Life of a Cat - Part 2

Bird watching

Waiting, watching and wondering

Planning an escape

The joys of living with cats

They grace our days with these small moments time and time again.

Not to mention the cat hair that goes on forever. 

Livin' the Life of a Cat

One of the joys of being single, is the option to sleep diagonally across the bed. 

However, when one's cat chooses this option while its person is sleeping vertically across the same bed, it does create a bit of a shortage of real estate.

Then, he bites my feet when they infringe on his space.

The joys of being a cat.

I Need a New Topic

Will today be long enough to do all that must be done?

I woke up at midnight with this thought in my mind. I thought "I could just get up and work right now ...". But (wisely) I didn't. I rolled over and slept fitfully throughout the night instead.

So much work. So little time. Working throughout the night is not a choice I choose to make. Setting boundaries when your work moves in with you, is necessary.  

But what if I had worked through the night and woke up to an empty slate this morning? Clearing the slate. What a concept. 

I do not want my work to consume me. I simply want to get to a point where I feel in control and have a rhythm with the monthly, quarterly and annual deadlines.

It is month end. Work is on my brain. This too, will pass.

I just want to write about rabbits ...

Another Month Bites the Dust

Another month has flown by in my bookkeeping world and I continue to run out of month before I run out of work. 

I remember the saying "There is too much month left over at the end of the money" which has been the story of my life as I have precariously balanced my personal finances throughout my adulthood.

This is a new dilemma. "There is too much work left at the end of the month".

This is either very good (if there continues to be work to do, this helps my job stability) or very bad (if I an not working efficiently enough perhaps there is a better person for my job).

At this very moment in time, it feels like a good thing. I am working. I am working hard. I am working a lot. I am working hard at becoming more proficient at my job. I am working from home.

I am working. I feel valued. I feel productive (most days). 

I am busy. My mind is consumed. There is a defined difference between "work", "leisure" and "me time".

I am earning my way, paying the bills and keeping on top of where I need to be financially.

In this world, especially during this time, I recognize and appreciate how truly blessed I am to have all of the above.

Where would I be without my job? How much of my identity and self worth is intertwined with what I do and my ability to earn a pay cheque? If I wasn't working, would I continue to feel valued, productive, busy and my thoughts consumed with life outside myself? Would my days have definition or would they all start to blur together and feel the same?

Life as we know it can change in a New York minute. At this moment in time, I am grateful. Simply grateful. 

A Baby!!!

My aunt called out to me, "Those magpies are after the rabbit under the picnic table". My aunt knows how much I adore rabbits so I was expecting to see a full grown rabbit and an interaction between a rabbit and a bird. I didn't expect to witness what was unfolding before us.

Six magpies had cornered and surrounded a tiny baby rabbit under a picnic table. This feisty little rabbit was rearing up on its haunches in an attempt to scare off its attackers. 

We assessed the situation for a minute before I went out to shoo off the magpies. They were quite determined to continue the pursuit of this defenseless little rabbit and I actually had to circle the table before all six of them flew away.

I knelt down and talked to the baby rabbit in what I hoped it would understand as a friendly tone. I made quiet little sounds and tried to convince the baby I was not going to hurt it. I picked up some dandelion leaves and extended my hand toward the little rabbit and it approached me.

I thought my heart may explode with glee. This baby was coming to me! 

As soon as it got to my hand, it made little rabbit growling sounds and scratched my fingers with its front paws. It was not interested in the dandelion leaves I had offered. It was determined to show me who was boss and I respected this fierce little bunny warrior's stance.

I should have quietly backed away and left this little critter alone but my joy of not only seeing a baby rabbit but actually having it approach me and touch me captivated my attention. So I stayed.

My aunt's apartment is not the only one in this complex that faces this park setting. The moment I looked up and away from the rabbit was when I realized one of my aunt's neighbors was standing right behind me, taking a picture of this baby. I walked away from the scene and another neighbor told me this baby had been spotted by others earlier in the day. We wondered where its mother was and we just wanted this baby to feel safe and protected.

I was feeling a tad melancholy before the baby rabbit encounter. My heart was not in my day and I truly just wanted to be home tending to my own little world. I was having a hard time being away from home when my aunt called my attention to the little miracle hidden within a regular ordinary day.

In the millisecond it took for that baby rabbit to approach me, I felt I was living my dream. One day, I sat at this very computer and wrote of Setting Intentions. Number one on the list is: "Tame a wild rabbit or two".

Nature. Lost in the moment. Feeling the touch of a baby rabbit. The world beyond the baby rabbit and me did not exist in that moment. I was lost. Lost in my field of dreams. I didn't build it. But I did imagine it. If you imagine it, you will recognize it when it comes.

May you find amazement in one small moment today. A moment that takes your breath away.

Know When to Walk Away (know when to call a professional)

Don't you love when the little things in life just fix themselves?

In the land of computer technology, often the best thing you can do is reboot, restart, walk away and come back later. I find this strategy works wonders with a lot of things.

At an impasse with an interaction that is going no where? Say no more. Keep your emotions out of it. Agree to disagree for the moment. Reboot. Restart. Come back later. The issue at hand is still on the table but a fresh perspective may be all it takes to make a difference.

Having trouble with a math problem? The more you stare it down, the less you see. Walk away. Think new thoughts. Come back later. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the answer is staring you right in the face. I do this all the time with my Suduko puzzles. It amazes me every time that I couldn't see what was so obvious when I rebooted my brain.

I have used this strategy on health, car, appliance and home repair situations with varying degrees of success. 

Whenever overwhelmed, it is simply best to walk away, regroup, rethink and strategize. Some things fix themselves. Some things don't. 

Which leads me to my eyes ...

In this world of COVID and my lack of desire to go anywhere unless it is an absolute necessity, my eyes have been a concern a time or two.

The first time, it was an eye irritation? Inflammation? Infection (I don't think so)? The discomfort was real, long lasting and persistent. But at no time was I in extreme pain or overly worried.

I tried some eye drops my eye doctor had prescribed for an inflammation. After a week, my eye was worse instead of better. I read the side effects of the drops and hoped I hadn't done irreparable damage to my eye. Instead, I used eye lubrication drops. Day and night. I slept with the eye drops (I think it was the middle-of-the-night drops that made the difference). Thankfully, after three weeks, my eye situation rectified itself. I can still see and I am simply grateful for my eyes to continue working as they normally do.

This was soon followed by a white head looking growth on my bottom eye lid. Would this go away on its own? Get bigger? Was it an infection? I googled a little bit and decided to just let it be. The last thing I wanted to do was irritate it. 

Weeks came and went. I was grateful my little white growth was not growing. But it was not going away either. It did not interfere with my life as I was living it so I just chose to ignore it. I rebooted, restarted my thinking and just walked away.

You can imagine my surprise and delight when I looked at my reflection one morning and this little white growth had miraculously disappeared.

This instilled my belief in the healing powers of rebooting, restarting and walking away.

I do NOT recommend this strategy on all health situations. It has recently come to light that just going back to bed and sleeping it off could have cost a person their life. 

I am grateful for all situations where rebooting and restarting is the solution. This also does not work on broken computer hard drive. The answer there is to turn it off and call a professional. 

Know when to walk away. Know when to call a professional. If in doubt, call a professional. Better safe than sorry.

Who Doesn't Love Rabbits?

One of my greatest joys in life is noticing a rabbit hopping through our neighborhood or the park like setting where my aunt lives. Rabbit spotting became a much enjoyed event while I visited Mom and one of my favorite photos is one of a small jack rabbit who hopped into Mom's back yard and settled in for a bit. We named him (or her) "Jack".

I have this 4" X 6" photo on display on the top shelf of  Mom's corner shelving unit in our living room, nestled in with other meaningful mementos which honor my memories of Mom. 

As per our own family's version of Emily Post (who literally wrote the book on etiquette), I followed Mom's rule of not having personal photos on display in the living room. The corner shelving unit holds items which have special meaning to me but its contents are rather generic to a casual visitor.

Never have I ever been more grateful for following one of Mom's rules of decorating when someone I don't know gazed at our sparsely decorated living room and made the comment "I hope you ate that rabbit!" when he looked at the framed photo of "Jack".

Now, I was already having my reservations about this human being. My spidey senses were tingling and I felt like a dog with its hair raising on the back of its shoulders. I just didn't feel good about this professional computer doctor who was in my midst. Then he made this comment and I felt my "inner Margaret" get her hackles up and I thought loudly (in Mom's voice), "I knew I didn't like this guy!" 

Who has the insensitivity to make such a rude comment to a person who obviously feels strongly enough about rabbits to photograph, frame and display on the top shelf of a room that holds no other personal touches? Who continues to have a conversation and debate the worthiness of rabbits after sharing the fact that Mom & I enjoyed watching and even named him?

I am not even certain if I was civil to this human after the above interaction.

Who doesn't love rabbits?! I honestly don't want to know this answer. I am having a very hard time not going off on a rant about this person's customer service. He was hanging on by a thread. It was that thread that hung him. I will not be calling him back.

I cannot trust a person who doesn't like rabbits.