A little bit of sunshine in my life

30 Mar 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Life Tags: , ,

I was going to focus on my knee problem with this post today, but then I decided it’s too depressing (not to mention boring as hell to read about), so instead, I thought I’d write a post regarding things that make me happy, since it’s such a rainy, dreary day outside.

We’ll start with one knee related item (yeah, sorry about that, just a little). I’ve been assigned a new worker’s comp administrator who is now in charge of my case. I absolutely adore her, not just because she keeps me up to date on a regular basis as to what is going on with my case, but also because she disagrees with the denial I received and is planning on overturning it just as soon as she receives the full report from my orthopedic surgeon.

Even though it doesn’t much look like it, it’s now officially spring, and that means lots and lots of flowers. I’ve always loved having flowers around because they’re so bright and cheerful, and usually smell beautiful. Every day I tell myself that I’m going to stop by a florist and pick up a bouquet for my desk, but then I realize that everyone is still closed when I leave for work at 5:30am. I guess I’ll have to buy them the night before and bring them in the morning.

It rained again overnight. I know most of my friends in the rest of the country are miserable from the horrid weather this past winter, but I’m stuck in San Diego, where the weather is usually dull and predictable, so when we do get the occasional rain, it’s always a happy thing for me. I love the feel of walking through the rain and how fresh and clean everything smells once the rain has passed. It’s a sad fact that we’re so used to the terrible pollution stench here that we don’t even notice it until it has rained and the sky turns a bright blue and the air smells wonderful.

I haven’t done any baking recently, but it’s on my list of things I’d like to do this coming weekend, to celebrate my change in schedule. The last time I baked was for my birthday back in early February, and I have a recipe for a sour cream coffee cake that’s been percolating in my mind for the past few days that I’d like to try baking.

I’ll just add one more item, to make it five altogether. For today, the final thing that makes me happy and brings a smile to my face is my cat Tiggy. He always knows when I’m having a bad day or feeling down, and starts clowning around until I give in and rub his belly, and it usually snaps me out of my bad mood. I also adore the fact that he likes to snuggle right up against me while I’m sleeping.

So there you go; five things that make me happy right now. There are many other things, and I’ll probably get around to listing them someday, so that on those days when I’m feeling really down, I can always look back at these lists and realize that there are always things that make me happy; I just need to think about them instead of what is bothering me.

I’d like to be a Luddite

30 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Life, Tiggy, Travel, Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

…she says, while typing away on her blog, on a laptop, connected to wi-fi, with her Android cellphone and her Kindle Fire sitting next to her.

Seriously though, I think my world was a happier place before I became so “connected” with it. I don’t own a television. For some reason, modern Americans think that’s strange and often give me recommendations on the best kind to buy when I say I don’t own one. I don’t want one. When my last television died, back in 2007, I got rid of it and never replaced it. I’ve never missed it.  I own a Kindle for reasons of convenience; it’s easier to carry a thousand books on it than to have them in paper and binding. That’s not to say that I don’t like books, I have boxes of books that I have carefully transported through at least a dozen homes, all the way across country and back, and they are stored more securely than some people store their diamonds.

Remember back when we were kids? We rode our bicycles around the neighborhood – without helmets – and we played with our friends outside, making up games with balls and sticks, until the lights came on and we went home to dinner. I remember being 10 and walking to school by myself, and no one thought it was strange. Now, as the mother of an eleven year old boy, I am torn between wanting to give him the freedom to walk home by himself and worrying about strangers abducting him. This is why I hate technology. It’s so easy now to hop on the internet and read about child abductions all over the country (or the world) and think that it’s inevitable that it’s going to happen to your own child, so you must protect them. And yes, we must protect our children, but we must also allow them to be children. We want to lock them securely behind doors to keep strangers away, and then complain that we have an obesity problem because kids these days would rather sit inside and play computer games than run around with their friends outside.

My son is not fat by any means. I’m not saying that as an overprotective mother, he’s inherited my metabolism and seems to be able to eat an entire horse without gaining a pound. I was the same way when I was young. The last time I saw him was in July, for his birthday, and one of the things he wanted to do was go hiking, which I was more than happy to do, because I enjoy being outdoors and moving around. We went to a nearby hiking spot and settled on a fairly flat 4 mile loop. Since this is Arizona, in July, I made sure that he was wearing a hat, had coated himself thoroughly in sunscreen, and had a full bottle of water to drink. Less than a mile in, he was done. He was too tired to continue, so we turned around and went back to the car. I was able to get him interested in an art museum after that, but it was a bit of a disappointment that a mile of hiking was too much exercise for him when I remember riding my bicycle for miles at his age.

Of course, this enforced resting of my knee is driving me insane with the desire to exercise, to move around, to do something other than stretches and strengthening moves and wearing this constricting brace that pinches after too long. I want to pull a Henry David Thoreau and walk out into the woods and live a life of purpose. I want to have a little shack for just me and my cat, heating it with wood that I cut with my own axe, and with water pumped from my own well, and living from sunrise to sundown, with candles for light instead of harsh electricity. Maybe there are still places like that in the world. If so, does anyone know where they are, so they can point me in the right direction?

Of course, I’d miss my car, but I wouldn’t miss my car payments, or dealing with car insurance and maintenance (although, to be honest, I actually love working on cars). I wouldn’t miss the sirens from the local fire station or the helicopters flying overhead. I wouldn’t miss watching people wandering around with their concentration so fully on their cell phones that they don’t see the world around them. I realized this about 10 years ago when I noticed that when I’m taking photos, I try to make sure there are no people in them. I take pictures of things; flowers, trees, sunsets and sunrises, mountain ranges, falling down buildings, and so on, but I try to frame my shots to keep the people out. I guess, subliminally, I was separating out the things I think are beautiful by removing the people. Considering that I have worked in customer service for most of my adult life, I don’t really like people very much.

There are individual people that I like, but as a group, I don’t like humans. I don’t like what we’ve become, as we crowd ourselves into cities and try to seem more important than we are. I think that’s part of why I hate San Diego so much. It’s too big, and it’s too crowded, and everyone is so centered on whatever they’re doing, they don’t notice how they inconvenience everyone around them. I’m guilty of it myself, sometimes. I try not to, but sometimes the technology creeps in when I don’t want it to. There has been more than one dinner where my date spent more time fiddling with his phone than talking or interacting with me. I can understand if you have an important job and it’s a necessity, but just texting with friends or checking on your facebook page while on a date is selfish and rude.

My 39th birthday is coming up in a week and a half, and I’m taking some time off from work to unwind (and also to allow some contemplation of whatever my knee surgeon says), and I’m thinking that it will be a good time to unplug for a while and detach myself from the digital world. Maybe I’ll take my cat on a vacation somewhere with a few good books to read. By candlelight.

Waiting is the hardest part

09 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Knee surgery, Life, Tiggy Tags: , , ,

I had my MRI done on Monday, and was told that the doctor should have the results in by Wednesday or Thursday. Now, even if they haven’t had a chance to really look at them yet, I was hoping to at least hear that they were received. I called the surgeon’s office today around 4:30 (they close at 5, so I wanted to give them the most possible time) to ask if the results had been received yet. I was transferred to voicemail, so hopefully I’ll get a call back tomorrow to let me know what I’m doing next.

In other news, (mom and) I got pulled over as we were headed to the PetCo to do my volunteer time there. I know I have expired tags, because I’m still waiting on the new ones, although the car is obviously newly registered, since that was done when the car was purchased. So, I pull over and get out my license and proof of insurance. I don’t have a registration yet, because it hasn’t arrived yet. All I have is that silly thing they put in your window when  you buy the car. So, he asked me to please pull that out for him as well. Mom grabbed it and I handed it to him. He asked me what date I purchased the car and I said 11/11. He asked me what the dealership told me as far as getting new registration and I said 6-8 weeks. Hopefully it will be soon, since it’s been almost 2 months. He handed me back my registration form and took my license back to his car to run it, comes back a couple minutes later and hands me my license and tells me to have a good day. Personally, I don’t really object to being pulled over if I’m doing something wrong, but pulling me over for expired tags when you can see the temporary registration in the window is just pure time-wasting on the part of the cop.

So, we finally get to PetCo and set up the pens for the cats. Two of our other volunteers popped in for a while to submit an application for one of our kittens, plus Julie and me (we’re the regular Wednesday crew) and my mom and a trainee were all there. So, six volunteers, four of whom are experienced. I was transporting two of our newest kittens, who are extremely timid, into the exercise pen when one of them made a flying leap out of the box, over me, and out the open door of the pen. Kitten on the loose! She made a mad dash towards the front door, and thankfully changed directions to go to a different corner in the store. We spent a frantic 10 minutes or so searching every nook and cranny of the store to find her, which we eventually did. It was a really heart-stopping moment, because we’ve NEVER lost a cat before. Thankfully, that was the most excitement of the night, but it was definitely not my usual Wednesday, end of the week relaxation.

We’ve been crazy busy at work lately and so I’ve been doing as much overtime as I can and still have time for me. I figure no more than 4-6 hours a week won’t hurt me, and it won’t be every week, but the extra money will be nice for my birthday. So there you have it, an entire post with almost no complaining or whining. I think.

Three good things:

  1. I pulled the crinkly paper out of the box from an item I had ordered, and Tiggy has been having a blast playing with it and rolling around on it (much more so than the plush cat bed that I bought for him)
  2. I cleaned my room and put it back in order, which always makes me feel more balanced
  3. I had a desperate craving for Cheetos last night, so when I stopped for my morning coffee, I also grabbed a bag of Cheetos and ate some for lunch. They tasted fantastic.