Note to Cat:
When you ask to go out the front door
and I get up and open the door
and you walk out and around to the back of the house and come in the pet door
and ask to go out the front door
and I get up and open the door
and you walk out and around to the back of the house and come in the pet door
and ask to go out the front door
and I get up and open the door
and you walk out and around to the back of the house and come in the pet door
and ask to go out the front door...
...that must be a very pleasant and fun game in catland, but for humans over the age of 4 years or so, it gets old.
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Molly had her checkup/shots yesterday. She weathered it better than I expected. They did have to wrap her in a towel because she was upset after they took her away to do stuff, and bring her back where she could look at me while they unsuccessfully tried to get a stool sample. But she cheered up right away when she got home. Bonnie was subdued for a day or two after her vaccinations, but Miss Molly never let up once she got back home. Today she caught and ate a lizard.
I did ask the vet about Molly's lizard-eating. He said that she might get a sick stomach but that it wouldn't really hurt her. His own personal cats confine themselves to eating the tails, so he has a lot of tailless lizards running around his house. For those of you unfamiliar with lizard physiology - they drop their tails pretty easily when they feel threatened, to distract predators, which clearly is sometimes a successful strategy. So it's not like his cats are partially eating live lizards, although I wouldn't expect a cat to care about the morality of such a thing at all.
Tomorrow I am off work. I think I'll probably go shopping.
I offer my readers this interesting graphic about the stimulus plan.
I did ask the vet about Molly's lizard-eating. He said that she might get a sick stomach but that it wouldn't really hurt her. His own personal cats confine themselves to eating the tails, so he has a lot of tailless lizards running around his house. For those of you unfamiliar with lizard physiology - they drop their tails pretty easily when they feel threatened, to distract predators, which clearly is sometimes a successful strategy. So it's not like his cats are partially eating live lizards, although I wouldn't expect a cat to care about the morality of such a thing at all.
Tomorrow I am off work. I think I'll probably go shopping.
I offer my readers this interesting graphic about the stimulus plan.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Bonnie had a good checkup on Saturday. No parasites. They called today and said her bloodwork was perfect. So she should be good to go.
Bonnie was very well-behaved at the vet's office. The vet said we had ourselves a real sweetheart there - we knew that. She sat up like the lady she is and let them do what they wanted, no flinching when she had her vaccinations and so forth. Molly, who goes Saturday week, will be a different story. She detests being messed with and growls like a dog - the vet in Memphis said she'd never heard a cat do that before. I never have either. We'll have to ask the vet if it's harmful to Molly to eat lizards, not that I'll know what to do about it if it is. They get in the house, she finds them and eats them from nose to tail, leaving not so much as a toe. Yes, it's gross. I guess it's the alley cat in her, hence her eating cornbread and popcorn and potato chips. Bonnie being a Himalayan mix is much more refined and won't eat anything not labeled CAT FOOD.
Bonnie was very well-behaved at the vet's office. The vet said we had ourselves a real sweetheart there - we knew that. She sat up like the lady she is and let them do what they wanted, no flinching when she had her vaccinations and so forth. Molly, who goes Saturday week, will be a different story. She detests being messed with and growls like a dog - the vet in Memphis said she'd never heard a cat do that before. I never have either. We'll have to ask the vet if it's harmful to Molly to eat lizards, not that I'll know what to do about it if it is. They get in the house, she finds them and eats them from nose to tail, leaving not so much as a toe. Yes, it's gross. I guess it's the alley cat in her, hence her eating cornbread and popcorn and potato chips. Bonnie being a Himalayan mix is much more refined and won't eat anything not labeled CAT FOOD.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
“Children with Down’s syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of vice president, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?” CNN anchor John Roberts asked during a live segment on Aug. 29, the day McCain announced Palin’s candidacy.
...
Dr. Brian Skotko, a physician at Children’s Hospital Boston who serves on the board of directors at the National Down Syndrome Society, told FOXNews.com that, in many instances, it is no more challenging to raise a child with Down syndrome than any other.
“We know that about 50 percent of babies who are born with Down syndrome have a heart condition within the first few months after they are born,” he said.
“But thanks to the advances in technology, we have been able to correct many of these conditions, and after the initial medical issues have been addressed, raising a child with Down syndrome does not involve much more time than it would take for any child.”
Palin’s Candidacy Reignites Feminist Debate
I believe that John Roberts was acting as what the left-wing bloggers call a "concern troll".
In other news - I am so amused at the little girl kitties trying to make sense of my nightly shoulder exercises. The tomcat could NOT care less.
I start out using the pulley over the bedroom door to stretch my arm as high as it can go, hold for a count of fifteen, repeat several times. They have to watch this, or sit close to me with their backs turned, or get in my lap as I do it, or as Bonnie did tonight, anticipate where I am going and get on the chair first (what a funny joke). The next thing I do is to go to one particular wall that's convenient to do external rotation stretches and then wall pushups. So while I'm using the pulley, one or the other kitty might run over to that wall and reach up to scrabble on it with her paws. "See, I got there first."
Molly's done after that but Bonnie precedes me into the bedroom where she sits on the dresser and supervises my working with weights.
Don't know what I'd do without them - I'd probably get everything in the wrong order.
...
Dr. Brian Skotko, a physician at Children’s Hospital Boston who serves on the board of directors at the National Down Syndrome Society, told FOXNews.com that, in many instances, it is no more challenging to raise a child with Down syndrome than any other.
“We know that about 50 percent of babies who are born with Down syndrome have a heart condition within the first few months after they are born,” he said.
“But thanks to the advances in technology, we have been able to correct many of these conditions, and after the initial medical issues have been addressed, raising a child with Down syndrome does not involve much more time than it would take for any child.”
Palin’s Candidacy Reignites Feminist Debate
I believe that John Roberts was acting as what the left-wing bloggers call a "concern troll".
In other news - I am so amused at the little girl kitties trying to make sense of my nightly shoulder exercises. The tomcat could NOT care less.
I start out using the pulley over the bedroom door to stretch my arm as high as it can go, hold for a count of fifteen, repeat several times. They have to watch this, or sit close to me with their backs turned, or get in my lap as I do it, or as Bonnie did tonight, anticipate where I am going and get on the chair first (what a funny joke). The next thing I do is to go to one particular wall that's convenient to do external rotation stretches and then wall pushups. So while I'm using the pulley, one or the other kitty might run over to that wall and reach up to scrabble on it with her paws. "See, I got there first."
Molly's done after that but Bonnie precedes me into the bedroom where she sits on the dresser and supervises my working with weights.
Don't know what I'd do without them - I'd probably get everything in the wrong order.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Apparently having a cat cuts a person's risk of death from heart attack or stroke.
Owning a Cat Good for the Heart?
A new study shows that cat owners are less likely to die of a heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases than people who have never had a pet cat.
The findings emerged from an analysis of data on nearly 4,500 men and women, ages 30 to 75, who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study. All were free of cardiovascular disease when they entered the study in the 1970s.
Over half, 55%, reported having a pet cat at some point in their lives.
Compared with cat owners, people who never had a pet cat were 40% more likely to die of a heart attack over the 20-year study period. They were also 30% more likely to die of any cardiovascular disease, including stroke, heart failure, and chronic heart disease.
The results held true even after the researchers took into account other risk factors for heart disease and stroke, including age, gender, race, blood pressure, and smoking.
The researchers found no such link for people who had a pet dog.
So we have a correlation, and assume a cause-and-effect, which probably isn't too out of line.
There's a possibility that the kind of person who would have a cat probably has some lifestyle feature that improves his/her cardiovascular health.
If there is a cause-and-effect it may not be that whole stress-reducing thing of having a purring creature in your lap. It could be something weird, like cats carrying some microorganism that has a positive effect on humans' health. Stranger things have happened.
Or it could be that instead of dying of stroke or heart disease, cat owners die of something else, like falling down the stairs tripping over the kitten and breaking their neck as my BIL did (he recovered).
Anyway, I knew there had to be a reason why we have these little - uh - darlings.
Owning a Cat Good for the Heart?
A new study shows that cat owners are less likely to die of a heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases than people who have never had a pet cat.
The findings emerged from an analysis of data on nearly 4,500 men and women, ages 30 to 75, who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study. All were free of cardiovascular disease when they entered the study in the 1970s.
Over half, 55%, reported having a pet cat at some point in their lives.
Compared with cat owners, people who never had a pet cat were 40% more likely to die of a heart attack over the 20-year study period. They were also 30% more likely to die of any cardiovascular disease, including stroke, heart failure, and chronic heart disease.
The results held true even after the researchers took into account other risk factors for heart disease and stroke, including age, gender, race, blood pressure, and smoking.
The researchers found no such link for people who had a pet dog.
So we have a correlation, and assume a cause-and-effect, which probably isn't too out of line.
There's a possibility that the kind of person who would have a cat probably has some lifestyle feature that improves his/her cardiovascular health.
If there is a cause-and-effect it may not be that whole stress-reducing thing of having a purring creature in your lap. It could be something weird, like cats carrying some microorganism that has a positive effect on humans' health. Stranger things have happened.
Or it could be that instead of dying of stroke or heart disease, cat owners die of something else, like falling down the stairs tripping over the kitten and breaking their neck as my BIL did (he recovered).
Anyway, I knew there had to be a reason why we have these little - uh - darlings.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Friday, September 28, 2007
Things are looking up, maybe, or maybe I'm just kind of a delusional idiot.
The sale of the business is still being held up. In the meantime, the owners, who had decided to shut us right down, found that they still needed some money coming in, so they are running a portion of the plant with a skeleton crew. On that crew is me. (And some other folks.) My pay is less, but so are my hours. I'm spending virtually all my work time in the lab, which is where all the fun is anyway. And supposedly this keeps the health insurance in place, and so forth. The hypothetical buyers relayed a request for me to be working on the quality program during my truncated workweek. I find that very encouraging.
R and I decided to go through with selling the house in Memphis. It closed yesterday. We got a little money out of it, not a whole bunch, but I'm thrilled to get that done because ...
... yesterday the Memphis newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, reported that the Memphis metro area now leads the nation in violent crime. I can just imagine everybody's property values plummeting in the wake of that report. I called my former boss in Memphis this afternoon and told him I was not coming back. It feels a little strange to do that with my job in question here and R between jobs himself, but I actually have a sense of freedom now. If this thing in Florida doesn't work out there is an entire continent for me to look for a job in. I will always wish Memphis the best and look for every hopeful sign, but it's going to take some time for that city to turn around and it will have to do it without me and my family.
What else. Ummm ... Bonnie (cat) found a chameleon in the yard the other day. I've never seen one change colors before and wasn't totally sure that they really do. But I saw it.
The sale of the business is still being held up. In the meantime, the owners, who had decided to shut us right down, found that they still needed some money coming in, so they are running a portion of the plant with a skeleton crew. On that crew is me. (And some other folks.) My pay is less, but so are my hours. I'm spending virtually all my work time in the lab, which is where all the fun is anyway. And supposedly this keeps the health insurance in place, and so forth. The hypothetical buyers relayed a request for me to be working on the quality program during my truncated workweek. I find that very encouraging.
R and I decided to go through with selling the house in Memphis. It closed yesterday. We got a little money out of it, not a whole bunch, but I'm thrilled to get that done because ...
... yesterday the Memphis newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, reported that the Memphis metro area now leads the nation in violent crime. I can just imagine everybody's property values plummeting in the wake of that report. I called my former boss in Memphis this afternoon and told him I was not coming back. It feels a little strange to do that with my job in question here and R between jobs himself, but I actually have a sense of freedom now. If this thing in Florida doesn't work out there is an entire continent for me to look for a job in. I will always wish Memphis the best and look for every hopeful sign, but it's going to take some time for that city to turn around and it will have to do it without me and my family.
What else. Ummm ... Bonnie (cat) found a chameleon in the yard the other day. I've never seen one change colors before and wasn't totally sure that they really do. But I saw it.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
OK, I'm not dead.
I don't have internet at home yet, for various reasons, and I don't want to do frivolous things at work even at off-hours. So I'm at the library.
We drove to our new home on July 20 and 21. Packed a U-Haul with stuff, and if we had it to do over we'd have given ourselves a lot more time to do that. We wanted to pack the stuff ourselves b/c having been at that house for 17 years, we had a lot of stuff, and I didn't want to bring old crap to Florida. Wanted to choose everything that went. That part was OK, but physically packing the truck took forever.
The drive was mostly OK. The cats started out in their carriers but F let them out to roam the car after a bit and they were fine except for wanting to get under my feet, which I could not allow. We had a small-dog carrier for the tomcat and a medium-size for the girls to share, so that they had room to move around. Riding in a car is a bit different from being shipped, so it wasn't necessary to keep them very still, only confined. At one point Molly was ready for a nap and she crawled into her and Bonnie's carrier and sacked out. Bonnie chose that moment to try to get under my feet (again) and I fished her out and threw her over into the back seat. F shoved her in the carrier with Molly. She didn't want to go but wasn't given a choice. Himself was in the passenger side foot area (can't think what to call that) and felt that he wanted a change of scenery so he clambered arthritically over into the back seat, bypassed his carrier, and crawled in with the girls. F tucked Molly's dangling leg in and closed the door and we had peace for a while.
They were very good in the motel. Freaked, but no barfing, meowing, or peeing on the carpet.
I'm skipping over a lot of stuff.
We got to our rental house in the evening, put the cats' things out, went over some stuff with the landlord, and were starving and snapping at each other and couldn't agree on what to eat for supper. I made an executive decision, pulled into a grocery store, and went to the deli and bought roast beef sandwiches, chips, and drinks. We sat on the fireplace ledge and ate and became human.
Returned the U-Haul on the morning of the 22nd, and took R to the airport to fly back to Memphis.
He said it was traumatic, coming home to that empty house. There was a bit of furniture left, b/c he had to stay there, after all, and F before she went back to school, but it looked like it had been ransacked.
F stayed with me until last Saturday, when she flew back to Memphis by herself (new experience for her) and was moved down to school by her dad on Tuesday. She went back early b/c she'd signed up for Welcome Week and had to get trained.
So it's just me and the cats, until R gets the house sold and can join me.
What other adventures can I report?
My boss and I went to Boston on the 25th and 26th, to meet the folks at the home office. The office is right on the harbor, at the USS Constitution. My boss and I walked out in the morning to look at the boats and all, saw about a million jellyfish (very cool) and were there to see the cannon they fire every morning at 8:00 and their flag ceremony, Star Spangled Banner and all.
And I saw the space shuttle go up the other night - when was that? It's all running together. I stayed at work a bit late and pulled up nasa.gov to see the countdown, waited until about 30 seconds to launch, and walked out into the parking lot and looked to the northeast. Because the sun was behind me, it glinted very nicely on the shuttle and I saw it move slowly up into the clouds. I'm saving that memory for "why am I here" moments.
Because I am having them, and I anticipated that I would. I gave this move a lot of thought, and R and I discussed it at length, but that doesn't keep me from questioning myself at odd moments. I miss him a lot. If the house doesn't sell PDQ we may button it up and let the realtor handle showing it and all, and he can come on and join me. There's a lot of exploring that I want to do on the weekends when I have time, and I don't want to do it alone.
The job is - well, I'll save that for another time. Everyone is being very nice.
I don't have internet at home yet, for various reasons, and I don't want to do frivolous things at work even at off-hours. So I'm at the library.
We drove to our new home on July 20 and 21. Packed a U-Haul with stuff, and if we had it to do over we'd have given ourselves a lot more time to do that. We wanted to pack the stuff ourselves b/c having been at that house for 17 years, we had a lot of stuff, and I didn't want to bring old crap to Florida. Wanted to choose everything that went. That part was OK, but physically packing the truck took forever.
The drive was mostly OK. The cats started out in their carriers but F let them out to roam the car after a bit and they were fine except for wanting to get under my feet, which I could not allow. We had a small-dog carrier for the tomcat and a medium-size for the girls to share, so that they had room to move around. Riding in a car is a bit different from being shipped, so it wasn't necessary to keep them very still, only confined. At one point Molly was ready for a nap and she crawled into her and Bonnie's carrier and sacked out. Bonnie chose that moment to try to get under my feet (again) and I fished her out and threw her over into the back seat. F shoved her in the carrier with Molly. She didn't want to go but wasn't given a choice. Himself was in the passenger side foot area (can't think what to call that) and felt that he wanted a change of scenery so he clambered arthritically over into the back seat, bypassed his carrier, and crawled in with the girls. F tucked Molly's dangling leg in and closed the door and we had peace for a while.
They were very good in the motel. Freaked, but no barfing, meowing, or peeing on the carpet.
I'm skipping over a lot of stuff.
We got to our rental house in the evening, put the cats' things out, went over some stuff with the landlord, and were starving and snapping at each other and couldn't agree on what to eat for supper. I made an executive decision, pulled into a grocery store, and went to the deli and bought roast beef sandwiches, chips, and drinks. We sat on the fireplace ledge and ate and became human.
Returned the U-Haul on the morning of the 22nd, and took R to the airport to fly back to Memphis.
He said it was traumatic, coming home to that empty house. There was a bit of furniture left, b/c he had to stay there, after all, and F before she went back to school, but it looked like it had been ransacked.
F stayed with me until last Saturday, when she flew back to Memphis by herself (new experience for her) and was moved down to school by her dad on Tuesday. She went back early b/c she'd signed up for Welcome Week and had to get trained.
So it's just me and the cats, until R gets the house sold and can join me.
What other adventures can I report?
My boss and I went to Boston on the 25th and 26th, to meet the folks at the home office. The office is right on the harbor, at the USS Constitution. My boss and I walked out in the morning to look at the boats and all, saw about a million jellyfish (very cool) and were there to see the cannon they fire every morning at 8:00 and their flag ceremony, Star Spangled Banner and all.
And I saw the space shuttle go up the other night - when was that? It's all running together. I stayed at work a bit late and pulled up nasa.gov to see the countdown, waited until about 30 seconds to launch, and walked out into the parking lot and looked to the northeast. Because the sun was behind me, it glinted very nicely on the shuttle and I saw it move slowly up into the clouds. I'm saving that memory for "why am I here" moments.
Because I am having them, and I anticipated that I would. I gave this move a lot of thought, and R and I discussed it at length, but that doesn't keep me from questioning myself at odd moments. I miss him a lot. If the house doesn't sell PDQ we may button it up and let the realtor handle showing it and all, and he can come on and join me. There's a lot of exploring that I want to do on the weekends when I have time, and I don't want to do it alone.
The job is - well, I'll save that for another time. Everyone is being very nice.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
I had A Thought today.
I think we can teach the cats to read. No, I'm serious. F needs to do this for her senior project.
Here's the plan. We'll make two posters, maybe about the size of a piece of copy paper. Each will have a single symbol on it, something large and simple like an X or an O. Maybe an X and an I. Something like that. We'll show one or the other poster to the cats at various random times, but one poster will be followed by treats and the other one will not. The cats will learn to interpret these symbols as meaning "I will get a treat" or "nothing will happen." To verify this, the treats will have to be given in a certain spot. We'll know the cats can read when they see the treat poster and run to that spot.
What do you think?
I think we can teach the cats to read. No, I'm serious. F needs to do this for her senior project.
Here's the plan. We'll make two posters, maybe about the size of a piece of copy paper. Each will have a single symbol on it, something large and simple like an X or an O. Maybe an X and an I. Something like that. We'll show one or the other poster to the cats at various random times, but one poster will be followed by treats and the other one will not. The cats will learn to interpret these symbols as meaning "I will get a treat" or "nothing will happen." To verify this, the treats will have to be given in a certain spot. We'll know the cats can read when they see the treat poster and run to that spot.
What do you think?
Sunday, January 07, 2007
In Sunday School this morning we talked about faith. Among other things, we discussed how one maintains faith in God when really bad things happen. I remember that C.S. Lewis talked about that in terms of taking a cat to the vet; if I'm not mistaken, this is in A Grief Observed.
We took little Molly to the vet yesterday morning and had to leave her a couple of hours. Molly had a UTI several months ago, so when we feared that one of the cats was having symptoms of such we immediately decided to get Molly checked out. (That's the editorial "we" there, in case you are wondering.) It turns out that she's fine, to our relief. The vet tech said her urine was "beautiful" which I doubt was true in the aesthetic sense, but I know what she meant. But when we went to pick her up, it took them a while to bring her out. I think she was fighting them. Molly's pretty scrappy. One of the techs finally brought her out with a towel wrapped around her and covering her head.
"Don't make her look at dogs," I joked, some fine specimens just entering the waiting room. But the tech had no intention of trying to remove the towel from Molly and in fact, didn't want the towel back. Molly was growling until I took her in my arms and spoke to her. When she heard my voice, she pushed her head between my arm and my body and grew quiet. I held her like a baby all the way home as she burrowed as close to me as she could get.
The point of all of this is that you can't explain to a cat why you are taking her to the vet. If you tried for a million years, you could not make your cat understand. As Lewis put it, the cat cannot differentiate between the vet and the vivisectionist. From Molly's point of view we delivered her over to strangers, who frightened her and probably caused her some pain. Certainly they made her smell bad, no small consideration for a cat. But even though you know your cat can't understand why, you do what you have to do for your cat's sake, and hope that her love and trust are strong enough to overcome her anger and fear. And this is actually not a bad analogy for our inability to look at things from God's eternal perspective. I think that when we get to heaven, all kinds of things will become knowable to us. Paul said in I Cor. 13 that we have imperfect knowledge now but then we will see everything clearly.
We took little Molly to the vet yesterday morning and had to leave her a couple of hours. Molly had a UTI several months ago, so when we feared that one of the cats was having symptoms of such we immediately decided to get Molly checked out. (That's the editorial "we" there, in case you are wondering.) It turns out that she's fine, to our relief. The vet tech said her urine was "beautiful" which I doubt was true in the aesthetic sense, but I know what she meant. But when we went to pick her up, it took them a while to bring her out. I think she was fighting them. Molly's pretty scrappy. One of the techs finally brought her out with a towel wrapped around her and covering her head.
"Don't make her look at dogs," I joked, some fine specimens just entering the waiting room. But the tech had no intention of trying to remove the towel from Molly and in fact, didn't want the towel back. Molly was growling until I took her in my arms and spoke to her. When she heard my voice, she pushed her head between my arm and my body and grew quiet. I held her like a baby all the way home as she burrowed as close to me as she could get.
The point of all of this is that you can't explain to a cat why you are taking her to the vet. If you tried for a million years, you could not make your cat understand. As Lewis put it, the cat cannot differentiate between the vet and the vivisectionist. From Molly's point of view we delivered her over to strangers, who frightened her and probably caused her some pain. Certainly they made her smell bad, no small consideration for a cat. But even though you know your cat can't understand why, you do what you have to do for your cat's sake, and hope that her love and trust are strong enough to overcome her anger and fear. And this is actually not a bad analogy for our inability to look at things from God's eternal perspective. I think that when we get to heaven, all kinds of things will become knowable to us. Paul said in I Cor. 13 that we have imperfect knowledge now but then we will see everything clearly.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
We have heat now. They finished installing the new furnace on Friday. I knew they would, because the sun came out and it was nice and warm. At work, walking between buildings, I remarked that the furnace must be just about finished up because otherwise it would have still been rainy and miserable.
It sounds very different when it comes on. Molly looks all around, trying to figure out what that new sound is. She is so observant and perceptive.
Things have been irritating me the last few days. After I finished ranting Thursday evening I asked R if he thought I had PMS. Startled, he replied that he certainly hoped so! It feels just like it but I'm not scheduled for it yet. A person at work offered his unasked-for opinion that something I was trying to do would not work ... he offered it repeatedly. Repeatedly. Irritated the living stew out of me. As it happened, what I wanted to do did work, but if it hadn't, it would have been no great loss; I'd have gone another way. Either way, it was none of his concern.
Then I encounted a conversation in which it was explained to a person that she should never tell an adoptive parent, who is discussing all her plans for being the perfect mother, that the child she was getting was a "lucky kid". Wrong! Bad! Dang, I hate that kind of thing. It's like those lists of rules Ann Landers used to publish, where people would write in to explain to the world how to talk to X person who was dealing with Y (divorce, cancer, bankruptcy, etc.): DO say this. DON'T say that. You'd think you have to memorize a million rules that some stranger dreamed up, just to know how to behave like a decent person. As if everybody wants to be treated the same way everybody else in that situation wants to, anyway.
And then people who pay no attention to their surroundings. Stop cold in a doorway to dig around in their purse. Park their car IN the drive when there are plenty of empty parking places - and this is a car with a handicapped plate, which always has the best places empty and waiting anyway.
So I stayed inside yesterday with the door shut. Took a nice long nap. I had a lot of stuff that needed to get done, but I didn't do any of it. R thought I needed to get out, so I went to supper with him and that was OK. Sometimes I feel like F, I have a love/hate relationship with the fact that I share the planet with other people.
It sounds very different when it comes on. Molly looks all around, trying to figure out what that new sound is. She is so observant and perceptive.
Things have been irritating me the last few days. After I finished ranting Thursday evening I asked R if he thought I had PMS. Startled, he replied that he certainly hoped so! It feels just like it but I'm not scheduled for it yet. A person at work offered his unasked-for opinion that something I was trying to do would not work ... he offered it repeatedly. Repeatedly. Irritated the living stew out of me. As it happened, what I wanted to do did work, but if it hadn't, it would have been no great loss; I'd have gone another way. Either way, it was none of his concern.
Then I encounted a conversation in which it was explained to a person that she should never tell an adoptive parent, who is discussing all her plans for being the perfect mother, that the child she was getting was a "lucky kid". Wrong! Bad! Dang, I hate that kind of thing. It's like those lists of rules Ann Landers used to publish, where people would write in to explain to the world how to talk to X person who was dealing with Y (divorce, cancer, bankruptcy, etc.): DO say this. DON'T say that. You'd think you have to memorize a million rules that some stranger dreamed up, just to know how to behave like a decent person. As if everybody wants to be treated the same way everybody else in that situation wants to, anyway.
And then people who pay no attention to their surroundings. Stop cold in a doorway to dig around in their purse. Park their car IN the drive when there are plenty of empty parking places - and this is a car with a handicapped plate, which always has the best places empty and waiting anyway.
So I stayed inside yesterday with the door shut. Took a nice long nap. I had a lot of stuff that needed to get done, but I didn't do any of it. R thought I needed to get out, so I went to supper with him and that was OK. Sometimes I feel like F, I have a love/hate relationship with the fact that I share the planet with other people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)