Introducing…

SATCHEL!  We got a kitten almost three weeks ago.  I finally caved in, and in spite of my allergies, decided we needed a cat.  We’ve had a continuous problem with mice in the house, and they refuse to eat the poison, or be caught in traps. They’ve been around long enough to share the secrets of these things with one another, and therefore can avoid them. I HATE MICE! More than I dislike cats.

Don’t get me wrong, cats are okay, but they just aren’t a dog. You know, who greet you at the door with wagging tail and slobby kisses, come when you call, and if you’re lucky, learn a few tricks. Cats don’t play fetch in the yard, don’t take their people on walks– or in Lady Bear’s case, drags me through a near-run.

Satchel is very playful, and atfter a few shots with the spray bottle has learned to leave my house plants alone. He has a knack for attacking your ankles and toes.  He also loves Lady Bear, who floats between adoration and toleration of him and his antics.

We took him to the vet today, and got him started on his first shots.  He doesn’t have worms, which is fabulous as Lady was eating his litter-covered poo.  The vet also said it can be normal for kittens to try to nurse, even as adults, said it can be a “comfort thing”. Lady being the mothering sort, is quite content to let him.  She’s even producing a little milk. So it’s really good he doesn’t have worms, or we’d have to de-worm the dog again, on account of the poo eating, Lady could just pass them back to the kitten.

Satchel is now 2.6# and long– so says the vet. He’s got a bit of white on his front paws, and white knee socks on the back, along with a sprinkle –as in 6 strands–of white fur on his forehead, a white crest on his chest, his belly and in his bikini area, if cats were to wear bikini bottoms.  He’s pretty cute if I do say so myself.

I have to admit I am enamored of this little creature, who will give rough tongued kisses on occasion, and will curl up in my lap for a snooze.  He nibbles on my fingers, but the kids aren’t used to kitty teeth, and say it hurts.  They waver between liking him a lot to not at all, depending on everyone’s mood that day.

He’s a keeper.  Now if he can just get rid of the mice.

Knees

I woke up this morning thinking I’d had a bad allergy attack overnight, but it turns out to be the start of a summer cold. I’ve been keeping a steady stream of decongestant and allergy pills going through me all day, and still I can’t breathe. I think it’s been working its way here for a couple of days. I’ve been dragging my feet, so to speak, and now I know why.

I’ve had random stressors bombarding me lately. Sonny Boy had the rear-ending episode, the car’s been in the shop for other reasons, we got a kitten and Lady Bear has been eating his poo—covered in cat litter (gross!). The kitten, who’s name is Satchel, has to go to the vet in the morning. I have to see an orthopaedist about my knees, one makes a popping/crunching sound when it bends, which you can feel if you put a hand on the kneecap. I’ve been mentoring a group of people for this season’s Team in Training events, and have been trying to train and fund raise for my own. Sonny Boy got a job, and I’m not sure exactly where he’s working. He got it through Girlfriend’s “Parental (something, something)”. I just prefer to call him her “other” step-dad—her dad is gay. Sugar Bug is going to a camp next week, and I’m chaperoning the trip. We have to make sure all of her diabetes Rx information is all with us. Money is tight; gas costs a fortune and I quit my job in March. Sonny Boy and Girlfriend have an escalating situation with a Young Lady who used to be his “special interest”. (Her parents wouldn’t allow her to “date”, and so they just made moon eyes at each other, and talked on the phone, sent e-mails. He chose to end things—a year ago— because it couldn’t go anywhere anyway. Well, now Girlfriend is in the picture and Young Lady thinks Girlfriend stole her boyfriend. Apparently that is just the tip of the iceberg.) And, did I mention I’m getting a cold? Yeah, I think I did.

It sounds like I’m complaining. Does it sound like I’m complaining? I’m not trying to, just stating facts of my life right now. What I should be doing is getting on my knees in prayer, searching God’s timeless and ageless wisdom to get me through. Except if I lay in bed, I’ll fall asleep, and I can’t literally sit on my knees, because they’ll go numb.

I don’t want sympathy. I’ll take donations for my fundraising efforts, and I’ll take your prayers.

In the Middle of the Night

I should be in bed, but for some reason I just don’t feel like going.  I know sleep is what I need, the brain fog is getting pretty thick.  I’ve just finished working on a draft for another novella/essay for the blog and had a random idea to check my blog stats.  This is how my mind works in the middle of the night.  I’m still a novice blogger, and really have only one faithful reader– I think she even has me on an RSS feed! (Whatever that is–honest, I don’t know, and I don’t know how it works.)

Anyway, I keep trying to write without using proper capitalization, and think “Just skip over the misspellings, and let spell check fix it later”, but I can’t.  Just now I used a *j* and changed it to *J* and I backspace all the time to fix spelling errors.  I don’t really see myself as a Type A personality, except for the perfectionism while typing.  But I stay up late because the house is quiet, and the creativity flows without having to worry about the distractions of family and their needs.

So if you’re just a random tag surfer or you came here on purpose, come and sit a spell.  Let me know I’m not the only one who forsakes sleep to clear her mind of creative fodder.  Most of all– leave comments!  Let me know how you found me.  I must say, the random tag surfer who leaves comments are the most exciting kind to get.  I can’t put why into words just yet, and when I can you can bet the word count will hit 700+.

And before this wanders completely into blog oblivion, I’m going to say good night.

G-night!

Eight Random Things

e-gads, I’ve been tagged, and instructed to write.. about THIS… I was on the verge of being called Ms. Random during my last trip to The Pittsburgh Project, so why is it so hard to think of things to fill all eight spots…?

!. I have had severe 2nd and near-3rd degree burns on both of my feet, but the incidents happened separately, in Sept. 1976 [left foot: walked backward into an extinguished beach fire pit, but it was still incredibly hot the next afternoon when I landed in it. I was on crutches for three months, and got very good at it.] and Dec. 2003 [right foot: a freak kitchen accident involving boiling hot water from a water bath from a cake I was baking for the Madison Girls Christmas gala. Don't know how the pan fell, because I never touched it, and I was the only human in the room.]

2. I have needed bifocals since I was 21. I don’t have actual bifocals now, as they give me headaches, so I wear what I affectionately call my *granny glasses* which are just for reading (what the bifocal would help with), and my other “regular” glasses are for everything else.

3. I strongly believe in anti-racism, and our country can not get past its racist past if we continue to ask people about their *race*, as in the forms filled out at church and the US Census Bureau. Why the church needs to know for its questionnaires, I don’t know, but that’s for another day. Back to topic, from now on I shall fill in OTHER and call myself *Caucasoid* and I shall not be Dutch-American, Euro-America, or white. Better yet, I shall take my daughter’s lead, who, when she filled out her first “What is your race” blank, she said “Do I just put in HUMAN?”

4. I have gone on only one blind date in my life. I married him almost two years later, and if you read a previous blog, we’re still together.

5. I learned how to really swim, not just dog paddle, in a Holiday Inn Holidome pool in St, Louis Missouri. We were there for my dad’s bowling tournament. Remember Holidomes, whatever happened to them?

6. I trained for an Olympic distance triathlon and finished it at 37 years old. I did it with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s TEAM in Training. (1.5 K swim, 40K bike and 10K run and yes, I finished) I’m thinking about joining them again sometime to train for a Century Ride. That’s a 100 miles race for my non-cyclist readers.

7. I have a MySpace, WordPress, Facebook and I think a Xanga, but I haven’t been to that in ages– haven’t taken the time to figure it out. I did have Blogspot, but got rid of it a long time ago.

8. I’m always pondering about whether or not to run for political office, like State Rep or something. I don’t think I’m heartless and scheming enough to stand Washington though. I always have some sort of soap-box opinion on how to do things, but can’t be heard unless I have a vote in Lansing.

Insomnia stinks

It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep; I should be in bed, dreaming dreams. I’ve been up for hours and a little mind fog is starting to settle. Now the question of the hour is: do I go to bed and try to sleep a little while or stay up all night, and face tomorrow bleary eyed and a little crabby.

It’s strange how pulling an all-nighter used to be fun, a little rebellious and usually involved some sort of adventure (or studying, and that definitely lacks adventure). Now it just brings worry: “If I go to bed will it mess up my internal clock worse than staying up”. The strange thing is I didn’t pump myself full of caffeine; haven’t had any in a couple of days.

I could try to do something productive, but doing it quietly so as to not wake the rest of the family would be hard. So here I sit, writing a blog about not wanting to be up. I could listen to the CD I got from my sweet hunney tonight, and get all nostalgic about junior high roller skating parties and remember the butterflies of holding the hand of the current-crush-of-the-week during Journey’s Open Arms or Faithfully, or the reality that the crush-of-the-week had a crush on someone else and they were skating and I was leaning on the wall watching during couple’s skate, trying to not look lame. I could try to work on the blanket I’ve been crocheting for a while now, but I’m afraid the brain has shut down enough I’d lose count of stitches in the pattern and mess it up. That’s the stinky thing about insomnia– the body’s ready to shut down, but the brain won’t completely.

I off to lay in my cmfy bed, and see (or not see) what happens.

G-night– or G-morning for you early risers, since the sky is starting to lighten up a little already. At least I don’t hear birds yet, but it won’t be long.

Gentle Man of Great Peace, Passes to His Eternal Joy

Pastor Dante passed away last week Friday, from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He was 73.
Many don’t know this man, but once you knew him, he was definitely hard to forget. He preached with an energy so few have. His laugh, from deep inside, was contagious, as was his smile. He loved his wife and family with everything he had, and fought to stay with them as hard as he could.

His life was also turned around by God and the power of the Holy Spirit. His was a life of drugs, crime and jail time until God changed his heart. He had a passion for prisoners, drug users, and the ones trying to stay clean, the lost, lonely, and forgotten, and loved them back to their Savior.

He was loved by so many and he will be sorely missed, myself included.

Rev. Dante Alighieri Venegas, 05 October 1933 – 13 April 2007

O.K., that was pretty random…

but that’s kinda where the title came from. Might want to get used to it.

Peace!