Whatever gives you hope!

Friday morning, at 6:30am I got a call from Bee, that Shakes had escaped from her third floor apartment in Somerville.  Shakes, the Wonder Cat, has mobility issues since his mother had distemper in her last trimester.  The vision of him getting down the three stories of stairs, boggles the mind, since the two stairs outside our house are a challenge to him.

As soon as I was awake enough, my mothering instinct kicked in and I got dressed and drove into Somerville.  It actually took a request from Bee, that she would like it if I came in, to jump start my mothering instinct.

We walked around the block, and looked under cars, porches and inside bushes and the Wonder Cat was no where to be found.  I had very little hope of seeing him alive, and probably conveyed a bit of that to Bee.

We got coffee and a bagel, and she went off to work and I came home.  In the middle of the day, she accepted by text, my offer to come search for him after work.  I arrived and starting circling her apartment, asking everyone if they had seen a cat.  The side benefit, is that I know a lot more about her neighborhood and neighbors.

As dusk set in, and as 2 room mates, her boyfriend and Rod, joined our search Bee made a poster and she went off to get photo copies made.

The back story, is that when we first moved to Lexington we lost her stuffed elephant on a trip back from the play ground.  We made a poster at that time as well, and again, I thought there was very little chance of finding him.  Someone did call and we raced over to retrieve him with the reward in hand.  He now wears and ID tag with telephone information in case he gets lost again, and that was 19 years ago.

As she made the poster on Friday night, I though about hope.  Putting them up on every telephone post and sign, gave me a little bit of hope, but not a lot.  It seemed like an activity to keep us occupied as darkness settled in, and the temperatures reached freezing.

Saturday morning, I received this text "City cat just ate a whole cup of food, little rascal! He is fed and happy, but dirty."  PHEW!

So even though I proclaim myself a Pollyanna and eternal optimist, I did not have a lot of hope of finding the Wonder Cat.  Making the posters was a shot in the dark, and an activity.  Shakes just spent one of his lives by being outside for 36 hours out on an adventure in the city.  His return renews my faith a bit that things do work out in the end, even though we were prepared for the worst.

I am not going to finish these books

Earlier in my life, if I started a book, I finished it, even if I was not enjoying it. This week, I started two books, and half way through both of them I slammed them shut and refused to continue reading them.

I might say that I am too old to waste my time reading books that I am not enjoying. That is not the problem. In both cases, there was a description that led me to think, "this is not going in a direction that I will enjoy". Sometimes in these cases, I might peek at the ending to see if it is a happy one. Not these two books. There was some foreshadowing in both cases, that were clues, which I ignored, but once the description of a scene was too vivid, I was done.

This is different from not being able to get into a book. I started "The Help" twice before I read it to the end, and I had to start "Caleb's Crossing" twice before I could get into it. In those cases, I ended up loving them.

This character flaw is very similar to another post of mine about scary movies. My imagination is too vivid and I will have nightmares about the paragraphs that caused me to slam the books shut. AND, there are too many good books out there that I will enjoy.

BTW, the two books I slammed shut are "Little Bee" and "A Spot of Bother".


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Scary Movies and the Oscars

Around the time that "Silence of the Lambs" won an Oscar for best movie, I decided to try to see the Oscar nominated movies prior to the Oscars. I never did see that movie. Even today, just seeing clips of it scare me. I did not understand any references to it during the awards ceremony which is I guess my loss.

The same thing is happening this year with "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Someone who knows and loves me said, "don't read the book and definitely don't see the movie." We have a saying in our house, usually following an advert for a movie or a preview which is "Not a Mom movie".

I really do limit myself to the movies which I enjoy, since I won't tolerate too much violence, suspense, blood and guts, etc. Give me a nice love story or even a sad love story. I actually surprise myself at the movies that I can watch, since I have given myself permission to NOT SEE a movie, even if it is a blockbuster.

Since I have become more aware of how sensitive I am, I have not gone to a movie in a theater, that I had to walk out of. Prior to that, I have walked out of two movies, "Trainspotting" and "American Beauty". I would have walked out of others prior to this, if I had given myself permission to. I sat in the front row of the theater for "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and spent most of the time trying to climb and sit under my seat, covering my eyes and ears. I did not enjoy myself at all.

So for this year's movies, I won't go to see "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" but I might go see the rest. "War Horse" is a toss up since it is about war and it seems like a sad story.

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