Freelance on a Couch: Stuff that works for me

#BirthMonthBlogging-1

Things I have learned are good to do in freelance writing and editing while working from home every day that I can mostly on a couch or comfy chair

HAVE A CAT

As a lifelong overachiever, I currently live and work with three of the feline persuasion. If I am not patting, scritching, greeting, complimenting, or sharing laptop space with a cat at least every hour, I can feel the loss physically, emotionally, and mentally. Being happy-ish and healthy-ish allows me to concentrate, persevere, and create. There is science.

YMMV: It seems to me dogs would work quite well in a pinch and why not pet-able reptile or porcine pets, too?

EAT FRUIT

Early this year, I started eating at least an apple a day and I do not care to imagine my life without it now.

Fruit was like my least favorite food category (besides the obviously gross ones like exotic sea creatures, internal organs, and rice pudding) before, and in making the change to eating (and craving) fruit throughout the day I wasn’t an overnight success. But it is now the most reliable “yes” in the eating world for me. If I eat fruit throughout the day, I am more likely to be healthy-ish and happy-ish, and that feeds concentration, perseverance, and creativity. It's just science.

YMMV: Chopping celery or carrots is too much effort and arm pain some days, but cherry tomatoes and mini peppers have the quick pick up, rinse, bite, be done quality like apples when veg is one's vibe. NBD.

LISTEN TO AUDIOBOOKS

... at night (or podcasts while folding laundry or washing dishes). Sometimes my eyes sting like peppers from looking at a screen all day and night. But I need some story in my brain besides what I am writing, editing, or researching. I could not do what I do without that, and sometimes I can no longer read with my eyes.

GET DRESSED

I have come to love loving what I am wearing when I work at home on a couch.

WORK WHEN I CAN

Sometimes I cannot read or write during prime Day Job hours. My brain is broken. If I can do it at 8PM, I will. Sometimes I can do it with the TV on or family members or stranger cafe dwellers talking. I can do it starting at 1AM. So yes, your mileage may vary and this is the worst advice ever. But accepting the truth that forcing myself into a tight, scheduled routine was making it harder for me to work cut out a lot of anxiety and false guilt. Part of living with my mental and physical health is recognizing that there are bad days and weeks, and there are good ones. Eating fruit and taking walks doesn't make everything fit in a nice neat job box.

GET UP AND MOVE

I use a device that physically reminds me every hour or so to move. For the most part, I work on a couch, with my laptop either on a pillow on my lap or on a bamboo, air-slotted lap desk on my lap. If I sit all day, I will be unhappy and unhealthy, and my muscles will lock up or spasm. I will feel bruised where nothing but pillow, couch, air, or cat touched me. I will feel exhausted. Sometimes that happens even when I got up and shook it out or walked to the mailbox every hour. See Work When I Can.

CONTEXT

These commonly known stuffs work for me. They are not unique. They might not work for you or someone you love.

I came into my present professional set-up from a life-altering experience of major depression and I have fibromyalgia.

Since 2016, I have been doing some combination of the following, professionally:

1. Researching and writing web copy for a commercial and/or non-profit client, typically of the start-up, information-economy type.This involves consistent, same-old assignments, week on week. I have worked with the same bread-and-butter client (mental healthcare-related) since 2017.
2. Developmental editing, aka ghost-writing and/or story/writing coaching. This involves finding and collaborating with a client on their idea for a book, typically for six-ish months per project.
3. Teaching "nontraditional" college students online through a huge university. This involves guiding and grading through an eight-week term, one or two liberal arts course sections at a time.

This is the first of an attempt to blog a few times in this, my birth month. Topic suggestions welcome! 

Share stuffs that you have learned are good to do in your job: post a comment!

Turn around, bright eyes (but don't look at the map)

Every now and then we are minding our own business, getting our work done, making our stuff, when a stupid jerk starts yakking away about how we are just going to embarrass ourselves or we simply can't make what we're trying to make. The voice is coming from inside our heads!! and it is like a cat pushing our papers off the table, but with greater malicious intent and, significantly, way less self-esteem.

My friend - no really, it was a friend, not me - and mutual tweet-follower Michael tweeted a call for help this morning (hi):

How do you guys beat your inner critic? How do you shut that jerk up? What're your favorite strategies? Asking for a- me, it's for me.

— Michael Edwards (@sudomichael) April 12, 2017

How do we out-wit the voice?

So, a few trusty practices came to mind pretty quickly. Not because I don't have to sit and listen to the inner critic literally every (okay, every other) day as I write, but because I do. There are these things that do happen to work sometimes.

Go back and look at (a) Something I made awhile ago that was probably pretty good. When I see it is great, I can keep going. and/or ... https://t.co/nevl7YOkuV

— rinila (@rinila) April 12, 2017

1. Remember a project my gut tells me was done well and re-view it. That will shut the "meh, why bother" voice up at least for a while.

- Rini's Personal Writing Archives, Four-Year-Old File

 2. Remember what some people (or gatekeepers) said about something I did and re-view their responses. That will give the voice someone else to argue with while I get back to work.

Then another friend of the Original Poster suggested (in addition to tried and true setting small goals and checking them off) a tactic that has had the opposite effect on me sometimes. He recommended reflecting "on the personal trail you are blazing," but I find that zooming out and looking for proof of Good Work in a big picture trajectory actually invites the mean voice to say, "So this map doesn't impress much, does it? You're no closer to the X than you were five projects ago. Wait, I can't even see the X -- what treasure are we searching for anyway?"

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit tired

Of listening to the sound of my tears

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit nervous

That the best of all the years have gone by

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit terrified

And then I see the look in your eyes 

- Bonnie Tyler

That can be a trip-up for the upwardly or treasurably mobile among us. The thing for me is to do The Thing that is being done now well, and to remind myself that a Thing or Two has been done well before, so don't get all mired in the map. Just this one thing now, okay.

Of course, life and creativity and productive work are none of them just a bunch of unconnected things. I am fortunate in that I have never been especially stuck on the single, ever-forward-moving path idea. But I understand its temptation and its authoritative claims for a lot of maker-workers, and Purpose driving - maybe for some, even, a 15 Year Plan - has its virtues.

There is a third Silence the Downer Inside tactic I practice even more regularly, and that is the move so fast my mind can't mess me up move. This is when I do what it takes to build some momentum - in my case, in writing - and pound out 750 or 1,000 words or more in one breath. I usually tell myself going in that "it doesn't matter if they're good or not" but that's all I'll say to myself about it because this exercise is not about self-affirmation, it's about action. Most of the time when I exhaust that burst of productivity, I look back over it without trepidation and find there is good, usable stuff right there and as a bonus, the Critic Inside got distracted and is taking a nap or something.

A caveat, for me, is necessary when it comes to pitching and self-promoting -- as in a job application, book proposal, letter of interest... They're a tricky Thing when it comes to revisiting and powering through, because the whole Thing is to deny the critic within and without.

I'd like to get better at stopping and taking more time to represent Me, rather than Perfect Pitchy Me in these projects. Because sometimes I see or think up something I want to do and I'm in such a hurry to get my "Pick me!" in front of the Picker's eyes first that I bulldoze right over the good that comes from self-criticism -- the humor, the carefulness, modesty.

So, that's my take on what to do to do good stuff when I doubt the stuff is good-able.

You? Hit Michael's tweet up (if he's still looking), or share around here with us and me.

Fitting Friends and Finds: Antiques Roadshow, Here We Come!

Post Table of Contents
Section 1: Moral of the Story
Section 2: The Story Before Pictures
Section 3: The Story Continued With Pictures

Some of you will want to skim section 2.

The Moral of the Story: Always travel with a friend who can find cool stuff for you, and you for her; remain open to the input and help of others, even if they overly confidently suggest something you just tried and found failing; don't measure things before deciding whether to buy them; and be willing to ask to borrow a screw driver from someone who is actually trying to sell not loan it for free!

The Pictureless Part of the Story
We wandered around the flea market for a couple of hours this morning, admiring kitsch, families, nostalgia, and possibilities. (Shawn also named all the breeds of the many dogs we encountered. But that's not part of the story. I also don't have any pictures of that part.)

Shawn was looking for a ring. A nice, unique ring for $50 birthday money.

I, who really am usually (and happily) just along for the ride on our adventures like this (my contribution to the social calendar this fall was to suggest we attend a high school football game in October; my sister, mother of two teenagers attending the #1 ranked high school football school in the nation, assures me it isn't creepy for non-alumni, non-parents, non-h.s.-teachers to attend; I'm going for the nachos and nostalgia; do they serve nachos at New England high school football games?! At least they should have a marching band. Right? Oh, but I did take us to an art gallery after the flea market, so never mind). . . I announced cheerily as we left early this morning, "I'm going for a bike and furniture!" I'd been thinking about buying a bike for awhile, but not seriously planning to pick one up today. And, I don't need any furniture, but I'd just been admiring a corner shelf unit Shawn has in her dining room, so I thought it would make a nice focal point for me on our trip. I wasn't really looking for furniture, just company and society.

But we weren't finding any nice rings. I kept flirting with a spinning globe that lights up and an unpleasantly framed supercool old map of Boston Harbor, but neither one was priced to sell (to me).

Then I said to Shawn, using my subtly-toned "I'm serious, not ironically pointing out a hideous piece of never-fashionable trash" voice, "I think you will want this." It was a very nice old camera, in amazing shape -- inside the case, the camera, etc. -- for its age. She loved it, bargained it down to just slightly more than she should have paid, and had her find.

We wandered around some more, then she said, "Wow! You must love this!" And pointed out a contraption I'd never seen before or known existed, but didn't even bother bargaining down to just slightly more than I should have paid. It's a library-step-stool-arm-chair. Apparently they exist.

The professional-garage-saler cleared it of the books he was using it to display, showed me how it folded over, assured me it would hold me if I climbed up the steps (it did), and pointed out how it was broken in a few spots and imperfectly mended. I gave him all the money I had in the world (of that time and place) and we distractedly wandered the rest of the flea market until we admitted out loud that we were both a little concerned about it fitting in Shawn's car.

We have a history.

A few months ago we drove a couple of hours west to visit a huge warehouse of letter press equipment. I didn't even know it existed, but Shawn took a class. On the way back, or maybe a little way out of our way, we stopped in a thrift store and I fell in love with a very comfortable green chair. For quite a bit less, I must say, than what I paid for my new ladder-chair. But it didn't come with its own step stool so. . . . But, being two hours from home (so not inclined to find alternate forms of transpo if needed), we used the measuring tape Shawn carries in her purse. For such a time as this. We measured all the several widths, lengths, and heights of the chair. We measured all the openings of the car. We calculated. We did not purchase the green chair. One or the other of us thinks of it and brings it up at least twice a month. Semi-monthly, even. Except for its size (or the size of Shawn's car door openings), it was a perfect chair for me.

I had paid the man for my new chair-with-steps. We had not measured. We drove Shawn's car as close as we could get it to the row with the library-chair-ladder-man's stuff, including my paid-for chair. I won't tell you the part about how we wandered up and down a couple of rows before we found him and my chair again. It was pretty close to the car. The chair is made of solid walnut (he says). Shawn said this would be heavy, but we're two strapping women. I didn't tell her or the man I'm not so strapping. (I just looked up "strapping" on dictionary.com. I changed my mind. I am strapping ("large, whopping" in sense #2); Shawn is strapping ("powerfully built" in sense #1). So, we're good.)

We carried the awkwardly constructed chair (it has folding and flapping parts) to her car.

The Part of the Story With Pictures

And then the comedy began. We tried it front first. Sideways. Back first. Front seat. Back seat. We cleared everything out of the trunk, and there was a lot of stuff in there (I didn't take a pictures, because I sensed Shawn's issues with this part of the story). We tried it frontwards, backwards, sideways, in the trunk. Nine days old.


And friendly, helpful person after friendly, helpful person stopped by. Offering to help. Suggesting we try another way (almost always the way we'd just tried). Several saying they do this for a living ("I move antiques"). One man suggesting I could rent a trailer -- just add another $10 to the cost of the chair. I do not believe I could get a Uhaul trailer in this northern town and use it to bring my library-chair-steps down to my house in my southern town for $10. I did not call him a liar, because I believe he meant well. The little Italian man running the booth right next to where we were illegally parked kept insisting we just tie it in the trunk. "It not going nowhere! I know! You drive all the way to New York, it not go nowhere!" We had no rope; I had no hope. I asked to try it one more time on its side in the back seat, just for my sanity before she went in search of rope and I pictured it flying off the back of the car for the whole drive home.


We tried it in the back on the side again, and a nice man stopped by to give us more advice. It has hinges, he said. Yes, Shawn said, but it's still too wide. I said, "It's so close, let's try to take the bottom step part off the hinges."

The nice lady let us borrow a screwdriver she had displayed on her flea market table with other random tools (how much were they asking to sell that single, used, simple flathead screwdriver for?!).


The steps came off. The chair went in. It's a beautiful thing.


After brunch in a cafe in Salem and visiting my friends-colleagues' home-which-doubles-as-an-art-gallery open house and (both of us) buying art for other friends, we parted ways, I inserted the chair-in-two-pieces in the back of my car, drove home, brought it upstairs, screwed it back together, and: voila!






I haven't figured out yet where I'll put it or what I'll use it for.


Though I do have excruciatingly high ceilings and light bulbs that consequently have been burned out for over a year, I don't have bookshelves up high (and the step stool is not only not nearly tall enough for me to reach the bulbs, it also emphatically must only be used in library-like climbing activities).


Georgie does not like the new chair (nor does she like Buddy).


It's a beaut and I'm pleased as punch and a pickle.


I also found a scary looking bug on it, which I brought to an end, and vacuumed up some other animal's hair off it, but it could use some more cleaning. Which makes it fit in just fine in its new home.


Also, it has wheels (Shawn says "casters"). I love furniture with casters.

Queen of Same

There's a little black spot in my brain today.


It's the same old thing as yesterday.


With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
It's my destiny to be the queen of same.

.... Which is much better than the way The Police sang it*, I'd say.

While I was a bit worried during my 3-month follow-up yesterday that in my emotionally unstable state on top of my hospital phobia I might burst into tears in the MRI tube, disrupting the process which requires NO MOVING with my head wedged in a hockey mask between shoved-in hand-towels to HOLD IT IN PLACE - THERE'S NO CRYING IN MRI TUBES, instead I was unnaturally calm and the worst part was when the tech (we'll call him Greg, because I think that's his name; he said he remembered me from last time and that I was less nervous this time) had a little trouble injecting the contrast dye. I have the world's smallest veins. Check the Guiness Book, if you're so skeptical. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here incredibly shrinking my cat with my defective-veined arm.


Yes, after all, I always seem to have catties on the brain.


For those of you keeping score and unamused by obscure misquoted Punk New Wave song lyrics from the early 80s or cute and scientificy cat and head shots from this week: my 12-year-old doctor says the radiologist says there's no change in three months to my thumbnail-sized cyst on the front, right side of my brain, and we will discuss it further at my annual physical in November and maybe follow up with more hockey-masked, collapsed-vein, contrast-dyed, early morning, unnaturally peaceful, car-alarm-aliens-from-Contact-jack-hammer-broken-refrigerator-sounding MRIs in another 9-12 months.

Thank you, and good day.

(Please see "King of Pain" lyrics through google as needed.)

Leaving on a Jest Plane

Suitcase packed.

Carry-on packed.

House. . . taking a break from being cleaned for a minute or a million.

Cat-sitter prepped.

I'm off to Ireland for 10 days of international "First Year University Experience" conference followed by vacationing with boss and colleague friendies. The sheddy catties and computer cattie will stay here and miss the tall cattie while she wears wrinkly clothes and tries to be present in the moments and enjoy herself, keeping an eye out for the U2 catties (oh, and beautiful scenery and ancient Celtic stuff, I guess. Yay, basketball!).

Peace out, yo! See you next month.


Note: the "s" in this Blob's title was a typo. I believe typos are sometimes reflections of deep truths.

Pre-Ireland Blues

He knows.


We haven't really talked about it yet.


How I'm going to be gone for ten days. How they need to be a good boy and girl. No seizures, no fighting. What they want me to bring them back from the Land of Ire.

But he knows. Buddy spent the greater part of the day seeking comfort in the most primal of ways. With the box.

Before I left for work, I found him lying in the litter box. Inside. Just lying down in there, gazing out its entryway. Denying the precarious world outside the box. He could smell me thinking about packing. I'm sorry: I had not scooped the box yet for the day. He's just that wary of the future.


It's a long time to be left to the wiles of a Condo Without Me. It will be the longest I've left him (he usually comes along if I'm gone over a week) since his first summer with me, when he was still very much a violent, volatile, literal crack baby and I went to London for my first taste of Europe. I hated it and wanted to spit it out. His Aunt Shawneee kept him safe, living in our old house with us. With him, while I went away.

Now I'm going back to give the old world another try, and no one is staying with him except his sister. Who hates him. With the neighborgirl coming over twice a day to pill him, feed them, water them, scoop the (security blanket) litter box, pat them on the heads. And he's very sad about it.

She's nonchalant.

I know her addiction to the human being. She'll be fine as long as neighborgirl pets her twice a day. He? He'll be heartbroken because nobody loves him like I do.

Yes, I know they're "just cats."

Surround Sounds

Setting aside the 4:30 sunrise and my tall curtainless bedroom windows, the way I know it's morning is by the morning sounds.

First are the birds. Some unknown, unseen breed hangs and tweets together in the beauty- and pollenful trees lining the parking lot just around the corner from my newly sunbeamed bed. Sun comes up, the little birds squeal with - what? With surprise, gratitude, annoyance, plan-making? How do they get anything done with all of them squawking at once? The birds we can see, if we open our eyes and don't turn away for one more hour of sunlit sleep, are the big grey and white breed. These chatty, flirty gulls swoop around outside my corner unit taunting the baby as he chirps back at them from his impotent perches inside, sometimes following them from one room's window sills to another as he cries in his baby voice ("I want to play!") and they laugh at him. Why the flocks of seagulls visit us every morning, I don't know, but they come just around dawn and stay until just after the arrival of the next morning sound.

First train of the day is the 5:53, so I would never need to set an alarm if I wanted to get up by 6:00. Our trains announce their arrival with a bell, not a horn blast, an almost pleasant series of dings and then the squeal of brakes and the white noise of an idling train engine. They come and go, the bells and engines, on the half-to-quarter hour, for the next couple of hours.

Roadwork begins at 6:59. If I'm still in bed then, I can close my eyes, lie very still, and imagine myself in a long metal tube, but the MRI sounds are not slicing and photographing my brain, they're tearing up the street so that tomorrow they can pave it again so that tomorrow they can tear up the street so that tomorrow. . . .

Just before dawn, the promise of morning is often heralded by the pitter-patter of dainty, too-long-nails galloping through the house in a fit of alien-invasion-of-cat. This is Georgie, our night runner. Buddy sometimes joins the chase, forgetting she doesn't like to play with him, but more often, he waits for her to re-settle on the bed huffing and puffing from exertion and purring her little broken-voice-box, angst-equals-love purr. With Georgie at as-close-to-peace as she will get, Buddy then hops down, crunches what's left of his dinner in the next room, and then joyfully announces the coming of day with a monologue or two in the form of a Siamese ring tone. Then he jumps up into the window sill, chirps at the gulls, jumps back down to the floor or bed (one choice louder than the next), to make sure I've heard: morning has broken. Then jumps back up to the window to enjoy the show until the gulls head back to the beach, the trains arrive, and I've decided to accept the gift of a brand new day.

Happiness is...

So I just popped my head in Buddy's room (slash the office slash the guest bedroom) to see how he was doing before I headed off to work, and was greeted with this vision:


Nice try, buddy. I'm not turning the air conditioner on until July.

BFFs

Apple & Tree: Me and my neurologically challenged Buddy.

I have a benign cyst the size of a thumbnail in my brain. The medical professionals in my life say it's probably been there for years, isn't pressing on anything, and needs no further attention except for a follow-up look in three months. (I got the impression that was so I wouldn't sue them if in fact my head exploded in the meantime.)

I also have an amazing set of pictures of my brain, including the spot in several shots, that I'll be scrapbooking this weekend. Oh, except for the part about scrapbooking.

(Oh, I also have "minor sinus disease" and a couple polyps in my sinuses, but who's counting?)

Thanks for caring.

See also: Cat Lovers Appreciate Soul Mate in Vatican.
From the NYTimes:

Along with an enormous entourage and a message of peace, the Pope brought with him to the United States a lifelong love of cats.... His house in Germany [has a] garden guarded by a cat statue.... And Benedict is, without a doubt, the first pope to have had an authorized biography of him written by a cat [“Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat” (Ignatius Press, 2008)].... Ms. Fredericks [cat-loving Catholic fan of the pope] said she thought that the pope would benefit from continued contact with animals. “I think every church should have a cat colony,” she said. “But I don’t think that will happen.”

Meta-Hypchondria Plus Phobia Equals Irritation (which beats irrigation)

So I canceled a class today because my doctor scheduled a CT scan (when and why did they stop calling them "CAT scans"?! So mean!) as retribution for my not feeling all better after two rounds of antibiotics for a sinus infection. Have I mentioned my special condition: meta-hypochondria? It's where I think I have hypochondria, but I don't really. So I feel guilty going to the doctor because I'm afraid I might not really have the symptoms I have. I told her about this. She gave me a look. She is 12 years old and has not yet developed a sense of humor.

Did I mention my other for serious condition: hospital phobia? Well, happily, at the hospital I visited this afternoon they're nothing if not efficient, probably exacerbated by the technician's recognition that even though I was in for a common, non-invasive procedure that would last less than three minutes, there was a good chance I was going to pass out while there because sometimes I forget to breathe.

Speaking of efficient. So, I was anticipating hearing back from my doctor in a couple of days, at which point she would tell me what the CT showed and send me on to a scheduled ENT appointment one month from now.

She just called. Two hours. Turns out when they take two days to get back to you with results it's not that it takes them that long to look at them. They're just making you wait because, why not?

The radiologist was, I quote my GP doctor (the 12 year old without a discernible sense of humor) "unimpressed with the sinus infection." We don't know what that will mean for dealing with my ongoing symptoms - probably schedule me to see an allergist down the line. But, it turns out she saw something in my brain she wants to look at some more - the radiologist, that is. My brain! Well, that explains things. Not my symptoms, per se, but things none-the-less. So I now have an MRI scheduled for my head tomorrow morning at another hospital, at 6:30 a.m. Blech. I wasn't planning to leave the house until noon because my campus schedule was morning-free.

The nice thing is, I'm sure it's nothing (but I'm not sure if that's a symptom of my meta-hypochondria or not!). But I'm a little annoyed (a) at their efficiency (I wouldn't have had to cancel my class - coulda started half an hour late and not messed up the end of the semester stuff, if I'd known I'd be in and out so quick), and (b) that my sinuses are "mostly clear" when I've been under the stoopid weather for nearly two months now. (I don't like to have infected sinuses, just like to have an explanation for why I'm sick and a clear path for how FIX IT.)

Fortunately, I watch "House," so I know what to expect with procedures like these: they'll keep escalating in seriousness as doctors war with each other about what's killing me, my condition (meta-hypochondria and hospital phobia) will worsen until I nearly flat line from their giving me the wrong treatment, they'll consider and rule out "lupus" until one of the characters says, "it's never lupus," and then it'll turn out I have a small toad ingested in my brain (I watched 1970s SNL "Barber" sketch, too) that, when removed, returns me to full health, with a paid-off mortgage and completed dissertation to boot.

(While typing this up, the doctor called again, and now I also have to call and pre-register with the hospital tonight like I'm having surgery or something. Did I mention I'm grateful to have insurance?!)

Action Sequence: Catnip

Then she threw up. The end.

cat is the hat

Recently Georgianna has been migrating ever closer to me when we sleep at night on the family bed. She used to curl up in a corner - on the covers by my feet, or on the sheet next to my pillow.

Somewhere in the last couple of months, she moved onto the pillow, splitting the space with my sleeping head, usually a decent distance between her half and mine. Then I'd roll over into a mouthful of fur. I found this obtrusive and told her so. She tended to make her move during the deep of night, after we'd all drifted off into a chorus of snores.

Last night as I lay me down to sleep and the catties joined me as they do, Buddy nudged under the covers to curl up by my knees, I put my head down on the pillow, turned on my side, and Georgianna curled up for a good night's sleep... On. My. Head.

She just plopped down like a 10-pound furry motorized cap right on top of the back of my head. And proceeded to laboriously purr herself to sleep. While I lay with a pudgy-dainty cat on my head.

I didn't have the heart to push her off because I do keep the heat down pretty low at night. And maybe she was thinking of my best - keep the heat from escaping out the top of my head during the night. But still. Cat sleeping on top of human head is a bit much.

(It doesn't seem to have made a difference one way or the other in the persistent throbbing headache I've had since I got home from work Thursday night. Not to bring down the tone of the post or anything.)

Les Chats

Things I heard myself saying out loud at home this week:

"Honey, you have to tell me where you hid that carrot."

"Don't step on the baby's head, he's sleeping."

"Buddy, Sissy stinks."

"I guess you don't love Momma anymore."

"What's a-matter, cat got your tongue this morning?"

Even though I keep wishing for a snow day cuz I really don't want to go to work, it's good I get out of the house and interact with human people sometimes.

The Ugly Need Not Apply

Let's play a little game of "Good News-Bad News."

The good news is I've found someone who will pill, feed and play with Buddy and Georgie while I'm up in Montreal for four days next week.

The bad news is, I was woken up at 6 this morning by the sound I'd almost stopped listening for. Stumbled out to the kitchen to find my little Buddy in the throes of a grand mal seizure. Next Tuesday would have been four months free! On the one hand, it's bound to happen sometimes ("normal" to have break-through seizures), and if that's all it is I'd rather it happen while I was still here than a week from now when he'd be alone in the house and might do himself horrible damage if there are no caring hands to slip between his violently shaking head and body and the sharp edges of the cabinet or furniture. On the other hand, it is in my (fallen) nature to worry more now than I already was about leaving him in the hands of my neighbor girl. What if it's not a one-time break-through? What if the nightmare of weekly seizures returns?

The good news is, after months of back and forth with my graduate advisor (who's moved permanently to France, making it a little harder to meet than when she lived in Connecticut), I finally have my last language translation exam scheduled! I'd been shooting for August. Dec. 3 it will be. If I pass this, it will bring the greatest sense of relief and progress to what has been a painfully stalled-out doctoral degree process for the past year and a half.

The bad news is, I haven't been keeping up with studying for it, and probably never was ready in the first place. The exam is being prepared and graded by a former classmate of mine, native Persian speaker, and I'm scared she'll take it more seriously than the jaded Spanish instructor who gave (and passed) my last one did. So, in the midst of catching up on grading, attending meetings, and going to give a paper in Montreal, I need to become reading-fluent in Persian in the next couple of weeks.

The good news is the arm where I got a tetanus and whooping cough booster shot last Monday which was sore and weak all week is now 90 percent back to normal (and the other 10 percent is all in my head). The bad news is, while I was protecting Buddy during his seizure this morning, he got a claw in me, sunk deep in my right hand and it's a bit puffy now.

The good news is the situation in my life which has been the greatest source of stress this semester but which I cannot blog about is being addressed in a way that feels supportive to me. The bad news is, however it's dealt with will probably get a lot uglier before (if ever) it gets resolved.

There's more, oh! there's more. But, as you can see, we're all stocked up with good-news-bad-news here right now, and in the end the ugly crept in after all.

The good news is, it's a bright sunny day!

Happiness is Hard

When Georgianna purrs, it's not a continuous rumble or buzz like a person making a motorboat sound flapping her lips. It's a disjointed, labored series of sounds that sound like an asthma attack, grunting, and the tiniest bit of purr.

Who knows what voicebox damage our little blob of spunk suffered during her mysterious Life on the Streets before being rescued by an animal rescue agency, put on display at the vet's, and adopted by gullible old me. Alls I know is that she can't purr like a normal cat, yet she makes such laboring effort to purr when she is as close as she gets to happy.

Unlike her puppycat, goofball brother Buddy (two months seizure free this week!), Georgie presents a consistent bad mood to the world. She's grumpy, suspicious, crabby, and, incredibly addicted to human company and attention. When Buddy purrs (which isn't nearly all the time; it is a special occasion, but - being a "special" cat - he finds his own times and reasons to do the normal cat happy thing), he's like a little motor - when I walk in the door at night, when he's playing chase, when he wants a snack, or is taking a nap. When he's not purring, he's exhibiting his usual good mood through other means: bounding, chasing, perking, attacking shadows, imaginary and otherwise...

Georgianna only purrs, and loudly, determinedly, laboredly, when she's curled up on some piece of human: my feet, hand, or belly. And when she does, I'm very often trying to sleep or concentrate on reading. Her effortful purring actually wakes me up or disturbs my concentration. It's so loud and alarming. Sounds like someone gasping for breath after being punched in the gut after running up stairs, with pneumonia. Even in her happy state, she has a look on her face: "argh! must... express... contentedness... argh!"

They say happiness is a choice. But in recent weeks, I've found it to be hard.

Chicks and Pigs

This week on "R & S Visit the Farm," S chats with chickens before our heroes pick-their-own fresh parsley, savory, oregano and thyme while R says "that's not how the song goes" one too many times.



Also, vegetarian "there's way too much produce in this deal for me" S continues her encouraging ministry to piggies by scratching their ears (though asking if they miss their friends who "took a trip" a couple of weeks ago).





R takes pictures with too little attention to lighting (and too little energy for photoshop) and is psyched by the inclusion of THREE HEADS OF LETTUCE and some CILANTRO in their haul today.



(Meanwhile, back off the ranch, G has stealthfully been SLEEPING IN HER CATBED heretofore relegated to toybox status because previously neither she nor B would step foot in it. Pictured here she makes a quick escape insisting "I wasn't being precious like a real kittie in my kittie bed! I wasn't!")

Cat nap

Here's a photo from my parents' visit over Easter. That's Dad, curled up at the top with a headache, and Mom, keeping her distance.

Oops! That's not my parents, silly. How did the catties get on the guestbed?! Well, I never!

But seriously, now they're gone Georgianna especially is missing her g-p's hanging out with her during the day while I bring home the bacon from school.

And the catties' grand-p's were very nice not to mind sharing the bed (as long as both pairs weren't in it at once). Georgianna was confused about someone else sitting in her Ikea chair every day, but overall everyone got on swimmingly.

Like Grandpa like grandcattie

Things Buddy (aged 3) and my Dad (aged 83) have in common:

• Liking to watch birds outside the window
• Getting up earlier than everyone else (and sometimes going back to sleep right around the time the rest get up)
• Taking piles of pills with meals
  
• Napping professionally
• Minor health challenges making them not a smidge less lovable
• Walking wobbly from time to time
• Being mostly good boys
• Sometimes forgetting and biting visitors on the ankles (well maybe if I'd posted this yesterday)
• Being troopers about uncomfortable plane flights
• Prefering to be in another room when the TV's on
  
• Being here for Easter (and surrounding days)
  

choir

This morning as I made final preparations for leaving for work, I started singing quietly and liltingly, "You're my cute and pretty babies, you're my pretty girl," as Buddy napped in the sun and Georgianna followed me around. As I sang lightly, Georgianna began to sing along. I put on my boots, singing, "You're my pretty girl," and Georgianna meowed, looking up at me for direction. Suddenly (or rhythmically?), Buddy got up from his lounging way across the house and started singing as he walked over to the two of us. "You're my pretty boy," Georgianna and I sang (only hers was a little muffled, so it might have been "don't look at him, I'm the pretty one") and Buddy sat next to Georgianna making a little circle of the three of us as we sang together.

(I checked yesterday and my Spanish exam professor hadn't even read it yet, so no se if I passed.)

Yo la tengo!

It's Spring Break, and that means I'm holing up at home cramming for a Spanish translation exam I take next Monday in hopes of moving forward with my degree once again.

My days are spent studying Spanish interspersed with catching up on grading and wondering if I'm messing up the catties' plans (since they probably get a lot done when I'm gone during the day but have to play dumb and lazy when I'm home).

And, my nights are spent dreaming weird stress/release dreams that are seeping out the more I unwind from teachering and wind up for studenting.

Last night I was dreaming a little bit in Spanish, though mostly it's French, which is super annoying since I've already taken care of my French requirement and want never to deal with that language again.

And, here's what I was dreaming in Spanish: favorite movie lines.

So, the person to correctly identify the most of the following movie sources (providing either their original English or translated Spanish titles) wins the prize!

"Tengo que ir de compras!"

"No regateo." (O: "Me es indiferente.")

"Estos es para la posteridad. Así pues, sea honesto."

"Ella me dio un bolígrafo, le di mi corazón."

"Puedo admirarle otra vez hoy?"

"¡Pesamos que tú 'fue' un sapo!" (O: "¿Comó es mi pelo?")

"Entiendo es un hombre que sabe consequir cosas."

"Intente no matar a mis perros."

"Beba té. Hay muchos de té."

"Llevé una sandía."

"Nunca tenía ninguna amigos mas adelante como los que tenía cuando era doce."

And, the easy one:
"¿Me gusta el jello?"

Update: You also get points for submitting movie lines for me to translate and identify sources. But, please note (Mónica) the only Jack Black movie I've seen more than once (so would recognize any quotes from) is High Fidelity.