Friday, September 17, 2010

Day two

Every day, create something.

Manipulate the universe.

Otherwise, what is the point of living?

Anything you can think of can be made. This is the beauty of the world.

If you can think of something, that means its components exist. If they exist, you can use them.

You can even create disaster. And often, you will.

But even disaster is beautiful. Think of photographs of explosions. Think of songs about broken hearts.

Now think about the inspiration those things will create. And the inspiration those things will create.

Circles. It's all a bunch of circles.

Every day, create something.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Sunshine, unicorns, gumdrops and other equally nice things

I have two new goals:

1. Create something everyday.  A painting, a poem, a photograph...or even things that don't start with P.
2. Do five good deeds everyday. They can be small. The idea is to bring some unexpected joy to someone.

So, there they are.

And with that, a few more happy things to add to the list:
31) People who regularly make small talk about cats
32) Scenes blurred by raindrops
33) Warm, fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies
34) Seeing someone turn one man's trash into another man's treasure
35) Colorful scarves
36) Cuddling
37) Love notes
38) Being called by pet names
39) Feeling inspired
40) Foreign textiles
41) The Hot Guys and Baby Animals Calendar (You're welcome, ladies.)
42) 80's movies

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Cats! The Musical

How am I ever going to have children?

I mean, really.

It's these exasperating cats again. Max is in heat. We've had her for a week and a half and she's in heat. I'm pretty sure I read in the kitty owner's manual that it is horribly unfair for cats to do this so quickly after you rescue them and they will never put you through it. Of course, I am joking and wishing I wasn't because 1) I could definitely use a kitty owner's manual right now and 2) I would love for it to say that.

So Max has been wandering the house howling and rubbing against everything. Did I mention howling? Yeah. A whole lot of howling. Loud howling. Howling that sounds like foreign children crying and gurgling and calling for their mothers. I like to pretend she's a (terrible) opera singer practicing for a performance.

It's silly. She's calling for a male cat to come mate with her. Doesn't she know how bad kitty sex hurts? I don't think she'd be calling nearly so desperately if she knew.

So anyways, as I'm trying to calm Max down, Charlee takes every opportunity to jump onto tables that she's not supposed to and pee on things that she's not supposed to.

I feel like the mother of two-year-old twins.

I do not know how people do this.

But at least we're taking Max to the vet to be spayed soon and Charlee to the vet to find out what's up with the Urine Crisis of 2010. God.

So, happy things for today? I cut my hair. It's finally the style I was trying to achieve about six haircuts ago. I wish I hadn't virtually shaved my head in order to "fix" the series of failed haircuts back in November, but whatever. Live and learn. And then put down the scissors.

Other happy things?

25) achievements in medicine
26) good things happening to good people
27) looking outside of yourself
28) hearing the exact words you've needed to hear for years
29) tetris
30) afternoon naps

Monday, September 6, 2010

Waving

Simply, a few more happy things for today:

15) staying inside with a book and favorite blanket while it is drizzling outside
16) candlelit baths
17) calling things by funny names ("hot chocolate" becomes "hot chockit!"...and yes, always with an exclamation point)
18) hand made quilts
19) getting into a bed with sheets that are fresh from the dryer
20) people who inspire you to be better
21) having grand epiphanies about life
22) hearing one of your favorite songs on the radio
23) stormy skies over bodies of water
24) feeling like the worst of something is over and only the best is yet to come

Friday, September 3, 2010

Friday the (1)3

It's raining inside our entryway closet.

This morning as I was getting ready for work I heard a funny sound coming from inside of it. Kind of a ticking. I thought that one of the kitties had gotten inside and was rustling around. So I opened up the door and surprise. Water. Lots of water splattering down from the ceiling all over that stuff that we don't really need right now but might need later...you know, closet stuff. And I have to admit, I panicked.

This was the icing on the cake of a stressful week. Tony and I both had crazy stuff going on at work this week and with a new kitty in the house there had been more surprise cat pee than either of us could sanely handle (from both Charlee and Max). Tony and I's conversations were chopped down to complaints about our jobs or what we were going to do about the cats. The cats. The cats. The cats. Frankly, I got quite tired of hearing the word cats. It was always preceded or followed by something unpleasant.

So back the the closet rain. I needed to get to work and Tony was already at work so I called him to relay the problem. And probably grunt out a few good curse words. Long story short, Tony sent in a work order via email and I put the biggest bowl I could find under the dripping and drove to work, only to get there and have my manager encourage me to go back home (while the other ladies at work were chiming in about how many house floods they've had and how fast leaks can go from bad to worse and all of these other things that were putting images in my head of walking into the apartment to find all of our stuff floating in three feet of water and the cats desperately howling as they paddled around it all).

But here I am, back home. And the crack in the ceiling hasn't spread. And there are two maintenance men upstairs working on the plumbing in our neighbor's bathroom who promise to stop the leak and then drywall our ceiling. So things are getting better. Our furniture is dry. The cats aren't swimming.

Something to be happy about today?

13) blue skies in September
14) unexpectedly getting the day off

Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Happy Little Lemon Cat

Okay readers, this first post is hard. I have spent practically all of my life keeping a journal or a blog and in turn have been endlessly catching thoughts with little memory hooks. I tell myself, remember that, write about that. And sometimes I do. But sometimes when I get to the computer, that glorious thought I had at lunch or during the drive home just loses its sparkle. I get wrapped up in silly things. Like what's going on with Maggie or Rebecca or Joanna or Danielle. Not that any of those women are silly. In fact, they are all inspiring women with interesting things to say. However, it's silly of me to get so wrapped up in what other people are doing and thinking and completely shut down on my own world. It scares me when I think of what I could have been doing. What have I missed as I whiled away the hours surfing the net, sometimes doing little more than googling images for my Tumblr? Like, hello? What was the value in finding a picture of a dog in a cheerleading costume?

But anyways, my intent for this post was not to bash on myself. In fact, it was almost the opposite. I wanted to write about things that make me happy.

Several years ago (I really can't remember exactly how many) I purchased a book called 14,000 things to be happy about. And the book is just that. It is an enormous list of happy makers. And throughout the however-many-years that I've had it, I often curl up in bed and put little pen marks next to the ones that I agree with. It's been a great way to end a day, putting pleasant thoughts of "chubby cows chewing contentedly on the grass" (p. 454) and "sleeping naked between crisp sheets" (p. 570) in my mind before sleepytime. It's also given me great ideas of things to do. (Again with the naked sleeping. Har har har.) I even planned a date once based on a few happy things I marked off one night; a make-omelets-and-color-in-coloring-books date (which was pretty damn fun, I might add).

Well,  I want to start my own list of things to be happy about. And it starts now. Right now, with 1) my cat licking the empty tin of a microwaved chicken pot pie and the funny sounds that are coming from her pleased little kitty mouth.

I don't know if I'll make it to 14,000. I don't know if I'll add to my list every day. But it will be building here and making me more grateful for a life in which I can enjoy each of these things.

I feel like saying cheers here. So, cheers! And may this be the beginning of my happy list and if you feel so inspired, hopefully yours too.

The Lemon Cat's Happy List


2) live music resonating through a small town
3) the smell of loved ones
4) the contrast of dark telephone wires against a colorful sunset
5) seeing every detail of a spider's web
6) coffee and pie for breakfast
7) taking the whole day to make homemade spaghetti
8) Pottery Barn's cable-knit throws
9) Constant Comment tea
10) seeing airplanes and imagining where all of the people inside are going and what they're going to do there
11) Gustav Klimt
12) rereading favorite books