Well, then

It's been a tough week.
The husband bumped up against an alpha male in a job interview, leaving him flabbergasted and us perplexed.

Negotiations at work continue for me, but I'm tired now - it has to get concluded now.
This stuck-in-nowhereland feeling is not for me.
I like clarity and direction.

My uncle in the States is going for neurosurgery tomorrow to remove two golf ball-sized tumours from his right temporal lobe.

Now it's 4 a.m. on Sunday morning.
Son#1 woke from a nightmare so we came downstairs to drink tea.
The cat snoozes next to me.
My uncle's news leaves me very, very sad.


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(Non) Psycho Killer

Who knew that not all cats are homicidal assholes?
And why weren't we informed?

Louise with-her-camp-name is simply lovely.
She snoozes in my neck, chews on my hair.
She gets picked up all the time by all of us, yet we haven't lost eyeballs.
There is no blood oozing from fresh scratches.
It might just be part of her evil plot, luring us in ever so gently, then BAM! she'll go for the jugular.

But so far so gooooood.


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I can go home in 45 minutes

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But I don't want to

This week will probably see the end of my career at the university, possibly stretching it another week.

And even though I know it is what I want (need!), I feel overcome by grief.
It is a profound loss, like a divorce.

I actually like my colleagues - I am surrounded by intelligence and humour, lots of kindness.
I used to think I would probably continue working there until I retired.
Things are very often different to one's expectations.
I have little control of the future, professionally and privately. 
And if anyone tells me to try to think in terms of opportunity as opposed to obstacle again, I may just very well smack them.

I need to wallow for a bit, mull and chew, see where all this fits in.
Then I'm sure I'll be able to buck up again.


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Boy + Cat

Son#2 had a pajama day and sat playing games on my phone with the cat on his lap.
Son#2 is really, really happy with Louise the Cat.

I am cranky, fat and cash-strapped, an unfortunate combination.
Tomorrow, work again.
I hope the union-lady phones me with feedback tomorrow.

I melted next to the fire the husband built this evening, Port and book in hand.

The husband cooked dinner and cleaned the kitchen, my evil bad wifedom is now complete.

I couldn't reach  my mum.
Hope she's okay.


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Caterwauling & Drunken Holy Men

St Nicholas arrived in our silly village today, and it was the same St Nicholas who fell off his white horse last year, utterly inebriated.
He didn't sound much better today, slurring his words (but then again, it might just be local dialect?)
He has the large splotchy nose of older men who drink too much.

Son#3 and I went, he got free ginger biscuits, ran around and through the marching band and then we went home again when my fingers started freezing.

Look at his long legs!

St Nicholas gets carted around in a buggy now.
It's quite like the pope, haha.

Son#1 went for a sleep-over at another boy's house, and spilled hot tea over his legs.
Not too much damage, luckily.

Louise spent the day sleeping on the couch, and will probably keep us awake all night with her mewling in the kitchen, where she has been sequestered.
She's such a tiny little thing that she fits through the spindles of the stair gate.
And I don't want to lose sleep, thankyouverymuch.
I have Son#2 for that.


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The Lovely Louise

Here she is then, the Luscious Louise.

The boys are in their element, Son#2 woke me at 5h30 this morning to go downstairs to look at Louise.

At least, for now Louise will be her name.
I don't think cats give a shit what you call them.

Son#3 (Moodswings) and I are home with Louise (my expensive couch wrapped in blankets lest the little devil scratches it to pieces).
The husband went to a rugby match on the coast with Thing#1 (Puberty) and Thing#2 (Anger).

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Mr Jelly

Son#1 had to see the pediatrician for possible joint hypermobility syndrome/Ehler Danlos.
We are being referred to orthopedics and a host of clinical genetic tests will follow.
Deep sigh.

It was a long hospital visit, nearly 2 hours.
Son#1 kept dislocating his shoulders, freaking the doctor out.
We'll see.

I woke in the night from pain, the bashing-my-arms-with-hammers-kind.
The husband had a job interview this morning.
I am at work, where I'm just done.
I have nothing to do and no interest asking for something to fill my time.
I make shopping lists, and I'm following a Coursera-course on neurocognition.
I know unemployment is no walk in the park either, but I have an urgency to move anywhere but here.
You have to move to improve, right?


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Luisa

To alleviate the house of its Mickey Mouse Clubhouse-mouse colony, we are considering a cat.
(But also because we need something cute, and the boys are losing their cute-lustre, ha).

This is Luisa.
She is tiny, calm, non-aggressive.
Quite the turnaround from our previous ferral cat, Nelson.
I went to Tilburg to look at Luisa's sister, but she was a bit of an asshole, climbing over me like a mountain goat, dominating.
Luisa looked, sniffed, went back to sleeping.

I'm just worried about the furniture.


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Stuck

There seems to be an agenda at work with its own jargon and rules, and for non-initiated nitwits like myself, it is stressful to navigate the choppy waters.

I received a please-bugger-off contract.

I have a union lawyer who is looking at it, but it takes time and adds to my anxiety.

I can't afford to shoot myself in the foot.

And I don't know what the future will bring in terms of my health.

But I can tell you how humiliated I feel, knowing all that hard work, being in the top 3 of lecturers, all that stress at the university for the past 10 years has amounted to nothing.

Like my mother says, organizations have a sociopathic nature.

We are back on daylight savings time, with dark afternoons and rain and cold.

In South Africa, flash floods in Johannesburg killed 6 people and nearly washed away my friend Estelle's house.

Son#3 is on the waiting list for the school for gifted kids.

Son#2 is continuously and vehemently angry about everything.

Where did my curly-haired sweet boy go?

Son#1 is FINALLY getting more stimulation at school after his therapist intervened.

Erik the builder is finished with Son#1's attic bedroom, and we are taking a slow approach in trying to get everything ready.

What's the blooming rush anyway?

[Read: No money left]

To tell you the truth, I feel awfully mired in gunk and problems and no way out but through it all.

One has to have energy to handle life, and I'm all out.

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