Not So Much

I am not inspired to write much in here these days. Honestly, not much is going on.

I've finally assumed the position of submission at Tontines 'R' Us and find life goes more easily for me. It also goes more easily when all my Rxs are filled at once and I take them the way I'm supposed to.

Working overtime makes me tired. Actually paying attention to what I'm supposed to be doing makes me tired.

It may seem like my evenings are full of social butterfly-ness but it doesn't feel that way. These are things I've promised to do and so now, must do them.

I'm thinking a lot about that lately, how I don't keep my promises but think I do.

So I'm home for about ten minutes before I have to go to the lie-berry. Those books for the book sale don't just sort themselves, you know. I can unleash my OCD and no one will mind.

If I don't say much, it's, um, because I don't have much of anything to say.

Who, Me?

This is my week, this week:

- Work 16 hours OT (being paid straight time) to make up for not being paid on Christmas and New Year's. I do have a couple of weeks to do this, but this week is stacking up to be a busy one.

- Tuesday: The Noisy Nuns in Concert.

- Wednesday: The Speechifiers.

- Thursday: Library volunteering.

- Friday: Donate platelets after work.

Me, doing all this?

I am very (very, very) sorry I didn't have the energy to carry through with NaNoWriMo this year, but just as I got cranking, Geraldine came up with the "work those hours for the day after Thanksgiving" scheme. I really couldn't say no.

I am not looking forward to Christmas, New Year's or MLK day.

Other things going on, too.

I need to go to bed.

How Do You Know That It's Time To Go to The Home?

Not home. The Home. The Home for Aged Cat-loving Bats.

This is how:

You go to a Christmas concert in a Catholic elementary school with a chorus of nuns as the performers....

and it's too loud.

I want my jammies, mah kittehs, and mah bed.

Who Owns Your Water?

Who can turn off your tap?

In my case, some yobbo in London can take it into his head to dry up Jersey and there's not much I can do about it.

I'm still reading Unquenchable, but I also watched "Water Wars" on Netflix yesterday.

This has left me feeling somewhat conflicted. I can't decide if I should just be a greedy cow and buy stock in "New Jersey" American Water or if I should start sending letters to the governor-elect to de-privatize New Jersey's water.

"Water Wars" says that the battle for fresh water is the next battle for oil. It illustrates the number of countries that have privatized their water supplies and the debacles that followed.



...Sigh...

And I really wanted to take a hot bath tonight.

House of Stonewalling

So far, I've managed to keep up with Ma Maisonette's house payments.

Previously, on a very special "Becs Again", it was revealed that Becs' mortgage company had said:

1. "Don't worry, you'll be fine, we'll help you out."
2. (A week later) "Oh - you can go without paying your mortgage for three months. Of course, when those three months are up, you have to pay us all of your back payments, plus the late fees and the interest on the late fees. Are you okay with that?" (I never could get them to tell me how exactly that was supposed to help me.)
3. "Hey! Maybe you qualify for a cool new program! Send in all this paperwork and we'll see, okay?"
4. (After two months go by with no word or progress) "Oh - you can go without paying your mortgage for three months." (They still can't explain how this is supposed to help me.)
5. "We sent you a new package. Did you get it?"

Wells-Fargo has called me at least eight times since then. At least. Because they have to know if I want to take up their offer, one way or another. They leave messages. I don't call back.

Because, knock wood, so far, I've been able to pay my mortgage. I don't want or need the kind of help they were offering.

I started to think that I must be stupid. Or that they thought I was stupid. Because I just couldn't get them to understand how their offer was not generous at all.

This morning, I ran across an article on cnn.com that featured over nine hundred comments from people who had gotten the same weird runaround I'd gotten.

And then I read about it in the NY Times (so you know it has to be true) - people getting helped without being helped. Now this - someone finally woke up to the fact that only a very small amount of people have gotten help: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/business/economy/29modify.html?_r=1&hp.

Is anyone ever going to call out the banks on this? Ever?

Uh oh

Remember I took Gus to the vet back in September?

At the time, I thought I was lucky to have Gussy Guy for another month.

And here it is, nearly December, and the old man is still here.

Yesterday, he started meowing really loudly, which is very out of character for Gus.

Two minutes ago, I called him and he ran away from me.

Not a good sign.

When I went to the vet, Hunky Vet said he really didn't know what was keeping Gus alive. "He's got two tumors in his liver, kidney failure, his intestine walls are thickened, and a heart murmur that's getting worse. I know what might do him in but I don't know how he's hung on this long."

Time to rev up the kitty-reviving machinery.

Every Day Is Caturday

The cats are in a delirium of joy. I've been home for two whole days and they love it.

Everybody's happy. And why not? I, their slave, am here to do their furry bidding.

Cats. Cats. More cats.

When I wake up, I'm usually surrounded by Phoebe, Gus, Dylan, Katy, with Taylor bitching somewhere on the side. When I get out of bed, I'm followed by Sophie and led by Gus.

Sitting here at my desk, playing video games, Blue came in and pawed at me until I picked him up. He sat on my chest, all 25+ lbs of him, and started to do a blissful little kneading dance. Then, drooling, he collapsed on me, paws still going back and forth. I put him down. He got back up. I put him down. He got back up again.

Boris stood at the kitchen sink, meowing to be picked up and for me to turn the faucet on. When he didn't quit meowing and head-butting me, I got the brush and began grooming him.

Even Sophie is coming around. I just heard her in the living room, on the loving seat, meowing so I would come pet her.

I think we're all in for a rude shock come Monday morning.

Chez Hirschberg

Yesterday was the best Thanksgiving (with other people) that I've had in years beyond counting.

Chez Hirschberg is a wonderful place, as are its inhabitants.

I got there a wee bit early, but Sandy and Delilah met me at the door. Wes was taking a nap.

The trip up had been surprisingly trafficy, until I went over the Big, Winding Mountain. Then I found myself in a beautiful little valley with a river flowing through it.

At Wes's door, all I could hear was the rush of the river. I had stopped just before getting to the house, gotten out and admired the river. There it is, and the Hirschberg manse is just to the left of the river bank, across a muddy graveled road.

Sandy showed me around the house, inside and out. Twenty years ago, Sandy and Wes had driven past it and Sandy said, "I want that house. We will live in that house." It took two years, but they got there. The house itself is very unassuming on the outside - a ranch-style house with blue cedar siding now faded with age.

The house is now gently falling down all around them, but I can see it as must have been for them.

There's a big swimming pool in the back with a stone fence around it, and a tiny Greek temple style bath house. There are porches and porticos and gazeboes and all of it is quietly disintegrating. I can imagine the lawn bright green in summer, the temple with its doors on straight and all the posts supporting the porch back on their foundations. It's an easy house to love.

Inside, the house is a maze. Sandy and Wes said, "We can't understand how anyone could get lost in here, it's just one straight shot to the end and back." They make it sound like a New Orleans shotgun cottage, but rooms have been added here and there, with no central hallways. It's also very dark.

But it contains wonderful, beautiful things.

Last night, I heard "Silent Night" from a Victrola's wax cylinder. I leaned over a little fountain that had a glass ball in the middle, with two viewing tubes on either side - in essence, an automatic, two person kaleidoscope. I recognized sculptures that I had seen in shop windows in New Hope, PA. Wes gave me a thorough (and welcome) lesson on Viennese glass. There were gorgeous Tiffany reproduction lamps, there were artisan-crafted lamps. Among Wes's hobbies are amateur safe-cracking and piano rebuilding. His main occupation seems to be adoring Delilah and Sandy's is adoring Wes.

I didn't have to fret about carrying on the conversation. Sandy is an excellent talker.

We ate. We talked. We ate some more while talking. I realized with a start that I had been there nearly six hours and it was time to go home. (Six hours! Why didn't they run me off earlier? Or maybe they tried and I just didn't notice?)

There were hugs and kisses on the driveway. Delilah stayed behind, groaning with joy on the kitchen floor. She liked the little snackies I brought her.

I felt so comfortable with them, so at ease. There was a smoothness to it that I've missed.

Drink Up

Last week, I went for a walk with Wes. He was tired and having a hard time making a go of it just on level pavement. He told me he didn't think he would be going for any more treatment. I told him that as much as I can, I understand.

Earlier this week, we were gathered around Wes's cube, talking about our plans. The thirty- and forty-somethings all had big family plans. Nice. No one moaned about how horrible it would be. Wes said that they used to go to a friend's, but this year, the venue and circumstances had changed. "There'll be people there we don't know," Wes said, shaking his head. "I don't want to go. I'm just not that up to it."

The withdrawing-from-the-world aspect of this bothered me. I wanted to say, dude, if I was looking at six months to a year, max, I would be out there sucking down everything I possibly could. I would be out meeting people, I would talk to people, everything I was physically capable of doing, I would do, just to drink it all in.

I didn't say anything. I don't know what his physical strength is, but I do know depression when I see it. That in itself makes it hard to get out and about.

I went back to my cubicle in Peru and started working. A couple of minutes later, Wes huffed and puffed into my cube and flung himself down into the guest chair. He said, "There will be Thanksgiving dinner at the Hirschberg household. It will consist of Mr. and Mrs. Hirschberg and a guest."

Enormous relief. Good, I thought. I'm so glad he isn't completely turning his face to the wall.

"Sandy and I would like it very much if you would be our guest."

I was surprised. Dealing with Famille Annushka, I was often regaled with plans for upcoming parties to which I was not invited. To hear about an Occasion and then to be asked for it was very heart-warming.

And I wanted to say no. I wanted to make my excuses about the planned curry dinner I would be making for myself, thinking of my day curled up on the couch with the cats, reading a book about the (everybody panic!) coming shortage of fresh water in America. I mean, does that not say party, or what?

The same instant I thought it, I realized I would be doing what I didn't want Wes to do.

So I said yes, that I would be delighted.

I was told to dress as casually as possible. I was encouraged to wear fleecy pajamas and fuzzy slippers, preferably torn and in need of a good wash. I was forbidden from bringing anything chez Hirschberg.

However, the H's dog, Delilah, is the apple of Wes's eye, as are their two cats. On my way home last night, I picked up freeze-dried chicken snackies for Delilah and catnip toys for the kitties.

Part of this may be for me to audition as a petsitter. I have been poking at Wes to take Sandy and go on a wonderful vacation. Every time, he moans about who will watch the pets, especially Delilah, that petsitters only come in and go. I told him that there are some petsitters who will overnight at a client's home and that I had been one of them. "My rates are reasonable," I said.

"Now you tell me," He said, just as he was leaving for Dallas minus Mrs. Hirschberg.

I've reminded him of that several times.

I'm doing this not just because Wes, for all his Woody Allen doubts and whining, is a good guy, but because I remember how it grieved me that my aunt Jodie and my mom both turned away from the world, even when they were still feeling well enough to have visitors and go places.

Believe it or not, I try not to push. Wes knows his own business and so does Sandy. The offer is there. They can investigate further or let it lie.

Meanwhile, I get Thanksgiving with people who seem genuinely happy that I'm coming to share a meal with them and if it doesn't rain too hard, I might get to walk to the alpaca farm just down the road.