because he turned his ear to me...and new plans

I got a raise yesterday. A substantial one. One that slightly exceeds my salary at the Center (and that's only based on a 35-hour work week). And, since it's hourly, it has potential to be even more.

So, yeah, I cried. In gratitude, and relief. I worked out a new budget -- one that will allow me to pay my bills, live comfortably, pay off my various debts within two years, and save.

I feel...settled. Or on the way to being so.

My summer project: Produce picking! My boss's wife is getting rid of her deep freezer, and giving it to me. (She won't take any money for it. I'm trying to figure out how -- or whether -- to sneak in a "loan to the business," since I help work on the books from time to time. I can do stubborn, too. But I don't want them getting mad at me, and I always have massive conflict about taking gifts, especially when they've done so much for me, and I feel like I have nothing to hand them back and I don't EVER want to look or feel or have them feel like I'm mooching or taking advantage, but I want to just accept the gift if that's what they really want.) I'm pretty sure it will fit and be able to plug into the basement. Hello, strawberries, green beans, cherries, peaches, blueberries, rhubarb, applesauce, and corn! Hello, canned tomatoes! Hello, jam and jelly! Hello, grape juice! These are all the things Mom used to can and freeze when I was a tyke, and it helped us save a lot of money. Plus I plan on learning to master the pie this summer, and when I want pie, I don't want canned pie filling, and I don't want to shell out buku bucks on store-frozen fruit. Gimme the real deal, the locally grown, hand-picked, straight-from-the-mouth-of-summer goodness. And I get to play with other things, like dilly beans and pickles.

I find I'm increasingly restless if I don't have an ongoing Susie Homemaker project to keep me occupied, so I think that one's going to do nicely for this summer, now that my apartment is nearly perfected. It also means I get to buy new kitchen toys (which will fit beautifully into my new sparkling budget): a fruit-and-vegetable strainer and grinder attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer, a pressure cooker, a juicer. It'll mean sweltering days laboring over boiling water in the kitchen in August, newspapers spread with peaches all over the basement floor, hot jars of grape juice taking up all my counterspace in the fall. [Lovely sigh of delight.]

But first my landlord needs to get his @$$ in gear and fix the frame of the basement door, which someone attempted to break into a few weeks ago, and which !surprise! hasn't been fixed yet.

Which leads me to my next big project, which will be taking place over the next year, two at the most: buying a house. Yes, folks, I'm ready to put the renter's life down in favor of a mortgage. I'm thinking a small house, with a small upstairs and a small basement, lots of room for Simon to frolic, a yard for light gardening, MY OWN SPACE. No one else's music blasting the soles of my feet through the floor, no one else banging up my stairs at ungodly (or not my) hours, no arguing with or bothering or pestering the landlord to fix in three weeks what can be fixed in three days, no negotiating costs with anyone (I'll have to pay for everything, ulgh, but the responsibility is worth the freedom). MINE. Safer neighborhood. Room to put guests. A couch-sized couch. Dining space. Closet space. Cupboard space. LAUNDRY. My very own piano, waiting for me in my parents' dining room.

So yes, I'm moving up the By-the-Time-I'm-Thirty-One-I-Will-Have Goals considerably (the house was the real biggie; a king-sized bed and a dog will follow naturally), but it's time. Like in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door -- it's time to Deepen. I've been whirling around in my young adulthood in a farandolaic frenzy, and it's been fun, and I've learned a lot...but it's time to Deepen, stop running around, be still, root, unfurl my fronds and become a mitochondria.

I'll probably relocate to Michigan. The housing market in Niles, just north of the Bend, is decently reasonable, it will be nice to deal with taxes from only one state, and I won't have to pay what amounts to a property tax on my car every year like I do in Indiana. Plus in my time in the Midwest I've fallen head-over-heels in love with Michigan (not so much with Indiana). Niles is a big enough town to have all the necessary big stores -- Lowe's, Meijer, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut -- as well as the smaller, quainter shops and markets -- and Niles is close enough to South Bend to merit a trip to the Farmer's Market, visits to friends, etc. But the factors that made South Bend more ideal than Michigan -- namely, proximity to all the "happenin' places" -- don't matter much anymore. I seldom go out; I prefer to visit, or entertain at home, or entertain myself at home and hang out with Simon. I enjoy my quiet life. And if I like it this much, I might as well move to a more scenic location and line a nest that is truly mine, closer to Lake Michigan, fruit picking...and Meg and Phillip. :)

i suck at money

Well, it's time to crack back down on the old finances.

Taking a four thousand dollar pay cut from my job at the Center to this one has been harder than I thought, and I'm seeing the difficulty over time. Fortunately my pay now is hourly, so if I put in the work, I get the pay; but I've been wearing myself out and my spending habits still need adjustment.

This week is pay week and I'm going back to the cash-only system -- no more debit card. (Debit card = evil.)

The irritating thing is that I don't go insane and buy things like new cars or expensive clothes...I buy little things, like bedspreads, cupboards, and wooden crates. But they still add up. It just doesn't seem fair. But I have medical bills to pay off -- mine and the gato's -- so there you have it. I'm going to be eating a lot of leftovers, buying fewer groceries, and living simpler...and paying only with cash. And when the weekly cash allowance is gone...tough.

Sigh. Time to go roll up the sleeves...

well, hi there

Yesterday was hot. Blazing hot, after six weeks in the single-digit degrees. Having celebrated the advent of Spring by shaving, I wore a pretty, flowy brown skirt that hits about mid-calf and a flower-print blouse over a tangerine tanktop. After work, I took off the blouse, leaving me in the tank -- modest straps, V-neck with some fun half-ruffling that comes a little low, empire cut -- which, while not in any way immodest, is admittedly on the clingy side. To complete the attire I wore casual open-backed sandals with chunky heels, big dangly bronze earrings with matching necklace, and sunglasses.

So I stopped at a gas station on the way home, one with an open garage attached, which I passed on my way inside, and as I walked in and approached the guy behind the counter, he stepped back and his eyes went enormously wide in a strange combination of delight, appreciation, recognition, and horror -- which I didn't understand until I heard the walkie-talkie in his hand -- presumably connecting him to the garage -- crackle and roar, "OH. MY. GOD."

Looking half-protective and half like he wanted to fall through the floor a few feet, the attendant said into the talkie, "Don't say anything. Mike. Don't--say--ANYTHING." He then proceeded to wait on me in an effusion of demonstrated apology, which I found cute, even offering to throw away the garbage I was digging out of my purse, and as he was ringing me up, he muttered, "I don't want him to say anything."

I thanked him, smiled, and left.

But see, those kinds of experiences always leave me feeling weird. Not so much like a bombshell, but like I've grown a tail or I'm bleeding profusely or there's toilet paper sticking to my back or something I don't know about.

Still, it was funny.

update

After three consecutive days at the Animal ER (I have now met all the rotating physicians and most of the assistants and they know my cat and my voice), Simon's systems seem to be in mostly working order. He had a urinary blockage, so they had to catheterize and flush him out, and then he wouldn't use the litterbox at all, so last night I had to lock him in my bedroom with the litterbox and a bowl of water until he peed. But this morning he did his business as usual, so I think everything's going to pan out (haha), and now I'm just left to recover from the exhaustion of the headaches and a weekend of no sleep and stress and worry about the cat and the finances.

I've been holding up fairly well under it all -- it's taken me until today to start getting irritable, which is pretty remarkable. Simon has a follow-up with the regular vet on Saturday, and I've been seeing my doctors here in town about the headaches, which continue to a lesser degree, and which we still suppose are mainly sinus-infection-related (nasssty, evil, longlasting sinus infection), so hopefully after a couple of weeks I'll have more or less fully recovered.

In the meantime...damn, I'm tired. I think it's time to do what the Momster suggested awhile back, and switch for the time being to Styrofoam bowls and paper plates, because I just don't freaking have the energy to wash dishes. Sad, very sad.

blessed be

So, my headaches are better, but now Simon is bad again.

The temporary verdict on the headaches is that it's a sinus infection from January, which I never treated, and which never actually went away. The young, "chill" doctor at the U of M reluctantly prescribed an antibiotic and the strongest dosage of Motrin a human being is capable of consuming (as he said), and the combination has been delightfully, amazingly effective.

Laura and Keith are visiting this weekend (and for some reason, having that extra parking space behind my house for overnight guests -- since the neighbors across the hall don't have a car -- makes me feel like a real grown-up), and we were settling in last night on stomachs burgeoning with good Mexican food to watch some Star Wars when Simon's ear-splitting shrieks cut through the Mos Eisley Cantina music. I called the Animal ER (a number I never really wanted to have saved into my phone) and we packed him up and took him over. Three endless, hot hours later (that place, so freaking cold the last time I visited, was a furnace last night) we left with nothing very conclusive but a few suggestions.

The vet thinks he may have a UTI. The ultrasound revealed no stones in his bladder or kidneys, but his bladder was completely empty, so they couldn't do a urinalysis. So she prescribed an antibiotic anyway. She thinks he may have torn something in his leg or hips (the injury from last time) and it resurfaced because I hung a new cabinet in the kitchen which he figured out how to jump on top of (it's much higher than the top of my head), and he possibly has some early onset arthritis. So she also prescribed an anti-inflammatory. She also wrote a prescription, based upon my reports of his difficulty with urination (because all of his problems, even the pain in his hips, arise when he attempts to use the litterbox), for a medication for urethra spasms (a human medication which I would have to fill at a people pharmacy).

I like this vet because she basically said, This will get you through the weekend until you can see your regular doctor on Monday, which will be Much Cheaper. (It's eighty bucks just for walking through the ER door, plus whatever they do for him.) So I took him home and dosed him up and fell in bed...and woke up to him crying in the litterbox at 8:30 this morning. So I threw on shoes and a jacket and drove to the (completely empty) 24-hour CVS to get the people pills, only to be told by the lazy-ass pharmacist on duty that they wouldn't have it ready until tomorrow, at which point I took the prescription across the street to the 24-hour Walgreens and told THAT pharmacist I was having some trouble getting it filled and needed it today, and he said he could do that, but it would take at least an hour to mix up the dosage, which is totally fine.

So I'm waiting till I can go pick it up, and loving up my little guy, and trying not to plan for the worst (which Laura says is ineffective thinking anyway, because you can never actually prepare for the worst, so it's not worth getting all worked up about), but really it's horrendously stressful to spend all my time at home listening for him to use the litterbox and waiting for him to start crying and growling and licking himself and not being able to do a damn thing to make it better. And he's such a sweetheart too. He never bites, he never holds a grudge, and when it's bad, he comes dragging himself looking for me.

Sigh.

Now, onto something completely unrelated, and that's Star Wars. I was deceived by misleading packaging into buying the version of the originals that I didn't want. I wanted the Originals. The old, campy, filmed-in-somebody's-half-dug-swimming-pool originals. The ones I watched through my childhood, the ones that spawned hundreds of thousands of bad fan fic, the ones my parents went to on dates ("in my beginning is my end"), those ones. So I bought the boxed set that said "the classic movies." I thought "digitally restored and remastered" meant, you know, touched up a little bit.

No, no. It meant full of all the technocrap that George Lucas can't seem to help putting into his stuff. Mr. Worship the Force of Technology. High Priest Sacrifice the Story on the Altar of Special Effects. Captain Forget the Plot, Lookee What I Can Do!

I was all caught up in the hype when the Special Edition Episodes IV-VI came out, like almost everyone else; but it wore off quickly, and in the wake of sharp disappointment in Episodes I-III I haven't been in the mood to watch anything Star Wars until now...and then I wanted to go back to the beginning. To the before. The genesis.

And I couldn't. No, the Tattooine canyon R2-D2 first travels through just had to be changed to look more "alien." The Mos Eisley streets had to be crawling with digital alien rats. The people walking around had to be edited out and replaced by dinosaur-type critters.

Meanwhile there are droids walking around made of garbage cans. And Shop Vacs. And cameras. And clowns. Did we edit those out to make them look cooler? No.

See, and there's where the problem lies. Lucas was so excited to dispense his "original vision" to everyone that he forgot his original effect -- that the true glory of the first Episodes IV-VI lay in their campiness, in their home-done touches, in their "let's use what we have to hand" methodology. Maybe in his head it was all perfect. But if the technology had been able to support his orginal vision, I'm thinking they all would have been as bad as the most recent three, and we'd only be watching them now through the sarcastic lens of Mystery Science Theater. Because the originals had heart. They were campy. Some of the effects were bad. And when you take away that obvious humor -- haha, look, that droid is a garbage can! -- you take away what made the story fun as well as poignant. You take away most of the audience connectivity. And you completely erase the nostalgia.

Which, since he didn't do that entirely -- didn't make over every cheesy effect, every silly puppet -- but only added a few things like rats and dinosaurs and ambulatory Jabbas, he created, instead of something even more glorious and cohesive, something choppy and dissonant. You jump from trash cans and hovercraft races against a blue screen to way too sharp and clear backdrops replete with state-of-the-art, soulless digital aliens about whom you care nothing. And then back again. He made his epic schizophrenic. There's a subjective breakdown in the delivery of the narrative. And it sucks.

So I had to take back the deceptive "classic" version and buy instead the "Limited Edition" version that includes, as a bonus, the original theatrical releases.

So not only is George Lucas a big sellout prostitute to his own imagination, and a big liar on his packaging, he's trying to pretend that the originals never even existed, and hoping to wipe them from the memory of the earth.

Yeah, right.

the thorn in my head

The headache is back. I stayed home from work yesterday. My boss's wife is taxiing me up to Ann Arbor today to see about getting a referral to a specialist. These don't seem like normal migraines. I'm wondering if they're somehow psychosomatic, stress- or depression-related, and what can be done to avert them.

I think I need to get back in therapy.

Looks like money's going to get tighter. But that's okay; I need to get better.

Anyway. Looking at a computer screen hurts. I'll keep you posted.

i will never challenge Monday again

Do you hear that, Monday? I give up. I surrender. I will slink through your corridors with my head meekly down and try to stay out of your way. I will keep my gloves off and my fists tucked in my pockets. I will wear a raincoat and a suit of armor. But I'm out of the boxing ring. You win.

Because my right uppercut is nasty, but Monday's left hook is worse.

Last Monday and the Monday before it were hell. I spent each minute writhing in internal agony. There was definite gnashing of teeth. This one isn't too much better -- after a weekend of nonstop activity (however pleasant, nonstop activity just plumb wears me out) and one missed dose of my antidepressant, I woke up with that never-ending headache and an exhaustion that would drop a bear.

Fortunately my visit to the new doctor went very well. I was favorably impressed with his personable professionalism, his brisk pace, and his apparently instant understanding of my headaches and allergies. I am now on a daily preventative migraine medication, and am armed with a stronger dosage of the as-needed migraine meds I already had (because the bad days will come. I get that; even on an anti-d, I get what I call Bad Head Days), and am going back on my old, beloved, faithful allergy medication that I had to stop taking after college because I had zero/crappy health insurance. Yay!

The phones are ringing off the hook at work, I have no time to get my other tasks accomplished, and everyone who calls has been saving up all their panic over the bad things that happened to them on the weekend to pour into my ear today. Which is fine; a lot of these people have to deal with some serious crap, and I don't mind being a listening ear. It's just hard to do the juggling act.

But I did have it out with my sworn enemy, FedEx (oh yeah -- their incompetence with an auction incident regarding the Center last year was on the list of Bogus Reasons For Letting Me Go -- I spent WEEKS on the phone tracking a Huge Expensive Package that they, oh yes, lost, which became somehow my fault -- because I'm in charge of a nationwide company's royal screwup in losing Muhammad Ali memorabilia in Utah), about an invoice for an item we never shipped. The package was sent from somewhere in Texas to somewhere in Texas (we've never done business with anyone in Texas) by someone who's never worked at my office. And I won that round. So that's a feather in my hide-from-Monday camo cap.

I've been making some huge life decisions this weekend, and I think I'm finally finding some direction in my What Do I Do With My Life dilemma, which has been plaguing me for three years now, so I'm terribly excited about that. It means another year or two in the Bend, and then...possibilities. It also means I'm going to be getting a lot more involved at church, and writing a whole lot more.

And with that teaser, I bid my faithful audience (whoever remains) adieu for the remainder of Monday. I have to put on my Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak and duck out into the hall.

there aren't enough apples in the world

Why is it so hard to find a good physician?

Let's take a quick survey, shall we?

High school: A crazy woman with an extremely uncomfortable physical presence who never told you what she was doing until she did it (first mammogram = blechy, scary, freaky, etc.).

College: A grumpy volunteer physician who hated his volunteer hours at the college clinic and overprescribed Vicodin for me in the days when I knew nothing about narcotics, thus sparking an unnecessary and terrifying detox period that I had to do on my own. (The stuff is addictive after three DAYS. He prescribed it to me for four WEEKS.)

South Bend Year 1: A series of free clinics (nod to no insurance), most of them actually not all that scary, but run by basically powerless doctors who could barely prescribe antibiotics.

South Bend Year 2: A doctor at a cheap clinic who told me I was bipolar after talking with me for two minutes and sent Mormon missionaries to my door.

South Bend Year 3: A doctor who did everything (chiropractic adjustments on my neck, prescriptions for mild pain relievers that made me sleepy at work) except prescribe a migraine medication...for my migraine.

This last gent isn't all that bad, but he isn't all that great either, and thanks to double-booking bumped me out of my appointment today (his secretary was exceptionally snotty in informing me. Okay, yes, I was late, I got what I deserved, but I didn't deserve that tone of voice. And I object to double-booking on principle). Which I made because the migraine is back. Grr.

So, being the hot-headed, proactive me that I am, I zoomed back to the office in a transmission-roaring rage and found a new family doctor. I see this next specimen on Monday. God only knows if that will be any better, but it's worth a shot.

Finding a good doctor is almost worse than finding a church. (Almost.) You never know what kind of person you'll run into -- a quack, a creep, an asshole, a fool, a blowhard, a megalomaniac, an incompetent -- the list goes on -- but you keep trying in the effort to find SOMEone who can actually help you, and whose staff utilize professionalism.

Of course, as I was informed by the accounts manager at one of the hospitals I'm paying bills for, medicine isn't an exact science. There's a lot of trial and error involved, and I get that. But surely a migraine medication for the worst headache of someone's life isn't too big a diagnostic leap? Particularly after the doctor has informed the patient that ongoing migraine disorder is a common development among women in their twenties?

Anyway. Now I have to check with my insurance to see if they cover the newbie. (They don't cover much of the current guy either.) I hope I wasn't rash. (Har.) I'm tired of being unthrilled with my physicians. The best one I've ever seen, and with whom I'm still a patient, is 3.5 hours away, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; but seeing him and missing an entire day of work just isn't practical unless it's an emergency.

Le sigh.

one of those weeks

I hate those weeks.

And this one was one of those, especially at work. That week where I didn't really do anything right. Where every beginner's or careless mistake I've made in the past six months came to a boiling head all at once, in the midst of massive hearing and trial preparations that had to be done on top of reorganizing my entire system. Where I worked my ass off and stayed till almost seven o'clock each night and came away feeling like I was rowing against the current and getting nowhere.

Grr.

Top it off with my worries over Simon and the now-glorious migraine pressing down on my skull and it's been great.

But there were a few perks. Like realizing that from time to time that I enjoy the fracturing stress. I was running around finding this and copying that and answering phones and talking to annoying clients and I realized, This is just like theater. Like production week, where the mics are broken and the sound system blows and we run out of man-blush and people are sleeping through their call times. Which made me, in spite of everything, grin. I can get a lot done under pressure. It's the gift of the procrastinator.

And God has always been unreasonably good to me in those times when nothing ought to work out. But a lot of it does. And I tend to be clever, and tenacious, in yanking solutions out of thin air when there isn't any other choice. I got by this week mostly on sheer stubbornness and ridiculous amounts of grace.

And slept eleven hours last night.

I'm exhausted. But since I can't seem to get caught up on the backlog of stacks of papers that need filing, and that one damn letter that never seems to get written, I'm heading into work for a few hours this afternoon, where I can slough around unshowered in a sweatshirt and jeans and ignore the phones and make a huge mess and put it all back together without being at anyone's beck and call. Of course, it's my job to be at everyone's beck and call, and when I'm caught up I don't mind a bit, but at the moment there are things that I desperately need to get done, and I DON'T want to walk in Monday morning to the same chaos I walked out on Friday night.

Screw the headache. Screw the exhaustion. I don't have any plans anyway, and when you're single your job is the one visible thing that gives your life daily meaning, right? And my bosses have been so good to me, and done so much for me, that working hard is the one thing I can do to repay them.

I won't deny that it's a form of self-flagellation. Sometimes the hardest thing about being a Christian is the utter, irrefutable dependence on God's grace. It goes against the human grain. What? My sins, my debts, my flaws, my mistakes are all forgiven? Just like that? (Not that that -- the brutal death of the incarnate God -- is simple. But we can't do anything; He already did it.) And there's nothing I can do to make any of it better myself?

Nope. And sometimes it drives a person crazy. Because we want to fix it, we want to make up for it. We want to atone. But we can't, and like it or not, there it is, the grace on which we stand, and we can't add a single act or deed to it. We can't tip the balance one way or the other. And it's such an incredible gift, we feel guilty for having to accept it continually and unconditionally. Like every day being handed something expensive and amazing that we did nothing for -- a house, a brand-new car, a whole new season's wardrobe from designer outfitters, a four-carat diamond necklace, a state-of-the-art, gleaming grand piano, a fur coat, a pedicure, a gorgeous garden, when you're, at worst, mean, dirty and derelict, and at best just average or mostly decent, and you're looking the giver in the face with your hands loaded with things you didn't even ask for, and saying, But what can I do? And getting, Nothing, I love you, this is for you, as an answer.

And the only thing you can give in return is gratitude, and striving to live a better life, and reaching out in kindness and protectiveness to others. Passing on the jewels, as it were: "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Maybe that's the root of my feverish ambition to get the office organized this weekend. Gratitude, and a chance, not to rectify my mistakes, but to clean up some of the mess they left behind, and to prevent them from happening again, since I've been so absolutely, unquestioningly forgiven.

And there's a certain satisfaction in hard labor. You feel it has a purpose. That you're doing something -- cleaning the house you've been given, polishing the necklace, tuning the piano, weeding the garden -- and not just sitting still. You can't earn it, you can't give it back, but you can keep it beautiful, small as the ways might be.

worse cat story

I had to take Simon to the Animal ER on Monday because he fell on the floor and started shrieking in pain. I usually get a grumpy "mrrwrrr" out of him, but never screaming.

So I took him to the ER, was told something was wrong with his hips, probably wrenched them jumping down from something, and I have to keep him quiet for the rest of the week and if he didn't improve by tonight I'd have to schedule him for X-rays.

Fortunately the meds they gave me to administer to him seem to be working, although I can't imagine he's happy about being locked in my bedroom while I'm at work (with litterbox and water dish, of course). He never holds a grudge, though, the darling.

The only last concern, besides of course "will he heal?" is his excretory system(s). I am again the Monitor of Cat Waste, checking his litterbox obsessively and panning through the litter looking for little nuggets or large clumps that will tell me he's going to be all right. Because if something's wrong with his hips, it's hard for him to, well, squat to get the job done. And he's had urinary blockage before (although they did a partial urinalysis at the ER and said everything looked just fine).

But on the whole he seems to be feeling well and full of his usual vinegar and demands for food.

I hate when something's wrong with him. He's currently my only Life Companion, and he fills my whole day with such indescribable joy. Like when he picks the one spot on the bed that it's most awkward to bend my body around, but no matter how much I shift around or shove my legs under him, he won't move; or when I wake up periodically throughout the night to find him working his way up the bed bit by bit, snuggling down close against my calf or knee or thigh or hip (when he used to HATE close contact with anybody); or when I first hit the alarm and fall back asleep and he knows I'm not getting up, but as soon as my eyes open for real, he's walking all over me, shoving his head in my face, purring so loud I can hear it through the earplugs; or when he tentatively steps onto my lap while I watch TV and, looking like a fish out of water, hunkers down and starts to purr, because he wants to be nearby; or when he thinks he deserves food and I walk right past him and he gets mad and swats my ankles; or when he finds me out of his sight and yowls to know where I am; or when he ambushes me from behind the chair and I KNOW IT'S COMING but he scares the crap out of me anyway, and I shriek, and he struts away all proud of himself with his tail waving, and flops down on the ground to look up at me and his eyes are saying, "See how cute and clever I am?"

Or when he's perfectly happy, and stretches his whole length as far out and back as it will go, and he looks like a big black hairy piece of elbow macaroni, which earned him the nickname Noodle.

Or when he follows me all over the house, and brings his toys into the room where I'm standing, and plays with them there.

Well, he looks all right at the moment. I'm praying, of course, and I know my parents are, too, and my sister is sacrificing chickens, so I'm hoping all will work out the way I'd like. Where he's all healthy, and happy, and his sweet Simon self.

successes

Yesterday I...

1. Successfully made it to church;

2. Successfully made delicious rosemary garlic bread in flowerpots. I was exceedingly relieved, because I fiddled with the recipe, and it came out PERFECTLY. The loaves are very rustic-looking, the crust is so crisp and fine as to melt in your mouth, the texture light and smooth, the flavor subtle but rich;

3. Successfully cleaned my apartment (it's gross when Simon gets up off the floor with particles of whatever all over his fur, although this can be attributed in part to the lurking presence of static, since it hasn't been that long since my last vacuuming);

4. Successfully went to bed relatively early, which was really great considering I had gotten up only twelve hours before.

All right, Monday. Let's circle each other warily and have at it. Watch out. My left uppercut is nasty.

unexpected fulfillment

I'm trying an experiment with pancakes. I ran into a woman the other weekend at the Farmer's Market who was selling bits of antiques and pretty junk, and when I saw a gorgeous, heavy cast iron skillet in her stall, I paused to oooh and ahhh appreciatively. She eagerly came around to the front of the stall and started expostulating on the glories of cast iron skillets, with which I just as enthusiastically agreed. "I have a Griswold," I said, "my family's from Erie." "Don't EVER sell that," she said. "They're worth a LOT." She then told me one of her favorite ways to make pancakes is to pour them into a cast iron skillet and bake them in the oven. I've been dying to try it, but pancakes seem somehow opulent for a weekday, so I've been waiting till today. Saturday breakfasts beg for a break from the week's austerity and hurry.

I had to guess at the temperature, so we'll see how it goes. I have the timer set every few minutes so I can check on it. (Seems to be doing okay so far.) I'm hoping this will circumvent my usual charred cinders method of griddle-frying them on the stove; I usually have to air out the apartment when I make pancakes, and it's cold today.

I also decided to make them from scratch using the basic pancake recipe found in The Joy of Cooking.

Anyway. I've been realizing over the last few weeks that I love my job. I've been there seven months now, and instead of getting restless and bored (that was the six-month mark) and continuing in an escalating sense of displacement, I find I'm settling in. My boss's very shy standard poodle, who usually jumps in fright when I enter the room, has come around and now follows me everywhere, begging for attention (and biscuits). My boss and his wife (who is almost the same person as I am, just a few decades older, and who runs the financial aspect of the office) are like family, and we have a lot of delightful conversations throughout the day; there's a lot of joy and joking that spreads around and leavens the focus and stress that comes with the legal field.

And I've been enjoying my duties. When I first took the job, I thought, I'm way too good to be a secretary, but whatever, I've gotta pay the rent. That sensibility persisted for quite some time, but in the last few weeks, I've found myself humming contentedly as I go about making copies and getting people on the phone for my boss. I don't think I'm above it anymore (although I know I could be doing anything I wanted to); I like it.

There's a lot I'm responsible for, and most of it involves making sure my boss's life and daily duties run smoothly. If I'm really good at my job, he's not even aware that I'm doing it, and there's a certain a-ha satisfaction to that. And now that I've been there for awhile and gotten to know his habits, I can anticipate what he wants and have it ready or get it done.

And yes, I make the coffee every day, and deliver it to my boss, his wife, and the clients. (I take orders from some of the clients, which is exasperating but funny; the coffeepot lives upstairs, where the clients can't go, so I have to do all the pouring and stirring and carrying.) This should be stereotypically humiliating, but the great thing is that no one expects me to do it for them; my boss only very infrequently asks me if there's any coffee. Plus it had been so long since I'd had to work with a drip maker that it's been fun adjusting the amount of coffee to the perfect proportion to make an excellent cup. And I do make good coffee. I know it, and everyone says so, and it's fun to showcase my coffee-making skills.

The thing is, I love to help people. I love to make their lives easier in practical, small ways. That's a lot of how we express love in my family -- Dad will make the bed once in awhile, which is Mom's usual task; or Laura or I will stay up late washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen while Mom's in bed so she can come down to sparkles and shine in the morning; Mom will tidy up our rooms or do our laundry when we're visiting; and when we're eating in front of the TV in the living room, if someone gets up to get more food or more water, he or she always extends a general offer to get someone something, or take their plates to the sink. That to me is real caring, and I'd like to perpetuate that in my own family when I have one. Romance in the form of flowers is nice, of course; but I most prefer the little tasks of thoughtfulness that make my day unexpectedly easier.

And since it's almost impossible to do this well outside of a nuclear family (the folks, particularly men, that I've done this sort of thing with have tended to take advantage of it without reciprocating), this job is the perfect outlet for those natural expressions. It helps that I really like my bosses. And they've been so good to me. They advanced my sick time in December when I was Queen of the Killer Headache, they pay me hourly so I get compensation for all the hours I work, they're charming and delightful and fun and take an active interest in my personal wellbeing. Doing my job well and being as helpful as I can is the least I can do.

Is my job prestigious? No, of course not. I'm a secretary. But I'm a pretty, well-dressed, wide-smiling, fun secretary who bonds well with the clientele and has a knack for making even sad or stressed people laugh, and angry people calm down.

And I'm happy. And that matters more to me than anything else.

Pancake verdict: Very promising. I need to play around with the temperature, but on the whole? Mmmmm.

my latest cat story

Simon would be a vegetarian's dream come true.

Now, he will eat meat scraps if he can get them; the other day I had to chase him off the coffee table when I caught him stealing mouthfuls of shredded pork and running into another room with them.

But the cat loves his vegetables.

I knew he had strange, uncatlike tastes to begin with -- he loves a good chickpea or a lick of hummus -- but I was mindboggled last week when, in the process of preparing Thai curry, I knocked a piece of green bell pepper to the floor...and Simon ate it. In fact, he liked it so much that when it kept skidding out from under his chin on the linoleum, he picked it up, carried it to the hallway carpet, and finished it off.

I tried with orange bell pepper last night while I was making a salad. (I don't ever feed him "people food," but if something "accidentally" falls to the floor from the counter while I'm making it, it's fair game.) He loved that even more. The piece fell on the rug next to my feet and he devoured it.

And yet one day I forgot about an entire stick of butter that I'd left on the coffee table, and when I came home it was untouched.

So I know in the future that if I have to leave the room with food on the table, I can peacefully ignore the butter, but I'd better take my salad with me.