Chape City Utah
Originally uploaded by emdot.
I just got back from the most wonderful bike ride in Montano de Oro -a lovely park along the ocean with lots of trails for biking, hiking and horse back riding. It is my favorite places in San Luis Obispo. I'll have to post some pictures from previous bike rides.
Anyway, Bret was dropping me off and I said to him "I wonder what the cats are up to." Marya is out for the afternoon and we had been gone about 5 hours. He answered me "Oh, doing cat things" - meaning "they are cats, there is not too much that they could be doing." Boy was he wrong!!
Charlotte ran up right away. This is a common occurance. They usually come to greet us with lots of meows and running right in front of us almost tripping us as we walk to the front door.
I went to get the mail and as I was walking back to my house I heard a cat howling. At first I thought it was Charlotte howling from inside the house. Once I realized it wasn't her, I went outside to look for Chapin. I scanned all the trees and up on the roof worried that he might be stuck somewhere.
Then I heard scratching from inside my neighbor's house and more howling. Oh man, he's stuck inside my neighbor's house.
Our neighbor loves the cats and often allows them to come inside. She says that Charlotte is much more daring and runs in and goes all around sniffing everything. Chapin usually stays in the doorway and is scared to come all the way in.
He must have gotten up courage today and got in the house and went and hid somewhere. The terrible thing is that my neighbor isn't home and isn't answering her cell phone and Chapin really wants to get out of there! I feel so helpless.
I'm sure he'll be fine - I just hope he doesn't have to go to the bathroom in there.
We need to teach Chapin that as a cat burglar you need to sneak out as sneakily as you go in.
Oh Yeah?
Originally uploaded by springdew.
This is Charlotte and Chapin's sister - Tula. She lives in Florida. I tried to show Charlotte this picture, but she wasn't interested.
I on the other had want to know everything about this cat to see how much she resembles the sister I know.
Does she like to climb trees? Is she talkative? Does she sleep under the covers? Is she curious and daring?
Thankfully Tula's owner just joined Flickr so I'm getting to see pictures and getting to know both of them.
I was supposed to be on the road right now on my way to LA for one of my closest friend's baby showers. Funny that the showers stopped me from going to a shower. That's right, I chickened out at the last minute because I was scared about driving down in the rain storm.
I have been suffering from indecisiveness all week. It has plagued me to the point of a sort of depression. I think I am so driven to make the "RIGHT" decision that I have to think and re-think all decisions in order to feel safe that I have come to the best conclusion possible. All of this thinking and hemming and hawing is tiring and frusterating. I just want someone - God maybe I guess - to tell me what to do.
So, the first decision this week was the choice of which car to take down to LA. Marya and I had decided to go together and she was going to go visit her dad who lives close to my friend with the shower. Mar suggested taking her car because it is more comfortable, safer, an automatic, has a CD player, etc.... I checked with my insurance and I was covered, but I was still feeling worried about it. Like some situation would happen and there would be some small print writing saying that in that situation I wasn't covered. I think some of my anxiety of surrouding this issue is that several years ago, my friend Kristin was driving my car and we got in a car accident. I remember thinking how relieved I was that she was driving my car and the situation wasn't reversed. I decided that I would definately rather crash my own car instead of crashing Marya's.
Isn't it exhausting being inside my head?
So, I decided that I would feel better driving my car or Bret's car. However, my car has about 220,000 miles on it and more importantly doesn't have a CD player, so for about a day the choice was Bret's car. Then I found out about the storm... I started thinking that if anything happened (like a mud slide in Gaviota pushing our car into the ocean or something terrible along those lines - this really did happen last storm by the way - I'm not imaging it) that we would be safest in Marya's car. And ultimately our safety is most important.
So, from yesterday morning to yesterday at about 11:20 pm, the plan was set to take Marya's car and leave this morning. I got all packed, wrapped the presents, sent emails to clients, etc... Then at 11:30 last night I started looking online at the weather reports. Flash flood warnings, mud slide alerts, heavy winds, rain ALL weekend. Fear and worry set in. I thought about several past rain storms that I've driven through and was nervous and anxious the entire time. I decided it was not worth the stress of driving in all that rain. Yeah, save myself some stress, that sounds good.
However, I think all of my crazy anxiety from the past couple days built up inside me and after the decision was made not to go I totally broke down with tears. I was letting my friend down and letting my fear of the rain stop me from being with my her. She is the first of my close friends to have a baby. I wanted to be there with her this weekend and talk to her about everything she is going through, see the baby's room, feel the baby kicking inside her tummy, talk to her about her fears of birth. I think ultimately the reason I got so sad last night was the acknowledgment that our friendship is about to change. I'm so happy and excited for her, but I know we won't talk as much and her life is about to change in a way that I can't relate to.
I know she'll forgive me for not making it - I just need to work on forgiving myself and know in my heart that I'm doing the best I can to take care of myself.
