Sunday in the park with George

Well, gracious good morning, y'all.  Yesterday was a busy day with spurts of glorious inactivity.  I put together an aquaponic garden/fish tank that was supposed to take forty five minutes to set up but given poor instructions, rising frustration levels and a trip to Petco to get the needed betta for the fish farm, it took in excess of two hours.  Finally figured the sucker out, I hope.  At least the fish is still alive. And we will see if the basil and wheat grass takes off.  Ostensibly the way it works is the fish feeds the plants and the plants clean the water.  We shall see.  This is what happens when one is bored with just a little too much disposable income,

Today, today, today.  I think I have enough produce left for a small army but might make a trip to the farmers market just for the walk.  I have to hit the drug store for drugs; finally get my antibiotics for the mild sinus infection I have.  Have a Coke and a smile.  I have a lovely ribeye steak for tonight.  A light lunch and also pack lunches for tomorrow.  And just thinking of all that work makes me tired so I think I shall go back to bed.

It's Sunday and this is how I feel.  I should do something and feel productive in lieu of the beating up I took yesterday.  I think I shall wake him up and feed him.  Later, y'all.

A visit to Horrock's

After getting a hair cut followed by a slight nap, not of my own doing, Gastric picked me up for an afternoon of errant errands and an unexpected trip to one of my favorite "produce stands", Horrock's.  A produce stand beyond all belief. I dropped in excess of $100 on healthy stuff, including food for Donna and the Donnettes, ten pounds of corn.  I got some corn for me, too, as I have a lovely recipe for roasting corn in the oven and until we get the good local sweet corn, those small white kernels that pop off the ear, roasting is my preferred method.  And, oh my, cippolini onions, cubanelle peppers, two kinds of eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes that actually smell like tomatoes, Vidalia onions, and fresh herbs. I went berserk.  And then, with all this wonderful food in the house I went out to dinner with Brody's Mom.  She had crab legs to eat for the first time and while the crab was flying we got to gabbing and gab we did until almost 9:00, when we hastily exited the restaurant and hit a craft store to get some items for her impeding baby shower for the equally impeding birth of her grandson.  Got home late and fell into a deep sleep.

Today, ah, today, some of they lovely food will get cooked for a gourmand feast for me.  Roasted eggplant tossed with farfalle, grape tomatoes, garlic, feta and kalamata olives, tossed with olive oil and fresh lemons.  I do love to cook.  And ere know I live by myself I do eat well.  And the summer season is the best for doing some really fresh cooking.  I have some lovely shiitake mushrooms that should sauté up nicely paired with a ribeye steak and fingerling potatoes.  And then there is Therapy Mondays and the resumption of the fetal position.  But this weekend we dine!  I think for lunch I will make a small frittata.  So much to do, so little time.

Time to pay attention to cats.

Duckless in East Lansing

Okay, so I am home today, on the range as it were, with no ducks in sight.  Getting ready to go out for  a scheduled haircut and a day of relaxing things to do.  I was told the Troll Meister was on guard duty today so Donna and the Donnettes did not make an appearance,  I will hit the local pet store to get more duck chow and put in on their bill.  Alright, a fowl pun.  Sorry it will happen again.

Like I said I do have some running around to do, but will fit in naps strategically placed around the day.  I have a lovely salad for lunch and I plan to go out to dinner.  Not too many more Fridays off, have I will Yoda.

I am going to start back musically on Sunday, devoting the day to music.  Make a nice breakfast, pamper myself, and get out the tools of music and play my guts out.  I owe it to myself.  It has been so much easier without having to block Patricia into and out of my days.  It's been a week and no smoking Clovella.  I have no idea what she is going through, how she is talking about me or what, but I am free, I tell you, free.  Hyphen gave me some handy things to keep in my back pocket to use if she tries to overtake my life again.

I am basically taking a problem break, that is, a day of not dealing with reality.  Let's see how that works for me.

What?  You were expecting something more poignant.  Um, not so much.  Time for a haircut.  Woo hoo!

Donna and the Donnettes

The girls did pay a visit this morning.  Donna and three other female ducks all came for a hearty breakfast of corn and other seeds.   And they made the cutest noises, not very duck-like but more like baby snorts, almost squeaks of joys.  I just hope I have not earned the disapproval of the trolls of the library by having the ducks here for breakfast in the morning.  The more the merrier I say.  Even the garbage truck guys were careful in the lot not to frighten the ducks.  I "herded" them under a tree beyond the parking lot and gave them a pile of corn and seed to devour when I went into the building for the day.  I have tomorrow off, but I have given Gastric food for the morrow.  I know I have a obligation to tend to my flock now that they are accustomed to coming here for food.  And, man oh man, does it make my day.  Turns my frown upside down.  Well, girls, we are going to Horrock's tomorrow and more Jimmy cracked corn with be coming your way on Monday.  It warms the cockles of my heart.  You like me, you really like me.


Donna Duck Here for the Czarina who is weeping tears of joy over our appearance today.

Cut the Czarina some slack here.  She has so little in her life that us coming to cheer her up is the least we can do for the gourmet feast she puts before us each day we magically appear from under the bridge, and there are no trolls in our land.  And knowing she will be home nursing a cold but has left Gastric in charge of our feeding makes our little duck hearts flutter in our breasts.  I brought the girls with me today, my siblings, as we now feel safe enough here to come for duck chow.  Sorry we were late yesterday.  We did miss you. 

Now, as for Monday.  Be here or be here.  No in-between.  We can't want to try out the new corn feed.  Have a great weekend Czarina and feel better. 

It just keeps getting worse

I had a miserable day yesterday.  First and foremost, I missed Donna.  She came late to the party and I couldn't get out to feed her.  Second, I had a doctor appointment  replete with bad news  that has caused me some distress.  Because I take Abilify for the bipolar my blood sugars are running high.  I will say this in all honesty that my diet is pretty decent.  I don't eat candies, cakes or cookies on a regular basis.  The medication I take for one problem is basically creating another problem.  And, to be equally honest, I can deal with high sugars better than I can deal with being out of control mentally.  Although I have a call into the psychiatrist to see if I do have some options.  I have been walking over a mile a day, and it don't know where the hell I am.  No, seriously folks, I walk as much as I can handle, I eat a balanced diet.  OK, throw in the occasional pizza and a Coke.  But in general I eat lots of veggies and a low carb diet,  I have lost weight, not a lot, but it is a start. But the bottom line is I feel embarrassed that I am not in better "control" physically.  This feels like I am an out of control pinball waiting for the drain hole to come.

This comes on the heels of my rheumatologist wanting me to switch to an shot form of the  medication and quite frankly I am not prepared to take that leap.

Which leads me back to Hyphen...no we aren't going to live forever.  I am sixty now, well past mid life.  I'd like to have a few years to enjoy the fruits of my labors, relax and age gracefully.  I am not asking for a lot, just to slow the process of falling apart.  And I am falling apart.  Getting old is not for sissies.  I have been without a second kidney for over ten years and many of the problems I have now all impact that one kidney.   I figure the way my life has gone that I will reach a great breakthrough in therapy, get up to leave Hyphen's office and drop dead.  That's been the family history.  How else do you explain losing a beloved grandmother to a Montgomery Ward's truck during a funeral procession?   We are just fodder for a punch line.  "She figured it all out but before she could tell us she dropped dead".

Oh, Donna, sweet Donna of the muddy bill, what is the answer?  Oh, wait a minute.  She is ducking the question.  Why a duck?

What a day

That is what it feels like today.  As I am getting ready to depart my condo there was a necessarily redundant cute kitten roaming outside the building all alone and I, well, felt verklempt.  Poor orphan of the storm.  She ran and hid in the bushes and I can only hope she was running to her momma.  I obsessed about the kitten all the way to work.  And to add insult to injury Donna Duck din not make an appearance this morning.  Verklempt and bereft. 

I do have some manner of doctor's appointment today.  I will be grilled on my last set of labs, which by her account, were not very good.  But more than that, with all the changes in the weather lately I am feeling kind of, well, icky.  Maybe I can offset her concern with a case of the ickies.  Also, icky news from Doctor M who would like me to go to giving myself injections of my arthritis medication and that is freaking me out.  I don't feel like giving myself shots.  Well, I have a few weeks before I see her again and I can delay making that decision until I see her again. 

So all manner of anger and grief issues melding with medical issues and my state of mind is kind of crappy.  If I could breathe deeply I would but my sinuses are all plugged and I can't breathe.  Go gentle all.

More cause for fuxing

You may have heard me mention the cats' treat tower in passing.  Here it is fully realized.  The idea is you put treats in the top and the cat is supposed to snag them through openings on the side, suppose being the operative word.  From the get go Simcha figured out that the opening at the top where the treats go in was perfect for putting his whole head into and grabbing mouthfuls of treats at a time.  The other two, even watching him, have not adopted this technique.  They each have their own set of rules they play by.  Gonif puts his paw in and snags one at a time, like you do, and Yankel lays on the floor by the tower and waits for the other two to drop a treat.  After two years he decided he could indeed get his own, but why bother.

I bring this up because Simcha has me trained regards this tower in the most Pavlovian of ways.  Regardless of how filled it is with treats, he bops it, threatening to dump it over.  That is my bell.  I rush to the place I keep the treats and put more treats in the tower before he topples it.  Well apparently I missed the first bell.  He toppled the tower, spilling treats all over the floor, eliciting a string of expletives from me.  He, unlike Gonif, is not bothered by a loud voice; in fact he gets downright defiant.  So I am cussing at the damn cat and cleaning up a different kind of cat mess and he is calmly waiting for more treats.

I mention this as yet another example of how I take anger at one thing, e.g. a puking cat, and blow up all out of proportion to the actual incident.  The anger is frustration at something else, but it comes out as anger towards the cats.  That is to say I haven't learned how to deal with repressed anger at say my parents, and it comes out as inappropriate anger to the cats.  That's my anger issues for you.

So there you go.