A brief moment in time...

That's what I intend to describe here anyway, although it will probably turn in to a description of many long moments in time because I'm sitting here comfortably with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and am not about to go anywhere. I'm still sleepy enough to be nice and mellow but alert enough to make sense. At least I'm not in one of my hypo-manic moods and floating on a cloud. I'm completely down to earth where I belong. 

I've done some sleeping already because I went to bed early last night. I didn't have the patience to stay up late and watch television. I wanted to get comfortable under the duvet and drift off into sleep and dreamland. I don't remember if I dreamed or not. If I did, it wasn't very impressive because nothing stayed with me. They must have just been very ordinary things that weren't worth remembering. 

I hope that when I go back to bed, the rest of my night will be like that also. 

There's not much to talk about when you're down to earth where you belong. I'm frantically searching in my mind for subjects to discuss and all I can think of are the things I already talked about on my other blog. I don't want to fall into repetition so I won't be discussing them.  I suppose that I'm not as alert as I thought I was because normally I have no problem coming up with things to talk about. 

That warrants another cup of coffee and I'm drinking it now. Hopefully it will loosen me up a bit. It's a terrible thing when your mind lets you down. It's the one thing you have to be able to rely on. That's why you have to run a little interference every now and then and give it a little stimulance. A mind on its own sometimes can't do a lot but sit there and be very dull. And that is very boring. 

My therapist wants me to see a woman who does breathing and relaxation techniques. She teaches you how to do them. My therapist thought they might be good for me to know because I now use tranquilizers. I'm somewhat interested in this and already know the woman who teaches them from yoga classes that I took a long time ago and I know that she's a very agreeable person.  I was happy to hear that she made it through the budget cuts. 

Today I have to go to a center of activities to see if there's a creative class I may be interested in. Hopefully there's a group of women I will find something in common with. I have to meet the leader of the group today. I'm a bit nervous about this because it's a new venture, but it is very close to where I live. It's a ten minute walk away from the apartment so it couldn't be better. I just have to gather up my courage. Whatever I have of it. 

You wouldn't think I was scared of trying out new things but I am. I'm less brave than you may think I am. There's always a hurdle I have to get over. I can talk myself out of things very easily. I mustn't do that this time because it is an opportunity to get involved with something interesting and to be socially engaged. I must be courageous. 

I'm going to take my somewhat timid self to bed now and get some more sleep. If I'm able to after this second cup of coffee. I may be too wired. Maybe I'll have to pay Facebook a visit first. I'll see.

I hope you're all having a good night.

Ciao,

Irene

Things to ponder at night...

I feel ever so slightly ill as if I'm getting the flu. When I was lying in bed, I had the chills and I had a funny feeling in my chest as if a malady was settling there. I'm not quite myself right now, but I never do get properly sick and I'm sure that by the morning, I'll be right as rain again. That big virus that's been going around hasn't floored me yet. I seem to have a good immune system. People around me get ill, but I never do. 

I've got an appointment with my therapist in the morning. I haven't seen her in quite a while. An appointment I had with her before Christmas was canceled and a lot has happened since then. You see that I manage quite well without her. It's not necessary to discuss every detail of what is happening in my life with her, but it will be good to touch base with her. I feel less need to have all sorts of help and back up and reassurances. I do feel capable of independent thought and taking independent actions. 

I find that people close to me function well as listening posts also. I talk to them about things and they don't even have to give me advice. I just tell them what I run up against and make my own decisions. All they really have to do is sit and listen and sympathize as much as they can. It's for me to get the story straight in my mind. The Exfactor serves that purpose very well. He is a good listener without wanting to give all sorts of advice. I get to clear my head and put things in order. That's all I really need. 

I think smart actions result from a combination of listening to your instincts and using your intelligence. If you ignore your gut reactions, you'll go off in the wrong direction, but you've got to keep your wits about you too. I'm unsure how closely instinct and intelligence in people are related. That's something I've never researched. It would be an interesting subject to read about. 

I will go back to bed. I should take something against aches and pains. That's typical for flu, isn't it? I will wish myself well. I will imagine my body fighting whatever bug it's got while I'm comfortably esconded under the duvet. 

Ciao,

Nora

Revenge of the awful dog...

I've tried to get a good night's sleep for a couple of hours now, but every hour or so the dog woke me up with some excuse or another. I tried to ignore him, but I finally gave up and got up because I could not stay asleep any longer. I will try again later when he has settled down. 

I'm sitting here yawning, but this cup of coffee I'm having should help that.The dog is asleep by my feet. Hopefully now he will be sweet and docile. The cat is sitting on the kitchen counter eating her kibbles. To her it doesn't matter if it's day or night. She does what she pleases when it pleases her and bothers no one. She's easy. 

I must say that I'm glad the weekend is over, although it did go by quickly so it wasn't a long ordeal to get through. Nothing worth mentioning happened. It was just an ordinary weekend like so many others. The most pleasant thing I did was take naps in the afternoon which got me over the tough time of the day when I never know what to do with myself.

Now that I don't read anymore, my books stand forlorn on the bookcase and I no longer get lost for several hours at the time in literature. I often think I will never read another novel again because I absolutely have no interest in them. It's like I don't want to get lost in them and be cut of from reality. I feel that I constantly have to be in touch with the here and now. 

I do like to watch sports on television. I feel that's very actual and real. I hardly feel like I'm escaping. I also like to watch cultural programming, but again, I feel like I've got at least one foot in reality and I'm not lost in a dream because the programs are very objective. It would be different if they were lyrical journeys. I like very factual things, although that's very different from how I used to be. I used to watch television to escape and now I watch it to face reality. 

That must be why I like news programs so much and political talk shows. I do squirm when politicians are interviewed in depth. So few of them are willing to come right out and give a straight answer. They don't like to be pinned down. I dislike evasive answers and the politicians who give them. I do like good interviewers who don't back off. 

I suppose I'm wide awake now and I will have to drink milk to get sleepy again. At least the dog has settled down. I will have to go find my bed and get under the duvet and sleep a few hours before the personal helper gets here. 

I hope you will have all had a good night.

Ciao,

Nora

Levity and lightness...

I trimmed my own bangs last night because they were too long when as usual I brushed them to the side and fixed them into place with hairspray. I slightly looked like Adolf Hitler. I cut them quite a bit shorter and like this perkier look. Now I look more like a little cute hedgehog. One you may want to cuddle despite her spines. I could easily appear in an animated film. Meryl Streep could do the voice over in a Dutch accent. She's good at accents.

My hair is easier to manage now and it will be easier to wash and dry and get in place too. It gets unruly quickly and always makes me think I need to get a haircut. Now I won't have to go to the hairdresser for a while. Not that I don't enjoy going. I also still need to get the silver shampoo to wash it with. Not that my hair isn't naturally light. I just want it to pick up the highlights so it will look lively. It's got a lot of gray in it, but it looks blond. That's my luck. 

I have to go to the drugstore anyway and pick up some things. I want to see what sort of deodorant is on sale and if I can find a decent perfume for a good price. I have been out of it for quite a while now and I do miss the scent on my clothes. I did have some samples, but they were of expensive perfumes and I won't be buying them. I do wish I believed in Santa Claus and his bottomless bag of goodies. Wouldn't it be nice to be a kid and make a wish list? I think I do need a sugar daddy. 

Since today is Thursday, it means it's a free day and I don't have to get up on time. It does mean that I have to get up whenever the dog needs to go out because I can't neglect him. I'm not concerned about the day ahead and being able to fill it. Things will take care of themselves. I'm going to look on the bookcase for a good novel to read. It's about time that I try out the reading part of my varifocal glasses extensively. Hopefully that will be the pleasure I expect it to be.

I have to go back to bed, much to my regret. It is moving toward morning and I do want to get the rest of my sleep. I've dawdled long enough here. I tell myself to look forward to the remainder of my time in bed, but I'm not convinced yet. I'll have to remind myself of how nice and warm the duvet is. 

I hope you'll all have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

A day in the life...

It's probably not such a good idea to try to write a post when you don't have much of a story to tell. The result could be a very boring account of your day. Still, it's worth a try and maybe something good will come of it. 

I have the urge to write anyway and I can always hit the delete button when I think it's all a bunch of nonsense that I've written. I've hit the delete button many times before. I think lately I delete more than I publish. 

In some ways it's been an enervating day, but things happened with other people that I can't share yet. I've been sworn to secrecy and they are stories that I have to keep to myself. Maybe I'll be able to tell you about them later. Let's just say that my day was interesting and gave me food for thought. 

I also had to go to the vet to get flea repellent for the cat and the dog. The cat had gotten into a fight with another neighborhood cat and had gotten wounded and fleas at the same time. Her wounds have almost healed, but she shared the fleas with the dog. 

I've treated the dog, that was no problem, but I'm going to need the Exfactor's help tomorrow to treat the cat. I can't do her singlehandedly because she will put up a fight. I know this from past experience. She thinks anything like that is scary and weird. 

Whereas the dog doesn't bat an eye. He's already stopped scratching. It's like he knows the treatment is to his benefit and he stands perfectly still, even without a reward. I forget how awfully good he can be at times. He can be the most obedient dog when he puts his mind to it. 

I've been doing laundry non stop. That's because I put the new duvet on my bed and changed the sheets also. I washed the old duvet and will keep it as a spare. I was fortunate in that I could hang it outside to dry because today the sun was shining. 

It was not a strong sun and it was kind of cold outside, but at least it was a cheerful day. Laundry doesn't dry well under these conditions. It does better inside on the clothes rack with the heater on. The sheets and pillowcases do dry very quickly. 

I still have the windows open for a large part of the day, but by the middle of the afternoon I get cold. Even with an extra cardigan on I shiver and I close the windows and turn on the heater. I luxuriate in the warmth. 

Now that I have the new and warmer duvet on my bed, I can sleep with the bedroom window open. That way condensation doesn't build up on the window and drip on the windowsill. Because there's single pane glass back there, that was a bit of a problem. 

I told you that this was going to turn into a boring account of my day. Well, I'll publish it anyway. At least it's harmless. 

I hope you'll all have a good evening. 

Ciao,

Nora

Thank goodness it is Saturday...

Isn't it wonderful that it's the weekend again? The week flew by and I don't know where the time went. It just disappeared in a the blink of an eye, or several of them, and now I get to relax in the luxury of two days of spare time. I will enjoy it very much. The only thing I have to do is make a trip to the tobacconist to replenish my supply of tobacco and to buy another lighter, because Tyke demolished one of them again the other night. That is just a short outing, though, and that's the only obligation I have, besides walking Tyke a couple of times a day.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to have no outside pressure on me at all and to really know that nothing is expected of me for two whole days. Subconsciously, during the week, I always live with the idea that there will be expectations made of me that I can't live up to and I don't have that on the weekends. They really are an enormous break for me. But then again, I'm sure you must all feel that way and I'm sure it is a universal feeling and the weekends must be a big break for everybody, even the people with the most "uncomplicated" lives.

I'm repeating myself, I'm sure I have written this down before.

I finished my novel yesterday afternoon while I was sitting in my armchair with a big pillow in my side to lean against. The ending was fantastic, but you really feel so sad, because you think that all the agony and pain and madness could have been avoided if the truth had been told at the very beginning. If there had not been this attempt at this huge cover up. It really shows a lot about human nature and not the prettiest sides of it either, but rather how we might behave under the hardest pressure and when we make assumptions based on what people might think of us and how much we let that bother us. Some barely to be forgiven acts are committed and you have to somehow come to grips with them. Or not and have them be unresolved in your own mind. The novel was Drowning Ruth by Cristina Schwartz.

I've now started reading Where The Heart Is by Billie Letts and it's a completely different novel with a lot of dark humor in it. I'm not sure if I should call it dark humor, because I have a tendency to take things seriously and someone else may call it light humor, but the main character finds herself in quite a pickle, though it is treated with a certain amount of lightness and gaiety, as much as that is possible. You most definitely feel compassion for her. There are good guys and bad guys, that much is clear. I'm only up to page 65, so I can't say too much about it yet. A lot needs to develop yet.

I've now made it a habit to sit in my armchair for a few hours every afternoon to read, because I don't read at night before I go to sleep anymore. It's rather comfortable and very often Tyke or Gandhi climbs on my lap. They do want to get as close as they can get. I have my glass of milk and my cigarettes and settle in and have a good old read and concentrate completely on the book. The world is at a standstill. At night I listen to the radio and last night I fell asleep listening to the commentary to a football game of the Netherlands playing against San Marino. I was asleep in the shortest amount of time because I was not that fascinated by it. It was a rather dull game and the Dutch had 90% ball possession and made all the goals. It was a little bit too easy.

It was cold in the bedroom last night because I still had the window open and I put on warm pajamas and socks and crawled way under the duvet to get warm. Tyke laid down almost on top of me. I must get him a pair of pajamas too.

It's foggy outside right now and 9C, but we're supposed to have sunshine today and 19C. It will be a nice fall day and tomorrow too. No rain anyway. Even I got tired of that.

I must take my medicines and get dressed. It's time to walk Tyke and breathe in the cold morning air.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,
Nora

So early in the morning...

Here I am with my cup of coffee and my cigarette. I have read blogs and left comments and answered my emails. For some reason my latest post got published without the ability to leave comments and I tried to fix it, but to no avail. I hope this doesn't happen again. I would hate to have a problem with blogger that's going to be hard to fix. I want no frustration like that at all.

I have just turned on the light therapy lamp and the bright light of it is making my eyes squint in the early morning darkness. It is like a wake up call. Like going out in the bright sunshine. No doubt I will be perky as the early bird in no time at all. That, along with my coffee, should get me off to a good start. I will no doubt be as energetic as a go cart in the shortest amount of time and have limitless amounts of get up and go. I can hear my engine revving up now. It just needs a little more fuel.

The book I started reading yesterday afternoon turns out to be very good. The subject matter is fascinating and it is very well written. There is not a hitch in it. It reads as easily as downing a plate of very good fettuccine with real Italian cheese. It is a true pleasure. The premise of the book is a difficult one and the story is complicated and not an easy subject, but she writes about it beautifully and convincingly. You look forward with a certain amount of dread, but with a lot of curiosity, to the real circumstances of the drowning of the sister and the almost drowning of the child who is so traumatized. The main character of the book is a force to be reckoned with, although quite disturbed. The father is a man of yet unknown strengths.

I sat in my armchair with a tall glass of milk and the reading light by my side and an extra pillow for comfort and read the rest of the afternoon into the evening until it was time to watch the news. I didn't read it when I went to bed at night. I merely got under the duvet and laid there in the semi dark and waited for sleep to come, which it did quickly. I thought about my blogging friends and what they would be doing at that particular time and I tried to imagine them in their lives, knowing all that I know about them, while at the same time knowing so little.

This morning the Exfactor is coming by to do the groceries and have coffee, although he can't stay late because he has to work in the afternoon. It will be a short visit, but it will be nice nevertheless. I have to stay home in the afternoon and wait for my package to be delivered. Hopefully that won't take too long. They are usually here some time in the middle of the afternoon and not some time around 6 pm when they could also come.

I'm going to set up the radio/CD player right away in my bedroom and find a pleasant radio station to listen to so I will be ready to turn it on at night when I go to sleep. I also have to find those CD's of nature sounds that are somewhere in the collection and some pleasantly serene classical music ones. I want to be well prepared. I haven't had a radio in a while so I'm curious to see which stations I will be able to receive. I hope for a pleasant jazz station and for a station that plays a lot of baroque. No operas and romantic classical music, please. No Mahler, but Eric Satie would be nice. That reminds me, I have double CD's of his music.

It's only 8C outside right now. I stood by the back door and welcomed the cold air on my body. It was very refreshing. It wasn't raining, but the sky was partly cloudy. I did see the moon and it was in its third quarter. Last night, when I went to sleep, the bedroom was chilly and it felt great to get under the duvet. I had bare arms, so I was a bit cold. I still have to get an extra cover for the bed to put over the duvet. I thought I had something in the closet somewhere, but I have not found it yet. Maybe it is in one of the boxes in the spare bedroom. I'll have to have a look.

I'm all done drinking coffee now. Three cups are more than enough. That's all I can handle. As it is, I have to throw the last little bit away into the kitchen sink. Coffee is great to drink and it does wonders for your mental health, but too much of it is no good either. I'm down to three cups a day and I think that's enough of a good thing. I have to get into the habit of drinking tea, but I have to buy a teapot and a tea cozy. That will go on the list of things I want for my birthday. I like making proper pots of tea and not dunking teabags in a tea glass.

I'm off to start the day. I have to take my medicines and get dressed and walk Tyke. He's very impatiently breathing down my neck. Gandhi is also, I know not for what reason.

I hope you all have a nice day. The weather looks very dubious here. I could get wet.

Ciao,
Nora

To bed, to bed...

I'm supposed to be in bed already. As a matter of fact, I was there until a little while ago after I had already taken my sleep medication, but then I decided that I was still wide awake and I got up again. Apparently, it wasn't cozy enough in bed, although I can hear the sound of the rain and I have clean sheets.

I think I was just not really ready to go to sleep and the animals were distracting me too much with their shenanigans. They kept climbing on top of me making it impossible for me to read my book properly. Tyke was especially breathing down my neck. He does have a way of making his presence known.

All afternoon and evening we have been playing with the tennis ball. That means I have to try and get it away from him and toss it through the apartment without breaking anything and he chases it and comes back to me holding it tantalizingly close to my hands, but just without reach. I have to trick him into letting it go so I can toss it away again.

He never tires of this game and has finally figured out that he has to drop the ball if he wants to get my attention so I will pick it up and throw it. He barks at me to alert me to it. Sometimes the ball disappears underneath the sofa and I have to use the African walking stick to get it out from underneath.

It's been raining nonstop all day. It hasn't let up once. Sometimes it rains a little more and sometimes a little less, but it always rains. It's supposed to rain all night until tomorrow morning and then some. We may get a break later in the day. It's very cozy inside, but I have been unable to walk Tyke. He has been out back for little periods of time and I hope it's been enough to take the pressure off, but he's not begging to go outside. He's been watching the rain steadily fall from the heavens and he doesn't like to get wet.

Besides playing with Tyke, I've been watching sports on television. I've had my share of sports now as I've watched them all afternoon and evening. I even watched football and I watched games I didn't care about. I also watched the European Championships Swimming and that was mildly interesting as we did win some medals, but no gold. Just bronze and silver ones. There was also athletics on and that interested me more having been the mother of the Californian State Champion. I do like athletics having done it myself also when I was young and I'd like to come back as an athlete again in my next life. One without exercise induced asthma which I suffered from.

I also laid on the sofa and watched the rain fall down and felt lucky that I was inside. When it rains, though, I feel very sheltered inside and I don't feel at all depressed or anything. That's probably because I don't have to go out in it. That would change my attitude quite a bit, I'm sure. I would be awful to have to ride my bike in it and I don't have rain gear. My sister had to go to work and had to ride her bike through it and got soaked, but she was very cheerful about it. I would have been a grump most likely.

All the time that I'm typing this, I'm still playing with Tyke and the ball. He can't get enough of it, but I'm going to bed now. It's time to read my book and get comfortable under the duvet. I'm going to make myself a glass of warm milk to help me sleep.

Have a good night.

Ciao,

Nora