Rain, rain go away...

Every time I decide to take the dog for a walk, it is raining as it is now. It completely messes up our schedule and we have to wait until it's dry again. There's a cold wind blowing too and I need to wear a scarf and a jacket when we go outside. 

The cold isn't too bad if you're prepared for it. You just have to make sure you're dressed warm enough. The wind whips my hair in all directions and I have to try and fix it when we get home, but I have to fix it after I take a nap too or whenever I sleep on it. 

I'm constantly fixing my hair because it is so short and I thought I was getting a no nonsense haircut. Because it's so fine and it's such flyaway hair, it has a tendency to get stuck in the wrong place very easily. Maybe if it's a little bit longer, it won't be as bad. 

I'm wearing the scarf as a fashion accessory. It is made of cotton and not too warm to keep wearing inside. I picked it to match my clothes and it's one that I washed along with a lot of other items from the coat rack. 

I like the way it feels around my neck. It's just a little bit warmer and more comfortable than having nothing there. I still have the bedroom windows open and it has gotten cooler in the apartment. I don't want to have to close the windows and turn up the thermostat. 

I'd rather dress more warmly and in layers. I do have enough clothes to choose from. That's no problem. 

*

The dog couldn't wait any longer and I had to take him for a walk. It was drizzling and we got a bit wet, but it's a good thing that I took him when I did, because now it's really pouring. It started to come down hard right after we came in.

At least I won't have to go water my sister's garden. Everything should get a good soaking. The timing of the rainy weather was perfect in that sense. I wished for rain and got it. I didn't realize that my wishes came true. I must wish for things more often. I suppose I must make an offering to the rain gods now.

Tonight 'A Touch of Frost' will be on. I'm in the mood for a thriller and it doesn't at all have to be complicated. I want to relax in my bathrobe and have nothing to worry about for a while. Watching a thriller is the perfect way to get my mind off things.

Right, I have to eat dinner, albeit sort of late. Chicken and pasta soup it is. 

Have a good evening.

Ciao,

Nora

Bedtime stories...

I'm perfectly content right now and want to savor the moment. Or should I say, the long moments that I will be content because I know it's going to last a while. It's not over until the fat lady sings and there's no fat lady around here anywhere, nor is there likely to be one in the middle of the night. At least not within my hearing distance. There will be no sudden opera arias sung. I will fall out of my chair with surprise if there are.

I always say this, but I'm drinking a very good cup of coffee and doubtlessly that has put me in a good mood. Caffeine is one of my preferred choices of chemical addictions, after all. It and nicotine are my crutches as befits a writer. I should write crime fiction on a portable Remington and live in the 50's when everyone was oblivious.

I'm sitting here with a new haircut which I got yesterday. My very own hairdresser cut my hair and she did a fabulous job, but that's for me to claim and for you to believe. It's very short and I love to run my fingers through it. It's indestructible hair. 

Everybody else and their sister had been cutting my hair lately, except for my very own hairdresser, and they all had done a decent job, but not as good as she has done now. We were trying to remember yesterday how long she has been cutting my hair and could not think of the number of years it had been exactly, but it has been a long time. 

My hair always lightens up after it has been cut. It must be that the gray hair shows up more, but I like the look of it and walk down the street proudly afterwards. I'm not the least bit vain, of course. My hairdresser fixes my hair with gel, something I'm never able to do well myself, and for the rest of the day I have a cute hairdo until I sleep on it. I'll have to wash it in the morning to get it to look decent again. 

Today is going to be a cool day with rain and drizzle, so I'll have to wear completely different clothes than I did yesterday when it was so warm. A low pressure system from France has come over us. For a change our weather is not coming from England. It's moving north toward Scandinavia and then turning around and moving over us again causing a double whammy. 

I have a day off without any appointments. I actually wish I did have some because I'm more in the mood to have some action in my life at the moment. I have to try and amuse myself in the best possible way without getting into any trouble and without getting wet. And without spending money. That's very restrictive, isn't it? 

I think I will go look for something interesting to do now because I'm not nearly ready to go back to bed. The fat lady isn't singing yet. 

Ciao,

Nora

Harrowing tales of nothingness...

I'm sitting here in the middle of the night with one of the best cups of coffee that I ever made and am enjoying it very much. Sometimes I get lucky and the coffee turns out great. I don't know why that is. I seem to do everything the same as I always do, but the result is different and better somehow. 

I always blame it on Juan who picks the best beans in Columbia and that I happened to get a good batch of them, but this is ground coffee from an opened pack and I'm sure there is no difference in the quality from yesterday's coffee. 

I'll blame it on my own good mood then and my taste buds, which are on this occasion finely tuned and able to appreciate the experience especially well. My senses must be very alert.

I expect two of my senses to be better developed some time soon and those are my sense of taste and smell. I'm planning on quitting smoking soon and I expect that over time those two senses will improve quite a bit, although I don't expect any miracles overnight. I remember from the last time I tried to quit that the improvement didn't happen all of the sudden. 

I'm looking forward to quitting smoking and can't wait for the day to arrive that I will. I'm visualizing myself as a nonsmoker in my head so much, that I'm ready to be one. Because I've tried to quit before, I know what the pitfalls are and what I'm up against. I hope that will make this attempt more successful. 

Despite my misgivings about yesterday and it being my least favorite day of the week, it actually was a fine day. My mood was good and the day went by quickly and without a hitch. All the things I worried about ahead of time, turned out to have been unnecessary. The stress that I felt on Sunday had disappeared by the next day, so I was left unworried. 

I don't know why I felt so uptight on Sunday and why I was so worried about the next day being Monday and a difficult day. I anticipated too much trouble when there turned out not to be any. Maybe Sunday itself was a difficult day without me consciously realizing it and it had bothered me more than I was aware of. 

I'm a victim of my own fickle mood system which doesn't always work faultlessly. There are day to day nuances in it that I'm not always aware of and that make a difference in how I experience my life at a given moment. The nuances can be big enough to really make a difference that's bothersome and completely alter my attitude. I'm not a finely tuned machine, much as I'd like to be. 

My psychiatrist said that I could use an extra tranquilizer during the day if I felt the need for it, but I feel that my stress level has come way down now. It may not at all be necessary.  The problem with the tranquilizers is that they are downers and that they can make you feel sad. I'll avoid them if possible. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist on Thursday during which he wants to see how I am doing on the increased medication. 

In the meantime, I've switched from coffee to cold milk and I'm appreciating that very much also. I managed to make the milk last for a whole week by being a little more frugal with it. This morning the Exfactor will be here to do the groceries and I have enough milk left to drink and to use for coffee when he gets here. 

He's got to buy rawhide bones for the dog because he's going through them like they are candy canes. He chews them up in the shortest amount of time and goes through whole packages of them. There's nothing that makes him happier than a rawhide bone. 

I hope you'll all have a good day or a good night, whichever comes first.

Ciao,

Nora

Three dimensional...

I went to bed after watching the Norwegian thriller that was on last night, but I was unable to go to sleep. I laid in bed for a while staring at the ceiling, trying to get comfortable and in the right frame of mind to doze off, but I was unsuccessful. I felt every wrinkle and fold in the sheets. 

After an hour and a half I gave up and got up and put my bathrobe on and decided to stay up for a while and try to go to sleep again later. I think I have to be more tired than I am now. Apparently I'm not yawning enough and the sleep medication is not working. After I've had this coffee, I'll drink a glass of warm milk. 

I didn't realize that the thriller I was going to watch last night was Norwegian, it didn't say anything about it in the on line TV guide. I just noticed that the language was different than Swedish because I had a harder time understanding it. Somewhere along the line I found out it was taking place in Bergen on the west coast of Norway. 

It was a good thriller and it was still a recognizable language, but I really had to pay attention. I don't think I can learn more than one Scandinavian language at the time. I hope the next one is Swedish again like the one the night before was. Of course, a British one would be good too. There'd be no trouble understanding it. But thank goodness for subtitles. 

It's still in the middle of the night, but I count this as being Monday already. The weekend is over and I'm sorry about that. I could use another day off. I've got one more load of laundry to do, although I did one yesterday, though it's not dry yet. It's taking up space on the drying rack in the bathroom. 

I changed the bed, but that didn't help me fall asleep. I always look forward to going to sleep between clean sheets, but this time the trick didn't work. 

I think I have stress about tomorrow because I don't want it to be Monday. It's not my favorite day of the week. You could say that it's my least favorite day because I hardly have any privacy and the day seems so long. I do get a clean apartment, but that's the most that can be said about the day. 

I'm sure lots of people don't enjoy their Mondays. After all, it's the first day after the weekend and time to get back to work. It must be hard on everyone. I'd be curious to know how many grumpy people there are first thing Monday morning. Or are you all ready and roaring to go? 

I'm starting to yawn and that's a good sign. I'll be able to go to bed shortly. I just need to be tired enough to look forward to it. 

I hope you're all having a good night. 

Ciao,

Nora

Clean hair and lose jeans...

The skinny jeans that I washed in hot water and tried to shrink down to a size 12 are still too big and I can slide them down without unbuttoning or unzipping them. That's handy when you have to go to the toilet in a hurry.

They look alright, it's my secret that they are a little bit too big. Only I know. They don't fall down all by themselves. It's not as bad as that. And they are comfortable to wear, that's important. They don't scrunch my intestines together.

I walked the dog in them and they stayed up alright, even when I bent over to pick up the poop. That was my biggest worry. I didn't want to have to stand there on the sidewalk and have to hitch up my jeans.

And I have incredibly clean hair. After I washed it, I dried it with the towel just to the point that I could get it into a good do that was flattering and that I sprayed with some hairspray to stay in position.

I have such fine flyaway hair that even applying the hairspray makes it alter the do, so I have to be very careful and not spray it on directly but at an angle. I have clean hair more often, but I don't always get it to look right like I did now.

I should be oohed and aahed over.Since there's no one here to do that, I'll have to do it myself when I look in the mirror.

I'm wearing a perfectly clean summer cardigan straight from the drying rack. It smells like washing powder and I'm being very careful not to get it dirty. The dog climbed on me earlier and he had wet paws. Luckily, he left no evidence on my clothes. He does still think that he's a lap dog.

The cat left a dead bird in the bedroom this morning and I stepped on it with my bare feet. I didn't screech, but it was an unpleasant surprise. I disposed of it under the jasmine bush on the patio where it will decompose naturally. I've seen the process before.

Neither animal shows any interest in it now and it just lies there being a dead bird. I'm getting used to this and no longer feel much emotion with it. There are numerous birds in the trees that grace the patio and I hear them chirping all day long. A casualty is bound to fall every now and then. That does not mean that I'm not sorry.

It's time for me to eat dinner. My stomach is starting to growl. I've also got to see if there's anything special on TV until 'Wallander' comes on later on tonight. I think the dog wants to go out one more time. He sure acts as though he does. He's pacing very impatiently.

I hope you will all have a good Saturday night.

Ciao,
Nora

Continuing upwardly mobile...

In my case I mean to say that I continue to feel better and that the increase in medication is working. I don't feel bereft any longer, although I'm still not quite back to normal. That will happen with time, I'm sure. I don't have things completely under control and my household is not up to par, but I can live with that for the moment. I'm not a desperate housewife yet and this is not her diary. 

All will be well by tomorrow. The domestic help will be here and together we will straighten out the place and things will be right as rain for the weekend. I'm looking forward to that very much as usual. Bless the days off on the weekend. I will never take them for granted. 

I'm having a much needed cup of coffee and I made it strong the way I really like it. I have enough of a supply of ground coffee to allow myself to do that again. I took a nap this afternoon and I was very much sound asleep. I wasn't just dozing like I sometimes do. That necessitated the caffeine to wake me up properly. 

I walked the dog before the first cup of coffee had really done its work and made the walk short so I could have a second cup quickly. I made sure the dog did all that he had to do and sniffed in enough places and peed against enough blades of grass and bushes. After he had set his boundaries, we returned home in a hurry. 

I'm really awake now and could have a conversation if there were someone to talk to. The deliveryman from the pharmacy was here, but he was in a hurry to deliver the rest of his medicines. I couldn't pull him into the front door. He would have protested loudly and the neighbors would have noticed.

I try talking to the dog, but all he does is wag his tail and demand to be petted. It doesn't matter what the subject is. It's all blah blah to him. 

I must do some chores before 'Inspector Frost' comes on. I've been neglecting some things and must take care of them before I sit down and get comfortable. I also want to get into my pajamas and bathrobe so I will be ready for bed when the time comes. Oh yes, I still have to eat too. 

Have a great evening.

Ciao,

Nora