Little poopy face

Derek's brother Andrew is a cat lover. Correction, cat fanatic. He used to breed Siamese cats and there was one point in his life when they lived with over 20 cats! But now, he lives in a small apt. and he only has 3, and even that proved to be a bit too much. So, he talked to us about it last time he was in town and said if we agree, he'd bring over the youngest, Young Sao (probably not the right spelling), an 8-month old kitten. I said yes, yes, yes pleeeeze. And Derek surprised me by agreeing! So, yesterday, Lydia and I came home to find Jamie literally bouncing in excitement. He shrieked, there is a baby cat, there is a baby cat, I didn't understand at first what he was saying, he was so excited. And then I saw the newcomer in my bedroom. Young Sao is GORGEOUS. Dark brown little face and ears, dark paws and tail, a delicious caramel colour on her body, startlingly light blue eyes, and light whiskers. When we first talked about her, Derek (since he is still pretending not to like cats) said, OK, what's shithead in Thai. Because Andrew used to live in Thailand (he taught English there), he knew, and he said, Naa Kee. Derek thought that was a fitting name for a kitten with a brown face... LOL. And, since it sounds fairly exotic, and nobody would know anyway, (OK, except you guys who read this blog) I thought it was a good name as well. So, Naa Kee it is, though it kinda morphed into Nokee. As for Daisy, she wants NOTHING to do with the weirdo newcomer, she is constantly growling and hissing like a maniac... Nokee keeps coming up and looking at her with innocent blue eyes, her pose submissive, she sooo wants to be friends, and all Daisy is doing is being mean... she even hissed at ME, the little bag! So tonight, Nokee is staying downstairs in the laundry room, with her own food and drink bowls and her litterbox, and Daisy can have the rest of the house to herself. I'm petting Nokee and then go and pet Daisy, to mingle their scents, and hopefully, in a couple of days everybody will settle down. I'm happy with the new baby, she is adorable, and she stole Derek's heart the moment she arrived (shhh, don't tell anyone). She jumped up into his lap while he was on the computer and she always rubs her cute little head into my palm as soon as I reach down, she is very friendly.

I'm losing it

I've been working every Saturday for the past few weeks, I'm the only one who ever cleans up, washes dishes, etc. at home and I haven't been able to sleep in for weeks/months.
This morning I have thoughts of running away/becoming a nun/joining the circus/killing myself. That's all before 9 am.
I went to my doc and he gave me more pills, but it's not pills I need. Not therapy. I need the people in my life to step up and help me instead of heaping tremendous guilt/more work/bad moods/money problems on me. I'm tired. I want to sleep and never wake up.

You know I can't resist memes

How tall are you barefoot? 5′5″.

Have you ever flown first-class? Yes! Totally by chance! I was coming back to Canada in 1996 after my Dad's funeral, and as I was staning at the back of the line with the other ordinary economy class travellers, a flight attendant (an older Spanish lady) tapped me on the shoulder and said: Come with me. She pulled me aside, asked if I was travelling alone, and upgraded me to First Class, for the 2 hour flight to Amsterdam. It was NICE! I ended up sitting beside an Archiology professor from Brazil, we sipped champagne and ate from real china plates and cutlery, not the little square plastic trays, and talked about his digs...

One of your favorite books when you were a child? Pippi Longstocking (in Hungarian translation, so I think I want to re-read it in English, maybe with Lydia.

A good restaurant in your city? The thai place I went to one time with Graham.

What is your favorite small appliance? The food processor. Grates, blends, whips, chops... perfect

One person that never fails to make you laugh? Derek.

First LP you ever bought? I can't remember.

Do you do push-ups? NO! and you can't make me!

What was one of your favorite games as a child? played house with my dolls a lot, made up stories and everything... it was then that my writing started developing. Some of the stories I've jotted down later as drafts for future novellas.

When you were twelve years old, what did you want to be when you grew up? A teacher.

Your favorite Soup of the Day? Italian wedding or potato bacon

Have you ever met someone famous? No

Date Of Birth? July 10, 1968.

From what news source do you receive the bulk of your news? Internet (MSN or CNN)

Current worry? That my daughter will hate me when she is a teenager.

Current hate? none

Favorite place to be? In Derek's arms (I know, waaay too cheesy, but it's true)

Least favorite place to be? Right now, work... It's too stressful with all the year end stuff.

Do you consider yourself well organized? I wish…

Do you believe in an afterlife? No, but sometimes I wish I could.

Where do you think you will be in 10 Yrs? In our own house, happy.

Do you burn or tan? I burn, then tan. (same as J-Girl)

Are you more optimistic or pessimistic about the future? Depends on the time of the month.

What did you fear was going to get you at night as a kid? Being flushed down the toilet (don't know why), or the house burning down, with me in it.

What’s in your pockets right now? Whew. Nothing right now. There was something naughty in it earlier but I took it out.

Last thing that made you laugh? Jamie, playing the fish game on the computer (Feeding Frenzy 2, TOTALLY ADDICTIVE!), and saying, all my lives are completely dead.

Worst injury you’ve ever had? Broken ankle when I was 12, and it almost resulted in my getting raped by the guy who found me.

How many TVs do you own? One.

Best compliment received? Any compliment is good. Derek told me yesterday I look good in black, and it was sincere, because he had fire in his eyes when he said it.

What leaves you speechless? Somebody being rude for no reason.

What is your favorite book? There are so many!

Last meal you cooked for the opposite sex? Every meal I cook is for the opposite sex (as well as my daughter, and sometimes Jamie - but for him, it's only noodles)

What were you doing at 12 midnight last night? Sleeping.

Character study

Last night, I had four kids at my house, sleeping over - the usual gang, Jamie and Lydia, plus Lydias two friends, Emma and Robin. I got them a simple craft - one of those black papers where you can scrape off the black covering and there is a rainbow-coloured sheet underneath, so whatever you draw (or stencil) is rainbow on a black background. Now, Robin, the oldest, she is 8. She quietly immersed herself in this, carefully filling in all the nooks and crannies of the stencils and making sure the stencil stayed in the same place. Lydia, the ham, created about four pictures in the time it took Robin to do one, haphazardly slapping it together and then immediately running to her room and putting it up on her wall, wanting to see the end result and get praise and attention from me for it; after that, she returned to the craft table and bossed everyone around, making sure everybody have only their share of the black papers (knowing that whatever is left over will ultimately be hers - the little brat). Emma, 6, is a blissfully happy child, she didnt really care if the stencil was perfect, and didnt really care if I approve - she worked on it for exactly as long as she felt like it, leaving the picture somewhat unfinished and moving on to the next entertainment, unphased. Jamie, the little one, almost four, wanted my and Dereks involvement the whole time, explaining what he was doing and what he will be doing next, and after that and after THAT, trying to claim more than his share of the black sheets and stencils, but accepting the overrule of the rest of us. After supper and play, I took Jamie for a car ride, where he passed out after about two minutes. I brought him home and put him down on his bed and gazed at him for a while, he is SO adorable (when he sleeps - LOL). The girls then settled in for a movie on my bed and fell asleep around midnight, after much giggling and chatter. That was last night. This morning, though, war broke out, everybodys nerves are a bit frazzled because of the late night (including mine). After a total disaster of a pancake breakfast (note to self - next time you have four kids over for breakfast, cold cereal or toaster waffles would work better), whereas Jamie picked up an entire pancake, dripping with syrup, and walked around with it in the living room (until I caught up with him with a wet kitchen towel), the girls fought over juice and syrup, and Lydia, trying to be helpful, poured out juice on the kitchen floor. Then, while I took a blissful break, washing the dishes and trying not to listen to the squabbles through the running water and clattering plates. After I turned the water off, though, I could hear the arguments heating up, and Lydia was downright hostile and nasty to Jamie, so I had to interfere, basically separating them. Jamie played on the computer for a while, and the girls played puppies upstairs (Jamie didnt want to be a puppy, and they wouldnt let him be a duck - I have no idea why). Then, of course, Jamie felt left out, and just as the girls decided to play on the Xbox, he wanted to join them. Of course, that turned out to be an unpopular decision with the girls, as they are all lightyears ahead of Jamie in skill and maturity for that game. Again, mommy stepped in as a referee, thinking Ill never get a freakin shower, and is it noon yet, when I can drop the gang off to their prospective mothers!!!!!! But alas, its only ten, and I already intervened in three wars, cleaned up all kinds of mess, and almost cried when I looked at my bedroom (the girls slept in here, with all their animals and blankets and all their clothes on the floor). So, I decided to just blog and write it out of my system.... Its quiet upstairs right now, so maybe I can slip in the shower, unnoticed, for a quiet 5 minutes.

Tibetan Crystal Bowls

We went to a concert on Saturday, in Hamilton. The guy's name is David Hickey, and my friend Hedi went to one of his concerts and raved about it so much that we had to go check it out. This time, the performance was in his own home (his parents' basement, where he lives with his girlfriend). The music was amazing. He knelt in the middle, surrounded by about 25 different sized bowls, and pinged them with a rubber hammer, or other instruments, and sometimes he would rub the side of the bowls to get a longer, stronger, vibrating sound... At one point, he rubbed three large bowls, pinging and rubbing them to get all of them up to their highest frequency, and the entire room was filled with this magical sound as the three different frequencies merged and battled for their own space... it was like a helicopter landing, with the vibrations, but with a much more pleasant sound...
Two other guys provided a background of singing, violin, and this large instrument that has a specific name... but I forget. D. knew what it was, Buddhist monks use it to get meditative sounds.
The music was really, really great. Some of the sounds were so amazing, you wouldn't have believed that they didn't come from a sophisticated synthesizer. Meanwhile, the guy's girlfriend, Eden, was painting, inspired by his music. She was basically dropping and smudging paint on a wet plastic sheet, creating really unusual - and very beautiful - abstract art. Now for the ridiculous parts: This guy is about 45, long hair and beard and alluring eyes (he is quite hot, actually, if you just go by the looks), but yes, you read it correctly, 45 and still living in mom and dad's basement. With the lovely Eden, who is a thin, pretty little thing of about 25. All the new age bullshit was pouring out of all of them, David, Eden, and most of the visitors as well, as they were clearing their chakras and smudging from the shell David carried around, and meditating to receive the magical "energy" from the music and sipping organic tea and munching on wholesome cookies. I could have done without that, but the music WAS incredible.

slowly starting back

with a Kitty post. We only have one kitty now, Daisy. Daisy is a sleek, beautiful black cat with yellow eyes. And, since we ve moved, she decided that she is a dog. She was never a really affectionate cat, more the aloof type that cats are famous for. But since Prissy is gone from our household, Daisy has been much closer. She greets us at the door when we come home, she hangs out with us in whichever room we are in (scratches the bathroom door while I m sitting on the can until I let her in), and comes to me for long patting sessions, purring her head off. I kinda like the new Daisy, she is becoming a really good companion. She is quite used to D. now, in fact, she ll talk to him and hang out with him during the day. I m really happy about that, because I always thought I will never want to live with a guy who doesn t like cats.
If Daisy trusts him, he is OK. :-)))
BUT. Daisy has proven to be COMPLETELY useless as pest control. We have MICE! In the basement walls, mostly. Daisy will pretend to be interested, when they make a noise inside the wall, but she has yet to make teeth-rodent contact with anyone except our own hamster, Oreo, on one of her frequent bouts of cage-less freedom. She was very gentle with her, just gingerly picking her up, and then dropping her, startled, when she squealed. Yup, useless.
And lately, another mean side of her emerged, because Poor Homeless Kitty appeared on our back deck. Now, I know that feeding a homeless cat will inevitably lead to that cat no longer being homeless... but its been freezing cold outside and she looked so bedraggled and pathetic... She (or he) is a gray tabby, not particularly pretty, but, she is a cat, with no home, and I cant in good conscience let her die. So, Ive been taking scoops of Daisys food and putting it out in a red plastic bowl for the Poor Kitty. Poor Kitty came up and ate, hurriedly, not taking her eyes off the door, in case I decide to run out and capture or hurt her (awww). I tried to stay out of her field of vision, just kinda peeking at her through the patio door. Meanwhile, Daisy, not feeling the same way in the least about the visitor, did her own little stint. She hissed and growled through the glass, intimidating the heck out of Poor Kitty, who nonetheless knew that the mean hissing black beast is INSIDE, so she can continue devouring her food. After she was done and slinked off to wherever she lives in this freakin cold, I brought the bowl in to wash, and Daisy had to sniff EVERY inch of it, to get information about the visitor. This scene has repeated itself almost daily ever since. I tried to explain to Daisy about the importance of sharing and compassion, pointing out the GIANT bag of food that she has, along with a roof over her head, a choice of warm, comfy spots to sleep, and people to pet her, meanwhile, Poor Kitty has NOTHING, except the cupful of food we give her. Daisy doesnt care. She still defends her territory and continues to be menacingly mean.
Ill keep you posted on how this goes.
Hugs everyone!

back - sort of

We still dont have the internet totally up, its giving me weird messages, and Im typing on Dereks keyboard which has no question marks and apostrophies for some reason... instead it types é or É every time I attempt those. weird.
We are getting settled in though, less and less boxes everywhere, though the majority of whats left is in my room - I hate the mess, but by the time I get to my room in the evening, Im so tired that I dont want to tackle any of it. So Im still living out of boxes and bags. My computer table is not together yet, either and Im absolutely dreading it, the compartments, the shelves... but until its put together I cant unpack half of the boxes in my room because its all computer shit.
As for our co-existence, we are getting along very well, but our kids dont. Jamie (Dereks 3 and a half year old, adorable little son) hero worships Lydia, copies everything she does, which of course she thinks is just awfully annoying. She bosses him around, which he tolerates for a while, but when he says no (to being a reindeer, or sitting in school where Lydia is the teacher, or whatever), then she gets immediately fed up with him and demands private time in her room, which makes Jamie feel rejected and frustrated, and then he acts up and becomes defiant. Sigh. Its hard, because we decided that he should sleep over at least once a week, on Friday nights.... well see how it goes next week.
Derek and I are great together though, we support each other and love each other and live very harmoniously. I dont feel like I have to be afraid to express my feelings, though my old (just keep the peace and not say anything) personality still creeps up sometimes... I have to work on that.