Thursday, October 3

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Beautiful weather. Crisp and moderate and sunny.

I did speak with the veterinarian in the morning about the possibility of gall stones or gall bladder inflammation, and she said that they did not see any elevated liver enzymes (an ultrasound would follow if they saw those numbers elevated). From everything she's seen, nothing points to any kind of other issue, just pancreatitis.

She said that Roxy seems to be doing well, and so on, though her pancreatic numbers are still high (but did come down again overnight with the IV fluids). She once again felt that it was odd, but given everything else she felt that Roxy could continue her recovery at home with medications.

So, I went back to town to pick her up towards the end of the business day, and of course I'm happy to have her back with us at home, but I am a bit concerned about why those pancreatic enzymes are still fairly high.

I think that even if Roxy seems to recover okay, and if all goes well after she's finished her medications, I might get them to check her again. It's possible that her baseline levels of pancreatic enzyme are just high.

I don't feel relieved at the moment, as I can't really feel like all is well. She's getting some medication for this week, all for protecting her stomach and promoting gut health.

Anyhow, my Sweetie was home by the time we got back from town, and he was able to replace a light fixture on the side of the house that had stopped working. It was quite a high one, and he wasn't very happy that it failed on us after only a year or so, as he had installed an LED fixture with the idea that we might never have to do anything to it, possibly as long as we lived here.

He also worked a bit on that peak over the front door, which is proving to be fairly fussy and taking longer than he thought it would (starting to see a theme here?).

I had let everyone out into their pastures during this, and then was able to work with Wonder and Dandy for a while. They did well, in spite of me having no spoons left to work with them this last week.

We did watch an episode of "Justified".

Comments

[ratunderpaper]

LED lights don't have the same warmth that incandescents do, but they're much nicer than fluorescents.

That said, there's a certain cosiness to having hole-in-the-wall Chinese food in a restaurant with 100 layers of plastic tablecloths and fluorescent lighting.

I have halogen pot lights in the sulking room - very nice, but definitely not long-lasting.

Nice that the pooch is back at home.

[gottawonder]

These are lights on the outside of the house, mainly just for when we're doing chores or bringing in groceries. We won't be sitting outside with them on.

We wanted LED because this fixture is very high up, and we didn't want to have to replace light bulbs.

As you say, there's something about fluorescent lighting as part of a nostalgic setting. The classic Chinese food place in Canada has a mood, and that lighting is part of it. It's just as important as the mystery "red sauce" , chicken balls that don't seem to actually have a core of chicken, and the weird plastic decorations they always seem to have.

Oh yes, and the paper place mat with the Chinese zodiac on it.

Halogens always scare me a bit because of the thing with not getting any finger grease on the bulb, and the heat they generate.

I'm glad that Roxy is home too, though I will feel better when I can be sure that she is comfortable and eating/pooping happily without the need of medication.

[ratunderpaper]

I had no idea about halogen bulbs - maybe that's the reason why mine have not lasted very long.

Nostalgia is powerful. It's not normally something I think about. But when writing 2000+ words a day during NaNoWriMo, nostalgia takes over and each year, Christmas lights find their way into the novel in some form. They are a strong symbol, though I'm not sure if it's a positive or negative symbol.

[gottawonder]

Apparently if you get finger grease on the bulb, something about the acidity and the heat ruins the glass. That's what I was told.

I don't think they ever were particularly long lasting.

If your halogens are the screw in type that fit what used to be a conventional fixture, you should be able to find LED bulbs that work.

You can now get LED bulbs in warmer tones for interiors. They've come a long way.

I don't think there is any way to write a story with any personal content that doesn't have any nostalgia in it at all.

How do Christmas lights make you feel, and what associations do you make from them?

For me, Christmas lights as a kid were this weird thing where we wanted TONS of them, but it was always a feeling of "but it's also a big job for Mom to put them up", and she always made it sound like she didn't want the bother. Thus, having those lights also led me to feel guilty about Mom having to do all the work, and kind of bad for wanting MORE.

When I was older, and lights were better, it was a lot easier and more fun, and we could put them up ourselves, but those childhood feelings of want/guilt are here in the back ground.

Now, they feel a little sad too because we don't do much for Christmas, and it's often just my husband and I, where for both of us Christmas used to be big family gatherings.

So it's weird that we can have "all the lights we want" for a strangely lonesome holiday.

Yet, I have to say, that for myself, I find them a source of joy in the darkness of winter, kind of a promise of hope and longer days to come after Christmas (the shortest day of the year).

I love seeing the lights (on a timer) when I'm driving towards our house in the dark, and seeing the tree we decorated, and how pretty the "icicle" lights on our fence look, as I'm out doing chores.

So, for me, those lights are a combination of not quite fulfilled childhood expectations, guilt, and now joy and hope for spring. A weird bittersweet feeling.

[ratunderpaper]

Would either or both of you want to put on a jolly holiday party with friends?

I've had Christmases tiny, large, in between, with friends and with family - they usually find their way into NaNo as well - but the ones I've devised that are largely inclusive of friends are my favourites. And lights... are peculiarly festive AND mournful at the same time.

[gottawonder]

Sometimes we have get togethers with a couple of different small groups. Often with one couple (house work exchange people), some friends in the city.

This year I think we will likely do something with a friend of mine from many years ago that I discovered is now living in the city nearby. The one we went kayaking with this summer, and we cared for her animals a while ago. She is also a bit "on her own" these days, and I want to make sure we do something with her around the holiday season.

There will likely be some kind of gathering related to the riding barn, possibly the pottery group.

I am hoping to do something with D from pottery, though she might be busy. She has a pretty good social circle.

I can try to embrace the "Christmas Present" this year, and see if we can't do some fun things like see the ice sculptures in the city, maybe walk around and look at people's Christmas lights, and make a point of snow shoeing, if we get the right snow.

There's always something to enjoy, even if it isn't the big family gathering it used to be. As I've said, as much as those gatherings were our standard way of celebrating, there was also a lot of stress associated with them.

With me, the thing I have to watch is my high expectations for everything all the time, since I can easily miss the present moment.

[ratunderpaper]

Unless you ARE the toddler or small child, great, big, loud, child-centred gatherings can be hard to take. I liked them when small, but now, no no no - they are headache inducing.

Each new generation brings forth new screaming hellions. Christmas is a shriekfest.

[gottawonder]

I recall that the last couple of big family gatherings with all the kids was....a lot. Too many people all trying to cram inside one house, too many people being LOUD, kids everywhere.

If nothing else, we shouldn't have had any gift openings. We WERE getting together on Boxing Day, and I feel like the gift openings were just distracting, even though that was the day they opened presents from Grandma and others.

It was also kind of awful HOW MANY presents some of the kids were getting, like a ridiculous amount of stuff, and because it was different families, it was unequal.

When I was a kid the gifts were pretty modest, a few things from Mom and maybe something from my Aunt E, and that was it. No one needs fifteen big presents.

I kind of think I would be the kind of parent that would crack down on gifts if we'd had kids. I would limit the grandparents to ONE PRESENT and they'd get maybe one or two things from us (though maybe that one present would be something pretty nice that they REALLY wanted).

What I miss, is the fun family stuff like everyone talking and playing cards, and then taking all the kids somewhere to go sledding (that was always my job, was to take all the kids outside to tire them out).

Though I haven't been there for several years now at Christmas, a few times our family rented a community center room for Christmas, which makes a lot of sense. Those places have a nice kitchen, bathrooms, and a huge area so the kids can run around.

[ratunderpaper]

I remember one Christmas like that, out in the country. The sous chef was small, but went outside to play and skate with his cousins as the snow fell in large Charlie Brown Christmas-type flakes. The house was bright and warm, with adults setting tables of food and mugs of cocoa. Later, the kids opened one present from each family - so, three presents per kid. Not outrageous.

It's not like that now - it's a free-for-all of yelling and of soothing screaming toddlers. Some adults don't show up at all if it's inconvenient. Yet, there's always the chance that this will be the year that the gathering is lovely if not magical.

[gottawonder]

There was always something that was nice, whether it's seeing the little kids (they really do grow up so fast), or some of my sisters that we'd only see at Christmas.

There was a sweet spot population wise when it was just my siblings and their kids. Enough to feel like a good crowd.

Now it's their kids with kids, and it's too many for a house.

Of course, this is the point where people generally start splitting off to have "their own Christmas", and that's normal and natural.

I feel like up to about 20 people isn't awful, but more than that and it's just too much.

Of course, I don't think I could deal with more than a handful of people in our house. I'm just not used to having people at our place.

[ratunderpaper]

Hosting Christmas is rotated between denizen siblings each year, and when it's our turn, we usually don't get a lot of people with the tots - it's an inconvenience to drive in highway traffic from the country all the way to the city. Sooner or later, the whole enterprise will switch to the siblings' grown children's homes. Things change.