I spend a goodly amount of time being obsessively aggravated by trivial things that are out of my control. For example, many of my waking hours grind by in close proximity to someone who has the tendency to say “somewheres” instead of “somewhere,” “anywheres” instead of “anywhere,” and so on and so forth. In addition, when describing a conversation that has taken place, this person invariably and liberally peppers the narrative with “and so I says to her, I says…” And no, this person does NOT have any regional or generational excuse for such diction. We’re talking about a 20-something suburban CA native, not a charmingly toothless backwoods codger. Needless to say, the more I think about those gratuitous esses and “says”es, the more annoyed I become, and the more I notice them, and therefore think about them more and become more annoyed and…Yes, I could probably expend my mental energy in more productive ways. Like fuming about the obnoxious microwaving habits of my coworkers.
Eh. Sometimes I worry that I have too many mean, mean thoughts, and that some internal organ or other is slowly turning into a lump of coal as a result. So this week I’ve been trying to focus on some things that, while equally trivial, are pleasant.
Here are a few:
1) My power bill went down by 11 percent this month! So what if that’s only $2.00. Al Gore would still be proud.
2) In contrast to the frequent disappearances as my old apartment, my newspaper has not once been stolen from my walkway at the new abode, even when I haven’t been home to retrieve it until the evening and it was practically in the middle of the sidewalk!
3) The biggest fruit on my biggest tomato plant is surpassed gumball size!
4) Upon close inspection, it turns out that the sailor-hat-wearing stuffed duck the Yankee Fan brought me from Boston derives his odd and delighful facial expression from crazy inward-sweeping eyelashes.
See, life is good.
Archive for May, 2007
I’ve been pretty into the lines of strawberry baskets lately. I drew this the other day on the computer. And I’m thinking it would look pretty cool as an embroidery project. I do have many raggedy spools of black thread and a rarely-used embroidery hoop…
Thursday evening is usually a night when I Accomplish Things. When I say “accomplish,” of course, I speak loosely. Sometimes accomplishing means finishing a pile of sewing projects, prepping things for an elaborate Friday dinner, drawing a new bird picture, cleaning the kitchen and watching a movie but managing to do something productive whilst watching. Other times, well, I get around to putting away all the slightly sticky plastic bags that I’ve been religiously rinsing and air-drying for future reuse. Tonight is somewhere in the middle; the sink is ever-so-clean, the worms are fed, and the laundry is duffle-bagged in anticipation of a bumpin’ Friday night laundromat trip, but I haven’t gotten around to the more aggravating items on my to-do list.
10% of the problem is that I went to work at 6:30a.m. and am therefore a little low on energy. The other 90% is that I’m pining for the Yankee Fan, who is currently in Red Sox territory, visiting family members. I’d be the first to say that this pining is absurd. He only left yesterday night and will be back on Sunday, and we almost never kick it on Thursdays anyway (it’s Accomplishing Night after all). The rational part of me is excited to have a weekend of endless productivity potential. I can get up early, and sew, and get angry at the sewing machine, and figure it out, and work on my fledgling InDesign skills, and get going on the art project I’ve been noodling around with in my head before the sun sets on Saturday. I can spend hours cooking and freezing stuff. I could make 100 pupusas!
But instead I’m drifting around my apartment, putting away stray pens and hairbands, pondering if I should even bother eating anything for dinner since it’s almost 9:30. I even have a stack of purse parts by the loveseat, waiting forlornly to be cut out while I watch Netflix’s latest offering (which is in turn waiting forlornly to have its envelope torn open).
On the one hand, it annoys me to be laid low so easily. I feel like (as I’ve often told the YF) a dumb, needy, girly girl, which isn’t how I’d like to think of myself. On the other hand, when I step back, it’s kind of a sweet realization. I feel lucky that right now I care about someone so much that it really, really sucks to not have the option (rarely exercised, but comforting in theory) to bike spontaneously and recklessly through nighttime Oakland to fling my arms around him.
Eh. Sunday’s not too far away. I’m sure I’ll be back to my mean old self soon.
The first time I went over to the Yankee Fan’s house, back in August of ‘05, it was a memorable day. He gave me homegrown heirloom tomatoes in a paper bag with my name written on it. We accidentally go locked out of the house and he nearly fell to his death trying to scale the carport and break in through the second story window. And I fell madly in love. With his cat.
Since then, the three of us have spent many quality hours together cuddling, lying around, overeating or whining about when and what dinner will be (it’s mostly me and the cat on that last one).
Here’s the problem though. The cat is not actually the Yankee Fan’s cat. It’s his roommate’s cat. She’s the mom. He’s the doting, permissive uncle who always dishes out a little extra kibble on the sly. And the roommate just got a job in another city. And the cat’s going with her. In two weeks.
Pathetic though it may seem, considering the cat is not mine, and it’s not like I’ve known him since kittenhood or anything, I’m totally heartbroken. I’ve known enough cats in my days to realize he’s one of the irreplaceable ones. First of all, he is, as the Yankee Fan has remarked, ridiculously tactile. He’ll tolerate and even appear to enjoy, the most obnoxious man-handling. Hold him in two hands high above your head? He’ll take it as an opportunity to stretch out to maximum length. Hold him upside down resting on your forearms? Same deal. Drag him under the covers and cry into his soft grey flank? He’ll stay there and purr and lick your fingers until you feel better. Or at least until he’s done removing any residue that might be lingering from the sandwich you ate 4 hours ago.
He’s also endlessly, pathetically, hilariously food-obsessed. Very little is safe from his busy paws and sharp little fangs.
At his lowest point, we’ve seen him licking the inside of the kitchen sink and dragging raw asparagus trimmings out of the compost tub. He came close to drinking my birthday cake batter, he disemboweled a bag of baker’s yeast, and he’ll gnaw/suck on a discarded corn cob like it’s manna from heaven. But his very favorite food is bread. Leave a baguette, or a challah, or a loaf of million-grain hippie bread within his reach, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to come downstairs in the morning to find the wrapper viciously shredded and a fist-size chunk of the contents gnawed away. A couple weeks ago he carried off an entire hot dog bun in his jaws. Take that Dr. Atkins!
In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, the Yankee Fan and I brought him home a leftover corn tortilla from our dinner at Juan’s Place. The instant it emerged from my pocket, his yellow eyes lit up, the purr started to rumble, and he hopped up expectantly on his cat tree/dining platform. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have given him more than a shred or two, but it’s hard to say no when you’re not sure how many more times you’ll get to sneak the world’s sweetest cat a bellyfull of carbs.
