short notes

Short notes

I am taking charge of my grandsons for the summer.  We will have four week days to sleep in late, play, go to the trampoline place, wear out the parks, take miles of walks, do lots of artsy-fartsy stuff.  We made leather pouches last Saturday and all I did was to punch holes for the little one and thread both of their needles.  Older grandson used a real leather awl for the first time and did a great job.  No one bled, and the pouches are so cool.  I am still working on the leather case I began for my cell phone.

So, lots of art stuff and science.  We will have time to do larger projects for all the science things we already do and all of us have ideas for expanding, especially making rockets.  Yay.

They will go to daycare at their school on the day that I volunteer at the food pantry.  I could take them along, but I can see how ultimately boring that would be for them, even if they do not.

A week ago, after food pantry gig I found a letter from the IRS in the mailbox.  Seems that the folk who did my taxes last year forgot to include retirement payments and the taxes I pre-paid on those payments and I owe them $2200 in three weeks.  I can file an amended tax return, but they want the taxes due first.  It is not the first time that I have been cash-strapped, but it is still a pain.  I have never owed anyone anything.  Ever.  Temporary glitch, and the woman I spoke to at the government office was very helpful in figuring out what went awry.  Anyway, I scraped it all together and it will be mailed next week after I see the investment folk.

I am in the process of making changes in how I am living.  One of my friends at work asked me today if she could ask me some questions.  Well, sure.  She told me that she has noticed that I have been behaving differently for the past couple of months, and she is correct, I have been. 

She wanted to talk about it and I shared that coming to understand that this summer will most likely be the last time that my grandbabies will be of an age where they really want to spend so much time with me.  They are both going to sleep-away camp this year.  Thankfully they are not playing sports this season.  I am not sure my butt and back could handle another summer on the bleachers.    And, part of making this a summer of significance for all of us includes me, my health, my physical abilities and all that jazz. 

My daughter and I went out for lunch last week and I shared all of this with her, emphasizing my personal concerns.  Who knows what my poor heart is going to do next.  It has been behaving less than optimally; I am taking more meds and carry emergency meds with me at all times.  You know, by next summer I may want to move into a senior community, not drive so much and maybe even really and truly retire.  I just do not know and am smart enough to not blithely believe that things will not change.  I am truly old now and whilst I can do whatever I want, those abilities could diminish in ways not to my liking. 

Best to be aware and live in the moment more fully than I do now.  Part of that is letting go of a couple of friends, although, as I think of it, if I am willing and wanting to not be in relationship of any kind with them I guess that they are already not real friends.  Anyway, I am breaking up with them.  It feels good and healthy, which is the proof of it being the right thing to do.

I sign a new lease next week on this flat and as of today I was still looking for a new place to live.  Surely not what my landlord wants and I am going to try to explain to him that I am going to continue to look for somewhere else to live.  My health is bad enough that I could easily break the lease, but I want to reassure him that I will not bail on my financial obligation to a lease, but I am pretty sure that he will not be all that reassured.  Tough.

I am having periods of extreme depression and stabs of anxiety, so it is time to have another appointment with my internist to discuss meds again.  I need blood tests anyway, so might as well get it done all at once.  I am forgoing a mammogram this summer.  Just do not want the extra expense, but my feelings about that may change when I am once again properly medicated.

I am at a standstill with my therapy.  I have done so much freaking healing and growing this past year with my still new-ish therapist.  The stumble is that it is time to talk about the worst of the worst of that other life and I am so not willing to go there.  It just seems like going backwards to have to share any of that stuff.  Maybe I will.  Probably I will decide to not share.  To talk or even think about any of that takes me right back to those days, reliving them again and again.  There is no buffer, there is not any safe way to do that.  I sometimes think that I might be able to do it under deep medication, but then what do I do with all those memories back, and not simply back, but fully realized and smack dab in my daily life again.  I fought so hard to heal this far.  I am just not sure that I can, even though I understand that if I want to be truly healthy and fully recover that all that mess has to be addressed and dealt with.  Probably will not.

I am having all my hair cut off next week.  I want hair short enough so that I can shower, run my fingers through that clean hair and do nothing else.  The blow dryer is not my friend.  Conditioners and other products are not my friends.  I am not even all that crazy about my comb.

reading and books, but mostly reading

This came to me via another person, and I am sharing it because I sort of kind of only partly agree with the premise.




https://booksien.com/2017/05/15/about-wanting-to-read-it-all/

I agree that it helps to reduce angst by being choosy about what books I choose to read.  I read every day for at least a few hours and am recently reading all night to find out what happens next, what new twists and paths will be taken by the characters and reacting with wonder each time.  The book is Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett.  It has been recommended to me many times and the only reason I am reading it now is because I do not have time to pick up my reserved titles at the library, but I bought this copy for a dollar whilst I was volunteering at our library's recent book sale.

But, that is not my point.  Maybe it is, but one of the things the author was doing was no longer reading Young Adult books, and I think that is a damn shame.

That means she has missed the treasures that are:
Anna and the Swallow Man, by Gavriel Savit. 
With Malice,by Eileen Cook. 
Symptoms of Being Human, by Jeff Garvin.
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusaki.
Between, by Jessica Warman.
The Giver, by Lois Lowry.
I cannot leave out the Maximum Ride books by James Patterson.



When I do not fancy any adult books, I re-read the Newbery books.  I have read all of them and until I left that other life, owned a copy of each.  Many are out of print, some are no longer available even in libraries, but every one is worth reading, by people of all ages.  I have yet to enchant my grandsons with any of those books, except for one that my oldest grandson was required to read for a class assignment.

http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal#20s

This is just the tip (and the only books that I can remember right now) that are just as important as re-reading Ulysses. 

If you are going to find and read books that will hold meaning or learning or help you to gain what you need to be the person you want to be, perhaps supposed to be, you have to be open to and kind of trust that books you never would have considered reading are going to do exactly that.  YA or something else, you just never know what will come along.

Do I end up with dreck?  More than I would prefer, but even those books have led me to similar topics, new authors, the rediscovery of old, favorite authors and absolutely new stuff that I never imagined what out there, just waiting for me.  And, I have long abandoned the belief that if I begin a book that I must finish it.  What an unexpected pleasure and relief that was!

As for classics, I know what and where they are and I have pretty much read all that I care to right now.  Who knows what next week will toss in my path.


This is only about fiction.

Rock on...we will, we will read you!

i watched a video thing

It was some guy talking about his drug use and how it took the death of his mother to help him change his life.  It was about his regrets and not making sure that the people about whom he cared knew it, not only by his words, more importantly about his actions and behaviors.

 

He was giving a speech at a school, looked like high school aged students.  And, even fraught with all of the personal healing and being honest about his life and the effect he had on other people, and even considering that when people share this kind of stuff you have to keep in mind (especially as those on the receiving end of speeches) that us sharers do this as much, if not more, for ourselves.  

 

True, and there is no explaining away that we do things like this because they help us heal and hopefully avoid making the same choices that brought us to disaster.  So.

 

This is not me thinking about drugs, although it is likely that some of my closest friends may struggle with some kind of substance issue. Mine is food. Always has been.

But, watching this just now brought me to thinking about all of the stuff that has happened in the world in the past few days. Sort of the culmination of how apprehensive and scattered and powerless I have been feeling for months now.

I am not alone. Even people who hold differing views and beliefs than mine are coming to understand...although I think that acceptance is some distance and time away...that our country is in trouble.

My country is in trouble and I feel compelled to change how I am living in it, amongst my fears and the uncertainty that seems ever more evident every single day.

So, even if I were powerful in some greater-than-self way, I can change only the things that are within my personal sphere of influence and that means my family and friends, my community, my work and all the rest, and I am going to take every opportunity to make sure that the people around me know how much they mean to me.

And, so, that is what I am going to change. I am going to amp-up how I interact with everyone I stumble upon. If I love you, you are going to know it and be reminded of that every time I see you.

You have been warned.

weather

When you live where I do, the weather is a reliable source of conversation.  We often experience two or more seasons in a single day.  More likely is to have weather conditions that are close to expected, with the expectation that the usual will soon change to something else.

February was unusually warm.  Off came the winter garments, but they were not cleaned and put away for the next winter cycle because we know that cold and snow, ice and sleet and winter thunder storms are still on their way.

To no one's surprise, the icy stuff returned.  Up here we had over a foot of snow, although I think neighboring areas had much less.  I really do not know because I do not care.  Whatever wintry weather we get now is bad enough and it is irritating when the next city or county fares better.  The lucky and hated ducks.

Not hated.  More like envied.

Except for the pharmacy making a mistake in my medications and not being able to exchange the wrong stuff for the stuff I need, I am fortunate enough to not need to leave the house.  But, these storms have lowered the temperature and increased the winds so that this place feels like the inside of a refrigerator.  I am using the heat, but the drafts are nearly unbeatable.  Time to drag out the area rugs and duct tape them to the walls again.  All that balmy weather let me to roll them up and store them away. 

Just plain dumb.  I know better.

I have two medical appointments...plus exchanging the mis-meds...tomorrow morning, and I will be able to enjoy the sunshine, because the end (at least for now) of the snow and all that cold stuff, brought in a weather system that is relatively clear.  No more overcast skies for a while.

For now I am going to bundle up on the sofa, away from this corner of the house draft, after I put out some nuts and cereals for the squirrels and whomever can make it up to the porch.  Those critters have to be disliking this new cold weather more than I do.

This photo show the lie of the forecast for less than half an inch of snow.  It is just over 12 inches.  Winter wonderland my ass.

no more cats for me

Cat sitting was wonderful, but what I thought was simply a return of my cough is allergies.  To cats.  Probably to other critters as well, but I do not have the funds to do all the testing and then whatever, if any, treatments are available.

The diagnosis of allergy was made by my doctor and myself.  No testing.  No extra money, no testing.  My symptoms meet all of the criteria, and since I have always had varying degrees of allergy to animal dander, and most especially to the proteins in cat saliva, it seems clear that being without a cat for nearly three and a half years has allowed my body to lose whatever tolerance I had to my own cats.  If you are exposed to your own cat, in your own environment, the allergic response lessens until you stop noticing the whole mess.  Decades of living with cats kept my symptoms subdued.

It just seems so unfair.  I know that I have been waffling about adopting another cat, and all my fussing about the hair shedding, but I felt that I would eventually get a cat. 

With the allergy issue, well, that pretty much eliminates birds, bunnies and rodents.  Testing would reveal is that is true or not, but no testing.  A tank of fish would be fine, and I like fish and would enjoy watching them, but I am sure that I would quickly resent the dedication needed to maintain healthy fish and fish environment.

So, whining and wishing officially over.  No pets for me.

I started volunteering at a nursing facility this past week.  I met the volunteer coordinator when she and her assistant were having lunch last week.  It is a place I go on my thrift shop volunteer days; lunch and then work.  The short story is that there were the two of them to wrangle and provide food for elderly people, many of them my age, and since I go to this restaurant every week, they know me well and allowed me to help the nursing home staff.

We talked a bit and I called their facility right after my own lunchtime and left a message for K, that I was interested in doing something there.  I met with her on Monday, right before my doctor appointment and she had a need for someone to teach cribbage, a card game.  I played it a lifetime ago, and said that I would try to teach myself to play it again.  K told me that I did not have to be great at playing, that what she really needed was someone to mediate all the fighting the cribbage group had every week.  Sort of rule-focal person.

I watched some videos on the game and knew before the evening was over that there was not any way that I could be fluent enough to resolve any of the bickering, which apparently became quite rowdy at times.

So, I am going to call bingo during happy hour.  The residents get to have pizza or some other snack of their choosing, soft and hard drinks and play bingo for fake money that they get to spend on some kind of thing, I think they called it an auction.

Yay.

I have two days where I have to leave the house, and once I stop being all cranky about having to actually leave the house, I am planning, with the help of nicer weather, to find at least two more reasons to get outside every week.  Four days out of seven is fine with me.

just home from

cat and house sitting.

I learned several things, knowing better than to number them now, whist there.

If I lived on the ground floor somewhere...even, horrors, an apartment...I would leave it more often, if only to get some fresh air walking around the block.  That is not happening now because I have really wonky and poorly-constructed stairs to the third floor (former attic) that are higher than normal steps and hurt my knees like a bitch whilst walking up and down them.

The stairway up to my flat, second floor, is made of normal steps, but I have to pass through the mold fog from the basement, foundation and crappy slapped-together walls that enclose those stairs.  I would bet a nickle that they were originally an outdoor stairway before the remodel or something.  On several levels it does not make sense, but there is absolutely no insulation out there.  It is often cooler than it is outside.  I had stored water bottles on the upper landing, right outside of my door; they froze and exploded.  Good thing I took the beer inside.

Secondly, sleeping in a bed that is not one's own is a pain.  Literally a huge, stinking pain.  First night was find.  Second and third nights kept me home from breakfast with my friends and I had to miss my grandson's basketball tournament in the afternoon.  I was pissed.  Still am.

Fourth and fifth nights totally did me in.  My back is a wreck and even my knees hurt like crazy.  So, no more foreign beds for me.  Well, until the next time someone needs me to sleep over to watch the monkey brothers whilst they go out for adult fun.

Third, and the most important of the things I learned is that I do not want a cat as badly as I did before starting the cat/house sitting gig.

I can have a cat and a wardrobe that exactly matches the cat's fur colors, or I can not have a cat.

I forgot how much hair just lives in the environment of a cat focal household.  Friday night I went to a play with a couple of friends and was not able to remove all of the car hair that had found its way to my slacks hanging nicely in the closet.  Fortunately, it was dark the whole time, evening does have that whole dark aspect, and I was the only one who noticed or at least no one else mentioned my strangely hairy pants.

The first few months of having a cat are fairly hair-free.  It takes time for cat hair to amass to critical capacity within a particular environment. 

Once you get used to it, you are used to it and you develop strategies for minimizing the coverage problems.

You keep your out-of-the-house clothes safely ensconced on a closed closet.  Said clothes are not allowed more than the briefest passage from laundry experiences to closet.  Dressing to leave the house is left until the last possible moment, often measured in nano-seconds.  I do not joke.

When returning from outside the house, clothes are returned to the safety of the closet only by developing insanely, nearly instantaneous garment divesting skills.

Once accomplished, it is a marvel to watch, although the only one seeing that show is, of course, your cat, who is not the teeniest bit impressed.  Frankly, there is not a cat anywhere who will even understand, much less concede, the need for such skills.

This is proof that cats do not know everything.

Having a cat would mean resurrecting those skills and despite my love of cats, my desire to have cats again and my need for that kind of love in my life, I am not sure that I am up to the hair problem.

Cleaning the cat's litter box twice every day was a snap.  Most folk might not consider it a pleasant task, but it is the most certain way of keeping up with any changes in your cat's health and habits.  A clean box is nice for your cat, but it is an essential way to monitor how your cat is doing.  So, no problems cleaning that box for the past week.

Cuddling and playing, well, this is where it gets serious.  I miss that so much. Playing with your cat is more fun than it should be, and part of that is how wonderful it is for your cat.  Cuddling is something that is equally wonderful for both cat and cat owner.

I am so torn.  The benefits of having a cat far outweigh any negative aspects, but I just cannot get past the whole hair mess tonight.  Maybe I will feel differently in a few days, but this feels so solidly a barrier that I think my cat owning days are most likely over.

This is sad, but I know that the hair mess aversion of going to win and I will not be getting another cat.

I do not envision adopting a hair-less breed of cat because in more than twenty-eight years of animal rescue work, not a single less-hairy cat ever came into the shelter.  That means I would need to buy a cat from a breeder, something I am not going to do.  Sure, there are responsible breeders who would be thrilled to sell a cat to me...I am hoping anyway..., but my heart and mind are pretty much stuck in shelter cat adoption.

I could have a small terrier, or some dog with hair instead of fur, that I could trim myself, as I did with our schnauzers.  But, but, but...dogs are so much daily work.

You cannot simply play with a dog, although everyone involved in said play activity loves it, dogs must be walked.  Every day, and for longer than dog owners generally want to be outside walking their dogs. 

Every day.  Weather permitting or not.  Where I live the old saying is that there is winter and the months leading up to winter.  Summer can pretty much be counted on, but springtime and fall are iffy and often rainy.  More than half of the time it is either raining, snowing or the aftermath of snow.  Rain flows off and soaks in nicely here, but snow is rude and hangs around long past its welcome.

Scooping after a dog would not be a problem; it offers the same health knowledge benefits as little box scooping.  I used to be a dog trainer, so barking and all that jazz would not be insurmountable, same thing for behaviors.  They did not call me the Cat Whisperer for nothing, and I am no slouch at dog training.  Kind of bragging, but it is true.

So, I guess I am off to find another kind of pet.

I was considering a fennec fox for a few months.  I know someone who raises them and I know I could properly care for one, but it has many of the same needs as do dogs, and being a mainly nocturnal animal would certainly suit my lifestyle, but it is still too canine for what I truly can handle now.

Guess I am back to bunnies or guinea pigs or rats.  I rescued a Capuchin monkey decades ago, but even then, during the time I had that sweet guy in my life I knew that primates are not house pets and when he was ready to move on it was sad, but I knew that having him was temporary and he was ready to go be with other monkeys.

Some difficult things to learn in just a week. 

well, so much for that

The hundred days project.  I have been ill again and, frankly, just not in the mood for any kind of big picture improvement.

My grandson's basketball game for yesterday was cancelled and since I had time coming home from breakfast with my friends, I stayed on the highway and went to visit at the humane society campus north of me.

No one spoke to me and said, "Let's go home now," so I accepted that, but I did find a 12 year old cat who had been transferred from another shelter.  She seems in good health, but moves very slowly.  She will willingly accept attention and touching, but does little more than stop near you and wait for you to initiate contact.

She is relatively old.  She has been in at least two shelters and who knows why she ended up in one in the first place.  She behaves more sad than anything else.  I pulled up a chair to watch her and when the volunteer left her enclosure (the temporary homes of the animals there are not all that home-like, but are quite nice) she stood for a while, then sat for a while and when it was clear that no one was coming back in, she walked to one of the places where she can rest and curled up and eventually went to sleep.

That cat, or one of any of the countless other cats like here, would be a perfect companion for me.  Heck, for anyone who lives a quiet life.  And, I could not take her home because cats are not allowed here.  So, I have to move.

I have to move.
I do not want to move.
I do not want to pack up all my crap again.
Or, move.

But, unless I am willing to spend the rest of my life without cats, I have to move.

This place is kind of a dump.  The landlord has stored all kinds of crap in this flat and because I am such a timid shit about this sort of thing, and even though a couple of the things are inconveniently stored and there is mold in the hallway and the weird stairway to the bedrooms was build and designed by giants, I have not said anything.  I will not.  I is not worth the effort.

So, instead of a hundred days of something meaningful, I am choosing the meaningfulness that would be packing up all my stuff and finding a new place to live.  With cats.

You know, I keep saying this to myself every month and every time that I am missing my cats so much that I think I cannot bear it a moment longer.  But, then another month goes by, beginning with a half-hearted start at packing and before I know it, another month has gone by without me completing anything that would bet me out of here.  Granted, I have a lease to fulfill, but if I was already packed and ready to go, well, I could when the lease expires.

All the mental health care work I am doing seems not enough.

I learned an interesting thing about my mental illness journey this past week.

When I work my ass off, over and over again, trying over and over again to get rid of some memory or behavior that is holding me in place, and I finally work it often enough to actually move past that thing, that thing is still there.

I can see it. It exists just as strongly as it ever did, but I cannot go back to that place. I can see it. It is still there.

It is simply no longer a place that is available to me, no longer that one thing on which I need to keep such a desperate grasp.

And, as I thought about that singular break-away moment(s), I was able to see the other places to which I can no longer travel.

I think that I can still see them because they represent the things that happened to me, which makes them important to where I am now, and it reminds me that I am not the only person who struggles with this stuff.

Just honoring where I am, where each of us might be, on that spectrum.

My breakfast friends are pretty much just breakfast friends.  We all support one another and all that jazz, but breakfast is pretty much the only time we see each other, and e-mails about where to meet for the next breakfast is the only other contact we have.  I went yesterday because I knew the woman who chose the restaurant would show up because she chose the place and I wanted to see her.

well, I found the old days

100 that is *.

It was not about personal growth as I remembered, but about doing something every day to make the world a better place.

How egotistical for a person who thought she had that under control.

So, off to search and discover what else I have forgotten about the project.

Found:
100 Days
About doing something creative each day
http://100daysproject.co.nz/

100 Happy Days
Can you be in a better mood for 100 days?  Happier?
http://100happydays.com/


Lots more, but not that original one that I found just when I needed to make something better.  Whatever it was, I cannot find that original thing on-line, so that must mean that I am misremembering it.

However, I did find the stuff I had saved from my own project *.  And, I am thinking that it would be nice to factor in that component of making the world a better, more loving place in my own wee ways.  Perhaps I could combine positive thoughts about myself and others, seeking happiness or joy or contentment creativity into some mash of some vague everything that I seem to be wanting right now.

I talked to the folk where my divorce settlement monies are kept for, I thought, my financial security.  In the four-plus years since that final decree I have not touched any of that money. 

My frugal living preferences mean that I can live on what I have, no matter what that actual amount might be.  I have more available since earlier this year when my ex died and when I began receiving a portion of his former social security benefits.

I digress, but have you ever tasted Lotus Biscoff cookies.  The wrapper claims them to be Europe's favorite cookie with coffee, but that is likely a boast as Thomas's English Muffins, touted to be England's favorite, which "Mr. Thomas" brought to America, probably because he just likes us so much.  Epic and insincere marketing stories that surely must be directed towards the national loyalty of children and/or those who like coffee.  Those cookies are tasty, though.

So, anyway, I have more money to fuss around with.  I have mostly been using it to buy better quality food, as well as plenty of not-entirely-essential foodstuffs.  But, a bit more money would go a long way to allowing me to do more stuff.

Nothing huge or anything, but this year's health crap has brought me a greater awareness that I am not going to live forever, and the recent broadcast media remembrances of celebrities deaths during this year are helping to reinforce that notion. 

I want to do more stuff because, well, because we never know when we will no longer to do all of the things we not only do now but all of the things we wished we had done.  I am learning to release regret about my failures in the past and I would love to die with fewer regrets about what I could have done whilst I had the chance.

So, I talked to my reps' contact person at the financial place and I am going to begin taking chunks of that money and turning it into potential pleasure.

I want to spend more time doing things that my grandsons like to do whilst they are still young enough to want to spend time with me. 

We have already talked about taking a train trip to see the Grand Canyon this summer, fitting in between their summer sports activities and family time.  I used to take train trips whenever I could.  Mostly simple day rides other places, but I did visit the Canyon in the year before leaving that other life.  I had thought that I would go west and just not come back.  Too timid for that, although I was glad that I had found the gumption to try it.

So, the Canyon with the boys.  Maybe drag their parents along, too.

They like going to see movies and to visit that place with all the bouncy houses, or that gymnastics place or the one with the rock climbing wall and archery.  It will not be long before those interests will fade and be replaced by interests that cannot include a grandma tagging along, if only to watch them play whilst I read books and people watch.

I have not thought past those two things, but if I try I could bet pretty good at this business of fun.

So.  A few dozen consecutive, or nearly so, days of
creativity
self-empowerment
doing my little bits of caring more and taking more care of the world.

Not bad, I guess, although I can feel my enthusiasm lagging as I type. All I can do is my best and that is enough.  It also occurs to me that this project, cobbled together as it is, can also be about not being held captive to artificial constraints and boundaries. 

Could be interesting. 

Oh, one more thing is that I am really and truly going to try to spend less time complaining.  Choosing positivity can can be a part of this as well.

100 days

Back in the dark ages of 2010, January 7th, to be precise, I embarked on a personal challenge to do something for 100 days.  In a row.  I am not certain that I kept to that exact schedule, but I did complete the whole project.

I was inspired by a group in the UK who were doing this thing about
self-improvement
-esteem
-actualization
or something positive like that.

I decided that I would use the opportunity to say something positive about myself every day.

You can only imagine how quickly that fell apart.

Most difficult thing I have ever tried. 

So, I modified it to include divesting my life of material things.  I began by listing the names of books, stuff like that, along with the positive self-talk.  That did not last long either.  An additional modification was to get rid of stuff and say something positive every day.  It would have been nice had I been able to keep up the about-me-part, but it was much easier to declare something positive about other people or people in general, or whatever.  I would have to go back and read all of the days' entries.  I am fairly certain that I abandoned the positive stuff about myself from the very beginning.  I think that I eventually copied and pasted the journal postings, and if I still have it in the documents on this computer, I may add a separate page to this blog on which to list it.  The sticking part will be to post it as it, warty growths, unlandscaped armpits, juvenile angst and all.

I did this as journaling on a group site to which I belonged.  It was about simple living and I fondly...and seriously...thought of myself as a Simpleton.  Still do, as those habits have stuck with me through not only the past sixteen years, but as a continuation of the way I was trying to live back then, even before I found that group or began that part of my life journey.

I did not save any of the responses that other members were kindly disposed to leave in support, but I do remember one woman who told me that it was all well and good to do all of this complaining (although I thought of it as, you know, a personal spewing of everything that fell out of my head and down through my typing fingers and onto the electronic page), but what exactly was I going to do about any of it.

In my naivete, I replied that I had no intention of doing anything beyond just getting it all out of my head.  I am reasonably certain that my whining got on her nerves, perhaps even her last one, but the journal was not about her.  It was about me and my mostly unconscious need to write about problems and all that jazz, and especially, as it turned out, my marriage, something could not have imagined sharing with anyone, much less a quasi public forum.  Anyway, I suspect she never liked me, even a bit, because she was always criticizing me about all manner of things that I shared/wrote, and not just in that journal.

So, anyway, I think I want to do this kind of project again.  I am not signing up with a like-minded group as I did before, and I believe that the simple process of making myself write every day, or at least most days could be helpful.  Pretty much what I do here anyway, so not to expect anything very interesting or profound or anything.

I think the focus will be on the work I am trying to do on releasing all of the ideas, thoughts, regrets and issues from the past that keep pounding around in my head, especially when I am unable to sleep or relax.

I am going to ponder the whole thing for a few days and begin when I feel like beginning.  This is not about resolutions or even really about improving myself in ways like health or exercise or faith practice (something that has been bouncing around upstairs for a while) or being more social or generous or practical or any such nonsense.

This blog is the perfect place.  It is very personal, not many people know I write here and it feels safe.  Any of the bad players from my past, who would be more than happy to find and distress me, are able to find me here.  The few people who do know about this blog are nice and kind and, frankly, people I trust to read my crap and hold me accountable need be.

life is wacky

I am not much of a holiday person lo these past several decades.  Lots of reasons, many of which other folk know, but in the spirit of not being a holiday person, they, those reasons, are best left behind and I am trying (yes, a real thing) to leave all that crap behind.

Time, huh?

So, anyway, yesterday I kicked ass.  It was my own ass, but an ass nevertheless.

In the last move, I was still clinging to some safety issues and I chose to notify every need-to-know person, company, entity of the move personally.  I made a lot of phone calls and fielded almost as many inquiries about why I did not simply create a change of address with the postal service.  Well, if you are still stuck on something as ridiculous as personal safety, you do not do that post office notice.

It really does work well, but my auto license plate tag renewal fell through one of the abysses and, on the way home from work and the library Thursday night, I found myself on the receiving end of many brightly colored flashing lights, a huge SUV and a lively driver who was not St. Nick, but one of our village's cops.

He wished me a happy holiday and asked if I knew why he had pulled me over.  Of course, I had not a clue and confessed to the same.  You have to confess when dealing with cops.  I think it might even be an actual law when you get pulled over.

He told me that I had expired tags and then asked to see my driver's license and proof of insurance.  Well, I help myself properly, but inwardly I was thinking, 'well, I have this part solid'.

Driver's license, sure.  Insurance card, nope.

He let me go with two papers that suggested that it would be nice if I could, should I feel like it, you know, get that registration updated and find something that proved that I was properly insured, vehicle-wise.

I detoured to fetch my meds from the pharmacy, went home, made a wee martini (have to confess that it was not we) and went online to do both of those things.  The insurance was easy.  Apparently I chose to go paperless when I renewed my car and renter's insurance last March and, also apparently, when you do that, the insurance company does not send you a card/proof/plastic thing.  If you want, you can print a card or request to have one specially sent, neither of which I did.

At least it is a weird kind of proof that I did not need proof, as I have not had the pleasure of being stopped by cops in a couple of years, so ten months of not having a physical proof of insurance did me no harm or inconvenience.

I had the insurance card image sent to my phone, and I loaded it onto my Hello Kitty flash drive.  Covered.

When I went to the DMV web site, I discovered that I could not renew my auto license tags on-line because it was one of the alternate years when you have to present yourself and your vehicle in person to have an emission test to make sure that you are not polluting the planet any more than necessary and I suspect that they, the testers, are also covertly assessing the drivers as well.

There are no sites for emission testing open at night.  In fact, a few years ago the state decided that having their own emission testing sites was too expensive and too stressful having to deal with drivers in person, and in their wisdom they farmed out testing equipment to car dealers, which also earns the dealers some kind of income.  Whilst that has not saved the state any money, at least they do not have to deal with actual in-person people.

I did everything I could on-line, including the option to receive both e-mail and text reminders when any of that stuff is due for something.  Then, yesterday I drove to one of the car dealer testing sites, had the car tested.  It passed and for a mere ten dollar/US counter fee, was able to have the registration process completed.  Except that the car guys would not accept the fee from me, which was nice.

I then drove to the police station where they were amazed that I got it all done in one day, given the wonkiness of hours of business due to the holidays and all.  Oh, the reason I had to have the insurance information on my phone is that the library was closed yesterday.  An especially long weekend off for all of them, which, of course, they deserve because they are so nice about accepting my huge overdue fines.  Yes, I am working on that, too.

A nice conversation, some show-and-tell with the coppers, some noodling around on their computers and I am fine.  The tickets they gave me had to be completed withing fifteen days, so managing all that in less than twelve hours had me all chuffed.  And, rightfully so.

Even though I am, well, not exactly broke, my funds are cramped because I went bat-shit crazy with gifts for everyone, I treated myself to dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant.  Whilst there, it snowed, so I walked next door to the grocery store and stocked up on comfort food so that I do not have to leave my house for the next week.

I did by enough healthy and reasonable food, but I also bought three kinds of tea, three kinds of cookies to have with them...no playing favorites here.  And, now I am comfortably ensconced in my properly tarped and carpeted little home.

But, this is where the wacky stuff comes in.

In no particular order:

This village is like a small town, a really small town, like a really small town where even if you are not from here, you may have just gone ahead and been born and grown up here.
Two examples are that a month ago I had, actually one of my big, fat fingers missed the lock button on the car lock thing and instead opened the trunk.  That stayed open for five days and drained the car battery enough to keep that little light on, but no enough to start the car.  A long story short is that I decided to do what every old babe does...fix it myself.  Turns out no amount of will power will fix a dead battery, car or otherwise.  I called the hardware store to buy one of those things that you plug in, in the house, and get it all charged up for when you drain your car battery.  They hardware guy offered to bring it to my house and then use his car to charge mine.  I declined, mostly because it was weird to have a stranger offer that, and then mentioned that I was going to call R, the guy who owns the gas/service station a block from my house.  I called R and whilst I was waiting for him to come and charge me up, the hardware guy called to tell me that he found exactly what I wanted.  Great.  Cool.  But, I asked, had he known my telephone number.  When he found that piece of equipment, after our phone call, he called R and asked for my phone number.
This sort of thing most likely goes on all the time in all kinds of places, but it has never happened to me.

The cop that pulled me over on Thursday evening was the same one who followed me into the hospital parking lot where I had gone to take physical therapy after my heart operation.  The reason he followed me was to let me know that one of my car tires was low on air.

 Whilst checking out at the grocery store last evening (post Chinese dinner) I was embraced by the woman checking out in front of me.  She attended the holiday party held by the place I work/volunteer because her son was playing in the jazz quartet entertaining us.  I talked to her because, well, because she was there alone and she confided in me about how she was experiencing some estrangement from her son because her soon-to-be ex-husband was being a ass hat and trying to turn their children against her because she refused to obey him.  Turns out he has been abusive and here we are, strangers, me chatting with her and her somehow knowing that in the midst of everything she was experiencing and how vulnerable she was, she had found someone who not only would listen to her, but could be helpful.

We really have to trust our gut feelings, that intuition that does its best to help us find or meet or discover exactly what we need.

I really should have been more frugal and not driven to treat myself to Chinese dinner.  Not only was it so good, like a dream full of Asian goodness, but doing so taught me two things.  The first is that whilst I had spent all of the money I saved for the holidays, still had enough to pay all my bills and rent to the end of January, I ignored that bit of good sense and had a wonderful meal and had the blessing of running into that woman from the party.  She shared that she worked in that little strip mall and invited me to come visit her at work.  She invited me four times.  I suspect that she really means the invitation and that I will do exactly that and also that I may have found/re-found someone who is going to be a friend of the best kind.

Trying my best and accepting that trying is a legitimate and valuable behavior and attitude is becoming more helpful and supportive the more I acknowledge the effort.  I can keep heart and keep on trying.

All I use Facebook for is to play bubble and mah jong games and as a touchstone with some of my friends and a very few family members.  However, today one of my friends re posted something that I really liked, and I rarely pay attention to all of that self-esteem happy thoughts claptrap stuff.

Set some goals
Stay quiet about them
Smash the shit out of them
Clap for your damn self

Like totally best wishes to all my friends, some of my family and, gosh, just be good to yourselves first and clap your damn ass off for your damn self.

wrong...wrong...wrong

In the past 24 hours I have done everything nearly the opposite of what I am supposed to be doing.

I have been working on that whole sleep hygiene thing.  You know, regular bedtimes, regular wake-ups, no distractions in the bedroom.  I have never had television or radio or even cute dancing boys where I sleep.  But, I have horrible insomnia whilst trying to get enough sleep so that I can make it through any day that needs to have me make it through.

I am also not to read in bed.  If I cannot sleep, I have to get up, sit someplace (rocking chair in my bedroom is fine) and read the most boring thing I can find.  Like appliance manuals or something.  I almost made a joke about reading the Bible, but I find it a fascinating read, as are most holy scriptures and texts.  Just pick a faith practice and try it.  You will be stunned at how wonderful and interesting all of that stuff is.  Same thing goes for physics, particularly the quantum type. 

Anyway, when you get tired of learning about your toaster oven, you can go back to bed, turn off the lights and just stay there until you either fall asleep or have to start all over again.  Most of the time this will work for a day or three and then I spend a week with little sleep until I cheat.  Well, I do.

My natural rhythms prefer that if I have something important to do that it begin in late afternoons and early evenings.  They also like it if I stay up late and sleep in later than works well in the practice of an ordinary day.  It is less of a conundrum than it was before I retired, but it is still a pain to be out of sync with the rest of the world most of the time.

I am trying to eat well.  Or, at least better.

And, yes, despite whatever crap you have heard about there is no such thing as trying.  There is only do or not do, trying is a valid and reasonable thing to do on one's life.  Trying means that you intend to do your best for/with/on something that is challenging, even something one would prefer to not do.  Trying is often the best that one can do.  It just is.

Anyway, I have trouble eating meat.  Not only is it expensive, but you have to cook it and it makes messy pots and pans and it is not all that easy to digest, and whilst I am most often able to enjoy it, it just has so many strikes against it.

I prefer raw food, always have.  Vegetables, even those that are more nutritional when cooked, some fruits (also expensive and I have to pay attention to how much sugar I eat, even natural ones), cottage cheese and the occasional dairy something, sprouted grains, millet and the ilk.  Like that.

Food is my drug of choice.  I am a food addict, of the purest kind.  It has taken me a lifetime to come to terms with this, but it is simply another one of those things that is what it is.

I am stunningly careful about doing the right things, but today I did none of it.  I was as contrary as it is possible to be without realizing that I was being contrary. 

It just happened and I am feeling better than I have in months.  I swear.  Months!

So:

• Last night I could not sleep, so got up, completely cleaned and rearranged the boys' room.  Moved an end table downstairs.  Packed away some bedding Then I read in bed until I fell asleep.
• Arose when I woke up naturally. 
• Ate a very late lunch, having only arisen after 10:30 a.m.  Unfortunately, I had not yet come to my senses and ate a lovely couscous and raw vegetable salad that I made myself.  However, it was so delicious it could have felt like cheating had I been aware that I was in the midst of a day chock full of the best kinds of cheating...ever.
• Had Chinese food for dinner, late, after the Advent program at the boys' school's church.  Brought home leftovers and the wait person gave me extra white rice!   Sweet!
• Ate a chocolate swirl croissant with fudgy stuff drizzled all over it and with each bite I spritzed a dollop of spray whipped cream on it, alternating with shooting the heavenly white fluff directly into my mouth.

The croissant snack was possible only because I stopped at the market after the restaurant dinner to get mandarins, crushed pineapple, fresh orange juice and dried cranberries to add to some of the couscous salad for lunch tomorrow at work.

I am also proud to have purchased instant oatmeal, bottled water, a piece of cake from the bakery department.  There is still some whipped cream left, so I might have that for breakfast.  Just that.

So then, what have I learned today?  I have no idea, but feeling this good is very interesting.  It is most likely some kind of crazy fugue state before I crash.  Regardless, I am off to bed, to read until I fall asleep.

What a kick-ass day this has been.  And, the church thing was nice, although I wish those church Christmas things would modern-up and play Mary Did You Know.  I loved it from the moment I heard it on the radio (car, not bedroom :) ) last year. 

progress

I guess I am making some, despite my best efforts to stay in the place I know, which is not going anywhere.  I know how this goes.  I do it all the time.  Grow a bit and be content to stay there for as long as possible.

The car which saved me four years ago when I locked myself out of the flat and had to climb the car and throw myself through a window.  I still love that whole experience.

Anyway, it needs replacing and I am going to add some roadside assistance thing to my car insurance and wait until it just completely dies. 


There is not any reasonable way to winterize this place.  I should have been suspicious when the landlord demurred and changed the subject when I wanted to know the heating costs.  Turns out that the stairway up here is enclosed in a small attachment to the house, kind of like and outside staircase, but one that has walls and a roof.  Yeah, but that is all it is.  It is a cobbled together thing and has no insulation, huge gaps between all the pieces of the darn thing and is so cold that just outside the actual door to the flat that the water I left there last week was frozen and exploded the next morning.

The heating vents on that landing are drawing air directly from the outside.

So, there is a rug unrolled and against the porch door.  Tarps over all the windows and blankets rolled and stuffed along the bottom of the landing door and the door to the basement.

It has to do.  It is now too cold for me to think about moving, but I will do so as soon as the snow goes bye-bye.

I am feeling rather chuffed at figuring out what needed doing to close up this place and plug all the holes and gaps that let the cold air and wind inside.  To be honest, even standing up against the windows and such did not reveal all that pass-through air, but now that every possible vertical surface is fully tarped, blanketed and taped, it is noticeably  warmer in here.  I will still be wearing all my spare clothing (think of the little kid in A Christmas Story after he is packed into his winter outdoor play gear; yes, that is me, including a hat) and lots of socks, but I should see a lower heating bill next cycle.

I am nearly finished with my holiday gifts, with just a dozen or so left to make, and I am wanting so much to bake cookies or strudel, especially strudel, or fruit cake, which I truly love, even bad fruitcake.  A few years ago a friend sent me a small Christmas cake, which is what fruit cake is in Australia.  Other place as well, I am guessing, but here in the US it is the much maligned cake of fruit with just enough dough to hold it all together. 

One holiday season I made cakes for everyone.  They really did like my fruit cake, I swear.  Anyway, the ingredients kept increasing and I ran out of bowls and had to go to the hardware store to buy a big trash can in which it mix it, stirring with a barbecuing spatula.

It took a day to figure out that nothing I had would hold the dough.  A second day to mix it all together and a third to bake all of them.  Well, more like twenty continuous hours.  Tiring, but it was divine and if I want to treat myself, I can make a small one and simply not share it with anyone.

I am still struggling with sleep hygiene and will write about how difficult it is, as well as why I am unable to release all of the zillions of memories when I feel that I did not do well enough, or the right thing or whatever the heck is holding all of that nonsense in my head to be endlessly played in my noggin whilst I try to sleep each night.

This is not something I am doing all that willingly, it is at the behest of my therapist, and I truly am able to see the benefit of it, but I will do it.  Mostly.

I am hoping to do some marketing on the way home from work on Thursday, haul up enough food and stuff to last several weeks and just hunker down here.  I have turned down invitations for xmas and new year get-togethers, although I will groove with my daughter and the guys at some point.

Other than that, whilst I am out on Thursday I need to buy a new keyboard, as this one is full of sticky maple syrup that my pancakes were kind enough to share.  So, any wonky spellings are because I missed them when the keys stuck together to make new ways to spell words.

Peace and happy holidays to all us, because even if we think we are undeserving of good things, we are.  Deserving. 

Two hours, approximately

I just spent two hours with Thomas Wolfe (not to be confused with Tom Wolfe, which I did), Scott Fitzgerald and a moment or two with Ernest Hemingway.

I have read Look Homeward Angel, and thought that The Bonfire of the Vanities, although very different from LHA, was also written by him.  I just learned that I have been confusing the two authors, Thomas Wolfe and Tom Wolfe, who, to the best of my understanding, did not hang with Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but was a contemporary of J.T. Salinger, another favorite author of mine, having read most of his stuff.  But, whilst I am most likely wrong about that last bit, it has been a stress-filled week and I am not sure about much right now.

Anyway, the context of this match-up is that I borrowed Genius from the library.  When my turn came along on the reservation list and I brought it home this week, I could not imagine why.  The plot did not sound like something I would have taken the trouble to reserve, but since I would rather spend today not cleaning and moving furniture between floors as I planned and must do this weekend, I watched it.

The film almost immediately grabbed me by the cojones, which I do not have, but my ex told me I had in abundance on one (or more) of the many occasions when I irritated him, which could have pretty much been any of the days we were married.  Although, I am pretty sure that he did not use that argument about my serious lack of his version of feminine charms until after our child was born.  Another feminine failure on my part, the whole getting pregnant and giving birth thing.  Another story.

Genius did take me inside the story of Thomas ("call me Tom") Wolfe and his first editor Max Perkins, played by Jude Law and Colin Firth.  Maybe that was the reason I wanted to see this film, those two guys and Laura Linney and Nicole Kidman.  All of whom I admire and I have to say right from the step-off, their performances were knock you to your knees, completely fall into the character and totally forget that they were actors playing rolls. 

I know that I have had plenty of absorbing film watching experiences, but this movie, well, the story and acting were, are, transcendental.  Even given that this week was a period of titering down on some of my psych meds, I am sure that I would have had the same viewing experience.  True.  Each actor became that person/character.  Completely and emotionally.  Frankly, I am still a bit breathless, given that whilst based on true events and stories, it contains many additional aspects of the real people involved that cannot be directly attributed to them.

And, that is that.  I will not type another word about this film.  Ah, sure, you can go to IMDB or any other on-line review thingy, but you will be able to appreciate the power of these performances only by watching it.  How it managed to get such low review scores boggles my cojones.

good intentions

I did get all washy, clothed and outside, to find that the little hatch thing on the back of the car, sort of like a trunk/boot, had been unlatched and that wee light had drained the battery.  It was dark, I was cold and hungry and it was so stupid that I laughed myself all the way upstairs.  There I looked on-line for anyplace nearby that would deliver food, groceries or fast food, did not care.

I found a pizza place that would deliver.  They did.  I over-tipped.  The food was bad, like horrible, like inedible.   

I ordered a deluxe supreme taco pizza and could only eat the lettuce and some of the crust edge.  The garlic bread was salvaged by cutting off the soaked part and the rest of the roll and the marinara were wonderful.  The chicken wings were stone cold, barely unfrozen and I ate them anyway.  I am not ordering pizza from them again, but I might stop in for a big place of spaghetti except for the fact that I can easily make that and it is fabulous.  So, goodbye pizza place.  It sure was a good idea.

By morning I knew I had to do something proactive and get over that first-world problem of crappy delivery food.  I did not have food in the house because I have been feeling so awful for such a long time and, all these days later I have barely improved the food thing here.  Being out is so exhausting and my doc(s) are still trying to diagnose my extreme lethargy and chest pain.  Tumors have been ruled out, as has cancer and lots of other icky things. 

Keeping in mind that one of the zillions of things about which I know nothing, medically speaking, I have this notion that my adrenal system is depleted.  Thank you very much, Dr. Google.  Whatever it is, I have to pull up my BGPs and get on with everything.

My daughter helped me visit a couple of possible places to rent that do not have out of code (building code) construction, mold and an inadequate heating system.  To of them were perfect (even allowing cats and small dogs) but they were all too expensive.  This wee village is between several large metropolitan areas and decent rentals are difficult to find.  Yet another 1stWorld problem.

I have a new battery in the car and am figuring how to pay to do some major repairs or sell it for scrap and find another used car.  But, the darn thing is running well enough to get me to the holiday party for the place I work/volunteer.  There was some amazing local youth music.  A jazz band from the high school, as well as four members of the same school's choir group.  The band played standards and the choir did holiday songs, including my only favorite xmas song, Mary Did You Know.  The first time I heard that on the car radio I had to pull over to listen.  It is a beautiful and emotional song and I love it.  When the young women came around to each of the tables to ask for requests, to be sung right there, we asked for a repeat of that song, as did the table next to us.

A very nice buffet followed, there were two free drinks, wine or beer or fancy bottled water, and everyone received a fifty dollar gift certificate to our store.  I got one last year, but left it behind on the table and am taking very good care of this year's certificate.  There is always something in that sweet thrift shop that I want to buy; a tea towel or handkerchiefs for myself, lovely things for things and there are quirky things that the grandsons and I can take apart or make into something.

We had our first snowfall yesterday.  It drifted down all through the day and it looks like there is a couple of inches out there.  It is not too cold, so the snow is heavy with moisture and I am so grateful that the landlord does not trust any of us to not mess up the property and he does the shoveling and other lawn care.  So, totally yay about that.

I do have a quandary.  My daughter is in her final semester of school and is also working at a lab in her field.  It is difficult because they are working her in a lab that does ceramic work, something she is yet to learn at school.  She told me yesterday that they are so backed up that there is no one with time to train her, so they are showing her what to do and then leaving her to it.  She says that her dental appliances look fine, but that she is positive that none of them are good enough to go into the mouth of any hapless patient. 

The little thing is that she has not asked me to help by watching the boys or helping her around her house.  Since I live only a mile from her now, that is easily accomplished, but she is not asking for help.  I usually just jump in and offer, but I did not this time.  Frankly, getting up at four in the morning is not nearly as much fun as you might think it to be for an old babe like me.

She knows that I am always available when my son-in-law travels, but we are stuck now, her not asking, me not offering.  I am hoping that when I am feeling better that I will be able to surprise them with offers to take the boys for weekends and after school.  We'll see.

It feels selfish to not be there most days, at least to help with cooking.  I just cannot do it right now, so I get to be selfish for a while longer.

Too much information coming. Leave now and finds something wonderful to do might be the best advice I have ever given.

It is too cold in here, but I am afraid of having too high a utility bill.
I have due library book and an overdue DVD, prescriptions on their final day of hold until they are restocked and getting dressed and leaving the house seems an impossible task.
I have few groceries in the house, microwave popcorn, two cans of soup and lots of condiments and shopping, even whilst I am out feels exhausting.
Last night I rearranged stair-top nook, the upstairs bedrooms, moving beds, bookcases, tables and carpets because I have been having nightmares and was just plain weary of facing another one.

I have a nice menu of mental issues.
PTSD
Depression
Anxiety
Food addiction

Only my closest friends know about any of this. The rest of the world thinks that I have it all together, perhaps not even a care in the world. Work, volunteer gigs, family and other mandatory social events are sometimes...not always...difficult, feel burdensome and scarily vulnerable.

I live in a self-forged stronghold where strength often cannot be found. I manage as best I can, fail when I cannot manage and retreat when failure becomes too much.

I am properly medicated and have excellent medical and mental health care support. I take my drugs, try to eat well, exercise, meditate and spend as much time outdoors as I can stand. My close friends and a few family members might not always understand, but they try to support me as best they are able. It is a gift that I do not take lightly.

I am blessed with an amazing life, one that I earned, tear by tear, pain by pain and loss by loss and I am grateful.

I guess the point of finally revealing this is that I recently saw someone who I suspect is pretty much like me, struggles like me and does the best she can with what she has to work with.

I recognized her immediately, as one of 'us', as soon as she was having trouble. Those moments passed too quickly for me to offer any understanding or help, either or both of which might not have been welcome, but when you experience difficulties of any kind, and you are even a half-way decent person, one of your impulses is to reach out to another person who seems to be having some manner or other of difficulty of his/her own.

And, I guess the larger point is to remember, to hold dear to your heart and not judge or dismiss another person, situation or circumstance that you may observe.

Love the people who deserve your hate, disgust or dismissal. Help when you can, hold back when you must. Be nice, like excruciatingly nice, loving and wonderful to yourself so that you are full of everything that you need, if only to be the best person you can, but also to be there for other people.
You cannot produce or provide anything from any empty self, place, well of universal consciousness or higher source you many embrace. Just saying.

Anyway, it is late afternoon.  The library will close soon; the pharmacy a bit later.  But, I am hungry and need the meds in a few days, and am not all that fond of library fines, although that happens pretty much every week.  One recent week was nearly ten dollars.  Shudder.  So, I will soon wash my face, take a flying brush at my teeth, get dressed and go out and do all the things that need doing today. 

At the least I will gnaw away at that list, which also includes stopping at the bank, hauling some stuff to the basement, maybe throwing a load of laundry in the tub and dragging some shelving up to my bedroom where I decided during last nights/early morning flurry of reorganization that the newly organized space is perfect for all of my sewing equipment and stuff.  That bedroom is huge.  I have had living rooms smaller than that.  Besides the shelving is that lightweight plastic stuff.

If you do not hear from me again...ever...it is because I ran away from home.  Such as it is.  Erp.

Oh no!

Lions and tigers and snow plows.

It has begun, the southern drift of the tundra.  I reluctantly woke for breakfast with my friends and had to drag myself through enough hygiene to not repulse anyone, looked out the front window and did not see snow.  Yay.  Like, seriously, Yay!  Then I wonky knee walked to the lower landing and saw the white stuff on the grass.  It had not yet melted, as it had done on the street and porch.  It has not actually made it that far as of now.  The grass is vainly trying to get rid of the stuff.  Not much success.

This brief visit was easily removed and melted from the car windows, but it is not long before that process becomes a major job.  I cannot find my tarps and will have to fetch some from my favorite hardware store.  That store and the Farm & Fleet in another town are my bestest places to shop.  I tolerate grocery and artsy fartsy shopping, abhor shopping for clothing and an only mildly averse to shopping for house stuff.  I cannot be alone in that feeling.

So, off to find out if my friend's cat will leave her under-the-bed nest and come out to meet me.  Then the hardware store for a tarp and all sorts of things for which I have absolutely no use but cannot resist buying.  Last time I was there I bought a power drill and a pack of bits.  I am so weak.

There better not be any new snow on the car.  Just saying.

November

you crazy old babe.  Seriously.

This month has brought insanely wonderful weather.  There was one night when, had it not quickly cooled, I would have been wishing the air conditioner was still installed.

Until today, or I guess tomorrow, it was too warm to wear a sweater, much less a coat of any weight.  It has been wonderful and you know how it goes, you get all settled in and put all of winter's glories out of your mind.  At least I did.  I could have gone without really cold temperatures until the inevitable transformation of the upper Midwest into a fair approximation of the Tundra.

This may be the actual first winter that I do not enjoy with my usual joy.  I am guessing that I will like shoveling the lighter snowfalls.  I am happy to scatter ice melt so that I can walk to my car without going ass over teakettle.  I will be glad to haul out the tarps to cover the car so that I can, almost always, just lift the snow to the side of the car.

I am prepared with my favorite windshield ice melt spray and I have a wee can of the stuff you can squirt into the car's keyhole and around the frozen-over doors.

I think that does not sound like an expectation of hating winter, but all of that cold and wet stays on the roads with stunning stubbornness.  I have never had a winter accident.  I did have a summer accident when I was five decades younger, but in my defense, it was crappy brakes (of which I had no notion) that did not slow me enough to prevent bumping into the car ahead of me whilst on the highway on my way to work.  Man, just a few more inches of brake performance would have meant no scratched bumpers, just a rapid heartbeat for a while and a more cautious drive downtown.

But, it is going to happen, all that cold, wet, ice and window scraping, so, you know what that means...big girl panty time.

Other than that, even though I have not been around to share, my health is improving.  The heart stents (3), bone-on-bone arthritis in my knees and one hip and how much healthier I am with all the rehab, exercising and getting back to eating well.  There is a darkly cloud, a wee one, moving in, but with how well all the rest has gone, I am not going to fret before fretting seems like a good idea.

Family is doing just dandy.  The grandsons are still brilliant and the son-in-law is still cool and groovy.  I tried to get tickets to a big concert with his favorite band, but that is pretty much an exercise in heart break.  With computers, the seats are sold in a whirlwind of bytes and bills/money.  My daughter warned me that it would be an adventure trying to buy tickets and she was right.  If I want to find some with a re-seller I will have to find someone to buy one of my kidneys.  Maybe both.

It would have been a nice holiday present for him.  My daughter and the monkey brothers are more accepting of my giving gifts, but aside from buying him a year's worth of his favorite socks for work, he always tells me that all he wants is that I wrangle the boys once in a while.  Frankly, that is more of a present for me than it is for him, but try to convince him?  Cannot be done.

I usually get around that by giving the two big people a joint gift card so that they can go out to dinner and a club and an overnight someplace without children.  They can spend the card on anything they want, but they cannot not spend it.  Works for me.

I have been trying{yeah, I know, there is doing and not doing, but no trying...blah...blah...blah}to get out of the house more often, mostly at the behest of my therapist.  Last month she gave me an assignment, I get one each month, that I had to leave my house every day for at least two minutes.

You know how it is with habits and how difficult they can be to break.  Quitting smoking was nothing compared to this whole going outside every day. 

I have everything I need inside.  I am surrounded by books, music and who can forget the whiskey.  With my meds, alcohol is not a good idea save for very special occasions, but it is nice to know that it is here.  What I have been doing is rocking on the porch, yes, I do use a rocking chair, and reading.  It is more than two minutes, but not exactly what she would like me to do.

I am trying...yes...to do more through the senior center here, and to that end I had lunch over there today.  The food was nice, healthy and even tasty.  I sat at a table with strangers, which is pretty much everyone because I do not leave the house except to volunteer a day or two each week.  Lordy.

It is all kind of, not depressing or anything, just things I would prefer to not do.  Even though I know that all of this nonsense is for my own good and I am going to give it all the effort it needs.

Next week I am cat sitting for a friend.  They have a family Thanksgiving planned, and almost decided to not attend.  A week and a half ago their cat, a marvelous ginger marmalade, could not stand up, walk, eat or anything.  Once she became ill they took time from work so that they could take care of her.  Not to everyone's taste, but I admire people who take their responsibility for their pets that seriously.  They still do not know what it was, but with the help of IV fluids and force feeding (which is way less fun than you might think) she can now stay on her feet, wobbles only a little, more like staggering, and is eating on her own.  I think she healed herself so that no one would wrap her tightly in a towel and force a syringe full of gunky stuff down her throat.

I know I would.

I have months of mostly pointless and self-absorbed things to share, but another time.  Since I got my Fitbit thing I am more dedicated to getting enough sleep.  Practically obsessed with it, and regular bedtimes and wake-ups are part of good sleep hygiene.  Rats.

 

Little League is wonderful and the pauses in action are opportunities to look around and find whatever it is you need to find right now.

it is all right if you just slide that stuff down the stairs

No, we can't do that.

Why not?

Our company wants us to carry everything.

But, all this stuff is going down from an upper flat and up to an upper flat.

Sorry, we might damage something.

Well, that is what I did when I brought this (unknown purpose cabinet thing, but I use it to hold most of my instruments) home from work (thrift shop), and it is just fine.

You carried this up here?

No, I pushed it from the bottom, up step by step.

Really?

Sure.  I brought up that cabinet, too (indicating stunningly heavy...for me...thing in which I store, amongst other things, my big girl panties).

Well, we have got to get you a shirt.

{little giggle from me}

Yeah.  One woman and no truck.

Best moment of the entire move.

The cabinet, with instruments.  I think the only thing missing is the guitar.

The cat-like thing at the upper left is a stained glass cat lamp.  The container on the upper right holds drum sticks and other tall stuff.

uh-oh

Seems as though the cardiac nurse, with whom I have a history, is more offended by me than I am upset by feeling not heard during our first phone and in-person contacts.

Yesterday was cardio rehab again.  We sit and chat outside the rehab room until they let us in.  That nurse arrived to open the door and she talked and laughed with everyone except me.  Four patients and a husband were greeted and chatted up.  Me, not so much, in fact, she never made eye contact with me and studiously ignored me the entire session. 

My lesson from this is to stop trying to have a conversation where I can explain myself and ask questions.  Kind of sad, as I thought that gently moving into interacting with the folk in my life was an improvement to being passive and simply agreeing with whatever someone else tells me.  I want,desperately, to believe that she was invested in sharing what she feels is the proper information and that my questions to clarify some things seemed like I was challenging her.  I really think that is what happened.  Anyway, I have no intention of trying to mend our professional relationship

So there is that. 

I do not think this would have bothered me so much had not I been grieving so much from the death of my ex.  I hate feeling this vulnerable and unable to take any kind of control over what happens to me. 

My daughter and I went out for lunch today, to, not celebrate, but at least sort of acknowledge her birthday.  I bought her some funny socks from the little store attached to the vegetarian restaurant where we ate.  We talked a bit about her father/my ex and we shared that each of us had gone on-line to find information about how to manage our grief.  She to look for information for people who's parent had been estranged from them, and me to search out help for people experiencing the death of an ex-spouse.  We both found that this grieving will most likely take a year, perhaps more.

I can believe that, as I am not yet able to begin to sort out all of the feelings I am having.  It is clear that each of us is mourning his death, but maybe more importantly the loss of opportunities to have been able to reconnect or some damn thing.

Well, anyway, I am off to find some Ella Fitzgerald and some upbeat jazz for my exercise-focal MP3 player, for when I exercise.  The fitness club I joined (free Silver Sneakers membership, via my insurance) had cable television screen attached to the treadmills.  Maybe I will watch some whilst I finish my 10,000 steps for the day.  That total is not easy to reach, and I am missing it by so much each day.  I wish the process would let you do the maximum over two days.  Then I would be over.  Yay.