Getting the show on the road

Except for the after effects, I have made the decision to declare myself fit enough to be able to start up physiotherapy again and I have my first session in the morning. I am good and well tired of being sick and want to be done with it. I may still talk funny, and have a cough now and then, but that is no reason not to start up my life again. I look forward to the physiotherapy and hopefully the good it will do my back. I will ask for a good massage because that is what I feel I need. Everything needs to get loosened up and relaxed. I hope to feel like a new woman afterwards. 

Yesterday was a day that revolved around food and the goodness of it. Since the Cowboy has been doing the grocery shopping, the shelves in the kitchen are stocked with good things to eat. He buys the kind of things I never do for myself, simply because I can't afford them, and it sure is a joy to be able to eat them now. He buys food abundantly and thinks that there should always be more than enough so that we never run out. Whatever happens, we will have food. 

We had vegetable soup for lunch and spaghetti for dinner with a bolognese sauce with sun dried tomatoes in it. Talk about enjoying the food. It was delicious. I do enjoy eating spaghetti and wrapping it around my fork while also trying to get as much of the sauce on it as possible. It is a fun food to eat. The Cowboy has also bought asparagus and Brussels sprouts and I will fix those with sauteed potatoes and applesauce. Not all at once, of course. 

Every morning we do the International Times crossword puzzle together and do a pretty good job. I am surprised at how well I still do after all these years. I usually know the ones that have all the foreign clues. Yes, there is life after retirement providing you keep good company. 

Like a broken record

Yesterday I called in sick and didn't get out of my bathrobe at all. I decided to take advantage of the presence of the Cowboy and let him take care of everything, which he gladly did. I wanted one day to recuperate as much as I could and take a general inventory of how things really are with me, being under the weather as I am. 

My back is not in the greatest of shapes and I called the doctor's office to find out if I could also take the anti-inflammatory medicine along with the painkiller. The doctor agreed to this somewhat reluctantly, although there is no real medical reason that says it can't be done. He just thinks that I already take a lot of medicines and wants to keep it to a minimum. I hope the combination of the two gives me some relief. I will be moving around more today and possibly that will help also. 

I am still hoarse and coughing, but it is getting a bit better. I do have the strange problem that I can't drink anything cold. I choke on it and spray liquid all over the place and it is not a very pleasant experience. I don't have this happen when I drink hot things, so I have been drinking more green tea with lemon and coffee. I do always seem to have some odd problem. 

I have the windows open and a very pleasant cool breeze is blowing through the apartment. It rained quite a bit last night and things cooled off a lot, but I do appreciate this weather. It is supposed to get much warmer over the next couple of days and will be like summertime. 

I want to walk Tyke in the morning and see how well that goes. Hopefully he will not pull at the leash too much like he does when he is onto the scent of something. I always hope that he would have enough sense to know when I am not in any shape to be dragged around, but his empathy for me does not quite go that far. 

A rose by any other name

Last night we ate the pea soup that my friend M. had made and it was very good and really tasted like homemade soup in all its deliciousness. Of course, there were no artificial additives in it, or anything else that did not belong in it, and you could certainly taste the difference between it and a canned soup. It really does pay to make your own soup, but I have done that in the past too and knew that. 

I certainly don't have to worry about keeping the Cowboy entertained because he does a very good job of that himself. He rides his bike to the grocery store every day to do some shopping and always comes back with a surprise or two. When I tell him not to buy anymore strawberry shortcake, he comes home with chocolate covered ice creams. Do you know how hard those are to resist? 

Every day he goes downtown to have a beer at his favorite outdoor cafe and watch the people go by. He takes photos of anything he finds interesting and he posts the best ones on Facebook. He also always goes to the train station to buy an international newspaper or two and spends the whole evening reading them. 

I went to the doctor and he said I had a virus and that all I could do was fight the symptoms and wait patiently for it to leave my system. It will take about a week. I don't feel all that great and all that coughing that I do is hurting my back. The good thing is, that the Cowboy is more than willing to take care of me, so I am in good hands. I can go ahead and be sick and not worry about much. That is very nice for a change and doesn't happen very often. Usually I do have to take care of the details. 

Falling apart physically

It maybe is a good thing that I am taking a combination of tramadol and paracetamol every eight hours for my aches and pains, because no doubt if I did have a fever, it is suppressing that too and I am not aware of it. I would be in much worse shape than I am now what with the pain in my eyes and back and now this terrible cold or whatever it is that has taken a hold of me. I will blame it on some bug that is making the rounds because my grand niece up north is felled by the same thing. I am having a streak of bad luck when it comes to my physical well being at the moment. 

Sometimes I am so hoarse that I squeak or no sound at all comes out, and one thing I can not do is raise my voice to make myself heard, so I have to walk up to the person I am talking to very closely in order to have a conversation with them. And I don't at all sound sexy like a foreign movie star, so forget about that. I am mostly very frustrated because of the lack of sound I produce and the godawful coughing spells I get. 

I saw my therapist yesterday and she made me promise that I would go see the doctor, so now I have an appointment with him in the afternoon, but maybe there is absolutely nothing he can do for me. My therapist thought I sounded like someone with a pneumonia, but I hope it has not gotten to that point. I had a hard enough time with that last year, and I would have to take antibiotics and we all know how grouchy those make me. 

The Cowboy's company is still very much appreciated, especially now that he can help me out a bit. He walks Tyke for me when I am not up to it and gets whatever we need at the grocery store because that is one of his favorite chores. He loves going shopping. But I would appreciate his company anyway because he is such an upbeat and positive person to have around, which is very refreshing. He does have that streak of American optimism and is unbeatable and I appreciate it. I have a tendency to have it myself, so I like to see it in other people. It changes your whole attitude toward life. It is such a nice feeling to be around a person with a "can do attitude."

We got a converter yesterday at the Apple store for my iPad so that I can recharge it and it works like a charm. Apple does have all these neat compact products that are especially developed for their client's convenience and they work well and are reasonably priced. There is not much ado with all sorts of plugs and cables that complicate and confuse. To say that I am happy with the iPad would be an understatement. It works well and fast and does the job. 

We were supposed to shop for a pair of lightweight hiking boots for me, but by the time we were ready to do that, I was so wiped out that we decided to postpone it to another day. They are going to be a gift from the Cowboy who thinks I should be walking around in something better than a pair of sneakers. I have something in mind and the store I think we may find them at, so now it is just a matter of going to get them and we will when I feel a bit more up to it. It will be really great to have very good fitting footwear that is made for the sole purpose of walking comfortably. 

When it rains, it pours

Despite the fact that I am being entertained well enough during the day in the lovely company of the Cowboy, I do have to stick to my old habits and that means being up for a while in the middle of the night and spending some time on the computer. I very much need little bits of my life to stay exactly the way they always are. When you have company, it is extra important to have some precious time of your own, and I do appreciate those silent hours anyway. 

I think one of the fun things we do, is read posts on Facebook and check what sort of comments we get on them and read those to each other just like two old fogies stuck in our respective armchairs spending the twilight of our years together. Except we do a digested form of it in a month's time once a year. It is a really endearing habit that we have developed, especially since we share a child and grandchild. Of course, whatever reactions and comments we get from our daughter are the most important ones, although I think that counts especially for the Cowboy, because you know how it is with fathers and daughters. 

We had lunch yesterday in a not so very warm downtown where the sky was mostly overcast and we sat outside by the crowded cafe. Our waitress enjoyed the opportunity to speak English and was more than attentive. I very much enjoyed my meal and felt I could eat like that once a week, but because I don't, it made it extra special. Walking around downtown later on the quaintly cobble stoned streets turned out to be a bit of a chore for me because (even though I wore my sneakers) it was hell on my back. We cut that exercise short and went home where we were expecting my sister. 

My sister walked in like a summer breeze, all cheerful and excited for no reason at all, and she and the Cowboy went to the grocery store to buy more supplies and a strawberry shortcake (again). The Cowboy likes fresh things to snack on every day and finds what is in the store here very interesting, especially Filet Americain, which needs to be eaten the same day. They also bought throat lozenges for me because I am very hoarse and seem to have developed some sort of a cold. It is also on my chest, but I have a heck of a time coughing because of my sore back.

We are having a good time and it is important to cherish very moment of it because time will fly by. We are making plans of day trips that we want to make and museums we want to visit. And there will no doubt be many photos I will take with my iPad and post. 

How good can you get it?

Well, much to my joy, the Cowboy is here and I am having nothing but a good time. He fits into the scenery as if he has always been here, that's how easy we make space for him, and both Tyke and Gandhi remember him very well from last year. There were no awkward pauses. He is sound asleep now, getting over his jet lag and I have not heard him snore once. He did run into my bike once that is parked in the hallway when he had to get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet. That was a bit of a racket and we all woke up. I wonder how he came out of that encounter? 

Because I broke the microwave oven last week, we bought a water cooker yesterday so that the Cowboy can make his instant coffee from Starbucks that he brought with him. When it comes to that, he is a real American. He can't do without it. I prefer the coffee from the coffee maker, so we will both drink what we are most happy with. 

He brought with him an iPad that's a gift for me from my daughter and it is so much better than the android tablet that I had been using. There is no comparison. To say that I am pleased with it would be an understatement. It is a super thing. 

We are planning on going out for a late lunch today at my favorite cafe on the Our Dear Lady Square. This is where they have the home made croquettes and the bread baked from the flour that comes from the mill that is still run by the stream that runs downtown. I realize that is almost a run on sentence. I very much am looking forward to that because there also is a good ambiance on that square which has the ancient church and all the restaurants and cafes and shops. It's a good place to sit and watch the world go by.

That reminds me that we still have to raise the seat on the extra bike, but I am sure that we will be quite capable of that and I am also sure that I have the right wrenches to do that with. I do, thanks to the Exfactor, now have an extensive collection of tools. I am no helpless female! Oh no.