More cat for Aunty Kant

I have inertia and facebook has been draining my life essence, so this isn't a proper post, really, but Aunty Kant asked for more cat, and so she will get it.


For those of you that don't know, this is my cat, Killy. He is my Killox. My Killbot. My Killb't McSillb't McDrillb't. My Centicat. My special furry man.

And here he is with another special man, who is a little furry, especially around the face, but is not as furry as many other men, and certainly not as furry as a cat.

And here Killy is trying to get away from the special man because the special man is rather scary-looking. Which is why I have put him on the internet.


And here are videos:





Proper update when I've had more sleep.

Puss

I think I have a special cat radar. When I'm out walking and there's a cat about, I get a tingly sort of feeling in a certain part of my spine, which sets me on the look-out for feline activity. Because of this, I've met a lot of cats. Here's one of them.

This is Puss. Puss lives on my route home from the train station, or at least I think he does. I'm not actually sure that he really lives at the house where I often find him, just like I'm not sure that he's a he at all. I am sure of Puss's name, though, as I met a human that knew it, but that's about all I know of his Cat Stats. I do know, however, that Puss is crazy affectionate; he is a veritable sooky mclovecat*. (And he has a bell shaped like Nemo round his neck, which you can just barely see in the photo.)

In March, almost every time I passed that way, Puss used to bound out to greet me, rub himself around my legs, snoof** everything in sight (including the mud? very strange), and then follow me a little way down the street. After March I didn't see him for months and months, but he turned up yesterday!

I was on the other side of the street when my cat senses started tingling, and I saw a feline silhouette in the distance. I saw it dart through the fence as I approached, and because of this behaviour I thought it was a cat I'd never met before. But as I got closer, it started to take the familiar shape of Puss, though he was stalking through the yard and behaving in a most un-Puss-like manner. So I said "Puss!" in surprise, and he looked at me for a moment, then loped up to me, and proceeded to snoof me and my bag like there was no tomorrow:



* Sooky Mclovecat (noun): A big old softie cat that's feeling complain-y and whingey, and is needy and affectionate because of it.

**Snoof (verb, trans. intrans.): to kiss like a cat, i.e. to affectionately headbutt or rub the side of your mouth against someone or something.

Famous Quotes

Me: How will you get to your interview?
Bf: Super-powers. Up, up and away! Actually, by train.
Me: Your super-power is the metropolitan train system?

Me: Wow, when people are extinct there will be so much stuff everywhere, or maybe not actually, building bits and stuff might be recycled.
Bf: Yep! And it'll all be dirty!
Me: And crumbling! And full of the animals.
Bf: Because there won't be any housekeepers!
Me: ??
Bf: And the animals will be like: "Blah blah, I'm a human!, look at my tie, I'm so important, I'm eating your cousin for dinner!"

Email

From: Boyfriend
To: Gauri
Date: Aug 12, 2007 10:52PM
Subject: pig's on my butt!

Eureka Skydeck

For our 18th month-iversary, the boyfriend-creature and I went up Eureka Tower, to the Skydeck on the 88th floor. It was $16.50 for me to get up there, which I thought was a bit steep, but it was so incredible that I'd do it all over again. I'm even considering going up there by myself, and just hanging out and doing the Work.

The lift is a scary, scary beast. It goes from the ground floor to the floor 88 in 33 seconds, and of course bucks and vibrates and carries on all the way up, and your ears pop the entire time, but at least it only lasts for half a minute. But even if you're scared of lifts, or you're claustrophobic it's worth it, because when you get up there -- wow.

The view is absolutely unbelievable. I'd had no idea that it would be possible to see the bay; you can even see Werribee! The cars, trucks and trains look like toys, seagulls look like tiny white flies; even the giant ferris wheel looks silly and small. There are a whole lot of rooftop gardens along Southbank that we didn't even realise were there. You can see the entire Botannical Gardens, Royal Park, the Bolte Bridge and the pick-up sticks and giant french fry along whatever freeway that is. We even thought we could see a runway in the distance. Crown Tower (which you're technically not allowed to go up unless you're staying in the hotel) used to be the place the bf-creature and I would go when we wanted to be really high up, but it turns out that the view from there is nothing at all; you can see the top of Crown Tower from the Skydeck.

Seeing your city look really small gives you perspective, and kind of makes you realise how tiny your life is. That, and the fact that trams and trucks are really, really dirty on top.

Here are some photos, but they're not amazing as boyfriend-creature's battery was running out and he didn't want to spend too much time getting the perfect photo, just in case the battery died before he managed to get a photo at all. As usual, click on the images to see the full-size versions.


We also thought it would be packed, but it was actually relatively empty until we left (when the Friday night noisy drunk children arrived).

I hope none of these people are in a witness protection program.

We stayed for the sunset, too, and the view was beautiful at night, but by then boyfriend-creature's battery had died, so all we got were these:


I think I preferred it during the day; I'm not the biggest fan of night.

The only Skydeck experience we didn't have was what they call 'The Edge', which is a glass box that projects 3m out from the Tower with you in it. This is supposed to give you an amazing view, but it costs $12 extra and didn't seem worth it as we were getting enough awe action from the 360 degree view inside the tower.

Boyfriend-creature now wants to buy an apartment in Eureka Tower, preferably above the 70th floor. The ones on the higher floors go for around $1.75 million each.

I just think it's incredible that you can get an (extremely) inner-city apartment with ocean views.

Useful Thought #2

God never gives you more than you can handle

This concept is often interpreted as: God, personified, determines what situations you can only just handle, and then gives them to you every now and again when you need testing, perhaps, or for your own good, or for some other unfathomable reason of His own. This gives many people comfort, and I'm glad of that, but thinking of it this way doesn't make sense for me. I have my own take on it, which I may or may not have poached or co-opted from Byron Katie. It is as follows:

First, I substitute God for life or reality, i.e. what is: this moment, now. This is because I don't know whether or not God exists, but I can know that the present moment exists, or exists as much as something can exist. So, I interpret it as life, or the present moment, never gives you more than you can handle. How do I know that? Because you handle every moment -- if you weren't handling it, you would be dead. As I see it (and this is almost definitely poached from BK), there are two choices in every moment -- handle it, or die. But this isn't a choice you have to make consciously: you either handle it, or you die; therefore if you're not dead, you must be handling it. Even if you feel more rotten than you thought possible, and you think you are handling it badly and no-one could handle this situation worse than you are now, you are still handling it. And so I believe that 'God never gives you more than you can handle' is the literal truth. And even if you stop handling whatever it is and you die, all it means is you're now handling death, not life.

This is a wonderful thought to have in my head, but I will say that I often lose sight of it, especially when I'm in an anxiety attack, like I was this evening. But the Work gets me back onto it, always.

The Work

A blog about me can't go any further without mentioning The Work. I'm trying to figure out the best way of explaining the Work, because it seems to mean different things for different people, so I think I'll go with the simplest.

The Work is a way of questioning your thoughts, ideas and concepts, particularly the ones that cause you stress. It allows you to examine whether these thoughts are actually true for you. You do this by writing down the thought, and then applying four questions to it:

Is that true?
How do I react when I believe that thought?
Who would I be without that thought?
Turn it around.

This is the only self-help technique that has ever worked for me, because it's the only one that doesn't tell me what's true, but lets me figure out what's true for me. It's my therapy and my constant companion, and in the short 6 months I've been doing it, it has transformed me. This may not be apparent on the outside, but as they say, it's the inside that counts.

Byron Katie is the lady who came up with The Work, and to give you an idea of it, here's a video of her facilitating it:



If you're interested in finding out more about the Work, search "Byron Katie" on YouTube, check out the website for The Work, and look at Byron Katie's blog. She has three books out, and they are well worth reading, but you don't need them to get started if you want to give it a go yourself. And if you do decide to give it a go, I guarantee you won't regret it.