((brrr))

I slept in today, neglected my morning duties and was duly punished. Usually the first thing I do in the a.m. is feed the cats and arrange for their warmth and comfort on these currently frigid days.  That is, I light the fire or turn on a heater like a well trained slave. It's the only way to have a peaceful morning. Four whining cats is not a noise that can be ignored for long. 

About half an hour after the designated feeding and warming time, the harassment began. Monty has figured out the perfect attention getting technique. He perches on the bedside table and starts swiping progressively larger objects on to the floor with his paw. As I was exhibiting more than usual amount of laziness he just started with a pile of books which hit the floor with a dramatic thud and evoked the 'aftershock' reaction - heart pounding, wide awake, ready to go.  This was after I'd already been awoken at 1.30 a.m. by a real aftershock (hence the compensatory sleeping in).  At least, after last night's Baptiste yoga session, I was able to get to sleep, quite a novelty.

Apart from yoga, exercise for the last week has been a bit of mad jumping around playing Wii Just Dance II and some running around getting things organised for my trip. I think that the amount of boxes I'm hoisting counts as 'weights' and running up the escalator at the mall counts as 'cardio', so I've got it covered. ;)  The box lifting is due to rearranging the storage area so that someone who isn't me can locate product.  I'm not sure that 'find it by psychic ability' is something the team can be trained to do. :D

Cold weather may not fit my disposition, but winter cooking is something I look forward to. Tonight's effort was a chicken done in apricots and chardonnay.

I had to drive to the trippy hippy organic shop to forage some dried apricots and was so distracted by activities at the old St Martins New World site that I nearly tail ended someone. I will be sure to get down there with a camera tomorrow. In spite of aftershocks, things are racing ahead with the deconstruction. In fact, there is hardly anything left on the site.  Empty lots where there used to be recognisable buildings are common in Christchurch at the moment, so I'm just x-ing my fingers and hoping the the construction phase is going to follow right along after the demolition. A new supermarket is just what the community needs to make us feel reconnected to the barely remembered reality of a life outside of earthquakes. I don't think I'm unusual in craving normality. Just boring old normality - supermarket, city coffee shops, water that doesn't reek of chlorine, roads that don't udulate, an uninterrupted night of sleep. All those things that are so normal I never thought of them as great things. I do now. 

In less than a week I'll have all of those things for a whole month (eeeee!), albeit, on the other side of the world. I'll also have warm weather (aaaaah!) and no torture-cats. Perhaps by the time I get back, The Programmer will have them sorted out.  Or they will have him fully trained using their unique interrogation techniques. It could go either way...