The bestest news ever was announced in our family this week. My youngest daughter Lily is due with her second child in January and she and Josh just discovered it is a boy! That gives them one of each gender and will be the first grandson to join the tribe. We are so excited.
Last weekend on Saturday morning I went to watch my granddaughter Bree in her swimming lesson. She is the cutest baby and has such a lovely bright smile. She seemed so secure with her mama holding onto her and did not fuss once, even when dunked underwater for a 5 second period. I am so glad that both granddaughters love the water and I cannot wait for this summer to have them swimming in our pool.
After swimming finished I popped home to let the dogs out for a bit then went over to visit my friend Tamlyn for coffee and cake. She is moving soon and is gifting me all of her plants that are in pots!! The new owner of her house is completely gutting and redoing everything so there is no point in letting the plants be dumped out with the builder’s rubble when I am happy to integrate them all into my garden.
I had Chichi in on Monday and she started the many loads of laundry I had been putting off since Norman left. After she left and the load finished, I loaded up the washer and pushed the button, it lit up and off I went expecting to be able to pop the clean washing into the dryer or hang it up the next morning. The next morning I hung out all of the washing thinking that the spinny thing did a great job, they barely felt damp! As I hung out the last item I noticed it was covered in dog hair. I sniffed it and nope, it had not been washed. I then had to go back around the house to find the items I had hung out to dry (and distinguish them from the many other items hanging out to dry). I grumpily shoved them back into the washer and then figured out you have to push the ‘go’ button twice. Once to say ‘I am going to go’ and once to actually ‘go’. How daft!!! I managed to get through 5 loads of washing!
On Tuesday Kim came to help me out in the garden. He repaired the broken fence that Poppy had been using to escape out onto the driveway. He also hung the new trellises I had ordered for the back garden wall. They are tiny. Oops. I will need a few more but will wait until Norm is back to go with me to the garden centre. I also want to buy some large pots to house some of the plants from Tamlyn.
Kim and I have so many interesting discussions about all sorts of things. He is now getting comfortable enough with me and often asks me questions. It is always interesting to hear the differences in perspectives with things. I am often shocked at the things I am told.
For example, Chichi tells me that there is xenophobia being actioned in the government support services. The feeding schemes, the health care, even the queues for immigration type services. She has shown me videos where armed men are walking through the offices and shouting for any ‘non-citizens’ to put up their hands. When they do, they throw them out of the offices, saying it is only for citizens. She tells me that there are many instances of people being put onto a bus to be expatriated to their own countries, and they are given bottles of water. The bottles of water were poisoned and many people have died who were supposedly sent back to their countries of origin. I have no idea what is true and what is not true but to the people who are here illegally it is terrifying, whether true or not.
I am once again shown the vast differences in the lives of the people in the townships vs the people who can afford a lawyer or private medical care.
This week I have often felt overwhelmed. It is a lot of responsibility & I do not cope well with that. I have set up a system and a schedule which gives me some relief in my anxiety levels. I have an alarm at 7:30 to get out of bed even though I am always awake long before then. I take the dogs out to pee, feed the cat, then go back upstairs to shower & dress. I then feed the dogs. I have an alarm at 8am to remind me to give Finn his 10 morning tablets after he has eaten. I use a chicken sausage to get them in him. I cut the sausage into pill sized pieces, use a chopstick to hollow them out then insert a tablet into the hole. I throw it to him so that he catches it and then he usually does not chew it. Sometimes he chews it and spits out the tablet, then I pick it up and shove it down his gullet. Then I wait 2 hours for his stomach to empty and he has 2 vials of liquid which I pry open his mouth and squirt down his throat. He then gets a few treats to wash out his mouth. All three animals eat again at 6pm and Finn has 4 pills with the sausage as method of entry. Finn gets a bit of cooked sausage in the bottom of his bowl to get him interested in the kibble so I have to cook that every few days as well as find it to buy. I am also working, managing the house and trying to remember to feed myself. I just manage to cope most days but the problem comes when anything is added to this itinerary or anything changes and it sends me into a spin.
Finn has a guy who collects him and walks him for a couple of hours each afternoon which helps with his energy levels but Finn has still been incredibly annoying and whiny. His pills make him pee a ton as well. His skin is better so hopefully he is not feeling itchy. I would hate to think this expense and effort was all for naught.
I think I am unsettled because the rainy weather meant I could not spend much time outside. It rained torrentially all of Wednesday and it finally cleared a bit on Thursday afternoon but it was bitterly cold. When it was sunny, I watched my lizards.
I often cook foods you eat with your hands when Norm is away as he is a weirdo who cannot eat any type of food with his hands unless it is pizza and he does not like meat with bones. A couple of nights I made spicy chicken wings. Once with mushrooms roasted in the chicken fat, a baked potato with cheese, and corn on the cob (which I cut off due to my dodgy teeth).
The next time I had them I heated some ready-made broccoli and cauliflower in a cheese sauce, baked a potato and finished off the last ear of the corn.
Another night I made my fave, tacos! I put out a little dish of each topping. It was so delicious. I had another ear of corn off the cob with it.
I made a pizza one night using a posh store base with pepperoni and then adding parma ham and extra mozzarella to fancy it up a bit more. I was really tired that night and needed something with minimal fuss. I did not have many take outs while I have been on my own which was my goal. I eat when hungry, so usually have dinner anytime between 3 to 5 pm and skip lunch. My food obsession of the moment is cornflakes with 4 thinly sliced strawberries and only enough milk to dampen it all (that part is very important as it means I can keep it crispy until ready to consume it). I have that about 11 and that does me until mid-afternoon.
Last week I ordered the wrong dog food from Petworld, an online store. I only realised it was wrong once I opened the box and saw the package had a photo of a different dog on the cover. The names of these fancy foods are crazy complicated and ridiculously expensive. The food we use can be bought by prescription only but I did not know that. I went online to check and see if they had info about their return policy, I saw they had a return function on their website! I simply clicked to initiate the process and then communicated with their agents via email. They sent labels to be printed out but I could not get the printer to work. When the lad came to collect the package he said he would scan it at the depot and not to bother with my handwritten janky labels. NB: he did not say that but I read it in his eyes, he was incredibly polite even when I shouted ‘FML’ in long format. Such brilliant customer service all around. The money has already been returned to my account.
This week I had a major rabbit hole deep dive. A friend posted something about pro wrestling which made me think about one of the boys I had a flirtation with in junior high school. Terry Gordy was one of the few boys who was taller than I was as my growth in height all happened at the age of 12 and Terry was massive. He was 6’8″ and 300 pounds in US money. He had lovely curly blonde locks and was such a soft spoken gentle giant so it is hard to imagine him conducting himself in the way I saw him behave professionally.
Terry became a professional wrestler at the age of 14 and tragically passed away on July 16, 2001 at the age of 40, due to cardiac arrest. I read about him and watched a documentary about his life called “Terry Gordy: Final Flight of the Freebird”. It is the third episode of the fifth season of the series “Dark Side of the Ring”. It is such a shame that the lifestyle led to such addictive behaviours and that no one thought to say ‘hey you have a problem, time to get help’ instead of ‘take this and it will help you get through the night/recover from the other thing you took’. The man had already suffered two overdoses where he had to be resuscitated for goodness sake!
Again my thoughts were, what if I had married Terry? What would my life be like? I imagine the lifestyle would have possibly taken me down too as my life was chaotic for a bit in that timeframe. There but for the grace of my creator, go I. I often imagine a series of books where a different version of me exists because I chose a different path. “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” in book form but focusing purely on each distinct potential life. For example, one book where I marry Terry and we become a big media sensation, one where I do not marry my first husband, I meet someone else on that trip and marry them, or one where I did not move to Los Angeles, instead I moved to Bali…. you get the idea. Regular readers know that I go on about the parallel universe theory often, I am very convinced it is happening now. Here is where I discussed the film if you wish to read it.
Maybe I will ‘write properly’ when I retire. Question is, when will I do so? Can I afford it?? Norm will work as long as anyone is happy to employ him for consultations. I would maybe like doing that, freelancing and doing a short project here and there. I would love to have at least 2 afternoons off a week so I could take Bree for a walk on an afternoon while her mommy works.
I will visualise it and manifest it. But I need to visualise a paycheque as well. Maybe I visualise being paid for writing? Everything is just an opportunity waiting to manifest.
I am so looking forward to Norman coming home next week. I am so grateful to him for going over and helping my mama, but I miss him and am tired of being on my own. I am not lonely, I never get lonely, I am just missing his presence.
This morning I am going to Skin for my regular facial and threading. Then I am going to the beach with Caitlin and Bree for a walk on the pier. I am seeing a friend on Sunday, then before I know it Norm will be back! *Squeals*
I hope you all enjoy your weekend and week ahead. Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxox
Kitten in the City 