Pictures and Whatnot

Last weekend I spent some much-needed down-time up in northwest VT with the family and I stayed the weekend with my sister and grandmother, I also got to visit with my aunt, soon-to-be-cousin-by-marriage (?)(sorry, her name escapes me right now), and one of the newest additions to the family, stbcbm's adorable new baby boy, Isaiah. I had a good time while up there and I've gained a lot of insight. For reasons I won't explain right now, my sister & grandmother have been a huge blessing to me and have helped me to understand the rest of my family a little better. I actually owe many positive life changes to these two fine ladies. It is because of their wisdom and example that I am not so much of an angry person as I used to be. Also my dear sister keeps recommending good reading to me which has helped me see a lot of things differently. Speaking of which, I finally picked up the book: The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. It is much better than the movie and I can't believe that I've procrastinated for so long in reading it! I am already about 2/3 of the way through and quite impressed. Further proof that just because a book is frequently banned does not mean that it is literature without high merit.

...and a few pictures from my weekend:

Hats hanging in the entrance lobby in The Lincoln Inn in Essex Junction, VT, where my sister, grandmother, and I went for breakfast (a piece of local color that I would recommend by the way, not as good as it used to be, but still worth having a meal at).

Grandmother and Sister

Grandmother and I

In random other news, I'm still having issues with my roommate's cat, Mr. Spud (previously mentioned in this posting). He is very cute and I have no desire to eject him from the household, but he is still a discipline issue. Please consider that I am very permissive about where I allow cats to roam in my household, but food-surfaces such as kitchen counters and tables are strictly off-limits. He still gets up on the counters and tables regardless of all the discipline he's had. I've tried yelling, I've tried throwing light, noisy objects, I've tried scruffing and light smacking with a rolled newspaper (whenever caught in the act). All of this to no effect. It also does not help that he literally has developmental issues and it generally takes him seven times longer to pick up behavioral cues. So for lack of any other method working, I tried something new. I've noticed that my other cats do the usual cat-thingy and hiss while showing their teeth when his roughhousing with them gets out of hand, and he understands that perfectly well. So now whenever I catch him in the act of doing something which he shouldn't do, I take a threatening posture and bare my teeth, hissing very loudly and it actually WORKS. It looks ridiculous and I hope none of my neighbors ever see me doing this... but I am glad to finally have a working method for training him.