I'm Finally Going and I Hate ALL My Cats

I've booked my tickets for the left coast.

Some of you might think that was the hardest part (it took long enough!), but no - coordinating four families, several businesses, new jobs and time off is the sticky wicket. The thing I do ALL DAY LONG at work (scheduling and logistics), is now what I have to do on vacation. Ergh.
But I'll be there for three weeks, so hopefully, and without much stress, all can be seen.

I'm excited about seeing The Boy (2007) and meeting The Girl in person. It will be the first time since 1992 that my sister and I have seen each other without a family sickness drama and/or death. Looking forward to being with my now all grown up niece and meeting my two grand nephews and my nephew in law.
And working in a visit to Andrea and Alice. Fingers crossed!

The Old Sea Dog is in the mix as well. It's been forty years this year since the summer of the tent and my youthful glow, amoung other things, is much diminished. But I suppose his is too, right? Meanwhile, it feels like I just purchased a house or a car. As in, I want to vomit and exclaim "What have I done?!" over and over.

Moving on...I hate ALL my cats. Oscar is still peeing on stuff that Harrah's husband John touched over a month ago. COME ON! Finn, no matter how many scratcher barricades are set up around the chair (also covered in Sticky PAWS tape. So attractive.), keeps finding that one inch that isn't covered and scratching there. And Lillie, well Lillie has a big mouth that never shuts up.

So there you have it.

If you need me, I'll be clothes shopping and trying to decide what shoes to take.

Third Post of the Day

It's a damn record.

I've been sick for a week.
Weirdly sick.
I feel okay enough to go to work, but have a horrible chest rattling consumptive cough.
Occasionally I break out in a cold clammy sweat.
I don't feel like eating. Gin and Tonics make me feel better though.

I have a new pottery BF. Joseph Sand.
http://blog.josephsandpottery.com/

Okay. I'm done now.

Here We Are

You know what's hard? Getting all my introverted thoughts (of which there are many, let me assure you) sorted out into some type of coherency and on this blog.

It's like a tornado: cows and houses and wicked witches and bicycles and your little dog too, all swirling around up there. Sigh.

Saw "The Lunchbox". Be still my heart; what a lovely movie. The friend who saw it with me didn't like the ending, but I found the entire thing - stem to stern - absolutely delightful.
It's billed as a romantic comedy, but trust me, it is as far away from the disgusting bullshit saccharine type American rom-coms as can anything can possibly be. Thank god.
Of course, if you like American rom-coms - sorry; don't go see it, you'll hate it. And maybe hate me for recommending it. We can't have that.

I don't have an ending to this post. It's been in the drafts section for weeks. I'm just going to post the damn thing and make up for the month and a half I haven't.

Not Last Night, But The Night Before

Twenty-four robbers came knocking at my door.

Well, really it was two weeks ago Friday, and probably only two robbers, but yes, some shithead(s) broke into my house.

I came home around 10:15 PM to find the violation. You know those studies that talk about how unobservant we are - even when we think we are observant? I can testify to the accuracy of them.

It DID feel wrong when I came in the house. The obvious thing was no cat greetings. My gaze swung right; there was Finn sitting petrified under the end table. No sign of the other two. In slow motion, one by one, things popped into consciousness:
The laundry closet door ajar (my first thought - those damn cats!).
The open drawers in the kitchen island (my second thought - that damn Finnbarr!).
The out of place bench that is usually under the kitchen window (my third thought - what kind of skirmish did those blasted cats have!?).
Finally, the substance on top of the now askew bench which my brain languidly identified as broken glass (my fourth thought - did those fucking cats have a kegger?!).
Then and only then did the light bulb come on.

It took until the NEXT DAY for me to realize the biggest key that something was wrong - all the lights were on. So much for observant.

I called the sheriff (911 doesn't work for the county. I mean it works - in that when you call they transfer you to the sheriff's dept.), then Jim and Daphne. Jim made a Wal-mart run for heavy duty tarp and tape, Daphne stayed on the phone with me until the deputy got there (sheriff's dept. didn't). Texted the OSD who promptly called.
The deputy was quite funny and very kind. We discerned the only things missing were a pearl and gold bracelet and a pillowcase (to haul off all the loot presumably). We found Oscar in my bathtub (the extra scary Apocalypse Is HERE NOW hiding place); Lillie was under the guest bed. They were all fine, except for the heart palpitations.

As he left we had a little laugh at my now ironic doormat:

He joked that I needed to move that around back. 

OSD stayed on the phone with me until 3:00 AM my time (he's on the west coast time), which was quite kind. 

Over two weeks later, I still don't have a new window, not completely. They broke the new one as they were installing it. 

That happened.

Maybe Monday. But actually, I'm starting to like the look of tarp...

Classic, no? 

Bang a Gong

Yesterday the following sentence in this blog jumped out at me..."the man who loves me who was in my bed...".

Other sentences and feelings did too, but that one, that one banged my heart like a gong.

The man who loves me.  

It was easier when all those longings were locked down, (imagine the series of doors closing in "Get Smart"). Years of being shut down for very good reasons: parents and their illnesses, death, dementia, more death, grieving - those were the years of not wanting a relationship, and being really really fine with it. Really.


That season is over, and friends, waking up to the niggling, stinging pain of wanting is way more agonizing than I recall.

So there's the dating, in which I hope to find the man who loves me. It's akin to working out. I start out with the best intentions, then there's pain (rejection), so I stop, rest, go again. The going again is the kicker.

I feel like a bivalve, opencloseopenclose. (Remember, no pearls before swine.)

Thus it goes.

As a side note, today would have been Mom's 78th birthday. I miss her.

What's To Become of Me?

I imagine this is the question my blog is asking. A month between posts...even after promising to do better.

I don't know little blog. I don't know.

Perhaps part of the problem is that I have not had a full pajama day in weeks.
After ten years I finally drank the Church of College Basketball Kool-Aid. My favorite - UNC women's basketball. (Go Heels!) Those darn Sunday games take up valuable PJD real estate.

We've had snow, ice, more ice, and there's more ice on the way. In between 70 degree days. Last week it went from 33 to 74 in one day. Another day it went from 55 to 24 in several hours.
It is hell getting dressed in the morning. No matter what you put on, it's wrong.

I feel like I've injured just about every part of myself. Current injury is the left Achilles tendon. Here I am, trying to do the right thing by working out and my body just keeps crapping out on me. It's ever so annoying.
What is it about an injury that makes people want to tell you horror stories? It's the reason I don't go to baby showers anymore. It turns into the Top This Length of Labor or Biggest Episiotomy Ever. Ugh.

Dating has slowed to a crawl. Thank god I have women's basketball to occupy my time.

Listening to Neko Case non stop. I like singer/songwriters - poets who can turn a phrase - "Damp and bruised by strangers kisses on my lips." Or "I'm so tired, I wish I was the moon tonight."

Anyway, that's it for now little blog.
Sleep tight.

They Lord, Y'all

This dating thing gets more interesting...or creepy, as time goes on.

Contacted today by the N'awlins person I had coffee with a few months ago.
One time.
Coffee.
Daytime coffee.

He wanted to know if I would be, if I didn't already have such a friend, his f__k buddy. (Anon CP's brother suggested I reply "You know I'm a man, right?" LOL!)

What in the world possesses someone you had coffee with ONCE to ask you that?! It's quite a leap.

Another Southern boy (SC) called me Monday to tell me a "funny family story" involving masturbation and a 65 year old aunt.

Honey, in my part of the South, we call that child abuse. (See Florida darlin'? You don't have all the weird.)

Then a friend pointed out that maybe that never happened, but perhaps there was a fantasy element involved. And me being a bit older than  him... oh my god. So creepy.

I have higher expectations for Southern boys and they are disappointing me mightily this week.

The one that's behaving most chivalrously at the moment is the Mark Ruffalo look alike.
A damn Yankee.
Go figure.

Where are the normal people?!

This post BEGS for some music, but I am stumped.