Well.
I ended up having ‘one of those days’ yesterday. I couldn’t climb out of my funk. Nothing seemed to go right. I was depressed by the rain and cold and the lack of spring weather. I was more than depressed about Spanky and his corrupt gang of grifters.
Don said he was having the same sort of day. Maybe something was in the air? Something astrological? (I don’t follow astrology, but what the heck.)
It’s still very cold. Too cold to do more work in the garden. And temps are really not going to rise significantly until the last week in April. Insane.
I spent part of the day connecting the new cable box and then trying to replace a perfectly good modem with another one that our cable provider sent. Of course, that means I was on the phone with our cable company for a long time. Turns out that the new modem didn’t have a phone jack and we still have a land line and are not about to get rid of it. So I reverted back to the other modem, which was working perfectly well.
Now I get to go to the local cable office and drop off old modems, new modems and the old cable box. Oy. I miss the days (not that long ago) when someone actually came to the house and hooked everything up. Now we seem to pay even more for cable minus the in-person customer service. I told them so during my extensive phone time with them yesterday.
And then to top it off, while I was buttering my baked potato and getting ready to sprinkle it with pepper, I mistakenly grabbed the cinnamon, which promptly dumped all over the potato. I like cinnamon, but not on a baked potato.
Good times.
Today is a new day.
Attitude readjustment in process.
Happy Wednesday.
agree about the decline in customer service … and a cinnamon potato.
good luck with the modem, errands, weather … everything!
working on my own attitude adjustment. as jimmy says (sings), maybe i need a change in latitude. :) you, too?
happy wednesday.
kathy in iowa
Yes! A change in latitude, for sure.
meant to tell you that i looked for that bunny pillow at target and could not find it. too bad for me, but i am glad for someone else to get it. :) it looks great there where you have it. so do your other new pillows.
i read more non-fiction than fiction books … by far. like maybe ten non-fiction books in the twenty-one years i’ve been back here, but i just might read “a gentleman in moscow”, based on your recommendation. thank you. and hopefully there’s no ice or snow to prevent amor towles from speaking about his book here next tuesday!
kathy in iowa
xo
Bless your heart, some days are just like that aren’t they? The weather is the canopy of our lives and affects us in so many ways. Hopefully today is better and with your resilient nature I’m sure it will be. I know your blog helps my days as it’s nice to know there are others that care about things in the same way. Hopefully together we can make a change.
Thank you for your kind words, Janet!
ditto!
kathy in iowa
I hope today is better. We all have one of those days when world and national events and personal issues join to fill our brains. It can’t be easy for you and Don to be apart and to realize that could be your life for years if the show continues and continues. If it makes you feel better, it poured icy rain here in Saskatchewan yesterday. Yuck!
I don’t think it will be our life for years, but hopefully, for at least a year!
I truly hate days like that! I got up too early this morning because I had to watch Scout for awhile. She hit her tooth/ gum on the faucet in the tub last night and Sara wanted to take her to the dentist to make sure she is ok. I’ll probably have her back for the afternoon. Mom had an eye ck up after surgery and all is healing well. It’s sunny but cool out. Where is Spring? I need a nap!
Poor Scout! Glad your mom is doing well, Linda.
Maybe you started something new with cinnamon on potato. It could be the next taste sensation. Maybe it will go global, and they will rank your creativity in the kitchen right up there with James Beard. It could happen.
I was complaining about our snow the other day. It’s gone. Now we have mud. Which is not as pretty. I remember about 4 or 5 years ago we had a significant snow fall in JUNE! I am not going to complain anymore about snow in April.
I’m so over this cold weather. I want and need spring!
Hi Claudia,
All those things can just sneak there way in and around the best of attitudes and then having cinnamon atop a scrumptious baked potato you are about to enjoy seems so huge!!! Just Awful!(in that moment)!! Surely all kinds of ‘energies’ are influencing us in ways we aren’t
necessarily aware of. (and yes,moving into my building last year i had a modem situation as well)
Your approach of beginning anew and starting over (again & again) in whatever way seems the way to hang in there. (sometimes with a little break thrown in if possible)
Sending Love
Yes. I have no choice! I don’t want another day like yesterday!
Oh, Trudy, I am sorry but I have to mention ~ i.e. complain ~ that the winter weather adv we had was just changed to a winter storm warning. It is icing right now w/ 4-6 in of snow to follow this afternoon. I now hope I do NOT have to use that 4-letter word again for many many months.
Funk all around. I think physically and mentally it is affecting all of us. Just ugh.
Sometimes it seems like it is just a cinnamon potato day/ week/ month/ year.
Oh no! You guys have been through way too much lately! I love the idea of a ‘cinnamon potato day!’
Oh, Claudia, you are allowed a bad day but they are never fun. Sorry, but I laughed over the cinnamon; truly I did.
I don’t always mean to share a similar story and bring the focus back on me-me-me but I TOO had a horrible day yesterday. Sunday night, I went into the front yard after dark to make sure my husband had locked up gates after yard work, and cars after washing them, because he notoriously never locks up anything. I had a flashlight but I’m not overall strong right now due to my poorer health over the past few months, wasn’t using my best judgment about even being out there in the first place (feeling a bit weak and wobbly at the end of a long day), and I fell down AGAIN and hard between one of the cars and a drop-off planter from the concrete driveway; very uneven there and something we just MUST repair. I narrowly missed hitting my head again, like from my dangerous fall a year and a half ago, which would have been disastrous because it would have been in the exact same area of my face/head.
Anyway, all banged up with elbows, hands and a very painful abrasion/bruise to one knee. So, yesterday, so creaky and sore. Like the proverbial truck ran over me. And I was preoccupied and so saddened by that Frontier plane crash because I’ve got a couple of people I know right now who are in the midst of a lot of jet travel and I of course was so horrified about what happened to the injured/dead. By the time my poor husband came home last evening from work, I was in meltdown mode and he had to sit there and listen to me for about an hour while I poured everything out. Like you, I’m determined to have a better day today because yesterday was the pits. We have a cool morning with bright sunshine, the garden center is just around the block, and I’m gonna get out; see my world. I’ll be careful.
This headline on CNN online this morning: “We shouldn’t be surprised that Southwest’s hero pilot is a woman.” Hello. One of my dearest friends (from the 1970s to today, since we were both young 20-somethings) has been a captain with United Airlines for 30 years, mostly long overseas flights (she has an understanding husband and kids who know the demands of her career), about to retire (mandatory retirement for a pilot when you reach age 65). She is a big-boned, tall, lovely, blonde, Swede-American from Minnesota and the coolest cucumber I know; has the most soothing voice and presence. Very confident but never arrogant. Highly-intelligent and centered. She started out life with another husband as a dental technician/hygienist and patients would line up asking for her because she could get you through a dental cleaning without you going into a clenched panic over it. I’ve become a white-knuckler flyer in these years but I know I could be on one of her flights and sleep like a baby.
I’m sorry you fell, Vicki! But I’m so happy you didn’t hit your head. Take care of yourself!
Thanks. I feel just stupid over it but I’ll survive.
xo
Claudia, I’m begging you to stop calling him Spanky.
It’s such a cute name, I love it and even named my sweet French Bulldog Spanky.
Please, use something more appropriate like AssFace. Or Perve.
Thank you for your consideration. I sure don’t want to give up your blog!
I have to call him Spanky. Have to! After all, he had Stormy spank him. I’ve used various names on this blog and I’m sure this won’t be the only one!) But your other suggestions are spot on.
OK Ellie! I vote for Ass Face Claudia!…lol
It looks like you’re saying ‘ass face Claudia’ Nancy. hmmmm.
I DO think the weather – and lack of spring – is affecting our emotions. Yesterday I cried driving home after hearing Carl Kassel had died, cried again this morning driving in listening to Peter Sagal’s tribute to Carl. Cried last night when I fell down an internet rabbit hole and watching a concert video of a singing trio my boys loved as toddlers, realizing one of them had died and what a terrific time in my life that was. Now I just looked out at the newest snowstorm just beginning to rev up and decided, yes, it IS the weather. However, after listening to the wonderful Mr. Kassel every morning since I was in my twenties until his retirement, I do feel justified in in my tears.
I was sad at the news of Carl Kassel’s death. What a part of out lives he has been. His voice was so distinctive and I can still hear it.
I certainly know about funks…had one just a few days ago. I managed to clean a cabinet yesterday…lots of glassware. Everything shines! Cleaning seems to keep my mind occupied. So I don’t have to think about things…and this ever lasting winter…it’s snowing again. Yes…I know I’m whining…I apologize. So…when you sprinkle cinnamon on a potato…does it become desert? ;)
No. It becomes “Claudia tries to scrape as much of the cinnamon off the potato as possible”
Oh Claudia, you DID have yourself a day, didn’t you? Well, if it wasn’t astrology – ?? – then maybe it WAS the weather. This interminable gray is beginning to get to me too, I think. I had NO interest in doing anything yesterday. Couldn’t keep my eyes open at several points. Ended up having about 3 “involuntary” hour-long naps at different intervals throughout. And I think I slept well Monday night – dreams & everything. Seriously, the most I did all day was to make a huge Romaine salad with tuna & white beans for dinner [all of 15 minutes of work]. I didn’t even get the mail. Oh well, maybe it was an intense day-long episode of seasonal affective disorder. I’m OK today. Isn’t it sad about Mrs Bush? I didn’t vote for 41 or 43, but I still admire 41 – and I’ve a “Bar” fan for decades. A truly decent, honorable, humble, sensible, smart, caring individual. And a real lady. I get the feeling the phrase “wouldn’t hurt a fly” was created just for her. May the Force be with the entire Bush family. Peace.
#Resist
#ProtectMueller
I agree with you, Janet, about Mrs. B. What a lady. And, I’ve admired that she needlepointed a huge rug during her husband’s presidency. My daughters and I laugh and comment, “yeah, might as well make one of those Secret Service guys carry the thing on and off Air Force 1!” It was a HUGE rug, and I bet heavy as she progressed.
Wow, I never heard about that rug. Good for her! May as well work on something that massive when you have lots of help around. I’ll bet the Secret Service would have volunteered their help with that – can’t imagine Mrs Bush expecting it at all. For someone who grew up in a privileged home, she was incredibly “unentitled.” Very unlike fat ole 45, who literally expects everyone to do what he wants, to do it his way – and to like it. #Jackass
Janet, if you google “Barbara Bush needlepoint rug”, you’ll see some articles and photos of her work. Incredibly large pieces. I only needlepoint pillow size. Can’t imagine how daunting it would be to stitch a rug!
Yes. Very sad to hear of her her passing. She was a lovely woman – inside and out. She will be greatly missed. I can’t imagine how heartbroken her husband must be. I didn’t vote for either Bush but it was obvious how much the Bushes loved each other, how close the whole family was. She was the matriarch and such a wonderful role model. Rest in Peace, Barbara.
I keep wondering if he’ll quickly follow her now. George is ill himself, and how do you live without someone you’ve known since the teens to the older age of 90s? It’s your whole life, and a long life. My parents were married for 60 years and the five without him for my mom, til she died too, were…colorless. The light (and her rock) had left the world. She was never happy. I’d actually wished for them to have been taken together because it was just too hard for her to not have him.
I was thinking about that too, Vicki. And I think it’s fairly common for spouses. My parents died within 16 months of each other [married 42 years]. Dad left us in June 1998, Mom in October 1999.
Difficult years for you, grief compounded by grief over such a short period of time.
Part of what was so hard for me, even though I understood, was that my husband and I turned somersaults to make Mom’s life as good for her as possible but it was never enough. The problem is that even two of us could never be one of Dad.
I have also been thinking of this Vicki…I think it will be so hard on him to go on without his love…such a wonderful down to Earth beautiful lady….
I’m only learning now of what I should have known then; in other words, I didn’t appreciate her enough at the time, when I was younger and she was there as First Lady.
My mom died first and it wasn’t that long until my dad followed – 18 months, in fact. They had been married for 67 years and my dad missed her terribly.
I griped about the Orange Scream today too on my bog… and cult 45, a new term first seen on twitter…. it fits, no? :-(
Meanwhile, today I went for a walk down at our little cottage despite the cold because JEEZ, enough already! Alas it was still cold despite my attempts to ignore it. Ugh.
Yes I’ve seen that same term lately. Perfect.
Oh, Claudia, I’m so sorry for your bad day. Ironically, my bad days are made better reading your posts and the comments! I’m having an odd day. I usually don’t go out for breakfast, but my daughter had to do an errand for her boss this morning, so had to leave earlier than usual, so we had time for breakfast out before she did the errand and headed to work. I used the opportunity to get my car smog-checked (hurray, it passed! Not bad for a 22-year old car with less than 70,000 miles…it may be old and not posh, but hey, it gets me from point a to point b) while. I had breakfast with her. I was disoriented when I got home…it was difficult to kick start the day because it was already kick started, know what I mean? Anyway, I spent two hours in the garden doing more trimming and pruning and now I have the afternoon to do three loads of laundry. What fun! But, all this work means play tonight, as we are attending a fund raiser dinner at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. I hope your day and days to come are better and better. I know you’ll be ecstatic when the real Spring arrives in your neck of the woods.
I’m always thrown when the start of my day is ‘out of order.’ I carry it with me the rest of the day!
Sorry you had a bad day. Went out in the back yard with my sister. We cleaned up quite a bit,but still needs a lot more work. i was sorry to hear of Barbara Bush’s passing. She was a lovely and classy lady. The Bush family is such a close family. Condolences to the entire family. Rest in peace Barbara Bush.
Marilyn
She was such an admirable human being.
Claudia, love the little Scottie fellow in your bottom photo! His appearance today seems timely.
As a Scottie-lover, my favorite Bush was always Barney. However, I much enjoyed Barbara Bush’s feisty spirit and sharp wit. She will be remembered as an admirable First Lady.
He was my great-grandmother’s. I never knew her so he’s especially precious.
At least I have some good to report…we started out today with rainy and cloudy weather and ended up with sunshine and temps in the 70’s…Oh Happy Day!!!
Not in the seventies, but we did end the day with sunshine.
Sprinkled cinnamon on the potato! Thanks for the laugh Claudia!…I’m sorry, but I just had to laugh! Hey, I need all the laughs I can get!…On a more serious note…I just want to say, you are my favorite blogger!
Oh thank you so much, Sharon!
Too bad it wasn’t a baked sweet potato ~ then the cinnamon would have tasted great, or at least I think so. We still have service people who come out to the house if there is a problem with the cable. How long that will continue, I do not know. What I will say is that we are paying a fortune for cable right now, and I like fewer and fewer shows. I like MeTV, Antenna TV, and Turner Classic Movies. I need cable to get a PBS station, because we don’t have our own local one. I also want to let you know that the Art Bell Tribute show is on Coast to Coast tonight, Thursday April 19. I listen to it via Tune-In from Palm Springs, so not sure what time it is on in your area. I hope I can stay awake to hear it!
Big Texas Hugs,
Susan and Bentley
Oh thanks so much for letting me know about the tribute show, Susan! I’ll figure out where I can get it. Whether I’ll be able to stay awake is the question. xo
I know I shouldn’t laugh but I did. But only because of your ‘Good times’ remark at the end.
The weather is a bit confused. It was 86 degrees in Amsterdam yesterday. It rarely gets this warm even in summer here. Lovely, but it won’t last. As your temperatures will be climbing in a week or so, ours will be dropping again. We’re sending it your way.
Love your hare pillow!