Category Archives: William

George and Kirby, momo, photo, pru, William

29 Days of Blog – Kitten Parents


Under that blanket is Wil. He’s sleeping after working the night shift. The kittens are “helping” him. It’s an amazing picture because they were actually napping along side him, nice and quiet. They woke up when I came in to put away some clean socks.

Wil and I have different animal parenting techniques. Mine is influenced by my uncle Skip, who was a vet. He told me, when I adopted Pru, that I should never feed her immediately after getting up in the morning or she would learn to wake me up when she wanted food. So I used to feed her as I was walking out the door to work. Prudence had plenty of issues, but she was very patient and polite in the morning. I use the same strategy with George and Kirby. Wil does not.

Wil is a big softy. After Momo passed, Pru came out of her shell with him and trained him to give her treats every time he walked in or out the front door. Or when she just gave him a sweet look. He was so thrilled that she finally liked him, he was easily trained.

The boys have taken it one step further. They have trained him to give them treats whenever they annoy him. Kirby will sit on his chest, when he is sleeping and yowl. And he will GET UP AND GIVE THEM BOTH TREATS. To distract them. Do you see the flaw in this technique? They also like to annoy him when he’s playing computer games. They crawl all over the keyboard and sit in front of the monitor. He gets frustrated so he gets up AND GIVES THEM TREATS. He also gives them treats when he walks in and out of the front door. Or they meow sweetly, giving him cute kitten face.

Big softy. Big sleepy softy.

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Canada, William

Love on the Rocks

Now, I think I’ve made my feelings on this clear, I thought I did. However, Wm and I had the following conversation yesterday.

Wm: Hey, they’ve announced the locations for the first 24 Target stores coming to Canada.

Me: Really? Are any of them near us?

Wm: I don’t know, I didn’t  look.

Me: ……… DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME AT ALL????

 

The answer, btw, is Yes, he loves me. The other answer is No, every single one of those 24 Target stores are in Ontario. You think they would split them up among the all the provinces. Stupid Toronto.

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momo, William

Momino

If you are friends with me on Facebook, or follow me on twitter, you may know that our cat, Momo has been sick. She developed cancer in her leg. And the outlook was pretty grim.

After her diagnosis, we kept a close eye on her, gave her topical pain meds every few hours, and tried to determine when we were no longer able to keep her comfortable. That day turned out to be last Thursday.

Momo was our lovey cat. She loved everyone except Pru. She was soft like satin, all black with a little white patch on her tummy you were not allowed to touch. She loved lying in sunbeams, and when she did, she looked like she was made of dark chocolate. She was very generous with kisses.

She was not a slim cat. Somehow she managed to give the impression of fat cheeks. The vet called her a “round breed.” But watching her walk away, one got the impression of a watermelon with toothpick legs. And a plum sized head. She had tiny paws on the end of stick legs, and an amazing ability to know just where your most tender parts where. All the better to bruise them with her “sticks.”

Wil called her The Annoy-a-tron 5000. I’m pretty sure Momo referred to him in the same manner. Privately. Publicly she called him Poppi. ( That started about the time I moved in, coincidentally. She called me The Lady. ) He was never more appealing than when he was playing video games. She just had to kiss his face and his hands and crawl in his lap.  She was never more appealing to him than when she was minding her own business, or trying to get away from him. They slept together, they watched tv together, they were best friends.

I will miss my baby Momo. My snuggly kissy cat.

 

 

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depression, Weight Watchers, Wellness Wheel, William

There is a fine line between enabling and sabotaging – Wm.

Today I will be going to the gym for the third time this week. I don’t want to. I want, so badly, to find some way to entice Wm to just come home after work so we can eat potato chips and baked goods and watch Thursday night comedies. But I won’t. I’ll meet him at the gym and do my first week walking workout.

This winter was not our best for responsible behavior, I have to admit. Wm was dealing with the low feelings that come with unemployment and I was dealing with a resurgence of depression and, unbeknownst to me, anemia. Neither of us were too interested in keeping the house clean. I didn’t have the energy to make healthy changes for myself, let alone encourage him to make them. I could barely stay awake the entire day. It wasn’t pretty and the house was a pig stye. And the idea of doing anything about was entirely too overwhelming. Story of my life.

Then Wm said, “We are killing each other.”

That was upsetting because it was true. We were feeding into each others worse most unhealthy and irresponsible behaviors. And it was a real wake up call for me. I wanted to be something good in his life, not something that drug him down into my depression.

Ever since that day, I’ve been making baby steps towards making a healthy life for both us. Three weeks on iron pills has made a world of difference in my energy level. I’ve switched to a different antidepressant. A 15 mins of cleaning/ 15 mins not cleaning system has helped me start getting the house in order. We’ve both been working on better habits to keep a tidy house.

Wm’s been making friends at work, and hanging out with them, which makes him happy. Last night, I even went out with them. I don’t mind being the only girl. It’s cool. I need to get out of the house more.

I’ve begun to bring home fewer chips and more fruits and vegetables. We’ve discussed going on Weight Watchers, and the dietary changes I’ve been making are leading up to that. Again, starting immediately just seemed so overwhelming. So we babystep. This week we’ve started meeting at the gym after Wm gets off work.

And that is why I will not try to entice Wm to just come home after work and play Portal 2. Because we’d rather love each other than kill each other.

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Apple, Sims 3, William

I apologize in advance..

I will be unable for visiting, conversing, housework, meal preparation, bill paying and… pretty much everything until further notice. The Sims Medieval is released today. I can’t download my limited edition until 10 am PST. I imagine it will take a long time to download. And that pains me.

I broke down, liquidated some assets (so to speak) and bought the new MacBook Pro I’ve been threatening to buy since the Sims 3 came out. The last expansion pack rendered it unplayable on my old one. I couldn’t even play Civ V at all when it came out. And that’s one of the three. WoW, Civ, and the Sims.

It’s gorgeous. I’m in love with it. I play the sims on the highest graphic settings and it flies! 15 inches of glossy, graphic glory. I named it Persephone, but I should have called it Speed Racer. It’s all I can do not to smudge up it’s glossy monitor with smooches.

And before you ask (mom) while I might not be an ideal wife for the next few days, I hardly think Wil is one to begrudge me a few solid hours of game playing. Considering GTA, Fallout 3, Batman Arkum Asylum, GT5, Fight Nights 3 and 4, all of the Hitmen, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. As long as he has clean clothes for work.

He should lower his expectation for meal preparation. If that’s even possible, bless him.

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pru, William

Sleeping

I’ve been working on a post about my recent sleep apnea diagnosis. Truth be told, I can not do it justice unless I include a picture of me wearing a CPAC mask. I have not yet been able to bring myself to do that. I have no trouble looking goofy, as you are well aware. But I do have a probably with my round, fat face. I miss my cheekbones.

In the meantime, here is a favorite, albeit grainy, picture of Pru and Wm taking a nap together. Rarely does Pru allow anyone but me to sleep next to her like that, so it was a momentous victory for Wil. You can tell she’s recently had her annual lion cut. Look at that belly!

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Canada, William

Can This Marriage Be Saved?

About a month ago, I was down south, in Seattle, because I had some appointments. I mentioned something to Wil about running an errand at Target. The following conversation ensued:

Wm: Hey, did you hear, Zellers bought Target.

Me: No they didn’t.

Wm: Yes, they did.

Me: No, if anything, Target bought Zellars. They were trying to do that several years back.

Wm: Whatever. The point is, Target is coming to Canada. I heard something about it a couple of weeks ago.

Me: Now I know you are lying.

Wm: No I’m not.

Me: You are because you know me, we’ve been married for 3 and a half years. You know my feelings about Target. There is no way you’d let that news sit for TWO FUCKING WEEKS without telling me.

Can you believe that shit? It is true, tho. They won’t be here until 2013, and chances are all 220 of the first stores will be surrounding Toronto and in Edmonton. Everything is either in Toronto or in Edmonton. At the West Ed.

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William

Some bad habits I’ve picked in the New Year

I realize it’s only Jan. 3rd, but when it comes to bad habits, I’m aces.

1. Drinking diet pepsi straight from the 2 liter bottle. To be fair, Wil is not drinking diet pepsi right now. And I really do not like dirtying a glass for no reason. I call it efficient and GREEN. Wil calls it White Trash.

2. We Farm and We City. I never played Farmville, but I am guessing this is a similar idea. I play it on my iPad, but I get push notifications on my iphone when it’s time to harvest my crops, send an animal to the fair, or ship my cans of soda. I spend a lot of time downloading free partner aps and deleting them to get free coin/gold. It’s all about the coinage/gold, kids.

3. I’ve become nocturnal again. Went to bed at 7am. So easy to do, so hard to get back to normal.

So to hell with resolutions, let’s celebrate anti-resolutions!

What are your anti-resolutions?

Don’t have any yet? Lollygagger.

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Sims 3, William

Generation gap

Here is what I have been doing. Wil and I are playing the sims together. By together I mean each on our own computers. We are doing a legacy challenge. 

Briefly, the legacy challenge is 10 generations, all created in one house. The game ends the day your 10th generation baby is born. There are certain conditions (you start on a huge lot which leaves you only $1300 and no house. All traits have to be randomly selected.) and rules. You get points for certain things and there is absolutely no cheating. Which is hard for me. 
This has consumed our lives. It’s not a quick game. It takes many many hours to raise ten generation. You get points for being successful in things, like fulfilling life wishes, so it behooves your to raise them well. 
I might be ahead in points, but Wil’s family is far more interesting and tragic. First, even though traits are randomly assigned, his sims have a strange proclivity towards Evil. His sims always seem doomed in some way. Insanity seems to pop up at least once a generation in mine. 
I have made it to the 5th generation. I used to have a family plot of graves out back of my house, but after having 4 different ghosts takes up most of the beds in the house one night (you can’t get them off of them either) I had to move them all to the local graveyard. My sims had bad days the next day due to extreme sleepiness. Stoopid ghosts. 
I’m not kidding when I tell you it has consumed our lives. We’ve had a bunch dinners that have consisted of sandwiches, cereal or “whatever you can find.” So not a lot to blog about unless you want Peabody family updates. If you are interested, you can read about the legacy challenge rules right here. 
I did do a meme today, however, which I will post right after this. 
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