The Best-Laid Plans

Rabbie (Robert) Burns was either a poet-patriot or a poet-traitor depending on which side of Hadrian's Wall you happened to live during the last part of the 18th century. No matter. He nailed 'it' with his poem, "To A Mouse" which, according to lore, resulted from his turning up her nest with a plow in November, 1785:

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
        Wi' bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee
        Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
        Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
        An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daamen-icker in a thrave
         'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave,
         An' never miss 't!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's still wa's the win's are strewin!
An naething, now, to big a new ane,
          O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
          Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
           Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
           Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble
Has cost the monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
            But house or hald,
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
            An' cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men
           Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
           For promis'd joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
            On prospects drear!
 An' forward tho' I canna see,
            I guess an' fear!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173072

It's this line that's stuck through the ages:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley, 

In other words - even in the best laid plans of mice and men shit happens. Wheels fall off. Things go sideways and, these past few days, I'm facing a plethora of wheels falling off and shit happening. It is what I call a Cosmic Convergence where the whirlwind of the cosmos seems to be wrapping itself around me, throwing things at me from all directions.

I got a frantic e-mail from hubby yesterday about our aged cat, Sam.

This picture was taken a few years ago, when he was about fifteen. Yesterday, at going on nineteen, he "exploded" from both ends several times, leaving a path of destruction through the house. Then he spent much of the afternoon moaning and crying.

It looked like the Time Had Come for my last little fur-baby and it broke my heart even though he is nineteen years old and it's not unexpected. It is, after all, the eventual outcome for anything that lives.

After getting the frantic phone call and then going back and forth with my asking for hubby to wait and then rethinking because I didn't want Sam to suffer for a minute if he didn't have to, we decided to wait. Hubby decided to wait and I was forty miles a way at work so unable to figure if it was a good decision or a bad, but figured I'd find out when I got home.

By then, at six o'clock last night, Sam was better. He was sleeping and seemed normal all last evening. I watered him - standing at the sink so he could drink from the palm of my hand. I fed him and he ate. It all seemed okay. Which leads us to wonder what led to that. Whatever. It's resolved so now it's a matter of starting forward from here.

At work, I was frustrated because I have something on my desk that I want resolved (dammit!). I've been trying for a week to meet with the people who will decide but every time we have something set up, something else more critical comes along and bumps it. On top of the kitty-crisis yesterday, having this meeting bumped again (fourth time), drove me to the edge of the cliff. I whined. Just like a petulant five-year old. Which I try hard not to do at work or anywhere else. It's so unattractive!

Fortunately, the "whinee" is understanding and, after whining and fussing I went down and apologized, explaining the frustration and everything. He empathized and we're good. The Respect-o-meter took a downward swing, but it's not irreparable. We'll meet today and get it done and I'll be happy.

On top of and associated with that, I have a vendor waiting for an answer - and they have been waiting for more than a week on something that should be, in most cases, easily solved and/or answered. Between the internal (direction/clarity) and the external (vendor) I feel like I'm caught in the middle - a place I don't like to be. That contributed to the whine (or whinge, depending on which side of the Pond you happen to be).

Outside and apart from this I discovered something very unpleasant the other day. It's really, really unwelcome information. It is a big sloppy wet hairball of a mess, and there isn't a bloody thing I can do about it. I can't even write and rant about it. All I can do is internalize it - something else I'm not good at doing.

I did put up a post on Facebook about it, then had second thoughts and took it down again. Maybe I should talk it out in the privacy of my car on my drives to and from work until it's out of my system... Now there's an idea. Just verbalize it in a place where no one can hear, no one will know and I can express my frustration to its fullest extent.

And the more I think about this, the more I want to stomp my feet, flail my arms and then fling myself to the floor and indulge in a full-on temper tantrum. There are just some things in life that aren't fair. They're unfair and when there's nothing you can do about it - feeling like a fly stuck in amber - all you can do is rage. But, with things going the way they are, I'd probably hurt myself. Knock my head or hit something while I flail and have yet another misery to add to the pile gathering around my knees.

Then, compounding all of that, is that I'm simply grouchy. Grouchy because a few years ago I lost a lot of weight - about forty pounds. I didn't do the fad diet thing. I didn't do anything but slow my eating to a graze, get a little more exercise and so on. Now I feel like it's all coming back. I lost it and now it's finding me again and I am not happy.

Part of it is, I think, my thyroid malfunctioning. I had thyroid problems in my early twenties and was on meds for it for about ten years, then I got preggers. That solved that for some reason and I haven't had problems since. Now, though, the weight gain, low energy, dry skin, hair is doing weird things all seem to point in the direction of the base of my throat.

Which isn't necessarily the end of the world. It just means I have to be more careful about what I eat (and how much), get more veggies and flax, more protein and less fat. But it's a nuisance. I'm hoping I can solve this without the meds because I won't even take my vitamins let alone 'scrips.

So, grr. Ah well, c'est la vie, c'est la guerre - all of this shall pass and then it'll be something else.

I hope you have a grouch-free, grump-free wonderful day! Me? I'm gonna go have that tantrum.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

A Total Cosmic Convergence & Helpful Personalities

I have multiple personas I call upon as the prevailing need in my life dictates.

Constance was the first to develop. She was helpful because I could readily blame her when I was late or forgetful. "Sorry, you know me, I'm Constancely late / forgetful / or whatever." It's quite convenient. In fact, I highly recommend it.

Right now, Dorothy is in full sway. That's Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  She deals with the tornadic periods of my life. She helps out in those times when things are coming at me every which way and I'm fighting hard against the tide. I pull her out and use her as a shield of sorts during those Cosmic Convergence periods where everything seems aligned juuust perfectly to make life a challenge.

Hope is there, too, because I Hope this too shall pass and calmer waters lie ahead.

I'm also calling upon Patience, so I don't lose my temper and scream or throw things. Fortunately, Patience hasn't been trotted out too much, and hasn't expended her energy. So that's a good thing.

On the other hand, Constance is taking a few days off. She won't be called again for a while - not until I'm Constancely late, or Constancely forgetful about something or other. Birthdays are one event for which she's handy.

So those are my different "people" who help me through periods where life gets difficult.  Right now, my life feels as if I'm standing under Niagra Falls and trying to catch it in a 5 ounce Dixie cup.


See, what happened was, we had a guy who worked here. A nice guy, affable and pleasant, but one who never "got" it when it came to his job. He faked his way through for long enough that we're now scrambling / struggling to fix what he didn't do. I was the one who did what he was supposed to do before he did it, so I trained him. And I retrained him and sat with him and encouraged him, 'If you have any questions about anything, please let me know'. I stopped by and asked, 'how's it going?' According to him, everything was fine. Until they fired him and discovered things were not fine. Things, in certain cases, were a year past 'fine'.

So, having a bit of a guilt complex because I think I 'failed' somehow - either by scaring him by my personality (which can be strong), or by making him afraid to ask me for help - I offered to step in and help fix what went off the rails. That's pretty much all I've been doing for the past several days, because what went off the rails didn't just go off the rails. It went massively off the rails, like across the verge and over the road and into the next county. And it has to be fixed ASAP.

Not only because it's month-end, which it is, and we don't want to accrue all of this stuff, but also because we have other companies relying on us and if they don't get what they're expecting, we'll be in a world of hurt. So I'm playing catch-up - with, in some cases, a more than one-year delay.

On top of that, I started an online wedding album for my daughter expecting that people who were there and who want to post pictures will do so. Unfortunately, they're not. They're putting them all over Facebook so I'm going to have to go through and pick up the pictures and copy them into the wedding album - otherwise they'll be lost forever in the morass that is Facebook.

Things at home are... well, they are. But it's par for the course so it's what it is and I just deal with it. It does add to the Stress-O-Meter, though, and just makes that Cosmic Convergence seem bigger.

And there are other things at play, too, but this too shall pass and I shall get to calmer waters. I'll have a period where I can breathe and catch up with myself, and this shall go into my Life Book as one of "those" periods. Just like everyone else has, too.

Along with this is the writing which has stalled again (small wonder, given everything else...), but I am leaning strongly toward doing NaNoWriMo in November, and I have an interesting concept for my story - so I'll continue mulling that. It would be cheating to start now, although I could and who would know? But I won't because that would at least partially defeat the challenge.

Authonomy is in my past. I was very upset and sad yesterday, but they're shutting it down at midnight on 09/30 and I wasn't sure which midnight they meant - 09/30 or 10/01 - but I didn't want to be there for it. I'm on the West Coast of the US and many of my Autho-Friends are in the UK and parts East of here. I did not want to be the one to see it ripped out from under me, so I closed my account yesterday. It was hard, really hard, and I had to think about it for several days before I knew I was ready.

However, life will continue and the cosmos will converge and I will muddle along doing what I do from day-to-day.

So - cosmic convergences and associated personas come together once more. And the big piles that I have on my desk are looking smaller, so there is hope. At least large chunks of this particular Cosmic problem are resolved. It's all I can do - chip away at it a little at a time.

I hope your cosmos is spinning calmly and you're in a good place in your life.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Cosmic Convergences and Other Pains

You have mornings like this, right? You wake up. Maybe you lay there for a couple of minutes, gathering yourself. Eventually you throw the blankets off and get out of bed. It all seems okay.

You start your day. If you do as I suspect most people do, you hit the loo and take care of that. Maybe you make the bed, next, or you get in the shower, next. Whatever. You do what you do in the order in which you do it.

Then, along the way WHAM! The wheels fall off, things go sideways and suddenly what seemed like a normal, ordinary, comforting morning becomes anything but. Then you scramble to try and get it back upright and on track.

Yeah, well good luck with that.

That’s how my morning was yesterday. It’s what I call a Cosmic Convergence where everything – good or bad – seems to come together in some way that it all hits at once.

We keep Sam, our eighteen year old cat, in what we call The Cat Room at night. It’s the spare bedroom. It’s our way of ensuring that he doesn’t maraud through the house while we’re trying to sleep.

Once, we did try to let the cats out at night. This was when we had Sam and Oscar, probably about twelve years ago now, right after we moved into the house we’re still living in. We let them roam the house at night once and only once because while we were trying to sleep, they insisted they had to race from one window to the other – across our bed – to check on the goings-on outside. After that, they were kept locked up. It was easier on everyone.

So, now that Oscar is no longer with us, it’s just Sam and we still keep him locked up at night. Which, given the result of yesterday morning, is a very good thing.

He's old. When critters - cats, dogs, people - you know, critters, get old, things don't work as they once did. Muscles relax and cause alarm. That's why people buy things like Tena and Poise pads and so on. Well, cats don't do well if you try to put a Tena on them. They get upset. So the things that don't work the way they're supposed to get out of control.

Back to yesterday. I got up. All seemed right with the world. I did my thing, wandered downstairs, got my coffee, sat down and posted yesterday’s blog. I glanced at the clock, not quite six. Okay I think to myself, I’ve got a few more minutes.

I spend another few minutes and glance up again – oh, CRAP! Where did the time go? It’s like Fate or Chronos or someone hit the hands on the clock, knocking it fast forward. It’s suddenly almost 6:20 – I’m five minutes late.

I leap up, put my computer away, glug some coffee (which is only tepid at this point, so at least I don’t burn myself!). Race around getting my mother-in-law’s nutritional drink, setting up hubby’s coffee, throw my lunch together (basically grab and go so it doesn’t take more than a minute).

Then it’s six-thirty. Okay, that’s do-able. I’ll have to hurry, but I can make it.

Except for Sam. Sam had other ideas. Probably, since he’s a cat, they weren’t long drawn-out deliberate ideas, but they were effective.

I open the door to his room and… He had trouble during the night. Something he ate seriously did not agree with him and it’s here, there and everywhere around the room. Poor thing! I can’t be mad at him. It’s not like he planned it. It’s just bad timing and my being behind that makes it a problem. In the meantime, he’s looking at me like, ‘I’m sorry, Mom.’

Well, there goes my morning.

I need gloves because I am not going to deal with that bare-hand. Crap! No gloves in the drawer where I keep them. Downstairs for a box of gloves, back upstairs and get to work. There are seven places, plus the tray in front of the box which is supposed to catch the litter. Well, it’s caught some other stuff too, and the box needs to be changed.

Finish the carpet, take the tray into the backyard and hose it off, change the box. This is more fun than any one human being should be allowed to have… Get it done. It’s not quite seven o’clock and Sam is standing on the counter in the bathroom. He needs water.

He has a waterer in his room. It’s not a bowl. It’s a basin with a recirculating pump, but he refuses to drink from it. Instead, he insists that he must drink from the tap. Crap! I set up the bowls to catch the water, turn the tap to low and get my shower going. It’s seven o’clock. I should be well on my way to work by then, but I’m not. I’m naked and wet and I am decidedly not happy with the way my morning has gone.

Out of the shower, into my clothes and out of the house at almost 7:20, I’m thirty-five minutes late and, given the time of day, seriously screwed. There’s going to be traffic on the highway. Everyone else is trying to get to where they want or need to be and I’m at the back of the line.

Flying at a low altitude I make it – “only” thirty minutes late. Whew! I took the back roads and drove faster than I should, but didn’t meet up with John Law. I didn’t run over any nuns or into a school bus full of children. No cyclists or dog walkers went under my wheels so, yeah, it is a good morning after all.

Given all of that, if that’s the worst thing that happens on any particular day, I’m be grateful. I took a short lunch, made up the time, and all was right with the world.

Hope you have a lovely, Cosmic Convergence free day!

Best~

Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories