Get your ow
n diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

10:12 a.m. - 2002-09-11
Skidding Cats And Pannywhistles
Tylenol has discovered the joys of skittering across a hardwood floor.

At age 16, I kind of thought he was beyond this sort of thing. Since we moved to the new house he's been content to go through his days lolling about on our bed, a snarfy look on his face, drooling ever so slightly. I thought he had resigned himself to being a restful and dignified old cat.

But no, evidently the old geezer has some life in him even now. I came out of the shower this morning to hear him racing up the stairs full tilt. As he got to the top he leaped around the corner into the bedroom and put on the breaks. The result was the cat equivalent of doing doughnuts - a wide, skidding arc around the floor.

When he came to a stop he looked up at me, and I swear he looked unbelievably pleased with himself.

And then he let out an enormous "Maaaahh!" and ran to the stairs to do it again. He did it three or four times before collapsing on the bed. I think he wore himself out.

Restful and dignified be damned!

***************************************

I can tell that I'm losing it with this house stuff, because I did two bizarre things yesterday. I bought a pennywhistle, and I signed up for an oil painting class that starts...today.

Granted, both of these are things I have wanted to do for quite sometime now, but I don't know what possessed me to feel that I had to do them at this very time in my life when I am absolutely at my stress limit and beyond. I think sometimes that I have a basically harmless little demon with a wierd sense of humour who hangs around me, getting me to do these nonsensical things.

So in a half hour I leave for a class with Jack D., a former chairman of the art department at UAH, who is retired and teaching now at a local art guild. I've never learned my way around oils in any kind of organised way and Jack has a good reputation. I spend last night at our local half-assed art supply store trying to deal with Jack's materials list of extremely specific items like sun-thickened linseed oil and a #7 flat sable brush preferably made in England.

I just hope he's not a sadistic, control freak sort of bastard. With a materials list like this you just never know.

****************************************

The pennywhistle. Yes, I know it's goofy, but years ago my neurologist implored me to learn a musical instrument. He had a highly technical expalnation for why all left-sided temporal lobe epileptics should learn an instrument, and it did make sense at the time, but I just never felt I had the time or the money to invest in it. Besides, at that point I was taking Tegretol six times a day and any benefit from tooting away on a French horn seemed negligible. So I promptly put the advice in the back of my mind and forgot about it.

Now, however, I'm almost seizure free, but I do feel like my brain is not as sharp as it, um, well, actually it never was that sharp, was it? Learning an instrument can only help! I'm attracted to pennywhistles for a number of reasons - they are cheap, I can learn to play on my own time, without a teacher, they are damn cheap, and they have that British Isles aura.

And I can play all those morbid British ballads that I love, like "Twa Corbies", about the two crows pecking away at a dead knight, discussing his sad life and who's going to get to eat his eyes. Now that's folk music I can relate to!


0 comments

 

 

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!