Soul Thumping

Today, I was that Woman. The Woman with her Dress Stuck in her Underwear.

We've all seen at least one viral picture of a woman in public with her dress stuck in her underwear, completely unaware she is being photographed. The online sharing and snickers will continue for hours on social media until the cute seven-year-old is caught on video wiping his booger on a stranger's jacket while the stranger stares at a van Gogh in the Met (true story by the way). I have seen these pictures thinking, "If this ever happens to me, I will be mortified!"

Today, I was that woman. My dress wasn't actually stuck in my underwear; the right side was tucked under my backpack for the full seven minutes it took me to walk from the parking deck to my office. I only noticed six minutes into the commute when a young guy passed me in a hurry, and I felt a slight breeze on the back of my right leg. I reached back, felt skin and whispered, "Shiiiiiiitttttttt" to myself. I pulled my dress down and continued to walk like it didn't even happen.

I am sharing this story because I realized something about myself, something important. I did not care. I'm not just saying I didn't care; I honestly did not care. I did not die. I did not hyperventilate. I don't think I even blushed (anywhere). I only continued to walk to work like it didn't even happen. I did not care that at least fifteen strangers saw more of me than I would have liked (though I am glad I have been training for a half marathon) but it was just a thing. One more thing in a whole string of things that happen to us while we breathe. 

Now having said all of that, I will say that Girl Code was broken because there were two women behind me the entire trek down the sidewalk and they said NOTHING to me or assisted in helping me out. I would never let a woman, or man, go through that! I will let that go this time because I am in a cool place with me right now.

It's Just Yarn, After All

"Good God, you freak, it's just yarn.  Yarn cannot kill you.  That ball of purple isn't going to wrap itself around your throat.  It cannot bite or pinch you.  Hell, it doesn't have hands.  It doesn't have teeth.  Yarn can't even criticize this thing you are trying to knit.  For the love of sanity, take a deep breath!"

This is the sales pitch I repeated to myself over and over Wednesday evening, while trying to use my circular knitting needles for the very first time, and it actually worked.

As you can see (or hear), anxiety rears its ugly little beak when I try something new.  My knitting has been limited to straight knits and purls and frankly, I'm over scarves and washcloths.  Time to move on and try

Photo source: anniescatalog.com

something new:  A hat...using circular needles.  Poseidon gifted me with a set last year for Christmas, so time to bust them out before Christmas this year.

I found a simple hat pattern on Ravlery (of course), dropped by the yarn store in my neighborhood for some yarn, and asked for a quick demonstration on knitting in the round.  The knitting guru in the shop was more than happy to show me and she told me to stop by with my hat project if I needed any help.

After casting on, I was ready to start the first round, in the round, but I couldn't get it, cue the stress monster.  I watched and re-watched a YouTube video on knitting in the round, but I found the videos less than helpful.  I was searching my hands for hives because I fully expected to be breaking out in a stress rash.  None.  I repeated the opening sentence of this blog over and over until I decided I was safe.  The yarn I bought wasn't cheap, but it wasn't going to eat me.

I switched to a cheap ball of yarn from my knitting bag and I took charge.  I practiced until I got it, realizing I would not be dying at the hands of my yarn.  Undoing and restarting 8 times isn't going to hurt anyone, EVER.  Cheap yarn, it turns out, is quite submissive...and forgiving.

Do You Have Enough Area Rugs in YOUR Retirement Investment Portfolio?

We put our living room carpet out of its misery and put down hardwoods.  I don't know why, because our carpet was easily the coolest in the neighborhood.  I haven't seen inside every neighbor's home, but I'm guessing no one else had chichi beige carpet with DIY orange polka dots (the polka dots = cat vomit, but I did say it was DIY).

Now we have nice dark floors, and everything is in the swim, but we need an area rug because the ottoman slides around the floor when we prop our feet on the thing.

I naively assumed rug shopping would be easy.  We want a rug with some color, but it has to look ok with our light blue furniture.  On the color wheel of contrasts, I'm looking at yellows and oranges.  As you might imagine yellow and/or orange rugs are grotesque.  To complicate matters, we are looking for size 6X9, which limits our selection to the valley of the most heinous (5X8 and 8X10 seem to be the cool kids) area rugs ever created.

After an exhaustive search online, and some of the big box stores, Poseidon and I stopped by a local rug and carpeting gallery last month.  The salesperson was helpful, warm and friendly, but her, "You should think of an area rug as an investment" line hurt my head because I knew an area rug from her store was going to punch my wallet in the nose.  An investment?  An area rug in our home is going to be a place where cat vomit goes to die, while keeping the ottoman from sliding into the fireplace.

The rug search is still on, and I've viewed so many rug samples online that they appear in my dreams at night.  I've had to take long breaks from looking, simply to keep my sanity in check.

Not only are we still rugless, we apparently aren't properly diversified.  Stocks, bonds, mutual funds and area rugs seem to be the way to go.

--Amphitrite

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I Lied to my Husband...About my Favorite Color

I Lied to my Husband...About my Favorite Color

Yellow.  When I was five, I felt some imagined pressure to choose a favorite color.  My sister liked red and my little brother liked blue.  I had to like something different, right?  I mean, I couldn't copy my twin sister.  I couldn't copy my brother.  I picked yellow because my reading book at school had a picture of a big yellow balloon on the cover.  It was in my head.  The big yellow balloon.

Yellow has always been my go-to color.  "What's your favorite color?"  "Yellow."  Always my answer.  I don't even like yellow.

Somewhere down the road, I must have given that vanilla answer to Poseidon, because he recently mentioned my favorite color being yellow and all, and I told him I hate yellow.  He was appalled.  How could I lie to him about my favorite color?  I tried explaining that it wasn't really a lie.  Declaring yellow as my favorite color was a by default situation, and now it's simply a habit I'm unwilling or unable to break, and not a lie.

"Yellow was in trouble, even then." - Ken Nordine

 

 

 

--Amphitrite

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Cobwebs and Crickets in Here...Oh, and our Cat is "Dating" Again

I realized, just today, that I haven't posted anything new since mid-October.  Blogging is a hobby, and if I have nothing to say, I have nothing to say.  My husband is the only one reading my blog anyway, so if I do have something to say, he hears it firsthand without having to waste eyeball energy.

What is happening, at this very moment?  Kwinn (cat #1) is "dating" his blanket, less than 2 feet from me.  Last week, I had a bit of a cold and stayed home for two days.  Kwinn "dated" his blanket no less than 7 times each day.  Seriously.  I stopped counting at 7.

I'm sharing.  Hate me later.

 

--Amphitrite

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I Fell Off the Diet Coke Wagon

I should clarify.  By fell, I mean, jumped, with deliberate force, off the Diet Coke wagon. My plan for bashing my D.C. addiction, I thought, was a good one.  I would buy the small 7.5 oz. mini cans (or as I like to call them, "baby Diet Cokes") and trick my brain into thinking, by holding onto the cold aluminum can, that I was drinking the normal 12 oz can of garbage and, therefore, I would consume less.

That isn't exactly how this mess played out.  I just drank more baby Diet Cokes.  I actually drank more than before!  I did.  I can't help but wonder if the Coca-Cola Corporation anticipated this happening and kicked me off the wagon before I could travel out of my own driveway?  I feel better having confessed that my Diet Coke habit is still a habit.  I'm trying again, and right now, I'm waiting for the wagon to circle back around and pick me the hell up, but I'm adorably disappointed in myself.

And...because Poseidon refers to Diet Coke as "Devil Juice," and I asked him to add D.C. to the grocery list, this is what I found waiting for me in the kitchen yesterday evening:

Amphitrite

 

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What if You had to Pick a New Name?

Suppose you are on the lamb, or recently placed in a witness protection program, and you have to pick a new name?  How would you choose your new name?

I'm not on the lamb (or in the witness protection program), but Poseidon thinks I should have a new name, and he's spent a good deal of time thinking about this.  Here is his list.  I'm trying to picture myself at the DMV, replacing my name on my license with one of these:

Toffee-nosed Ringlefinch - This one leaves me feeling verbally beaten up

Bubbles Maxima - This is not a game, man, this is my life!

Yammyschmidt McStingshine - Saying this outloud feels an awful lot like scraping knuckles on my cheese grater.

Prudence Woolingsworth - Has potential.  I'm strangely OK with this name

Eunice G Quattlebaum - This is a mess begging for help up off the floor (and what does the G stand for?)

Felicity Sunshine - this one leaves me feeling boundary-challenged, and I don't really know why

Mrs. Ariel Johannessen - I could never spell this correctly.  Never

Travellers Check McLuggage - Sounds like a menu offering at a McDonalds in Edinburgh

Ragnhild Synnove Olson (honoring that Swedish heritage) - That's a troll's  name

Trudy "Bubbles" Flowers - See what he's done here?  Poseidon has already given this name a nickname

Sandi-Lyn Slavenovich - Hmmm, the pebble in shoe analogy applies to this one.  It doesn't seem all that bad when you first give it a test run, but after a few miles?  Issues

Virginia West - Nope

Goodwife Snavely - Just makes me feel dirty

 

I want to be flexible, but honestly, I'm mostly just worried about my capacity for change, at this point.

Prudence?

 

 

 --Amphitrite

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Five for Friday - Five Good Things to Absorb While You're Still Young

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(Photo source:  http://www.theittybittykittycommittee.com)

Hippies and food-spitters!  I was cleaning out my inbox today, and I found this gem, sent to me by my friend Sorren last year.  Rereading it made me giggle under my breath, so I decided to post it as a Five for Friday:

Five Good Things to Absorb While You're Still Young:

1. a lot of hippies are selfish, unpleasant, and not particularly funny
2. people who argue well aren’t necessarily right
3. cars are kind of a weird thing to spend a lot of money on
4. people will do things for you if you ask them as a favor
5. angry waiters totally do things to your food

(Original source:  http://www.5ives.com/archives/2006/01/23/five-good-things-to-absorb-while-youre-still-young/)

--Amphitrite

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The Things Poseidon Says: The Shower Mildew Discussion

The Things Poseidon Says: The Shower Mildew Discussion

Poseidon and I have some stimulating conversations in the morning, usually spawned by out-there questions he asks (I think I will start a weekly blog series titled "Things Poseidon Says").  Anyway, most of our more interesting convos take take place in the bathroom each morning as we get ready for work.  Today was no exception.

Poseidon:  "I've been leaving the shower door open every morning, and I've noticed less mildew."

Me:  "I've been squirting the shower down at least once a week with Scrubbing Bubbles, so maybe that is the reason our mildew problem has vanished?"

Poseidon:  Blah, blah, blah, some nonsense, reiterating the leaving-the-shower-door-open thing, blah, blah, blah.

We both then turn our attention to Kwinn, licking the shower (as he does every morning). Spotless.

Me:  "Or, it has nothing to do with either one of us, and everything to do with that cat licking the shower clean."

Our mutual silence moved us both to drop our ends of the rope.  We have a cat to thank for that clean shower (and a vet who may very well bury our bodies in our own backyard should she discover this).

--Amphitrite

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Cutting the Apron Strings...I Will No Longer Attachment Parent My Cats

Cutting the Apron Strings...I Will No Longer Attachment Parent My Cats

This could very well be one of the more difficult decisions I've ever had to make.  The decision to shut the cats out of our bedroom at night after 13 years of attachment parenting.  I've spoiled my cats from day one, and I know I have no one to blame for the neediness I've instilled in them, but moi.

Last week, we began the heartbreaking routine (heartbreaking for me...blissful for Poseidon) of closing our bedroom door at night, forcing Kwinn and Kat to sleep elsewhere in the house.

Why, after 13 years, do I do this?  Simple.  My sleep has become ever more restless, and my little furry babies are partly to blame (eh, ok, mostly to blame).  If they wake up, and want attention, they bite me, or swat at me until I wake up and pet them.  Being awakened from deep REM sleep by a couple of four-leggers biting my cheek is not cool, but again, I've allowed this behavior to develop over many years, and I always respond by petting them and cooing at them.  They KNOW this.  It is now problematic because their demands for attention have progressed aggressively, and something had to be done.

Source: catsvshuman.com

My heart was breaking the first few nights, but the cats seem to have adapted better than expected, and I have been sleeping more soundly.  I know this has affected Kwinn much more than Kat because he is the epitome of a "mama's boy."  He will eventually be completely over having to make due with one of his many blankets (aka girlfriends) downstairs.  Kat, she is probably over it already.  As long as she gets her food, she cares not where she sleeps, and trust me, she can sometimes find the oddest of sleeping spots.  Truth be told, they immediately handled this better I did.

 

I'm very happy I finally decided to do this...if for no other reason than to make Poseidon stop declaring me "p-whipped."

 

--Amphritite

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