My Begonia Is Secreting Pheremones.

This is the only explanation I can find, because I have DOUSED the thing in hot-sauce-and-water-cat-deterrent which is working fine for the Calamondin orange and rubber plant (in the case of the latter, it's working half way...apparently dirt is a powerful-cat-attractant. POWERFUL.), but all Flyboy wants out of life is to be in the yellow room and lovingly chew on the begonia's trembling leaves. Right now he's stationed outside the door, yowling to be let in, but I really don't feel like I need him mating with my begonia, so he's staying out there, goddamn it, and he'd better learn to like it.

In all fairness, he and Cady BOTH have show slight improvement in their behvior, and since they are still relatively young, slight is pretty damn good. You forget that at their core, cats are wild animals, and they are just living inside because we happen to have caught on to the fact that they are cute and cuddly and decided to bring them in. It's in their nature to want to check stuff out and rocket around and bite each other, and right now since we're still nowhere near being unpacked there's still lots of crap around that's all new and shiny to them. Plus, I'm a knitter, so you know THAT'S trouble. Oh, and does everyone know that cats are actually nocturnal? Because I tend to forget that, and have "WHY are there crashing noises out in the rest of the house, WHY GOD WHY GODDAMN CATS" moments in the middle of the night, and it's hard to remember that it's the nocturnal biological clock doing it, not devious plotting.

Well, maybe SOME devious plotting.

So there have been three major life events in the past week. Here we go.

1. Last Sunday, my grandfather on my mom's side passed away. That is sad, but not entirely unexpected. He was 81 and had cancer, and in truth, he's probably in a much better place. The really sad thing is the endless bitchery of his wife, who we shall call Meathead because I would beat her to a bloody pulp if I could.

My grandparents got divorced about 25 years ago. Both are remarried now, and we see our grandmother a lot more than we see our grandfather...he's always been a very solitary, hermitlike man, and he lives up on this kee-razy hill that's barely paved. He also married someone who is my mom's age, then had two kids with her, which is needless to say, an interesting circumstance. In any case, Meathead is also pretty solitary and insular, and throughout Grandpa's illness - cancer - she has gained a certain degree of notoriety in the family for being IMPOSSIBLE to deal with. She doesn't seem to think it's necessary to inform blood relatives that their patiarch is sick or in the hospital, a., and b., once they find out, she doesn't keep them updated. The first time he went in, no one could get any information out of her, and it was horrendous. During that first stint, Ma recieved an email from Meathead basically announcing that the Barn, the house where Grandpa had lived pretty much forever, was going to be foreclosed on and sold at auction. My parents of course started right away to see what the options were so she and Grandpa wouldn't lose the property. They emailed and called and pleaded for her to contact them so they could help, and only to find out when Ma called the lawyer to SEE IF THE HOUSE HAD SOLD that Meathead had come up with some deal that fell off the back of some truck (driven by her daughter's boyfriend, to continue the metaphor). No email, no call, to say oh by the way, don't worry, I got it handled." Inconsiderate? Yeah. Truly offensive? Eh. The really awful part's comin'.

On the way home from the most recent long-term hospital stay, she pulled over to the side of the road and told him that not only had she had to sell the Barn, but that she wanted to get a divorce. Oh, and by the way? She bought a trailer for him to live in, an hour away from his children. Alone. At 81 years old, with cancer. Nice. She promised that she would make sure he got to all his appointments and such. THAT was a crock, as you'll see.

Wednesday the 12th, Grandpa went into the hospital. On Saturday, Ma, her brother, and her aunt had all tried calling Grandpa and hadn't gotten ahold of him. They started calling around to track him down, and when Ma finally got ahold of Meathead, she blithely told Ma "oh yeah, he went into the hospital on Wednesday." Un-fucking-believable. Oh, and by the way? Ma also talked to Grandpa's oncologist, and was told that his last cancer-fighting shot of Lupron was a month and a half late, and the one before that was THREE MONTHS LATE. And by the way, he hadn't seen Meathead in person in about six months or more. WAY TO TAKE CARE OF HIM, YOU HEARTLESS BITCH! Did I mention she's a nurse? SHE'S A NURSE FOR GOD'S SAKE!

So, Ma and Paintbrush went down to the hospital and took care of business...saw Meathead a few times, and thankfully, the kids DID make it to the hospital to see him (Kid number one is at college in PA, and kid number two needed transportation), which was nice, because Kid number one is really a wonderful girl. Kid number two is too, of course, but he is a lot more shy, so there isn't as much of a bond.

So anyway, Meathead is a hateful, hateful bitch. I really want the piano that Grandpa built, but Ma doesn't want to contact her to get it or anything else. We'll see.

2. I quit my hateful, hateful job. Thank god. There isn't much to that...it wasn't a good fit, and there you have it. They called me into a meeting basically to tell me I wasn't doing enough side projects for my Boss, and the longer the meeting went on, the more I realized that I was fighting a lost cause. I have busted my ass, and am really proud of the work I did for them, and if the fact that I didn't do enough of the work that Boss should be doing himself, if he could deign to come into the office once in a while, or learn to operate a computer (Do people still not know how to use computers? Oh yes, my friend, they do.) eclipsed the great work I'd been doing in the CAPACITY IN WHICH I WAS HIRED, then fuck it...there's no way I was ever going to get to a point where I would feel even respected, much less appreciated. I'm not asking for a pedestal, just for people to not think that I'm doing a shitty job. Thank god that's over. I just feel bad for Elvette, who will be stuck there for a bit because she has no other financial option, and Buggie, who can't fight genetics. Sucks.

3. A friend got herself into a huge ass lie and it all unravelled. I'm so exhausted from typing up the Grandpa saga that I will have to cover the bullshit of THIS drama next post. It's a doozy.