Tell me about the weather...

I had to go to the diagnostic center for an intake meeting this morning and I had to look on the map to see where I had to go. It was raining and I had to get there on my bike, of course, and when I got to where I thought I had to be, the rain was dripping off my face and hair and I was pretty miserable. I had to look on the map again to find out exactly where I was, but I did locate the place.

I went through all this misery for an intake that lasted 15 minutes and then I was out the door again, facing the same rain on my way home. At least I knew where I was going now, but did illegally go down some one way streets the wrong way and acted like I knew not what I was doing. I thought whatever policeman caught me, would take pity on me. I was a confused, drowned rat, after all. Or so I would have him believe.

When I got home, I was so wet and cold that I swore I would never go out again and turned up the thermostat right away. It took about an hour to feel warm again and for my short hair to dry up funny.

I do know what time my procedure is going to take place on Friday now (11 am) and that I can not drink or eat anything from midnight on. That is going to be very tough and the doctor advised me to go to bed late and to sleep late in the morning. Sure thing, that is going to be so easy for me to do! I am not at all going to miss my cups of coffee when I wake up in the middle of the night like I always do, and when I wake up in the morning. I will just be a total grouch all morning long.

 

 

 

 

Where and when is the here and now?

I have just taken another one of those awful paracetamol tablets and the reason I say they are awful is because you start to taste them before you can swallow them. I took a big sip of tea his time, but it was an aborted attempt and I had to do it over again before the tablet went down. I think I want to take children's aspirin from now on that tastes like oranges or strawberries. Anything is better than that big bitter pill.

 

The reason I am drinking tea, is because I wanted to see if it agrees with my stomach better than coffee. I suppose it does, but I do not like the mental effect of it, in that it does nothing for me at all. I may as well be drinking water from the faucet. I can not wait to make a pot of coffee and am going to do so as soon as I have set a period behind this sentence.

 

There, that was easily done and now all I have to do is wait for the hot water to drip through the coffee grounds. You stare at the screen for a few minutes and your pot of coffee is done.

 

The Exfactor was here this morning and told me about a Russian exhibit at the museum and because the museum seldom shows anything good, we decided to go to it and critique it, although we may be pleasantly surprised and like it. We will be going Thursday afternoon and hope to get our money's worth of entertainment. I have not Googled the exhibit yet, but I will do so shortly. Goodness only knows what I will find out.

 

Putin was in the country yesterday to celebrate 450 years of our Dutch-Russian trade relationship. He was met by waves of protesters for every human right possible. Job Cohen, the former mayor of Amsterdam, helped put up rainbow flags in that city. Putin got gay rights mixed up with the rights of the pedophile foundation that is under investigation by the district attorney. I think he purposely did that to muddy the waters.

 

Our prime minister called the late Margaret Thatcher "a great leader and an icon for those in European politics" and we all hope that he did not mean that and that he does not have any ambitions along those lines himself. We call him, "the Teflon prime minister." Same principle as "Iron Lady."

 

 

Midnight tales.

For a change, my stomachache is minor and, even though I had to take a paracetamol, I am not overly uncomfortable. I am even daring to drink some freshly brewed coffee and you know what a challenge that can be. I sure do appreciate my coffeemaker, but I have a feeling that one piece of advice I am going to get is to quit drinking coffee, so I must enjoy it while I still can, although enjoyment is a relative word. The best things in life come at a price and I do not know how I will manage without the caffeine and suppose I will go through all sorts of withdrawal symptoms.

I changed my appointment for the gastric endoscopy to this coming Friday. My GP would not write a prescription for a stronger pain medication until he knew what was wrong with my stomach, so I thought we had better find out quicker. This did mean that I had to change the appointment at the eye clinic to a later date, but I thought that was less important for now, although it is obvious that I am wearing the wrong glasses. No matter how often I clean them, I keep getting the idea that they are blurry.

I may have to have my thyroid levels checked, although I think that was last done in the fall and they were okay then. I know that if they are too high, it can affect your vision.

I do not like for there to be things wrong with me and find it very unsettling, although I do like the search for answers. I like the detective work of it, but I do not like not being in charge of it. Of course, that is a good thing because I do not have enough knowledge to be and to Google things leads to dramatic results and makes you believe you are on the edge of dying from a terrible disease. So that is best not done.

The best thing is to remain pretty much ignorant and to just be aware of your symptoms and describe them as well as possible to the doctor. You can not anticipate your diagnosis and steer events in some preconceived direction.

 

I have got to go back to bed. I just had something to eat and I do not feel so good now. I wish I had a hot water bottle or a heating pad.

 

Getting up to speed for another Monday.

I must be honest with you and tell you that, at this point, I am not gathering up much speed at all, and I think it is because I am drinking heated up coffee. I am convinced that it is not nearly as powerful as a cup of freshly made coffee and hardly does a thing for me, so in the shortest amount of time, I am going to brew a new pot. It is because I was too befuddled that I did not do that in the first place, but I know that once I start writing a post, and have to straighten out my thoughts, the need for a cup of real coffee will make itself known to me.

 

And, oh yes, I was very befuddled when I got up. I was not in a very happy mood either. I do not know why that was, but could only think of less optimistic things that were complicated and really unnecessary. There was absolutely no need to worry my head about them because I knew that, given enough time and caffeine, I would soon stop that. The best you can do at times is ignore the nonsense that goes on in your head when you are no quite ready and armed to face the day. And I mean, ignore it and not just push it away. Pay it no mind at all.

 

I am now armed with a fresh cup of coffee and I am sure that will enliven my mind. It is a bit hot to drink, but that is the challenge in it. Of course, my stomach is protesting loudly because it does not like hot coffee, but I need it for my brain. There is so much my stomach does not like that I have to ignore some things. I can now not eat yogurt anymore because it makes me throw up, and it was the organic mild kind. Now I can only eat vanilla custard, but I do like that very much and it is making me gain some weight.

 

Yes, now I am back to myself again and the worries have disappeared from my mind. I will be darned if I am not going to have a good day. I am stubborn enough to have one.

 

Actually, I am lying when I say that the worries have disappeared from my mind, because I worry about my stomach and what could be wrong with it quite a bit. What I do mean is, that the senseless little worries that have no use being in my head and taking up space are not there.

 

I had to take a paracetamol for the pain in my stomach. They are big pills that do not go down easy and I do not enjoy taking them, but as a rule, they do work. I just have to be patient until they do.

 

This week I have to go for an intake meeting for the endoscopy and I have to go to the eye clinic. I am curious what the result will be of that. Hopefully I will be able to just get new glasses. That would be the least complicated thing. I noticed that I needed new glasses when I was trying to read and had a bit of a hard time doing that. It was frustrating more than anything. I have started to read a novel by Graham Swift and it is intellectual in the first place, but then of course, I am not used to anything anymore. I am being forced to exercise my brain now and it is going through loops.

 

 

That it is Sunday is also worth celebrating.

I went to bed late last night and got up early this morning due to a stomachache. I just took a paracetamol and am waiting for it to start working, which no doubt it soon will. The fact that I am having my usual cups of coffee probably does not help matters, but I can not envision getting started in the morning without them. My brain is always in desperate need of the caffeine to help me get chipper and think straight. I am not half the woman I can be without it.

 

I am in a good enough mood and look forward to the day and can not wait to get it started. It will be oh so nice to go for a walk with Tyke in a while because it is supposed to be less cold than it has been. Already last night I noticed the difference because there was much less wind and the temperature felt more pleasant. Riding my bike home in the middle of the night turned out to be no big deal at all.

 

Because lately, after a long time of not having felt so, I have been missing reading books, I picked one out of the bookcase yesterday and sat down in my chair very comfortably and started reading. That was all good and well, but I think that unfortunately, I picked the wrong book and could not stay interested in it after a few chapters and put it back on the bookcase. It was a novel based on a real case by Jody Picoult and I was only somewhat interested in the subject, so maybe that was the reason.

 

I will pick out another book today and give it another try. I may even choose one that I have already read before and enjoyed a lot, just to be on the safe side. I do want my return to reading to be as pleasant as possible because I do have the longing for it and I do not want to discourage that feeling. I am certainly not going to try that huge book by John Irving that has many pages and is hard to hold up. Maybe I will go for a good thriller.

 

The birthday party for my sister's friend was a lot of fun and I enjoyed myself very well. I decided not to drink any alcohol at all and shared a carafe of water with someone else.  That was no problem at all. My sister and her friend had an important announcement to make and that was that they had officially registered their partnership and now he is officially my brother in law. The kids officially have a stepdad too. My sister did keep her maiden name and I think that is admirable. She and I share the same last name.

 

I am happy that I have a brother in law again because our family is so small. And I have an Italian brother in law, which makes it so much more interesting, of course. He has done a heck of a job getting used to living in the Netherlands and I do have to give him credit for that.

 

The paracetamol is working and I am getting the day started. It will be a pleasure.

Now that's a deal...

I got two longish sleeveless tightfitting tops in olive green and black that were on sale for 11 Euros and they were delivered this morning. I am wearing the olive green one and it fits well, although I got both of them a size smaller than I normally do. I figured that I had lost so much weight that I could take that chance. I feel like a regular catwalk model in it as long as I ignore some minor details like my middle aged face and my gray hair mixed in with the blonde.

 

They are little infractions I am not going to let bother me because from five feet away I look fine. Not everybody sees you up close and in your face. As a rule most people see you from a little distance and that is just the way I like it. I do appreciate some personal space between me and the next person.

 

I am going to the birthday party of my sister's partner tonight and I am planning on enjoying myself and will have at least one glass of wine, if it agrees with my stomach. I probably will not be able to eat any of the food, so I am going to make sure that I eat yogurt before I leave home. I do not mind having to plan around my whimsical stomach as long as I know there is something I can eat to fill it.

 

I am wearing my funky black and white leggings and my black legwarmers. I am also wearing my cowboy boots and appreciate that so very much because they are very comfortable and I can kick ass with them should the need arise. I always feel more competent when I am wearing my cowboy boots as if they give me more authority. I feel like a tougher broad in them.

 

I am also wearing a necklace of which the existence I had forgotten all about. It is a very pretty red one made of glass beads and kind of bulky and hard to overlook. It fits tight around my throat and the reason why it disappeared in the back of a drawer for such a long time is, that at one point it did not fit me anymore. I ran into it by chance when I was looking for something else, but is that not always how we do rediscover forgotten items?

 

I have got to get a decent pair of earrings. I just need some understated studs made of a non-allergenic material that will not cause my ears to get infected. You would think that they would be easy to find, but I have not been that lucky yet. Anything at all makes me break out in a rash or hives or get weeping earlobes, so I have to be careful. I should have lots of money so I could buy jewelry made of pure gold.  Any kind of silver will not do.

 

I have to go do the dishes and finish the laundry. I have folded one load, but there is another load to hang up to dry. I was lucky this morning in that I did get my share of cultural television in. The interviews with the writers were very interesting and are bringing me ever closer to taking up reading again.