Difficult days

Posted on May 1, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

Today was one of them. There’s been a lot of stress in my life the past couple of months, I have a very hard time watching someone I love in pain, mental and physical pain, when I can’t fix it. I’m the support system – and I don’t mind, it’s not like I’ve never needed someone to be there for me when I couldn’t hold myself together.

So I’ve smiled and carried on.
And today, I took Max to a thing with me where there were a bunch of dogs, all of whom he thought he needed to greet. Sadly, there was a three foot rule in place, all dogs had to be kept three feet apart. Max doesn’t understand not being able to greet every dog he sees, after all, aren’t they just friends he hasn’t yet met? So the hours we were there were spent with him hauling me around, trying to get to the nearest dog.

Had I been alone, I would have just taken him home and gone back by myself. I went with friends, who were off looking at the stuff for sale, and totally oblivious to my struggles. So I talked to some people, and tried to get him to settle, and got him a drink, and walked around – while he pulled me in the direction he wanted to go. I’d finally had it when my friend headed for the car to put something in. I said I was just going to leave him in the car and she said no, she’d take us home.
Relief was short lived – he had pulled so hard that he set off a chondritis flare – one that had been lurking for the past couple of days.

I went to bed when we got home. I slept for 4 hours. I had a minor meltdown first, too much stress, too much on my shoulders, a weight I needed to put down for a few minutes.

I still hurt. The weather and the pulling combined to make my ribs cry. But I’ll be okay, and I’ll find my strength and keep on smiling and being the strong one for awhile.

Just as long as I can get a nap every now and again.

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Dear Orioles

Posted on April 22, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

Kansas City is NOT that great a team, you can beat them if you get it out of your heads that you can’t.
Even if the announcers think that every Kansas City player is the second coming, you don’t have to agree.

I can’t watch the games when these two teams play each other. I just want to reach into the tv and smack the announcers – on both sides.

Good thing we have more than one TV! Bear can watch happily and I can go quilt or watch something else.

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He is NOT a senior!

Posted on March 9, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

Max is 8 years old. Eight and a half, actually. Yesterday, he was a puppy. He came into my life, into my arms, and changed my world. He drives me crazy, and he makes me laugh, and he’s the only creature on this earth who has ever totally loved me – totally been mine.

And now he’s 8 years old. They tell me that makes him a “senior.” Every time I think about it, I burst into tears. Do I start counting the days we have left? Senior implies the end is near. I’m not ready for that. I’ll never be ready for that.

So he’s not a senior. He’s just a bit older than he used to be.

And if he doesn’t quit barking at whatever is outside and making me think there’s an axe murderer in the woods, he may not get to be a senior after all!

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Tuesday random thoughts

Posted on February 23, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/events/tuesday-chatter/

  • students are way too addicted to cell phones
  • parking is a nightmare
  • my ribs hurt
  • it’s a full moon – and raining, double whammy for the ribs
  • this is the first day in ages that I wiped out my to-do list by 5 pm
  • I love the library
  • Unplanned walks with Max turn out to be the best kind
  • I hate Winter
  • I wonder who thought it was a good idea to replace booze ads with drug ads
  • Crocheting scrubbies is way too much fun

I have way too much random chatter going on in my brain.  🙂

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A tale of two cities

Posted on February 22, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

A Tale of Two Cities

I grew up in a small town. I lived there for almost 50 years, knew every street, pretty much every person – I was related to most of them.

And then I moved. I moved to another small town.
Suddenly I didn’t know where I was going most of the time, and didn’t know a soul other than my husband. Where was the party to welcome me? Where was the marching band? Didn’t these people know that I had arrived in their midst?

Well. No, they didn’t. It was scary at first. It was kind of like having surgery and being in recovery – for months. When you’re recovering from surgery, every step, every move is hesitant. Going for groceries? Wait, let me think about how to get to the store. I got lost trying to get out of a parking lot – one of those that seems to have been built by a drunken Irishman on a three week binge. I cried in the car. I cried all the way home.

And when I got home, I realized that I was, in spite of the struggles, home.

It’s been 12 years since I moved. I still miss that small town where I grew up. I haven’t been back in years, but I still miss it. I’d spend a month there every summer if I could.

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The Silver Spoon

Posted on February 11, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

My mother always used a silver spoon.  It was the only silver spoon we had, and it was Mother’s – no one else ever used it.   I used to think it was a quirk, because my mother had many of those.   Now, I’m not so sure.   Mother was a lady, in spite of being from a poor family, a family with 14 children is almost by definition a poor family.   Her father was a carpenter, her mom had babies.

And yet she married a man from a fairly wealthy family.  She managed to create a lifestyle that was very much middle class – never rich but never worried about paying the bills.   She lived through the Depression and the war, and came out on the other side, stronger for the experiences.

And so the spoon.  I think now that the spoon was a symbol to her.  She wasn’t born with a silver spoon, but she damned sure lived like she had been.

I fought for that spoon when she died.  We fought over many things, some trivial, some more important.  My sisters couldn’t understand why I wanted that spoon so badly.  I really didn’t understand myself.

I’m very much like my mother.  I am, in spite of myself and my tendency to curse like a sailor, a lady.  And I have the silver spoon to prove it.

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thinking about every move

Posted on January 31, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

It’s tiresome to have to think about every move your body makes.   Sometimes I feel like I should write down every single thing I do in a day so I can go back and pinpoint the single thing that’s making me hurt so much today.   Shall I wrap myself in a warm fuzzy blanket and spend the day on the sofa?  Probably not, not moving makes me hurt almost as much as moving does.

I need to get back to walking.   As strange as it sounds, it helps – maybe it’s getting the joints moving or something, but it really does help.   The snow has made that impossible – it’s been over a week since we were able to get out for a walk.   We went past the park yesterday, it looked like a sheet of white everywhere.   That alone shows how bad this storm was, every other time it’s snowed, there are still people out walking the paths, making tracks for others to follow.  Not this time.   The entrances to the park are still plowed in, only one is open and it looked like only the parking lot is clear.

So is it from lack of walking?  Is it that I lifted a case of beer?  Is it that I took Max to the stores yesterday and he sort of wound himself around me, as he likes to do when he wants to leave?   Is it from our trip to the store on Friday, where we sat for two hours selling coupon books for the therapy group, and he pulled me around a good bit?   Or is it stress because classes have started and, as usual, I feel like I’m always catching up?

I wish there was a cure.

 

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Slug time

Posted on January 22, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

I took the dog for a walk.   I have nothing else planned today because OH MY GOD, WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE snow is supposed to be coming.   I’ve successfully done next to nothing for the past couple of hours.

Well, I did try to read but then Max decided he wanted out and in and out again.   Makes it tricky to curl up with a book when you have to keep getting up and down.

My ribs aren’t aching nearly as much as they should be if we’re really getting all this bad weather, so we shall see if it bombs out or not.   (Praying that it does)  Part of me wants it to bomb, but part of me wants it to be over and done so the snow lovers can quit their damned whining about how much their kids want to build a snowman.  (Hint, no they don’t, you do)

 

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grocery stores and snow storms

Posted on January 20, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

I actually do need bread!  I would rather have a root canal without novocaine than go to the grocery store tomorrow because a “BLIZZARD OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!”  is predicted.   The stores will be packed with people in a panic, and the shelves will probably be bare.   I need bread for the Bear’s lunch on Sunday – so I can’t really wait.  I don’t want to go tonight, so I guess I just grin and bear it.

I don’t quite the need to clean out the grocery stores.  If there’s that much snow, no one will have time to cook, the power will probably go out and your eggs and milk will go bad anyway.

I love the posts about how people want to sit by the fire and sip hot chocolate.  Yeah, most likely fall asleep in front of the fire – if you’ve had enough energy to build one – because you’re so exhausted from shoveling.   Don’t forget to shovel off your roof as well!

 

Posted in snow, weather | 1 Comment

The hype monster is at it again

Posted on January 19, 2016 by suziecreamcheese

I disabled my facebook account a few minutes ago.   I can’t deal with weather updates every few minutes, that don’t tell me anything and make me feel like my insides are being crushed because someone actually posted that there might be three feet of snow on Friday.

It’s just more fun to hang out in my virtual class and see who logs in first.

 

 

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