So! November. I put a lot of miles on my walking shoes last month. It's amazing how therapeutic it is. Walking was my way to cope with The Results. I'm not going any farther than that--no need to bring everyone back to that mindset. Let's just say that it's way worse than I felt after Gore, Kerry, and Hillary combined, and as a political activist of many years, I'm cocooning now. Please don't judge. (But do read this; it's enlightening.)
Back to Walking: I used to walk in silence, appreciating the ambient noises of my neighbourhood. For some reason, however, I began to get bored and frustrated. I didn't feel energized. I began using my earbuds and chose music for my sojourns, varying my playlists among the music I grew up with and loved in my earlier life. Now I feel so much more spry, briskly striding to The Beatles, Genesis (whose catalog is excellent for walking), and an eclectic mix of artists from Aretha Franklin to Bruce Springsteen. I still carry dog biscuits in my pocket, just in case, and even in this cold weather, I'm out there (thank you, Rick, for my heated coat).
Good News: Sam and Emily vacationed in Hawaii and got engaged. Emily has been part of our family for years already, so we couldn't be happier. Theo had his first birthday. He celebrated with Jared and Jordan in Pittsburgh, where he visited the Children's Museum. On Thanksgiving Day, J&J hosted. Some of her family came into town from out West, so we all got to celebrate Theo's birthday together as well as have a terrific feast. Jared made his first turkey ever (he brined it), and it was tremendous. So much to be Thankful for!
More Good News: Rick semi-retired in November, going part-time, but at his full salary. His boss is so kind and generous. As of January 1st, he will officially be retired. Rick has been working since the age of 15 and mostly in construction, so I'm very happy for him. The boys are, too. Sam's first reaction was, "Dad. Mom lives a very quiet life. And she really likes it. Just saying." That boy knows his mother! And it is true that it'll be a big transition for Rick and me both--it already has been. His part-time schedule is Mondays and Fridays off, so we are already navigating what shared space and shared time* look like. (Sam has also lamented that he will be the only one in the family who has to get up and go to work, a singularity that he feels keenly.) *I will always walk and go grocery shopping alone.
Random Splotches: Here's where I use up what could be short blogpost topics, mainly because I might forget them later.
*I think Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is going to be a DNF for me. I find myself annoyed and disconnected when I read it. I'm over you, James McBride, once and for all. Nothing personal.
*There's a new Beatles doc out, but it's on Disney+. I don't have that. I guess I'm going to have to pay 10 bucks for a month just to watch that one thing. There's no free or cheap trial because I already have Hulu. I'm going to have to swallow my disdain for Disney and pay it. Sigh. (But I still love Winnie the Pooh. Oh bother.)
*Speaking of Hulu--if any of you have watched the last season of Only Murders in the Building, were you as disappointed in it/its quality as I was? I thought it was terrible and jumped the proverbial shark.
*I'm having a terrible, TERRIBLE time finding Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt. As in, nowhere around me carries it and I had to order it off Amazon. The box I got was clearly marked "Not packaged for retail. For Food Service Use." I feel like a criminal.
*Finally, another Dog Show has come and gone, and still the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever has not made it into the final round, let alone won Best In Show. The fix is in, and why Canadians aren't doing something about it is beyond me.
Thanks to those of you who kept writing in November. I appreciate you.
Oh I feel you on the mixed feelings about Rick's retirement! Luckily for me, The Husband is only semi-retired (working three hours on three days a week) so I get a little bit of quiet (not as much as I'd like though). Congratulations on the engagement, it is always GREAT news when you add on to the family.
ReplyDeleteGigi--We feel so fortunate that our sons chose such wonderful women. Jordan and Emily became part of our family so seamlessly and make Jared and Sam so happy. The four of them get along as if they grew up together.
DeleteYou know, I am not a good sharer once I claim a space. I think it came from years and years of having a classroom in which everything was set up exactly as I needed/wanted it in which to work efficiently. The same thing goes for my house (OUR house, as Rick reminds me). This transition will take a bit of time and patience, and the latter is something I don't have a lot of but work at constantly.
And I'm so used to Quiet that everything he does is LOUD.
I hear you, Nance. My husband is also LOUD and, for some reason, needs the tv on even if he's not watching it. Makes me crazy!
DeleteWhy, WHY do people have the tv on 24/7? It's crazy how often I visit people and the tv is just blaring, no one is watching it, and we're all shouting over it. I am anti-television.
Delete1. COCOONING: Me, too. I have shut down the mainstream news to practically nothing. Too many post-mortems on The Results. Which brings me to…
ReplyDelete2. WALKING: I can imagine that your walks are more therapeutic with music; it does so much to raise our spirits. If I walked alone, I would definitely create a playlist of my favourites. Mr. O. and I go to one of the two nearby parks for a 30-minute walk every day. It really does help: fresh air and free healthy exercise. Our convos are usually fairly mundane. Sometimes we reminisce about the past and usually conclude that we didn’t do such a bad job. Interestingly, there are sometimes a few little nuggets from our lives before we met (we were both in our late-40s) that neither one of us knew about: short-term memory affects us both these days, but long-term memory is sharper than ever. Maybe also because we now both have so much time together, lol. Which brings me to…
3. RICK’S RETIREMENT: Great news! Rick’s boss is indeed very kind and generous. I am sure Rick has more than earned it over the years, but it is gratifying to hear that his boss is rewarding him for that. I had to laugh at “navigating shared space and shared time.” We are living the same situation in reverse since Luis retired a couple of years before I did. It has been a journey in the last six months for me to adapt to being home every day. The first couple of months were spent finalizing all the paperwork, setting us up in our Social Security + health care plans, etc., and now we’re balancing out the shared space and time. It’s a new journey for sure. Which brings me to…
RANDOM SPLOTCHES:
—FAMILY: Lovely also to hear the great news about Sam & Emily and your Thanksgiving with J&J + baby Theo, of course!
—TV: We subscribe to Spectrum’s internet/TV plan with DVR recording which includes all the international Spanish channels. A must in our house, and it's great to watch our favourite programs any time it's convenient and zip through all the ads. For extra stuff: right now, it’s what’s available on Amazon Prime + Netflix. I have been tossing up for a while about subscribing to Hulu; the version with ads is the cheapest, of course. I am mostly curious because a lot of the movies I want to see are only on Hulu.
—THE WEATHER: One of the few things I follow on the news lately is climate change and its effect on the weather. I have been reading about the “Lake Effect Snow” in your neck of the woods. You must be buried under mounds of snow right now!!! I suppose you’re used to this happening, but it looks pretty extreme. Hope you’re well-stocked on supplies…
—WRITING: I am working on Chapter 3. Was thinking of sending you Chapter 2 which I finished in October, but only if you’re bored and need a little mindless distraction, lol.
XXOO
Ortizzle--The lake effect snow went far east of us, directly to the Snow Belt. I live in Lorain County, which is still subject to lake effect, but the wind has to be directly north to catch us. This time it went skimming out from the NW, and the eastern counties and poor Buffalo, NY, got it. As of now, we are sn*wless, but Rick has already gotten out the shovels and snowblower, hoping to ward it off (as is the age-old custom and myth).
DeleteWe got Hulu primarily for "The Bear"--the show starring Jeremy White. We have the cheapo version, too. I think right now they're running a super deal, so make sure to check.
I bet your walks are far nicer than mine have been lately. I get home and my entire face is numb. I'm wearing fleece-lined leggings, a fleece shirt with a shirt underneath, my heated coat, and a ski band. And mittens. I just refuse to wear a scarf over my face. I keep hoping the wind will die down. LOL
How is retirement thus far for you? Do you feel the release of stress? Are you tackling projects?
I know I immediately went crazy cleaning out clutter and reorganizing things.
If you want to send me your chapter(s), please do, as long as you don't need any feedback by a date certain. You know I love to be astonished by your adventures. XO
Just sent you an email. :-)
DeleteYeah, not listening to much news nowadays. Too depressing and I don't need that.
ReplyDeleteAll kinds of good family news on your front! Happy for you all.
My husband was mostly retired for about 10 years before I retired, so I was used to him being home and me gone. I guess our scenario was the opposite of yours. But I was traveling a lot for storytelling after I retired, and often spent hours in research, so I think we sort of eased into being together 24/7.
Hope all the snow missed you!
GSue--I don't watch any national news. I find it almost offensive. I find it sickening in many senses of that word.
DeleteWith Rick being part-time, we look at that as a sort of Transition Time as well. I love the idea of your husband keeping the home fires burning for you as you travel around. It sounds lovely.
All the snow did miss us thus far. We got a few flurries here and there, but the big snows went far east of us, directly to the Snow Belt counties and into western NY. To say I am grateful is a vast understatement.
I love the upbeat tone to this post. I'm not there yet in these post election days but I'm making progress and have set the end of my mourning period to coincide with New Years Eve.
ReplyDeleteWorking out retirement schedules and conflicts of expectations is a good kind of problem to have. Congratulations to your husband.
Jean--I decided that I cannot give them access to every single part of me like they want. They already want to be in our schools, our bedrooms, our doctors' offices, and our public bathrooms. Well, they cannot live in my body and my brain, too. I've kicked them out to make room for things *I* want to put/carry/have there. And they can all go fuck themselves.
DeleteAnd yes! You're absolutely right. Learning how to grow old together--something we always wanted!--is a good kind of problem to have. It reminds me of what Gene Simmons of the rock band Kiss once said--"Don't get everything you ever wanted and then complain about it."
This is a great post full of good news and the part about being a criminal for the salt you ordered on Amazon made me chuckle. Happy bday to baby Theo and so exciting to have another wedding happening. Congrats to Rick on his retirement. Maybe the boss let him start out part time retired in hopes that he changes his mind and decides not to retire. ;) I'm glad you've been enjoying your walks. I think I get 3 mos of Apple tv since I bought an apple phone. I'm waiting for the college kids to be home so we have another place to scroll for stuff, discover there's nothing we can agree on, have someone cave and agree to watch whatever, and then minutes into the selection I fall asleep on the coach. It'll be awesome.
ReplyDeleteErnie--LOL LOL about you falling asleep after all the rigamarole finding a show to watch. So true! Finding a new show is the Absolute Worst activity ever, so I can't imagine doing it with so many people and opinions as you have to work with. Maybe you should assign your kids some homework and tell them to come home with 3 possible streaming choices.
DeleteAnd...I'm wondering if you fall asleep literally on the Coach or was it a typo and you fall asleep on the couch. Either way, it works and I can imagine it.
Bah ha ha - typo! I type Coach so often, I knew at some point I'd mistype couch. Couch is usually in bed by the time the college/high school kids gather to watch something so he is not on the couch for me to fall asleep on.
DeleteUsually we watch a movie with the older kid crowd vs a show. If I intend to watch something, which means if they say they have no plans to see friends that night, I typically remind people to select 2 or 3 options. I argue that if they want me to leave the study where I'm writing the Christmas poem, or a chapter for my book club, or a blog post, they better have something ready to go. That sometimes works. This weekend one of the things Tank chose something that Coach and I had already seen.
Ernie--LOL. Couch/Coach...heck, at some point they're one and the same!
DeleteYou know, we invariably watch shows instead of movies, and I don't know why. It's so often that we watch several episodes in a row that we could have watched a movie, yet we always say, "I don't want to get locked into a movie." It's dumb on our part, really, especially since we could simply stop a movie at any point and pick it back up the next night. Duh.
I love this and have the same issue...it takes me forever to scroll through and in the end, I often spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what to watch and then I give up and go and read instead. There is just too much stuff to choose from! Or I end up watching a movie that I have seen a million times.
DeleteThe election results horrified me, and still do. I realize I'm privileged in many ways and probably won't feel the effects. So many others will, however, and that's what matters. Just disgusts me, and each cabinet announcement is another nail in our coffins. Glad Rick is able to retire. I count the days; there are many of them, though, until the magical day comes for me. (And Social Security better be there when I do!) Sounds like you had a lovely holiday; that is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteElle--Same and Same and Same. Please read my reply to Jean, above. And Hungary is a cautionary tale. We all will feel effects; don't think that we won't.
DeleteI hope you had a warm and kind Thanksgiving, Elle. I'm very glad you're here.
The most egregious bit is, for us, the tariff notice. The fact that it is going to hit the states that have a lot of cross border trade just as hard as it hits, say, Ontario, does not seem to be a factor. I hate, hate, myself for thinking that it is a shame the bullet only hit an ear, but ...
ReplyDeletethe expression of choice for retired husbands is "I married him for better or for worse but not for lunch". JG retired on a Friday and on Saturday we launched into a two year orgy of house building. I became the resident gopher. (Gofer). When the house became our sole home, I had to fight to get my life back. What I did was join a lot of things that took me out of the house; gofer not available to go fer it. I have scaled back a lot of this since the heart episode, but I do miss being a sole femme. (Have you read Phillipa Gregory's Normal Women? A must read, in my view.) We have achieved a balance over the years. The daily schedule is his but my choice to join anything recreational.
Your Thanksgiving sounds like a wonderful time, with birthday added.
A heated coat? Hmmm.
Mary G--Stupid dumb idiots think that tariffs don't pass the cost on to the consumers. And I understand your feelings about the so-called assassination attempt. It's a struggle to maintain your own sense of humanity in the face of so much...well, so much.
DeleteMy solo walks and sojourns to the grocery store (where I absolutely detest the behaviour of other husbands) are valuable solo activities. Rick and I talked about each of us Doing Our Own Thing whenever we like, and he is happy to get back into his workshop in the basement and go to the lake whenever he pleases.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I'm ready to go back to Nonfiction, having been somewhat disappointed in contemporary fiction lately.
I wrote about my heated coat before, but I'm happy to mention it again. It is made by Ororo, and they have several options. I highly recommend it.
I don't want to get you hepped up about it again, friend, but knowing that the majority of voting adults voted for DJT has made me stop looking at people in a kind way. I recently was at two stores. In the first store, I was getting a new phone, so I was held captive while an old white guy shouted nonsense about stopping the war in Ukraine and getting "the illegals" deported and I wanted to scream. At the second store, I gave my phone number so they could look up my account and the young man asked about the area code (Minneapolis) and asked if Iiked it there. I shrugged, but there was a man in the lobby loudly discussing how vaccinations are a scheme and then I just looked him in the eye and said "I like the politics there better" and he didn't respond. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteWhat should the Canadians do, do you think? Rise up and take over the AKC? I'd love to see that.
Engie--I feel the very same way you do. As my sister Susan said, those people are now emboldened and entitled, and are no longer embarrassed. They think everyone voted/is like them. I recently sat in a waiting room and was bored to tears by an elderly man who wouldn't stop talking about his entire life (in which he was pretty much a hero over and over again), and he mentioned that he got a commendation from the White House for his lifetime of volunteer work. "Unfortunately, it's signed by Biden, though, so..." he trailed off with a rather rueful and disgusted face. I swear I could feel my face tighten and my guts harden. I looked him straight in the eye and said very clearly, "Whatever do you mean by that? I'd be honoured and proud to have the signature of this President of the United States." He at least had the sense to blush and avert his eyes and mutter some sort of embarrassed and halfhearted acquiescence. And I never said another word to him.
DeleteThat is my plan now for the next 4 years or longer. I've always been direct and unfailingly honest. That won't change. I'm also very kind, but that kindness is not weakness, and it does not extend to those who have purposefully chosen Unkindness. Period. It has made things very difficult since our lakehouse is deep in a red county full of those people. I have a lot of thinking to do about that.
As far as the fortunes of the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, I think the Canadians should start with picketing dog shows. If it comes to an AKC Takeover or a moratorium on the breed, so be it. Something has to be done. Those dogs are not just beautiful, they are smart and have a tendency to herd small children. Come on!
I started out cocooning as my way to deal with The Results but The Universe (with its endless machinations) pushed me back out into the real world, damn it. I'm sure in the end that I will be much better for it but I definitely wasn't ready. I'll have to fill you in on everything soon.
ReplyDeleteI'm thrilled about all your happy news! I live for those stories of joy more than ever before, especially joy for you and your family, Nance.
As far as changes due to Rick's retirement, I have no doubt that you all will work everything out nicely. With perhaps a few little momentary blips along the way.
My sister was reading the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store for her book club a while back. I read the description and thought "I have no earthly interest in reading this book" and then I thought, "See, this is why I can't join a book club." However, I did recently join a book club to support a friend who formed it. The first meeting is next Monday. it remains to be seen if I will be able to attend.
I hadn't heard about the new Beatles documentary (I will look it up) but I do plan on watching the Yacht Rock documentary in the next few days. I heard it's good. We shall see. (It's on HBO Max, which I understand is running a great Black Friday deal right now.)
I'm kind of feeling like any purchase from Amazon right now makes one a criminal. Yet I continue ordering. Sigh.
Saw a little of the dog show. I was most interested in the Petite Basset Griffon Vendeen (PBGV for short, as I've heard folks reference them) as that's the type of pup my sister and BIL rescued several months ago. Sammie is a year old and a cutie but can be a bit of a handful but he came from a difficult situation. He's cuter than the one in the dog show, Archie. Your pick for dog breed does remain adorable!
All for now ... hope to chat soon, Nance. xoxo,
Shirley
Shirley--I thank you for giving me the space I needed in November. All my friends did; no doubt because they needed it as well. You are brave and wonderful and I can't wait to hear everything you have to tell me.
DeleteAnd thank you for the dear, kind words about our joyous family news. It means the world to me, truly. XXOO
Let me know how the book club goes. I have mixed feelings about them. So many people tell me I'd probably get annoyed in one because of all the extraneous socializing and scant discussion about the book.
I've read about the Yacht Rock doc, and I'm still bewildered about the name in general. What constitutes Yacht Rock? So goofy. Apparently, I need to watch it and find out. I watched the Bruce Springsteen doc "Road Diary" on Hulu and thoroughly enjoyed it. He's so thoughtful about his music and his bandmates.
Love the PBGV! I'm so glad your sister rescued hers. Purebred dogs are gorgeous and impressive, but shelter dogs need homes. Our neighbourhood Sammy, the Bull Terrier mix who got in my car last year, trotted by this morning wearing her winter coat. TOO CUTE.
Let's do chat soon, my dear friend. XXOO
We should talk about ALL of these subjects very soon. Maybe Wednesday or Thursday? I'll reach back out to get on your schedule!
DeleteShirley--I'm looking at Thursday right now.
DeleteThat works for me!
DeleteExcept for The Results (I'm also cocooning & might stay that way for the next four years), excellent news all around! Dr. M has been "retired" (without his permission, but still) for 8 years now. Hard to believe. And so I get scant time alone at home - mostly just several hours on Saturdays while he goes to his dad's. It's funny because I had Friday off & went to my brother's and to the movies (as you saw), and he was supposed to also be leaving & I had a moment of "Do I know how to leave the house when no one is here? Will I remember to turn the heat down?" Fortunately he stayed home. So in our house the adjustment will be for him. But we're both pretty quiet & keep to ourselves until evening.
ReplyDeleteP.S. They're calling for the S word between 11pm & 1am here and WHAT IN THE WORLD. There won't be any accumulation to speak of, but WHAT IN THE WORLD. Rude.
Bug--Goodness, has it really been 8 years now? I'd never have guessed it. Never. Doesn't time have a way of going all gooey and amorphous as we age? It's such a phenomenon to me.
DeleteI'm so sorry that you're getting The S Word. That seems unnecessary. I find it highly unnecessary here in Ohio as well, but in North Carolina it just seems mean. I'd suggest putting a sn*w shovel out as a deterrent, but I'm not sure it works once you're out of the Buckeye State. It seems to sometimes have limited effectiveness here, truth be told.
THE KEESHONDEN DID NOT WIN. I PROTEST. Also, spellcheck wants me to replace Keeshonden with Despondent which still feels too raw after a year and a half. Why don't dogs have a longer life span? Why on the fucking cancer?
ReplyDeleteOnward. SO glad to see a new post from you. I'm glad you had such a lovely Thanksgiving and YAY to Sam being engaged! What a blessing!
I especially like listening to books while I walk in the morning. I will admit that my mind wanders sometimes, but that happens when I read physical books too. I sometimes go back and listen to the book a second time, which is much easier than with a physical book because I have more multi-tasking time than I have sitting down to a book time. This may be an anathema to you.
I'm not ready to talk about the election. Give me about 30 years, maybe I'll be ready than. I'm still angry and hurt and disappointed and worried and thinking dark thoughts like, "well, if the world ends, it won't matter that I didn't save enough for retirement". Sorry Rick, maybe you should have retired sooner. (Also, assuming the world does NOT end, YAY RICK!!!"
I read Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and really wanted to love it. But I didn't. Give up if you're not feeling it.
DeleteJ--I really feel your Comment in all parts of my soul.
DeleteA friend of mine really wanted to get a Bernese Mountain Dog, but he read that its average lifespan was 8 years, and he just could not sign up for that kind of grief. He ended up with a yellow lab instead.
I haven't been happy with a dog show win since Uno the little beagle won Westminster in 2008. Incidentally, he died of cancer, J. Never sired any puppies, either; he was sterile.
As far as talking about The Results, I feel the same way you do. And I can't Go There. I have to focus on what's directly in front of me, the Right Now. If I don't, it's over, and I can't let them have that.
Thanks for the input about the book. I'm giving it one last shot this week, and then if I just can't sink into it, it's a DNF. Life is too short for mediocre wine and mediocre books.
Is the Reductress article supposed to make people cry? No? Ugh--I guess I overreacted. They do say immigrants tend to have the rosiest glasses... my home country is also going through a fascist phase, so I currently have nowhere that is safe.
ReplyDeleteBut I love all the personal news--CONGRATS on Sam and Emily's engagement, Theo's big birthday, and Rick's proper retirement. I'm excited to see all the extra travels you'll be able to build in now.
People love James McBride, but he's just ok for me--yes, please DNF if you're not feeling it, Nance (not like you need ANYONE else's go ahead!). It's just that--that has been the most liberating thing I've learned to do in the last five years. I still have to remind myself though--I don't know if other people do this--but if I'm not really into a book, I catch myself avoiding the book AND READING altogether, which is so dumb!
maya--The Reductress article made me have a huge moment of deeply sad and profound clarity. It's satire, but it's the bitter and "Hey, duh! Wake up" kind that you wish was Just Funny instead of being So Damn True. I don't think you overreacted in light of India's current situation; you feel betrayed by both of your homelands.
DeleteI hear you about learning to DNF books. I once characterized myself as the Reverend Dimmesdale of bad book readers--flagellating myself with the bloody scourge of lousy literature. I hate to dump a book, only to hear later that I should have kept going because there is something wonderful coming and I've missed it. Or I tell someone that I DNF'd it, and they say, "Well, you can't really pass judgement on it then, can you?" What if any of that happens? Sigh.
I'm currently avoiding that book and thinking about rereading something. That usually helps me feel lots better. Now that you mention your own habit, I wonder if I do that, too. I haven't read anything else since I've been on hiatus from the McBride book!
Welcome back! I have missed you! Thanks for always commenting on my posts, especially with the rigmarole of NaBloPoMo; it is nice to see you again in your space though! I agree with you re McBride; I struggled through King Kong or whatever that one was called, finished it, and felt like it was a waste of my time. I will NOT be reading anything else of his, poplularity be darned.
ReplyDeleteI have no streaming services, but have been petsitting and so can watch whatever they have, and so have been catching up on some Netflix shows, like Great British Bakeoff, which everyone seemed to love and recommend. It is cute, but silly, but really I tend to stray more toward YouTube, and usually am watching something for research, and right now, it is generally Europe travel based.
I think (hope) that having Rick be semi-retired now will be a good wean (can you wean towards instead of weaning away? I don't know) into his full retirement. This gives you a taste but not the full thing so that you can get used to it little by little. Otherwise you would just have to rip off the band-aid and he would probably drive you nuts.
Kyria--Thank you for your kind Welcome! It's so pleasant to be missed.
DeleteI love The Great British BakeOff, and I have to say that the addition of Dylan this season was quite the perk. Adorable. One of the things I--and so many others--love about that show is the kindheartedness and camaraderie. Even in the finals, they were helping one another. It always makes me hungry, however, especially for cake, and we never have any.
Interesting question regarding the use of the word Wean. It's generally used in the sense of away, from, or off. Hm.
Listen, though: there are plenty of times when he's around for just a few hours and drives me nuts. I'm sure he can say the same about me, but he wouldn't because he's a sweetheart.
You are not alone. I couldn't finish Heaven and Earth Grocery Store either. It is set in a town not too far from where I live. I really wanted to like it. Alas, I did not.
ReplyDeleteWalking (or running as the case may be) is a cure for many ills. On Thanksgiving afternoon my brother-in-law tread on my last nerve. Thankfully, my wonderful nephew had brought his giant puppy. She and I had a very good run. How po'd was I? It was 35 degrees, windy, and I was in a tee shirt and left my phone behind. By the time Juno was tired, I could "hold my tongue". Doesn't mean I didn't have some very pointed thoughts over dinner.
D--There you are! Oh, it's so good to see you again.
DeleteI'm glad to get another review of H&EGS that validates my own. I've DNF'd it with resolve, and I will return it to my nephew's little store so that he can resell it. At least I can feel good about helping him make some cash with it.
It sounds like you've experienced the Therapy Of Walking too! Almost as an Extreme Sport. Sigh. There's always an in-law who feels as if family gatherings are either an audience for their pontifications or a fun place to instigate. Either way, it leaves everyone wondering how anyone could have chosen that person, let alone stand to live with them.
I'm off to your spot to see what you're up to.
Congratulations to Rick! My (tiniest bit of) sympathies to you. We like our space and our peace, right? I'm sure you will figure out a good way to work around each other at home in no-time.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to Sam and Emily! This is exciting news; your family is growing. Honestly, I can't believe Theo is ONE. If you'd asked me, I'd say he was six, maybe seven months old. Time is fleeting.
Good job on all the walking; it will keep you young and agile.
Dang, I have H&E as one of my next audio books; already paid for it.
BB Suz--Thanks for sharing my family's joys. It's so true that time is fleeting. Theo is almost exactly half of me now, and so very busy all the time that holding him is a rare treat.
DeleteMy walking is so therapeutic, both physically and mentally. I might futz around getting out there, but once I do, I'm always glad I did, even in the very cold weather we've been having lately. Today, we've got wind chills below zero and snow, so I may have to forego a walk today.
Let me know if you get into H&EGS. I really, really tried (I, too, paid full cover price--for the hardback!). I do hope it's a case of It's Not You, It's Me.
Great that you're walking again -- a heated coat! Yeah! You can't appreciate how much you miss walking 'til you can't do it any more.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard of the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever but went out to the site and sure looks like a winner to me. Should have watched the dog show.
Joared--It's always nice to see you here.
DeleteToday's temps were actually in the low 50s, so I didn't even need my heated coat. It was damp with a cold breeze, however, so I still wore fleece-lined leggings and a couple layers up top. But it felt wonderful to get out again after being socked in with icy temps and snow. I'm afraid of falling, so I don't venture out if it's slippery.
Thanks for the support about the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Isn't it a lovely dog? Someday, I'd like to attend a dog show in person. I'd have a hard time behaving myself, though.