Stop The Vinsanity...

I'm not into Easter, and I've conditioned my kids (who are teenagers now anyways) not to expect much, though we did hide plastic eggs and give them candy when they were little. Now? I gave my younger son $20 and told him he could go over to the store and get half price candy the day after. He was thrilled.

Needless to say, I am not into religion, and neither are my boys at this point. But I've always told them that they are welcome to get into that if they choose to on their own at some point, and I do admire my little brother, who has always been religious but has taken a very "love and help thy fellow man and judge not" sort of approach. Like he doesn't condemn anybody, and he would travel to poorer countries with youth mission groups, and play his guitar and sing about Jesus and plant gardens and build houses for people. Hey, if you're doing good, you're doing good. So that's been my approach...but I am glad my kids have not chosen to go that direction, given the free will to choose.

Also....Peeps...I love to microwave them.
 
I grew up in a Catholic household but I never really bought into the whole God thing even as a child. The holidays have always been about the secular aspects for me. Easter is candy and spring. Christmas is cocktails by the fire and lights and cool music.

When it came to my kids, I decided not to preach to them. I feared that would backfire, much like it did for my parents with me. Instead, I decided to lead by example. My oldest daughter had two bad experiences with religious people (that I know of). The first was when she was around 5 or 6. Her mother felt lost (medication and therapy probably would have been a big help) and thought about turning to religion. An adult asked my child what my religious beliefs were. She told them I was an Atheist. The adult told her I would be going to Hell. Of course that freaked my daughter out. I had to explain to her how different people have different beliefs and sometimes people say things to manipulate others into following those beliefs.

I think what sealed the deal for her was when her mother died. They lived in a small town in Kentucky. Her ex made the funeral arrangements in a church she didn't belong to. Of course, the minister started talking about non-believers, etc. I looked over at my daughter and she was just shaking her head. Later she told me the judgmental mentality sickened her. (There was another incident with that minister the day before in a restaurant.)

The important thing is she has good values and realizes she doesn't need religion to maintain those.
 
I'm turning into an Old Cat Guy...

Two of our cats passed away about a month apart, not long before Cat passed away. The third one, Monkey, was very depressed after that. He has decided he wants to live outside. He was born out back, but broke into the house a few times so we let him stay.

Now I also have 4 cats out front that I have been feeding, They are about a year old. One of them, Spice, had kittens. Four of them. Two died within a few days. Then she moved them. I couldn't find them. Then I finally heard one. The other one went missing.

In the meantime, Spice broke into the house by ripping the patio screen open. Essentially, she made her own cat door. She would come in and look around for a bit then leave. I figured I'd fix the screen eventually and that would be that.

The other day I'm doing some work on the laptop when I hear her come in. I didn't really look, just said a "hello". She proceeds to come over and drop her kid at my feet. So I'm looking and thinking out loud, "Ummm, that's not the best place for that." Okay...maybe I said it to her and wasn't really just thinking out loud. She then picks up the kitten and puts in the corner behind the couch. So now it stays there and now I can't fix the screen just yet.

Just one thing...this kitten is missing part of one of it's hind legs. It looks like it was bitten off. I'm wondering if one of the two huge raccoons I chased off the front porch did that.
 
Well tonight another cat, Shorty, has found Spice's secret door. Shorty and Spice are the friendliest of the four front cats. I hope they aren't too disappointed when I fix the screen. That will happen as soon as the baby can be on it's own.
 
Not much going on in my poly world. Lately I have been doing a lot of reflection on my past. I now realize I have had several poly relationships over the years. I just didn't know to call them poly.

The truth is I never really understood what poly was until a few years ago. Up until then my only exposure had been through the bdsm community with people who had poly households. I guess I assumed that all poly people did it the same way.

My first poly relationship was with Candy. When we first met we were both single. We started dating and got along great. I was ready to ride that escalator. She wasn't. It freaked her out and we grew apart. Over the years we would run into each other, but one of us wouldn't be single. Eventually I was single and we started seeing each other again. She had a girlfriend. I was in what I now know to be a MFF V. Everything was fine. We'd even all occasionally hang out together. The problem only started when Candy suggested to me that we have a threesome. Normally that would have been a HELL YES, but I just did not find this girl the least bit attractive. I probably should have been a little more diplomatic about that. That led us to being off again.

The kicker is that I ran into her again a few days after Cat and I had become an official couple. She told me she had been wrong to keep pulling away from me all those years and was now ready to settle down. She and Cat were friends, but she hadn't heard about us getting together yet. In hindsight that would have probably been a great triad, but Cat and I had already agreed to monogamy (her choice). The good thing is we all remained friends.

Next up will be my one and only triad.
 
Oh, I forgot to update on my fuzzy people. What a horrible cat dad I am.

Spice took Sterling upstairs. Sterling is now walking around pretty good. He eventually made it downstairs and is now a little terror. Because he is missing a rear paw he uses his claws to climb. Unfortunately that sometimes means he is trying to climb up my leg to join me on the couch. Ouch. Then he has to use his claws to keep his balance as he crawls all over me. Ouch again. I am reminded of that cartoon where the big dog befriends a little kitten. the little kitten always climbs on top of the dog and scratches the hell out him before finally settling down and going to sleep.

Meanwhile, Monkey has made his way to the front and found the cat door as well. He has been spending more and more time inside. He gets along fine with other cats, but they aren't quite sure what to make of this big hulk of a cat in "their" house.
 
In cat news, Monkey has moved back in. It looks like the poor guy got into a fight. I treated his wound and it is healing nicely. Spice is out. She peed on me. Jealous reaction to allowing Monkey to stay inside. Sterling is still inside.

Sterling is really wearing me out. I can't wait for this kitten stage to be over. Monkey is not enjoying it either. It makes him really grumpy.

My townhouse always seems like a perpetual wreck. My god, how could one person accumulate so much stuff? We have stuff I didn't even know we had. I'm managing to get it into 4 categories. Stuff I want to keep. Stuff I want to sell. Stuff I want to donate. Stuff I'm throwing away.

The good/bad news is that my computer was down for a bit. Bad hard drive. Luckily I had a backup image from about a year ago, but that means I lost everything I did for the past year. Grrrrrr. Nothing irreplaceable though. And luckily I had saved the slideshow I made of Cat on another drive so all that work wasn't wasted. All the scans are gone though. The good part of that is I got a lot more done around the house. I really need to work on my time management skills.
 
Well I finally have something exciting to write about. Hurricane Irma!

At first I was thinking it was going to miss us. Now I'm pretty sure it won't. Yesterday I went out and bought some extra cat food, kitty litter, cigarettes and Mountain Dew. That should do us fine. By "us" I mean me and all the cats. Currently I have two indoor cats, Monkey and Sterling. Out back I have one adult and three kittens. The kittens aren't very tame yet and I hope they will follow their mother in. Out front there 4 adults and 2 litters (3+4). So I am looking at having 14-17 cats in here with me for two nights. Should be interesting.

I did meet a woman who is friends with a neighbor down the street. She is a volunteer with the local humane society. She is going to hook me up with getting all the cats fixed and we are both looking for people to adopt.

Today I dug out the hurricane panels. And I do mean dug out. They haven't been put up since Wilma in 2005. I have a tiny storage shed and they were buried behind 12 years of leftover wood from various projects. First thing after the storm I will attack the shed and organize it better.

In poly news...you may have noticed I wiped out my sig. I finally made a decision to not keep working out of Seattle. I love it there, but I love it here more. I can't swing being away from the house for a couple months at a time. Nothing would ever get done.

So I finally broke the news to Elle. She was not happy. Sprite took it in stride. And now I am partnerless. Not really currently looking either. I am going to try to stay focused on fixing this place up.
 
I'm in NE Broward. What I dread is the cleanup after. Hopefully it won't mangle my plants too much. I lost a giant fishtail palm in Wilma. And my clumping fishtail was blown to a 45 degree angle. My plants are like my children...lol. I have a feeling I'll be redoing the landscaping.

Take care and be safe...
 
Got the hurricane shutters up, as well as helped the neighbor get theirs up. Then I sat down to watch the forecast and now it looks like it might be more west than they initially thought. That's good for me, except being on this side of it means more wind. Still better than a direct hit.

So far I got Spice and her kittens inside. She took one up to the guest room so I took the other three up for her. Thank god she's up there. One of those kittens is very active and wanders off. Then it starts crying for it's siblings...lol.

I also let the back cat in. Her kittens run when I open the door.

Monkey, my old male, is not impressed with any of this.

Sterling is like cool...new people! LOL
 
Well I survived Irma. The power didn't even cut off here. It didn't seem that bad so I went to sleep. I woke up to my yard and trees totally trashed. This was way worse than Wilma as far as damage.

Luckily the house is alright. I'm glad I put up the shutters. A huge branch broke off the Black Olive next to the house. It was dangling by a Night Blooming Cereus, which is a kind of vining cactus, that had grown all the way up to the top. That branch kept banging into the shutters over the front sliders. All the other trees had lots of broken branches as well. I'm glad I thought to pull the car onto the street. It would have been trashed in my driveway.

I can barely recognize the back yard. Today I tried to salvage my clumping Fishtail Palm. It probably sounds silly to be so attached to my plants, but that palm tree was the first thing I ever planted back there.

So now I have a ton MORE work to do. I'm already worn out. I already have a huge pie of debris out front and I haven't even started bringing stuff from the back yet.

I let Olive back out the back. Her kittens survived just fine. They are loving their new "playground". They survived by getting between the shutters and the back sliders. I always leave one panel off so I can see and squeeze out when it's over. I also let Shorty, the male, out front. Spice and Rusty are still inside with their kittens. Rusty's kittens will be weaned by next week.

Sterling decided she doesn't like kittens...lol.

Monkey is still not impressed by any of it.
 
I'm not sure how, but one of Spice's kittens has disappeared. She had them up in one of the bedrooms. The two other bedroom doors are always closed. The bathroom door is open. The kitten is nowhere to be found.

Yesterday I was sitting with them early in the day. the runt's eyes finally fully opened so they were all doing fine. Later that afternoon the runt kept trying to wander down the stairs. So I put it back in the room and blocked off the door. That's when I noticed one was missing. So I checked that room, which wasn't hard to do as it is practically empty. I checked the bathroom and the hallway. No kitten. I checked the downstairs. Still no kitten.

I'm worried it may be dead. I think I would have heard it crying by now.
 
I watched Star Trek Discovery the other day. Not really feeling the reimagination of the Klingons. I think I will give it more of a try than I did Enterprise when it came out. It is supposed to be 10 years before TOS and 100 years after Enterprise, but it feels much closer to Enterprise.

I briefly perused OKC the other night. Not really feeling it though. Part of that is because this place is still in so much disarray. It's kind of lame to tell someone they can't come over here. That just makes me look married or something...lol.

Part of me just wants to rent a big dumpster and throw a bunch of stuff out, but i know I'll regret that. I did that in one room. Then the hurricane came and I realized why there was an outdated boom box in there. Battery powered radio...duh.

I wouldn't classify Cat as a hoarder. She was just very well prepared for everything. So we didn't have dozens of anything, just one of everything. And if I throw something away I will probably need it the next week.

So now I have a new plan. One room at a time. That will cause more work for me in the end, but ill at least it will be more organized and look like something is getting accomplished.
 
I can relate on the house. Mine needs some renovating and decluttering. My ex was a mild hoarder....I still need to purge some of his things.... and Jade is a very messy teen. I do not like to entertain at my house. It definitely makes dating more difficult! But then I don't bring dates around Jade the first several months anyway.
 
Today I got an email saying someone liked me on OKC. I checked it out. 74 years old. Only answered 21 questions and was a 73% match on those. Thinks smoking is disgusting.

Some sort of scammer? Desperate? Just playing the numbers game? Who knows.

I have 41 likes and only about a dozen decent matches...lol.
 
Ok so I took a little closer look at my OKC matches. There were 14 that identified as non-monogamous within 25 miles of me. So far I have eliminated 7. It's not like I'm being super picky. I wonder how someone who, at our age, thinks that 14 lovers is a lot and makes them uncomfortable can be a 93% match to me? Another is dominant. One is just looking for casual flings. The rest didn't answer enough questions.
 
I received a message from a prospect on OKC but I'm on the fence. She writes that she is up for an open relationship but would want it to be more monogamous if things got serious. That tells me the relationship would be temporary at best. She claims to be kinky, but her answers reveal it is probably a passing interest.

I had looked at her profile before. I didn't completely pass on it. But now I think she changed some of her answers to be more compatible with mine. Or maybe my answers just got her thinking more about hers.

I also get a vibe that she is more on the conservative side. Not an obnoxious conservative, more like conservative because they don't know better.

So I am conflicted. Do I go out with her just because I can? On one hand, fun is fun. On the other hand, I know it probably won't go anywhere so I'd feel like I was just using her. Of course, she would probably just be using me as a placeholder until the right mono guy came along. I'm wondering if I now have some abandonment issues.

It's not like I am on some mission to find a long term partner. It's knowing that that's not a possibility makes me wonder if I should expend much energy. Like there is no mystery there. The outcome is already known.
 
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