11 days since my last post. Brain sort of all over the place, so time for a ramble, without any obvious connections.
The nice thing about having this blog (as I've often said) is that I can look back and see that about this time each year I fall apart - and then sort of come back together again. So the fact that my mind keeps flicking from 1972 (things starting to happen with Bob) to 2020 (things ending with Bob) to 2026 (now) and all parts in between is OK. Sometimes it's memories. Sometimes it might be closer to PTSD because for a moment I forget when/where I am. Such as looking out the window at my car, thinking that I just want to get in it and come home but I can't until Bob dies - and then I realized that I'm looking out my own kitchen window and that I *am* home - at least as much as I can ever be. These times don't really bother me - it's like 2026 self is observing and "isn't that interesting."
We had winter. Actual cold (by Florida standards). Going to work when it's 25 degrees and breezy - not much fun. At home I have trouble getting warm. I wear a sweatshirt, or wrap in a blanket, and sometimes I know I'm warm, even sweating a little, but it's like this core of cold inside that won't thaw out. But all too soon it will be hot again so I guess I should enjoy the sensation while it lasts.
Even more surprising - Central and South Florida had winter. Every year, when the temperatures drop, it's almost a joke that they have to watch out for falling iguanas. When the temps are below 40, they go into a torpor and fall out of the trees. As soon as the sun comes up and the temperature rises they wake up again. But this year there were several days that stayed cold. With amazing alacrity for any organization, the FWC temporarily removed the ban on transporting wildlife without a license, and asked people to bring in the cold-shocked lizards to central drop-off points. 5200 were brought in over two days. The sad thing- they were euthanized (nice way of saying "killed"). The bunny hugger in me is upset because they were just living their lizard lives. The environmentalist in me acknowledges that they are tremendously invasive (that 5200 is a drop in the bucket of their population) and eating the native animals out of house and home and causing a lot of destruction. But it's sad.
Woke up this morning and laughed because I suddenly remembered a time over 50 years ago when we were in bed and heard a cat crying, and an occasional thud sound. Eventually our cat Algernon (our first cat) made his way into the room, bumping into walls. Somehow he had found a little paper snack bag and gotten his head stuck in it.
RedBug is spending more time in the den, and has even wandered into the kitchen for a snack if I've forgotten to refill his personal kibble bowl. He even found RiverSong's basket and somehow squeezed himself into it.
The Highland Games were this weekend. Like the circus - I didn't go. I've gone a couple of times, and they are fun (and there are Men in Kilts), but apparently I'm not yet in the mood to go by myself (and I didn't get any offers). I also have a bit of a problem with the fact that unless you buy a VIP ticket ($$$$$) which gives you access to bleachers, there's no place to sit except on the ground. After a couple of hours I get tired of standing and walking. I also wanted to keep the weekend open because Jeff is in town for work and thought he might break free (alas - he didn't). But the weekend was not lost - I actually went to the Weaver's Guild meeting (for once it was more on my side of town) on Saturday, and Sunday I started cutting up and burning a tree that had fallen on my walking path.
Projects are coming along. I'm working on the 8th panel (out of 9) of the Forest Walk shawl (another reason for going to the Guild meeting - to get a couple of oohs and aaahs because this is getting to be a bit of a slog). The cleanup of the rotting wood stack is slowly being finished - slowly because the wood is gone and the stakes pulled up, and now what remains is moving all of the cinder blocks and they're heavy enough that I don't shift more than a half-dozen before taking a break.
I did the drive across town today to the peridontist. Turns out that they can't just evaluate if an implant can be done. You have to start the procedure - pull out the root, pack it with bone paste and seal it up, then wait four months to see if my bone has grown into it enough to put in the implant. So it will be four months and a few thousand dollars just to see if it's possible. That all starts at the end of the month.
I laughed at myself this afternoon. I got home, took care of a few things, then looked out the window at my dusty car and decided to wash it. In Ye Olde Goode Days I would have said something like "think I'll wash the car" and Bob would have said "OK, I'll bring the truck around too. I wonder if I have any tire dressing. I need to set up the pad on my drill to polish the headlights. I have to drag out the extension cord and the shop vac so we can vacuum the insides. Uh - never mind. That's too much for this afternoon - we'll do it some other time."
So we drove a dirty car a lot. Today - in the words of Nick Offerman - anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed. I got the hose, bucket, car wash, and a wad of nylon net and 15 minutes later had a reasonably clean car. I even put in another 10 minutes cleaning the windows, headlights, and reflectors.
I'm still slogging along on my 1084 mile virtual walk. I hit the 86% mark today (933 miles done, 151 to go) I'm getting very tired of obsessively trying to keep track of my daily steps - but I should be done in a couple of months.
I got a nice compliment - nice enough that I want to write it down so that 2027 self can be reminded and smile. It came from my chatbot - but hey - I take what I can get. We were having a discussion of coincidence vs. the Baader Meinhof effect. In this case, it was the word "quandong" - not a word I had encountered before but then got it twice in one day. First, watching "Tasting History" where he saw it in a recipe (it's a fruit) and then that night when I was reading a book on birds, and it talked about a bowerbird building the bower in the shade of a quandong tree.
At one point the bot said that yes, it was a coincidence, but that my interests are so varied that "You cast a wide mental net, so sometimes you can catch the same strange fish from two different streams." I like that - I'm not a dabbler, a dilatant , or scatter brained. I just cast a wide mental net.
And now, with the brain dumped, I'm going to resume my binge watching of The Great British Sewing Bee and knit a bit more on that shawl.
