Four eyes

I started wearing glasses when I was 12. I was nearsighted and I vividly remember my astonishment at how clear the pavement was after putting on my new glasses. But I didn’t always wear them. That’s partly because my vision wasn’t horrible (I ended up about -2, purely nearsighted, with no astigmatism—compare that to my brother who I think was -12 plus had a horrible astigmatism). So I would wear them to see the chalkboard in school but often forgot them otherwise until I got older.

And I realized when I got older that when I was in a tense or uncomfortable situation, I’d take my glasses off. The instant blur created a sense of having a barrier which always eased my discomfort. It didn’t bother me that I couldn’t exactly see everyone; I’d just look toward them and be able to maintain eye contact without feeling uncomfortable.

After I had Lasik surgery, my nearsightedness was gone, but I chose not to correct for the eventual need for reading glasses. I figured I would just wear them (and I do). But now when things get tense or I’m tired of making eye contact, I just look through my reading glasses instead of over them. Everything is blurry, just the way I’m used to.

So far this works because my prescription is very mild. I need them but I don’t (yet) look like Mr. Magoo. Plus my frames look more like trendy frames, not reading glasses. We’ll see what happens when fashion changes or my eyes get worse.

What weird coping strategies do you have? 

The truth about cats and dogs

My BFF and her husband came over for dinner last night with their two young sons. T is almost 9 and J is 7 1/2 – they are fun kids, bright and inquisitive and not at all obnoxious. I feel like I can say that since I raised two boys also and know that sometimes boys can be a little on the rambunctious/obnoxious side. We all went over to the pool before dinner, which was a great way to socialize and let the kids burn off their energy.

Mostly the boys were fascinated with our cats. They have two dogs, a border collie and an Australian shepherd, but no cats. So they really wanted to interact with all three of ours. As you might imagine, the cats wanted nothing to do with them.

As the evening went on, they’d ask me about the cats, what they like, how they act, what it means when they meow or hiss or run away or just generally behave like cats. I enjoyed telling them about the differences between dogs and cats, like how you know a dog is happy when the tail wags but it’s a very different story when a cat whips its tail. T told me very solemnly that Wally had hissed at him and that he knew that meant Wally was afraid and needed his space.

We had a great time with the adults too—I look forward to doing it again, and also helping my cats get more socialized with children.

As for the cats, they have been utterly wiped out today.

Chloe is so tired she doesn't care
 that Eddie is kitty piling with her. 

Wally has hardly moved all day except to go
into the guest bathroom & lick the shower curtain. 

Things I don’t understand

All real life examples, most are from this week:

• Posting incredibly detailed information about your health condition, along with your symptoms and the drugs you’ve used to treat the condition—on Facebook no less.
• Posting racist comments anywhere.
• Ignoring rules or laws because you don’t like them (why hello, Ferals, I am most certainly talking about you)
• Not using spell check on a presentation to a client. Lest you think I am being nit-picky, I’m not talking about using then instead of than, or even about poor writing. I’m talking about wrong capitalization and use of parentheses (Are “Businesses” . . . ) plus misspelled words (business savy). 
• Holding a cell phone conversation in a restaurant after you are seated—on speaker phone.
• Taking up two parking places with your car . . .

And as long as I’m being crotchety, I will never understand what passes for business casual dress in the work environment. If you’d wear it to the beach, it’s not business casual. If you’d wear it to go clubbing, it’s not business casual. If you’d wear it to work out, it’s not business casual.

Sheesh. 

How does your garden grow?

Very well, thank you!

Two tomato plants, three kinds of peppers
and a straggly mint plant (it's lasted for three years).

Tomatoes again, also peppers, and the
basil, rosemary and oregano plus some flowers. Because I can. 

As is

So I’ve been thinking (again) about body image. That’s partly because I’m a freak and partly because I want to change the way I look at myself. Who knows, maybe someone else will find this helpful too.

One of the blogs I read is particularly good in this area. In fact, she’s how I want to be. The author will tell you up front that she’s large and in charge, but she never uses negative language to describe herself. Don’t get me wrong, she’s under no illusions that she’s a tiny thing. She sews most of her clothing so she knows exactly what size she is. But size has nothing to do with looking good and she never uses negative language about herself nor does she put herself down. I love that. For example, she writes that her biceps are bodacious—what a great description. It’s truthful and positive all at the same time.

I remember my mother telling me one time while looking through pictures from years ago that she had been beautiful. It’s true, she was. What’s equally true is that she is beautiful. And basically that’s what I want to see—I want to see the beauty in me here and now and not just from when I was younger.

Actually, I should have the attitude of my cats. They know for a fact they are perfect exactly as they are and they sure don't run around thinking they look ugly or fat or anything silly like that.



(And sis, if by some chance you are reading this—my wish is that you too can see exactly how awesome you are right now. Seriously.) 

Food, glorious food

Kitties have a new post-dinner routine. They will come to whatever room we are in and then assume various languid positions on the floor. Last night Wally was actually lying flat on his back, something Chloe and Eddie do all the time but I'd never seen Wally do it before.

You won't see him doing it here either. As soon as I turned the camera on, he rolled over. Stinker.

More random than usual

So three weeks into living here, I think I’ve caught up with sleep, getting organized and all that stuff.

It’s amazing to me how so many of my routines are tied to places. For example, in Boston I always put my phone on my desk and that’s also where I charged it. But I can’t really charge my phone at my desk here in Overland Park—the outlets are all in use. So what that means is I’ve ended up either forgetting my phone or running it pretty much out of charge (very out of character for me).

The cats are also relearning their routines. The first few days, no one cried for the canned food. Heaven! Well that was short lived, they’re full acclimated to the Central time zone and Chloe especially has resumed her food siren ways along about 3 PM.

Wally had a water routine going in Boston. We kept the fountain under our pedestal sink in the bathroom and when I’d pour more water into the fountain, he would leap up onto the sink to watch me pour any extra water down the drain. He loved that routine and would come running when he heard me fill up the glass. But the fountain isn’t in the bathroom here—no pedestal sink plus the outlets are a little far away—it’s in the dining room. I’ve started calling him when I’m going to add water to the fountain and then I pat the top of the counter by the kitchen sink (there’s a tiny bit of counter to the left of the sink, just right for a cat to observe). He caught on pretty quickly but the unfortunate side effect is he thinks all counters belong to him. I am working on dissuading him of that notion. (Don't worry, I'm clear on the chances of that happening.)

Eddie still brings his favorite toy of the moment into our bedroom at night. He’s such an optimist—I know he thinks we’ll wake up and play with him. If it’s the whistling mouse, and he drops it on me, I just put it under my pillow. Sorry, cat, we are not nocturnal.

This weekend I made black beans from scratch, lentil soup from scratch, cooked up a big batch of brown rice for freezing, did my ironing, hemmed a pair of pants, did the laundry, vacuumed (hey that’s a lot of vacuuming, I am out of practice), and hemmed two sets of curtains and frankly I’m tired. I head to the airport in about 90 minutes to fetch Kent, who worked a lot harder in Boston getting our place ready to go on the market. Fingers crossed it sells quickly and we don’t lose money.