580: What’s important?

Not this.

There are important things, which are mostly not things.

This, this thing, is not important.

I will not give or care one fig how this turns out when it is done.

It is truly, irrevocably, irrelevant.

So, let’s act as if we believe it.

574: Those Who Are Important

There are those people who are important

to me, and those who are important to you.

I trust your judgment even when

I do not trust those who are important to you.

In this, this important life that lives between us, I am not central and

you are not central. The life that lives between us, and binds us heart-to-heart,

is central.

Because of you, I choose to respect those who are important to you,

to honor the life between us.

To honor you.

545: Too busy to write is too freaking busy

I process my life by writing. When things happen, I process my thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions through the reflective and revealing lens of the written word. This is the method that works well for me. Except lately.

Lately, having moved country (Atyrau, Kazakhstan to Fitzgerald, Georgia, USA), started a new job in a sort-of new school (I taught there before I decided to leave the USA), moving into a new place, BUYING a new residence, becoming a new grandmother and obtaining a delightful new husband……I do not have time lately to scratch my watch or wind my butt.

This is a serious problem. I get the sneaking suspicion that without the catharsis of processing everything via my usual written lens that I am missing the deeper significance of things – leaving important details out, losing the flavor, the spice, the nuance – the meaning of life, love and the pursuit of happiness.

I just don’t have the time to fret about it before some new demand raises its head, insisting on being dealt with RIGHT NOW.

The urgent is overwhelming the important, ding dong dag nab it.

*sigh*

430: Nope

Don’t tell me you care for me

when I can so clearly see that you don’t.

Don’t tell me I am important to you

when you make it so clear that I am not.

Make it clear to me

that what you DO matches what you SAY.

When that is clear, then

maybe, I can see my way clear

to thinking again about forever.

Until then, I am thinking about tomorrow

and what is clear to me now.

 

It is all in your hands.

366: Conundrum

HOW is it possible to be busy all day and yet accomplish so very little?? How does that work?

This is what happens when I don’t make a prioritized list each evening. I wake up and just start on the thing that needs doing that is closest to hand, and that is not good. I need to begin on the most important thing instead. THEN I will feel some accomplishment when the most important things get done, instead of the more urgent, but less important, things.

LIST TONIGHT!!!

START TOMORROW!!

259: Stop pursuing happiness: catch it

America is real big on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From the get-go, it’s like they know nobody is going to catch it, we are just forever doomed to pursue it. Well, I don’t buy that. I think the reason that most people are forever chasing happiness is because they have no freaking idea what on this green and blue Earth would actually make them happy. So, they run around in circles, trying on this one for size, rejecting it, and then trying out another one, etcetera, etcetera.

No wonder so many people are not happy: you have to know what works for you before you even have a fighting chance of catching it. Stop doing the urgent things long enough to really focus on the important things, and do some personal research into just what makes you happy. Then, when you go after it, you’ll stand a decent chance of making it happen. (Hint: it isn’t money).

Naming the Babies

Names are very important. In wizardry books, knowing the wizard’s true name gives you power over them. Often, the true name of God is not to be uttered aloud. Names are important – consider how long authors labor over the names of their book and story characters.

I have named ten babies. Two human ones, and eight kitty ones – at least recently. My kids bear the names of grandparents, but it is hard to name a cat after its grandparent, especially when you rescued them as kittens, and not even MAMA was around to be seen, much less GRANDMA. So, naming them is even more important, since they don’t have their kitty heritage and ancestry to fall back on.

Sugar Daddy was easy. He is mostly pure white, except for a few orange-stripey spots in pleasing locations, and his personality was very sweet. He would let the girl kittens take his food from him when we gave them treats. We learned to sit him on the counter so he could eat his treat in peace.

Souk was rescued from the marche. She was, and still is, a mess. The souk is generally a muddled mess, with all sorts of things piled everywhere offered for sale. The name seemed to suit her.

Fez, and her calico sister, Medina, were found and rescued from the Fez Medina, and I just could not think of more suitable names. They have grown into them quite nicely. They are both very sweet girls, inquisitive and clever.

When number five kitten came along, I was stuck. I really did not want to keep him, so I just called him number five: ‘Humsa,’ in Arabic. The name was firmly stuck on him by the time we decided he was too sweet to give away.

Number six kitten was rescued by somebody else (I swear) and I just agreed to foster her until we could find her a home – the three of us: the two ladies who rescued her, and me, foster cat mom. So far, no takers. When she was really tiny, she did not walk, she hopped. So, I call her Honey Bunny.

Number seven I heard piteously mewing on a freezing cold, rainy-wet Saturday morning, while my husband and I were walking home. His body core temperature was so low that he could not even hold his little head up. I had to warm him on top of the toaster oven. I was worried he might die, but he suffered no ill effects from his freezing-wet time in the ivy bed. And once he warmed up, we discovered that he has a formidable voice: he mews and mews and mews until you pick him up for cuddles and scratchies. If you ignore him too long, he will climb up your leg to where he knows the cuddles and scratchies are. This is not good kitty behavior, and we are working to teach him that this is not acceptable. So, his only recourse now is to MEW LOUDER. I named him Enrico Caruso, in honor of the late, great opera singer. I toyed with Pavarotti, but I like Caruso better.

Number eight was mewing piteously (aren’t they ALL????), sitting at the bare, cold metal door of a closed shop on the walk to work one morning – no mama in sight. *Sigh.* I had to buy him two uncooked chicken kabobs to tide him through the day until I could get him home. Once his little belly was comfortably full, he slept for a solid seven hours. Poor baby.  The Arabic word for eight is Timinia, pronounced ta-many-ya, which I thought was perfectly appropriate. It sounds like too many OF ya, which is also quite true. Nobody should have eight cats!! So, Timinia joined the family.

Anybody want a free pet?