6 Things Saturday
I was going to write a Friday Randomness or 5 Things Friday yesterday, but the day got away from me, so Saturday it is. Here we go.
My avocado tree seems to be doing well, since I cut it back, treated the soil with a tiny bit of dish soap, and gave it some fertilizer. That asshole squirrel, George Bush, knocked off one of the budding branches when he was burying his acorns, which pissed me off. A neighbor suggested that I put some red pepper flakes on the soil, and that would keep squirrels away. I went online to see if that was safe for the plant, and the site I saw said it generally works, but IF the squirrel comes anyway, and gets it on their paws, and rubs their eyes, it might blind them. Sounds unlikely, but I don’t want to have a blind squirrel running around, even if it is an asshole. I read that coffee grounds can also deter squirrels, and plants generally like coffee grounds, so I put some at the base of my plant, and it’s growing.
We voted early last week, vote by mail. I’m trying really hard to not stress out about this election, but it’s hard. I heard Trump talking bs on NPR the other day, and I realized, again, how difficult another four years would be. Even without the existential threat of losing our democracy. Just listening to his daily hate filled BS might kill me. Just scatter my ashes in the ocean, have a glass of wine, and pet your dog in my memory, OK?
I had an upsetting puppy dream the other night. In it, Mulder had been dog napped, and we were trying to find him, and terrified that he was being used as a bait dog for training fighting dogs. No matter what we did, he was gone. I woke up, expecting to see him, though it’s been a year and a half since he died. But no, he’s still gone. The thought that hit me was that his death in real life was much better than that in my dream. He had a peaceful passing, he wasn’t scared. We were there with him, he had a blueberry donut. Then I realized it was the anniversary of when we first met him in 2015. I guess my subconscious knew. It threw me into a funk all day, and I cried a few times.
I’ve been walking every day for Elisabeth’s Cool Bloggers Walking Club, and I was treated to this rainbow at sunrise one morning. AC recently wrote about photoshop, which has a feature to remove wires from your photos, but I don’t have photoshop, so there are wires in my picture. The one day I didn’t take a walk was the day that we went washing machine shopping. I checked my number of steps, and they were definitely fewer than a day when I went for my regular morning walk, but I’m sure I walked at least 10 minutes, so I’m counting it. Thanks Elisabeth, for putting the bar pretty low for us.
I sometimes lament that I don’t have a lot of IRL friends nearby. My friends have mostly moved away, there is no one I can say, “let’s go for a walk” or something like that. I guess I could try to make some new friends, but I am not terribly interested, so I guess that’s not going to happen. This month, though, I’ve had some friend time, which is really nice. One Monday, I had dinner with 3 of my friends from my hotel job, where I worked from ‘87-‘94. We had gotten to be only Christmas Card friends for a long time, but then a few years ago we started getting together a couple of times a year, which I really, really like. Then a week or so later, I had lunch with my friend Cindy, with whom I worked from ‘98 – ‘2000. She’s a couple of years older than me, and will be retiring at the end of the year. Then I had dinner with my friends Cherry and Elizabeth. I worked with them at the same place as Cindy, though Cherry and Elizabeth are younger. I think Cherry is about 8 1/2 years younger than me, and Elizabeth is maybe 10 years younger than me. Cherry is one of my closest friends, but she first moved to San Bruno in 2010, and then a few years ago she moved to Pennsylvania. I miss the days when we could meet for a walk or a coffee or lunch spontaneously. I like Elizabeth a lot, but she’s busy with her kids and is going to school herself, and lives about 40 minutes away, and we don’t seem to make the effort unless we’re meeting up with common friends. Then yesterday, I had dinner with my friend Neva, who lives about an hour and 15 minutes from here. We have a sometimes complicated friendship. We were best friends in 6th grade, and then drifted apart when she was sent to a Christian school and I went to the public Jr. High. We reunited through Classmates.com back in 2001 or 2002, and see each other every couple of months. I love her dearly, but we are very different politically, which can be hard. Thankfully, yesterday we did not talk about politics at all, and we had a good time. In addition to all of these wonderful visits with friends, I had really nice phone visits with 3 of my dearest friends, Rosemary (Pennsylvania), Janet (Texas), and Marilee (Upstate New York). I love talking to them, it feels like a cool rain on a hot day.
Lastly, while out with Neva yesterday, we did a little bit of shopping. Inspired by Jenny, I bought some candles at Bath and Body Works, the 3 wick candles were on sale. Then we went to Tommy Bahama and I bought myself a sweater that I liked, and accidentally left my sunglasses in the fitting room. While there, I picked up the most delicious smelling candle. It’s the Maui Mango, and it smells delicious. No way in Hell I’m buying one, though, it’s $42. I can’t even. $42 for a candle? What the even heck. The good news is that I went back today and they had my sunglasses, so that’s good news.
33 Comments
Elisabeth
Love the rainbow – wires and all! Thanks for walking with me <3'
It's is overwhelming how distressing nightmares can be. Sometimes an especially bad one can set me off for a few days. Thankfully it doesn't happen often, but I'm sorry you had such a tough one remembering sweet Mulder. Sending hugs.
J
Thanks Elisabeth, there have been a couple of days this month when your challenge is the reason I went for a walk, so thank you for that! Regarding dreams, yes, it’s interesting how distressing they can be, and how they stick with you for a few days sometimes.
Margaret
I can’t remember my dreams very well but the emotions can stay with me a LONG time, especially when it’s been a scary or sad dream. Yours was both! How wonderful to stay in contact with so many friends. I love my coffee dates and outings with mine. I am worried sick about this election and its aftermath. 🙁
J
Thanks Margaret. Interesting that you don’t remember your dreams much, even though the emotions can stick. I often remember mine, and often they are boring and mundane. This morning, I dreamed that Ted and Maya slept past the time for their dentist appt. I mean, what? BORING. I could dream ANYTHING, and that’s what my mind is thinking about? They did have an appt today, and they were there in plenty of time.
Maya
Oh… I’m so sorry about your Mulder dream. I think our losses were around the same time. I liked hearing about Mulder’s blueberry donut… Scout had fried banana and icecream. I guess they both had a sweet tooth? (smiles and hugs)
But I chuckled that your asshole squirrel is named George Bush, and I LOVE that you don’t want to risk blinding him accidentally. I have the same issue with chipmunks digging in the porch planters. (THERE’s A WHOLE YARD FOR THEM TO DIG OUT THERE! Sorry for yelling.)
J
Maya, those dumb squirrels (in your case, chipmunks) cause so much damage around here, it’s crazy. They’re cute of course, and if they’re not in my yard I like them just fine. But once they start digging up my plants / eating my plants / eating the plastic nozzle on my garden hose / eating my planters, I get annoyed and then they get the moniker of GB. That goes way back to when they shared a name with an asshole president. So far none of them have done anything terrible enough to earn the worse name of T.
Maya
J–Ha. That’s an important distinction. I hope we never have Ts.
We have black squirrels in Michigan, so we call ours Kylo Ren https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylo_Ren
J
Evil but ultimately redeemable?
Tobia | craftaliciousme
The subconcious is such weird thing. Sorry it was a bad dream. Could have been a good one but no…
I was overwhelmed whith all the friends you saw. Was that just one week? And you said only a few live close. Wow I dont even have that many in total if I don’t count the blog firends.
Candles are so so expensive. I wanted to get one yesterday but 10€ is too much for me. I can not imagine 42$.
J
Tobia, I know, right? Why couldn’t it have been a sweet happy dream of Mulder? Maybe remembering the first day we met him, when we fell in love? Sigh.
Regarding the friends, no, that was over about a month, and added in there was a visit from my SIL from Alaska, and a visit with my sister and her family from Portland. VERY unusual, and very nice, to see so many friends so close together.
We like to have candles around in winter, usually I buy them at discount stores that we have here, TJMaxx and so on.
Lisa’s Yarns
I voted this week, too! I went to an early voting site on Friday when I was downtown for work.
Dang $42 for a candle is nuts!! I would have a hard time justifying that! We don’t have any candles in our house. I bought candles at Anthropologie when I lived alone but Phil does not care for scented candles so I have given up on owning any.
I have a good amount of friends close by but I rarely see them sadly. We did get together with some of Phil’s college friends last night for pumpkin carving. The wives are all in my book club so I see them once/month. But beyond that it’s rare for me to see friends. I have a hard time taking more time away from Phil and the boys with how much I am traveling. I kind of feel like some of my friends get together without me but I am trying not to he offended by this since I couldn’t get together with them anyways since I try to maximize time with the boys when I am not traveling. It’s complicated.
J
Lisa, you are definitely at a different stage of life than I am. I remember not seeing friends as much because I wanted to be home with my family, and then there are the times when you would LIKE to get together with friends anyway, but due to kid commitments (sports or whatever) is just doesn’t happen.
Have you ever tried unscented candles? I invested in some that you fill with paraffin oil, so they don’t burn down. We use those a lot. And little unscented tea candles too, just to bring some light in to the dark of winter and fall.
Birchie
I feel good about the election. I’ll be voting in person on Nov 5.
What you said about wishing that I had more IRL friends close by…and that we were all less busy so that we could meet more often.
I remember removing wires in photoshop once! Since then I’ve come to appreciate perfectly imperfect photos;-)
I hope that another dog will come into your life soon. I know that Ted isn’t ready, it’s a big commitment, yada yada but still…I just want it to happen.
J
Birchie, me too. Me too. Sigh.
Ernie
That’s a bummer that you do not have many IRL friends nearby. I’m glad you were able to connnect with so many recently. We are on our way yo the airport in NJ. Flew here to hang with Mini’s friends and their parents. Lots of fun. I wish some of them lived closer. I sometimes wonder what friends I might have if I had consistently worked outside the home/had a career. I do count a few of the moms that I sat for over the years as friends. What an awful dream! I chuckled at the thought of you ending up with a blind ass hole squirrel. I hope the coffee grinds work.
J
Ernie, yeah, it’s interesting to me that while I have met a lot of my IRL friends at work, I don’t have any that I am really close with from my current job (8 years), or my last one (15 years). We will sometimes have big get togethers, but I don’t get together for lunch with any of them on my own or anything. I am glad you had a fun weekend with friends!
Tierney
I went out with four female colleagues on Friday for dinner. It was great! We had so much fun. We’re all friend-ly and some of us have friendships outside of work. It was a really great group even though there was a plumbing disaster with the main outflow pipe that caused flooding and an early shutdown. The other women managed to avoid paying attention but I was low-key stressed. I knew exactly what was happening, and later saw the fecal evidence as the city workers were using an industrial size snake in the outflow pipe. It was horrific. And they weren’t wearing eye pro or masks…omg. This is how you get illnesses.
Wow, this is a terrible comment. The reason why I started it is because the other women have kids and their weekends were filled with Halloween parties. I felt uncool and only slightly better in knowing that the parties were for the kid set, not the adults.
J
LOL, that comment went south QUICKLY, right? I think people who deal with that kind of crap (HA) deserve every penny they make, probably more. I would have been anxious like you, maybe your friends were clueless. Sounds like a fun evening anyway!
AC
The walking club seems to be a great idea, something you can sort of do together although you are apart. I am not in position to join, but all the best to you all.
J
I agree, it is fun to know that we’re all walking every day, purposefully. It would be more fun if it could be together sometimes, but such is life, right?
Michelle G.
I love the rainbow photo! Now that AI is becoming more and more prevalent, I’m starting to appreciate REAL photos more than ever. I do touch up things like a zit, and I often have to straighten my photos – I’m a very lopsided photographer! How nice that you met up with friends, and also nice that you got your sunglasses back!
J
I hadn’t thought about your point before, about how there is something to be said for real photographs, untouched. I agree! Regarding my sunglasses, I’ve only had these for a few months, so I am VERY relieved!
Sarah
I miss Beatrix, too.
I left my favorite $10 sunglasses at the children’s dentist last week and did not go back for them– but I miss them a lot. Glad you found yours!
J
RIP Beatrix and Mulder. <3 Fuck cancer.
These were not $10 sunglasses, so I definitely went back for them.
coco
I feel the same way about IRL friendship. As we move around often, it gets harder to meet with friends, so regular phone call is so much needed. I like the life counsil book about friendship, the different kinds we need, and where we could find them. it helps to put things into perspective, not all friends are equal and they fulfil our different needs.
J
I like that, thank you!
nance
I’m sorry I missed this post earlier. It was a busy weekend.
I think real-life stress is making you have the stressful dreams. Whenever I’m working through any sort of overarching stress, it usually manifests in dreams. Often, they are dreams in which I have no control, like my car is speeding on switchback curves or in a full parking lot and I can’t get it to slow down.
As far as your squirrel problem, have you tried topping off your plant with riverstone or pebbles? I had to do that with my potted plants on the porch for several years. Squirrels were digging into them, and it did stop them.
J
Nance, stones had never occurred to me, what a great idea!
Stephany
I hate distressing dreams like that. Last night, I had a dream about my dad and he was asking me how I fared after the hurricanes. It’s always a gut punch to wake up and realize it was only a dream.
I dropped my ballot off on Sunday and found out today that it was counted. I am soooo nervous about this election.
J
Stephany, I hate those dreams where I wake up upset. They don’t happen often, but they do happen. Nance is right, I’m likely stressed, and I think it’s the election. I should turn off NPR. Let’s hope for good results!
Daria
Dreams are just…. So wierd. Pushing a guy in a wheelchair to get up the ramp in a poppy field, then we are at Walgreens and my boss comes in and starts giving me a hair cut. What in the actual F@#$%???
I dream of pets sometimes, too. Apollo, mainly(he passed in 2020).. Haven’t dreamed about Athena yet- it’s still fresh.
I don’t have any “let’s go for a walk” friends either. H lives in Somerville, 40 min away, H is in South Brunswick, same distance, B is in Sayreville, about 30 minutes away. So I go for walks alone. I dont necesarily like it but no other options exist.
J
I sometimes dream about my dog Samantha, who was my childhood dog, she died in 1988. In my dreams somehow she is still alive and I haven’t fed her in over 30 years….
The good thing about walking alone is that I can listen to my books, I guess!
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