I Tried

This disease will not go away. 

Sleep is elusive.  Advil is my best friend.  Having rationale thoughts send beyond my capabilities. 

The Lying Liar couldn't get his gag order reversed by New York State's biggest court,  and TBG has been imagining all the ways President Biden could bait him into a violation when they debate.  I'm trying to help,  but the brain fog is interfering with my snark.

You know I'm sick when I can't muster up something devilish to propose about the felon who wants to ruin our country. 

The NBA finals were boring,  in watching hockey because I can't follow a story,  and Ken Follett's newest tome is top heavy for me to hold up. 

I'll try to be back tomorrow, if my brain can hold some thoughts on anything beyond how crappy I feel. 

I'm not young enough to waste these weeks. I dint have an unlimited supply of them left in the tank. 

Thanks for listening to me whine. 

Happy Father's Day

TBG and I are still under the weather. It's too hot to sit outside.  

Modern medicine is remarkable.  Air conditioning is a wonderful thing. 

I've been thinking in dichotomies all week long.  Hot and cold.  Exhausted and awake.  Hungry and nauseous.  How they all can exist at the same time in my small body remains a mystery. 

My brain is exhausted, yet I've managed to read four books, watch Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte and Bosch, and lose seven and a half pounds in the process. 

There is much to discuss.  I will be back tomorrow to do so. 

Ugh

I'm resting.... as if I could do anything else. 

I'm tired but can't fall asleep. 

I'm shivering then sweaty.....but do you really need to read this?

I do feel marginally better with the Paxlovid, Advil, Robitussin, and more water than I've ever downed before.... did I mention I'm constantly thirsty. 

Oh,  TBG tested positive too. 

I'll post when I can, but I'm taking everyone's advice to be kind to myself and rest. 

Thanks for caring.  

COVID

I was so proud that is avoided the scourge. 

Then there was this:

I feel awful.  I have Paxlovid and Robitussin and Advil and Aspirin and an attentive if distanced husband. 

What I don't have is brain power.

I'll try to recoup and regroup and be able to type to you tomorrow.  Now  though,  I'm going to do what everyone tells me is the best thing to do - I'm going to rest. 

Taking Care

Linda's comment yesterday hit home.

Why am I still so hard on myself?  

Let's blame it on the parenting and move on, shall we?

I always want to do my best, to be my best, to be better than I was yesterday.  In high school we knew exactly where we stood in the pecking order; I graduated 42nd in my class of 700, and I know who was 10th and who was 50th and who was 4th and a few others.  

It's silly to care about something that happened 55 years ago, but I do.  

In living up to expectations of excellence, I was taking care of myself.  No one was ever disappointed so there were no opportunities for calumny.  

Doing well also opened the door to opportunities in the future.  I knew that then and I know that now.  

When a friend's mother let her stay home from school for a mental health day, I thought it was at least immoral if not illegal.  Back then, there was no such thing as self-care unless it involved tweezers.

But now there is, and I embrace it.  I'm all about days in the comfy chair with good light and a good book and ordering food.  There are times when the planless days of Pandemica are remembered with fondness.  I stay away from the school garden when it's too hot or rainy or I just don't feel like going.  

I don't feel guilty about any of that.

But writing The Burrow every weekday is a commitment I've made to myself and to you.  I've held to it since April 14, 2009.  That's 4,368 times I've managed to live up to expectations, to be good to those around me, by delivering what I promised. 

That's an achievement that gives me great pleasure and pride and astonishment, that speaks to who I am and who I want to be, that feels like a warm hug to myself whenever I click Publish.

If I am AWOL, I should  apologize.  Good manners are part of our social contract (see our polite comment sections when politics are discussed). Being polite feels good. Being told to be kind to myself feels good.  

It's nice when all these things that feel good conflate..... and create a blog post when nothing else came to mind.

Thanks,  Linda

I'm Abashed

Start with the fact that I've never fully updated my new laptop. 

Continue with doctors and dentists and pharmacies. 

Add in a birthday or two, a grandkid's trip to the ER (his forehead is glued back together and he's fine), and a dinner party that never took off and you have a picture of my previously described untethered life. 

Clearly, I have to get myself together. 

Unanchored

It's like this the first week of every summer. 

What day is it? comes out of my mouth more than one. 

School's out of session and I'm flummoxed.  Without structure beyond Pilates three times a week, I'm not beholden to anyone for anything.  I'm committed to Mahjong on Friday mornings, but I'm not required to attend.  

I have a dental appointment Thursday afternoon; it's the only non-recurring event.  

Survivor and Bachelor and Oak Island are on summer break, too.  That's how TBG kept track of the days so he's no help at all.

I'll figure out how to think about it and where to put my energies now that the outdoors is inhospitable for most of the day.  I'm sure of that.  

For today, though, I wanted to write about feeling untethered. l I thought it might help.

Hmmmmmm.......   not so far...........

Cultural Differences

My mother and father reveled in the fact that my husband held doors open, pulled chairs out (should've warned G'ma about that before she came to the table and tried to sit down), laughed at their foibles, and loved their daughter.  His Protestant heritage was a mere after thought, a problem only for Daddooooo's mother and that only until her dementia labeled him as safe.  

Daddooooo and Nannie had a special relationship.  He'd badger her to move it or lose it and she'd counter with an order to relax, for cryin' out loud.  They both felt better after they hung up the phone.  There is some evidence that her mother (TBG's maternal grandmother, if you've lost track of the genealogy along the way) was Jewish, but that's really irrelevant.  

Though she has a long history to belie it, I've always thought of her as the ultimate Jewish Mother.

Queen T, who grew up in an SSR as the Berlin Wall fell, was surprised to know that her husband's family considered the Cossacks to be the bad guys.  They were the heroes who rode in to save her and her playmates, slaughtering bad guys as Good Trounced Evil.

She's nothing if not open to new experiences and ideas.  She sings over the Hanukkah candles and hosts monthly Shabbat dinners.  This year, one of those dinners became a spur of the moment Passover Seder, the extremely abbreviated version of the Haggadah, according to my son.

I'm enjoying imagining the sparring between my father and his only grandson's beautiful, blonde, confident and smart wife as he teases and she gives back as good as she gets, while listening and learning and looking past the bombast to the story below.  

G'ma is wondering about the construction of those napkin roses and admiring the Seder plate I gifted Queen T because Little Cuter is right: She's the only one of us likely to ever host a seder.

I'd love to see my angry grandmother's face were she reading this right now.  

I wonder if any of them notice Big Cuter's Diet Coke, up there in the left corner

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