Archive for Von
>Tell me why…
>My blog template showed up incomplete all day. All I saw was a green screen with text and photos, in other words, things I had posted and filled in. So, I went ahead and installed a different template, but I have the same problem with it, so I have no idea what’s going on. I’m assuming the problem will correct itself, since it is happening with both and I’m stubborn enough to believe it. If not, I will turn into a toad again and when I’m kissed, I will not turn into a beautiful princess, but an old hag. How many people go around kissing toads anyway? I’ve never done it.
The Exfactor did a good deed today. He took the train and specifically came to visit me so I would have someone to talk to. He knew I was having a hard time and he brought a lighter too, so I wouldn’t have to go back to the store to buy one. I told him everything that was on my mind and he could only agree with me and saw the logic in what I was saying. I don’t have emotions, I have symptoms and for all these symptoms there are labels, and for every label there is a pill. Every time I have an emotion, there is a pill or an increase in a pill to kill the emotion. I’m not supposed to feel anything. Every deviation is dangerous.
Well, the domestic help was here this afternoon. It was the same girl who was here last week and I hope she becomes my regular help. I may have to call about that and see if I can arrange that. She wasn’t upset that I hadn’t done anything, but she did tell me to ask for more time for her to do her work in. So three hours instead of two. There’s lots of cleaning left to do in this apartment. Things have been neglected for a long time. At first glance it looks okay, but when you look closer it’s not and those girls know how to look. They see dirt that I don’t. It’s getting harder not to be embarrassed.
Tyke is so fond of the domestic help. He wants all her cleaning supplies, but he listens well when I tell him that no, he is not allowed to steal things. When it was time for her to vacuum, I took him for a walk so he wouldn’t bark the whole time and drive the neighbors crazy. That was a good solution. Too bad I can’t do that when I’m supposed to vacuum.
Now for me the best time of the day starts, after I have taken my 6 pm medicines. I don´t know why that is, but soon afterwards, I always feel the best of any time of the day. I take my medicines, walk the dog, and when I get home, I feel good. It´s not that everything is suddenly okay and that all the problems have been solved, but I feel more courageous and a little more happy and not so drained, while there´s really not much to look forward to but loneliness. I think that is one reason why I write so many posts. I feel that I´m in contact with you all while I´m writing them, as if I´m having a conversation with you and we are connected through the words. When I´m done writing a post, I feel immediate regret and want to start writing another one, so I won´t lose the connection. I will still be part of something bigger than just me and the animals.
On Thursday afternoon, I´m meeting my friend Von at our café on the Our Dear Lady Square downtown. I think it´s been 5 months since we´ve met at the café. I´ll go see if the trees have any buds on them and if the outside of the church has been fully restored. If it is at all possible with my schedule, Thursday afternoons are going to be our regular afternoons.
On Wednesday morning, I have a meeting at the SPC for an intake for the creative classes of which I don´t know when they are going to be yet or when there is a place for me available. I can´t go Monday afternoons or Thursday afternoons, so hopefully there will be something available on other days.
So you see, I have plans and they will be good for me, I have no doubt about it. It will be good to get out of the house and amongst people and have activities and create things. And hang out with Von and drink cappuccinos. I do have to add those to my budget, mustn´t forget that.
Okay, this post is done, because I´ve told you everything that will go in this post. I don´t know if there will be another post. It depends on how the mood strikes me.
Have a good evening!
Ciao,
Nora
>What is it anyway?
>
After I had that bowl of porridge this afternoon, I couldn’t resist the temptation and laid down on the sofa for just a little while with my book and, of course, I fell asleep for an hour and a half, but it was very pleasant and I don’t feel at all like I’ve ruined it for tonight, because I still feel that I’ve got plenty of sleep left in me. As a matter of fact, I’m yawning as I write this and tears are running down my face and I’m yawning so hard, that I’m in danger of dislocating my jaw, which I will have to push back in place myself if it does. Everything is crackling and popping every time I yawn. It will have to be part of my self sufficiency, how to relocate my jaw after yawning. Just like changing light bulbs and reconnecting the computer.
The Exfactor always thought that I didn’t know how to do those things. He assumed I was helpless. He didn’t know I had 22 years experience at being not helpless, at being competent. He was a rescuing knight on a white horse whether you wanted to be rescued or not. He pulled your survival tools right out of your hands and made you unskilled and all thumbs. Some people are that way. They are Super Good Samaritans and don’t let other people figure things out for themselves. There are Mother Theresas all over the world in all guises. They are so eager to do good deeds, that they are constantly looking for victims and if they can’t find them, they create them.
It feels like it is very late at night already, but is isn’t. I’ve got my pajamas and my bathrobe on. The pharmacy delivered my medication. I just told them to do it and didn’t give them a reason why. I very easily could have picked it up myself, but I didn’t feel like going out at the end of the afternoon when my prescriptions were being faxed. There’s always a lot of traffic then and I do so hate crossing those two intersections at that time of the day.
I’ve never gotten quite competent at riding my bike again when I came back to the Netherlands. I do a good job, but I always worry about the traffic. I feel very vulnerable after all those years of always driving a car. I feel especially so when my bike is loaded with groceries and I’m glad I live so close to the grocery store, because I worry even over that short distance. I still yell at pedestrians downtown that step of the sidewalk in front of my bike. They are suicidal, but I will have the biggest injuries and when you live alone, you don’t want a broken arm. It’s hard to go to the toilet on your own with only one arm functioning. I yell, “Watch out, watch out!” I can’t ring my bell fast enough. Or at people who walk on the cobblestoned streets, “Will you please go walk on the sidewalk?” Those cobblestoned streets make you rattle and shake as it is. It’s hard to keep control over your bike. You just hobble all over the place.
It’s all an effort by the city to make the streets downtown look as authentic as possible, but those cobbletones are murder on your bike, or your ankles when you walk on them. Sturdy shoe wear is advised. Ladies with high heels shouldn’t go there, you see evidence of them stuck in the cracks. Not the ladies, but the high heels.
I’m having a terrifically tall glass of fruit juice to quench my thirst. Drinking coffee makes you thirsty and this fruit juice is the greatest stuff. It is freshly squeezed and kept in the cooler at the store. I could drink glasses of it, but I do want to make it last and it is high in calories, but it has all kinds of vitamins in it. I drink two glasses of it a day and that gives me a bunch of the vitamins I need. I also drink a lot of milk and as a result my nails grow very quickly and so does my hair. The porridge I eat is high in vitamin B and iron.
Specsavers called this evening and said that the lenses for my glasses were there, so I’m going in tomorrow afternoon to have them put into the frame. It shouldn’t take long to do it and I’m seeing my friend Von at the same time. I haven’t seen Von in a while and it will be good to hang out with her. No doubt we will sit by our usual café, but hopefully under the awning where there is heating, although it hasn’t been that cold outside the last few days and there has been no rain. The leaves are dropping very quickly off the trees, though. It’s going very rapidly right now, but some of the trees look spectacular still. Not all of them are equally pretty and only the imported maples are really awesome. Some trees just turn brown and that is it. Some turn yellow and that is much better.
I found the glasses that I had lost. They were in a box in my bedroom that had photos and photo frames in it. I don’t know how they got in there and I found them quite by accident, but now that I have them again, I must say that I don’t really like them and that I like my old glasses better and that I’m glad that I’m getting the proper lenses put into those. I’ve tried them out, of course, and I can’t wear them behind the computer and do better with them off. It seems the worse my vision gets for far away, the better it gets for close by. I don’t know why I thought these new glasses were better for me, because they are not at all attractive. At least, I don’t think so. I think I look like a very stern school mistress who should have her hair in a bun and a pencil behind her ear. I look much kinder in my old glasses.
I have creative therapy in the morning and I will be looking at that last painting I made and try to figure out what’s missing in it, because something is. It is too stilted as it is now. There’s not enough life in it. It needs more abundance, more joie de vivre. I’ll either fix it or ruin it. It’s a 50/50 chance that I take. That’s what skill is all about. Next I need to do a painting that brings me back to the basics. Just the original elements that I started out with, but very well combined. I’m futzing too much now with other little details and I don’t want to do that. It distracts me from my main design. That’s what I need to get back to.
Why is it that I get oodles of energy the later the night gets? I really enjoy myself late at night, that’s when I feel best. I’m complete in my satisfaction and contentment. I will take my medications now and maybe that will slow me down. I need to get sleepy now and not excited about being up.
Alright, I think I have made this post long enough. I don’t want the length to be overwhelming. I hope you all have a good night’s sleep and I will “see” you all in the morning, fit as a fiddle.
Ciao,
Nora
>Bravado…
>
I am trying to be lazy on this Saturday morning, but I don’t know if the dog will let me. I have let him out back for a piddle and he has eaten a bowl of food, but he may want to go for a walk any minute now and that means I will have to change out of this comfortable bathrobe into my regular clothes and I so don’t want to. I need at least another cup of coffee and several more cigarettes. Darn, I need a certain amount of my vices in the morning. Two cups of coffee isn’t too much to ask for.
The second painting at creative therapy is going well. So far, I’m very pleased with it, but it does help to have some very white paint handy for when I go over the lines. I can’t wait for it to be Monday so I can work on it again. First I have to get through those two long days of the weekend, of which Sunday is the longest day.
When I came home at 12:30 in the afternoon yesterday, there was a watercolor pad laying on the dining table and I knew right away that the Exfactor had put it there, so I called him to thank him for it and he said that it was not the present that he wanted to still give me. I’m completely in the dark now about what it could be, because I thought he maybe was going to buy me a sketch pad. This one says it is a sketch and watercolor pad.
I can’t wait to begin to use it, but I feel that I must develop some other style or technique and I need to do a little bit of pondering about what those could be. I have tubes of paint, so I could be painting also. I must give it a long hard think. Something abstract maybe. I only have two art books and maybe I can find something to inspire me in them. There’s an acute shortage of art books, I would say. Time to hit the second hand bookstore.
My afternoon with Von was nice. We had cappuccinos and tea at our regular outdoor café and they were accompanied by some Italian cookies that were so hard that they were impossible to bite into and we could have done each other some serious damage if we had thrown them at one another. Usually, we get pieces of soft nougat with our beverages and I hope that they get rid of those cookies and return to the nougat or pick something else that’s more digestible. At one of the cafés on the big square you get a cookie and a chocolate, but I think that Von prefers this smaller more intimate square.
We saw two bridal couples outside the ancient basilica and both the brides were dressed in ivory colored dresses with bouquets of red roses. The church bells rang especially for them. It was quite festive and we think it was a double wedding. Love was in the air and everybody was happy. It was very sweet to see and made you long to be that young again and have a wedding of your own (but, of course, have the wisdom that you have now). If only you could trust those grooms!
We walked around downtown and I pulled a croquette out of the wall at Snackson’s over by the big square and Von had a big paper cone of fries with mayonnaise. We ate that while walking down the street, which is half the pleasure of it, because women our age are not supposed to eat in the street. It goes against convention. You’re supposed to find a suitable place to sit down to consume your food. Of course, we had to lick our fingers, because as usual there were no napkins, as that is considered too much of an investment and wasteful.
Today I’ve got to do some grocery shopping and I’m not looking forward to it at all, because it will be busy in the store and I never like that. I do so like it when there are lots of places to park my bike and lots of shopping baskets and no distracted shoppers in the aisles. I guess I need a store of my own, or I need to go at 8 o’clock in the morning. Fool that I didn’t think of it. First I better check my bank account balance to see if there is any money to shop with.
I think, other than the shopping, I will declare this “take it easy day,” as I have few chores to do and I may as well do those tomorrow when I’m bored because it’s Sunday.
Have a terrific Saturday everyone. Think of me when you load your groceries in your car, as I wobble down the street with mine.
Oh, for privacy reasons, I have changed my name on every website I frequent. I realized I didn’t want to be so much of a public figure and have all of the details of my life out there and have them directly attached to my name. My name is now Nora Ibsen and I would appreciate it if you would address me as Nora from now on.
Thanks,
Nora
>Obviously…
>
Well, it must be obvious to all of you that I write these posts to avoid doing one thing, and one thing only, and that is housework, because it is waiting for me and I find all sorts of excuses, short of glue on the computer chair, not to get up from here. I would say we have a case of serious household neglect here, but believe me, things aren’t as bad as I make them sound and an hour’s worth of work will set everything right. My household is never in as dire straights as it was when I was depressed and couldn’t be bothered at all, and I do like to pretend that I’m not bothered one bit now and can wait it out.
Saturday, my friend Joost is coming, so Friday afternoon, I’m planning on doing most of the work, including mopping the living room floor. I’m not seeing my friend Von on Friday, because she has other plans in another part of the country, so I’ll have the whole afternoon off. In a way, I’m happy about this, because it fits better with my schedule, so I can do some grocery shopping on Saturday morning and change the bed then.
Because I walked the dog so late this morning, and we went quite a distance, he is still sound asleep on his blanket and gone from this world, oblivious to everything. I was kind of hoping that he would be awake by now, but I suppose I will have to wait a while before we go on our next trek. I want to do it before it seriously starts to rain again, which it is supposed to later on today, I think. And me without a raincoat! I’ll wear my jeans jacket.
Toby just managed to make clear to me that the kibbles that were left in the bowl were stale and that I had to pour those out and put in new ones. That’s quite an achievement for a cat. He hardly gave me time to pour the new kibbles in, that’s how hungry he was. The poor cat. Sometimes my mind is not quite on things the way they should be and the animals have to make themselves quite clear to me.
Toby eats first and then Gandhi eats, that’s the hierarchy in this place. Toby is the dominant cat. That’s the way he walks around here too, with a sense of ownership, if he could strut, he would, he is cool. Gandhi is just a lovely female cat with a lovable personality. She is very affectionate and thinks the world of Toby, but she has a healthy amount of respect for him. He gave her a short beating once to let her know who was boss and that was it. The hierarchy was established and has remained so ever since.
Despite my efforts at cooling the apartment down, it never gets cooler here than 24 degrees Celsius, even when it is 18 outside. Maybe I shouldn’t complain about that, because it is rather a nice temperature. The walls seem to trap the heat.
Oh, guess who just woke up? Yes, His Highness himself. He hasn’t quite made up his mind what he wants yet and is rolling around on the floor. Any minute now he will know what he wants and come ask for it. I guess becoming fully awake takes a while.
It is raining a little bit now, but not enough to keep us from walking. It will keep doing this for the rest of the day, probably. That’s been forecast. I don’t mind it too much, because it means it’s cooler outside and I like that. That’s why I’m not going to mind Autumn, as long as it doesn’t bring sleet and wet snow.
Well, Jesker let himself out and came back in very proudly demanding a snack as a reward. I guess that’s how the system works when the back door is open. No doubt he’ll really have to go out shortly, because he only piddles there and does none of his other business out back. He is a very hygienic dog.
I bought chocolate granola bars at the store, and although I’m eating them. I don’t like them very much, because they are much too sweet. I am going to finish the box and never buy them again. I think they must pack most of those kinds of foods with lots of sugar to make it appetizing to kids, because thatś the market it is geared for. I was royally disappointed, because I was expecting something more crunchy and wholesome, instead of something so soft and sweet.
Most of those “healthy” in between snacks are loaded with sugar and very fattening, even though they claim to be low in fat. You may just as well buy a box of ordinary cookies, or wheat biscuits, which are excellent with a cup of tea. There’s nothing better than dunking your biscuit in a cup of hot sugared tea. Does anybody know the joys of that anymore? That’s what we had when we were kids and we came home from school. Your mother at home waiting with a pot of hot tea on a tea cozy and a box of biscuits and an apple to take outside when you went to play with all the other kids in the neighborhood.
His Highness has gone back to sleep. I don’t know what to make of it. He is laying here beside me without a care in the world. I guess that’s what you do when you are a 12 year old dog. You sleep a lot. It’s raining harder now, so maybe it is just as well.
Well, now I will do a little bit of housework, just enough to satisfy the Household Gods that must be kept happy. First, I must eat something.
Cheerio…
>One of those nights!
>
I completely fell asleep on the sofa while watching the 8 pm news and didn’t wake up until midnight. I felt very good when I woke up, and full of energy, and the computer was in its sleeping mode, so I woke it up and checked my emails. Well, you know, one thing leads to another and then you have to make yourself a cup of decaf and answer all your emails and that takes a little time, so before you know it, it is very late and you’re still not in bed. At that point, I figured I may as well stay up a little longer and really break the night. Besides, tomorrow is Saturday morning and I don’t have to go anywhere, I really officially don’t have to go anywhere and I don’t even have to go grocery shopping.
Actually, playing with Ubuntu has taken up a lot of my time, because I’m figuring out how everything works. I have to do it on my own and I don’t have an instruction booklet, which would be mighty handy, so I just work my way through things and figure them out as I go along. Sometimes I’m stumped and sometimes it works. Sometimes the help section really helps and sometimes it doesn’t. Slowly but surely I’m getting things to work, though, like the music systems, which would not play at first, but there is much more I have to work out. I’ll be busy with it for a while yet.
So, I did not go to therapy today and that means that I’ve been home all week this week and I’ve had a whole week off. I’m not going to claim that it was like a vacation, because it was not enough fun for that, but at least I had a break. I become a basket case thinking about it, so I’ll just say that on Monday I’ll go to creative therapy and hope to talk to the head therapist then.
Well, that’s quite enough of that.
Actually, I can’t wait to get an extra table and chair to place in my bedroom by the window so I can start creating art there. That’s what I’m really looking forward to. I’m so excited about doing that and I can’t wait to go out and get the supplies. There is a store close to here called “Action” that sometimes sells art supplies at really low prices so I must go and have a look there at what they’ve got. I also have to remind my sister not to throw out any of the magazines she reads for the images and the texts.
A good blog friend is sending me a box of art supplies from the Sates and I can’t wait for it to get here. That will be the start of it, along with some of the things I still have myself, which are scant.
The weather was beautiful today. The sun was shining all day long, but it wasn’t too hot. The bike ride into town was really nice, especially when you consider that I have a good working bike now and the Exfactor had pumped up my rear tire so I really moved along well.
Some people were sitting at our table, but it looked like they were just about done and just as they were getting ready to leave, I grabbed a chair to prevent anyone else from claiming it. You have to be just a bit rude to get what you want and I wanted that table, because all the tables under the sun cover and on the square were taken. It’s tourist season, so things are always busy.
Von and I had a heated discussion about love and men. Is there another subject more worthy of discussion? We both thought that falling in love was a horrible thing, but loving someone was good. Falling in love is like temporary insanity and makes you behave strangely and do odd things. Things you wouldn’t do under normal circumstances. Loving someone is a totally different ballgame. For one thing, you can think clearly and you don’t make a big mess and you aren’t blindsided by your overheated emotions.
I ordered a piece of apple pie with whipped cream with my second cup of cappuccino, figuring I had deserved it after a week of despair, but I couldn’t finish it nor could I finish my cappuccino.
So, we went shopping instead, first for Von and then for me in my cheap store. We found a see through blousy top that I can wear over a sexy tank top and that Von said I should wear in my boudoir. It was only 7 Euros. I bought another set of matching bracelets to go with it, this time in reds and pinks. I just have to stop spending money on myself!
On my way home I didn’t run over any pedestrians, although several made suicidal attempts by stepping of the sidewalk into the street and instead of using my bell, I still yell at them. People are so oblivious! On the way into town, people were walking in the middle of the street and I yelled at them to use the sidewalk, because it is hard enough to ride your bike over the very rough cobblestones. Yes, they get upset with me and no, I don’t care. I just don’t want to end up face down on the street.
I stopped by the pharmacy to get a supply of drugs, which they gladly gave me and when I rode away on my bike, my necklace broke and it is one of my favorite ones, but luckily, I noticed it and caught it in my hand before it fell in the street.
Jesker was so happy to see me. He had been laying behind the front door again. I always make a big deal out of greeting him as if we’ve not seen each other for ages. He’s so cute.
When I was fixing my necklace, I managed to spill a whole glass of fruit juice all over the table and all over my cigarettes. Guess what I said then? You’re right! I sopped it up with a towel and laid my cigarettes out to dry, which did not even taste that funny when they were. I did fix my necklace. It had broken because of the strap of my purse. It had gotten caught underneath it when I turned my head to see if there was any traffic coming. That’s what happens when you wear your purse across your chest against purse snatchers.
I put on my boudoir top and walked Jesker and I wasn’t propositioned once, which I think is probably for the best. You don’t want to pick up men off the street.
Well, that just about was my day. I am going to try to add some photos to this post, but I have to resize them first and I don’t know yet if I can do that, so we’ll see.
Ciao…
>Rapid Cycling.
>
What is happening, of course, is that I am rapid cycling in about one week intervals with some daily ups and downs as well. I should have recognized these cycles for what they were much sooner, instead of floundering around like a drowning person, but as I said before, sometimes I am slow on the uptake and don’t see the obvious when it is staring me right in the face. And all that sleeping I did for a couple of days was my system telling me we were in for another change in the cycle. It’s all so clear by now, that I should know this by heart, but I fumble the ball every time and drag everybody in my drama with me as if none of us know that I do this repeatedly. Apparently, I don’t do it often enough for it to be a clear and concise set of behavior, so I want to make it very clear right now, so none of us forget it.
Rapid cycling is a repeated change of mood over a specific period of time that can be as short as a day or a week or a month. A change of mood would be going from a very upbeat and positive mood to a very downbeat and depressed mood for no really obvious reason, although it can be triggered by a minuscule little incident, and then having this cycle repeated several times over, or endlessly over and over again.
So, anyway, that is what’s been happening with me and it got triggered about a month and a half ago by an incident involving my first ex husband, which I won’t go into here, but which caused me to have many flashbacks to my first marriage and my life in the States and the memories weren’t pleasant. My SPN says that I haven’t been the same since then and I can believe it, because even writing about it this way is very disagreeable to me.
So let’s forget all that and get on to other things.
I went to my appointment with the head therapist yesterday afternoon, only to get there and find out that she was sick, so no appointment. She won’t be back until Monday at the earliest and I may be able to talk to her then. It was all a bit frustrating and I don’t know what to do now. I feel I need this break, yet I also feel that I’m supposed to go to therapy. I really just want to stay home and do chores,
I got some things done yesterday and made some crucial phone calls too. The Exfactor really helped me out and did the grocery shopping for me, which was great, as I did the dishes and dusted the living room while he did that. I need to sweep the floors and vacuum the rug and my bedroom today and the furniture, which is always a job and a half.
I’m seeing Von this afternoon at our regular café and I’m hoping I’ll be good company.
Yesterday afternoon I suddenly fell to pieces and ended up sleeping on the sofa until bedtime and then had something to eat and went straight to bed, I think. It’s rather vague to me. Blame it on my Alzheimer. No, blame it on my pills.
So, either way, I’ve got to get my act together this morning and get some stuff done. Get some shit done, I really wanted to write and I just did.
I had the Exfactor buy me some Brie, but it was overripe and some of it didn’t taste very good and I threw it away. You win some and you lose some. I didn’t want to get sick with some kind of botulism or whatever it is you get from an overripe soft French cheese. I was very suspicious of it. Somebody tell me what you get from eating an overripe soft French cheese, please, that looks suspicious.
I do have wonderful bread with poppy seeds and light mayonnaise and very good salami, so I’m very happy with that. I also have various packages of Knorr soup and extra vermicelli to put in it.
Oh, I have lost 8,5 kilos and had made a miscalculation when i said I had almost lost 9, that should have been 8 kilos. So now I’m going for 9 kilos. I’ll let you know when I’ve lost 9,5. I have about 6 kilos left to lose. Pudgy me!
Have a wonderful day!
Ciao…
>An Itsy Bitsy Long Day…
>It feels good to finally sit down here and to know that I really don’t have to do another thing until tomorrow morning. All I have to do is write this post and watch the news and drink my decaf and smoke my cigarettes. For some strange reason, though, the Senseo machine isn’t turning out good cups of coffee and I wonder if I have to kick it or give it a good cleaning with vinegar. It’s giving me very watery cups of coffee that don’t taste very good at all. As a matter of fact, this morning my first cup refused to wake me up. I guess I’ll put vinegar on the shopping list for tomorrow.
It seems like I had a long day, but it was actually over in no time at all. For a change the alarm clock woke me up and I considered shutting it off and turning over and going to sleep some more, but then decided that I shouldn’t miss creative therapy, although I had no idea what I was going to do there.
So I very sleepily got up and made that lousy cup of coffee and drank it in spite of it being so bad, but made up for it by smoking three cigarettes and then I got up to see what was in my closet that I absolutely had to wear today, I picked two safe things to wear, both weather wise and fashion wise and ended up looking very demure and matronly. Well, maybe it was not quite that bad…
Just as I was getting ready to walk Jesker, a thunderstorm hit and it started to pour, which gave me an opportunity to make a better cup of coffee and feed the cats, those poor animals that are always hungry. We had to wait for about half an hour for it to stop raining and then I took my chance and we went out for a quick walk around the block.
After that it was time for me to leave and just when I got to the clinic and locked my bike, it started to rain again, so I hurried inside and just got some big splatters on my head. Timing is everything in this life. It poured like crazy once I was safely inside. The weather gods are kind to me, but then who are they unfriendly to? Some poor bloke must have been out there getting wet. More than one of them, most likely.
At creative therapy I worked on a project that I had abandoned some months ago. It is a collage booklet that I had halfheartedly started on and I finally decided to finish it. So I had to find more images and texts and paste those in and then paint the pages, which I did. Now I have to jazz them up a bit with pastel crayons and whatever else I can think of.
Sometimes I don’t know why I start these projects, because I have a half baked idea in my head and just start to work on it without thinking it all the way through. I guess I think I’ll just go ahead and surprise myself.
It’s confusing to Jesker who thinks it’s time to get up and do a piddle and eat, but he is now sound asleep again by my feet on the hard linoleum. The cats also thought it was time to eat, but I ignored them and left them to their kibbles, which they are perfectly capable of eating.
I did manage to get a good cup of coffee and am going to try and get another one now.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon I met Von at café Charlemagne on the Our Dear Lady Square and we were lucky in that it didn’t rain all afternoon, which was good, as I sat just at the edge of the overhang and would have gotten wet.
All around us people were eating and I decided to order a grilled cheese sandwich with curry sauce, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach and you can imagine the later results when we were walking through town and I had to visit the ladies room in a department store. I felt much better after that and could shop, where before I had been unable to concentrate on the items on sale.
We ended up in my favorite women’s store and I found a long, knitted, black, short sleeved top on sale for 10 Euros and a set of 5 matching bracelets for 4 Euros, which was just about all the cash I had with me, so that was perfect. Von asked me if I didn’t need to try on the top and I said that I never tried anything on, and I was right, because when I got home, it fit me perfectly and I was quite happy with it. Of course, it’s black and knitted and attracts all the dog and cat hair and I constantly have to keep it clean, but what the heck!
Oh, and let me tell you. Making any sort of trip on my bike now is so much easier and safer. I don’t have to worry about a thing. I stop and go when I want to and keep going when I want to and I don’t have to worry about falling over and breaking my neck, and the pedals are always in the right position when I want to take off, because that was a problem too. I need to start off with my left foot downward, otherwise I don’t get going properly and get in trouble. So, here’s to my new bike!
Now, before I forget to do this, John of typos.daylight.fate has granted me an award for which I am very grateful and here it is:
There are some rules that go with getting this award and here they are:
1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you love and/or have newly discovered.
3. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.
4. Use the One Lovely Blog award picture from my blog, on your blog to let everyone know that you have one lovely Blog!
I am breaking the rules and am not passing this on to 15 other bloggers. I think that would be too much of a good thing and I would sit here for hours doing that, but I will pass it on to a few people I think are especially deserving of it.
1. Babaloo @ Fairymix.com
2. Grit @ Grit’s Day
3. Maggie @ Nuts in May
4. WWW@ The Other Side of Sixty
5. Laurie @ Three Dog Blog
6. Connie @ A Crone’s Chronicle
7.Angelique @ Sugar Cain
8. Sanna @ Violet Sky
9. Gail @ At the Farm
10. Casdok @ Faces of Autism
11. Jo @ Jo Beaufoix
12. Lisa Sarsfield @ Lucky Dip
Well, that is close to 15, but not quite. I think it is enough, but God forbid I forgot someone. Please let yourself be known to me if you think I forgot you. I scanned two lists and may have overlooked you in my eagerness to get it right.
In the meantime, the clock’s hand are moving toward the dawn and at any minute now some birds ought to start singing. I’ve got the blinds open and can see the whole street by the light of the street lamp. That way I’ll see the morning start sooner. Only one cat is visible, but I’m sure the other one is laying on my bed.
Today will be housecleaning and grocery shopping day. Oh, such fun, will it never end? The only good part about it is the Brie I will buy. I also must open my mail and check my bank account to make sure I’m still solvent. I’m amazingly free of fear of opening my mail today. That must be due to my medication. Those good old pills!
Have yourself a terrific Saturday and hopefully we won’t get rained on too much, although the trick seems to be to wait for the afternoon, when it stays dry.
Ciao…
>Is it time yet?
>
I’m up early, but I’ve done so much sleeping since last night that I think it doesn’t matter if I’m up already now. I hardly remember what I did last night, except that I think I slept a lot and when I woke up I was ravished and ate a two egg omelet, which surprisingly stayed down. It was all light and fluffy, though, and Jesker sat beside me for naught, because I ate it all by myself. He resigned himself to that, but what else could he do? Gandhi came and licked the salt from the plate and Jesker watched her with a curious look on his face, because he knew that plate was empty.
Speaking of cats, Toby and Gandhi now stand on the kitchen counter together and wait for me to get there and then find all possible ways to show me how much they love me and purr loudly.
They make quite a production out of it, but it’s all to get that delicious food in the pouches. Boy, do they love that! They hardly give me time to put it in their dishes, they are already eating before I’m done. It pleases me very much to see them eat with such an appetite and I really don’t mind. They also eat their kibbles still, so they are getting enough nutrition, although the more food in pouches they eat, the less kibbles. Those cats have me all figured out.
Eduard always says that those animals don’t have anything else to do but observe us all day long and they completely figure us out that way. I think there is a lot of truth in that.
Today is creative therapy day and the first thing I’m going to do is destroy that ugly sculpture I made and not start a new one, because I think that right now I should not be sculpting. I’m obviously not in a sculpting state of mind and haven’t been for a while. You must have the right feeling in your fingers in order to sculpt well and I don’t have it lately. I also don’t have any place left to put another sculpture. I have four standing in the bedroom on the shelves there and three in the living room.
I had started a silly doodle, but I’m not sure if I’m going to finish it. I have to look at it today and see what I think about it. It is very possible that I’ll make a collage, because that’s more the frame of mind I’m in. Making a statement about something or other, be it politics or society or mental health or whatever. Anything to get a feeling out. Whatever feeling. It doesn’t matter which one.
I’m also seeing Von this afternoon, but we’re not going to eat ourselves silly, we’ve already decided on that. Since we’re both on a healthy eating diet, it doesn’t seem like such a good idea and the fact is, that once you’ve started to eat something good, you only want more of it, so to prevent that, we’re not even going to start.
I can buy a delicious Camembert for 99 cents at my local supermarket. I bought some the other day and let it get to room temperature and then ate it and it was great. Jesker also liked it. I couldn’t finish it by myself. So, now I always have the Brie or the Camembert to look forward to, although I don’t know which I prefer.
I’m going to take great care in how I dress today. It’s not going to be too warm, so I can even wear long sleeves. I want to look really nice and I’m going to plow through my closet and find just the right things. So, it really is nice that I’ve gotten up early today. I can even do some ironing if I have to.
I hope you all have a great day and that many good things happen to you.
Ciao…
>Cheese…
>
When Von had that cheese platter yesterday, she had all sorts of cheese on there, many of them were soft French cheeses and I tried some of them too. I love them so much, so when I was at the supermarket this morning, I nosed around in the cheese section and bought myself a small piece of Brie and when I got home, I let it get to room temperature before I ate it in two sittings.
I just ate the last bit of it and am very full, but it was delicious and I’m going to do that more often. I’m picking a different one next time, maybe a Camembert or a blue cheese, I’ll see.The fact is that I like the softer cheeses the best, or the crumbly ones, and I like it when the cheese sort of melts in your mouth, when you hardly have to chew it.
I like food that is a delicacy and that you don’t have to eat huge amounts of to be happy with, that just the flavor and the texture make you happy if you have some of it and you can savor the memory of it for a long time afterwards. I got this piece of Brie for 80 cents, so it didn’t break the bank. It’s a repeatable experience. I hope I can get another kind of cheese equally reasonably priced.
For a change, the animals didn’t beg for any, so I assume they don’t like French cheese and it’s an acquired taste, but I must say that Jesker doesn’t usually beg for food, unless it’s a cookie, whereas Tobie will steal the lunch meat off your sandwich and has with a quick haul of his paw. He’s very rude and uncivilized and has no manners whatsoever.
I’ve bought the food in pouches again for the cats and I can make a box last 6 days. You should see them when I empty the pouches into their dishes. It’s like they have never been fed before. They attack their food like lions and eat it with great appetite. It’s pure luxury for them, but that is because they don’t like their kibbles very much and leave them sitting in the bowl getting stale and they make Gandhi barf. I got tired of cleaning it up.
As I’m writing this, I have the Tour de France on in the background. I like to turn the TV on when the Tour is on. I enjoy watching the scenery and listening to the commentators talk. They don’t talk a lot of nonsense and do discuss interesting things considering they have to talk for such a long time. Their voices are calm and quiet and civilized. If I was laying on the sofa now, I could easily fall alseep by the sound of them.
Even though it is Saturday, and officially a work day of sorts, I haven’t done much yet. In a while, I will get up and do a set of three chores. I’ve done a little thing here and there, but nothing that you can notice. I talked to both my sisters on the phone and I have to write a birthday card for my aunt and mail it this afternoon. I’ll take Jesker for a walk at the same time.
Have a good rest of the Saturday, people. It’s been raining here, off and on, so it’s not very exciting to go out there. Luckily, I pick the right moments.
Ciao…
>Back home again.
>
Jesker is still a little wobbly and sleepy, but he walked out of the vet’s office to my sister’s car unaided. When we came home he was a little confused about what he was supposed to do, but then figured out he had to follow me inside and walk into the apartment, where he promptly went to sleep and that is pretty much all he has been doing since he’s been home.
The vet cleaned his teeth and also cleaned the infected canine all the way to the root and has put him on antibiotics for 6 days. He said he didn’t need to pull the tooth, because it was in there very solidly. So now we hope for the best.
When the vet gave him the shot to put him under, it hurt and Jesker got very angry and I had to hold onto him or else…then he slowly got very sleepy and wobbly and pretty soon he was sound asleep at my feet. Then the vet could have a good look at this tooth and tell me what he was going to do to it.
I left him cleaning Jesker’s teeth and went home to get my purse and bike and rode it downtown to meet Von. Luckily, I did not get rained on once. We sat on the terrace under the heated canopy and had a perfect view of everybody walking by and only saw a couple of men that were worth a soft whistle from me.
Von had come into some money and treated and told me to order whatever I wanted, so I ordered an ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, which was served on a stylish dish with chocolate artfully arranged over it, with a fruit in the middle. Von had the cheese platter with grapes and sweetened fruit and salad and a myriad of cheeses and bread of which I tasted some too and they were delicious.
Jesker woke me up early this morning because he was hungry. Of course, he hadn’t eaten since the day before yesterday, so he ate a big bowl of food and some Bonzo bones and then went out back for a piddle (his first one). He’s now sound asleep again, completely satiated.
Although I had eaten a lot yesterday, this did not reflect itself on the bathroom scale this morning where I weighed less then yesterday, but we all know weight is fickle, so I won’t put too much worth on it. I just thought I would have gained weight, that’s all.
Here’s a doodle I made the other day and colored with brush and ink:
And here’s a sculpture that I painted yesterday, it’s called: The Golem.
Just some of my latest endeavors. There are another doodle and another sculpture coming up Monday and then that will be it for the sculptures. I haven’t made anymore and I don’t know when I will. I may make another collage, I’m working on another doodle and, of course, there is that painting I have to finish. I think I will work on the painting on Tuesdays and do nothing else that day. Ha, listen to my famous last words!
Well, I think that’s it for me for right now. I’ll write more later when I’m really awake. This has all been slumber writing.
Talk to you soon,
Ciao…
Another Splendid Day 