So, what’s up America?

Or should I say, what’s wrong? Because there’s a lot more to say in answer to that question. Two things in particular are getting up in my grill on this damn day, and here they are.

#1. STOP telling me this is going to be okay. It is NOT – I repeat, NOT – going to be okay. It is going to be the opposite of okay. It is going to be a shit show.

Many of my well-meaning liberal friends are writing very up-with-people Facebook posts about how we need to chin up and face the music because The Sun is Gonna Come Out Tomorrow. That we have to accept the results of the election and put aside our differences for the good of our nation.

Nope.

President Donald Trump (yeah, that’s right, I said it, and I’ll say it again and again every time some look-on-the-bright-side-of-lifer tries to sell me this ‘it’s all gonna be fine’ load of crap, beacuse guess what? Every time I say it they choke, WHICH SHOULD TELL THEM SOMETHING) won by exploiting our differences. And he will rule by doing more of the same. Because when he riles up his base, he gets what he wants – the only thing he has ever wanted in his entire, white male priviledged, douchebaggy life – which is adoration. Everything he does in the White House will be done for one reason and one reason only; to get as many people as possible to lick his fat orange ass. And he is going to surround himself with people are far too willing to do that as long as their own personal agendas get met.

There is NOTHING okay about President Donald Trump, the stupidest, least qualified, most prominent and repeated FAILURE both at business and just being a decent human being who has ever held the office of the presidency. Not. One. Thing. is going to be okay about this. We’re fucked, and the sooner we accept that and stop trying to play nice with the other team (a team that hates us and doesn’t care, literally, if we live or die) the better off we’ll be. We’ve been too nice already, too optimistic, and that’s what got us into this shithole. Every single time someone said to me in the last year, ‘oh no, Donald cannot possibly win,’ I thought, yes, yes he can. And he probably will. And I was right. And yet people are STILL trying to talk to me in the same pie-in-the-sky, at-heart-all-human-beings-are-good manner that got the rug pulled out from under us the first go round. Enough dreaming, people. It is not going to be okay, and we are in a shitload of trouble here, and the next four years (at least) are going to suck. We’re most likely going to go broke, every other nation (except Russia) is going to hate us more than they already do, our healthcare system is going to be decimated, and civil rights are going to be set back at least 50 years. So yeah, NOT OKAY. Got that? Moving on.

#2. I am going to need all the talking heads and political pundits to STOP TALKING ABOUT WHAT TRUMP DID ‘RIGHT’ IMMEDIATELY.

Trump did NOTHING ‘right.’ He did EVERYTHING wrong. And he won because America enjoyed watching him do everything wrong, and the majority of Americans support him in his wrongness. There is no lesson to learn from President Donald Trump that I want to absorb. I have no wisdom to gain from him, his supporters, or this election. All that I ‘learned’ – which really isn’t something I learned as much as it is something I already  knew and just had reinforced for me – is that any vile, disgusting human being with a white dick and a fat wallet shoved into his pants can basically get WHATEVER HE WANTS in this country, despite having no qualifications, knowledge, expertise, class, skill, recommendations, preparation, plan, ability to complete a sentence, composure – you name it. This dirtbag did not win by being more ‘right’ about the electorate than the Democrats. He won through his willingness to be the most wrongedy-wrongy-wrong-wrong human shitstain on the campaign trail of any sub-human slug who’s ever run for office before.

And more thing I gotta add: I see you Trump voters out there saying it’s all gonna be OK because Trump won’t actually do any of the shit he has said he will do, or that he will be held in check and won’t be able to accomplish his CLEARLY STATED goals. You are all on notice and when these chickens come home to roost I am coming back to you all, with receipts. ‘Print screen’ is not gonna be your friend.

I am going away for now, until I can better contain myself. But if you’re going to come at me with some more of this ‘we all have to work together for the good of the nation’ bullshit, just know that I WILL be back. And I AM. NOT. HAVING. IT. on this day. NOT ON THIS DAY.

ETA: I appreciate everyone who commented, but I’ve switched comments off for now. Yes, this post is vitriolic, but the frustrations and sentiment here is real, and were I to delete the post at this point it would just concede the point that as a woman I’m  not allowed to feel my feelings if they make people uncomfortable. People disagreed with me in the comments, which was fine, and I disagreed right back – but it was starting to become  the sort of insult-fest that is good for no one. To the people that disagreed with me, I still respect your opinions and appreciate your input. To the people that got way personal and nasty – up your game. If you wanna act ugly at least be coherent and attempt to keep your remarks relevant to the discussion.

Not a very logical title, but I tried.

As I mentioned in my last post, I headed back to Ruah for another silent retreat at the Villa de Matel. I wanted another long stay, but every span of time I had open to go was unavailable at the convent, so I settled on a quick weekend trip instead. For the most part, my trips to the Villa occur during the summer as well as during the work week; I may have attended a time or two back in the 90s on a weekend, but that’s certainly too far back for me to remember, so suffice it to say that I’ve not been there on a weekend in quite a long time, and possibly ever. It was an interesting experience, to say the least, and definitely different from what I am accustomed to.

https://vimeo.com/190483969
I always love the sight of the Villa coming into view after turning into the drive – not a great video representation of it, but I forgot my Sony and had to use my phone.

Friday wasn’t too bad, although there was one group of about 10 people attending that was holed up in the Bethany room for most of the day. That meant I didn’t have access to that space, which was OK since it’s not a room I usually spend a lot of time in. Apparently, the center was also preparing for some big shenanigans happening during the coming week, so there was quite a bit of activity and lots of people bustling about all day, which was odd for me, but not particularly disruptive. More people at the center had its upsides, too – when there’s only a handful of guests staying at Ruah, meals are served in the nun’s dining room, buffet-style, and guests have to grab a plate in there, get their food, and walk over to the retreatant’s dining room to eat. Under these circumstances, the food will certainly fill you up and provide you with nutrients, but that’s about all I can say about it. Unless you just love cottage cheese and prunes, then you’ll really be in business.

Nothing nearly this exciting, NOPE

But, if there are groups attending or just more than a handful of guests staying at the center, the kitchen will prepare separate meals for them and serve them right in the retreatants’ dining area. Usually in this case, the food is more substantial – rice and broccoli casserole instead of cottage cheese, grilled chicken instead of cold cuts, that sort of thing – and you don’t have to disturb the nuns in their dining area and pick at their leftovers (when getting food in the nuns’ dining room, it is expected that guests will wait 10-15 minutes after serving time to allow them time to get served and seated). So in that regard, Friday’s dinner was quite nice, and because the group was in meetings until late into the evening, the entire retreat center was kept “open” until about 10:00 PM, which is unusual. When there are just a few retreatants staying, the women who run the center pretty much shut things down when they leave around 6 PM. Nothing is locked up, but all the lights are turned off and the doors are shut to the common areas. You can still wander around the second floor and spend time in any of the rooms as late as you want; there’s nothing stopping you from going into, say, the Offertory at 2 AM, but it’s a big, old building to wander around in, and the hallways are quite dim, so it still feels a bit creepy and a little unwelcoming even though you know you’re doing nothing wrong. Because of that, I normally turn in early when I’m there – shortly after sundown – but this time, everything was open and lit up quite late, which was pretty nice (keeping things lit isn’t generally a popular thing at Ruah; pretty much every light switch has a sign over it reminding you to shut it off if you’re the last one leaving ANY room).

Not quite this bad, but close

Saturday morning, however, was another situation entirely. I woke up at 7, and wandered down to the guests’ dining room for the 8-7 breakfast hour around 8:15 (you have one hour for all meals, by the way, and if you miss that hour, you’re screwed until the next mealtime). As previously mentioned, waiting about 15 minutes to go down and get served is kind of the norm there, so even though I knew there were others dining I figured I’d just let the group get their food and get settled, since they probably had more meetings to get to and they all knew each other, before I went down. Well. I opened the door to the dining area, and holy cow – it was PACKED with people. And, almost all of the breakfast was gone! There was still food, but what was left I couldn’t eat because of the wheat – toast, doughnuts, croissants – and fortunately there was a scrap of scrambled eggs and one piece of crusty bacon left that I could snag, otherwise I would have gotten nothing. Then, I had to worm my way into a spot at a table full of people I didn’t know, because there were so few seats left, which was awkward. Thank goodness the dining area is also considered a silent space, so no one was talking, or I really would have felt like a twerp.

Yep, I’m in there somewhere

As soon as I was done with breakfast, I started worrying about lunch (probably because I was still hungry). I figured I was going to have to be one of ‘those people’ who gets in line for food at a buffet line ten minutes before it opens if I wanted to be sure to get something to eat. If I didn’t have to avoid wheat, I wouldn’t have worried about it, but my options in that regard have always been limited at Ruah – the bottom line is, you are staying at the center and essentially eating for free (they work on a donation basis, so if you only had five dollars to donate at the end of your stay, that is all you have to pay), so you take what you can get and make the most of it. I wouldn’t dream of complaining about the quality or quantity of what is basically free food being given to me out of the goodness of other people’s hearts (well, not to them at least, clearly I am OK with doing it here) so I generally just deal with it the best I can. I also usually sneak all sorts of snacks into my room just in case, even though that is against the rules, but because my stay was so short this time I didn’t think I’d need to bring too much, so by Saturday morning I’d already snacked up most of what I’d brought.

I was low on my usual provisions

So, I made my decision to keep an eye on the time and join the lunch-rush, even though I think it’s a tacky thing to do, and tried to get on with my day. But – everywhere I went, there were PEOPLE. And not just one or two people, but GROUPS of people, who knew each other, and who were whispering to each other and chatting even though they weren’t supposed to. I actually don’t care too much about people whispering or chatting, even though the rules are to stay silent – it’s the awkwardness of walking into a space and taking a seat to journal, meditate, or pray, and finding yourself crashing a whisper party instead. You can go ahead and enter, and try to do your thing all the while knowing that you’re intruding on other people’s conversation, or you can leave and try to find somewhere else to go, which is what I kept trying to do. It kinda sucked.

The chapel when I visit Ruah during the work week

The chapel when I visit Ruah on a weekend (artist’s rendition)

So, I ended up spending most of my day outside. I’d had this vision of going to Ruah in November, and having it be nice and chilly with the convent decorated for the Christmas holidays. But not this year – it was a balmy 82 degrees outside on Friday, and just a touch cooler on Saturday, and it turns out they do that thing rational people do where they refuse to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving is over (whatever). Even though the weather was not the winter wonderland I’d hoped it would be, it was certainly comfortable enough to take full advantage of the outside spaces of Ruah – something I do not generally do because I almost always visit in the summer months, when the Texas heat is ridiculous. Sure, I was out wandering around in November in a tank top, but at least I wasn’t sweating like a heifer and dying of heat exhaustion. So, that was nice enough. Sadly, I only spent a few minutes in what has always been my favorite space – my beloved oratory, where I spent hours at a time back in July. Every time I tried to go in there, there were at least four other people there (and it’s a pretty small space) and  one of them had even stolen MY floor space and floor pillows! The nerve.

The oratory when I visit Ruah during the week

The oratory when I visit Ruah on the weekend

I thought I’d grabbed my Sony video camera on my way out the door from home on Friday, but when I opened the camera bag Saturday morning I realized I’d accidentally grabbed my Canon SL1 DSLR. My plan was to do video walkabouts with the vidcam instead of taking more photos, because at this point I have literally thousands of shots of the place and really do not need more. But, I managed to screw that up by snatching the wrong camera. My SL1 will shoot video, but the LCD screen is hard as hell to see out-of-doors, and I’d neglected to bring the spare battery and the one in the camera was at death’s door anyway. So, no good  video this time. But that didn’t stop me from using my phone – I just used it improperly and forgot to hold the phone in landscape mode when I was shooting, as I always do. Still, I did not let that deter me from making a few videos; I just used Filmora’s split screen feature to put several videos at once into a skinny format that would work with my screw up. You’re welcome.

https://vimeo.com/190484405
I also added weird music because why not

I actually ended up walking A LOT Saturday. More than I did anything else. When I first started visiting Ruah in the 90s, they didn’t have any of these trails cutting through the 70 acres on which the convent is set. The grounds were still lovely, and there were plenty of places to wander out under the trees and perhaps sit in one of the many tree swings they have on the property (something else I didn’t get to do this time, because someone’s ass was in EVERY SINGLE SWING I tried to find), but all of the places where there are walking trails now were just thickets and brush back then. I didn’t even realize it all belonged to them, until I went back in my early 40s and they’d started to carve them out. It appears they are finally done with all of the path-clearing they intend to do, and are now working on planting various fruit trees and sprucing up the fairly new labyrinth area. In spite of my testiness at having MY space invaded by OUTSIDERS (as if I own the whole place), it was nice to spend so much time getting familiar with all the new outdoor spaces I usually ignore.

https://vimeo.com/190484053
Oh, and I ALSO added filters to make the videos look old and shiny and shit like that. I couldn’t help myself.

But then it was time for LUNCH, and in spite of feeling like it was tacky, I decided to stake out a space by the dining area early to ensure I got a decent spot in line and had a crack at the wheat-less food I’d able to eat before it got gobbled up by everyone else. The guests’ dining area leads to a huge back porch, so I grabbed a rocking chair back there and waited for the time to arrive. Sure enough, about five minutes before noon a big gaggle from one of the groups came tromping up towards the back entrance, so I casually lifted myself from my seat and  blended into line. No sooner had we all gotten inside and filed in at the front of the buffet line when one of the cafeteria workers threw open the door from the kitchen and yelled at us, “You are TOO EARLY! Lunch does NOT start until NOON!” And then she slammed back out. See? I knew we were being rude, but I felt I had no choice. But when the cooks at a convent yell at you, you know you suck. Yikes.

You’ll get your prunes when I’m damn good and ready to give them to you

Everyone else just sort of faded back a few steps, but were clearly not going to stop hovering around the buffet table, so I finally thought, screw this, I’m leaving, and stomped off.  I didn’t want to stand around with a bunch of people I didn’t know, who were all being a little rude to be honest, and wait to attack the buffet as if we were all contestants on Survivor and then be forced to squeeze myself into a seat next to them while they all tried to wave apologetically to their one friend who’d gotten edged out of her seat at their table by me, the evil interloper. Duking it out for food hadn’t exactly been on my agenda for the weekend, and neither had sharing all my quiet, private spaces with loads of other people, so I decided I was packing up and going home.

Except, once I got back to my room I realized I was being pissy and spoiled, and decided I’d just wait for the rush to die down like I always did and see if anything was left that I could eat. If there wasn’t anything decent left, I’d just hop in my car and go grab something for lunch on my own. I couldn’t bring it back to the Villa to eat, because that was not allowed, but I could head out to the walking trails and have myself a nice little picnic, and toss whatever food I didn’t finish into the brush for the raccoons and the birds. Problem solved. I went back down around 12:30 and there was one scrawny, dry piece of baked chicken left, along with some white rice and some lima beans, so even though it wasn’t exactly tasty I wolfed it down anyway, then drove up to CVS for a bunch of comfort junk food to make up for  it. I figured whatever happened at dinner could be dealt with if I knew I had chocolate waiting for me back in my room, and I was right.

Restocked!

As it turned out, both groups cleared out soon after lunch was over anyway, but I still found myself hanging out mostly outdoors.

https://vimeo.com/190484487
One more weird outdoors video – y’all better watch this mess ’cause I worked hard on it, believe it or not!

There were a few guests like myself still in attendance, and to put it nicely, they didn’t seem very aware of the convent’s rules. Supper was at 6 o’clock (well, 6:15 if we were being polite, which I was) and since the groups were all cleared out, those of us left were back to getting our food out of the nuns’ dining area – so cottage cheese, prunes, and cold cuts all around! However, I couldn’t help but notice that several guests went back many times into the nuns’ area for refills of food, which isn’t exactly the polite way to handle a free buffet with limited offerings.

I’ll have some more of that, and some more of that that that

The evening was quite lovely, with a pretty sunset and a nice breeze, but as soon as the sun dipped down behind the horizon line the tree roaches came out, and if you’ve never seen a Texas tree roach then you’ve never seen a roach AT ALL. Seriously, they are the size of a toddler’s sneaker, and they are awful. Since it’s still in the 80s here, temperature-wise, they have yet to meet their maker and disappear for the winter, so my sunset-gazing was cut short by the approach of a roach so big you could have saddled him and  ridden him around for a while, if you were so inclined, while I was sitting in a nice comfy chair on the second-floor balcony. Boo. The Ruah center was already dark and heading towards creepy by then, so I decided to go ahead and turn in – and that’s when I saw more evidence of the “I don’t think they understand the rules here” going on with the other guests.

This photo was taken in the little serving area on the third floor, where the dorm rooms are. Now, obviously, this is NOT a Hilton hotel, and there’s no room service. In fact, there are pretty clear rules about what to do with dirty dishes (basically, wash them yourself, as the NUMEROUS signs posted around every sink and refrigerator instruct guests to do). It’s so clear, and is generally so not a problem, that I was completely thrown when I saw these dirty-ass coffee cups in the sink of the little kitchenette – when I first saw this, I didn’t have my phone with me to take a picture, and at that time there was also an open carton of milk sitting there, even though there’s a refrigerator below the counter. What the hell, people? I realize it may not sound like that big of a deal, and look, I always sneak food into my room when I’m not supposed to, which is against the rules too, so okay – but hell, I at least hide all my evidence, and I always clean up after myself. This was just – kinda ridiculous, especially considering where we all were. The convent offers all of these amenities to its guests, and literally asks NOTHING in return, so the least people can do is clean up after themselves.

If that’s true anywhere, it’s gotta be here

Then I visited the shared bathroom, where more astounding sights greeted my eyes. Now, each wing of the dorm area has several bathrooms on it, most of them serving about 4-5 rooms at a time. They have a main door, and within the bathroom space are 2-3 individual stalls, and 2-3 tiny little showers (all of which have their own doors with locks). Problem #1 was that someone who was utilizing the same bathroom as I was would shut and lock the MAIN DOOR to the bathroom every single time she went in there (the center does keep the women and men in separate areas) so that, even though there was more than one toilet inside with separate doors, no one else could use the damn thing. When whoever she was went in there to shower, she again locked up the whole damn bathroom, then took an hour to get herself clean. Once she finally left, I made my way inside only to find that she’d taken the whole bathroom over:

OK seriously – who does this? I know she washed her tush with that loofah, do I have to encounter it hanging over a doorknob when I go to pee? And her comb? AND her TOOTHBRUSH? I mean, the dirty mug at this point was no surprise, since I’d already encountered others in the kitchenette, but – wow. Nice job just throwing your towel on the floor there, too. Don’t forget to tip housekeeping! Except – oh wait, there isn’t a  housekeeping service here. Come on, people.

But enough about loofas and toothbrushes. Let’s get back to more pictures of the Villa, shall we?

So, okay. Clearly there are people staying here this weekend who don’t know the rules. It doesn’t mean they’re bad people, and it could also mean that the center itself doesn’t do a good enough job enforcing or explaining the rules to the guests. However, I think they may start doing a better job, because Sunday morning when I went down for breakfast (15 minutes late, as is expected), no sooner had I sat down than the head cook of the Villa came storming out of the kitchen into the guests’ area, where the director of Ruah was eating at another table; although he did a good job of keeping his voice low (because trust me, I was totally trying to hear what he was saying), his body language gave away that he was quite upset, indeed. I definitely heard something along the lines of, “this sort of thing should not still be happening,” and I also heard one of the guests apologizing to a nun in the other dining area – something about coffee – so my guess is that once again not enough food had been prepared for everyone, and the guests were getting fed ahead of the nuns, which in case you hadn’t figured it out by now is a definite no-no.

So am I just going to bitch about all this and be done? Well yeah, kinda. Except – I realized after I left that although I don’t feel I’d been a part of any of the problems this weekend, I certainly wasn’t part of the solution. Why didn’t I, for example, clean up the dirty kitchenette Saturday night when I saw it, instead of just taking pictures? And why didn’t I just go utilize any one of the other numerous bathroom facilities on the third floor instead of cluck-clucking about the ingrate who locked herself in the one nearest my room and refused to come out? And for that matter, once I realized the Villa was running short of food, couldn’t I have foregone eating any of my meals there and gone out for food instead? I mean, for all I know, there were people eating meals at the Villa who really couldn’t afford to pay much for them, so what would have been so wrong with me helping them all out and eating elsewhere? The answer is because I didn’t think to in the moment – I was too busy being nonplussed and amused by all the snafus, and taking pictures while writing this blog post in my head for entertainment. I certainly don’t want these sorts of problems to become such an ongoing thing that the convent decides to shut Ruah down, so to prevent that I need to be sure I do my part next time, even if that means doing other people’s parts when they remain unaware of the need to do them.

Perhaps I need to read up

And next time, I definitely will not go on a weekend, and I will ask in advance if there are going to be a lot of groups around!

First of all, I don’t have many photos to add in this post. I haven’t been in the mood for taking any, and definitely not for posing. I’m pretty much over taking my own photos by now, and so far no one is jumping at the chance to pose for me, so I’ve been lying low instead. The Wings Over Houston airshow that I attend every year with my dad is this Saturday, so I’ll be able to take some pictures there, and I’m going back to Ruah the first weekend in November and hopefully can take pictures of the walking trails as long as the weather cools down (so far, it’s still pretty hot down here). I’ve not been in the mood to shoot wig videos either; my energy for that really waxes and wanes, and right now, I’m just not into it. I wonder if it’s for the same reasons that I am tired of photography right now – tired of the same old script and editing the same old face, maybe? Video is not as much makeup or setup as photos, but it’s still got quite a bit of prep work to pull it off properly, and lately I just haven’t been in the mood for all the furniture-moving and makeup-applying it entails. Which sucks, because in a few days I will be the proud owner of five – yes, count them, FIVE – custom Laine wigs I ordered from Rene of Paris back in May.

Laine by Rene of Paris in Almond Spice-R

Laine is a wig I’ve reviewed before; I love it, but it has a ton of permatease in the crown that makes it a deal-breaker for a lot of people. I’ve also ordered custom wigs before, and when I placed this order with Kathy at Gallery of Wigs I was deep in the throes of wigdom and really into trying something new. I thought if I could get Laine in a rooted color it would be the perfect wig (and even as a custom color, it’s not expensive – I think they were $90 each, maybe a bit more), and at the time I placed the order I was willing to get the minimum (five) to try her out. Then, about a week after I placed the order, I quit my job, and really wasn’t thrilled that I’d spent around $500 on five wigs I didn’t need, but Kathy had already placed the order and I didn’t want to back out on her, so I left it open.

The last time I ordered custom from ROP, I received it pretty quickly, but that may have been because I only had to order three then since the wig had a monofilament top (the minimum is higher on a non-mono wig). This order, however, seemed to take forever, and I had all but forgotten about it when Kathy emailed me Tuesday afternoon to tell me the Laines had come in. What the hell I am going to do with FIVE of these, I have no idea – well, sell them, obviously, so I guess I do have an idea – but I’m still feeling a bit OMG why did I do this about the whole thing.  I have other wigs to review, quite a few actually, but lately I’ve been considering blowing off reviewing them entirely and just putting them up for sale – but I just can’t bring myself to do that with these Laines. Not a lot of people know about custom ordering, and a Laine in a rooted color (Almond Spice-R, BTW) is so unusual it would be a shame not to show it off a little. I’m more concerned that what’s probably going to happen here is that I will get the Laines in, love them to pieces, and be back on the wig-wagon immediately. Just looking at the photos make me think about how many other wigs I’d like to own – especially if I check out the background in those shots; does Kathy’s store look like wig heaven, or what?!

The rooting appears to have helped disguise the permatease nicely!

Speaking of videos, I have to tell you about the course I’m taking for my Academic Coach certification. It’s an online course, which means we all use Zoom to meet online for class. I’ve not done this before, but I had an idea how it would go; I did not anticipate, however, how old my laptop is (I got it  in 2010) and what a COMPLETELY CRAPPY webcam I have. I didn’t think about this at all until I logged in for the first class and saw how AWFUL my webcam quality was compared to everybody else. It’s really pathetic. After that, I immediately went online to research how to make my webcam videos look better (because there isn’t anything in the ‘settings – if you can call them settings – I could adjust to improve the quality) and made note of a few tips I’ve since used to at least come across as presentable.

1. Use one of my white umbrellas to diffuse a fluorescent light through it (like I do in photos) and give my face some brighter, cooler lighting.
2. Wear a white shirt so that the webcam has something white to calibrate color balance against, so I don’t keep changing skin tones throughout the entire session
3. Use a backdrop to keep the background from being messy, or situate myself against a blank wall
4. Wear makeup. LOTS of makeup.

OK, I get that this last one is silly, but still. It’s two hours of staring at myself on my computer screen, while knowing everyone else can stare at it, too. And on top of that, each class is filmed and uploaded to YouTube for people to watch later, so do you really think I, of all people, am going to allow myself to appear in a YouTube video looking like I just rolled out of bed? Hell no! Makeup it is!

This picture adds nothing to the conversation right now, but I wanted to throw it in somewhere

But the really fun part is this: as usual, I got the time zones mixed up (I can never figure out different time zones properly) and mistakenly assumed that, when signing up for this class, the 5-7 PM time slot would translate to 3-5 Central time. I was wrong. 5-7 PM translates, in this case (and no, I don’t know off-hand what time zone the course is set in and don’t intend to look it up) to SEVEN TO NINE PM my time, which is WAY later than I expected to be taking a class. You see, by 7 PM Marey time, I am in my pajamas and camped out on my floor playing video games (yes, I sit on the floor. I am a floor-sitter, and as such, I have an awesome floor chair. Maybe I’ll write about that some day). I am not interacting via crappy webcam online, and I am definitely not wearing makeup. Until a few weeks ago, when my course started. Now, I am in my bathroom slathering on makeup at 6:15 PM, when I should be washing it off and getting into my pajamas, because I cannot stand the idea of being on camera and filmed without having any on. Which pretty much sucks. I’m a nighttime showerer, so I end up on Tuesdays taking a shower before class, then putting makeup over my newly-washed face so I look presentable until 9 PM, at which point I take it all off AGAIN.

Downside of a shitty webcam: a grainy, foggy mess of poor image quality. Upside of shitty webcam: so much blur that the makeup I put on right before class doesn’t have to be good at all, as long as it’s heavy!

As far as the class goes, it’s quite useful and full of good information, but I find myself once again in the position of being THAT PERSON who answers every question and always has shit to say. I try so hard to hold my tongue and wait for other people to speak, because I’ve been known to, shall we say,  over-engage in situations like this, but the other students sit there staring at the screen waiting for someone else to answer the instructor’s questions. In a class dynamic like this, it doesn’t take people long to figure out which fool will eventually answer everything (and that person more often than not ends up being me) and then sitting around and waiting for that fool to pipe in. Don’t get me wrong – I always have comments to contribute, so speaking up in regards to everything isn’t a problem for me – I just don’t like sharing them every single time a question is asked or a volunteer is solicited. It feels really obnoxious. But once again this evening, every single time the instructor asked a question or for a volunteer, no one else said a word, and I ended up jumping in. So, obnoxious it is!

OK, so one last thing before I go: since quitting my job, my weight has been slowly creeping up on me again. It’s not that I’ve ever had much of a weight issue, but I definitely have a size that I am comfortable with and feel is my true size, and when I start to inch past it I am not happy. As a teacher I ran around constantly all day, with only 20 minutes for lunch, so keeping my weight down where I like it to be wasn’t difficult at all; in fact, I never had to think about how much I weighed or what I ate. But since quitting in May, I’ve already gained ten pounds and gone up two pant sizes. I don’t particularly have a problem with this, but the scale kept notching up, and if I’d gained any more I would not have been satisfied with myself. It’s mostly about maintaining my current weight, but if I could lose five pounds I’d be happy with that, so there’s some calorie-counting involved. I chose an app called My Fitness Pal to enter my meals and exercise into for a daily reality check. The damn app calculates my daily caloric intake to be just 1260 calories a day, which is really pretty hard to do, and it amazes me how I hadn’t already gained more weight than I have with what I was consuming before using the app. I cut out sodas two weeks ago and that alone has probably saved me close to 1,000 calories a day! I bet I was eating twice the amount of calories than what the app recommends every day, easy.

Another thing I discovered was that swimming burns almost twice as much calories as walking does, and since it hasn’t yet gotten cool here I can still swim in the pool, which, believe it or not, I’ve done every single day for going on two weeks now. Yes, this from the woman who hates all forms of exercise! I’m trying to take advantage of the swimming opportunity while I still have it, since I suspect with the first big cold front the water will drop down below a comfortable temperature for me to swim in until March or April. After that I’ll have to come up with something else, because my life right now may be busy mentally, but physically I’m pretty much a slug.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you – the Frog Log

Anyway, all this exercise and “diet” talk (I put that in quotes because I’m not really dieting, just watching what I eat) was really just an excuse to share this last picture, which is a photo of a little frog I named Jonathan. There may actually be more than one Jonathan hanging around, but since I cannot tell the difference between them any frog who gets in the pool is Jonathan to me. Anyway. Jonathan is almost always in the pool when I get in there (and yes, I know this implies we need to use more chlorine, but we forget sometimes, and besides, I rather enjoy Jonathan’s company). The first time I got in to swim while he was in there, he stayed frozen to the bottom of the pool for as long as he dared, then scooted over to our artificial lily-pad we have hanging out by the skimmer of the pool (it’s called a “frog log,” and it provides a way for critters to get out if they get stuck in the water) and hopped away. The second time, he stayed in the water but kept his distance and stayed down below for as long as he could. But now, he just sorta hangs out while I swim, floating around on the surface and watching me with his big bug eyes. He didn’t much care for the camera I was pointing at him today, though, because he hid out on the bottom step until I put it away – hence I couldn’t get the best pic of him, but here’s what I did get:

Meet Jonathan.

Please don’t tell me if it’s totally gross for there to be a frog hanging out in my pool or that I’m going to catch a horrible disease by swimming in there with him. I’ve kinda gotten used to his company, and Doug has to keep warning me that frogs do not have a long life span because he can tell I’m getting attached. Whatever. I got attached to the snakes I kept seeing at the beginning of spring,. and I gave them all names, too (Sebastian) and it didn’t break my heart when they stopped appearing. Of course, frogs are a bit cuter than snakes, so I may miss Jonathan more when he quits paying me visits. And we do use Jonathan as a reminder to add chlorine anyway, since his presence is a sign that it’s gotten low. So there’s that.

Catherine over at Atypical 60 wrote a purse post recently that got me thinking about my own favorite handbags, and my favorites in general. Back when I ran a poetry blog I used to write about perfumes a lot, because I was deep in the throes of a perfume addiction back then – something I simply had to put a stop to, because collecting perfumes is a lot like collecting wines; one you get into collecting rare and unusual scents the price skyrockets, and unlike many other things I’ve obsessively purchased over the years, perfume simply cannot be consumed at rate that’s anywhere near the rate at which it can be purchased, and $300+ a bottle for something that’s going to sit on a shelf for years without ever making so much as a dent in the quantity just isn’t practical. There’s a LOT of selling and trading that has to be done to keep trying out new things, and unlike something like, say, wigs or purses, I just wasn’t getting enough use out of all the expensive stuff I was buying to justify staying on the wagon with it.

That said, I do still love perfume and keep a lot of it on hand. I just have to stay away from the expensive stuff and the blogs that review new and unusual scents (of which there are many, and one of the things to love about perfume is how musical and poetic the reviews of them are) and stand by the ones I currently love without venturing out into the beyond about it. Anyhoodle, here are some of my favorite perfumes, purses, and other stuff – here goes!

First up are two perfumes from the L’Artisan line – Safran Troublant and Piment Brulant. They were a part of the Les Epices de la Passion (spices of passion) limited edition coffret that came out in 2002. The third one in this set, Poivre Poulant, I still have lying around somewhere, I’m sure, but it didn’t make an impression on me; the Safran and Piment I’ve kept on-hand ever since. These were all three ‘foody’ scents, hence the title of the coffret, and I am a sucker for foody perfumes of either the sweet or spicy variety; you get both out of this set for sure.

The Safran and Piment are both discontinued and have been for some time, but keeping them in stock is still easy enough to do (for now), and when I find one it’s certainly cheaper than it used to be. With a little internet sleuthing,  I can snag a bottle of Piment Brulant for around $40 compared to well over $100 back in the day. It’s a truly odd scent that I suspect most people would hate, but it doesn’t get complaints like some have that I’ve worn in the past (Tom Ford Black Orchid, I’m sniffing at you). The main note is, you guessed it, pimento, and the spiciness of this one is sharp and distinct. Yet the pimento/red pepper is not overwhelming, and it is balanced by notes of vanilla and chocolate. It is a truly unique scent, and I wear this one more out of the two.

The Safran can be had for around $75, which is still cheaper than its full value, but of the two it is the more wearable scent so it can still get a higher price. It’s described as a ‘spicy Oriental’ fragrance which if I recall was all the rage back in the 00s, it is light and sweet, and a little woody, but as an EDT it has zero staying power.  I suppose the Piment Brulant, although it’s also an EDT, lasts longer because of the dominance of those red pepper notes; while I can still smell that one on my skin hours later, the Safran Troublant is all but gone by that time. Still, it’s very easy to spray on for a hot summer day without feeling overpowered, and the saffron note is so clean and sweet that it’s easy to dose on throughout the day without overpowering anyone. It’s very pretty, and smells unlike anything else I’ve ever tried.

One of the downsides of loving unusual perfumes is how difficult it is for me to pronounce them. Not to mention how freaking LONG some of the names are. Nothing is more awkward than having someone ask me what scent I’m wearing and having to respond with a paragraph in a bad French accent, but that’s what happens when I’m wearing this one. It’s truly lovely, though; cherry and almond are the dominating notes (in my opinion) and it wears beautifully throughout the day. It’s a sweet one, but I am fine with that, and the price is also getting up there where I rarely choose to go ($180) but every time I am out of it I find myself craving the scent again. It’s like flaming marzipan in a bottle, but the full name REALLY IS “Luctor et Emergo” by niche company “People of the Labyrinths,” so you’re going to have to spit out a mouthful every time someone asks you what it is that makes you smell so wonderful.

I always tried, REALLY tried, not to get into scents that were overly expensive and/or hard to find – but damned if Frederic Malle (nephew of the late French director Louis Malle) didn’t make it hard on me. Malle’s line of perfumes is top notch – such unique scents that are distinctive but wearable, and that last forever on the skin. I almost NEVER go through an entire bottle of perfume, but Le Parfum de Therese (yes, there it is again, another one I have to stumble over myself to pronounce to people) has that distinction. I wore this exclusively for a year before I began to cheat on it, and it’s still  a hands-down fave for me. It has a strong scent of jasmine and also something fruity going on, but there is this underlying earthiness to it that gets stronger over time, and quite honestly, there’s something in this scent that reminds me of my mother and my childhood. My mom loved gardening and being outside, and there was always this “dirt” quality to her scent when she came inside after being out in the garden during the day – that sounds awful, but if you love the smell of a garden you can understand its unique pleasantness – and this perfume captures that beautifully. It is difficult to find – Barney’s sometimes carries it, but often does not, and although a lot of Malle’s perfumes can be bought from either Barney’s online or Neiman Marcus, this one cannot be had to so easily. It’s always available if you order it direct from the Malle store in France, but obviously you’re going to wait a good long while to get it. It’s also a whopper at $290 a bottle; I’m currently out of this one except for a little sampler I got off eBay, and it’s calling me to purchase it again as a full bottle, but I’m trying to resist. Still , there is something about this scent that fascinates me; that earthy note should be off-putting, but instead it is addicting, and even though it’s always there beneath the surface, this is not a perfume that gets a negative response – and yeah, I’ve worn those before (remind to tell you sometime about the perfume I just HAD to try because it was created to smell like a woman’s, um, garden).

Plus, it has a lovely story. The perfumer created it for his wife (Therese, obvs), and it was kept secret until after she died; she was the only one who smelled like this while she alive. Isn’t that romantic? LOVE.

Oooooooh, Lipstick Rose is so much easier to find, pay for, and pronounce, and it is more straightforward than the Therese. This was designed to smell like the lipstick the perfumer’s mother used to wear, and indeed, it smells like exactly that – not that I knew Schwieger’s mother, mind you, but this isn’t your latest MAC lipstick scent. It’s your grandmother’s old-school waxy red, rosy and sweet, with a strong whiff of talcum blended in. It hints a lot at baby powder, but it is so smooth and well-done and downright nostalgic that people will stop me in the street to ask what in the world I’m wearing. It’s also VERY strong with long-lasting power; I made the mistake of spritzing some on during a break when I was a classroom teacher and my students all freaked out when they came into the room later – it was too much for their not-yet dulled sense of smell! (I often tormented my students with odd scents until finally accepting that they just couldn’t handle the stranger stuff – their sniffers really are still too sensitive.) It is rare to find a scent that smells EXACTLY like what it is supposed to evoke; it is what I imagine Marilyn Monroe’s signature red lips must have smelled like after she applied. It’s a little more reasonable at $185, and it’s worth every dollar.

Ha! Now this one is a challenge; technically it is a cologne for men, but it’s usually described as unisex, and who cares anyway – this scent is amazing, if for no other reason than it works when it really shouldn’t. It’s supposed to be the smell of the city, and like the shape of the bottle suggests, one of the most dominant notes here is rubber, which is why it resembles a tire. I know how awful that sounds, but again, the scent pulls it off quite nicely. While you will agree at first sniff that, yep, that’s a rubber tire all right, the smell stays with you in a rather pleasing manner. Like Thierry Mugler’s Alien (which I also like), my first whiff of this was unpleasant, but after walking around awhile I noticed I was sniffing my wrist repeatedly, and also like Alien this is a scent that will stay with you forever – two days later, I was still smelling this on the sleeve of the sweater I wore the day I tried it. It has a rough opening, but the drydown is really pleasing and long-lasting; if you can handle how unusual it is you will love this one. Plus, it’s inexpensive (you can snag it online for under $30), no one else will smell like you, and it’s easy to find. Many unusual scents I’ve tried are so evocative that although you like to smell them you don’t want to smell like them, but this is one that I think pulls off both. If the rubber smell overwhelms you, though, try out that Mugler Alien, as it is in the  same scent range but distilled by some other notes that water down the rubber a little. Alien, however, has even longer lasting power than Black – if you don’t believe me, go to any department store counter where Mugler is sold (which is pretty much everywhere) and give it a spritz. I swear two days later you’ll still be smelling the stuff on your clothes.

This one is easy to find; I snatched it up at Ulta when the saleswoman helping me was wearing it and I was mesmerized by the scent. My bottle was right around $100, so not super-reasonable, but not bad, price-wise. I later realized what it was that drew me to such a clean, mainstream scent (in case you hadn’t figured it out yet, I love scents with something odd or earthy lurking beneath the surface) – this is the exact smell of my grandmother’s vanity where she used to get ready every morning. I swear I think it matches the smell of Irish Spring soap, which is what she always used; that or something else she used to clean either her face or the countertops. It’s a smell that is long gone for me, anyway, and every time I sniff this I am taken right back to her bathroom counter with her light-up mirror and Pond’s cold cream. It is incredibly crisp and clean, and there are probably a ton of other crisp and clean scents out there to match this one (I think Light Blue by Dolce & Gabbana is one that is well-done, or if you want to spend a fortune on one, try Bond No. 9’s The Scent of Peace, which is amazing, but it’s the Price of Wealthy) but something about the specific construction of this one is my grandmother’s vanity table, all the way. So it’s a total home run for me, plus as I said it can be found easily.

This is another fresh and clean one, with a little more weight to it than the Chloe. Plus, it’s got a fun story, in my opinion – Oribe is a hair product line that, while pricey as hell, is still pretty fabulous. Yes, a can of their mousse costs almost $40, but it is rich and luxurious and will last me at least five months, which is crazy. Their Rough Luxury hair wax is another winner for me; less than half an inch on my fingers and run through my hair in the morning gives my baby fine locks the weight I need and the hold is fantastic. The story with their perfume is that so many people were raving about the great scent of their hair products that they decided, what the hell, and made it into a perfume, titled it Cote de’Azur, and now it sells like gangbusters. How awesome is that? It’s really nothing unusual, and is another fresh, fruity, and clean scent that you can find dozens of in any department store, but it does have a nice zing added it to by way of tuberose, which, if you’ve ever smelled tuberose you know can go overboard easily (Fracas, I’m looking your way – thanks for the massive headache) but is well-utilized here. By the way, they also make a little hair refresher spray that is great for sweaty or non-hairwashing days.

Carven is another late entry into the fruity/floral/clean category; it’s nothing fancy but it is very well-done and affordable – I think I got mine for a bit under $100 around Christmastime. It is a white floral that is quite clean without that detergenty-smell component that can often happen with such a scent (as much as I adore Bond No. 9s Scent of Peace, as soon as someone sniffed me and noted how much it smelled like a laundry dryer sheet the love was tainted). It also has a touch of the earthiness I love so much that makes it a bit warm in the drydown stages, and it is quite long-lasting. Plus, I just love the milky glass bottle.

And now, to wrap this bitch up:

This perfume closes the post (yeah I know, I never did get around to purses) for several reasons. First of all, Black Orchid was the first perfume from fashion designer Tom Ford to hit the market back in 2006, and if you love perfume at all you probably know what happened after. Ford’s fragrance line is now quite a big deal, and quite expensive. Black Orchid was pricey but not overly so back in the day, and while as far as connoisseurs of perfume go this one isn’t even all that revolutionary, it is one of the most unusual scents in my little arsenal. It’s also the perfume I purchased that sent me into my first obsession with fragrance, along with Viktor & Rolph’s Flowerbomb (another one I love but that I’ve declined to write about to save time; plus who still doesn’t know about Flowerbomb by now? But it’s fabulous and worthy of all the attention it has received). Black Orchid is one of the most difficult scents for me to wear, not that it does anything odd on my skin, but if anything I own is going to offend people, it’s going to be this one. This is the one I tried to wear in the classroom that finally sent the students into revolt. The overpowering baby powder smell of Lipstick Rose did distract them quite a bit (side note: I purchased the Lipstick Rose lotion to go with my perfume back in the day, and it was actually the lotion that bowled them over. I am not kidding when I say those Malle scents are potent stuff), but it was nothing compared to the offense Black Orchid unleashed upon their olfactory systems. A kid in the back of the class one day finally broke down and exclaimed, “Mrs. Cox, I am sorry, but what IS that smell? What are  you trying to do to us! I just can’t take it anymore!” Needless to say I never wore it to school again. I also stopped refreshing my scent in the classroom – started sneaking into the faculty restroom to do it, which now that I think of it, probably pissed other people off, too. Oops.

I felt the same way when I tested Black Orchid out in Nordstrom; my initial response to this was just, ugh. It was so weird, and SO very strong, and I couldn’t get away from it soon enough. But an hour or so later I was back buying a bottle, because the drydown of this stuff is divine. You  have to endure the initial blast, for sure, but it transforms into something sweeter and more warm, with that initial black truffle (there’s the earthy again) that never goes away, and doesn’t even fade very much. I think the sweetness intensifies over time, rather than the dark musky scent fading, so what you end up with is a unique balance of the two. Overall, I’d say this is a very mature scent, in the best use of that word; so many perfumes are geared towards 20-somethings with more sensitive noses and a leaning towards innocence in their fragrances; but Black Orchid is all woman. It is haughty and a little standoffish, and utterly confident. Wear it with pride, ladies.

So, I did not in any way get to writing about handbags, but I’ll do that later. I haven’t written about perfume in forever, so this was fun. Thanks to Catherine for inspiring me with all of her favorites she posts on her blog! And if you’ve not checked her out yet, please do. She writes every blog post with such passion and detail and a great big dollop of fun. She’s lovely.

It’s been a minute since I posted anything, but I’ve been busy, y’all.

Not busy doing much posing, though. This is from last month’s shoot.

First, I am still working on my website and getting my business together, and yeah I know, I really need to get a move on with it. Every day I get a little bit closer to opening up shop, and every day I feel a little bit less resistant to the idea. There are so many unknowns, and I’m just old enough to feel a touch more threatened than excited by them, but in the end I can at least say I gave it a try. So, there’s that. Plus, I have been fighting the temptation to continue to think about work on ‘school time,’ since that is one of the benefits of venturing out on my own instead of going back into a traditional classroom, so the rebellious part of me purposely wants to keep vacation going for a few more weeks, even though teachers here have already returned to work and the students will be going back soon. Not the smartest business move, probably, but it is helping me to break free of that old structure that ended up not working out for me and to appreciate the benefits of doing things the way I am now. Either that or I am a procrastinator working too hard to justify it to myself. Moving on.

At least I sound good on (virtual) paper

Also, since I came back from my second trip to the Villa de Matel’s retreat center (the actual center is called Ruah, but I generally just refer to it by the convent name) I’ve been wanting to edit a lot more photos of the place so I could share them here, and that’s been slow going, but I think I have enough to give a decent representation of it now, even though I still don’t have as many photos edited as I would like. This entails processing photos that are less artsy and more representative than what I usually work with, so my motivation has been a little low, but I’ve done my best to still have some fun with even fairly straightforward shots that mainly exist to simply show what a room or balcony looks like. I am going to write a different blog post to share those photos, though, as I’d like to focus solely on the convent when I show them.

Plotting her world takeover

Third – and I addressed this briefly in my last, almost picture-free blog post – about three weeks ago we got a kitten, and well, she’s a kitten, y’all. Which means at various times throughout the day she is a nightmare. And one of my favorite times to write blog posts and edit photos is in the evening, sometimes moving into nighttime, and this happens to be one of Violet’s most INSANE parts of her day. She will sleep all day and then, around 9 PM, she wakes up and goes berserk – so I guess we can take that term nightmare literally.

Violet is hard to photograph – she moves as soon as she sees a camera, and she is so jet-black that with her eyes closed, she’s just a blob in photos

As soon as I get going editing photos she’s all over the place, including my desk where I work, knocking over water bottles and stepping on the computer keys and trying to eat every single cord she can find – you know, the usual. Not to mention terrorizing our other animals (who take it in stride, and Simon for the most part has adopted her as his own) and managing to crawl into the strangest of places and get stuck there. Oh, and she also had coccidia when she came to us, and in spite of my best efforts to keep Simon from getting it too, it happened.

In sickness and in health, apparently

I am not kidding about my efforts either; I would clean out a litterbox as soon as it was ‘used,’ I had each cat’s litterbox in a separate room, completely cleaned out and replaced the litter and wiped the boxes down with Clorox every 2 days, you name it – only to walk into the den and find Simon happily LICKING VIOLET’S REAR END. Great. I was told the best way to stop the spread of it was to keep the two cats separate, but for ten days? Simon was practically scratching his way through the door of the room where I tried to isolate Violet, so that just wasn’t going to happen.

Also – about two weeks ago I filmed at least five wig review videos, mostly of fun little inexpensive shorties. When I went to edit the first one, I realized that the slightly darker shade of foundation I’d bought to compensate for the sun my face has gotten from spending time in the pool did not blend well at all with the DermaBlend foundation I use to cover the sun damage on my neck (which I didn’t think to replace with a darker shade), and when I turn to show the profile of the wig there is a HUGE LINE around my jawline that looks ridiculous. Argh! And I look like this is at least FIVE VIDEOS! And of course, since they’re all shorties it is painfully obvious. Eventually I will suck it up and post them anyway, because I really don’t want to re-do them, but it still pains me to see it now, so I’m still putting it off.

NICE.

I did get a Jon Renau Diane last week and a Georgia by Noriko in Champagne-R, but filming is on hold for the moment as I focus on my new business and our new kitten (I can’t imagine trying to film or pose for photos right now with Violet, and by extension all the other pets, going nuts). I’ll get around to it soon enough.

Oh and one more thing: I am American, so I feel the need to say this – Donald Trump is a narcissistic, ignorant, overblown human Cheeto who has no business being in this presidential election, and the people who handed the candidacy to him have put our entire nation at risk by doing so.

It is beyond my comprehension that the human Heat Miser is about to receive classified security briefings; the very thought of it actually fills me with both fear and rage. Trump is a rabid liar, intellectual black hole, and white male privileged shit-stirrer, with no consciousness or caring about how his words and actions influence the world around him – and the fact that the Republicans gave him a platform to treat the entire country like the biggest catbox he’s ever crapped in on a daily basis represents, to me, a complete and utter disdain and disregard for the dignity and safety of our nation. Trump is the most dangerous sort of buffoon ever, and he actually makes me long for the days of George W. Bush – something I did not think was possible. He’s already lowered political discourse to the level of commenters on YouTube, and opened all of society up to nurturing the worst, most base elements of it’s psyche – damage I don’t think can be undone for a long, long time. When I see young people rallying behind this human traffic cone in a toupee, I weep inside for the future. Be you liberal, conservative, or anywhere else on the spectrum, you should expect the individuals you elect to the highest offices in the land to understand foreign affairs, domestic policy, human decency, and – although George W certainly pushed this one to its limits, and let’s not even get into Palin – for God’s sake, be able to complete a fucking sentence.

I think I’m just going to start putting this at the bottom of every post from now until election day. Because I’m serious y’all, Trump is a really dark, really low point in our nation’s history. Come on America, we can do better than this. Can’t we?

I have a random mish-mashy update post for you, so here goes.

I know what you’re thinking – but in spite of the fact that I am the most Photoshop-happy photographer ever, I actually did very little to this photo. Not that I didn’t try; but none of the bells and whistles really added anything to the original, so I just sharpened and contrasted a bit and called it a day. But the color here was all in the sky, not added later.

I made another trip to the Villa de Matel retreat center last week; I wrote about going in June and have shared occasional pictures from that trip, but I only made reservations for one night last time and it wasn’t nearly enough for me to process my thoughts, let things go, and move back into my own little happy place where I usually reside. I knew when I left last month that I really needed more time, so I always planned to go back in July, and this time I made my stay three nights instead of one. It was PERFECT.

Interestingly, I felt like I got the closure I needed after being back for about thirty minutes! It was as if I’d just rushed off last time without stopping to leave all my baggage on the altar (they have a beautiful chapel) and ended up still carrying it with me. So as soon as I got checked in this time, I headed straight to the chapel. sat my butt down in a pew, and got to work. I ran through all my negative thoughts, and my hurt feelings, and the wounds to my self-esteem, and just said you know what God? I’m really really tired of carrying this around. I’ve been struggling since May and I don’t want to do that anymore. So I’m putting this all right here and walking away from it for good, sound cool? And God (or whatever) was all, cool man, go for it. So I did. Of course, then I had three more days to read and write and really kick all that stuff to the curb, but after that chapel visit it was as if everything had finally been dislodged and it was all pretty easy to knock away.

I’d started not to bring my camera, because I took a lot of photos last time I was there, plus several years ago I took a ton too, and the place hasn’t changed so I didn’t honestly think there would be anything to photograph.But my husband suggested I just bring the camera along anyway, and I am glad I did, although I only spent a few hours total shooting anything, and I’ve only had time to process that top shot. I took different lenses, which gave me the opportunity to look at things differently, so I’ve got a lot of macro shots to edit and share, and for the first two nights I was there I was actually the only person staying in the retreat area so I got to have fun bustling about at 11 PM taking photos of everything with the flash on, but other things have gotten in the way of me editing them, so let’s move on to that now, shall we? Be back with more Villa photos later. And by the way – being the only person staying overnight in a huge building that looks a bit like a castle is pretty much the most awesome thing ever. Don’t worry – I was far from truly alone because it is a convent and one entire wing is the Sister’s residences, and they have full security and all that stuff on staff. But two floors of one wing belong to the retreat center, and it was really cool to be able to just wander around in whatever disheveled state I felt like it without being bothered, until my last night a bunch of other people showed up and ruined the fantasy.

So I was doing that all last week, and came back feeling refreshed and rejuvenated enough to finally take on something I’ve been considering for a few months now:

That’s right – we got a new kitten! Her name is Violet, and I do not have any good photos of her because, unlike Simon, Violet is NOT into posing for the camera. I’ve tried to take photos with my phone, and she’s just a blur, so I sure haven’t  bothered bringing out the big guns to get her picture. She is a bit of a terror right now, but when she sleeps nothing can wake her, which is what she was  basically doing here, so there’s that.

I got her for what is apparently one of the worst reasons ever to get a second cat, according to the internet: because I felt Simon needed a companion. For the past several months, he’s been getting pretty insistent with his play, which has always been what I’ll call ‘aggressive’ – he is not mean, but he does pounce, nip, and on occasion, scratch, and he always has. There’s no malice in it, he’s just always been one of those cats you have to know when to get out before he goes full-cat-Rambo on you and nips too hard or scratches too much. And lately, he’s been pouncing at my feet constantly; even, on occasion, pouncing at them even HARDER when reprimanded, which was starting to bother me a little. Then about a month ago he started randomly licking things for no good reason – lids of jars, my soda bottles, the neck of lamps – and while I’ve read that this could be a sign of some sort of nutrient or vitamin deficiency (which I am keeping an eye on) it is also a possible sign of boredom leading to obsessive behavior, and as playful as Simon wants to be, i could see him getting bored easily, since no one else around here is all that down for playing. So, enter Violet.

Then there was a selfish reason for getting her, too. Simon has never been a huge cuddler, which is new for me. I’ve always had very cuddly cats, but when Simon is done with you, he’s done, and if he doesn’t want to be cuddled, forget it. He’ll swat you away. And as he’s gotten older, the less cuddly he’s  become. Oh, he still crawls into my lap most nights while I’m sitting up in bed reading or playing Hearthstone on my iPad, but that’s about it, and again, it’s only if and when he decides to do it that it happens. So I was hoping a new kitty might alleviate Simon’s boredom as well as give me something to cuddle with impunity.

One of our local shelters, Citizens for Animal Protection, has a lovely shelter and they were holding a ‘clear the shelters’ event this past Saturday where all pets adoptions were free (this is the shelter where we adopted Simon). When I first heard about it, I thought oh hell no, I am NOT going to deal with that madness because it will be packed – but then I woke up Saturday morning and thought, yep, today’s the day. It wasn’t that I wanted a free cat that badly, it was just the day I finally  felt ready to take the plunge. So down to CAP I went. I knew I needed a pretty bold kitten, since she’d be coming home to two dogs and one seriously playful full-grown cat, and not only did Violet seem, personality-wise, to fit that bill, but her original name was Mercy, which of course, is part of my internet/blog name, so I figured she must be the one. Plus her health record was clear, she’d already been spayed, and one of the directors of the shelter told me he’d fostered her at his house and found her to be a really great cat. So I snatched her up, and off we went!

And here’s where I broke more internet rules. Everything I read said to give the new cat its own space and leave it separated from the other pets for, like, two days, but there was a problem – there isn’t one square inch of this house that another animal hasn’t already claimed or, if it wasn’t claimed by one of them, that was a safe place to keep a kitten. I originally chose my office to be the new-cat space, but within five hours our dog Penny was hiding in a back corner of my husband’s closet, completely traumatized that she’d been replaced from her spot next to my desk. Honestly i didn’t even realized she was that attached to being in there, but apparently she was, so Doug and I decided to move the process along and start introducing Violet to the other pets right away.

We put her in a wire crate that was pretty big and allowed the dogs in first. Now, my husband comes from farmers (although not his immediate family; it’s an occupation that ended with his grandfather) and so he has that throw-em-in-a-room-together-and-let-them-work-it-out mentality, whereas I am such the opposite of that it isn’t even funny. While he felt letting the dogs sniff her while she hissed at them inside the cage was just part of the process, I was literally chewing my nails off with worry that we were damaging her for life. Then he let Simon in, and I practically went through the ceiling from the tension. There was growling and hissing and swatting and crying – and that’s just what I was going through! Before I was anywhere  near ready to deal with it emotionally, Doug had opened up the gate to the crate and let Violet out, and of course in the end it was all fine. By the end of the night they were all wary, but basically OK with each other, and when on occasion the two cats would get too aggressive with their wrestling I could easily get Violet tucked away somewhere to give Simon a break, but he seemed to be fine even though he had to swat her down from time to time.

Tomorrow I take her to the vet in the morning to make sure she checks out OK. I’m exhausted right now because although the director at CAP told me Violet was fine sleeping by herself in a closed room, I of course couldn’t stand it and took a sleeping bag into my office and slept with her, which was fine from the perspective that she didn’t actually mess with me too much (unlike Simon, who spent the entire night attacking my face and feet when I did the same for him) but sleeping on a hard floor in a sleeping bag was not good for me overall, and I’m stiff and sleepy today. We left the house this morning and Violet stayed alone in the office for several hours without incident (although I did have to cat-proof it by removing every item in there that had a cord), so here’s hoping I can manage to unattach myself from her enough to sleep in my own bed tonight.

A busy week ahead, and though I have filmed a lot of reviews to share, there were some problems with the results and I haven’t yet decided whether or not I’m going to upload these vids or have to film them all over. We’ll talk more about that later, I’m sure.