Almost done with it...

Jesker got his haircut and bath yesterday and the woman who did the job didn't completely blow him dry, so he was pleasantly damp when I picked him up, which must have felt good to him, because the hot weather has been getting to him as well. He is constantly trying to find the coolest places to lie down.

My sister took us over there by car and after we dropped Jesker off, we did some grocery shopping, which was real handy for me and quite a luxury. I bought two different kinds of bread and two different kinds of lunch meats and some diet mayonnaise, so I can make good open faced sandwiches. Salami is my favorite. The bread is so delicious and comes from the supermarket's own bakery, so it's always fresh. Luckily, I can only eat one slice of it at the time and I'm very full, or else...

Once Jesker was home again, after he was missed a lot by me for that short little time, I took his picture, although he was a little reluctant. He was being coy.


So, there you have one clean cut and bathed dog.

I spent the afternoon doing a little bit of housework and a lot of computer time. I am so very much not interested in housekeeping that I only do things when they threaten to get out of hand and then I go at them with full gusto. Like hanging up another load of laundry, which I will have to do in a while.

I am especially anti housekeeping now that I have those people looking over my shoulder with their schedule and frankly, I am boycotting the whole thing.

This morning I was up before the alarm clock and had a very leisurely time waking up and being ahead of schedule. It's wonderful not to have to rush through things and take your time getting dressed. Not that the results were more spectacular. It's too hot to wear many clothes, so I pull on a skirt and a tank top and my slippers and that's it. Oh yes, and a necklace to finish the ensemble.

I had creative therapy, I have that a lot, don't I? You're right, I do. Three days a week, as a matter of fact. I don't know how I managed to get such a nice schedule, but I did.

I had seen a very modern magazine laying around in the smoking room and decided to swipe it and use the photographs in it to make a collage, which I haven't made in a long time. I wanted to finish it in one morning, so I hastily went to work and cut out the photos that I liked best. Then I sat out to paste and paint and paint and paint some more and then I crayoned. Giving me this result:


You can click on it for an enlargement, if you wish.

I was supposed to meet Von this afternoon at our favorite café, but as the time drew near, thunderclouds started to gather and it started to rumble and Von called to cancel, because the weather was supposed to get bad. Pretty soon the heavens opened up and rain fell accompanied by thunder and lightening. I immediately opened a couple of windows wide and felt a delicious draft going, but it still hasn't cooled off inside and it is 26 degrees Celsius in here. Still, the draft feels good and it's better than air conditioning.

Now I must go and do a little bit of cleaning out of my own free will, completely because I've decided to. Not because anybody is holding a gun to my head.

Have a nice rest of the day. I wish you rain if you need it and sunshine if you don't.

Ciao...

Waking up properly.

What I need to do now, in order to wake up properly, is write a post, otherwise I'll sit here forever in a state of half sleep wondering why I can't get the day started.

I shut the alarm clock off at 7 am and slept some more, but I dreamed like crazy, so it felt like a lot of work. They are all dreams in which I figure myself out and face some things of my past symbolically.

I've gotten pretty good at figuring things out, as long as I'm honest with myself and I'm willing to look at the unpleasant aspects too. There are no deep hidden meanings in my dreams, usually. Most of it is pretty blatant, as long as I remember that it's coming from my mind and my imagination, which runs rampant at times, I must admit.

I dreamed I was feeding Africa. I had a black baby on my hips and a broken bottle that would not hold milk, but it would hold whipped cream. So I went to a wealthy house and sneaked into the kitchen and filled the bottle with cream, but some elderly men lived there and found the whipped cream and wanted it all for themselves. That's a pretty obvious dream, isn't it?

I don't know, maybe that dream does have a hidden meaning that I'm not seeing. Maybe I see myself as a third world country, who knows? And the broken bottle is my psyche and the elderly men are the men in my life and I can't live on ordinary plain milk, I need whipped cream. Psychologically speaking, because when your psyche is broken, ordinary milk leaks out and whipped cream does not and Africa was just a vessel to pour my meaning into. If that's the case, I'm more clever than I thought I was.

Well, I'm pretty sure that's it.

Jesker is going to get a trim and a bath today. Totally unaware of this, he is laying here beside me not knowing that at 1:30 pm he will be at his "favorite" place ready to be made handsome again. He always trembles a bit when I leave him behind on the table and I feel just the littlest bit bad, but it must be done, otherwise he will start to resemble a mop.

Oh yes, speaking of food. I have now lost 8 kilos, because this morning I weighed 91.9 kilos. Pretty good, huh? I love it when I get on the bathroom scale and I'm not expecting anything and I've lost weight. For now, I have 6.9 kilos left to lose. After that I'll see if I can lose any more. If I keep eating the way I am now without going hungry, I'll lose weight automatically. If I add cheese or yogurt, I don't know what is going to happen. I may like them too much and eat too much of them.

That's the thing you see, I can't have anything in the refrigerator or the cupboards that I like a lot, because I'll start eating more often, not because I'm hungry, but because it tastes good. I have to be my own policeman when I shop or otherwise I'll buy the wrong things.

Well, I'm properly awake now, so I'll get the day started. Jesker has eaten and no doubt has to go and do big business now,

Have a great day, you all, we're actually expecting some rain along with the hot temperatures. It will be tropical.

Ciao...

Being assertive...

Well, up at 7 am, woken by the alarm clock out of a deep sleep, I sort of stumbled out of bed, knowing it was important to do so, but more than willing to sleep some more, but I made it to the kitchen to make a mug of strong coffee and set myself down on the sofa with Jesker between my knees and proceeded to pet him while I attempted to wake up.

Jesker was very demanding, wanting to be petted no matter what position he was in, standing up, sitting down, laying down and standing up again and no cat was allowed to come near. I guess he felt like we had to do a lot of bonding, but finally he'd had enough and went to sleep

I made myself a second mug of coffee and drew out the waking up process to the last minute and then got the show on the road in a hurry. Luckily, my hair is always in relatively good shape, so I don't have to mess with it much and I wear minimum make up and have it on in no time. I scrub my face first with pure olive soap and it makes my skin soft and don't apply anything to it in the summer time. No foundation, I mean, for the color. I just go rosy cheeked like apples.

I got to therapy with ten minutes to spare and then hardly anyone was there and I had time to drink a whole cup of coffee and smoke two cigarettes while we waited for the stragglers to get there, who came in at various intervals.

We had a heavy duty session and it seemed that everybody had something very important to discuss and get help with, including me, but everybody got input from the group and there was much concern and indignation and compassion and advice for everybody. Sometimes everyone of us takes on the role of therapist and gives advice, guided and led along the right path by the real therapist so we don't screw it up, but we do give our honest opinions.

When I said, "Is this it for me? Is this all I am going to be doing, making sure I stay in a stable middle of the road place without suffering from these terrible ups and downs?" The therapist said, "Oh no, that is just you applying your safety net, it is not who you are, it is going to allow you to be who you are, which is an intelligent, talented and creative woman." She said that everybody required structure and predictability to some extent to help them be who they could be and I had to work on that extra hard to make sure I always had it as a safety net.

So that made it a lot clearer to me and I know better what to do now, I understand it better now and see my abilities and under which conditions they will thrive and I am to an extent the mistress of that. I have to build in structure and predictability every day of my life.

This was my food for thought for today and tomorrow and the days after. I have to give it a place and apply it to my life. Learn to do that anyway. It's not a message I'm just going to brush aside or say that I understand it and then not give another thought to it.

Anyway, Jesker and Gandhi were in their usual spot behind the front door when I got home, and Jesker pushes Gandhi out of the way and tries to make sure that he gets all the attention, but Gandhi just slips around him and gets it anyway. I do have two hands, after all. Jesker is not that smart.

I had to send my registration to the Center for Work and Income, even though I don't have to apply for a job, I do need to be registered in order to receive my monthly allowance. It's very important that I do this every four months and I always have it written in my agenda with the paperwork by it. Jesker and I walked to the mailbox in the heat and made a circle back home again so he could sniff in some different spots for a change. This is always very exciting to him and he lifts his leg all over the place, marking his territory.

I was expecting the "cleaning person" and hadn't done a thing and didn't give a hoot. It wasn't his regular day to come and I thought it was too hot to do anything and I was not about to apologize for the way things looked. I figured he could come in for a cold drink and then leave again.

So, that is how I handled it. I told him what I did do, what I didn't do, how I didn't stick to the schedule and that I liked to figure it out on my own and offered him a cold glass of juice and then he left and next week the "cleaning woman" will be back from her vacation and we'll see what happens then. I couldn't care less. I just don't take it seriously anymore.

I just realized that I'm becoming uncomfortable revealing intimate bits of information about myself and that I want to censor what is written here and I am dubious as to what to do. I think I will let it stand for now, because I've written it down already, but I'm going to be more careful in the future. I think I will not be so specific from now on. Generalize things a little bit more.

Oh, something I don't need to generalize about is my weight, I weigh 92.4 kilos and that means I have lost 7.5 kilos or 16.5 lbs.. Yes, kudos, thank you! This is such a safe subject to talk about.

I'm going to watch the news and eat a tin of mackerel or a salami sandwich. I have to think about it. Choices!

I hope you all had a nice day and that you're not sweltering in the heat too much.

Ciao...

Big Plans...

I had planned to sweep the floors and dust the furniture when I came home at 3 pm this afternoon, but I got waylaid by Jesker, who needed lots of attention and food and a walk, and then I got distracted by checking my bank account, which was surprisingly low and I was expecting some money to be deposited into it, which wasn't there, and then I got absorbed in reading my mail, which looked very important, but after reading every piece of it, it all turned out to be a popcorn fart, so I filed it away and was left, for now, with one bill to pay, which will have to wait until I am more solvent. Men, do I live an exciting life or what?

So, then the computer was on and I had a choice, do I sweep and dust in the heat, or do I park myself behind the computer at the end of the day and ignore the dust and dog hair? I chose the latter as you can see and I feel good about the choice and am glad to sit down here and unwind for a bit and let my fingers do the walking across the keyboard.

I can sweep and dust tomorrow when I'll be home at 12:30 pm, just before the "cleaning person" gets here and he better not expect me to wash windows with him, because it is way to hot for that and all house cleaning should really be suspended until the temperatures drop.

Everybody's idea of a summer afternoon right now is to sit in their gardens with refreshing drinks and I'm keeping relatively cool in the apartment where it is four degrees cooler than it is outside. Luckily, I have a well insulated place and the back is in constant shade, cooling things down a bit. I have the top windows open to create a draft and it is just working.

This morning I went to the tobacconist, where I had not been for ten days and I was pleasantly surprised that I made my tobacco last that long, and I made a side trip to a clothing store where I bought a decent pair of slippers for ten Euros. They are dressy and don't look cheap, but now I need to do my toenails, because they look kind of raggedy, because really, when do I ever pay attention to my toenails hidden away as they are inside my socks and boots so much? They are a long way from my head.

When I got to creative therapy, I did not feel like working on my painting and the therapist did not remind me to work on it, she has obviously forgotten, so instead I doodled uselessly with no plan in my head at all. I am just wasting time and sitting there doodling and accomplishing very little, but I like that right now, but of course I achieve nothing and that can't be the purpose, so next time I'll go back to the painting and be a good sport about it. I don't think I'm supposed to sit there and waste my time and have no challenges.

We were talking about the reality of life and I said that I didn't live a real life at all, but in a completely make believe life that had very little to do with reality and that I made everything up as I went along and that it was filled with virtual people, so I never became lonely.It's not true that I make everything up, but it is true that a large part of my life exists in the virtual world and that it is as real to me as the people who walk down the street, who I have little in common with.So it is more real to me, actually.

No doubt that little nugget of insight is going to get shared among the therapists in the office.

I always have great doubt if, in an unguarded moment, I should reveal these things about myself, as I keep so much of myself hidden. That's because I do know what's acceptable and normal and what isn't. Maybe I should reveal these things about myself, it might be good.

Uh, I 'm a little bit in uncomfortable waters now so let's move on to other things.

Time is striding by and tomorrow it will be July, I can't believe it. Here I am still waiting for spring to complete itself and it has already done so and we have had our longest day already. There is something about growing older and having time move by more quickly. I feel I need to accomplish some things before it is September, but I'm not doing them. I'm just floating on a passing cloud not making dents in the fabric of my life, not making big changes. I need a struggle with myself about something and to win a battle, but I'm not seeing myself doing it. I just see me avoiding difficult situations and me making sure I'm safe.

Maybe that's all I'm supposed to do, is keep myself safe. Out of harms way, but will it lead to accomplishments? Or is that an accomplishment?

My biggest accomplishment to date has been not to go around the bend when the opportunity has presented itself. I go a little nuts for a few days, but then I regulate myself and get back to "normal." I do this all on my own, without anybody coming here and holding my hand and without increasing my medicines. I guess that counts for something.

Oh well, let cheerfulness reign. It was a hot and muggy day today and tomorrow is going to be even hotter. They've torn up the fields and leveled them off and put compost on them and soon they will reseed them, but they will need some rain for the new grass to grow. Timing is everything. Maybe they know something we don't know. A long term forecast maybe? It would be nice to have some rain now to make the dust settle.

Have a great evening, everyone. I'm going to eat mackerel in tomato sauce.

Ciao...

At the end of the afternoon...

...I drink a mug of coffee to clear the cobwebs out of my head, but why are they there, you ask? I don't know! They just accumulate there after I've done a lot of things behind the computer, so it must be from sitting in one position too long that the mental spiders take the opportunity to spin their webs. So, quick, I must pour in some coffee to clear my mind and shake myself free of those raggedy threads that accumulate dust and forgetfulness.

I was busier at the beginning of the afternoon when I cleaned up the living room and the kitchen and did the dishes and a load of laundry and almost dusted everything, but came to my senses at the last minute and went to the drugstore instead.

I bought a new mascara, because the old one was damn near empty and did hardly anything for my lashes at all, but just elongate them a little bit to not make me look completely naked eyed, but it was a lot of hard work to get them to that point and then you do realize that you're fighting a battle and that you need to throw that mascara away and buy a nice new one. Which I did and it will make my lashes long and lush and it is waterproof, it said so on the package and I always believe what it says on the package, don't you?

I also bought myself a new jar of styling wax, because when I was at the hairdresser, I realized that her wax was a totally different consistency than the wax I had at home and she was getting such nice results with her wax, whereas I was getting crummy results with my wax, which I realized then was to thick and sticky. I just had the wrong wax. So I went to the shelf with hair products and opened each jar of hair wax until I found the right one with the right consistency and I didn't look at the price, I just put it in my basket.

Then I did a daring deed and went to the perfumes and eau de colognes and picked one out that was not too expensive, but that smelled nice enough, because I am totally out of any kind of nice smelling product at all, except for my deodorant and, since I'm a woman in heart and soul, I want to smell nice and attractive. I bought some Gabriela Sabatini and hope to God that the scent lasts all day and that I don't have to keep applying it every time I turn around.

Last, but not least, I bought some toe slippers and finally my little toe is not squeezed into a shoe anymore and it is very happy to be out in the open. Luckily, the weather is going to be very nice this week and I'll be able to wear them a lot and I'm thinking of investing in another dressier pair for when I go out, as they can be had quite cheaply all over the place. I saw a little store that sells them right around the corner. So, I must go there tomorrow and invest in a pair, but that will be all the shopping I'll do for myself.

So, as they say, it's the little things that must make you happy and they did indeed. It took quite a bit of courage to spend this money on myself, because right now I have a non spending policy, but it was necessary. As it is, I'm not going to be buying any plants for the pots outside, because despite the Exfactor's efforts at fixing my bike, it is worse than ever and I'm going to be needing a new back wheel, so I'll be spending the money on that instead. I have to make choices and my bike is more important than plants in pots, no matter how pretty.

The Exfactor is on a motorcycle trip to France right now with the Paramount and should be back by the weekend. They are camping and carrying all their gear with them. You can see that they are well suited for each other, because that's not the kind of trip that would have made me happy. I'm more of a luxury animal and like Bed & Breakfasts or little hotels. And traveling by car or train. I never did take to riding on the back of the motorcycle and found it a very primitive form of transport and mighty uncomfortable and I was very embarrassed about the whole thing at first.

Well, now I've got to take Jesker for a walk and have something to eat.

I hope you all had a nice day and that you will have an equally good evening.

Ciao...

No Dawdling.

If I don't dawdle I can very quickly write a post before I have to get my act together. I am sitting here in the early morning and have been up for awhile, because I went to sleep early last night. It was wonderful, I couldn't keep my eyes open and laid down in the bed like the Lady of Shallot and drifted off to sleep and dreamed intricate symbolic dreams that were very meaningful to me and give me food for thought.

It is creative therapy day and I'm looking forward to it very much. I will be working on that circular doodle that I'm coloring with ink as I go along. I'm hoping it will turn out even better than the other three, because there will be much less black in it. You learn as you go along and you learn from you probable errors, even if they are little ones. I don't mind that, as long as there is headway.

I've forgotten to put out the trash, because I went to sleep so early and just now the trash man came by. It was too late for me to run out half dressed to put my bag out. Well, it isn't the first time I have forgotten and I will just have double the trash next week. I pay per bag, so it's no big deal.

You must have all noticed that my mood has become "normal" again. It has for a few days now, but I didn't want to mention it in case it was just a freak occurrence and I'd start cycling again, but I'm pretty sure it's over now. This is a great relief to me, because there is nothing nicer than knowing in what sort of mood you will be all day long and to have it be mostly upbeat is a nice bonus.

The things to do are, eat on time, drink something nutritious regularly, get away from the computer on time, rest every once in a while and go to sleep on time, no matter what time that is. Oh yes, and take breaks from whatever you do. In my case I get to walk the dog and make cigarettes and sit by the dining table for a while and look out the window and contemplate my navel, which is highly underrated. You must contemplate your navel regularly.

I got up this morning and had to give the cats fresh milk and kibbles and the dog clean water. There's always so much to keep your eye on and the cats will give off signals, but the dog doesn't let on anything. He'd go thirsty all day if I didn't pay attention. Sometimes I feel like a mother hen, busy clucking over her chicks, making sure my brood is safe and sound.

I suppose that's very similar to motherhood, if I think back on it, except that having animals is easier, because you don't constantly have to pick them up and reassure them that you love them. They come to you to be petted, but if you don't have time, they aren't traumatized and they just wait for the next opportunity. They also don't cry when they fall over, because they don't, having four feet to stand on. They also eat everything in their dish and go to sleep without making a fuss.

I have to decide what I'm going to wear. It's going to be a hot day today with lots of sunshine. I think T-shirt and denim skirt day, but not the mini one, because I'll have bare legs and I don't want to show too much of them to the world. I think I'm past the age of showing a lot of leg. Maybe Tina Turner can do that, but she's got a nice pair.

Right, I'll get the show on the road now. I've got to do all my morning chores in a hurry.

Have a terrific day, hope the weather treats you nice.

Ciao...

Easy as pie...

I have been writing very short stories here and here, so if you want something to read, be my guest and indulge. I've been using this weekend to catch up on such things and it pleases me very much to do so, because I get a chance to read what other people have written and comment on those stories as well. We short story writers need a lot of encouragement, although I think the true dedicated ones will write without it also, just for the sake of writing, as long as there is a forum for them.

Today is the glorious day of Sunday, the day on which no work is done, officially. I did clean up the kitchen and living room a bit before I sat myself down here, but I ought to do some dishes and it may be possible that I'll do those yet and a load of laundry. As long as I'm doing it out of my free will, and not because I'm compelled to out of a feeling of guilt, I think I can handle those few chores.

I've just used the last tall glass that was in the cupboard to drink my juice from and now I only have little glasses left, so I must do the dishes, because I refuse to drink from a little glass. I'm a true American and only want large portions of anything. I also drink my coffee from the largest mug that I have in the apartment and it is just big enough for a double serving of Senseo.

When offered a cookie, I always take two. One cookie is nothing. It hardly opens up your taste buds, but here it's normal to take only one. I think that's so Puritan. I think you really should eat four cookies at one sitting. Two at the time with your two cups of tea. That's not too much, is it?

When having people over for dinner, I think there should be an abundance of food and not just enough to go around. People should feel free to take seconds or thirds and you should never be in the position where you have to say to them that the food is all gone, except for the meat dish maybe, or if it is an individual fish portion. All other things should be piled on. You want people to waddle home and groan while they're doing it. I learned that while being part of a large American family and no, I wasn't overweight then.

Until I was forty, I was a comfortable size 10 in the States, or a size 40 In the Netherlands. Then I started to take anti depressives and anti psychotics and mood stabilizers and I gained a tremendous amount of weight, but nobody warns you about that or sends you to a dietitian to guide you through this process. I'm not the only one this has happened to. People gain 40 or 50 kilos on those medications.

Well, anyway, let's not look back on that too much, because it is water under the bridge and I am losing weight, but I had to lie my head off to get that gastric band.

I just had a tin of mackerel in tomato sauce and it was delicious as ever. They are just very small tins, but I can handle one of them. I always burp something awful afterwards and can't drink anything for half an hour or so. That would overload my system and I have to wait until the food has passed the band. Therefor all the burping.

I have been drinking a light vitamin juice, beside the regular vitamin juice that I drink, because I want to drink less coffee and it's nice to have a cold drink now that the days are so warm. The fact that it's a light juice, makes me feel not so bad about drinking it, because the regular vitamin juice is packed with calories. I have two glasses of that a day. I have two or three glasses of the light juice and an added benefit of that one is that it keeps you regular, if you know what I mean. A woman my age can use a little help. Another option would be prunes or prune juice, which are not as great.

I like it better than drinking the light coke, which has a lot of caffeine in it and no vitamins and I do want everything that I eat or drink to be healthy for me. Even my coffee has low fat milk in it and not a little bit either. I'm quite generous with it. I drink almost a liter of milk a day, so that's about a quart. Some of the milk goes to the cats who need theirs refreshed twice a day.

My, how did I get so serious all of the sudden? You'd think I was preparing a food manual. Maybe mackerel is brain food and my brain cells have been affected. I need something to make me funny fast. It's too bad I know only one good joke and even that one is of dubious quality.

I'm actually a quite funny person, you know. A la Monty Python, in a very silly sort of way. I like the ridiculous, like slapping people about the head with large fish and the department of silly walks. My son and I always used to do that one. He'd say, "Walk this way," and go off walking in a very silly way and I would follow him walking in the same silly way. He was a great Monty Python fan.

Well, now I'm going to do a few of those chores I was talking about. If I can pull myself away from the computer, that is. It's so addictive and then you get new emails that need to be answered.

Have a good rest of the Sunday and be restful, please.

Ciao...