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All posts for the month February, 2013

Douche-nozzle is a word, right?

Published February 28, 2013 by Malia

Oh my, it’s been a bit of a time since I last updated.  The main reason is that I’ve had very minimal internet access, and I was super sick.  Combined, these things equaled no blogging.  I think I’m back to regular updates now.

Apart from being ill, interesting things have happened since I last wrote.  I went on a date!  It’s true.  I’m not making this up.  Granted, it was mostly a blind date, but the main point is that I got asked out, and I actually went.

The date happened this past Sunday, and I had a great time.  We met at the Durham Museum, and then went out for Mexican.  Despite the fact that I was prepared for it to be super awkward (it’s a first date, could I expect different?), I felt like I had known this guy for a while.  I even realized that I could easily like him as more than a friend.  He seemed to have fun, and not to be totally uneasy in my presence, so I figured that all was well.

I can’t explain it, but come Monday morning, I started getting this real uneasy feeling.  My spider-sense was tingling.  Based on nothing, my brain came up with this thought, “He’s never going to want to see you again or have anything to do with you.”  I tried to push this thought aside, but it kept bugging me.  I got really down during work, but I just blamed it on my meds.  What I take for my diabetes, makes emotions a little more severe.  Happiness can turn into being ecstatic, and feeling a little down can turn into a black pit of despair.

Yesterday, Tuesday, morning, I awoke to an email from this guy.  It was my first contact with him since Sunday evening when I texted him to thank him for taking me out.  I won’t share the e-mail, but let me share the real “highlight” of it.  He didn’t feel that “special spark” with me that he always promised himself he would feel with the person he is supposed to be with.

Really?

Really?

Special spark?

Hello!  That’s tons of pressure to put on a first date.  Especially one that was essentially blind.  We’d only communicated a few weeks before that.  So, all in all that was not even 10 emails, a few text messages, and a 2.5 hour date.  What did he expect?  That within minutes of meeting each other, we’d fall madly in love/bed with each other?  This guy didn’t want to go on a date in real life.  He wanted to go on a date in a movie!  Also, it really irks me that he made this decision based on a date that took place the day after he went to Beerfest and got fairly inebriated.  Yeah, in my experience, being hungover, even a little does not bode well for making solid choices.

Another thing, if you’re basing your choice for a life companion based on whether there’s a spark, that’s a really bad decision.  When I was growing up we lived in a house with a fireplace.  The thing I remember about sparks is that there are tons of them, they burn bright for a brief moment, and then are gone.  Who wants that?  Just because there’s an instant click, doesn’t mean that you should walk down the aisle together.  Even the best romances from fiction and tv are the ones based in friendship.  Elizabeth and Darcy hated each other to begin with, and yet they’re considered one of the most amazing love stories in literature.

All in all, the more I think about it, the more I realize what I disaster I got saved from.  He spent tons of time talking about himself and his friends and his cats.  It was all I could do to get a word in edgewise, and he certainly wasn’t interested in anything I had to say.

I guess the true positive is that I took a risk, something I’m not good at, and I gained some life experience.

Also, being the super-mature human being that I am, I may have spent a good portion of yesterday and today referring to this guy as a douche-nozzle.  Not a very polite moniker, but much kinder than anything else I felt like referring to him as.

The Tail of a Cat

Published February 12, 2013 by Malia

Shortly before I turned 5, my family moved from Denver to a little town in southern Illinois.  We took a long two cats, Gracie and Marshmallow, some gerbils, and some fish.  Not long  after we settled in, the neighbor’s cat came around to visit with her kittens.  She did this everyday for a couple of days.  It was late fall, and the weather was turning cool.  Mom couldn’t stand it, and she started leaving out food.  Pretty soon, the mamma cat stopped coming, and only one little kitten remained.  Somehow mom and I convinced my dad that we needed to take the kitten in.  So, into our lives came a third cat, which in my 5 year old wisdom I named, Andrew George Mittens the Third.  Andrew came about because at the time I was convinced that “Andrew” was simply the greatest boy name in the world.  George was attached because our cat Gracie was named after Gracie Allen, so I thought it was appropriate to name the boy cat after George Burns.  Mittens was because he had little white paws that emerged from his tabby coat.   I didn’t quite comprehend the fact that “the Third” referred to line of descendants.  I just thought it fit since he was the third cat we had at the time.    Anyway, Andrew, George, and the Third rarely got mentioned, and he came to be known as Mittens.

Mittens quickly grew from being a tiny pathetic kitten, into a bit of a behemoth.  He remained this for as long as he was in my life.

The first year I was in 4-H, I decided to spend the year preparing my cat to be judged at the county fair.  Owning him was as close to owning livestock as I was gonna get.  When I took him to the fair, I had to take him up to a panel of judges which included a veterinarian.  Things didn’t exactly go smoothly.  Mittens decided it was a good time to hiss and be generally unsociable.  My mom ended up coming and holding him in place.  The vet was terrified of him.  I think the fact that I wasn’t scared of something she was, is what got me a blue ribbon.

We discovered, one day by chance, that Mittens could be called by the sound of hysterical crying.  We were watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie, and Mittens was nowhere around.  In the episode, Nellie Olson started fake hysterical crying.  Out of nowhere, Mittens lumbered in desperate to check on mom and I.  He was certain something was wrong.  He never failed to come when I was crying.

When I turned 9, I had a really bad case of pneumonia.  It actually hit a few weeks before my 9th birthday, and lasted until the middle of February.  I missed the better part of 3.5 months of 3rd grade.   The night I was at my worst, was the day we had gone to the doctor.  The doctor prescribed me meds, and told my mom that if I got worse, I had to be admitted to the hospital.  That night, mom sat on my bed and pleaded with God.  To say we were poor would be an understatement, and there was no way we could’ve afforded a hospital trip.  All that night mom prayed, and like he had from when I started getting sick, Mittens sat attentively on the foot of my bed.  I did start to slowly get better after that night, and didn’t have to go to the hospital.  Two weeks later when we went to the doctor for a check-up, he was in shock.  He told my mom that he had thoroughly anticipated that I would be in the hospital the night of my last visit.  He also told her that he had expected that I would die in the hospital.

Mittens lived with us, and saw me almost all the way through my teenage years.  He was fat, and precious, and crabby, and wonderful.

When I was a freshman in college, I was living several hundred miles away from home, and things at home took a bad turn.  My parents moved, and they couldn’t take Mittens with them.  So, he went to live with a neighbor.  He was really old at that point, and not in the greatest health.  I never got to say good-bye, but I think (or at least I hope) that he somehow knew that we loved him and didn’t leave him willingly.

I’m sure he’s gone on to kitty heaven by now, but I hope he knows how marvelous and how precious and how important he was in my life.

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I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful…

Published February 11, 2013 by Malia

I’m not dead, yet!  It’s true.  I’m not at 100% yet, but I’m feeling about 50% better than I did this time last night.  I’m not sure what exactly I managed to come down with, but it’s been a real “treat” having it.  I look forward to not blowing my nose anymore.  On the flip side, I’m quite thankful that I have access to Kleenex and Nyquil.  I just hope this week goes quickly so that I can have a fun filled weekend next weekend.

So, let’s see, what non-trying-to-die things have been going on in my mind lately…

-I really wanted to go to a movie this weekend.   I haven’t been to one since I started working a month ago, and while that’s not really a long time, I just think it’d be fun to go now that I actually have a steady, reliable source of income.

-Speaking of, I still have a job!  Granted, I missed a day and a half last week, but as far as I know they still like me and want me to continue working there!  Oddly, the day I missed completely, I was so bored I found myself wishing I was at work.  However, I was so sick, being at work would’ve been a bad thing.

-Finally watched the Doctor Who Christmas special.  While it wasn’t bad, it just isn’t going to go down in history as one of my favorite Who episodes.  However, I’m even more intrigued with the Clara Oswin Oswald character than I was before.  I’m also hoping that she’s going to be a transition companion.  While Matt Smith has grown on me (yikes, that makes him sound like some sort of medical condition), I just feel like it’s time to move on.  He’s getting close to wearing out his welcome.  Bring on Twelve I say!

-Going in the ditch in South Dakota has been on my mind, a lot, lately.  I’m not sure why.  I guess it’s the first time in my entire life that I truly felt utterly and completely helpless.    Not 100% sure what to do with this, guess I’m still processing it.

-I’m finally getting around to writing the second draft of my NaNo story.  The going is slow, especially since I’m pretty much only working on it during my break time at work.  Guess it’s more a labor of love than anything else.

-Are there any good dating etiquette guides out there?  I’m so confused and have no idea how one goes about dating.  It was so much easier when you had gentlemen callers come call on you in the family parlor.

-Thinking I need to get my hands on season 2 of Downton because I was utterly confused by the whole “Her Ladyship’s soap” bombshell that Thomas gave Bates.  It has to be something from season 2, and since I missed most of season 2, if this is something from the show I would assume that’s where it’s from.

Why thank you, I would like some cheese with my whine.

Published February 3, 2013 by Malia

I admit it.  I don’t handle pain, sickness, or anything else that’s vaguely unpleasant well at all.  I am a pain wimp.  I woke up about 4 am today with terrible pain radiating through my body.  It did ease off eventually, and  I was able to get more sleep.  About mid-day, the awful pain returned, and it hasn’t left.  It’s like the worst case of cramps I’ve ever had, except it’s hurting all over.  If you’ve never had cramps, count yourself fortunate.  The severe ones are not unlike having a tooth pulled without sedation.  I wish I was exaggerating.

Anyway, the whole family is having bouts with the flu, and so my aches are just adding to the general fun of the house.  However, since I was home today, I got to see the next episode of Downton Abbey.  I missed last week’s episode, and since it was the only spoiler about the season I knew, I didn’t feel terrible about missing it.  So, anyway, here are my predictions as to what the remainder of the season has in store.  These are just predictions, so the only spoilers are regarding things that have already been shown.  I’ve done a decent job of insulating myself against finding out what’s going to happen, which hasn’t been simple in light of the fact that most of the rest of the world has already seen the whole season.

1.  I’m pretty sure Daisy is going to move to the farm.  I think realizing that Sour-Puss has no interest in her was just the thing to push her in the farm direction.  Overall, this would make me quite happy, because he does not deserve her, and she does deserve some happiness.

2.  Speaking of Daisy, I’ll be surprised if Jimmy (or rather, James) doesn’t come calling.  I think he’s sweet on her, and beneath his pretty boy shell, so far he seems to be a pretty decent guy.  I certainly hope I’m not mistaken.

3.  I believe that O’Brien is going to out Thomas.  Much as I can’t stand her, this would be a positive use of her evilness.  Maybe it’ll take her out of the picture too.

4.  I’m expecting for Tom, in his grief, to decide that he absolutely can’t abide living without returning to Ireland.  This will lead to Mary and Matthew taking baby Sybil.  The only other scenario I see taking place is that Matthew will convince Tom to stay and help with the farms.  Either way, I expect Mary to step in to a mother type role in Sybil’s life.

5.  I am expecting an epic blow-out between Matthew and Lord Grantham.  Not sure how it’s going to play out, but there’s so much tension, something is going to cause an explosion.  I truly thought it was coming tonight, but I guess the girls got the fun of being the target of Lord Grantham’s ever-shortening fuse.

6.  I really don’t think Bates is in the clear quite yet.

Now, I know it’s just wishful thinking, but I would really, really like to see Carson and Mrs. Hughes get together.  I have a feeling that they are going to turn out just like Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson did in Remains of the Day, but since that movie scarred me for life, I’d really like to see this love story get a happy ending.

One final thought, not related to my obsession with British soap operas:  If you are ill, and (like me) can’t miss work, make a point of covering your coughs.  Put your mouth in your elbow.  Don’t just aim towards the elbow, or raise the elbow, actually physically cover your mouth with your elbow.  This business of people either barely making an effort, or making no effort at all is extremely frustrating. Cover up your mouth!  This isn’t rocket science, people!