It’s been an interesting last 14 days since getting terminated from my job. The Board at my old job handled the termination abysmally and exceptionally unprofessionally. No one can possibly ever take them seriously and I certainly will never be donating any money to them!
But, on to nicer things:
My life is constantly comprising of gardening, cleaning the house, playing with the cats, and writing. It’s been a good thought-emitter and rather cathartic for me. I’m naturally a home body and very house-proud, and to be honest, the last 3 ½ months of being “stuck at home” did not for one minute feel like I was “STUCK” at home. No, I didn’t go out. I did what I was told and stayed the heck away from germy people (and still do).
I’ve had a few chats with my neighbours over the fence. Unlike Tim from “Home Improvement” we can see each other’s faces and have enjoyed many a chat during the hot afternoons.
I’ve had a few Zoom meetings and even a few Zoom happy hours which have been nice. Greg is back at work under strict rules, that he created for himself and his clients in order to stay safe. He is taking it very seriously and I’m very proud of him for staying on top of things.
My garden has done pretty well this year, no doubt due to fact that I was here 24/7. I’ve babied it a bit and although it’s a lot of hard work that has to be done early in the morning due to the heat and humidity, I’m happy with how it’s turning out. I’m currently in the “hurry up and wait” stage where I just have to wait for the veggies to ripen and grow. It’s frustrating because I “need” those tomatoes and potatoes to hurry up. I don’t want to have to BUY veggies when I have a perfectly good crop halfway ready to eat. Weeding is an on-going hassle, and by “on-going hassle” I mean a total pain in the patootie! Everything hurts after weeding day! Being home all the time also means that I’m able to water the plants whenever they need it and not necessarily on a schedule they don’t need.
Hands up all those who’ve tried to cut their hair! (insert hand high in the air!) I gave it a shot and now I permanently wear a ponytail! I did however complete a successful colouring, but I have been doing that myself for years, so it doesn’t really count. I’ve always admired the creativity of hair stylists, but now my admiration is soaring. My hair will probably just develop an attitude of its own and take on the form of a rabid alien beast. Oh wait… looks in the mirror… never mind!
I took care of a few projects around the house which I’m very pleased with. I painted the laundry room. I’ve been wanting to do that for years but never had the time or inclination to do it. Also, it meant moving the washing machine and dryer out of the way, which is a thorn in Greg’s side. But, we moved them, and I painted and painted and painted. The walls are outside cement walls in the basement. First, we scrubbed the walls and then vacuumed the walls. We had to wear masks when doing that and the air was choked with dust and we were filthy (and wheezing). I vacuumed into the floor joists in the ceiling too and sucked up a few dead critters! The walls soaked up EVERY splotch of paint I threw on it – and I literally did “throw” paint at it at times. The wall was so porous and sort of holey that I did more dabbing than painting. I sealed it with the undercoat and then painted on top. It didn’t cost us anything because I have a lot of leftover paint. It took several days to complete but by the time we put everything back in place it was looking 100% better and I’m very pleased with it. No more disgustingly filthy cement walls. Now they are slightly off-white-ish and clean.
Oh, I also hand washed my car. It doesn’t sound like a big deal and something I should be doing regularly anyway, but I don’t. I’m not super bonded with my car. I feel it’s too big for me and things are in the wrong place for my liking. I’m 5’3” and the car is built for a man, or at least a 5’9” person. I was quite pedantic about cleaning it and ended up scraping tree sap off it and cleaning in between parts that you can’t see but I know are there. It took me an hour to vacuum it out too. I polished the inside and sprayed nice smelly stuff inside. I never keep any trash or, well, anything in my car so it was a relatively easy clean. I must admit that it did shine nicely for the 2 days before the rains came! Now I’m back to not being bothered about it again.
I also accomplished a lot of other smaller tasks and threw away a bunch of stuff I still have no idea why I was keeping. I still have more sorting out to do, but for now I’m busying myself with some writing.
I’ve done quite a bit of reading lately too. Due to being rather absent-minded and distracted I’ve been focusing on cozy mysteries that are quick reads. They work well when insomnia strikes. We have also been binge-watching some shows on Netflix/Prime/Apple TV. We are into shows that have video description for the blind and Netflix does a pretty good job of that. Right now we’re are 1 ½ seasons away from completing Breaking Bad. I’ve also been watching Grantchester. We found out that the new season of Umbrella Academy gets released on July 31st so we’re bookmarking that. Hopefully we’ll be finished with Breaking Bad by then if we work hard at it.
Usually this time of year we head up north for a few days to Greg’s mom, but we don’t want to risk taking any viruses with us nor coming back with any, so we will stay home and eat here!
I think there’s some truth in the saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Things sure have changed, but those changes become familiar and they become the new “same”. COVID-19 has changed us a lot. Missouri is dealing with an increase in new cases every day and it looks like there will be a new rule enforcing mask wearing. Why would you not wear a mask anyway? I think it’s kind of sexy and people have been so creative with the material and patterns that they use for home-made masks. Please do me a favour and just wear the darn mask when you’re out. Why would you risk getting sick? I lost too many people I cared about last year to put anyone through that because of carelessness or ignorance.
Oh hark! I believe I’m hearing the theme song to Magnum PI. That’s my cue.
Peace y’all!
Category: Lisa’s Updates
Cats are smart!
Cats are really smart. Whether you like them or don’t like them, they are still smart. Ok, let me expand on “smart” in this context. We have 3 cats: Aggie (12), Sylvester (11) and Bear (12). We’ve had Aggie and Sylvester since they were kittens, and we inherited Bear from a dear neighbour who passed away several years ago.
When we first got Aggie we went to see her at our vet, held her, bonded with her and she purred and nuzzled up to us and we couldn’t wait to get her home. The vet told us that she’d been returned to them twice as she didn’t get on with their other pets (a sign we should have paid attention to!). She was roughly 12 weeks old! She is a grey and white tabby. We got her home, opened the carrier and she shot out of it like a bullet from a gun. She took off at top speed around our apartment, leaping over couches, under couches, over the bed, in and out of every room. I would have loved to have had a radar gun to measure her speed! We were gobsmacked. Where was that loving, purry, nuzzly kitten we’d just held? We hadn’t even sat down yet, we just stood by the door and took it all in. We grew to love her though – a lot. We named her Agatha CATrina because her approximate birthday falls on the day Hurricane Katrina hit – how apt!! We lovingly refer to her as Hurricane Aggie. Aggie has been through everything with us and yes, she is spoiled rotten! We moved into our house in 2009 and after a settling in period, we decided that she needed a friend. It had taken her 2 ½ years to start to calm down!
When we were ready for a 2nd cat I went back to my vet and told them we were ready! The next day I got a call “we have some kittens that you might want to look at” so I hot footed it over there to check them out. The vet is located next door to my office. Sylvester was estimated to be about 7 weeks old. It was the first time I’d heard the term “tuxedo cat” and he was true to form. Big green eyes, long white whiskers, big ears and a tiny black and white body. I fell in love immediately, went home to get Greg, took him to the vet and once again, as soon as he held him, there were purrs and snuggles and Greg was sold. He came home the next day. He was a boundy, playful, social, cute-as-a-button darling. Aggie immediately hated him! We kept him secluded in the spare room for a few days while Aggie hissed and growled outside the door. Sylvester didn’t care. He’s everyone’s best friend. On “meet up day” we opened the door and Sylvester bounded out and leaped down the hallway to investigate his new home while Aggie wailed, hissed, scratched and yelled at him and us. She refused to be near us, went off her food in protest and was determined to make us pay for bringing in another cat. We were mortified but determined to make this work. After several months (ok at least a year) Aggie finally realized that Sylvester was no threat to her great Alpha-ness. He has no desire to be a boss. They are not necessarily friends, but she will tolerate him and doesn’t get all huffy if he’s around her.
Fast forward to 2014: I used to take care of a dear neighbour’s cat when she went on vacation and ultimately when she got sick and was in hospital. After her passing her cat was still alone in her house while her family was sorting it out and I would still go there twice a day and feed him and play with him. After a while of doing this we discussed with the family that we’d take Mr. Bear (as she called him) and keep him with us until we could find a good home for him. Well, it’s 6 years later, so I guess he found a good home! Bear is awesome! At first we had him in the spare room separate from Aggie and Sylvester. Aggie went into defensive mode and hated him immediately. Back to hissing, growling and yelling outside the door (but this time we were on to her antics). Sylvester was so excited. He definitely sensed Bear’s pain and grief and camped outside the door quietly. After several days we opened the door and Sylvester shot inside. He jumped up on the bed and he and Bear started at each other, nose-to-nose for about 10 minutes not moving, and then they both jumped down and disappeared under the bed where they sussed each other out for about half an hour. After that, they came out from under the bed and have been best buddies ever since. At first Bear was definitely grieving the loss of his previous owner and his move from his old house, so Sylvester snuggled up next to him to keep him company. Bear never really learnt to play but now that he is with us, he’s developed an ardent love of the laser dot. He is the most lovable cat ever. He loves to snuggle and just be with you. He has the biggest, deepest purr ever. He’s not big on exercise, but he loves food in any shape or form, so he’s a big cat. Aggie was not at all happy about the addition of another cat. She and Bear are constantly vying for Alpha-ship. Aggie thinks she’s the alpha but in reality, Bear is the alpha. She has never accepted him and still growls and hisses at him. They have agreed to disagree, and we have a fairly calmish family.
Cats are smart! I sometimes feel like I have a school yard of kids. They all want attention, then they all don’t. They all want feeding, but they want what the other one has even though it’s exactly the same. They all want to play with whatever the other one is currently playing with, until they get the toy then they don’t want it anymore! People ask us why we don’t have or want kids. Who needs them when you have cats! They have regular birthday parties and we sing happy birthday to them. There’s cake and candles and presents. They celebrate Christmas with us – yes they get presents under the tree. We have conversations with them and they answer us. They do need jobs though!
Yes, cats are smart, but not so smart as to make us think they need jobs!
I washed my car…
Yesterday I washed my car! I’ve had my car a little over 3 years and I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never hand washed her. I’ve taken her through the automatic car wash (admittedly it’s been a while) but never hand washed her. Why, you ask? Well, I have a height problem. A lack of height! I can’t reach the roof properly, nor the middle of the front and back windscreen. I could go inside the house and down into the basement and get my step-up stool and drag it upstairs and use it to clean the hard to reach places, but I really can’t be bothered.
I don’t have a strong feeling of love for this car. I’ve always “bonded” with my previous cars. They’ve all had names and I’ve pampered them and loved them. This one just never tugged on those heart strings. I always describe it as a “man’s car”. I’m 5’3” (after a chiropractic adjustment) and everything is in the wrong place for a shortish woman. I’ve adjusted the seat forward, the height of the seat, the height of the steering wheel, the mirrors, the cup holders etc., but it’s still not right. There are big patches of plastic right in my area of vision when I’m turning a corner and those darn head rests are immovable. After 3 years I still haven’t figured out how to change the time on the clock, so it’s permanently stuck on Standard Time. I get caught out on average, about 3 times during Daylight Savings Time, but for the most part I can figure out the time. Now I’m too afraid to ask someone to correct it for me in case I can’t get it back to Standard Time again, so I leave it alone.
It’s a good car, powerful, manual transmission, silver, but it feels too big for me to be truly comfortable, but it recently cost me a fortune to repair, one week after buying 4 new tyres for her. While at the mechanic, I was complaining about, well, everything to do with cars, and mentioned that I wanted to trade her in. The mechanic looked at me, lowered his voice and said “that is actually a very good idea”, so when your mechanic agrees with you, you should pay attention! We are determined to trade her in while we can still get some kind of money for her but I’m in a quandary because of the money I spent on her. I should get SOME benefit from that, right? At the time of purchasing her we managed to drive my old car to the dealer to look at cars and she died right in the dealer’s parking lot, so it was a sign that we had to purchase a car that day. They didn’t have too much in our price range, so we bought quickly and I was so excited to find a car with a manual transmission!
My goal is to own a small, economical car – preferably a hatchback and a manual, and one that I can comfortably reach all the necessary spots and not have my vision hindered by plastic globs of eye candy. Who knows, maybe I’ll hand wash her too!
Day 19,264…
So, today is day 19,264 of my life.
That translates to:
633 months old
2,752 weeks old
19,264 days old
462,336 hours old
27,740,160 minutes old
1,664,409,600 seconds old
Time is a strange thing. It takes time to grow, but it seems to take a longer amount of time to grow UP. You plant a seed in the ground, hope for rain, hope for sun, wait and voila, about 3 months later you’re eating home grown veggies. You try to sneak in a late planting and do everything in your power to protect the plants and hope for no early frost and you may be lucky enough to harvest for a second time. Then winter arrives and nothing grows. You don’t tend to anything so nothing grows… In fact, due to lack of attention (partly) things start to die.
This is my 3rd attempt at writing for the Roggie-Blog. The previous 2 times I had finished the blog and was ready to publish it and clicked on “save draft” so that I could check it, and it disappeared. No idea where it went, but it’s gone. Because I’m 19,264 days old, I can no longer remember what I was writing about so I’m not able to replicate it. The first Blog “almost post” was written by angry me. Too much going on, too much negativity on social media and the news and I was, as we say in South Africa, “gatvol” (fed up). The second Blog “almost post” was written by disillusioned me. A bad start to the week, a couple of days of “gatvolheid” (fed upness) and I just pounded out words. Both times it happened, it made me frustrated. Greg said to me “just redo it”. Redo it? Redo what? I can’t remember what I babbled on about. Something to do with jobs, cars, protests, quarantine, cats, sleep, and the lack thereof, walks, heat, gardens etc. Ok, so maybe it was a good thing those posts never made it to Postville. I am sure they were epic, but alas, we will never know!
This is my 12th week of quarantine! Greg started back at work last Tuesday after considering all the pros and cons and doing an excellent job of preparing his office for the “new normal”. He has been fairly busy and had real conversations with all his clients before working on them. They are all complying with his requests and he is comfortable with working again – for now. But, our local new case numbers are increasing again, which is to be expected with everything re-opening, protests, summer vacations etc. It’s almost like people think COVID-19 has vanished.
During these 12 weeks I have stayed home as much as possible. I’ve washed my hands A LOT, used an obsessive amount of hand sanitizer and cleaned everything possible – I’m still not done (are we ever?). I’ve managed to take care of several projects around the house and planted my garden and taken care of it unlike any previous year where I’d never be this far along. My body, mind and spirit feel more rejuvenated because I haven’t been so rushed to do everything. I needed it. I needed it A LOT. I still have a long way to go but as I find myself again, I’ll be sure to share it.
The New Roggie Update – maybe…
I decided to play around with blogging and am considering resurrecting the old Roggie Update.
I don’t remember why I stopped writing the old one. I guess life happened and we got busy. Or, maybe Facebook took over and that became the new way to stay in touch with everyone. Or, maybe I got lazy and couldn’t be bothered. Either way, due to the Coronavirus, I’m home a lot (ok, all the time) and have the time and interest in things that I used to enjoy doing.
So, let’s see if this takes off! It might be fun to make a habit of it.
Peace and hugs!
Lisa