When I see a man wearing pinstriped pants, my immediate gut reaction is distrust.
Weird, huh?
Filed under: Photos
I call this one “Resistance is futile, Humans.”
The look on the white cat’s face never fails to crack me the heck up.
My grandmother, who is 80 and extremely healthy, is in the hospital. She’s ok, and thanks to the insulin gods will probably be in even better shape when she’s released (hopefully today.)
I have an extremely low tolerance for stress. That’s one of the drawbacks of living a charmed life. Seriously. When something happens I’m a wreck. It’s not that I run around waving my hands in the air or anything. I handle whatever happens, but then afterward, physically I break down. Zits, sleep, generally flu-y feeling. My body is a mess right now. Probably the Snickers habit isn’t helping either.
Although I’m not Catholic, I try to observe Lent. Give something up, pick something up. So I’m giving up Snickers and all manner of food that I pick up after getting gas. Or pick up while standing in line at the grocery store (I will actually seek out a grocery line that has the GIANT Snickers bars. No Rice Krispy bars. That’s gonna hurt. But I’m also picking up something for 40 days – I’ve decided to pamper myself as much as possible until Easter. I know that sounds shallow, but egads – If someone I was close to was stressed out, I’d like to think I’d be there to soothe, or to help, or to do whatever they needed to get through the rough patch. I need to do the same thing for myself.
…but only for a second, since we all know that half of your body heat escapes through the top of your head.
- to the unknown but most appreciated snowblower operator who cleared my sidewalk while I was at work.
- to the makers of instant hot chocolate.
- to the travel gods, who allowed the VIM safe passage during a business trip.
- a second hats off to the travel gods who allowed me safe passage (after toying with me for about 15 minutes) after I tried to plow my car – my decidedly NOT 4-wheel drive Mazda – through a snowdrift knowing full well that there was no way I could get through. I watch stories on the news about people who do stuff like that…take unnecessary risks like driving through high water…and think, “what the hell were they thinking?” Yet I did the exact same thing. I wish I had the answer to “what the hell were they thinking?” but I still don’t know.
A coworker and I were talking about skiing, and I said that I had never cross-country skied. He was surprised, and said, “you’re a fit, healthy, outdoor activity kind of person…I can’t believe you don’t ski.” I realized that he met me post-weightloss. He has no idea that I used to weigh almost 100 lbs more than I do now. It was a short little throwaway kind of conversation, but it has stuck with me. I keep thinking about how we really don’t know the life experiences of many of the people that we interact with every day. Sort of the “walk a mile in their shoes” attitude. I also keep thinking, “wow. This is me now.” I still haven’t totally wrapped my head around the fact that I lost weight. I am in no way close to having an eating disorder (unless you count my unnatural love for instant mashed potatoes as a disorder), but I think I have a small understanding. What my coworker sees and what I see are two totally different things. Body image can be a bitch of a slippery slope.
Because we have no desire to be mature adults, The VIM and I settled in last night and watched a Weird Al video compilation. Although this is my favorite one, the song that was in my head when I woke up was the Flintstones/Red Hot Chili Peppers one. Remember that song?
Yabba Dabba Yabba Dabba Dabba Doo Now
It started when the bad cat was still a kitten. He NEEDED to get into the cupboards. Would not give up until he got the door open and got his little body up close to the pots and pans beside the stove, or the bottle of Windex under the sink. It wasn’t long before we realized that the only solution was child-proof latches. It was right around this time, too, that we had to put tension rods up at all of the sliding closet doors, or the cats would spend hours (in the middle of the night…ALWAYS in the middle of the night) opening and closing those doors.
Everything was ok for awhile (except that the cat could still get the door open an inch or so before the latch caught, then let the door SLAM back shut). Then he discovered that, hey! the bathroom has cupboards too! And there are QTips inside!
Since the child-proof locks wouldn’t work on those doors, the VIM put a rubberband around the two knobs. Again, the cat had to satisfy his bad self by getting the door open an inch or so, then slamming it back shut at 3am. That solution was great until the rubberband disappeared. We found it a few days later at the end of it’s journey in the litterbox.
So out came the bungee cords. “Try to get into the cupboards NOW, you little shit,” the VIM challenged.
4:30am this morning – familiar sound of cabinet door slamming and something being batted across the floor. Apparently he took the challenge to heart and has moved onto standing on the counter and getting into the higher cabinets. This morning he found the Halloween candy.
“How do you like THAT, Mr. Try to get into the cupboard NOW, you little shit?” he seemed to be saying. I swear, if that cat had a middle finger he would have flipped us off.
Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I’ve been quite proud of the way I’ve gotten control of my finances over the past year or two. Nothing big – I’m not living high on the hog or anything…not ready for an early retirement – but doing better. Part of doing better involves not using the credit card for anything other than dire emergencies, and I’m happy to report that there have been no dire emergencies for over 12 months. *whew* Oh, I still have a balance on the credit card, and there is still much gnashing of the teeth every time I open the statement and see the interest that I’m paying on stuff that I bought 4 years ago, but overall, things are financially ok.
And hey – how about those bank atm/credit-like cards? How convenient are they? I LOOOOOOVE my bank card. The convenience of a credit card (I rarely write checks anymore), but the money comes right out of the old checking account. Brilliant!
At least I thought so until I got the letter from the bank yesterday letting me know that my information was among the information stolen from TJX.
The fundraising event is over. Six months of planning, six hours of setting up, several scary minutes when things weren’t running smoothly. Then things WERE running smoothly. Then it was over. After a REALLY good night’s sleep, I used the rest of the extra built-up stressed-induced energy on Saturday to Get Things In Order. That left Sunday to do…nothing. NOTHING. NO PLANS. No to-do list. Nothing. And woowee baby, did I ever do nothing. I was the ChampEEN of Nothing. The Queen of Nothingness. Grand Poobah of Nada. Doer of Not-A-Damn-Thing.
I took an hour (or five or six) yesterday, and curled up under the fluffy white comforter. I propped myself up with some plump pillows, kept a cup of coffee close at hand, and read.
Because I could.
…right beyond my fingertips.
Last year I agreed to chair a fundraiser event committee for a group that I’m involved with. We’ve been meeting / planning for the past six months. I’m not the best person to chair such things. I’m very linear…give me a list of tasks to do, and I’ll complete them, one at a time, like a champ. The key there is “One. At. A. Time.” When there are 40 things going on, and 25 people needing me to be in 5 different places, and need 16 questions answered NOW…?
Jebus.
There have been some days in the past week or so where I really felt like leaving town with no forwarding address.
Then, last night, I had one final meeting. One of the other committee members wasn’t able to make it to the meeting – and lo and behold! The meeting ran smoothly. Everything got done without a bushel of blood, sweat, and (my) tears. And it wasn’t just me – the atmosphere was lighter. The moods were better. There was much less throwing hands in the air and saying “oh my God oh my God”. I had FUN. THIS, people, is what it was supposed to be about the entire time!
“Tell her.” you say.
“Tell her she just makes it worse.”
I would, but you see, she’s the person in charge of the entire organization.
Believe me, MUCH easier said than done.
