Daily Archives: 11 April, 2011

Not a seismic shift, exactly but significant, nonetheless

Posted on by
4

The dogs get excited as normal.

Dino starts ‘talking’. He does that now. When he wants to ‘go’ or when he thinks we are about to go – somewhere, anywhere.

The light comes through the shutters. Yes it is different this morning. I go to the bathroom and shut the door so that there is no noise to wake F up. I turn on the light and start going through the usual routines.

Except this is not usual at all. This is all different and it feels very, very strange.

I wash and shave. When I come out of the bathroom the dogs are quiet again. They know this was a false alarm. This is a different day for them too. All strange and not as it should be.

I don’t know if this will work, I think to myself.

I make my coffee and sit down in front of the computer, checking stuff and then playing the game.

I feel as if I have overslept. Well, not exactly that but similar. There’s not the rushing around of having overslept; there’s not quite the same feeling. I finish my coffee and instead of going to get ready, I just have to put my tie on and then go. The timing isn’t right – and yet it is, of course. It is just not normal. Well, it WILL be normal, just not today. It is the new normal. The normal-to-be.

I go and put my slippers in the bedroom. F is awake. I kiss him on the forehead. He says he will have a coffee before taking the dogs out. I know that they will love it. Later he tells me that it was a surprise for them. I bet it was.

And it’s a huge change for me. Getting up three quarters of an hour later seems almost relaxed, like it’s the weekend. I will still do the evenings but he will do the mornings – at least when he can or when it is not raining. This is how it will be for most of the summer.

This is more sharing of stuff. It’s probably good. I’m sure it is good.

It will take some getting used to, though. And, weirdly, I already miss my morning walk with the dogs. Especially now that it’s summer. This was the time of year when I didn’t mind the morning walks so much. But this is easier and will make me less tired all the time. At least, that is the plan …….

The Box of Chocolates

Posted on by
2

As my regular readers know, I quite like some of my spam comments. This one, when reading the first line, made me laugh.

Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you’re stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there’s nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there’s a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they’re gone too fast and the taste is – fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you’re desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.

But it got me to thinking. First of all, I would have left the peanut butter cups and the English toffee, since they’re not my favourites at all. I much prefer the hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, myself!

And I was talking to S yesterday afternoon, after our lesson. And we were talking about luck. And I was trying to explain that, as you will know, dear reader, I think I am very lucky in life but that, depending on how you look at it, so is she. To be honest, most people are quite lucky. There are many things that fill us with happiness and contentment. They may be little things; they may not seem very important in themselves but they are the peanut butter cups or the teeth-shattering nuts in chocolate – depending on what you like.

We should all be very grateful for the good things we have for tomorrow is another day and might bring something not so welcome.

Today is a good day.