Blursday

A Day Without Rosy is like...

A day when I get work done. Seriously.

Because she got there first at Big Finance, she got the choice part of the cubicle. Now that she is gone, I spent the first half hour at work switching my PC and phone to the choice part of the cubicle. And then I got work done.

Yesterday was sad. Every time I looked at her, I thought, no more Rosy. People always say they'll stay in touch, but you lose sight of each other.

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Why It's Good to Have A Neighbor With Kids

Because I can walk away from the quarter watermelons for $5, instead buy a whole one for $4, split it in half and give the rest to my neighbor.

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Things I Can Eat Until My Belly Hurts

Watermelon
Butter chicken with fresh buttered naan
Papri chaat
Good chicken & dumplings
Pad Thai
Pie
Cake
Kozy Shack Rice Pudding

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Our Tricksy Brains

Our brains are very tricksy things, they are. Oh, they try to help us, but it's all a trick.

I'm reading What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains: The Shallows. I try not to think about my brain because I'm just waiting for it to go all "the station is off the air".

Apparently, our brains are plastic and elastic. But, of course, in a tricky way.

Hm. Let me work hard to find an analogy. Let's say that instead of driving my car to work, I have to roller skate instead. My brain will work on setting me up so that I get very, very good at roller skating. And after a year of roller skating, my skating skills are breath-taking, as are my mighty thighs, but I can't drive worth a damn. My depth perception, my perception of speed, my acknowledging of potential road hazards are now all screwed up. And it would take me a long time to acquire my old car driving skills.

Hm. Not quite what I wanted to get across.

Let's say that when I was seven, I had rheumatic fever. That the adults around me were so scared that permanent damage would be done to my heart that they tiptoed around me. My activities at school are severely curtailed. When I get home from school, I go straight to bed. People whisper about how scared they are that I'll have a heart attack.

When the danger is passed and I'm pronounced healthy, my brain is still so stuck in the pattern of seeing myself as ill that the perception is almost impossible to move around.

Your brain is not necessarily your friend. But you can work it. In fact, you should work it, and hard.

It's a good book.

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I Condole You

I have received a surprising number of sympathy cards on Katy's passing. Her ashes are still in my car. I need to nag myself a little harder about bringing her inside.

I miss her every day. I still have passwords set up using various nicknames I gave her over the course of her life.

The people in the "Safe Haven" program told me that when I sent in a description of Katy, I described her as the queen of the household. And for about five years, she was.

Now that crown has been passed on to that Richard III of cats, Taylor. She cracks me up at least once every day and I fiercely love her general pissyness. She won't take anything off anybody. Even when no one is giving her anything.

I was sorting through an area where I have leashes and I came across Katy's harness that I used to take her outside. I didn't do that for so long. I feel guilty about it.

And I feel guilty about not playing with and generally adoring the cats that I have.

I'm still stuck on the pause button. All I want to do is sleep. And eat watermelon. Which reminds me, I should make sure I've got a clear path between where I'm sleeping and the smallest room in the house tonight.

I love watermelon.