Still typing with my thumbs. It’s nice that I am shelling out money every month and paid additional money today for Internet and cable television, neither of which I can access. I hate to think that a new,unbudgeted laptop is in the cards but I think it’s time. 😦

On the upside, Miss L got a haircut today, and we ran errands and ate Swedish Fish and had lunch at Qdoba (“their tacos are quite excellent.”) We bellowed along with Adele. We stopped at the library in our shirtsleeves, because after pouring rain all night, the temps climbed near 50 today and people were using all sorts of unseasonable transportation to get around. 

  
The library was unexpectedly hosting a craft – coloring paper sacks to fill with treats as a “thank you” for the police, firefighters, and EMTs who worked over the holidays to keep us safe. 

  
We like a good library craft and if it includes gratitude, we’re in. 

We’ve finally rolled into Friday and I have to apologize for today’s post in advance. I had some decent content planned for a change, but I encountered a force majeure event that will have to postpone it. 

What is the aforementioned casus fortuitus of which I speak? Well let me tell you. Last night I was snuggled in my big chair in fuzzy pajamas ostensibly participating in a conference call with Japan, but   I was in actuality on my personal computer listening with only half of my attention. I got up to fetch a glass of water and Sarge saw his opportunity. He has an affinity for sitting on my computer (it’s warm? He thinks it will get my attention? Unsure) and he is a large fluffbutt cat. He went up, my laptop went down, and the little USB adapter port snapped off. (Yes, my laptop IS that old.) I rushed back in, scolding, Sarge looked aggrieved and meowed once in protest before sauntering off. Then I realized that my conference line with Japan was unmuted. SIGH 

I am laboriously typing this post into my iPhone with my thumbs and its lucky that I care enough about my work product to backspace and correct my typos. Otherwise, none of you would have known what the hell a force manure event was.  

The walls in our offices are notoriously thin and the acoustics are strange. If you are unlucky enough to sit near someone with above-average projection qualities, you are doomed.
Before the holidays, a new manager moved two doors down from me and I hear him as clearly as if he is sitting in my office. This is alternately distressing and amusing as he is, as described diplomatically by our COO, “a little rough around the edges”. This means his method of introducing himself is by bellowing “WHO ARE YOU” to unsuspecting visitors. This afternoon, I heard “TELL HER TO GO AWAY I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO HER”. And he’s fond of demanding, “WHY DON’T YOU RING THAT BELL FOR ME.”
I don’t know what this means and I must not be the only one as it frequently lapses his audience into perplexed silence.
I was chatting with my colleague who sits in the office between myself and this new guy (because this is what happens when you work in an office – you IM your immediate neighbor when you want to have snarky private conversations about the people sitting around you – i.e. “can’t that person just BLOW THEIR NOSE” or “why won’t he please JUST SHUT UP”).
Colleague: i think in general he adds a lot to the office row
Me: i wish he would bring in more snacks
Me: but overall i agree
Colleague: i will bring it up to him
Colleague: but it may end up being jerky from a deer that he killed with his own bare hands
Colleague: that’s the risk we take
Me: maybe i’ll ask him if he wants to buy some girl scout cookies from l.
Me: but he might make her cry if he yells WHO ARE YOU when she delivers them
Colleague: in general you can’t trust non-packaged snacks that people bring in
Me: absolutely not.
Me: and don’t go over to X department.
Me: last year some guy brought in a whole fish
Colleague: What?!
Me: it was a lake trout that he caught and smoked
Me: he just brought it down and smacked it down on the snack table and left it there all day
Me: no knife, no crackers, no plates, nothing
Me: it still had an eyesocket.
Me: and one day the manager brought in bagels
Me: and perfectly fine clean plastic knives
Me: and some guy whipped his leatherman out of his pocket and used it to slice one in half
Me: it was all rusty and dirty
Me: and he PUT THE OTHER HALF BACK
Colleague: you’ve been here for too long.
Me: wait til i tell you about the ‘don’t shake hands with these people’ database on the secret drive.

  
At the lowest point, Em and Sarge could not stand being in the same room with one another, and if they were, there was violence. They circled around each other like strangers- Sarge cool and slightly interested, Emmett wild eyed and growling in his throat. If Sarge made a sudden move, Emmett exploded like a spring, his growl turning to a wildcat scream that rose every goosebump on my skin. There was also a lot of urine marking and I have a great tolerance for a lot of things, but not that.

An appointment with a pet behavior specialist helped me get a handle on things. I was clear from the first that rehoming one of them was the absolute last option. I couldn’t bear to let go of Emmett, and Miss L loves Sarge. So for several months, they lived in separate bedrooms that I regularly doused with bleach solution. It was the only thing that kept them from revisiting a spot they marked before. (Flowery smelling or citrus cleaners had the opposite effect, exacerbating the problem.)

The cat lady behavior specialist spent several hours being charmed by Sarge, while Emmett hunched in his carrier looking miserable. We came away with a prescription for cat Prozac and a renewed sense of hope that our family could be put back together. Since then, I’ve been grinding up the pills and sprinkling them in their wet food. I arrived at this method after realizing that they could detect a whole or partial pill in a pill pocket or a treat, or even if left whole in their wet food. Sick of finding that they had delicately eaten around the pill, leaving it soggy and ruined, I now ferociously pulverize it.

Within two weeks, the cats were able to spend ever-longer periods of time together & the marking was confined to the litter box. It’s an inestimable relief to have them together again. I have to completely redecorate the spare bedroom, as Sarge is the Odd Couple Oscar to Emmett’s Felix, but our home life is vastly better and the brothers are brothers once more.

The only sad thing is that it’s had an effect on Emmett’s personality. Before the meds, he was Mr Bright Eyes, Mr Fearless, the intrepid one with the big meow. Now, his pupils dilated, he is somewhat dazed and remote, sleepy. His brash kittenish way is gone and there hasn’t even been much cuddling on his very favorite Sherpa blanket with me. 

So this morning, when I woke up to find him asleep on the foot of the bed, I rested for awhile with him, admiring his soft stripes and needle sharp nail tips, his deep purr. 

And that, boss, is the long explanation of why I was late this morning.

My workouts are usually done on my lunch hour. If the weather is fine, I can go outside and run on the wide shoulder of the road or into nearby residential neighborhoods; about a mile down the road is a local college with an outdoor track. In the winter, Widget Central has a small but sufficiently equipped workout room and several times a week I pack my gym bag and either spin or run on the treadmill.
Because I hate Apple (and specifically iTunes) so passionately I now listen to books or podcasts while I run, or nothing at all. This has reduced my speed but I think in general it’s good mental discipline. Today while I slogged out my miles on the treadmill, I listened to an old Fresh Air with Neil Gaiman. He wasn’t the primary interview, but as usual he said enough in his 10 minute discussion to keep me intrigued. For example: “The idea that even the most normal people close their eyes for six, seven, eight hours a night and during that time, for several hours, go absolutely and utterly stark-staring mad is beautiful.” I never thought about it this way, but it made me think about the dream I had last night, in which my mother and I browsed through a pottery shop in an English stone cottage in the countryside. I admired the stained glass and the pottery tiles, all of which seemed to be incredibly delicate, wrought lighthouses, including one black and white one that stood in a snowfall. A blind woman had made them all, and she left her post behind the counter to read my fortune. She held my hand in her soft, wrinkled one, and when I asked her what she saw, she said, “Nothing,” and I didn’t know if that was in reference to my future or if she was being terribly literal about my question.
This made the first mile go quickly and most of the second mile was absorbed in pondering Mr Gaiman’s gobsmacking revelation that Adam of biblical fame had three wives. I knew about Eve, of course, and I was aware of Lilith, but I had no idea that in Jewish mysticism, Adam had a second wife. Apparently God built this second wife before Adam’s eyes, from bone to tissue to hair, and Adam was so grossed out by watching this process that he absolutely couldn’t stay married to her. This wasn’t intended to be a funny story, but it made me laugh all the same, because in a way, this is a very instructive parable about human nature and specifically why it doesn’t pay to let the person you are in love with see too much of your insides.

  
Yesterday we pretty much spent the day in pajamas. I made beef stew and we baked Toll House cookies with a bag of M&M’s thrown in for good measure. (I’ve finally perfected the art of the chocolate chip cookie and it relies on under baking and not using butter.) 

We spent most of our time in front of the wood stove, learning the new Ravensburger games that Santa brought. Miss L prefers Enchanted Forest but I am rapidly becoming obsessed with Labyrinth and so proud of the fact that she regularly beats me at it. 

The Prozac that I’ve been surreptitiously slipping the cats (ground up in their wet food) appears to be gaining a foothold and for the first time in months, Emmett and Sarge lounged in the same room with us. The enjoyed the fire, and the periodic roll of dice, and paid no attention at all to the suburbanite deer that wandered up to the birdfeeders in broad daylight. There was no cat-on-cat violence or mayhem or urination. Hurrah for Better Living Through Chemistry!

Family Game Night might just become a thing for us and I’m wondering if she’s old enough for the Junior Settlers of Cataan? And if we still have that old Carcassone game in the basement? That is technically my ex-husband’s, but the directions are in German (indecipherable) and we couldn’t remember how to play. I’m sure they’re now available on YouTube or the general interwebz.

Anyway, I sat at my desk today and clung to the memory of our pleasant and serene pajama day. The first day back at work and school was tough. I had to repeatedly tell L that everyone feels the same way. Everyone would rather be in pajamas with the people they love (and cats) than in the ‘outside world’. (I refuse to call it the ‘real world’ because I don’t want it to be my ‘real world’. I would rather consider it to be the ‘world I am forced by necessity to venture into’ as opposed to the ‘real world’ – which for me is my home, with my little family, doing things we love together. That’s the ‘real world’. Or it should be.)