Photo: Cherry blossoms and the quote: “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
― Alexander Pope
This has long been my philosophy.
If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!
(Assuming where I am is the front, since the prompt originates here … at the front.)
I killed two birds with one stone today. Going out once, that is, and getting two things done.
I visited my mum for the first time at the nursing home since she moved in in June. We sat and chatted about the same things over and over again for an hour. Nothing ever gets old, ironically.
Then I braved the (mostly empty) mall. Shoe store and Toys ‘R’ Us. No line-ups, just the way I like it. I really, seriously, have to get my Christmas shopping done within the next couple of weeks.
If only …
Ugh, I don’t want to complain.
Okay, so I’ll just say it.
Good news first?
Bad news first?
I can’t hear you, so I’ll decide.
I still have the tinnitus, but I’m able to ignore it.
And the heartburn seems to have pretty much cleared up. Yay!
But now I have a frozen shoulder again. And I have no idea why.
Not because I think I have the disease or because I’ve been around someone with it, but so I can go and visit my mother in her long-term care home.
For, like, the first time since March.
As soon as I have the test results, I can see her for a couple of weeks, give or take, before I have to be tested again.
So what it comes down to, is I hope I’m not a container for the disease.
See what I did there?
What was the test like?
I’ll tell you.
It was a drive-through testing site, so I didn’t have to get out of the car, but I did have to follow some really confusing pylons. Because I was the only car there, and they had that loopy-loop thing through the parking lot. As my son pointed out, I was like that character in Shrek, running back and forth through the roped-off empty line-up.
So I get to the front of the line, finally, after feeling like I’ve just gone through an obstacle course for the World’s Worst Driver (no, I didn’t knock down any pylons), and the nice PPE’d lady took my health card to check to see who I was, etc. She came back a few seconds later with a two-foot-long log swab to stick up my nose. Before she did, she explained that it was quick, but it would feel sort of like when you breathe in pure chlorine water from a pool. What she didn’t tell me is that if you clench too hard and they can’t get the knife swab up far enough, they’re going to ask you to swallow. Had I known this earlier, I’d have had some spit in my mouth.
But no. No spit. So the sword swab was up my nose that much longer.
But still, before I knew it, it was over. She gave me back my health card and said I could leave. But to take my time and wait until I’d stopped bawling like an infant my eyes had stopped watering before I drove away. There was still not a single car behind me.
So yeah, if you have to get a brain scrape a Covid-19 test, take spit with you.
Why isn’t ocean spelled “otion”? Ah, the English language. It makes no sense.
When I was little, maybe 5? 6? years old, I asked all the adults around me (and I actually remember this) why you didn’t write a number like thirty-four out as 304. Because that’s how you say it, right? 30 4. Thirty four. None of the adults understood what I was saying. They just told me you couldn’t do it. Nope. No way.
(Adults had no imagination when I was a kid.)
But NOW …
There’s a house in my neighbourhood. It’s an old house, but it was sold, and the new owners painted the red brick white and snazzed it up. (I liked it better the old way, but there you go. It’s not my house.) Anyhoo, when they screwed the numbers back on the front of the house, they put up these HUGE things in sleek silver.
The number on the house?
30four.
And it pisses me off.
Why?
What happened to that innocent little kid with an imagination?
NOTHING.
BUT!
The only way you can know if the actual address on this house is 34 or 304 is to look at its neighbour. (It’s 32.)
So.
Someone who has my brilliant imagination took it to a ridiculous(!) extreme and stuck it on a building.
UGH!
Just thinking about it makes me mad.
So back to motion…
(So I can stop thinking about that poor old house.)
What’s the saying? Things in motion tend to stay in motion, or something like that.
That’s my brain. Thank goodness. These days at least.
The tinnitus hasn’t stopped, not for a second. It SCREAMS at me in the morning when I wake up and every single time I think of it during the day. But when I stop thinking about it? I don’t notice it.
So if I can concentrate on something … really concentrate on something … I get relief.
After what I believe might have been the hottest summer since I’ve lived in this part of Ontario–on record? maybe not–it’s cooled down enough that I have to pull my collar up if I go out at night. It’s winter-coat time if you spend too much time out there.
Crazy weather.
But (touch wood) at least we’re not on fire. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow here. I’ll blow as much as I can southwestward.
On my mind of late has been the fact that things are open. More things than I’ve gone to in the past six months. Six months today, and I’ve only been to the grocery store for as many weeks as that is … 26 times? I’m tempted to go to the mall just to get my Christmas shopping done before everything is closed down again. I dread shopping online, but you know what I dread even more? Going out in public.
The virus has put a not-entirely-unwelcome collar around my neck and kept me chained to my home.
But my shoes have holes and I can’t buy shoes without trying them on because my size varies with brand. And no, I can’t just buy the same ones I already have because they came from Payless … Yeah, that’s how long it’s been since I bought shoes.
And Alex needs new clothes but he’s grown, so I really need to look at them to see if they’ll fit. Unless I can find actual measurements online.
Nope, I’m going to have to brave the retail, I’m afraid. Damn the torpedoes. Mask up and have off.
I’m having to sharpen my resolve to stay off Facebook and all the other time-wasters that take up my days if I let them. I have a busy couple of months ahead of me, and I can’t afford to dally anywhere.
I’m happy that my break time today consisted not of online pursuits but of walking around the block with Alex. It was a gorgeous day–not too hot, not too cold, and not humid at all–so it was a great day to get some exercise.
I wish I had somewhere to put a treadmill, so we could exercise when we’re unable to go outside. The cooler days remind me that we’ll be under feet of snow soon. At least I won’t have to worry about snow days… School is online until January at least anyway. The only reason not to go to school will be a power outage.
Imagine that.
Walking uphill both ways to get to the computer. In a snow storm.
I buy those mini ten-packs of cereal every couple of weeks for us to munch on if we run out of food before my once-a-week shopping trip. My son Chris usually eats them, all but the Rice Krispies, so I have about 8 boxes of them in the cupboard. I suppose they’re not sweet enough for him. He loves his Rice Krispie Squares, though.
Why do they call them squares? They’re rectangular.
I loved the little boxes of cereal when I was a kid. I used to open them along the tear lines and open the waxed paper inside and pour milk in and eat the cereal right out of the box. Do they still have the lines in the boxes to do that?
I’ll go check. Be right back.
I’m back. And no, you can’t cut the box open along the lines anymore. I suppose you could still do it yourself, but who knows if the package inside is milk-proof?
I’d have to try it to find out. But I’m not hungry right now.
I’m counting down the number of spoonsful of green tea ice cream I have to eat before I can open the chocolate peanut butter one. I’d say I have maybe a dozen spoonsful left. That’s some major self-control right there.
Proud of me? I am. Almost as proud as I would be if I hadn’t bought it at all. But there you go. Pobody’s nerfect.
So now I’m wondering how old I have to be to remember eating cereal and milk right out of the box.
I have failed. I have failed in my resolve and thus, as a human being.
Okay, maybe it’s not quite that dire.
Let me back up a bit.
Thursday (that’s today, right?) is shopping day. Despite best-laid plans to get up and be at the grocery store when they opened at 8:00 I didn’t wake up until my son screamed at me that it was time to go shopping now, Mom, at 9:00.
So I quickly dressed and jumped in the car.
Here’s my excuse: I’m in the ice cream aisle, it’s, like 9:40, and I haven’t had coffee yet. AN UNCAFFEINATED BRAIN CANNOT FUNCTION IN THE ICE CREAM AISLE!
So I did it. Even though I still have half a container of green tea Haagen-Dasz in the freezer at home, I bought a container of the chocolate and peanut butter one.
I have failed.
And damn it, I refuse to be sorry.
Photo: The lid of the most heavenly, most addictive ice cream on the planet: Haagen-Dasz Chocolate Peanut Butter.
Why I’m writing this post:
Because if you’re like me and stuck at home already, or if you’re going to be like me soon, the days of the week are hell to keep track of. We have a wonderful community here on WordPress and all over the Internet as well, and I’m sure many people are feeling nervous and/or isolated. I want to make sure every one of us has somewhere to congregate and someone to talk to.
I want everyone to know that you can start discussions with each other in the comments, and if you’d like to write your own “What Day is it Anyway?” post, you can link to this one. Hashtag #WDIIA.
Photo: A new lawn being laid with a hoe, held by someone out of the picture, evening out the soil to roll out a roll of sod on top of it. Caption reads: “Am I the only one whose eye puts an N between the W and the M whenever they read the word “lawmaker”?”
If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!
lindaghill.com 