Saturday, December 3
Dec. 3rd, 2023 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
That today was our day in the city, just for the sake of doing something different. Our week, like that of many other people's, is kind of the same day after day for the most part, and this is, for the time being, the day we can do something else.
I won't say I was in the best frame of mind for it. I didn't sleep well, and that makes it difficult to enjoy anything.
Also, I feel that one of cats, Sprite, is not quite right. She just seems a little off with her eating, and while throwing up is not unusual for her, today she threw up but was a little less interested in eating to make up for it later.
She did eat some treats, and most of her evening food, but I'll keep an eye on her anyhow.
It threw off my day, because it just gave me flashbacks to Fatty. His illness made him lose interest in food, and he threw up a lot at the end.
We went to the art gallery again to look at the same exhibit we saw last time, because there were so many items in that show, and they are all so detailed that we really didn't absorb it all last time. It was Flemish etchings, and they are all incredibly fine and intricate.
Then we went to the bookstore, where I got one book and a few DVDs.
Then we went to the Good Will, though I know that it no longer does much charity, it does keep a huge amount of items out of the land fill. They still perform a useful service. I mainly got some sweat pants, in the hopes that one day I will feel secure enough in my stock pile of them to toss out those that are truly awful, and wear some better ones around home. I also found two pretty winter scarves.
We found a Mucho Burrito, possibly the last one left in the city. I like them because they fit my criteria for being able to eat vegetarian and lower carb (I now ask for extra beans instead of the rice for better complex carbs instead of simple carbs from rice). It was nice to eat something different, my own cooking gets pretty monotonous.
We had a specific interest in looking for a balance board, I don't know if we'll use it or not, but I was interested in one. We didn't get to many stores, but we didn't try very hard. I did get a weighted bar that maybe I can use. I need to do SOMETHING.
Overall, it was an okay day, but I was in a pretty down mood, worried about Sprite, and honestly, a number of things in life lately just make me feel so aware of mortality.
The friend whose animals we are babysitting (she is planning to get them tomorrow) is our age roughly, but she has serious issues with anxiety and short term memory loss, and she seems much older. It's unsettling to see someone that you were friends with in your 20's seem so old.
All I talk about with my sisters is the issues of being older, and their separate journeys of aging, health issues, moving, and loss.
My Mom, my husband's parents, and pretty much everyone we know who still has parents is dealing with the same issues.
Every now and then it gets overwhelming, and while we ourselves are not THAT old yet, and we're fortunate enough to be in decent health and so on, we still talk about retirement planning a lot, and sometimes it just feels like there's not much to look forward to that will feel like we're still growing as people.
So, today I just felt grey, and somewhat unable to appreciate even having a day in town, because even that felt like a rut, not so much fun as just another routine.
We came home and watched "Gangster No. 1" which had a lot going for it. Great cast, an incredible performance by Paul Bettany, and it was pretty great and compelling, but had kind of a let down of an ending. Still worth watching just for Paul Bettany.
I learned about the deliberate destruction of dams and dikes on the Yellow River by the Chinese National Army in 1938, as a strategic defense against Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
It worked. The flooding and destruction of infrastructure (roads, bridges, food sources, railways) made it very difficult for the Japanese to advance. It also killed somewhere between 30,000 and 89,000 (wow, what a loose estimate) people directly from drowning, and over time, about half a million civilians from the longer terms effects of starvation and disease.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood
That today was our day in the city, just for the sake of doing something different. Our week, like that of many other people's, is kind of the same day after day for the most part, and this is, for the time being, the day we can do something else.
I won't say I was in the best frame of mind for it. I didn't sleep well, and that makes it difficult to enjoy anything.
Also, I feel that one of cats, Sprite, is not quite right. She just seems a little off with her eating, and while throwing up is not unusual for her, today she threw up but was a little less interested in eating to make up for it later.
She did eat some treats, and most of her evening food, but I'll keep an eye on her anyhow.
It threw off my day, because it just gave me flashbacks to Fatty. His illness made him lose interest in food, and he threw up a lot at the end.
We went to the art gallery again to look at the same exhibit we saw last time, because there were so many items in that show, and they are all so detailed that we really didn't absorb it all last time. It was Flemish etchings, and they are all incredibly fine and intricate.
Then we went to the bookstore, where I got one book and a few DVDs.
Then we went to the Good Will, though I know that it no longer does much charity, it does keep a huge amount of items out of the land fill. They still perform a useful service. I mainly got some sweat pants, in the hopes that one day I will feel secure enough in my stock pile of them to toss out those that are truly awful, and wear some better ones around home. I also found two pretty winter scarves.
We found a Mucho Burrito, possibly the last one left in the city. I like them because they fit my criteria for being able to eat vegetarian and lower carb (I now ask for extra beans instead of the rice for better complex carbs instead of simple carbs from rice). It was nice to eat something different, my own cooking gets pretty monotonous.
We had a specific interest in looking for a balance board, I don't know if we'll use it or not, but I was interested in one. We didn't get to many stores, but we didn't try very hard. I did get a weighted bar that maybe I can use. I need to do SOMETHING.
Overall, it was an okay day, but I was in a pretty down mood, worried about Sprite, and honestly, a number of things in life lately just make me feel so aware of mortality.
The friend whose animals we are babysitting (she is planning to get them tomorrow) is our age roughly, but she has serious issues with anxiety and short term memory loss, and she seems much older. It's unsettling to see someone that you were friends with in your 20's seem so old.
All I talk about with my sisters is the issues of being older, and their separate journeys of aging, health issues, moving, and loss.
My Mom, my husband's parents, and pretty much everyone we know who still has parents is dealing with the same issues.
Every now and then it gets overwhelming, and while we ourselves are not THAT old yet, and we're fortunate enough to be in decent health and so on, we still talk about retirement planning a lot, and sometimes it just feels like there's not much to look forward to that will feel like we're still growing as people.
So, today I just felt grey, and somewhat unable to appreciate even having a day in town, because even that felt like a rut, not so much fun as just another routine.
We came home and watched "Gangster No. 1" which had a lot going for it. Great cast, an incredible performance by Paul Bettany, and it was pretty great and compelling, but had kind of a let down of an ending. Still worth watching just for Paul Bettany.
I learned about the deliberate destruction of dams and dikes on the Yellow River by the Chinese National Army in 1938, as a strategic defense against Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
It worked. The flooding and destruction of infrastructure (roads, bridges, food sources, railways) made it very difficult for the Japanese to advance. It also killed somewhere between 30,000 and 89,000 (wow, what a loose estimate) people directly from drowning, and over time, about half a million civilians from the longer terms effects of starvation and disease.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood
