Kitty power!

As in, she's been trying to crawl up my butt most of the day. She's very persistent. She crawls on my lap, lays on my shoulder, sniffs all over my body, and meows a LOT. I love her dearly, but this neediness worries me. I keep wondering if I should just let her roam free outside, if maybe that would fix it. But she's made it a year with only accidental forays into the outside. And I think she's getting decently healthy, though obese.

Speaking of obese, I was thinking about my own blooming waistline. I think it blooms when I'm unoccupied, as being out of work makes me. But then I didn't really lose weight while I was working either. So it becomes an interesting question of what it takes to make me lose weight. I'm coming upon my 3 month mark of recovery from surgery, and hoping the doctor will agree that I'm ready to start jogging. The PT has been steadily upping my weights and activities, and I'm close, if not quite ready. I think (hope, pray) that being able to start a decent physical activity will give me a little impetus to cut down a little on the junk food, add more health food, and generally eat less. I know I'm eating too much, and I know I'm not getting enough exercise. So I try, and I laze, try, and laze, and the cycle is frankly both mortifying and infuriating. Mayhap I can pin my hopes on getting healed enough to start some intense physical activities. But when I think of my current record, it doesn't make me feel very confident. :( Just gotta keep trying, I suppose.

Speaking of trying, Hubby and I have been together for over six years. I had a friend from my first high school stay the night on Friday, and she kept commenting on what a cute, adorable, quiet couple we are. That she's not used to two people communicating so quietly, and it was her first time seeing it surprised me. I've never really thought of us as quiet (especially in the bedroom, or when we're playing around), so to hear that we're so quiet as to be silent in her opinion shocked me, and it hasn't left my mind yet. What do you think a healthy couple constitutes? I've talked with hubby, and my opinion was that within the course of a year, we would move out of the honeymoon stage and settle down to a day-to-day existence in which we became accustomed to each other and slowly just lost the fun. That's what I always imagined marriage to be, at least. It's not an ideal marriage, but it was the reality I expected. To find that we still laugh, joke, play, and learn about each other surprises and gratifies me. To find that we haven't had a hurtful and mean argument is little less than miraculous (especially if you consider the effects the birth control has on my temper)! But I'm so happy and that scares me a little. I worry that this kind of happiness comes right before great unhappiness, and the most devastating thing that could happen to me now, I find, is losing my love. I worry about it constantly, especially when we travel. We've had so many close calls with other cars doing stupid shit and endangering him!! I want to cut those drivers up with a frickin' knife for daring to even come close to harming him! But I can't, so I just drive away.

I bought peanut butter crackers at Costco to hand out to panhandlers, and handed out a few that same day. It was interesting, because one person was genuinely gratified to receive them. Another person was an older man that was stick thin, but pissed to receive food instead of money. He thanked me to my face, then walked off muttering about 'Giving me fu**ing  crackers. Damn cracker....' It hurt my feelings a little to hear that, but it didn't discourage me too much. Rather, I felt a little amused, because his sign said 'Anything helps' and yet he obviously didn't want just anything. The idea 'Beggars can't be choosers' apparently didn't come to mind for him. Of course, maybe he was allergic to peanut butter. I worried about that a bit, but ultimately decided that if they were allergic, they would probably be able to trade with someone for something else, just as they trade food for drugs. I get this knowledge from the book I read about dopefiends.

I'm finding that it annoys me more and more to hear 'God bless you' from these panhandlers. I'm blessed indeed, if their blessings have worth with their God. Rather, I think they've trained themselves to say that because the majority of people that give them things either are covert christians (who obviously want blessings in return for their offerings), or are christians that preach at them that they should be thankful for everything they receive and praise God because it's obviously all his doing when something good comes their way. I'm neither. I simply know what it is to go hungry because you don't have enough money to buy food and give food away accordingly. *shrug* I just wish they would stop blessing me, and start eating more.

One friend that came to visit commented that I'm a 'good little housewife' and I was offended. I didn't really question WHY until today, but here's what I've thought of: I think I was offended because the way it was said felt like they had taken everything they saw of me, and summed it up in the most inadequate expression: little housewife. I'm more than just a wife, and I do more than sit around the house cooking and cleaning. I'm still a young woman, still interested in Japan, learning, and growing as a person, and to be told that I fit the role of a good little housewife negates my existence as anything else. That's offensive to me. But then, also thinking along this line, she didn't say 'You're JUST a good little housewife'. She was, quite likely, merely commenting on the side of me that she was observing, and my response could have simply been "Thank you. I hope you know, however, I'm more than just a housewife." There was no reason to be unduly offended over that one comment. Instead, I feel I should take pride in the fact that I AM a good wife and caretaker. I don't, not really, but I should. I take pride in my food (especially when it turns out well), my decorating (because I like doing it), my hobbies (reading, swimming, etc.), and my abilities (too various to list). So why not view being a housewife (though I feel the terminology to be utterly inadequate to express my awesomeness) as another ability of mine and try to take some pride from it? Mayhap when they find better terms to define my awesomeness, I will accept the compliment with pride. Til then.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdymCQ5PXrs