Ama: i’m sort of in shock.
Ama: like…i’m gonna be what?
John: hahah
Ama: but i’m supposed to get new spells, right?
Ama: ’cause it’s an even level?
John: Yeah
John: But they’re kinda expensive.
Ama: like what?
John: Summon Mortgage
Ama: well fuck.
John: Balance Checkbook Rank 4
Ama: any good ones?
John: What class are you?
Ama: english major
John: I think you get ‘Great American Novel’ at 30…

If that didn’t make much sense to you, it probably means you don’t play enough World of Warcraft.

• I visited my dad this past weekend. He took me on a date to a German dance hall where I had Jäegerschnitzel and we danced. I also got to reaffirm my love of the tango.
• There is an awesome rainstorm going on outside.
• My kitten is exceptionally cute; in the morning, she follows me around until I leave for work.
• I made an appointment for the first consultation to get my wisdom teeth removed, which I have been putting off for over a year. I had such a bad experience with my tooth extraction that I didn’t even want to think about this one. I think it will be okay, though.
• I have yoga tonight.

My goals for this evening after work:

• go to yoga
• revise five pages of my novel nope
• vacuum the downstairs nope
• hang my flower photographs nope; but Pete promised he’d put the hooks in the wall on Tuesday

Edit: I ended up making invitations for one of my friend’s daughter’s birthday party which I had promised I’d do before when I realized that the date of the party was rapidly approaching and I hadn’t even MADE the invitations yet.

They look really good, though.

This was apparently a change from how she usually has everyone line up their mats because the regulars to the class kept commenting, upon walking into the room, to the effect of “Oh, does she want us to line up this way now?” To anyone who asked me directly, I just smiled, nodded, and responded that Robin had, in fact, told us to line up facing the windows.

Before class actually begins, I like to sit and calm myself, get myself in the yoga-space, if you will. I pay attention to my body and see what hurts, what doesn’t hurt, what wants to be stretched, what stress I can let go. I also listen to what’s going on in the room around me.

When one thinks of a yoga class, I imagine that most people would think of a room of calm people, maybe even spiritual people. There’s a lot of talk on yoga websites and in yoga magazines about loving yourself, lifting your heart, feeling your spirit, that sort of thing. Light and air, love and fluff, etc, etc.

However, people are people. Still, I was astounded by the number of negative comments stemming from such a small change as the instructor having everyone face their mats in a different direction. One would think that she was changing the class from hatha yoga to advanced rock climbing. One woman actually said, “Oooh, this can’t be good. If she’s making us change our mats, that means she’s going to do something really awful to us tonight!”

Really? Awful? Not perhaps something more like “challenging?” But awful? Yoga, for me, is an attempt to rid myself of my negative feelings and emotions. Maybe I’m being an elitist snob, but I feel like going into yoga with a negative attitude is like going to the beach and complaining it’s too sunny. The point of going to the beach is to get sun; the point of going to yoga is to release negativity.

It makes me wonder if the complainers are coming to class because they want to feel better and be healthier, or because it’s “the thing to do.”

Things got trickier when I got older, but still managable. My mom doesn’t have any family in the area, but my father does, so I ended up there by default. Even after I moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey, this never caused a problem as my mom would just pick me up from my cousin’s house (who was also in New Jersey) after Christmas dinner when I was younger; when I was older, I’d drive myself.

My father made it very clear when we moved to PA that Christmas Eve would always be at his house. This was mostly in response to actions by my step-brother, but also partly because my dad wanted to build a sense of tradition. So, every year for about sixteen years, my step-mother has made Christmas Eve dinner at their house (which for many of those years was also my house).

Then came The Unpleasantness ™. I’m not going to go what was involved with The Unpleasantness ™ because this isn’t really the place to air other people’s business (that’s what LiveJournal’s for), but suffice it to say that my father and step-mother have had a disagreement and while it has nothing to do with me, and they’re not getting divorced (as far as I know), the fallout is that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.

(I know what you’re thinking–”but, Amadei, if it doesn’t have anything to do with you, why doesn’t she want to see you?” It’s weird, yet true. I can actually say I had no hand in any of the events that went down, even from two states away.)

The fallout also includes me being at a bit of a loss for what I’m doing for Christmas Eve for the first time in…well…almost ever. Certainly the first time in my adult life.

It’s an odd sensation when a tradition goes awry.

It’s an odder sensation when I realized that this must be what Christmases are usually like for children of divorce–the not knowing what’s going to change and what’s going to stay the same. I didn’t go through any familial turmoil when I was eleven, but apparently I’m going to go through it at twenty-seven.

So far, it seems the biggest change will be that it will probably just be me and my daddy having dinner somewhere and the chance that I will have to go to midnight mass is quite slim.

But I’m okay with that. Happy holidays, one and all.

I had a 50/50 chance of pulling the girl out of the free kitten cage, so in a twist of fate, that’s exactly what I did. For about the next twenty years, my mom had to keep feeding the cats and kittens and kittens-of-those-kittens out her back door. Finally, she was able to catch the main female responsible for all the kittens and have her spayed and the number of cats showing up at the door has dwindled off to none.

That was my first kitten.

My second kitten was Skimble, an all white boy who was far too curious for his own good. One day, the door to outside didn’t latch properly and he snuck out. We saw him in the “wilderness” surrounding the townhouses every now and then, but he would never come close enough to be captured. Thank goodness I had gotten him neutered so I didn’t need to worry about him causing anymore kittens. That was four years ago.

Then kitten itch returned. I’ve discovered that my M.O. when making decisions is to waffle, waffle, waffle, but when I finally Make the Decision, it is Made and Must Be Done ™. Thus, I decided it was time for me to have another kitten.

I must have asked Pete about sixty million times if it was okay if I adopted a kitten. Even though he said yes every time, I knew that the Pud (who is Pete’s cat) would not approve. We figured it out and she’s thirteen and a half years old, even though she doesn’t look a day over seven. At any rate, she didn’t like Skimble, so the chances of her approving of a new baby were slim to none, but Pete said I could, so last Saturday we went off to the SPCA.

First we went to the adoption center in Philadelphia where they had no kittens available for adoption even though the website said they did. Since that didn’t pan out, we attempted plan two which was to drive to the Delaware County SPCA. They had kittens. Many kittens. Oodles of kittens. For some reason, that SPCA always has a lot of kittens–I think it’s because it’s such a rural location that there must be a lot of barn cats and outdoor cats that show up with kittens.

At any rate, I picked out a cute little tuxedo kitten with the name “Daisy” on the cage. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get in touch with Pud’s vet to verify that she was up-to-date on her shots, so we couldn’t take the kitten home. Boo, hiss.

On Sunday, I got a phone call that Daisy had a kitty cold and had to be put in isolation. Poor kitten! On Tuesday, I got a call that the SPCA had called the vet and Pud was not up to date on her shots…so I called the vet and made an appointment for her at five o’clock on Wednesday. I tried to call back the SPCA and see what would have to happen in order to bring the little tuxedo home, but no one answered.

I called them on Wednesday and was told that my hold on the kitten was expired because Pud didn’t have her shots, and there was another person interested in her, so if I wanted her, I needed to come that day.

I’ll admit it. I cried a little.

Then swoops in Pete to the rescue. One of the things that most frustrates me about the boy, but also makes me love him more is that he is slow to act, but when you light the fire under him, he Gets Things Done ™. As such, he told me that I would go be at the SPCA at five and HE would take his cat to the vet. Then, the SPCA could call as Pud was getting up to date on her shots and TA DA, kitten would be mine. I sniffled and said that was okay.

The time came and I drove down to the SPCA, picking up CAM! on the way. We hung out in the cattery for a while because it was before five. I decided we had to wait until Pud’s appointment before I tried to explain everything to the SPCA people. While we were in the cattery, I found a cute little grey tabby kitten named “Sweety” who was just too adorable. I picked her up and my heart was torn. I couldn’t have both kittens, but…aww…

I went to the front desk to get everything straightened out. The woman who helped me (whose name I can’t remember) called the vet and my apartment complex to verify everything was alright with them. Thus, my application was approved. So, I asked if there was someone else interested in the little tuxedo kitten as I’m a sucker for little girls who Really Wanted That Kitten or some other sob story…and the little grey kitten made me all gooey on the insides.

Turns out that the people who wanted to adopt Daisy had already adopted her sister (who was also in the cage with her on Saturday), and they wanted to keep the siblings together. So it was with a lighter heart that I decided to adopt Sweety instead.

Then I found out that I had forgotten my wallet at home, hence I had no ID. Luckily for me, they accepted an expired driver’s license I had in my car plus my car registration. Go me! Go Delco SPCA! Woo!

I’ve renamed her Hallelujah, for which I got teased by CAM! They may be a post of kitten pictures later.

And the Pud is DEFINITELY not happy. She went all hissy and is now in a bit of a sulk. First, there was the indignity of being taken to the vet and given shots, then she comes home and a new baby has arrived. She wouldn’t even sleep near Pete last night. Yep. A bit of a sulk.

“My wife and I made a deal where we could cheat as long as it was someone we chose in advance. She chose Harrison Ford. She’s just mad because I chose the babysitter.”

So that got me thinking about fidelity and love and celebrities. I went to see The Time Traveler’s Wife when it first came out and got to ogle Eric Bana for two hours, thinking about all the [blankity blank] things I’d like to do to him when all of a sudden I thought to myself, “Wait…is he married?”

That prompted me to look it up on Wikipedia and Eric Bana is, in fact, married. Since 1997. Then I felt a little skeevy that I was lusting over someone else’s husband. To add to my skeeviness, every other actor-who-I-think-is-hot’s page also list them as married or at least has a girlfriend. Does that make me a wannabe homewrecker? Should I even worry about these things?

I suppose the answer is yes and no, respectively. It’s all moot as the chances of me running into Orlando Bloom on the street are slim and the chance that he’d even notice me is slimmer, but it still feels weird. I’d question why it’s socially acceptable to lust over a married actor, but over a married next door neighbour, but it seems to all boil down to availabilty.

That, in turn, makes me wonder if in the actor’s community, it’s acceptable for an unmarried starlet to say to her girlfriends that she’d happily bang Ewan McGregor and if Eve Mavrakis, upon hearing this, gets upset the same way one of my friends would get upset if I said I wanted to do naughty things her husband. Ultimately, it would depend on what kind of woman Eve is, but in general, I wonder how it all plays out.

I will probably never know.

I’m not sure what history class is like in other countries, but when I was in school, it seemed like every US history class started with the Mayflower dropping off the Pilgrims and would get to somewhere around the Civil War by the end of the school year. Luckily, the teacher for Junior year moved at a faster clip and there was still plenty of time left in the school year when we finished the Civil War to move onto the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, etc.

Unluckily, this meant that a lot of the people in the class were suddenly in uncharted (or semi-uncharted) territory, myself included. Whereas previous classes had embellished and re-embellished previously known information, now we had to learn thing that were completely new.

Rather than actually reading the textbook, which I found insufferably boring, I solved this problem by sitting near the back of the class with my text open on the desk in front of me. As the teacher taught, she pretty much followed the flow of the textbook, so if she threw out a question to the class, I could find the answer quickly, then wait for someone else to answer.

No one ever did.

So, rather than all of us sit there waiting in silence for someone else to answer, I would raise my hand and answer it (and let me stress this) using the book that was sitting open on the desk in front of me.

I didn’t realize anyone noticed that I always had the answer until one day the teacher was trying to illustrate some point I can’t remember and said, “If I was suddenly called away from class because of an emergency, what would you all do to keep the class going?”

One of the other kids in the class else responded, completely honestly, with “Have Amadei teach the class. She seems to know everything already.” The rest of the class murmured in agreement.

I was flabbergasted. Somehow, they had made the connection that I always knew the answer, but they hadn’t made the connection that it was because I always had the book open in front of me. Because of the way the classroom was set up, I was in the back of the room, but most of the class was clustered against the wall farthest from me with a lot of empty desks in the middle, so there was no one blocking their view.

It was at this point that I realized something–when it comes to learning, people are lazy. Not only are people lazy, but they see some sort of mystical quality in people who take an extra step. Boggles my mind, frankly…

Heaven knows I’m not the most ambitious person, but I my tendency to look something up if I don’t know the answer makes me feel like the smartest girl in the world sometimes.

Maybe intelligence shouldn’t be measured by how many facts one knows, but one’s ability to research and find a correct answer. Maybe the smarter people are able to take an extra step beyond that and apply this new-found knowledge to the world around us. Maybe the geniuses take a leap from there and realize how the information could affect the world instead of how it already does.

That’s a lot of maybes…but it does give the opportunity for people to strive for intelligence instead of wandering in the doldrums of ignorance just because they don’t know how to open an IE Window and pull up Google.

“How do you find your PUGs?” he asked. I pondered this for a moment. Some are awful and some are great; they’re really a hit-or-miss situation. I’ve been in groups that got wiped out completely in five minutes and groups that took hours to finish one dungeon and groups that took ten minutes to do the same dungeon I just spent hours doing.

“Well,” I replied, “Sometimes  they go smoothly and sometimes they don’t. I guess it’s luck, really…”

Pete looked at me, the look on his face a mixture of incredulousness and confusion. Then the understanding clicked. “No, I mean how do you find them, now how you like them. If I wanted to know if you liked them, I would have asked you ‘How do you like them?’ not ‘How do you find them?’ I’m not British.”

I’m not British, either, so I”m not entirely sure what he was going for there, but…ah, journey to self discovery.

*PUG is an acronym for pick-up group. This means that you’re running with people you don’t know; you just fill out a spot for whatever’s needed.

I’ll be damned if “Do Wah Diddy” isn’t the name of the song.

Now he’s in the other room shouting “SCIENCE!” and raising his arm. Life is weird, sometimes.

I say “raised as” because even though I’ve always known about my big brother, I didn’t get the chance to actually meet him until last year, a few months after my twenty-sixth birthday. He’s nineteen years older than I am, so I’m not sure my life would have been any different even if we had met sooner as he would have been somewhere in the middle of his Freshman year of college when I was born.

My place in the family has always been a little on the strange side. My father is the baby of his family, sixteen years younger than his oldest brother. Adding on the fact that my father was forty-three when I was born leaves me in a sort of gap-area as far as cousins go. I’m over ten years younger than the next youngest cousin in my generation, and five years older than the oldest of my cousin’s children.

What this meant to me when I was younger was two things:

1. There was usually no one for me to play with at family gatherings.
2. I was always relegated to the “kid table,” so I was forever trying to advance myself to sitting at the “grown up table” because five years means so much when you’re fifteen and you have to sit with a ten-year-old and an eight-year-old.

Last Saturday, I went to my aunt’s house to visit with the four cousins that came from my Uncle Augie, the proverbial black sheep of the family.

Don’t worry, I’m probably the black sheep of mine, so I say that with love and affection.

I haven’t seen these cousins (or their children, who were all there except one) in years–while my father’s sister’s children all mostly stayed in Vineland, NJ, my Uncle Augie’s children ended up scattered to the winds–central New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio. No one’s particularily close to one another except the youngest–she lives close to her mother (the aunt at whom’s house we gathered) in PA.

When I walked in the door, I was quickly reintroduced to everyone–somewhat redundant as I feel like my cousins haven’t changed at all (which they would probably be delighted to hear me say) and it was easy to figure out which of their children was which as my memory for names and approximate ages is unsurpassed (preen, preen).

My father showed up, late as usual, and the introductions began again as my step-mom isn’t as familiar with everyone. In my dad’s old age (ha ha), he’s become very interested in his family history, and in my cousins, he found a whole new audience for the stories I’ve heard a million times before.

But the stories get old, even to me, and I found myself at one point sitting in a chair in my aunt’s living room watching Jacob-the-six-year-old and Rowan-the-fourteen(?)-year-old playing with action figures on the coffee table while Ryan, the oldest of that generation at nineteen, lounged on the couch behind them trying to assemble some action figure whose appendages are held on with magnets. On the chair that matched mine, Madelynne (who’s sixteen) was drawing in her sketchbook; alternating between a green armchair and running around was her sister Alaeta who’s somewhere around ten years old. My dad, step-mom, my aunt, and my cousins were outside talking or puttering in the kitchen. It was at that moment I realized something.

I was sitting at the kids table.

And I liked it better than the grown up table.

I mentioned this to Ryan, and he laughed. Then he rolled his eyes and said, “Well, duh. The grown up table doesn’t have action figures.” Very true.