Cablegirl’s heart breaking post for today inspired me to write about my cat Rex. He’s a year and a half old tuxedo cat and he is currently living with my parents in Pittsburgh until CB and I pick him up in March (less than a month, wheee!). I remember when I adopted Rex; it will be two years this July. But to tell this story, we have to begin at the beginning.

We have to begin with ferrets.

I got my first ferret as a graduation gift, of sorts. I bought her from a breeder in Lancaster and her first act as my pet was to bite me in the face. Thus she was named Scylla and while not an incredibly cuddly pet, she was smart, contrary and bitchy. You had to love her though, once you got to know her…we were actually alike in a lot of ways. If a ferret can be a pet-type soulmate, she certainly was mine. After I’d had Scylla for about a year I decided to buy her a friend. I went back to the breeder and got a big boy ferret that I named Brutus. A fluffy, clumsy brute with acid reflux. Yes, I had a ferret with chronic heartburn. He would wake Scylla and I up almost every night with these weird little gasping noises he made a few hours after eating. The breeder found out later that this was caused by acid reflux and that Brutus’s sire had the same condition.

When I moved out of my hellhole in Mount Oliver and into a nice efficiancy apartment, I was told by the elderly lady who signed the contracts that the clause in the lease that said only one cat allowed wasn’t strictly enforced and I could have Scylla and Brutus as long as they lived in a cage (my parents got them a four floor mansion to celebrate the move). Two months after moving in, the superintendant came to fix my phone jack, saw the ferrets and reported me to the landlords. They said that I had been misinformed and that the only acceptable pet was one cat. If I didn’t get rid of the ferrets I had a month to move out.

I begged and pleaded and offered to pay extra but they wouldn’t budge. Crushed, I called the breeder. Bless the man, he offered to take them back and even gave me a fifty dollar payment for their cage because he felt so bad. So the 15th of June that year, Mom and I loaded my babies into the car with their cage and drove them back to the house they were born in. I hugged them and cuddled them and said goodbye. The breeder offered to give them back if I could get out of my lease within the year, but I knew I was saying goodbye to them forever. They were in the best place for any ferret to be and I wouldn’t take them away from that.

I cried the whole five hour ride home. I fell asleep with the miniblinds and the window open that night and a breeze made the blinds clack together. I sat up and looked over to the corner where the cage used to be, looking for Brutus to be stumbling down to the litter box of Scylla climbing from the hammock to scratch an itch. But it was empty, and so was my heart. I’d had Scylla for almost 2 years and Brutus for about 7 months. I couldn’t sleep without they noises of bickering and dooking and clambering inside the cage. I couldn’t bring myself to wash my comforter because I needed the ferret smell to feel comfortable at night. I waited for a month and then decided that I needed a new pet.

(to be continued next Friday)

You are not hot. You could be though, if the expression on your face didn’t embody Cold War Era U.S.S.R. I mean, you’re built as close to Barbie as physically possible without surgical alteration, right down to the heels that you wear that contort your feet into permanent tiptoes. I think most women would kill to look like you.

From the neck down.

From there on up to your scalp you exude the aura of a sociopathic S.S. officer. Oh and your brisk, choppy stride? That does not make you look dignified or sophisticated, although I expect that you think it does. It makes you look like a cut thrat mega bitch who would gladly kick Oliver Twist into the gutter if he came to you asking for spare change. The 6 inch long nails don’t really help your image either, although I must admit, your new spring wardrobe of stiletto pumps (in lieu of the knee high stiletto boots) and the switchover from all black to the occasional very dark navy jeans does soften your image enough that I don’t think you’ll pull out my finger nails with glee if you were ever to somehow read this. You’d likely pull them out much more morosely than I first assumed. I hope you manage to thaw that icicle that props up your face before the KGB abducts you and appoints you as head matron of Siberia or something.

Disclaimer: Sorry, I know this might seem a bit venomous, but if you’ve ever been forced to sit in a room with someone who has the ability to make you feel miserable and angry just by their very presence, you might understand. I was in a pretty good mood this morning until I saw said Russian flouncing her way down the sidewalk like she was queen of Rozier. In all seriousness, I think she might be the love child of Cruella DeVille and Stalin’s great nephew or something. I seriously feel like all the color drains out of the world when she walks through it. Meanwhile, she probably doesn’t even know my name, nor does she give one flying fart about my opinion of her general vibe so I’m sure my occasional scribblings are of no consequence.

If you stumble on this post first, go read the one before it. I can wait.

Ok, all caught up? Good, cause this is what I was originally going to post under that title:

In Nederlands voor anderstaligen niveau één (Dutch for other languages level one), my instructor at one point was discussing different types of shops and what you purchase in them. For example, you go to the bakkerij(bakery) to buy brood (bread) or the slagerij if you’re looking for some vlees (meat) or kip (chicken), etc. When we got to the supermarkt (do I really need to translate that one?) we started discussing fruits (vruchten) and vegetables (groenten). So you have your apfel, your pampelmoes, your banaan, your ananas and so forth, but then the teacher drew a bunch of little circles in the shape of an upside down triangle and wrote “druiven” next to it. Well no shit sherlock, that must be the word for grapes! She asked, “Wat kleur zijn de druiven?”

Ooh, ooh, I knew this! I raised my hand and said proudly, in my best Flemish, “Rood en groen.”

“Nee.”

Huh? Druiven aren’t green or red? Well what the hell are they then??

The correct answer was witte druiven of blauwe druiven (white or blue).

Well damn, I must be pretty slow cause that picture sure looked like grapes to me but druiven must be something else, some other kind of clustering berry of some sort. Then the teacher caught my disgruntled face (trust me, if I’m confused it’s not hard to see it) and explained further that we make wine from druiven, so yes indeed, druiven are grapes.

White and blue grapes…riiight, damn colorblind Belgians.

So I took this argument home to CB, a most formidable opponent when it comes to comparing cultural/language stupidities.

“Grapes simply aren’t blue or white. They are green or red. Maybe black or purple…I can concede to black or purple, but white and blue? No…no that’s just dumb.”

“Well, we say they’re white or blue, that’s just how it is.”

“But green grapes aren’t white.”

“Do you call it white wine or green whine?” A look of triumph from CB as I stumbled over my next protest.

pause

“Do you call it red wine or blue wine?” Touché salesman!

So yeah, what do you all think? My Belgian readers please feel free to join this discussion as well.

What colors are grapes?

I have a final exam in two weeks.

I have an “interview” with my instructor to test my oral communication a week from Thursday.

I have my midterm tomorrow morning.

I should be much more nervous than I am. I think my potential stress* has been fried. No really, my body is entirely out of cortisol and I am chemically unable to feel anxiety. Hell, I should be across the room hunched over my workbook right now, scurrying to do all the extra exercises and rewriting the accursed list of irregular imperfectum verbs rather than sitting here blogging, but I have to write tonight. I overloaded Holly’s comment section a few hours ago with some words of encouragement that mutated into a three paragraph commentary on Starbucks, the universe, and everything (that one’s for you Cablegirl).

I really was studying just now, and off and on throughout the evening as well. I made a comprehensive list of when to use the “bijzin” sentence structure (one of many structures that has no English equivalent…those are fun to grapple mentally, let me tell you) complete with examples for each situation. I was just about to begin the extra exercises in the back of the workbook when I found myself pulled to the keyboard by an almost physical force (well duh, ok, my feet are a physical force, yes, but I’m speaking in terms of intangible urges…pardon me if my thoughts wax L’Engle-ian this evening. I’m home alone, it’s dark and quiet and that usually leads to this train** of thought) and a desperate need to write. It’s a rare feeling and typically when I follow it I produce something charged with energy, something dark and poetic and full of the fever that has pushed my fingertips into motion over the keyboard. I’m not sure what ignites this almost posessed state of mind other than it is usually the tip of a complicated iceberg moving just beneath the surface that occasionally breaks the thin grey tissue in my skull, leaving a tender, aching ribbon of confusion in it’s wake.

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve returned to poems that I have written and not recognized the words. Amazing, touching creations that I can’t recall composing. And the thing is, I’m relieved that this evening’s inclination has only led to a blog post. I’m heaving a huge sigh on the inside because the music I have playing is starting to shatter the torrent of thoughts that were pouring out of my fingertips. That huge mountain of ice under the surface is not a good thing. The geysers of creativity that spout from the punctures it leaves are the only, and I mean only positive side effect. The rest is ugly and something that I fought to control for a long time. I keep reminding myself lately that I finally, finally have it all together. I look at where I am and I’m proud and hopeful and happily in love. But all those things are simultaneously eroding all the coping mechanisms that I spent years installing in the pitfalls and bear traps of my conscious mind. But there is no poetry tonight, only this post; my life is still sweet and good and driven by the desire to love and help and hug and care for others. Thank you, my following, for allowing me to struggle out loud.

*according to the study of thermodynamics, there are two types of energy: potential and kinetic. Potential energy is energy that has not yet been used while kinetic energy is energy that is in use. If you run out of potential energy there can be no kinetic energy. Just remove the word “energy” and replace it with “stress” and I think it’s pretty self explanatory.

**Did I spell that correctly? One of my pet peeves is when people spell expressions incorrectly, for instance when people write “for all intensive purposes”. That’s wrong, it’s “for all intents and purposes.” So if I did that with train of thought, please correct me post haste.