Musings on a Small Life

Nicki and Derry wish everyone a happy Halloween. Okay, not really, they don't know or care, but what the heck.  :-) I thought about posting the greeting over on their blog, but since I've not been keeping up or participating of late, I didn't see the point. We'll be hunkered down in the dark, as I gave up giving out candy long ago, nasty neighbour that I am. LOL. Take care, everyone. Comments are off.

This was Derry last night, as I was starting to move things around.  :-)   He couldn't make it all the way (there's not a lot of room between the chair and the floor and let's face it, he's fat), but managed to extricate himself without assistance. BTW, I'm feeling rather overwhelmed by all the "stuff" I have to move. I've always said there's no such thing as too many baskets (and decorative storage boxes), but yeah, there is. All filled with little bits of things, with no particular organization. And do I really need six spare pillows for a once-a-year-guest? A very small part of the crap I've got is in one of the spare rooms right now (below). The rest of the room is piled high, out of camera view, and the other room isn't far behind. Once this is all done and I'm starting at the top of the house to clean, I'll be doing another big clear-out for donation (just did that when Dad was here!) and making an attempt t...

Okay, I have a date now for work to start next Monday AM. I'm having QuietRock (noise-reducing drywall) installed over the top of the existing drywall, top to bottom along the adjoining wall of my unit. It's a long story, starting during Dad's visit when the drywaller came out to take a look and give me an estimate. He did, a week or two after that, but as it was about $5K I told him thank you, that I'd let  him know if I was able to get it done down the road. Subsequent to that, without my asking in any way whatsoever, my father gifted me the money. I had a very hard time with this, frankly, because I don't like taking money from my  parents, I feel that at my age I should be in a better financial position and able to do these things on my own. Dad and I went back and forth, blah blah, but the upshot was that he said the money was sitting in his travel fund, that he knew how much stress I was under ( no , no, he doesn't quite realize) and that it wa...

It's one of those Mondays: The morning started with having to clean up Nicki's scoot marks from the beige carpet upstairs, as well as the area rug in the hall, and seems to have degenerated from there. Photocopier fuss ("intervention required" on my auto-message, then paper jam, continued problems.). I messed up two faculty records in our database; now one of our analysts has to go behind the scenes and fix them. I am so talented! LOL. My boss brought in his three old work laptops for disposal, and I ended up having to lug them a good distance across campus to the computer store to have the hard drives wiped and the entire units disposed of. We do have an e-waste disposal program (pick up), but the hard drives need to be erased first. At least the store disposes of them entirely, I don't need to go through e-waste after all. And there's no charge to our department. All this and it's not even 11AM. Gee, I can hardly wait for the afterno...

Things were calmer at home yesterday, mercifully no cat fights and relatively "quiet" next door. Only one ENORMOUS bang when someone (mother?) came home (or perhaps left). I wondered, at the time, how many calories that would expend, because to slam a door that hard would take significant effort. Maybe I should search on myfitnesspal.com to find out.  :-p I do have plans for home renos that should help significantly with the noise from the adjoining unit, but as everything still is up in the air re: timing, I won't go into any details. I hope for next month, but it might end up being later. I'm not sure I'll be able to hold it together, though, if it's delayed past November. I can't-- can't --have both crappy work and home environments. We have no date yet re: our work move, btw. I took some time this morning to purge my own paper files, clearing out everything prior to 2007. It really is ridiculous, the amount of paper we can accumulate i...

About a half an hour ago (it's 6PM EDT), Nicki got into it with Derry (outside) over the white cat, Carla. So bad that the goddamned bamboo trellis in the corner fell on them both and that didn't slow Nicki for one second, let alone stop him. I was spraying water like mad, with no effect, then succumbed to screaming at the top of my lungs, so all of the neighbourhood heard me. Derry finally zoomed inside and I got around Nicki, made sure he stayed outside. I'm still so upset and angry that I can't touch him. I know it's not his fault, he's a cat, he's acting on instinct and turning his considerable aggression onto the nearest available feline. But I'm still angry with him and I'm especially angry with the stupid, dimwitted, f*cking neighbour who lets his cat roam at will like this. Of course, most people do, it's just that Carla likes to antagonize my cats. So, what to do? Well, obviously Nicki and Derry can't go out at t...

Well, our office gets to move back downstairs to the "dungeon" next month, to be squished in with the other 5 members of our larger group. Into the same place we moved OUT of three years ago. At that time there were 9 of us (our 6 plus 3 from another department) crammed into that small space, barely room to move around with all the storage cabinets and bookcases having to be in the aisle. Now we'll be 11. Yay for us. It sucks sheep shit.  In my case I suppose I'm lucky, being the lowest on the totem pole in terms of rank (though not seniority), I've only ever had a cubicle. Most of my coworkers will be giving up their offices and having to go back to tiny cubes. I'll just lose my lovely, roomy cubicle space. Did I say it sucks sheep shit? And I get to be around two people, one of whom is a former coworker, I really have no use whatsoever for. Maybe it's not just sheep shit, maybe it's also turkey turd. Doggie doo-doo. Cat crap. You g...

I overheard that snippet of conversation a few minutes ago, heading back to the office after a water bottle fill-up in the next building (great free water fountains over there, regular and sparkling water, better than the bottled stuff in our suite). The conversation appeared to be between a prof and student, possibly a grad student. Presumably she meant "bricks" aren't invisible...But what did she mean by "bricks?" I ought to have lingered! Surely their discussion was/is far more interesting that what I'm doing at the moment.  :-) Wishing everyone an interesting day! Nicki gives me the "What?!" look, as he so often does.   Nice 'tocks, Derry! Purrs from the boys and peace from me.

I had taken a stroll through the cemetery yesterday morning, fall colours in mind. I was so intent on the trees, in fact, that I missed seeing little angel Melinda's grave for the first time since I found it, several years ago. I almost felt like I had cheated her, somehow. Presumably the next time I go I won't be so distracted. Anyway, it was another glorious day, the perfect way to cap off a long holiday weekend. The two fountains in the pond were turned off and the leftover water was stagnant, brackish, but chipmunks and birds abounded, and I sat down on a rock for a long time. I could have stayed there all day, in the sunshine, feeling that Oneness with Spirit, if not for more mundane calls of nature.  :-p So here are my favourites for colours, snapped with the old Canon PowerShot.                             Note the full cheek pouches, below.  :-)   I was sitti...

(Comments are off for this post; it's my "talking out loud," trying to sort things out for myself.) I did a lot of walking yesterday: downtown, around campus for snapshots with the little Elph, then back up. I wasn't inclined to go to any Thanksgiving church service, thank you very much, certainly not after last week's fiasco at the cathedral. And also because, as anyone who reads this knows full well, my beliefs are a potpourri of various doctrines.       So you can imagine my mental balking as my feet somehow, of their own accord, made their way to the United Church I'd been going to, off and on, through the spring and summer. I'd not been since the end of August, when services were still in the hall (slightly cooler). Well, hell's bells. Damned if it wasn't a terrific service. And damned if Bill (reverend) didn't say something that really resonated with me, as he always seems to. And damned again if I didn't know thr...

A very happy Thanksgiving to the few Canadians who might read this. I hope you're enjoying a lovely long weekend. I'm not that fond of turkey, and wasn't going to bother cooking, but a local grocery store had a great deal on a pre-stuffed, frozen chicken, so I snagged one. I used to cook a turkey for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, but taste preferences aside, it's hard to find a small turkey. A little chicken is perfect, and maybe I'll haul out my crockpot and make chicken veggie soup afterward.  :-) Take care, everyone. Purrs from the boys and peace from me.

Be careful, folks, if you shop in Giant Tiger. I'm not sure if they have stores all across Canada, but our city has one. In past years I've popped in maybe once a year, usually at Christmas time, and generally have left in short order. They've renovated recently, though, and I've gone in a few times since the summer. It's a micro WalMart...or perhaps a cross between a micro WalMart and a dollar store. Definitely not high end merchandise, though I've found a few decent long-sleeved cotton tops there, as well as few other little things. However, the last time I was in, I bought Duracell batteries, supposedly at a good deal, though they were significantly more at the cash register. Oh, someone put them on the wrong rack was what the cashier told me. I never thought anything of it until I popped in on my way home today, on the off chance they'd have ear buds for my mp3 player. They did have, three rows of them (all different), all for $5.97. But...they wer...

This is Nicki's shelter-record birth date, so he's 7 now. About 44 in human years. I did the graphic some time ago, unsure whether I'd post it on the Fuzzy Tales blog, but am not going to bother. I haven't been active on it recently, and don't want people to leave comments when I'm not participating. Besides, the reality is that the cats are oblivious to the cyber-world we've created for them! So we'll have the usual day, with a few new cat mice toys and of course treats. Every day is treat day for the boys anyway, which might be why they're carrying two or three extra pounds.  :-)   Happy birthday, Nicki. For such a small body, you sure pack a lot of purrsonality!  :-) Purrs from the boys and peace from me.

I went to St. George's Anglican Cathedral for their service this morning, because they were having their annual Blessing of the Animals. (This is the same place I went for Easter service back in April.)   What a bust! Oh, sure, it was fun to see the dogs--probably not more than a dozen--and the one calm cat cradled in his/her human's arms (the cat reminded me of Annie in colouring), but boy, it was loud and chaotic. One young-ish man had to leave with his dog, as it wouldn't stop barking and none of the clergy officiating could be heard properly, even though they were all miked. Then, I was sitting behind a freaking Amazon! Seriously, the woman must have been at least 6-feet tall and wide-shouldered to boot. Not fat, just a tall, solid woman. I couldn't see past her, to the animals or the children's choir (or anyone else), without constantly shifting and craning my head. (BTW, the children would fit in at a high Anglican church in England, with their red ...