Wake up, Irene!

I fell asleep on the sofa at 4 PM this afternoon and now I am semi-awake, but slightly disoriented and I keep thinking that somebody is going to come home any minute and I cringe every time I hear a motor engine or a door slam. I have just made myself a large mug of coffee and I hope that with the aid of it, I will soon return to the reality that is my life and not this half awake life in which I am only imagining things. I am sure you all know this feeling of waking up in the middle of the day and having to place yourself in the right context again and sometimes that takes awhile.

The Überhund is sound asleep at my feet. His solid presence comforts me and i realize how much he has changed and how nice and mellow he has become. He used to be such a pain in the neck and constantly want attention and beg for it by being slightly obnoxious, but he does none of that now. He is a nice and quiet dog and talks to me if there is somethings he wants or needs and I can usually figure it out. I think he was in competition with the Exfactor for the Alpha dog role and it made him insecure.

I am not sure which role I have now. When we go for a walk, I am the boss, I made sure of that, but I don’t know for sure if I’m the Alpha dog at home. I hope I am, because he does listen to me and follows me wherever I go, so I must be. When I get home, he is very happy to see me, but he always turns his butt to me to be greeted, does anyone know what that means? Is that submission? Or the opposite?

I have decided on Facebook, that as soon as a person I am ‘friends’ with keeps adding friends at a phenomenal rate and does not communicate with me, I remove them as a friend. I have gotten rid of two so called ‘friends’ that way today and I think I will be removing more. It is after all not a competition to see how many ‘friends’ a person can gather, although that seems to be the purpose for some people. I am not in it for that. I like to approach people myself and sometimes that works out, but sometimes people approach me and I take a chance. There is always the remove button, though. It’s nice to have your occasional comments reacted to. It means people care and are paying attention.

We’ve had a hot weekend, but just now it has started to rain. It is assumed that this was the last of the summer weather and that now the fall will start, although it seems to us that process has been going on already for a while. I was just about to go outside to water the potted jasmine, but now I won’t have to. It looks like it survived it’s haphazard transplant and i think I will have a really healthy plant there next year. With any luck, it will bloom this winter.

The weekend went by quickly. I didn’t actually do very much, except for vacuum and that was a real fun job, because i had changed the bag in the vacuum cleaner and then it always works extremely well. It would suck up the cats if they didn’t get out of the way. It works well on the new area rug and that is good, because I was hoping it would take care of the dog hair there and any fleas or other nasty things that decided to drop off the animals, although I think that the Überhund is flea free now. I ended up buying him Frontline, as I thought the stuff that the vet gave me wasn’t working that well, but the Frontline seems to have done the job. He is also wearing a flea collar, but I don’t have much faith in it. Vacuuming a lot does the trick.

In a way I am happy that the weekend is over. I do like the laziness of it, but tomorrow i have creative therapy and I am looking forward to that, when I finish peeling the backs of those images and start putting the paint washes on. It also means the bureaucracy starts up again and I will have to gather the paperwork on why I don’t want to pay city taxes to go with the objection I sent per Internet this weekend. Basically, because I don’t have an income and I have to show that.

I also have to make an official objection against them withholding my welfare check. It’s all a pain in the butt, but it has to be done. I have to find out where to send the paperwork.

Well, my pall the Überhund really wants to go out now, so I suppose that’s what we will do.

Have a nice end of the weekend and tell me how you deal with adversity, I would so like to know.

Ciao…

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A big fat no no.

I notice that I have been calling the Exfactor by his regular name again and I want to stop doing that right away, because it gives the appearance of a familiarity and intimacy that is not there and that I do not want to be there, so he is the Exfactor again from now on. The dog will be the Überhund and the cats will just be the cats or the minion cats as it pleases me. The other woman shall still be named the Paramount. I am still the editor of the script and I still pull the strings.

My sister told me yesterday, that she was under the impression that I had forgiven the Exfactor and I said, “Oh, for God’s sake, no, I will never forgive him. I never forgive anybody, that’s not my job.” She equated being friendly and polite with having forgiven and she could not be more wrong. I do have a great sense of pride within myself and a sense of self worth and I don’t like for anyone to come around and seriously damage that to the point that the Exfactor did. So no, I have not forgiven him and I never will. I have a memory like an elephant.

Anyway. I pulled the same trick this morning that I did yesterday, I got up early and went back to bed to sleep some more after I let the Überhund piddle out back.

I am rereading the Memory Keeper’s Daughter and I’m pretending that I don’t remember any of it so that it will all be a surprise to me. Luckily, I fall asleep with it quickly, so I never get to the point that things start to look real familiar. It is that, or a psychological book called Illusions, which I am not in the mood for right now. It’s a self improvement book and I will become amazingly self knowledgeable after I am done with it, but it seems like too much work and I think I know so much already. Mmm…well…

I suppose I’m not really in the mood to dig too deeply right now, not on my own anyway. I am cruising along comfortably now and I don’t want to rock the proverbial boat. I think I don’t want to join the Personality Disorder Group later this year. I think that is asking for trouble. They want to do a very deep analysis of my childhood and I have done that in the past and let me tell you, that is no picnic. I think it would be a bad idea for me to do that now, especially since I don’t seem to be suffering from a personality disorder at this time. I did not before my marriage and I do not afterwards, which makes me think I don’t really have one. I think it was artificially induced and maintained.

I no longer have short rapid mood cycles. My moods are for the most part always the same, or I should say, they are as normal as anyone else’s. I don’t go from an 8 to a 3 to a 5 to an 8 all in one day anymore. I react appropriately to the circumstances and bounce back well. I am an optimistic person and see the glass half full. It’s my disastrous marriage that screwed me up royally and I didn’t know it until it was over, although at the end I started having many suspicions. Like, why did I always fall apart in the afternoons when the Exfactor came home? And why was it as though he fed my hypo manic and depressive moods?

It’s best not to think about it anymore and let it be in the past where it belongs. I am living this life now that is so much better. A quiet and meditative life with moments of busyness and great hilarity. The occasional stress I can handle too.

Well, it’s time to watch the news and be a well informed citizen. How good and well behaved of me.

Have a great day, or what’s left of it.

Ciao…

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Blegh!!!

I am full of exhaustion and I don’t want to be, I am going to fight it all the way to the sofa if I have to and not give into it one teeny little inch. It isn’t as though I had an especially tiring day, although I did do a variety of things and maybe they left their impressions on my easily impressed mind. I mean, I am not used to much, so doing anything out of the ordinary is bound to thrill me to pieces and wear me out at the same time from the processing of the details.

I started out the day really slow, because I went back to bed after I had been up for awhile, but I decided that my head was still in slumber attitude and that I was not ready to tackle the day and all it’s details that it would bring. So I laid me down to sleep, with Jesker beside me, and didn’t wake up until the phone rang and it was my sister to remind me of our appointment to go to Ikea, as if i would forget that outing!

I very slowly got dressed and walked the dog and then went grocery shopping and to the tobacco store, where they see me as one of their favorite customers, at least, that’s the kind of welcoming smile I get. They almost know what I come to get, and one day soon I won’t have to ask for it. They’ll just reach for the items on the shelf the minute they see my bright and happy face.

Back home, Jesker and I shared a pudding with berry sauce and then my sister came to get me in her new Peugeot, which is a sporty little 4 door car with a hatchback. She had the radio on and I felt like Thelma and Louise when we drove down the freeway. Luckily, we don’t need to make our escape, as it is our men that we send on their way.

Ikea had just had another grand opening and there were people in yellow jackets directing the parking traffic ineffectively, but we found a good spot anyway. The thing is to ignore the pointing fingers and to go by your instincts, which will direct you to the empty parking space. It will also get you a dirty look, but this particular yellow coated traffic director had a big earring in and we figured he wasn’t really anyone important at all, even though he had a decent haircut.

We were good shoppers and followed all the arrows and didn’t take any short cuts through the store, even though we new exactly what we wanted. We also wanted to look at all the things we weren’t buying and in the meantime we were talking and chatting like two chickens in a hen house, like we have a tendency to do. We must go back soon and really linger and spend an afternoon there, when we both have extra money to spend on gadgets and stuff. Things you don’t really need, but can’t live without that will improve your life so tremendously. That’s what Ikea is for, and oh, I walked by the sofa I want and it hurt me to leave without it.

We soon enough got the items we wanted and headed for the cash registers and after some indecision ended up in the right line. The fast one, where my sister found out that she had bought the expensive duvet, but she didn’t feel like going to customer service and undoing the whole sale and going back into the store to find the right one, as it has taken us some searching to find the one that we thought was the right one, you know, with all those names on the products.

We shoved the bought items in the car, my carpet was a little long, and then went to the garden center next door, which has the same sort of planned route through its shelved products as Ikea has. Lots of temptations to buy things. “Oh yes, I’ll have 3 of those and 5 of these. And that plant is really pretty too.” Friendly customer service all over the place, attractive prices, overabundance of goods, you think you are in Fantasy land. It’s best to be strong of mind and keep a steady hand on your wallet and be determined to only buy what you had come for.

When I came home, I unrolled the carpet and found out it was bigger than I had imagined, so that was good. Jesker laid down on it right away and Gandhi sharpened her claws on it, which made Jesker angry. I told him, “Good dog.”

Then I had to walk him and go to the pharmacy to pick up a large supply of medication that I had ordered two days earlier, but when I got there, I found out they never received the fax with the prescription, so I had to make a phone call and at the other end of the line a frantic search took place to find the missing prescription, which showed up in the fax machine 20 minutes later. I love mayhem, especially when it is about my precious pills.

On the way home, I stopped by the flower and plant shop and bought two plants of heather in pots and I have those sitting here instead of the ‘child in mother’s lap’ plants that weren’t doing so well. They cost me 2.50 Euros for 2. It’s a steal. Jesker thought I was bringing home food and was mighty disappointed.

I was just out back, and besides a lot of weeds, I have the jasmine and the golden rain and the 3 trees and now another unidentified bush has grown up amongst the jasmine. I have to try and find out what it is, but it is staying. Anything that wishes to grow here, stays. I’ll have to pull out the weeds this weekend, although that is not my favorite job, especially not now that my left knee is bothering me so much. It really hurts to bend it, especially when the weight is on it. I am wearing out, I guess.

I hope you all like my header. I went through some trouble to find something to represent what I thought was Another Bright Day and I thought this little child was perfect. There is innocence and happiness. It is a challenge to find the right photograph to express a meaning. I liked the gray slate too, until Maggie said it looked like elephant’s skin and I don’t want that. Besides, it didn’t express much emotion.

Now I am going to rest my weary bones on the sofa, after I have looked up a TV guide on line. I must remember to do that. I hope there is a good British thriller on tonight. Those are the best.

Have a good evening, get yourself ready for a lovely weekend.

Ciao…

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You’re at the right place.

Feeling frustration in real life, i felt I had to do something in my other life, my blogging life, and just for awhile I am going to try this design on and not have any naked ladies hang around the place. Sometimes it feels so good to make a change and it sort of lifts my spirit, but you will all have to let me know how this works for you. That may or may not influence me. I’ll see.

The wonderful news is, that the tax people just called and that they made a decision in my favor and that as of July the first I will have housing and medical care subsidies, so I have some money coming in. There was no problem at all and I could have reached over the phone and given that woman a hard hug. I had been so worried. So, something is going right today. On top of that, my older sister sent me some money which is enough to go to Ikea with to buy a rug for by the sofa to cover up two cigarette burns in the linoleum. My younger sister and I will do that tomorrow.

So, you see I do have some things going right for me too. Thank goodness for that. I will somehow remain eternally optimistic, as long as Visa comes through with the money, which I think they will. I have had a computer generated confirmation as to my request, so I assume all is well. At least after this phone call from the tax people, my stomach is not in knots anymore.

I got up rather early this morning and after piddling around behind the PC for awhile, i decided that I wasn’t properly awake yet and went back to bed, where i very promptly fell asleep and slept until 10AM, which was super, but after that, it was hard to get the day going, feeling like languishing in my pajamas and not walking the dog, whom I let piddle out back.

I drank coffee and smoked cigarettes and hung out on Facebook and generally wasted my time. Sometimes it is nice to be a lady of leisure, or pretend to be one. Jesker was very mellow about the whole thing and there was not a peep out of him. Sometimes he can be very demanding about wanting to go out, but at times he seems oblivious and just plops down and goes to sleep as if he knows I’m not in the proper mood.

I’ve done some housework, so I haven’t quite wasted the day and the apartment looks clean enough if you wear roller skates and roll through it really fast. There is always something undone and some area that needs my attention, but then I am not a stickler for details and I easily let things slide as long as it looks halfway decent. I do notice that everything stays cleaner now that I live here on my own. No dust devil here with motor grease.

What really amuses me is how little TV I watch. I really have to make the effort to turn it on and I don’t have a TV guide, so I very seldom know what’s going to be on, I only find out by chance. I try to watch the news, but very often even that slides by me and I miss what’s going on in the world and am a badly informed citizen. Do you think that can be held against me? Such irresponsibility. Neither do I read a newspaper, although I could easily read the BBC News on line. I think I’ve become to self centered in my little busy world.

The kids are back in school and every morning troves of them walk by the apartment with their parents. Kids of all nationalities. it is a regular melting pot an it gives me pleasure to see it. Some of the women wear head scarves and some of the black women wear reggae colors. They are all very colorful. The kids jabber in all sorts of languages plus Dutch. They all stop to look at the cats that sit in the windows. Nouri gets scared and runs away, but Toby and Gandhi stay put. They understand the protection of glass.

Jesker thinks he has to bark at everybody who looks in and thinks he is a great protector of all of us. he doesn’t understand why i don’t get upset and just sit there.

Some art:

I have a limp cigarette that’s being puled down by gravity when I try to take a drag off it. I guess it is a dud. You do get those sometimes. It’s real tricky to make good cigarettes, you have to get just the right amount of tobacco in.

Well, my dog wants to go out now and no amount of telling him to be patient is making a difference, so off we must go. I will put my walking shoes on and my jacket and put lots of baggies in my pocket.

Have a great day. I am planning on relaxing as much as possible the rest of the day, having no stomach tied in knots now.

Ciao…

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Saturated.

There comes a time, when you have read so many blogs that you are saturated with them and that you can not leave another sensible comment. Then it is time to quit and save the rest of them for another day ,says I, who is not a quitter and who goes on until the bitter end, but even I have to admit when i am beat. Much as I would like to leave an amusing or other form of astounding comment, at one point my brain is not capable of it anymore and I just blank out. That’s why I take turns beginning either at the top of the list or at the bottom, so that all people will get an equal share of my attention.

Today I had the fortune of sharing the woes of my pitiful financial situation with the group of people at my ergo therapy and let me tell you, a worry shared weighs less and there was much compassion all around making me not feel so alone in all of this. As I heard myself speak, I realized how ridiculous the whole thing was and how strange bureaucracy works and how I need to fight the system by being a dishonest citizen. I will nver be gullible and naive again and always watch out for number one.

I stayed home this afternoon, waiting for the tax people to call me, which of course they didn’t and they probably won’t until the very last day in the very last hour, but if that is what they are planning on doing, I am calling them first. I do have a mouth to open and a brain to form the right words to say what’s on my mind. I am not some easily intimidated person whom they can talk under the table.

This morning I had a stomachache worrying about it all, but it quickly disappeared and I am now my usual feisty self.

I am making friends on Facebook and collecting an eclectic bunch of people, one of whom wants to flirt with me, but I think I am old enough to be his mother and he lives in South Africa. It’s all in good fun, though, and I can take it as far as I let it go. I try not to neglect anyone and go by everyday to send them each a message. Not good karma or flowers or eggs with surprises in them, but just a plain old message.

Jesker is being his regular spoiled self and thinks he needs to be walked every hour. Of course, I don’t fall for this and he is very disappointed when I don’t. I try to give him some other kind of attention to divert his mind and that usually works, until he gets bored again and wants to go out. He has a great need to look for inedible substances and thinks he will find those all over the place whenever we go out.

I am so tired at the end of the day. I look forward to going to bed, yet try to postpone it until I am a zombie and barely capable of coherent movement. I have put clean sheets on the bed today, so it will be extra nice to go to sleep tonight. I love crispy clean sheets.

Today at ergo therapy we had to rob each other’s territory with paint on a large piece of paper and the battle between me and my partner became so heated that we ended up taking the whole bottles of paint and squirting them directly on the paper. It was hard to see who won, it was a close draw, but a lot of fun, as opposed to the other couple who neatly stayed in their own territory. It was all a matter of interpretation and how far you were willing to go. I will go far to defend my territory. You learn something new every day.

The other obvious thing is too, that I am full of humor there and I am not so in real life. In real life I have a tendency to be too serious, so I have to learn to carry this humor out into the outside world. Apparently I make people like me through my sense of humor and my big mouth and everybody will tell you that I am a nice person.

I receive lots of good kudos there, if only I could do that in real life.

I’ve got to find myself a new book to read,as i finished the one about Chicago May. I am hoping there are some books on the book case that I haven’t read yet. At least ones good enough to put me to sleep. I have my whole sleeping ritual of making toasted bread and a glass of warm milk and getting my book and my strongest reading glasses. The warm milk really helps me sleep, it works better than a sleeping pill. The toasted bread is comfort food, to make it more cozier, I share it with the dog.

Well, that’s all she wrote for today. It’s time to sit back and relax for a few moments before walking Jesker again and putting his eye drops in. There is never rest for the wicked.

Sleep tight everyone, treat your alarm clock with patience, it’s only doing its job.

Ciao…

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What the hell?

Because I had to live on a teeny little welfare check for two months, that was not even enough to buy groceries with, Eduard supported me financially the best way he could by also borrowing money and making ends meet. Because of this, Social Services sees this money as income and is therefor not giving me my regular welfare check for this month. As a matter of fact, I am getting no money at all. So, until September the 20th, I will have to live on the money I borrow from my Visa card, because money borrowed is not considered income, because you can show that you are having to pay it back. I can not receive money from anybody else, as that will be considered income and will be withdrawn from my welfare payment. I can submit an objection, but it is all going to take precious time and in the meantime I am going to be very poor and owing a lot of money.

Still, after the initial shock of it, I decided to put on my happy face and consider myself lucky that I even have a credit card with enough credit left on it that I can borrow the money from. I would have to go through all sorts of lengths to get money otherwise and frankly, I would not know how, except for hanging a red light in the window. So, I’m trying to look at it cheerfully.

The man who is handling my case at Social Services now is new and he thought that the money I had received from Eduard was an alimony payment and that I would get that much money all the time. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and I told him that I was sorry, but that I had to pull myself together and that I would call him back shortly. I did have to pull myself together emotionally and I don’t like to do that while on the phone with a well meaning, but complete stranger.

This also explains why the tax people, who decide about my rent and medical care subsidies, told me they would call me back later this week between 1 and 3 PM. They are probably also assuming that I received a large amount of money in alimony payments and will forever. I sure do have some straightening out to do.

Anyway, this bright and happy news did set the tone for the rest of my day, even though I did not want it to, but I couldn’t help but be affected by it. The best thing to do is put on my brave trooper face and act like the whole damn thing is not going to get me down and it won’t in the end. I just hate bureaucracy and the stiff unbending rules that make it work against the little honest people. Eduard and I should have lied our heads off or have made different arrangements, but c’est la vie.

In the meantime, life at the Pondorosa continues with all the regular things that take place, although today was a little bit off. I did walk Jesker four times, but we didn’t make a long walk once, because he gets out of breath so quickly. He pants for a long time when we get back. I have been noticing that this summer. It’s not the heat, because it hasn’t been warm here at all for quite awhile.

I am having fun with Facebook, because this time it is I who picks out who I want to be friends with and I have a eclectic set of rules that only I understand. It comes down to instinct basically, guided by some very basic standards. I manage okay that way and have made some new friends. I even got Eduard to join, which is a miracle of itself.

Tomorrow I have wonderful ergo therapy and we will discuss detachment. I feel I have to crawl into my shell when I get bitterly disappointed, but maybe the thing is to seek your solace amongst people and their healing presence. At least I assume their presence can be healing. I am Irene the Brave, master of all my emotions. Right!

Eduard was here this afternoon, because his mobile phone is in my name and we thought his subscription had to be renewed and the person who owns the phone has to do that. It turned out that the subscription didn’t need to be renewed, it does it of itself, so that was a waste of time, even though they told us last year that we would have to do this. I had my passport and client number all ready for it too. Good intentions all the way down the line.

I am especially looking forward to going to bed tonight, even though so far I am postponing it, but it does mean an end to this rather disappointing day. At the same time, I don’t want to go to bed with even the slightest defeated feeling, so I am staying up until that is completely gone.

Jesker is snoring beside me after he has been very good about letting me put his eye drops in.

The differences between the cats and the dog are really so large. The dog is so dependent on me and the cats are hardly at all. Well, yes they are for their food and water and milk and they let me know very loudly when they’ve run out, but other than that, they are independent creatures that make up their own mind about when they come and go and when they need attention and how much they want. I am much more like a cat that way, because I like my independence too and I hate to be shackled to a time and a place and a person. I would hate to be a dog and I would probably bite my owner in his bum out of frustration. Maybe that’s why I am always so overly nice and patient with Jesker, because I would hate to be him and be dependent on a human being. I try to be an understanding human being for Jesker. I felt the same way when my kids were little and they were dependent on me.

I swept the apartment with a broom and a brush and dustpan this afternoon, because i thought the tax people might call me and I don’t hear the phone when I have the vacuum cleaner running. It worked equally well and you would be amazed by how much sand and hair I swept up. Actually, it was a meditative sort of job and kind of pleasant to do and I may do it again. The drawback is that I don’t vacuum the sofa and chairs then, so I will have to do that another time or wave my magic wand and have them turn out perfectly clean that way. Ha, I wish.

Well, I’ll end this epistle and go and do some other things until I am good and ready for bed. I could go on forever, but I don’t want to bore you with every tiny detail of my life, fascinating as it all may be.

See you all tomorrow, sleep tight.

Ciao…

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Where?

I don’t know where the day has gone. It seems to have been extremely long and forever since I got up out of bed this morning, yet at the same time it seems like it flew by and I didn’t accomplish half the things that I wanted to. Maybe I have been trapped in a wormhole in space and I have traveled through time in a different way than I ordinarily do.

When I look back at this morning, it seems very far away, as if I am looking at it the wrong way around through binoculars. I see myself way in the distance, starting the day with a mug of coffee. Maybe people with busy lives always have that feeling, as if they are far removed from the beginning. It feels kind of discombobulating, as if I have been stretched longer than the day is wide.

This morning, at creative therapy, I uncovered all those upside down pictures I had glued down with the medium I told you about. I took a sponge with warm water and soaked each picture until I was able to rub the backs off them to reveal the image that was underneath and glued down on the paper. It was actually kind of neat, if not very time consuming, but I rubbed the paper of with my thumbs until it got all crumbly and revealed the picture that i had forgotten was there. The images are imperfect and they should be, I don’t want them to be completely intact, they have hairline scratches and frayed edges, which makes them more interesting. I did about 20 of them and I am nearly done.

Next, I’ll be applying the different layers of paint around them and maybe slightly over them. Applying and wiping away etc. I’m learning as I go along. I am sure that what I am making is going to be a masterpiece.

When I had been home for about 10 minutes, the Exfactor rang the door bell. I thought he was going to come over while I was gone in the morning, but I think he is looking for company and someone to have a cup of coffee and a conversation with. He came to get motor parts. He does that a lot, doesn’t he? Anyway, we had coffee and a conversation and then he was on his way again after he left me with a whole roll of biscuits that he had left over and wasn’t going to eat. Well, I don’t say no to those.

Then I took the Überhund to the vet, but it was not our regular vet, because he is on vacation. This time it was a female vet and the Überhund didn’t want anything to do with her. Every time she tried to look in his eye, he turned away his face and hid it under my arm. She finally determined that his eye was almost better and that I need to apply the eye drops a little while longer. She was able to take his temperature in an uncomfortable place and he didn’t seem to mind that one bit. Strange dog.

When we got home, I cleaned the apartment the French way, that is with a lick and a promise, but here we always call it the French way, because I had to go for a check up for my gastric band. I took the bus to the hospital and the bus was late , but I made it on time and then tried to check in under my married name, forgetting that I had already changed it in the administration to my maiden name. So, they had no appointment in my name, but soon everything was cleared up and my old file was found which had been lost because of the name change. It was a regular comedy of errors.

Anyway, I have lost 7 kilos and we are going to fill my gastric band one more time on the 5th of September. Usually it takes longer to get an appointment, but they happened to have an opening…

…It is now the next day as I had to stop writing, because I was so darn tired. I laid down on the sofa and promptly fell asleep. I woke up long enough to go to bed properly.

So, when I got home from the hospital, I walked the Überhund and made a shopping list and did the grocery shopping, which you should never do on an empty stomach, but I stuck to the list. It’s amazing though how quickly your shopping basket fills up and how quickly you spend the money. I had one big shopping bag full of groceries and spent 32 Euros. I still have to look at the receipt to see what I spent it all on.

Thanks to the Wise Web Woman I stumbled upon a website called StumbleUpon. It’s really neat. You fill out what sort of things you are interested in and they find the websites for you. You give those a thumbs up or down so they can narrow the search. They save the websites you like for you so that you can go back and look at them better at a later time. I have found some great websites already this way, like this one or this one. This one is also interesting.

Well, you can see what sort of addiction your computer can become when you blog and do Facebook and do StumbleUpon. I was trying to be a member of some other groups as well, but it was all too much and I quit those, fun as some of them were. Try Plurk, for instance, if you dare. It’s not for me. Too involved.

Shoot, I need to go back to bed, I think, not enough sleep yet. Kicking and screaming I will make myself go back to bed. Or drink a liter of coffee.

Anyway, you all have a good one of whatever you are having.

Ciao…

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Well, shoot me then!

Darn, I haven’t done a damn thing all day. At least not any of the things that come under the heading of ‘household chores’. Everything is exactly as it was this morning when I got up, not one speck of dirt and not one dirty dish has been moved. Not that I have that many specks of dirt and dirty dishes, living here on my own and all that. I do have dog hair, however and I could have, I say, I could have, vacuumed today, but since the day is sacred, I thought I would not noisy it up with the sound of the vacuum cleaner. How is that for a fair set of reasoning? I am not even a religious person when I am in my right mind, yet I abide by the holiness of Sunday and always will.

Well, I did walk the dog numerous times and the first time was at 4AM, because he had to go badly and you don’t say it’s too early to a dog who has to go badly. I have fed him and the cats and given him his pills and his eye drops, so I have been a responsible owner, even if it is my day off. I have to walk him once more tonight and do his eye twice more and then we call it a day.

Remember when I was being all sentimental and so convinced that I should have a second dog and that I had to be talked out of that by my sister and my daughter and some other people? Well, these past few days the thought has been growing with me that after the Überhund is gone I may not want another dog at all, but just stick with cats. It would give me a lot more freedom to come and go as i choose and to spend nights away from home and make short trips. Now I am always rushing home at certain times of the day to walk him and sometimes I want to linger somewhere when there is a good atmosphere and a good conversation going.

So, I am going to put some deep thought into that. It is a whole new idea that I have to approach with a whole new attitude.

Well, what did I do all day? I hung out behind the computer doing all sorts of things on Facebook and on my new email address and on a new web group I joined. I frankly piddled the whole day away doing piddly things that don’t justify all the time I spent on them. Oh yes, I updated my profile on Hyves too, but that is no fun for you people because it is all in Dutch. Besides, I don’t move under my real name there, I am incognito.

I’ll tel you what I did on Facebook. I looked through the pictures of all the friends of my friends and when I saw a nice looking man, I wrote him a really nice message and asked him to be my friend. I only did it three times, so I was being very picky and they all live far away, so there is no danger of anything developing. Wasn’t that smart of me? I don’t know. It probably is going to backfire on me or something…

I just ate a bowl of asparagus soup and it is making me feel very sad. Does eating asparagus make you feel sad? Why would that be? Am I associating something with asparagus? I always think that the big ones look like circumcised penises, but that can’t be it. I have that sometimes with some foods, that they make me feel sad and I never know why. It is a feeling that passes after a while and I used to think it was like an allergy, but now I think it is maybe an association deep down in my subconscious.

I tell you, so much happens in my subconscious that steers me, that I am not aware of, sometimes I wonder if I have a free will at all.

It’s only just after 6 o’clock and I am already yawning. I can’t possibly be sleepy now. The Überhund is sleeping at my feet and snoring, maybe that is sleep inducing.

I tell you what. I am going to keep this short for tonight and watch some TV. The Netherlands are managing to win a medal about every day so we’ll see how they did today. That is, if I can keep my eyes open.

Have a happy what’s left of this Sunday. I’m not complaining about mine.

Ciao…

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Don’t shoot me…

Well, I can honestly say that I spent the better part of the day sitting on my rear end behind this computer and that I almost ignored the cats and the Überhund and the household and the world at large. Almost…I fed those who needed to be fed and walked those who needed to be walked and medicated that one too, and I went to the store in between showers. I even scrubbed the toilet half heartedly. If you are in a hurry to go, it is clean enough.

I made cigarettes and made a new appointment for the Überhund to get groomed and for me and my sister to go to Ikea Friday afternoon. I need to buy a rug for by the sofa under the coffee table, because I, unbeknown to me, dropped a cigarette there and burned a hole in the linoleum. Yes, I know, those smokers!

I rejoined Facebook, although I have some trepidations about it, but I will not make the mistake of becoming friends with everybody and their sister and start handing out hugs and flowers and good karma. I am going to be very careful and take it really slow and ignore a whole lot of things and people.

So, I was doing that this morning, sort of organizing the site and seeing if there were any groups I wanted to join. Some of them were so heartbreakingly pitiful that I could hardly look at the accompanying picture. These were the groups for good causes. I have to be careful there, because I am too tenderhearted and will walk around with it for hours and the subject will not leave my mind.

So, I joined the feminists, because they are not sad and pitiful, but strong and admirable. You can’t just waltz over them. And they are not helpless children or animals who have no rights and no voices to speak up with.

Then I decided that I needed a new email address and when I attempted to do this according to the instructions of the provider, I reached absolutely no result and got mildly irritated. The phonelines at the help desk were so swamped that they apologized and asked you to call back some other time, but they did have a digital way of asking a question and I soon got an answer which referred me to an on line instruction booklet, which helped me on my way and brought the solution.

After a little while, I had my new email address, but then I had to import my address book from the other email address. Well, I exported it just fine, but I could not get it imported for some reason, even though it did tell me repeatedly that it had performed the task. So, I sat down and hand wrote the email addresses that I really wanted on my new address and could be very picky and skip the ones I didn’t give a hoot about. I entered them all and now I have a really very good list of addresses of people I like and admire and am fond off and of whom I want them to know my new email address. I sent the email in batches, as I don’t know to how many email addresses you can send something all at once.

I also lost my Internet connection a few times, which meant I had to shut down the computer and pull out several cables from the modem and wait for about ten minutes, before I could reinstate everything again. It always does the trick, but it is a bother when it happens. Don’t you love it when things come with special instructions?

In the meantime, it just kept raining outside and everywhere was heard the hammering of nails in wood of people building their Arks. Animals are starting to gather in the street and it is quite busy at the junction with them milling about and trying to stay clear of the traffic.

Sometimes, for several seconds, I forget that I live alone here and I start to feel a nervous anticipation of having to get the show on the road and do something housewifely that will make me look productive and important. It is then with a great amount of relief that I realize that there is no co-habitant coming home, whom I have to justify my existence to and who I have to make room for. I don’t need to explain why I am sitting so comfortably behind this computer with the Überhund at my feet and no dinner on the stove, but a cat on the kitchen counter instead.

What joy there is in living alone.

Oh, by the way, the person who told me that the library membership was 70 Euros told me a great big fib. It is only 26 Euros, so that makes quite a bit of difference and I will be able to afford that. We have such a wonderful library with such a wonderful selection of books and CD’s and reference books. I must become a member, if only to work on that rock and roll list.

Well, my dear people. It is time for me to fix something to eat and watch a little mindless TV maybe. The day has rushed by again and I don’t know if I’ve spent it as well as I could have, but it has been interesting, to say the least.

Have yourself a splendid weekend and I hope you find some sunshine in it somewhere and send some this way too.

Ciao…

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Mad dash.

This morning I made a mad dash into town to the lawyer, because I finally, after 3 months, got that marriage certificate I have been waiting for and which could hold up all the divorce proceedings if I did not have it. My daughter took care of me getting it in the end, but it was like pulling teeth, very painful and very slow. We should celebrate the fact that we’ve got it now, although I am waiting for the phone to ring and have the lawyer tell me that it is the wrong kind of certificate and that the Dutch courts will not accept it. Heaven forbid. I must not call disaster upon myself.

Social Services has moved to a whole new location and as a result, I do not have my monthly payment yet or the paperwork to tell me what it will be and why. The bank account is dwindling again, so they better get their act together quickly, or I will be robbing Peter again. Nor have I heard anything yet about the housing and medical care subsidies, so I will call them on Monday. Life is a bitch…

I am waiting for the Exfactor to come over as he said he would come for a visit. He has a new cast on his arm and he does not need surgery. He takes the short train ride from where he lives into town and gets around as well as he can. I guess he hobbles.

I would hate to be bothered with an arm in a cast and I have never broken anything, except for some fingers when I was doing some plumbing, by putting to much force on the wrench and having the thing slip on me. Ouch.

Yes, I am a real do it your selfer when called for. The only thing I don’t do well is drill holes into these very hard walls that we have here. In America you just punch a whole in the wall wherever, with whatever nail you’ve got. No such luck here. You need a hard stone drill bit and a very strong drill and muscle power.

I guess the Exfactor won’t be helping me hang up any movie poster any time soon. Oh well, I still can go and buy the frames and get them ready to hang. Maybe if I look at my upstairs neighbor kindly. The top upstairs neighbor who is an artist, supposedly, is really an alcoholic. I’ve met him in the stairwell and been met by fumes of alcohol and I have seen his unfocused drunken little eyes. So, he is no great asset to the building. They always put at least one loser in these apartments. He is quiet, though, and I think he has several lady friends who keep him and his apartment looking presentable. He comes and goes on a scooter and it does look a little banged up. As if he uses unmovable objects to stop against.

Now I need to take a nap…

Well, instead of taking a nap, I washed the dishes and did some laundry, which are also useful ways to squander your time, although I would have preferred the nap. It is that sort of day. It has been steadily raining all afternoon and it doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon. I think it may be time to build the Ark of Noah and start sorting out those animals and fertile men and women.

The Exfactor was here with a very sore knee with a huge scab on it and a fluorescent yellow cast on his arm. It looked mighty impressive. he also had other assorted bruises and scabs on other parts of his arms and legs. He looked like he took a real slider.

The Überhund acted like his normal self, meaning that he nearly choked on his own little puppy sounds that he made out of happiness at seeing the Exfactor. He really makes a big deal out of it and gets himself so worked up that I have to tell him to quit. He could have an epileptic fit. The Exfactor has that effect on him always and makes him behave in crazy ways and the Überhund loses all his dignity. Luckily, the cats are cooler and only come to greet him when they are good and ready in their own sweet time, when they feel like it. Cats are so cool that way, which makes me think I have more of a cat personality than a dog one. I’d never jump up and down for joy for anybody like the Überhund does.

Anyway, we had a nice visit and I sent him off with an umbrella, although this does infringe upon his manly ego somewhat, to be seen with an umbrella, so I gave him the most masculine looking one and the one I least use myself. The Exfactor does come with an instruction booklet and I am glad that I am not the one who has to read it anymore. The Paramount can partake in that joyful activity now.

I can’t believe it is Friday again and that we will be enjoying another weekend tomorrow. It seems when you get older, time flies by quickly. It is like my life consists of very short weeks with very many weekends. I am not complaining about the weekends, but the time flying by sort of intimidates me, as it means I’m getting older faster and I am all in favor of slowing down that process. I have even started using a day cream every day to ward off wrinkles, which I will curse if they appear on my face and smear bat’s poop and toad’s slime on if it works. I’ll become a good witch and ward off evil blemishes to my face.

I’ve still got a list of rock and roll bands that I need to get the CD’s of from the library, but I don’t own a library card and I think they are 70 Euro’s, which is a little steep for my pocketbook right now. I suppose that for now I will live without this music and keep it on my wish list for the near future. I so very brightly and spritely want to stay on top of modern music and keep some sort of beat going in my body that is never allowed to die out. I need to stay on top of things all the time. I think it may be time for a little trip to Deezer and find out what the latest offerings are.

Right then, you all have yourself a really good day and a musical one if you must and keep it dry.

The trick is to not do so many rain dances, somebody ought to stop doing those.

Ciao…

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