Butterflies, Bees and Worms

I'm afraid of butterflies.

What can I say - it's a quirk. Every so often, when someone is staring after me with consternation as I shriek and run away from one of these winged creatures, I am forced to explain that the awful little things totally creep me out. This is usually met with dropped jaw amazement mixed with more than a little disbelief.

I'm not sure why people are so amazed by this anxiety of mine. People are afraid of lots of odd things. Clowns are such a well-known phobia that it has become something of a joke. They even made a movie about that one, “Killer Klowns From Outer Space”. A cult classic must see – If you’re not afraid of clowns! I once watched Killer Klowns with a friend who was trying to overcome her extreme reaction to clowns. In a misguided attempt to cure her of her irrational fear, her therapist had urged her to rent the movie. Didn’t work. But I got a good laugh out of watching her!

Strange fears seem to abound these days. Some of them I can kind of understand. Anyone who has ever had their 40th birthday looming in front of them can understand Chronomentrophobia - the fear of clocks. I even get Arachibutyrophobia - fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. I think they did a “Got Milk” commercial on that one. And any schoolchild will understand Didaskaleinophobia - fear of school.

Fear of cats, or Ailurophobia, is one that I think is rather more common than some people might think. I’ve met an awful lot of people, men in particular, who claim to be “allergic” to cats, and yet I haven’t seen hide nor hair of any sneezes or itches from them. And I personally think there is a link between men who fear cats and misogyny, but that’s a topic for another day.

And first thing each morning when I stumble into the bathroom I exhibit classic symptoms of Catoptrophobia - fear of mirrors.

But what about the fear of mustard? This seems to be a popular one, right up there with fear of pickles, although I haven’t found a name for either one yet. Or my personal favorite, Geniophobia – fear of chins. Chins! For some reason this amuses me. Maybe it's the word "chin".

I can’t help but wonder how many people have to be afraid of something before it is officially given a name? Is there a standard? Ten documented cases and it a quirk, 11 and it becomes a named phobia? Does there have to be an article in Psychology Today?

I hate to admit it, but I think that I may be developing Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - fear of long words.

So I don’t think that being afraid of butterflies is so weird. I don’t care how pretty they are. They’re just creepy little bugs with wings and they always seem to want to land on me! Actually, I think I’m feeling a screenplay coming on . . . think Alfred Hitchcock’s “Birds”, but replace the birds with Butterflies . . .

That’ll give you nightmares.

Compromise

After an exhausting fight, The Midget decided that if she couldn't play with the yarn, she'd just take a nap with it.

The Midget

Did I REALLY think that it would be fun to have a kitten in the house again?!?!

Sitting here at 2 o'clock in the morning, with a spray bottle in one hand and a cup of Sleepy Time tea cradled in the other, it is hard to figure out why in gods name I felt the need to adopt a kitten.

For the uninitiated the spray bottle is for squirting the afore mentioned beast in a rather futile attempt to try to tame it into submission. Say for instance that the little darling has decided to climb the living room curtains. As soon as the monster begins to scale the fabric you bellow "No" while hitting the offending feline with a stream of water. Cats loathe water with a passion that people usually reserve for cable repairmen. The only problem with this approach is that when water hits cat, cat goes berserk, breaking anything in it's way to get out of the path of the offending water. Several knick-knacks have met their demise since the arrival of the Midget.

I brought the wild-ass-midget-kitten into our quiet little household a couple of weeks ago. I have another cat, we'll call him Bubba. He's a fat handsome lad of 10 years and has the sweetest laid back disposition you could possibly imagine. Only problem is . . . well . . . . god love him, he's just not that bright! Anyway, since my little Bubba and I had moved, it had become increasingly obvious that we needed a kitten. We had lost custody of his big sister in the divorce, so he was lonely when I wasn't home and he really needed someone to play with, other than me!

Now, it's been ten years since I last adopted a kitten and things have changed dramatically in that time. Used to be you could walk into a shelter and you'd have a plethora of cats and kittens to choose from. But like everything else in our increasingly complex society, nowadays, it ain't that easy.

I had to go on a list. I kid you not. I have been on a kitten wish list since last December. They INTERVIEWED me. Then I filled out an eleventeen page questionaire about my lifestyle, my moral values and my general views on pet care and rearing. I signed a contract in blood, that I would never allow my new kitten out of the house. I was told that before I could take my new kitten home, that it would be spayed or neutered. When I queried the adviseability of ripping a kittens organs out at the tender age of six weeks, I was given a 45-minute lecture about how many animals are abandoned each year. And while I don't mean to make light of the desperate plight of so many animals, I can't quite figure out why I needed to have my poor dear tramatized by a surgery so early in her little life when I have just signed a contract stating that she will never go outside. Maybe cats are self replicating these days.

Anyway, when kitten season came around, I started to hunt for my new baby. Once again the process seems to have changed. You don't just walk in, point to one of the little darlings and say I'll take that one. I had to make an appointment and was only allowed to see certain of the kittens. People were shuttled in and out, with eyes averted and there seemed to be an unspoken rule that none of the potential new families were to talk to one another. Picking a kitten is serious business people.

But when all was said and done, I did finally find my girl. The wild midget is a real beauty queen and knows it. She's a walking photo op just waiting to happen. She's also very bright and stubborn as a mule!

There are many things about kittens that I had forgotten about. Like the fact that they have absolutely no manners. I keep pointing out to her that I don't put my feet in her food, and I expect the same courtesy in return. This is a rule that she seems to find very vexing.

Bringing the new kitten into the house was of course a bit touch and go for a while. Bubba was fascinated by the little monster but didn't seem exactly sure if he should play with her, or beat the bejeezus out of her! Ultimately her completely ingenuous nature disarmed him, and they worked out their differences in remarkably short order.

So tonight the Midget has a wild hair (it isn't a full moon by any chance is it?) and is racing around like a crazed beast. How something so small can make so much noise is entirely beyond my comprehension.

But its worth it. When she finally tires herself out she'll come and plop her pint sized self down by Bubba and I and her little purr is as loud as a mac truck. And they are so adorable curled up together.

Life is good.

A Worthy Task

Today, I will attempt to perform one of the most challenging tasks that a dedicated knitter ever faces.

Teaching a kitten that Mommy's yarn is NOT a cat toy. (And yes, I am one of those childless women - or men for that matter - who treat their pets like babies and call themselves "Mommy". Deal with it.)

I made one disaterous attempt to knit with the Midget in the room and it wasn't a pretty sight. Quicker than you could blink she was in the knitting bag with yarn completely how wrapped around her little body. How she managed to accomplish this in feat in a matter of seconds, will always remain a mystery. She of course thought that my trying to untangle her and get the yarn out of her mouth was a fabulous game! Sadly, it's difficult assert your authority over a determined kitten when you can't stop laughing.

Since then I have found myself frantically searching through my day planner, looking for doctors appointments or any tedious task that would require waiting in line so that I could knit. A junky looking for a fix, I began to invent reasons to visit the craft store, telling myself that I wasn't there to smell the yarn. I cursed the DMV for not requiring me renew my drivers license in person. Yesterday, when I found myself waiting in line at the Post Office during lunch hour to buy stamps that I didn't need, gleefully knitting a cable, I realized that something had to be done.

So today is the day. I'm pulling out a skein of black Cascade 220 to start a helmet liner. I have two cousins who were recently deployed to Iraq, so it seems like a good time to put my needles back to work on a worthy cause.

Wish me luck. I think I'm going to need it!

The Bitch Is Back

A little over a year ago, I hopped in line with so many others in this increasingly cyber oriented world, and started a blog.

I've had a "blog" of sorts my entire life. We used to call it a diary, or a journal, or a book of thoughts. I wonder how long it will be before a journal composed of paper and pen is as foreign a concept as the old time ice-box that used actual ice to keep things cold, as opposed to the appliance we now use to make the ice itself.

But I digress.

I'm not entirely sure why it is that I started my online journal. Although I suppose that the purpose of any diary is not just so that those thoughts no longer plague ones waking hours, but the idea that you - your life - won't get lost. That somehow, in some small measure, that we will live on through our words and our lives will not have passed in complete obscurity. Which is the appeal of the blog as opposed to paper and pen. Once it's out there, it can never be totally erased and unlike paper and pen, it can't be burned, or crumpled or eventually turn to dust. The internet brought us - or our words at any rate - as close to immortality as we can hope to get.

There were blogs that I had been stalking for months, that inspired me to commit my own ideas to binary code. Blogs where I posted a comment here and there and before long my stalkees had begun to stalk me in return. The give and take of being by turn exhibitionist and voyeur, seems to be an almost irresistible lure for some of us. And somehow, the anonymity created an intimacy and immediacy that was as seductive as a sirens call.

It was an iddyIic affair until my husband of one short year, found my blog. And in one quick swipe of the mouse, both my marriage and my blog died a quick, although not entirely painless, death.

Somehow, while there was nothing - or very little - in my online journal about him that I hadn't said directly TO him, he found the act of my putting my thoughts out into the world for perfect strangers to see, unforgivable. An act of treason, if you will, against our marriage.

Not that it had been that good of a marriage to begin with. I suppose that I should be ashamed to admit this, but it was a marriage of convenience. For me anyway. I had hoped that loving without being IN Love would be enough. I was wrong.

So the marriage that probably never had a chance to begin with, ended with even less fanfare than the Las Vegas ceremony that had started it.

In one vain attempt to make amends for the heineous crimes that I had committed against him by publicially blogging my life, I wrote an apology and pulled the offending entries. Suffice to say, his decision had been made and there was very little, if anything, that I could have done that would have swayed him. And as I was unwilling to spend the rest of my life as a martyr to his anger, I quickly gave up the idea that I might be able to salvage my marriage through any act of contrition.

I moved to another city. Began trying to put the pieces together of a life that truth be told, had been torn apart long before my esteemed husband had turned up on the scene. Started this entirely new blog. Stealthily let my stalkers know, where I could be found.

I declared to the world that I had learned my lesson! When blog world and real world collide, disasters can happen. I was entering the age of a kinder and gentler blog. I wouldn't commit to words the thoughts and ideas that might hurt the people in my life if they came across them! I had grown and learned from my mistakes!

HA!

Sadly, the sterlized words seemed pointless to me. The whole purpose of a journal for me is a purging. A forum where I can say what is sometimes left unsaid in daily life. That trying to edit my life made the whole effort meaningless and simply didn't supply the outlet that I seem to need.

So I'm back . . . again. Apparently none the wiser!

I know that there will always be the possiblity of my blog world and my daily world colliding. But I guess that I'm just willing to take that chance. I always have lived a life that seems to wander perilously close to the edge . . .

Welcome to my unedited life.

A View Of Clouds

I was out at Shoreline Park this evening for sunset. There were dark heavy clouds, pieces of blue sky and some of those fluffy white clouds that look like you should be able to bounce on them like a feather bed.

As I was driving along Cliff Drive towards the park, I spotted a rainbow hanging out over the ocean. When I pulled into the parking lot, it was faint, fading in and out, virtually unnoticed by the people jogging with their iPods and or huddling inside their coats urging their dogs to "hurry up".

Walking alone along the concrete path that wound up the cliffs, it struck me what an allegory for my life this cold blustery evening was. Wandering in solitude, searching the skies for a rainbow that keeps appearing and fading, hoping for a silver lining in the clouds to materialize.

It would be nice to have a soft place to fall, like one those fluffy clouds that hung low on the horizon. I can’t remember the last time I really felt that I had anyone to depend on other than myself. Maybe I never have.

And I wondered, if I were to vanish in a puff of smoke, without a whimper or a warning, how long would it be before anyone noticed?

How long would it take before someone started to worry? And who in this world knows me well enough to even know where to begin to look, or if there even was a me, out there somewhere left to be found?

I wondered, if I were to walk out on my life, leaving my house with the TV tuned to HGTV , my laptop sitting open on the bed, a cup of tea brewing on the counter in the kitchen – left it all like some kind of modern day Pompeii with everything frozen in a moment of time – would it even matter?

As I turned away from what was left of the sunset, I suddenly saw that the sky behind me had become a beautiful deep rose smeared with dark thunderclouds. If I hadn’t turned around, I would have missed it.

Maybe that’s all I need. Maybe I just need to turn around.

Pebbles and Me

Have I mentioned that I have a new job?

This is in large part why I have not posted in my little blog recently. I'm exhausted. It's only part-time, between 4 and 6 hours a day, but for me physically, thats a LOT!

But on to my job. I am now the Personal Assistant to a rich widow with twelve year old daughter. Her hubby died about five years ago and she took over the running of his many business holdings, many of which are in real estate. Something about which I know nothing, I might add. My duties are wide and varied, and my office is in the back of her guest house, in a very beautiful area.

My new boss, who for the sake of anonymity (not to mention the confidentiality agreement that I signed) we shall call Pebbles, is a beautiful woman in her early 50's who flys airplanes and races cars. Not your typical widow to be sure.

Pebbles is maybe a bit scattered, definately over-extended and everything is always an emergency. Everything. Always. But I am a person who takes care of people. It's what I do. And if ever I knew anyone who needed taking care of, it's Pebbles. So I have charged in with my post-it-notes and my calendars, determined to put her office, if not her to life, back in order.

Which is not an easy task. Take a recent day.

The second or third day that I worked for Pebbles, I recieved a call from her at 7:15 a.m. with an emergency. An event that is proving to be a rather common occurance. So the other day, desperately needing extra sleep, I turned off my phone, so that I couldn't be reached. When I finally turned my phone on at 10:20 there were several messages from Pebbles asking me to take one of her appointments at 10:30, as she was running behind schedule. What a surprise.

So I was off and running. In her message she had asked me to meet a contractor at a condo that we shall call Blue Bonnet, which is scheduled to close escrow this Friday. After finally finding the Blue Bonnet property, which I had not heard of until that morning, I charmed the closet man into doing what I wanted (have I ever mention how much clevage and a pretty smile helps in these situations?). Likewise the man who came to install the appliances and started to have a hissy fit because the plumber hadn't been in to do his job. While at same time dealing with the buyers who showed up unexpectedly and were upset by the fact that escrow was not actually going to close on Friday, were freaked out that the refrigerator was going to dent the new hardwood floors, the tiles that had just been installed in the kitchen were the wrong color and the pipes in the linen closet had suddenly sprung a mysterious leak. Mind you, I knew NOTHING about any of this. NOTHING. Bluffed my way through the whole mess. I somehow managed to soothe all ruffled feathers and put out all the fires, leaving everyone reasonably happy two hours later.

The day continued in like fashion with the icing on the cake being when the (new) Housekeeper came to the office, announced that she was leaving, and literally dropping her cleaning supplies in front of my befuddled face, dashed out the door without once looking behind her. Shaking free from my shock, and praying that when she said "I'm leaving" that she actually meant that she was going out for ice-cream rather than that she was quitting, I raced after her, only to see her peal out of the driveway in her car, yelling out the window "I'm sorry!"

Have I mentioned the high turnover rate of people in Pebbles employ? This is apparently the eighth or ninth Housekeeper to abruptly quit in the last 16 months. And I won't even tell you how many people have run away screaming from the job that I am currently holding.

I think I need a nap. I also need a new Housekeeper . . .