Category: life

The face of a criminal

Behold the face of the unrepentant criminal!

Last night, after giving kibble to the rabble rouser, I took a glass from the cabinet where we keep dishes, poured some soy milk, and went to the other room to enjoy the cold glass. I suppose I didn’t firmly close the cabinet door…fine.

Several minutes later, I heard some clanking noises from the kitchen and said to The Good Man, “what’s she into now?”

He said, “we didn’t leave any dishes on the counter, so I can’t imagine…”

I got up and went into the kitchen.

The Feline had made her way into the cabinet where the dishes are kept and was prowling around in there. When I barked, “get down!” as I do when she’s somewhere she ought not to be, she wigged out.

And in her haste to comply and quickly extricate her anything-but-lithe form from the shelves, she managed to shove the stack of bowls out of the cabinet and crashing, shattering to the floor.

She then scampered off a good distance, then stopped to lick her paw as though to say, “what?”

I found myself…mad. Really mad. Not kick the cat mad (in no way at all), but mad.

The Good Man rightfully reminded me that she’s a pet, you can’t reason with her like a child, that being mad is fine but really comes to no good end, that this is just what this particular feline does.

Sure. Didn’t help. I was still mad.

Not mad enough I didn’t let her sleep on top of me, like usual, but still, this morning…I’m peeved.

I’m probably more peeved at myself for leaving the door open than anything.

I once had a therapist say that being mad was more about yourself that it is about the person (feline) you are mad at.

So. Breathe in. Breathe out.

*sigh* So I guess this weekend we’ll set out into the world to buy a new set of bowls. Ain’t gonna be no soup in our house for a while!

Liar, liar, pants on fire

I have this friend. One of my best friends, actually, who is this little tiny bit of nuthin’. 90lbs soaking wet. She’s the sort of golden retrieverish person that will get up in the morning and go to spin class before breakfast, take an intense yoga lesson at lunch, and then go wind surfing for dinner.

She fancies ten hours bike rides. Yeah. That kind of gal.

But recently, at age 43, she’s found herself (happily) pregnant for the first time, and is very superstitious about this baby, so is, in her words, taking it easy.

Over dinner a few weeks back, my friend told me about this place she has been going hiking. “Oh, it’s great. They have a paved walking path, and it only has a few rolling hills. It’s great! I’ve been walking it a few times a week!”

Well, hey! To me, her elephantine friend who has been hitting the treadmill with vigor lately, “a few rolling hills” didn’t sound so bad!

Sunday I set out for The Dish, the landmark walking path on the campus of Stanford University.

Ok, fabulous. I got a much coveted parking spot, strapped on my shoes and off I went. The Good Man was up in SF with friends, so I was alone in this 3.7 mile mission.

I stopped by the ranger’s shack and he gave me a map, talked me through the path and off I went. Just to get to the trail, you have to walk up a large hill. Neato.

And so I get to the top of that first hill. Once there, you have to choose if you want to go clockwise or counterclockwise.

I looked to my left (to go clockwise). There was another steep hill. I looked to the right (to go counterclockwise) and there was a gradual decline. Hmm. So I decided I wanted to take the big hill at the first part of the walk while I still had energy, so I turned to the left and started walking.

And began gasping, sweating, became good friends with my heart beating out of my chest. I had to stop and put hands on knees multiple times (an elderly hunched backed woman strolled past me) and my lungs burned. Oh how they burned.

This was not a rolling hill. Neither was the next one. Or the next. Or the next several, actually.

Ok, fair enough, it was a beautiful walk. I saw deer, many ground squirrels, and a red tail hawk.

I did manage to actually complete the walk. I scaled the last uphill before leaving and had worked myself into quite a sweaty, panting froth.

So, of course, I rewarded myself for a job well done by eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Oh well. I’m less golden retriever and more couch hound.

____________________

Isn’t that a pretty flower? I took a photo of it while lying on the ground crying out for dear mercy and sweet mother oxygen.

Old problem in a new location

You know…it’s been a while.

A good long while. Since back in the I-40 and I-25 days.

Many years past.

Yes, today I had a moment of cellular memory.

We had an especially windy day in the Bay Area.

Sure, people talk about it being windy here, but they don’t know from wind. They don’t know about that gap between the Sandias and Manzanos channeling the wind, giving it force, and knocking you down in the parking lot.

They don’t know about tumbleweeds the size of a small house bouncing joyfully across the road with a velocity relatively equal to an overloaded Mack Truck coming out of the Glorieta Pass, air brakes screaming.

No, they don’t know.

But today came close.

As I drove home down 280 in the howling wind, my hands and arms moved without me. Took up the familiar position of about a 27 and a half degree angle turn on the steering wheel.

Turning into the wind in order to keep the car between the white lines.

And then…that moment when going under the overpass and wooop, for half a second you get a wind break and steer, steer, steer to keep from broadsiding the person next to you then you are out of the wind break and steer, steer, steer to keep from sliding off in the other direction.

My hands and arms didn’t need my brain to tell them what to do. They knew.

Honed and skilled by the unforgiving winds of the New Mexico desert. They knew.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. (aw man! I can’t believe I *went there*!)

Check the signs

The government cares. No really, they do. And so with their help, I’ve taken a good look at myself today. I mean, a real good look.

How are YOU feeling? Maybe you could check in too?

Herewith:

Getting Through Tough Economic Times from the Department of Health and Human Services.

“It is important to be aware of signs that financial problems may be adversely affecting your emotional or mental well being –or that of someone you care about.”

In other words….Did Mr. Jones take all your cash? Does that tick you off?

Let’s check in, shall we?

Warning Signs

Persistent Sadness/Crying

Only when I look at my bank account.

Excessive Anxiety

Only when I look at my bank account.

Lack of Sleep/Constant Fatigue

Yes. But I can’t really blame the economy for the fact that we are having cold windy nights, and since my personal internal thermometer tends to run hot, the cat and The Good Man sleep on top of me to stay warm.

Excessive Irritability/Anger

Only at 3:00 in the morning when I’m burning up hot and can’t get fourteen pounds of cat or six feet two inches of husband off of me.

Increased drinking

Yeah, a little. The Good Man, his friend and me did have two bottles of wine on Sunday (at a bar-b-que). Did you know that Lambrusco is really tasty and drinks awfully easily? Did you know that with enough fizzy red wine in your gullet, you kinda feel a lot better about a whole lot of things in your life? Well, that and the red meat. And the smoked fish from Alaska. Damn…that was a fine dinner…..

Illicit drug use, including misuse of medications

Does Claritin count? Because with this wind, my eyes and nose are like faucets. I may be abusing the stuff…not sure.

Difficulty paying attention or staying focused

What’s that over there? I think I’m hungry. What’s the square root of 686?

Apathy – not caring about things that are usually important to you

Whatever.

Not being able to function as well at work, school or home

Let’s see…after a marathon two days of writing a presentation in which I basically justified my job to our new austere European owners, today I’m at work with nothing to do and writing on my blog.

Not sure I could be less value added if I tried. Or should that be value subtracted? Not sure how the absolute values work in relation to lazyosity.

.
.
.

Hmm. Ok. So I’m not sure I can draw any conclusions from that exercise.

And I think they may have left a few off the list. My additions:

Do you check your online money accounts more than three times a day?

Do you find yourself in the lunchroom with your coworkers discussing tax rates?

Do you cut coupons where you rarely did before?

Do you and your spouse look for “free” events, samples, activities and services?

Do you calculate how much gas it would take to get to a destination as a “go/no go” decision on running an errand?

Do you watch too much CNBC and then find yourself yelling at Jim Cramer and blaming him for a lot of things that aren’t actually his fault? (this one applies to Jon Stewart only)

Do you have fantasies about how good it used to be…in 2006?

If so…seek help.

______________

Ok, ok, I kid, I kid, but the online resource is actually pretty serious.

Link thanks to Bruce Daniels over at the ABQjournal.

______________

“I’m certain I have no idea what you are blathering on about, human. Now feed me.

Do you ever…?

So there you are, say, commuting to work, and you are in a mellow mood. Talk radio doesn’t sound good. Local stations mostly suck, and besides, your nerves don’t want to be jangled today.

So you, you know, put the local light rock station on your car radio.

There you are, driving and thinking and listening to easy listening music that dates back a few years. Ok, more than a few years. A few decades, really. And you know all the words. You remember when that song was top ten. You recall when you heard it coming through your all in one turntable/radio unit with the dial drift and the scratchy single speaker.

So there you are, listening. Then, say, maybe a schlocky 1970’s love song comes on. One you haven’t heard in a really long time. And so you think “wow…what ever happened to THIS embarrassing song…” but then you listen to it a bit more, and you hear the words. And you are touched.

You think, “Well, but for some totally seventies arrangements, this is a really beautiful song.”

So you’re driving along, hearing the words, and thinking of the one you love most. Say, your fantastic spouse…and you hear these syrupy love words and you think to yourself “yes! Yes that too! Oh! And that other sentiment is *totally* my sweetie.”

And then maybe you cry a little bit. Not sadness, but because you’ve just heard words that totally encapsulate how powerfully you feel for that person who agreed to share their life with you.

It gets you right in the chest, and you let some tears roll down your cheeks and smile because you know you are the luckiest person in the whole wide world because you somehow found this amazing person who sees past your flaws and loves you anyway.

And you feel humble and unworthy but powerfully fortunate, like you won the lottery and the World Series all in one.

So then the song ends, and is followed by some more recent bit of clanky 90’s attempt at music, and the tears dry up and you take your exit to get to work, and a knobsack in a green Honda cuts you off. And so you call Honda boy a name worse than knobsack and drive on and you sniffle and you laugh at yourself for being such a sappy old fool.

Then you get to work and go upstairs and lose yourself in email, but that humble and lottery winning feeling prevails. And you think about writing your fantastic spouse the love letter of the century, but you can’t quite make the words sound anything other than schlocky.

So you just dwell in that quiet, humble, post-cry space and tell people that your allergies are acting up when they ask what is wrong with you.

But it’s not the allergies…it’s that damn 1970’s song that got a hold of you…

.
.
.

Does this ever happen to you? Or is this just me? (And perhaps some helpful female hormones)

Or should I just give up and get fitted for a leisure suit now?