Memory holes…

“I don’t think I signed a lease,” I informed one of my caseworkers.
“Don’t worry,” she reassured me. “Everyone signed a lease.”
“Do you know for sure that I signed one?”
“Definitely,” came the reply. “I was there. You arrived with your Mom and your cats in cages then you put the cats in the bathroom and came downstairs and signed the lease.”

That sounded like something I’d do. There was just one thing. I didn’t remember it at all. I don’t remember most of the day I moved. I don’t remember leaving my old apartment, what size the moving truck was, what the new apartment was like… it’s all a big blank. There’s only two things I vaguely remember; asking an unknown number of movers to leave the boxes in the middle of the room and coming back from somewhere with my Mom to find that my bed had arrived and the caseworkers had made it in brand new bedding. Those are also the only two pictures I took of the move.

I had a similar conversation with my friend S. We were walking back to our building after an evening walk and talking about adding each other on Facebook, even though she’s not on very often.

“I just want to give you a head’s up that I post a lot of LGBTQIA stuff on my page,” I warned. Which is kind of true. I haven’t been posting as much lately. Most goes onto my blog’s page.
“I literally do not know what that means,” she replied, “but I can guess. I know you’re into that, well, lesbian and gay stuff. You told me on our first walk.”
“I did?” I asked in bewilderment. I had no recollection of that conversation at all.
“I’m a panromantic asexual,” I continued, just in case that never got covered.
“I remember you saying that!” she said with a grin.
Welp I definitely had that conversation.

It is extremely disconcerting to forget something so deeply that no amount of prodding or reminders brings it back. It’s like a hole deep in my brain. I forget things so much already. I can be totally involved in a phone conversation, both listening and talking, and forget the whole thing as soon as I hang up. The same thing happens to my dreams; I wake up and they’re gone. I put everything down in my calendar and check it every single day (sometimes twice a day). And when I read a book, I read it twice. Simply because I discover all sorts of things I never noticed (or remembered) the first time around. All those things are annoyances. Forgetting beyond recovery is scary.

My family has a strong history of dementia, which is something I really hope to avoid, and my memory issues aren’t helping my worries. It doesn’t help that I’m currently without a family doctor. My old doctor retired and no one around here’s accepting new patients. Hopefully I’ll find one soon. Then I’ll have to write a list of concerns to tell them because otherwise I’ll forget.

No use crying over spilled salt…

I bought a bouquet of sunflowers last week and my twin cats immediately started acting like they were at an all you can eat buffet (don’t worry they’re completely safe for cats). I’ve been shooing cats off the table several times a day and I know they’re up there at night because there’s a layer of white fur across the table when I get up each morning. My “no getting on the table” has turned into “no getting on the table while I can see you”.

Who me?

I was sitting in my swing chair this morning when I heard Lara jump onto the table. I got up and went over to shoo her off, only to have her scurry around the table, mere centimetres ahead of me. I finally caught her then she slipped and kicked out, knocking over my salt shaker… which immediately tumbled to the floor and broke.

Of course cats and kids have one similarity. Immediately both Lara and her sister were in the salt and sniffing at broken ceramics. And, as with kids, there was no point in getting angry. So I signed with disappointment, moved them away from the sharp edges, and swept everything up.

It’s all a matter of patience. I’ll admit that I don’t always have an abundance of it, especially online. It’s something I’m working on. I can get quite sarcastic. When Colin was little he’d often ask, “Are you being scartastic Mommy?” and often I was. Both my kids are fluent in sarcasm now.

I’ve been doing well with patience in real life, it’s online that’s more difficult. I have a tendency to side with the underdog and when I see someone treating another person badly I step in and react. Of course the kind of person who attacks strangers isn’t the kind of person who backs down from an argument so then I’m embroiled in an online battle with someone I don’t even know. I envy the people who manage to waltz in, have their say, and head out without starting WW3. I don’t yet have that talent. Hopefully someday.

I have a high maintenance friend who is really teaching me patience. In some ways she’s amazing. She’s taken me grocery shopping and stopped off at stores so I could run in and pick up something. In other ways… not so much. Last week we went to a farmer’s stand. We pulled into the parking lot and she stopped while reaching for her mask.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “No one’s wearing a mask.”

I looked and, yep. There were two employees and two customers, all of whom were maskless and they were all within six feet of each other.

“I guess I don’t need mine then,” she continued as she got out of the van.

I got on my mask and hung back a bit while she got in that six foot radius with everyone else. The other two customers left and I went forward and checked the ingredients on a clamshell container of blueberry tarts. Sadly they had both milk and eggs so I put the container back and bought the aforementioned sunflowers instead.

We were driving away when she told me to use hand sanitizer. I was going to use hers since she’d gestured to it then remembered I had my own. Then I remembered she didn’t want me using it in her van because the case is glittery. I mentioned that to her and she said to use it anyway, don’t use her container.

She then proceeded to berate me for picking up the clamshell container of tarts. I didn’t know who else had touched it. What if someone had covid? Wasn’t I concerned at all about my health? I should have had the employee read the long list of ingredients out to me. Meanwhile she’d stood maskless within six feet of four other people, none of whom were wearing masks. There were so many sarcastic comments I could have made. I decided none of them were worth it. Light sarcasm, like the kind I used with my kids, is fine for family and close friends. But regular sarcasm? You better brace yourself for ending that relationship if you have one. It’s the bomb of arguments.

All sarcasm aside, in the end I realized I really don’t need a salt shaker. I don’t think I’ve ever used it. Not that Lara did me a favour, it was cute, but it wasn’t anywhere near the end of the world. And while I’m patient with my cats, and hopefully the people around me, I’ll keep on working with my patience online. It won’t be easy but it’ll be worth it.

 

Black Cat Appreciation Day…

She’s so not a help when it comes to making the bed

Yesterday was Black Cat Appreciation Day or, as Blackie knows it, just another day. She got fed her favourite food and had cat treats sprinkled in front of her. She meowed imperiously from the bathroom and got fresh cold water poured into her nowhere near empty bowl. She rolled onto her back and mrowfed for belly rubs. She got her head skritched and her back stroked. When she got sleepy she napped on my bed or the bench. When she got curious she “hid” in the cardboard box or on a kitchen chair. Life’s good for Blackie.

We need to go back to 2007 to when the kids and I had flown to British Columbia for two weeks to celebrate my sister’s wedding and attend my grandfather’s memorial service. It was a wonderful family gathering of almost thirty people and we came home in good spirits to find a rather distraught cat sitter and a skeletal orange tabby.

“He just wouldn’t eat,” she explained, brushing back tears.

I made an emergency trip to the vet where tests showed our cat Pumpkin had cancer. He was euthanized the next day.

Two months later we were ready to welcome a new rescue into our home and knew just where to go. A friend volunteered with an animal rescue that worked out of PetSmart and offered to go in with us. We quickly fell in love with a three year old grey tabby and set to filling out adoption papers. That’s where we ran into problems. We lived in a high rise with a balcony and even though we lived on the third floor, the owner of the shelter was positive he was going to get out, leap over the chest high concrete wall and plummet to his death. She eventually turned us down.

So we went to the Humane Society. I told the volunteer that we wanted an older cat and she started leading us to the back past all the younger cats. Kait and Colin immediately pointed out a young kitten named Pete. I immediately pointed out that his eyes were both crusty and weeping. That sounded unnecessarily expensive to me.

The lady was waiting for us by the older cats when Kait said, “Mom! Look! This cat’s licking me!”

She giggled as I turned to look at an adolescent cat cheerfully licking Kait’s fingers. Kait bent down and the cat licked her nose. More giggles ensued.

The volunteer started walking toward us. “The older cats are all down there,” she said with a touch of impatience in her voice. She looked over at the cat we were clustered around and the impatience disappeared.

“Oh! You’re looking at one of our black cats! Let me get her out for you! Her name’s Blackie and she’s nine months old. She’s had all her shots and is spayed…”

She continued her speil while we oohed and aahed over the kitten. Soon the paperwork was signed, the fees were paid, and she was ours. We already had Angel at that point and the two of them settled in well together, they still get along.

That was a long time ago. Blackie’s going to be 14 years old in December. We picked Christmas Eve to be her birthday figuring that Christmas Day would be too busy. She’s lived in three different apartments and has had two health scares. One turned out to be her teeth and the other is a mystery, she just stopped eating for several weeks. She’s going a bit senile and sometimes misjudges the edge of the litter box and pees on the floor but otherwise she’s fine.

She has brought me so much joy and companionship over the last 13 years. I hope we have many more years together! You’re amazing Blackie Boo!

Blackie and Lara

 

Is it a good fit?

Back in June I asked my psychiatrist if I could have a referral to a therapist and he immediately obliged. Thankfully the therapist took on my case and we had our first phone appointment in early July, a case history. He set the next appointment for exactly a month away and then I was left hanging with nothing to work on.

The month went by and I finally had my next appointment. The therapist was all set to work on my agoraphobia and anxiety until I told him that I’d come to the realization that I hate myself and he focused on that instead. I figured he’d want to try and figure out where the hatred was coming from and work on getting me to think more positively about myself. But no. Instead he wants me to make a whole new self, one that I’ll like, built on the carcass of the old me. I’m still not wrapping my head around this.

He continued on by telling me I should have no close friends at all, that ideally I should aim for 14 or 15 superficial friends. That people prefer pleasure and push away pain and, when you have close friends you talk about deep subjects that can make people uncomfortable… which makes them push you away. But with superficial friends you only talk about light things, like the weather, so the topic never gets deep or painful.

My whole being shudders away from this. I don’t mention it often but I’m demi romantic, closer to aromantic than asexual. I crave deep friendships and I can’t have a romantic relationship without having a deep relationship first. No deep friendships means no relationships ever.

And then he gave me an appointment two months away with nothing to work on except to write and make superficial friends. What am I supposed to do? Chat up the cashier? So I’ve got until the end of September to figure out what to say to him. Hopefully we can figure something out that will work better for me.

My cat Smudge being cute and nibbling on my sunflowers

No. Just plain no…

I started shopping at Dollarama before Colin was in school and got a job there, which people joked was simply a way to fuel my shopping addiction. I certainly went home with at least one bag of purchases after every shift. The love affair has slowed down but hasn’t gone. I still shop there once or twice a month.

I forgot to take a picture and pulled this off the internet

I was at our local shopping centre on Friday to meet with friends and buy my bus pass and decided to stop in at the Dollarama there. Thankfully it wasn’t busy and I quickly had an armload of goodies to buy (and of course I didn’t have a basket because I only went in for two things). I got to the front of the line then turned automatically to the cash counter and all the registers were quiet, there were no cashiers at all. What? Then a store employee caught my attention and directed me to a bank of self serve cash registers.

I stood there for a moment. I don’t like those machines and usually refuse to use them but I had that armload of goodies and there was already a line behind me. So I used the machine and left but I’m not going back to that location. So far there’s still cashiers at my current location but, then again, there was at the shopping centre last month. If they switch to only self serve, I’m not shopping there either. If they all switch over then, well, I’ll miss Dollarama but c’est la vie.

I remember in the 90’s, going to the bank and standing in the line for what felt like forever. Then they brought out automatic tellers and suddenly you could take out your money in a matter of minutes. Then came debit and you didn’t even need to take money out. And now tellers, which used to be a stable job, are becoming a thing of the past. I can see the same thing happening with cashiers. Why hire four employees to staff your cash registers when you can hire just one to supervise people at the self serve checkouts? That’s three wages you don’t have to pay.

Loblaws isn’t that bad but Walmart routinely tries to encourage me into their self service area. First by getting rid of their express lanes, they’re now a second self serve area, and second by having people urge me to go there. I always politely refuse. I saw a joke earlier with the tagline of, “No thanks, I don’t work here”. Maybe someday I’ll use that.

We’ve lost so many jobs already through cheaper wages overseas, automation, obsolescence, and computerization. We don’t need to let retail jobs slip away too. So many people’s jobs are at stake and all because of those tiny, little machines.