Hi, friends!
It’s Wednesday, we’re getting through the week. How are you doing?
Is there anything lately you’re grateful for?
A simple one for me is this lil laptop I ended up getting – it boots up super fast and the internet actually is speedy to load things, unlike my old one which chugged along for almost a decade. Maybe longer?
Our cat gave me the gift of a dead mouse today. What a guy.
Did they bring it in from outside to share?
He’s an indoor cat, so it would have been someone looking for a warm place for the winter. I guess that’s nature.
Butcher Dog did that one time. Seems she had actually killed the mouse, then just kept the whole thing completely in her mouth and waited to be let back in the house. When I did, I didn’t notice anything odd. I went into the kitchen, got some water, came back into the living room to sit at the table and…there’s a very soggy and very dead mouse next to my chair.
This one was pretty wet, so I’m guessing the cat was carrying it around for a while. He’s eaten big chunks of a couple in the past, so I guess he was bored with this one.
Lots of things. But right now it’s the beautiful autumn weather we’ve been having. Warm enough during the day to spend time outside, cool enough at night for a fire. And we have much needed rain in the forecast for Friday that I hope will help with the wildfires in central and eastern Kentucky.
I’ve got lots of things to bitch about (my cold, all the repairs that need to be done to the house, etc), but I can also be grateful that I can work from home so I don’t need to take time off from work–or risk going to work and making everyone else sick. The house stuff is a HUGE pain in the ass, but we can afford to deal with all of it. We can’t afford to deal with anything else, mind you, but for now we’re OK.
I am very grateful for my two buddies that spent the entire day helping me pull up all the tile in my kitchen and putting most of them back without breaking them. We love the tile but the grout failed & a few broke, we had just enough leftovers in the garage to replace those. We would never be able to find this tile again & it would have been very expensive to redo the whole thing.
Those are good friends.
I am beyond lucky to have friends that will do anything for each other.
I would bet there was beer and/or pizza involved.
Lucky guess? Beer & Hawaiian food actually. Now that I can’t walk in my kitchen for several days pizza will come up at some point. They are coming back to grout tomorrow so more beer & food will be happening. #happywifehappylife
Those are good friends.
Also, today I saw a peregrine falcon for the first time. A couple nest in a tower near me, and as I was walking by I heard one crying out. I spent a couple of minutes checking the cry on my phone and looking up, and then I saw one flying to the top of the tower.
Very cool!
I was witness to a Peregrine Falcon kill once. Damn they’re fast and they do make a loud boom when it happens.
Not so good for the prey though.
I’m grateful for many things:
1) Having delayed emotional reaction to things (mostly) because I surprised my manager and supervisor going to HR. They thought I wouldn’t do anything because I didn’t react. Boy were they surprised last week.
2) All the grief my parents gave me, as much as I hated it growing up because it hurt. Their tough love gave me the ability to emotionally endure shit that would break a lot of folks. It comes with a price, but people underestimate how much shit I can take at times.
3) An available room at the Respite House or I’d be as big a screaming mess as my mom is.
4) Helpful people in various health services trying to help my parents. They’re just doing their jobs, but without them… see 3.
5) Both sisters who let me be the decision maker on the spot at critical moments in my parents care and not let their egos get in my way. But they also knew that I would consult/inform them on the decisions I made. They knew they couldn’t know what I know regarding my parents. I have seen family do this as well as friends. It disgusted me that folks would let their egos get in the way of helping people who need help.
6) I wish I could say I’d be grateful for an understanding employer, but well, you know I work for shitheads.
7) The Cokehead Narcissist and Former Housemate. Why would I be thankful to two people that helped fuck me up in parts of my life and who live rent free in my head? Because of the (very painful) lessons I learned from them. I let management fuck me over Cokey McSnortsalot because I couldn’t tell HR that I have to ‘care’ for a drug addict who was trying to ruin my life along with hers. Thanks to my barely surviving that, I hit management when I got a hint of them trying the same shit AGAIN FOR BEING A CARE GIVER TO MY DEMENTIA RIDDLED PARENTS!!
As for Former Housemate, I learned the art of attacking without attacking. That you never play into your enemy’s hands and what Former Housemate wanted was for me to create drama and appear to be the bad guy (which I kind of am) in the eyes of our mutual friends. I wanted to do that (emotional) but I was held back by saner voices. I know it pissed him off that he wanted to use whatever terrible things I would have done as retaliation to eject me from our mutual social circles but didn’t happen.
Regarding #4, I’m amazed in my encounters with the health care “system” over the years how many really good employees you encounter. Not just caring, but able to figure out what people need and then come up with a way to deal. And it’s obviously what they do all the time for years. The capacity to do this is pretty incredible.
I had surgery on my leg today and not one person asked how my day went.
So…same ol’ typical day for me.
How’s the leg? Are you doing OK? Hope the pain management is working out.
You’re Canadian. All of us south of the border aren’t worried about you thanks to your healthcare system.
Also, I hope surgery went fine and you have a good, fast recovery!
Hope you make a quick and complete recovery.
Oh wow, that sucks. How’s your night going?
Hope your post surgery recovery goes well.
@myopicprophet – I had no idea! I hope that you are recovering and are in no pain!
I’m grateful for so many things I can’t even count them. But if I haven’t mentioned it recently, I’m grateful for you oddballs, for giving me a place to hang out.
If you have Hulu, Summer Of Soul is a good watch and Sly and the Family were in it.
Yesterday, a older male neighbor asked me if I was pregnant (I’m not. Since having three kids, I carry excess weight in my belly area). Later that day, I FaceTimed my mom who told me that her and my grandfather met for supper and think that I’m fat and that that is a symptom of my laziness because I don’t work (for money).
I’m grateful to be living across the continent from my family and to be wise enough to believe that there is nothing shameful about being fat and worldly enough to understand that women’s labor continues to go unseen and under valued. Neither of those encounters ruined my day. They did however remind me why I set boundaries with my family and why I haven’t put any effort into befriending that neighbor.
If I were in my twenties, I would be dealing with that day by drinking to self medicate through my depression and feelings of low self worth. So I’m also grateful that I survived my teens and early twenties despite my family’s fucked up values and constant criticisms.
Wow, I’m glad you’re strong and smart enough to handle that bullshit.
Oh no. Your outlook is right.
You sure, you’re not a relative?
I got that shit all the time from mom (mostly.) She tried to prey on my insecurities too.
Glad you let that bounce off.
My sisters and I thought our pre-dementia mom was close to Lucille minus the alcohol and drugs. She wasn’t intentionally funny, but she certainly could be cruel as Lucille at times.
Isn’t it interesting how much we can relate even though your mom is Korean and mine is Cambodian? I find that my childhood and relationship with my mom mirrors a lot of first generation Asian-Canadian kids.
True. I know they did it from a place of insecurity especially when they were used to being in the majority surrounded by familiar faces. It was their way of trying to “toughen” us up not realizing we’d be better at dealing with the world they brought us into because we grew up here and not getting how insulting and hurtful those words can be.
And worst of all, as having been pointed out by my sisters and you, because I’m an Asian son (first born too so I was supposed to walk on water) so I avoided some of that harsher bullshit. My sisters left the area because of mom.
My parents were kind of sad that I never grew up in the extended family like they did. However, as much as I miss having more family, I don’t miss a lot of the bullshit either.
Mixed blessings.
Woooooow.
I’m so glad that 20s mindset is gone.
Oh my – we all know you, and you are awesome. And if I saw you in person I wouldn’t notice details – folks have shaved off beards or mustaches and I haven’t noticed for days/weeks because I see the person and not the covering. @hammerzeitgeist you are the best.