Archive for the queen
>Holding down the fort…
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>Sleepless in the Netherlands.
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Ciao,
Nora
>Early in the morning on a Wednesday.
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It’s early in the morning again and I have been up for a while. I thought I would take the opportunity when I felt rather good and write a post. That is, if my little dog is going to let me. He is playing with Gandhi right now, but wants to involve me in the game also. Oh, he’s decided to lie down by my feet now and be quiet. That’s good, it helps if he doesn’t jump on the keyboard. It does enable better writing, technically speaking.
I didn’t sleep well during the night. My stomach was upset and that bothered me quite a bit. I had a slice of salami before I went to bed and that did not sit well. My gastric band wanted to reject it. The best thing to do was to get up and have things settle down there. A vertical position helps, so does drinking something. A cup of coffee works as good as anything, because it isn’t about acid, but about mechanics.
I have to clean house today, because my friend Yvonne is coming over tomorrow afternoon for a cup of tea. That’s a good motivation to get some things done around here. I’ll gladly clean the apartment if a friend is coming over. I can’t think of a better reason to. Well yes, if the queen were to come for tea, but she has yet to let me know if she is. Though why that should matter so much is beyond me. I am a republican, after all, and I don’t mean that as opposed to a democrat.
I’m also going grocery shopping with my sister tomorrow afternoon, even though I’m not out of supplies yet, having lived very frugally this past week. I don’t know how that happened, but it just did and I have made everything last. I do have to buy special puppy food for Tyke, because he’s been getting regular dog food now and I’m sure he needs the special nutrients that are in puppy food. He has a fantastic appetite and would eat nonstop if I allowed it and he likes everything. I’m not used to that.
I’ve not been reading much these past few days and am still stuck in the same book. I’m nearing the end, though, and will try to finish it today. Then comes the hard choice of what to read next, because I have so many unread books to choose from. I’m thinking of trying Anita Shreve next. I have quite a few of her novels. I was thinking of reading “The Pilot’s Wife.” Does anyone know that one?
Well, I’m going to take my medicines and lie down for a while. I may even eat some breakfast now that my stomach has settled down again. I’ll watch the repeat of the news while I do that. It pays to stay informed.
Have a good day!
Ciao…
>It’s too early to go to bed.
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I was planning on going to bed, but it’s really too early to go and it would be slightly ridiculous if I went now. So, instead of that I will write another post and tell you about the amazing paint job I did over the mildewy patches of the living room walls. There, I just told you. No really, I had a nice little can of white paint and a brand new brush and I didn’t dribble any paint and very neatly covered up the mildewed patches (of which I don’t know the origins) and, as the paint has been drying, the mildewed patches have not reappeared, except for one particularly stubborn spot. I’ll slap more paint on there later.
I also keep trying to improve the living room and I found in the junk room a rod iron candle holder for three candles that you hang on the wall. That was just what I needed for one bare spot, but I knew that wall needed screws and I had no drill. But I also remembered that before the last paint job, there had been a hole somewhere in that spot that we had puttied, so I had to try and find it. After a while I did. It was just a little bump and I hammered a nail into it and hung up the candle holder. Then I looked in the junk drawer (every good household has one) and found three matching blue candles and stuck them in and voilà, it was a done deed and it looked nice. I even lit the candles for a while, but then blew them out and decided to save them for a really romantic evening. I am going to have one of those, you know!
Then I got really bold and took a lamp out of the bedroom and added it to a spot beside a chair in the living room, but it was a wrong move and it didn’t even grow on me, and I have to take it back to the bedroom when I go there next. Sometimes you want things too much and then you overdo it. It is that way in real life too. Curses!
It’s been freezing here and in some places there’s an inch of ice on the water. That’s not thick enough to skate on, but some daredevils do it anyway. It’s going to keep freezing, so by this weekend we should all be able to skate outdoors. Not I, of course, I have no skates. I haven’t skated in 30 years and doubt I could do it anymore. That’s not at all spoken like a true Dutch woman, because no Dutch woman would say that. Everybody here knows how to skate, it’s the law. It’s as normal as bike riding. Even the queen knows how to skate. Heck, she even knows how to ski and you don’t see the queen of England doing that. Yes, our queen rides horses too. I really shouldn’t make a big deal out of that, should I? I mean, why should the queen not know how to skate or ski? She’s a normal person of flesh and blood, isn’t she? In the end, she’s no different than you or me. She’s about as royal as my left foot.
The dog’s on a diet and is only getting half the food that he was getting. I am buying him some very good dog food, but giving him a little in two portions. He thinks it’s fine and loves it and when his bowl is empty he thinks he’s had enough. Except for tonight when he went over and in one big vacuuming motion ate all the cat kibbles out of their bowl. I hope he doesn’t keep doing that, or I’ll have to feed them on the kitchen counter. I do have a small bowl of dried dog food for him, but he is completely ignoring it. He must think eating dried dog food is beneath his dignity. He has to lose 12 lbs at least, but I have to buy him food that he likes to eat, otherwise he’ll start begging for his Bonzo bones and those are only for special. He’s such a goof ball.
I was sitting here with the blinds wide open letting the whole world see that I’m a woman living all by myself. I guess I always feel safe in this neighborhood, or it is because I have a dog. Little do they know that he is deaf and doesn’t even hear the doorbell. It’s very convenient that he’s deaf when all the fireworks go of at New year’s. It’s like WWIII broke out, but he doesn’t hear it and is not in the least scared. The cats are and go into hiding, the poor things.
Well, my dog thinks it’s time to go to bed. He keeps going to the bedroom and coming back here and sighing deeply. I think it has great meaning. I must heed his call.
I hope you will all have a good night and sleep tight.
Ciao,
Nora
>Tuesday night…
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The news on Jesker is, that he’s still improving and that he shows this in many little things he does. Like eating a healthy amount of food and drinking from his water bowl like a normal dog. Like going to the back door to be let out to do a piddle and asking to go for a walk when it is time to. And coming to be petted when he decides that that’s what he needs and this I am most happy with. He also corrects Gandhi when she scratches the chair she’s not supposed to. That’s a huge improvement. He still sleeps an awful lot and at times is completely oblivious to what goes on around him and doesn’t wake up no matter what happens in the apartment, but I think that has to do with the fact that he’s getting so deaf. I feel pretty secure now in saying that he is getting better and will continue to do so. I am much relieved and think I have learned a lesson to be prepared for the eventual inevitable end and that I will be ready when it comes, or as good as I can be. He was so sick that I thought it was near, and it will always be in the back of my mind now.
Because of that good news, I had a really good day, because you can’t imagine how it has set me free to know he’s going to be okay. It’s put things into perspective and made me appreciate the little things all over again. Not that I didn’t, but I do even more now. I think my life is a whole string of little things that go well and Jesker is part of that and a very important part. Good health and well being are so important to what and who we love and we take it for granted until something like this happens. It again reminds you how precarious everything is, and how finely balanced, and how you have to be prepared for the not so good times too. You always have to be strong somehow, in spite of yourself.
I felt so good today, that I even did the grocery shopping myself in between rain showers, even though the Exfactor was here this afternoon and I could have asked him to do them for me. I decided to be a big girl and manage them myself. I made a bare necessities shopping list and checked my bank account balance to make sure I had the money and got my act together. I had a teeny moment of panic just before I left, but I pulled myself together and kept on going and got my shopping bag and my purse and my bike and rode off into the sunset.
Well, not quite, it was still afternoon and it was not raining when I left, but when I came out of the store, it was drizzling, but I packed my groceries in the bags and decided to just get wet and make it home instead of waiting for the rain to end. I do have easy short hair after all and water proof mascara and it’s only a five minute bike ride at the most. Just long enough to have rivulets of water run down my face when I got home, but that’s the sport of it. The trick is to get the heavily loaded bike into the hallway of the apartment, but I always do manage that somehow without having the bike fall over on top of me. Where there’s a will, there’s a way and stubbornness pays off.
It felt good to have food in the house again, especially fruit juice and milk which I had completely run out of and I had been using coffee creamer in my coffee, the dried kind that tastes like plastic and artificial ingredients, which it no doubt has plenty off. I think sometimes it’s best when I don’t have my reading glasses handy and I can’t read the label with the ingredients when I hold the jar, otherwise I may not use the product.
In the store, I was completely not tempted to buy anything that was not on my shopping list. I just walked from one item to the next and placed them in my basket and never glanced at all the other alluring items that wanted to go home with me. I have a one track mind. Get in there and buy what you need and get out. All the specials are wasted on me, I never succumb to them. I don’t even stop at the very attractive bin of discounted items, even though it is placed where I can’t miss it. Advertising doesn’t work on me. I don’t have the money to spend on it. I buy what I need and that’s it. I’m probably the shopper with the smallest budget. They see me coming.
The Exfactor and I got into a political discussion. It’s funny to see that we still are on the same road there, even though we’ve been apart for a year and a half. If anything, I’ve become a little bit more radical in my way of thinking and have surpassed him in some of my opinions. That’s because I form my own nowadays. But we agree on most things, although we disagree on which political party we join and want to see in power. I’ve veered off to a younger greener party and he has stayed with the more stoic socialists. They’re both run by women, but I think my woman is better able. I’m not trying to change his mind, because I think his party is good too, it’s just not my party anymore. I needed to make a break and start with something new and innovative.
We both agree on the uselessness of the royal family and think we should have a president, but see no way of bringing that about, because of their popularity. They’re like stars because of the cheap media and the paparazzi. People love all those magazines with the latest pictures and stories in them. Not one sensible thought goes into them. We’d like the queen to stand up during her reading of the State of the Union and say, “Listen, this is nonsense and I don’t agree with a word of it and I’m not going to say another sentence!” It is written for her by her ministers, after all. We don’t know how much she agrees with what she is announcing and we can’t hold her personally responsible.
Oh, I’m off on a political rant again. My excuses, it was triggered by this afternoon’s discussion. I do have to share it with someone. We have such nincompoops in the governments right now, it makes your blood boil. Indecisive men who don’t have any vision, unlike some politicians I know of, and some of the ones trampling each other back stage aren’t much better.
End of rant. It’s getting late and I ought to go to bed, but I’m not nearly ready for that and I think I will stay up for a bit longer. It’s very cozy here in the living room with the sleeping dog and cats and the world silent all around me. I’m yawning, but not nearly asleep yet. I will let it sneak up on me.
It’s time to end this ramble. I’ve gone on long enough. Most of you will be asleep by now and those of you who are not are probably eating dinner or doing some other daytime activity.
Regardless, I wish you all a good night and I will see you tomorrow.
Ciao,
Nora
>The Bouncy Castle.
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I’ve bounced back really well after a telephone conversation this afternoon with my daughter and my subsequent session with my SPN, who got my thinking about the problem straightened out. We eliminated some of the darkness in my mind and alleviated some of the pain in my heart, so now I can function again like a normal human being.
I would like to step right back into my hypomanic phase, but I don’t think that I’ll be so lucky, although I do feel a huge lightening of the load. I wasn’t quite done with my hypomanic experiment and wanted many more weeks of trying to keep the reigns in my hands while being so absolutely convinced of my righteousness and superiority. Now I will slowly let that feeling creep back into my being, where I want it to belong and take over the darker clouds that linger in the recesses of my mind. I’m not an undeserving woman, after all. I am convinced of that.
It’s strange how your days go. Today I was preoccupied with my own thoughts and I barely paid attention to what was happening around me. I didn’t really care that much and thought everybody had to figure it out on their own today, without my two cents worth. I’m usually pretty alert to what goes on around me, but today I didn’t give a hoot. I felt insulated by bubble wrap.
The bubble wrap has mostly come off now except for a piece here and there, clinging stubbornly as it will (static electricity), and I’m not so insulated anymore. I felt the sun on my face when I rode my bike to my appointment, pedaling like a mad woman at times and not getting ahead. That bike!
This morning at creative therapy I started to color my doodles with colored ink. I don’t know if this is a good idea, but once I started, there was no way back. I just started on my third one and when they are done, I will take pictures of them and post them. It seemed like a good idea, but I am full of doubt.
Hypomanic people are not full of doubt. They are sure about anything they undertake and undertake whatever comes up into their heads, within a certain amount of reason. I mean, they don’t go streaking naked down the street. There would be no reason for it, unless they could win a bet or somebody dared them to.
I’ve just made myself a nice mug of coffee. I am feeling sleepy ahead of time and I can’t have that. It’s probably the emotions from the past twenty four hours. An over dose of emotions can make you physically tired.
I think that today I’ll pretend to be the queen who has been struck by an arrow in her bosom fired by her most ungrateful of subjects, a drunken man who has plotted and schemed for a long time to hurt her most royal majesty where it hurts most. Luckily, it wasn’t a poisoned arrow and my head physician was able to remove it without much blood loss and it didn’t hit my heart, though it missed it by millimeters. Luckily, I am also ample bosomed and that cushioned the impact.
Well, those are all the fun things I had to tell you today. A sort of rambling post that didn’t reveal much of importance, except that I’m still here and as crazy as ever.
I hope you all had a lovely day.
Ciao…
Another Splendid Day 