Sunday, March 15, 2009

A Household of One

I now keep extra packages of toilet paper in the hall bathroom laundry hamper. I mean, really...why not? It's just as easy for me to take my clothes straight to the utility room.

I run the dishwasher about once a week. I've been trying to remember to rinse dishes and load them as I use them, but, you know how that goes. Usually, the sink gets full before I get around to it.

I've cut back on the cable and ditched all the movie channels that I never watched, cancelled the newspaper and dropped the cable modem.

It has been many years since I have lived alone, and it continues to be very strange to me. For the first time in thirty-one years, I have no kids living here. Brendan still comes home for breaks (and throws his laundry in on top of the toilet paper), but I am actually getting used to life as the Cat Lady.

The other night I was awakened by a feline altercation right under my window. Knowing that the surest route to a visit from Animal Control is to wake my neighbours, I dove into a bathrobe and a pair of shoes and went out to snag my pizzed-off pussycat by the scruff of his neck and haul him into the house. The fact that he was defending his own territory wouldn't cut any ice with the Pet Police! When I found myself lecturing him as if he were really paying attention, I knew I had crossed the line.

In a few years, I suppose I may be bored with all this, but, for now, it's a novelty, and I am quite enjoying it.

I still sense Jim's presence frequently, and that is still a comfort. Mary Ellen was showing me around her ancillary theater spaces last evening, and there he was. As he was always interested in theaters and how they operate, I should not have been surprised.

I have not, as yet, made much progress in the weight loss department, but there's time for that.

So. Nineteen months (minus five days) into this "widow" thing, this is where I am.

ETA:

I have a friend who is an orthodontics tech, and she sent me the following:

I was working on an adult patient who just got his braces on and has super crooked teeth. He's a very nice man who has twin baby daughters, a loving wife, a Labrador retriever and probably a freakin' white picket fence surrounding them all....... and he made this comment about cat owners:

He said if a woman owns one cat then she is a cat lover, if she owns two, then she is a cat enthusiast but if she own more than two, she is single, desperate and doomed to a life of watching movies on Lifetime, eating microwave dinners and carrying on meaningless conversations with the cats whose only desire in life is to deposit fur on everything she owns, thus the reason she never goes anywhere because she can never find the lint roller.

So.........I didn't say anything, laughed at his "cute" little remark and promptly over-tightened all the little wires on his braces to the point that his teeth will most likely be perfectly straight when he returns in 6 weeks.

That was Wednesday, and the satisfaction is that I know the guy's teeth are still killing him.

So hrumphh!


She says his teeth will be killing him for a good two weeks, and no amount of Motrin will help!

Just goes to show that cats are a lot better than some men!

And, for the record, duct tape works just as well as a lint roller.

3 comments:

  1. Roni:

    The address label sleeves for Fed Ex work GREAT for car hair removal and they fit right over your hand.

    Keep some around for when you cannot find the lint brush.

    Susan

    ReplyDelete
  2. PS--sorry I was typing so fast I spelled your name incorrectly. . .RONNI

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't get many of those, Susan.

    But I have a lot of duct tape.

    ReplyDelete