Jasper is now completely comfortable in our fur friendly abode.
Weaving in and out of Frankie's feet.
Playing with Dibley, which apparently warranted a scratch of Jazz's snout. . . .
Stomping, for even though he is still a lean, mean feline machine of less than a year old, he has the heaviest paw steps. . .
Only to be out done by her-lady-of-hardship, Goblet.
He's still a bit leery of Tikka, but this may be a result of Tikka's incessant, genetically bred need to herd all the pets into one spot when they happen to be co-habitating in a room.
Cats don't like to be herded.
Tikka is stubborn and refusing to accept this is the case.
Hence the continuation of hissing and spitting when Tikka vainly attempt to do what nature intended her to do.
I harbour no delusions that Tikka will eventually get it.
She'll just keep trying.
The Dory of dogs. . . .
Goblet continues her protest against the adding of new pets to our family.
Maintaining her vigil on the Goblet box on my dresser, she sits and waits for Jazz or Dibbles to enter her boudoir.
Eyes dilated like a junkie, she watches them march into her space, sniff, explore, wander without impunity as they continue their quest to know each and every nook and crannie of their new home.
All remains peaceful until they try to see what is happening outside from the spot of supreme viewing.
The top of the Goblet box.
Niceties are tossed aside like dirty undies as Goblet does what she deems essential to keep her box HER box.
Her private island in a house of insanity.
Dibbles hasn't ventured another attempt on Gob's Island since Wednesday's debacle which resulted in flying hairbrushes, aerodynamic hair elastics and panti-liners gone wild.
Jazz hasn't gotten up on our bed yet and is, still, wandering around unawares of the terror laying in wait for him should he decide to see what exists above the floor.
Being under a year old kitten will do him no good with Goblet.
She's an equal opportunity attacker.
Meaning there are still more shits and giggles in the very near future as Feline Frenzy 2011 continues.
We are not immune to the intensity and continuity of her anger.
Her protest extended to the bathroom yesterday.
She peed in the bathtub.
Before Stephen used it.
Imagine what happened when the full-head-of-hair version of Mr. Clean encountered cat piss in his bathtub.
I will say having a deaf cat has made me realize how much we rely upon sound in usually futile attempts to garner the attention of our kitties.
And yet I still continue to clap, making kissy noises, Stephen continues to try reasoning with him, "Dibley's live inside the house!" as we use tried and not so much true methods to
to assert our dominance over the indomitable felines cohabiting with us.
My opinion: a deaf cat is probably going to be the happiest cat in this house.
The happiest pet.
Overall, the happiest inhabitor of our humble abode.
First day of classes went off without a hitch thanks to my staying-at-work-Wednesday-until-9.00-pm stint.
Multiple, double sided copies of the syllabus stacked in their own pile according to class.
Required textbooks on top of them.
The entire pile topped with the at-this-moment class list.
An ever changing list as people will shift courses as they continue to shop until they get the course, prof, time they want.
I fumbled through these lists, warning the students that,
A. Remembering their names will be as likely as me convincing Stephen we should get a third dog.
B. Saying their name properly will be just as likely.
I try very hard not to mis-pronounce my student's names, having lived through the nightmarish experiences of my youth brought forth by my mother's insistence of spelling a very common name in an uncommon way.
My name bears an E at the end of both the first and last name.
As if I needed another reason to stand out.
Because being fat and smart wasn't enough.
Nothing like an additional letter that serves no purpose to confuse people.
Each time I go through a class list, I am transported back to my own school experiences, sweat popping on my brow and under my arms, bowels cramping and the inevitable stumbling over and/or mispronouncing of my name that would spew from the mouths of substitute teachers and student interns.
So terrified by these encounters, I would usually yell my name at them just as they were ready to attempt it's pronunciation.
Terror also ensured that instead of just saying my name for them, I would yell it.
DAWNE CLARKE!!!!
In some instances, there was some inadvertent scaring of the teacher.
But I didn't care.
Rather them momentarily caught off guard by the lunatic yelling out their name than me pooping in my pants while they made a mockery of my name.
Most of yesterday was spent with Meredyth as we continue to make progress in our continuing efforts to get her into the NBCC GED program.
She called NBCC to inquire about getting into the September 12th class, and they immediately set her an appointment with a case manager.
Case manager set red flags a-flying in my head, but I wasn't about to say anything.
She was excited, willing to talk to whoever she needed to talk to, so I wasn't about to do anything to dampen her enthusiasm.
Going along, not just for my car driving capabilities, but moral support, our meeting turned out to be a waste of time for us and the case manager.
He thought Mer was on Employment Insurance and wanted her GED through the department of post-secondary education.
I knew something was up when he kept asking her questions about her employment history, how many hours a week she worked, etc.
Finally, I butted in and said that Mer had no need to quit her job to take the class.
And that's when he finally clued in that she was not like the other people already enrolled in the course.
He did suggest that she could take the GED in modules at the Adult Learning Center.
For free.
But even free comes at a cost.
No teachers, per se.
Just people to collect and give out booklet modules as they completed.
And that doesn't work with our Mer.
Because she's tried it before.
Distraught, disinclined, disheartened, I tried to maintain a positive outlook as we left the meeting, Mer tearful that she wasn't going to be able to get her GED, me already plotting alternatives.
Could she do the booklets at home with me?
Would NBCC take her into their class if she paid tuition?
What was the tuition?
Later that afternoon Mer, Stephen and I walked into the literally-just-built-NBCC campus on the UNB campus and asked the critical question.
The $1875.00 question as it turned out because this is the cost of the 10 week GED tuition.
YEAH!!!!!!!
But Mer can't start until November 21st, because she needs to complete math and reading comprehension tests in order for them to assess what she needs in order to complete the GED.
No yeahs there.
As we left, we again covered the positives of the newly determined start date.
She seemed okay with everything.
Which was good because our Mer is known for a number of stellar qualities.
Patience not being among them.
Keith and Em have experienced relatively uneventful starts of the school year.
Em did have some concerns over a seemingly OCD English teacher who was more focused on the students have the exact same sized binders, with the exact number of dividers, with exact same lined paper, the exact number of sheets of paper in each section, a personal dictionary on them at all times, and whose intensity literally overwhelmed our Emily.
So much so that her TMJ rendered her almost unable to open her mouth after just one class with this woman.
Kudos to Em for recognizing how physically and mentally ill this teacher was going to make her, and taking the situation into her own hands.
Thursday evening as I struggled to keep my eyes open at 9.00 pm, Em was sitting on our bed making a list of all the reasons why she felt she should be moved into another English class.
At the time we were not aware of the necessity of Em's homeroom teacher in this process.
And Em and her homeroom teacher have a bit o'history together, so it was probably better she didn't know she'd have to ask her homeroom teacher for some assistance with this matter.
But at the end of the day, Em called to inform me that the change had occurred, she was in another English class and life was again joyful, joyful.
For now.
I've been in this family far too long to think that such joy can sustain itself.
So I'll enjoy it while it's here.
Fleetingly.
Title Lyric: Happy Being Me by Angie Stone
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