Q: Quiet!

At night, when we turn off the TV in the bedroom, one of us always says, "Shh, TV! Shut the fuck up." I don't know when we started doing that but it has become a nighttime ritual. When thinking of the letter Q, I was trying to come up with a witty topic...but since I have been playing Word With Friends, all I keep coming up with is QI, but since I really don't know much about Chinese medicine or martial arts, that was not going to work. I kept coming back to the word quiet. That made me think about our nighttime ritual and then, just like that, I was flooded with things about silence, about quiet.

Shh, TV!

There are good quiets and bad ones, and both are different depending on a person's past experiences with silence. A good one is when all is so good and perfect, there is no need for words, no need to fill the silence. Because in that moment the silence is not perceived as a void as much as it is part of the perfect. Summer nights out on the porch, a drive home from a long day at work...even a moment in the shower when the water temp is just right. There are also good moments of quiet after sound. Like when you're with your family and you're reminiscing about the past. Someone starts a story, everyone chiming in with "their version of the events as they remember them"...then there's the punchline, the completion of the anecdote. Everyone laughs. After a short period of time, the room fills with the silence of everyone smiling, everyone remembering. feeling the memory and the warmth of the laughter. It's comfortable, serene, and sweet in that moment.

There are those quiet moments after a loud event, like a concert (or in our case, the casino). When we stay at Foxwoods, there's something so strange that happens when we get back to our room. There's this buzzing silence. It's funny because it feels like excitement but all you can hear is the sound of your blood in your ears. That post-noise quiet always makes me feel funny and slightly uneasy. Sometimes I think that it's never going to stop and I'll hear this blood rushing sound forever. Then I get all panicky and freaked out. But then we turn on the TV (thank GOD for TV) and the sound of the Discovery Channel displaces the buzzing...and the panic disappears and I can feel comfortable in my own skin again.

OMG OMG WTF Was THAT?!?!

Then there are the scary quiets. With 5 cats in our house, nighttime is never totally peaceful and serene. In fact, there are these moments when the cats do something that makes a loud noise (knocking everything off the fridge, knocking over a sculpture, etc) and I wake up at the end of that commotion, scared shitless. In that moment all I can hear is the quiet but I can't tell if there actually WAS a loud noise or if I was dreaming it. So I lay there and listen. I figure if it's the cats I won't hear anything but if it's a killer, I'll hear footsteps or something...I have a very active imagination at night. When I don't hear anything, I am relieved. Until I say to myself, "What if it's a really good killer and the reason why I can't hear anything is because he has hold-still ninja abilities....waiting for an innocent victim to get up and patrol the house, unknowingly walking directly to their death?". So then I wake Jim up and make him go look. I figure he could hold the guy off long enough for me to call 911. When he comes back upstairs, he says: The cats knocked (Insert Object) onto (Insert Surface) which made the noise, OK? And I say OK and lay back down, imagining Jim walking past a dark corner to yell at the cats, not seeing the killer ninja in the shadows. So then I have to lay there and listen for ANYTHING that could be a killer...until I fall back to sleep.

Those are some of MY quiets? What about you? Do have your own good and/bad quiets? Comment and share your quiets with me.

 
Enjoy a moment of quiet today,
Dana C.                            

Pussy!!!

NO, not that kind. The furry kind...er...the hairy kind...never mind. I mean cats. First, let me start off by saying that I didn't always like cats. I thought they were snobby, no fun pets that people who live in apartments had because they couldn't have dogs. Then I met my friend Shelby's cat, Weezy (Louise). I used to go over and check on Weezy when Shelby was traveling. I would go over and sit on the couch (I watched TV over there because Shelby had better cable than I did) and Weezy would come sit right next to me so I could pet her.  Then I go over to the kitchen sink and she would start to dance, because that was where the brush was. It was so cute!

Then I got my first cat, Kitty. What a cat. Picture this: It's the middle of the night. I'm awoken by a sound I've never heard before. It's this weird gag/hack. I turn on the light and there is Kitty with about 10 inches of the elastic from a pair of pajama bottoms down her throat. I had to slowly pull it out (basically from her stomach) while we both were gagging. Then there were the games she would play, like "Middle of the night knock everything off the dresser", and "I want to move into the kitchen sink and live there forever". One morning, I made toast and brought the container of margarine out to the coffee table. I swear I was only gone for a minute and that cat had her face planted in the tub. I hissed at her and she looked up at me, chewing a mouthful of margarine. She swallowed and said, "I can't believe it's not butter!"

Now we have 5 kitties. It's like a zoo here. At night we hear them running around, fighting, hissing...it's insane. I'd like to present to you a list of things I like/don't like about having 5 cats:

Don't Like: Litter boxes/cat shit
Cat shit reeks. It's the worst smell ever. When their boxes are getting changed, they go hide somewhere and eat boxes of Cracklin' Oat Bran, hot dogs, and broccoli. As soon as you're done, they take turns emptying their bowels and high-fiving each other if either of us retch.
Like: Automatic litter boxes
They scoop themselves. You don't have to touch them until the little box is full of poop. Then you replace the litter cartridge and box with a new one. Boom. Done.

Don't Like: Cat puke
We have cats with bulimia. They eat, then decide they ate too much, then they puke. Butters (our most recent addition) can throw up a cat food meat loaf. You can always tell a Rollie throw up because it always ends with a hair ball. It's like a little black exclamation point at the end.
Like: Pollie likes to eat throw up
Our Pollie is a little cat throw up Hoover. He will feast on a pile of "leftovers" so all I have to clean up is the hairball.

Don't Like: Cat hair
Sweet mother of GOD!!!! The hair is everywhere. If I could get them all electrolysis I would.
Like: The Furminator
If you have a pet, get one of these. It's the best brush. Ever.

Now, I'd like to share some "off the top of my head" cat haiku. Please enjoy my half assed poetry.

Night
Black cat, orange cat
Quit fucking with each other.
I'm trying to sleep

Vomit
Retching gagging sounds
I can't see where he threw up
Ew, my sock is wet.

Poo
The box is now clean
Dig, wince, dig, scratch scratch
I need to throw up

So, how about some of your favorite "pet" things? Or, perhaps you want to blow your artistic load all over some haiku? Either way, please leave some comments.

Happy Pussy Petting!

Dana C.

Why October is the Most Awesome Month Ever

October is an amazing month in the New England/ Mid-Atlantic region. You have beautiful warm sunny days and cool extra-blanket-on-the-bed nights. You could have rain OR snow. It's hurricane season in the Atlantic so you may get some remnants (or the unfortunate direct hit) that bring rain, wind, even the threat of a tornado. The leaves begin their change and descent to the earth, diving, floating, spiraling towards the ground to get raked up. The sun gets lower in the sky which blinds me on my drive home. It's a blazing ball of fire that makes me think "I hope no one is stopped in front of me because I will run into them"...but then the sun so low makes some amazing sunsets too.

A beautiful Northbridge, MA fall

Raking leaves sucks. That's why I don't do it.

October is the month I got married in. The weather was perfect that day: bright and sunny and warm. There was a hint of crisp fall in the air, but it was comforting as opposed to feeling ominous.I had butternut squash risotto during our reception that just screamed fall. Our wedding invites had little autumn branches on them. It was the perfect month to get married in.

Beautiful weather on our wedding day, October 9, 2010

Amazing fall seating charts compliments of my talented sister

October means less bees. By now, you must know my fear of bees and how it basically owns my life. In October, the bees are so sleepy that even if you see one, it's too lazy to do anything except sit there and relax. Then I  can squish it with a shoe and dance triumphantly in a small circle with slightly shaking hands (even killing them scares the shit out of me) and feel empowered.

Die, bee. I hate you.

October means the beginning of all things "spice". I buy everything I can get my hands on that makes me feel warm and spicy. Hermit cookies, gingersnaps, hot cider, even apple cinnamon air freshener sprays to cover up the stink of cat pee. The candles have spicy warm smells and come in the relaxing colors of autumn, like burnt sienna and umber.

Warm, comforting scents...

Hermit cookies. Get them now.

October means a change in wardrobe. The summer hues, capris and sandals get stashed in the back of the closet and out come the fuzzy sweaters and scarves. Everyday is perfect for jeans, whether it's with a t-shirt or a sweatshirt. I celebrate the day my little pumpkin earrings make their way back into the rotation.

Cute!!!

What do you like about October? Leave a comment. If you have another favorite month, feel free to share it in the comments below, but don't expect to change my mind.