Dreaming Paris

why YouTube videos used to show up in my RSS feeds, but now they don’t. Images do. But not videos.

They’re growing fast and beginning to lose some of their kittenish looks. Tiger still mostly treats them like invaders of his domain. He tries his best to ignore them or stay in parts of the house where they aren’t. Since it’s been raining so much, and he’s deathly afraid of thunderstorms, he doesn’t go out of the house unless we make him, and he’ll only stay on the back porch, mostly standing at the door wanting back in. The kittens, on the other hand, have no such fear. Maddy doesn’t really care about going outside, but Tiger is out there and she likes to annoy him. Tiger tolerates her. She’s on the right. Numa is on the left, and he wants to both get at Tiger to play, and he’s dying to explore the great outdoors.

Numa loves playing with Tiger. Tiger occasionally comes down from his throne of righteous indignation to humor the little one.

Tiger and Numa playing peekaboo

My mom would have a fit over where these cats like to sleep (after laughing just like I did), but I’m training them Mom! I just had to get this picture. Maddy is starting to learn, “Get down!” Numa, well…it may take a little longer.

Sleepy kitties. They make me laugh so much.

Miss Maddy’s rabbit imitation.

This pretty much sums Numa up. Nothing fazes him and he lives life with complete kitten abandon.

So, I got my laptop back from the shop last weekend, but it still wasn’t quite fixed. Before taking it in, I did a complete restore, which didn’t help, and made it act even crazier. Well, it was still acting crazy, meaning something went wrong with the restore. So I had to restore it AGAIN. The thing is, I use honking big programs which take forever to install, and lots of programs of varying size. Lots. So. I’ve lost hours and hours of work time just getting my computer back into shape. And, of course, nothing is ever simple with me and computers. There is always SOMETHING that doesn’t go right. Like my Palm wouldn’t synch. And the backup file of contacts that I exported from my Palm desktop program to synch to my Palm after the restore turned out to be only one contact. $#*$*&*# aaaaarrrrrrrgg ggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’d spent over an hour or more combining all of my addresses into one neat file. So tonight, I did it all over again.

I finally got my Palm to synch, but forgot that I need to install a program on my computer that makes it synch Microsoft Money to it also. That’s what I use as my checkbook register. I don’t remember where that program is. I know it’s on a backup disk, I just don’t know which one. I’m not that great at organizing my disks other than writing the date of each backup on the CD. I have to go through all the ones I think it might be on to find it. One day, I’m going to do a big reorganization of all of my important files. When I have nothing else to do. Which means probably never.

My husband teases me and says I give out some kind of aura or energy that messes with all the computers I’ve had. Sometimes I think it’s true because he never seems to have the problems that I do, and often, the problems I do have are completely new to him. He’s never seen them happen before. I suppose there’s a silver lining to that. He learns something new in case he ever comes across it again.

But, at last, I’m up and running again. And this time I didn’t put everything on it that I usually do. I decided I’d add things as I actually use them.

My disaster yesterday wasn’t quite the disaster I thought it to be. The only file that was overwritten was the index file for the Wordpress app. I simply replaced it, et voilá, my blog reappeared.

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I slipped on a slick, mildewed patch of water that dripped out of our air conditioner and onto the driveway next to the house in which we then lived. One leg went one way, the other a different way, and I was on crutches for nearly a week due to a twisted knee.

In yesterday’s fall I didn’t twist anything bad enough that I needed crutches, but I feel it in more places. It jarred my entire right side and part of my left.

I don’t have steps in front of the door of my studio. It’s a big step up and down. But yesterday, as I stepped down with my right foot, my ankle twisted and down came the rest of me, face forward. I held my hands out, of course. My right hand landed on one of the concrete flat, square blocks that create a path to my studio, scraping the palm. My left elbow and left thigh, somehow scraped on the block next to it. It felt like they hit on the edges, but who knows? They’re scraped and they feel bruised, though I see no bruising. The thigh is swollen at the scrape, though.

My right thumb, index finger, and little finger feel slightly out of place, but I can type. Pushing with them, like one does when using and squeezing a sponge, though, is somewhat uncomfortable. And the soreness goes up my thumb to my wrist, rather like carpal tunnel.

The worst, though, is my upper right arm and shoulder. They took most of my weight when I stopped my fall, because though I also used my left hand to stop my face from smashing into the concrete, I guess it was positioned wrong and kind of collapsed down so that my entire forearm hit the ground, spreading the weight over a greater surface area on that side. I wish that had happened on my right side, too.

The upshot is that I’m limping with a sore ankle and hip, and my right shoulder, arm, and hand prefer not to move much.

So if things tend to come in threes, does that mean I can look forward to another fall ten years from now, just before my 60th birthday? I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it then. I’m not doing so well with it, right now. I went to bed early, had horrible dreams all night long, and wasn’t able to wake up as early as I wanted to (this is supposed to be my first day at my new job). Even when I finally made myself get out of bed at nearly 11:00, it was very, very difficult.

found at Sour Grapes.

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My last day today. They gave me a nice party yesterday. I felt very loved and appreciated. I have a poster that they made for me and everyone who came signed it. I’m going to put it up in my home office, and one day it will be in my office at my tutoring cafe.

It still hasn’t sunk in yet that I no longer work there. I wonder when it will. I didn’t have to cart too much home because I’ve been bringing things home little by little over the last few weeks. I left everything so organized it makes me wish I could at least spend some more time working just to know what it feels like to have nothing to do at work. All projects completed, everything updated.

One of my original tutors, who has become a very dear friend, stopped in to see me and we had a very good chat. He graduated with a finance degree. He travels all over the country (and sometimes out of it), spending weekends here at home, though his company is based in New York, and he’s doing quite well. He is beginning to collect “toys”. His latest? A red Porsche. And his latest assignment? Las Vegas. Remember when I took my entire staff to Las Vegas for a tutoring convention in 2002? He was there, the youngest one, 19 years old. It’s so amazing to consider that he’ll soon be 26. He’s only a few months older than my oldest son.

Monday my younger son comes home from the army for a visit. I can’t wait. I’ll spend the weekend getting the house all in order and then just enjoy the time I can spend with him. I’m glad I won’t be away at work. I will be working, though. I have a lot to do to be ready for my virtual grand opening in September.

The kittens are growing, spending more time playing and less time sleeping, although, being cats, they still sleep a lot, of course. They’re very good natured. We were very lucky when we found these two. Tiger, my daughter’s cat, is finally beginning to play with them. He’ll even go so far as to wrestle a little with Numa. Numa is determined to turn Tiger into another playmate and is always attempting to get him to participate in his games with Maddy. Maddy is a little more temperamental. Sometimes she’ll want to include Tiger, sometimes not. Now that I’ll be home more, I’ll get some pictures of the three of them to post.

We took the kittens to the vet yesterday just before noon for their exams and shots. The poor babies were so traumatized that they slept away the rest of yesterday and all of today, getting up only to eat and use the litter box before settling back down again.

It is now 1:30 in the morning. Trauma has been forgotten and they’re wilder than ever, chasing each other all over the place, doing fancy acrobatics in the air, and chasing dust bunnies and plastic paper bags.

They were just around 2 lbs. when we brought them home. Numa has always been slightly bigger and heavier. He now weighs 3.1 lbs and Maddy weighs 2.9.

Numa is dying to go outside. We have to be careful when we let Tiger out because Numa races to the back sliding glass door when he hears it opening. Then he looks outside with such longing. Maddy doesn’t care. She’s quite happy with all the things she finds to play with inside. Numa is the Adventurer, Maddy is the Fighter. She’s a scrappy little thing. I expect that were she to go outside, she’d be the one leaving presents at our door. Numa, on the other hand, would simply play with the creatures he found outside, probably killing some of them, but never with intention. I could be wrong, of course, but those are the natures that they’re displaying right now.

Since Numa is my husband’s cat, I imagine when he’s big enough, he’ll let him outside, if only because Numa will get past us one day, and R won’t care. But I’m going to do my darndest to keep Maddy an inside cat. Hopefully, her disinterest in the back porch will continue.