Dainty Kitty

This Just In, My Friends

I can finally shed some light on my last entry - Jake and I just broke up.  It's good, though - I'm all right.  I mean, he didn't want to have children and I did so it was bound to happen eventually.   It took some thinking and things to get there but it's done.   

So now the odd and the sad is over - it's time to move back into the beautiful, right?

Some Times I Think I'm Crazy

I woke up on my couch at seven-thirty this morning (I often prefer sleeping on the couch), fresh from the most wonderful dream.  I crawled into bed and, luckily, managed to recapture some form of it, briefly, some time during the next two hours.  After getting up, eating breakfast, cleaning a bit and read a couple of chapters of The Gates of the Alamo, I curled up under my blanket with both cats and tried to get it back.  I only managed to take the same idea and twist it into something else that just wasn't as good.

So that's how I spent my morning  - trying to chase down the man who lived in my dreams in a house by the beach and ran a bird sanctuary out of his basement (?).  Because I fell so in love with this man - skinny and balding and so much taller than than me - who managed to court me in a dream that I'm sure that only lasted a few minutes.  I've honestly not been able to get him out of my mind all day. 

I'm pretty sure this means something and I think I know what that is.  And I guess I'm not really crazy - I'm just trying to straighten out my life. 

Socks, Moral Dilemmas & Stitch Markers

It's rained here most of the day but it was finally clear enough to take photos of my first sock in progress.  Hooray for the sock yarn Kim sent - the kick in the arse that I needed to finally give sock making a try!
I only have a few minutes - Jake's coming over for dinner and the season premiere of The Office here in just a little bit.  Of course, we had to have a bit of an argument.  He mentioned that the next book in the series he's reading isn't available for him to pick up at the library so he might have to spend a couple of hours at a bookstore, reading.  I said that I couldn't imagine reading a book at a bookstore only to put it back on the shelf and not purchase anything.  He seems to think that because they have comfy chairs, this is okay.  Especially if it's a big chain bookstore.  He wouldn't do it at a smaller, locally owned store which just astounds me.  I asked what the difference was and added, "Oh, you want to 'stick it to the man,' right?"   Really, some times I think book smarts totally leave no room in person's mind for common sense.   He then said that he would ask his friends on the forum what they thought.  I shot that down because what you really need to do is ask employees of a large chain bookstore what they thought about it.  He went into something about a poll of employees because one opinion wouldn't do... which was my point exactly.  Then I said something about how going to the forums for an opinion isn't always the solution.   Anyway, long story short, he got off the phone pretty quickly.   Gah, I swear.  What do you all think about reading a book in a book store?  And I don't mean perusing a new book of knitting patterns.  I mean sitting down with a novel and reading it.  Not just a sample to see if you like it (I always read the first page)...just reading.  And the next time I'm at a Barnes & Noble, I'm going to ask an employee for sure. 

Anyway, great way to leave things before your boyfriend comes over because you're leaving for a week.

To close on a cute, happy note here are the stitch markers I received from Better Bead It! Designs and how cute are they?!  Finally!  Cute crochet stitch markers!

I'm so ready to sink my feet in the sand!  And my dad is bringing his laptop (the condo has internet access) so I can keep up with my blogs - yay!   

Spinning, Crocheted Cuffs and Unexpected Mental Vomiting

Here are the first few feet of my laughable first spinning attempt using Spin to Knit by Shannon Okey. 

Spinning is hard! Of course, it's all uneven but I think that's pretty normal for a first try.  At least I hope it is!  Actually, rather than getting big lumps, I had more trouble not letting it get super skinny.  The book helped a lot.  The websites I looked at said nothing about drafting  the fiber first and - holy cow - that makes a huge difference.  Luckily I have a ton of this blue stuff to practice with. 

The book doesn't tell you how to take it off the spindle without untwisting it so I'm going to do some more searching online and if I can't find anything I'll bet an email to my spinning expert friend, Delly Bean will solve the problem. 

I finished this Crochet Cuff last night in order to feel like I was getting something done.  I know it just kind of looks like a knot of yarn but it's rather pretty in real life.  The blue ribbon yarn was my very first Expensive Skein which I bought in Sanibel Island a few years ago.  My plan is to put a lot of time into the Hep Cat from the Doherty book tonight but I'm having problems with my inability to sit still or work on one project for more than a few minutes. 

I had loose plans to go drinking with a coworker tonight but it fell through.  Jake's having coffee with a friend.  I'm about to go mad, I'm so tired of coming home every night and staying here.  I need to get out more often.  I was talking to Jake about this in an email today, "Although, as usual, I have the itch to do something.  I don't know what's up with that."  He wrote, "I don't know.  Maybe you're on the verge of becoming another person; silly as that sounds, it happens."  And I replied, "Yeah, I know what you mean.  I wish I could move right now.  Not out of the city - just somewhere else.  Isn't that weird?  I've been thinking about it a lot recently."

And I have - although this confession was kind of the first time I put it all together.  I really do need some sort of fresh start.  I'm realizing that I'm, very slowly, becoming who I want to be even though I'm not really sure who that is.  I just think that maybe thirty-three is going to be a good year for me.  We'll see. 

My friend Aimee, of Vibrance Fitness & Nutrition, recently wrote something in her newsletter that really struck a chord with me, "Fall is a notable season for me.  Years of new school supplies and classes coupled with my birthday have always given autumn more a feeling of new beginnings than January does...September is naturally a time of transition, and with my birthday smack in the middle of it I can't help but stop and reflect at the events of the year and look ahead to what I can create in the coming twelve months."   

Yeah, I get that.

The Invasion

Jake and I got home from the wedding in London, Ontario at about ten o’clock last night. I carried our two leftover blueberry muffins into the kitchen and sat them down next to an empty container of Trader Joe’s Mango Lemonade. I think I puzzled over this subconsciously because I had last seen the container in the fridge and I didn’t thing either of us had drank the last bit of it. 

Then I turned around to see glass on the floor. And the kitchen curtains twitching a bit…and a broken window. I don’t remember what I said but I said something and I think Jake came into the kitchen, too. We checked the living room and the television was still there but his Wii and a handful of games that were on top of the TV were gone.

He raced upstairs and I heard him call out a few seconds later, “They got my computer!” He had slid hid laptop under the bed before we left – something he’s only started doing very recently. I joined him upstairs. Everything from the bedside tables was scattered across the bed. The capris I had left on the chair were on the floor – I’m sure they were tossed aside after the pockets were searched. I didn’t check to see if the turquoise necklace that I had left on the table was still there but I expect that it was slipped in a jacket pocket and taken as well.

He called 911 and we went out the front door to check the damage outside the kitchen window. That’s when we discovered they’d tried to get in the front French doors. Oddly enough, on the way in, I’d noticed a plant was tipped over but not that the wooden framed screen was ajar. The officer showed up at about that time and we went around back to discover that a brick Jake, my concerned animal lover boyfriend, had warmed in the oven, wrapped in a towel and put outside for a stray cat one night, was used to bust the window.  

The officer, who was terribly nice, took the report and called for the CSI team but warned us that it could be three or four in the morning before they showed up as lovely Dayton, Ohio had already had a couple of shootings. 

After he left, we discovered a couple of other odd things. I went to the bathroom, sat down without thinking…and nearly fell in. Jake never leaves the seat up. So our burglar, who had searched the bathroom closet and left it ajar, had also stopped to relieve himself (if nothing else, we now know the burglar was a male) and actually flush the toilet but he forgot to put the lid back down. He also left the socks he wore on his hands stuffed in a coffee cup on the kitchen counter. I left before the CSI “team” of one officer showed up around one-thirty but he actually found blood on the gloves. He also said there was a chance it was someone stealing for “stuff” rather than to sell because he only stole the games that were for the Wii – not We Love Katamari which was for the PlayStation Jake had traded to a friend some time ago even though that game was also on top of the television.  

This morning Jake also discovered that the burglar hadn’t tried to get in through the front French doors but had left by them. And he’d also stolen the change from a jar in the spare bedroom.  Jake called at nine this morning to tell me this and what the CSI officer had said and actually apologized for going on and on about it. He didn’t want to be tedious. My god. I don’t even live there and I can’t stop thinking about it. I had my car broken into (well, actually I left it unlocked but it was rolled into a ditch across the street and emptied out) when I was in college and I can remember that sense of violation and betrayal. And that was just my car. Jake says he’d like to burn the place to the ground. This is something he often fantasizes about but it’s always been because it’s such an old house that needs too much work – he’d love to start over. When he mentioned burning it this morning I added that he would still be rebuilding in th same neighborhood so he now wants to burn it and build a park in its place.

It’s a beautiful neighborhood with gorgeous houses and lawns full of flowers…but it’s also a very unsafe neighborhood. Strangers and panhandlers are always walking by. He can’t keep lawn furniture on the patio because the homeless will sleep on them. When we were putting up a new wrought iron railing on his tenant’s porch several weeks ago a man stopped and asked for six dollars so that he could make his rent. After the man explained that he had just gotten out of prison and was trying to change his life, Jake actually went inside and scraped up some cash to give him. He offered to help with the railing or mow the lawn but Jake sent him on his way saying, “Pass it on.”

You want to think people are inherently good but that man came back several days later, scratched and bruised, claiming he’d been beaten up by some people in his group home and they’d stolen his money. He wanted more. Jake turned him away. In reality, he was most likely casing the house. This Michael, whom Jake had helped out, could have been the one that broke in his kitchen window, drank his Mango Orange juice (there were no prints so he must have still had the socks on – but at least he received a small nasty surprise in the form of the juice…it had gone bad weeks ago), stolen his Wii, ransacked his bedroom, stolen his laptop and used his bathroom before fleeing out the front French doors. 

The whole situation is creepy and, with a $1,000 deductible, Jake thinks it’s going to cost him an arm and a leg which is probably true. The insurance company also has to take photos before he can have the glass replaced and they can’t send anyone out for two or three days…but the house needs to be secured. But, since insurance companies are so helpful, they’re going to recommend someone to board the windows and door up! Lucky Jake! Ridiculous.

Anyway, it was a very shitty way to end and otherwise okay weekend. I’m sure they’ll never catch the guy and even if they did, they wouldn’t recover the Wii or the laptop. I just don’t understand people sometimes.  I mean, what kind of person thinks it’s okay to break into someone else’s home and take things?  It never fails to astound me….

Lack O'Pictures

Why is it I find all sorts of things I want to take photos of when I don't have a camera?   Sunday night I spotted a beautiful yellow and orange moth on my rear window as I was pumping gas (moments after I'd discovered I'd left my camera in Jake's pocket) then there's my thumbless fingerless glove, the unbelievabley gorgeous chopsticks my dad brought back from China for my birthday and today - my pretty red nails.  I stopped biting them again and decided last night they were long enough for a homemade manicure. 

Jake leaves for Kanasas out of Columbus (an hour or so away) at six-thirty tomorrow night and flies back into Columbus at ten-thirty Sunday night.  He couldn't possibly miss more of my birthday weekend but the pity party is, indeed, over.  So I'm going with the plan I came up with Monday night.  I have a couple of Netflix movies queued up to arrive tomorrow including Perfume with Alan Rickman (if I can't spend the evening before my birthday with my boyfriend, I'd say Mr. Rickman is a very close second choice...although I'd also take Alton Brown if anyone was offering).  Saturday night is going to be take out chicken wings and dvds and Sunday morning is going to be spent around the pool with mimosas until a.) the complex kids show up or b.) it's time to get ready for my parents to pick me up to go to the German Picnic. 

The following two weekends are packed with a wedding in London, Ontario next weekend and the AleFest the following weekend (I'm going to take lots of pictures this year)...maybe I'll just postpone my birthday until September. 

33 Year Old Child

The older I get, the more excited I am about my birthday.  It's like I hit a point in my mid-twenties when they really didn't matter and now I'm on the upswing.  It's odd but true.

I turn thirty-three on Sunday and was very excited about my birthday weekend.  Other than dinner at my favorite sushi restaurant, Akashi, on Saturday night and mimosas on Sunday morning, we didn't really have any plans but it was still going to be fun.  I mean - hello - it's a birthday!  It has to be fun!

Ahem, not true.  Notice the use of the work "was".  Birthdays don't have to be fun.  Not if you find that you're probably going to spend it alone-ish.  Jake has to go home for his aunt's funeral on Friday and isn't sure when he'll be back.  Maybe Sunday some time.  Maybe.  I know that makes me sound like a complete greedy bitch but she lived to be eighty-nine and had full mental capabilities...that's pretty good and I'm sure she'd agree. 

It's my birthday so I'm allowed to be a little sad and selfish on my very own blog.  And I also feel pretty bad about feeling this way so it evens out. 

I already knew my parents were going camping this weekend but I called my mom and asked, "Can I be sad for a minute?" and told her the news.  I wanted someone to be sad with me, dammit.  She told me they're getting home around noon on Sunday in order to go to the German picnic and asked me to go with them so at least that's something. 

You know, part of me wants to either throw myself a little pity party or just forget that it's even my birthday this weekend...postpone it for two weeks or something (we're going to London, Ontario for a wedding the following weekend).   But writing this has kind of made me realize that it doesn't have to be that way.  I guess there's no reason why I can't celebrate my birthday by myself as sad as that sounds. I could call Wendy (we met for drinks last Thursday and had a good time) and we could go out...but going dancing and drinking just isn't my bag any more.  But there's no reason why I can't get take out on Saturday night and watch a marathon of Emily's Favorite Movies (something with Alan Rickman in it like that new movie, Perfume, Sliding Doors and maybe Harold & Maude for irony's sake).  There no reason why I can't mix up a batch of mimosas, throw them in a thermos and lay by the pool reading the new issue of Glamour Sunday morning (I was so happy to see Mariska Hartigay on the cover)...other than the thought of it just makes me sad.

I've spent enough time being sad and sorry for myself today, though.  Time to grab a Trader Joe's Lime Floe (my newest favorite summer treat) and sit down to watch The Rage in Placid Lake.  Woo-hoo.

/end pity party

Why I Love Aunt Flo

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of cramps--and cups--and menstrual belts--
Of birth control--and rings--
And why her temper is boiling hot--
And whether pads have wings."

I know I have cursed her many times as she rolled up my drive in her claret colored rag top but I really do love Aunt Flo. 

See, I've been thinking about my period a lot lately.  Several weeks ago I stopped taking birth control because I just wasn't comfortable with the fact that I only have a true period once every three months or so.  My plan was to go without contraceptives until I had a natural period at which time I would happily hop back on the pill. 

Luckily, Jake is a pretty great boyfriend and was very supportive of my plan.  Not, of course, that it would have mattered much if he disagreed but it's certainly better to be supported than not.  When we finally left Raja's apartment yesterday, I had a moment alone to tell him that the mini temper tantrum I threw when I found out he had put my purse in my car rather than Raja's (the car we took to lunch) was because I felt that I would be getting my period within hours and wanted to have the essential accouterments at hand and the "stomach ache" that came on after lunch was the arrival of said period.  Upon hearing that I had started he gave a little shout, "Yay!  You got your period!" which I, at first, took to mean, "Yay!  No more condoms!" (because, let's face it - condoms suck) but that's not what he meant at all.  I was finally - as absolutely weird as my desire might seem and how...common it is - having a natural period. 

Last week I went to my family doctor to refill the two anti-depressants I pop daily due to Aunt Flo. I also asked her to refill my birth control because I haven't found a new ob/gyn since moving back to Dayton (and while I liked my former doctor, I didn't care one bit for her staff - I never dreaded the examinations, I dreaded every thing leading up to it).  Actually, I didn't ask her to refill it - I asked her to put me on something else because I wasn't having regular periods.

"Why do you want to have a period?" Dr. C said in that very blunt way she has of speaking (don't get me wrong - I like her very much but she's very matter of fact). 

I shrugged, "I like having a period."  I didn't want to get all womyn-y about it because that's not it at all but after stumbling for words to explain why I liked having a period I finally said, "It lets me know I'm not pregnant."  I mean, after all, physician Sir William Osler once referred to the menstrual flow as "the tears of a disappointed uterus." 

She agreed that it's nice to go without that stress but explained that there are birth control pills out there that assure only four periods a year.  Well, yeah, I know that and that's great but...maybe I want to see my period more than four times a year.  It's a cycle that my body wants to have once a month (even though it's a false cycle due to the fact that I take the Pill but never the less) - it keeps me in touch with me. 

Besides, the pill that I'm currently on - that I didn't want refilled - was something new that my Columbus ob/gyn had me try - one that I'd never discussed with him so I think part of my discomfort was a bit of , "Okay, is this pill supposed to make me irregular?"  I mean, this is the man who, when I said I eventually wanted to get pregnant, put me on prenatal vitamins (which I never took).  I wasn't actively trying to get pregnant and was on the Pill and Dustin and I hadn't even been dating all that long.  He also chastised my weight and said I needed to stop drinking milk or I'd get even fatter (okay, those weren't his exact words but that really was the gist of it) - even though I drink skim and my mother has problems with calcium deficiency. 

But that's neither here nor there. 

I can understand why Dr. C didn't want to give me a new prescription.  I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.   And I'm sure my want to have a monthly period sounded kind of silly.  Perhaps if I could have stated my side in words more than, "I like having a period," I might have walked out of that room with something other than a prescription for what I had already been taking but I didn't. 

 

So I'm going back to infrequent visits with Aunt Flo.  Considering the cramps I suffered earlier this evening, I should be happy about that but I don't mind.   I've known grandmothers who cried when their granddaughters got their first period because it's a monthly bother that she'll have to live with for thirty or so odd years.  I don't feel that way.  My body is taking care of itself and this is one of many ways - perhaps not as pretty as a scab or blister which isn't saying much - of showing it. 

My sincerest apologies to Lewis Carroll.

Home Again, Home Again

I really didn't take many pictures this weekend at all.  I regret that I didn't get a photo of the three of us at Paddy's Pub on Saturday night: Jake and I in our QC shirts and Raja in a Pintsize shirt (Pintsize being Marten's AnthroPC in the comic).  Or even one photo of Jake and I since it was our first road trip.  Oh well.

While we were standing on the edge of the river, a older man with a thick accent and a droopy mustache came up, pointed to the ship and said something about the tide.  It makes absolutely no sense to me (if someone understands, please explain) but the tide receded at least ten feet as the ship passed us.  It seems to me that it should have risen due to water it was displacing but...did it recede due to the water it was pushing in front of it?  I have no idea.  Just an example of why I was a liberal arts major, I guess. 

Anyway, that gentleman gave me my very first genuine Canadian, "Eh?"  I'll never forget him.  :-)

It was also nice - yet terribly frustrating at the same time - to find that Jake and I travel well together.  Just like everything else.  There were Moments, of course, but that's natural.  I've started to type two of them out several times but deleted them instead. There's no reason to catalog that kind of thing here, I guess.   

Ah, I wish I had a day off tomorrow...it really feels funny to think that I've nearly traveled six hundred miles in the past two and a half days...if I weren't exhausted, I wouldn't believe it.      

Taking Sarnia by Surprise

So up until about nine o'clock yesterday morning, I wasn't going to Sarnia, Ontario with Jake but when he mentioned in his first email of the day that he really didn't relish the idea of driving his car up there with his unreliable brakes, I gave in and sent him an email asking, "What if I went and we took my car?"

I had originally decided not to go due to my current financial situation but had been toying with going anyway- especially he had said he was going to pay for the gas.  I mean, how much could I really spend in two days?

So I'm in Canada. 

Nothing exciting really - lots of watching Jake and his friend play video games.  I really came for the company - I've been napping, reading and crocheting dish clothes for a lack of any other last minute project to pull together.  But I did just play Guitar Hero for the first time...ahem, I suck, by the way.   

It's been fun although the Baby Subject came up inadvertently during dinner and drinks (when I found that you really can spend quite a bit of money in two days in Canada)tonight and it took me a long time to get back on my feet again - to stop pulling away and join the conversation.  Not to be all melodramatic or anything but I'm beginning to prepare myself for the end.  He won't budge and neither will I.  Very sad. 

What a lovely note to end on.  In other news, though, Jake's friend, Raja, burned me a CD of music I've never heard before and I'm really looking forward to listening to it on the five hour drive home tomorrow....