Smiles and positive posts are all well and good, but sometimes I need to vent a bit. How about you? That’s what The Monday Peeve is all about, a chance to blow off a little steam at the beginning of the week, so then we can go merrily on our way once again (hah). I’ll pick a topic that’s on my mind, but you can vent about whatever you please, here in comments or on your own blog. Grab the photo, use the TMP tag, link back to me (or not), and Bob’s yer uncle. I do reserve the right to delete any links that offend my delicate sensibilities. So far, none have, but it could happen. I have feelings!
Let’s get right to it, shall we? LITTERBUGS. Oh my god, they make me so annoyed! It’s like… this is YOUR earth also, so why do you want to crap it up? You live here too, doh. But more specifically, when the garbage bin is literally RIGHT THERE, why are people throwing stuff on the ground? I just don’t get it. At every apartment complex I’ve lived, there has been trash on the ground right next to the bin. Sometimes it’s from people who must put out their trash while the truck is dumping the bin because they can’t wait a minute until it’s put back. Other times it’s just from lazy people who can’t be bothered to expend that extra calorie of energy to toss their bag in. Finally, we have the garbage pickers who sneak in to find their “treasures” in our trash and make a mess while doing so. IT’S ALL DISGUSTING.
Dr. Tanya continues her prompt this week asking about the #5Things I absolutely must have in my kitchen.
I’ve actually lived without a dishwasher, fridge, and microwave at various times, but not all three at once…
1. Fridge. I like milk in coffee/tea and a place to store veggies, condiments, and leftovers, not to mention a freezer for ice and veggie burgers.
2. A sink with hot and cold water. I don’t use bottled water, so I need water for my iced teas and hot drinks too. And kitties need fresh water. I don’t mind washing dishes in nice hot water, so I’ll leave off a dishwasher (rarely use mine). 🐱🐱
3. A microwave. Yep, I have gone without, but that’s no fun. I’d rather have this than a stove/oven if I have to choose!
4. Mugs for hot tea/coffee. Can put cold drinks, soup, ice cream, cereal, etc., in them as well. I could exist with paper plates and plastic utensils, though I’d cringe at all the waste, but I need my mugs.
5. Now I’m stuck. If I say a pan to make a grilled cheese, then what about a stove? If I say a stove, but have no pans, what good is that? Eff them both… I’ll make quesadillas in the microwave and choose something else for the last item. How about this?
More than a hundred? That’s a tough one. I guess there are thousands of cat crunchies in the cat food bags altogether. Likewise, I just bought a double pack of ibuprofen, which has a thousand total pills. I’m sure I must have over a hundred vitamin tablets if you add up all the different ones.
I don’t have over a hundred physical books today because I donated so many when I moved, but it’s likely I have a hundred plus DVDs. Same goes for CDs. I have thousands of photos all neatly filed away. I bet there are over a hundred pieces of pasta if you add my three boxes together. Mmm pasta! I bought it in the lockdown but never made any.
I must have a hundred fears and regrets, goals and dreams. A hundred ideas for blog posts, poems, and stories? Of course. Are there 100+ migraines lurking in my future? I would think so. That’s only about 4 years worth, enough to last me through the next presidential election, should there be one.
Melanie has two sets of questions for us again today. Other bloggers who are also unfamiliar with Harry Potter are taking a crack at the HP Q’s, so I will too. Baaaa!
1. Harry Potter can speak to snakes. If you were able to have conversations with any one animal, what animal would you like to speak to? What would be the topic of your first conversation?
– Like Fandango, I would want to have a convo with my cat. I would ask Gatsby why he’s so damn loud! What is he howling, mrrowing, and harumphing at all the time?! 🤯
2. The portraits in Hogwart’s dormitories can talk. If your graduation portrait could speak to people passing it by, what would it tell them?
– I didn’t live up to my potential, waaah! 😭
3. If you could transform into another being, who would you chose to be? What would you hope to learn?
– See above, regarding my kitty. 🐱
4. There was a flooding in the girl’s bathroom where Moaning Myrtle resides. What has been the most dangerous (or comical) ‘flooding’ where you reside?
Mundane or “Muggle” Questions:
– When I lived in my Huntington Beach house, the street flooded and water crept a few feet up the driveway. That was scary.
5. (Serious one which is rather creepy): How do you think you’ll die? IF you do think about it?
– I go with the odds, so I say heart disease, which is still the number one killer of Americans.
6. What’s the best on-line screen name you’ve seen? Best might mean the oddest.
– I don’t know, but I’ve seen loads of clever names over the past 20+ years. I’m in favor of twists on people’s real names.
7. What’s invisible that you wish people could see?
– Love! 💖
8. If over time you replace parts on a car, at what point does it stop being the same car you bought? How many parts do you need to replace to make it a new car?
– When you install a new engine, which is where the autosoul resides. So, one part. Or if you paint it a different color obviously!
Speaking of cars/names, this is the kind of name I like. It’s ironic and clever. Credit where due, even to a Beemer owner.
In today’s Dog Days episode, Fandango asks about our daily routine.Welp, I do vaguely remember something resembling a routine pre-Covid-19.
Weekdays I got up around 6am, took a shower, got dressed, took care of cat things, read online stuff over tea, and drove to work around 8:15. Sometimes I had time to compose a blog post first. I bought a coffee in our cafe, then headed up to my office. Had lunch between 12-1, when I read blogs and began a post, sometimes finishing it later. Home by 6:30, changed into comfy clothes, ate a little dinner, read/wrote, did stuff for my second job. Bed by 11 or so. Weekends I spent doing chores and participating in friend events. Tried to work on my novel…
Now? Psssh. I don’t go to work every day (though I did last week), and when I do, I set my own schedule, usually wandering in late morning and leaving mid-afternoon. I do chores (cleaning, grocery shopping) during the week mostly. Friend events are over Zoom and I don’t love that format, so I skip many. I have been working on my novel more often, but there are plenty of days I don’t. I’ve gone weeks without touching it, when it should have been finished by now. My bedtime varies from 11-2am. I can sleep later, but I don’t usually.
Like many people have said, my sense of time has been distorted by the lockdown. I feel this has been going on forever and I’m effing sick of it. On the other hand, it also feels like the days pass so fast I can’t get anything accomplished. Why haven’t I done so much more? Exercised more? Idk. I feel unproductive and useless without a set work routine… I guess it’s good preparation for retirement. Meh.
Fandango’s Dog Days prompt today is all about my blogging space. He wants to know exactly where I come up with these creative gems. Mostly I write posts in my apartment at the dining room table, though sometimes I write in bed (ooh) or at work. I don’t often compose a post in the car or at a coffee shop. Well, I guess no one is sitting around coffee shops these days. Beyond that, I’d say about 70% of my writing is done on my iPhone and 30% on my laptop. All my prompts (Monday Peeve, Thursday Inspiration, Six Degrees, etc.) are done on my laptop. It’s just easier to type here, especially when I’m going on and on, like I do in my Pointless Meandering. When I’m on the laptop, I use the block editor, which I find convenient because I can save boilerplate text, such as my copyright notice and my prompt post language. The phone is easier for adding images and using saved prompts. In fact, I don’t know how people respond to prompts if they aren’t using the app ~ how do you save all the posts you want to use in one place to link back to them? Right now, I’m saving this post on my laptop, and then jumping on my phone app to find the image I have in mind and copy the link back to Mr. F.
Smiles and positive posts are all well and good, but sometimes I need to vent a bit. How about you? That’s what The Monday Peeve is all about, a chance to blow off a little steam at the beginning of the week, so then we can go merrily on our way once again (hah). I’ll pick a topic that’s on my mind, but you can vent about whatever you please, here in comments or on your own blog. Grab the photo, use the TMP tag, link back to me (or not), and Bob’s yer uncle. I do reserve the right to delete any links that offend my delicate sensibilities. So far, none have, but it could happen. I have feelings!
Today’s peeve is about entertainment. There are too many choices! I end up scrolling endlessly through Netflix or Prime trying to pick a show. Prime recommends things based on what I’ve already seen, but often I don’t like a show and exit after 10 minutes. I don’t want to see 27 more shows like that one. I’ll click through the stuff everyone else is watching (or so they say), and that’s all pretty meh to me. If I go to categories, such as romance or drama, most of those offerings I’ve already seen or am not interested in. Tonight I searched for a movie, An American Pickle, which I’ve wanted to see ever since I read the description. Welp, it’s only on HBO, but not the HBO I have access to, but HBO Max or something. FFS! Why can’t I just pay five bucks to watch it or whatever? I’m not subscribing to a new channel ~ that would just expand my choices of crap I don’t want to see.
Luckily, I can do puzzles on my phone or read a book…
Fountain Valley, California’s motto is “a nice place to live.” That sounds boring and bland… which is just perfect for me. I was born in NY, but I have no desire to live in a city that never sleeps. I like sleep! I don’t want noise and lights and excitement happening all night. I’m old. And grumpy. My neighborhood is quiet and dull, which I love. I get a thrill out of seeing the ducks. The immediate area is surrounded by busy streets, but I can tune them out and focus on the cool breeze, trees, and waterfall in my apartment complex. I’m happy here.
We’re not too far from the beach… 15 minutes, depending on which beach you want to go to. When I walk at Crystal Cove, that drive takes a bit longer. It’s inevitable that there will be occasions of snarled traffic in a coastal area, but I’ve learned to live with that. Even though I live in a place that some might consider resort-like, I still gravitate to the tropical theme when I imagine taking a holiday. I don’t actually go anywhere exotic though. Just Los Angeles to visit one daughter, NorCal to see another, and of course Irvine to work.
Kidding! (It was Miss February.) I have lots of great memories of my pets, starting with my little dog, Peppy, who came into my life when I was 9 years old. She was a sweet little pupper, but we never really trained her, so she was not that well behaved. I loved her though and was distraught when we lost her 9 years later. That’s too sad of a story to tell and I’ll leave it in the past. I want to remember all the cute things about her.
When I was 24, I took in a homeless kitty and tried to find its owner. No luck, so kitty stayed with us. My boyfriend at the time was into horse racing, so he wanted to name the kitty after a famous racehorse, John Henry. Since I didn’t know who that was, we added the name Banana after it. John Henry Banana. We called him Henry and he was a sweetheart.
After a while, we decided Henry was lonely, so we brought home a little tawny kitten to keep him company. We named her Tasha Banana. They got along fine. Later that year Henry got sick and went over the rainbow bridge, which was really sad because he wasn’t that old. The vet speculated that he had eaten some poison when he was out wandering before we met him. We then brought home a little sister for Tasha and named her Cyndi, like the singer. Naturally she was also a Banana. The sister cats were good together, but the boyfriend became my first ex-husband. These things happen.
I just remembered that prior to Peppy’s arrival, we had fish. They were very pretty, but you don’t really bond with a fish, mermaids excepted. 🐠
Anyway, while I was married to my second ex-husband, I impulsively adopted a new homeless kitty at a cat show (remember, we already had two). In retrospect, this was a very thoughtless thing to do without asking my second ex-husband first, but it all worked out. The cat, not the marriage. We named this kitten Oscar and he did his own thing but was occasionally affectionate. Cyndi, however, was always sick and no amount of care could ever fix her. She never grew past kitten size and only lasted until she was 3 years old. (Yes, I did a lot in 3 years, but I was an energetic 20-something.)
I had to find a new home for Tasha and Oscar a few years later. Long story, also too sad to go into. I know this can be a contentious topic, with some people believing you are committed to a pet forever once you take them in, and I too believe this on principle, but life happens. I did my best to find the cats a safe place, but who knows. For many years afterward, I had no pets, only children.
Cocoa wandered into my life when I needed her, simple as that. It was 2004, I was depressed, and I’d been scheduled for a “minor” surgery. Along came this wonderful blue-eyed fluffy kitty to brighten up my days. My daughters were thrilled to have a pet and we soon adopted another kitty, Tiki. Cocoa took some time to adjust to Tiki, but then they were friends. Tiki looked up to Cocoa, like a little sister to a big one, following her all around and trying to do everything Cocoa did. So adorable!
When my marriage ended, I took Cocoa and my second ex-husband took Tiki. They totally bonded and it was cute. Cocoa, however, began failing. Her arthritis kept getting worse until she couldn’t walk much at all. She lost interest in food, became skinny, and finally we had to say goodbye. It was heartbreaking. She was such a great cat.
Before Cocoa passed on, I thought I would not get another pet because the man I was dating at the time (remember TMWBMH? ~ yep, him) did not like pets. Silly me, I had this fantasy we’d stay together, but that was not to be. A few months before Cocoa died, we had broken up, so a new kitty was on my mind. My daughter went to the Orange County Animal Shelter with me, and we chose Gatsby (she did really). She also chose his name because I’d been inclined to go with Ringo. He’s obviously a Gatsby though.
Long time readers are familiar with G’s cuteness and antics. Suffice to say, he has comforted me during many down cycles and I owe him a lot. He can be super annoying, but he’s my Little Lion Man and I adore him. We’re now sharing a place with a kitty named Tiger and her person, and the cats are slowly getting used to each other. Tiger is an absolute doll.
Melanie has new Q’s for us today, but first I want to thank her for using my Happy Color pic for SYW. I think it looks fabulous!
What will finally break the Internet? Do you believe it can be broken at all?
Cat pics. 🐱 Yes, I believe it can break, in the sense of being broken up. Look what’s happening to Tic Tok.
What are some ‘red flags’ to watch out for in daily life? (take it as you want)
Things that sound too good to be true ~ like the internet. We have paid a heavy price in loss of privacy just to be able to share cat pics across the world.
What’s the silliest thing someone has argued with you about?
An ex and I had an enormous fight about the name of a band. I was wrong. 🎶
What’s the strangest thing you’ve found lying on the ground / side of the road?
A fetal pig. Well, I didn’t know what it was except ewwww, but my ex (not the band name winner) was a scientist and knew.
Gratitude Section (optional as always)
Please feel free to share your photos, stories, poetry, or memes that promote gratitude!
I’m grateful when these silly cats are quiet and getting along. 💖🐱💖🐱💖
