« The Thursday Bookworm | Main | oh dear, another ramble. And it started out so... organized. »
Thursday, December 16, 2004
just odds and ends
We have installed a pet door for our cats. One cat has adjusted to it fine, although she didn't like it for the first couple of days. The other cat still protests by standing outside it (it's one of the type that goes into a sliding glass door, and is itself made of glass), meowing plaintively at us for several minutes before she finally gives in and paws at the pet door until she gets it to open toward her enough to stick her head in and wriggle through. She has a decided look of contempt for us in her eyes these days. How dare we subject her to such an indignity any time she wants in or out, she says as she turns her back on us and washes her face meticulously as soon as she's finally inside.
C is watching Ben Hur. She has loved this movie since she was probably three, especially the chariot race. I guess it's just the horses, I don't know. She is not your typical child in many ways, I don't suppose.
Also in the "not your typical child" category -- my son earnestly wants to crochet a blanket for his cousin who's due to arrive next June. His efforts are adorable. And again I'm lost between the desire to encourage him to be creative by leaving him somewhat alone with it, and my desire to help him make something that will be of higher quality by correcting him more often than would be ideal. I'm leaning toward the granola-mom unschooling "leave him be" side for the time being.
Today I had another of those episodes that some people call panic attacks, but I don't because I do not have any sense of panic when I'm having one, and that's a pretty central symptom. My heart pounds and races, I get weak and sweaty and trembly and my throat constricts and my extremities tingle. It is Not Fun. And so far I've never had one when there was an adult around to help me. Fortunately LT is a great hulking eight-year-old who is actually big enough to be helpful in supporting me when I walk, and whose natural tendency when either of his parents is having a problem is to FIX IT FIX IT ANYTHING TO FIX IT. His anxiety has ebbed to the point where I don't mentally call him Anxiety Boy anymore. He's still not terribly comfortable in new situations, but he's much improved overall as far as that goes.
AND speaking of panic, I have to go clothes shopping tomorrow -- for myself. This is trying enough in the best of circumstances (oh, wow, I am so turning into my mother). To make things worse, right now I have two rather prominent "spots" (I love the British way of saying this; so much more dignified than "zits" or "pimples"), and I feel fat, and ick. But I need a new white blouse, or sweater, or whatever I find that is please God not TOO unflattering -- I do not like myself in white -- for chorus concerts, one of which I have on Saturday. My preferred concert blouse got washed in the wrong load, because I am the new Martha Stewart, and it is definitely more gray than white now. And my backup shirts (three Land's End white button-downs which my mom got as uniform shirts in 1989, and which I got from her before I finished high school) are, well, fifteen years old and getting rather threadbare. They also have some of the kinds of stains that never show up in my house, but mutate into glaring atrocities under the lights of whatever my destination may be. So I have to shop. I always feel like such a dowd in clothing stores -- with everything except me all clean and new and perfect-looking. ah well. By this time tomorrow it will all be over, right? :)
