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 I can not receive money from anybody else, as that will be considered income and will be withdrawn from my welfare payment.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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Really!?

Eduard has asked me not to write about him anymore unless it is in a businesslike way and he has asked me not to write about Lieve at all and especially not by her name. From now on I will refer to Eduard as Ed and Lieve as Lovey and I have suggested to Ed that he stops reading my blog. It’s a two edged sword, reading the blog of your ex wife. Enough said about that. Gggrrrhhh…

Being up early is the exception that proves the rule. I went to bed on time because I was just worn out, but I just woke up in the middle of the night all wide awake and ready to get up and have a coffee and a cigarette and maybe write a post.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon Ed and I went to my bank were he was taken off my bank account and my name was changed back to my maiden name. I also changed the account to an Internet bank account and automatically had a savings account attached to it, which is kind of neat, because i wanted that anyway. When I left the bank, the woman who had helped me shook my hand and said, “Goodbye Mrs S**ders,” which I truly appreciated, being addressed by my own name.

Even when I am home, I am filling out forms or on the telephone making calls to get things organized, but I think today will be a fairly calm day, because Ed has been so kind as to offer to go all the way to the housing corporation to pick up the rental contract for this apartment for me, which I need next week for my appointment with Social Services. The housing corporation is a long bike ride away from here and I really didn’t feel like making it and asked him to do me the favor. I have however been riding my bike an awful lot and have lost a couple of kilos these past weeks. Of course, I haven’t been eating that much either, what with my gastric band having been tightened and I subsist on a small amount of food.

Yesterday afternoon I was supposed to meet Ed at his work, but they were in a meeting there and I walked over to Café Monopole and had a glass of dry white wine on the terrace all by myself and it was very cozy. I watched the people walk by and watched the people watch me. Then I went over to M&S Fashion and bought a top on sale for 9 Euros. See, I do know how to amuse myself. Oh, that reminds me, I have to do my tiny little bit of shopping at the grocery store today. It’s so funny, the small amount of food I have to buy, even when you include the food for the animals.

I just got completely distracted making a shopping list and then I started to organize the kitchen shelves, but I see I need to do a proper cleaning and I better finish this post first, but it is funny that I can clean up the kitchen at 3:30 in the morning and not bother anyone. It’s amazing the things I can do at any time of the day, but especially during the small hours of the night. Those are the neatest hours.

Well, now I am going to end this post, because there are some glass jars that need a good cleaning and that need to be filled with some interesting things, such as different teas. Oh, such fun!

Have an absolutely smashing day and make sure you get enough sleep. not like me here who has a screwy schedule.

Ciao…

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Back to normal.

Okay, back to normal, or as normal as I can get it for right now. I woke up very early and couldn’t sleep anymore and felt a little bit distracted and uptight and then more and more so and finally realized that I had forgotten to take all of my medications before I went to bed last night. So, I took some of them and I will wait with the rest, because in a few hours it will be time to take those. Slowly I am starting to feel a little bit more normal again. It is not good to forget the medications! Especially not the ones that help make you think straight.

I had an especialy tiring day yesterday and I think it was an especially emotionally tiring day. In the morning I saw my SPN and that actually was fine, but it did get a train of thought going within myself about my past marriage and it was hard to put a stop to it, especially as I had an appointment with Eduard later in the afternoon to see the divorce mediator.

I don’t think it is a very good thing for me to see that much of Eduard right now, but it can’t be helped as there are all these details we need to take care off, but he does end up taking up a lot of space in my head, to the point that I start to think that he is living here again and that I forget that I can go my own way and do things as I want them.

The appointment with the mediator went fine too and a lot of things were clarified. It was a very intensive conversation and we had to answer a lot of questions, but we do know where we stand financially now and the picture isn’t all that bleak. We’ll both manage.

I have to go to the Center for Work and Income today to get myself registered to get my welfare payment started and my subsidies on rent etc. I also have to go to the bank to change my account back into my maiden name and make in Internet accessible and have Eduard’s name removed from it.

I had to send away for a new copy of our marriage certificate from the Sonoma County Courthouse, but I was able to do that on line and I hope that all works out well, as it was very expensive to do and it will be sent by FedEx and should be here soon. I have yet to receive a confirming email, though. If this doesn’t work out, my daughter will have to get it for me and send it to me by regular mail.

Well, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

This morning I have ergo-therapy and I am looking forward to that, because I feel a certain amount of stress and hope to get rid of some of it there. It will be good to sit around that big table and talk.

It is good to listen to the things that keep other people busy, what occupies their minds, what they worry about, what sort of troubles they run into. It puts things into perspective. You look at yourself and see that maybe you are not so bad off in comparison, that at least you would not want to trade your set of troubles for theirs. Some people get really raw deals.

Well, this is just a short post. I hope to be completely invigorated by the next and be roaring like a tiger and ready to tackle which ever problem comes my way.

Ciao…

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Mother Nature…

Mother Nature proved her point that I can sleep without sleeping pills by letting me sleep until just one minute before the alarm clock went off at 7 Am this morning. How is that for perfect planning? This Goddess is a genius. Then I walked around with the alarm clock in my left hand, because I don’t know how to undo the repeat function, so every minute, for 8 minutes, it goes off again. I peed and made coffee and took my medicines and gave Jesker his medicines accompanied by the happy sounds of the snooze alarm. Darn thing!

It doesn’t bother me one bit to sleep alone in the apartment. I don’t have the least amount of insecurity or fear. I have a flashlight on my nightstand in case the electricity goes off and I know what to do if it does. I was up very briefly during the night, an old habit, no doubt, and I made a cup of decaf, but was asleep again before I finished it and I am doing al of this without the sleeping pills. I think it is amazing.

Jesker and I had a cozy time waking up together and then we went for our walk which was chilly. It feels like fall instead of spring. Jesker doesn’t care, he just hops and jumps ahead of me full of joy and goodwill. Oh goody, all these bushes to pee on and stuff to eat off the street before She can stop me from doing so.

I vacuumed the living room and the sofa and chairs really well. Of course, the cats had inundated the new chair with cat hair and now I don’t want them on there anymore at all, so I have a spray bottle of water and each time one of them jumps on the chair they get a good spraying. They certainly don’t like that. Ruining my mew chair! I’ll show them.

At 11 o’clock Eduard came walking in without announcing himself as if he still lived here. We had to make a rule about that right away. Call to let me know that you are coming now.

He went hard at work in the spare room and there was a lot of work to do. Eduard did most of it, as it was mainly his stuff and I did odds and ends, but I did clean out my own closet and shoe storage box and filled some trash bags with junk. Eduard worked very intensively and hard, but I noticed that after three hours I started emotionally sinking as fast as the Titanic. All the stress and negativity and impotence came rushing back into me and I just wanted Eduard to leave.

Luckily, he chanced to get a glimpse of my face and asked me what was wrong and I told him that he had been here too long and that he should go now. Well, Eduard recognizes a hint when he sees one and left very soon after that and it took me about 30 minutes to get my composure back. It made me realize that Eduard and I can never live together again, because he has such a negative effect on me and I thought how sad it was that I had walked around with those feelings all that time. I feel such emotional freedom without him.

He is not quite done yet in the spare room and will have to come back, but maybe he can get the rest accomplished when I am not home some time. I become impotent when I am around him and I don’t want that.

I think, actually I am pretty sure, that I don’t want to be in an intimate relationship again, because I don’t think they bring out the best in me. I think I do best as a single unit with lots of breathing space and room to move around in. I feel suffocated very quickly and don’t like the clinging part and the we become as one bit. I thought I liked it, but I don’t. I pretty much hate it. A dog is as close a relationship as I want to have with a male character.

I can’t begin to express to you the experience I have when I am alone in the apartment with the animals. It is so very special. It is as though I have been given a new life after having been terminally ill for a very long time. There is so much quiet joy in it and so much satisfaction and so much pleasure. It is the most therapeutic thing that has ever happened to me. There is a total lack of negativity.

The closest I have ever come to this was when I was a teenager and I didn’t have a boyfriend and I spent quiet evenings and weekends home alone with my parents and just luxuriated in the very simple things of life. I always found boyfriends to be very bothersome. I thought I ought to have one, but I usually broke up with them quickly, not being able to do the relationship well at all and feeling a huge relief after I had broken up with them. If it had not been so expected by my environment, I might never have gotten married at all and just have stayed an old maid. I probably would have been happier.

Well, I can certainly be an old maid now, can’t I, Yippee! No need to go out and do anything conventional. Nobody is expecting anything from me now. I don’t have to dance the polonaise, as they say here.

Well, now I’m off to do some ironing and scrub the kitchen sink and maybe wash a window or two, if I am so inclined. There is nothing like getting a little aggressive with a bit of scouring powder in a dirty kitchen sink.

Ciao y’all…

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All day…

Sometimes it takes me all day to get in the proper mood to write a post and this morning i was too tired. I woke up at 6 AM and was so sleepy. I walked the dog and went back to sleep, no posting for me and the funny part was, that I hadn’t taken my sleeping pill the night before, so I am going to try that again tonight.

Now, when I say proper mind to write a post, that doesn’t mean that I am sitting here being miserable, because I am not. I just don’t feel like writing when I am off doing other totally unimportant things that keep my little life busy. Today was one of those days when I kept myself busy doing a myriad of things that I couldn’t begin to tell you about, because they were all of no great impact on anything at all. They were just piddling around things like walking the dog and downloading music and doing laundry and talking to Eduard about things.

I am happy to report that Eduard has found a temporary place to stay until he has his own apartment. He is going to be staying with some friends who have very close connections with the anti-squatters organization. This organization gets good renters for vacant properties so that they don’t become inhabited by squatters. There was a registration stop, but Eduard’s friend has gotten him past that process and will manage to get him to the head of the waiting line too, so he should have something soon. These are perfectly respectable places to live in with gas and water and electricity and everything, so it is not a primitive situation. He can live in one of these places while he is still on the waiting lists with the housing corporations. Eduard will be moving out tomorrow evening.

I feel very good about all of this and glad that this now has been settled. On Wednesday morning, Eduard and Lieve are going to pack up a lot of Eduard’s belongings and put them in the spare room in boxes that Lieve will bring with her. I am gone all Wednesday morning, so that’s why they planned it then. It doesn’t matter to me either way, but I will make a list of all the kitchen stuff that Eduard can pack and talk about that with him, since he cooks and I don’t.

It was a great relief when Eduard said he was leaving tomorrow evening. We are getting along okay, but he shouldn’t be here anymore now and I will feel better being on my own. He will come by once a week to take care of the bills and the administration until we have the divorce settled and we will have telephone contact. That’s enough. He says that he wants to get on with his life too and he feels uncomfortable doing that here, and I can understand that.

My mood for the most part is good. I do have my odd moment of sad feelings, but they don’t last long and I usually bounce back out of them really well. I don’t dwell on those times. If I think about being lonely, I try to think off solutions to combat that or I just wait for it to pass, because it does. Walking with the dog four times a day helps too. Come rain or shine, mostly rain right now. It comes pouring down like buckets.

Since Eduard is taking his big leather lounge chair, I am buying a chair from Ikea. It is called Tullsta, it is 79 Euros and I am getting it in red, just in case you want to look it up. I think we will pick it up tomorrow if we can borrow my sister’s car.

That’s all the news i have for now. Nothing earth shattering. I’m not really in the proper mood to blog, isn’t that strange? Me, of all people. I am too preoccupied with other things now.

Have a great day!

Ciao…

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Objection!

Eduard objected to the fact that I said in my previous post that he went out back to make a quick phone call before he went off on his motorcycle. He did not make a phone call then and he says it makes him look sneaky, which he isn’t anymore. So, I withdraw that statement and say that I don’t know when he made that phone call, but he did not sneak out back and make it. That was my mistake. I hope I rectified that here.

When he came home, we had our first ‘normal’ discussion about our divorce and what we need to do in order to dissolve our marriage. It went very amicably and I think that we will handle it just fine and that we will not have any major arguments about it. We seem to agree on how we want things to go and how to divide things up and who gets which cats and Eduard is being more than fair, as he should be. We will do it so it causes the least amount of upset for me and Eduard will help me in every possible way. It will be a friendly and cordial divorce and afterwards we will have a friendly and cordial relationship. I did not say friendship, I said friendly and cordial.

I, for one, feel greatly relieved. I don’t know how Eduard feels and I won’t try to interpret that here. I feel like I am crawling out of a deep dark cave that I’ve been living in for a long while and am going out in the sunshine again. It will be wonderful to live my own life by my own rules and be answerable only to myself. I am ready to be an individual and not to be in a symbiotic relationship that was unhealthy for the both of us. We were codependent of each other and it was not good, because we fed each other’s worst aspects. Now that we are going to be apart, I can see that so clearly. A lot of good is going to come out of this, I can see that now.

I am not planning on having another relationship, because I don’t think relationships bring out the best in me. I think I am dysfunctional in relationships and I don’t wish to be. I am afraid that, until I am completely who I am supposed to be, I will not function well with somebody else, and that may take me the rest of my life. That is fine with me. I will concentrate on other sorts of relationships first. The friendship kinds and the family bonds. First I will become the Nora that I have the vision of and that is going to take some practice.

My lumbago! Well, what can I say? It is painful, but the painkillers help a lot, they really do and I get around a little better. The desk chair is still the best place to be and I spent a lot of time there yesterday. I can’t afford another round at the physiotherapist, so ten days worth of painkillers should do the trick, if I need them that long at all. I’ve heard of other people that it usually lasts 4 to 5 days. Darn, and I was doing so well too.

I found a lot of new to me artists over at Deezer’s yesterday and made a long playlist. Some of them I can get at the library, so I will get the CD”s there. In the meantime, I can listen to the playlist. I just can’t share it with you, which is kind of a bummer, because I would want you to know sometimes which artists I have found and listen to. Have you ever heard of a band called “Death Cab for Cutie”? Well, that’s my point and they are good! So are Badly Drawn Boy and The Shins and Nada Surf and Phoenix and dEUS.

Well, me and my newly found wisdom about modern music! Jeez, speaking of the newly converted. If anybody wants to point me to a really good artist, then please feel free to do so. In the meantime, you can watch and listen to this. By the way, dEUS is a Belgian rock band.

I think The Netherlands should get together with Flanders and form one country and become the United Low Countries and have a president. We share a language and a culture and a history, we may as well become one and it would make for an ever so much more interesting country if we had the Flemish in it also. They have a better sense of humor then we do, socially and politically. We would do away with the royal houses and have presidential elections and all sorts of wonderful political parties. I wonder when someone is seriously going to consider this? Maybe I should start up a movement. They have wonderful food and beers there also. I think we should do it. All those in favor…Are there any Belgian readers in the house?

Well, now I am going to end this epistle. I’ve blathered on long enough. I am going to read some blogs, I mustn’t neglect my good friends out there. I am actually waiting for it to be time for it to take the rest of my medicines. I still have to wait 45 minutes, that seems like a long time.

Have a fun Sunday. Have a sunny Sunday and a lazy one.

Ciao.

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Discussions.

Thursday afternoon. Eduard has asked me not to discuss anything personal about him on my blog and he is right, of course. In my eagerness to tell my story, I do forget boundaries and I cross them and talk about other people’s personal issues and I should not. So, I am going to make it a point not to do that anymore. It may be difficult at first and I will have to carefully weigh my words, but I must make the effort.

For those of you who are concerned about my emotional well being, I must assure you that I am well. In fact, I am doing better than I have in a long while without going overboard. I am very sure of myself and I have made up my mind about a number of things and I feel comfortable with my decisions. Many issues have become very clear to me and I feel much less dysfunctional. I feel anticipation and excitement at the possibilities that lie ahead and I don’t feel an overwhelming amount of sadness. I know what makes me feel irritated and angry and I try to avoid those situations. I detach myself a lot and try not to get overly involved anymore. I do not feel desperately unhappy or unreasonably scared or frightfully lonely.

I feel just fine and I will keep feeling fine. I am looking into what sort of legal arrangements need to be made at the least amount of expense and stress. Luckily there is a free legal organization that helps you with all your questions. They have a visiting address and a website. I think we will be in good hands there. If Eduard and I can arrange this amiably, it should not be that difficult to take care off.

I am more than ready and I can already envision my freedom and I like the taste of it. During the day, when I am home alone, I pretend that I am and I like it. I am making arrangements to start up the daytime therapy that I was supposed to start in March. I have an appointment about that in June, on the ninth. I think I will start with one therapy and slowly work my way up to three. I will not chicken out this time. I think I will introduce myself to the group as Nora, as she is the emancipated woman who is going to do this all. It will be my coming out of the closet time.

Well, that’s all I wanted to say right now. I will talk at you all later. Ciao…

Thursday evening. Well, I’ve been comatose on the sofa for a while. For quite a while actually. Eduard walked Jesker and I didn’t even hear him leave go to his work. Now I’ve got the apaprtment all to myself again and I am playing all the new music that I uploaded to the Real Player from the CD’s that Eduard brought home from the library today. That’s to start filling my fourth MP3 player with modern music. I have turned it up a little hard and have the bass turned up too, so it really beats through the apartment. Oh, how I do like that. I am rocking in the desk chair. Now I need to make myself a mug of decaf and I’m all set.

The daytime therapy I want to start with is ergo-therapy, which sounds like erger-therapy, Erger is the Dutch word for to bother, so we actually call it to bother-therapy, because that is what it feels like. They try to pluck your mind through artistic methods, but I don’t mind. It is actually kind of a challenge. Once you know what the purpose is, you can work along with the process and achieve some results. If that works out and I feel comfortable doing that, I would like to try the creative therapy. I actually hope to meet some people there who are similar minded to me and who I can get along with and maybe make new friends. I need to broaden my social circle, especially if I am going to be a woman on my own.

I very much don’t want to include any men in my social circle unless it is clearly understood that they are included for platonic reasons only. I am, right now, so tired of the dynamics between men and women and the whole sexual attraction thing and the whole kit and caboodle that comes with it. I think I am permanently turned off and I would rather, more than anything, become an independent woman of my own with many other women friends. And dogs and cats, I must always have them for company. Jesker is getting old, but I will immediately replace him if something were to happen to him.

I don’t want my heart to be broken again, I know that for sure, and for a while it looked as if Eduard was breaking my heart deeply until I put a stop to it. I have made myself less vulnerable now, I have taken my love out of the equation and called it to a halt. I thought that there was no way I was going to let something like this happen to me again. Go crazy with heartache, no not me. I have let that happen to me in the past and I am not going to do that again. I will be a sage old woman this time. It’s not worth it to be trodden on by a human being who has his own interests at heart and get hurt by it. Remember, no drama!

Well, I will continue with this in the morning. Bright and early, no doubt. See you then!

Friday morning 5:30 AM. I doubled up on the sleep medication to make sure I would sleep well and I did. I won’t make a habit of it, but it is nice, every once in a while, to sleep later than I am used to. We have rain and thunder and lightening again this morning. I won’t be able to take Jesker out for awhile. I hope he is not in a hurry. He is going to be bathed and trimmed this afternoon and will look like a movie star when he gets back. Like an aging, overweight movie star. He’ll never get a starring role again.

I am very happily drinking my coffee and smoking my cigarette. My, life’s pleasures can be so small yet so meaningful.

Our electricity is going to be off between 9 and 12 this morning. They are going to be working on the cables. Can you imagine that I will have to do without coffee and Internet for that long? Luckily my sister invited me for coffee at 10 AM and she has a built in espresso/cappuccino machine, so her coffee will be very good, but I can’t smoke there. Oh well…

I have nothing to add. I’ve poked around in my brain, but there is nothing else there. I am going to take my medicines and get dressed and wait for the rain to stop so i can walk Jesker. So I’ll see you all later.

Ciao…

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If it’s Tuesday…

I woke up with a great opening sentence for today’s post, but now I have done some other things first, like react to comments on some other people’s blogs, and I have forgotten what it was. Something about seizing the moment and knowing when that was, but I am really not sure. Apparently it was the right moment just when I woke up.

A stranger came by and left a comment on one of my posts and, of course, I did what you always do, I went and visited her and she turned out to be South African and has a blog written in Afrikaans. This language is a product of 17th century Dutch, so I could read it and understand it with some amount of effort and I am planning on visiting it again in the future because it is a fun exercise to try and decipher the Afrikaans. I am not totally unfamiliar with that language, having read some shorter stories in it before, but always with the Dutch translation beside it. I think I had already told you about the double negative they use such as, must not smoke not, must not cry not.

For those of you who are confused about where my old blog is here, you must of course look in the archives and you will find all of my old posts there from the very beginning up to the moment I came over here. I didn’t actually physically take the whole blog with me, of course. Just the posts and those are what counts, and all the comments too.

As you see, I changed the header image to the blog. I do like to play with things and always try to find something better and I am awfully fond of tulips. I can’t find the photograph of the yellow tulips that I had originally, but I think these do nicely as well. What you do, is find a large enough image and then you have to crop a slice of it horizontally that you like for the header. I think this one has a bit of an antique quality to it.

I am sitting here in my fluffy warm bathrobe and I still need it at night, as it does get a bit chilly. We don’t have the heater on at all anymore. it is off now until October, but some nights it does get a little cool still. But it is wonderful to sit here wrapped up in this great big bathrobe and only have my lower legs sticking out. It is true that people should have more than just one robe and I suppose I will get one for the summer as well. I used to have a nice cotton one, but for the life of me I don’t remember what happened to it. That belongs to the memories I did not consciously store.

My sister came by yesterday with a bike of which the chain had come undone and Eduard is very handy and always knows how to remedy these things. It turned out that the chain was to lose and Eduard tightened it. He asked me if I knew how to do that, and I said, goodness no, that my father always took care of such things. I barely know how to patch a tire. In the States if something happened to my bike, we always took it to the bike maker. That earns Eduard’s scorn, as he thinks people should be self sufficient and take care of their own gear. He is awfully handy to have around, but that is something that I never got interested in, while I am handy with other things such as screwdrivers and power tools. It’s just that Eduard is so much better and efficient at all these things that I don’t bother. I am spoiled having had a very handy father and now having a very handy Eduard. A woman isn’t going to bother then, is she? It’s like cooking dinner while you are married to a gourmet cook.

I finally got the ironing done again yesterday and I’ll be very honest with you, I get it done because there are some of my things in it. Eduard has so many T-shirts that I can wait forever with the ironing. but if I have my clothes in there, I am likely to do it sooner. Those of you who wonder why I iron T-shirts, I have to answer that if you dry them on a washing line, they stay wrinkled and they don’t come out unwrinkled like they do when you put them in a dryer. That’s why I need to iron more often. I don’t mind ironing really, I just think I do. Once I have started, I don’t mind it at all. The only things I don’t like to iron are dress shirts. Luckily, Eduard doesn’t wear them very often.

I thought of something while I was ironing. You should never cheat on someone who irons your shirts for you. Somehow that ought to be a rule. Ironing is such a dedicated job, that the person who does it, ought never to be cheated on. They should call it: “The Intimate Act of Ironing.” You women know what I mean, don’t you?

I am sitting here with my head phones on listening to Massive Attack. What a super invention. I wore them yesterday while I was out walking Jesker, but I could still hear the kids screeching by the elementary school, so I didn’t quite drown them out. Sometimes I walk by there when they are out playing, the little ones, and I hear one of them use terrible language and I wonder where he learned that. At home, no doubt. I always want to go over and give a lecture, but I don’t know how to lecture a 5 year old I don’t know. I doubt the teachers would appreciate it. They would probably worry about me upsetting the child’s delicate feelings. They must be aware of it.

We have such a thing called the vulgarization of society. It is happening all around us and we have to fight against it. It has to do with catering to the lowest common denominator and appealing to the masses etc. That’s why I refuse to watch commercial television, because I think they are one of the greatest harbingers of it. Eduard will sometimes make an exception for a sports program, but I say you have to stick to your guns and not give an inch. I am unrelenting in this. I refuse to watch cheap programs and programs and films that are interrupted by commercials. I had enough of that in the States. Besides. I think the quality of the programs on the commercial television channels is pretty bad, They import a lot of, what I think, are the worst shows from the States. I can’t believe that Americans accept some of this drivel as good enough to watch. I don’t think we should, but there are enough people here who have no built in censor and who do. Like I said, television for the lowest common denominator. I don’t think commercial television is an enrichment to society.

Okay, that was my little social commentary. I think I am entitled to one every post and I don’t think I take advantage of it very time. So, maybe I should have two of them now. Nooo, I don’t think so.

I am starting to figure out this MP3 player. There are folders inside that contain whole albums and with a bit of trickery you can get it to play a whole album, but the trick is the trickery. I am not quite dexterous at it yet, but I have now got it to play Bjórk’s Debut Album. Yesterday I thought I had lost the screen, because it had gone black, but it turned out that I had the contrast turned up too high and by luck I got it down again, because I couldn’t see a thing. I thought contrast had something to do with the quality of the music. Hee, hee.

Well, I am just a 53 year old woman trying to keep up with technology on her own. I am not doing half bad.

Oh yes, I was saying to my sister how I wanted an iPod, but that they cost 229 Euros and she said that everybody in her household seemed to have one of those, but that they never used them and Eduard said that she should see if one of them didn’t want to send their iPod my way. The Classic iPod has 80 GB and a battery that lasts 40 hours. I don’t think one of them will find its way here, but the thought is nice. I should be so lucky.

Today I get to do two “fun” things. This morning I am going to see my SPN and I realize again how much she has helped me already and how much I need to let her know that, so that she doesn’t think that I am leaving her because I am unhappy with her. So, I need to make a point to tell her that. I am 20 years older than she is, but I can’t tell for how much wisdom she has in her area of expertise.

In the afternoon I get to go to the physiotherapist for a good back massage and I am looking forward to that. As long as she does not fall asleep while doing so, like she did the other day. I had to wake her up by coughing very loudly. It jerked her awake. She is an older woman and I think she possibly needs a nap in the afternoon. It is quite embarrassing. I don’t understand why these things always happen to me. I once had a psychotherapist who fell asleep in the afternoons, so I had to stop seeing her. I can’t believe or accept that I was so boring that she fell asleep.

Anyway, the image above, and I don’t know if it is any good, is made with a collage by Lisa Sarsfield and here is the original:

Right, that’s all I’ve got for now. Have a terrific Tuesday and slay many dragons. I haven’t asked you to do that for awhile. There aren’t that many dragons around right now, maybe there are in your parts.

Ciao…or cheerio, whatever…

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Amazing!

You won’t believe this, but I slept 6,5 hours all at once this past night. I just woke up and looked at the clock and couldn’t believe it.

It’s been a while since I have done that. It must be because of the really good talk Eduard and I had yesterday evening in which we got so much clarified and because of which I feel so much better. I think it has relaxed me to the point that I can even relax enough to sleep well. It was a talk in which was made clear that I made all sorts of assumptions that I shouldn’t make and Eduard decided to be completely honest with me like he should have been all along. It cleared the air really well. Extremely well, I should say.

For those of you who are worried at the disappearance of my old blog and the destruction of all my old posts, I must tell you not to worry, because I brought all of my old blog with me over here, so everything is safe and well. Nothing has been destroyed. I just thought, for various reasons, that it was time to delete the old blog. It had to do with timing mostly and leaving behind some unwanted baggage like I talked about.

I have started to listen to my MP3 players with the headphones on and what an experience that is! It’s like the music is in the middle of your head and it is a wonderful way to listen to it. The only problem is that you are pretty much oblivious of what happens around you, because you can’t hear the phone or the doorbell or what other people say or the volume of your own voice. Of course, when I first had the headphones on, I had the sound up quite loud. I have turned it down a notch or two since then. It is just such a pleasant experience to have the music in the middle of your head, that I am reluctant to turn it down too much.

Eduard had gone to the library and had gotten some more CD’s for me and I have downloaded those to my latest MP3 player, the one with the most modern music on it, and I am enjoying that one very much. It isn’t filled up yet, so I have a ways to go yet. I think I am three quarters of the way there. I can’t wait to get more CD’s from the library and download those. I already told you that I am like a kid in the candy store, didn’t I?

Anyway, this music I’ve got is quite cheerful, even the “sadder” songs about love and broken hearts. The tunes are quite snappy, if you don’t listen to all the words, and even if you listen to all the words, they are somewhat hopeful. They are not so down and out that they depress you. You know, so that you get all heartbroken about them yourself. The women are quite emancipated and don’t sit and cry and not take action. They get out and sing about what they’ll do to those cheating men. It gives you courage.

I think I am from a generation and a class of women who very loudly proclaimed how they were equal to men, and how they didn’t need them to survive in this world, and who then proceeded to very much pursue them and make sure they had one. Having a husband was very important. So was having 2.4 children and a house in the suburbs and a dog and a cat and two cars and all the advantages that come with that life. We were probably never more domesticated and “blessed.” It’s all very well promulgating emancipation when in reality you’re not. That particular condition is left to only a few of us of our generation, voluntarily or not.

I can feel myself getting bogged down in a huge political and social discussion about lifestyles and points of view and limited views on life, so I better not go that route at all.

Jesker has come out of the bedroom and very cozily decided to come and lie down beside me. I have been walking him very early in the morning, sometimes as early as 6 AM. He loves it and it is nice to be out so early. It had become the habit that Eduard walked Jesker more often than I did since I had been depressed this past winter, but we have decided that I should be doing that again and it really is very uplifting to get out early in the morning when the day is just starting. I had forgotten how pleasant that is. I have probably forgotten how pleasant a lot of things are since I have stopped doing them.

I have washed my bathrobe finally for the first time in 5 months. It was about time I did, but because I wear it all the time, it was hard to do. I finally forced myself to do it after I kept pulling it out of the laundry basket. I let it dry outside and I am now wearing a super clean bathrobe that smells delicious. I had yogurt stains on it and god only knows what else. It all looked very suspicious. Eduard says I should have two bathrobes, but I think we have spent the money for that twice over already.

What’s even better than a clean bathrobe are clean sheets on the bed that have been dried outside and we are very lucky when the weather has been good and they have been. We put some clean ones on yesterday and we couldn’t wait to get into bed. That’s so lovely! It’s like they feel different too when they have been dried outside. It would be best not to wear anything at all when you get between the sheets then, but that is giving away the family secrets.

Oh yes, before I forget. The image above is made from a picture of a box that was decorated by the Artful Eye and here is the beautiful box:

I am going to get dressed and take my medicines and walk Jesker so I will get a good start to this day.

I know it is Monday and maybe a tough day for those of you who have to go to a job, so make the best of it and don’t get to down hearted on your way to work.

Cheerio…

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Music.

Well, on this wonderful rainy Saturday afternoon, I think you have all been spared something. To pass away the hours, I have made a new play list over at Deezer’s and this time I have picked out all rock groups. I thought I would do things a bit different this time and show a completely different side of me. It was my intention to destroy the tranquility of my new blog with some of this music, to the great disappointment of some of you, I am sure, but what is a girl to do when she is home all by herself to pass the time of day? Right!

The only problem is, that I lack the capacity to install music on my blog the way it is now without buying more space and in order to buy more space, I need a credit card, which I don’t have. Ah, I hear you all breath a sigh of relief. I could borrow my sister’s credit card, but she is not home and that may give me just enough time to change my mind, because I do want to think about you who have your speakers turned on all the time and who are suddenly going to hear loud rock when you get to my blog.

Anyway, I did have fun looking for and discovering bands that I liked well enough. That was a bit of a journey. One band leads to 4 others and hopefully one or two of those are good and they lead to other bands. Sometimes you end up nowhere and you have to start the process all over again.

Another fun thing I did this afternoon was upload 6 CD’s to the Real Player and download those to a new MP3 player. It has Feist and Björk and Massive Attack etc. Pretty good music for a fun afternoon. Rocking and rolling all by myself, not really wishing for too much rain, really. I’d rather have Eduard in the great outdoors than indoors, if you get my drift. I want him to take me in his arms and kiss me square on the mouth when he gets home. No funny business.

Boy, I was in bad shape during the wee hours of the morning. I was so far gone from the straight and narrow, it wasn’t even a dash on the horizon anymore. I wonder how I get that way, what process takes place to get me there? It’s a mystery to me. I can only imagine some sort of an electrical storm happening in my brain that addles my thinking process and mixes up the proportions of things. The negatives and the positives. I am alright again now, but it took me all morning to get there and two walks with Jesker.

I am wearing my cute lavender dress and I feel extremely feminine in it, in spite of my cute short haircut. I’ve got my make up on and my perfume and a necklace. I think I could be ravished any moment now, although I don’t think it is going to happen while I sit here behind this computer. Well, never mind, god only knows who’d come to ravish me. It’s not going to be some 23 year old with a bare chest and biceps, lovely as that sounds.

Frances is right, whenever I start to talk about God or about the Queen you all need to get suspicious of my words and my mind. It probably means I am on a walkabout in my mind. I am out in the hot desert of my fantasy, out in the bush where I am overcome by what I think I see and not necessarily by what is there. It’s a strange place to be and it takes a while to get back from there.

I am now listening to Limp Bizkit, another group I had heard of before but never really listened to. Very interesting to sit and listen to a whole album courtesy of Deezer. I imagine that this is the kind of music my son would have listened to. I notice that listening to music brings about a change in my mind. In my case it really does seem to soothe me and it doesn’t have to be soothing music. It is all about the steady beat that counts. The rhythm of it that settles me down. It keeps me focused and occupied.

All the cats are inside on the dining table having a good look outside and being generally lazy. It must be easy being a cat and having hardly any responsibilities. You’ve just got to keep yourself clean and stay out of the way of stray cats and stay friends with the cats you live with. I don’t actually know how hard that is. Maybe it is more work than it looks and there are rituals involved that I am unaware of.

I try to make my life as easy as that of a cat’s. I try to be almost as uninvolved as that, but it doesn’t quite work that way. I do try to be almost that independent, but it doesn’t work that well for human beings. Besides, cats are very dependent on us when it comes down to it, but they have an independent attitude and I do like that. They have that aloofness and that remoteness that I like, as if they don’t really need you. In my case looks would deceive. Wouldn’t you like to walk through the world as if you were an untouchable queen? Oh no, there is that word again. Quick, change the subject.

I still have to listen to my new MP3 player and I will do that as soon as I shut off the computer. I like to have the best of both worlds, so when I have the computer on, I listen to my Deezer play list. The only shame is, that you can’t play the list itself randomly, you can only do that when you download the player. You can, however, switch to the next band.

In the meantime, I am drinking decaf Senseo, while I am really longing for a glass of white wine, but I suppose i wont tempt fate and go down that path and upset my delicate constitution, because one glass is okay, but I’ll want more than one glass and be happy to have three of four. Darn! Wish I could drink and get away with it. I have to face up to the fact that with all this medication I am on, it is probably not such a good idea. There must be a reason for the warning on the pamphlet that comes with it.

Well, I think I’ve told you enough things now. I could go on and on talking about insignificant things all afternoon until it is 6 o’clock, but you’d get bored after a while and forget to peel the potatoes for dinner. Right, I suppose i will shut everything down and hook that MP3 player up and listen to those new CD’s.

Have a good rest of the Saturday. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Oh well, is that good advice?

Ciao…

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