Articles from April 2019

Froggie Loves Kitty

Late last summer, a gray tree frog fell in love with our cat Creamsicle.  She’s a beautiful cat, but I never thought she’d inspire cross-species desire:

Froggie Loves Kitty 1

The frog looks and sounds like this:

 

Here are the Facebook posts I made about this last year:

Aug 28, 2018: Last night, a tiny gray frog (tree frog?) hung around on the [living room picture window] windowsill for hours. Kitty went nuts. Once, the froggie even leaned against the window [his “hand” up against the window, very casual-like] and stared at the kitty. Another time, when we were ignoring it, it made some loud chirps. I guess kitty made a “friend” (though she’d try to eat it if not for the window in between).

Sept 4: Froggie’s back, staring into the window at the cat.

Sept 5, after midnight: Froggie chirped at us again, his little throat bubbling up, so I could confirm: This is a gray tree frog.

Sept 5, afternoon: Looks like Tree Froggie left a big present on our windowsill last night. ?

Sept 6: We found Froggie hanging on the screen last night by the usual window. Kitty went crazy, batting at the window until he hopped onto the sill. (The window was closed.) The noise he made the other day while looking at the cat–that’s a tree frog mating call. I may start calling him Kermit for his inter-species crush.

This is actually unrelated, but another cute sight from Sept 6: Saw a fox on the trail today, playing in the sun, rolling around in the dirt, lying in the sun. But he saw me and off he went.

[Which reminds me of what the local newspaper posted on Facebook recently:]

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=527621554431071

Sept 8: We haven’t seen Froggie for a couple of nights. The kitty keeps looking, too. The mowers came through Thursday, so I really hope they didn’t get him.

Sept 12: We haven’t *seen* Froggie for a while, but we keep hearing that chirp nearby.

Sept 15: Froggie’s back, and oh, is Kitty excited.

Then fall/winter came and Froggie went away, hopefully just to hibernate.

But now I keep hearing a familiar sound around the house….Could it be Froggie?

Don’t treat introverts like this

For a moment, I wonder if any other cultures in the world expect so much openness toward complete strangers.  It feels unnatural.  A person can’t be best buds with everybody they meet.  You have to be around them longer than a few minutes before you can open up.  You don’t really know what kind of person they are, or if you have anything in common.

While you’ve decided in ten minutes that I’m generally morose and must be taught to open up and be the life of the party, or that I’m the one making the hubby reserved–Well, you know nothing about me at all.  You sure don’t know the hubby, either.  He acts his own way, and I have nothing to do with it.  If I’m not bubbling over in laughter ten minutes after meeting you, it’s because nobody has said anything that funny, NOT because I have no sense of humor.  I’m also very shy.  It’s a natural trait, one I was born with, and one that can’t be eradicated or changed.

It gets particularly annoying to have people you’ve just met try to force you into laughter, or “jokingly” insult you, when your entire life, people have abused and otherwise mistreated you for being quiet, shy and introverted.

When people would corner you and scold you for not being “more lively.”

When guys would scold you for not being more playful/extroverted, and refuse to date you because you’re shy and/or introverted.

When an ex called you a “party pooper” as one reason why you’re a horrible person so he’s not coming back to you, even though you had always been playful and witty with him.  An ex who, by the way, turned out to be an abusive narcissist who can’t settle down with one job or one woman.  And you wonder if it’s because some creeps did nothing to make you feel comfortable at a party, and then talked about you behind your back, and the guy you liked turned it into yet another reason to scold you for acting “wrong.”

When people comment so often on your quietness in social gatherings that you started spending less and less time in social gatherings over the years.  That you have written thousands of words on the subject and posted them online.  So you have long since stopped the polite smiling and laughing you once did when people commented on you not talking.

When a couple abused and manipulated you because of your naturally quiet and introverted ways, so you had to break up with them, then spend years trying to undo the abuse and gaslighting they did on your head–while they stalked you online.

Then you go to a party and people bully you for being quiet and not bubbling over with laughter with people you just met who haven’t said anything particularly funny yet.  And get all amazed when you do laugh at something that actually is funny, as if you never do it.  When the truth is you laugh often and easily.  It’s just not funny for people to make personal remarks and try to force you into laughter when you don’t feel like it.

It’s just the way we are.  And no, we can’t change it.  We don’t particularly want to, either.  Because this is our natural state.

And no, it isn’t funny.  It’s not a joke.  We won’t have a good time.  In fact, you’ve just turned an enjoyable party into a horrible ordeal.

We aren’t sitting here waiting for somebody to tell us we have to smile or laugh or jump around or talk, and then we will just magically start doing it.  IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.  We’re not trick ponies.

Seriously, crap like this makes an introvert turn into a hermit even if she/he wasn’t one before.  We may be polite to you to avoid a scene, but we will quietly seethe.

It’s obnoxious and rude to treat us this way.

F*CKING STOP IT.

 

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