He-Said-She-Said

Recently I was talking to a very close friend about her ex-boyfriend.

“I never liked him” I gushed over the phone to someone who I don’t talk to as much as I should.

“You know, everyone keeps telling me that. Why didn’t you tell me when I was dating him that you all hated him?”

This brings us to a dilemma. Do we tell our close friend, the friends who we would tell anything about ourselves, that we don’t like the person that they are dating? I guess this gets down to the root of the problem, ‘why don’t you like the person they are dating’? Do you not like them because of the way he or she looks/acts/dresses? Or is it something deeper? Do you fundamentally not like this person because of the way they think/believe/or are.

Personally I’ve done both. I once told a close friend that I did not like her boyfriend because I thought he was narrow minded and a mean drunk. That I did not like the way that she acted around him and that I thought that she was changing so that he would like her more. She got mad and we are not friends anymore (they boyfriend and her are married now with their first child on the way).

Conversantly, when I’ve kept my mouth shut, avoided the topic and just kept my head down, the said boyfriend/girlfriend has ended up breaking my friend’s heart. This usually turns out to be the best in the long run for every one. But is it? If my friend hated Steve would that change my mind about marring him? I doubt it, but I would want to know why. All my friends tell me they ‘love Steve’ but what do they say to each other. Can we really trust our friends to give us an honest opinion of our significant others?

Or should we go with our own gut feeling? Maybe an objective third party can help? I’m not sure of the answer. All I know is that everything in me tells me that Steve is right for me. And that is enough.

Everyday Glam

One of my co-workers has encouraged me to adopt the “everyday glam” philosophy last week. What is everyday glam? As Topher explained it to me, everyday glam is taking something you do every day and glam it up. For example, if you are having a frozen pizza for dinner tonight instead of cutting it into slices cut it into strips and make a couple of dipping sauces for yourself. If you are going to have a beer after work, treat yourself to a frosty glass. When doing you hair in the morning, go ahead a wear your fancy barrette for no reason.

So far, the small everyday treats have been awesome and I would encourage any one to glam up there everyday life.

Moth Genocide

It started a few weeks ago when I opened the kitchen cabinet and let out a scream. Actually it started before then when we bought a grain product that was contaminated with moth larva. From there the moth larva became caterpillars and eventually moths. Pantry moths to be exact, that then infested our kitchen cabinet eating all our grains, nuts, teas and backing supplies.

Unable to deal with the extensive cleaning required to rid our house of moths I killed all the moths and caterpillars I could find and hoped that would be enough. According to the internet, and also our experience a few days later, it was not. To kill pantry moths one must discard all grains including pasta, nuts, teas, organic cereal, and organic granola bars that are expensive but taste so good when dipped in applesauce. Everything in our cabinets got tossed with the exception of 2 jars of unopened jam. We then proceeded to wash down the cabinets with hot water followed by a vinegar rinse. We hoped it would be enough.

Much to our chagrin we saw an occasional moth, then a few moths a day, then a couple of caterpillars. We are back at where we started with fewer moths but again faced with the task of cleaning everything in our kitchen with vinegar and committing moth genocide.

Sick Kitty

Moose stumbled in from the rain on Friday night wet and dazed looking. “Look whose in” I yelled over my should to Steve as I started to get cat food out for our long absent cat. Steve got up and started to take a closer look at Moose and realized that, not only was he bleeding from a cut on his should but his neck and face were swollen.

Steve quickly called the vet and a few minutes later we were in the car speeding away to the emergency vet in Wobern. Once there Moose was whisked away and examined. The vet came into the small room we had been ushered into and told us that Moose did have a couple of deep scratches. She told us that the best way for her to assess how bad they were was to sedate him, shave him, and clean the wounds. We agreed and Steve and I watched through sliding doors as Moose was examined. The vet later came in and told us the cuts were minor but, was still at risk for infection. She also told us that he had a low grade fever and would need to take antibiotics for a few weeks. Oh, and also since we don’t know how he got these cuts he would need to be quarantined in our house for 45 days in case of rabies.

This is confusing. Moose had his rabies vaccine in March and isn’t the entire of vaccinating your pet against rabies is to prevent rabies? Apparently the state of Massachusetts is pretty strict about rabies. We were also informed that our cat should wear a cone around his head for the next two weeks to prevent him from licking his wounds (I find it hard to belive that he will really be licking the wound on the bottom of his chin but this is beside the point). We left the emergency hospital a few hundred dollars poorer and with a cat that had already managed to remove the cone before we even got to the car.