Cat and mouse...and dog

A few weeks ago, my cats were particularly rowdy, scampering around the house at nights, wrestling with each other, making weird cat noises, knocking things over, and wreaking all kinds of havoc in my house. Three nights in a row, I would bolt awake thinking my house was being broken into. Nope, just the cats being badasses. I, of course, blamed myself for their misbehaviour, because I was in rehearsals for a play and hadn't been home for weeks except to eat and sleep.

After the third night, I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed something lying on the floor. One of those cat toys that looks like a mouse. Relieved, I thought, "Oh, they just found one of their toys under some furniture or something and they've been up all night playing with it. I'm not a bad person after all."

Upon closer inspection, however, it wasn't a cat toy that looked like a mouse. It was a mouse. A dead one.

A mixture of emotions - a whole cornucopia, in fact - flitted through me. A feeling of violation because this rodent had invaded my house. Sadness for the mouse because it was dead. Pride that my cats had proven themselves to be of some practical use rather than the useless slugs I had previously thought them to be. Horror that my babies could actually kill another living thing. Anxiety because I knew that I would have to pick its lifeless body up somehow and dispose of it. [M@rtha Stew@rt home tip #346: A discarded blueberry container can serve as a mouse corpse receptacle in a pinch! Just scoop and close - your hands need never touch the slightly rigid and soon-to-be maggot-ridden corpse of the mouse. It's a good thing.]

Later that night, a cast mate and I were swinging by my house to pick up a bottle of wine. Joking, I said to her: "Let's go see if there are any new dead things in my house!" I went in and sure enough, in the hallway, there was another dead mouse. A baby this time. "I guess I'd better take care of that," I said, and went to get another blueberry container.

In the meantime, Musically Speaking started screaming her head off.

"Aw, come on - it's just a dead mouse. It's not going to hurt you," I said, rolling my eyes.

"The dog - the dog. Oh my god!!"

"What?"

"The dog - she has it IN HER MOUTH! She's chasing me! Aaaaaaaggghhhh!"

[My dog has this thing she does with her toys. She scoops them up in her mouth and then comes at you with them. If she really likes you, she'll try and cram her "toy" in your mouth. Apparently, she reeeaaally liked Musically Speaking.]

"Oh my god, that is so gross!" said I, secretly relieved that the dog wasn't chasing me. At the sound of my voice, though, the dog realized that the one she loves most was in the house, and felt the need to come find me and show me her new toy.

She came racing up to me, mouse in mouth, tail dangling from the right corner of her mouth. She began thrusting her face at mine. It was utterly grotesque.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, and kept screaming until she dropped the mouse at my feet, gave me an odd look that said, "Ungrateful freak" and walked away.

Keyboard in forehead

If "putting your foot in your mouth" is a phrase used when you make a spoken faux pas, what do you say when you make a written one?

Not too long ago, I got an email from someone I don't know who is involved in an organization I was active in many years ago. Let's call this stranger Mai. She emailed to ask if I'd write an article for their newsletter about my time/experience in the organization. I'm always up for that sort of thing, so I agreed, wrote the article, and got it back to Mai in the vicinity of the deadline provided. We emailed back and forth a bit, as she had questions about some of our activities back in the day, and suggested we get a coffee sometime to talk more.

I said, "Sure! Why don't you come to this lecture with me and another friend who used to be involved in the organization, and we can have coffee and chat there. It looks like an interesting topic." I attached the info on to the email - the lecture was called, "Can men and women be 'just friends'?"

Shortly after, I got this response from Mai:

Well I hope you can see the humour of the event listing as an invitation to meet someone of the opposite sex. Jeez no innuendo there.

Oops. Mai was a boy. He had an unconventional name and I had assumed he was a female. Instead of inviting someone on a fun girls' night out, I was making some strange statement about what our relationship, that did not yet exist, would or would not be.

Just hit me with the keyboard, please.

Jackpot

I won the lottery today. It was the largest lottery in Western Canada's history - $54 million was up for grabs, and I won. I actually won. Swiped my ticket through the machine and came up a wiener.

Of $2 that is. Still, that's more than a kick in the pants.

I'm wondering what to do with my booty (the cash, not my butt, FYI). Hmmm.

I could buy a chocolate bar and a can of pop. Oh - look. Bargain books at $1 each. I can buy two! But the price comes to $2.14. Damn GST.

I actually had some anxiety about the possibility of winning the lottery. It's part of the reason that I almost never buy tickets. (I also think that it's a bit of a 'stupid tax' considering the probability of actually winning, but even saying that, I still bought a ticket this time, so how bright am I?) I wouldn't want to have that much money. It stresses me out. I would feel guilty for having that much when so many others have so little. I would also feel like friends and acquaintances would resent me because I won and they didn't. I think people would come out of the woodwork and everyone would want something from you. Could you ever be sure that someone wanted to be around you because they actually liked you for you, or because of what you could potentially give them? Who do you decide to help out and who don't you? Friends, relatives - how do you choose?

How do you manage that much money? It seems like so much that you could just go crazy flinging it about. Yet, the stats say that most lottery winners of millions blow all their money within a few years and are back to being broke.

So you win the lottery and quit your job and want to live a great life and travel. Who would you travel with? Everyone else has to work. They have lives that they can't just pick up and leave all the time. I think, after the initial high of winning, it would become a bit of a lonely existence. I think it would change your relationship with others and yourself, and not necessarily for the better.

So, I'll take my $2, thank you very much. (Though I wouldn't mind if someone handed me $20,000 sometime. That would really help me out. Is that too much to ask?)

More fun, anyone?

It's interesting the difference a hair colour can make.

I recently dyed my hair blonde. I've been a blonde most of my life, save for a few brief stints as a redhead. For the last year and a half, my hair has been red. That change was brought about by a variety of events. I dyed my hair permanently red after I had been in a car accident, and strolling through the aisles of a local grocery store high on painkillers, I decided it would be a good idea. It was not just any red - fire engine red. I woke up the next morning, saw this purplish hair on my pillow and just about screamed in horror. It's like those commercials where they discourage you from binge drinking with images of people waking up in the morning with weird tattoos and strangers in their beds. Okay, not that bad, but pretty freaky.

I think I was hiding behind the red hair a little bit - using it as a disguise as I went through one of the most difficult years of my life - getting out of a dysfunctional relationship, escaping from an abusive workplace with no stable job to escape to, and dealing with the whiplash from the accident. Red was sassy - it had attitude. And with it, I could play a character, be who I wanted to be and no one had to see the real me.

Ironically enough, it was a character in a play that led back to me being a blonde again. I landed a role where they asked me to dye it blonder than I've been since I was a child. I thought, why not? I need a change.

It was very disorienting at first. Every time I walked past a mirror, I had to do a double take - who the hell was that? And whenever someone commented on it, I quickly said, "It's for a play" so they wouldn't think I was going through some weird mid-life crisis because my 30th birthday is coming up.

I've gotta tell you, though, people do treat you differently when your hair is blonde.
Suddenly, after being nearly invisible for the past year and a half, I'm the subject of all kinds of male attention. The other weekend at a pseudo-redneck bar, I was hit on by a very cute 22-year-old guy. That hasn't happened in a loooooong time. Coincidence? I think not!

(FYI, I didn't take him home, I just couldn't do it after this conversation:

Dude: So, what do you do?
Savia: I work at [insert professional place of business here].
Dude: What do you do there?
Savia: I'm a writer.

Dude: Are you going to school?

Savia: Yeah, I'm doing my master's. What do you do?

Dude: Nothing right now. I work on the oil rigs usually, and during the summer I play football. But I hurt my knee and I can't play football anymore 'til it gets better, so I'm living with my parents. I want to go to school sometime, but I'm not good at English so I don't know.

He was so cute, but we are in such different places in life that I would have felt so weird going there. Nothing makes you feel oooooolder than an encounter like that.)

I also got leered at on stage. Some guy friends of mine came to the play, and afterwards, the conversation went like this: (keep in mind that the play took place during the Depression on the Prairies, so we're not exactly talking burlesque show here.)

Savia: So, what did you think of the play?

Guy #1: You were hot up there.

Guy #2: Huh huh. Yeah, you were hot.

Guy #1: You looked really good.
Guy #2: Huh huh. We looked at you the whooooole time. It was hot.

WTF?? I thought people went to the theatre to enjoy the play, not jack off in the audience. These guys have never given me a second glance until now. Coincidence? I think not!

There have been other comments in passing as well. It's a very strange experience. I'm not used to it. It certainly says something about our society and what men value. It's kind of sad, really.

The roots are starting to come in, so I've got to figure out what I want to do - keep it, or go dark again. I have to admit the attention is kind of nice, if not a bit creepy.

So, Internet, what do you think? Blonde, red or brunette? I'm thinking streaks of all three.

Tell me what I need

I stole this from schmutzie who stole it from someone else.

Go to Google and type, including the brackets, "[your name] needs". Cut and paste a list of the sentences that come up into a weblog entry.

I've learned that my alter egos need a lot of help.

Savia needs an immense amount of knowledge about music.
Savia Needs 2 Billion Dollars To Escape Bankruptcy
Bella needs to grow up knowing that she's an elephant
Bella needs therapy so that she can progress and develop normally
Bella needs an owner that will stimulate her physically
The only thing Bella needs is a rabies shot and a bath
What shall happen when Bella needs to speak of her wartime experience?
Bella needs a squirt or two
Bella needs a favor from Tony
At the moment Bella needs no medication
But the more Terry obsesses about revenge, the more Bella needs him
Bella needs to never dry out, if it does then it must certainly dies
Bella needs an experienced iguana owner who can handle her aggression and irritability
Bella needs something more, like an anti-depressant, or a baby
Psycho-bitch Bella needs to reverse the curse on Luna, for the sake of Ron if nothing else
Bella needs to just shut the world out for a few weekends and just watch anime!
Bella needs attention from the hospital over the weekend
Bella needs to lodge her tax return in her lunch hour
Something Bella needs to learn is to grease the pole befor ya slide on it honey
Bella needs historia de italia
Bella needs to be dragged out to the street and shot
I can't handle Bella's needs half the time

Space for rant

To the dark haired fidgety girl in my grad class:

Yeah, you, with the glasses. I appreciate that it is difficult to sit still for three hours while discussing literature. I accept that you will always twitch in your seat the entire time. I can also accept the fact that you've now stolen "my seat" in the class. I mean, it's not like my name was on it or anything. But there are a few things that I cannot accept.

For instance, the fact that you snorted your snot every few minutes for the entire class. I can understand that you have a cold, but cold pills and tissues are quite inexpensive, and leaving the room is priceless. I am still trying to understand why you thought it was okay to pull out a bottle of nail polish and roll it in your hands while the prof was speaking, and then take the cap off, put it back on, take the cap off, put it back on... obsessively for minutes. And then...do I believe my eyes...proceed to polish your nails in class. A grad class. Of 13 people.

Seriously, this class isn't big enough for the both of us. You have been warned.

Sincerely,
Savia

To the cute redheaded boy in my grad class:

I don't know your name, but you seem smart, funny and interesting. We seem to be on the same wavelength; I nicknamed you my arch nemesis on the first day of class because every time I thought of something to say, you said it first.

So...how about some night after class, you and I get together and you let me shave that gawdawful thing off your face.

I mean, what the hell is that? I've seen mustaches before but this one has a life of its own. I'm sure you're trying to make some sort of a statement with it, but the fact of the matter is, it's just creepy. I have some great organic shaving gel that smells like lemongrass and clary sage. What do you say?

Not to be shallow or anything, but I can't marry you as long as that appendage is growing above your lip.

Take care,
Savi

To Schmutzie and Palinode :

Thanks so much for introducing me to The Game. I've lost five times since Saturday. Okay, make that six because I'm now writing about it, which means I've LOST AGAIN! See - it's making me write in capital letters, so obviously it's having a negative effect on my health. What did I do to deserve the burden of this Game?

I will find a way to get you back...you, and your little cat, too.

Love always,
Saviabella