Monday, September 19, 2005
Another month?
Oh good lord, it has been another month since I updated this thing!!
The truth of it is that I have actually been pretty damn busy. Work has continued to be busy, which sucks. Rob and I went on vacation to the cabin over the September long weekend for a week, so that was nice. It wasn’t as quiet as usual because his friends got married on the beach – the ceremony was beautiful. They actually even got a really nice day out of it, too, so that was all good.
After we got back, work was, of course, super-busy. And the weekends have been busy with little things. Status quo – the house is not clean, there are still chores to do, and it feels like I’m always running out of time.
While on vacation, even though we were at the cabin, we put up our new tent and slept there (so as not to crowd Rob’s father and his girlfriend, who were staying in the cabin). We bought a nice double-high air-mattress to sleep on. The mattress itself is reasonably comfortable, but it is fucking cold to sleep on. It seems like the air transfers all of the cold air right to your body, and saps away any heat you may produce (if you produce any. If you’re like me, you can only rely on the environment to supply heat because you can’t make much of your own, so if that’s the case, you’re freezing all night long). It’s not like we didn’t take measures to prevent this from happening. We brought both our feather duvets with us for their insular properties. One went on the bottom, underneath us, and one was supposed to be for the top as a blanket, instead of a sleeping bag – hopefully warmer. After the first night, Rob put a sleeping bag, a comforter and the large duvet on the bottom as well as a set of sheets to keep me from freezing. We also ran a propane heater inside the tent as well. Above the mattress, it was sauna-warm. But the mattress surface itself was as cold as the moon. I think if we use it in the future, we’ll need some sort of electrical heating mattress pad or something. It’s not that I don’t want to go camping and be outdoors, because when it’s warm, I’m fine and have a fantastic time. But when I am cold, I am miserable.
The NoodleDog, of course, loved the mattress. He slept on the bed in the tent most evenings, and I was glad to have the extra body heat.
The NoodleDog loves the cabin, in general, I think. He loves being able to go swimming. The first year we were out there, he wouldn’t even get his feet wet without a good reason, but now, he’ll just swim out into the water looking for sticks to bring back to shore. It’s as though he’s trying desperately to save them from a watery death. But he loves it when you fling ‘em back out there, so maybe he’s conflicted.
Cooter does not like to swim, we have learned. He will go out to his chest and just stand there, waiting for the NoodleDog to bring back a stick, and then mug him for it. I think Cooter would swim more if we could get him out to the deeper water so he could see it’s not so bad. He looks like he’d like to join the other dogs when they’re swimming, but just isn’t sure about the whole deep water thing.
As nice as it was to be out there, it was nice to get home. It was nice to see the cats, and have heat, and a full-sized functioning kitchen. And it’s never the same when you’re at someone else’s house – sure, they tell you to use the kitchen and the dishes, but you’re never sure that’s right. It’s like I’m always waiting to be told I’m using the wrong spoon, or that I put the plate back in the wrong spot, or that you just don’t turn the wood-stove on in the mornings in the summertime, silly.
I’m at a bit of a crossroads as to what to do with my vacation time. Of course, I want to spend it all with Rob because I love being around him and sharing experiences with him. But at the same time, my grandmother is aging rapidly and we’re all afraid she won’t be around much longer, so I’d like to spend my vacation time at the farm while I still can. This means I’d have to be two places at once. If I don’t go to the farm, I have a guilt-attack about it wherever I end up with Rob, like at the cabin this time around, and I feel like I made a mistake. He’s there with his family, enjoying his childhood friends and reminiscing about the good old times, and I don’t really feel I belong there with all of that. When I call my grandmother and she can’t remember that I was just there in March/April, and wonders why it’s been so long since she’s seen me, it breaks my heart.
I feel bad that I went to the cabin for a week when I should have spent the time with my grandmother at the farm. I miss the farm a lot. I wish I was there every single day. And I certainly miss my grandmother, and feel like a terrible granddaughter when I talk to her and she asks when I’m coming out next. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the week at the cabin – it was time away from work and sort of relaxing – but I feel like I should have spent the time more wisely.
And of course, here at work, I don’t get any more vacation time until next year. This business of only giving out two weeks’ vacation is insane. You can’t work a job like this for an entire year and only have two weeks off. Especially this year, with how busy it’s been and how much stress there has been with the projects I’m managing. I’m at the point where if it comes down to a choice between staying employed or taking time off, I’m going to choose taking time off, unpaid and without a job to come home to. Man, I can find another job.
I’m still buying lottery tickets. We buy them, but we don’t check them very often. We had several lying around that could have been “winners”, but we wouldn’t have known about it for weeks (they were not winners, or this entry would be different). See, it’s not like we have it all that bad. Neither of us really want to work that much at our current jobs, but at the same time, we don’t really have any legitimate complaints about being whipped with a cat-o’nine-tails or anything. Yeah, it sucks having to get up early and drag your ass in to work. Yeah, it sucks having people pick away at your time all day every day with negativity and whatnot. Yeah, it sucks having to pay bills and worry about where the money is going. But it’s not that bad. We have a house and many cars and pets and stuff, so really, we’re ahead of the game. Not like we live in New Orleans or anything and can’t go home because our house is full of toxic sludge… So count your blessings, I guess.
I’m a little sad, too, I think, because I miss Rumble. When we came home from the cabin, we left him with my parents. We took the other cats back, but like a deficient child, Rumble has been cast-off to people who are better-suited to looking after him. He doesn’t like the dogs at all, and they stress him out. He has a heart condition and shouldn’t be stressed. He’s a great cat. He’s friendly and playful and happy at my parents’ place, where at our house, he was sullen and withdrawn, and complained nonstop. He gets undivided attention at my parents’ place, and they spoil him rotten. He gets to go outside when he wants to, he doesn’t have to share a litter box, and he doesn’t have to compete for food at all (not that he did much at our house, but there were other cats there he felt he had to protect his food from). I know he’s happier there, and that he’s better off, but I miss him terribly.
The house seems empty without him, and I know you’re asking yourself how much difference one cat could make. But with Rumble, that one cat makes a huge difference. He was my first cat. He was my guy. He always wanted to be wherever I was, and he always talked to me in his cat-language. Now, the house is so quiet every evening. He’s not there to tell me about his day when I get home, or to remind me it’s dinner time, and the other cats don’t know that it’s dinner or breakfast time without him. Seriously, the other cats just sit around and hang out. If it looks like I’m heading downstairs to where their dishes are, they may or may not come with me to get fed. Tobey won’t go to be fed at all – he thinks it’s some sort of trap or trick, so he just avoids me whenever I pick up a spoon. Smudge is the only breakfast/dinner regular – she loves the food, so she’s right there, every feeding-time, waiting for me, which cheers me up a little. And Caspar was never reliable about coming for the canned food. He’d prefer to just wait and pick up the dry food later, after I put it out and no one else was around. It’s like Rumble was their leader, and now they don’t know what to do without him. I’m sure they’ll all adjust eventually, but it’s weird not having him around.
So it’s strange. Things feel different without Rumble there. Like as though accepting that he’s better off in another place might mean that my life can change without me protesting. I want to protest. I want things to be alright just the way they were, but that’s not possible, and Rumble would be the one to suffer for my selfishness. So I have to let him be where he’s happy. It sucks a lot.
The evil dogs got into the garden a few more times. We tried pinning the chicken wire down to the ground with a croquet wicket, but they have figured it out, and managed to get in several times last week. And of course they dug holes. My tomato plant has survived quite well, but there are some patches where stuff is damaged. I have to weed out the garden this fall so it’ll be easier to start up next year. It’s going to be pretty good, I think. The flowers all did really well, and I have some perennials that I’m looking forward to seeing next year, so I’m optimistic that it will go well. I also got some bulbs for the front, and will be starting that over the next couple of weeks, taking out the sod and putting in more of a bed in the front.
Fall is a bit of a sad time. I feel like I missed so much of the summer this year. Well, of course it rained a lot of the time this summer, so really, it’s not like a typical year. But it’s always sad to see the leaves fall, knowing that it’s just going to get colder and colder. In a way, there are things to look forward to over the winter, like cross-country skiing, and getting the basement set up for movie nights, and having saunas… but I also wish we could have just another month or two of really nice weather, so we could go outside and take the dogs tracking, or just sit in the yard with the cats, gardening or just relaxing on the patio. Fall/Winter is a bad time for my health, too, so I’m not looking forward to that at all.
But time marches on.
The truth of it is that I have actually been pretty damn busy. Work has continued to be busy, which sucks. Rob and I went on vacation to the cabin over the September long weekend for a week, so that was nice. It wasn’t as quiet as usual because his friends got married on the beach – the ceremony was beautiful. They actually even got a really nice day out of it, too, so that was all good.
After we got back, work was, of course, super-busy. And the weekends have been busy with little things. Status quo – the house is not clean, there are still chores to do, and it feels like I’m always running out of time.
While on vacation, even though we were at the cabin, we put up our new tent and slept there (so as not to crowd Rob’s father and his girlfriend, who were staying in the cabin). We bought a nice double-high air-mattress to sleep on. The mattress itself is reasonably comfortable, but it is fucking cold to sleep on. It seems like the air transfers all of the cold air right to your body, and saps away any heat you may produce (if you produce any. If you’re like me, you can only rely on the environment to supply heat because you can’t make much of your own, so if that’s the case, you’re freezing all night long). It’s not like we didn’t take measures to prevent this from happening. We brought both our feather duvets with us for their insular properties. One went on the bottom, underneath us, and one was supposed to be for the top as a blanket, instead of a sleeping bag – hopefully warmer. After the first night, Rob put a sleeping bag, a comforter and the large duvet on the bottom as well as a set of sheets to keep me from freezing. We also ran a propane heater inside the tent as well. Above the mattress, it was sauna-warm. But the mattress surface itself was as cold as the moon. I think if we use it in the future, we’ll need some sort of electrical heating mattress pad or something. It’s not that I don’t want to go camping and be outdoors, because when it’s warm, I’m fine and have a fantastic time. But when I am cold, I am miserable.
The NoodleDog, of course, loved the mattress. He slept on the bed in the tent most evenings, and I was glad to have the extra body heat.
The NoodleDog loves the cabin, in general, I think. He loves being able to go swimming. The first year we were out there, he wouldn’t even get his feet wet without a good reason, but now, he’ll just swim out into the water looking for sticks to bring back to shore. It’s as though he’s trying desperately to save them from a watery death. But he loves it when you fling ‘em back out there, so maybe he’s conflicted.
Cooter does not like to swim, we have learned. He will go out to his chest and just stand there, waiting for the NoodleDog to bring back a stick, and then mug him for it. I think Cooter would swim more if we could get him out to the deeper water so he could see it’s not so bad. He looks like he’d like to join the other dogs when they’re swimming, but just isn’t sure about the whole deep water thing.
As nice as it was to be out there, it was nice to get home. It was nice to see the cats, and have heat, and a full-sized functioning kitchen. And it’s never the same when you’re at someone else’s house – sure, they tell you to use the kitchen and the dishes, but you’re never sure that’s right. It’s like I’m always waiting to be told I’m using the wrong spoon, or that I put the plate back in the wrong spot, or that you just don’t turn the wood-stove on in the mornings in the summertime, silly.
I’m at a bit of a crossroads as to what to do with my vacation time. Of course, I want to spend it all with Rob because I love being around him and sharing experiences with him. But at the same time, my grandmother is aging rapidly and we’re all afraid she won’t be around much longer, so I’d like to spend my vacation time at the farm while I still can. This means I’d have to be two places at once. If I don’t go to the farm, I have a guilt-attack about it wherever I end up with Rob, like at the cabin this time around, and I feel like I made a mistake. He’s there with his family, enjoying his childhood friends and reminiscing about the good old times, and I don’t really feel I belong there with all of that. When I call my grandmother and she can’t remember that I was just there in March/April, and wonders why it’s been so long since she’s seen me, it breaks my heart.
I feel bad that I went to the cabin for a week when I should have spent the time with my grandmother at the farm. I miss the farm a lot. I wish I was there every single day. And I certainly miss my grandmother, and feel like a terrible granddaughter when I talk to her and she asks when I’m coming out next. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the week at the cabin – it was time away from work and sort of relaxing – but I feel like I should have spent the time more wisely.
And of course, here at work, I don’t get any more vacation time until next year. This business of only giving out two weeks’ vacation is insane. You can’t work a job like this for an entire year and only have two weeks off. Especially this year, with how busy it’s been and how much stress there has been with the projects I’m managing. I’m at the point where if it comes down to a choice between staying employed or taking time off, I’m going to choose taking time off, unpaid and without a job to come home to. Man, I can find another job.
I’m still buying lottery tickets. We buy them, but we don’t check them very often. We had several lying around that could have been “winners”, but we wouldn’t have known about it for weeks (they were not winners, or this entry would be different). See, it’s not like we have it all that bad. Neither of us really want to work that much at our current jobs, but at the same time, we don’t really have any legitimate complaints about being whipped with a cat-o’nine-tails or anything. Yeah, it sucks having to get up early and drag your ass in to work. Yeah, it sucks having people pick away at your time all day every day with negativity and whatnot. Yeah, it sucks having to pay bills and worry about where the money is going. But it’s not that bad. We have a house and many cars and pets and stuff, so really, we’re ahead of the game. Not like we live in New Orleans or anything and can’t go home because our house is full of toxic sludge… So count your blessings, I guess.
I’m a little sad, too, I think, because I miss Rumble. When we came home from the cabin, we left him with my parents. We took the other cats back, but like a deficient child, Rumble has been cast-off to people who are better-suited to looking after him. He doesn’t like the dogs at all, and they stress him out. He has a heart condition and shouldn’t be stressed. He’s a great cat. He’s friendly and playful and happy at my parents’ place, where at our house, he was sullen and withdrawn, and complained nonstop. He gets undivided attention at my parents’ place, and they spoil him rotten. He gets to go outside when he wants to, he doesn’t have to share a litter box, and he doesn’t have to compete for food at all (not that he did much at our house, but there were other cats there he felt he had to protect his food from). I know he’s happier there, and that he’s better off, but I miss him terribly.
The house seems empty without him, and I know you’re asking yourself how much difference one cat could make. But with Rumble, that one cat makes a huge difference. He was my first cat. He was my guy. He always wanted to be wherever I was, and he always talked to me in his cat-language. Now, the house is so quiet every evening. He’s not there to tell me about his day when I get home, or to remind me it’s dinner time, and the other cats don’t know that it’s dinner or breakfast time without him. Seriously, the other cats just sit around and hang out. If it looks like I’m heading downstairs to where their dishes are, they may or may not come with me to get fed. Tobey won’t go to be fed at all – he thinks it’s some sort of trap or trick, so he just avoids me whenever I pick up a spoon. Smudge is the only breakfast/dinner regular – she loves the food, so she’s right there, every feeding-time, waiting for me, which cheers me up a little. And Caspar was never reliable about coming for the canned food. He’d prefer to just wait and pick up the dry food later, after I put it out and no one else was around. It’s like Rumble was their leader, and now they don’t know what to do without him. I’m sure they’ll all adjust eventually, but it’s weird not having him around.
So it’s strange. Things feel different without Rumble there. Like as though accepting that he’s better off in another place might mean that my life can change without me protesting. I want to protest. I want things to be alright just the way they were, but that’s not possible, and Rumble would be the one to suffer for my selfishness. So I have to let him be where he’s happy. It sucks a lot.
The evil dogs got into the garden a few more times. We tried pinning the chicken wire down to the ground with a croquet wicket, but they have figured it out, and managed to get in several times last week. And of course they dug holes. My tomato plant has survived quite well, but there are some patches where stuff is damaged. I have to weed out the garden this fall so it’ll be easier to start up next year. It’s going to be pretty good, I think. The flowers all did really well, and I have some perennials that I’m looking forward to seeing next year, so I’m optimistic that it will go well. I also got some bulbs for the front, and will be starting that over the next couple of weeks, taking out the sod and putting in more of a bed in the front.
Fall is a bit of a sad time. I feel like I missed so much of the summer this year. Well, of course it rained a lot of the time this summer, so really, it’s not like a typical year. But it’s always sad to see the leaves fall, knowing that it’s just going to get colder and colder. In a way, there are things to look forward to over the winter, like cross-country skiing, and getting the basement set up for movie nights, and having saunas… but I also wish we could have just another month or two of really nice weather, so we could go outside and take the dogs tracking, or just sit in the yard with the cats, gardening or just relaxing on the patio. Fall/Winter is a bad time for my health, too, so I’m not looking forward to that at all.
But time marches on.
