Incredibly keyed up about nothing

    In order, the Obamacare deadline, which I could meet easily just by, you know, meeting it; paperwork attached to my Dad's estate, which I just have to do; similarly, an email to the lawyer for the estate, which might require typing an entire SENTENCE; a spot on Harry's eye, which at worst would require a trip to the vet, something I've done already with no tears; and silly computer game difficulties, which don't even merit commentary, so you know I'm going to comment.
    I just seem to have managed to get up to maximum stress level for no reason whatever. The whole thing about Amelia wanting to go outside, well really that's neat. I don't know how I'm managing to get keyed up about that either. I would switch to decaf except for long since having switched to no caf.
    Ok, the computer game thing. I'm not telling this for therapy purposes, but just because it's bizarrely funny. In Sims 2 (yes it's ten years old), your female characters can get pregnant the old fashioned way. Your male characters can spend too much time stargazing through a telescope and wind up pregnant with a space alien baby. Back when I played this a lot, ten years ago, this only happened once or twice. With the new (to me) expansion pack, it happened twice on succeeding game days to the only two characters in the game! This could prove to be a pain in the butt, as it were. I think I'll marry them off to rich ladies. Two space alien babies in one house? Might be tricky.

Seasonal nap affective disorder

    I don't think I have a lot in the way of seasonal affective disorder anymore as we rocket towards the solstice. I just seem a lot sleepier. I don't feel depressed and especially not extra depressed. Just sleepy early because it gets dark so early. I have no idea how I survived England and can only imagine winter in, say, Trondheim or the highlands of Scotland. Not a fan of short days nor of cold weather.
    Fortunately, we're still getting crazy stupid warm weather. It looked for a while like we might get a December thunderstorm, which would be pretty funny, but nothing came of it. Amelia went out twice and came in both times on her own and seems satisfied with short stints as porch cat. Hopefully, she'll get over it when it's really cold or really hot. I'm still scared to vacuum thinking it might inspire fresh agitation to go outside, but I can't put it off much longer if I like breathing. Oh well, she's coped so far.
    I was annoyed that my cotton blankets had shrunk, and equally at how hard it was to find new cotton blankets, preferably not made in China. Found one at Kmart and a cotton quilt (though made in China) at Kohl's heavily discounted. Queen sized blankets just are not as large as I think they should be, but though these aren't so much larger than the shrunken ones as I would like, they are larger. And should be warmer. This will be nice momentarily when it gets colder.

The rebellion waxes and wanes

    About the time I think that Amelia has totally lost interest in the outside world or going out in it, she keeps me up half the night whining about going out. It appears that her primaray motivation might not be any keen interest in outside so much as being jealous that Harry gets to go out. Before the whining, she spent much of the evening out, eventually exploring the yard and winding up hiding in a huge bush right up against the house.
    Today, however, she's been sweet and my best friend again. I let her out in the afternoon (with crazy beautiful 80 degree weather). I moved my bungee chair to the front gate so she couldn't get by. And she did no exploring at all. She just hung out on the porch, looking content, and eventually moved into the doorway. So I moved the chair back and came and closed the door. And she's continued to be buddy buddy and hasn't whined a bit. Maybe I just have to let her stay out until she gets bored. Or maybe she's a cat and acts different from day to day and minute to minute. Well we'll see.
    Our excitement on the street was a house half a block up Ohio blowing up. I was listening to Casey Kasem and didn't even hear the bang. I did see all the fire trucks and ambulances, though. Turned out to be a meth lab on what used to be the second floor. You never know, do you?

Too great

    The lawyer for Dad's estate emailed the other day. I was puzzled by it but couldn't figure out why, so I kinda sorta ignored it for a while. Today I looked at it again and figured out why. He referred me to an attachment that wasn't there. So I emailed him back remarking about this. What's great is that Thunderbird (the email package, not the inexpensive wine) saw the word attachment and reminded me to send an attachment. I think maybe I'll suggest that the law firm switch to using Thunderbird (the wine or the email package).
    Having two indoor-outdoor cats running my life continues interesting. Amelia just wants to be on the porch to look around. She doesn't really want to do anything. So far. It's that so far part that worries me, that and the whole Curiosity killed the cat thing. But I think it's making her happy, we're probably all breathing a lot better getting more fresh air, and she deserves a better look at the outside world after ten years. How I'll feel about this when it's cold again is quite another question.

Outside? Meh.

    So after a couple of days of having free rein to explore, Amelia seems to have figured out that outside isn't really all that exciting and that there's a lot to be said for the indoor life. She still likes going out and looking around, and there's still a certain air of wonder and delight. But she almost has to be coaxed outside, and says "Heck with this!" and comes inside much more quickly. We are looking at a magnificent and warm weekend, so I hope she gets it out of her system thoroughly in the next few days. One senses that magnificent days will be few and far between over the next month or so. Unless my calendar is very very confused.

The brave 'splorer

    Amelia the cat, after ten years of being an inside only cat, has decided that she wants to see the world. This would not be news if I spoke cat; it turns out that her tearing up the area in front of the front door over the last year or years means "LET ME OUT!!!" Since I don't trust her too much in the big dangerous world, I'm spending a lot of time on the porch keeping an eye out. This is pretty funny since the cats have fur coats that they were born in but I dress for polar exploration just to sit out on my (admittedly pretty shady) porch.
    She doesn't go far. At first, she wouldn't leave the porch. Then she went down one step. Then she went down two steps. Today she went all the way down and went most of the way down the walk. She doesn't actually interact much with actual soil. I don't know if she's prissy or what. But she's bright-eyed as anything out there, so I figure it's a good thing.
    She also runs back in a lot. Sometimes she hears a person, sometimes a dog, sometimes a door slam. It's weird what alarms her and what doesn't (freight trains don't, for instance). All this means that I need to leave the door open all the time, OK now that it's almost winter and the bugs are less savage. But this won't be much fun some day soon when it's warm again and they're out in their gazillions. Maybe it's time to buy a house with an enclosed porch. Or find my little girl a new home.

Epic waste of time

    I will try to be brief. I'm still playing Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword maniacally or addictedly or both. This even though the one-handedness of playing is destroying my left shoulder. But it's usually fun, at least until you get into involved end-games that you can't, well, end.
    The epic I just finished was majestic, though. You start out with seven civilizations. At the very start of this game, or nearly so, there was a barbarian uprising and the Romans and Koreans were eliminated. However, their cities weren't wiped out but taken by the barbarians. So I went and got them. So I'm instantly much bigger than anybody else and I just grew and grew.
    Unfortunately, while the game has ways for you to win quickly when you're huge, they don't work when you're extra huge; you have to work your way up to mega huge for another method. In other words, diplomatic victory isn't available if you're big enough to swing the election yourself. The only thing available is a domination victory requiring you to get about 2/3 of the world's land surface, which is hard to do for a committed pacifist.
    So the game was endless. I eventually got my rocket ship to Alpha Centauri, the old standby Civilization victory condition. And it was only 1927, which was cool. The game wasn't impressed. Although I rated Augustus Caesar (the best), it was a pretty low adjusted score. My unadjusted score however was far and away the best ever. So I was impressed at least!
    Hey, don't complain; I could have blogged about my peeing dreams.