Please tell me I'm not a Fool, or Some Kind of Idiot.....

THIS is what made my heart go "Aaaah!" Gods, can you handle the cuteness? Its too soon to tell, but I think brother might be a 'Bullseye' Ginger, which is rare. It means he doesnt have the usual striping but has round, circular markings. Sister is So lovely and gentle, with a white belly and reminds me of Xena, with her black and orange brindle markings. Aren't they gorgeous?

This is what is making me happy, what is getting me excited about having new life in the house, new energy, and new creativity. THIS is what is getting me engaged in the process of creating and being here NOW in life, inspiring me and helping me shake off the last dregs of the winter, down-dragging blues.

I made a whole entirely new raised bed in the garden today, near the studio and close to where the gate will go eventually, and ringed it with stones in an almost spiral; sort of a circle which went inwards and then flared at the edge. That makes no sense of course but no matter because the point is that each stone was dug out by me, by HAND from the sand-box/gravel pit that pretends to be soil on this acre which is slowly but surely becoming beautiful. The reason for the new raised bed was to honour Muriel's potted plants, which have been languishing for two years, waiting to find a proper home where they can put down their roots. So I planted B's mum's two shrubberies, along with loads of other plants which I transplanted from here and there. It looks gorgeous. I'm stoked. I'm sure Muriel is pleased (even though I accidentally broke a piece off one of her her Christmas cactus plants the other week... Sorry M...)

I'm off the couch, feeling SO much better. Spent the whole day outside and am feeling really positive. Got a bit of sun on my face. I worked like a maniac and couldnt believe how much I got done. With all the digging and getting wheel barrows of dirt from the meadow below the woods, I did something weird to my Sacro Illiac, but I dont care! Its like I feel a new infusion of "YES, lets GO!" flowing through me. And it felt truly like Spring has not only arrived, but has had a fanfare of trumpets, with feather boas and sequined ta-ta's, to announce "Hello everybody, I'm AT the PARTY!"

I dont know why this is so important to me. It is symbolic maybe. Another Mother's Day has past without babies of my own body. This time of year, 18 years ago, I lost one of my 3 pregnancies.... This is an anniversary. Its a letting go and a way to be okay with that. This is a surrogate, for sure. And also here's a way to expand Life, caring, nurturing. Symbolic of me reconnecting with giving myself what I want and need, which I havent done for so, So long....I used to be so adamant about what I wanted. I've become a blanc-mange; but now things are shifting back to how they were, or even into something new, something better, at last. It feels really good.

B came with me to visit the 'twins' today. Their eyes have turned from blue to green in the last two days, which tells us they are about 6 weeks old. His comment: "Yup, they are really cute" was a bit quiet, but remember that he now has my cold, which I of course have got rid of. Hoping his enthusiasm levels will rise as the 'due date' gets closer. He is not very 'animated ' in general these days which I can well understand (who can blame him?) and have compassion for because I BLOODY WELL know how it feels ( for the last two plus months!)

Anyway, back to the kits. They have to gain some weight before they can be spayed and neutered. The local SPCA no longer lets any animal out of their care before they've been fixed, which I think is a good thing. They have to wait until the kits are at least 2 lbs before they will be strong enough to undergo surgery. So it will be a number of weeks yet before they come home. Did I mention that already? Oh probably. I'm so thrilled I'm babbling and repeating myself.

So today was a very good one.....

Until I spoke to my brother.

So, if you please, if you can, answer me this:

Why? WHY?!

Why do I always fall into the same trap of my own making? Why do I always attempt, despite the evidence and years of experience to trust my brother and tell him anything about my life, as though he might inquire about how I am, what's going on, why I am where I am and is that ok, or make some positive statement of any kind whatsoever? At. All.

I talked to him on the phone and told him about the kittens, though to be absolutely truthful I only actually mentioned one kitten, intuitively trying to protect myself from his reaction; trying to lessen the load which I sensed was going to come down on me. Intuitively knowing that to tell him would be a mistake...and I did it anyway, more fool me, ( MORE FOOL ME!) Wanting for him to be a part of our happy news news. Wanting him to hear joyfulness in my voice and share it and ...approve. (Why do I need his approval!?) Wanting him to ask if I missed Tashy, and do I feel that it must take two cats to fill the hole in my heart that she left when she went, BIG in my heart as she was. Or laugh and say, "you're mad" or, "you should have been born a farmer", or, "Yegads, I hope you got that vacuum cleaner replaced". Wanting him to be happy for me. Wanting him to understand that I cant fill my house with the pitter- patter of tiny feet other than the four footed kind, and wanting him to fucking GET THAT...Wanting him to know that I need this, and why. I so want him to understand who I am, but he doesnt, or wont. He doesnt want to. Doesnt care to. I just want him to be part of my life as it is, and be .... a part of my life. But he just doesnt want to....

Instead, no surprise, he levelled both barrels at me and let me have it, straight on and head on. So much judgement. So mean. So much criticism. I should have known. I did know.... Of course I knew but I tried anyway.

I was so hurt. I let him rant and then quietly said I had to go. Said goodbye, and rang off. Then I got a vicious, utterly brutal and completely rancid email from him telling me, among other things, that 'normal people' dont require so many pets, that 'normal people' might consider our number of animals 'adequate'. "That 'normal people' might find the the number of pets over the top, and suggested that the pet hair and dander might make 'normal people' not want to come to our house (well the hell with them, then, Goddammit!). That I've been sick so much lately because of my pets (?!?!) That I'm defensive and then (O.M.G!) he asked me if I'm bored with my other pets.... Jesus! Can you believe that? Oh sure, ask your friend next time she's on her second, or third, or whatever pregnancy... "Why are you having another...are you BORED with the first?" Please put on your 3-d glasses on right now and watch her rip your throat out in striking technicolour. Then, THEN, he said he was entitled to his opinion (huh, not wrong there, but I'm likewise entitled to mine) and accused me of hanging up on him. Hello! HELLO!!! I said I had to go. I SAID GOODBYE... in a polite voice even.

I'm gutted. Why dont I ever learn? Why do I bother? Why do I invite him in and let him HURT me. Again and again. It never changes....

He's been really very not nice to me... a lot, in my life. He's been the apple of my eye since he was born and he has resented me, hated me, humiliated me, rejected me, judged me, treated me like absolute shite, and befriended the very people (most certainly 'normal people') who have trampled over me and abused me....Why do I try to engage, and bother to share what's happening for me, what's important to me, what is really good and exciting in my life? Why do I want him to CARE?!

Probably because I'm not a 'normal person'.

More fool me. I should know better.

Fuck him.

These babies.... They are my Mother's Day present, thank you. Thank you very much. If you dont understand that, cant understand that....

Stretching Myself... too Damned Far

I've been sick lately... for a long time. I dont feel like doing anything. Dont feel like writing much. Dont feel like working, and have made myself go into the garden and get some stuff done, which is finally making me feel better. It looks pretty.

Finally gave in and went to the doctor 2 weeks ago, who said I have a systemic infection (ears, lungs, digestive tract, throat, sinuses....Eew); put me on antibiotics (which I loathe, but hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do) after my not-flu flu went insane and tried to kill me. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but seriously folks, 8 weeks is just too much. I got things under control just before the bronchitis turned into pneumonia, and was ordered off work for 5 days. The silver lining. I got to sit around and watch soaps whilst I ate metaphoric bon-bons. I slept a lot. Doctor's orders. Who am I to argue with a diagnosis of, "You've been pushing too hard and not taking care of yourself, you nit-wit, and now you have to sit on your arse and be good to yourslf with rest".

Seriously, Dr. Wonderful would never say that. He's the soul of compassion and thoroughness with just the right amount of information (a lot without actually pontificating in latin), and frankly, I adore him.

Meanwhile, I am on the horns of a dilemma. Back at work now, I'm finding my Spirits somewhat dampened by the constant sick and tired, I'm faced with making shite pay for retail slave labour, and alternatively, pushing like crazy at the plumb job I have with faux finishing, which wont be endless, so, in other words, I have a decision to make. Do I splash out and cut my hours at the retail facory and try to beat the bushes and drum up more work which actually respects my skills and pays me for them, or do I stay safe, and make crap pay, trying to do BOTH and thereby exhaust myself? Seems like a no-brainer, right? Not so easy....But I have to start thinking of me. I cant bloody afford to work there, truth be told. I got a small raise, but slave wages are still slave wages.

I feel guilty, isnt that silly? For being sick and letting things slide, so to make up for it I've been jumping back in with both feet every time I feel better, and working 6 to 7 days a week. No wonder I kept relapsing. Self inflicted wounds do not get a sympathy vote. Huh.

But here's the thing: I do not know how to say no. I worked an extra shift yesterday, when I was tired out and needed to rest, as a favour to a co-worker who was moving. Today I agreed to go to a dinner for another co-worker who is leaving. And I just dont wanna. I'm tired, dammit. I think I'll go to the company do, and then beg off for the drinks and dinner thing. I just dont have it in me.

What I need is a holiday. Its been about 7 years since I had one. I'm bone weary, and feel like I have CFS again.

Pah! If you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all... now you know why I havent been writing much lately. I hate sounding like a misery....

Count all the "dont's " and "haven't's " in this post. Disgusting! Little Miss negative.

Sunny day...

For a change. :)

People get giddy this time of year when the sun comes out. Understandable when we've had nearly non-stop rain since November. Everyone was cheerful at work and I tried valiantly to meet cheerful with happy, and although I'm not unhappy, as such, I am trying to hold The Lurgy at bay. So far moderately successfully, downing massive amounts of vitamins, but I can feel it creeping in. Ugh. I DONT want to get sick!

I should be taking advantage of the longer days and today's sunshine to take the dogs to the ravine this evening, but after a long day at work, and feeling kind of crappy and dizzy, I hardly have the energy. I spent the last three days on the couch, except for running the dogs yesterday ( when they had a great run and had squillions of fun, snarfing around, bareling full till up hill and down dale, jumping over logs and swimming in the creek, digging great wholloping holes in the path for which I had to reprimand them, and generally carrying on like happy wolves in dogs clothing, which of course they are, at heart), so I expect they will forgive me. They are playing outside in the yard now. Enjoying the late afternoon sun.

I dont know if it is the bug I am fighting or the change in climate/daylight but I've been lethargic lately. Physically and emotionally. And I cannot say either that I've been depressed, but the 'internal dialogue' which we all have in our heads has been particularly loud of late, and that wears me down. Sometimes the noise is such a cacophany that I become overwhelmed. Hearing voices? Maybe I'm crazy.....

I rationalise this by telling myself that I have many aspects to my Self, and right now they are all trying to be heard all at once, so I cant hear a damned thing, let alone hear myself think. Sometimes I shout at them, "Who are you?! What do you want from me?! What do you want me to do?!" Sometimes I talk to them softly, and say, "Just give me some space, please, so I can get this and that done, and then you can have the last word".

I've often wondered what it would be like to have multiple personalities. I think we all have a touch of this. Some of us are more border-line than others. It would make my life so much easier if I could identify the conversations, the running commentary and be able to label them, put them in a safe box and hear them out, one by one. Name them. Understand the bits of myself that need to be heard, that need to be understood or that need to come out of the shadows into the light. It would help to be able to confidently say: This opinion comes from the 'observer', this one comes from the 'judgmental bitch' that one comes from the one who worries all the time; this one is a frightened person, young, and she's lonely, while that one over there, very quiet today, says that things always work out, there IS a Plan at work, and we are moving forward in our evolution as a species, and there is beauty and HOPE everywhere, if we look for it. Probably HER name is Pollyanna...

Mental health is so fragile. We can be on top of the world one minute and slip off the edge in another, hardly knowing how it happened. I'm not falling off the edge, but feel rather like I'm sitting right on it, at the moment, with the sharp edge staring me in the face. And I dont know why. Is it because things are okay? Too okay? Is that it? Am I so used to drama, trauma, and struggle that coasting for a while, and the euphoria I feel, the well-being I experience with a daily rhythm which makes sense and works well doesnt give my brain the "I'm terrified' chemicals it is used to, so I somehow manufacture anxiety to feed that addiction?

Comfort, constancy and normalcy, the sense that all is unfolding gently as it should is a foreign experience to me. I fear complacency. Because usually, in my experience, just when you get settled, all hell breaks loose and the excrement hits the rotating blades. I mistrust happiness. How warped is that?! And yet I am reminded of what my step father used to say, bless him, he said, "Let the shit hit the fan... it makes good fertilizer". yeah, thanks dad! :)

I have been having heart palpitations and shortness of breath. It isnt my heart, I'm pretty sure of that. Could be I've been smoking less (a lot less as I am not 100% well), and my body is going, "Hey, where's my fix?" and offering symptoms to indicate its temper tantrum. It feels like the onset of an anxiety attack, but never goes there. Which might help, even, since after the horrible and frightening experience of freaking out (and inevitably there is the point where one feels for absolute certain that one is going to die - you will know this is true if you've ever experinced it, and if you havent, let me tell you, it ain't fun) . Usually I crash afterward, and dont worry about anything anymore. I'm too tired to. The calm after the storm. I havent had a full blown anxiety attack in years, but this feeling, this sense of anxiousness, these days this can last hours at a time.

I'm still taking my happy pills, but havent taken any anti-anxiety pills in over a month, and nor have I taken sleeping pills in 6 months (which I only ever took as a last ditch desperate resort anyway, prefering Nyquill,or gravol, limiting myself to two or at most three, of any of the above, nights a month). Time for a chat with Dr. wonderful, perhaps?

I'm not sleeping well. I've mentioned that already, I know. I'm repeating myself, sorry. Sleep deprivation is something I dont deal with in a good way. It just makes me totally crazy. Quite literally. Emotional, wobbly and irritable. Paranoid even. So maybe I'm just run down and sleep deprived. Maybe the noise in my head is about some stuff, inner garbage, old baggage that is rearing its ugly head so it can be released. It has to come out somehowm, Goddammit. I know that right now I'm relatively stable ( reality being relative) so its an opportunity for the crap to come out. Maybe its an old anniversary I've forgotten.... I was sent to an Aunt in Newfoundland for temporary fostering probably close to this time of year when I was about 4 and 1/2 or 5, or maybe its a miscarriage. One of the three. I cant remember when they happened... Blocked them out... but last night I dreamt I had a miscarriage. I just know something's going on and I cant connect to it, give it a NAME, reason through it, or rationalise it away. It is happening and I just have to trust the process and ride the wave. There is something percolating, bubbles rising, and when they burst at the surface, I expect a word, or a picture/memory or a REASON to be born into the air, to be expressed into consciousness... something, tangible, on the lips of the mouth that whispers in my ear, "Something is going on...". But no....

Meanwhile. Spring is making herself known day by day and warming the earth. Softly softly. The baby little plants are beginning to stick their fragile tiny fronds gently out of the ground, so tentatively, and buds are forming on trees, unfurling just ever so slightly to make that inimitable Springtime green peach-fuzz haze... almost there, but not quite yet. My forsythia is blooming and the crocuses are up; daffodils are putting up their long, spiky leaves, but not ready to bloom. Like me maybe? The clematis didnt die after all but is putting out a huge cluster of shoots, as is the honeysuckle, prolific and mad with winding up the wire fence surrounding the veggie garden; although it seems the trumpet vine went the way of Vaudeville..... sadly. The deer didnt help with their brutal 'pruning' last summer.

The idea though, the dream of green, is at hand, and we all know by now that ideas make our reality. Our thoughts can and do shape our reality. We know this. That which we hold in our thoughts and dreams, is that which we manifest....

Are the trees thinking of Spring? Are my poppies thinking, "Right, days are longer so its time to send up those leaves"...? Are the wild roses, still asleep, dreaming of sunny days as the nutrients slowly are drawn through their roots, into their sap, bringing the message that its time to wake up and make flower buds? Do we all grow instinctively, like this? Maybe that is what sets us apart from plants and animals, ultimately.... the need to understand the process and to know why. The need to measure it, to mark it. To know, be aware of HOW to do it. To choose how to do it.

Frankly, I dont know how.

In shaping my own reality I know my attention to things, and my perspective is everything. I can chose what colour my lenses are. I can chose rose coloured glasses, or not. I can choose green or grey or black. I am noticing more and more that when I do that, when I look at things a certain way and set/choose my 'intent' my life opens up. 'Coincidental' events seem to bring opportunities to make me happy. 'Coincidence' seems to conspire with sweet Serendipity and I make connections, with people, with events, with my conversation with Life. 'When I change the way I look at things, the things I look at change....' I know all these things in my head and am working with them consciously, and with a lot of attention and effort. Why then do I feel like a bag is over my head and I am walking blind?

I went into the studio the other day, and left soon after, noticing the mess, and feeling resentful about it. Not all of it is my mess. Some of it belongs to the renovation and its materials being stored there. Not using the space for that reason is a pitiful excuse. Maybe that is what this flatline feeling is about. Guilt. Every day I don't do something in the studio, I feel guilty. (AHA! THAT'S the internal judge, jury and executioner, right there! That's good. I named that one.)

At the end of the day, I suppose, the best thing to do is accept that there is a process at work here, an internal process that has no words to offer me, and one that I cannot name. No explanation. I have to trust that the Process itself knows, like a tree waking up, what it is doing, and it is going about its business as it is meant to.

I feel strongly that I need to have a conversation with Life. A dialogue. A living, breathing give-and-take. I need to know why. And likewise, I need to have words so I can box up an experience and tell myself, "This is what this thing is" and make it safe for myself. Or at least understood. Contain it.

I am not getting the feedback I need here, and I'm feeling lost and afraid. I have no words to rationalise this. Maybe that's why my head is so full of them, clamouring, tumbling over each other, like a river of words, tumbling over stones, rushing over me. Its not that I am not listening, is it? Are all of the scattered bits of me, floating out on the ethers, buffeted by the winds, lost in some vortex of Gods know what, crying to be called back to me, to come back Home? I miss them, need them as I know they need me, to be whole. I'm trying, I am, but I dont know how to contain them, how to hold them, protect them, hear them all.

But just maybe, perhaps, the words jangling around inside my head ARE the conversation this process is trying to have with me, to tell me that the lost pieces of my Self are finding their way back to me, back Home, bit by bit, little by little; and they all have something to say about it, but I cant decipher their feelings and thoughts. I cant understand what they are saying...... not....

Yet.

Soon. Maybe.

I hope.....

Fatigued and Dazed....

Thursday:

I am very tired. Sleep deprivation. Good thing I'm not a mother. I hardly can imagine how new parents manage on lack of sleep. I'd be terrible.

It happens every year. Twice a year in fact. When the light changes, I get tired. My body slips easily into the gentle rhythm of a slower way of being in Winter, as my brain struggles to keep up the usual frenetic pace. In Spring, as it is now approaching, I try to reboot, but end up losing sleep. My brain wakes up but my body falls behind, reluctant to emerge from hybernation.

It began to get light at 6 this morning. What was I doing up, you ask? After being awakened at midnight, and floppng on the couch (B was fast asleep on the other couch having nodded off during a DVD we were watching), I couldnt get back to sleep and flipped channels for a while. Dozed. Was rudely awakened at 3 by his Lordship Pushkin, who decided that his OWN pillow would simply not do, and that MY pillow, indeed, my HEAD would make a better bed. Thanks, little ratbag!

I was irked enough to deposit him firmly, and consequently on his own pillow, which overlapped mine, you should know, so maybe he was confused about which one was his? No, He was very certain about my head being the better place to recline and drain the very heat from my body, whilst covering my face with long hair and, to add rudeness the affront, tap my head with his claws to demand that I make room for him.

More channel flipping. Then I dozed, with weird dreams until 5. Sought relevant news and was disgusted by the cheerful and chirpy, 1/2 clad BIMBOS who pretend to offer hard news, whilst SMILING as they tell us about terrible things.

Give me strength.

Today, needless to say, was a struggle, but I got to work early, always said, "I'm very well indeed, and how are you?" *bright smile* and wanted to fall down and hide in the cupboards below the counters to sleep. I did sleep, in fact, in a series of micro cat naps, during my lunch hour. No kidding.

Its past 9pm now and I've only just put dinner in the oven. I want to sleep for a week (or a month) and wake up to a world where war is considered in poor taste, and just isnt done, and is in fact considered bad management, and criminnal and the consequences of bad management are a trip to jail forthwith, do not pass 'GO', do not collect $200.-; where poverty no longer exists because money grows on trees. A land where doing what one loves is appreciated, and where children are safe.

Friday:

Main Entry: ec·cen·tric
Pronunciation: ik-'sen-trik, ek-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin eccentricus, from Greek ekkentros, from ex out of + kentron center

1 a : deviating from an established or usual pattern or style
b : deviating from conventional or accepted usage or conduct especially in odd or whimsical ways
2 a : deviating from a circular path; especially : ELLIPTICAL 1 b : located elsewhere than at the geometrical center; also : having the axis or support so located
synonym see STRANGE

* * * * * *

I am even more tired today, if that is at all possible, than I was yesterday. On Sunday I plan to sleep all day. My arse will not leave the couch. Except to run the dogs. How exciting.

In other news I found out that the breast groper IS in fact, 'like that' and IS, in fact, a really nice guy. He means nothing by his touchy-feeliness, and I am willing to concede that breast-contact was accidental. The next occasion of having to serve him was met by me with full emotional armour, and that in no way deterred the hand on the shoulder, the rubbing of my back, in a very childlike way. Moreover, I learned that he and his wife just buy people presents now and then, because. Because they can. He's an eccentric millionaire who has a thing with connecting with people in a tactile way. I dont think its a fetish. I think he's an innocent. So I'll get over myself, and think about my city-girl armour, and what it means to live on a small island with people who are odd.

Heaven knows, I'm odd enough myself.

Business as Usual....

Hey All, I'm sitting here not sure what to write. Dont feel like there is a lot to say, but I'll give it a whirl.....Things are okay. Home is good. Simple and basic. Work is fine, although I've been moved to another part of the store which is dead boring, and I try not to go nuts with ennuie. I put my hands on the counters on either side of me, do leg lifts, push ups (not many!) and debate flashing the cameras by pulling up my shirt and exposing my red bra, but pull silly faces at it instead. I straighten the shelves. And, Gods help me.... I dust. Hope that someone will catch me at it, just so that a conversation might happen, but so far no joy.

A few weeks ago, to provide some comic relief for myself, I set up a display on the top of my monitor which consisted of two white plastic doves, arching one over another, seeminlgy in an effort to reach the perfection of an August Rodin sculpture, depicting lovers embracing. Then I put some Christmas ornaments, white feather puffs on long stalks around it, framing the 'lovers' and put a plastic red heart in the middle. White fluffy stuffing, pretending to be snow, with sparkles, as a foundation. White trash tacky at its best. It gave me SUCH a giggle. I was hoping to provide the manager a laugh, but no one noticed! Not even the customers. Now I have a webkinz kitty on my monitor in the hopes that it will soothe the poltergeist that lives within the system, and inevitably follows me to whatever till I am stationed at. So far, its working. A little technical mojo, feng shui, or magic. Call it what you will, but the charm seems to be having the desired effect. Don't argue with me, okay?! There are Ghosts in the Machine, I tell you three times!

A few days later I bought a garland, you know the kind you put on a Christmas tree, like a string of popcorn, or pearls, only in this case it was lavender and purple beads which went off on straggly strings like branches off a tree. I wore it like a very long necklace which fell to nearly my thighs. I though of Coco Chanel, laughing in her grave. She'd have been proud of me. I wonder how many of her designs arose out of mind boggling boredom?

Meanwhile, boredom requires drastic measures to generate some kind of way to break the desperate tedium. What else can I do? Humour is the best medicine. As it turned out, I got a load of compliments on my 'necklace' last Saturday, at B's dad's B-day party, which was a smashing success, B's dad having told me a few days later that the cold he had coming on that night was wiped out by all the fun and excitement and he felt like a million bucks. 83 and going strong, bless him!

B's ex comes into the store. A stalker by nature and a freak of nature, if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, I am a big believer in all kinds of other-worldly things, but when my man's ex gives him her card to offer to ME and says she'd love to do an 'Angel Reading' for me.... Can I just say: Eeugh! And/or Eew! Tell me people, doesn't that seem odd to you? We are not friends. Neither B nor I like or approve of her. Her poor son works at the Store now and he looks so unhappy, even apologised to the manager for his mother being 'such a loser'... He is actually a great kid.

The thing is, she gets fixated on men. Mostly men very much her junior, as in 20 years her junior. Now B isn't THAT much younger than her and they dated a couple of months, until he wised up and managed, though it took a while, to extricate himself; silly sod. Then he met me, months after he had 'let her down easy' and she STILL had not let go. She sent him letters, showed up at his job sites, offered to FIX HIS JEANS.... and she comes into the shop nearly every day. I have to smile and be nice. At first I wanted to kill her. Decapitate her and eviscerate her. Tear her hair out and scratch out her eyes... pull off her fingernails one at a time. Very. sSowly. Because she still wont let go. My gods, woman, you were a blip on the radar screen, get over it!

I know a number of B's exes. Its a small Island. He has good taste. They are nice and lovely women, the few I know, but this one, she STILL wants his energy. She still makes barbed comments to him, she STILL wants something from him, and still tries to engage him and that's what irks me. He's in love with me. We are solid. We are coming onto 4 years of being together, and you'd think by now she'd get it...but no.

Its just really eew. I feel sorry for her but now and again I get angry at her attempts to connect with him. Thank goodness she has found a new object of desire and obsession..... The aforementioned 20 years junior person. Poor young man... he has the grace to be polite to everyone. Including her. Gods, she pisses me off.

Xena's foot which was quite savagely bitten by Zeus (did I mention this?) over a bone presumably, is healing, finally. When she was a year and a 1/2 I got Zeus, at 3 and a 1/2 months old. She bit him when he ran upstairs, within the first hour of them meeting, and after two hours they were in love. They have never been separated......Seriously, to the point that, in tears, I begged a baggage handler to make sure that they were loaded in their crates, in the hold of the plane side by side when we moved out west. "PLEASE DONT SEPARATE THEM!" He looked at me, the handler, through the plate glass window of the waiting area, and gave me a thumbs up sign. I cried. I'm such a wuss. But I was leaving my erstwhile husband at the time so I had an excuse for being wobbly over sentimental shit....

Anyway. Zeus bit Xena, and she had a couple of punctures on her head, and a really nasty laceration on her left fore paw. The vet said not to run her for at least 3 weeks. Bummer. She's been limping and cries when I clean it with antiseptic using the syringe the vet gave me. Today she seems better and the wound is beginning to close as it heals. Thank goodness.

I guess I had a few things to say after all. :)

Hope everyone in blogland is well.

Oh. My. Gods.

It looks like the old iblogs sites have been appropriated by porn sites now.

What the fuck!?

Are they allowed to steal websites like that? Or did Arlo pimp them?

I'm choked.

More Good New Year's News.... Happyhappyjoyjoy! :)

Well, guess what?! Having realised that I AM, in fact, totally devastated by the loss of my iblogs archives over the past year, I went and searched Google. And have been searching for the last two hours. For those of you in the same boat, here is what I discovered. Iblogs is a real arse, and yet, Google has us in cyberspace it its cache!

I searched with keywords using my blog site name, the arse-wipe server and the word 'archives', Like so:

chupaflor, ' a day in the life', iblogs, archives

And tickety-boo, a whole score of my pages turned up. Utterly inaccessible, of course as the aforementioned dregs of the derriere is defunct. (Bastards). And yet, intuition being what it has to be when one is as computer illiterate as I am, I pressed the highlit 'cache' button, and lo! and behold! There they were. Months of them. Not all, but months of them, which I copied , and now have to find a way to insert them into a file but they are safely saved in a drafts folder of my mail.

A small triumph. Another bit of New Year's good news!

Mostly the photographs didn't copy, and I am especially choked about that one as I think of Zeus up in a tree, playing 'Hound of Hell', with fiery camera red-eye, making him look like a daemon. You'll remember of course. And I still have that photo in my hard drive, but havent yet learned how to post pics HERE. You might recall the time it took me to learn how to post photos on iblogs. Learning curve was steep!

You know, many native cultures believe that if you take a photograph of something, you capture a bit of its essence. I dont necessarily think that is a bad thing, as I think my own essence is limitless (I'm so modest). But seriously, on a soul level, we are limitless, right, so why would I care if someone has a piece of me? Its like a hologram. Or a drop of water. Each piece is whole unto itself, and yet the entirety isn't diminished at all for having a drop of itself here and there. Its all infinite. A fanciful analogy, maybe but I am sure you get my point. (Actually I think that The DT could explain it more articulately).

And yet, that point being made, I felt somehow that there were pieces of me floating around in cyberspace, or worse yet, gone into the ethers, completely gone. I imagined them lost in space, lonely without me, and without each other....Horrible. Silly, but horrible. (Abandonment issues?!) That's a years' worth of my journal, my thoughts and my experiences. And all of your comments! Okay, so it wont change the tide of life on this planet, and isn't that important in the grand scheme of things, but dammit, it matters to ME! Those are pieces of me/us floating out there, and I'm happy for others to have a look at them, but I want them under my own wing, so to speak. You know? Because words have power, and when I put them out there, I offer them, as a gift, but I when they are stolen from me, I don't like it.

Anyroad, I've got some of them back. Have no idea how to import or transport or teleport them to this blogsite. But they've been brought home. I take comfort from that. They are home, back with me where they belong. Looking rather a lot worse for wear, with keywords being highlighted, and arrows everywhere, and no photos, no background blog template to show them off as they were. An intent. An offer. A place to express myself, and vent....An invitation to a conversation....and a moment of life. Yet, I feel so much happier knowing that they are home.....

Bloody, Bloody bastards, those iblogs. Yeah, so it was free, but you don't give someone a home, let them get settled in for over a year, make friends and form bonds, and then say, "Ooops. You cant have that now, piss off". And now we can't even contact them and tell them how annoying this all is?! Or ask them what can be done about it. I still hope against hope that the site will come up again so I can retrieve the rest of my lost stories. Particularly, 'Muriel and the Christmas cactus', which meant a lot to me. And to her, I'm sure, dead though she is.....

So aside from that little achievement which nearly made my eyes cross in frustration whilst searching and figuring things out, Sunday was lovely. Mostly, or totally spent on my own, but that's okay. I chopped kindling, played ball and Frisbee with the dogs, brought some stuff for mosaicing into the studio - then panicked and left. But I DID go in there. I must have a phobia or something. I blogged and read a lot. A real Sunday.

Got a fire going in the wood stove, and of course I found the lost children (or some of them) from the old blog...... A successful day, in my opinion. :)

It was lovely to revisit the comments made by everyone, and realise what a tight little community we had there. I hope Claudio is okay. And am hoping that Reg will be blogging from her apartment soon. I miss them. Miss you all. Mostly I miss Bloomsie. Haven't heard much from her but got a brief note recently saying she's okay.... The tribe.....

I've been reading some blogs by people with infertility issues quite a lot lately. Its been a comfort to me. Will make a list soon of various really good blogs I read. There are a lot of very big hearted, strong, fragile, feeling and wonderful people out there!!!!

I was given a HUGE bag of fresh basil from an importer the other day (a few bunches of which I gave to fellow workers, to their apparent delight), who swanned through my till with the querry, "Do you like Basil?" Huh? Who doesnt. Somewhat bemused, I said of course I did, and he came back into the store a few moments later with the bag, saying he had a large shipment from Guatemala bound for the distributors in Vancouver and Toronto. Wow, how nice is that?! (Good thing I have a policy of making sure that everyone who passes through my till leaves the store with a smile!)

Tonight I plan to make gnocchi, with butter and basil pesto. I've never made it before, of course, so am a little concerned, but what the hell, at least I'm not doing what I usually do....which is try a new recipe when I have company! I have no anchovies, but DO have pine nuts. And how hard can it be, really? Olive oil, Basil, pine nuts, salt, pepper, parmagianno porfavore, and garlic. Wee potato dumplings, boiled and then sauteed in butter before being drenched in the pesto. Utterly yum. (A few slivers of lemon rind maybe, do you think?)

Yo, Cuisinart, here I come!!!!

Have a good night, everyone, and a happy tomorrow! Ciao my Chickedees!