To start, I’d like to say thank you very much to Debbie for our dazzling prompt word today! You can find Debbie’s Just Jot it January post here. Go visit her and say hi, and give her a follow!
Is it just me? Or is it a fact that the older you get, the harder it is to get dazzled by anything? I wonder if it’s cynicism–the belief that whatever dazzles now can’t last.
It’s experience, right?
If we can get old, anything can.
Still, if you know me, then you’ll know there’s at least one thing that doesn’t stop dazzling me, no matter how old it gets. A band that’s been together for 33 years. A band I’ve traveled half-way around the world to see. Japanese rock group, Buck-Tick.
And guess what?
They recorded a whole concert on their “Go on the Razzle Dazzle” tour.
Here’s one of my favorite songs from that tour, with English subtitles, no less.
Thanks very much to Saumya for our prompt word of the day, “busy.” You can find Saumya’s blog here. I didn’t find a Just Jot it January post there–maybe she’s busy! 😀 Go visit her and say hi, and give her a follow!
You know, I say I’m busy all the time, but it’s not necessarily the case. Kind of.
I mean, I always do have something to do.
But some of those things I have to do take a certain amount of creativity.
And so, I’ll sit down to get “busy” on them, and I just … can’t. So I run off and make myself a cup of tea, or play a mindless game, or learn something from a podcast … You get the picture.
And then sometimes I come back to whatever it is I need to do, and I can actually do it.
But other times, I come back and immediately run away again. Because I’m not ready. Not creative enough. Or just afraid that whatever I do with whatever it is I need to create will come out as crap.
It’s procrastination, is what it is.
But it’s not just that.
The fear is real.
The problem is, when I do reach the deadline (which is usually bed time) that I absolutely have to sit down and do it, I get stressed.
Because if I just hadn’t procrastinated all day, I’d have it done and I’d be able to get to bed before 2am.
I need a way to get over it.
The solution is probably exercise.
Yeah. I’ll do that instead of what I’m supposed to be busy doing.
I think the last phone call I got from someone who wasn’t my mother needing cigarettes–she’s the only person I know who calls me–was about plumbing protection. For my house. It’s the same company who I pay a monthly protection fee for my boiler. (Wow, that sounds like they’re going to come over and break it if I don’t pay them, doesn’t it?) They’re trying to convince me that I might need a plumber one day and if I do, I’ll have to pay them. (The plumber, that is.)
I keep telling them no, I don’t want plumbing protection, but I swear they’ve called to ask about fifteen times. Don’t they have memos? Get the frickin’ memo, already!
There’s another place that kept calling me that I finally had to block. As someone who runs a newsletter, I’ve learned that it’s important to make sure there’s a way to opt out of marketing. To unsubscribe.
I gave my phone number to a shop–Northern Reflections, a clothing store in the local mall–when I bought a pair of pants for my mother for Christmas a couple of years ago. Since then and up until last week when I finally blocked their asses, I’ve received a recorded message from them at least once a week and as many times as once a day. There is NO WAY TO STOP THEM! I’ve listened to their whole message, I’ve tried to contact the company, no luck. So finally I yelled at their recording: SHUT UP, TAMMY! and stopped them from calling once and for all.
Ugh.
How did this turn into a rant?
Anyway, the store has nice old-lady clothes (and probably young-lady clothes too, but I’ve never gone in there for those), so I’ll probably shop there again. But if they ask me for my phone number again, maybe I’ll lie.
Sorry, person whose number I make up.
Yeah, I probably won’t. I wouldn’t want to subject anyone else to the machinations of Tammy from Northern Reflections.
I’ll start by saying thank you to Wendy for our prompt word of the day, “change.” Thanks, Wendy! You can find Wendy’s Just Jot it January post here. Go visit her and say hi, and give her a follow!
They say the only thing in the world we can be certain of is change.
And yet I never seem to have any in my wallet anymore.
What’s up with that?
It sucks, actually, when you want change for something–to get on a bus, to throw into a tip jar, or worst of all, when you need a quarter to get a shopping cart.
Do you get those where you live? Shopping carts that are chained together and the only way you can get just one is to put a quarter in a slot to release the chain?
They suck.
Seriously, I’m not going to steal your cart, nor am I going to fail to put it away.
A few times I’ve been so completely out of cash that I’ve had to use one of those hand-held baskets for way too much food. If I’m really desperate and I really need a lot of groceries, I’ll put the food into my reusable bags. But then I walk around the store feeling guilty, like everyone must think I’m trying to steal food.
Which I’m not, of course. I just don’t have a quarter to put into your damned cart, Mr. Grocery Man!
Still, I always make a big show of turning my bag upside down at the checkout and shaking it to prove there’s nothing in it.
Ah, the joys of the convenience of debit and credit cards.
P.S. I have heat! Still waiting for a part to come in, but we’re good for now. And I only got one repair man this time!
First off, I’d like to say thank you to Janet for our prompt word of the day, “drive.” Thanks, Janet! You can find Janet’s Just Jot it January post here. Go visit her and say hi, and give her a follow!
Since I’m the only driver in the house, you might say I’m the least driven in my family.
But that’s not true.
Because I am driven in the other sense of the word.
Driven to succeed in both of my careers, driven to learn, driven to do lots of things.
I’m in the driver’s seat of my own life, and yet I’m driven …
How does that make sense?
One thing I am driven to do, to save my own sanity, is put Alex on a school bus in the morning and send him to school. I’m pretty sure he’s ready.
In other news, my boiler conked out again, so we have no heat. Which really sucks. But I borrowed some electric space heaters from my best friend, John (happy birthday, John!), so we’re not freezing to death tonight.
The guy’s supposed to come in the morning to fix it. I wonder how many guys we’ll end up with tomorrow. I’ll report back.
Ah, it’s all enough to drive me to drink sometimes.
I’ll begin my post as always by saying thank you to our guest prompter for the day. Thank you Cheryl, for the word, “scraggly”! You can find Cheryl’s Just Jot it January post here. Go visit her and say hi, and give her a follow!
I spend most of my days a scraggly mess.
I remember going out to work,
Back when I didn’t have kids, but I did have shoes.
Back when I fit into clothes that looked like I hadn’t slept in them
… even when I had
because I could do that–I didn’t have kids.
But I did have a life.
Stockings. Remember stockings?
I do, barely. I remember I hated putting them on, and I hated the ones that always seemed to ride low in the crotch,
I’d like to start by saying thank you to Sadje for her prompt word, “humor.” Thank you, Sadje! You can find her Just Jot it January post here. Go visit her and say hi, and give her a follow!
It’s true that sometimes laughter can be the best medicine. I use humor a lot to relieve the tension that goes with parenting, and that includes times like now when I have a sick one home from school.
Yep, Alex’s is truly sick with a cold. Still begging to go to the hospital, but I managed to avoid it again today.
Half of my problem is the language barrier. If he spoke English, I might be able to effectively explain to him that there’s nothing the hospital can or will do for the virus he has, and the likelihood of him getting even sicker just by going there makes the trip worthless. Worse than worthless, possibly deadly.
But, of course, I can’t say that either. Because without the nuance of language, he might assume that if he goes to the hospital, he’ll die, and then I’ll have the opposite problem I have now.
I’ll have to drag him there, kicking and screaming when he really needs to go.
I used to be able to scare him a little out of wanting to visit the emergency department by telling him he might have to get an IV. He hates needles, so that worked.
Until he turned 18 and discovered the nurses and all the attention was worth the pain. Now he’s begging me for an IV right along with everything else involved.
You know, sometimes I laugh just because it’s better than crying.
And you know what else? Sometimes that’s the best laughter of all.
Before I write anything else, I’d like to thank Jim for our prompt word, “gobbledygook.” Thank you, Jim! You can find his Just Jot it January post here. Go visit him and say hi, and give him a follow!
Today was a tough one at home with Alex. He woke up with a sore throat and spent most of the day complaining that he was so sick, he needed to go to the hospital. If he was to be believed, he was dying. Dying, I tell you! But no. It simply wasn’t true–he just loves the hospital that much.
Sounds like gobbledygook, but that’s Alex. He tried everything to convince me to take him to the emergency, just so he could sit there and people-watch and flirt with nurses. He made himself cough until his throat probably really was raw.
But I saw through the deception. He was happy and smiling whenever he thought I couldn’t see him. He sang in his own way (he’s Deaf and can’t hear himself, but I know his singing) when I wasn’t in the room, but the moment he saw me, he pretended to be hoarse and in agony.
Still, he did look a bit sick today, so I’ll keep him home from school tomorrow unless he’s bouncing off the walls. A sure sign he’s faking it.
I may have mentioned, maybe even more than once, that I always watch the old version of Scrooge every year at Christmas. The one with Alastair Sim. I try to watch it in black and white if I can find it–I have it on VHS somewhere in case it’s not on TV. This year I totally missed it on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I found it on Youtube though. The entire movie in black and white, so I watched it one night on my laptop, all by myself, between Christmas and New Year. It’s much more fun to watch as a family.
Being interested in words as I am, I decided to look up the word “Scrooge” to see where it came from. Not surprisingly, it became a noun to describe a grumpy, miserly person in 1940, a little less than one-hundred years from the time Dickens published the novel.
I worried that I was a bit of a scrooge this Christmas. I didn’t have a lot of money, but I managed to buy everyone something. What I didn’t do this time around was obsessively make sure everyone had the same number of gifts. I’ve driven myself crazy with this for years. This time, I bought what everyone needed (or wanted if I could afford it) and left it at that. So much less stressful, especially for someone like me who waits for the absolute last moment to shop.
Obviously, I don’t watch a lot of movies. The next last one I watched was the Downton Abbey movie. And when was that? Hang on, I’ll look it up …
October 20th. Thank goodness for this blog. If I didn’t write everything I do on it, I’d never keep track of anything.
I’d like to start by saying thank you to MB for our prompt word, “jade,” today. Thank you, MB! You can find her Just Jot it January post here. Go visit her and say hi, and give her a follow!
I don’t have much to talk about on the subject of jade, the stone. And I’m not easily jaded on any subject. So I thought I’d check out the dictionary definition of the word “jade,” and lo and behold, I found something to talk about!
I had no idea that “jade” the noun, can refer to, and I quote from Merriam-Webster dictionary:
a broken-down, vicious, or worthless horse
I’ve known a jade, and I didn’t like it.
I worked, for a time, at a few different thoroughbred horse stables. My job was mostly mucking out stalls and feeding the animals.
There was one place I worked for–I don’t remember the name of the farm, but it was in King City, Ontario, where, at least at the time, there were reportedly more millionaires per square acre than anywhere else in North America, including anywhere in California.
There, I met a horse we less-than-affectionately called “Shithead.” That wasn’t the horse’s real name, and to be caught calling the horse that in front of the owner would most certainly have resulted in being fired. (I don’t remember the horse’s real name, but he was a winner at the track, apparently.)
So Shithead wasn’t a broken-down horse, nor was he worthless. But man, was he vicious. He detested people. All of us.
Fortunately, we didn’t muck out stalls with the horses in them–racehorses and pitchforks should never be in the same place at the same time. But that meant we had to lead the beast out of the stall to put him in a paddock, and bring him back later. It was only a short walk, I managed to avoid Shithead’s teeth by holding his lead rope close to his chest, walking close to his shoulder (he walked very fast, so I was never ahead of him anyway), and flicking at his nose if he tried to turn around a bite my body.
Except one time when I was cooling him down after the jockey had him out on the track. I worked there in the winter, so I had a good thick coat on and thank God for that because have you ever been bitten by a horse that meant to bite? It’s not like the little nibble you might get if you don’t hold your palm flat enough when you’re feeding one. It hurts!
I was happy not to have to punish the horse–I was in too much pain.
At other farms I’ve worked at, punishing a horse was called a shit-kicking. At a thoroughbred farm, it’s called an attitude adjustment, again for the sake of the owners who have tens of thousands of dollars invested in the animals. I didn’t feel the slightest bit bad that the vicious expensive horse received an attitude adjustment that day.
All this to say if you ever come across a horse whose name is Jade, stay away from its teeth. It might have come by its name honestly.
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