Stupid Strep.

The Sore Throat I was having yesterday did indeed ignore my attempts to ignore it, and so I have spent today on the couch, drinking herb tea that even NYU says will help and watching the end of "Big Love" and refraining from going and buying a copy of "The White Goddess" and drawing Maiden, Mother, and Crone analogies all over the place. And then mailing it to some poor beleaguered professorial type with a note that says, "HOPE YOU DIG MY THESIS HAVE SOME SRIRACHA POTATO CHIPS PEACE OUT."

Stay home, ocelot. You're sick.

Obviously, the only thing for a sick woman with no-one to whine at is read gardnerians and crack up at the following -

"Really, we’d rather spend our last 30 minutes doing something epic, like initiating anyone who walks slowly enough across our lawn."

See, I can picture this, because even if I have no talent for film, my brain thinks it needs to make stuff like this into little movies:

The door to the Trailer Of Doom creeeeeaks open, a pair of small hands shoots out and grabs a denizen of the Trailer Park Of The Damned and yanks them off their feet and inside the door. Muffled, rythmic thumping and loud chanting ensues for a few moments.

The back door opens. A pair of hands under the arms of a butt-nekkid, bewildered redneck lowers said redneck gently to the ground. Our Involuntary Initiate has beads around their neck and a black book in one hand. It's like an assembly line: person in, bewildered naked book-holding person out. Finally, one of the poor SOBs opens their book, and reads the following:

(camera zooms in)

(Big fancy letters) All this be Oathbound; keep thou secret our Rites and tell ye nought.

(page turns, camera zooms in again 'cause these letters are smaller)

(Plain text) That means, "Don't tell nobody."

Fin.

Krampus Is Only Funny When He Happens To Someone Else.

Last night's Solstice journey work was...interesting. In a "JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST WHY CAN'T I JUST SEE HAPPY SHIT WHY IS IT ALMOST NEVER BRIGID OR THE DAGDA OR YEMAYA OR SOMEBODY LIKE THAT" kinda way.

See, what I saw was this one-eyed man, dragging a dead reindeer through the snow by its antlers. And I thought, "Oh, right, so that's why the suit is red, because it's covered in blood and WAIT WHAT THE FRESH HELL".

I attribute years of Weird Shit Experiences to my ability to not flee the circle while screaming like a troop of violated Girl Scouts and turning Trothwy's pool into the Biggest Cleansing Bath Evar. I mean, ONE EYE. Ravens on his shoulders. A deer that didn't look like it had been hunted so much as savaged. I am pretty sure I know Who this is, and I do not like it. I do not like it in a car, I do not want to be Asatruar. I do not like dead deer or ham, I do not like them, "Old Squinty" You Am.

The Husband didn't fare much better. Without blogging things he might not want me to blog, I'll say that some of his ancestors got up to unpleasant hijinks, to put it mildly, and he got to see a lot of it in full Technicolor detail. While he was disturbed by this, he was also interested and pleased to have felt something profound and new, magically speaking (that's my little ray of sunshine!).

And then, just to balance things out, there was the sex. Which led to me having, at a - cough- climactic moment, a revelation. It struck me as so profound that I could not keep it to myself until a more appropriate time, and I cannot blame the Husband for being confused for a few seconds:

ME: Holy fucking shit. Damn. So that's why he comes down the chimney. 
HUSBAND: What?
ME: Santa. Comes down the chimney. Because it's a birth canal. I mean, why else would you come into a house balls-first into a fire?
HUSBAND: Oh. I suppose that makes sense.

Since he isn't awake yet, I don't know how he slept, but I was treated to a nightmare in which Evn and I were trying to either blow up someone's apartment or make ammonia/bleach gas in it. While I can see us lobbing chickens over fences, I cannot imagine us indulging in chemical warfare. And while it sounds funny by light of day, monitor, and the influence of coffee, it was not funny at 3am or so. There were other nightmares, but I don't remember them. I am just fine with this.

THE OCELOT'S REVISED TO-DO LIST
Feed dogs & cat.
Feed horse.
Come home, eat, drink coffee, blog.
Go get a tree and some lights for it.
Get groceries.
Feed horse again.
Clean Area of Puppy Devastation so as to have somewhere to put up tree.
Put hyssop soap to good use (thank you, H.). Do same with Florida Water. Salt all the things.
Put horseshoe up over door.
Talk to all of Them about how I do not need That One-Eyed Guy in my life, so could they perhaps let him know that I am already well-spoken for, plz?
Feed other pets. Rush puppy out before she can piddle indoors.
Pack for tomorrow.
Fall over while thinking how peaceful it would be to be Episcopalian.*


*This is what my brain settles on when there has been a little too much Woo. It is not meant to imply in any way that I think Episcopals are spiritually shallow or lazy or anything of that sort. I just think that they probably don't see things out of the corners of their eyes for three weeks before Halloween, get dark visions about the true meaning of Christmas, etc.

**I am sincerely hoping we do not see any Santas today. I don't think I'm ready.

Go Home, Universe, You're Drunk.

Dear Universe,

It is not funny to dangle shit I want/need in front of my nose only to make it distinctly other than what was initially advertised and/or snatch it right out from under me. Stop it. It is pissing me off.

No love,
The ocelot

(Details:

Someone was supposed to take this puppy that showed up on Wednesday night, when it was supposed to be 30F as a low. Now, it's "I don't know when I can get her and maybe my cousin wants her but I don't really know."

One of the boarders at the barn was supposed to be renting a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house for $900 a month. Catch is, we have to let her and her 13-year-old daughter stay in one of the bedrooms on Saturday nights so they don't have to drive up from Galveston for Sunday morning lessons. Which makes it a two-bedroom, one-bath house that I now will not be able to not rent without Barn Owner being pissy at me and possibly shitcanning me.

Got a new job (thanks to Evn), but realized last week that I had forgotten about the stupid wage garnishment (due to the student loans my ex decided to simply not repay for months on end), and am hoping New Boss doesn't decide that I am therefore too much trouble to have as an employee.

Also, Husband had his eyeglasses flung accidentally into a fire on Thursday, and contacts (which were the only thing he could get today) are not working for him at all. )

Witch, Diagnose Thyself.

Despite having an immune system that allowed me to have appendicitis for three days without dying, I am now sick. I blame Germy Co-Workers. Or I was blaming them until about 20 minutes ago.

See, I am lying on the couch, achy and feverish and watching "Extreme Cheapskates" and reading witchy blogs and generally pouting about missing my coven's full moon rite. Only salsa tastes good, and I am tempted to eat it directly from the jar. But I digress.

I'm reading The Crossroads Companion. Nice. I like it. There's this one post about rites to Hekate. Huh. Hekate. Interesting. I called on Her just a few days ago when it was very cold and Pregnant Neighbor's dog was outside and -

OH SERIOUSLY I DID NOT DO THIS TO MYSELF. DID I? OH, SHIT I DID.

Pregnant Neighbor is now New Mother Neighbor. Her birth was pretty rough - she had a Caesarian - and was going to stay at her brother's as A. her husband works at night and B. the trailers are not heated. So her not-very-furry dog was going to be outside during one of the two nights last week when it was going to be about 32F. In all the baby-having, did they even know how cold it was supposed to get? What to do? After giving said dog a nice carboard box with polyfill fleecy stuff and an old pillow in it and finding the dog was having none of it, I came in and prayed to Hekate.

There in my kitchen, arms raised, I said, "Hekate, Great Hekate, friend of dogs, please help this dog to be warm tonight. Please let her use the box and be comfortable."

This may or may not have happened - as luck would have it, New Mother Neighbor came home to grab a few things. I ran over, told them about the weather, and then lugged my huge crate over. Neighbor Dog went in and everyone was happy. This was Wednesday.

I got sick on Thursday.

I prayed to an underworld goddess and then I got sick and could not figure out why until reading that blog post.

I am an idiot.

The Final Word On Samhain 2013.

Apparently, my feeling that Samhain wasn't quite over yet was more accurate than I could have imagined. The Ex texted an hour ago to tell me that my eldest cat had passed suddenly and unexpectedly.

Goodbye, Nikolai. I'm so sorry I never got to say it in person. I have missed you every day and will until I see you again. Next time, I will never, ever let anyone take you away from me.

The rage and pain in my heart right now would terrify any sane person.

I Don't Even Know What To Think.

At ritual last night, I asked that my witch ancestors (not blood relations who were witches, since I don't know that I have any) come to me in dreams.

What I GOT was a scary-ass nightmare where I was the victim of a serial killer who is either crippled and older or pretends to be either or both, and who put a cardboard box on my head before killing me.

Go figure.

The After-Samhain Report.

Samhain was, almost literally, a wash. The morning brought a terrifying storm that took out the power to and ripped the roof off half the barn where my horse lives (all the horses are ok, just a bit baffled). I discovered that it is harder to see trees lying across the road when there is A. heavy rain and B. no light. Luckily, both the Ocelotmobile and I managed to drive away from said tree unscathed.

Samhain evening was actually pretty nice, but only one child came for the Ritual Sacrifice. Bummer. What to do with all the chocolate that we didn't give to Pregnant Neighbor? Take it to friends tonight, of course.

There are pumpkins, sitting uncarved (due to our erratic schedules, friends suddenly dropping by last night, etc.) in the kitchen. On the one hand, it seems silly to carve them now. On the other, who says we have to make a light so the Ancestors know which house to come visit? Maybe this year, they're for attracting other things. A better job. A roof that does not spring new leaks as fast as the landlord fixes the old ones. Maybe instead of putting a candle in them, they need to be filled with...other things. The stuff of life, perhaps. The kind of things that got Ms. Dirty a great big "EEEEEEW" from the more delicately-sensibilitied in the pagan blogoverse.

If I keep this up, no-one will ever eat my kick-ass vegan pumpkin bread again.

One thing's for sure - Samhain isn't quite over yet.