That's another good trick I did...

This morning, while carrying those two heavy boxes of books to the sidewalk, I put my back out and have been in trouble ever since. There is not one position I am comfortable in and moving around is quite an effort. In the end, I went back to bed, because I have a good hard mattress, but I fell asleep and woke up two hours later with an equally sore back.

 

I called the Exfactor and asked him to go to the store to buy the milk for me that I had planned to get, and to also walk Tyke. He was more than willing and able to do that, so for now that is taken care of. I called the doctor's office thinking they would fax a prescription for something to the pharmacy, but I have to come in tomorrow morning instead if I can manage to walk that short distance.

 

Who knows? Maybe I will be cured by tomorrow. It would certainly be nice. If I sit upright in a straight hard chair, I am the most comfortable, but then I can not move a muscle or I am in trouble. Sometimes, when I move around the apartment, I make a wrong move and utter sounds of pain and anguish. The doctor's assistant said that I had to keep moving or I will freeze up, so I do try to do that carefully.

 

I just got up to get a cup of coffee and yelled "Ouch" all the way to the coffeemaker and bit my tongue on the way back. I have to again find the most comfortable way to sit and I have to say that this is seriously cramping my style. And, of course, today of all days when the weather is beautiful out and when it would have been lovely to go for walks with Tyke.

 

Tyke is lying on the dining table in the sunshine and that really is the best place in the living room right now. I have pulled up the blinds as high as they will go so as much sunshine as possible can come in. It is still fairly cool in here and I want it to warm up a few degrees. I had the windows open earlier, but that created a cool draft and I had to put on my socks because my feet got cold. I now only have the back door open so Tyke can walk in and out whenever he wants.

 

It is too bad that physical therapy is not in my basic medical insurance package because I am sure I would benefit from it. Next year I will make sure that is included in the new insurance I get. Some good manual therapy would do me a world of good, I am sure. Even a massage would do wonders.

 

I have to eat now. My stomach is hollow and growling. A glass of milk does not fill it enough. I will have some more of that Indonesian rice dish and hope that my eyes are not bigger than my stomach.

Almost life like...

 

Sometimes there is no better reason to write a blog post other than that you have some time on your hands that you need to fill until you are ready to go back to bed. I find myself in that position now and I have to gather my thoughts and think of some interesting things to write about so that I will fill my time usefully and not bore you in the process.

 

I think I have already bored Tyke, because he is wandering around the apartment restlessly looking for I not know what. Gandhi, on the other hand, is sound asleep in her new favorite spot in the guestroom on an old pillow on the bed. It is a perfect place for her and I guess that is why she was not lying on my hip tonight. I suppose she wants her solitude now.

 

I find I do real well drinking tall glasses of cold milk for quick energy. I bought one container of milk as an experiment to see if I would tolerate it and I do. The problem is, that now I have run out and I will have to go to the store to buy more this afternoon, thereby blowing my weekly grocery budget. No, that's not really true. I will still be under it because milk is cheaper than bottled water.

 

I had a small plate of an Indonesian rice dish for dinner and, although it tasted good, it upset my stomach and made me look forward all the more to the day when my gastric band will be emptied out some more. I know that is what the problem is and I can not wait for the moment when I will be able to sit down and eat a regular plate of food without running into problems.

 

My domestic help is on vacation and I will get a temporary help this morning for two hours. I am glad it is not more than that because I dislike having temporary help around for more time than that. They are usually students at the university and, although they are intelligent, they do not clean house well. The one from last week left the living room windows in worse shape than they were to begin with.

 

It is still 12 days until I get my new glasses. I am thinking in a totally different way about my eyes now which are starting to let me down. Hopefully it will be a slow process.

 

I am going back to be to finish sleeping. Tyke has settled down. We are ready to finish the night.

 

 

On the normal road again.

After having had somewhat confusing days, that you may or may not have been aware of, I feel that I am now back to my normal self and that I am functioning in a way that I am most comfortable with. I do not know why that is, and what the magic ingredient is to make that come about, but I do like the turn of events. If I knew the formula of how I could always make this happen, I would apply it all the time, but I am groping in the dark and can only guess as to how it comes about. I am still a bit of an amateur when it comes to estimating my own depths.

 

I had a tall glass of cold milk to drink for lunch, followed by two cups of black coffee, and if I am to go by that, it is the magic formula to feel good and must always be repeated. That, of course, is nonsense, but I am a wishful thinker and hope that what I do influences my moods. What I really must do, is accept this mood for what it is and make the best of it and enjoy myself for however long it lasts. And I do have to remember that most of the time I am in a good mood and that it is not an exception. A less than good mood is, and that is what I was dealing with these last few days.

 

It is Liberation Day, and if I were to go downtown, I am sure I would be more than made aware of it, but here in the suburbs I do not notice a thing of it. It looks like any other kind of ordinary Sunday here. If I were to turn on the television, I am sure that there would be all sorts of programming that would put me in the right mood, but I already am and do not need to be made aware of how happy I am to have my freedom and my right to individualism and free speech. Those are things you always need to be aware of because there are so many people in the world who have to do without.  

 

My hair has decided to have a will of its own and part wherever it wants to and for me to not interfere with it too much. I did not comb it this morning and barely tamed it a bit with my fingers before I put hairspray on it. Now that is a sure sign that it needs to be cut. It is also a sign that I have busy nights, with many dreams, and that I am all over the place, which you would not think possible with both animals on the bed.  I remember exactly what I dreamed last night, but I will not share it with you because it is too shocking. I must say that I did enjoy the dream very much myself.

 

I will go take a nap now to help the afternoon go by quicker. I do long to shut my eyes for a while and be cozy and warm under the duvet. Tyke will lie in the hollow of my knees and Gandhi will lie on my hip. I am so blessed to be the comfortable sleeping place for both the animals, although it does cramp my style a bit.

 

 

 

 

Not bringing home the bacon...

I think coffee does more for me if I do not put any milk in it, no matter how nice it tastes. With milk in it, I do not seem to get the kick out of the caffeine that I need and I sit here slightly dopey as if I have had none at all. Of course, that is no pleasure at all and not the purpose of me drinking coffee, so I rinsed out my cup very well and put black coffee in it. After drinking half of it, I already feel a lot better and more able to function in a manner that I am accustomed to.

 

So you see, as is usual, I have to follow the instructions in the booklet that I come with and not ignore the well established rules. When something works, do not mess with it. I must keep doing the basic things as I always did and all will be well. My stomach will protest more, but I would rather have a protesting stomach than a non functioning mind. I do so appreciate my brain working well and my thoughts being of an optimistic nature. Not ingesting a food can sometimes be the best thing I can do.

 

I finally called the recycle store to come pick up the two big boxes of books that have been sitting in the corner of the living room for quite some time now. As a matter of fact, the domestic help has decorated around them and dusts them every week. I have to, with all my might, put them on the sidewalk Monday afternoon when they will be picked up. They are quite heavy, but I am sure I can manage it. The bookcase looks much better without those books and is easier to dust.

 

I wonder if my dislike for reading has something to do with the state of my eyes, and if getting stronger glasses will make any difference. It is not something that I absolutely count on because it takes more than the ability to read to actually pick up a book and enjoy it. There has to be enough curiosity too and the willingness to get lost in it. I do not know if I possess those two qualities anymore.

 

I have changed a lot and maybe books do not play a big role in this stage of my life, which would be totally opposite of what they used to be. But then again, I find that I am opposite of a lot of things that I used to be and much of that was a conscious choice. I suppose that along the way, I lost some other abilities. I used to be a very subjective person and now I am very objective. I believe in logic and reason and do not like to let myself be led by my emotions.

 

I am falling asleep and have to go back to bed. Today is Liberation Day when we celebrate our freedom.

Oh yes, that's why...

I have been trying to figure out all day why this is such a strange day and I just worked it out. It is not that I was unaware of it, but the significance of it just became clear to me. Today is Remembrance Day, and we remember the dead of WWII and all those who have died in conflicts since that time.

 

This evening there will be a remembrance service at the national monument on The Dam in Amsterdam and our king and queen will lay the first wreath. There will also be two minutes of silence throughout the whole kingdom and after that the national anthem will be played and all the church bells will ring.

 

Is it any wonder that I am in this slightly sad and nostalgic mood? It is bound to creep up on me on a day like today because we must never forget what we lost in our fight for freedom. Tomorrow will be the day to celebrate. That is the day of liberty when we were freed  from oppression. Today is a day of sadness.

 

A day like this does bring back the memories of all the stories my father and mother told me about the war when I was a kid. They both had quite a few exciting and scary things happen to them and their families, but I think there were a few things they did not tell me and I regret not knowing them and can only guess at them.

 

I am ever so grateful that there is the European Union and that there will never be a war here again. It is very good if all of us identify ourselves as Europeans first and I certainly do that. I do not in the first place think of myself as a Dutch person. That is my secondary identity.

 

Today, at the store, I bought milk and drank almost a whole glass of it when I came home. It did not disagree with me, but I liked it less than I remembered liking it. I have been putting it in my coffee and I do like that and now the coffee upsets my stomach less. So I will be using it for that mostly.

 

I bought dried kibbles for Tyke and he seems somewhat happy with them. He has no other choice. They are going to be his main source of food and they were not cheap either. I do treat the animals almost better than I treat myself. The best thing is, that I stayed under my budget and that came as a surprise.

 

I will turn on the television shortly and start following the programming leading up to the memorial service. It is always a very emotional thing and one that unites all of us.  Each year, we become more and more aware of that.

 

 

Because it is Saturday, after all.

I am going to have to go grocery shopping today because I am almost out of ground coffee and that is a situation that I can absolutely not live with. Running out of it would just about be the worst thing that could happen. Can you imagine me having to do without caffeine? It would be like having to do without air to breathe. Drinking tea is no solution because that leaves me slumped in my chair absolutely good for nothing. I must make sure I buy two packages of it too so I do not run out halfway through the week.

 

I really do not mind having to go to the store because as a rule I enjoy going shopping. I do have my standard shopping list that I do not deviate from too much so it is an easy job. Today I have to find an interesting bag of kibbles for Tyke and that is going to be a bit of a challenge because how do I pick the right one? As a rule, he likes the first bowl of anything, but after that he may turn up his nose at what I got him. It will just come down to me being more stubborn than him and not giving him anything else while there are still kibbles in his bowl.

 

My cute coffee cup with the roses turned out to be pretty, but not such a good buy. It does not keep my coffee hot at all and in the shortest amount of time, I am drinking cold coffee. So, it is only good to look at and proves the point that beauty is skin deep. I will keep this cup for special occasions and return to using my original glass one. If there is one thing I do not like, it is cold coffee. As it is, I constantly have to top off the coffee I am having with more hot coffee and drink it as quickly as I can.

 

I am all over my craving for chocolate because I think I really and truly overdosed on it. I had chocolate coming out of my ears. I do not think I could eat another one if you offered it to me. I should be good for the next six months or so. It was strictly an impulse buy anyway and not very well thought about. I did not even realize I craved chocolate until I saw it on the shelf in the store. Normally I completely ignore it and walk right past it. As a rule, there is no temptation in it for me at all when I see it sitting on the supermarket shelves.

 

I made an appointment to get a haircut for next week. My hair has not gotten that long, but it will have been seven weeks since I had it cut last and I do want to get the original shape into it again. I have a funny part on the side of my head that keeps wanting to stick up very stubbornly and something needs to be done about it. I also think that I am using the wrong shampoo that gives my hair too much volume and will have to get a different one today. This one makes my hair static.

 

It is all very good and well to sit here and carry on writing about absolutely nothing important, but I have to think about going back to bed. Tyke has finally settled down again after having been out back twice for no good reason at all. He is so restless unless I let him out there.

 

Today is Remembrance of the Dead Day. The next day will be Liberation Day when we will party.