I am a domestic, short-haired tabby living in Ottawa, Canada.
In general, I prey on rodents and unsuspecting birds, occasionally challenging myself with a small squirrel or lap dog.
I enjoy long walks, and engage in active neighbourhood surveillance.
Hello All, I had so many hopes for this weekend, but here we are, Sunday night, and I’ve accomplished essentially nothing. Worse still, I spent the majority of this day feeling like I was on the verge of bursting into tears. I think this has to do with the fact that I am over tired, and it will likely pass in one or two days max, but it sure is a drag because it means that I have not vacuumed and my skis are unwaxed. Plus, I hate crying, and rarely do it.
I had a birthday dinner at my parents’ tonight, and my mom and dad made all of my favourites. It was a wonderful feast, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My mom also packed up a fabulous goodie bag for me. I felt like a jerk though, because it was meant to be a celebratory event and I was so clearly low on the energy scale and critically low on exuberance. My mom reminded me that home is the one place where you can always wear your heart on your sleeve...and people still love you no matter what. Isn’t that sweet? What did I ever do to deserve such a great family, and great friends? Honestly, I am pretty much as lucky as they come.
I had to leave rather abruptly though, because my parents are dog sitting a dog that I am deathly allergic to, and after dinner, I felt I was one flake of inhaled dander away from having my some kind of whacked-out asthma attack. I’m pretty somatic it’s true, but I’m also legitimately very allergic to certain dogs.
Right now I am watching Pride and Prejudice, which is one of my favourite romantic movies. Unfortunately, it is the Kiera Knightly version, which makes me want to barf a little. I much prefer the one with Colin Firth as Mr. D’Arcy. Anyway, it is doing an adequate job of pacifying my hopeless romantic disposition for the moment, but I just took a double hit of Benedryl, so I think I am not long for this world .
I’m on call tomorrow night, so there’s bound to be some calamity for me to write about...
I am laying low tonight. Went wedding dress shopping with a friend of mine today, and it was a huge, but exhausting, success. Tonight I cannot muster up the wherewithal to do anything other than sit on the couch, drinking wine, cleaning up my inbox, making to do lists,and watching movies on the W network. It is total bliss. I decided to defrost the second bit of my mom's excellent pasta sauce and cooked up a little spaghetti again. As I was grating some Parmesan cheese into it, I caught my pinkie. It hurt like a mofo, but I figured I was just being a suck. Just now (about an hour later) I looked down and found my entire finger covered in dried blood, plus a large gash where I grated the skin right off of it.
This is the kind of shape I'm in. Tonight, I will sleep like the dead, and tomorrow wake rejuvenated and ready for a ski wax!
My parents are cooking me a birthday dinner tomorrow including my favourite Beef Stroganoff(?sp) and this yummy vanilla pie that I really love...and God knows what else. I'm really excited.
there are a trillion things I want to do tomorrow.
Last night when I went to bed at around 2:40am, my heart rate was about 139 and I had a major sense of impending doom. I could not calm my ass down. I thought it would be kind of ironic if I were having my first ever panic attack in bed, my favourite place in the world. Luckily, it did not come to that; though, I can pretty much guarantee that if someone had offered me 0.5mg of Ativan, I would’ve taken it without hesitation.
This morning when I woke up, I thought (again) that I might die from anxiety. I won’t even get into the GI symptoms I was having. Instead of dying, I got in the shower and told myself that this grand rounds was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not, and then I somehow managed to pull it together. The dose of perspective I needed came when I saw one of my ex-patients, a young man, with a new diagnosis of schizophrenia, shuffling down the snowy street looking totally lost. Seriously, I think my challenges are pretty minor in comparison.
So, the worst of it is over with, and now I just need to pull something together for Friday. I am ecstatic to have it done, and I don’t even care if I flamed out. The thing is, I actually enjoy public speaking, just not when I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about. This weekend is going to be the birthday weekend of the century...I cannot wait.
God Bless you for a)engaging in supportive psychotherapy with me today, and b)letting me leave early. You are a kind generous man, and you are invited to my party on Friday night!
Also, a shout out to Brocat, and Micher for the wonderful cupcakes. They are the only solid food I've been able to handle all day...
Just now, I almost burned down the kitchen. I have no kettle, so rely on boiling water for tea on the stove. This is a fine strategy, except when my head is lodged firmly up my ... I'm trying to quit swearing.
I'm a complete mess, but I will persevere...and regain my former lust for life, and high(ish) level of functioning.
Adieu – another one act play – my favourite kind of play...
The Following is a re-enactment of my ex-bf’s visit tonight. I asked him to please come by and pick up the clothes and crap he has left lying around my place over the past 4 months. Of note, every time he breezed in an out of town, he would leave some combination of dirty socks, underwear, and t-shirts on the floor of my bedroom. I found it sort of endearing for about 4 days, and then, as things were progressively turning crappy, I found myself grudgingly doing his laundry, and wondering what the hell happened to my proud feminine feline self....Anyway, onto the play.
Door bells rings. Sheepish bald guy hovers in the cold...Cute pyjama-clad kitten answers the door.
Me: Hey, come in. I’ve got your stuff packed. Him: Sure is cold out here. Me: Yeah, sure is. Him: How you doin’? Me: Very well thanks
Unpleasant pleasantries abound.....
Him: Well, I don’t want to keep you from your work....will I see you again? Me: Uhhhhh...I don’t think so. Him: Really? Me: Yeah, I’m kind of mad at you. Him: I sensed that. I am very perceptive (no word of a lie) Me: O..R.. you? Him: Why are you angry with me? Me: (placidly) well, you’ve treated me in a pretty disrespectful way over the past few months... Him: How? Me: [sigh] I don’t think we need to rehash this all again (then I rehashed some of it anyway, more for me that for him)...I guess just by dumping me to the very bottom of your priority list all the time. Him: Well I think you’re a really great gall. I’d love to see you again. Me: (vomiting a little in my mouth) that’s funny because you didn’t seem to want to see me at all when we were dating. Him: Look if we lived in the same city, everything would be different. I think we’re a great match. Me: Great match? Different? You mean you would’ve made an effort? Him: I wouldn’t have had to, everything would be easy. Me: (no longer able to engage) I guess so.... Him: Well maybe we’ll cross paths again.. Me: Maybe they will, and I certainly wish you well, but I really can’t see us hanging out. Him: You never know... Me: I guess not
Chilly goodbye.
Ughh, why don’t these things get easier? I actually found myself wondering if I was over-reacting? Or too high maintenance? Or freakishly uptight. He told me he really feels he did his best. It never ceases to amaze me how two people can go from smooching and being almost revoltingly sweet to each other, to feeling physiological stress from thinking about or seeing one other. Funny thing, this relationship business.
I slept well last night. It was that kind of sleep where you are so exhausted that, as soon as you hit the sheets, your body melts into the mattress. You know what I’m talking about, like when you’ve been up all night on call, or in transit for 2 days, and you slide into bed and think “there is no place in the world I would rather be right now.” Despite this extreme fatigue and seemingly restful sleep, I am aware that I had vivid dreams all night. The problem is, I can’t remember any of them. Not even a glimpse.
This morning as I was lolling in bed, slowly waking up, it occurred to me that my left eye seemed to be glued shut. “That’s weird” I told myself, “I was pretty sure allergy season was over.” Guess what. I did something I don’t think I’ve ever done before – went to bed with my frickin’ contacts in. What a nightmare! Maybe that’s what I was dreaming about all night. My subconscious mind was saying “Yo, your eyes are drying up like raisins! Please intervene.”
I performed delicate surgery on myself this morning to get them out, but my left eye has continued to make cheese all day in protest of last night’s mistreatment.
God, I wish my mind were wired differently sometimes. I’ve been working on this stupid grand rounds thing for 2 weeks, just reading article after article, filling my brain to the spilling point, and basically floundering around. It’s always like this. Even on the rare occasion when I start things relatively early, I cannot pin myself down to anything meaningful or focused until the last minute. My topic was a giant black hole, until 5pm today, when I finally had my ‘eureka’ moment. Why couldn’t this have come to me last weekend? Now I will feel panicked and stressed until the very last minute. I am living and breathing for next Friday afternoon.
On a positive note, my parents dropped off some spaghetti sauce that my mom made last week. I tried it tonight. It was so good I thought I might cry. The meatballs were perfection, and the sweet tomato-y goodness (undoubtedly from their garden) was unparalleled. She agrees that it is one of her best sauces ever, but she can’t remember what she put in it. She is a good woman.
It’s a cryptic blog title, I know, especially since I haven’t written for months. But bear with me. I have a (kind of long) story to tell you.
First, I should probably give you the quick and dirty update on my life. My trip to Italy was a fabulous debacle. Pesto and I (and our friend Katoushka) barley left her family’s small mountaintop village. It was such a remote, authentic, and welcoming place, that it was sort of hard to imagine leaving to trudge around various tourist traps. I know I’ll go back to Italy in my lifetime, but I can’t say I’ll ever have a chance to spend 2 weeks with the wonderful people of Gallo again. So the choice to stay local was pretty simple.
It would take too long to share all of the details, but Pesto’s family welcomed me with open arms. Her Nona fed me copiously, and her aunts, uncles, cousins, and all the townsfolk were warm and beautiful people. Our daily routine was some variation of the following: We would wake up around 11:30am and start our day. About every second or third ‘morning’, I would feel so guilty about the amount of food and drink I was consuming, that I would run to the neighbouring village. It was about 12km, roundtrip, with many fountains along the way (the coldest, purest water, from an ancient mountain source). The locals thought I was insane, but they were polite about it.
After the run, we would go over to Nona’s for lunch, which was quite an event. The whole family would come pouring out of the rafters, and anywhere between 14 and 19 people would sit down at a super long table in ‘the old house’. This meal would involve a pasta course, one or two or three meats, salad, vegetables, and usually some melon for dessert. Bread, wine, and cheese were abundant. It lasted for hours and was such a beautiful expression of family values. The children in Italy are really cherished members of society. They have a voice, and are generally showered with attention and affection. It’s really touching, and I found it such a contrast to the way we tend to treat children in North American society.
After the meal, we might go for a walk around town, or have a nap, or take in a pick-up soccer game. Then, around 8, we would head down to the only pizzeria /restaurant/bar in town. The remainder of the night would be spent drinking, cavorting, and singing Italian karaoke. I learned that I speak, and sing very well in Italian, but only after several libations. One night we camped out by the lake. My Italian was especially good that night. There were also 2 weddings, which rocked my world, though I am still recovering from a stiletto impalement at the hands of Pesto.
Anyway, it was a very fun trip, and a great cap off to a carefree summer....
This fall has been a bit more stressful. I had the second part of my licensing exam in late October, and next week I have 2 big presentations , which aren’t ready yet, and are stressing me out immensely. I’m really looking forward to next Friday, after which I will get my cross country skis waxed and hit the trials hard. I also haven’t been running as much as I’d like. I plan to spend my weekends in December frolicking around town, visiting with friends, and reading fun books, including my psychodynamic diagnosis book, which has been patiently waiting on my bedside table for 2 months. I will also go to Toronto and visit my brother and sister in law for a weekend of fun, and meet Tom and Tamara’s baby, who is practically starting high school by now.
So, onto the karmic saviour bit. Well, after a year of personal growth/romantic drought, I decided to start dating again. I’ve been dating a guy for about 4 months. It’s a complicated story, but he doesn’t live in Ottawa anymore, and things have been crappy for about 2 months. It’s that kind of situation where you know things are not quite right, but you tell yourself it’s a distance issue, or maybe growing pains of being back in a relationship, or whatever excuse you can think of. Well this guy has been progressively becoming more of a dick, and this week it got to a point where I’d had enough, so I ended it.
It was a relief on so many levels because I was basically becoming an insecure, paranoid freak. But on another level (even though I didn’t like him that much, thought he was not a very nice person, and had reservations from the get go), I felt totally choked up and sad. I was thinking about why that was the case last night during my run, and came to the conclusion that these feelings boil down to hurt pride (i.e., even if I didn’t like him, why wasn’t he hopelessly in love with me?) and also a feeling of lost potential and disappointment.
It occurred to me that even though he is guilty of being a narcissistic dick head, I am guilty of something too. I had the feeling he wasn’t my guy, and I went along with things anyway. I think, on some level, I wanted him to be someone he wasn’t, or thought maybe there must be a great treasure there to unfold. I assigned him attributes he didn’t have, and then was disappointed when didn’t come through. It’s kind of an interesting lesson.....
In any event, I’ve digressed again. The point here is, I was talking to my mom yesterday afternoon. Basically, I was just feeling extremely sorry for myself. I was whining about how I think I’m a pretty swell gall, that I am not a tyrant to live with, that I’m not a gargoyle, and that I am fun, and have a lot to bring to the table...blah blah blah...Of course my mom agreed because she’s my mom, and that’s really why we call our mom in these kinds of situations. She also made the requisite mom statement about how this guy was a dud, and how someday, someone would see me and know what I’m all about. I thanked her for her kind words, told her I was pretty sure I would end up single with 50 cats, and hung up the phone.
A couple of other, relatively minor, uncool things happened yesterday and, let’s just say, what with these stupid presentations and all, I was feeling a little discouraged and under the weather this morning. My email had been held hostage by the Ottawa U server since yesterday, and today at noon, they all poured in. Well guess what, there was a comment on Fancy Feast.
Initially, I thought ‘oh great, here is one of my friends chastising me for not writing anymore.’ Then I read it. It was such a lovely shout out, from a total stranger, and so out of the blue, that I immediately felt that the karma gods must be sending me a little encouraging pat on the back; Either that, or I was one step away from being admitted to the psych ward where I work. I chose the former, encouraging, interpretation. I really value writing as a creative outlet, and Team Yellow’s feedback could not have been better timed.
I guess there are a few take home messages here (in no particular order):
If you think you are dating a jerk, you probably are.
Busy, stressful times in your life are important because they make you appreciate the fun, carefree times spent with family and friends.
Sometimes a nod from a total stranger is just what the doctor ordered (so you should both nod at others, and accept their nods in return!)
Italy is a wonderful place to eat, drink, and generally rediscover your humanity. I highly recommend it.
I hope to write more. ...but I know I always say that...I need to put my money where my mouth is....
