Ghosts just may be onto something

I cried while listening to the following few sentences, watching the last scene from Desperate Housewives a couple of months ago.
I couldn’t help but feel sad and yet hopeful.
Thinking of my uncle today, on what would’ve been his 55th birthday…

Slightly altered spoiler if you read further.

Just like people

Cats are strong, independent. And while it’s true, not all cats are alike and some of them are much more needy than others – they’re much more independent than dogs are anyway.

I have three cats. They’re mostly outside during warm summer days and sometimes I only see them around lunch time – independent or not, why not take advantage of the “drive in”. They bring home winged or furry little “presents”. They “help” clean up and redecorate. During winter, they like to take over my bed and sleep all day.

All three have different personalities. Mili and Maci are more needy, they like being played with at any given time.

Onyx on the other hand… he’s more distant. He finds impossible places to have his naps. He doesn’t normally like to be held for longer than two seconds and will fight me to get away. He’s only affectionate on his own terms (fact which actually resembles a lot of men, but that’s a different story). It’s always a surprise when he feels like curling up next to me, and I could almost declare it a national holiday when he wants to be pet and sleep in my lap.

He seems as if he’d be perfectly fine with having no owners.

Yesterday, Onyx somehow managed to get his fur all sticky as he tried to un-stick the mouse off of this glue-mouse-trap thingy. How he reached it is beyond me, but he was all sticky and struggled to get it off by pulling out his fur. I’m sure it hurt (we had an appointment at the vet’s and he got his paw and chest shaved this afternoon).

Last night and today, Onyx was very much affectionate. He followed me around, slept (tried to clean himself) next to me and eventually crawled onto my lap and got some sleep. I went numb from not moving for an hour and a half, but am not complaining.

Right now as I type this, the effects of his anesthetic are wearing off – so naturally, we just had to pull him out of the toilet… That’s what we get for thinking he’d be okay if left alone for a few minutes.

It’s easy to characterize cats as being tough, ruthless with their prey and independent. It’s easy to look at appearances.

However, cats – despite the exterior, despite what we assume – (just like it is with people) sometimes need a hug, a kind word, a kiss, a pat on the back to know that everything’s going to be alright.

Truly unconditional

As I stated in the first part of this older post of mine, I’m still partial to pets over people when it comes to unconditional love.

And I have just the story to prove it.

Ever since I was a little girl, anywhere we went (on trips, visiting with someone, etc.) I could always find a pet to play with, or even a stray one and felt so much better that I played with them while no one else might have.
I’m still like that at 23, finding comfort in just one look from a sweet little furball.

Last week, as I was sitting at my laptop near the window, I heard a kitten’s desperate calling of his mother. At first I thought he’ll find her and eventually go away, but the meowing didn’t stop.
When I went out looking for the kitten I couldn’t find him at first, although I looked for him under the bushes, dumpsters, cars behind the flat. The meowing was getting more and more desperate.
I listened carefully and could hear him very close, but could see nothing…
And then it hit me.
I pushed away the leaves from of the bush I was standing next to, from the top to bottom, and finally found the small black and grey furball. He must have gotten scared from a dog or something, climbed up the bush, but couldn’t climb back down.

I was so happy I found him!

I wanted to take him inside, but as I walked towards the entrance, I noticed a mommy cat and another kitten at the other flat entrance, so I rushed over there thinking it must be her kitten, put him down and he ran straight to the mommy cat.

The mommy cat kind of took steps back even though the kitten was happily rubbing against her, she smelled him various times and kept looking at me as if asking “Why did you bring this kitten here? It’s not mine…”
This fear of mine was reinforced by the fact that the kitten wanted to rub against the other kitten who started running away from him and hissing at him, so he went back to the mommy cat.
He clearly wasn’t her kitten.

Right when I decided to catch him again, take him home and donate him to someone, a few people came by going into the flat and scared the little guy, making him run far to the other entrance.

And here comes the part where I got all teary eyed and sentimental.

The mommy cat looked at me, at her own kitten and then ran over to the other entrance, started licking the little guy I rescued from the bush and brought him back to the other entrance where they get fed and can get into the cellar to sleep.

Sadly, as opposed to so many people who give up, leave, abuse or even kill their child…
that moment when the mommy cat decided to adopt the kitten, to make him her baby even though he clearly wasn’t hers, it made me think how noble, how caring and loving a simple cat can be!

 

One obstacle course coming right up!

I’ve never been known as a clumsy person.

Then again, if you really think about it, it’s not that hard to injure yourself.
The world is full of obstacles; wet floors, stairs, sweet “Let me just crawl under your feet so you can avoid stepping on me while I’m laughing my whiskers off!” kind of cats…

But on Monday… 

I met up with a neighbor at the main flat entrance and held the door open for him while he carried out a bag of clothes.
I then urged another neighbor’s dog to come in and go up home. She came into the hallway, but thought she’d stall for a bit; I think she knew what was coming!

Our neighbor had piles of stuff laying around at the entrance; I had my coat, purse, keys and a folder in my hands.
The result?

Well… let’s just say it wasn’t a “Hey, Estrella, that’s a flat surface, it might be just a tad tricky to walk on” kind of episode, but the singlehandedly proving the laws of physics with a “Darn, these sunglasses work wonders in the dark!” kind of revelation while trying to pick myself up from right before our apartment door and crawling out of the box of stuff our considerate neighbor left in the very center of the unlighted hallway.

I was torn between laughing at myself and the sheer hilarity of the situation, or crying cause my hand really hurt, and looked around; the dog was looking at me attentively while I though to myself “Lassie would’ve warned me…”

My fiancé’s reaction (after being properly concerned): “You should learn how to hop properly, my bunny…”

I’m fine now, several ice sessions later my hand is only slightly swollen, only hurts at strain and is starting to turn into my personal hands-on upside-down map of Africa

True beauty

I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t preoccupied by their look.
And in the past, I was surprised by the fact that even celebrities I admired had the same worries as most women: not to show a tummy, not to have photos taken from certain angles if they didn’t favor them, etc.

But at the same time, I’ve met a lot of women who radiate with beauty and happiness, even if they don’t necessarily meet the so-called beauty standards.

Evidently, we all have the same complexes.
Some are justified concerns, some are imagined.

We won’t get rid of them by over-dramatizing, or mentioning them every 5 seconds in a conversation, expecting people to convince us otherwise.
But we can (and should) look inside ourselves, discover and acknowledge what makes us special, those small (but more often not small at all) qualities which should make us wake up each morning with a huge smile on our face.

After all (like I’ve said it before), true beauty lies in attitude, health, naturalness, subtlety and intelligence.

Thank you!

After more than two weeks of worrying, stress and running around I’m finally back.

It’s been tough, hectic and especially nerve wrecking but now everyone’s back to their previous state of health which gave me a chance to finally relax, regroup a bit this weekend and spend an amazing Valentine’s day with my fiancé.

During the past weeks I’ve really felt loved and cherished by my family and friends, and I’d like to take this chance to publicly thank them (you know who you are!):

Thank you for being there for me and to those in lack of closeness, for your well wishes, moral support, praying, for thinking of me and for sending e-mails which helped me not to fall apart, filling me with positive energy during the worrisome time.

I am so lucky and grateful for having such amazing friends!

Thank you for everything!

How do you write and relax?

Having the whole day to myself on Thursday, I decided to just relax and write some new flash fiction since it won’t write itself.

I had my alarm clock set for 9 AM so naturally I slept right through it and woke up at 11 AM. Had breakfast, washed the dishes, tidied up and vacuumed the room and hallways cause if I only do the room we’d just bring all the dirt back in. This took about two hours.

I finally sat on the couch and started my laptop.

I wanted to get everything done before starting to write, so I checked my e-mails, comments, FB messages, Twitter, etc. first which led to opening various interesting sites, reading posts, articles, and so on until another two hours later I finally closed everything, opened my Windows Live Writer and started writing.

I was almost done with my flash fiction when, aside from many other minor things that had distracted me constantly that day (for example thinking if I should cut my hair shorter, than searching for photos to see what I like), I looked out the window and saw an amazing color palette in the sky, clouds as the sun was setting.

I jumped up, went to get my camera, took a few photos and naturally wasn’t satisfied by them because of the flat(s), the trees, and the church, etc. were in the way.

So I quickly got my keys, and I rushed out of the apartment until the scenery won’t change too much (while noticing how crazy I am), got in the elevator even though I’m absolutely terrified of it and would rather go up the stairs to the 8th floor (with laundry!) if my fiancé can’t come with me.

After some terrible minutes in the squeaky elevator, I quickly ran up the remaining stairs to the 9th floor which is the dryer room, opened it’s lock and took it with me just to be on the safe side, and climbed out the window to the rooftop.

The view was amazing!

I took several photos mainly because I didn’t know which ones will come out pretty or blurry and thought to myself: okay it was worth it

Then I climbed back in the dryer room making sure I don’t break my camera or my neck (I may need to get my priorities straight cause I was way more worried about the camera!).

I gathered all the laundry which we forgot were even up there, and with a huge arm full of clothes I struggled to close the door, slowly went down to the 8th floor again seriously considering to take the stairs all the way down, but eventually decided against it (apparently I’m more afraid of the dark then dying in the elevator alone).

And here comes the not-so-much-fun-at-the-time part of the story which now I can smile about:

I somehow managed to be calm (okay so not calm… but calmer than usually) in the elevator, arrived downstairs, then struggled to open the apartment door with my camera and a set of keys plus the dryer room key in my hands and the clothes in my arms. Unfortunately when I tried to close the door, the draft slammed it behind me before I could stop it (insert big banging sound here) but did not close.

At this point my "darling" male roommate who saw my struggling, started shouting at me, cursing and mentioning my mom "asking" me to close the door without slamming it…

I think it’s rather sweet. He must really miss hearing my voice (I haven’t said a word to him since last year) and that’s probably why he provoked me. I see no other reason except if he’s not just pretending to be an idiot.

I didn’t say anything, there was no point. But my stubbornness somehow won the fight with reason and much to his surprise I slammed shut with proper banging sound all 3 doors I had to close (front door, hallway door, our room door (the last on to his face)) behind me.

Now I feel kind of bad, cause poor doors don’t deserve that treatment, but it did calm my nerves a bit, so that too was worth it (not even mentioning the look on my roommate’s face when I dared defy him).

Priceless!