Here We Are

Add title! Start writing!

That’s what this new WP block editor is telling me to do, except without the exclamation points, which seriously they should think about adding for people like me who seem to need more than the normal amount of encouragement. It’s not like I haven’t thought about writing. I’m always thinking about writing. In fact, earlier this year I thought about it so hard I actually sat down and did it with this astounding result.

Since my last attempt to say something vaguely intelligent for posterity was in mid January, and it is now finally May, I’ve decided to pretend the last one hundred and six odd days were ALL just one big extended January because that’s what it felt like. Now that the sun is shining and the days are longer and the grass is green I believe I can let my January mood go at last. So tell me, what’s the new normal like for you? The whole world has seen so many changes, and post pandemic it will keep on changing because that’s what worlds do. We might as well embrace this new reality. The old one was so “January” after all.

I guess all that reality embracing stopped me from going on with whatever I was about to say next and then it got me through another three months of writerly procrastination as this blurb sat in draft purgatory. Don’t ask me to explain that explanation because I don’t think I can. And suddenly here we are in almost September.

I have been more or less home bound since…I don’t know…mid March? My kids joke that my life during this pandemic has been eerily similar to the pre-pandemic one. I like my house and can go days and days without coming across a really good reason for leaving it. Like running out of coffee cream. That one gets me off the couch. Mostly I’m relaxed and happy, if you cut out the COVID worry. And maybe my Twitter likes.

W didn’t go east this summer because of the travel restrictions and the quarantine guidelines and a healthy fear of getting sick. It’s been harder on him, all this staying home. Introverts like me just accept isolation. Prefer it over crowds and noise and gawd awful things like shopping. There was a new rule early on about one person/one grocery cart, and one shopper per household. W gladly grabbed that role just to get out of here. He also does lots of over the fence visiting with neighbours in three directions, plus the ones across the street and also down the street in both directions now that I think about it. People walking their dogs probably avoid our street altogether so he can’t start a socially distanced yelling conversation with them. Anyway I’ve appreciated all the grocery shopping and grass cutting and gardening he’s done. I could live without all the info about what everybody around us is up to, but it seems to be important to him to share it with me so it must be equally important for me to pretend to listen.

And that’s the bare bones of our existence to date. Next up I will choose one topic and supply relevant details with less rambling. As pigs fly. We are so incredibly blessed to have our immediate family close and healthy and concerned. I can’t tell their stories because they’re not mine to tell and I’d never get them right anyway. Once again it’s all about me, and boring or not there’s no point in caring. My therapy, my blathering drivel. Here we are.

The other night I woke up from a dream telling some random dream person to “put an axe and a sock in it and then we’ll talk”. Then I lay awake for a long time wondering what the hell that meant. So, you know, have low expectations is all I’m hinting at here. I’m older and even more confused now than I was last January. It can only get more weird.

Some Days Are Like This

Normally I would not in a hundred bazillion years share a photo of my fridge interior with strangers.  Or friends or family or anyone.  You just never know what totally embarrassing thing might be in there waiting to make you look bad.

But I am rather proud of my flyer-advertisement-worthy appliance today so you get to see it.  Plus, I have nothing else to tell you except my fridge cleaning story.  Close your eyes and put your headphones on, I don’t care, I’m telling it.

In a fit of blazing enthusiasm, perhaps brought on by the heat, I emptied this thing out, took out all the pieces and cleaned the shelves and the drawers and the glass pieces thoroughly in warm soapy water and dried them all with many towels until they were shiny clean and as sparkly as old well-used pieces of fridge can get.

Putting everything back together was a pain in the butt.  There are shelves that slide back and forth and in and out, and no matter how they are arranged there’s aways some stupid food product that won’t fit right on any of them.  What ever happened to fridges where you didn’t have any of these annoying choices and you could blame someone else for where you were forced to put things?  Throwing out mystery items and  expired things helped to balance my mood.  Like olives with a best before date of April, 2014.  And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Proving that housework never ends (until you put your foot down and tell yourself to just stop it) I carried on to the pantry cupboard and straightened that up as well.

The reason for doing all this?  I was making a shopping list and I have a bad habit of not looking hard enough for something and ending up purchasing another one of whatever it is that has gone missing behind a bunch of other stuff….you know how it goes.  So now I have a really great list and no energy left to go anywhere with it.

But wow, look at that fridge!  There’s actually an empty shelf.  And many many lemons for some reason that escapes me right now.

A super organized person I’m guessing could make two shopping lists.  The second one could be called “Do Not Buy” (because you already have lots even though while you are shopping you will forget this and throw random items that you purchase regularly in to your cart just in case.)  With my luck the lists would get switched.

So super organized might not be as super as we assume.  I’m not going to risk it anyway.  But I AM going to risk grocery shopping once again, this time armed with a little more knowledge than usual.  Let’s see how that goes.

Art du Jour 63

Surprise! It’s another collage. This time the background is bees and magazine people.  Although most of the bees are lost in the ink.  But I know they’re there.

I believe this piece has depth and balance with an over all burst of chaos.  Feel free to use that at your next art show or wine tasting event.

Other things that made me happy this weekend:

1.  Daughter, granddaughter, shopping.

2.  Free hemp hearts.

3.  Finding the book(s) they’ve been looking for.

4.  Potato salad.

5.  Sunshine.  Rain.  Thunder.

6.  Seeing my daughters two beautiful collages made up of ticket stubs and mementos and memorabilia from various adventures in her life.  What a brilliant idea.

7.  Stocking up on breakfast blend extra large Tassimo coffee so there is none left on the shelf for the next person, who will then have to make do with bold midnight eclipse instead.  I know how this all goes down.

8.  Watching a tuxedo cat on the neighbours fence being mercilessly harassed by two cheeky magpies.  He could have jumped down and gone home at any point but he puffed up his tail and stuck in the game; one magpie squawking in his face while the other snuck up in the rear, both alternately flying off if he got too close and swooping back down to claim their place on the fence when he’d turned around to face the other.  It was a dramatic dance, a battle of wills, a territorial spat of epic proportions.  Or something to do on a fence for fun on a sunny afternoon.  A nature show with no voice-over commentary, so I just don’t know.

9.  Saying goodbye to another May.

10.  Finding a seasonal allergy med that works very well, so that all that green stuff floating around in the air and drifting through my window screens is merely an annoyance to dust, and not turning me in to a sneezing weeping mess. Because no one likes a sneezing weeping mess.

Okay, no animal documentaries going on in my backyard at the moment so I will turn my attention to catching up on blog reading.

Happy first day of June, and have a memorable Monday.

Just Another Great Canadian Sunday

It’s not every day I take a picture of my shampoo, so you know there’s got to be some kind of weird story behind it, right?

There’s a really good reason for me staying at home while W does most of the shopping. He is able to pick up all the items on a list, no more and no less. I admire that about him. Well, about anyone, really. The lists I take with me become vague guidelines once I enter a store. My cart fills up, and when the cashier wants to know if I found everything I was looking for I just smile and nod. Because explaining that I made six substitutions and changed my mind ten times and probably forgot at least three essentials but now couldn’t be bothered looking for them because I’m exhausted and don’t want to retrace my steps and just would like to be done with shopping and go home…..I don’t think she really wants to hear all that.

Anyway, back to the shampoo. I find it very hard to resist a good deal, even though I also firmly believe you get what you pay for. So I am one of those annoying shoppers with way too much time on my hands who will block an aisle while I check out ingredients and best buys and packaging and brands and on and on so you can see why the process is exhausting. And yes, the shampoo, I’m getting to that, I swear.  Although you can’t see it clearly in my photo, right at the top it says Proudly Canadian and underneath that, Fiers d’être Canadiens which roughly translated means proud to be (a French-speaking) Canadian.

And this bottle of shampoo cost One Canadian Dollar. OMG.

What in the world makes a shampoo uniquely Canadian? Being manufactured in Toronto? And why is it so CHEAP?? Is it complete Canadian/Canadien crap? Is this one of those instances where the store made a crazy deal and is passing the savings along to consumers? If I use this stuff will my hair turn to dandelion fluff and blow away in a high wind? Do I have any Advil at home for this headache? Better pick some up.

Anyway, long story short, although it’s too late for that, I have used this shampoo twice now and am happy to report no disasters so far. My hair is clean and shiny and still attached to my scalp.  If the Daily Basics people would like to pay me for endorsing their product I would be perfectly fine with that.  Although perhaps with that retail price they don’t have much of an advertising budget.

So that was a rather successful impulse purchase, which I believe offsets this next one.

When W is away I drink Tassimo coffee, because I can’t figure out how to get the other coffee maker to brew half a pot that tastes right, and although the Tassimo coffee is more expensive, it likely all evens out because I’m not dumping half a pot of coffee down the sink every day. By now, if you are still reading this I’m sure you are wondering where all this information is coming from, but, more importantly WHY I’m telling you all this shit in the first place. I wish I knew. Or maybe neither of us cares but there appears to be nothing much else going on for us at the moment, so what the hell.

What I wanted to buy was a double sized Tassimo coffee in a breakfast blend. There was none to be found on the shelves, and this was the only double sized there, and the midnight eclipse thing was very appealing to me. Midnight eclipse for breakfast. Why not? BOLD is not an exaggeration I’m here to tell you. This stuff will knock your socks off. Thank God I never wear any.

Okay, I’m going to paint something now to forget the trauma of shopping. After that coffee I will probably be awake for three days. With great Canadian hair.

Have a scintillating Sunday. If it’s not too late for that.

Sharing My World 23

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Share Your World 2015 Week 12

When was the last time you sat on a park or garden bench for more than ten minutes?  Describe the occasion.

Last summer I spent some time on park benches watching grandchildren do what grandchildren do.  Ford streams, throw rocks, feed animals, drink sweet cold drinks on a hot summer day.  I like this role as grandma, where you just have to be there and observe and aren’t expected to participate in things like mini golf tournaments or spinning tea-cup rides.  Just buy T-shirts for everybody when the day is over.  Then hand the children back over to their parents.

Would you ever be interested in observing a surgery or do you turn away when the nurse brings out the needle?

I skip over fake surgeries on Netflix and fast forward through bloody crime scenes.  I look the other way when I get needles, have blood work done, or get hooked up to IV.  Although I’ve had so much of that done, maybe it’s really not necessary anymore.  But no, I would not be interested in observing surgery of any kind.  Or hearing about it.  Or looking at your stitches.

Where’s your favorite place to take out-of-town guests?

Back to the airport.  HAHA!!  Just kidding.  Out for dinner is always fun.  We live in a place where there are lots of choices.  And I will tag along to wherever guests decide to go if they want my company.  I’m the same way on trips.  I tend to go along for the ride without any real plans of my own.  This is partly about being easy to get along with, but mostly about laziness and lack of interest in getting off my ass and going anywhere unless strongly encouraged by someone who is excited and enthusiastic.  I would be a really poor event co-ordinator.

If you had an unlimited shopping spree at only one store, which one would you choose?  Why?

Is it cheating to say a gigantic department store full of furniture, home appliances, electronics, clothing,  food, books, stationery and art supplies?  Okay, it probably is.  So I will select instead  Wine and Beyond and pick up one or two cases of everything they have in stock.  That should keep me happy for a while and take care of Christmas presents for at least a couple of years.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Every March I am SO DONE with snow, and yet here it falls sometimes as late as May.  So I am grateful that Spring eventually does show up, even though I give up hope about 14 times every year before it happens.

Next week it’s supposed to warm up!  Said the optimistic fool who should move south or get over it.  Okay.  I’m over it.  The sun is shining and I’m grateful to be alive.

Sharing My World 17

Share Your World – 2015 Week #5

Do you prefer shopping or going to a park?

Oddly enough, I’m going to say shopping.  But not for groceries, because that kind of shopping is tedious and annoying and causes me to sigh a lot and wish I were somewhere else.  I normally like parks just fine, but this is February and the benches are probably freezing cold.  Compare that to a nice warm store and it’s no contest.  Somehow I inherited a junk collecting gene.  Spending time (and sometimes money) in a store like Home Sense or Pier 1 Imports looking at strange furniture and weird wall décor is a lot more fun than staring at grass.  I’ve always fancied having an antique folding room divider like the ones ladies in movies go behind to undress, throwing random pieces of clothing over the top.  Or one of those willow swing-chairs that hang from the ceiling.  Good thing the price tags on these things are completely out to lunch.

If you were a shoe, what kind would you be and why?

Any one of these.  Because they’re interesting and fun and red.  There’s nothing like a pair of red shoes to perk you up on a dull day.  They should make these for seniors.  The ones with the moose look very Canadian.

What’s the story behind a time when you got locked out?

Only ever been locked out of a car a couple of times, unless being locked out was such a traumatic experience that I’ve erased the event from my memory.  We have extra keys for things, in unexpected places.  Or we just forget to lock the door.  Either way, being locked out hasn’t been a problem.

Do you prefer eating foods with nuts or no nuts?

Anything that can have nuts added to it always tastes better with them than without.  I’m thinking of crunchy peanut butter, carrot muffins, brownies, ice cream sundaes, any kind of chocolate.  Nuts are just fine on their own too.  I broke a chunk off one of my molars once while eating peanuts.  So even though I have no nut allergies, those little buggers can still be dangerous.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Yesterday my audiologist did an hour-long, very thorough, hearing test on me.  I’m grateful that she was excellent at explaining what she was doing and what my results indicated to her.  For low-pitched sounds I have mild hearing loss.  For higher pitched sounds, the loss ranges from moderate to moderately severe in both ears.  The only thing left after that is profound.  Yikes.  So I am a candidate for hearing aids.  If I sit face to face with someone who doesn’t mumble or speed-speak, everything is fine.  I can hear W from pretty much anywhere because his normal method of communication is to shout.  Phone conversations are difficult.  And I know it’s extremely annoying for people when I continually ask them to repeat what they just said.

So, I am grateful to have had that done and paid for by health care.  They will not be so generous with hearing aids, but we’re checking to see what our insurance will cover.  I know when I fit glasses, some people didn’t like the sensation of having everything suddenly look so clear.  The audiologist said it’s sometimes like that with hearing aids too, and could take some perseverance getting used to hearing every little thing again.  I am looking forward to a report being sent to my doctor and to me,  and then I’ll have to decide how much I enjoy being a deaf little old lady.

 

Art du Jour 22

We will forgive this girl the lousy make up job because she’s just so sweetly happy.  Believe it or not, I cut back on the mascara from the original picture I was using as a model.  How do these people keep their eyes open?

Yesterday I wandered around in Michael’s for a long time.  Retailers like this are very smart, or devious, or both. They lure you in to the store with a 40% off coupon on ONE regular priced item.  Their prices are all pretty ridiculous, so these coupons bring the amounts down closer to normal and affordable.  If you can go in to their store and purchase just that one item, you are ahead of the game.  But of course they know it’s very unlikely that you will leave with only one thing.  They offer different coupons every day and mark things down in some kind of random order.  I was looking at an art set for a Christmas present, but it was sixty-nine dollars. Today I see by the email they so helpfully send me every morning, that they now have it marked down to thirty-nine.

So I guess what I have to do is shop there every day for the rest of my life so I never miss a deal.  Or work there in exchange for sale merchandise.  Or use up all the art supplies I already have and stop shopping altogether.  I went there for tan coloured sketch paper and another white pencil.

Apparently I actually needed three sketch books and a dozen pencils.

But look at what I made!  So it was totally worth it.

Just Jazzy 203

oniochalasia (n) buying or shopping as a method of stress relief or relaxation

People who get stressed out by shopping have got it all backwards and don’t understand oniochalasia one little bit. They may have more money in the bank, but they’re can’t possibly be having more fun.

Jazzy Words

Of Madmen and Poets

This lover sincerely thanks all the mad men, wise men and lucid poets of the world for their various talents and areas of expertise.

From a procrastination point of view, these last couple of days have been wildly successful.  I can’t think of one thing I’ve accomplished that’s worth talking about.  My house has been cleaned, but I didn’t contribute to that except for writing a cheque.  W has arrived back home after closing up and winterizing everything on the island.  Notice how I left well before any of that had to be done.

Although it’s been only a couple of days, I am sadly missing a former co-worker who was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise often dull and cloudy workplace.  Maybe I’ll start marking big X’s on my calendar to count off the days I have left.  You know how prisoners keep track of their confinement time.

Or I could snap out of this lethargic state.  There’s an idea.  Already W is wanting his grocery and to-do lists and I had forgotten how nice it is to have someone else around to do all that tedious stuff.  It’s crisp and cold outside and therefore time to start burning some candles inside and basking in their warm glow.  The flames make a nice sparkly reflection on a wine glass.  I’m going to add “case of red wine” to the grocery list and see what happens.

And one day soon all these bazillions of books I’ve been reading could stand some one-sentence reviews.  Man my life is hard.  I don’t know how I keep up.

Anyway, Cheers everybody!  Let’s all be lovers, and have a fantastic weekend.

Supper Sunset Series 03 (Photo credit: smilla4)

Why This Is Not A Travel Blog

Daily Prompt: There’s No Place Like Home

If you had the opportunity to live a nomadic life, traveling from place to place, would you do it? Do you need a home base? What makes a place “home” to you?

Cover of Leaving Home

The best nomadic life blog I’ve been fortunate enough to stumble across here in the blogging world is Adventures in Wonderland where Alison and Don chronicle their travels around the world.  I read it faithfully.  I love to see their amazing pictures, and learn things about the places they’ve been and the wonders they’ve seen.   If I had the opportunity to live a life like that, would I do it?

I’m not remotely brave enough to even consider it.  Preparing for a ten day guided tour took me a year and gave me anxiety attacks.  I’m glad I went, but what is up with all the stress involved for me when it comes to travelling?

Here are some true travel facts about me, to prove that I am not descended from nomads.

1.  I will never figure out how to pack a suitcase that doesn’t contain at least a dozen completely useless things that I should have left at home.  I need a separate bag for “just in case” items.  I go away for a weekend and it looks like I’m leaving home for good.

2.  When I was little I suffered from motion sickness.  I threw up in cars, even on short trips.   I can now ride in a back seat or on a bus or even a bumpy plane without a paper sack in front of my face – good news for my travel companions.  But that uneasy childhood feeling of dread before leaving on a trip has never left me.

3.  I am uncomfortable in strange places, strange climates, strange beds.

4.  I don’t like or trust strangers.  Because – they’re strangers.  Ergo, they must be strange.

5.  Foreign languages and accents baffle me. In my ears, even the English language can sometimes sound mysterious as hell.

6.  I don’t like to make decisions.  If we are at some crossroad and you are waiting for me to say which way we should go next, I hope you packed a lunch because we could be sitting here for a very long time.

A contemporary Tibetan nomadic tent near Namtso lake. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I need a home base.  The best part of going somewhere for me is always the part where I’m heading home.  Home is where things are ordinary and familiar and mine.  Where I can make a huge mess and the only person who gets annoyed about it is me. Where the water doesn’t do weird things to my hair, and the soap doesn’t irritate my skin.  Where the food is easily identifiable and misplacing my passport is not a major worry.  Where recharging things doesn’t require complicated adapters and a brain.

Now for any of you few select lucky people reading this who are suddenly sceptical about this trip to Greece I’ve said I will make with you next year, don’t worry.  I take instructions really well.  If you say we are having fun, I will believe you and behave accordingly.  Tell me we are going shopping and I will follow you anywhere.  And I love to take pictures.  So I’m probably not the worst travel companion on earth.  I hope you feel reassured.

I know home is not simply one specific place, it’s a feeling of belonging and love and comfort, and I admire the nomadic people who are on an extraordinary adventure, and who can be at home no matter where they are.  They are amazing.  Travel and adventure-wise, they are the opposite of me.