For the technically-minded, this is the same photo but embedded from Flickr to show the slight difference in quality. The server at Flickr is more capable and presents images with more detail. Also WordPress tends to reprocess the images which removes a little bit of detail.
When I show these photographs of me and Gabriel I am painfully aware that I’m also showing people a bit of my apartment and how I live, which to some people may seem a bit strange. Perhaps it is a bit strange 😉 .
The reason why I am wearing a scarf in bed is to keep myself a little bit warmer during these chilly days.
Whenever I look at myself in photographs that I’ve taken of Gabriel, but in which I appear, I always look fatter than I think I am which says quite a lot about how I think about myself (dreaming!) 😉 . I’ve just been down to the gym on a rowing machine and I rowed hard for half an hour to get rid of some of that damn fat which I hate. I was raised on boarding school food so I like the wrong sort of food.
Gabriel is very cute in this photo. He asked to be in this exact position. he climbed up and plonked down. He watched me working on the computer from that position for a while. I typed the preceding article with him watching me. It slowed me down somewhat.
Once again the photo was taken blind. Fortunately he is centered nicely.
Well, it’s another “Wow, what a comment” from me, Sylvia Ann.
I began using the Forti-Flora that was gifted to me by a very dear friend who was using it with one of her boys with digestive issues.
I decided to give it a try on my Tiger who has bouts of blasting diarrhea and gas. I had tried everything under the sun trying to get it under control. Nothing helped until now. It’s not perfect, but he has had fewer bouts and with less intensity. He would, literally, cry out when he blasted. I’ve become a believer. But, I’m very much aware that I have to be as consistent in its continued use as I am with L-lysine. Otherwise it’s a waste of time, effort, and money.
Now, perhaps I should have stuck with an “I” instead of a “we” when I wrote that there was a need for self-acceptance. I don’t see how I could, personally, be happy if I saw myself as flawed or unacceptable. To be clear, I’m talking about myself. I could care less whether others see me in a different light.
And, you mention men leaving their wives for younger women… LOL!
Women, sometimes, leave their husbands for younger men too.
I’ve been with a few men in my time, and none were less than 8 years younger than me.
No need to be sorry, Dee! Nothing wrong in disagreeing. Actually, can’t believe my comment appeared under that post. Tried to transmit it this morning – which it wouldn’t do, far as I could figure, so tried it again, and then there it was in this week-old essay. And compulsive nit-picker that I am, I changed the 2nd version to read ‘it didn’t work for MY cat,’ or words to that effect.
‘Forti-Flora’ was glowingly recommended by my new vet and his assistant. But as I mentioned in an e-mail I’ll zap to Ruth if I ever get up to the library in this wind & rain, the Internet has a modicum of info on IBS, a nebulous malady that often evades a diagnosis and a cure (even w/surgery), if I followed half of what I was reading.
Is that what Sid has? Who knows? The vet said he might have to undergo a battery of tests, and even then they might not know why he has diarrhea. I didn’t realize he had this problem at the time I was trying to foist him off on MB, by the way.
Sid loves the flavor of this stuff. But it doesn’t stop the trots. (Also read it contains ‘cat digest’ –and how is that obtained? I visualize something hideously cruel.) The nurse also said not to give him canned fish – just canned meats, lamb and poultry. That’s what he gets, and he’s still squirting. Don’t know what will help him. Some days he also has gas-attacks and – for the first time – he gave indications of feeling ill for a couple of hours yesterday. But then he appeared to recover. He’s not fat, but he’s heavy and well-muscled, and has a good appetite five or more times a week. He still has these butterscotch droppings, however – sometimes nearly liquefied – which I take to mean he doesn’t retain his victuals long enough to absorb their nutrients. Can he go on like this indefinitely?
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Re ‘wattles’: our poor fur-kids undergo plastic surgery (blapheroplasties [sp] etc.) for sagging eyelids and compressed snouts created by heartless breeders bent on keeping us amused. Years ago, though, I was shocked to see one of our cats when the vet shaved him bare to rid him of some skin itch or other. Young as he was and well-fed, he was a mass of corrugations. A feline Sharpei. But people, for sure, are harder on themselves in this regard than they are on their fur-kids.
Why?
Am confessing a dismal truth here: short men, to my mind, are unappealing, though my father, a Barry Fitzgerald lookalike, was 5’2” and an earth-angel. I knew a guy once with silver-screen looks, education and money. But he was 5’3”, the same height as I was, and it totally ruined him, given my bias. Sad for him? Hardly. He was appealing to droves of women.
Back to the wattles.
You maintain that ‘we NEED to accept, etc.’ Who is the WE?
Men can leave their wives for younger women. As Desmond Morris observed, flab is ‘anti-erotic.’ Lovely for her? That might depend on the settlement. Would a hitch-job have kept him around? Probably not. Marriages fall flat with the years. Not all. About half. It’s normal to want a change of scene.
As for self-acceptance, there are two kinds of people who go through life with minimal suffering, unless they’re in physical pain. (1) Those who don’t sorrow overmuch – or not at all – over the decline and death of others, including their companion animals. (2) The Blessed of the Earth: people who throughout their lives, right up to the end, retain a child’s unawareness of their physical appearance. My grandma was an aerial sprite. It never crossed her mind how she looked to other people. She was no more aware of her structural oddities than a two-year-old. She lived a halcyon life. Sleeveless dresses every summer, into her 90s. (Liz Taylor took care to wear long sleeves.) Shorts on the beach. Then again, WAS she that happy? Her husband was wooing a younger woman when she, my grandmother, was in her 80s, and he was pushing 90.
I’ve also known lip-pursing folk who enjoy comparing themselves to women whose weakness of character nudges them into wearing makeup and shaving their legs. People who, given their moral stature, pity as weaklings anyone who caps their teeth or resorts to cosmetic surgery. And they’re right. It’s true. The heroes and heroines in our midst are those who triumph over trivial esthetics, who make the world a better place, who love and are loved in return for their intrinsic merits – their honesty, courage and compassion.
And here’s something every bit as true. Hundreds and probably thousand of surveys have shown that the presence of ‘pretty’ and ‘handsome’ can get most people farther in life more quickly & easily than its absence. Ralph Nader, for one, detested this worldview. But there it is. Skin-deep. Graven in granite. Looks can land you a better job, more frequent raises, more romance (or promiscuity), more everything potentially good. There’s no getting around it. Men adore bimbos. Cantilevered chicks. Would they marry one? Not necessarily. But she’s still a part of his juiciest fantasies. Women flip out for men who pop steroids. Is this fair to the flat-chested, plain-featured billions with pipe-stem arms and hearts of gold? Is much of anything fair? Steven Hawkins [sp] made it. Less than ravishing women succeed in illustrious careers. But people can have an easier time if they start out in life with a pretty face. Like it or not, it opens doors. You disagree? I respect disagreement.
As for getting old – ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light!’ wrote the poet. Is acceptance easier than a doomed struggle? Than Joan Rivers’s surgeons and Michael Jackson ‘hyperbaric chamber?’ No argument there.
Jo – this is just bad! BAD that you’ve gone! Miss you, as no doubt everyone else does – and have read and reread, among all the others, your essays on horses. EGADS! You lost me there! Love most critters but ticks, fleas & Bogie-sucking African leeches! But horses?
Wish you could see little Flora, my pet spider. She’s old as dirt. Have had her for years. Catch and feed her a fly every week or so. She rushes out of her funnel-web, hands outstretched to catch her goody, and then, when she’s finished, carries it back and throws it off the edge, tidy little girl that she is.
Yet I’m petrified by horses. Have been bucked and trampled by a horse I had when I was six. Pulverized tail-bone. Bludgeoned psyche. The whole nine miles. Several years ago, a friend of mine was riding a horse that suddenly stopped. She slid off her new saddle, flew through the air in this ghastly trajectory, and landed on a pile of rocks. When the medics helped her up, her hand hung off her arm at a strange angle. Two surgeries later, it’s still backwards or something. Admire your bravery, but am puzzled by your affinity for horses.
Yes – as you say, little Gabby-man is adorable. But pretty? He’s nice, as are millions of others out there. A beautiful cat is Katy/Katie, Helmi’s current portrait. But no doubt about it, Gab is a cutie. Also looks smart. Dead wrong to give him up. Fostering is for the still young who have the resilience to love, lose and move on. He needs to be kept.
Hope your gorgeous Sir Dabney Figwell and Col. Hush Puppy are doing great. (Heaven have mercy – forgot their names . . .)
Anyhow, miss you and your essays, and am feeling down & out. Just wanted you to know. Keep writing, and take care.
Total agreement. Well said.
Michael, a “wattle” (I believe from watching Ally McBeal) is the slack skin under the chin, just where it joins the top of the throat. Probably what we Brits call a “turkey” neck 🙁
Glad you’re not tempted down the surgery route. Nothing wrong with aging gracefully, but wanting to stay as physically fit as possible whilst doing so.
Let me get this straight…We’re writing about Michael feeling “fattish”…
So far, we’ve been talking about middle-aged spread, camera adding 10 pounds, plastic surgery, and wattling.
I have to ask if any of us would be so alarmed by a “wattling” in an old cat so much that we would consider plastic surgery or liposuction.
We need to accept ourselves as we are. There is no turning back the clock. The best we can do is to stay as active as we can, exercise, and eat right in order to give us the best quality possible.