Cats and Flowers

I got some more cat pictures this morning. I know you're shocked.

George says, "How do you know..."

"...that you're not the one who's upside down?"

(I turned the blanket the other way out, so I can tell where it ends and he begins. With the dark side up, I was afraid I was going to sit on him by mistake.)

Carlos says, "Hush."

"Is sleeping time."

So I went out this afternoon on a mood-enhancing mission. Can you guess where?

I was wondering, on the drive, how many people who read here are in, or have lived in, snowy areas. Do you know what it's really like to live with? Not this part, the pretty, sparkly white part:

 But this. Grungy, dirty, in the way, can't see over the snowbanks part.

That's why periodically I have to go through this door.

 Where it is this: warm, and humid (in the good sense of "not dry").

Having a blog means having blog archives means I can say I first went to the Wellesley greenhouses in 2010 (and again in 2011 and 2013)(2012 was Florida, and a mild winter, which is probably why nothing that year; only so much archive-diving I'm doing). It makes me smile! Warm and color and green and hope. Join me. More pictures than probably anyone else wants to see, but I please myself first, after all.

Goodbye winter!

Trying to Keep Head Above Snow

It hasn't been a great day. I'm never a fan of winter, as you may have picked up (it's a subtle thread, but if you look carefully, it's there), but the snow-and-snow-and-snowy ones are particularly hard, and even before it started today, I was edgy about it. Too many, too much, too often. It's like winter strips away any cushion I have to cope with life, and the least stupid thing feels much worse than it would any other time of the year.

However! I got out this morning, and picked up a few essential storm supplies.

Some people buy bread and milk when a bad storm is due, but some of us go to the library. I read two of them today already.

I also did some knitting. I finished the little neckwarmer scarf for my grandmother.

The snippet on the right is how much yarn was left. Extreme knitting victory!

Then tonight I worked some more on the Bruins scarf. Did I mention that? Too lazy to look it up and see if I did. I made one for my friend's grandson after she got us the Bruins tickets, and his parents liked it soooo much...

So I finished one last week:

And I'm halfway through the second. They go pretty quickly, obviously, though big needles are a bit hard on my hands after a while.

The cats have had some success and some failure today. Well, put blame where it belongs: George has had some failure. He was back in solitary for a few hours this afternoon after chasing Carlos. But he's been good tonight, even being on the bed without being attack-y or even in-your-face, so we'll see if he can keep that up. I've been checking in regularly, and praising him for being "such a good boy" every time. Hopefully he can learn: if you chase That Other Car, if you bite the hand that pats you, whoosh, you are alone behind a closed door, and what fun is that?

Fortunately for him, he's pretty cute, so I'll keep trying.

Though, occasionally, he can be a little herp-derp:

What?

Yeah, I know, not exactly the same, but it made me think of it. Smiling is good today, for any silly reason.

Between Storms

We got a bit more snow this morning, but not much. Which is fine! Clearing it off the car yesterday was like dealing with six inches of wet cement, and the ground is still all ice and slush. Yesterday my neighbor was snow-blowing while I was out there, and he said, "I like winter, but I'm getting sick of this." I said, "I didn't like it to begin with!"

Also there's another storm coming tomorrow. I'm in the 4-to-8 inches band. Let us not speak of this. I'm getting pretty close to calling movers, Florida here I come. (It doesn't help that one of my friends is IN Florida this week. I mean, I'm happy for her, but just barely.)

I did work from home again today, which was peaceful and productive, and let us not forget, not cold. So pleasant to not have to wear all those layers! And still be cold! Also, I got caught up on laundry, and had furry company.

George sat on the couch with me at lunchtime, and when I got up and plopped him into the warm spot, he settled right down, as you can see.

He shifted now and then, registering a noise or movement, but he's been there for a couple of hours now.

I'm going to join him and get knitting. My mother emailed me this morning to say that my grandmother has asked for a little scarf to wear around her neck. My mother asked her about the one I just made for her, but apparently Grandma is convinced it would be stolen in the nursing home. Which is flattering, if perhaps a wee bit silly. But anyway, I pulled out the yarn leftover from the green mittens I made last year and started tonight. Hopefully it will be less prone to theft! I'm going with a simple basketweave, and the third start seems to be working.

First one was too wide, second one was a combination of shit-there's-a-mistake and damn-I-hate-metal-needles. Third one, well, so far so hoopy. Off to get to it!

Hmmm, perhaps I'll eat first. We don't want a crash like last night's again.

Ups and Downs, Generally and Of Cats

Today was mostly fine, but this evening I am Ms. Mood-swing. I've been snacking all day, but I am late eating dinner and hoping it will help stabilize me.

While the cats are not yet fully, peacefully integrated (drat), they have had their good moments. This afternoon I got on the bed with Carlos, as he was in a posture suggestive of being rattled, and I was petting him and telling him he's wonderful when George joined us. I feared for the worst, cat-integration-wise, but George just settled down calmly, Carlos didn't panic, and I stayed there for a while, telling them both how good they were.

Eventually I had to get up because my arms had gone to sleep. I was sure that George would get up when I did, but he stayed there long enough for me to come back with the camera. Proof!

Later, he went back to the couch, and Carlos took to the other side of the bed.

Best of all, tonight I went into the bedroom again and realized they were close by choice, all peaceful.

I know, hard to tell. By the time I got the flash turned on, George was coming to see what I was up to.

I get stressed when Carlos does, which makes me feel like this might not have been a good idea. But moments like this remind me to give it time.

I'm Begging You. Lie to Me.

(Credit Mary Ellen for sharing this on Facebook. Oh, yeah.)

Please tell me that someday, I will not be coughing. I will not make sure to travel with a quart-sized bag of cough drops (to have a variety of flavors), and will not always be sure to place cough drops by the couch, by the bed, on the kitchen table, and in my pocket. I will not have a cough drop in my mouth all night, and most of the day. That, correspondingly, the roof of my mouth will not be tender, and my throat raw from coughing anyway. That I will no longer contemplate pausing in the middle of eating lunch for a cough drop.

That one day there will be color in the world again. And warmth. That I will be able to step outside without layering up. That I will no longer see my breath. That the days of shoveling and scraping and slipping will end.

Please tell me these things. Lie if you must.

Fake It Til You Make It*

I wasn't in a great mood as I left work tonight. It's so damn cold, and I am so over winter, and it is so not done. Being in the depths of the cold-and-gray season erodes my ability to tolerate even small problems. There's another storm coming in this week, and I am, I need not say, most emphatically NOT excited for the prospect of more "Potential for significant snow accumulation." Although I am looking forward to being able to work from home on Thursday. Sweatpants, not being chilly despite three layers and a heater, cats, possibly throwing in a load of laundry and checking the Olympics now and then (hockey!). The snow clouds do have a silver lining now that I have a laptop from work. But that wasn't cheering me up tonight.

So I was talking to myself, as I often do, in this case about being unhappy, and how I've read that pretending to be happy actually does make you happier, but it seems so unlikely, doesn't it? And how do you start? Meanwhile, I was flipping through radio stations to find a song to listen to, and what came along but one of my recent favorites, Happy, by Pharrell Williams. It's from the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, and I love the little dance that Gru does when it plays:



It really does just make me happy to hear it (though, no, I don't know what "clap along if you feel like a room without a roof" has to do with happiness). Here's the full video, if you're interested.



Now, it didn't turn my mood around on a dime tonight, though the serendipity did make me laugh at myself. I stopped in at the store for a few things, then drove home deeply unhappy with the weather (I was almost home before my hands and feet warmed up all the way). After a little quiet time and a little kitty time, I set about making a batch of chili, to take to a friend's for dinner tomorrow. I decided to play some music to bop around the kitchen to, and after a few songs, remembered Happy and how I'd been meaning to buy it. I went online, and found that I could buy the song for 99 cents or the whole soundtrack for $8.99, and since I liked the other music too, I went for that option (Christmas money, thank you!).

I started playing it, and found to my delight that the version of the minions singing I Swear, from the end of the movie, was there too. That song made me cry with laughter when I first saw the movie; that may not be the result for everyone, but even though I wasn't a particular All-4-One fan, the song is firmly on my radar, and the minion cover reliably cracks me up.

So I started a little playlist called "elevators" for when my mood needs a lift. In addition to these two, I added Andy Grammer's Keep Your Head Up, and Bad Day, by Daniel Powter. There are plenty of other "radio songs" that I've liked enough to buy but that don't fit into this category; I'll have to think about what else belongs there.

*From the West Wing, of course. Remember?

Of Mouse and Cats

A man showed up at the office today about the mouse that we had reported -- a month ago, remember that? I heard him telling the boss that we shouldn't have released it, which is pretty rich coming from someone who shows up a month later. Sorry that we didn't feel like mouse-slayers that day, sir! Or maybe we should have bought it a cage and a wheel, and made it our mascot?

He also gave us (mostly me, since it was near my desk) a lecture about how food attracts them (even though all it ate was my plant), an extended diatribe on the life cycle of mice (including a phrase I never thought to hear, "alpha mouse"), was very condescending to me as he asked if I was the one who "took care of it", and finally announced that he would return in a month -- to what purpose is unclear. Repeat lecture? It was very odd.

Also today, I had my review. It was fine, in the "I totally expected this to be weird since she admits she doesn't know what she's doing" way. She said that when she read my self-assessment, it was more or less exactly what she was going to say, that she's pleased with my work, that she knows she hasn't interacted with me a lot but it's because she doesn't have any issues with my work, and she did give me the opportunity to ask questions and raise issues if I had any.

We didn't discuss any goals, unlike last year when I was given very vague/unmeasurable goals that were supposed to be for the next six months and then heard nothing about them again; I wonder what will come out after she has her own review. Anyway, at least it was relatively painless. Some days, that's the best you can hope for.

*****
In the end, I did not leave the cats together today. Last night at bedtime, George was acting so crazy that I put him in the office for the night; then after letting him out this morning, back in he went for the day. I mean, I get that he's bouncy, but I can't let him bug Carlos too much, too soon. Tonight I'm trying to play with George enough to work out some of his wiggles before bed. We'll see how that goes. Already my finger is sore from holding the laser pointer on, but they're both enjoying it, so I will persevere. Until bedtime, which fast approaches.

Lookit the Kitty. Kitties!

I'm already looking forward to next weekend. It's a long weekend (I get Monday off for Presidents' Day), which means that this time next week, I will not be feeling the end-of-weekend blues. Won't that be nice?

I think I'll make this a cat-picture-heavy entry; the words aren't coming to me now. As promised, pictures of George in daylight. Even so, not all great, but better.

 I believe he is unfamiliar with the sounds of a dishwasher.

He was curious, but dubious.

He is curious generally.

He naps in the carrier sometimes. After all, if a guy doesn't nap during the day, he won't have the energy for the 3 AM leaping!

Mary Ellen brought a tribute when she came to meet him, which he graciously accepted.

He also accepted her presence (that's her foot at the top right) with little hesitation.

He knows how to relax.

Perhaps almost too well. About to drip off the edge there, dude.

And, just in case you forgot, there's another cat here.

Who is also very cute. Just saying.

Friday Night Cat Talk

I worked from home Thursday as well as Wednesday; my boss had said it would be all right if I did, and given the condition of the street in the morning, the decision made itself.

This was the pretty part, looking up. Don't look down.

By afternoon, things were much clearer, and driving in today wasn't bad at all, just sloppy. And since my boss didn't come in today, that means this week only rated a 2-of-5 in-person boss annoyance factor. Not bad! (Next week it's review time. Likely to be significantly less fun. Sufficient unto the day, etc.)

Working from home meant the cats had plenty of face time, and they did well enough yesterday that I didn't lock George away when bedtime came. Things went well in the night, with feline interaction but no fighting, though I did shut him in again around 3 this morning when he was being a little too bouncy for me. He went in without complaint, came out again this morning (and at one point he went bouncing into the bedroom at Carlos, who didn't even get big-tail-y, so good sign there), and went in again when I got ready for work. By Monday, if not before, I expect I'll be ready to leave them together, but again, we'll see how it goes.When I was buying cat food* tonight, I also got one of those plug-in cat calming things, so hopefully that will make things even less stressful around here. For me, if not for them!
*And some toys. Because, you know. Hey, the gecko was on clearance!**
**Can I tell you how much I hope someone will find this blog through a search of that phrase? Or use it as a spy password: 
"The cock crows at midnight." 
"The gecko was on clearance."

What in the world is this?

One slightly unpleasant thing is that it turns out* George has roundworms, which are apparently pretty common and easy to treat and not all that dangerous but still, ew. I picked up his medicine and gave him the first dose tonight, much to his surprise; fortunately, it's a once-weekly (for 4 weeks) thing, so not that onerous.
*I had to get a "sample" from him and drop it off, and it couldn't be too old, so it took a few days to put all that together, and I didn't hear back until yesterday.

So There we are. In addition to all the other things I have going on this weekend, I want to try to get some cat pictures in daylight, because man, black cats need natural light. This is the best I have for now.

Action shot with flippy tail. The laser pointer got him rawther worked up.

Not Much for You Today

Today was okay, but I found myself being extra cranky on very little provocation. I think it's a combination of things:

• not having heard about the job offer
• the snow and cold
• still coughing (just, you know, since Christmas)
• plus a little worry about Carlos; he's handling the new cat quite well, all things considered, but I hate for him to not be happy, even if it's only short-term unhappiness

So far, none of the cheer-up methods I've tried have helped. I'm going to go watch a hockey thing and knit. That should help, and maybe the Bruins will win later.

Meanwhile, you can watch this. Yes, it's a video of school officials recording a closing message. But look:

Right?

Or, if you have five minutes, watch Neil Gaiman read Green Eggs and Ham.

Because we live in a world where now you can see that. So that's pretty cool.

Working from Home

Being able to work from home today was so very nice. Quite apart from the idea of not having to worry about the snow, it's a peaceful way to get things done, isn't it? No doubt if my current work situation was more pleasant*, I would miss going in regularly, but as it is ... it was nice.
*Speaking of which, no news, but I sent another How-about-it e-mail just now. Fingers are still crossed, right?

George was out (of solitary confinement, that is) for most of the day; I just popped him back in when I fed them, as Carlos is not yet ready for the "what have you got, ooh I'll try that" stage of friendliness. Someone from the agency where I got George called today to see how he was doing, and I was able to tell her that although they aren't friends yet, they aren't enemies either. It does look promising.

George found all the snow-related noises baffling. Plows, snow blowers, shovels ... all had him at attention. But he also sat on my lap some of the time, and disappeared for a nap (presumably) for several hours, so it's not like he was completely stressed. I went out twice to work on digging out the car; I'd guess we got about 10 inches, enough that I'm sore now, anyway. According to the forecast, it isn't going above freezing for the next week, so what we got isn't going anywhere. And the next storm, this weekend, they aren't sure yet how much it will bring where. Awesome. I don't even find comfort in the fact that today's was great snowman snow, though others did.

I was more comforted by the hyacinth that I cleverly bought myself last weekend. I love the smell, and the sight certainly beats what's outside the window.

Pink. Color. Not white, or once-white-now-dingy, but color. Time for me to visit the greenhouse again, isn't it? What do you do, when the drear of winter hits you?

Of Cats and Work and Things (The Year of...)

Cat integration, further update: we have achieved proximity.

It isn't happy proximity, but they were like this for at least five minutes, no hissing or chasing, which is something.

I was imagining George saying,"No, dude, seriously, I'm not your enemy. I'm not your enemy, dude, seriously, chill out! Don't you want to play?"

*****
I actually felt sorry for my boss today. She is so over her head in a managerial role, and while most of the time I blow that off (it's neither my fault nor my problem, callous as that sounds, and if her inability to do her job makes my job harder, then I feel callous), today she was talking about how she's supposed to do my review and the other editor's and doesn't have a clue how to, which while it doesn't bode well for me is kind of pitiable. And then her boss asked her for some stats that she hadn't been keeping track of, that her boss apparently told her she should have been, and that's the sort of thing that's much clearer in retrospect than prospectively.

It also turned out that she's highly leery of Microsoft Excel, and at first I was kind of taken aback by that. She almost seemed scared to create a spreadsheet, and while I am far from a high-level user, I prefer Excel to Word for tracking things, so I was surprised. Still, what she said about it (that she's worked with what others have created, but not created much herself) is basically identical to what I could say of myself and PowerPoint, so perhaps it's just my perception that Excel is a more common program than PP. I mean, you can't be an editor these days without using Word*, and you can be one without using Excel, it's just ... it's just that it's so useful for certain things, and I don't think of them as complicated. What do you think?
*Or another word-processing program, but I haven't had a job that doesn't use Word.

I started one for her. We went through a few iterations, but it seemed better than leaving it to her. We'll see if that comes back to bite me in the butt.

*****
You know, of course, that I am emphatically not excited about the prospect of another snowstorm, as is coming in overnight. There is a bit of a silver lining this time, though. Tomorrow, if all goes as planned, I will be sleeping a little later, then continuing to edit a report on schizophrenia on the couch in my sweats, using the laptop that I brought home tonight, that supposedly works, instead of shoveling and struggling into the office through the mess. Hooray for small victories! I'm quite ridiculously pleased to neither have to ford the storm, nor feel guilt for deciding not to try. Decision: made.

*****
So you all know about my new-job search, as well as the new-cat search. In addition, there are some other things, bigger and smaller, that 2014 may be The Year of, for me:

• new computer. I bought mine in 2008! It is slow! Should I get another desktop, or a laptop? I'm leaning toward a laptop, but undecided.
• new TV. I bought mine in college, which means it's from around 1990. I will pause for laughter. The idea of choosing a new one is deeply disturbing; tell me what to get. My living room is not that large, so I don't want to go as big as they come, but I am excited for bigger than I currently have, and letterboxed to align with how shows and channels are these days. Meaning this century. Ahem.
• new car. I kind of hope not, it's such a big decision, but I have less confidence in my current car, and how much money is going into it for repairs, than I would like to have. Sigh.
• new cat tree/scratching post. The one I have, I bought when Pan and Harold outgrew the short one they had as kittens. So, probably 1999? It was a good quality one, clearly, but it's kind of worn out now, and most of the rope is shredded and shedding.

Want to weigh in on any of those? I filed my taxes last night, so I have a refund to anticipate spending.

Cat Integration Update

So, my weekend was overall quiet. Much of Saturday was spent at the funeral services for my friend's mother; since it was on the south shore (which is some distance away), and involved meeting at the funeral home, going in procession to the mass, then to the cemetery, with lunch after, it was a lot of time and much sadness therein. Fortunately, I was able to ride there and back with friends, which helps one get through such things. I was home around 3:30, but was emotionally drained enough that I didn't get much done the rest of the day. I did get to watch the Bruins game, which NESN kindly reran Saturday night (they'd played a matinee, and won 4-0, so that was kind of nice to see).

I have introduced the cats, which is going about as well as can be expected. Carlos is not at all on board with the idea of there being another cat in his home, and especially one prone to bouncing enthusiastically at him. He's done a little hissing, and meowing, as well as the understandable sniff-sniff-sniffing, but this morning when Tonto was particularly enthusiastic, he fled. Tonto, naturally enough, followed, and I had to separate them. Not that I was planning to leave Tonto out; they aren't ready for unsupervised togetherness, and I don't want Carlos to be forced into sharing all the time before he's ready. I plan to bring Tonto out in the mornings and evenings, but keep him in the office during the day and overnights this week. Maybe by Friday we'll be ready for him to spend the night out, but I'm not deciding that now.

Strangely enough, it's almost a problem for me that Tonto is overall so sweet: I forget that I don't know him well yet, and don't know his body language and triggers. There have been a couple of incidents of him lashing out that I think are mostly from me taking him for granted, and not backing off when he needs me to. I mean, when I have a cat curled up on my lap purring, it's easy to think he's completely fine, but if he hears something he can't place, even if *I* know it's just a neighbor noise or passing car, I have to back off while *he* decides if it's a threat.

No consensus on the name yet, by the way. I've tried calling him Tonto, and Tigger, and Midnight, and Blackie, but none of them roll trippingly off the tongue, I find. A late possibility was introduced by my cousin, noting on a photo on Facebook that he looks like the cat our grandparents had when we were young, George. Which would be a nice memory, in addition to the Bugs Bunny reference. It certainly hopped off my tongue easily this morning when I was yelling at him for chasing Carlos! So maybe that will be it.

Considering that I won the cat lottery last week, it would be pushing my luck to also make progress on the job front, but I am slightly downcast that I didn't hear anything yet from the prospect after the phone interview. I had e-mailed the guy with a follow-up question mid-week, so I thought I would at least get an answer to that, but not so far. I'll try again this week. Keep keeping the fingers crossed, please.

I was going to post, but...

...Someone has other ideas.