These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty

Well, I skipped the family Christmas this year. I have not been in the proper headspace at all to deal with all the travel and feeling a bit like an interloper/outsider in my own family. It's hard to explain, but I will sum us up as typical emotionally repressed, dysfunctional Roman Catholic Midwesterners and sometime during this year I have finally decided that's no longer cool with me. I play a part, mind you, but just to give an example: my brother only just this morning, the day of the family gathering, asked if I was back there. The day of. Can you feel the love tonight?

Anywayyyyy, there's that family stuff (I have more examples) that I should really work through with therapy. But there's also a client of mine, one I have always rather liked, who came to the decision that his quality of life no longer met his standards. He'd long told me that once he reached a certain point, he was done. Out. I saw him in September and he had an upcoming doctor appointment he hoped would bring him good news. It did not. He actively stopped eating and drinking earlier this month. with support of friends and protests by family (who did nothing for him for the five years since he had a major health event resulting in his physical decline), he passed on Monday. That was also bringing me down, of course. I don't disagree with his choice at all. Fully understand it, but it's still rather dark.

Jeez, sorry. I do hope everyone had a wonderful holiday or is still having them, depending on what you might celebrate. I had some lovely moments here myself, though this year has been mostly spent alone. Got a few wonderful, thoughtful gifts. And gave myself my favorite one (no shade on the others):



Yep, those are my critters. Including Abe, who has been gone so long now but remains my soul cat.

I love my family. I do. There are just a LOT of us and many of us have disparate belief systems about a wide variety of things. Case in point, I'm sitting there when my sister brings up a story about a guy who lived next to a cat that was "mean and evil" and he didn't like this cat, so he'd take OTR trips in his semi for work, bring the cat with and leave it. He did this twice, the second time dropped off in Nebraska on his way to California. Well, cat owners had microchipped their beloved cat and he "got in trouble" for doing this. To which my brother was astonished that anyone would care enough about a cat to go get it from Nebraska after their jackhole neighbor tried to get rid of it, and my dad said his usual comment about just shooting the cat instead. I told them they were being stupid. My sister then chimed in with a classic, "If you were allergic like J is, you'd have a different opinion on cats." Nope. No, I wouldn't. You can not like something without being needlessly cruel about it. I lived most of my life indifferent to cats or dogs, but didn't actively think about harming them. Or any other living creature, for that matter.

These are three of the most devoutly Catholic people in my family. Their reactions are whatever, I'm used to it. But I guarantee you that had I not been sitting there, the topic would not have come up. It's like they go out of their way to be complete aholes about cats because they know I love and have cats. I find it pretty telling that they do this to me - 1) it's unnecessary. I know my dad hates cats though has NEVER ACTUAllY GIVEN ANY REASON and 2) it's hurtful to say stuff like that in front of someone they know has the polar opposite feelings. Maybe I'm sensitive, I dunno. But contextually, my dad mentioned his old dog Skipper, a Springer Spaniel he had when I was late teens, HS and college, who got hit by a car while I was out walking with her. Traumatizing anyway, and I knew how much my dad loved that dog and I again told him how bad I feel about that whole thing. 29 years of still feeling terrible about an accident, and he can't refrain from making cracks about "dispatching" cats around me... Ugh.

Next time I will have to ask them why they feel their hate is the more valid feeling than other peoples' love. I can't imagine how little they think of the HUMANS who love these cats they'd happily kill because they don't like them. I know I would get an "it's just a cat, relax" response.

LOL, clearly needed to get that off my chest.

My sister hosted the family this year and she has two cats. LOLOLOLLLLLL. One of my nephews is allergic, knows they have cats and yet when he came he and his mom ran around in a panic looking for Benadryl. Like, you know there are cats in a house and you don't dose up BEFORE YOU ARRIVE and instead dramatize the whole thing?

Despite all of this ranting, the trip was okay. Glad I didn't stay long, though. My dad looks very poorly after his knee surgery. Pallor still, and definite weight loss. I have this feeling he is not very interested in remaining on the earth, so we shall see.

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday week. I have some photos which will come. Maybe I'll go back to one a day? Hmm.

Back from family visit. The trip was needed, and was good. Tough. Good. But tough. I spent as much time as I could at my sister's house, visiting with her, my dad and my mom. Anyone who has experienced a loved one succumbing to Alzheimer's or dementia knows this - ( Cut for dementia talk )

It is true. With the horrible affliction of dementia, you lose your loved ones twice. My mom is already gone. And now I wait for her to go again and hope, maybe horribly, that it is soon so that she, my father and my sister don't suffer for long.

Anyway. If you read that, sorry. I have spent many days just thinking, thinking.








^My last day was spent with my sister B, who got kittens just before Christmas, after losing their 7 month old kitten to kidney failure. This is Angel. If the defined M on her tabby head is anything to go by, she'll be very full of mischief and mayhem. ;)


^Archie


^This was how I spent my day yesterday. V therapeutic. They kept snuggling up with me instead of their own family. I think because their family is a bit nervous with them since losing their other kitten so horribly. Any little thing makes them anxious. Plus, they're new to the whole cat thing, so they don't know what's normal. Tried to give them some tips, but they'll figure it out. Biggest problem is deterring the kittens from going outside the litterbox. None of mine have ever had that problem except when Pickle "communicates" with me. This is more a "we don't know how to do this yet" problem.

And then today I had breakfast with a friend who told me AFTER: Oh yeah, XX tested positive for COVID and I spent a lot of time with her last week... AND my sister, who was super hyper vigilant a year ago about it casually dropped a, "BTW, my adult son wasn't feeling great on Friday when we were all together and whoops, turns out he has COVID and my teenage daughter feels lousy too!" Which is fine, I suppose. I'm not worried about me, but we all have been at my mom's bedside this weekend and she is extremely fragile! I am irritated by that. None of the sickies masked.

Time to get back into a routine. Thank goodness I have today and tomorrow to recuperate. I'm pretty tired. It's already 3 PM and the only thing I really HAVE to do is laundry, but I haven't managed yet.

Am back. What a trip. ( Cut for length and no-one-cares )

Walter did well at the boarding section of vet, though I immediately noticed he's got a bare spot on his tushie from chewing on it. He was a good boy, but not unstressed. The cats did okay with stranger coming in, except Pickle who melted down. When I came home she was huddled at the back of a closet and in the spare room - as Roy was eating her food, I advised the sitter to keep Pickle in that room with food, water and box. Not ideal, but that was the only way to guarantee she would get her food and not Piggy McPiggerson.

We are all back to usual, snuggling on sofa. I need to clean house and get laundry done, but due to the delays in travel I didn't get home till 3 AM and somehow awakened at 7:15. I am punchdrunk and not super inclined to move. Still, better have done with it.

December photos to come. This was all too much to dump in that post.

This social distancing is driving me bonkers. Not me doing it - to be honest, it's not terribly different to my regular life - it's my family. Specifically my brother's wife, who I can barely tolerate in general. I realize this makes me sound like a horrible human being, but she's... trust me, she's just a LOT to take. Always on to the point you can't tell if she's for real or for fake.

And apparently she's bored right now. The family text group is being bombarded with images and random "this is what I'm doing right this second" updates, and has been for weeks now. Listen. It's not that I don't care, it's that I don't need the endless stream of nonsense. As I was trying to enjoy dinner just now, for example, my phone pinged TEN TIMES. And don't get me started on the countless "loved, liked, laughed at" posts that come with a regurgitation of the message that was "loved, liked, laughed at". WHY CAN'T WE JUST LOL????

All right, I'm a terrible person. But if the text group didn't occasionally have important communication, I'd be removing myself for my own sanity. I wonder if I just ask my sister to keep me in the loop...

Brother T, via text: Brother J is trying to get me to visit you with him. He won't give me timeframes, or dates or anything. Can you picture a more unlikely duo than the two of us?

Me, instantly envisioning:

Me: Would be interesting, could be fun!


I guess you'd have to know my brothers, but T isn't wrong - they are about as opposite as Felix and Oscar.

Contractor: Gas company will flag, then you get your guy to dig.
Me: Okay, great.
...
...
Me: Gas company, when are you going to flag so I can get this ditch dug?
Gas company: Never, we talked to contractor, he knows where to dig and told his guy where to dig, we're confused why you're asking this.

Fracking effing frell, I deserve a discount for emotional turmoil at this point.


Also, I realized on the way home from work that I'd left my tuna wrap in the fridge this morning. It didn't occur to me at ALL at lunchtime.


Thirdly, I have a new niece! She was born on the tenth, I don't know her name or any vital statistics, just that she's in San Antonio and sis, BIL and boys will be heading down this weekend to meet her.

Once again I didn't merit an actual phone call. I already heard some family news from two people not directly involved, and finally today I got a "oh, and by the way..." email addendum reply to an email I sent initially from my elder sister, who might possibly have the opportunity to adopt another baby boy in January. It's all rather sudden and not set in stone...but everyone else knew of this news at least a week ago. *sigh*

And on a totally different note, I made one of the ladies at work take a picture of my new boots. LOL, I felt kind of dumb.

"You know, my legs aren't half bad," I said after she took the first one (which I deleted for some reason).
"I was actually just thinking you had nice legs," she said.

Eh. We have to take what we can get, right? Clicking on the links will give a better image of the boot, but even that doesn't do them justice. The elastic and hidden leather panel at the back, which in pictures looked more like detailing, is perfect for more athletic calves like mine. I stretch them out about as far as they can go, though, for someone with truly large calves might not be able to fit into these. Bummer. They are as the maker claims: Sudini, the shoes that make love to your feet. Granted, these don't have very high of a heel...but I swear at least one foot acheived orgasm this afternoon. ;)

( SBG in boots )

( Self Leg Portrait In Bathroom Mirror, On Chair )

The last one shows one of my favorite little moles. For whatever that's worth. Heh.