A Little Dark, A Little Light with Camelia in Everyday Ramblings

This is a confused but beautiful camellia blooming down the block last week when we had unusual amounts of sun. Now it is drizzling and we won’t see the sun in quite some time but the camellias don’t know that.

It is so nice to see something blooming naturally in these dark times with such disturbing news, polarization and well, the opioid epidemic. The bushes where these flowers are blooming are in front of a 3-story parking garage and next to it is a public staircase. On the landing there used to be a bench and over the years in became pretty beat up until finally all the boards were ripped out and just the metal frame of the bench was left.

About a month ago someone replaced the bench with this beautiful wood and two days later someone burned a tag in it. Then last week another one. On Wednesday morning walking down the stairs below the bench there were about 12 orange caps from syringes on the concrete mixed in with wet leaves. Today they were more.

In the evening on Wednesday walking to the studio I heard a dog whining and saw flashing lights across from the building where a lot of mentally ill folks live. Many of them I know by sight because they get claustrophobic and sleep and eat and hang out with various piles of stuff including bicycle parts and sometimes stuffed animals and big jigsaw puzzles, all sorts of things across the street. Some days I nod and sometimes exchange little jokes or respond to comments tossed my way. They recognize me as regular and harmless.

But this night there was a handcuffed woman I did not recognize sitting on the curb yelling at the police officers that had just finished putting her dog in a muzzle and were loading him in a car. It was a drug arrest, I gleaned that much.

I wonder what happens to the dog. If there is a way for her to get the dog back if she is released. Sometimes I see so much tenderness between street people and their animals and I wonder if that is the only tenderness they experience in their lives…

Anyway, the opioid epidemic is not some theoretical thing in my life. It is getting pretty darn close to home.

There is this thing going on at work that is bothering me and I have let it make me irritable the last few days. I won’t even deign to give it enough energy by explaining it but it has to do with someone in another area communicating both with some of our internal and external customers and changing a process without telling us. Throw a brand new department director in the mix after a retirement we didn’t know about and it is just this stupid mess that all could have been avoided.

That and I put on my winter coat for the first time since April and it is tight around the hips and you have a grumpy tired cat lady under construction.

My solution after a annoying rainy evening last night where I tried to get my cardio at home with a 88 minute boosted walk at home program and after getting all sweaty and making the cats slightly crazy and still only getting 17 minutes of cardio out of that…just after I clocked out from work today I walked to the gym, did a half hour on the treadmill, and walked home and took a hot shower.

I feel much better.

And ready for whatever the weekend holds.

One can hope it is something a little more upbeat!

The cats are currently chill, curled up around each other at the end of the bed doing their kitty snoring thing.

I think I may make the gym right after work on Friday a regular thing.

Last updated October 27, 2018