Category Archives: Not your average writing

2 cats and a baby

I wanted to start another blog called “2 Cats and a Baby” but someone beat me to it. She is a writer, and just like me, she went to school for writing but is not a professional writer by day. She said she stopped writing for awhile out of sheer laziness. Same here. She started the blog just to have something to write about, which is what I want to do. I help people with their resumes, but aside from that, I haven’t been writing creatively for quite some time. 

As some of you know, I am expecting a baby. I am five months along. I have 2 cats. One is about 10 months old and the other will be 13 years old this summer. I am worried about the cats interacting with the baby. The older cat hates kids. She hisses at them and if they try to touch her she swats. She almost scratched my niece once, but she was surrounded by children and my niece grabbed her really hard. The younger cat is a brat and likes to scratch people for fun. They currently sleep with my boyfriend and I in the bed.

When the baby comes, I am told by other experienced mothers that baby should come to bed with us while breastfeeding for the first few months. How will I keep the cats off the bed? Should I keep them out of the bedroom completely? This will be tough as they love to sleep with us and everytime we close the bedroom door, they meow, attack the door and scratch the carpet. The older cat has been sleeping with me since she was a kitten.

I love my cats and would never get rid of them. I guess I will have to experiment with keeping them out of the room before the baby comes, which is July 17. I have researched this via Google, and found various tips such as spraying them with water, letting them howl and ignoring them (easier said than done) and purchasing cat repellers.  Some people have said they will be fine as long as you keep them at the foot of the bed. That, again, is easier said than done, plus I am concerned about cat hair. Hmmm.

Vancouver – the dead man zone

 

You’re a woman of just about any age walking down the street, and a car goes by and you hear the shrill of a high pitched whistle, and then, ”Hey baby, nice ass!”  In fact, wherever you go you here names like “honey,” “baby,” “sweetie,” “cutie,” “beautiful” and “darling.” Sounds kind of like a town in Texas, don’t it? It’s actually the city of London, Ontario, a decent-sized city of just over 368,000 people located in the southwestern part of the province, a two-hour’s drive west of Toronto. As a person of the feminine gender, you are bound to get stared at, smiled at, whistled at, hit on, yelled at and even groped if you’re on a crowded city bus. It actually sounds like any big city, really, but from my experience of being born and raised there for twenty-four years, it happens the most often in London. I’ve lived in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, spent time in Montreal, Seattle, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels. I’ve never been to New York, so I can’t speak for that city.  However, one place in my experience was actually worse:  Cancun, Mexico. I’ve never heard so many “Hey Chiquita!” and marriage proposals during a one-week, all-inclusive vacation.

It’s either demeaning or ego-boosting, depending on the mood you or the person you’re with are in. After awhile, it becomes the norm, occurring at any time of the day in any location from the drug store to the local pub. Every woman can feel quite attractive yet preyed upon, never quite deciding if it offends her or not.

So you want to get away from all the laud attention and feel like a human being of equality and self-respect. Hail the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Located by the Pacific Ocean, this city is known for its majestic beauty of mountain-lined coasts and valleys of rain forests.  People here love the outdoors and partake in sporting events such as rock-climbing, hiking, sailing, skiing, snowshoeing, golfing and running.

You arrive here and instantly notice how much more peaceful your walks downtown and to the corner store are (only if you can tune out the pandemonium of the death-defying traffic). It’s not just because of the ocean breeze blowing in your ears or the gentle lapping of the waves on the shores.  There’s no one yelling at you (except for the bad drivers), no sideways glances or whispering a demeaning name under his breath as he passes you. You are confident your self-respect has been restored and you actually feel liberated for once in your life.

But this liberation has gone too far. After months of the screaming silence, you notice something else. When you walk down the street, you don’t even get a glance from a man who passes you by. He doesn’t even acknowledge your presence. You say hello to one and he completely ignores you. Either you’ve gotten really ugly over the past few years, or all the men in Vancouver are gay, castrated or just too exhausted from all the outdoor sports. Maybe all the fresh mountain air has blown away all the pheromones and sexual desire. Oh, wait a minute, homeless men talk to me all the time, but they usually want money.

I went to a club once in the downtown core. My friend who is very attractive was wearing a black mini-dress showing good cleavage and pleather high-heeled boots. She looked hot. Not one single guy came up to her. She got a few fleeting glances. The men were literally on one side of the bar and women on the other, like a high school dance.

What is it with the men in Vancouver? I don’t care for the catcalling and shrewd whistling, but being liberated or not, there is still such a thing as attraction and if I’m in the mood to flirt, I’d like to have it reciprocated, even if it’s on the Skytrain. The men all stare at their feet. I know I’m not a supermodel in looks, but I also know I’m reasonably attractive to look at, especially in London.

small things you can do to change your perspective that don’t cost the planet

inspired by Keri Smith

(an ongoing list)

1. Change the height at which you perform everyday tasks. (i.e. brush your teeth while on your knees.)

2. Look under every object you encounter for a week.

3. Wear sunglasses all day (inside and outside). Notice how it feels to take them off.

4. Alter your body somehow so as to impede your motor function slightly. i.e. tie two fingers together.

5. For one day greet everyone you encounter with “top o’ the morning to ya!”

6. Speak through a tube (paper towel tube, then recycle it when you’re done).

7. Move frequently used items (i.e. salt and pepper shakers) to places they are not normally found.

8. Place something small behind your ear for an entire day. See if you forget about it.

9. Cut your food into new and interesting shapes. Arrange your dinner (or your table items) into a “grid” formation.

10. Exclude one vowel from all of your emails.

11. For one month create all of your correspondence on an outdated form of technology. (i.e. typewriter, pen & paper, dictaphone).

12. Add something to your name. (“the 3rd”, “the great”, “the illustrious”) Alternate: Add some letters to your name but don’t tell anyone.

13. Sponsor a contest based on an everyday task. (i.e. “Contest for person whose socks stay up consistently”)

Now to muster up the courage to do at least one of them (without getting fired!)