Christine, Wondering

Random Musings of a Human Becoming

Monday, November 27, 2006

Weathering the emotional storm . . .

I'm suffering a little from the fact that I haven't had proper holidays this year. Because I don't work a full-time load, I have a 3-day weekend every week, but I also don't build up holidays as quickly. And I've been off sick a lot this year, more than I had sick days for, so that's eaten in to my annual leave. I took a week in September and a very long weekend around ANZAC Day, but otherwise I haven't had a decent stretch of time off. I've currently got two days' leave available, and by Christmas I'll have earned a third day. That may mean I can stretch the Christmas public holiday period out to a 12-day holiday, but it still doesn't feel like very much. And if I change jobs before Christmas - which could happen - then I may not even be able to have that. It's all so complicated and I really need a decent rest :-/ Roll on my days as a teacher when I'll get regular holidays!

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Nutty Cat

Jemima went nuts for a while yesterday, running around constantly and attacking everything, up to and including walls. J, in a moment of exasperation when we found the bath plug under her bed courtesy of Jemima, came out with the following:

"Jemima, you are a galloping, freaking, jumping, biting discombobulation!"

I rather liked it :-D

I must add - in the spirit of fairness - that Jemima gave me a fright nearly as good as J's, last night. I was lying quietly in bed reading, facing towards the edge of the bed, when Jemima jumped up *right* in front of my face. I shrieked in terror at the surprise, then had hysterics. My shriek wasn't as good as J's scream, though.

The funny thing was that my shriek settled Jemima down. She'd been manic up to that moment but after scaring the living daylights out of me, she went to sleep under my bed and I heard not a peep out of her until my alarm clock went off this morning! What's with that?

Sunday, November 19, 2006

More Jemima

a distraction from thoughts about Daniel lol . . . a little bit of Jemima-ness. Asleep on Joneen's bed yesterday:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Playing with a new toy today, and going absolutely manic over it (some sounds, but only faint ones):



She gets more and more gorgeous all the time :-D

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Ahh, books

J and I just unpacked all of the books that were in storage in Sydney. I have all my books back! There were some I'd forgotten I'd bought, too. We've put them on the bookshelf which was also in storage, down in the lounge room. It's great :-D

Jemima again

Two more pictures of my pretty kitty :-D


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Oh, I forgot . . .

J insisted that Jemima had to have a middle name, because you can't tell someone off properly unless you can say "FIRSTNAME! MIDDLE NAME! SURNAME!". She's now Jemima Felicity Mysurname. Jemima means "dove" (appropriate as she's dove-grey) and Felicity means "happiness". A very auspicious name if I do say so myself ;-D

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

*Cries with laughter*

The funniest thing just happened . . . I'm still gasping with laughter.

J is in her room studying, and before this event she was very tense and worried about tomorrow morning's exam. Because she was concentrating hard, she didn't notice that Jemima had wandered into her room . . . until Jemmy-cat suddenly clawed her leg.

J gave the primal scream to end all primal screams - I've never heard anything quite like it - and then collapsed into helpless hysterics which lasted at least five minutes. Of course she set me off too, so we both just stood there trying to laugh and cry at the same time.

She's a bit more relaxed now, after that adrenaline rush ;-D But, oh, I wish there had been some sort of recording equipment going at the time. The scream was just awesome. There's no way to express the terror J packed into that one short scream.

I love my cat.

You're not going to believe this . . .

. . . but I'm homesick for Sydney.

Really.

Not homesick for living in Sydney, mind - nothing on this earth could persuade me to go back to living there - just for being there.

I miss the energy of the city. I miss being able to just jump on a bus and go and walk around the Opera House, Circular Quay, the Harbour Bridge, The Rocks. I miss the old buildings and the fountains and the statues. I miss the luxurious antique grace of the Queen Victoria Building. I miss the monorail and the double-decker trains and the ferries. I miss the mountains and I miss the rocky river shores. I miss the endless fascination of it all.

When I consider it, what I'm really missing is the fact that I never really got to enjoy Sydney. I was so unhappy and depressed and broke and lonely the whole time I was there. I never had anyone to share it with, to point and say "isn't that cool!", to go on adventures with. Not to say that I didn't enjoy the time I did spend with friends I made there or friends who visited me there, but those were rare interludes. The rest of the time, it was just me, and no matter how much you enjoy a touristy experience while alone, you're still alone. You're still silent.

I think it's the Christmas season that's brought on this feeling. Sydney was wonderful at Christmas. The incredible moving wooden displays in the windows of Myer; the spectacular giant Christmas tree in QVB, with ten thousand Swarovski crystals for ornaments; the heady cameraderie of Carols in the Domain; all of it. And I wandered through it all like a lonely ghost, my heart full of what I was seeing but without a single soul to share it.

Of course, if I was to fly there for a holiday tomorrow, I'd still be experiencing it alone; and I suspect that if I had someone special to share things with, the beauty of Perth at Christmas would be more than sufficient. But I'm not and I haven't and it isn't, and thus I am discontent.

Don't get me wrong, I love WA to bits and I'd rather live in Perth than any other city in the world; but I just . . . wish.

And then there was wellness

Miraculously, most of the symptoms have cleared up overnight. I've still got sore ankles and I'm still getting some fatigue in my calf muscles, but otherwise I feel fine. Odd since I felt worse than ever yesterday evening! The depression and irritability have simmered down into a mild nagging anxiety, but I can deal with that.

My stuff arrived from Sydney yesterday and it's all there, although my pine corner cabinet got vibrated apart by the action of the train, so I'll have to repair it. I found and sorted my Christmas decorations last night, just for fun, and I hope I'll be able to start going through some of it tonight if the spell of wellness continues. Here's hoping!

Monday, November 13, 2006

It would be hard . . .

. . . to choose a 'worst' symptom of all the symptoms of this virus, but I think the irritability is the "baddest" of a bad lot. I'm not irritable at anything, I just feel generally annoyed and want to throw things or belt someone. I'm having to exercise rock-hard control over myself to avoid going on to BtN and randomly flaming people or attacking posters whose favourite names are, in my opinion, awful. This is not a fun sensation. I haven't felt this . . . snarly . . . since I was a teenager with PMS!

I wish I had something else to talk about except how ghastly I feel, but I can't think of anything.

It looks like it's probably a virus

I haven't got the blood test results back yet, but it looks like Mum has the same thing, and I've also been reminded that Dad is still recovering from a virus that put him in bed for four weeks, and I think stiffness and tiredness were symptoms of that. Mum and I can't have caught it off Dad, as we haven't seen him, but a family friend has it as well so it's probably doing the rounds. I'm just hoping I've got a mild version, not the version Dad has had!

I'm 'down' again today, possibly because I a) pushed myself to get some housework done yesterday so that I would feel more comfortable; and b) had to get up at 6:15am to get to work this morning (although I woke up at 6:14 courtesy of Jemima - damn programmed cat! lol). Whatever the cause, I'm totally wiped - dozy, miserable, sore, heavy-headed etc.

I'm a bit shaky too, but that could be caffeine! I'm trying to keep myself going with not-totally-diet-disasterous drinks - I've got a huge soy iced coffee with no cream or icecream, and I plan to follow that up with a V8 fruit drink, and I've got a V8 veggie drink for this afternoon. But I'm not entirely sure it's going to work. My knees and ankles are on strike, my sciatic nerve is starting to twang, and moving my head fast is right out. Mwaaaaah!

I *hate* being sick.

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Feeling better today . . .

. . . which is not surprising considering the see-saw-ing my moods have been doing lately.

I went to the doctor yesterday to try to find out if there could be a medical reason for my random moods, weepiness, aching muscles and constant tiredness. Sure, I've been under a lot of stress and dealing with a lot of stuff lately, but I think I'm not being as resiliant as I should be. Plus the aches and pains are getting worse, I'm losing my ability to run up the stairs at home, and I should not be nodding off at my desk after a good night's sleep.

The doctor ordered a barrage of blood tests - iron, folate, thyroid function, glucose tolerance, cholesterol, stomach ulcers, something called ESR which I think tests for rheumatoid disorders and cancer (could stand for erythrocite sedimentation rate), and something called LFT which I'm guessing is a liver function test. I have to fast tonight and go in first thing tomorrow morning to have them all done. Ugh. They'll probably all come back negative (unless my hypoglycaemia shows up on the glucose test, but it will probably be the diabetes one which doesn't pick up hypoglycaemia), but at least then I'll know that it's none of the above.

On the other hand, there's a chance I'm not just stressed out to the point of hypochondria, and there actually is something wrong. In which case it's a good thing I'm getting the tests done lol.

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

The most annoying day of the year

Well, the most annoying for *me*. Today is Melbourne Cup Day (non-Australians: the Melbourne Cup is a horse race). It's a big, big event - Victoria has a public holiday, and the rest of the states all stop everything at race time, watch or listen to the race, and then bunk off for a lunch or an afternoon party, depending on the time zone.

There aren't many things I say an outright "no way" to on ethical grounds, but horse racing (actually, any type of animal racing) is one of them. In this day and age it's horrendous that we still, as a society, allow people to whip horses to make them run . . . and enjoy watching it. It's disgusting and I refuse to have anything to do with it.

So, 99% of the people in my office are out in the courtyard enjoying a post-race BBQ lunch. The smell of fried onions and sausages is driving my poor stomach (which was diet-ish-ly fed on plain bread and tinned salmon) absolutely crazy, and they're making a real din. I'm steadfastly ignoring them, but it's aggravating to hear people having so much fun over something I find so abhorrent.

Bah, humbug!

Aww!

Jemima was so cute this morning. She habitually sleeps under my bed at night, frisking around my room until I switch my light off then settling down for the night. When I get up in the morning, the light wakes her up, and a few minutes later she emerges from under the bed, flicking her paws and making little noises that are part interrogative and part protest.

This morning, I sat down on the floor when she emerged from under the bed, and she came right up to me, looked up at my face, put one tiny paw up on my leg, and said "mrrr?". She was asking to be picked up! *does happy dance* I picked her up and cuddled her, and she purred like a motorbike engine. Happy kitty :-D

J and I have taken to calling her Jemima the Jumper in the evenings lately - she loves to play tag with the mouse-on-a-string-on-a-stick toy (the one in the video), and every day she's jumping higher than before. Yesterday she got a good foot off the ground from a standing start, which was impressive to watch!

I wish I didn't have to go out to work lol.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

Four more :-D

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Another day, another Jemima picture . . .

She is far less timid today - she'll come out from under things while we're around, even if we're not waving the toy mouse around. She now thinks about coming when I call - even if she doesn't quite do it yet! She loves being held and will let me pick her up, and will sit on my chest purring for as long as I can hold her (which is ages lol, although she hasn't quite got the idea that biting peoples' knuckles is against the rules, and she has very sharp claws too!).

She will also now sleep out in the open, rather than under something. This is a picture I took a few moments ago, of her dozing on my bed. I think I'm getting the camera figured out - I suspect I had it on the 'macro' setting by accident yesterday!

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Friday, November 3, 2006

And the video . . .

Be warned, it has sound! The one talking and giggling like a loon is me. J was talking and giggling too, but she was waving the wand around and wasn't close enough to the camera for you to hear her on the playback.

Here we go . . .

Pictures of Jemima!

I haven't got any good action shots yet (it's a new digital camera so I'm still figuring it out) but here are some shots of her in her bed:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

I'm currently uploading a video of her but it will take a while, so I'll post it later.

:-D

I bought my kitten!

I wasn't planning on buying one until next week, but we went into a pet shop yesterday and this adorable kitten was there and was available, so I bought her. We went home and got the house ready last night, and brought her home, via the vet's, today. She's a smoky grey with faint tabby markings, and her name is Jemima.

J and I are currently doing our own thing upstairs while Jemima relaxes downstairs, and unfortunately I left my camera down there! But I'll post some pictures (and maybe a video if I can figure out how to post it) asap.

Yay!