I donated blood yesterday, which is something I used to do all the time, and then I got pregnant (pregnant women can’t donate blood), and then I just completely got out of the habit. And when I’m out of the habit, it feels impossible to get back IN the habit. But I went back in time and made it one of my New Year’s Resolutions, and once I get back into the system it’s easy: I just mark my calendar every 8 weeks and go do it (and if I forget they are SURE TO REMIND ME), and it’s a happy sort of thing to do and makes me feel happy, and the people there praise me and give me pizza and brownies, and I get a chunk of time away from the house and children, and losing blood makes me feel slightly lightheaded in a pleasant way, and I schedule it at kid-dinnertime so I get a night off from that.

…Oh, and someone who needs blood gets some, so it’s win-win.

I also like it because we’ve all got our little list of Nice Things We Do For Other People (donating money or items to charity, doing events for charity, volunteering, etc., etc., etc.) and this let’s me put something on my list—a list that is right now somewhat lacking in volunteering and charity runs.

The part I don’t like is this: it takes 5 minutes for the blood to go from me to the plastic bag, but it takes an hour to an hour and a half to do all the PAPERWORK and QUESTIONS and READING INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS. I TOTALLY GET why it has to be done every time, I TOTALLY get it, but it’s tedious nevertheless. No, I still have not lived outside the U.S. No, I still haven’t been in prison. No, I’ve still never taken medication for baldness. Yes, it still happened that 15 years ago I donated under a different surname. No, I’m still not allergic to iodine.

One major improvement is that I can answer most of the questions on a computer now, instead of having someone ask me each and every one including the long ones such as “Have you ever lived in any of the following countries:….” I’m sure this is a relief to the workers, too.

Would you like to tell me something on your Nice Things You Do For Other People list? I think that might be fun, since sometimes these things are kept modestly private (very few opportunities to say “OH HI GUESS WHAT, I WROTE A CHECK FOR $50!!”), and also it would be neat to get ideas.

I keep forgetting to mention I switched back to the old, non-embedded comment form because the new one was being such a witch with a b. So if you’ve been having trouble commenting (and sister, you are NOT ALONE), try it again.

This morning Henry brought me the roll of fishing line to re-roll (I wonder how many hours of my life I’ve spent re-rolling threadlike substances because I can’t seem to get organized about putting them OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN), and he kept stepping on it as I was rolling it so feeling a certain resistance as I pulled was familiar. This is why it wasn’t until the rolling LIFTED THE KITTEN OFF THE GROUND that I realized she’d gotten herself tangled in it. She was tangled in a non-life-threatening way, but I still felt panicked enough to CUT the string off of her rather than spending time untangling her. Ack! Kittens!

Lost all four legs in string accident please help bless you

Over on the review blog I have a 12-week thing going on where each week someone will get a $100 Visa gift card. Part of my agreement is that I’ll mention it each week on this blog. So bless you, you’re going to get to hear about it and hear about it and hear about it! But: there are 24 reviewers doing it, and each of us is giving away $100 per week for 12 weeks, so possibly this will be worth it for 288 of you. (The rest of you will be extra irritated.) The first of the twelve posts is up, and it’s about the morning breakfast routine, so that’s the kind of comment you leave, and it’s what I wrote about, and there is a picture of the kitten trying to attack Arthur on television.

Kitten-naming continues. I chose Maggie, but it turned out the children hated that name (I associate the name with Maggie Smith, but they associate it with Maggie and the Ferocious Beast). Then I decided on Phoebe, even though it totally breaks my kitten-naming rules, but no one else wanted to use it.

Then Edward suggested Hungary, which he found in the boy name section of the baby name book (as the country of origin, but he didn’t know that), and I said, “But that’s a boy name” and he said “Yes, and she’s a boy,” so I think we are going to need to revisit some conversations. But anyway then he looked in the girl-name section and he found the name Dexter, so I think I need to give him a different baby name book.

Her tail is very long and plumey, so I idly looked up “plume” and found that a plumed hat is called a bonnet, and I thought Bonnet was a PERFECT name for her: name-LIKE but not a name; connected to her appearance but not in an obvious way. Now I have to strong-arm everyone else into agreeing. I’ve already sent Paul several emails at work saying “Bonnet. BONNET. Bonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Et.”

Mouse has caught the kitten’s cold, but she has it much worse. I think she’s probably going to have to go to the vet, but I’ve never had to bring a cat to the doctor for a cold so I’m not sure what the “calling point” is. I hate to spend $50 to hear, “Yep, it’s a cold all right.”

There was one week of hissing. It was especially pitiful when Benchley was saying “Mrow? Prrrroww?” and the new kitten was hissing in reply.

Then there was one week of passing each other in the hallway indifferently. Maybe a sniff or two, but no friendliness.

And now there is this:

And I am SO GLAD! Because part of the reason we GOT the new kitten is that Benchley wanted so badly to cuddle and play with another cat but Mouse was having none of it, and the vet said sometimes a kitten would help with that. And then we got a kitten and it seemed like just another major rejection for poor Benchley. But now! Oh, there is happiness throughout the land!

I started the day 3 hours earlier than usual, with one of my recent “Wake up at 3:00 and be unable to get back to sleep” nights. Do these happen to you? For me I’m afraid they’re a genetic inheritance from my mother, along with a seemingly endless interest in having more children.

I’m PROBABLY growing my hair for Locks of Love. This started as Meaning To Get My Hair Cut, and then turned into Trying Unsuccessfully To Schedule An Appointment, and then turned into Well, Now It’s Long Enough To Put In A Bun So Never Mind. One of my physical upsides is that I have thick, fast-growing hair, and so it seems like a good idea to take advantage of an idea that combines so well with my natural disinclination to do anything with it.

But I say “PROBABLY” because it’s also making me feel crazy (so! tangled! and ouchy!), and I can just see suddenly getting it cut off when I’m half an inch short of 10 inches, which is close to what happened accidentally last time: I hadn’t even thought of Locks of Love until I saw the pieces on the floor and said, “Hey…” and the stylist measured and they were just under 9 inches long.

I got SO MUCH done yesterday. I’d gone out to the store after lunch, and when I got back it was 3:00, also known as The Soggy Gross Dregs of the Weekend. Paul and I looked at each other over the heads of our roiling mass of loud, talkative, argumentative children, and we realized we needed to either start drinking or take action. We took all five outside, and I gave them all haircuts on the steps, and Paul played with whichever four weren’t being sheared. The two older kids took showers after their haircuts, and I gave baths to the three younger kids. Then I scrubbed the tub. Then I made muffins. Then I paid a couple of bills. Then I wrote some Postcrossing postcards. Then I filled my pill-a-day container. …Okay, I’m running out of things to say I did. But it felt REALLY ACCOMPLISHED at the time.

Elizabeth wanted her hair SHORT, and I wasn’t sure what to do. One, because it’s just FINALLY getting long enough to do stuff with, and two, because it’s also been getting tangled and difficult, and three, because I don’t know how to do shorter girl haircuts: I can cut boy hair, or I can trim girl hair, and that’s it. So we compromised on MEDIUM: it was shorter enough to please her, but long enough to keep me from feeling discouraged. I nearly got into trouble with “making it even,” but I managed to make myself stop.

Okay, so I am mostly caught up on blog reading now, and I read on only ONE SINGLE BLOG that Proposition 8 was overturned, so I am mentioning it here for those of you who, like me, get most of your news from other people’s blog posts.

In other news, our kitten is still nameless. We have a hard time naming our cats. One of our biggest hurdles is that I really enjoy thinking about and choosing names (duh?), so I don’t like to CHOOSE because then it will be OVER.

Also, Paul and I come from different Naming Backgrounds, which is roughly as complicated as coming from different religious backgrounds. Paul’s family names their cats based on fur color or Disney movies, so for example a black cat is named Licorice and a golden cat is named Butterscotch, and a cat whose fur doesn’t bring a noun to mind is named Milo. I come from a family that names cats using quirky human names, which we then later regret because a decade or two later those names come into fashion and we want to use them for children but now feel like we can’t. Examples: Keegan, George, Oliver.

I also want to avoid any name that sounds like it’s from our runner-up baby names list, because combined with my well-documented interest in having another child I think it looks pitiful.

Our goal is to instead choose the sort of name that is neither commonly used for people (or about to be) NOR based on the cat’s appearance. So Agatha is probably out, but we’re considering Marple; and Penguin is out but we’re considering Pigeon; and Oreo is out but we’re considering Daisy. I consider nickname-names fair game for pets, so Maggie and Bonnie and Birdie and Dolly and Flossie and Gussie would all be fine. But we crossed out Ramona and Eloise and April and Ginger.

Paul suggests:

SaNdEe*
Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn
Zaneeta
Bronze Thunderpaws
Granite Firefur
Hardcastle McMeow

And of course the last three are BOY NAMES, so Paul is not much help. Paul also likes Juniper, but withdrew it when he found out it was thisclose to being on the Top 1000 names for girls in 2009 (and I bet you fifty bucks it makes it for the 2010 list).

So far the kitten is affectionate with people (likes to sit on laps and will hop up), but is standoffish with the other cats. She’s not as playful as the average kitten, nor as wild; she walks around like she’s a grown-up. Her fur is half black and half white, and she has a tail that is longer and fluffier than I’d expect, almost like a feather boa (who’s famous for a feather boa? Mae West? others?). When she purrs, she sounds like she’s going to sprain something. I think her face looks birdlike, probably because of her bird-of-prey eyes. Also, she’s an Aries and enjoys tuna.

Oh hi, hi hi hi, I’m here! I have been photographing my clothing try-on sessions and getting scolded by Wal-Mart managers [note from the future: this was a link to a post on a now-deleted reviews blog], and then right after I finished working on that post and got it posted, we lost our internet service. We have been living like savages. SAVAGES! It’s like when the power goes out and you go, “Well, hey, I guess since I can’t use the computer I’ll do some laundry…CRAP!”

And meanwhile I was DYING because WHAT IF SOMETHING IMPORTANT HAPPENED AND I WASN’T THERE TO DEAL WITH IT??? Like, it turned out that I was supposed to have included in that clothes-trying-on giveaway (FIVE! HUNDRED! DOLLARS!) that you can get extra entries by blogging or twittering a link to the contest, but I didn’t realize! because I can’t access the rules until after the post is posted! and by then I couldn’t fix it!

Anyway, I’m likely to be in and out until we get this *mumble mumble some computery jargon* figured out, but I am still occasionally on Twitter via my cell phone, now that I’ve remembered I CAN.

Today is another tough-to-get-going day. I spent last night dreaming I was unhappily dating my high school boyfriend and living in an apartment that was under siege by, like, cannons. And, like, flaming logs and stuff. While it was a relief to wake up and find the the girl my high school boyfriend cheated on me with was no longer jumping out at me (and that flaming logs were no longer a problem), I still don’t feel particularly PERKY this morning.

The kids watched Kung Fu Panda yesterday, so today I have this stuck in my head: “Yesterday is history; tomorrow’s a mystery; today is a gift, that’s why they call it the present.” Um. Thanks. (Though—I mean, are we all clear that that’s NOT why “they” call it the present? And why does “what sounds good” so often trump “what’s true”?) (See? This is the kind of day it is.)

Anyway, I made a pot of coffee and took an iron supplement, and we’ll see if those two things together can give me the energy and strength to lift a single drop into the bucket.

And actually, although I’m draggy, I’m CHEERY-draggy. If you know what I mean. Like cheery-melancholy, where you feel blue but you kind of LIKE it and enjoy wallowing in it a bit, as opposed to regular melancholy where you feel like crap? This is cheery-draggy, where I’m kind of enjoying the groaning and the making of coffee and the flopping in a recliner and the crabby remarks.

Today feels like a day of insurmountable obstacles: everywhere I look, another problem I can’t stand to deal with. Laundry, obviously. Fruit flies. The stuff I bought yesterday and didn’t put away. Consumerism in general. The minimum number of servings of fruits and vegetables that should be eaten by our family per day (thirty-five) (PER DAY). The spilled Pixos all over the dining room floor. The way so many things seem to migrate to the floor. The difficulty of continually training children to pick it all up again.

The way caffeine and alcohol and shopping and food do/don’t help. The inevitable, looming problems of aging. The difficulty of spelling words such as “aging” and “eying,” especially when I was so sure the difficult part was that they DID have the E before the ING. The messiness of my purse. The three phone calls I need to make. The decision about whether to let all the children go to a birthday party they were all invited to, and what to do about presents. The first empty jam jar from the homemade jam, and the question it raises of where to store it until next year. A work deadline so tight it’s likely a matter of someone else’s lack of planning constituting an emergency on my part.

So far I’m handling it by surmounting small things. It feels TOTALLY POINTLESS to pick up and put away Elizabeth’s headband when it is only one item of hundreds on the playroom floor, but I have LONG SAID that “all or nothing” is one of the WORST mental downfalls for me. All or nothing is the attitude that makes people say that if you eat a cheeseburger it’s dumb to drink diet Coke, or that if you cheat on your diet you might as well write off the whole day/week and start over tomorrow/Monday. It’s the attitude that makes people think that if you’re not going to be totally ripped, you’re an idiot to bother taking the stairs. It’s the attitude that makes people think there’s no sense donating to charity if they can only give $5, or $1. And it’s the attitude that makes me sink into despair as I contemplate all there is to do and the futility of doing any of it.

But no! We resist it! It is NOT all or nothing! All or nothing is not an appropriate attitude for a person who owns a math medal! Picking up the headband may be a drop in the bucket, but it IS A DROP, and the drop is IN THE BUCKET. That is better than having it out of the bucket with all the other drops! One drop > zero drops, just as cheeseburger calories < cheeseburger calories plus Coke calories. MATH. IT IS ABOUT MATH So that is what I'm doing today. I'm moving like a zombie, a zombie killed by despair and reanimated by children fighting over NOTHING, as USUAL, but I'm doing little things one after another. I emptied the dish-drying rack. I took one thing out of the Target bag and I put it away. I put in a load of towels. I put away Elizabeth's headband. Those drops are IN THE BUCKET, people! IN THE BUCKET!

Today I took the four older kids to a “kitten shower.” It’s an annual fundraising event thrown by our local animal shelter. It’s like a baby shower, except you bring presents for…um, the kittens.

And that’s all we did. Yep. We just brought our gift, which was kitten food and some cat toys, and we dropped them off, and we looked at the kittens. And that’s all.

Really. We looked at the kittens, maybe we bought some raffle tickets or something, but that’s all.

We won one of the raffles, too! It was a cat basket, full of cat toys and cat food! Pretty awesome.

Okay, we also had a snack. We had a snack at the kitten shower, and we also learned a lot about cats from an informational video about cat adoption.

Oh, and we used their bathroom. Yes, we also did that.

Oh, and we took home a party favor.

It’s a kitten! She’s three months old, and we don’t know what to name her! And if she keeps purring so loud she’s going to SPRAIN something!