Did you know that if you cry in front of Duncan he will use his big fat paws to mop the tears off your cheeks and then he will lick your eyes until you start giggling and then he will try to chew your hospital bracelet off your wrist?
I don’t know why I was crying. I don’t cry very often. Nothing was hurting and I wasn’t sad. I just needed a good cry, I guess. (But the next time I need a good cry, I’ll lock Duncan out of the room. He’s such a big softie.)
Red jello
I’m not supposed to sit very much. No more than three times a day for 20 minutes for the first month, I think. The written instructions aren’t very clear. The rest of the time I guess I’m supposed to be lying down or standing up. I mean, what else is there, really? It’s kind of weird, because my whole life has pretty much revolved around sitting down for the last few months.
Last night I knit for a few hours, lying down. I started a sock. Then I made a mistake and that was the end of that. I can’t fix my own knitting mistakes, unless they’re in plain stocking stitch. Even then.
GC and I went button shopping yesterday at Darrel Thomas’s new fabric store on Preston Street. It’s button paradise over there. I wasn’t entirely happy with the sheep button I got for the baby sweater, so I thought I’d see what Darrel has. He’s got an amazing selection, and a God-given button-picking talent.
He picked out a couple of possibilities while GC said, “Well, what about this one? This one’s nice.”
“Nothing personal,” said Darrel cheerfully, “But we don’t generally listen to men in this store.”
“Oh,” said GC, who scored almost perfect on the online colour hue test.
Darrel found a stunning little blue button for the sweater.
“I love it,” I said.
“It’s nice,” said GC, who doesn’t give up easily, “But it kind of gets lost on the sweater. The pink one would pop more.”
Darrel decided to humour him. He placed the pink button on one side of the sweater and the blue button on the other.
“Watch,” he said, picking up a shoe box, “Keep your eye on the button.”
Then he covered the blue button with the shoe box. Then the pink one. Back to the blue. The pink. The blue. The pink. The blue. Faster and faster! Pink! Blue! Pink! Blue! Pink! Blue!
Finally he stopped.
Darrel looked me in the eye.
“He’s right,” he said.
GC grinned a great big grin, having vindicated the button-picking talents of all men once and for all. I bought the pink button.
In other news I’ve been asked to publicize a couple of things on the blog. One is the City of Ottawa’s Green Bin program. I don’t know much about it myself, other than it’s about putting out our organic waste to create compost. But I guess I’ll find out more.
The other is the upcoming Global Leadership Forum on Cancer Control. I haven’t had time to check it out, but it appears to be a two-pronged thing – a conference at the Westin Hotel next week, and a parallel public process called Community Conversations.
Yay, you got jello after all!
Curse you for posting a link to an online skill test. Yet another distraction! I got a 14; not sure if that’s good or not. Apparently my turquoises and aquamarines are a bit off, which explains why I can never determine which is which.
– RG>
If I were you, I’d be renting and watching all the tearjerker movies just to get Duncan to do that. (or would he know the difference between sad-movie-tears and sincerely-felt-personal tears?)
What a blessing that Duncan is. Actually, GC, too.
Glad to see you well on your way along the upswing from all your medical issues.
While we went through the years of adolescent angst with three daughters and their entourage there was usually a cat parked outside one of the bedroom doors. This indicated that the occupant was having a good cry. Sometimes the door was mine; see first sentence. Lucky and Ramona will always search out tears. You could try locking Duncan out but I think he’ll know.
I’m sure you’ll find a good use for the sheep button. Have GC run out to get some yarn to go with!
does that cat get enough salt? i knew a venezuelan parrot who was a visionary in the field of manic depression (as well as musically psychic); i scored zero – perhaps darryl might consider a non-speaking role (‘womannequin’?)
Yay, red jello! Yay, walking! Yay, good buttons!
And thanks for the Kegel reminder in the last post. You can never get that too often.
I love jello – he’s a good man that GC.
Anesthetic just makes me cry. I can’t explain it but post-op I usually end up sobbing for no reason…
I think cats probably like the taste of salt in tears. Also maybe intrigued by the sound of a human crying because it sounds more like cat language than regular human talking voices?
Glad to hear that you’ve finished with your surgery and are well enough to be out and about already! That’s a good sign that you’re on your way back to normality.
GC is a good man. Not just the jello and raspberries, but also the fact that he would go button shopping with you!
By the way I took that hue test and scored zero, i.e., a perfect score. The last time I took it some months ago I had got a near-perfect score, I think 1 or 2 or something like that, I forget what. The trick is, once you think you’re done with one row of tiles, to work your way across the row again shifting each tile, one at a time, one place back and then looking at the shifted tile and comparing it with its neighbour that it just jumped over to see if it looks right or not. If it looks wrong in its new place, i.e. too red or too blue or whatever, you move it back.
Last time I did the test I didn’t go back to re-check like that so I missed a couple. When you compare them in pairs like that, it’s quite obvious. Maybe it’s not surprising that I am good at distinguishing colours since I see colours on many things that do not really have colours such as numbers and letters (I have synesthesia) and even on those things I can distingush different hues, e.g., A and 2 are different shades of red, O and 0 are different shades of white, and so on. (Anybody else see colours on As and 2s? If you do, you’ll understand what I mean. If you don’t, you’ll think I’m crazy)
If ever you need someone to go button shopping and colour matching with you and GC is unavailable, give me a shout!
The anaesthetic…that stuff makes me cry every time. And isn’t Darrell an absolute sweetie????? And I love his new store. You just want to flop on that couch and look at things….well, maybe not for you at this time, but later on….
Welcome back home, and the Jello is gorgeous! And if you ever need a lesson on “fixing” your knitting, I’m your girl!
I took the hue test, scored a 59.. mostly in the blues, which is interesting as I’m red-green colour blind.
Most of my errors were in the blues, that is.
Doing Kegels as I type this. May you have all the orange, red and pink your heart desires.
If I have to go to the hospital, I’m taking you for company and inspiration. Glad you’re home. Take care!
I’m not sure about animals being attracted to the salt. If they were, they’d be constantly trying to lick your eyeballs or the inside of your nose. It distresses my dogs, but not my cats, when I’m upset. The dogs walk around trying to figure out what to do. The cats, well, they just get up and leave.
Now I’m not sure if I’m good with colours or not. I got a 24 the first time and a 4 the second. I’ve decided to quit while I’m ahead. But at least I know who to contact now when I need colour help.
Wow, I got a 3
First time
With each blog post, I love Duncan a little more! Erik does often come up when you’re crying, but then he always comes up 😛
Smu used to flatten her ears, put her tail between her legs and slink away in horror/terror whenever I cried. She wasn’t the best comfort cat 😛
The whole Ottawa green bin debacle makes me alternately laugh and tear my hair out in frustration. They’re acting like they invented this amazing new idea for composting and that it’s so crazy and revolutionary it requires decades of thought and research and “pilot programs”. I may do a post on it myself if you don’t
I saw one of those green bins at the Sandy Hill Park opening yesterday I want a little one for my apartment. Apparently apartment dwellers will be added to this ‘plan’ eventually.
I have to find that button place on Preston, I miss the little Bank St button place I used to go to when I had projects that required buttons.
Peter is also really good at choosing buttons and he has even bought me some fabric at Darrell’s that I loved. I really have to get over there to his new store!
(also ‘with’ the grain) – biologists claim that cats have learned to incorporate the sound of a crying baby, in an irresistable manipulation of the wanton nourisher in (most) of us (which is actually a very good thing, right?)
What a sweetie of a cat.
The button comparison speed test was fun.