On WEDNESDAY, I sneezed so much I felt like I’d rather be knocked out by allergy medicine than go through another day like that. I took the allergy medicine at night, in case it made me drowsy. It was the 24-hour non-drowsy kind, so I hoped the drowsiness was mostly in the beginning.

On THURSDAY, I thought, “Why have I had a pot of coffee and can still barely keep my eyes open? I’m so tired. My brain is asleep. My mouth is just, like, hanging open.” Ah. The non-drowsy allergy medicine. I didn’t take any more that night.

TODAY, I am wondering how things are going to go. Already I have that irritated tingling sneezy rip-the-face-off feeling, but I also feel AWAKE. I don’t feel I should have to trade one of these things for the other. Nevertheless, that reality continues to exist despite my objections.

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If you are of a temperament that periodically has Low Times where you feel you have done nothing, that you do nothing, that you in no way change the world, that all you do is suck up more than your fair share of world resources, that you OUGHT to find a career in which you would Do Some Good but instead you are trapped at home and also skill-less and it’s too much effort/expense to identify, choose, and obtain skills—then I have a suggestion, and it’s donating blood. It is surprisingly comforting. You show up and other people do all the work, but if you do NOTHING ELSE IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, not even after you are out from under the sticky little hands of your tiny oppressors, you will nevertheless have done good.

Plus, there’s usually treats afterward, and people will thank you, and you will go home with pleasant inaccurate fantasies of your blood being IMMEDIATELY RUSHED by special messenger to the hospital where someone worthy is JUST ABOUT TO DIE but will be saved by YOUR PRECIOUS STILL-WARM BLOOD. And the children will look a little cuter, because they haven’t been in front of your eyeballs for an hour or so.

The first time was a big hurdle for me, because I hate new things. I hate finding out where I’m supposed to go, making the appointment, and showing up not knowing how things go or which door I’m supposed to use. But after that, it’s easy. If you want more pre-reassurance (plus a LENGTHY section on “No, I don’t think you ought to be donating blood if you CAN’T or DON’T WANT TO”), see What It’s Like to Donate Blood. I specifically made it non-squicky.

You may be wondering how things are going with the new cat. And so am I! We see him about once a day now that he’s been released from his Gradual Introduction Room into the household-at-large. Yesterday he sat on my lap for awhile in the morning and wanted many skritches, then vanished for the rest of the day, and I couldn’t find him even though I felt like I looked everywhere he could possibly be. This morning when I woke up he was on our windowsill over our heads, but then Henry came up and the cat fled (I admit that was my impulse as well, at 4:55 with a child who hits the ground talking).

I am hoping this is not a Bad Sign. I have an acquaintance who has a cat who ALWAYS hides, ALWAYS. She says she wouldn’t even know she HAD that cat except for his vet bills and litter box and food dish. That would be…a disappointment.

On the encouraging side, my family growing up got a cat who hid at first but then eventually joined the household proper, with no further issues to speak of. Well, no further issues beyond a lifetime of various neurotic behaviors.

Also on the side of encouragement is that our cats who have gotten themselves in trouble (trying to escape outside, attacking each other, etc.) have been the cats who incorporated nearly effortlessly/confidently into the household, all but kicking previous feline residents to the curb.

And this new cat has only been with us for five days. I know it’s not time to panic yet. But I find I can get quite a bit of pre-panicking done if I start early. I see this cat-hiding thing as the first segment of many, many potential futures branching ahead of us, many of which turn out fine but some of which include Later Woe. (Anecdotes from all kinds of branches are welcome.)

I wish pets had little gauges on them, so I could determine if, for example, the cat is just adjusting slowly/normally and/or this is just his temperament—or if he’s permanently miserable here. Like, if he’s going to be the sort of cat who prefers to stay contentedly out of sight in pleasant quiet nap nooks, and maybe only come upstairs after the children are asleep, that’s fine and also I wonder if I could join him. But if he’s cowering miserably, flinching at every sound, and would thrive and be happy in a quiet household with two adults and no cats or children, that’s not fine.

He doesn’t have a name yet, and there’s a story behind WHY, and that has to wait because it’s time to get ready for swimming lessons.

Today I continue to feel like complaining. On my list today:

1. I understand that it is preferable, even LIFE-OR-DEATH preferable, to do hot-weather landscaping work early in the day. And it’s true that I am already awake, and so can’t claim to have been awakened. But 6:50 a.m. is too early to mow in a residential area, Landscaping Company, and I believe you are even more aware of that than I am.

2. I take 50 points off the speaker’s IQ whenever I see/hear a strident statement against something NO ONE WOULD EVER SUPPORT ANYWAY, EVER. For example, does ANYONE think that people who are barely scraping by with their honest, family-supporting labor, should have to deprive their small children of food in order to give drug/tattoo money to people who deliberately choose not to work even though they’re perfectly capable of it? No. NO ONE thinks that. NOT ONE PERSON IN THE WORLD. (No, do not tell me you know someone who does, because THEY DO NOT, even if they say they do.) (NO, trust me, I can READ MINDS.) But goodness, I certainly see a lot of people speaking out strongly against it! Good thing they’re ON PATROL against…whatever issue they think this is evidence against! Nothing like making a statement NO ONE COULD DISAGREE WITH to force others to appear to agree with AN UNRELATED ISSUE!

3. You would think, you would THINK, that I would stop clicking on online sale links. You would THINK. But I am still SO INCREDULOUS that online companies I know and trust would send me a “40% off clearance!!” email—and then I would go to their site and find that the prices have been increased first, so that the “sale” makes things the same price everything was last week without the sale. You would THINK that I would stop being so incredulous, considering it happens EVERY TIME. You would think that I would take a deep breath and realize there are other, better things to be outraged about. But you would be WRONG. I WILL NEVER STOP BEING ANNOYED AT THIS. NEVARRRRRRRR!!!

I don’t know why, at the start of every summer, I make lists of what we’re going to do. I always peter out after a few weeks. At least it’s happened enough years in a row that I now think of that at the beginning of summer: “I’d better do this stuff right away, since I always peter out after a few weeks.” And fortunately, some of the stuff I do right away is signing the kids up for things like swimming lessons, so then I HAVE to follow through.

I’m looking forward to school starting, but I’m dreading the start of school:

• A million pieces of paperwork to fill out (WHY CAN WE NOT JUST CORRECT THE OLD FORMS?? WHY MUST I FILL IN ALL THE INFORMATION EVERY YEAR, FOR ALL FIVE CHILDREN, AND WHY IS MOST OF THE SAME INFORMATION NEEDED ON SEVERAL DIFFERENT FORMS?? AND COULDN’T I DO THIS ONLINE, WITH CONNECTED PROFILES SO INFO CAN COPY OVER FROM KID TO KID?? OTHER SCHOOLS ARE PWNING US ON THIS!!)

• A whole bunch of open houses to go to, each held at a weird and/or inconvenient time (“Let’s see, this one’s from 2:00-3:00 on a Wednesday; this one’s 5:30-6:30 on Thursday, these two are both at the same time on Monday, this one is an ice cream social at 5:00 in the afternoon…”)

• The massive pile of school supplies to be divided into five piles using non-parallel school supply lists (“Let’s see, YOU needed TWO binders and FOUR folders and an eraser and a box of pencils and two boxes of crayons, and YOU needed two erasers and ONE folder and three boxes of pencils and a pencil box and FIVE binders, and somehow I have eight packs of highlighters I don’t need…”)

• And EVERY SINGLE PIECE LABELED WITH A CHILD’S NAME

• The papers from each teacher specifying VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION I will need to put on the calendar and/or put on the shopping list and/or still be able to find in six weeks and/or sign and send back with a check, and all the gym days when different kids will need sneakers, and all the school picture dates/forms to handle (“Package A doesn’t have a size I need; Package B has a size I don’t need; Package C is way too expensive…”), and the particular ways that particular teacher wants communications/forms handled

• Also at least one sheet saying “Oh, you know that school supply list that got sent out? You don’t need any of that, and please don’t send it, and please send everything on THIS list instead, even though all the school supplies are sold out by now and I have extremely particular requirements on brand, color, material, and size!”

• And many sheets will not have the teacher’s name or the grade anywhere on them, so I will have to make sure I know which child just handed it to me before that child runs off and doesn’t know what I’m talking about when I ask

• And oh, crud, have I seen a bus schedule yet?

To say it in the ripping-off-a-bandage style, our cat Feather was recently hit by a car and killed. We got a call early one morning from someone who found her and got our number off her collar, and if I were deputized to dish out blessings I would dish them out all over her, because she went out of her way to do it and saved us significant missing-cat distress. And speaking of distress, I had to go fetch Feather using a snow shovel and a towel, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore except to say I now have a much more positive outlook on peaceful vet’s-office euthanizations.

This is our third cat total who has been hit by a car (two fatally, one non-fatally but with an injury that led to euthanization), so we are switching to indoor-only cats; our street is evidently too busy. Have you noticed that different regions have different opinions about whether cats should be indoors or indoors/outdoors? In one of the areas where we used to live, it was considered Serious Deliberate Animal Abuse to let a cat go outdoors. In our current area, the outdoors is considered part of The Natural Realm of the Cat, even by animal shelters and vets. So this switch is a big deal here—like deciding to have a relative committed to a home.

Happily, our recent orange-cat acquisition was an indoors-only cat when he came to us. And at that time we were still reeling from Benchley’s death and already planning to transition to indoors-only cats as soon as Feather (a dyed-in-the-fur indoors/outdoors cat) was…er, no longer with us. And so we hadn’t let him out, so he’s already all set for the new policy.

And yesterday we acquired a second indoors-only cat, a 2-year-old male who seems very laid-back and we hope he will get along with Orange Cat. Right now they are in the sniff-and-hiss stage, but neither of them is freaking out—it’s more like the usual bow-and-shake-paws formal introductory hissing.

We specifically chose a cat who had reached adulthood while always living indoors. And we chose a laid-back cat rather than a bold adventurer, in the hopes that he will be happy and calm restricted to indoors life. I do feel sorry for them, not getting to climb trees and roll in grass/dirt and bask on the driveway the way our other cats did/loved. But I also feel relieved on various matters from rodent/bird issues to neighbor issues to danger issues. As Elizabeth said to me just now, “I’m glad we got another indoor cat. There’s not as much worrying to do.”

I’ve been reading a depressing novel that touches on world issues (children kidnapped to work as prostitutes! fathers shot in the street in front of their wives and children! very cheery stuff!), and meanwhile my childhood friend Jen in MI made a very good point on Facebook about how time/money could be better focused, and those two things together gave me the idea for a compromise.

What if everyone who wanted to show support for a fast-food restaurant’s spending priorities bought GIFT CARDS at that restaurant, and donated them to a shelter or food pantry or other such organization? They could then hang around and have a soda or something to show warm-body support for the fast-food employees, who have probably been having a rough couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, everyone who wanted to show NON-support for a fast-food restaurant’s spending priorities could (1) write a letter to the restaurant (boycotts may or may not do any good, but they definitely don’t do any good if no one knows you’re doing it—and an absence of $7 doesn’t show up in the annual report); (2) send the money NON-spent at the restaurant to a non-profit organization that DID reflect the person’s point of view (see also: Spite Charity), perhaps with an accompanying letter about the reason for the donation.

(Both sides could, if they liked, crow about how their side’s larger contribution to good causes meant significant things about the quality and legitimacy of their side’s point of view.)

Everyone who didn’t care either way could carry on as usual.

Let’s not have a re-hash of the reasons a person might make one of those three decisions. What I’m interested in is whether these three options are enough choices to let everyone feel happy about their actions, while also funneling all this Enthusiastic Effort in a pleasing direction.

I think in the Perfume post I may have inadvertently made the perfume spreadsheet sound more intriguing than it is. It is a spreadsheet. On which I keep track of what I think of various perfumes I try. Here is a screenshot sample:

All the perfumes in this section are L’Artisan so it doesn’t say so in each box; a section below has non-L’Artisan perfumes, each with its brand.

The “category” section (fresh, spices, bouquets and single flowers, etc.) comes from the early days of the spreadsheet, when I was getting my list of perfumes from a site that categorized each scent that way; any perfume added since then doesn’t have a category.

I use this in part to keep myself from accidentally ordering the same samples again and again (“Oh, yeah, this is the one I always think SOUNDS like I’d love it, but it’s no good on me”), and so that I’ll have a list ready of the ones I still need to try (I order from Luscious Cargo, and they let you choose 5 free samples with each order).

Also, perfume is something I’m interested in intermittently, so this helps me pick up where I left off the last time.

Also-also, I like to put perfume on my wish list, so this helps me prioritize which one to ask for: I might remember only that I liked both Fou d’Absinthe and Mimosa Pour Moi, and the spreadsheet tells me which one I’d rather have and which one can wait.

Now listen. This movie I am about to praise, it sells for $4.78 on Amazon. Shipped. That is, they will send it to you for less than five dollars, even though it probably costs Amazon around five dollars to pay for shipping plus the salary of the person who finds it in inventory and puts it in a box for you. That is…not a ringing endorsement for this movie, I realize. It’s called City Island.

(photo from Amazon.com)

And yet, I liked it. I DID. I liked it. I laughed, LOUDLY, several times, so that my 7-year-old said to her father, “What could be THAT funny?” I think there is probably a technical term for this kind of movie, but I don’t know it. Farce? Comedy of errors? Dramedy? …I don’t really know any technical terms for movies.

Part of it is that I am fond of Andy Garcia. I saw him in Ocean’s 11 and found him memorable. And his real-life daughter plays his daughter in the movie, which is fun.

Part of it is that there are some interesting insider insights into what it’s like to be an actor. (It does not look very appealing.)

Part of it is that one of the actors spends much of the movie with his shirt off and then acts honorably in the face of temptation (rawr). (And if that is not your thing, perhaps you will be interested to hear that part of the movie takes place in a strip club, in which a girl is genuinely working to pay her way through college.)

Part of it is that it includes, um, “plumpness admiration” in a fairly favorable, normal sort of light. Like, sure, a heterosexual teenaged boy might be using the internet to find pictures of skinny girls, or he might be looking for pictures of plump girls, why couldn’t it go either way? And when the handsome grown-up houseguest discovers this internet-search preference, he isn’t appalled at all. And the fatness of the neighbor isn’t used as shorthand to communicate stupidity and loudness and coarseness; instead she’s kind and self-confident and friendly.

Part of it is that everyone and everything is such a likeable train wreck, and yet everything comes right in the end. It’s not a particularly realistic plot or resolution, but the movie doesn’t seem like it’s going for realism. It’s going for…”Here’s a jumbled plot, here’s an amusing way to think of it playing out, and here’s everyone jolly at the end.” It reminded me of Shakespeare.

Part of it is that I had low expectations, and in fact when I got the Netflix disc in the mail I thought, “I ordered this? I wonder why?”

Part of it was wine. I really find it boosts the quality of nearly any movie.

I can hardly believe it, but apparently I haven’t watched Blink since 2007. (Netflix link—Blink is on season 3, disc 4.) Nearly FIVE YEARS. Henry was FIVE MONTHS OLD the last time I watched it. (Happily, I’ve similarly gone nearly five years without finding another boiled spider in the coffee filter.)

I’ve seen Blink three times now, and each time I can’t BELIEVE it. The first time, I enjoyed it the least because I was too scared to appreciate it. I enjoyed it more the second time, when I knew how things were going to go. The third time (last night), I pretty much cried all the way through it, including when we were setting it up in the DVD player and when I was loading the dishwasher afterward. “It’s the same rain”—*BAWLS LIKE BABY.*

I just love it. It’s exactly the sort of thing I like. A girl goes to an old abandoned house to take artsy photos, and she finds a message under the wallpaper, written TO HER. And then, a letter is delivered to the house for her, when no one knows she’s there! WHAT THE HECK. Oh, it’s so good. Plus, the first two times I saw it, I didn’t realize the girl was Carey Mulligan! And no one is cuter than Carey Mulligan. (Except you. YOU are cuter than Carey Mulligan. But then it’s Carey Mulligan in second place.)

My heart was pre-tenderized, too, from watching Pride and Prejudice this past week. My dears, my DEARS, it is Colin Firth. But also, it is Jennifer Ehle, with her smiling eyes. And also, Colin Firth. “I beg you, most fervently, to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife”—*BAWLS LIKE BABY.*

I was particularly delighted because I have NEVER been able to read that book, NEVER, though I have tried again and again. NOW I may be able to read it, now that I have the storyline and can imagine the characters. I am disappointed, though, that one of my favorite lines (the one in the previous paragraph) is reportedly not in the book.

I know I JUST DID a post with books. But here is another book.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Bringing Up Bébé, by Pamela Druckerman. I think there was some very good parenting advice in here. And the author’s writing style was amusing and easy to read (after I skipped the intro, which I was finding irritating)—like reading a blog rather than a manual. And I liked that she, too, notices how often United States mothers call themselves “bad mothers” in a tic-like, not-having-anything-to-do-with-being-a-bad-mother way: “I gave him a sandwich for lunch—I’m such a bad mother.” “I know I’m a bad mother, but I wanted to go to the grocery store on my own.” “I’m such a bad mother: I let him watch television so I could read my book.”

But I have five major objections:

1. I am tired of hearing about how superior the French are, even if they are. I think cultures are wise to learn from each other—and now I would like to learn from a DIFFERENT culture for awhile. How about India? Scandinavia? Russia? Nigeria?

2. I already feel enough natural annoyance at parenting styles other than mine, and I’ve noticed others feeling that kind of annoyance as well, so I suspect none of us are in need of something to SUPPLEMENT that annoyance. After reading this book, I feel like everyone including me is an idiot making things hard for themselves on purpose while simultaneously being show-offs and bringing up children to be beasts. Since I can’t make everyone read the book and start doing things in the superior French way, this seems like a bad feeling to cultivate.

3. It’s TOO LATE: I have already reared my children past this age. (The book mostly addresses from babyhood up to the start of elementary school—and some methods are too late after 4 months.)

4. I didn’t really…BELIEVE her. I felt like her sample was too small and too anecdotal. There were things that didn’t make sense: everyone in France does daycare! but there aren’t enough spaces for everyone! It’s like if someone visited Mississippi in the United States and then wrote a book about how all United States children say “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am.” And some of the French child-rearing ideas she praises are EXACTLY what I’ve heard here in the U.S., such as offering a child a vegetable again and again, having the child cook with you, making the child try one bite. THAT IS NOT EXCLUSIVELY FRENCH. And most telling to me: she tells how great these child-rearing principles are, but then doesn’t really apply them to her own kids, even though she’s living in France. She has excuses, but they sound exactly like the Typical American excuses she just finished saying had no merit. She throws herself so deeply into getting her Parental Suffering Merit Badge, she’s almost losing her mind and almost losing her marriage and almost going bankrupt hiring nearly round-the-clock help—but she still delays putting the children in the subsidized flexible care she just finished telling us was so excellent and so crucial.

5. A major section covers how great it is that French mothers don’t eat much. This seems off-topic, and I already read that book.

This isn’t an objection, but I also felt depressed reading about her marriage. A memorable line is where she tries to talk to her husband as they’re getting ready for bed, and he cuts her off by telling her that nothing she could possibly say to him could be as interesting as the articles in the magazine he’s reading. Another memorable tale is where she finds he’s brushing the teeth of a child who still has a mouthful of food, and he says he can’t handle her picky and arbitrary demands.

But my mom and I both read the book, we both laughed all the way through it, we both found things we considered very good advice and/or very thought-provoking, and we’re both glad we read it. Well, I THINK I’m glad I read it. Let’s see if the Increased Annoyance wears off a bit.