Weekend ramble

What a sickening weather weekend - ugh. It felt like winter again. Not nice, not at all. It was also a slightly aggravating weekend in other ways.

For one thing, I grow tired of disorganized wimps. A friend had been making noises about wanting to get together. A week in advance, I suggested last Thursday evening. When it came time to make the plan, it turned out she had messed up and had something else going on Thursday. Fair enough, I suppose - so we rescheduled for Friday. I then turned down an offer from someone else to do something on Friday night. I had this plan to have friend A over for dinner, and had gone about buying things and preparing. It was 45 minutes before she was scheduled to come over, I was up to my eyeballs in soup-making, and she bailed...she wouldn't be good company, she said. This pissed me off! You mess me up two nights in a row and your excuse is that you wouldn't be good company? Well, that seems kind of shitty to me - you get your ass over to the friend who's making a homemade dinner for you, and you get in a good mood, dammit! Harumph. I made delicious soup, but I ate it alone - quite in the mood for company. I ended up in a marathon phone convo with M, during which I got tipsy on dessert wine.

Then, on Saturday, after invigilating an exam (which I can't bring myself to begin grading) I ended up buying a little jacket that is very un-me but that I was attracted to anyway. (When I said to the clerk that it was un-me, she said, "It's a style." Duh. I am AWARE that it's a style. Are you saying it's un-me because it's a style?? Nice going; need some help getting that foot out of your mouth?)

On Saturday night and into the morning, it was adventure time. I had bought Diamond a leash because I felt that trying to leash-train her would be the only way I could let her outside...I was letting her outside onto my balcony for short periods, but stopped that when she flew the coop and strayed too far. I put on a collar that had come with her box of things, attached the leash, and took her outside for a disastrous attempt. She hated it - and almost immediately broke off her cheap collar and ran into the backyard and straight under the deck of the downstairs neighbours. Which has a 4-inch opening underneath it. This was at about 5pm. At 11:30pm - after all these hours trying to coax her out, and to drag her out - I finally went to bed, taking some meds to help me sleep because I was so freaked out. She had turned into a demon cat, clearly terrified, but also hissing and growling and scratching at ME, her ally. Her behaviour - including when she would emerge from under there, only to head back in if I so much as moved a muscle - seemed to suggest she had gone a little cuckoo.

This morning, though, after the umpteenth attempt to drag her out or coax her out with my dulcet tones - which resulted in yet more hissing and growling - I was able to get her to come out for food, which hadn't been working last night; I guess she got hungry! She was a baby in my arms as soon as I got her...and spent the morning curled up on my lap, sleeping off the adventure.

Never again is she going outside - at least, not until the "cat walking jacket" that I have ordered arrives! I don't need more freezing nights spent sprawled in the dirt talking into a four-inch opening, terrified that Diamond would go feral if left there for any length of time. And she doesn't need any more terror.

And tomorrow, I host a little potluck for my fourth-year/grad student class. Risky, but a good thing, I think. One of them has written a short play inspired by the material in the class...she invited me to come see it when it was performed in her creative writing class (I found it to be pretty amazing stuff), and I in turn invited her to stage it at our class gathering. There will be a 'punk theory' play in my living room tomorrow night!