Return to Reality

2011 started out really, really great - I was happy and full of positive energy and all sorts of plans for sewing and knitting and writing and work and life in general. And then - well. Life got back to normal.

1) You may have heard, but it's snowed a lot this month. Today was my third work-from-home snow day in as many weeks. And this week's super cold weather has meant that the commuter trains have been a disaster; on Monday it was 11 am before I got to work, and it wasn't much better yesterday. I enjoy working from home occasionally during slow times, but this is not a slow time. And as an introvert, I need the occasional visit from a coworker or a run to Starbucks every once and awhile to get me out of my own head. It's also difficult to write with the cat around -- at this very moment, she is standing on my stomach as I type, purring away and nuzzling my neck. Cute, but after the seventy-eleventh time I've plopped her on the floor it gets a little old.

2) One morning I got up and my car made horrible noises when I tried to move it. $550 down the drain to fix it. Now, honestly - in the grand scheme of things it's not a ton of money, but my car is a 2002 Saturn so I basically tripled the value of the thing. And it happened just a few days before...

3) I had to drop $300 on another vet visit for the cat. It turned out to be money well spent, because we learned that her heart murmur is benign and I can stop worrying about it. And I loved the cardiologist's report the vet sent me, labeled Calypso Allen, as if she were my child. But it was another painful check to write.

4) I have totally and completely lost my appetite. In the normal course of things, this should elate me. But I have had the same Cadbury chocolate bars in my cupboard for three weeks now, and this just isn't normal for me. To amuse myself, I've been all over the internet looking at health websites and, hypochondriac that I am, have self-diagnosed myself with all sorts of terrible diseases. Fun times. What did people do before the internet? (I suspect it's stress related, but if it continues I'll have to march myself off to the doctor.)

5) The elderly woman who lived downstairs from me moved out. Noisy people moved in. Enough said.

6) The governor (see previous post) continues to annoy the bejeezus out of me. One day he's rolling back Maine's environmental laws, the next he's nominating someone who admits to having no community development experience to lead the state's Department of Economic and Community Development, and now according to this thinks he can use state workers as election fodder. (Dude, there are LAWS about that, y'know.) I have to tell you, I own exactly one thing from Marden's (a desk) and I'm seriously contemplating having a big ol' bonfire with it.

Despite all this, there has been a fair amount of knitting - in part necessitated by the fact that I lost my handknit mittens. I went to 3 different stores to buy some gloves, but there were none to be had. Plenty of bathing suits, but no gloves. I really don't understand retail. More on that soon.