how can I possibly catch up? in shiny things

I can’t! But look at me, making two entries in five days! We’re back at work now, waaaaahhhh. It’s not unbearable, but I sure do hate having to get up an hour earlier than I did when working remotely. I also hate trying to figure out what I’m going to wear - which has to be done the night before and I also have to have at least one alternate outfit because I am me, and out of the three days we’ve officially been back, I’ve changed my mind about what I am wearing at the last possible minute on two of them. In the Before Times I was having serious problems with being 10-15 minutes late to work every day, and I’ve sworn to be punctual now we’ve returned. SO, no spending ages putting on clothes, deciding they are horrible, ripping them off, digging for something else, not finding anything that’s clean/unwrinked/actually fits, etc etc etc. I have also decided to up my wardrobe game a bit now that I’ve gotten to spend a year and 4 months in leggings and fleecy pullovers/raggedy t-shirts. I have several skirts/dresses! And I am going to wear them!! I’m so old that to me skirts/dresses always meant having to also wear much-despised hose and slips (something everyone under 40 probably is having to google right now), so I’ve carried an aversion to them all my life, but they are fun! I need to enjoy them!

Oh, I also hate having to figure out something to pack for lunch every night. I feel now that I didn’t properly appreciate working right beside the kitchen for a year and four months. Today I had yogurt and still-partly-frozen mango for breakfast, which was left over from yesterday and didn’t thaw because I put it in a little snack thermos, duh. Then I had an English muffin at like 3:00 that was meant to be breakfast but I’d eaten the yogurt/mango for breakfast instead. I didn’t want the English muffin, but I didn’t have anything else because I spent all my planning power on Monday and Tuesday’s food, and was out of energy by last night, so I’d packed that, a few not very good strawberries, and a cute little spoon and fork. Now I’m hungry.

SO, what has happened during my long absence? Well, a couple of very sad things. We lost our beloved little Eddie about a year ago. In my last entry I mentioned that he’d been losing weight, and his white blood cell count was low. We were hoping it was just stress at having to go to the vet, and possibly stress from Phillip who was constantly wanting to play with him, but sadly he continued to get skinnier and skinnier, and we found out he had cancer. The good thing was that he wasn’t in pain, and ate all the time - just couldn’t gain/maintain weight due to the cancer - and we were both at home to keep an eye on him and give him tons of attention. But it was really sad, and I still miss him. I’m very glad we got Phillip the previous year, so at least he was there to distract us and keep Cayce company.

Eddie and Cayce were siblings and together all their lives-

The other very very sad thing - although not so unexpected - was losing Baker B’s mom in March. It was not a shock since she was 100 - very strangely, she turned 100 on a Sunday and died at 2 am on Monday - and she’d been declining in the months before. She had Covid a couple of months earlier, although she didn’t have any symptoms, so we hoped she was one of the really lucky ones. And we don’t know that Covid contributed to her death, since she was 100. But she got a terrible case of shingles on her face, around her left eye, which was very painful and seemed to lead to her rapid decline, and is also a sign of a weakened immune system. We did at least get to visit her again in the nursing home in her last few weeks, as did Baker B’s brother and SIL, despite Covid restrictions. We’d hardly seen her since everything shut down the previous March, so it was an entire year of trying to talk to her on the phone - often unsuccessfully, her hearing was terrible and there were always issues with the phone. We were able to go and sit outside with her a few time last fall at least, after restrictions got a little looser, but then it got colder and she didn’t want to sit outside.

So, very sad, despite knowing it had to happen. The worst thing was not getting to see her except for those few outside visits and waving at her from the other side of her window. And not getting to throw her a big party for her 100th. We all visited in her room with balloons and banners, but she was pretty unresponsive at that point. At least we did get to take her out on her 99th- just in the nick of time, as everything shut down a couple of days later. That was my last time inside a restaurant until last month.

Visiting last fall:

Fun times on her birthday, as she eats lemons flanked by Baker B and his waaaay older brother:

And all ready to go on her 99th:

Continuing this in the evening and just realized I posted several of those earlier, but it’s been so long ago I doubt anyone remembers them. Also, if you can’t see pictures let me know - I linked them from Facebook because by now I’ve forgotten how to post pictures from Flickr, and although I did make them public on FB, that seems like it could be trouble. And I will continue later, the Sad Things Entry is quite long enough. Happier things next!

Last updated July 29, 2021