Everything's a Blur

Tomorrow is Monday AGAIN - geez.  Can't hardly believe it - big report is finally finished - well, all except the explaining it and then using it as a start to sketching out negotiation scenarios which I technically really should have done today but I just needed a day off.  Yesterday was a pretty quick work day - and I should have made it a much longer day but I am tired.  February has been a very long month - though time has flown.  It's March already!

In a very rare interaction, J. made me so flaming mad yesterday, I could barely see straight. Something he said he posted on a blog somewhere and I just had a moment of complete and utter appallment.  Is that a word?  I was appalled at what he wrote - and he kept trying to say 'it's a joke'.  It wasn't a joke and it wasn't funny.  He's becoming one of those political commentators who says outrageous things for effect...and it really bothers me.  I felt (yesterday) as if I don't know him - and even harder to handle:  do I want to know him?  This person who spends all day immersed in politics; commenting and conversing with total strangers that he feels connected to.  While we sit disconnected to each other.  I've felt that a lot lately - and I know it's as much me as it is him.  I trudge to work and resent working.  He stays home and likely resents being at home.  An impasses that will take at least 7 years to resolve and possibly longer, given I'm now leaning towards working forever.  (Damn stock market.  Damn China.  Too much volatility and I feel that resigning myself to working forever just makes it all easier to deal with.  J. is meeting with our finance guy in San Fran this week - I can't get away to take a day off for making a trek into the city.  Praying for some wisdom and answers to our most basic of questions - how much can we safely withdraw annually and not be broke if we live to 90)...

Anyway...so there I was, spitting angry, so disgruntled and pissed off and fed up and not really liking him at ALL leading me to question the very core of our relationship - like why are we together, anyway?

It passed as these things do.  Today, we trekked to Jackson together and bless his heart, he didn't gamble a bit - we went and ate and he stayed at the table, reading his Kindle while I fairly quickly lost what I had to lose.  The drive was nice - the countryside so green from all the rain.  Little lambs and baby goats and baby cows.  Not too many wildflowers that weren't yellow but the yellows were really pretty.

Arrived home and helped B. get ready to head across the bay for a day of golf with his friend. He's picking up his brand new golf clubs, too - home again tomorrow and then he's not sure what his plans are.  He asked (somewhat nervously) if his friend from his base [who has the same leave period as B. does and is traveling around all over the place] could stay here for a few days to 'visit California'.  I said 'of course!' and then promptly worried about where he would sleep.  We have fairly decent camping air mattresses - and he's in the Army so even our floor is more comfortable than a fox hole or sleeping in a Humvee all night.

Making spaghetti for dinner and then decided to tackle the cupboard above the microwave - it's where we keep our larger spices (from Costco or Smart & Final) and it was also full of cookbooks.  HUGE box ready for the library - and I realized that I don't need/use cookbooks these days 'cuz anything I want to cook, I just look up.  I kept my collection of Two Fat Ladies cookbooks but let my Nigella Lawson's go.  Also took a walk down memory lane when I finally decided to recycle my Betty Crocker Recipe Club collection - from 1971.  It's moved with me a lot - but it's time to let it go.  I rarely refer to it - and the one recipe I really remember loving (Hamburger Stroganoff) is now online so yeah!

Also found some recipes in my mom and grandmother's handwriting which felt really special.

And I will close with a Chloe story.  After J. got home from picking up B. from Oakland yesterday, he had to trek back over the Altamont to Pleasanton to assist H. in getting to the Apple store for a phone repair.  No, not repair.  Replacement.  His phone has been completely, unequivocally unusable for a week or two - and never more grateful for the Apple Care program.  It's not inexpensive at the start but in the end, he got a brand new iPhone 6 for $7 out the door - so it was well worth it.

So...I thought they were going to grab some dinner so I headed out to get some chicken strips from a favorite place in town...only to realize upon arrival that the place closed it's doors.  Dang it!  So I ended up getting McDonald's.  When I got home, I noticed plastic pieces all over the floor in the study - and then I saw an empty Ziploc bag with the bottom chewed up - and it hit me!  Chloe got into my lunch bag (which I had left sitting on the floor when I came in from work) - she ate two leftover pieces of pizza, a bunch of nuts and dried fruit and was starting to nosh on the bag of celery hearts and carrots.  This morning, I found my small container of hummus all the way over by her kennel in the family room - so I'm not sure what that was about.  It wasn't opened (thank goodness) and we don't see any teeth marks on it - but she tried to get it open, I think.

She seems totally fine other than pooping way more than usual today.

Another busy week ahead...with evenings full of boys.  More and more boys.  Young men - coming, going, visiting, staying, leaving, hanging out.  It's always great having B. here and he and H. are (so far, anyway) getting along well.  Fingers crossed that continues.