Archive for senseo
>Not quite…
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Ciao,
Nora
>An indefinite time…
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Have a good evening.
Ciao,
Nora
>Awake again…
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>Saturday morning…
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I seem to be averaging about 7.5 hours of sleep a night now and when I wake up, I feel good and not groggy and confused and in need of lots of coffee to get my act together. I’m pretty perky and ready to cuddle Tyke at first sight. He gets into bed with me and thinks we’re going to settle down for some more sleep. I only leave him under that illusion for a short time.
The only thing I don’t like, is that I have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I have no idea what time it is, because of no functioning alarm clock, so I have to go into the living room to see what time it is. I’m trying to replace the battery in one of my watches now, but I can’t get the back off, which is very frustrating and which I hope the Exfactor will do for me when he gets here this morning. I’m sure there’s a trick to it that I don’t know about. At least that way I will know what time it is in the middle of the night, but I do need to get a new alarm clock, unless I keep waking up a 5:30 am.
So, I get up and first I feed Tyke and the cats and give them their milk, and then I make myself a cup of coffee. Like a regular human being who functions normally from the moment she gets up. It’s nice to know that this is possible too. Sleeping 12 hours and waking up from a comatose situation wasn’t all that great either. It took me so long to get my brain in functioning order.
That was sleeping like a teenager does and you can’t talk to them when they get up after sleeping so long. I know I was not coherent when I was a teenager and I got up in the weekends, called out of bed by my mother to come partake of our communal coffee hour. My mother could not comprehend that I was not able to have a conversation. She expected us to say “Goodmorning” in our most cheerful voices. I grunted in my pajamas. “Don’t mumble so,” she would say and I grunted, “Goodmorning,” in a foul mood.
The Exfactor was here and didn’t know how to get the back off the watch either, but knows of a cheap place where they can and is going to take it there for me next week. He is a handy man to have around to do these kinds of jobs for me. It means again that I don’t have to go downtown to take care of it. I still do have to get a new watchband for my other watch, but there’s no real rush. I can do that when I am back to my old self and casually ride my bike into town.
Oh, I rode my bike to my SPN’s office yesterday, It had been many months since I had been on it and it took me a while to get used to it. I kept wanting to ride it into the gutter and over debris in the road and over the sidewalk. That was on the way over there. I did much better on the way back, because I sang a song to myself, as my SPN had suggested I do, and that way I was more relaxed. It’s just a matter of getting used to it again and feeling comfortable with it, like riding a car, which you never forget how. I could get in a car now and drive away with it comfortably, although I have not driven one for 16 years. It would have to be an automatic, though, I would have a little bit more problems with a stick shift.
I just cleaned the Senseo coffee maker with a bottle of vinear. It had been so long since I had done it, that it only gave 3/4 of a cup instead of a full one and it made a lot of protesting noises while it did so. It moaned and groaned and grumbled and sounded like it was going to fall apart in 20 different pieces. It has stopped making those noises now and is making full cups of coffee again. It’s no longer dangerous to stand in the vicinity of it.
Allez, I have to pay bills. I think my money is in the bank now and I have to pay the vet bill amongst other things. Then I have to go to the tobacconist because I’m not sure I’m going to make it through the weekend with my supply. It’s drizzling outside and 14C, so that’s not too bad, but not warm enough to turn off the heater and open the windows. It’s very comfortable in here now. I don’t like being stoic and cold.
Have a nice day!
Ciao,
Nora
>Languidly sitting in my chair.
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I’ve got some sleeping left to do, but I’ll do that later when I’m more in the mood for it. I woke up a while ago in my tiny bed, sleeping next to a certain person, and it was very warm and comfortable, but a little cramped. So I got up, ready to continue sleeping on the sofa, but I got waylaid by the computer and the Senseo machine and I thought I would just sit down in the quiet of the early morning and try to write a post, but I’ve got a problem.
How do you tell what an absolutely splendid and lovely time you’re having without giving the other person’s secrets away? Just speak for myself?
I’m having an absolutely splendid and lovely time and it is ever so much better and lovelier than the first time and so very much more intimate and affectionate. Speaking for myself, I can say this is love in all the best senses of the word. And I’m not worried, because I’m not hopelessly in love like a foolish teenager, but I love deeply like a grown up woman with all the knowledge I have of the object of my love to go with it. All the years that I’ve known him enter into it to make it a complete picture. And that’s what makes it so enjoyable and satisfying. I feel there are no enigmas, no puzzles to solve. What I see, is what I get and it’s familiar.
He brought me a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses and After Eight chocolate mints, which are my favorites and which I have been eating all night and this morning. I think they’re all gone now. I happen to be very fond of yellow roses, so he guessed that right, but then he always brings me flowers and they are always pretty. You see, I’m not the least bit prejudiced concerning his tastes. I think they are fine. I even like the way he dresses and his aftershave and his body lotion. No, I’m not the least bit prejudiced.
Right, I’m supposed to talk about other things too now. I’ll tell you that it’s 3C outside and cloudy and that it’s going to be cloudy all day, but we’re not expecting any rain, according to my weather forecast on the computer. I have to go to the tobacco shop today and to the post office, I think that will be a good outing for Joost and me. We can walk there and get some fresh air. Last night, when we walked the dog, it was drizzling and there was a cold wind blowing and it was just miserable to be outside. I had half planned to take the bus downtown, but it really was not the night for it. Even with the overhead heating it would have been no fun to sit on a café terrace. We need a better night for that. So, we’ll save that for the next time.
It’s fun to make plans for what we will do the next time, beside the obvious things. It will be nice when the weather gets better and we can be outside more. That’s another good reason to look forward to springtime, which I’m already doing now that we have the winter solstice behind us and it has been the shortest day already. It can only move upward from here. Of course, we have those dark and cold January and February months to get through, but they will go by in a snap and once those are behind us, the rest will be easy. I’m totally discounting March and April here, you see, as I think they are just preludes and parts of springtime. Always try to see the glass half full.
At least it’s nice and warm in here. I’ve got my feet by the radiator and they are toasty warm. The dog is lying next to me, because that is where he belongs. That’s what he thinks, anyway, and I agree with him.
We had Dutch pancakes for dinner last night. They are like crepes, only I had not made them myself this time. I promised to do so the next time and to make them with buttermilk, because those are the best. I was able to eat one pancake myself, which surprised me and it was very good, not as good as when I make them, but good enough. I have to find some real maple syrup, because the pancake syrup that they have here is too sweet to my liking. There’s nothing like real maple syrup, after all.
My hair is very fashionably sticking up straight in all directions. Luckily, it looks like it’s supposed to be that way. A little bit of wax will tame it and get it to go in the right direction. The right side sticks up funnier than the left, that’s the side I sleep on, the right side, I mean. Sometimes you see people walk around with that “just slept on look” when they haven’t quite combed their hair good enough and it has taken on the shape of their pillow. You can tell if they sleep on their back or on their side. They look good from the front, but when you walk around them, it’s another matter. I’m sure I look this way myself sometimes. Yes, I notice things like that, don’t you?
I feel like a well loved woman and I like the feeling very much. It makes me feel mellow and warm and very pleasant. I can recommend it to anybody. Let yourself be cuddled and treated well, it opens you up and makes you feel like a whole new woman. It ought to be a special treat for everybody, to be loved by their best friend. There’s no better person in the world for it. I hope you’re either married to that person, or that you have somebody in your life like it. But then again, maybe I am very lucky and this is a unique situation. Maybe it’s because of who he is that it’s possible. I’m sure that’s a very large part of it.
Well, I could go on and on with all sorts of sentimental drivel, but I’m sure you’re not waiting for that. I just took my medicines and I’ll check my emails and read some blogs, which I think I’m a little behind in. I’ll probably have to go back to sleep for a while. It doesn’t matter. The day is my oyster. I’ll take it as it comes.
Ciao,
Nora
>How to get through Sunday.
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How do you get through a very sunny Sunday, when you ought to maybe have swept the floors and folded the laundry and taken a brush to the furniture to remove the dog hair?
Well, if you’re like me, and you haven’t slept all night, it may happen that in the course of the morning you find yourself laying very innocently on the sofa, where you will fall sound asleep for a few hours. In fact, you will wake up just in time to take your mid afternoon medicines and walk your trusty dog.
Having achieved this deed, you will be so proud of yourself, that you will very innocently lay down on the sofa again, this time with a very cozy and loving cat, and start watching the Tour de France, forgetting that the monotonousness of the ride will slowly put you to sleep again, until you wake up a few hours later, when the cyclists haven’t even entered Paris yet, but you certainly do feel good.
Then you take a brush and hastily sweep the worst of the dog hair off your favorite chair to make it look like you did something, and quickly gather some dog hair off the floor too.
That’s how you spend a very sunny Sunday and I didn’t hear one church bell ring, that’s how sound asleep I’ve been.
I mustn’t make a habit out of this staying awake all night. I’ll try to stay awake this evening and save up my sleep for bedtime. It’s hard when your medicines make you sleepy, though, and it is so tempting to go and lie down, but I must use some self discipline and overcome the desire to sleep when it isn’t time.
Jesker is being a finicky eater. In the morning he won’t eat what’s in his bowl, so I put it in the refrigerator. Then when he lets me know he is hungry later in the day, he reluctantly eats two thirds of it and I have to put the rest of it away again. Then he may or may not eat that. He used to eat twice as much, so I don’t know what’s going on with him. Maybe he’s on a diet.
I tried some different food yesterday, but that was not a success either. I think I am going to get him containers with smaller portions and see if he likes that better. He could stand to lose some weight, so it would not be all bad. I just have to make sure he gets his nutrition, but so far he is in no danger of starving. Au contraire.
I just took my evening medication and I’m waiting for them to start working. Whatever tension I feel will disappear. I’ll give myself another 12 minutes and then they should kick in. At least that gives me time to make another cup of that delicious coffee.
Isn’t it funny how it only took a bottle of cleaning vinegar to fix the Senseo machine again? You have to stop it halfway through the cycle to really let the vinegar work for about 10 minutes and then start it up again. Then rinse 3 times with clean water.
Alright, enough with the instructions already! You uptight so and so! @*&%##@!!!!
There, I feel much better now.
I think I’ll put clean sheets on my bed tonight, because it will be such a pleasure to go to bed then. I have to try to make it as alluring for myself as I can make it. By rights, I should iron the duvet and pillow covers, but that’s a little bit too much work for me. Suffice it that they are clean and smell good.
I just realized something I have been forgetting before I have been going to bed at night. I have been forgetting to take my tranquilizers and have just been taking my sleeping pill. That’s mighty stupid, because that’s a major dose of tranquilizers. That must be why I have not been sleeping properly. Well, there’s another mystery cleared up. Strike one for me, or is that a hit for me?
Well, my medication is working now, I’m sufficiently mellow. It makes me want to eat things with many calories, but I don’t have those here, although I wish I had a package of shortbread cookies. Instead of those, I’ll eat a glass of yogurt.
Having sufficiently bored you now, I’ll go and read some blogs and bore some more people with my astute observations. I hope you have a splendid Sunday evening with something good to eat.
Ciao…
>The best cup of coffee in town…
>I bought a bottle of cleaning vinegar and used the whole thing to clean the Senseo machine and I now have the best and strongest, creamiest, most foamy coffee in town and I can’t wait to get the next cup, that’s how good it is. Boy, did that make a difference! Remind me to do this again on time, because it sure makes for a better cup of coffee. I didn’t know what I’d been missing, little by little getting a worse cup of coffee all the time. I must do this once a month, or else…
´t Was a quiet day, well, except for the music that came out of the very good speakers of my computer. I had it tuned to a Deezer radio station and turned up loud enough so that talking on the phone was a little bit difficult. The bass boomed heavily and I had to turn it down both times my sisters called. The radio station is great, except that they don´t announce the artist or the name of the song, so I am in the dark as to what I´m listening to, which is a shame.
Oh, never mind what I just wrote there. I just quite accidentally figured out a way to tell what I´m listening to. It did that by trying to listen to an album they were advertising Mmm…strange! Sometimes I don´t know why things work the way they do. There´s some deep lying logic beneath it all.
So anyway, I went to the store and my new bike bags can hold as many, if not more groceries than the old bike bags. I can stow away quite a few things in there, which is good, because it means less heavy stuff in the bag I carry on my handlebars. I even managed to get two boxes of that good cat food, since the cats are eating it like there´s no tomorrow. I have to restrict their intake, because money still doesn´t grow on trees.
I bought Brie and Camembert, because they had the cheap kind of the latter also, so Jesker and I have been in heaven. Jesker very daintily eats his piece, like a connoisseur or a food critic for the Times. I think eating cheese could be a great hobby of his, except that he seems to be just a tat lactose intolerant. Nothing serious, just a little windy, etc.
I´ve stopped putting antibiotic ointment in his eyes, because it only seems to make them worse and I´m going to go to the herbal medicine shop and get something for his eyes there. The more I think about it, the more I think it is an allergic reaction, maybe even to the ointment itself. I check his eyes three times a day to see if they get any worse and they haven´t yet. The left one is even clearing up. So, keep your fingers crossed.
I had planned to do a lot of chores yesterday, but not much came of it. I did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen and then took a long nap on the sofa. Then I went to Pen 10 and Six Sentences and read the short stories there and added comments where I felt I had something to add. I also wrote two short stories and you can read those here and here. I just shake them out of my sleeve, as we say here, so don´t expect any great literature, they are mostly exercises to keep me in shape and I feel I have to contribute something after making so many comments. Some improvement could have been made if I had spent more time on them, but that is talking after the fact.
Wait, there is the edit function!
I´m sitting here now in the middle of the night undecided about what to do. I took my sleeping pill, but I don´t notice it at all. I spent all evening asleep on the sofa, but that normally does not deter me from going to my bed to sleep some more. I´ve got my pajamas on, so that´s not the problem. Well, I´m wearing a pair of leggings and a tank top. That´s my nightwear. I do have real pajamas, but they´re too hot to wear right now.
I´m drinking decaf, which is not nearly as exciting as drinking real coffee, but I must be sensible. Don´t you love it how I take at least a little bit of responsibility? I should throw caution to the wind and drink regular coffee like I want to, but there may be some sleep in me yet and I do want to give it the opportunity to present itself.
The Exfactor was here the other day for a flash visit. He needed something from the shed which wasn´t there and he barely took time to drink a cup of coffee. It was as if he had ants in his pants and could hardly sit down to smoke a cigarette. I won´t take any of it personally and just assume he was in a hurry, but sometimes he is hard to figure out. He comes close for friendship and then withdraws again and seems preoccupied. I´m glad the state of my feelings doesn´t depend on him and I´m really serious about that. I forget him when he rides off on his motorcycle and get on with things.
I suppose it´s officially tomorrow now, so it is Sunday. The famous day of rest. The day of the church bells. I have to sweep the floors and take the laundry down from the drying rack. It´s been up there long enough now. Luckily, none of it needs to be ironed. It´s a fold and hang up job and find the matching sock to one single sock. I think I know where it is.
Well, that´s all I have to tell you. I can´t drag it out any longer than this.
Have yourself a terrific Sunday and fill it with all the things you enjoy doing.
Ciao…
>One of two choices.
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I have one of two choices. I can sit here and wait for my head to hit the keyboard while I fall asleep, or I can wake myself up properly and write a post, or at least attempt it, because my head may still topple over and hit the keyboard, unless I make myself another strong mug of Senseo, mocha flavor.
I will attempt to write a post, while I also manage to keep a cat off my lap who was just about to put her claws into my lacy leggings and we can’t have that. She keeps eyeballing me, waiting to make another move, but I’ve got her number. I’m watching her carefully from the corner of my eyes. She’s disgusted with me and has now taken up position in front of the window to watch absolutely nothing happening in the street. That’s an interesting maneuver.
I’ve met my new psychiatrist today. That was an interesting experience, as he turned out to be a quite young man. As a matter of fact, I think I am old enough to be his mother, but let me assure you that this does not bother me at all in my assessing his ability to be a good psychiatrist for me. He is a very kind and thoughtful man and he made a more than competent impression on me and I think I will be in good hands.
So far he has only known me through the enormous variety of pills he has prescribed for me and the information he got from my SPN, so it was good that he saw me face to face and realized that I was not some drugged up blathering idiot, but just an ordinary woman with her head relatively screwed on straight. This made him feel more comfortable with my drug regime and him prescribing it for me. Through this meeting he has given my SPN the okay to make decisions about my medications, should he not be available for some reason. That means he trusts us in knowing what I need at any given moment and that is good.
I have an appointment with him by myself on June the 2nd, because he wants to keep track of how I am doing, in spite of the fact that my SPN is my main therapist. I am reassured by that, because it shows interest and concern on his part and I appreciate that.
So, now I have two young people looking out for my mental health and they are both Belgian too. And you know what? I really feel good about it. I don’t have the least worry that I am not in good hands.
So, that was my big adventure for today and I do really mean that a little bit, because I was just a teeny bit worried about it. A psychiatrist is a very important person in your life and it is important that you trust that person.
My sister and I took the dogs for a walk at noon and just for a change (ha, ha) I didn’t have very much to say and I wondered why that was and decided that on some days you just don’t feel the need to share so much of yourself. When you think, “Why bother?” and you just keep more or less quiet and then that’s okay too. At least it was for me, I don’t know how it was for my sister, but she always has something to talk about, so it doesn’t matter so much.
Sometimes I have a great need to be quiet and to not share everything I am thinking, contrary to the impression you may have gotten from me through this blog. I think, nobody listens very well anyway, so why bother imparting all this precious information when you could write it down better in book form and have it printed and published and hand it out as a guide of yourself to other people. That way so much wouldn’t have to be said anymore. You’d say, “Here, read this and then you’ll know what I’m all about and then we can be friends and have a relationship.” But it’s bad when you have to do that with your own sister.
So, I’m very happy being in my own company right now, that is to say, as long as I can be in your company too. You’re all there in some capacity too. As my silent witnesses. Well, actually, you’re not that silent. You guys make quite a ruckus at times.
Okay, I’m off to feed the dog and to walk him. It never did become a very nice day today. It was cold and windy and overcast and it rained and tomorrow we’ll have the same weather. Time to pull some different clothes out of the closet. There is a seemingly endless supply.
Here are some more photographs of the Exfactor.
Have a good rest of the day, all of you.
Ciao…
Another Splendid Day 