarding. No, I don’t begin to claim that I had anything to do with these kids’ successes when they do go on and play varsity ball. But I get a real kick out of seeing them do well, out of knowing they’re getting to fulfill a dream, and to see their parents and how proud they are. Plus, I get to go out and watch some games and cheer, and that’s fun. It’s a very rewarding thing to be able to do.
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