Jun 21, 2011

Chocolate

The Easter candy is gone.

The Mother's Day candy is gone.

I'm declaring Summer Solstice a chocolate-buying holiday.

Jun 3, 2011

Don't Feed the Kitten!

Before the flames begin, I have nothing against kittens. We own two cats (or maybe they own us?) and they are members of our family. I love them. I take care of them. As every mom knows, every pet a family acquires is one more job for mom. "Oh, but I'll take care of him - I promise!" only carries water until something more interesting comes along. Sigh. But that's not what I'm talking about today. If you're a suburban or small town family, you might at one time or another, have a stray cat wander around your neighborhood. If you feed the kitten, what happens? Feeding a kitten doesn't make him go away, does it? He knows where he got food last time, and he'll be back tomorrow (or sooner) for more. It's said that the person more likely to do you a favor is not the person who owes you a favor, but the one who has done you a favor. H'mmm. So if I do the kitten a favor and feed him, he won't do anything for me, but come back and expect more? Makes me want to stop feeding the kitten. I have friends who are kittens. They want, they need, they know who is a sucker for a sob story. The problem is, the circumstances (poor choices and excuse-making) that caused the need in the first place didn't change, so therefore the need is never ending. By enabling the friend not to change, I am doing her a disservice. She won't grow up - why should she? I expect better behavior out of my children. Why do I tolerate it in my "friends?" As I drove to work a couple days ago, I saw, on a corner of a busy intersection, a small (dirty) white little kitten. Licking its paw, it was cute and pathetic. I wanted to throw my car in park, run and scoop up the kitten and take it home, and then be late to work. Fortunately, wisdom won out. My intuition said "Connie, you cannot do everything I want you to do, if you let yourself be drained by the kittens." I heeded the wisdom, and drove on to work. I got the message.