My vacation

My vacation was officially over today when the domestic help showed up this morning at 9 o'clock to try to fill up her four hours here with enough jobs. That is impossible, which means that we regularly have to drink coffee and kibitz. At least, that's what she expects me to do and, although I like her a lot, I think four hours of company is two too many and I would rather not sit and have coffee at all. I fled to the bedroom and spent most of my time there until she had to clean in there too. 

This all came about because I enjoyed all that free time so much when I had absolutely no appointments with anybody at all and felt happy and relaxed. Yesterday, I already felt the tension mounting in my shoulders and neck and thought with dread of the days that were ahead of me. This afternoon, my personal helper was here and officially she is supposed to stay for two hours, but I immediately told her that I wanted as little disruption as possible and that we should just assess the situation and then she would be free to go. 

She is going to arrange for the domestic help to only be here for two hours a week for as much time as I need to feel comfortable with another arrangement eventually. I will see if this small apartment can't really be cleaned in that amount of time. I told her that it is still my intention to keep my life as simple and as basic as possible and to live as much as I can like a hermit, because that is when I am happiest. I only need to see people for short amounts of time and I am fine in my own company with the animals. I do have enough social contacts not to become completely isolated. 

And then I really did have to cal the eye clinic for an appointment because my eye is hurting more and more and I constantly have to take paracetamol and that hardly works. So, although I hate to have an appointment, I just had to make this one. This is not a problem I think I can ignore. 

Tomorrow, Tyke is getting his fur trimmed and it is high time too. My sister is driving us over to the trim salon and will also help me pick him up, which saves us from making a long walk. Sometimes it is not very convenient to only have a bike and you have to be on good terms with someone with a car. 

It's time to go...

Which pleasure is mine?

The peanuts are just about out of my system. I am dealing with some small after effects today, but I no longer feel like I am under the weather. I have dumped what was left over of the peanuts in the trash so I will not be tempted to even put one of them in my mouth in a weak moment. I know I will be foolish enough to eat something else I am not supposed to one day, because I will convince myself that maybe it will hardly bother me and that my longing for it is so great that I just have to pay that small price. And I will come to regret it, but that is how experience is gained. Again and again.

I did find out that my supermarket has lactose free yogurt, so that is something to look forward to because I wrote it down on the new shopping list. I also read that Greek yogurt, which is so deliciously thick and creamy, has very little lactose and is recommended for people who don't tolerate it. So I put a pint of that on the shopping list as well to try out. Little by little, I am discovering more foods I can eat of the dairy kind and since I am so fond of them...

The Exfactor just came by after work with a package of coffee because I was all out of it. I was just hitting that low point of the day and in dire need of some. Because we no longer have hard water here, the coffee maker doesn't take all afternoon to make a pot of coffee anymore and it is done in no time. By the time you have said two sentences to each other, the coffee is ready. I have two old coffee makers in the kitchen closet that need to be taken to the old appliances depot because they died of the hard water that we used to have. Maybe now is the time to get an electric water cooker for the tea instead of always heating up cups of water in the microwave. It would be guaranteed to have a long life. 

Tyke is telling me it is time to go for a walk and then I have to prepare dinner. I am having pasta for a change tonight because I am all out of potatoes, which are really my favorites fixed any possible way. 

Stubbing my toe on the same stone twice

I can't eat peanuts. I ate some impulsively the night before last and I have been feeling like I am coming down with the flu ever since. I will the glad when they are completely out of my system and at the rate that I visit the powder room, they should be soon. I hope to wake up tomorrow morning and feel like my normal self again and not feel this general sort of malaise. It is a mistake I will not make again. I do wish I had an antihistamine, but I don't really know if I am dealing with a food intolerance or an allergy. The best thing of course is to avoid the food that I know I will get into trouble with.

I found out that people who have a lactose intolerance can eat cheese, as long as it is a well aged cheese that has ripened for at least 6 months. The harder the cheese, the better. I think I will try to eat Parmesan cheese and goat cheese. Goat cheese naturally has less lactose in it and it is a harder cheese. It would be wonderful to eat an Italian dish with some cheese in it. And a grilled cheese sandwich or a quesadilla would be good too. I do love to eat cheese, but then again, I loved all dairy products and they turned out to be bad for me. I had come to expect and live with the discomfort they always caused. 

I feel like taking on a project and I should anyway because at the end of the month my American ex will be here and I have to get things ready for that. I have some jobs to do before he gets here, but I feel like doing a bit of redecorating too and I hope I am inspired to this coming week once I start organizing things. Of course, normal life starts up again too with all the usual appointments and I am not at all looking forward to giving up any of my freedom. I always feel that I have to put on a public facade and I find that so tiring. I suppose I have to stop that practice as quickly as possible. 

I have to fix dinner. Tyke is telling me it is time to do so because I am running behind schedule. He is a creature of habit. 

First things first

What I had to do first just now, was make some coffee because the afternoon can not be brought to a proper end without some freshly brewed caffeine in a cup. A day needs its rituals to break it up into manageable bites and making coffee at the proper time is one of them. This is also when I physically hit my low point and could easily take a little nap, so to prevent myself from doing such a foolish thing, I have some coffee instead. It's a way to fool Mother Nature. 

I gave Tyke a banana to eat because he was having the same late afternoon dip that I was having and it is not time for his dinner yet because we still have to go for a walk. I think he is perfectly contend now and good for another half hour until we go. Yes, we really do have our rituals, the two of us. We are like a married couple who have worked out how to live well together and we take turns being in charge. All in a good natured way, of course. And in that case, who needs a husband? 

For some reason that is still a mystery to me, I am starting to sleep better at night, as in, I am almost a solid block of sleep until I wake up in the morning. When I go to bed at night with my glass of hot milk to drink while I watch the news on my tablet, I fall asleep before I am done with the milk and the tablet left on. I do stumble around once at night to let out Tyke and go to the toilet, but I fell asleep last night while Tyke was still outside. He had to stick his head through the cat flap and softly bark for a while before I woke up. I think that's called neglect. 

I am so sleepy now and I have things to do and dinner to fix. I can't be in this kind of state yet. A walk and a plate of good food will revive me. I am now wishing for a big jar of applesauce to have with my dinner, but there is none left. I will raid the refrigerator and see what sort of interesting things I can come up with. 

How I get through the day

Once more a day has sped by without me really noticing it that much, although in the morning it did feel like it wanted to dawdle and not get much of a start. I think that really was because I got up way too early and had not had enough sleep. I tried to remedy that with coffee and some breakfast and a walk in the crisp air with Tyke, but I ended up going to bed for another hour's worth of much needed sleep.

After that, I had enough energy for a person and a half and was very happy when the Exfactor showed up so that I could have an interesting conversation which I was much in need of. I needed some intellectual stimulation and to try out some ideas and opinions I had been walking around with. You do need a sparring partner when you want to discuss social and political mismanagement. At least, that is what it looks like in my eyes, having come of age in the 70's.

Common sense seems to hardly prevail nowadays. and we are all being forced into "the new middle class" straight jackets. They tell us how much guilt we should feel about the environment and the animals we eat, but by all means to always be in pursuit of happiness because you are a failed person if you don't feel it all the time. And we are supposed to forgive our enemies and love everyone and lecture the people who are less than perfect.  And by all means, reach for the stars because we all belong there.

I am personally returning to the Age of Realism where people have a mix of emotions and are not perfect and make mistakes and take wrong turns and sometimes feel like shit. And where it is not at all a disaster if I don't like everybody and that really doesn't matter one bit. How deep does your love go if you love everybody? I am a realist and a bit of a cynic, though not bitter, and I see every popular lifestyle and set of believes being adhered to as strictly as if it is a religion. There is no room for deviating behavior.

But that is just my humble opinion.

Hardly any effort

Life is a very odd experience, isn't it? So much of how you get through the day, and deal with the things you have to do, depends on the mood you find yourself in. And then of course, the things you have to take care of influence your mood. It's best to be very even tempered, but even te best of us don't manage that all the time. A mood is like the sea and can be calm or choppy.

I take tranquilizers during the day because at the moment I am extremely sensitive to stress and I quickly experience the least little thing as being stressful. Well, let me clarify that. Anything that involves too much interaction with the world at large, I experience as stressful. That is why I am so much a hermit nowadays. I like seeing familiar faces on a regular basis, but I must not get an overdose of them.

Other than that, I am a well contented woman, although I do not have a perfect life. I muddle along just like everybody else. I think we all find our methods to cope and that is why we get more eccentric as we get older because we are more specialized in them. And there is less desire to conform, at least if you are sure of yourself.

I think there is a certain amount of madness in all of us, but it doesn't matter as long as you deal with it well and like yourself well enough.