One Day At A Time

Today is a great testament to the power pregnant-woman-pheromones hold over cats.

Our cat Ginger does not like other cats. Not one bit. She's gone totally ballistic over the proximity of a small kitten before, and continued to growl at the spot he'd been rolling in even after we removed him. I have considered it a great accomplishment that she has mostly been able to coexist with Harmony since we moved here. If she spots Harmony, she'll grumble and growl and generally act like an old man shaking his cane and telling the kids to get off his lawn, but there's no active fighting or anything. Even that time when, to our horror, Harmony (not too much older than a kitten and still holding many of the attitudes) decided a fun game would be to stalk Ginger's tale.

Most places in the house, Ginger just gets told to shush and stop grumbling. I do allow her a safe haven though; my room. For one thing, her food and water are in here, so I don't want Harmony stealing them anyway. More importantly, though, it's a little much to ask her to deal with something she's not really happy about without giving her some place to retreat to. So while Harmony occasionally comes in or passes through, if Ginger starts growling, Harmony gets told to move it along.

So between the fact that she knows she's generally not allowed in here and her own tendency to be energetic and a bit skittish, it's miracle enough for Harmony to jump on my bed and curl up next to me at all. The biggest miracle of all, though, is that not a single peep was heard about this out of Ginger.

Of course, cats are contrary things, and in the time taken waiting for the new post page to load (throttled 'net is a wonderful thing, let me tell ya) and typing all this, sadly, this blissful state has ended. Ginger apparently woke up enough to notice Harmony was there and growl at her, with a hiss or two thrown in.

That said, even that was pretty short-lived, and she's already mostly decided she can't really be bothered grumbling. Or even sulking. Aside from the occasional punctuation of a grumble from that end of the bed, she appears to have curled up to go back to sleep now.

So, I think I'll take the opportunity to enjoy my fill of double cat love, as they've never been willing to coexist so closely before. I'll take all I can get while it lasts... even if it's just because they're both so obsessed with me being pregnant that neither is willing to leave me to get away from the other.

This isn't much of a post, because there's not an awful lot to post about right now, but at least things are looking hopeful.

More baby stuff has been gotten together, and a camera should be on its way to me soon, so when the time comes I will be able to regale you with pictures! Also, I might finally be able to update my facebook profile page which is over five years old at this point.

It seems likely that my husband has found some good-paying work. Even if he doesn't get this particular job, he's in good standing now with a pretty reliable temping agency, so the job search has at least gotten that much easier.

My next appointment with the midwife is tomorrow. I'm finding it remarkably easy to go into without any expectations; I'm honestly clueless as to what I should even hope for, never mind expecting anything. You can probably expect an update on that in the next couple days. I still haven't heard back from child services and I'm not sure how much longer that will be, but it's looking reasonably hopeful that nothing will come of all this.

It's nice that things are looking up. Usually I'd need to be putting in more effort in order to not just sit here waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it's much easier not to be pessimistic when the week has already been somewhat poor. If I never have to deal with so much of one of the worse aspects of society at one time again, I still would've had too much for a lifetime.

Here's to things going better, going forward. For everyone.

So today, in the midst of all the town stuff, my darling husband and my metamour clearly went to a second-hand store of some kind. I stayed home, so I'm not entirely sure where. One thing they got was a couple of sets of drawers, for which I am very glad.There's still lots of clothes that need sorting among the various boxes, and the lack of home for them has given my nesting a serious stumbling block, which has in turn made me antsy.

Now we just need bookshelves. Lots and lots of bookshelves.

What they also found and grabbed while they were there, however, is this:

The idea was that it would be a great activity for me to share with baby as he got older, and that in the meantime, I might enjoy it myself. Certainly not an idea without merit; genetics is of great interest to me, and science and biological sciences too in a slightly broader sense. I originally went for the course to become a veterinarian at uni; when I didn't quite make the entrance cut, I fell back on genetics as a major.

If anything, the biggest flaw in this plan would be that I might get a little... too interested.

The set includes a simple light microscope, a magnifying glass, a (rather poor) pocket telescope, two collecting vials, a 'hatchery' thing, 8 blank slides, 2 prepared slides, spatula, tweezers, stirring rod and a small  plastic box with labels, slide covers and cover glasses. Sadly missing is the petri dish with what looks, on the picture, to be a magnifying lid. Probably the best of all the equipment for the kind of things most kids are likely to want to look at; really, a dissecting microscope is probably better than a light microscope.

Immediately, my mind sets into gear considering possibilities for actual usage. The prepared slides are definitely an awesome touch, but the novelty of looking at a bee's wing and what appears to be a bee's leg (the second slide is unlabeled for some reason) can only last so long.

Firstly, any kind of regular usage is going to mean getting new cover slips, especially as about half of the original twelve appear to have been used already. Fortunately, that's unlikely to be too expensive at a guess, given the enormous volume of usage they see in labs. Certainly the containers at uni tended to come in groups of 100 or more; they're small, single-use items, and kind of fragile to boot. Slides get washed, but every single successful and failed slide both means a cover slip disposed.

Then of course, there's the fact that like all low-end light microscopes, it doesn't have its own light source. So a desk lamp is probably a good idea at some point, because natural light is notoriously unreliable and makes actually using the things a bit of a nightmare.

Then there's the problem of the ideal things for light microscopes to look at... even of the fairly easily obtained samples, practically all of them require more precise tools than the cheap mostly-plastic ones provided, and many of them require stains to be properly viewed too...

Um. You can see where I might be inclined to get carried away, no? Actually, the tools problem is fairly easily solved... but that solution probably supports the point all the more. Namely, I'm fairly sure I know which box my dissection kit from animal bio is in.

Certainly I am sure, if my son displays any interest in science, that things will be very interesting.

I think perhaps my husband's attempts to restrain me from creating a small laboratory in a suitable corner of the house in the process might be more interesting, though...

So, for the past few months or so, the North Island of our fair New Zealand has been in varying levels of drought. I'm not sure entirely how bad or how long; I know Napier was on water restriction, but until recently I lived in Palmerston North. Not only has it not been as bad all the way down the bottom of the North Island there, but Palmie itself is on a floodplain. Possibly even the only one in NZ. At any rate, the Manawatu breaks its banks fairly regularly there and as a rule the city is pretty chronic for rain, so the rest of the country could be in a drought and we'd experience maybe moderately dry.

When I moved to Tauranga it was certainly dry and hot enough to notice, though, and up this far the ground was noticeably dry. Then, maybe a week ago, it started raining. Like, raining. It has pissed down at least once a day every day. I was already starting to get a little concerned that we might see flooding.

But this was not the last to be heard from the weather, oh no. Tonight, we have even heavier rain, accompanied by thunderstorms. Not just here, either. So far I've heard of similarly severe rain in Palmerston North, Wellington and Christchurch. One of my Wellington relatives has been asking on facebook if anyone there happens to be building an ark, a call which I think I'll second.

Of course, for some strange reason, it's sunny in Ashhurst, approximately 15km out of Palmie.

What the hell, weather?