Keeping it light

This writing thing is difficult, all of a sudden. With the very real possibility of people I know in real life finding this little platform, I feel I must censor myself. Well...maybe not censor. But I find many of the current events and "topics of the day" to be more than I want to unload - at least here. I'd like to keep it light. 

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Lighten up. Yeah. I need to lighten up. A few of the previous posts that are still available for public consumption detail how much of my closet I had to donate because so much weight was recently lost. That was true and I was working out on the regular...but then my job changed. And instead of putting on eight to 10 miles of walking/running during the regular course of my work day, I'm now sitting on my rapidly fattening ass for eight to 10 hours a day. I have one pair of pants that still fit. I have five shirts that I will wear willingly without finding a way to camouflage myself with a wrap or sweater or something.

Winter is easy...well...easier when it comes to wardrobe options. Bulky sweaters. Pullovers.  Such things hide a multitude of sins. And Have I Sins? Oy vey.

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Travel was very much non-existent this year. Under different circumstances, I would have spent a week or two on a beach somewhere far far from here during the deepest darkest part of 2020 winter. With the state of things, such as they are, I worked instead. In fact, I recently went back through my day planner and discovered hiring events every week but one from the end of January through the first week of August. And with a short lull in interviewing/hiring during a week or so in August and all the work that goes with that, we are again ramping for fall.

And I'm not even all that busy, if I were to compare myself to some of my colleagues. I must be starting to show my age. I know I'm feeling it.

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Did you have a double hurricane on your 2020 Bingo card? Weather events alone should have most of the population in therapy and on near lethal doses of Lithium.

I'm taking the dog outside to play. The evening news is entirely too much.

Starting over...again

I do a lot of starting over.

Where have I been? Oh, here and there. Mostly trying to keep people alive. And employed. While at times my life is frustrating and insane, it really is boring. 

Facegram, Twitbook, and others of similar ilk killed the personal blogging thing. I liked the anonymity of it here, such as it was when I started this site back in the day. But now, anyone with half a brain and access to Google will be able to figure out who I am behind the nom de guerre. *Loud sigh*

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Summer is slipping away from me. I've not been outside near enough this season...so I sit here in the air conditioning complaining about it while the sun shines outside on a neglected flower bed. I have to make another payment on an obscenely expensive boat that we've used three times this year.

I blame murder hornets.

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I've listened with compassion and sympathy - both genuine and forced - to people complain about having to wear a mask over the past few months. Funny thing, the science makes sense. And it isn't going away any time soon. But not even that matters at this point. If you have to wear a mask for 10 or 20 minutes to buy crap at StuffMart, wear the damn mask and keep your trap shut about it. The people working are probably risking their own health for eight to 10 hours a day, five or six days a week, while wearing that same mask. Your bitching and moaning about the inconvenient injustice of being forced to consider the health of another human within your six-foot proximity isn't winning you any points. Oh, and those same people wearing those masks as a condition of their continuing employment have heard every imaginable excuse, argument, and bullshit story about why you are speical and should never be subjected to even the THOUGHT of a hint of a whisper of pretending concern for another human life.

Get over yourself. Wear the mask. And keep your mouth shut.

Please.

Garden plans

I’m not the type to garden. I used to be. I used to have a house full of plants and flowers and even small trees that I faithfully maintained, moved inside/outside to take advantage of seasons. I transplanted, re-potted, fed and watered like it was my job. I even had a vegetable garden for a few years, with experimental sunflowers and 10-foot stalks of sweet corn and rows of carrots. I invested time in the flowering bushes and plants adorning the house.

Then we moved to the farm, someone decided that we needed cats, and everything went to shit.

I’ve not had a house plant or flower since. Because cats. Even an unassuming aloe plant or tiny little succulent in a decorative jar looks like a bathroom to those bastards. Last summer was one of the first years I grew flowers in the front planter of the house…and we’ve been here for what? Ten years?

Here’s the thing: when the cats decide to use a flower pot that was home to your 100+ year old amaryllis flower as a cat box which kills the bulbs (or…the descendants of said bulbs) that your great-great grandmother transported from the Old Country, everything dies. Everything. Including the joy once found in gardening - or even the quiet satisfaction of keeping something green alive.

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But who is more of an optimist than a gardener (or a farmer)?

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I have a drawing - more of a sketch outline stuck on the fridge with a Mickey Mouse magnet - of what I’m hoping to accomplish in the yard this year. It is an ambitious plan and includes building a fire pit. And moving a tree. It is a small, stunted thing that hasn’t grown much since we’ve moved here; I’m convinced it was planted in a pot or maybe the root ball is still wrapped in burlap. Something has to be stopping that thing from growing, right?

On my list include plants that repel bugs - like lemon grass, chives, citronella grass. Also on the list include things that don’t need to be planted every year, such as lilac and raspberry bushes. And a rock garden where the crab apple tree stump collects weeds every year, despite early and often Roundup-ing. And climbing vines to cover a multitude of sins along the north and west sides of the house.

But I suppose I should consider painting said house, first.

This may be a plan to break into stages…multiple year-long stages. Too bad I only have until next May before Muffin graduates High School.

The plague hath descended

A couple of weeks ago, we drove to my brother’s place in Montana for a few days of skiing and such. Normally, we’d venture to Red Lodge or Big Sky - also in Montana, but more commercial. I’m happy to say that the accommodations were lovely (my sister-in-law is awesome and their house is huge) and the snow conditions were glorious (spring skiing is the only way to go, if you are like me and prefer not to be cold while playing outside in the winter; I know, I’m weird).

The only drawback was that Banana was coming off a hellacious spring cold, complete with sinus issues and a cough that sounded like it should have it’s own diagnosis. We were trapped in the vehicle on the way out with her, a full 12 hours, and again on the way home, another full 12 hours. Muffin and I caught whatever malady Banana brought along and we spent the next week, including Easter weekend, sniffing and coughing and generally feeling like death warmed over.

Just today, I’m starting to get my energy back. Muffin is at school. I hope she isn’t contagious anymore.

*Cough*

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Somehow, Chad has managed *not* to catch whatever this is. Yet. I hope and pray he doesn’t catch this as he is terrible at being sick. I hibernate. I self-medicate. I hide. I spend inordinate amounts of time in the tub with lots of hot water and a vat of Vicks VapoRub. He…doesn’t. And he is a terrible patient, demanding home-made soup and medicinal monitoring that should grant me an honorary medical degree.

I’m thinking it may be a step down from pneumonia; however, most everyone in his extended family is dealing with variations of the Alphabet Flu (H1N1, H3N2…hence, the title of this post). And since I was delirious from getting zero sleep, as coughing all night is the only way to spend three or four consecutive nights, I didn’t even consider the chills and sweats were probably fever induced.

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I’m sure there is cosmic justification for everything that happens or doesn’t happen, so my suffering through snot and exhaustion for the past week must have something to teach me.

Or not.

Of the sea

Ever wonder why the bulk of human population lives in coastal areas? Me neither. I do wonder - and often - why I live as far from oceans and seas as possible. Probably a combination of luck, chance, and maybe a choice or two, I guess. By the way, I live in a state that boasts the monument that marks the (approximated) Geographical Center of North America.   

I can’t get much further from the sea than that, even if I tried.

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The trip to The Bahamas was lovely, if ever always too short. A week is a long time to be away from home and yet not near long enough to be at the beach. The weather was warm-ish…high 70’s to low 80’s. Windy, depending on where you were and what time of day it was.

But oh, the sea. Every cell in my body soaked up the salt in the air and the gloriously warm humidity and I was euphorically happy for seven whole days. No need for a hair dryer. No need for makeup. No need for an alarm clock. No need for socks…or jackets, or mittens or anything but rum, flip-flops, a swim suit and maybe a nice dress to wear to a late dinner. 

Just the sound of crashing surf lowers my blood pressure in a way no pharmaceutical or exercise regimen ever could.

I ate way too much at every meal. Drank even more, including several-too-many rum punch drinks served in a coconut whilst lounging under an umbrella on the beach. I did no ‘on purpose’ exercise, despite access to a full gym and spa, but I walked and walked and walked like it was my damn job. My lands the place we stayed at was ENORMOUS. In fact, on the last full day there, Chad was feeling a little under-the-weather, so I left him to nap in the room and roamed around an area of the resort I hadn’t managed to find before. I put on nearly 8 miles. Eight. Miles. Walking around the resort, looking at stuff, and wandering into the Private Residence area by mistake. I just acted like I belonged there and smiled at everyone. No one kicked me out for breathing the gold and diamond encrusted air.

We took a taxi into Nassau and shopped the straw market. On another day, we and another couple signed up for a snorkeling excursion on a catamaran. We toured a rum distillery and rum cake factory. We played in the resort’s water park. We drank too much at Margaritaville. I tried to buy some Kush, just to see if I could. (I could have, but didn’t. Really.)

It was a Resort in every way - very much catering to American tastes, which I didn’t like much. If I wanted to eat at Johnny Rockets, I’d have stayed stateside. But it was clean, if excessively expensive. Maybe spending $300 on dinner for two is normal for some people, but I thought it was obscene.The staff were welcoming and helpful. I made friends with the doorman, Aaron. He forgot me before the airport shuttle van door closed behind me, but that’s ok.

 Muffin and Smoke nearly murdered me for being away, and despite a few cold shoulders were happy to have me home again.

Suits

In the process of purging my closet and various dressers, I learned many things. One interesting lesson was that I no longer own a decent swim suit. The black tank suit I’ve worn for the past few years is faded and, to be blunt, ugly. And it doesn’t fit anymore, regardless. 

Why am I thinking about swim wear in January in the Northland? Funny thing: we are going to the Bahamas at the end of the month for about a week, courtesy of the company from which The Farm buys chemical and seed. I’m looking forward to sand and surf and sunshine and too much food and far too many tropical drinks with little umbrellas for garnish. I foresee sunburn and sugar comas.

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For Christmas, Chad bought me the RTIC 30 oz tumbler. He has a Yeti. I don’t see much of a difference, besides the obvious branding. I should have asked him to wait until RTIC came out with the sliding top lid, making it spill-proof, but I’m guessing I can pick that up later.

I like it. Coffee stays hot. Mmm, coffee.

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Muffin and I are now workout partners. Or at least until the gym decides to tell me how much all of this is costing me. The plan is to get and keep Muffy in shape during the off season. And this will be how I die. At the gym, whilst muscle bound gym-rats gawk and point as I drown in my own sweat.

Purge, purge, purge

I read somewhere that people are choosing a “word” to describe, represent or otherwise mark (denote?) the year 2016. Weird, right?

So. A word. A word, with enough gravitas to hang on all 366 days of 2016 (Leap Year, right?). 

“Meh” comes to mind.

I’m not committing to a word, but so far the word Purge would fit.

I finally got myself motivated enough to go through my closet. It took me the better part of a day to try everything on (1) and make Keep It/Donate It decisions.(2) 

That was exhausting. So exhausting that I only managed to get through the hanging clothes. There was also a shelf that runs the full length of the closet stacked with shoes and sweaters and probably the lost treasure of the Flor do Mar, and that took another day or so to go through.

And then, of course, the Dust Dragon Wrangling commenced.

I have an obscene amount of clothing. 

HAD. 

I HAD an obscene amount of clothing. This time around, I donated five(5) storage bins and a giant bag stuffed full of clothes to a local charity. A full 90% of the items were “office” type outfits (pants, blazers, jackets, blouses, twin sets, etc.) that cost me a fortune when I bought them new (even on sale, which at one time I was pretty good at). I really do hope someone will find uses for some of that stuff.

(1)If/When I lose all the weight I need to lose, nothing in that closet will fit me, save for the bathrobe. Too big is best, when it comes to bathrobes, I say.

(2)Let it be duly noted in the record: I did not purge one shoe. Not one. I have issues, obviously.

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The purging continued this week as I finally dove into The Once and Future Office/Guest Room. I’m so glad I’m not the type to do Before/After pictures, because damn, how embarrassing. Not one square inch of that floor was visible, having been stacked with boxes and books and random broken printers and whatever else I didn’t have the energy to deal with for the past year (probably longer than that…I’ve been writing at the kitchen counter for quite a while, now that I think of it). It was so much easier to just push stuff in there and shut the door.

The bed was buried under CPR mannequins, for crying out loud.

And I did. Cry. Out loud.

The big stuff in there is now dealt with and done:  boxes removed, books re-shelved, mannequins re-homed, printers…well, the printers are still in there, but I can now see the floor and successfully pull a chair up to my desk. I cleaned. The spare bed has freshly laundered sheets and blankets.

If a guest (singular…not plural…it is a twin bed, after all) were to wander up to my door and require overnight shelter, I would be able to accommodate without batting an eyelash.

And now I’m just sifting through the detritus in drawers and random boxes: business cards, old newspapers and magazines, receipts… from 2008.

Maybe I’ve been writing at the kitchen counter longer than I thought?

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Happy New Year, 2016.