Toast… My Kingdom for a Piece of Toast in Everyday Ramblings

So for those of you who don’t have raccoons here is a not very good picture of my intruder the other morning. For those of you all too familiar with their wily ways you can admire the greenery in the gloom of my patio railing. My place is built into a hill so my patio is below ground level. The rhododendrons are thriving and they add quite a bit of cover that makes all the local birds that visit feel a bit more protected each year.

Today I had the second endless seeming dental appointment. Another two hours in the chair. The good thing about it is that it is over. And now I get to heal.

I am having fantasies about eating toast (I watched the first season of the British version of Broadchurch over the last two weeks and everybody eats toast in that) and nuts and even celery. I was explaining this to the hygienist this morning and she is like you can dip the toast in tea to soften it and I am like, noooo, the whole point is the crunch…

By that time I was a bit grumpy.

The weather has turned cold and wet. We really need the rain so I am glad for it, intellectually, but emotionally I long for the warmth of the sun.

And toast.

I did manage to control my snarky response to the hygienist and the receptionist who couldn’t deal with anything out of her known routine having to do with collecting money and took a little too much of mine, (which now they will need to refund) until I got in the car with Kes. Saint Kes, who came up and spent the night on my futon and played with the cats and drove me through our horrific commuter traffic to my appointment and sat there and knitted for the duration.

Yes, it is true; there are saints who knit.

My beloved IT support person at work, who has not been happy for many years and stressed out reached an agreement with his management team that he would separate from service if they gave him a package. He is also one of my yoga students and although I just found out what was going on last night he has known for a week he spent decompressing at his cabin on beautiful (if low) river up north of here.

I am thrilled for him. He is a great guy and he looked better and more relaxed than I have ever seen him. I think there must have been some agreement not to talk about how this all unfolded but the deed is done and he is not going back.

But selfishly, this is going to be hard on me as I carry on in this job of mine. He was literally one of only a handful of folks up there I could be myself with and be honest.

I am almost halfway through the course of antibiotics and that and the bite adjustments the dental specialist made are helping me feel a little more hopeful about how I am feeling in general. I talked my dermatologist out of giving me a steroid shot in a place you don’t even want to entertain a thought about last week in the hopes that the antibiotics would help with that problem too and I am happy to say they are.

So for a few weeks I am good. Please think banishing thoughts towards the mystery symptoms and let us hope for the best.

In the book by Kelly McGonical on rethinking our attitude toward stress I picked up on Sunday she defines it this way…”Stress is what arises when something you care about is at stake.”

I like that. As she says the word has become a catchall term for anything we don’t want to experience and everything that is wrong with the world.

Based on that last description I would pretty much say I have had a stressful day.

Tomorrow will be better.

Last updated June 02, 2015