Musings on a Small Life

I'm going to borrow my co-worker's dog crate next week, since there will be lots of room and I might be able to entice Toby into it with nip and silver vine more easily. And the perfect, tactful way of addressing integration just popped into my head: When (please let it be "when" and not "if") I get Toby to the clinic, I'll ask her if she'd like to borrow the crate for a couple of weeks to keep Toby confined, to give him time to adjust to his new home. My co-worker is fine with that, as she doesn't use the crate anyway. I think that's a much better solution than calling this woman up and asking if she knows how to integrate a feral cat, something that easily could put her on the defensive and make her wish she hadn't offered to take Toby in the first place. Sometimes--just sometimes--I have a "brilliant" idea. No more posts today, I promise. And no more posts about Toby until it's a done deal, however long t...

In response to a few comments: This person, out of the kindness of heart, has offered to take Toby to her family's barn. No, she doesn't care what he looks like, because it really doesn't matter, she'll take him regardless, out of compassion, to give him a chance. He's not going to be a house cat. And frankly, I don't really feel I have the right to tell her what to do with him and how to do it. I would hope that, since it's a vet family (father is the co-owner of the clinic) and since they also take unadoptable cats from our local shelter, they'd be savvy enough to understand that cats are territorial and will head for "home" if not acclimated. I can call today to ask if he'll be confined somehow and allowed to adjust. But if she says no, what then?  One alternative is to continue as is, with my cats being held hostage in the house because I can't let them out safely, with Toby always on the fence, looking like he'l...

I had emailed the president of the boys' shelter last night, asking about barn homes, naively thinking they'd have a list of people who take cats for barns. They do not and all the spaces at various barns are filled, he replied. So I've been very discouraged all morning. On a whim I called the clinic that neutered him in the first place, to ask if they happened to know of anyone who would take poor Toby for a barn. I chatted with the tech who is the daughter of the clinic owner, and she said she'd take him. They have a 20-horse barn and all their outdoor cats are rescues, as are all their indoor cats. I chatted with her for a bit, told her about Toby and why I was trying to find a home for him (btw Nicki was fighting with him through the fence last night, I was stressed, Derry was stressed....), etc. I told her I could send her a few pics of Tobes, but she said she didn't care, it didn't matter what he looked like. So. Getting a hold of a ca...

Nothing profound today. We're in the path of some nasty winter weather: Going home this aft and getting in tomorrow AM could be "fun." On the up side, there are only 51 days till the Spring equinox. Yippee! *** Unless something unforeseen occurs, I'm taking Friday off this week so I can haul Nicki's furry butt in to the vet for his routine anal gland expression. Poor boy; don't tell him! *** I was chatting with a friend in Montreal yesterday, found out her younger brother (who's about my age and lives in Vancouver, BC) was attacked (unprovoked) in his apartment building corridor a week ago, by someone mentally unstable with a history of violence. Unfortunately, it looks like he'll lose the sight in his right eye. He's already had 6 hours of surgery on it and needs more, but the very best case scenario would be that he still can see fuzzy shapes with the eye. Worst case scenario is that he requires a prosthetic. From the sounds of th...

I snapped these early this morning, before 8AM. He always looks so surly to me, but of course he's really not. I wish someone in our complex would have fallen in love with him and have been able to give him a good outdoor/indoor home, but I don't think that miracle will be granted to him. *** I had checked the MLS listings for our city yesterday and found that unit #6 is up for sale. It's across the street and a few doors up. The people at #8 seem rather fond of screaming at each other outside, at night (as they did last night, around 10:30PM), which made me wonder if that's the reason the people at #6 are leaving. Hey, maybe the people who buy (or rent) will like cats. Highly unlikely, but I still can hope for the very best for Toby, for his Highest Good.  :-)

Apparently it's going to be a string of "threes" in the matter of home repairs. This, mercifully, was another quick and inexpensive one, just a matter of replacing two light switches. My upper hallway light switches (top and bottom of the stairs) occasionally have sizzled and sparked a bit since the mid to late fall. I've not used the light much, worried about a short in the wiring and of course a fire. Earlier this week, one of the switches gave a big zzzzzzztttttttt when I turned it off, and I got so freaked out that I shut off the breaker and left it off.  It turns out, though, that this is a common occurrence in older switches, and it was an easy fix. Even better, the husband of the woman who sits beside me at work is an electrician. They both stopped in after work this afternoon and he replaced them for me, a quick five-minute job. So all it cost was the $4 for the switches. *Whew* Thank you , Universe. May all our repairs be so easy to fix and c...

Beloved Chumley, who passed to the "Bridge" six years ago tonight. Now gone longer than he was with me.  His memorial page link is under the blog header, for anyone who actually hasn't read it. (Enlarge to read text) Please wait for me, Chum.

[This post has turned out to be much longer than anticipated, so please don't feel obliged to read it, let alone leave a comment!] So I was rowing last evening (usually it's an AM thing for me, more energy then) and Nicki came down to the basement to keep me company. Wish I had had my camera nearby. I don't know what was in his head, but he was meowing like a fool (typical) and looking to jump up onto the plumbing pipes again. I recently chased him off a couple of times, with a broom, so he didn't actually make it up there last night. But then he zoomed around, meowing and jumping at the concrete walls and even tried to climb the furnace. Full of beans and too cold to burn off the energy outside, I guess. I confess, though, that when he tried to jump on the furnace (there's no real ledge to it and of course he couldn't find purchase anywhere) I wondered if I tend to overestimate his cleverness. :-D Pic from last January, because I've not...

I had a split second of crystal clarity at 4AM today, waking up. It was "OMG, my life's depressing."  Gee, thanks, Self. Just the sort of inspiration to help me get the day started. I'm chalking that up to hormones. I chalk everything up to hormones. Or whacky brain chemistry.  :-p Something inspiring that did catch my eye yesterday was the post at Marc and Angel Hack Life . Number 3 from Eight Dangerous Things We Teach Each Other : 3. You need more to be happy. You are doing just fine.  You don’t need any more or any less to be happy. Life would be so different if you stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your perception with their words and opinions.  Happiness is derived from the way you see your own life; it depends on your thoughts, not on what you have or what you do not have, or what other people think about what you have.  Read The How of Happiness . I like this, because we so often get caught up in feeling that we should b...

In a word, freezing . (Enlarge to see the windchills.) The boys spent the weekend doing a lot of this: Derry on the left,  Nicki on the right. My "good news" (i.e. happy) for the day, besides the half chocolate chip cookie I scarfed (it was a big cookie) probably will be long johns. Fifty-eight days till the Spring equinox, people. Stay warm if you're in a cold winter climate...or cool if you're enduring summer's heat.

I snapped this pic yesterday on the way to work, along a side street as I was making my way to the office. A bit late for holiday lights, but very pretty! That was my main "good news" (i.e. "happy") item for yesterday, seeing it. Peace. And purrs from the boys.  :-)

Snapped this morning. Derry's on the top of the cat tree, Nicki's below. And Toby's perched up on my fence, back to the window.  Have a good day, everyone. As the boys "say," purrs and peace.  :-)

Or is that "ineptitude"? I was in the office kitchen a bit earlier (one small kitchen on each floor) and someone came in from another department. I don't know her name, but she's obviously up the food chain. Exquisitely dressed, a seemingly nice woman, attractive, early to mid-50s, I'd say. I complimented her on the royal blue suit jacket she was wearing, such a gorgeous colour, etc. She said blues are her favourite and she has all shades in her wardrobe, but that she finds she has to go to Toronto to shop for the clothes she likes--and didn't I find that the case too? Uh...I'm wearing Value Village cords, a VV long-sleeved cotton tee-shirt and a VV cardigan. I was caught totally off guard and just blurted out that no, I don't shop in Toronto, that that's beyond my budget. Oh, how to be socially inept! I can give lessons. She went on to say how much women can spend on clothing, hair, makeup, etc. and I just looked at her, in my hand-me-down cl...

You know this is neighbour-related! The boy had a doozy of a meltdown last night, over a school issue. I grabbed my camera to record the sound--it's been a while since I've bothered. Well, I was just listening to it, with ear buds in, and heard clearly what I didn't last night: the boy screaming that someone female (teacher??) could suck his c**k. I heard him last night shouting over and over that he didn't give a sh*t, but missed that part. He's 8! I don't know why anything that happens over there still should surprise me, but my jaw hit the table, listening to that, completely appalled. Of course he wasn't reprimanded for that language, either. Anyway. My "good news" item for the day? My admin counterpart in one of the units that occupies the same office space took mercy on me today and shared her stash of chocolate. This was around 2:30PM when I was feeling rather desperate. LOL. So I've jotted that down on my slip ...

I heard about "the good news jar" on CBC's Fresh Air radio program yesterday morning. The equivalent of what I call "happys" or "strawberries." Except that you write your one good thing about the day on a piece of paper and put it in a jar, to read at the end of the month or perhaps at the end of the year. Image snagged from the web I love this idea! I used to write my "happys" for the day in a journal, but have fallen out of that habit. I even had started a separate page on this blog, back in August, for "happys," but didn't keep it up for long. Perhaps it's time to take it up again...or even start my own jar! My "good news" a.k.a. "happy" for this rainy, mild Sunday? Going back to bed at 6AM and snuggling under the covers for a few hours, with the boys beside me.  My "good news" a.k.a "happy" for yesterday, other than the January thaw? Getting home from errands at 10AM an...

Nicki this afternoon. I was reading beside him on the couch at the time. Silly boy, forgetting to put his tongue back in his mouth. Why are they so irresistible when they do that?  :-)

"There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter. One is the January thaw. The other is the seed catalogues." -Hal Borland I haven't any seed catalogues, but we do have a bit of a January thaw. The boys, yesterday afternoon after work, in the muck. I always shovel the middle for them, so they can roam around, hence the sloppy mess surrounded by the diminishing snow banks.  Nicki, checking things out.  Derry  Nicki again And Derry, heading back inside. Tomorrow is supposed to be quite mild, +7C, and Sunday +6C, before temps dip down again. I'll take it, even though it makes winter even uglier in the city, with all the grimy snowbanks. And I'm so thankful we don't live in St. John's,  NF, or the eastern part of NF, as they are in the middle of a blizzard right now, apparently, with up to 75 cms of snow expected by the end of the day. That's about 30 inches of snow, folks. Makes the approximate 50 cms...

So far I've had no luck finding progesterone cream here. Supposedly it can be purchased at one's health food store, but the best known shop in our city doesn't carry it. They have a few other options for PMS and menopause, some herbal and some homeopathic. I did find this: Though I'm more than skeptical it will make any difference at all, I'll try it for a month. There's also a menopause formula, which I subsequently saw on-line, though they didn't carry it. Another store might, however. My thought process was that not only are my hormones out of whack even more than usual now, but that my home life also is very stressful (for me, maybe not for someone else in the same circumstances). Plus it was on sale. And it can't hurt. Might not help, but won't hurt to try. And if I don't notice a difference, I'll move on to something else. Would that "serenity" were that easy to achieve. Ha!

I knew I'd pay dearly for the 10-day absence of the neighbour mother and spawn, and so I (we--me and the cats) have, all weekend. Mostly the girl's shrieking at the top of her lungs, either happily or unhappily, the foot pounding all through their unit (the kids must be allowed to wear shoes inside) and then the boy's complete melt down last night. That was expected, as he always has one after visiting his grandmother, where, I imagine, they were. Expected, but still not fun. Oh, yes, payback's a bitch. The boys on Saturday, during a quiet time, enjoying the sunshine. Yes, it's very bad form to snap pics into the sun, I know! Derry   Nicki

Not fours. Small toilet repair needed today: The lever gave out last night, but fortunately it was a quick $7 repair. And yes, the inside of the tank looks pretty icky; it's the original toilet, must be about 25 years old now. Every now and again I pour some bleach in (probably ought not to!), but it doesn't seem to make any difference. So that's the kitchen sink pipe, the washer, the hot water tank (thermostat) and the toilet lever, all quite recent. Gosh, I can hardy wait (slight sarcasm) for the next thing. I just hope it'll be easy too. LOL. The family returned yesterday evening, by the way. I've not heard the boy (assume he's there) or even the mother, but I've heard the little girl playing. She sounds happy (and loud--lol), and I marvel at how oblivious she is to all the undercurrents in her family. Or at least consciously oblivious. She's so young, though, not quite 7 years old. I was oblivious to the tension and unhappiness betw...