On a really good note, things are going really well at work, regarding that situation with the misogynistic coworker of mine I mentioned a couple dozen threads back. I haven’t dealt with him in a while, and when I can, I’ll tell you guys more.
Ok, I’ll stop looking at other kitties being adorable…
hellkell
10 years ago
When we were in Seattle last weekend, we had dinner with an old friend, and her Bengal is going to be 17 this year! I remember when he was just a little guy. He looks great and is still his salty little self.
Speaking of Seattle, we’re going to move back this summer. This trip was the first time we’d both been back together, and I got to see just how happy Mr. HK is there and how much he hates it here. Our jobs can be as remote as we want them to be, so we’re gonna do it.
Unimaginative
10 years ago
@auggz: mine are always there too. I also hear voices when fans are running, and have to get out of bed to see if I left the TV on. I mostly just ignore them, because years of double-checking has proved to my satisfaction that, no, the TV isn’t on; no, the axe-murderer hasn’t broken in; no, the walls are not forming a vortex into an alternate dimension. You know, the usual suspicions.
I don’t know if it’s healthy, but I’ve just accepted that my senses don’t always tell me the truth. If it’s important, I check with somebody else. It’s really only a problem when I’m super-stressed and anxious (which I’m not much anymore since I’ve stopped eating gluten).
Also, I TOTALLY concur about the chia pudding. I made a chocolate one with coconut milk that I ate with strawberries. Mmmm. In fact, I think I’ll make some of that for tonight 🙂 I saw a recipe recently for chia jam, where you mash up raspberries with chia seeds and let them set. Thick, jam-like texture without all the sugar and cooking.
@HK: Congratulations! It’s amazing what a change in location can do for your outlook.
chimisaur
10 years ago
@AIT – congrats on handling the gross coworker thing! 🙂
@Kiwi girl – I read somewhere once a description of a baby as “tiny Winston Churchill” and now I can’t unsee it. Regardless of a kid’s sex or race I find myself having to resist the urge to refer to zir as “Mr. Prime Minister” up to the age of 1 (or sometimes 3 for the extra-jowly).
The Dominique link was wonderful. What a sweet doggie!
@Auggz – I think I’ll try that pudding thing, and maybe find a way to make it pistachio flavored. ^_^
They aren’t bengals? Interesting…I love that pattern but bengals are silly expensive, even retired breeder cats are hundreds of dollars. If tabbies come in that pattern…well, you find tabbies in shelters all the time.
Regarding telling what sex babies are without clothing markers, I saw a study awhile ago (I’ll see if I can dig it up), and people were worse at guessing than if they’d just flipped a coin for each picture! (That is, with any kid you have a 50/50 chance of being right, these folks were right less than 50% of the time)
I dunno where you’d get pistachio milk, though, unless you made it yourself.
So, I’ve been cleaning out some old files and came across a bunch of exercises I was doing a few years ago to help me stop bouncing off the walls of my life like a paramecium. One thing I found (in retrospect) to be really helpful was to write down what I want.
The actual assignment was, write down everything you want, no matter how far-fetched, in this format: “I want ______ because _________”
Like, I want to make more money because I can’t afford mid-winter tropical vacations on my current salary. I want to slim down because I want to be able to fit in an airplane seat. I want to change jobs because I hate my current one.
When I read over the list when I was done, the patterns became very obvious, and it helped me figure out what I needed to focus on. Looking at it again 5 years later, I’m pleasantly shocked by how many of those “I wants” I’ve achieved. Except for the time-travel one. Haven’t pulled that off yet.
Anyway, I thought I’d put it out there, because a lot of people seem to be having life-stall issues. You’re welcome to try it out and see if it helps.
Unimaginative
10 years ago
And lest you think I’m all self-actualized or whatnot, one of the major patterns that appeared on my list was “because I want to be sexy”. WAY more often than, I want to be healthy. Not quite as often as, I want to be happy.
(I think is kind of funny that I have one “fancy” cat (smoke* dilute tortie) and a “dead-standard” cat (brown mackerel tabby with white).
* Jade’s fur isn’t colored all the way down–underneath the tips, it is a pretty peach color. One of my parents’ cats is a smoke, too, but his fur is white underneath.
No bad or scary news today. Hooray! /unintentional rhyme
Kiwi girl
10 years ago
Yay, I went to bed and came back to find a wall of positives. 🙂 🙂 🙂
@chimisaur: babies can be hideously ugly too, although not as ugly as baby birds. I was only going to breed if I could have a litter of kittens instead. At least kittens are cute from birth.
Kiwi girl
10 years ago
@auggz: I watched this yesterday and had the same feelings. I thought the ending was particularly well done.
I realize that my problems are not very serious… but depression has hit quite hard and I haven’t been able to get out of bed for almost two weeks now.
I know it’s probably partly the depression telling you this is no big deal, but I promise: being too sick to get out of bed is not a minor problem! And yes, being depressed = being sick (if you find it helpful to frame it that way; if not, don’t. It helps me because if I blame myself for being depressed, I just get more depressed, whereas thinking of myself as being sick makes it not my fault. Does that make sense?)
Also, I can’t remember where you live, but if it’s winter where you are or it rains a lot, you might consider investing in one of those solar-spectrum lamps. My depression gets worse in winter and in cloudy weather, and that lamp makes a big diifference.
Ally, I’m sending up thoughts to you in the universe that you stay safe. Remember that abusers are very good at exploiting any weakness they see so he will probably try to make you feel guilty about your family and how you are making him feel.
Indeed, I assumed the whole “I could have been shot!” thing was an attempt to curry sympathy. OTOH, he could have a legitimate fear of racist violence.
@Plausibleflight, your partner is being kind of an asshole right now. That can’t be helpful on top of getting laid off. *hugs* if you want them.
I’m pretty sure he was going on about that mysterious, extra, inhabited planet in eccentric orbit around our sun.
Nibiru?
Dude, that DVD sounds awesome. I love conspiracy stuff. It’s hilarious.
So, I guess I get some kind of (hopefully non-service-industry, although with the unemployment rates in my city and field I am not very hopeful) job and wait for the next round of fall apps.
Good luck + best wishes from me. (and you aren’t taking over the thread, don’t worry :))
@AIT
glad to hear things are going well at work. :3
@Ally
No bad or scary news today. Hooray! /unintentional rhyme
As for me, my writeathon seems to be a bit sluggish, which is kinda a bummer. : I guess it’s all part of the process and shit. But in nicer news, I got my disability shit hammered out! It required five different calls to three different people, plus a bureaucratic reshuffling that meant the workers forgot I existed and pre-emptively froze my benefits, but I seem to have gotten that hammered out!
Now all I need is to get my goddamn health insurance and food stamps back, and I’ll be set…
Thanks guys! And it should; I’ve got all my paperwork saying I’m Legally Certified Batshit, I was on food stamps and Medicaid before, I’d be THRILLED to hear their explanation for why I can’t have them.
Also, even if my insurance doesn’t cover, it looks like I might have found a new shrink for the new place? I’m a little concerned at the cost (at my income bracket, therapy could easily cost me about a third of my budget) but I’m not really in a position where I should go without mental health care for long, and I REALLY want to get the fuck off these damn meds.
@chimisaur: babies can be hideously ugly too, although not as ugly as baby birds. I was only going to breed if I could have a litter of kittens instead. At least kittens are cute from birth.
Me too! Kittens or the next king of France, but nothing else.
Hellkell, that’s great news! No more rotten TX summers and general TXRepub extremism.
Ally and LBT, also great news!
That squirrel’s the funniest. I love the What Are You Doing??? look on the dog’s face. 😀
We Hunted The Mammoth
I was lurking the hell out of the last thread, so Ally, congrats on getting out, and do what you have to do to stay safe!
All kinds of hugs for anyone who wants them. And a cat who realized this isn’t the mouse it’s looking for.
On a really good note, things are going really well at work, regarding that situation with the misogynistic coworker of mine I mentioned a couple dozen threads back. I haven’t dealt with him in a while, and when I can, I’ll tell you guys more.
ARG. I know what I did wrong. Forgot an endquote. Let’s try this again!
I don’t believe it
that is exactly the mouse kitten wanted
that’ll teach the human for paying too much attention to that square thing with the pictures
Curses! You saw through my clever ruse!
Ok, I’ll stop looking at other kitties being adorable…
When we were in Seattle last weekend, we had dinner with an old friend, and her Bengal is going to be 17 this year! I remember when he was just a little guy. He looks great and is still his salty little self.
Speaking of Seattle, we’re going to move back this summer. This trip was the first time we’d both been back together, and I got to see just how happy Mr. HK is there and how much he hates it here. Our jobs can be as remote as we want them to be, so we’re gonna do it.
@auggz: mine are always there too. I also hear voices when fans are running, and have to get out of bed to see if I left the TV on. I mostly just ignore them, because years of double-checking has proved to my satisfaction that, no, the TV isn’t on; no, the axe-murderer hasn’t broken in; no, the walls are not forming a vortex into an alternate dimension. You know, the usual suspicions.
I don’t know if it’s healthy, but I’ve just accepted that my senses don’t always tell me the truth. If it’s important, I check with somebody else. It’s really only a problem when I’m super-stressed and anxious (which I’m not much anymore since I’ve stopped eating gluten).
Also, I TOTALLY concur about the chia pudding. I made a chocolate one with coconut milk that I ate with strawberries. Mmmm. In fact, I think I’ll make some of that for tonight 🙂 I saw a recipe recently for chia jam, where you mash up raspberries with chia seeds and let them set. Thick, jam-like texture without all the sugar and cooking.
@HK: Congratulations! It’s amazing what a change in location can do for your outlook.
@AIT – congrats on handling the gross coworker thing! 🙂
@Kiwi girl – I read somewhere once a description of a baby as “tiny Winston Churchill” and now I can’t unsee it. Regardless of a kid’s sex or race I find myself having to resist the urge to refer to zir as “Mr. Prime Minister” up to the age of 1 (or sometimes 3 for the extra-jowly).
The Dominique link was wonderful. What a sweet doggie!
@Auggz – I think I’ll try that pudding thing, and maybe find a way to make it pistachio flavored. ^_^
They aren’t bengals? Interesting…I love that pattern but bengals are silly expensive, even retired breeder cats are hundreds of dollars. If tabbies come in that pattern…well, you find tabbies in shelters all the time.
Regarding telling what sex babies are without clothing markers, I saw a study awhile ago (I’ll see if I can dig it up), and people were worse at guessing than if they’d just flipped a coin for each picture! (That is, with any kid you have a 50/50 chance of being right, these folks were right less than 50% of the time)
@chimisaur: http://www.autumnmakesanddoes.com/2013/10/17/pistachio-chia-pudding/
I dunno where you’d get pistachio milk, though, unless you made it yourself.
So, I’ve been cleaning out some old files and came across a bunch of exercises I was doing a few years ago to help me stop bouncing off the walls of my life like a paramecium. One thing I found (in retrospect) to be really helpful was to write down what I want.
The actual assignment was, write down everything you want, no matter how far-fetched, in this format: “I want ______ because _________”
Like, I want to make more money because I can’t afford mid-winter tropical vacations on my current salary. I want to slim down because I want to be able to fit in an airplane seat. I want to change jobs because I hate my current one.
When I read over the list when I was done, the patterns became very obvious, and it helped me figure out what I needed to focus on. Looking at it again 5 years later, I’m pleasantly shocked by how many of those “I wants” I’ve achieved. Except for the time-travel one. Haven’t pulled that off yet.
Anyway, I thought I’d put it out there, because a lot of people seem to be having life-stall issues. You’re welcome to try it out and see if it helps.
And lest you think I’m all self-actualized or whatnot, one of the major patterns that appeared on my list was “because I want to be sexy”. WAY more often than, I want to be healthy. Not quite as often as, I want to be happy.
Yes, you have- just in one direction. 🙂
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/79/90/09/79900939f226f9c5b5b6f32d9cb2a357.jpg
Argenti,
Yeah, that pattern is not the most common tabby pattern, but it does exist in pure housecats. It isn’t even breed specific.
As a biologist and cat lover, cat color genetics is kind of an interest of mine:
More here:
http://www.seregiontica.org/Colors/tabby/tabbies.htm
(I think is kind of funny that I have one “fancy” cat (smoke* dilute tortie) and a “dead-standard” cat (brown mackerel tabby with white).
* Jade’s fur isn’t colored all the way down–underneath the tips, it is a pretty peach color. One of my parents’ cats is a smoke, too, but his fur is white underneath.
No bad or scary news today. Hooray! /unintentional rhyme
Yay, I went to bed and came back to find a wall of positives. 🙂 🙂 🙂
@chimisaur: babies can be hideously ugly too, although not as ugly as baby birds. I was only going to breed if I could have a litter of kittens instead. At least kittens are cute from birth.
@auggz: I watched this yesterday and had the same feelings. I thought the ending was particularly well done.
Yay, Ally! Yay, hellkell! Yay, everyone!
I know it’s probably partly the depression telling you this is no big deal, but I promise: being too sick to get out of bed is not a minor problem! And yes, being depressed = being sick (if you find it helpful to frame it that way; if not, don’t. It helps me because if I blame myself for being depressed, I just get more depressed, whereas thinking of myself as being sick makes it not my fault. Does that make sense?)
Also, I can’t remember where you live, but if it’s winter where you are or it rains a lot, you might consider investing in one of those solar-spectrum lamps. My depression gets worse in winter and in cloudy weather, and that lamp makes a big diifference.
Indeed, I assumed the whole “I could have been shot!” thing was an attempt to curry sympathy. OTOH, he could have a legitimate fear of racist violence.
@Plausibleflight, your partner is being kind of an asshole right now. That can’t be helpful on top of getting laid off. *hugs* if you want them.
Nibiru?
Dude, that DVD sounds awesome. I love conspiracy stuff. It’s hilarious.
Damn, I was gonna post that! Instead, here’s a squirrel trying to bury an acorn in his friend’s fur:
@chimisaur
::offers internet hugs::
Good luck + best wishes from me. (and you aren’t taking over the thread, don’t worry :))
@AIT
glad to hear things are going well at work. :3
@Ally
yay! 😀
Whew! No news is good news, Ally.
As for me, my writeathon seems to be a bit sluggish, which is kinda a bummer. : I guess it’s all part of the process and shit. But in nicer news, I got my disability shit hammered out! It required five different calls to three different people, plus a bureaucratic reshuffling that meant the workers forgot I existed and pre-emptively froze my benefits, but I seem to have gotten that hammered out!
Now all I need is to get my goddamn health insurance and food stamps back, and I’ll be set…
@LBT
Glad to hear you got your disability stuff hammered out 🙂 And good luck with the health insurance and food stamps.
@LBT: what great news. 🙂
LBT: that’s great news.Hopefully the food stamps and health insurance will go smoothly.
Thanks guys! And it should; I’ve got all my paperwork saying I’m Legally Certified Batshit, I was on food stamps and Medicaid before, I’d be THRILLED to hear their explanation for why I can’t have them.
Also, even if my insurance doesn’t cover, it looks like I might have found a new shrink for the new place? I’m a little concerned at the cost (at my income bracket, therapy could easily cost me about a third of my budget) but I’m not really in a position where I should go without mental health care for long, and I REALLY want to get the fuck off these damn meds.
Me too! Kittens or the next king of France, but nothing else.
Hellkell, that’s great news! No more rotten TX summers and general TXRepub extremism.
Ally and LBT, also great news!
That squirrel’s the funniest. I love the What Are You Doing??? look on the dog’s face. 😀