itsme.

Bob is just full of….ideas. Brilliant ideas.

Yesterday he decided he was going to shave the cat.

We are fighting a constant battle with fur balls. And losing. A friend of ours shaved her cat and said it greatly reduced the amount of hair in her house. Last summer we did just that but one step better. We had our cat shaved to look like a lion! And you know what? We did have less fur. And the cat got a job offer. (He was asked to play Aslan in a new Narnia movie but Hollywood is too far away from his food bowl so he declined.)

I should just take the cat in again but the groomer charges sixty bucks so I have put it off. Bob has had it. He has taken a stand and proclaimed he would shave the cat and it wouldn’t cost us a darn penny. Even going so far as to suggest that if he was as good at shaving the cat as he thought he was gonna be we could have ourselves a little side business…

I had a bad feeling.

I tried the common sense route, telling Bob that groomers have the proper tools but he would not be swayed. So, armed with the hair clippers and the kitchen scissors he took the cat out back to be groomed.

This is what the groomers did last summer…

Very regal.

I think Bob envisioned this.

Reality looks like this….

Weapons of mass destruction seen in background.

The finished product.

We are taking him to the groomer tomorrow.

Disclaimer: No animals were harmed during this event. Truth be told he purred the entire time. The cat liked it too.

She stood at the glass. Cool forehead to cool window. Staring not at the airplane that would carry her family away but watching her breath make a foggy cloud on the slightly dirty window. Trying to make it bigger, then smaller, then bigger again. Scarcely aware that the plane was backing up.

She had been at the airport numerous times. She was familiar with leaving. Leaving is like death and taxes as far as she was concerned. Leaving always came. During her many visits to the airport she carefully observed others as they watched their family, friend, lover board the plane. She noted the expressions that crossed their faces as they sought a final glimpse of their dearly departing. She scrutinized the droop of shoulders and the downcast gaze as they glumly trudged to the window and pressed their head to the glass. Some pressed their palms to the window, as if they could have one last touch before the plane whisked away what they considered precious.  Desperate not to let them go. Some cried. Sniffling loudly, blowing noses, wadding up tissues that were well past their fill point. Some walked away wiping a tear.

If she could cry she’d do it like the latter. There’s dignity in the slow trickle of a tear. There’s no dignity to a snotty, tear streaked, mascara stained, red face.

She stood a while. Not thinking of what the plane was taking away but trying to feel…to feel anything.  Sadness. Loss. Anguish.  She prayed a little. Please let me feel, let me be normal, let me be human. Let me please feel human.  I’ll be a good girl if you just let me feel. But no. All she could conjure was a morose face, not one single emotional reaction.

Blah. Meh. Words used often today to illustrate a lack of feeling.

These words represented how she felt now, as they left and could just as easily describe how she felt while they were here. She enjoyed the visit, she enjoyed their time together but she could not allow herself to become a victim to their humanness, she could not immerse herself even the slightest, she could not let emotion crack her facade. It was too painful when the leaving came. She hated the leaving. So, all actions or non actions were done to avoid pain when the leaving came. And she knew too well that the leaving part always, always arrives.

The shrink has good words.

You feel alone? Yes.

You feel isolated? Yes.

You feel set apart, removed, disconnected? Yes, yes, yes.

The shrink clucks her tongue. How tragic. I will fix you. I can help. We can work on this together. I can make you normal. I can make you human.

But she, the queen of disconnected, knows what to do. She shakes her head glumly, slumps lower in the couch and sheds one dignified tear. Practice makes perfect.

And she thinks to herself, this is how she’s made. Try as she may she could no more rid herself of these labels than she could lose an arm or her eyes. This is who she is. Being disconnected has forever been the goal and to meet that goal a wall must be built. The wall is protection, it keeps her removed from feeling. It keeps her set apart from pain. It keeps her safe from emotional destruction. It keeps her safe.

Above all else the wall keeps her safe.

When the family called and said “We miss you, the whole gang is coming for a visit.” She responded “How wonderful, I will plan fun activities, we will stay up late talking, we will reconnect, we will be like a family again.” She had a good working knowledge of the expected responses.

As she hung up she knew what had to be done. She must get the brick, the mortar and the trowel.

For a wall is not built in a day. And crumbling is unacceptable.

She puffs one last breath at the window that over looks the runway. She draws a sad face in the fog with her index finger. She’d seen someone else do that once. It was poignant. A feeling she copied well.

My time of late has been dedicated to the birthday countdown. It’s a big birthday year so a lot of time is needed to make this the best countdown ever…or at least the longest.

This year is the big five oh. Which is totally not like Hawaii Five-Oh which is our fiftieth state and became our fiftieth state on August 21, 1959. Perhaps we should have a luau or something to celebrate? Or maybe everyone should wear coconut bras and grass skirts on that day.

Coconut bras and grass skirts. There’s a couple of fashion gems.I get the grass skirt, it’s kinda cute, goes with everything, could be considered sexy, is cool and recyclable.

I do not get the coconut bra. Not cute. Kinda scratchy. Really only goes with a grass skirt and only comes in brown so wearing black with it is a major faux pas. One size fits all…are they kidding me? We can rest assured that the coconut bra will not take off as a fashion icon…knock on wood…or you could just knock on my coconut bra.

Another thing I do not see the sense in?

Edible underwear.

I imagine they are a bit like a fruit roll up. Sticky. Just try wearing a fruit roll up stuck to your fanny and let me know if that is in any way fun. I realize edible undies were not meant to be worn all day but even a brief encounter with that stickiness does not sound appealing to me…get it?  “Brief”?  “A-Peeling?”

Besides, if I am going to add extra calories to my day it is going to be with Oreo’s, not underwear.

One thing they do have going for them is that they are recyclable. If you are concerned about leaving a carbon footprint on the world, eat your underwear, the ultimate in recycling. Hmmm, this would also cut down on laundry…I may have to rethink this. I’ll get back to you on my decision, but I don’t think it will work. I mean where would I store them? In my bedroom or in the kitchen?

But I digress.

Back to the birthday countdown. I spend time each evening, sometimes early morning, scouring the internet for fascinating facts tp share with all my countdown fans (both of them!). Good heavens there is a lot of crap on the internet. I just type a word and a number in the google search box, hit enter and bam, I get a page that lists a bunch of stuff that sort of relates to my search.

I click on the item in the list that sounds the most intriguing and bam, I get a page full of more information than I could possible use on just one thing.

Then, that one thing makes me question another thing and before I know it the Google has sucked one hour of my life away and my brain has absorbed a bunch of, mostly useless, info. Or I spend hours looking at funny cats on You Tube…Don’t judge! You go and try to watch just one video of Maru the cat. Just. One. He’s like Oreo cookies to me. Just one is never enough.

What I am trying to say here is that I have been searching to entertain you with snippets of fun facts but I end up spending more time reading and looking than I do writing and sharing.

For instance, yesterday was 78 days to my birthday. As I looked for 78 on Google I discover that there are 78 cards in a Tarot deck. You know, Tarot cards, like fortune telling. Tarot got me curious so I checked out a few websites. Then I found a place that would do a virtual reading. Now, I do not put any stock in that malarkey. I’m not that gullible as to believe my future can be explained by some random cards.

I did the virtual reading just for fun.

The cards will not give a true reading if you are not meditating on an area in your life that you need direction in, so think about what you want the cards to tell you! Concentrate.

I got the lay out but I was not given an actual explanation of what these cards mean. It did not really answer the question I so diligently focused on. Inquiring minds want to know, I could not just leave and NOT find out what it all meant. Sooooooo, I had to go out to the internet, learn about Tarot cards and do my own reading. (Two hours!)

But that’s another blog. I learned some fascinating stuff. Fascinating.

And lastly (I wasn’t sure when this was going to end either!) I found a website that would, for a mere 77 cents, send you something to do. Yes. You send them 77 cents (they take Pay Pal) and they send you one thing to do…like write something nice on five postcards and mail it to four friends and one stranger. Or bake something sweet and share half with a neighbor, or go for a five mile hike.

They wanted feedback. “Let us know how you liked what you did!”

There were only two posts on the whole blog and it was dated 2005. I am thinking that they got so busy sending people things to do that they no longer had time to keep up with their blog.

I may try this one…send me one dollar (I am trying to make enough money to quit my job and 77 cents has already been done) and I will send you something to do…no refunds, no illegal activity, nothing dangerous.

Smart shoppers always want a little glimpse of what they might be purchasing. If you send me a dollar your task would be to wear some edible underwear.

I want feedback.