A Cat Encounter of the Joyous Kind

Circa 1977:  a summer morning at the farm – coming up from grandma’s basement with the best find ever.

Grandma Naps

I must be in some kind of maudlin mood because I came across the following today and got a bit choked up about it.   I don’t know what I believe exactly when it comes to an afterlife.  It’s nice to think we don’t disappear completely, and that we continue to exist in another dimension or something bizarre and freaky like that.  When you have parents in their nineties you tend to think about that kind of thing I suppose.  Anyway, here it is.

Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next room

I am I and you are you

Whatever we were to each other

That we are still

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way you always used

Put no difference into your tone

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed

At the little jokes we always enjoyed together

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was

Let it be spoken without effort

Without the ghost of a shadow in it

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind

Because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner

All is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost

One brief moment and all will be as it was before

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

(Henry Scott-Holland,

1847-1918, Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral)

Isn’t that comforting? This is why it’s popular to have celebrations of people’s lives when they’re over.  It’s way more fun than wailing about your loss.  Absolute unbroken continuity – nothing is past, nothing is lost.  Isn’t that a beautiful concept?

At the risk of getting all schmaltzy (although I guess it’s probably way too late to be worried about that), now I need to explain the title of this blog.  I also came across this picture today.  Yep, it’s another grandma memory, but bear with me,  it’s a funny one.  And we’re supposed to keep laughing, aren’t we?  Every one of us who remembers grandma, remembers her just like this. 

She’s in our back kitchen, which leads to the garden and the garage.  By the looks of her sneakers, she’s just come in from puttering around in the dirt.  She’s wearing a dress and an apron, and her bullet proof stockings, and reading the paper with her eyes closed.  Grandma could snore like a trooper and sometimes an extra loud snort would startle her awake.  When that happened, she would vehemently deny having been asleep.  She was just resting her eyes.  If we argued with her she’d say we were talking nonsense and that it wasn’t nice to try to fool an old lady. 

A few times in the recent past,  (after resting my own eyes while reading),  I have become alarmed to hear a spooky strange noise which suddenly makes me regain conciousness with a start.  At first I asked myself, what the hell was THAT?  but I don’t anymore.  There’s no point in denying the obvious.  Thanks for passing this habit down to me gram.  Continuity is good.  When we meet again we can have a good knee slapping chuckle about it, okay?  Stay close.   

Picaresque Poo

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a book review – and there’s a very good reason for that.  I am currently reading three books at once, giving each one in turn the opportunity to bore the hell out of  me.  So why don’t I just put them away and pick up something else, you might ask.  Well, I’m trying to break my habit of never finishing anything, I might reply, rolling my eyes and sighing.  And knowing deep down that the chances of that happening anytime soon are slim. 

“Husbands & Other Lovers” by Jane Elizabeth Varley is not going to be the book that changes this particular bad habit of mine.  I’ve plodded through 300 pages and finally skipped to the last half dozen or so to see if any of these dysfunctional people have done anything interesting with their lives.  Nope.  They’re all just continuing to plod on through their various soap opera type existences. 

Cast of characters:  (The list in reality seems endless, but I never finish anything, so don’t panic.)

Robert:  Insane control freak with not one endearing quality.  Able to pick masochistic girlfriends out of crowds.

James:  His booze addled brother who finally, after pages and pages of denial, ends up in rehab, in love with one of Robert’s emotional wreck rejects, Jasmine.

Susannah:  Previously (and also soon to be again) divorced wife of James, mother to disgruntled son Matthew, workaholic, being hit on by her boss Anthony and liking it because James is a mess and her son, on the very rare occasions when she attempts to communicate with him has been ‘distant’ and ‘unresponsive’ and makes her feel guilty for about five seconds.

Tabitha:  Ex wife of Robert, mother of Araminta (you just know this kid will one day be as seriously unhinged as her relatives, mostly due to the fact of her very unfortunate name.  Who affectionatley refers to their offspring as “Minty”?  Gah.).  Has an American farmer lover named Theo who wants to marry her, but can she ever get Araminta out of England and away from her demented father??? I’m trying to care.

Natasha:  Robert’s latest ”beautiful but vulnerable” (read stupid as a post) girlfriend.  If only she had been smart enough to have a word with Tabitha and Jasmine she might have saved herself a lot of drama.  And deprived Robert of a lot of control-freak-type fun times.

There’s a lot of potential here, but sadly the book is actually an episodic, sporadic, disjointed conglomeration of uninteresting blather.  Sorry to be so harsh, but I think it might hold the record when it comes to number of times a book has lulled me to sleep.

Take this passage for instance:

Her mother, after her marriage to Don four years ago, had moved into St. Hugh’s Drive, a cul-de-sac of some ten houses, characterized by perfect lawns, gleaming cars and baseball hoops for the families with children.  Theirs was a four bedroom house with white painted wood cladding to the top floor which gave it a seventies appearance.  One of her mother’s first changes on moving in was to change the original horizontally grooved garage door, painted olive green by the previous owners, to an altogether more classic nine panelled design, which Don had painted white.  Her mother liked the outside paintwork to be wiped down with a damp rag dipped in a bucket of soapy water every week.  Her mother had always had good taste or at least the ability to copy others who possessed it……….Don had a daughter, Susan, who lived as her mother put it “up north” and appeared rarely to visit. 

It doesn’t even matter whose mother this is – she has absolutely nothing to do with anything relevant to the story.  There are at least fifteen completely useless facts in this paragraph alone.  Nobody cares about Don or the garage door or why Susan choses to stay away from all of them.  And WTF are baseball hoops?  This lady needs an editor who drinks several pots of coffee an hour.

There is not one person in this entire book who has any semblence of a sense of humor.  If they did, they would be laughing hysterically at themselves.  But, you know what?  I find soaps simultaneously funny and frustrating as hell.  I want to choke the living shit out of the morons who do everything they can think of to make themselves miserable and then whine their asses off about it.

OOoooooooooooooookay.  This is why I don’t watch these shows.  It also should have given me my first clue to avoid reading this kind of book.  I’m putting it away now.  I appologize in advance to whoever I end up giving it to.   I wish Ms. Varley a long and happy life, but I’d just like to let her know I won’t be contributing financially to it again.    

Labeling Your Storage Space

Our manager at work has been involved in what we lovingly refer to as ‘the e-mail wars’ with our district manager and some other head office big-wigs for the past 4 or 5 months.  I’ve even contributed a couple of times when I felt she needed a bit of support from the troops.  It’s an ugly situation all around.  Not to mention draining and frustrating.  Without going into all the sordid details, what it boils down to is having people in charge who don’t know what they’re doing.  So what else is new, right?  It’s a global phenomenon.  The less you know, the more likely it is that you get to make the rules. 

All that being said, there’s an even bigger problem at the end of the day – where to file the paperwork.  Some of the things our d.m. has said have been just too priceless to risk losing in cyberspace so we’ve printed them out.  For awhile both our manager and the d.m. were c.c.’ing copies of their correspondence to various other management people, until a couple of them requested that it please stop – they no longer wanted to be caught in the cross fire and would delete all the shit without reading it if it persisted.  So now we have to keep a written record for future reference.  Should it ever go to court or something weird like that.  It’s always good to cover your ass.

It’s a lot of damned paper.  Very quickly too much for a file folder, then suddenly also too much for a big three ring binder.  So now everything is in a great big old file box, which get’s heavier every day.  It’s a filing system our manager (who is filing impaired when it comes to the alphabet) handles with aplomb, since it involves throwing stuff in a box in random order.  One day we were having a spontaneous meeting (a.k.a. standing around with nothing to do) when we decided it was time to NAME THE BOX.  Various ideas were tossed around – but somehow just calling it “DM’s E-mails” wasn’t sufficiently professional.  He is always making assinine suggestions about our GOALS and how we should be trying to attain them.  We tell him we’re working on it.  So finally we came up with “Our many goals:  We’re trying faithfully”.  Which is a big lie, when in fact we laugh our asses off at most of his suggestions.  Bitches all. 

So now, in bold black marker on the side of the box we have written

OMG:WTF    

Surprisingly enough the box now makes us smile instead of cringe.  Who ever said meetings were a waste of time?  This one was productive and boosted morale.  We’re considering having weekly box naming sessions.  Hmmmm.  Maybe we should suggest that in an e-mail……

 

Where have I seen that face before….

Because I’m too lazy to figure out if this picture has been posted before, here it is (perhaps again.)  There are quite a few of me with different variations of this smart-ass little smirk.  Hold on, I have to get up now so I can look down my nose at you.

Hmmmph.  Please.  Let me out of here, I have way better things I could be doing.  (Or maybe I was just thinking I looked pretty damn sexy in that sun bonnet. )

You know how moms always say to their daughters “Someday I hope you have a daughter just like you!!”  like it’s a curse or something?  Well, shit happens.

You want me to WHAT??  Hmmmmph.  I don’t think so. 

But don’t worry, it all turned out well.  Now both of us are not the slightest bit snarky or sarcastic.  Well.  Hardly ever.  Would I lie on my own blog??  No I don’t have anything in my eye.  Go away.  

 

Consumer Beware

There appears to be no place on earth that is safe from the wrath of consumer complaints.  W. works in a car wash on weekends.  I’ve given up trying to understand why.  This is not to say that I don’t know what he claims to be the reasons:

1.  He can use the shop whenever he wants to do his own mechanical repairs and tire and oil changes.  (The part I don’t understand here is why you would WANT to do them yourself.  It makes your fingernails black.  Think about it.)

2.  He can wash our vehicles whenever he wants to for free.  (Yay.  Who cares.  Spend a couple of bucks, you cheap so and so.)

3.  He can get panic calls from the shop whenever something goes dreadfully wrong – like they’re out of car wash soap, or a hose has snapped, or some idiot has got a toonie stuck in the loonie slot.   (I suppose this makes him feel indispensable and wanted.  God knows he doesn’t always feel like that at home.)

4.  He can drop in to the shop after hours and have a couple of rums with the owner.  This causes their normal bare tolerance of eachother to escalate to the point of true blue friendship and maudlin commraderie.  (I don’t understand how you can think someone is an asshole when you’re sober and a good old boy when you’re not.  I guess it’s a guy thing.)

5.  He does not, and apparently never will, understand the meaning of the word ‘retired.’  (I’ve never heard it defined as “getting tired over and over again, seven days a week until you die”, but I think he’d like that definition.)

Are all the complaining, whining morons who wash their cars keeping him there?  It’s possible.  He talks about them a lot.  Last night he started laughing and shaking his head over supper (and the food wasn’t even that funny, I swear) and almost choked trying to tell me about a woman who took issue with his sarcasm.  (Yes, it could be possible that he’s lived with me way too long.)

This lady, while in the process of washing her car, was complaining to him that her feet were getting wet.  She was wearing a dress and heels.  She suggested that, since there was so much water on the floor, he should get a squeegy and get rid of it.  He suggested that she get her brain wrapped around the fact that you need water to wash your car, and he could lend her a pair of rubber boots if that would make her happy.  She got all snooty.  She hadn’t intended to wash her car when she left the house, so perhaps she was a little ill-prepared, but this did not change the fact that the amount of water on the floor was excessive and completely unacceptable.  He uttered a couple or three expletives and told her to get the f*ck out then, so he could blow dry the goddamned place for her.  W. has always walked a fine line between using normal acceptable English, and reverting completely to profanity.   When he falls off on the profane side it’s always a little startling for people who don’t know him.  He gave her the asshole’s business card and told her to direct her $%&#)) whining in his direction.  She left the car wash, wet feet and all.  One less customer to ever have to worry about again I suspect. 

I don’t think a lot of consumers realize how their craziness breeds rebound craziness – there are a lot of service people out there who have one last button left to push before they snap.  Do you really want to be the one that sets them off? 

It may appear that W. and I have become cranky, intolerant old farts, and I really can’t deny it.  We are both dangerous if provoked.  But one thing a long life teaches you is to step back from being the antagonist over things that don’t matter much.  Rarely does anything good ever result from it.  Unless you think learning a few new blasphemous expressions is a good thing.  Then by all means, seek out the W.’s of this world.  You will not be disappointed.

Note From Novice Hockey Boy

I’m happy to say I’m the proud owner of a copy of his first ever hockey card.  Sweater down to the knees is a popular thing on this team.  I think the white skate lace and the black one are unique to this player.  There was no autograph,  but something just as good.  Voila – front of note, followed by back of note:

(Grandma I sure love you and your house)

(Dots, m’s, circles, triangles, sun, clouds, happy people, the horizon,  and a bit of black string.  I think.)

Precious stuff indeed.

Luckiest Pig Year in 600 Years

Gotta love good news like that!  This is day two of the Chinese New Year.  I hate it when I celebrate things a day late.  I don’t have any big flags or dragons or fireworks, but my house has lots of red and yellow things in it, so my heart is in the right place.  It’s supposed to be a great year to get pregnant because your offspring will be wealthy, healthy and happy.  Ignorance is bliss I guess – I had a Dragon and a Tiger, not knowing any better.  This particular Fire Pig year symbolizes intelligence and generosity.  Also good.  People (like Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Hilary Clinton and David Letterman for instance) born in pig years are hardworking, loyal, honest, polite and lucky, according to Chinese astrology.  For the next few weeks, no one should cut their hair or do anything which might threaten the impending good luck for the new year, so say the South Korean fortune tellers who predict this could be the luckiest pig year in 600 years.  If now is the right time to keep your hair on, looks like Britany may have gotten the deed done just under the wire.  

Personally I’m excited about the Earth Ox year, 2009.  I was born in an Earth Ox year, so I expect to be inundated with all kinds of great lucky-type things then.   Yay.  Something to look forward to.

Meanwhile, Happy New Year of the Fire Pig.  The world could use a little good luck.

  

Second Birthday Girl of the Month

Today mom celebrates her 90th birthday.  Dad says she’s never stopped being beautiful, and he’s exactly right.

He’s still kinda cute himself.

A Very Atypical Day

Earlier this week…….

I’m having the weirdest day.  I get to work early enough that I am able to return some merchandise at the courtesy desk before swiping in.  There is no line up.  The associate is smiling and friendly. When I check my appointment calendar it is practically empty.  Although I start at 1:00 p.m. I always block off the first half hour so that there’s rarely anyone waiting to see me when I trot in late and out of breath.  That also gives me time to go through my appointment files, freak out, and calm down.  It’s a ritual I seem powerless to alter.  Today I have nothing at all booked for the afternoon.  Nothing until six.  So I freak out briefly about the fact that no one wants to see me, and then I calm down.  I go to the lab and make myself a swiss mocha.  At the last minute I put some belgian hazelnut into the mix. It’s an inspired addition – tastes really good.  I chat with my co-workers who have finished the morning work before my arrival.  I love it when that happens.  I put some liquid band-aid on a hang nail.    I answer the phone.  I check my e-mail.  I log in a pair of Serengeti sunglasses.  One pair.  It hardly seems worth the effort.  I unbox a new contact lens display case, nothing falls to pieces,  and I find a spot to put it.  Wow. 

I talk to a customer who has a complaint.  Okay, I think to myself, things are turning normal at last.  He has broken his titanium frame and wants me to put his lenses into something else.  I explain to him the difficulty involved in putting a progressive lens that has been measured and mounted for his specific frame and how it fits on his face and where his pupils are and blah blah blah…. into something else,  the problems with having to edge it down, the very real possibility that even if I do find something his lenses will fit into, when he puts the glasses on he may not be able to see properly.  I am trying to be totally discouraging.  He asks me to please try.  He says that the last time he was here, I was the only one who was helpful.  I think I must have been alone that day.  Whatever.  I tell him I’ll have a look around and see what I can do, and for him to come back in half an hour.  With lens in hand I start a half hearted perusal of our frame board and almost immediately find two frames that might work.  Damn.  What are the odds.  Each frame costs $69.00, a perfectly reasonable price, even adding on our $20.00 cut/edge and mount fee.   I put them into a tray in the lab awaiting customer approval, and then notice a box of new frames that haven’t yet been unpacked.  The first one I pick up turns out to be one into which the lens fits with only one miniscule gap, but it doesn’t rotate at all, and it looks great.  The frame is titanium.  Retail price is $179.00.  I’m sure the customer will balk at this amount.  Usually when a person wants to re-use their lenses it’s because they are unwilling, or unable,  to pay out the money for a whole new pair.  When the customer returns I tell him I have good news and bad news.  I show him the frame with the lens in place and tell him what the frame costs.  And he says “So what’s the problem?”  I stammer a bit – oh – well – so you want to go ahead with this?  He says yes, of course.  When he puts the glasses on he sees just fine.  Transaction completed,  he throws a ten dollar bill on the counter.  I tell him we are not permitted to accept any kind of gratuity.  In fact, it can get us fired.  He says he doesn’t know where that ten came from – could be something I just found on the counter, and he refuses to take it back.  He tells me that I was the only person willing to even TRY to help him and he had complete faith in the fact that I would solve his problem and he is very, very grateful.  He will recommend my services.  He will return at a future date and ask for me personally.  He finally leaves and I pick up the ten dollars and put it in a lab tray until I can deposit it in our store’s charity donation box.  I can’t keep it – it is so seriously against the rules. 

After my lunch break I do a one week follow up on a patient who is trying contact lenses for the first time.  She LOVES them.  Except they make fluorescent lights too bright, and when she’s riding in her truck she seems to be a lot higher up than normal.  She tells me how she actually phoned her husband while she was driving and asked him if he’d put bigger tires on their vehicle.  He told her she was on glue.  I explain to her that wearing contact lenses actually can cause some people to be more sensitive to bright light, and that the increase in her peripheral vision while wearing contacts rather than glasses can mess with her depth perception until she gets used to them.  She is ECSTATICALLY happy that I don’t think she’s on glue.  She actually gives me a hug and leaves the office BEAMING.  One of my co-workers comments on how happy I make my patients.  I feel no need to mention the fact that this particular one is on anti-depressant medication and that perhaps I’m not solely responsible for her good mood. 

The next (and last of the day) patient I see has a normal check up with no problems but she takes it very seriously when I ask her at the end of the examination if she has any questions or concerns.   She is able to think up a whole lot of them on the spur of the moment.   I’m impressed.  None of her questions involve glue of any kind.  We chat for about ten minutes about various contact lens related conditions and how to avoid them.  We go over the pictures on what I like to call our “ugly eye chart” and I assure her that as long as she does not over-wear her lenses and as long as she continues to care for them properly with the recommended products and keeps replacing them regularly, she should never experience any of these disgusting things.  She tells me that no one has ever taken the time to explain stuff like this to her before, and as she leaves she takes a handful of Hershey’s kisses out of her bag and hands them to me.  I sheepishly add them to the tray containing the ten dollar bill.  I ask my co-worker if I have a halo.  Or if my head looks larger than normal.  She says no. 

We eat some chocolate and ponder the fact that three good things have happened to me today.  We bemoan the fact that there is nothing really to bitch about until we close.  Weird, weird weird.  A day to remember.