Month: March 2009

Kitty (and people)

Every morning she climbs up on me and ritually sneezes in my face.  This is, according to the lad I got her from, pretty normal.

She is struggling less and less when I brush her; when she’s about as relaxed as I can expect, I’ll bathe her. Jeff has made me swear a mighty oath that I won’t do it unless he can film the entire thing.  I’m thinking we should film it AND get stills.  It’s gonna be an event.  Now kitty is stalking the power cord for the MacBook.  Now she’s chasing Gizmo off his food dish…. bad plan.

To be able to wake up at 2 am, with her just out of my sleepthrashing range on the bed, instantly purring when I reach out to touch her ludicrously soft fur, is the most beautiful thing in my life right now.  I know I kinda ‘bought a friend’ but there was no guarantee she would even like me, and but she’s showing every sign of liking me a lot, rushing up to me when I come home from work.  She likes Jeff fine, but I’m the one who cleans her and brushes her, so she knows who mom is.

She’s got the boys completely whipped, and it hasn’t even been two weeks.

When Katie was here for dinner two Sundays ago Margot jumped onto the blue exercise ball in the living room.  Jeff reports that she has now jumped onto the ball and stood on it for a second and then jumped off.  I wish I had somebody who could circus train her, she’s got native talent.  The man who runs the cat circus (and while looking for him I found the Charles Mingus Cat Toilet Training Program, apparently written by the bassist himself) says that by watching a cat carefully you can tell if they have a certain bent and then you very slowly and patiently shape the behaviour until they are pushing strollers full of other cats, walking on high wires, walking on their front paws, and doing complicated dance routines with other cats, among the many other bizarre things he’s trained cats to do.

Hm.  Well, I’ve been remiss in reporting the social news.  Dr. Filk paid us a flying visit on Friday, and mightily glad was I to see him, and he found la belle Margot entertaining.

Paul and the kids were by for Sunday dinner and we watched Jurassic Park.  Paul brought the best pork roast, and we had onions and carrots and taters and corn, so it was a real Sunday dinner.

No date with my new friend this past weekend, I’ve been feeling a bit off colour and my foot is still hurting like a b9st9rd so anything involving more than about ten blocks of walking finishes me off.  Yes, I should see a doctor, but for what?  To get told it’s sprained ligaments and I should get orthotics?  I am so tired of going to the doctor and finding out I’m a jeezly hypochondriac.  Given that I’m fifty I’m sure I’ll get bad news eventually but every health scare I’ve had except for my back – which is the same as always, thanks – has turned out to be figmentary.  Actually, I took Robaxicet last night and I had an AWESOME night’s sleep.

Just fixed poached eggs and toast for brekkie, and I am now contemplating a second cup of coffee.  Oh Margot, quit chewing on the cable…..  If you get electrocuted, nobody will be able to tell.

The landpeers have rearranged the way they park their vehicles so I can use the walkway.  Jeff and I are responding by ensuring they have the rent cheques in hand in about fifteen minutes.  It’s actually kinda handy having the landpeers that close.

I handed out biscotti at work yesterday.  Man, I love doing that.

I wish I could blog about work.  But continued employment beckons encouragingly, so I will defer to my more sensible, grownup, beaten down by capitalizm self, and keep my icecream siphon closed.

Speaking of ice cream.  I brought some home last night.  Then I said to Jeff, “Screw this noise… Dessert, it’s what’s for supper.”  Thus my atonement with a nourishing and sensible brekkie today.

If I had a buck for every time it happened

I’m on a date with my new friend … I took him to Horizons.  We’re walking around in the garden behind the restaurant and my cell phone rings. It’s Katie.  “What’s the name of that song by that German woman that was on that album?”

“What, “Wir Leben Immer Noch”? I say.

“Yeah, how do you spell that?”

I spell it for her.  Buddy is looking at me like I am wacky.

Anyway, here it is. If it’s possible to play it at top volume…. do so!

The point being, I am expected to know everything.  And I wish I didn’t enjoy that so much, it’s not like I’m God or anything.

Keith here again

Miss Margot is very lethargic after her boosters.  The injection locations are very tender and so we left her alone except to encourage her to eat and drink.

Watched the concert movie of Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris…. very tasty.  My new friend turned me on to that.

It was lovely to see Keith.

Unless something changes soon, Katie will probably be moving in with Dax, and Dax’s sister Kashka and her s/o Kat. You can take the reaction shots pretty much for granted.

The laundry list

Woke up at 2.

Eddie crying in my room again, but this time he let me pet him for about half an hour.

Could not for the life of me go back to sleep.

Did not want to go to work.  So…. tired….

Another commute to work in the drear rain, which magically transmuted to snow on the hill, and they are doing construction and thus diverted us onto a pathway that appeared to be clay mixed with greasy snow.  Almost fell four times on the way to work, again, the worst slip causing me to pull muscles.  Being diverted into a muck heap almost wrecked my shoes.  Complained to the site supervisor that where we were being forced to walk was a safety hazard, you bastard, have a nice day.

Got to work and everybody is asking me why I’m limping.  I wish I knew.  The last time I limped this much my back crapped out shortly afterward.  The pain in the top of my foot is worse when I walk and better when I climb or descend stairs, which makes NO SENSE to me. Why would flexing the foot hurt less?  The pain is markedly less when I do not wear footgear, which means I should hie me off and spend more money I don’t have on orthotics.  I used to get depressed when I was presented with yet another physical challenge, now I just set my jaw.

In the afternoon, Jeff got me at work and dropped me off at David Lam campus where – I had learned that morning – I was NOT going to get a contact lens fitting from my son but from a total stranger.  I stopped off in the campus bookstore and got Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, and a really cool flashcard book about human anatomy, then went to my appointment and then learned that all the grudgy hopeless feelings melted – all Keith had had to do was say I was his mother, and they swapped things around so that I could get the fitting from him.  Got fitted – it was damned thorough – and walked away with saline and two new contact lenses, which fit great and which I wore for about three hours.  My eyes are a bit gummy today, but not significantly more than they are in the mornings anyway.  As we were commuting back home together I read bits of Homage aloud to Keith and the two of us were killing ourselves laughing, because grim as the subject is (Spanish Civil War), parts of it are screamingly funny.

Then Jeff went to a job interview which went well and he can news about it if he wants to, and then on the way home my cell rang and it was ScaryClown, saying OMG new kitty I’m coming over (reMARkable what getting a new animal does for your social life) as ScaryClown is crazy mad insane for cats and then we watched the 1929 ship around the Horn documentary, with ScaryClown occasionally emitting phrases of stunned appreciation, amusement and awe (JUST as I expected).

Then I cooked pierogies and fed them and then we watched some Robot Chicken including one I hadn’t previously seen, and then I went to bed because I keep having insomnia.  Thankfully, not last night.  Miss Margot slept with me voluntarily last night (she got up to explore in the night and then came back to bed) and I slept until just before six.  So I actually feel like a human being this morning, and my son is showing signs of turning into a professional, and a friend stopped by, and tonight I gotta fetch la Margot to the kitty hospital and get her booster shots.

I hope to go swimming with the folks from Planet Bachelor tonight.  I may feel subpar with all these aches and pains, but I still have to exercise and walking is turning out to be problematic.  I mean, bus drivers are stopping between stops to pick me up, how often does THAT happen?

Oh, and I fixed my hat so it sits on my head better.

Oh, and Katie called me voluntarily and without asking for money.  And she asked me for my opinion about her hair, which is like asking Miss Margot for an interpretive dance on the Berlin Air-lift.  I said, “You’re twenty years old and stunningly gorgeous, do your hair however the hell you like!”  Now that’s what I call solid parental advice.

Katie meets the new beast

I think Katie was a little taken aback at just how flat Miss Margot’s face is, but she was charmed nevertheless.  Jeff, Paul, Keith, Kate and I watched the last two episodes of Planet Earth (in High Def, did I mention that part?) and I fed everybody spaghetti and Jeff bought Mayan Chocolate ice cream and Paul brought pie.  Then I kicked everybody out and Eddie woke me up crying and I went to fetch Miss Margot from the sofa, which was where she was when she decided to roll it up for the night.  She is now snoring gently next to my head, while I wonder why I’ve now had two intensely crappy nights of sleep. I need my beauty sleep (yeah, like about a thousand years) to keep my eyes in good shape for today’s contact lens fitting. I should go to work early cause I’m leaving early….

Ick, it’s pouring rain.

The market collapse

When I was so small I was practically transparent, my father first spoke to me about short selling.  It’s about how you take a bet, preferably with somebody else’s money, that a stock price is going to drop.  The first time pOp explained it to me I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard, expecially since he was explaining it in the context of the 1929 stock market crash.

So this short film by Judd Bagley is a fair commitment of your time at almost half an hour, but I think it’s well done and it helped me understand just what triggered the first round of the collapse.  Mario, a former coworker, forwarded it to me.  Please note it’s Vimeo, which some people have trouble running.