Life Sucks

Last week was the week from hell. I realize I have neglected this blog for a year, but I really need somewhere to vent.

Let's begin with:

My Orange Kitty was in the animal hospital last week. He was taking antibiotics for a UTI and getting over an upper respiratory infection he began vomiting on Halloween night. The vet said, no more antibiotics it's upsetting his tummy. But it didn't stop. So I took him in and had to leave him there. It turned out that he had swallowed a needle and thread. Probably while I was working on my Halloween costume. Which makes me, like, the worst pet parent ever.

So, I ended up missing a bunch of work to take him to the vet, visit him after surgery, and keep an eye on him the day after he got home - not that that mattered because 12 hours after he was home he was vomiting again. Because this time he'd eaten a piece of paper towel. I told my mother that I wanted to make him a cozy little room in the bathroom where he wouldn't be getting into things, he wouldn't be jumping or wrestling the other cats. And she said no. Why? Because she didn't want him to be alone? No. Because she didn't want him messing up the bathroom doors if he got upset and tried to get out. Which was the reason he couldn't be quarantined in any room. Because that's what's important. Her doors. So instead, he was allowed to wander the house and eat a random piece of paper towel.

Next on the list is:

Fighting with my boyfriend. He's unhappy with me, because I'm pissed at him, because he's going to Africa. With his friends. For a month. And I'm not invited. Originally the trip was just supposed to be a guys trip climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Not too upset that I didn't get asked along on that. Then it turned into going on a month long with his one buddy starting in Egypt and picking up the guys for Kilimanjaro, but wow, it's ending with a 4 day safari. And now I am officially pissed. Because A) when he travels with me he's all like "3 weeks is a long vacation. I don't understand how people travel for months and months," but now he's going for a whole month with a friend and B) a freaking safari! I'm the one who planned our day safaris in India and I didn't even get to see a freakin' tiger up close. I've been wanting to do an African safari since 2001. Before we took those two mega vacations this past year, I was thinking I would as a graduation present put some money toward a safari for both of us. And now what's the freaking point? So we can go at some later date and he can tell me how it's not as good as the one he went on before. Because that's what he did to me in India. At the Taj Mahal, which was the one thing I had to see in India, and he says it's not as impressive as St. Peter's cathedral (which I've never been to btw).

The BF and I are classic examples of opposites attract. Because if our positions were reversed and I was doing this trip with out him. He'd be fine with it. He actually told me to plan a trip with girlfriends if I wanted to. But I'm the type of person who says, "oh, I can't do that with out the BF." or "I'll have to check if the BF wants to do that first." The sad thing is I take it hugely personal when he doesn't think this way. I take it as another sign of his commitment-phobia. Here I am planning on moving to another state with him when he takes a job and he can't even stop to think that maybe going to see the last Harry Potter movie without me might make me a little angry. Or hell, call and ask if I'd mind. I love him and I don't want to break up with him. I know he loves me and doesn't want to break up with me. But I honestly don't know how many more times I can have this same conversation with him. I can't tell if it is literally his personality, if it's his unconscious attempts at holding onto "single-dom" from his fear of commitment (aka marriage); or if it's me and this relationship - like maybe I'm not "the one" for him and he'd be more conscientious to another girl.

I am supposed to go out to dinner with a girlfriend tonight. And I just don't want to talk to her about this. But other than my cat it's the only thing I can think about. The BF is supposed to help me with resume stuff afterward too. I asked him to help me apply for an internship. It was after our discussion (from which we came to no conclusion). The deadline is the day after his deadline to pick a job offer. And I just decided I can't wait for him to do that. Even if he picks one in the same city, that's only 24 hours to get my application in. I haven't explained to him yet, but I really think I need to start looking for work I don't hate in places that aren't just where he's got job offers. I know we won't do a long distance relationship. But I'm starting to feel depression creep up on me again, and I don't know what else to do about it.

Something Borrowed

Yeah, I watched the wedding and all the stuff about the wedding that came after. I couldn't help it. I'm usually not one for weddings. I don't find them particularly interesting even when I know the couple. I like seeing the wedding trappings (dress, flowers etc), but the real interest for me always lies in the reception. Food, booze and dancing an ideal night in my book. So it is a little weird that I decided to get up in the middle of the night to watch it, and watch it again, and again all day. I even got a little teary.... okay, fine, I cried.

I will say that they looked really happy, a little nervous and shy maybe, but still really happy - William looked so proud coming down the aisle at the end. And I have high hopes for their marriage actually working out. Since he's not likely to be King until he's old and gray, maybe they won't have as much pressure as his parents. I still remember the front page of the local paper when Diana died. It was the same day I was moved into my dorm.

I've also been to St. Andews where the couple met. So watching all of the "lead up" about the couple made me really want to go back there. It's such a gorgeous town, right on the ocean and only 3 main streets. But still pretty bustling.

I'm sort of in love with her dress too.

I've considered the style of lace top for if I ever get married, but I really want a red wedding dress, and I don't know that it's really my style, I just love the way it looks. I also really hate strapless. I can not dance in a strapless dress. I have more than one I have tried to dance in and I am forever pulling it up. There is no way that I am doing that at my wedding reception.

Not that I'm getting married any time soon. I don't think I'm really ready for that even if MM were. Which I'm utterly confident that he's not. It's not that I wouldn't love to have a wedding, it's the marriage that comes afterwards I'm not ready to jump into.

Wow.

When in the world did I get 10 followers? And how many of them are spammers? Weird.

Anyway... I'm more than a month back from India and I am slowly crawling my way out of post-travel depression. I never really thought of this as an actual thing before. But looking back on my time in the UK and I realize that it is true.

I thought I wanted to come home from India. It was a rough trip for more than one reason, but with a few days of recuperating I found myself in a black hole. Crying, miserable, binging, sleeping, not sleeping, copping attitude at work, isolating myself. The I saw a photo montage of MM's project member's pictures. And the first thing I thought when I watched it, "I want to go back."

MM has no desire to go back - at least not before we get other places checked off our list and not anytime soon.

It was really hard going back to work and normal daily routines (my hot water heater and furnace both broke while I was away) after getting back. Everyone wants to know how the trip was. Putting it into words and painting an accurate picture is just impossible.

*Sigh* so here are the holidays. 5 Days til Christmas with MM's family. I'm really looking forward to time off of work. I want time at home to clean my house, and I want some time vegging at his parents place. Two and half more days of work...

Excited and Scared

I have a Dream Box. At least that's what I call it. I got the idea from a combination of dream board (goal board) and an anti-procrastination tool I read about. The idea is, when ever you get sidetracked from a project with thoughts of doing something else - "Why am I spending time on this, I should be starting my own business." - you write them down and put them in the box. Then they are off your mind, but not forgotten. I don't think that the time managment guru really expected that I would use the box the way I have - I even decorated it - but it works for me.

I filled my box with things that I want to do someday like:

Learn Spanish
Learn Sign Language
Go to Italy
Decorate my own place

Well, a little while ago I took one of those things out of the box because it's no longer just a dream. I am actually doing it in less than a week....

I am going to India.



I can't remember when India officially went on my list of places I want to visit. In high school I was obsessed with the Beatles and especially George Harrison. There is no doubt that India effected them. Then in graduate school I started reading the Dalai Lama's biography, who is in exile in India. At the same time I was working with a girl from India. At some point I just decided that this was a place that I needed to see.

I have to say that I am ridiculously excited to be going. I am going with MM and we are meeting my friend in her home city before going to New Delhi and traveling the "Golden Triangle." I am looking forward to seeing the Taj Mahal, and the Pink City. We are also booking a safari in Ranthambore national park (cross my fingers we see some tigers!).

At the same time I am really nervous to be going to a developing country. I know that there is terrible poverty. I have read about the beggars and the scams. I have heard about the stares and the "eve teasing."

Never-the-less, I am on my way. My passport and travel visa are secured, my vaccines obtained, and my flight booked. A few weeks from now I can officially cross "Go To India" from my bucket list and maybe replace that picture of the Taj Mahal with one that I take myself.

All is well that ends well

So, my strategy for dealing with this revelation about MM did not go well. And why would it. I wasn't upset about the anniversary thing. I was upset that he slept with somebody else (even if it was early days) and went to Europe with her (I have yet to do that with him and it's been 2 years).

Eventually on Sunday night we had another talk. Again, it wasn't going so well, and MM came out and asked where this was coming from. I thought my heart was going to pound it's self right out of my chest. But, in the end I came clean. I told him that I had done homework on his computer while he was out and that afterward I was looking at his pictures. He didn't get mad like I thought he would. And he was incredibly sweet about the whole thing. At one point he even offered to leave. Which wasn't at all what I wanted.

I felt immensely better after coming clean. I don't know if he did or not, but I know that I can celebrate our anniversary coming up without feeling sad or upset.

I went so far as to read some of my blog from the early days of our dating. I think I need to do this more often when I'm feeling down about us. I had something good. I enjoyed our dating for the first few months. It isn't until I start thinking our relationship should be something else that I get depressed. And usually it isn't even from a deep sense of needing or wanting something else. It's just an external "should" that I feel the need to meet.

Anyway... we're back to being good again. I'm hoping we keep it good for a while now.

Where do we go from here

I feel like a jenga game. My foundation is being taken away from me piece by piece and it's a matter of time before it all comes crashing down.

I tried to talk to MM last night but he was drunk and I don't think he remembers it now.

I'm trying to put these two separate MMs that I know together in my head.

On the one hand there is the guy I've known for two years who: gave me a toothbrush to keep in his bathroom drawer the first night I slept over which was the first night we had sex; always wanted me to spend the night; has told me the story of being angry with an x girlfriend for continuing to sleep with him and moving on to someone else after they broke up; told me he missed me during a business trip after a month of dating; got jealous when another guy put his arm around me at my birthday party a year ago; has friends who told me that MM loved me before MM did.

Then there's the guy who: didn't want to be called my boyfriend for the first 6 months of dating; talked about his evil X constantly for the first 10 months; told me he was going to New York for New Years, but actually went to Europe; has pictures of this trip with a girl on his computer; has other pictures of them in his current apartment kissing (he has never taken a picture like that with me.); tells me know that when we met he was not ready for a relationship.

In our conversation that he doesn't remember he told me that this isn't a road I want to go down - which tells me that I was right and he was seeing/sleeping with someone else (maybe someone elses) after we started dating. If he didn't do anything, then why would I care? I could handle dating... took someone out to dinner? drinks? a show? Fine, he does that with friends now. But if he fucked somebody while he was seeing me too... that I don't know if I can handle.

He told me that I can pick whatever date has meaning for me and he'll celebrate it as our anniversary. How can I do that? I don't really know when we started being exclusive. I know when I THOUGHT we did, but if he's remembering that time and it includes some other girl(s) then I certainly don't want to celebrate it.

I have been so psyched about having a 2 year anniversary with him. I've never made 2 years with out a break before. But if our relationship is really 2 years old then if was with someone else in that time, he cheated on me.

How could I have been so stupid?

I've done something really stupid...

I'm afraid to call or text a girlfriend because I don't want them to act weird about it later.

I'm at MMs - he planned a night out with friends, and I'm sick so we were hanging out together until he went to that. I thought I was going to go home, but he seemed to think I was staying the night so I did. After he left I got on the computer to do homework.

I know I shouldn't have. And I tell him all the time that I don't... .but I snooped.

It started because he didn't originally invite me out tonight. He said he wanted to catch up with people he hasn't seen in awhile. But I knew from Facebook (again where I didn't get an invite) that he had invited the girl I dislike who used to live across from him. Who I completely admit to being jealous of. I know she wants him and she's cute enough with enormous boobs which to me equals jealousy. I found a picture of her in his computer trash (yeah, already with the snooping) so I went to his pictures folder wondering if there were more.

Instead I found pictures from New Years 2009 when we'd been dating about 2 1/2 months - when he told he me he blew off plans with friend in New York to go to Europe and visit different friends. The time everyone told me to break up with him because he didn't tell me he was in Europe until he got home on January 4th. I found all of the pictures not just the 3 on facebook - all the ones with him and a girl. And they're not just friends - because they were kissing in some - and then I found others of them in the apartment together also kissing.

On the couch I'm sitting on right now. At the table I've eaten at before.

And I don't know what to do. Because I was with him. I was dating him and sleeping with him.

We celebrate 2 years in 2 weeks. We booked a trip going to Asia together in month! (Yeah, that was supposed to be a happy excited blog post once the visas go through). We have plans to go to Europe in the spring.

I tell him that I don't snoop. And for 2 years I didn't. I know that this is what happens. I'm upset and if I bring it up I'm a snoop. And if I don't I just fester. Even though it's over and he loves me.
But here I am crying and he'll be home soon and I don't know what to do.

The ones we love

I've been sitting on this post for awhile now because it's really hard for me to write. I don't know why. It isn't anything new or surprising, it's just that it has finally started to bother me on a fundamental level.

I went on a family vacation in July. Just my immediate family consisting of dad, mom, her new husband, my brothers, sisters -in-law, niece and nephew. MM did not come with me because of work and school obligations - there was just no getting around it.

I drove with one of my brothers and his wife. Everything was great on the drive there. He teased me a little bit when, at a restaurant we stopped at for lunch, I tried to get them to sub a pancake for the sausage links in a breakfast combo. They wouldn't. But whatever. All in all the drive was pleasant. The drive home was good too (except for losing my phone) they played what I wanted from their iPod for most of the trip and treated to coffee and donuts when we got stuck at a restaurant during a torrential down pour (1/2 the parking lot flooded!).

It was how he treated me during the actual vacation that I have a problem with. It started with the breakfast issue - telling my family that I had given her such a hard time that I made the waitress cry with my unreasonable demand for a pancake instead of sausage. Went to a joke about my inability to dress myself because I missed a button on my cardigan, and it got to the point where he even ragged my boyfriend's way of using a knife and fork (MM spent a good deal of time in Europe).

I realize this about my brother - he's great to me, until there is an audience. Then his need to be king of the mountain superior comes out and he turns on the weakest link he can find. It's usually me, but I've seen him do it to his wife too. It's not malicious. He thinks it's funny and just "good fun" teasing. Or sometimes it's about him being right about everything and everyone else just isn't as smart, enlightened, or knowledgeable as him. Although, the comment about MM came at a time when my brother was incredibly cranky, it was entirely uncalled for. My response, because at this point in the vacation I had completely had it, was "if you don't like it, don't look at him while he eats. Or better yet, don't hang out with us anymore."

The weird thing is - and maybe in the above case it was a blood sugar thing and dinner calmed him down - that when I pretend like I don't care about what he's saying or that he's not hurting my feelings, he calms down about it or stops entirely.

When I was in high school and college he used to be really mean to my cat. The cat hated men in general and my dad and brothers in particular. It didn't help that this brother would egg her on. It used to really upset me and I would complain about it - try to appeal to any sense of his love/like for animals, the fact that his would-be-wife had a cat - but he still wouldn't stop. He just didn't. Then I wised up. Just like it's no fun to tickle somebody who doesn't laugh, it's not fun to tease someone when you don't get a rise out of them. So one day when he was bothering my cat, I just said, "well, she knows she doesn't like you, and if she won't leave the room, it's her own fault" and walked away. It felt horrible to do, because really it was my brother's fault for aggravating her, not the cat's fault for acting on territorial instinct. But, lo and behold, he stopped. He rarely, if ever, bothered her again.

I know that I should just remember this, but sometimes you expect the people who are supposed to love you to act like they love you.

It's been awhile

Wow, I had totally forgotten about that last post.

No, I haven't started eating meat again. I do every now and then start researching Certified Humane meat and CSAs etc... but I never get very far with it. I start feeling so horrible and get turned off again at the thought of eating it. So, I guess that's my answer - no conscientious omnivorism for me.

On the flip side I have been eating much healthier. For a while I was having terrible mood swings. I would feel so bad for MM, because little things would set me off and I'd be terribly sad about something he'd done or said, and other times I'd just be over the moon. We wouldn't fight our anything - but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was getting stuck in the "you can't do anything right" mentality. And I knew it wasn't reflecting reality. So... I took a look at what was going on in my life:

sitting on my ass all day in a job that I don't even really do (instead I'm facebooking, blogging etc).
eating junk on a regular basis (weekly binges of twizzlers, doritos or cheetos, ice cream or candy bars etc.)
procrastinating on things that I thought mattered to me (piano lessons, dancing, school, organizing my office and home)
watching way too much tv

This led me to two things - 1) a book by Hyrum W. Smith (yes, he's Mormon, but I can over look that - and overlooked alot of the "god" messages) about time management from a value standpoint - finding your values and living them. And 2) I got hooked on The Biggest Loser through Hulu.com.

I am still working on putting my values into practice for time management. I thought of that as I went to bed last night after sitting on my butt watching TV for a good bit of the night. I looked around my room and thought - "I wanted to clean this up and instead I sat on my ass all night."
But, it is getting better. I am getting more done in other ways because after watching so much Biggest Loser and reading the book I realized that myself and my help are very high on my value list and I need to start living that way.

Which led me to this book by Jillian Michaels. Okay, she's not an endocronolgist, but she's done her research and has the bibliography to prove it. After reading it I have given up high fructose corn syrup and all sodas including diet. I have given up all artificial sweeteners - which was harder to do actually, since I loved Splenda. I have started making all of my meals. I actually sit at home and eat breakfast instead of stopping at Dunkin' Donuts (a prior fave of mine). I bring food for a snack (no vending machine visits) and lunch (no Taco Bell or cafeteria food anymore) and make dinner at home. I have actually manged to exercise for the past few weeks too. And I'm starting on a running program to be half-marathon ready at the end of October.

I found that it is actually working!

MM and I had a great Memorial Day weekend (with the exception of a couple moments of moodiness). We spent it at his parents house, went to a wedding and to the Indy 500. The moody moments were - the day after the wedding when he was helping his dad on the farm and I was left to my own devices - and just be fore the Indy when I found out that I didn't need to hunt down and buy a sun hat before we left because we were sitting in the covered portion and now I had this thing to deal with (there was also the added factor of MM joking around that this was a car race not a derby and hats weren't required which royally pissed me off) . All in all though the weekend was fun and in the process I gained a bunch of weight. Its weird, I could binge at home and be fine with my weight because I wouldn't eat normal food too, but if I go out I eat normal and indulge which is disaster.

So as soon as I got home I started to clean up my diet. The moods have been much less severe - only once this whole week and that was directly related to me not eating every four hours. My libido has also made a change for the better which MM has totally noticed. Before it was an effort to get in the mood and if MM didn't approach it just right I would be totally uninterested. I'm also sleeping better most nights. This seems to have a correlation with exercise and when I eat my last meal.

There is still room for improvement. I have cheated a little bit here and there. I had a couple of cookies and donut holes which are given out free at my grocery store. And I haven't eliminated my fat - free coffee creamer which I am sure has weird stuff in it. BUT I have made strides and I'm hoping that this is one "diet" I can actually stick too.

A woman's prerogative

So, I'm thinking of eating meat again.

There's no other way to say than to say it. Although, it could be because it's after 1pm, I'm really hungry, and looking at a cooking blog, but those french dip sandwiches actually look good. So do the bacon cheddar muffins.

Is this terrible of me? I'd have to get off my animal loving high horse if I did.

I will say that it scares me. I have no idea how to watch my calorie intake while eating meat. But worse, it makes me feel sad for the animals. Like I'm saying that I don't care about them as much as I do. On the other hand someone made a comment to me that if I want food animals to be more humanely treated taking myself out of the equation all together is not the way to provoke change.

The List

Other than being his girlfriend, (yep, it's official somewhere around Labor Day it became inevitable) I want:

To cook more meals with him

To stay in on a weekend DAY and play games or watch TV
It turns out that this is something we've started doing on regular basis :)

Spend to days or nights in a row together
Also happening on a regular basis now. MM seems to understand that I like hearing from him and will often call "just to check in." It's rare now not to hear from him for more than a day at a time. And if I don't it's usually school related.

Go to a wine tasting
Did that one too! He got us tickets for a paired meal where each course (except dessert) came with a different glass of wine. This ended up being on our Anniversary too.

Take a cooking class

Play a game of scrabble - we played one online game, but I am still determined to play a real game at some point.

Meet his family - The one one I haven't met is his brother who lives across the country. But X-mas is in a week and we are picking the brother up from the airport.

Have him meet mine - he hasn't met my mother, but she's planning a post-X-mas dinner in January partly for that purpose. But he's met my father, brother and sister-in-law that all live near by.

Go home with him for Fourth of July - Yep, he did indeed invite me and I did go, despite mucho drama associated.

Meet more of his friends - He had some college buds in town before Thanksgiving and then I went with him to celebrate with friends for Turkey Day.

Have him come to one of my shows - shows? what shows? SoG keeps saying the team will practice, but so far, it hasn't happened.

Tell him I love him - Labor Day weekend he went away for a wedding I wasn't invited to. I was particularly pissed off. We had a "state of the union" in which he told me that he does love me. It took about another week for him to say it outside of an argument and I got to say "I love you too." Oddly enough, I am finding it difficult to bust out with the random I love you. Though sometimes it spills out when on the phone or leaving him. The other night I was half asleep and at some point before dozing off completely I told him I love him. So... it has definitely been done.

Find out when and why he didn't marry his X - yeah, so we had that discussion too. Round about the time I was having issues with NG he was breaking up with his evil X.

Find out what he's doing for my birthday - he got me flowers and that's it. He never did get us tickets for anything.

I give up

So, here I am again venting about my teaching job. The smart ass in class I was angry with last month for openly challenging me plagiarized parts of his paper.

I am literally shaking, I am so angry right now. I wish I could quit this job. And I am angry with myself for even trying it again after how miserable I was last year.

The idea of going into that classroom tomorrow makes we want to cry with futility and anger.

I am disgusted with my students right now. Utterly disgusted.

What am I doing?

This fall I took the job of teaching at a community college again. Why do I do it to myself? Last year when I did this I hated it most of the time. By the third week, I despised a good number of my students and I put in only enough effort to make sure they learned what I was testing them on. Some students did get better at the writing process. And 79% of them when evaluating me said they'd recommend me to a friend. That's pretty impressive since I can think of 6 out of 50 that I would care to ever have another conversation with.

So, here I am again. Half way through fall semester and hating it... again. Granted it took me this long, so that is some improvement, but I dread going. I put off planning. And I just don't want to do it anymore.

First of all I have a student who cheated. That student received a zero. Now I'm getting email bitching because they dropped the class. Why? My syllabus is clear about the consequences of these types of actions and I did not drop the student from the class. Two weeks later I'm receiving emails filled with attitude and bile. I really want to email back and say look on the bright side of dropping 1) you have an easier semester, 2) you can retake the class with a different instructor and 3) the next time you cheat, maybe that instructor will be too stupid to notice and you'll get away with it.

Something tells me that an email like that would not go over well.

The cheater had a friend in class who academically is not doing well. Since that friend no longer has the cheater to pal around with, they've attached themselves to another academically challenged student. One who has missed nearly half of the course and who gives me attitude at every turn.

I don't expect every student to like me. That's fine. But to openly challenge me in my classroom is not fine. Especially from someone who is barely scraping by with a passing grade.

I get that I look alot younger than I am. Most of these kids think I'm close to their age. But A) I'm older, and B) I have two masters degrees which give me the expertise to teach this class. To be questioned by these punks is infuriating.

The worst part too is that it makes me go into the classroom already braced for a stand off. I try not to let is show if I don't like somebody, but I am sure that the students can tell from my energy and attitude.

They are already asking me to teach another class in the winter, I am just dreading it. Granted when things go well, I enjoy it. I enjoy being in front of people and "performing" well. But I don't like these students, their attitudes, or their apathy at their own learning.

Looking back, What was I thinking??

So, the Jack Ass got married about a week ago. This is the girl he started dating while (I thought) he was dating me.

In hindsight I realize what dating really is. In hindsight the Jack Ass and I went on a couple of dates, but it never got out of the "friends zone." I had never really done any dating before that because the XX and I had just fallen into a relationship.

Looking back now I kind of wonder what I was thinking. Sure, I am having those sadness pangs of "he picked her" variety. But, when I look at pictures I can't help but think, really? I used to call him "Hot R---"?

I compare that to what I have with MM and realize that I'm not missing anything.

Guilt of the Soulless

Two weeks ago today I was putting my cat to sleep. I was called at work after I had dropped her off at the vet for exploratory surgery and told that the most humane thing I could do for her was to let her go.

Since then I've cried alot. Any night I wasn't with MM I cried myself to sleep. The only times I wasn't morosely sad was when I was with him. I felt immense sorrow, but also guilt. I keep thinking that I should have done something sooner (though she'd be gone sooner), that I should have spent more time at home with her, that I wasn't a good "mom."

It's said that a cat is the soul of a home. And I felt soulless. I made up errands and spent hours out of the house just so that I wouldn't go home to it empty. Every single time I opened the garage door I would feel my throat swell, and my eyes get wet. By the time I was in the house I headed for the bed and sobbed. I am heart broken with out her.

On saturday I was at my local humane shelter. I'd been going to different ones since tuesday because I found all of the cats comforting. I didn't want to be ready to adopt another one. Adopting another cat would just mean that I didn't love Babette as much as I did. And yet, I left on saturday with two kittens.

Now I feel guilty, not only about abandoning the memory of the cat I had for 13+ years, but I adopted to adorable kittens and not a full grown cat or two who areless likely to be adopted. I always said I was going to find the ugliest, least likely to be taken home cat and adopt him/her after I lost mine. But instead I am taking care of two 1 1/2 pound balls of fluff.

I keep asking myself what I was thinking? What did I get myself into? One has a URI and needs medicine daily and though separated it seems as though the other has caught it because she's sneezing. I fear that I am going to have gotten them only to lose them as well.

Spending time with them keeps me distracted. It gets me going home again. I cleaned the entire kitchen, master suite and den. Not only for them, but because they required so much care that I couldn't go to MM's for the day I had to have him come to me. He was entirely supportive of my grief and let me stay over often. He was gone over the weekend, and I wonder if that didn't have something to do with my spontaneous decision. Ever since our talk and the party at his parents we seem to be closer. Because he was out of town not only did I have the extra time to go looking for a cat, but I was missing the companionship.

But now I have them. Feeling guilty or not, I am responsible for these little guys. I hope that I do right by them.

A Cat Story pt3

Due to the pervading theory put forth by my mother, that Babette had been abused (most likely by a man) it was forever impossible to discipline or chastise her for fear of traumatizing her further. Consequently, Babette had the run of the house. By this, I mean she was allowed on all of the furniture, the desks, counter tops, tables (including the kitchen) and once in a while managed to make it to the window ledges too.

Babette was a great "helper" around the house, but mostly with paper work. Homework, bills, any thing that involved sitting at the table and writing she wanted in on. Usually this "help" began with laying across the table. Eventually she wanted to be more involved and would pounce on what ever paper work I was working on or just start to shred it with her teeth. This also including laying out sewing patterns - something about the crinkle of tissue paper that was like catnip to her ears. If extensive writing were involved Babette would "help" by taking hold of your pen or pencil. Typically all of this extraordinary usefulness would wear her out and in the end she'd make a fantastic 10 pound paper weight by stretching full length across the work thereby ensuring that a) the work was all finished and b) it wouldn't go anywhere while I succumbed to ear and chin scratching.

Helping mom clean up is hard work for any cat!

Eventually I did have to go off to college. I didn't go more than a 45 minute drive away so I saw Babette some weekends and on every holiday. Though she would curl up with my mom while I was gone, she always new that I was her human and came back to my bed while I was home. At some point when I was away she began becoming more and more of a baby.

Babette was always a little vocal. She spent her first evening in our home meowing into every corner of every room in the house. But when I came home from college she began begging for food too. Not just at the dinner table, where she would reach up to my chair and attempt, by patting my leg, to get you to give her a taste I happened to be eating. It wasn't enough that she had a food tower that kept her bowl perpetually full and a pet drinking fountain that circulated and filtered water, she began wanting to be pet before every meal. I would walk over to her food dish, she would follow and sit right in front of it. For many years this would be enough, but eventually she would sit, look up at me look at the food dish, look at me, and meow a little if I didn't reach down to pet her.

The same went for breakfast as well. Babette was a master at waking me or my mother up in the morning. My mother was a light sleeper and a light touch when it came to taking Babette to the kitchen in the morning, but if I was home I got the added benefit of being woken up at 5am to sound of the my cat tossing things off of my desk or dresser. If that didn't work she would find something noisy (like a bag or piece of paper) and beginning to play with or chew on it. Her last resort was to come right up to the pillow and bop me on the nose with her paw.

I admit there were mornings where I kicked her out of my room (not literally) I just let her outside and then shut the door. I also admit there are only a few times I can remember doing this, because as I say, Babette was a vocal kitty. She could stand outside of a door and cry for hours, especially when she new for a fact that I was on the other side of it. She also knew how to knock.

After a few months of living with us we discovered that Babette had not been spayed. I discovered Babette was in heat when I woke up to a pitiful crying kitty kneading her paws on my chest, as I by virtue of being her human mom could help her. We took her to the vet to be fixed and at the same time my mother had her declawed (I know... not the most humane of options, however, it was be declawed so she didn't ruin my mother's furniture or find her a nice cage at the Humane Society). She ended up staying the vets for a full weekend. We dropped her off on the way out of town to visit my newborn nephew and picked her up on the way home. When we got her back her little front paws were kind of sore. She had dissolving stitches so we didn't have to take her back to the vet - but in the mean time she developed the habit of sitting in Statue pose with one paw held up. She would periodically switch which paw, but it was a habit she held with varying frequency the rest of her life. But in this way she also learned how to knock on a door, or even push one open if she needed to get to me.

A Cat Story pt 2

When she was first found this kitten didn't seem like an abandoned animal. She was clean and well fed (no bones sticking out) and her claws were clipped. My mother was convinced that someone was missing this cat. For the next week we placed ads in local papers and walked around neighborhoods near the school asking if people were missing or knew of someone missing a small gray cat. After awhile we stopped knocking on doors, and the ads were never answered. My mother had to concede that she was not stealing anyone's beloved pet and she was welcome to become our beloved pet.

We needed to settle on a name for her. I was leaning toward something romantic and knightly like Galahad before getting to know her and realizing that she was an exceptionally prissy cat. Maybe it was her finicky eating habits, or the dainty way she held her tail as she ran, but there was something that was girlish she needed an appropriate name. I toyed with Genivieve and Guieniver, even Precious crossed my mind. But shortly after adopting her a friend and I went to see the stage production of Beauty and the Beast based on the Disney cartoon. In watching the charming romance between Lumiere, the candalabra, and the sexy feather duster, I came up with my new cat's name. Babette. In one word it summed up her sweet yet exacting nature (and it shortens to "Baby" perfectly).

My mother decided that Babette had been fouly abused as a kitten before being abandoned on high school property. The favorite imagined scenario was that some husband or boyfriend took a disliking to the cat and got rid of her before coming home and comforting his sad significant other. Our only evidence of this was Babette's extreme misandry. The moment she sniffed out a human male in the vicinity she turned into a hissing spitting growling force of nature.

If she hated any man in particular it would have been my father. To this day I can't tell you why because he did nothing to harm her, and had always been a cat person himself. His only comfort was that while she hated him, he was not alone in her contempt. My brothers were no exception. Even visiting men like dates were not immune. As she got older she became slightly more tolerant and by tolerant I mean she would approach a person, let them pet her, sniff them and if that whiff of human pheramone was male she hissed, growled, swatted and if pressed, bit. Sometimes I wondered if she didn't enjoy lulling them into a false sense of security with her big green eyes and soft fur.

"You have to come closer so I can smell you!"
the baby Babette

The only exception I ever witnessed to her hatred of men was my mother's second husband. She seemed to accept him into our family almost immediately. Perhaps because my parents divorced the summer before I went to study abroad, for 2 years my mother lived in our large suburban home alone with Babette. I can only imagine that Babette not only liked having a second warm body to snuggle between when I was not at home, but she knew that my mom needed more than feline companionship and wasn't going to stand in the way.

A Cat Story Pt 1

Just over fourteen years ago a young cat was abandoned at my high school during a soccer game. She was found in the equipment shed the next morning. She was fed, clean, and claws clipped. An announcement was made during second hour (Junior year English - American Lit) asking for the owner to claim the kitten and take her home. No one came forward. The next announcement came asking for interested students who would like to adopt the cat to obtain parents permission first and to collect her at the end of the day.

My mother has always been allergic to cats, although we did have them when I was very young. Once the last one died before I was six we didn't have anymore. I have always been a cat lover. At lunch time with the instance of my friends that I "needed" a cat and with out ever laying eyes on this one, from a pay phone I called my mother at work telling the front office that it was emergency. I told her that it would be sent to the humane society and put to sleep if someone didn't take it home. I was given permission to put my name at the very bottom of the list of volunteers and if no one else could possibly take this cat, then and only then could it come home with me.

All day I waited to find out what would happen. Then at the end of the day while I was waiting for my ride in the "homework room" (the after hours waiting area for those of us unlucky enough to drive our own cars, but not unfortunate enough to take the bus) I was called to the library (of all places) to get the cat.

It turned out that after the last bell my friends stood at strategic points outside of the school office and told all of the inquiring kids that I was already taking the cat home with me. In that way I ended up moving quickly to the top of the list.

The "kitten" that they had described on the phone ended up being a 6 month old cat. A common american short hair cat, grey striped, and very vocal. She wandered all over the library meowing at just about everything.

Prime real estate for chasing balls down the hallway or grabbing ankles.

We put her food and litter in the laundry room. (Later her food was moved to the kitchen so she could eat with us). That night my parents had plans to go out, I was supposed to go to a church meeting, but was told that I had to stay home with the cat. She spent a good portion of the after noon wandering around the house calling (for who I don't know - another cat, her old owners, who knows). That night I lay on the couch reading and she stretched herself across my tummy - a position she never again adopted.

After the first few days she figured out where the litter box was, stopped having accidents on the way there, and stopped sleeping on top of the dryer in the laundry room. She quickly took to sleeping on my bed at the foot or in the crook of my knees a habit she kept for the next fourteen years.

A "NO" by any other means is still a "NO"

Two weeks after interviewing for a full time job at another campus of where I already work and not hearing anything I emailed them. I know that I should have called last week, but I got to worked up about it.

Anyway, they don't want me. But said that I could apply to any other positions.... umm... if I'm not mistaken that was the only one open. Unless she's trying to tell me that she's leaving soon... but if she didn't want to hire me to work under her so....

I'm just saying, it's one thing to be polite and encouraging and it's another to encourage some to do the impossible.... like apply for non existent jobs.

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things"

MM and I finally had our talk.

He invited me to his family's party and then I found out that he was leaving early and riding down on his motorcycle. I found all of this out as we were sitting with friends of his. MM offered to come back the night before the party and pick me up. What he didn't tell me was that the night before is "guys" night w/ his dad, his dad's friends, and his friends drinking and smoking cigars.

Eventually we came up with the plan that he would ride down on his motorcycle early in the week and then I would drive his truck down to his parents so that he could load it up with stuff. The same day we decide this he talks to his mom who didn't realize MM was planning on coming down so early in the week and had assumed that since he had class Wed nights he wouldn't be down until the Thursday before. That night after we had figured things out and then he talks to his mom, MM tells me that he has decided to take the motorcycle down on Tuesday, come back for class on Wed and then take the truck himself on Thursday. At which point I got severely ticked off.

Now, obviously, whatever I drive there and back I am driving alone, so what's the big deal if it's his truck or my car. It's not the gas 'cuz I'd fill his truck myself anyway. It might be the miles on my car, but I doubt it. MM made this point - I was not upset about the car so what was I so upset about?

I was upset that he invited me in a manner that suggested I was a guest like no other, never told me that I was not going with him (until I commented on his remark to his friend), and then didn't seem to care that we made a plan that I was finally happy with. I'm pissed with him for buying a new climbing harness for a trip to South America with his guy friends over his birthday, but hasn't bothered to get a second helmet for me to ride his motorcycle with him. I told him that I was feeling like an afterthought. Like I was not really at all important to him.

Our talk started off with him apologizing and saying he'd try harder. But he also said that he was intentionally keeping me at arms length. He says he can't make me any promises. I was pretty upset, not because I'm expecting a ring and marriage (or even want that right now), but because the way he said that makes me wonder if he plans on ever getting close to me and allowing me to get close to him. He talked about my "timeline" saying that he understands of if it doesn't match his. Huh? did my boyfriend just say he'd understand if I wanted to break up with him because he wants to move slower?

Nothing got resolved. I cried some. Asked alot of questions. I woke up the next morning feeling like shit. I still can't figure it out. He's asked me to come to this family party, he told me he would try harder to make me not feel like an after thought. He said he was sorry about his thoughtless comment re: you should look for jobs out of state. I have to get better about speaking up - I should have said something right then, but thought his comment was symptomatic of something bigger. And yet he said more than once that he is keeping me at arms length on purpose because of his past and because he gets too close to people too quickly.

I asked him how he feels about me which was "I care about you" and then a whole load of compliments. I also asked him if this was a serious relationship for him and he said yes, but again he couldn't guarantee me anything. He said he's not dating anyone else, but I already knew that and it doesn't really mean anything to me at this point anyway. Just because he's not dating someone else doesn't mean that I'm not just a weigh station before finding someone he does want to make promises too. Although he claims to not be 'broken' when I said that I didn't want to be the girl that fixes him for someone else, despite the fact that he blames this 'arms length' on being burned in the past.

So all that was really accomplished is that my suspicions were confirmed. He has a toe in the water, but isn't ready to get wet.

The only question is how long do I spend waiting him out before finally giving up?