Monday, November 22, 2010

Of Course You Realize This Means War...

I write you from my bed where I’m spending all my time these days. Not because I’m sick (although I was – I got the flu! I never get the flu!) or hurt (actually there’s this whole thing about my toe… I’ll write that post soon, I promise!). I’m at war, my friends. AT WAR!

You know I’ve got kitties, and I love them kitties ever so. But kitties who go outside sometimes bring friends back in with them. Little, bitey friends who are not actually friends but instead terrible creatures which, if there were any justice in the world, would burst into flames the second they came into being! Some people also call them “fleas”. Kitties pretty much always have these flea friends, and normally I’m fine with the occasional bitey visitor. The price of kitty haveness. But there’s a limit, people. Oh there is very definitely a limit.

For me, this limit is when I wake up with 18 bites on my own personal body. LIMIT!

I’m not sure when the tide turned – when I blinked just long enough for the enemy to get a foothold in the house. One day the flea comb was suddenly covered! Suddenly I’d look down and find a black thing jumping on my lap! And the bites. THE BITES! The itchy, red, bumpy, itchy BITES! I can only guess that my chemical warfare just plain failed one month, and now we’re hunkered down in the house with many flanks of attack. We’ve implemented a strict vacuuming regimen. Renewed the chemical attacks. Things have been scattered into carpets, and every flat ‘walk on’ surface got a hot, friendly bleach washing.

Now I’m moving to high tech attack. I was going to basically take off and nuke them from outer space (aka THE FLEA BOMB) but frankly I hate to do those things. Despite all the “totally safe! Non toxic! Seriously, you could let your kid play with us! SMILEY FACE AND HEARTS, Y’ALL!” claims I still spend the next week feeling like I’m walking through death and everything tastes of poison and death and there’s just a lot of death. (don’t get me wrong – I’m in favor of flea death. But this is more just general, all-purpose death) Anyway, I went online to google “seriously, how much general death is there in a flea bomb?” and discovered an exciting sci fi option: FLEA TRAP.

FLEA TRAP! This is something on Amazon that many, many people have tried and raved about. It’s got many appealing aspects, such as: reusable (as opposed to flea bombs which, like real bombs, are pretty much toast once you set them off), inexpensive, non-toxic, non-gassy… And HIGH TECH! Wheee! So this is my solution for the FINAL, EPIC BATTLE! My super-weapon of ultimate killness is winging it’s way to me right now. Then I will set it up and watch the wave after wave of flea death. And will I laugh? Will I laugh as I watch them all die?

Oh yes. I will laugh.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Secrets and Sighs

When T.E. and I first started we were each other’s deep, dark secret; we each had a person or two we’d confessed it to, but everyone else was in the dark. Was that part of the fun? Maybe. Certainly keeping a secret from my family and friends was a very new experience. To be honest I sucked at it – my people figured out there was something I was keeping to myself pretty damned quick, but they let me keep the “what” to myself for a pretty long time. For him it’s much easier – he keeps great gobs of his life pretty secret. Frankly he couldn’t fathom why this was so hard for me – the idea of such a level of sharing with one’s parents was covered in a thick coat of crazy to him!

For me the thrill of being a secret faded pretty quick. How do you not feel somehow like a bad idea when your person fears what would happen if the world found out? And slowly but surely the seal on my secret of him began to break too. Still I was amazed when he told his parents first! Brick by brick we brought down our secret walls and eventually he flew here and met the entire Hippyville family clan! His parents actually paid for the ticket to bring him here for the summer! Everything pretty much came out of the closet and oozed all over the place. And I realized how much I preferred it this unclosety, oozy way. Even when his more dorky, immature high school friends tried like hell to make a connection with me on Facebook (something he put a stop to right quick – my hero!!) I still liked that better than feeling like he was embarrassed by or ashamed of me.

Then he started at University.

He’s in a new place with new people and trying to really make a place for himself and I think this is all very, very good. I WANT him to make friends (though if they could be less hot, young girl things that would be nice!!!) and have a healthy, happy social experience. But some part of that demanded that our relationship go back to being a secret.

I’d be lying if I said I don’t understand that. First of all, what studly young dude wants to talk about his middle-aged girlfriend? NOBODY will find this hot, my friends. And to be honest, I still keep him a secret from my co-workers as I worry about how my boytoy might impact their opinions of me as well. I always hope he doesn’t feel bad about that; doesn’t feel like there’s any part of me that’s ashamed of him. Frankly I’m more embarrassed of my co-workers than of him, but I understand the challenges that this relationship could pose for me at work and the same, at LEAST, must be said about having a mom-aged babe in college.

But with all this mature, worldly understanding and getting-of-it I still don’t like it.

So here’s the plan: I’m going to become THE hottest cougar girlfriend a smokin’ young dude could possible brag about. I’m absing it up (totally a word) all week long and trying to work out all the time and investing in hot shoes and tight pants and I can do all of this stuff because I’m a grown-up with a job that allows me to make the money. And purchase the things. And pay for the gym. Oh yeah, I’m going to BE BRAG-WORTHY.

…just as soon as I get over the case of arthritis in my toe. Because now my old-person foot ailment is keeping me from cardio. And has me wearing sensible shoes. I’m now officially old, starting at the feet. Sigh.