Blaring phones and Two Year Old Cats – Thoughts from July 24 and 25, 2023

July 24, 2023

I went into a break room to have my lunch and there was only one other person in there. The volume on her phone was blaring. I stood it as long as I could and asked her to turn it down. She was immediately rude and asked me why she should turn it down. I went into my Other People Exist speech and got nowhere. She asked someone else who came in the room if her phone disturbed them and I could tell that person didn’t want to get involved. I told the rude woman the person didn’t want to talk to her because she was being rude. She finally was leaving, and I asked her what her mother would think of her behavior. She said, “Have a nice day,” and I said, “I wish I could say the same.” My back was acting up the whole time. Conflict sends my back into spasms. The first few bites of my meal were with a shaky hand. It calmed me down to relate the story to Patti and now you.

I spend my worst days dealing with people who don’t care about others, especially when I’m included in those people. Why people choose to be rude to others when no one is being rude to them is a question I often have. Some people are simply looking for people to have an attitude toward. You can’t tell them what to do. I don’t know if this comes from overbearing parents or a feeling that the only control they have in their lives is with strangers. Maybe I represent her neighbor who is always complaining that her music is too loud. I would probably be that neighbor if I had to live next to her. I’ve said it before and here I go again, how you treat strangers shows how good a person you are.

This entry is super short.

July 25, 2023

Today, the Littles turned two years old. The Littles, of course, are Scout’s kittens. Beatrix, Luna, and Willow are 24 in human years. Technically, mom is also two years old. Quest was 13, which is 68 in human years. As a person who is closer to 68 than 24 years old, it doesn’t sound that old. Our oldest cat was 21 years old when she left us. According to an online chart about cats’ ages, she was a super senior. Quest was only a senior. Just like Quest and her siblings, we know exactly when the Littles were born. Scout was still growing when we got her so we don’t know exact information on when she was born. The vet sent us a birthday card for Scout that said November 5th, so that’s what we call her birthday.

This entry is even shorter than my last entry. Now I feel silly pointing out the shortness of the previous entry. I think the only reason I did it yesterday was an homage to my early entries. Some of them were truly short. If you read all my previous Thoughts papers in chronological order, you would know how short some entries were. Actually, I can forgive you for not remembering them because there were so many. I’ve had entries that were just a few words. I can only remember two times I did that. Perhaps there were more, but it hardly seems worth your time for me to keep going on about it. This paragraph and entry are officially over.