Life in the Slow Lane

There is a cat in the neighborhood that has decided that our front yard is her stage. Scene one: Juliet the drama kitty sits on a tree stump, looking across the great expanse at Romeo. Juliet sounds so forlorn, meowing and meowing and meowing. Romeo sits rock still, trying to poison Juliet with his glare before she can finish her monologue. Scene two: Juliet, not to be thwarted by Romeo's straying from the script, continues acting out this great tragedy. For this reason I hear horrible, pity-inducing kitty cries, and I rush out to find what ever injured cat it is. What I find looks particularly heathenish. The top of a long spade/shovel is protruding from the middle of this poor, crying cat. However, as soon as she sees me, she unwraps herself from around the spade stuck in the ground and trots off. I just hope she doesn't go prima dona on me.

Essays do not grow well in the wild. They require a great deal of cultivation. However, they do multiply in the wild. I will be slaving away on one essay, trying to get more than the heading and I will look around only to realize that two more essays have popped up. It is very disconcerting. Does anyone want to take a baby essay and help it to grow into a nice strong essay? I kind of need them by tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow morning would be better.

Sometimes people, in an effort to be sensitive to people who do not believe as they do, go a little too far. I'm sure you can think of examples where they go a lot and a lot too far, but in this case, I just mean a little. I was wearing my butterfly patched jeans while babysitting yesterday and my charge became fascinated with an unpatched hole. The house keeper, who fits the image of a good old fashioned Oma, tried to educate my charge on the odd fashion trend of holey pants. My charge is two. "Yes," she says, in that characteristic I'm-talking-to-a-young-child voice, "That is a hole. Holey pants are the style." "Ah, dear woman," I wanted to say. "I'm not wearing these jeans because they are in, I'm wearing them because they are the most comfortable pants in the whole wide world." And then I want to defend the reputation of these pants. They aren't holey because I paid an exhorbitant amount at a snooty store. Every hole is a ...

Someone once told me that a friend of theirs received a package from an anonymous person that contained a pair of pants inside. It was mailed from across the country, yet the pair of pants was the right size and style for this particular person. Now I consider that to be a great mystery. But I also consider it a mystery that I wouldn't mind happening to me. Because, you see, playing with children wreaks havoc on my pants. Especially if I have the misfortune to sit down on some unknown substance which then leaves a very unfortunate colored stain in a very, very unfortunate spot. I may have to consider some creative patch work, but that, too, has its problems. I say this because I have another pair of pants that developed a hole the size of Montana near one of the back pockets. (Please do not speculate on the size of the pants based on the size of the hole.) My most beautiful sister, in what I thought was a display of pure magnanimous affection, bought me a couple of patches to fix t...

"Tell me what you feel in your room when the full moon is shining in upon you and your lamp is dying out, and I will tell you how old you are, and I shall know if you are happy." Henri-Frederic Amiel, 1885 "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve, or save, the world and a desire to enjoy, or savor, the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." E. B. White, 1969

A good week is reading a good book. A good week is wonderful, glorious, run out and sing weather. A good week is being able to breathe after coughing up two and a half lungs. A good week is losing weight while sitting still in a chair for half an hour. A good week is staying out later than you should because of a good friend. A good week is being attacked by a two-foot tall "monster" in a tutu. A good week is a cupcake with green frosting. A good week is bright orange toe nail polish.

Today I started coughing, really could not stop. I coughed out my left lung, with the other on top. I started weaving side to side, hoping for some air I opened windows, opened vents and stood on a chair. I drank some water and some punch, my mouth opened wide, I drank again, more potent stuff; cleaned out my inside I tell you this, 'cause it's true. I can't rhyme a lie I write slowly, yet rush on to end before I die.

One hundred blog posts in exactly eight months of blogging.

In a momentary surge of political activism, I decided that instead of shopping at the mega-huge corporation, I would shop at the big corporation. For those of you who are concerned that I may have gone off the deep end, don't worry, I chose a modest purchase to practice my ideals: one file folder priced at 79 cents. I agonized over my purchase, because after all, I think I could have found it for 38 cents at W- super center, but I had committed myself, and I'm not one to easily back down. So at the counter I pulled out my wallet and realized that I had 23 cents in change, not counting the 10 cents Canadian that someone slipped me, and then a five dollar bill. I tossed my five dollar bill on the counter, but the cashier didn't take it and instead asked me what change I had. I poured it out and he fished through his pockets until he came up with sixty-five cents. Pushing my three pennies back to me along with the five dollar bill, he handed me the receipt and my folder and wi...

I sometimes wish that I could take sheets of newspaper and cover floor length mirrors. This is not due to any vanity on my part nor hesitancy to see exactly what I look like from the back when I am cleaning the toilet, nor frustration from when I am looking my most charming while doing aerobics, although that has been the case in the past. No, my motive for covering mirrors would be utterly different. I have discovered that children who have mirrors as closet doors spend a good deal of time looking into them. This is not a problem when the child is happy or when they are watching how they look when they dance, but it is a giant problem when the child is upset. If I could read their mind, I'm sure it would go something like this: Waaaah! Waaaaaah! I don't remember why I am crying but I look perfectly miserable in the mirror, so I must be. Waaaah! Waaaaah! No, I can't close my eyes to go to sleep, because then I couldn't see how miserable I am supposed to be. or I'm m...

This week is National Sleep Awareness Week. It is a good time to acquaint yourself with the different sleep disorders and to experience what sleep really means; it isn't the setting on your computer when you don't want to turn it off. (A curious but true fact: Sleep Apnea Awareness Day was both this past Wednesday and Thursday. Did they give it two days so that those who suffer from Sleep Apnea could combine their awareness of two days to equal one day of the awareness of someone who doesn't suffer from Sleep Apnea?) For those of you who are interested in learning more about sleep, I will be dedicating my space in this blog to discussing the many intriguing aspects of sleep. If you suffer from insomnia, reading my blog will help you overcome that. If you suffer from restless legs syndrome, reading my blog will help change your mind about whether RLS is a blessing or a curse. And finally, if you suffer from snoring, my blog will offer an alternative to staying in the room wi...