Last weekend was an introvert’s dream itinerary, I had a lovely social experience or two, some laughs, some quiet alone time and lots of sunshine!
It started slowly as the pups and I had a long lie then I had a shower and at 3pm Mark and Hunter collected Finn and I and dropped me at my friend Tamlyn’s house. Finn had an overnight playdate with his uncles.
It was a Mexican themed birthday party. I bought a vaguely Mexican flower hairband and wore a vaguely Mexican designed dress. A few of the others from our soul circle group arrived as did a lovely friend of Tamlyn’s. We all bonded easily and talked absolute nonsense. We had so many laughs and we even had cake.
I drank far too many of my tinned fizzy vodkas so was a bit tipsy, but happily tipsy. Luckily we all headed home at a reasonable hour (note ‘introverts’). Bridget and Nikki gave me a lift home but I was far too tipsy and uncoordinated to get into or out of the backseat of their car easily then the gate refused to close when I got home and they had to endure a lot of toing and froing. I bet they wished they had never offered (they didn’t actually, I asked!)
When I stumbled in to the house I threw some food in the air fryer and had some nibbles and then the electricity went off. I had been caught out again. Luckily I had fed myself before the electricity went off (purely by luck not planning).
I was too squint eyed to get the back up power supply turned on for the telly and decided to just not bother. Since I was streaming on my laptop I decided to watch ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once‘. It stars Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn, Ke Huy Quan as her husband Waymond, their daughter Joy was played by Stephanie Hsu and the IRS lady is played by Jamie Lee Curtis.
I am sure you have heard all the hype about it from it sweeping the awards shows, however I often find that the films The Academy love are not always enjoyable watching. The preview of the film actually put me off. I detest super hero films and for some reason I thought the lead was a super hero and the preview even looked a bit fantasy-ish which is also not my vibe, but OOOOOOOO I loved this film!!!!
There is something for everyone in this film. There are special effects, every form of fighting, weaponry, explosions, a plot, there are flashes of most every other career or activity you can think of.
The basic premise is that your life is like a Decision Tree. Another tool we use in my work! Basically a decision tree means that at the point of every decision, you branch into one of two possible directions based on your answer / action. So if the ‘decision’ is ‘Do I go left or right at this stop sign?’ and your answer is ‘left’, your experience will differ often quite considerably from if your answer is ‘right’.
In the film, at each decision point, you branch off into another version of yourself in a parallel universe which rolls out the results of your life based on that decision. So basically there are millions of different versions of you with completely different lives and personalities which have been shaped by those lives. The characters have learned that they can ‘Verse Jump’ back and forth from the ultimate version of yourself by tapping into various situations which then allow you to inherit the skills of the other version of you.
I believe that many aspects of this are true. Not that we have the ability to tap into the talents developed by us in another parallel universe, but that we have so much untapped potential inside of us which has been squashed due to being told ‘no’ or that ‘we can’t’ in life. Letting go of those self-limiting beliefs, disempowering thoughts, habits & behaviours is something I am working on. In order to be whole we need to embrace & integrate the parts of ourselves we don’t always make visible to the outside world in order to release the falsehoods we’ve carried as heavy burdens.
Life is limitless, there is nothing to stop anything we want from happening. We have to visualise it, then we will realise it. This belief is also the way of the Red Road.
One thing that they emphasized in the film was that in these many versions, you may have issues, but then we are often given someone in our life who balances that out. For example, ‘Evelyn’ is always impatient with her husband and considers him too soft and too silly. Evelyn is so overly serious and I suspect she must be a Virgo. By the end of the film Evelyn realises that Waymond may not be perfect, but he is the perfect partner to balance out her extremes and keep her on an even keel.
This reminded me so much of the relationship Norm and I have. I am often so serious and snarky and Norm is always happy and cheerful. I keep him on his toes and he keeps me from going under. It is a balancing act and he is my fulcrum.
This week I started watching a new series called ‘Poker Face’ which I am enjoying. I wanted to watch it because I adore the earthy, gravel-voiced Natasha Lyonne whom you may know from her roles in the series Orange Is the New Black or Russian Doll.
Natasha plays the lead character ‘Charlie’, who is like a human lie detector with an uncanny ability to determine when someone is lying. In series one you get the root of the tale and why she is on the run in the subsequent episodes. In the 1st episode she lives in a dodgy old caravan and drives a clapped out Plymouth Barracuda, works as a cocktail waitress in a casino and she says she loves her life. It just tells you she has reached a great mental state where making a lot of money or having a lot of possessions does not influence her happiness. Or she just has low expectations. Each of the other episodes is a distinct tale of her adventures solving crimes. She sort of morphs into a female Columbo, smoking cigars, cocking her head while squinting at the culprit. It has a brilliant cast of characters ranging from Ellen Barkin (she is in 1 episode) to Benjamin Bratt (his is the only character that appears in 5 episodes). I love that the part of the IT film geek that Luis Guzmán plays is such a stretch from his usual gangster, murderer, bad guy role.
I love this series and give it 5 Kitten Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ You can watch it on Peacock. Be careful as there is a dreadful film starring Russell Crowe on Amazon with the same name which I wasted half an hour of my life watching before I realised Natasha was never coming on.
I had a busy week socially, but of course I forgot to take any pics of my visitors or our dinners. Caitlin came on Tuesday night and we had a dinner of vegetables only. I had ordered a potato bake from woolies and I did not realise how big it was so it served sort of as our main and I had enough left for another night. It was massive. But it was gorgeous and I recommend it. I cooked corn on the cob, gemsquash and braised red cabbage to go with it. It was yum. Caitlin and I both having no meat nights but both Norm and Wes love their meat.
On Wednesday my friend Tamlyn came over and I cooked a half a beef fillet. I made baked potatoes, a puree of gem squash and butternut with cinnamon and a little Greek salad. It was incredibly hot but I put the oven on as the fillet was huge. So I cooked it for 2 minutes, turned, etc until I had cooked it about 10 in total, then I put it into the oven for about 10 minutes. It was completely raw, so I put a skillet on the stove and shoved it on for another 10 minutes. It was actually really tender believe it or not after all of that manhandling. I struggled so much with the electric knife and felt like a right numpty. Then when I went to clean up afterwards I spotted that I had only been using one of the knives from the electric knife insert. Oops. I mutilated that poor piece of meat. It looked like it was served by a grizzly.
Thursday was the day the mobile groomer came. Normally Norman deals with all of that and I do not get involved. Without Norm to help, I took Panda out so that I could quickly get back to a meeting.
When I handed over Panda and turned to let Finn out, Finn managed to escape out of the gate and took off at a shot, bolting down the hill to my neighbour Kate’s fence and fought through the fence with Biggy, the dog who lives there, turned and ran up the hill towards a group of people who were coming out of our other neighbour’s house which is on the market. I assume they were viewing it and hope they will not be put off by the terror of Finn bolting up and down the hill. Finn managed to nearly knock over the old fellow in the group, but he stood his ground while faintly wobbling and I held my breath. Finn then ran into the other new neighbour’s house (at least now I have met her?) and ran up the higgledy-piggledy back garden full of multi-layers of retainer blocks where I had to parkour up like Spiderwoman. Apparently I obliviously ran past a mosaic cow but that is just an urban legend at this point. I did not notice one but Norm and another friend say it was there!
The groomer and I both had to run into the house where the owner told us she has been sick and it may be Covid. Lovely. Eventually the girl and I chased him out of that garden and down the hill again. I brought out his lead and asked if he wanted to go for a walk, which apparently he did, so I grabbed him and the groomer put a lead on him and dragged him in to get shampooed. Sorry we lied to him but he behaved abysmally.
This all happened while it is 29℃ and I was supposed to be working! It was a strange weather day where we first had tons of smoke from a controlled burn by the forest service billowing through the valley, then an intense burst of rain, to end with belting sun.
Finn has bursts of insane energy aka zoomies and he just loves to run.
I have kept up with my meditation, despite the crowd it seems to generate. It gives me a lot of peace and relaxation and I feel a difference in my hips and knees.
On Good Friday I had a delivery from Babylonstoren. Tamlyn had told me about their vegetable box and when I checked the site they had lots of gorgeous things so I also ordered a cooked gammon as well as the vegetables.
I also ordered one of their cronuts. I loved sitting out on the covered porch watching it rain while drinking a coffee and eating this bad boy.
I also had a delivery from Hello Indigo Halo, one of my favourite websites. I needed a clear quartz crystal specifically for ceremonies and the other things just spoke to me. I bought a Crystal Healing Wand, beautiful black lava stone necklace, and a stunning green opal palm stone. Aren’t they gorgeous?
I am going to try and do a bit of gardening if the weather cooperates later, but at the moment it is looking rather iffy. Finn is out for his walk and the poms and I are inside enjoying the peace and contemplating life.
I hope you all have had a lovely long weekend so far and I hope you enjoy the remainder of it.
Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxoxox
Kitten in the City 
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