The Minutiae of Life as a Militant Squirrel

Yay, almost two years since last post. Jeez, it's not like I'm doing anything useful with my life.

Sometimes, I think that in a former incarnation, I was a magpie: easily distracted by all things bright and shiny. Or maybe I just don't want to grow up.

Monday was my birthday, and I am now officially middle-aged at 46, I am told. Who decides these things? Other than various health problems, I still feel like I'm twenty-one. SO THERE. Not much celebrating going on, unfortunately, and I'm a wee bit disappointed that I did not get to enjoy a cake THE SIZE OF A VOLKSWAGEN at work, but I'm trying the gluten-free thing anyway. I should probably stay away from cake, heh. So I guess it's just as well that nobody brought anything, even if it made me pout at the time. I did get a celebratory cheeseburger and cherry pie a la mode at the local diner with Mom, so that was mightily awesome. My friend Amanda flew out from Wisconsin this week and we're getting together tonight, wheeeee! I'm leaving work shortly so that I can catch an early bus.

Tomorrow, Stoli goes to the groomers' to get all gussied up in preparation for Take Your Dog To Work Day, which I JUST NOW discovered is actually on June 26, not June 19. MOTHERFUCKER. I've been functioning under this misapprehension for MONTHS. Well, it's probably better for Stoli to have the extra time to calm down; she's so high-strung. Anyway, since Amanda and I are going out tonight and will probably stay out late, it will be nice to have an extra hour or two to sleep in the morning. It will be even nicer to work from home until it's time to pick up the furball, and then I only have to go in for the staff summer picnic. Woot!

Fannishly, I'm voraciously reading Teen Wolf fanfic, Sterek pairing. Don't ask me why... I haven't watched the show since Season One. I'm not sure if I'll ever get my writing mojo back... it's depressing to think that the well has run utterly dry, but it's been so long since I felt that spark of creativity, I've just about given up hope. I'm reading more and watching less, weirdly.

Hopefully, in my next posting, I will remember to talk about how our entire department was packed up and shipped off to the wilds of East Falls, inside of two weeks. Bit of shock, that.

Hope everyone's having a decent time of it. Cheers!

Getting way too close to a year... time to post something, even if it's just a stupid avatar. I can't understand why Yahoo did away with their avatars-- mine was SO CUTE!!! This one's okay, though. I had fun making her.

For some reason, I was just on a roll this weekend.

Dropped off the dog at the groomer's around noon, then took the car to the car wash and had it cleaned, inside and out . . . after all, I don't want to put a clean dog in a dirty car, do I? That's like changing your sheets and going to bed without taking a shower. EWWWWWWW.

The car wash was crowded, so I spent more time there than I anticipated, and instead of going home, I made a couple of stops at stores and then treated myself to a late lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse. I was frustrated that I couldn't order a rare burger, but at least I had my Kindle with me and enjoyed some fanfic while I ate. By the time I finished dessert, it was late enough that I figured Stoli should be done soon, and I wandered back over to Petsmart to pick up dog food and other necessities before I went back to grooming to get my crazy furball.

I had Stoli shaved again, so she looks all bald and funny! But she's obviously much cooler in this hot weather, and she hasn't had a single skin infection all summer. I'd rather pay my groomer than my vet, so it's a big fat win all around. I let her pick out a bone longer than my forearm, and then we lined up in checkout, where one of the hottest guys I've ever laid eyes on started cooing over her and asking me questions about her.

I was so busy being starry-eyed, it took me fifteen minutes to figure out he was gay. I'm usually a lot faster on the uptake than that. Still, it was a lovely view, with the tantalizing hints of tattoos peeking out beneath his t-shirt sleeves, and a very nice conversation. Of course, I'm always disposed to like anyone who admires my dog. The tattoos, though, are a recently developed kink: I blame my supervisor and her fixation on Steve McGarrett from the Hawaii Five-O reboot . . . though the Danny Williams character is more my type.

And by technical, what I really mean is just so that I can say I stuck to my weekly posting plan.

I've got some stuff to say, but it's going to have to wait until tomorrow, because it is just too damn late and I'm too damn tired. Bleah.

Going to bed, now.

So Friday morning was the Wimbledon semifinal between Djokovic and Federer, which I expected Novak to win, if not easily, then at least successfully.

And he didn't.

Losing in the semis was bad enough, but losing to Federer? Just added insult to injury.

I was more puzzled than anything else, because honestly? Djokovic was not playing anything like what I've become accustomed to seeing at all. I wanted to reach through the computer monitor and shake him and demand, "What is WRONG with you?"

One of the things that has always most impressed me about Djokovic is his movement on the tennis court. He's speedy and sneaky and it surprises me every time, probably because he doesn't look like he should be able to move that quickly. Those long limbs of his aren't graceful, just lanky, and it gives the impression of sloth as well as awkwardness. He's skinny, yes, but every inch of his body is roped with solid muscle, and he is astonishingly flexible even so. He can slide into a point that makes my knees twinge in sympathetic pain just to watch, and make the most impossible shots by doing so, yet on Friday, it looked like his feet were nailed to the grass.

One of the fundamental rules of tennis is, "Go for every shot." Now, granted, at the professional level, that's just not practical. There just really isn't going to be enough energy available to chase down every ball, especially a clear winner. "Know your limits" might be a better interpretation. Still, on Friday Djokovic was watching balls sail by him that he would've gone for on many other occasions that I'd seen him play.

I don't think Federer's ace count would've been as high if Djokovic hadn't been so clearly off his game.

Which brings me back to the question: WHY?!?!?

I kind of feel like I'm the only one asking it.

The sportswriters seem to have universally decided that Djokovic was nothing more that a flash-in-the-pan anyway, and this is his natural fall back into the bottom of the pack.

The commentators are pretty much united in the belief that Djokovic hasn't been able to handle the pressure, both internal and external, of being Number One in the world, of trying to capture and hold all these titles and break or set records, of upholding the faith not only of his family and loved ones but of an entire country.

I'm sure that's part of it.

But pressure is generally the kind of thing that gets you underestimating your opponents, that gets you losing Miami in a surprise attack from John Isner and bouncing back to win Indian Wells, not necessarily the kind of thing that upends your entire mindset and throws your entire game out of whack for months on end.

I'm wondering if the problem, while still mental, might be something a bit more prosaic.

Djokovic's beloved grandfather died while Novak was playing the Monte Carlo tournament.

He hasn't played the same since.

When my maternal grandfather died suddenly, I was a freshman in high school and we were on vacation in North Carolina. I remember that my mom was absolutely DEVASTATED. For months after, maybe as much as a year, she was just barely functioning. I used to come home from school sometimes and find her in bed, and let me tell you, that was not something my mother EVER did.

It was decades before she told me that the reason for her excessive distress was guilt: the night before we were to leave for the trip, she had taken me and my brother up to visit her parents and say goodbye, like we always did. We'd been late, of course, as always, and apparently Grandpop had been annoyed and left for his Knights of Columbus meeting without waiting for us. Mom had been mad at him for not waiting, so we'd visited with Grandmom and then gone home. The next day, we'd left for North Carolina.

A week later, her father was dead, and not only had she had never said goodbye, but she'd parted ways in anger.

Of course, it didn't have to be anything quite that drastic for Djokovic. Losing a close family member as an adult is different that having it happen as a child. And everything for his family is colored by the war, and what they went through during the bombing of Belgrade. I can't even imagine what a difference that makes: it must draw an already close-knit family even closer, and make it that much worse to lose a member of that family.

For Djokovic to be away from his family when he got the news, and even worse, to miss the funeral, must be a very difficult thing indeed. I wonder if he's even really had the time to grieve properly.

And that, I think, is the kind of thing that weighs on the mind, that can cause the kind of erratic play I've been seeing.

It's a terrible shame, really. This is high season for tennis, and there's really no break, no time for him to take without withdrawing from important tournaments. And doing so could mean not just a financial loss, but also one of clout. He's already lost the No. 1 ranking because of this loss to Federer, and in the politics of the tennis world, that also will have lost him a significant percentage of power. And it's not just his own bank account that suffers, but also the livelihoods of the people who work and travel with him.

It's an awful decision to have to weigh, and I don't envy him.

Of course, this is all speculation. I could be totally off-base, here.

But I get the funny feeling that maybe I'm right.

Friday afternoon was the annual Staff Summer Party, which is usually an exercise in both futility and boredom, but this year was actually really fun! Someone came up with the idea to hold it at Dave & Buster's, and it turned out to be the the BEST THING EVER.

I hadn't been to Dave & Buster's since they first opened in Philadelphia, more than fifteen years ago, and the group of us who went were so confused and overwhelmed just by walking in the door that we ended up fleeing without even doing anything. It was a lot more fun to be there on a weekday afternoon, when it was less crowded and much less crazy. I'm actually looking forward to a return trip!

The weekend was mostly laundry, cleaning, and napping. And marathoning American Ninja Warrior, which is a total guilty-pleasure show . . . and yet, I still watch it.

No, I still haven't caught up on my other shows. Enough with the judging, already.

Sunday evening, my dad took me out for my belated birthday dinner. It was nice to get all gussied up for a change-- I wore my bridesmaid's dress from Kristin's wedding, and it looked perfectly nice, which was awesome, and had been one of the selling points of buying it in the first place. The food was fabulous, and I have leftovers for lunch, which will be excellent. I got to bed at, for me, a decent hour, and although I didn't sleep well because I totally need a new mattress, I was counting it a good weekend.

Then the alarm went off at five this morning, and when I stretched out, my right foot hit a cold, wet spot in the bedding.

I shot upright and shrieked, "STOLI!!!! What did you DO?!?!?!?!"

Ah, yes, the joys of a dog sleeping in your bed with you . . . a dog on steroid medication. Side effect: incontinence.

Son of a bitch.

I was thisclose to making a rug out of her.

So I had just enough time to strip the bed and stuff all the bedding into the washer before I left; Dad will get it dried for me, which is definitely one of the good things about having him there.

At least it didn't soak through to the electric heating pad or to the mattress itself . . . seems like the blankets and sheets soaked up everything. Small favors, I guess.

And, since I got to work, I have been able to happily watch Novak Djokovic wallop Juan Carlos Ferrero in the first round of Wimbledon. So the day is looking up, I suppose.

I forgot today is my birthday.

Whatever, so I'm forty-three now? I think. I'd have to do the math, and I hate math. Born in 1969 . . . you figure it out, if you care that much.

I sure don't.

For the sake of consistency, I'm going to put up my shiny, sparkly birthday banner, though I really don't feel particularly shiny. Or sparkly.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!


Birthdays. SUPREMELY LAME.

I'm gonna have ice cream for lunch, because it is my birthday, and because I wants it, yes I does. SO THERE.

Cleaning out my DVR this weekend led to watching:

Beastly, a predictable retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I dunno, I'd rather go reread Robin McKinley's Beauty. Oh, I'll grant you that Neil Patrick Harris was pleasantly snarky, and the ending had kind of a cool twist, but I'm really not a fan of Vanessa Hudgens, and I didn't see much in her performance to change my mind.

Rewatched The Order, mostly to make sure that I still wanted to buy it when the opportunity arises, and Plunkett & Macleane for the same reason. Jonny Lee Miller is one of those actors that I like best in period work-- not to say that he's not perfectly admirable in contemporary roles, just that I prefer watching him in historical work. Jack Davenport is another I put in that category, although with him, I actually don't like the modern roles that I've seen him perform. And, of course, he'll always be Commodore James Norrington to me.

I also glutted myself on French Open tennis, of course. Djokovic WIPED THE COURTS with his opponent on Friday, and then yesterday struggled from a two-set deficit. Nobody was showing the game live, so I have no idea what the problem was. I was reduced to clutching my phone and desperately refreshing my French Open app with its little tennis-ball icons, maniacally chanting the tennis basics we all started learning along with how to hold a racquet: use your head, move your feet, keep your focus, play one point at a time.

Beats me if it actually helped him, but it sure made me feel better. And in the end, Djokovic won, so, you know . . . drinks all around, right?

Actually, I went back to BED, I was so wrung out emotionally.

Washed the rest of Stoli's dog beds. I got tired of doing laundry last weekend after taking her to the groomers, so I just started tossing clean sheets over her beds at Mom's house. Then Friday night, I stripped everything and carted it all home with me, because Mom has fits when I "clog up the washer with dog hair". WHATEVER. I bought you that washer and dryer, I can bloody well glut it with dog fur if I want.

Mom came down to stay overnight last night and tonight because her car will be in the shop today and tomorrow. It's weird how well my folks get along now that they're not married any more. I called a little while ago, to make sure she hadn't blown up my tv by messing with the remote ( yes, she's done it before! ), and she and my father were sitting in the living room discussing where to go for lunch. BIZARRE, I TELL YOU.

It's gonna be AWESOME to have Mom's house to myself overnight tonight. I think both my folks forget that I lived entirely on my own for fifteen years. It's really hard to adapt to living with people again, and honestly? I hate it. I need a lot of alone time, and I don't get it from either of them, because they want to be joined at the goddamn hip with me all the fucking time.

I'll probably just end up vacuuming my room at Mom's house, and possibly really living it up and changing the sheets on the bed. Still, it will be nice. And if I want to go to bed early, I can.

SO THERE.