HEAT, kitties, family, dancing OMG
Today it hit 98 with a humidity of 98%. This is the first day when it's been really really REALLY hot here. And there's a giant high pressure system overhead that's keeping us from getting any rain. :( At least the chance of rain starts up again over the weekend. Thankfully, my room stayed decently cool and I didn't feel my normal "OMG I'M GOING TO DIE" heat up here like last year.
The girls (Bandit and Elise, our new kitty additions) are starting to come around. Particularly Bandit. Every time I come out to give them food or water, she sniffs my fingers. Elise is still not okay with physical contact. Hopefully as Bandit becomes even more comfortable with us, then she will, too. This weekend we're going to double the size of their current enclosure. Mom was brilliant and created the current one out of four fence panels and some webbing on top to keep them from climbing out. We're going to buy two more panels and thus double the space. I know they'll be happy about that. They squeeze themselves into the corners where they can lie on the patio flagstones during the heat of the day. One bit of domestication, however, is that they are perfectly okay with using a litter box. There's one problem which is that Mom bought that pine stuff that starts out as pellets and quickly becomes sawdust again as it absorbs water. Using this product outside in high humidity is useless.
Other things.... Umm... Mom's in a lot of pain which is making her very cranky. Which, as usual, is directed at me. Sis finally got fed up with Mom beating up on me over nothing and for no reason and totally had a fight with her. A Mom & Sis fight is incredibly rare. Part of the problem is that Mom hasn't noticed at all how much I've changed my behavior - I am a lot harder to anger, the things that Mom would do that would trigger my immediate anger now generally don't (though i slip sometimes because I'm human), and I'm generally a lot calmer than I was even 6 months ago. There are a few minor things that are low on my list of things to fix that bug Mom and Sis a lot. (The big one is that I have this compulsion to point out the obvious. e.g. I'll tell someone to turn right into a parking lot that we've gone to all the time. It drives them crazy. While I'm just kind of like, "look... I'm working on much more important and difficult stuff right now. Please deal with the minor annoyance until such time that I can deal with it." However, I also feel like they should just deal and take it as a personality quirk, since my exes and friends never seemed bothered by it.) These minor things cause Mom to feel like I haven't changed at all, and thus provides a basis for her to say, "Well, she hasn't changed, so why should I?" Which is total crap, but, according to Sis, there's absolutely no way to get Mom to realize that I've actually made radical progress in such a short time.
Frivolity! I'm a total geek fan of So You Think You Can Dance. I've been watching since the first season. Makes me miss my dancing days... I was a dancer from preschool until 8th grade. If I can get my body to cooperate sometime, I'd love to start taking ballroom. My knees can't do any of the Latin dances, but the waltz, tango, etc. I can totally do. I think. Anyway.... I was CRUSHED last week when it was announced that Alex tore his Achilles tendon to the point where it required surgery. An Achilles injury for a ballet dancer is generally a career ender. I'm praying that his surgeon was fabulous and he recovers fully. That week, Alison was also out with a chest injury. Then, this week, Ashleigh hurts her ribs enough that she got kicked off tonight. It should be renamed this season Survivor: Dance. My favorite thing was Nigel finally getting tough on Billy for doing the same moves each time he solos. I've been saying that since the beginning. There's just something about Billy that bugs me. He doesn't seem sincere, even when he probably really is. And, as Paul Newman once said, "You can see the machinery." There's something when he dances where you can see him thinking about the steps and not just moving. He also has creepy yellow teeth that he really should just white-strip. He's on TV and people can see the pointy yellowness. Besides Billy, though, I LOVE the rest of the dancers. I <3 Kent. He's just so sweet and wholesome and FUNNY! I have to keep telling myself "he's 11 years your junior..."
The girls (Bandit and Elise, our new kitty additions) are starting to come around. Particularly Bandit. Every time I come out to give them food or water, she sniffs my fingers. Elise is still not okay with physical contact. Hopefully as Bandit becomes even more comfortable with us, then she will, too. This weekend we're going to double the size of their current enclosure. Mom was brilliant and created the current one out of four fence panels and some webbing on top to keep them from climbing out. We're going to buy two more panels and thus double the space. I know they'll be happy about that. They squeeze themselves into the corners where they can lie on the patio flagstones during the heat of the day. One bit of domestication, however, is that they are perfectly okay with using a litter box. There's one problem which is that Mom bought that pine stuff that starts out as pellets and quickly becomes sawdust again as it absorbs water. Using this product outside in high humidity is useless.
Other things.... Umm... Mom's in a lot of pain which is making her very cranky. Which, as usual, is directed at me. Sis finally got fed up with Mom beating up on me over nothing and for no reason and totally had a fight with her. A Mom & Sis fight is incredibly rare. Part of the problem is that Mom hasn't noticed at all how much I've changed my behavior - I am a lot harder to anger, the things that Mom would do that would trigger my immediate anger now generally don't (though i slip sometimes because I'm human), and I'm generally a lot calmer than I was even 6 months ago. There are a few minor things that are low on my list of things to fix that bug Mom and Sis a lot. (The big one is that I have this compulsion to point out the obvious. e.g. I'll tell someone to turn right into a parking lot that we've gone to all the time. It drives them crazy. While I'm just kind of like, "look... I'm working on much more important and difficult stuff right now. Please deal with the minor annoyance until such time that I can deal with it." However, I also feel like they should just deal and take it as a personality quirk, since my exes and friends never seemed bothered by it.) These minor things cause Mom to feel like I haven't changed at all, and thus provides a basis for her to say, "Well, she hasn't changed, so why should I?" Which is total crap, but, according to Sis, there's absolutely no way to get Mom to realize that I've actually made radical progress in such a short time.
Frivolity! I'm a total geek fan of So You Think You Can Dance. I've been watching since the first season. Makes me miss my dancing days... I was a dancer from preschool until 8th grade. If I can get my body to cooperate sometime, I'd love to start taking ballroom. My knees can't do any of the Latin dances, but the waltz, tango, etc. I can totally do. I think. Anyway.... I was CRUSHED last week when it was announced that Alex tore his Achilles tendon to the point where it required surgery. An Achilles injury for a ballet dancer is generally a career ender. I'm praying that his surgeon was fabulous and he recovers fully. That week, Alison was also out with a chest injury. Then, this week, Ashleigh hurts her ribs enough that she got kicked off tonight. It should be renamed this season Survivor: Dance. My favorite thing was Nigel finally getting tough on Billy for doing the same moves each time he solos. I've been saying that since the beginning. There's just something about Billy that bugs me. He doesn't seem sincere, even when he probably really is. And, as Paul Newman once said, "You can see the machinery." There's something when he dances where you can see him thinking about the steps and not just moving. He also has creepy yellow teeth that he really should just white-strip. He's on TV and people can see the pointy yellowness. Besides Billy, though, I LOVE the rest of the dancers. I <3 Kent. He's just so sweet and wholesome and FUNNY! I have to keep telling myself "he's 11 years your junior..."