In the early morning...

After a not so terribly sleep filled night. I'm sitting here early in the morning with my second cup of coffee being wide awake again. Apparently, my need to sleep was not so great and what little I did get was enough. 

It wasn't the dog who woke me up. He was sound asleep on the bed beside me. So was the cat. I woke up all by myself in a sweat and had to get up to cool off. I sat here in my pajamas for a while until I had. I just now put on my bathrobe and the heater isn't even on. 

It was not such a cold night and it isn't very chilly in the apartment, even though the living room windows are open at the top to air out the place. I only have the heater on sometimes for short periods of time. Just enough so when it does get cold in here, I can heat the apartment up a little bit. I'm not going to make the energy company very happy. I won't be their favorite customer. 

Today is going to be a very uneventful day because I have no appointments and nobody coming over. That is, unless the optician calls me to tell me that my glasses are ready. Then I'll go downtown on my bike to pick them up. Yesterday it was two weeks since I ordered them and it's about time that they are ready. 

I think waiting two weeks for a pair of glasses is an awful long time. I wouldn't have gone to this particular optician if I had known this ahead of time. I could easily have gone to another one or even have gone back to Specsavers where I had gone originally. I'm sure I would have had them by now. 

At any rate, I'm going to have to fill the day in a useful and entertaining manner. I will have to think of things to do that will keep me occupied. I will pretend to be a good housewife and look for chores to do. And I will definitely be a good pet owner and take the dog for many long walks. The weather will be nice enough for it anyway. 

I'm thirsty and I would drink a glass of cold milk now, but milk hasn't been agreeing with my stomach. It's a darn shame because I like cold milk very much and, besides coffee, it's my favorite beverage. My stomach revolts against milk and absolutely rejects it and I think that's a clear sign that I should not drink it. 

I will again have to start drinking rooibos tea and green tea with lemon now that I'm over that stomach bug. Nothing was agreeing with me when I had that. Even a glass of water was painful to drink. That sure had me confused until I figured out that I must be sick. I thought I was having some sort of a problem because of my gastric band. 

I don't associate being sick with myself. I so rarely am, that I don't expect to be. I have an occasional chest cold that is a little bronchial, but it happens only once a year and I get over it in no time. I miss out, as a rule, on all the viruses and other things that go around every winter. Everybody around me gets sick and I hardly ever do. I also don't get a flu shot and now there's even doubt about the sense of it. 

I must knock on wood.

It's time to get the day started. I must find some interesting and warm clothes to wear. I'm sure that will be no problem, organized as I am. As soon as it gets light enough, I will take the dog for a walk. 

I hope you'll all have a nice day.

Ciao,

Nora

Battling rain...

Just as I was taking the dog out for a walk, it started to rain, so I made a beeline back home after the dog had done his business. Luckily, it didn't take him too long to do this. He is a very accommodating dog when it comes to things like that. In other ways he can be very stubborn. 

I'd like to think that maybe he realized that it was raining and that we were getting wet, but I don't know if he's as bright as all that. He doesn't care much if he gets wet. He's got thick fur, so it doesn't bother him. To tell you the truth, it didn't bother me all that much either. I was wearing my winter coat and it has a hood that I had pulled up over my head. Neither one of us got much worse for the wear. 

So you see, it was actually a non-adventure and absolutely not worth mentioning, but it did fill up some empty space on the page and now you know about the weather conditions. 

I heard from someone that next month it's going to be very cold. I don't know where this person got the wisdom to know this, but I hope she's wrong.  When someone says it's going to be very cold, all I can think of is snow and ice because surely that will come with it. I don't mind the snow, but I'm ever so wary of the ice that forms in a thick layer underneath it. Luckily, I do have the right boots now, so I should be safe when it comes to walking around on it, but it will not be with joy. 

My attention has been called to the book 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett and I think I will see if I can get it in the paperback edition because it will fit through my mail slot better than the hardbound. Of course, the subject matter is far removed from my bed because, after all, what in my life has to do with black household help in the 60's in the USA and little white children of privileged families? It will be educational if it is factually written and not emblazoned with false sentimentality. I will read it critically and keep in mind that it's written by one of these grown up children.

It's time for me to eat dinner. My stomach is growling and it should be because it's been some time since I've eaten. I'm more than ready for a meal. First I'll have a tall glass of milk to quench my thirst. My everlasting thirst. 

Have a good evening you all. 

Ciao,

Nora

Not enough of a good thing...

I'm sitting here with a glass of ice cold milk and a cigarette. I just woke up from a short nap on the sofa, which made me feel a lot better than I did before I took it. I was a bit discombobulated and feeling like I wasn't quite all together and thought it was because of the missing pill. I've just now taken all my evening medicines and should be doing okay in no time at all. 

Outside it is raining and melting a lot of the snow and ice, which is good. I wish it would rain more and really get rid of it. I would love to see clean streets and sidewalks. I'm afraid that the rain isn't coming down hard enough to wash away the toughest of the ice. It really needs to pour for that.

Maybe I should do a rain dance, though I'm not related to any kind of an aboriginal at all and probably don't have the right powers and accouterments. The gods would not be fooled by me, a western European woman. I probably can't dance down the rain, but I could give it an honest effort. Can you see me now, out on the patio? That would be a sight!

It's already dark outside and the streetlights are on. I still have the window shades up and can see a splatter of rain hit the windows every now and then. Inside it's cozy with the lamps and the heater on. I've just fed the animals, so they are happy. They do patiently wait in the kitchen until I notice them there. Not a peep out of them. I wish Tyke would be more assertive and carry his dish to me. Or that Gandhi would at least meow.

The Exfactor was here earlier in the day to drink coffee. He could actually make it up the street on his motorcycle. He has been having to park it at the beginning of the street and walk the rest of the way, because it was too slippery.

He told me the same story of how many films he took apart and how many trailers of films and how many advertisements and how long it took him. It makes me cross eyed with boredom. He only has a couple of stories and he tells me the same ones over and over again. He's like an old demented man. I feel that he's slowly driving me mad with them.

It's possible that we don't have enough to talk about for two visits in the week. I certainly don't know enough except for what I hear on the news, so I don't have that much to contribute.

Well, that's really all I've got to tell you, speaking of interesting contributions.

Have a nice evening.

Ciao,

Nora

C'est la vie...

I'm waiting for the coffeemaker to finish brewing the coffee. I can't wait to have a fresh cup. I am in dire need of one. I just had some milk to quench my thirst, but it didn't wake me up. I did function without coffee and managed to write emails that were quite coherent, but I'm yawning still and definitely need the caffeine to get me started properly. 

I craved Nutella and had a couple of teaspoons of that straight from the jar. It is my energy boost and I figure the hazelnuts in it are good for me. It's my secret passion, though I can't have too much of it all at once. There is a limit to how much of it I can eat, but that is good. A little bit goes a long way and takes care of the craving. When I say teaspoon, I mean one of those little teaspoons that are used with china cups  and saucers and tea glasses. Not what Americans consider teaspoons to be. Those are dessert spoons in my book.  

Yesterday, my SPN and I started discussing my second marriage and that brought us back to the very beginning of it in California where I lived then and I had to tell about my situation then. I talked about that period in my life with a lot of nostalgia and love and quite extensively, but later when I was home, I wondered if in my head all this time, I had not romanticized this period of my life too much and forgotten all the gritty details.

You see, I'm sure I have, and that I've only told a little bit of the story and not the whole truth. I think I walk around for years with the romanticized version of my life in my head and have heartaches about it, but when it comes down to analyzing everything, it turns out not to hold up under close scrutiny and the truth comes to the surface. I have to face all the not so nice things about it and destroy the mythology that I've built up around it.

Luckily, I'm willing and able to do that. I'm not afraid to dismantle the myth if it helps me let go of the pain. If they are just fables I've been believing in, then I'm more than willing to stop believing in them. I can't live my life as if it is a movie set or as if I am a character in an exciting novel. I can't have my memories be stuck in that kind of a format. I'm stripped of any romanticism now. I have no illusions about my life. I only see the naked truth. There's not one poetic bone left in my body.

I'm seeing my SPN again next week and I'll deal with the rest of the story and tell the truth. It will be good to have it all come out. 

The ice in the streets and on the sidewalks is covered with a new layer of snow. It will snow some more today. I'm expecting my other personal helper at 8:30 this morning. I have to get dressed before that time and get the show on the road. I wish she wasn't coming quite this early, but we thought it was a good idea to get me started well in the morning. 

Have a good day, all of you.

Ciao,

Nora