Month: November 2019

The Human Life Of Misha Hhrrru? ep. 8.

Hhrrru? 😻

Yay! Finally I’ve got to write another post. How are you all pets and peeps doing? Here’s another episode of my what-if human life. *****

March 9

I am Misha. I am 8. I just came back from school today. It was mostly a very boring day but the last lesson we had was plast plast –
that is how I call art. – I love plast plast! My Mum does it, and my plast plast teacher used to go to college with her, but she’s not very nice to me because my mum is her friend. It’s the opposite. She is very demanding. She wants more from me than all the other kids. When any other kid does something a bit wrong she says it’s okay as it is, but when I do even a very little mistake, she is very worried and wants me to try more. I used to be a bit sad about it and think I’m so very bad at plast plast, and I didn’t want to be bad at plast plast because I love it and my family always tells me I am a very good painter, but mum told me she does it because she wants me to develop my talent. I guess it’s very nice of her. I want to be a very good painter and now I’m happy when she tells me that something is wrong. But at the same time, she’s hardly ever satisfied. She constantly wants me to improve something and even mum says she’s a bit too harsh on me because I am just a little child. But guess what? Today she was very happy with me.

She wanted us to draw or paint or present in any possible way that suits us, our favourite season. My favourite season is autumn, because I love leaves. I like to think about them. But it makes me sad when I think about lonely leaves. When one fallen leaf is lying alone, or among leaves of a different kind, with no leaf of its own kind, or if there is only one leaf on a twig or the whole tree, it makes me so very sad. When I feel lonely, I often think that I feel like a lonely leaf. Some people say it’s stupid because leaves are never lonely, but I think they can be, very often. Whenever it’s autumn and leaves are falling and I come back from school, I try not to step on them. My mum says I’m too sensitive about leaves and that they have no feelings. But I just love them! I’ve always had. It makes me sad when someone says they don’t feel anything, I’m sure they do. But mum thinks I have such strange thoughts and ideas because I’m the only child and have no one to play with. But I have Feluś, and when I don’t have Feluś I have myself to play with. And even if I had many siblings and many friends, which would be very lovely, I guess I still would be myself, wouldn’t I? With my own thoughts and ideas. I would still have enough place in my heart to love leaves and care for them. And when it’s getting cold, I sometimes take a couple leaves home with me and put them close to my bed, so that they are warm and cosy and they have me and I have them. Mum says it’s unhygienic. But how can something as natural as leaves be unhygienic? Perhaps I’ll have to make a bath for them when I take them home next year before I put them in my bedroom. I wonder how they would feel about that. But I wanted to talk about plast plast. So of course I decided I will paint an autumn picture. An autumn forest with colourful trees and with lots of leaves, but no lonely leaves because I didn’t want to feel sad. I miss leaves because there are none at this time of year. They were all happy and with their leaf families, and leaves on the trees were happy too. i even managed to paint the wind moving the leaves, and light rain was falling. I painted birds and some other small animals, and a little grey cat rolling around among the leaves. I was so engrossed in this that I didn’t know what was going on around me and suddenly I felt someone elbowing me. It was Feluś, he sits with me in class. “Hey, you, Misha, I’m speaking to you.” – he whispered. – “Hmmm what?” – I asked, looking up from my picture at him reluctantly. “I asked why do you painted a cat in this forest. Cats don’t live in the forest”. “This one does.” “Ahaa, and of course this cat is called Misha?” – he asked giggling. – I have a book series about a cat called Misha, and I myself often feel like I’d love to be a cat, and I often include a cat called Misha in my paintings. Feluś thinks it’s weird, and that I am weird, but he likes me anyway. I nodded, and got back to my picture. I finished it, and had a lot of time to wait for all the others to finish. Finally the teacher said the time has passed and that she’d now like to see our works. She came to me and Feluś in the end, and seeing my picture, she gasped.
“Oh, Misha! This is beautiful! Very simple, but you really have a knack for colour, I must admit that. There’s still a long way for you to go but I can say it now in front of the whole class that you are very talented and you need to develop it. But, why did you paint a cat here?” “It’s a cat called Misha.” “Ah, well, I assume this explains everything” – she laughed. – She didn’t understand and pretended she did, I don’t like it, but other than that I was sooooo very happy that she praised me. I got an A for this painting. I’m home now. My mum is abroad for a couple of days and grandma is here. She cooks us meals and all. It’s grandma from dad’s side, who lives nearby, not the one who gave me the books about Misha the cat. I’d prefer that grandma to come here and take care of me. This grandma is always irritated and grumpy and complains about everything and forces me to eat things I don’t like and is always asking what I’m doing and whether I did my homework, as if I never did, and when she’s not watching me she’s constantly watching very strange series on the telly. I’m not a baby, she doesn’t have to remind me of my school work. Today we had mushroom soup and liver for dinner, yuck! I guess grandma can cook better than mum, because mum often swears while cooking, cuts her fingers and does lots of strange unnecessary things and is always in a hurry, when she makes cereal for me she boils milk over most days so I’m late for school because she has to boil it twice or doesn’t remember to take out the cake in time from the oven, and grandma knows what she’s doing or at least she looks like she does, but at least mum doesn’t force me to eat what I don’t like, and grandma doesn’t even let me eat cereal. I had to eat scrambled eggs today for breakfast and I hate them. But actually I don’t like a lot of foods. I don’t even like bread, I never did. And grandma says it’s because I’m spoiled and don’t respect what other people do for me. No, I don’t if they do something I don’t like when they know I don’t like it, it’s malicious. But I actually haven’t done my homework today yet, so I better get to it now. Misha 💜 💙 💚

Question of the day.

Do you have a favourite zodiac sign?

My answer:

I’m not sure, I guess not really, but I do tend to get along with Pisces very well as well as Cancers, and I know very many cool Tauruses. I don’t associate with people based on their sign but it is strange how many people in my surroundings and my friends that I get on well with are Pisces haha.

Do you have a favourite? 🙂

Question of the day (27th November).

Hi people. 🙂

Let’s stay with the astrology related questions for a while.

Have you ever done your natal chart? If so, what is your sun sign, moon sign and ascendant?

My answer:

Yes, I did years ago although I don’t remember much from that. I’ve always thought I’m not a very typical Aquarius in many respects, but there were things I could relate to in it. If I remember correctly my moon sign is Scorpio, and my ascendant is Libra. What do I relate to in that? Let’s see, I’ll do it quickly again for the purpose of this post.

Aquarian people are said to think outside the box and don’t like to follow the crowd which I think can be definitely said about me. I also think it’s true that I’m curious and observant, as well as intellectual and can be aloof. And I am also quirky and different which is most certainly true. But all the other things they tend to often say about Aquarians, like that they for example like change and like to reform their surroundings, is not really true of me either at all or barely.

Aquarians with Libra as the rising sign are bright and like to live in their mind, are unusual and can be impractical or easily distracted. That’s all mostly true I think, apart from being easily bored that they also say. I hate boredom but am not easily bored if I am able to do what I want.

And as for my moon sign, now that’s eerily in line with me in some respects. Lunar Scorpio eople are said to be emotionally intense and driven by their emotions but often are quite obsessed with controlling and mastering their emotions which, hmmmmm… is really true. I guess it’s even more true what they say that a person with Scorpio in the moon can dig deep into someone’s personality, I definitely love to observe and analyse people and often do it very automatically, and thus my grandad likes to call me X-ray. 😀 I guess it sounds creepy but I do love figuring out people. It’s strange what they say that lunar Scorpios test people whom they love or feel attached to and can be suspicious, and that that testing is not always conscious, I’ve written a couple times that I do that. They also say when a lunar Scorpio commits to a relationship, they’re very loyal and protective I do suppose I’m very protective of people I love and especially of the felines I love. People with Scorpio in the moon have lots of dramatic emotional ups and downs throughout their lives, I’m not sure what’s dramatic and what’s not but I guess I could say that about myself at least to some degree, but then I also suppose so could everyone. Lunar Scorpios are also very intuitive. I’m not sure if my intuition really works that well but I do have gut feelings a lot of the time and I tend to follow them which usually turns out good for me, but it’s not without consulting it with my brain. Lunar Scorpios are also apparently very strong so that people often feel like leaning on them which I do not agree with. Some people are scared away by people like me, huh that’s good to know and sounds rather contradictory with the previous statement but actually different people react to you differently. 😀 Lunar Scorpios are said not to be fearful but rather brave and courageous which I absolutely don’t feel like it describes me since, having loads of anxieties, I’m quite naturally fearful and have always been.

So, yeah, a lot of it is true, but a fair bit is not, especially about my sun sign.

So, how about you? Have you ever done that and did it make any sense to you? Have you made any use of it in your life? 🙂

All about Lydia

Here’s another great post from Onomastics Outside the Box. 🙂
I honestly didn’t realise this name existed in so many languages! I like Lydia, perhaps not love but it is definitely a pretty name, with Biblical roots and feminine sounding, so there’s no reason for me not to like it. It has some elegance and sophistication to it. I also like our Polish Lidia, I guess I like the sound of it more, but the nickname Lidka which most Lidias go by ruins it completely to me and makes it sound shallow and kind of auntie-like, if you get what I mean.
Do you have a favourite form? I find the sami Livli very interesting.

Onomastics Outside the Box

Dissident Russian writer Lidiya Korneyevna Chukovskaya, 1907–1996

The English, German, and Greek name Lydia means, simply, “from Lydia” in Greek. Lydia was a region on Asia Minor’s west coast, reputedly named after legendary King Lydos (of unknown etymology). Today, Lydia is in western Turkey.

The name briefly appears in the Bible, on a woman whom St. Paul converts to Christianity. It didn’t become common in the Anglophone world till the Protestant Reformation.

Lydia was #77 when the U.S. began keeping name records in 1880, and stayed in the lower Top 100 till 1899. Over the ensuing decades, it gradually dipped in popularity, but never sank lower than #329 in 1973. From lows came highs, and in 1979 it rose to #296 from #324. In each succeeding year, Lydia was steadily more popular, till it re-entered the Top 100 in 2011. In 2018, it was #89.

Other forms of Lydia include:

View original post 247 more words

Question of the day.

Hi guys! 🙂

How do you feel about astrology in general?

My answer:

I used to be very skeptical about it and didn’t believe in it at all, I thought it was evil. Then, as a teenager, I started to take a great interest in all things esoteric and related, and astrology was especially interesting to me. I was really immersed in it and thought about it as really fascinating but the way I see it now was that it was more one of the ways in which I was rebelling, mostly against my boarding school which was Catholic, and I wanted to have nothing to do with it, I didn’t want it to have any influence on me. My family is also Christian and practicing, but at that time I desperately wanted to think I was an atheist, just to be different, it was all very complex I think. Interestingly, around the same time my Mum started to be slightly interested in astrology as well. She never was before and thought it was bullshit. But she got some books, I believe they were called Astrologus, it was a series of twelve small books about each sign in-depth. And she started to think it makes some sense, some parts of it at least. – After some years of my fascination with esoteric stuff, lucid dreaming, Doses aka sound drugs, and after I left that school I re-converted to Christianity in a way, and started my life all over again. I’m no longer as very passionate about astrology but I do find it interesting. I think it’s really silly to make stuff like a horoscope for all people of one star sign and expect it to work for them. I suppose there can be astrologists who do horoscopes in a more intelligent way, for an individual, taking into consideration their whole birth chart and other things, but I’m not sure that can really work as well. But I suppose it can make sense that people – their behaviours, impulses, health – as well as nature overall, can be influenced by moon phases. My Dad has a gardening lunar calendar and has made some experiments with his plants to see if the Moon could really have any influence and from them it appears it could. People have trouble sleeping when the moon is full and women used to get period according to moon phases when the world was less industrialised, or that’s at least what I’ve read. There is also an online lunar calendar that I sometimes look at and I’ve started to see some pattern between the way my anxiety changes and the changes in moon phases, but I’m not sure it really has much influence, it’s more like a theory, not something I strongly believe in.

I’ve also read in a couple books about that, even if your star sign doesn’t affect your personality, the quarter of year in which you were born could, to a minor extent, and that it could affect your health, like, children born in summer are susceptible to other things than those born in winter. As for star signs having an impact on people’s personalities, I think it could also be true to an extent but not as huge as many astrologists or astrology afficionados claim. If you do your natal chart, you can see surprisingly often a whole lot of similarities between your personality and the signs in your chart. I’m not sure it’s really as infallible as people claim because I know loads of people who really badly stick out from what they should be like according to their star sign, and I don’t feel like a real Aquarius either, and sometimes not even a natal chart can explain it. But I think a lot of the time, with describing people’s personalities, perhaps some predispositions, it’s right. It won’t predict your fate in my opinion, well perhaps if you believe in it strongly and will just make it happen, or if you go to a really good astrologist who also knows a fair bit about psychology and human nature, and I wouldn’t put too much significance to it, defiinitely not as much as I used to, you need to keep thinking critically when playing astrology. I suppose it could be a good complementary tool for people who are on some sort of a self-discovery journey, wanting to figure out themselves, their relationships or families, but I wouldn’t base solely on astrology. While fortune telling or putting all your trust in such things as stars feels wrong to me as a Christian, I no longer consider astrology evil as I used to, not if you approach it with the right mindset. After all, some monks used to also be astrologists in the past, and back then there was nothing wrong with it I guess, and if so, why should it now? If you use astrology for example as I said to study lunar influences, I don’t see anything wrong with it. I don’t play around much with astrology these days just because I don’t find it as very interesting as I used to, and I don’t need it nor don’t feel like it, but I have no problem with using it in the right place. It’s certainly more logical than numerology which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to me now and which I used to sit very deeply in as a teen as well. I guess it was rather that I wanted to believe in it and that it could tell me something, rather than I seriously did believe it works.

So, what’s your view on astrology? 🙂

,My thoughts]

Question of the day.

Hi people. 🙂

When do you start Christmas shopping?

My answer:

Not very early, usually. We’re generally quite late with all the Christmas stuff, and hardly do anything before Advent, which usually means we start everything off around mid December haha. When I do Christmas shopping, it’s just presents and I prefer to have that done earlier so I don’t have to stress what I should get for everyone and whether I’ll be able to. So last year I think I was done with my shopping a week into December. This year everything seems to be happening much faster, we are already listening to Christmas music, Mum has made most of the pierogi which makes me and my siblings feel like all that waiting is completely unnecessary and we could have the Christmas Eve supper already. 😀 And there has been My Inner Mishmash Readership Award which is sort of linked with Christmas so I feel more Christmassy than I usually do around this time of year. Apart from the award stuff though, I haven’t done any shopping and I don’t have any present ideas for people, I guess I’m a bit burnt out from thinking about MIMRA and what to do for it for almost 3 months. 😀

How about your Christmas shopping? 🙂

Question of the day.

What is the oddest thing you’ve heard of someone eating for Christmas?

My answer:

I’m quite familiar with many things people eat for Christmas in different countries as well as different regions of Poland but many feel a bit odd to me. My most recent odd discovery was that people – my family to be exact! – eat fruit soup for Christmas! Or rather Christmas Eve since it’s on Christmas Eve that we have a big Christmas meal here in Poland. Fruit soup has never been a tradition in our family, the only few times I’ve had it was at other people’s, but it seems like my extended family have embraced it. I’ve never heard of it being a Christmas dish! Dried fruit kompot – yes – but fruit soup was absolutely a novelty to me, I’ve always associated it more with summer since it’s a cooler soup. My Mum actually hates fruit soup, I have nothing against it although I do think it is a bit weird.

What’s such oddest thing in your opinion? 🙂

Miss Li – “The Day I Die I Want You To Celebrate”.

Hi people! 🙂

Today the song I want to share with you comes from a Swedish singer Miss Li, who is very well-known there and sings mainly pop music but also doesn’t shy away from such genres or influences from genres like blues or folk, and she also sings in Swedish. I like her powerful voice but to be honest apart from that I am not a big fan of her music. Don’t dislike it but don’t like it either. This song is a little bit of an exception. I heard it for the first time on the day on which I finished my final exams, on my way back home, and it suited my mood at that moment well. I love how dynamic and uplifting it is, I like to listen to it when I’m a bit hyper or just in a right mood to listen to this song.

 

Question of the day.

Hey people. 🙂

Let’s continue with some early Christmas questions, shall we? 🙂

What’s your favourite kind of Christmas decoration (tree, lights, garlands etc.)?

My answer:

I’m not sure I have a favourite. if anything, I often find Christmas decorations a little bit annoying especially if people put them so that they get in your way or something, sometimes getting around where there are many decorations can be a bit tricky. If I’d have to choose anything I’d go with Christmas tree, especially a natural one. I don’t have the best sense of smell at all but when I can feel the smell of Christmas tree I think it’s beautiful. I could also say baubles just because I like the feel of glass.

You? 🙂

Fandango’s Friday Flashback – A description of Misha.

It’s my first time participating in

Fandango’s Friday Flashback

and I’m going to share with you a post I wrote exactly on the 22nd November last year. Technically it’s already Saturday here but this post is going to be a bit like a substitute for Misha’s usual Friday chit chat and The Human Life of Misha Hhrrru? of which no episodes have been published in four weeks, I’m very sorry about that and blame me for that, not Misha, he can’t wait for when I’ll let him write the next episode.

The post I wrote on November 22 last year was

A description of Misha

which I think was pretty good, so I hope you enjoy, especially those of you who haven’t read it before.

   Hey people! 🙂
I thought I would do some a bit more creative writing, I mean apart from my series and other stuff like that, just challenge myself a little bit more, as I hadn’t done anything like this for a while I feel, but didn’t have much of an idea what it could be. So I decided to look at the writing prompt for today at Word Of The Day Challenge, and saw that it is

oblong.

What can you write with this word in mind? What first came to my mind was a short story, with someone who would have oblong face as a main character – I absolutely love describing my characters thoroughly and very imaginatively, from their hair colour to their features to their style – but so far all my short stories are in Polish and somehow I don’t feel ready yet to write any in English, I still read much more in Polish than in English – when it comes to books at least, it’s quite the opposite online 😀 – so I feel like I should read much more before I start writing short stories in English.
So I started to think about all the oblong things in my room to find some inspiration, as I was determined to write something inspired by this – quite cool actually – word. There are some oblong things in my room, but I didn’t feel like many of them deserved any particular attention and a separate post in honour of them, other than my gem stones, some of them are oblong, and I could write a post about them, which sounded as a lovely idea.
But I thought that after all we live in a highly visual world, so I’d need at least some pictures (at least of those oblong stones, if not all of my stones 😀 ) to accompany my post. And right now I am not able to get anyone to take them for me, so, maybe another time, my collection is really big so you really have to have a lot of free time and good will to engage in taking photos of all of them.
So finally, as you may already suspect from the title, I decided to make Misha the hero of this post. Again. ‘Cause if you know Misha (or any Russian blue cat I’d suppose), thinking about something oblong you can’t not think about his little face.
You can see Misha in the logo of my blog, but there are also people who are blind/visually impaired who read my blog, so I thought a description of Misha should give them some more idea about him, and also, as I said, I really enjoy describing people, nature, weather, places, whatever! So why not Misha.
I am not sure how accurately and clearly, and how much of Misha you can see from the photo on my blog, anyway, I hope that those of you who can see it, will also enjoy this description.
Here goes:
Misha is an embodiment of gracefulness, refinement, charm, class and proportion. I feel tempted to say he’s also an embodiment of feline perfection, but saying that would probably show how blinded and doting I am. All Russian blues are like this, I mean classy and fairly proportional, but being able to know Sasha, as well as my aunt’s Russian blue cat – Flocky – I can easily say that Misha is far more classy and sophisticated in his looks than they are. Misha has an air of gentleness, fineness and calmness surrounding him. He’s not always that calm, he’s often very shy and anxious, but unless he’s not in very significant distress, he still emanates that calm charm. Yet he’s not only gentle. There is also lots of strength in him – as much his body and his spirits. – He is small, agile, slim, thin actually, and shapely, and has well-buil muscles, you wouldn’t call him “muscular”, at least that’s not one of the adjectives you would come up as first, still though, you can easily see how strong and well developed his muscles are. You can also feel his bones, he’s really pretty thin. He is of rather calm and passive nature but when he has a good reason, he can run very fast, jump and climb high, is very swift and light. But also there is carefulness in his movements, as if he really had it in mind not to knock anything over or not destroy anything, it very rarely happens that he makes any mischiefs like that. He is also really composed when playing with other beings most times, and often finds it hard to actually relax and play and be carefree. When he does play though and feels well, sometimes he may lose his control and really show all his strength and agility, as well as the sharpness of his teeth.
Misha’s fur is grey, but it has a bit of a blue glow, that’s why Russian blues are called Russian blues. SOmetimes it looks like silver, for example in the sun, and it seems as if it was shining and shimmering. That makes Misha easier to find in the wild world if he happens to escape. His fur is also double-layered, and very thick, although really short at the same time. Its thickness though, makes it feel like a coat a bit, and makes it really warm and comfy. It’s also incredibly soft, silky, and smooth. That softness and smoothness and thickness once let Zofijka to the conclusion that Misha’s fur is “like whipped cream when you touch it”. 😀 You know, in its consistence, sort of.Indeed, I must say that was an incredibly accurate comparison, although rather peculiar, ’cause Misha’s fur truly feels sort of “creamy” when you touch it. Or like a gorgeously soft and fluffy teddybear. We have lots of comparisons for Misha’s fur with Zofijka, as well as all his body parts and other stuff regarding him, we also have a whole lot of nicknames for him, but that’s another thing.
Misha’s head is small and round, and very proportional. It’s a pure pleasure to look at it. It’s just such a little, cute Mishball, soft and fluffy and delicate.
Yet his ears are big. ANd that was a surprise for us, I mean we wouldn’t suppose them to be that big. They’re not like extreme, they’re normal for a Russian blue, but we didn’t know that Russian blues have naturally rather big ears. Sometimes when I have any contact with cats of other breeds or mixed, it feels so shocking to feel how small their ears are in comparison to Misha’s haha. His ears are pointed, and very sensitive to touch, his hearing is also very sensitive, though I think it’s true for all cats in a way. He hates loud, particularly sudden noises. But it’s true for his whole little body that it is very sensitive for touch, I guess it’s some sort of nervous reaction, that sometimes he absolutely refuses to be touched, or will immediately lick or scratch himself whenever you touch him in that same place.
Misha’s nose is small and pinkish, another very proportional, little Mishball. 😀 Zofijka loves it. She likes to play with him as sometimes people play with babies or toddlers – puts her finger on his nose, presses it lightly and says “beeep!”. Wonder if it doesn’t piss him off sometimes, we all treat him like a child, but I guess he’s not that childish hahaha. At the same time though I can understand Zofijka ’cause his nose is really cute.
Misha’s eyes are bright green. Like very very green! People always love them, they are so mesmerising, their look is piercing, some people say that it can actually be unpleasant, or embarrassing in a way. But you can also see lots of intelligence in them, after all Russian blues are really fairly intelligent cats and I came across lots of people visiting us and commenting: “Wow, that cat of yours looks really quite brainy, didn’t you think about training him?” or things like that. And if you’re curious too, no, we didn’t think about training him, not seriously anyway, he seems too nervous and squeamish, and way too individualistic to just be trained and listen to our orders, even if he understands them. And we don’t have him to show him off, at least not in the first place, my Mum actually likes showing off with him sometimes haha, and I do too.
Misha’s whole face, as I said earlier, is oblong, but not too oblong, it’s really proportional. My aunt’s cat has actually much more oblong face and it makes him look a bit unfriendly. Misha’s face is just right. And he likes being stroked under his chin, among other places.
As I already mentioned, he’s very shapely and thin. If you move your hand down his spine you can feel all the bones and vertebrae and all. He has a really nice and soft belly, it’s almost always warm and we like to lightly lie on it, me and Zofijka, and listen to all his gurgles and his heartbeat and occasional purrs – as I told you many times before his purrs aren’t really loud and not as common as in most other cats, and his purrs seem to rather be self-assuring than signalising pleasure and happiness. He has a little crease a bit below his belly which apparently is a common thing in neutered male cats, and my Dad is always laughing at him how it’s moving when he is running or something.
His paws are small and oval, they’re really pretty small and cute and rather thin, but strong, they are mauve, so apparently just as they should be in Russian blues. And their insides are very smooth. Have you ever looked closely or touched a cat’s paws with some attention? Outdoor cats always have rather harsh and rough paws, while Misha’s paws are like a little baby’s. It never stops to amaze me, and I really like to touch them and hold them. And they’re so very proportional and elegant as well.
And Misha’s legs are really quite long, despite those small paws. That’s why he runs so fast I guess. Actually, you could generally describe him as “long”. When Misha lies straight, you can really see how long and slim he is, just an oblong shape with head and tail. I like to look at him lying like that, lying on his back, stretched out to  all his length.
Oh, and Misha’s tail, I nearly forgot about it. It’s also very soft, and nice to touch, and it’s relatively long. And it has stripes, but almost unnoticeable. THey were more visible apparently when he was younger. Sasha also has a striped tail, and it’s apparently visible in most Russian blue kittens, and then is less noticeable.
So, that would be my description of Misha, and I hope you enjoyed it and that it gave you some more idea of what he’s like. 🙂

Question of the day (22nd November).

What is your favourite Christmas song? Your least favourite?

My answer:

I have many favourites which make me await December every year so that I can listen to them, I don’t listen to them all year, only since the beginning of December to February 2nd when Christmas carols singing time ends over here, so I’m never bored with them. But I think my most favourite is “Christmas Secrets” by Enya, that I have previously shared. It’s really magical. Least favourite? I find most of the mainstream Christmas music that you hear in the shops, in the radio and such kind of infantile, annoying, superficial, boring and just meh. But… wait a minute… there was such a classic that I hate but I don’t remember/know the title, let me look it up… uhhh, yeah, “Merry Christmas Everybody” by Slade. The harmony of this song, something in its melody makes my brain feel uneasy, there just are such songs, sounds, sequences of sounds, melodies, and this song is one of them. It’s the chorus I have problems with the most when I happen to hear it. It’s such a strange feeling and even more strange to describe, it’s like what you’re hearing is one big dissonance in a way (not aesthetic usually or not necessarily, it’s a different kind of a dissonance) plus your mind vs that song/sound don’t get along. It can make me feel that some sounds and/or harmonies are aggressive, kind of evil in a way, and that it’s directed straight at me, directly, it just makes me feel uneasy emotionally and in a way physically and often anxious. I just wonder why the heck people don’t hear such things, I’m not even saying about that they don’t react like I do but they don’t even hear anything wrong, when I show people two songs that trigger sensory anxiety for me they don’t see anything in common in the sound or in their perception of the songs. It makes me feel crazy! It’s far from being among those the most triggering sounds I’ve come across in my life but it’s just unpleasant to hear. And “Gothic Christmas” by Within Temptation is horrible, but just because of what it’s like, not because of the harmonies and all those intricacies, I’m not sure which I hate more, I guess each deserves an award in its own category. 😀

Question of the day (21st November).

What is your favourite Christmas dish? Your least favourite?

My answer:

My most favourite are definitely pierogi with cabbage and mushrooms, especially the way my Mum makes them, with fresh cabbage. For me there’s no Christmas without pierogi, and the same for my siblings. Mum has actually already started making them today, very early as for her. My least favourite would be probably some fish. I find carp a very overrated Polish Christmas dish, but I guess herring (no matter how its served) is even worse.

What are yours? 🙂

Question of the day (19th November).

Say you suddenly have 1000 euro/dollars/pounds/zlotys/whatever the currency is in your country. What do you spend it on?

My answer:

Okay, so in Poland we have zlotys. 1000 zlotys is around 230 euro I suppose, not sure how much it is in dollars. I think I’d mostly use it for Christmas presents for my family, and some stuff for myself as well for that occasion. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to get my family for Christmas, so I don’t know how much of it I’d spend, but I need to buy myself new headphones and I’d like to get some really fancy ones, so I could use the rest to help me with that.

So, how about you? 🙂

Song of the day (19th November) – Mikromusic – “Takiego Chłopaka” (A Boyfriend Like This).

Here’s another Polish song I have for you.

I used to have very mixed feelings about it, and I’ve seen quite a few different interpretations of what it really is about, including that it shows all men as being awful or that women are super picky. I liked the sound of it immediately when I heard it. It’s trip-hop but the song has a bit of a folksy feel and I liked that it was sort of ironic and humourous. The song is about a woman who wants a boyfriend, and she has a whole list of what he should not be, looks like she’s such an idealist and wants just someone very exceptional who only has good traits. Yet something in this song really stung me, ’cause on her list of things he cannot be is “not a Pole”. I mean, it’s completely okay not to want to have a Polish boyfriend, even if you’re Polish, but the whole list was made up of various negative things and “not a Pole” thrown in-between, it made it look very bad and very offensive to me, and I’m sure could feel even more so to Polish guys. And I’ve seen many other people finding it controversial too.

But these days I think this song does not contain any anti-Polish messages. I think you can see this song in two ways, depending if you are an optimist or a pessimist, although I have no idea what Natalia Grosiak – the vocalist and author of the lyrics – had in mind writing this song. If you are an optimist, you can think that the girl speaking in the song is very young, romantic, idealistic and picky to begin with. She wants someone who won’t change her life overly and will just be perfectly the way she imagined him. Then, as the song progresses, she changes her mind. She decides that “yes, give me a boy who is ugly, who is a bit crazy, who has his weaknesses”. She finds someone that she loves despite the traits in him that are difficult and she happily accepts the fact that there are no perfect people and that there is no way to fall in love with someone who is perfect. If you are a pessimist, you can see this song as showing how bad life can be and often is. You begin with having dreams and hopes and wanting someone special and perfect. Only that, as you gain more experience in life and in relationships, instead of happily accepting that we all have weaknesses and it’s okay and finding someone whose weaknesses are complementary with yours and you are able to live with him the way he is, as it should be in a proper romantic movie with a happy end, you give up. Because whoever you’ll choose, it will be difficult and nothing will work out the way you want. You don’t care what he’s like anymore, maybe not even whether you love him, you just want someone and you know you have very limited choice.

Despite I am a pessimist, in this particular song I have a feeling the optimistic theory looks better not only because it’s more pleasant. It’s just easier for me to imagine such a scenario. Personally I’d rather be lonely than look for all means for whoever to be my boyfriend, even if he is a drunkard to whom I don’t feel anything.

So, here are the lyrics that I’ve translated and the song.

 

Mr Fate, please give me someone who won’t stir the water in my pond
Someone who won’t fade away like a bad dream
When there are no more fish in my pond

Where will I find someone so
beautifully kind?
Where will I find someone so
beautifully kind?

Give me a boyfriend
Not a crazy one, give
Not a smoker
Not a poor one, give
Not a drunkard
Not a Pole, give
Not an ugly one

Send me a boyfriend
not a crazy one, give
Not a dodge
not a clown, give
Not a drunkard
not a Pole, give
Not a poor one
Send me

Mr Fate, please give me someone who won’t pick all the roses from my garden
Someone who won’t eat all the apples
and run away overseas

Where will I find someone so
beautifully kind?
Where will I find someone so
beautifully kind?

Give me a boyfriend
Not a crazy one, give
Not a smoker
not a poor one, give
Not a drunkard
not a Pole, give
Not an ugly one

Send me a boyfriend
not a crazy one, give
Not a dodge
not a clown, give
Not a drunkard
not a Pole, give
Not a poor one

Send me a boyfriend
Give me a Pole
yes, I want a crazy one!
I want a drunkard
Yes, give me a strongman
An ugly one
Yes, give me a Pole

Send me a boyfriend
a boyfriend like this
a boyfriend like this
a boyfriend like this
like this

Question of the day (17th November).

What is the weather like where you live? When does it usually start snowing, or does it snow?

My answer:

Overall, we are having a very mild and warm autumn this year compared to the standard. Actually I’ve heard that October this year was the warmest October since… no, I don’t remember since when, but I guess the 70’s. Nevertheless, today feels rather chilly. We haven’t had snow so far, although often we have some transient snow even at the beginning of November. For now there’s no sign of it, I think we’ll wait a few more weeks before it comes but perhaps I’m wrong and it’ll be sooner.

How about where you live? 🙂

Song of the day (16th November) – Coma – “Los Cebula I Krokodyle Łzy” (Fate Onion And Crocodile Tears).

I didn’t plan to share this song at all but I kind of had no idea for a song for this day, and I heard this one playing in the bathroom, so decided to share it because I have a bit of a personal story with her. It’s a song dedicated to people who struggle with depression but also generally just any kind of life difficulties. I heard it for the first time in the kitchen, one late Sunday evening, night actually. I went downstairs because I had self harm urges and wanted to cut or something. I came into the kitchen and took out the knife from the drawer when I heard this song playing: “Leave that damn mug alone, you’ll cut your fingers…”. 😀 I had a knife in my hand, not a mug, and intended to cut not necessarily my fingers with it, but the irony of the situation made me laugh out loud despite I was crying some five minutes earlier. 😀 I started to listen to the song and it sort of made me feel better, at least I could relate to it. I’d like to tell you that Coma prevented me from cutting that time but they didn’t, but the song helped me a little bit to make me feel less alone with my shit. And now I am going to share it with you and my translation of the lyrics as well.

   Leave that damn mug alone – you’ll cut your fingers.
Drink the milk, wash your face. I’ll come before you fall asleep.
Even though the galactic blast will destroy the civilisation
It’s not enough to burst out into tears.
For me, the day wasn’t too gracious either.
For me too, too long and bad is the winter
For me too, but you must admit, that all in all, life is wonderful
And stop wailing! Stop wailing! Stop crying!
And why do you read the comments from frustrated pipsqueaks?
Let the blockheads poison themselves with venom, save yourself the evil.
For me, the day wasn’t too gracious either.
For me too, too long and bad is the winter
For me too fate, onion and crocodile tears.
Stop wailing! Stop wailing! Stop crying!
For me, the day wasn’t too gracious either.
For me too, too long and bad is the winter
For me too fate, onion and crocodile tears.
Stop wailing! Stop wailing! Stop crying!i

Question of the day (15th November).

Hi people. 🙂

I’m so sorry I haven’t posted for a week but this week has been rather nasty for me.

Do you believe in ghosts, spirits or paranormal occurences? If so, have you had an experience yourself?

My answer:

In a way I do, in a way I don’t. I don’t believe in ghosts that haunt the attics or show up to innocent people at nights just to make them jump out of their skin. What I do believe in, as a Christian and Catholic, is that there is purgatory and that the souls of dead people can visit us on Earth if need be – that is if they need us to pray for them, or perhaps to help, especially if a person has helped them in the past to get out of purgatory or something or if they’re family. – I guess technically you could call them ghosts but this term sounds firstly rather superficial to me, and secondly, kind of offensive. I would never call someone I liked or loved who had died a ghost. If they visited me I’d rather refer to them by their name or said they visited me in spirit or that their soul came to me or something, not a ghost! Also, purgatory souls do not want to do us any harm, not even creep us out, so, even if someone does experience such a grace and extreme privilege that they can talk to or see a person who has died, it’s usually in dreams or such unless you’re a mystic or something. They don’t want to scare people or haunt their houses or blackmail them or possess them or whatever else stupid things people can come up with. I don’t believe that what people do at spiritual seances is calling the real souls of their loved ones and the people who died. Or rather, okay, they may want to evoke those people but it’s not them who they see, rather those are demons and evil spirits pretending to be who the person wanted it to be. Souls of people in purgatory or heaven don’t come to you at your whim, not even at their own, but when God wants it, He is smarter than we and them together and, seriously, He knows what to do and when, without us telling Him. And the consequences of such evoking spirits can be nasty. As for other paranormal stuff, it’s hard to say, I have an impression different people classify different things as paranormal and also have different terms for what’s considered paranormal. Since there can be so many such phenomena I guess I won’t be writing about those things in detail but I’ll just say a lot of paranormal phenomena feel like absolute bullshit to me, while there are some that I definitely do believe in and that they exist and can happen, and what I think of them can really vary haha.

As for my own experiences, don’t know if that fully counts as paranormal, I guess more esoteric, but back in the day I used to have a lot of OOBEs (out of body experiences) and LDs (lucid dreams). And lucid dreams still happen to me but these days they’re unintended and not even half as frequent as they used to be. I have witnessed and experienced some things that perhaps may feel on the edge of paranormal for some but overall I don’t think I am the kind of person who is susceptible for such things to occur to me. I know from my Mum and grandma that my great grandmother – my maternal grandma’s mother – was very devoted to praying for purgatory souls. She was a Franciscan tertiary and was said to be able to see purgatory souls on quite several occasions (or experience their presence in any other way and communicate with them, I’m not sure about the details). I think it’s so fascinating and I’m so happy and proud to have had someone like this in my family, I regret that she died before I was born and I’d really like to know what she’s like more than just what I’ve heard. But she was very humble about it so didn’t even talk much about it to people from what I know. I think this is largely why my grandma, my Mum and me and Zofijka feel a close connection to purgatory souls and praying for them is a huge part of each of us’ individual spirituality. I have several people that have died and that I feel a close connection to that I pray for every day and ask them for intercession so that we can help each other, I think it’s so fun that it works like this that we can actually take care of each other, be thankful to each other, count on each other’s help and try our best to return the favours, haha. I have not had such spectacular experiences like my great grandmother did, but while I often find it hard to pray, to feel God’s presence in my life, I guess everyone who has some spiritual life has such difficulties at times, my purgatory souls help me with that, and there have been many occasions in my life, especially in recent six or so years, that I have felt their presence very deeply, not in any metaphysical level or anything like that, but I knew they were there praying for me and helping me. Especially at the beginning of my journey with praying for them, straight after I sort of re-converted, there have been SO many absolutely strange, wonderful and unbelievable, seemingly purely coincidental but on the other hand very unlikely to happen otherwise situations in my life, it was mind-blowing! And not only was it simply mind-blowing to observe but I also believe that their intercession has helped me, more or less directly, hard to say, to get to the point where I’m in my life right now. One of the souls I’m putting a lot of effort in helping is one of my music crushes Cornelis Vreeswijk who died 32 years ago and I’m sure needs a whole lot of help, and, of course it’s just my belief or an assumption and maybe it wasn’t anything to do with him, just how I want to see it, but always when I think about how I got out of my boarding school (which was just a couple months after I got my crush on Cornelis and quite soon after I started praying for him) and how absolutely weirdly, miraculously and fabulously all my problems with further schooling were solved, and the following school year was my best and strangest school year ever, when I think of that I always think of him, and am grateful for his intercession (as strange as it sounds that Vreeswijk would pray for anyone but I believe his spiritual views may be different now) because I was praying a lot for his soul and I often just talked to him casually and was asking him that if I’d helped his situation at all, I would very much appreciate him helping me as well, as I was struggling a whole lot mentally and with life in general. Since then, there have also been many small, often humourous coincidences in my daily life that I strongly suspect may have something to do with my relationship with the purgatory souls. Also, another way of helping the souls out of purgatory is to offer your sufferings for them or make any sort of sacrifices for them. That sounds so pathetic when you think of it especially if you’re not religious and have no experience yourself, but since I’ve been praying for those purgatory souls I feel close with, I am really happy that I can offer up all my daily life struggles whether big or small to help them, and I started to enjoy fasting and like seriously fasting, not just not eating meat on Fridays but having one day once in a while when I wouldn’t eat anything whatsoever. I used to think it’s a huge deal but really, when you have a reasonable motive and are supported by Holy Spirit and the soul you’re praying for it doesn’t have to be like this, although I did have to switch to intermittent fasting when I want to fast because otherwise my blood pressure drops like crazy. That’s by no means paranormal, but it definitely is a wee bit otherworldly.

When I was 10 and recovering from the Achilles tendons surgery, with my legs in plasters from thighs to toes and unable to move them for six weeks, I was super neurotic and feeling very lonely and anxious and just all things awful, and this was a time in my life when my relationship with my faith and with God and all that was incredibly neurotic too. One of the many nights when I couldn’t sleep and felt very lonely and desperate, I had a feeling that someone came into my room, or rather sort of floated in, and I could sense someone standing by my bed. I reached my hand out and felt some silky fabric, as if I was touching someone’s dress or something. Knowing me, I would normally be creeped out in such a situation, at least a bit, even these days, let alone in the state of mind I was then. Yet I wasn’t creeped out, I immediately had a feeling that I was experiencing something quite unusual. I suddenly felt soothed by this presence at my bedside even though everything was back to normal in a second and I didn’t feel anyone there with me anymore. And for whatever reason, whether rightly or not, I was strongly convinced it was Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn who visited me. It was her holiday that day and I knew about it. I was convinced about it for many years, though considering how generally messed up I was at that time and how surreal and vague the incident was and feels I’m no longer so sure of it, I’m actually very skeptical. I wasn’t psychotic or anything like that at all, and it’s not completely unlikely of course that it did happen, but I just think my sensory deprivation and mental state could make me think and perceive things in really strange ways, especially that my imagination is overactive even when my brain is doing much better, and it’s more likely that it was the effect of my brain feeling completely disoriented and more that I just really needed to feel soothed and less lonely. But it was interesting.

Also that’s not my own experience but I’ve bee on several pilgrimages to a sanctuary where a lot of people experience a very fascinating thing that is called sleeping in the Spirit, or something similar. It is when the priest prays over a person and they fall asleep in the Spirit. It’s just like people lose control and fall to the floor and just fall asleep for a couple minutes. When there is prayer over people, some men have to stand behind a person just in case to hold them if they fall so that they won’t hurt themselves or fall hard unexpectedly and there can be quite a few people falling asleep during such services. I used to be sceptical about that and so was my Mum because, well, there are mostly older women going for those pilgrimages, you could very easily think it’s hysteria or something. But it’s really all kinds of people who fall asleep, often such that you really wouldn’t suspect of being histrionic or attention-seeking or overzealous or anything like that. It once happened to my gran who said she didn’t feel nothing while asleep but when she woke up she was feeling calm and rested as if she was sleeping for a long time. Still, I am a control freak and I can’t help but feel a bit creeped out when that happens, even though I rationally know there’s no need to feel this way. But I think you need to feel open for such a thing to happen, and really trust in God and let Him control things. It’s never happened to me, but that priest was praying over me for the first time last year and I felt a strange sensation like I was very firmly pushed backwards. I was absolutely convinced that, for whatever reason, it was that priest doing so and at the beginning I was like huh, anyone can make people fall asleep in the Spirit if it’s like this, 😀 and my Mum and Zofijka who also experienced this type of prayer for the first time were convinced about it too, but my gran, who’s going there every year and has loads of experience in that sanctuary told us that she could see those people falling asleep many times and that they are not pushed, they’re just sort of bending backwards. Weird. Apart from that I didn’t feel anything, certainly not that I was going to fall asleep. I was only a little bit nervous about what if I will, and a tiny bit frustrated because I came to the sanctuary to ask God to help me with my sleep paralysis, and I expected I’d be able to tell the priest about that during that prayer, yet the priest knew from my gran that her granddaughter is blind and readily assumed I must have come there to pray to be able to see, but in the end I guess it didn’t matter what he was thinking right? Again, would I call that falling asleep in Spirit paranormal? Not really. Supernatural and extraordinary? Yes. I think there is a difference. But people perceive different things differently so I’m mentioning it.

How about your views and experiences with all sorts of paranormal/supernatural/spiritual phenomena? 🙂

,My thoughts]