Missing Normal?

                                                                                    Myrtle Beach SC 

"Normally" I'm spending the last week of September/first week of October on vacation. I choose this time because nobody else is on vacation then, and what makes a vacation ideal to me is having as little human interaction as possible. This year nothing else is normal, so I'll spend my week off at home, dreaming of next year's trip to the beach and finding ways to occupy myself that don't require 8 hour days in front of a computer. I suppose I can alphabetize my socks, or make felted gifts from the prodigious follicular output of Fox the Cat this summer. 

It doesn't escape my notice that I'm one of the fortunate ones who still has a job, paid vacation, employer-subsidized healthcare. But seeing how others less fortunate are now jobless and insurance-less only offers further proof of how effed-up our eco-political system is. 

And millions of citizens who aren't aware of how most of the rest of the civilized world operates think this is "normal." It's not. 

Monday Meh, Now We Are Ruthless Edition

 

Funky Friday, (almost) Harvest Moon Edition

Does anybody blog - or read blogs - anymore? 

The approaching Autumnal Equinox has me waxing nostalgic (that's the only waxing that gets done around here), and with all that the year has visited on us, I'm happiest not thinking about the here and now. 

I feel like holding my breath until November, but since that's not a realistic coping mechanism, I wonder if I can write my way through the coming weeks. 

We'll see. 

Cat Tales

Fox and Teacup in a rare moment of solidarity.

  I was going to wait to get a pet until after the house sells. But early last December, the local feline rescue posted Fox's picture (he's the one on the left), which clearly conveyed that this 9 year old gentleman needed a more comfortable retirement home. So off I went to meet him, and it was love at first sight, and I brought him home. A week later when I found out he was diabetic, we had already bonded, so I pledged to give him insulin twice a day and to do my best to keep him out of Teacup's high-carb kibble. At a follow up vet visit, his blood glucose # had improved and it was suggested I put him on a low-carb canned food diet, so he snarfs down 4 cans of Fancy Feast a day. He's a big boy - maybe part Maine Coon? - and he gets plenty of exercise running after and from Teacup, so this old cat is not slowing down!

After a week or so on Fancy Feast, Mr. Fox's pancreas decided to start working, and it's been 10 weeks since he's needed any insulin! I'm thinking that I need to switch my own diet to Fancy Feast a couple months before I'm due for my next bloodwork, so that my doc will stop trying to get me to take drugs.

I hope you are eating well and staying active while we're stuck on our couches, waiting for whatever the year will bring. And consider adopting a homeless critter -- they're good company, probably better than most humans.

Wienerdog Wednesday - Spring Edition

One of my co-workers was just led down the hall by two four-footed furballs. I miss having a dog, but work still keeps me away from home almost 11 hours out of 24, so it doesn't feel like the right time to fill that dog-shaped hole just yet. At least my workplace allows others to bring their canine kids in to the office!

Happy First Day of Spring to my fellow denizens of the northern hemisphere. The dog days of summer will be here before we know it!

It's not Caturday, but...

Teacup, claiming that she was not about to drink from my water glass.

I've made several false starts at resuscitating my blog over the past year and then some. What the heck, since it's approaching Spring here in the Northern hemisphere, why not try to wake the writer in me who's been lying dormant for too long?

So...much...has...changed.....

Most recently, and happily, intellikid overcame her conviction that cats hate her, and realized that her lifestyle is more conducive to the demands of being a cat mom versus a dog mom. Enter Teacup, a former feral feline who, along with her littermates, was rescued by one of intellikid's friends. Teacup is not a snuggly, lap-happy kitty, but she is much less fearful than she first was, and even approaches me on her own when she deems it's time for me to pet her. To be sure, affection can only be given on Teacup's terms, but everyone's okay with that.

That's the newest news. The old news is that last June, my mom decided that 85 trips around the sun were enough. Leading up to that, my blogging output slowed and then stopped as I took on more and more of my mom's caregiving during her final year, or as much of it as she would allow. When Mom's Alzheimer's progressed to the point where it was unsafe for her to be alone during the day, I juggled working from home full-time with full-time caregiving. It was a difficult time in so many ways, but I am grateful to have been a part of my mom's day-to-day, and to have been able to recognize that each moment I was able to spend with her gave me the opportunity to continue making connections for her to her past, and to the memories she could still call up.

In the end, though, there is never enough time to ask all the questions you want answered, or enough opportunities to tell someone you love them.

So...much...has...changed....


In theory, I should have plenty more time to get back to blogging regularly. We'll see if this is a false start, like the false Spring we had last week. I miss writing, though, and I miss the blogging community, so even if the weather is unpredictable, my circumstances should allow me to strive for some sort of routine writerly output (even if it's only to resume Wienerdog Wednesdays and Monday Mehs).

So......What's new with you?

Wienerdog Wednesday

Source  unknown

I am trying to get my blog going again, mostly for therapeutic purposes but also to exercise my writing muscles so they don't go completely slack. Meanwhile, I can make sure anybody who still stops by here doesn't have another wienerless Wednesday!

It's the second Xmas season without Scooter Pie....but Santa Paws will be visiting the Intelliwench residence to help my daughter's new furry friend celebrate her first holiday. Look for an introduction to Teacup in a future post!

Darkness and Light

The view from my deck

There's a bright side to everything, and the midterm elections were certainly proof of that. There was no Blue Wave here in Upper East Tennessee, but our little county did vote to allow the sale of liquor by the drink in restaurants and to permit retail package stores, so we won't have to drive too far when we want to forget that the best we could come up with to replace retiring US Senator Bob Corker is Marsha "We need to protect the 2nd Amendment" Blackburn. The woman hasn't even been sworn in yet, and she's already an embarrassment.

Congratulations to all of you who did manage to elect or re-elect some sane and progressive candidates to office. Is it a start of bigger, bluer things to come? Hope so.

All Politics -- and Snack Foods -- and Parades -- are Local

Today is National Peppermint Patty Day in the U.S.. Having grown up in York, PA, I have a strong opinion about what should and shouldn't be called a Peppermint Patty. (The York variety distinguishes itself from squishy imitators by its distinctive "snap" when the patty is broken in two.)

In fact, York County in Pennsylvania is known as the Snack Food Capital of the World. Therefore, geographic prejudices influence my ideas about lots of foods:  Potato chips should bear a German surname and be kettle cooked; Crabs must be blue and of Chesapeake Bay origin; and Chocolate is Hershey's, never Nestle (even if most of Hershey's production has now moved to Mexico).

To paraphrase Tip O'Neill, all politics and all snack foods are local. And so, I would argue, are parades. Our south central Pennsylvania parades were entirely local affairs, drawing talent from no further than the county's borders, and honoring local veterans and football teams. Some of the high school bands' color guards included rifle twirlers, but that was it as far as any displays of military might went. The parades were a celebration of community, and just lining the streets to cheer our friends and neighbors and eat sticky cotton candy was reason enough to gather and briefly disrupt the dailiness of life.

Even if I were Washington, DC local, I doubt I could get behind the Dumpster's idea for a big parade down the streets of  the nation's capital, to celebrate . . . . what?

State of the Union Drinking Game

Which will kill more brain cells:  A) Listening to the most uninteresting man in the world blather and lie for an hour: or B) just leaving the TV off and consuming enough alcohol during the evening to numb ourselves to the reality that is AmeriKKKa 2018?