Face Kitties

The rain comes in from all over this week. Hurricane season had onions for lunch and is enjoying it’s after affects. Leaves fall, glossy and decorative anywhere they land. Branches reach up from the ground to offer themselves up for kindling, now with the cooler season approaching. The cats….well….MY cats…Azrael – my hunter and all around Tough Girl Mush, demands to go out and do business, even though there is a litter box available. She probably just doesn’t want to share it with Princess, the Persian Poof, who does enjoy going outside, wide eyed and skittish. When Azrael runs, it’s with stealth, grace and strength. You can hear her paws gallop across the earth. When Princess runs, it looks more like she’s being chased. Her eyes seem terrified and she is much more clumsy than Az. Princess is usually Humanling’s Bed Décor. She just flat out refuses to deal with the rain.

I am of late, trying to really dig in and see what I’m truly made of. I see many many instances in my life of where I could have been more true….to others of course, but that would have involved being true to myself.

In the meantime, during all of this thought, of which I feel there is never enough time to deeply immerse in, but scraps of moments where you can perhaps sketch one out to think about later, I have also to see yet another side of me. Video Game Me.

In Farmville, I am leveled into the 30s. I love making wine and fruit drinks. I am obsessive about my crops and have decided that my farm looks tons cooler as a beach. I jump with joy when securing a Llama or a Himalayan kitty from another player. I can’t seem to expand my chicken coop fast enough and therefore have decorated the outside of my white picket fence with chickens. I have found that I have no patience for growing things that take 2 days. I enjoy a variety of bloomers and plant things at varying harvest times. While I enjoy harvesting and planting, I don’t enjoy plowing as much.

In Frontierville, I obsess about chopping down trees to create more land. I’m a wood lover (literal and figuratively!) I love the premade goals because of the element of surprise and the task of making them. I use other people to feed as many of my animals as I can. In both Farmville and Frontierville, I’m a gift giver of great proportions.

Now Mafia Wars isn’t something I wanted to play instantly. Frontierville forced me into it or else it said that I can’t have a horseshoe pit. Or rather, I can HAVE one, because it sort of made me take one when I signed on one day, but I won’t be able to USE it unless I play the listed five games and level up a few times. Very very sneaky and fabulous marketing, that Frontierville! In order to complete your horseshoe pit, you have to date the other games too and claim your pieces. ALL of the other games…unless you want to use that elusive and hard to get special sort of money they have (horseshoes for Frontier, FV bucks for Farmville) to pay for it. Which you can’t, because you usually won’t have it unless you obsess so very much that you run out to Target or Walmart to purchase a card that will get you more cash. So in Mafia Wars, I have no idea what I’m doing but apparently I have robbed a few warehouses, taken on some thugs and am really wanting to be a Pig Master. I am swapping pigs with an ex boyfriend and former co-worker from years ago, whom I haven’t spoken a word with since we’ve become Facebook friends over a year or so ago.

The gift giving and swapping in these games seems to me to actually BE communication. Hey, I need something but I’m also communicating with you and will give to you … will you give to me? You will?! That’s great! We are both acknowledged! Would we talk about this in person ever? Probably not. Or maybe a quick conversation, end-punctuated with “See you in Farmville”.

I have been also trying Tropical Isle, but really, anything more than one game seems to be nearly a job. Tropical Isle is also being thrust upon me due to my really want to please Frontierville and meeting my goal of completing my Horseshoe Pit. Eventually, FRV, I AM going to have that Pit. Even if I grow tomatoes in it, so help me, there will be a pit. I am not really so much into caring about why I have a Tiki Thing on my island or what the point is of upgrading it. I’m impatient with this character of mine….she digs way too slow and I can’t simply point and click her onto the other spaces ahead of time like I can with FV and FTV. In fact, it isn’t like there is a real POINT to any of these games, but with this one I see it the least.

I actually feel guilty for the amount of time at home that I spend on these games. So after I get what I want, in way of a Horseshoe Pit, I might have to dump some of them. Ah, is this another insight into a part of me? Am I one of those people who will dump you because I’ve gotten what I want??? Absolutely not. Because I don’t actually *want* anything from my friends, except for them to be my friend in the way most natural to both of us.

So. See you in Farmville! And please be sure to accept these shovels. It means that I was thinking of you.

The Forces of Az

Right before delving into my veggies after the Tiger Lilly incident, I consulted with Google regarding the potential toxicity of Tiger Lillies and their pollen. Apparently, Wikipedia has heard me -

While most parts of the plant are edible for humans, the pollen is considered poisonous. All parts of the plant are toxic to cats, resulting in kidney failure in a few days after eating it.

Well this sort of frightens me. I had them away from the cat, however, kitty was near the flowers somehow while I slept one night because I saw the pollen on her back.

This set me off terribly. When I freak out, what you see is a normal person, talking calmly and plugging in numbers, balancing checks. My insides however started to rot and break down.

Freaking out protocol involves emailing the circle of friends who never fail to Kiss the Boo Boo and Make it Mostly Better. That would be my wonderful friend in California who we call Auntie Mame, my local wonderful friend Organic and I emailed the giver of the homicidal pistils and staimins. Next Time, make it Roses, I said to him.

Now this is the cat who is basically the most annoying thing in my life. The bane of my existence. I have gotten sore throats yelling at her to get off the table, off the guinea pig cage (where she Lords over the poor little guy and swats at him, sending him wheeting into his wooden shelter) and to get away from the plants. I can't stand her most of the time. But. I'd NEVER get rid of her. She is family.

She tears through the house like a Budweiser Clydesdale on fire, for no humanly visible reason. She slithers around corners and targets open cups of water. I admit, there are times I chase her out of boredom just to see her do the rainbow arch with her back - I like to gage the moment she goes from arch into Dash!

She's a jerk, like a human. But she comes back after all the teasing and yelling with a love that is beyond human and she comes over deliberately and puts one paw out on my arm. It's all very direct, very much from her soul by using her eyes.

I called the vet in my contained panic and basically was told to watch and wait. Which is the definition of Doom. Doom never just suddenly hits - WHAM! Doom is an impending event. Something that eats you alive as you think about all of its faces and variables.

When I walked into the house that day, I called for my Wizard of Az and she came immediately, reporting for duty, SIR. That's Az. Forgives it all, thinks its always getting better. And acting perfectly fine. The cat is Rasputin.

The next morning as she did the morning tussle between my feet as I tried to walk into the kitchen, I only mock hated her as I fell against the wall, happy that I still have the cat who thinks she's a Reindeer, named Dasher.