I have moved.

Please follow me back to blogger, where there are a few more creative possibilities.

http://themostsplendidday.blogspot.com/

See you there!

Ciao…

Twitter.

On a whim I’ve signed up with Twitter, because I read about someone else doing it. The problem is that I don’t personally know of anyone else who is signed up also, so it is kind of lonely out there. If you want to sign up and you are looking for me, my user name is ‘brightandsunny’. You know how impulsive I get and how I always want to try something new and hope that I will get some sort of thrill out of it. You didn’t know that about me maybe? That I am secretly a thrill seeker? In the very small sense of the word, of course. i only do it if the outcome is safe. That’s something I have learned as i’ve gotten older, to not take the really big risks.

Something is going on with my mood and it has been happening since Wednesday morning. I feel a decided slant of disagreeability sneaking in. I feel like arguing and there is an amount of negativity in there also. I am not so thrilled anymore with things and maybe that is why I joined Twitter, but who knows? I am negative about things that I was positive about before and doubtful about things I was sure of before and the thing is, that I know that I am not having a change of mind, but a change of mood and I have to be careful not to confuse the two and I have to not make any important decisions when my mood is negative like this, that’s the main thing to remember.

I think I am getting a bit dysphoric, meaning: a state of dissatisfaction, anxiety, restlessness, or fidgeting.

You will remember that I have had these sort of moods in the past, though I must emphasize that the restlessnes and fidgeting play no role here at all and the anxiety is at a minimum. I am just disagreeable to the point of being rude. I feel like being rude and disagreeable and not giving a damn.  Like that is perfectly okay. Can you think of a better place to exhibit such behavior than on the Internet? Instantaneous gratification.

I have not heard anything from my daughetr yet, but assume that all is well. She had told me that if possible, she would get hold of her father, who lives in Oregon, but it turns out that I don’t have the correct phone numbers for him. So I am going to call her again later today, although I have not much hope of getting hold of her. I wil watch the live broadcast again later this afternoon, even though it is pretty meaningless and doesn’t help me a lot personally. It does give me a general idea of how things are there.

The sun is shining today, but it is very deceptive, because it is cold outside and fall has really begun now. I were a sweater under my jeans jacket and I am postponing wearing my wintercoat, which is not much thicker. I may have to invest in a warmer winter coat with good pockets for all the stuff I always carry with me. House and bike keys, kleenexes, poop baggies, odd change, mobile phone, my wallet if it will fit. I’d like to go through life without a purse, if at all possible, but sometimes I don’t manage that. My purse always slides off my shoulder and I feel like such an old lady clutching it in my hands.

There must have been some mix up somewhere and I got an invitation from the center for work and income to apply for a job as hostess at a healthclub answering phones, receiving customers, serving drinks, and answering questions about memberships. I am sure they were thinking of the wrong person and, besides, I am not to apply for any kind of job until January, when I enter into some sort of program to get back into the labor force after having been out of it for a very long time and also with special aid as a psychiatric patient entering the labor force again. I emailed back stating as much and have not heard anything since then.

When In Babylon, do not act like the Babylonians and do confusing and irrational things.

My dear and most true Überhund is bored and he translates this into meaning that he must want to go out, although it is not time to, but to make his life bearable, I will now take him for a short spin around the block, so I will see you in a while.

Well, it turned into a long spin around the blog and I am always secretly proud that the Überhund stays on the narrow sidewalk by the busy street and never wanders into the traffic, even though I don’t shorten his leash. He does know where the sidewalk ends. Also, some gentle tugs and one command from me get him going in the right direction, so he is full of goodwill. I think that tug of war that we had at the beginning, when the Exfactor had just moved out, was won by me.

I am now using the Google reader again to stay updated on the latest blogs, after I had developed a problem with it, which is now solved. It does save you a lot of senseless clicking around. I am going to add some new blogs to my blogroll, I will try and remember to do that after I have finished this. I find blogs of note does not always give you such very good blogs, but sometimes there is something there that is interesting.  I am still waiting to show up there myself one of these days. I am not humble, am I?

I have put a bandage around my arm where I had those two scabs that I kept bothering and even now it’s hard not to mess with them. I want to scratch them when I exchange the bandage, but the little wounds are healing. The Exfactor had an enormous scab on his knee that had to be dissolved with some special plaster, because there was an infection underneath it. I would have had a field day with that one. I don’t know how he could stand not picking it off.

Well, now I am going to try once again to figure out that famous widget of the Black Box that everyone is so lyrical about. I could not get it to work on  WordPress, but maybe there is a way I can do it after all. I am nothing else if not stubborn. WordPress does have it’s limitations, which makes me sometimes long for blogger and I have to give it a long hard think about what I want to do, maybe switch back again?  We”ll see.

Have yourself a good Sunday.

Ciao…

Hurricane Ike.

As I write this, my daughter is being besieged in Houston by the back end of hurricane Ike. I have been following it live on http://www.khou.com/video. She was one of the people who was advised not to evacuate, leaving the freeways clear for the people who did have to evacuate. I haven’t talked to her since last night when she was making the last preparations for the hurricane to come in. She had taped the windows, so they would not shatter, and had gotten all sorts of supplies from the store. I am trying to understand all the information I am hearing on the live reporting, but I am unfamiliar with a lot of the areas and neighborhoods that they are describing. I will try to call her later this evening and try to find out how she is doing. I am sure she is fine, being the eternal optimist that i am. They are without power and I may not be able to get a hold of her. We”ll see.

In the meantime, I am sitting here quite uselessly waiting for the delivery person to get here and isn’t it always so that when you are waiting specifically for them to come, they show up at the end of the afternoon, when it could have been any time of the day. I just walked the Überhund, because he had to go out and I taped a note to the door saying that I would be back in the shortest amount of time, but she did not come. I need to go to the store to buy tobacco and hope she gets here before the store closes. It’s all a bit a pain in the neck, but nothing compared to hurricane Ike, of course.

This morning I was out briefly, but I knew my neighbor was home and I know the delivery person would have left the packages with her if she had not found me home. I had coffee and a little piece of pie with my sister and her in laws and even the tiny little piece of pie was too much and I had to make an emergency trip to the bathroom. But it tasted good going down and I learned another lesson after having had my gastric band filled recently. There is always a period of adjustment when I have to learn again how much I can eat.

It’s now 8 PM and I’ve tried to call my daughter, but I only got her voice mail. I am sure she is fine though, going by my maternal instincts. I refuse to picture all sorts of worst case scenarios in my head. Besides, it seems that the hurricane didn’t do as much damage as they had expected. I will see this positively.

The delivery person didn’t show up and I have a sneaking suspiscion that she was here this morning while I was out, while she normally does not get here until noon or later. Oh well, she will be back on Monday, I am sure.

Now rests to me the task to tell you something entertaining and I don’t have one bloody entertaining thing to tell you. Frankly, my dears, I am going to put on my pajamas and make myself comfortable on the sofa and watch the silly box for a while. I’ve just walked the Überhund and that will have to do for tonight, he can piddle out back if he wants to later.

So ciao to you and you and you and you…

Not a bloody thing…

I haven’t done a bloody thing all day, except for walk the Überhund numerous times at odd hours, sleep on the sofa several times, and get my hair cut in a really funky ‘boy do I look good’ style. Sometimes I sat on the sofa in an upright position with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and I would catch myself falling asleep with my head having fallen forward as if I was a rag doll that was falling apart.

Now, this is normal for me in the spring and in the fall, to go through these strange sleeping patterns. Last night I was up in the middle of the night, sitting behind the computer, doing things, and then I woke up with a sore head where it had been laying on the ridge of the keyboard. I do spooky things in the middle of the night again, but luckily, I had the good sense to go to bed and go back to sleep like a normal person and sleep until 7 AM. Still, that did not prevent me from feeling that I had to sleep some more during the day. I am like a cat, aren’t I?

I had a most wonderful time at the hairdresser, but I had already told you that I enjoy going there to watch the women get their hair done. I am always truly amazed at what a good hairdo will do for a woman, no matter how bad looking she is, but that may be the unflattering light around the mirrors that makes me say that. It does reflect you back in all your most basic glory. You need to squint when you look at yourself, or be extremely forgiving. Especially when you sit there with wet hair and a towel around your neck, you have a tendency not to look your best and you have to put on a brave smile and not be embarrassed in front of the rest of the customers. Even your well applied make up doesn’t look that good anymore.

Wel, you know, you grow up and you learn these things and you deal with them and you hope that when you are done you will have a brilliant haircut and that you will not have to sneak home to redo your hair quickly in the bathroom before anyone can see you and laugh at you. I happen to have a very good hairdresser who cuts my hair just the way I want it and we see eye to eye on what looks good. She never fails me. She is a treasure, but no matter what, newly cut hair is just that and you always want to fiddle with it to get it just right. I brushed mine two hours after I got home and then fixed it as close to how I wanted it as I could get it, but it won’t be perfect until tomorrow when I have slept on it one night. I don’t know why that is, it just is.

I talked to the Exfactor on the phone and told him that what I miss about not being married is the ability to tell each other the every day stories about the every day occurences involving the Überhund and the Minion cats. So very often I want to tell him something and then I don’t know if I should call him and share that particular story with him or not. It’s a little bit like having lost a very good friend. I suppose that we will work out some sort of working solution to this that will be non threatening and non invasive to the both of us. I don’t think either one of us has found another person to replace us with in that manner.

When I ask the Überhund if he wants to eat and I get out the bag of dog food, he walks away indignantly if he does not want to eat, so that message is very clear. There is no mistaking that. He stays away until he is sure that I’ve put the dog food away again. Since he is overweight, it is okay if he doesn’t want to eat twice a day, like he did yesterday. He had some little snacks today and a bowl of food and I guess that was enough.

I totally don’t recognize my sister in her new car. This afternoon she practically ran over me and honked her horn before I realized it was she. She is always coming and going and doesn’t have a peaceful bone in her body, she is so the opposite of me. She is very restless and always has to be doing things and have a full calender. I am more of the slow and contemplative kind. She is more of the fast and impulsive kind. She was 10 years old when I left home, so I have no idea why she turned out the way she did. I missed all that part of her growing up and didn’t come back to the Netherlands until she was 32 years old. I did see her in those years, of course, but I really got to know her once I was back here again. In some ways we are neurotically alike, in other ways we are very different. Of course, I am older and that makes a difference too.

I have official confirmation now that I am getting rent and healthcare subsidies. It came in the mail today and I am so relieved about that, because paying the full rent and the full health insurance fees has been expensive with the kind of money I have coming in. I will celebrate with a glass of wine once the money is in my bank account.

I have decided this afternoon to exchange the black cardigan for a smaller size. The one I had ordered was a little bit too big, I thought, I was not quite happy with it and arranged to have it picked up and have the other one delivered tomorrow. i think that is also the day that my ankle boots will be delivered so it will be a fun day all around. Oh, I do so love new items of clothing. I am a real woman, if there was any doubt about that. I may have been a tomboy when I was a kid, but somewhere in my thirties, my female genes kicked into action something fierce. I love and adore clothes, although I don’t spend a fortune on them, I am a frugal shopper. I like feminine things. I like necklaces and lacy bras and perfumes and pretty tunics and dresses. I love colors, besides basic black. Every once in a while I buy something that just doesn’t work out, but mostly I do a fair job. My mother would have been proud of me.

Well, now I am going to take this newly done haircut and the rest of me to the bedroom to get my pajamas on and then I am going to veg out in front of the silly box for some mindless TV watching. Soon enough, I’ll fall asleep and have to drag myself to my cozy bed. The Überhund has already gone there to lie on his pillow.

How wonderful that tomorrow the weekend starts. How sad that I will have to vacuum the whole apartment.

Ciao…

New Header.

The new header is a slice of a piece of art done by John Mora, a favorite artist of mine, and I asked his permission to use it. Here is the complete piece.

Thanks, John.

Precious Sleep!

I spent a large part of the morning sleeping on the sofa with my clothes on, because I had every intention to be fully functional, but after every little job I did I was overcome by tiredness and I just had to go lie down and the minute I did, I was sound asleep and didn’t wake up until an hour later when I would do another little job and repeat the performance. Just now I was sitting behind the computer doing a repetitive job and I was nodding off again, until the Überhund came to warn me that it was time to go for a walk and that cleared the cob webs out of my head, leaving me dying for a cup of coffee and a cigarette and that’s what I am having now.

I wonder how much your desire to sleep, and not being abe to fullfill that desire, influences your mood? I bet it does a lot. I feel chemically imbalanced when I have a shortage of sleep, I literally feel that I am not functioning properly, as if i am a technical appliance that has lose wiring. That is even when I think I have slept enough, but for some reason my body wants more sleep than I am supplying it with.

I think it is the time of year. The changing of the weather and the light and the fluctuation of the season. The leaves are starting to change colors on some of the trees. It is a season of hesitation.

I had to interrupt this briefly, because the Überhund let me know he had to go out again and he was right, he did have to go out again, he had a big message to do, as we say here. Clever dog. I take him out whenever he becomes very insistent, because I know he means serious business then and the patio won’t do. I don’t mind, it is a nice little extra walk around the block for me and the Überhund knows he can rely on me to listen to him.

Oh lord, I am yawning something awful and I do have to last the rest of the evening. It’s not supposed to be bedtime yet. I am going to make it a point to stay up for the 8 o’clock news at least, I should be able to last that long. Maybe some food will wake me up. I try to think of very exciting things to eat, but at this stage of the ballgame there is not much exciting left. I did buy two cartons of very good juice and I have been enjoying drinking that cold from the refrigerator and it is ever so thirst quenching.

I try to make my eating life as interesting as I can, but sometimes it’s a puzzlement. I’m not supposed to eat foods high in calories, so i really shouldn’t eat those puddings I like so much and that go down so easy. Yogurt and curd are good, but I try not to buy them too often, because of the temptation factor of eating too much of them. Ice cold milk from the fridge is very good. I love to drink that. I haven’t had a piece of cheese in ages. I hardly know what an apple tastes like or a pear.

I just gave the Überhund his second bowl of food for the day and he ate it all. This is unheard of. He used to barely finish what I gave him before and only very reluctantly. Just now he barked for a while to make sure some cats showed up that would show some interest in his food. Then he chased them away by growling very hard at them and then he ate his food. He is nothing if not a clever dog.

I am wearing my size 44 tunic. This is the first sized 44 top that I have bought, I have bought sized 44 jeans, but this is the first top in this size that i have bought. This makes me very hopeful. Size 46 is now just a bit to big on me. The black cardigan came today and it is a size 46 and it is a little big, but that will be good for this winter when I will be layering it. I have to get used to seeing my contours and realize that’s not a bad thing. I see women that are really fat wearing tight fitting clothes that are very unflattering and I don’t want to look like that. I think you should always wear the clothes that most flatter your figure. And decorate, I’m a great believer in decorating.

Tomorrow I am getting my hair cut a little bit, nothing drastic, just to get it back in it’s most flattering shape again. It’s been 6 weeks since I last had it cut, so it is time. I have been wearing it wild and unruly, as if I have been in a bit of a storm and everybody likes it. Of course, it is carefully styled that way with the help of a good hairspray. I suppose it looks like bedroom hair, but you would not want to run your fingers through it, but then nobody is allowed to. I could poke somebody’s eye out.

The vet is either always flabbergasted or he is flabbergasted by me. He falls al over his own words when he speaks to me, but I have been unable to observe him with other people. We are theeing and thouing eachother, we are not on familiar terms. He doesn’t know my name, as the Überhund is signed up under the Exfactor’s name, who pays for the bills. An intriguing bit of pandemonium. He is not even very handsome, but I enjoy the game.

Okay, that’s the end of this ramble. I am going to make myself something to eat and get ready to watch the news.

Ciao…

Potverdikkemie.

Poor Überhund had his teeth cleaned yesterday and in the process it was found out that he had an infection in one of his top incisors. A a matter of fact, the vet showed me where there was puss coming out of his gums, so he must have been suffering with this for a while.  So the option was to cut away the gum there or to pull the tooth and I told him to go ahead and pull the tooth. That seemed to me the most straight forward thing to do.

I stayed with the Überhund while we waited for the anesthetic to start working and he literally was standing up one moment and was toppled over the next. He was very floppy after that and the vet could do anything with him at all.

When I came to pick him up in the evening with my sister and the car, he was still very drowsy and almost incapable of walking. At home he sort of tottered to wherever I was sitting, so I tried not to move too many times and ended up taking a nap on the sofa. When I woke up at 10 PM, he was standing there, looking at me quite expectantly, as if to say, “I have to go out now, are you going to take me?” After that, he ate a whole bowl of food and maybe that bad tooth was the reason why he had not been eating so well lately.

All’s well that ends well.

I had ergo therapy in the morning and we had to sit around a very large sheet of paper and keep moving up one place and with each of us, in a different color paint, had to take turns being the manipulator or the manipulated. We could not talk and everything took place in great silence. After two turns, the sheet of paper was changed to a new one until we al had a turn with each person in the group. There was a discussion afterwards about how we interpret what manipulation is and how we do it and if it is always a bad thing.

It turns out that, when I am on my guard, I am a good manipulator and I am not easily manipulated. The person who is the best manipulator in the group, had the hardest time with me, because, while I was manipulating her, she was trying to manipulate me and it didn’t work.

You see how these exercises can be so very educational to a person and really give you a lot of insight into your own psyche.

Social Services is asking me to send in forms, in a rather mildly threatening manner, that I have sent them twice already and that I will now be sending them for the third time. Am I happy about this? I think not. That’s all I’ll say about it for now.

I did, what I hope was, a week’s worth of grocery shopping yesterday. My bike was so loaded with groceries that it is amazing that I made it home in one piece. I did almost get run over by a bus, but he was going slowly, so major injuries were avoided. I just made a little detour to the sidewalk. Actually, I don’t think they’re going to all last for a whole week, but I hope they’ll last past the weekend.

It seemed as though I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off yesterday, but it was all very carefully orchestrated pandemonium. None of the housework got done, but numerous other things did, I just seem to have no recall of most of them. I was running here and there and forgetting to do this and that and then remembering things at the last minute. My shopping list was very good, I know that. I only forgot the sliced sausage for the Überhund.

When you’re gone all morning until almost 1 PM, there is a lot of catching up to do, so I know I would hate to have a fultime job, or I would have to get organized much better and cut out the navel staring times. The umbelical contemplation. Woe is me.

I waste time, though. I know I do. I could become much more efficient and move around the apartment at a much quicker speed and get more done, more quickly. That is just not my style, though. I am not a race horse, I am more like a Belgian draught horse. I am slower but steady. If I go too fast, I become inefficient.

Well, that’s all I have to say, really. It’s not much, but I’m not very inspired. It’s too early in the morning for it. I need numerous cups of coffee still and my medicines and a good walk with the Überhund.

Ciao…

Bloody awful, I say.

I’m so bloody tired and I haven’t done enough to warrant it at all, so where does that leave me with my good behavior? Up the chimney, I would say. Tired and no excuse for it and longing to lay in a sweet meadow filled with four leaf clovers and other good luck greenery and lots of wild flowers to adorn my weary head. Oh yes, and for good measure, a gentle meandering brook with super fresh water to quench my thirst after I have finished off the bottle of cold white wine that I happen to have with me. The Überhund is there too, frolicking in the tall grass, chasing butterflies and being droll.

Ach, such fantasies are permissable when you get to be my age, it’s all doddery and senility from now on and foolish old woman talk. Which still leaves me tired from I don’t know what and how did this day get started in the first place anyway? Well, let’s look back…

It started with me almost forgetting that I had an appointment with my SPN. She had been on vacation and I had gotten so used to her being gone, that I had forgotten that she was back. AT 8 AM I thought, “Wait a minute, I am supposed to be somewhere at 9 AM.” Quick dramatic flurries of activities ensued, with me  making sure I looked great in the least amount of time, because I never leave the house for anything important unless I am put together well. I have to look good and smell good and have great hair before I go anywhere important. Luckily, I am very practised at this and I know how to do it in a hurry and have that casually put together, blown by a little bit of wind look. I tell you, man, I have to be able to meet the queen at a moment’s notice and look good enough. She has ‘able to withstand hurricane hair’ herself.

So, I had a very productive meeting with my SPN in which we talked about a lot of sensible things and made some headway in understanding where I am in my head nowadays. Which is basically in a very good place, so my next appointment isn’t until 3 weeks from now. I think we are both mighty pleased with the state of things.

Then I went to the big drugstore, because the Exfactor had given me a gift certificate and I wanted to spend that on food supplements. I got a big bottle of  Omega 3 capsules and a bottle of Kelp tablets, which are also good for your metabolism, and some other odds and ends. I now have 5 bottles of vitamins and supplements and some of those pills are big suckers and I worry about getting them down, but somehow I do. I am very brave that way.

I do love the way I so casualy hop on my bike and race from point A to point B as if it is no problem at all and no obstacle stands in my way. I hardly slow down for an uphill slant or a round about. It’s all a piece of cake.

Then I went to the pharmacy to pick up a supply of ‘feel good pills’ and fully supplied, I went home again, where the Überhund greeted me as if I had been gone on a Northpole expidition and was very disappointed when he found out that I didn’t bring home anything ‘good’ to eat. Good as in pudding with berry sauce, but I have sworn that off.

I took him for a walk, because after a certain point I had to stay home and wait for the delivery of my tunic and duvet cover. When they arrived, I tore off my clothes to try on the tunic and found out that it fit, but it fit just a bit snugly for my taste and it needs a lose garment to go over it like a cute little three buttoned vest in black that I just happened to find on line and that will get here on Thursday and will make the outfit complete. The tunic is very pretty and ever so nicely made and it looks very pretty, it just shows my tummy a little bit too much, so 5 kilos later it will look better by itself.

The duvet cover caused a whole bed change, of course, and I will go to sleep with clean sheets tonight. I would have liked to wash the duvet cover first, but I was too impatient and wanted it on there right away, I will wash it after a few nights when I change the bottom sheet and pillow cases again. I drool while I sleep, I kid you not.

I paid bills, which is like taking a rib from my body, because I makes my bank account shrivel quickly and the month isn’t over yet, which leaves me down to couting euro’s and how far I can make them go.

I did laundry and washed the dishes and wiped dog and cat hair of furniture, which is a never ending battle when your furniture is black. I think at night the dust fairies come with their little bags of dust and sprinkle a a light dusting all over the smooth black surfaces and the animals do the rest. They are in cahoots.Trust your animals to have strong bond with the creatures of the nether world.

It’s impossible to come to terms with the day. It wasn’t a good day and it wasn’t a bad day. It was just an ordinary hausfrau day. Well, you have to have days like that too, I suppose, although I like a bit more excitement in mine, ot am I forgetting something? No, no handsome man came to the door, I wasn’t swept of my feet, I didn’t dance the tango at noon, I didn’t go to a den of sin and debauchery. So, I guess it was just an ordinary day then.

It seems to me that ordinary people should have little escape clauses written in to their existance descriptions. That every day, for one hour, they get to debauch without dire consequences. Get drunk, smoke pot, have a torrid affair, have group sex, dine romantically with Rudolf Valentino, make love to Cary Grant and then, floops, they are back into their normal life again without any hangovers or social diseases. Oh, such heady stuff. Could we handle it?

Well, after such wishfull thinking, I can only hope that Harrison Ford shows up witha flat tire in front of my aprtment one of these days, but in the meantime, I am going to get into my pajamas for my regular eveing of relaxationa and fun in front of the dummy box and wach the news and see which country is getting hit by which hurricane tonight and not watch any news on John McCain and his token female vice presidential ‘candidate’ who makes me laugh, although she is a bit scary.

Right then, off I go. Tell no fibs, tell it like it is, bigger and better than life.

Ciao…

Wowser!

I am completely discombobulated for no really obvious reason on its own, but just as a combination of small ingredients that all have added up to what has been my perfect rush by day that has not ended yet. Somehow I have to get back to earth and calm my brain down and be a mellow woman who is soothed back into a quiet place.

I guess the thing that really disturbed me the most today is, that my sister told me that my niece’s English teacher is an ‘America basher’ and a ‘conspiracy theorist’ and he is taking the opportunity to tell his students all the familiar theories about there not really having been any men on the moon, and that the government was behind 9/11 and placed dynamite in the World Trade Center towers and that there are UFO’s in Area 49. Basically he is starting them down the path of everything conspiracy theorists believe in and we think this is just the beginning.The children have to make their homework about these subjects.

My sister and I are outraged about this and are planning a course of action, which involves going to the head of the school to make an official complaint and stating that the man is unqualified to teach impressionable teenagers. None of the other parents seem to see the danger and some of the children are already becoming persuaded by his arguments.

If I were a dragon, I would be spewing fire from my nostrils just now. His partner teaches English at that school also and tells the kids that American English is just a bastardized form of proper English, which the children learn to speak, they speak Oxford English and American English is frowned upon quite heavily.

I do not like people like this and think they are dangerous to have around children. That’s all I’ll say about it. Bah humbug!

This morning I went to my creative therapy class and managed to finish my collages. Some of them took as many as 7 color washes before I was happy with them. I got the hang of it after a while, getting the right thinness of paint, getting it almost opaque. I am quite pleased with the outcome and now that I sort of know what I am doing, I am ready for the next project, which will probably be a painting, but maybe a mixed media collage. I have to think about it long and hard. I’ll have to put my thinking cap on. I like the effect of the scraped away images and people commented on them the most, besides the text, of course.

My sister kept complaining that the Überhund smelled bad, so today we took him to the doggy trimster where he got a cut and a bath and he looks splendid, but when we got him back in the car, my sister said that he still smelled bad and I thought that it could only be his breath then, but he had his teeth cleaned in March. I don’t smell it, of course, because I am around him all the time. So, this evening I took him to the vet and the vet had a look at his teeth and said there was enough plaque build up there for a year, therefor his bad breath. He figures it was because of his old dog food that was too soft for him to eat, and I very proudly told him that I just switched brands and that this kind should be better. It’s harder to chew.

So, on Wednesday at 2 PM the Überhund is going in to have his teeth cleaned again. I also got him another 2 months worth of pills for his osteoarthritis which is helping him so much.

In between everything, I tried to bring some order to the apartment, but I did not get a lot done. I had palnned to buy a new shower curtain, but couldn’t find one quick enough when I was at the department store the other day, so I decided to wash the one I had in the washing machine and much to my amazement, it came out looking brand spanking new, so that problem is solved. The bathroom is tiled halfway up allaround and to the top where the shower is and I need to scrub the tiles really well, so that’s another job waiting for me. I do love it so much.

I have decided to be brave and weed the flower beds and in between the tiles to make the patio a little bit more attractive and to cut back the jasmine which is taking over everything. I’ll make some room for that strange bush that is growing there. My sister is convinced that I can make it an attractive place to sit and commune with nature. We’ll see.

The Überhund is giving me those looks again of, “I want you to take me out now,” So I suppose that’s wat I’ll do now. Did I tell you that I sort have my eye on our vet in a very innocent way. I think he is married, but I always make sure I look good when I go there. I like to flabbergast him.

Ciao…

Whatever I want.

Since it is my birthday and since it is Sunday and since I live alone, I wasted the whole afternoon very enjoyably making a very large playlist on Deezer of mostly women artists. For some reason, by some twist of fate, I kept running into very good women arists, so I had a field day. I almost couldn’t keep up with myself and there was nobody here to say, “Irene, why are you wasting your whole afternoon doing this?” Oh, isn’t it lovely? In the meantime the phone kept ringing with people calling to wish me a happy birthday, which was nice, because I never knew who was on the line when I picked up the phone, so it was a surprise every time. I didn’t recognize the numbers quickly enough, because I answered the phone too fast. That’s how eager I was. It’s so nice to get so many phone calls.

The Exfactor and my sister came over this morning and they had joined forces and bought me a big bottle of Chanel no 5 eau de parfum. I was so happy with that, I just love and adore that scent and I haven’t had any for a long time. I love the way it lingers on my clothes too. I had asked for eau de toilette, but they said I deserved better. How sweet of them and so generous and my oldest sister sent me enough money to pay for the new clothes that I ordered on line yesterday, so that worked out very well. She is also always very generous and I am thrilled to pieces.

I would say that I had a very good birthday even though I didn’t give a party. I had considered it, but decided against it and keep it nice and quiet. You will possibly remember that I had two birthday parties last year and that a week later I found out that the Exfactor was in love with the Paramount. Next year I will be in the mood to give a real party again and drink a bottle of white wine.

I am going to keep this short, because it is my birthday and I want to sit cosily by the corner lamp in which I just placed an energy saving light bulb. It does make a difference in the room for atmosphere with that light burning. I have to cuddle the Überhund for a while and pet some cats, because I have been very preoccupied today.

Have a good rest of the Sunday.

Ciao…