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Shift in emotions
Before I related our loss of Rhianna, I mentioned how I had spent a couple days feeling really good and energetic. It’s a shame it was so short-lived but it seems events conspired against me after that.
We woke on Saturday to the news frenzy surrounding the Paris attacks, The event itself is horrific enough, not to mention over attacks in various parts of the world in the days around it. But then there was the aftermath of people lacking compassion for fellow human beings and being selfish. I sadly must say there are members of my family and friends who fall into this category and it left me very much in despair to know they felt like they did. I ended up in a seething rage for a couple of days. Part of me wanted to carry on but it is an exhausting and painful experience so I decided I had to close it down because I couldn’t sustain those feelings for long.
I didn’t have a plan on how to do this so my mission was to find a way to calm that feeling of rage. I did this by listening to music, disengaging from certain social media websites and doing some breathing exercises and relaxation. It was not necessarily in this order. I think the breathing was the first thing I did because I was feeling pretty stressed out by everything. The other things followed in various ways. I told myself I need to allow my eyes to glaze over and feel nothing when I read something that starts me feeling angry again. For the most part, it worked. I have stayed pretty calm over the past few days. I think my biggest mistake was engaging in discussion online with certain family members that stirred me up to raging feelings. I know better than to go there but I did. I just felt I couldn’t sit idly on the sidelines without making a comment regarding the truth in something posted. It was a mistake and hopefully I won’t go there again.
The whole thing has added to my resolve not to discuss politics or certain current events with certain members of my family. Sadly no good will come of it because we are so opposite in the ways we think about our place in the world. I will admit to feeling a bit of anger at times but I have managed to stay calm instead of losing the plot. Anyway, that has left me with a sadness because I realised I have such different values to so many people in my life. I have maintained some distance from family over the past several days but I will engage with people for Thanksgiving in some way. It’s a bit sooner than I’d have liked but I just have to rise above these feelings and make it work. After all, I at least do have the luxury of having these emotions and dealing with them in the best way I can.
I have many friends who think much more like I do and I take comfort that most of them still think the same way they did years ago when I first knew them. They don’t allow fear to rule them like some people in my family do.
Last Monday also was the birthday of my friend who died of cancer 3.5 years ago, which already made me feel a bit sad.
In addition to the emotional stuff, I also had essentially a toothache due to food continuing to get stuck under my one lower molar. It would become inflamed every time I ate and it was impossible to floss out the stuff that was stuck. I went back to the dentist last week and he replaced a filling on an adjacent tooth then did some work on a couple other things to try to solve the problem. He did an x-ray that showed it all looked quite good so was puzzled as to why it was causing me so much problems. Anyway, it seems the work he did has helped because I haven’t had any more issues since then,
For now, I will hope for some return of that lovely feeling of being really alive and happy and energetic at some point. And I will also hope for some inkling of what set that off because I would like it to happen more often.
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Rhianna
Early last week, there was a shift somewhere in my being very much to the positive. I felt energetic for the first time in ages and I felt good. It’s not so much I’d been feeling bad all along. Just that feeling so energetic was such a good feeling that it made me realise how lacking I’d felt before. I couldn’t say what the cause of this was but it was a good thing.
The feeling carried on through the week.
Friday, everything changed. A phone call came reporting someone having found our cat in the road. The Scientist went out and found her on the edge of our front yard and she had died. We don’t really know what happened, except she had some injuries on her chest and around her front legs.
Rhianna was our first permanent pet in the family. We got her over ten years ago because Lego Lover was afraid of dogs at the time. He was pretty attached to her, especially these last years as he’s gotten older. She was never a particularly attached cat. Most of the time she was quite aloof and the only time she showed much affection was once the dogs joined the family and that tapered off after a while. I had attempted to show her more attention in more recent months or maybe even the last year or so but it was never as much as it should have been. Part of this was just because she wasn’t too attached to people. But she also kind of got a bad deal with the dogs joining the family. It might have been better had one of the dogs not taken an active dislike to her once she scratched him for getting to close.
It’s funny how little we realise a creature is so much a part of our lives until it is gone. She used to follow the Scientist around the front yard while he watered the plants. When I got up most days, there’d be evidence she’d been sleeping on my desk chair. Funnily enough, I had to get a new one a while back and she didn’t start sleeping there for a while. But then she took it over pretty much every night. Of late, I’d come out to find heaps of sand and cat hair all over it. Then, of course, there was the clawing of the front screen, which was her way of saying she wanted yet more food. Sometimes she’d hide away in our closet to sleep and the only evidence was we’d hear her bell tinkling as she shifted around a bit. And sometimes our bedroom would be her safe place from the dogs. Fluttershy always loved her to death, which was bearable, if annoying. Maromi often kept his distance but then would become aggressive with her.
When she ate, she was very careful and dainty as she ate. This became most apparent when we had neighbour cats turns up and sneak in to eat her food. We’d suddenly hear a noisy, messy sound of eating which was definitely not her. We also never we able to feed her any cat treats. She would never take food from our hand. If we gave her anything, we pretty much had to put it in her dish or she wouldn’t bother with it.
We are pretty sure she actively tormented Maromi by walking across the front yard when he was there, setting him off to bark madly at her. She knew she was safe from him out there and she took full advantage of it. She also had a cat “friend” which she would tolerate hanging out in our yard. They would sit or lie down not too far from each other. Sometimes one would be on one side of the driveway and the other on the opposite side.
Once, she disappeared for about day and we worried about her well-being. She was very much an outdoor cat and hated being forced to stay inside. So she wandered around our yard and the neighbouring yards. She never went too far, so much as we knew. Anyway, when she didn’t show up, we were worried that she might have walked into the street gotten hit by a car. She was found quite by accident in one of the drawers in Game Fanatic’s room. I think the drawer had been sitting open for some reason and somebody closed it, not realising she was in there. But we never heard a peep from her. We guessed she was doing a lot of sleeping at the time but it was weird she never cried to get out. What a relief it was when she was discovered.
I don’t have that many photos of Rhianna because she was rather difficult to pin down for a photo. The last photo I have is quite by chance and accident. I was taking a photo of a flower in the front yard and she walked into the frame. It’s kind of a neat photo, for being an accident and I’m glad I have it. It kind of suits her since she wasn’t very affectionate.
Rhianna walks past -
Archives
I’m trying to get back in to keeping a personal journal again. I’ve kept one on and off for most of my adult life but it’s always been in different forms. At the suggestion of the Scientist, I’ve been using Onenote to store the current entries in. While doing this I thought maybe I should start archiving my old stuff in the same place.
So begins the process of copying my old entries from Livejournal, Typepad and Blogger. The latter two, I think, are somewhere on my hard drive. Well, I know at least that Typepad is there because I didn’t want to lose it once I stopped subscribing.
So far I have copied over entries from my first Livejournal account. That only lasted about a year before I started a different one. I can’t recall the reason for the change and there’s nothing in the entries to indicate anything happening. I find that kind of strange because I think I’d have surely would have commented on changes back then.
I haven’t read all the entries properly but just from what I have read, I do regret not keeping it up more fully in recent years. Blogging isn’t quite the same since it isn’t private enough to write things out more fully. Not to mention I haven’t kept up with blogging as much as I’d like.
The second Livejournal account lasted 3-4 years and I wrote more regularly then. It looks like it’s going to be awhile before I get that all archived. My goal after that will be to tag entries properly within Onenote. Just another long-term project, I guess.
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Crowned
Last week I had my permanent crown installed. It turns out the tooth I thought was getting a crown only had a filling replaced and the crown was the same side but upper jaw instead. At first I thought the lower tooth was better with regard to the food getting stuck. Today I think it’s as bad as ever and I don’t know why this is such a problem area if it wasn’t the tooth that was broken. There’s a part of me worried that it was supposed to be the lower tooth that was crowned and a mistake has been made. I would like to think that surely wouldn’t have happened and he’d have noticed the problem. The crown itself is fine. It feels rather odd at the moment but I guess I will get used it.
Last week I was also plagued with issues related to menopause. There were about 2.5 months between one period and the next so it was another of those ones that seemed to make up for the missed one and then some. Fortunately this one didn’t go on so long as the bad one last year. Still I should be taking those iron tablets and I have been slack since things settled down. This was the direct follow on from the sore throat/cold/cough that had hit the family the week before. I still have a bit of the cough but it’s not a constant thing.
I became a great-aunt last week when my nephew and his wife had a baby boy. He’s a cute little fellow and seems to be getting heaps of attention. It was an interesting case of lots of us keeping up with the progress of things via Facebook because the wife had been updating until she was induced and then my nephew kept a log during the labor. Now it seems to be back to the wife to keep track of everything.
After a bit of a break or a lapse in commitment, I have been working on a few MOOCs again. This time all three are on edX and all three are sort of biology/human body related. The one that got me going again is one about the anatomy of the upper limb. I did this course on Coursera a couple years ago and liked it. They have moved to the different platform for some reason and I have started it again. I’m enjoying it just as much as I did last time. I am pleased to remember quite a few bits but then there is plenty I have forgotten. Most of my time is spent watching videos on this one so that’s okay. There are two others that are self-paced, which works a bit better for me. One is an into biology course which I started once before but didn’t continue due to other factors at the time. It’s a fairly long course but the instructor is quite enjoyable and I think I will learn more this time around. The other is a human cell biology unit fhat’s done at an Australian university. This covers some of the stuff not included in the biology unit. My goal is to understand enough to try out the immunology courses there, which are also enjoyable. I just need to understand some of the basic processed better. It’s all quite a fascinating study for me, which wouldn’t have been the case back when I really was a student.
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Rainy
Our weather forecast includes rain for each of the next several days. Today we have already had some showers off and on and I heard a bit of thunder in the distance. I think storms are about but possibly moving around our area.
Today I spent a bit of time laying in the hammock on the patio. Just because I could. It was quite pleasant out there until the rain started blowing hard enough to get me a bit too wet. I am feeling better than a few days ago but still not totally well. Anyway, getting chilled and wet when you’re already feeling “under the weather” probably isn’t very much advised. Still it was nice to just relax outside instead of just in the house like we’ve done for most of the years we have lived here. Not to say we haven’t spent time outside but the environment is now much more conducive towards regular hanging out.
I did the same thing a couple nights ago after I’d gotten showered and changed for the evening. It was pretty warm that evening and really pleasant outside. The only drawback were the mosquitoes. For some reason the bites take a while to show up and it was this morning I noticed about half a dozen bites on my upper leg. So far they aren’t itchy…although thinking about them probably will change that status. :)
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Sick house
It’s the season for allergies here but it seems it’s extended a bit further to the viral illnesses here too. The Scientist has been suffering from hay fever/ allergies for a few weeks now. Then Game Fanatic started soon after his birthday. Later in the week I started coughing a bit and it worsened with time. Sunday Lego Lover complained of a stuffed throat. He’s used this terminology since he was small and I presume it means it’s hard to swallow and possibly a sore throat. I found one throat lozenge in the medicine cabinet and gave it to him. I didn’t expect much from it because it’s one of the strong-tasting ones. As it turns out, he was quite pleased with it and felt some relief for a time. I promised to buy more on Monday.
Late that night, my throat started feeling like a knife was scraping it. Turns out the Scientist had also developed a sore throat. What a merry family we are with all the allergic and viral stuff happening. Yesterday I started sneezing and that could be the viral thing or it could just be a bit of my usual hay fever. Anyway. I’ve been mostly out of action these days, aside from a trip out to get those throat lozenges. I ended up buying the pharmacy brand and got three packs. We’ve already finished one and several out of the other two packs (different flavors). Hopefully the worst of it is or soon will be past for all of us with regard to the viral stuff and we can hope the hay fever doesn’t last too long this season.
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Beginning a new year, completing projects
Yesterday Game Fanatic and family celebrated his completion of 21 years as he begins the next one. I think it went rather well for him. He woke up early to find out the crowdfunding project he backed had reached its goal and that pleased him considerably. He made a large investment in this project, made larger due to very poor exchange rates. I am relieved it reached it’s goal because there was every chance the money would be returned but at an even worse rate than before.
Our patio paving was completed over the weekend and we bought a table and new chairs to put out there, along with new cushions for older chairs that have been sitting in the elements the past year or two. Unfortunately there’s been some rusting of the older chairs but they are still quite okay to use otherwise. The new cushions are bright and cheery. The new chairs are just mesh ones but we could theoretically add cushions for those at some point too. We still have to move some displaced sand out of the backyard and clean up some of the mess but it looks really lovely. I will see if I can get some photos up in the next few days.
The weather turned out to be quite pleasant so the plan to spend much of the day outside worked out well. This kept the house from being quite so crowded with people and allowed much more personal space for everyone than inside our fairly small living areas.
Game Fanatic had wanted to have Indian food from a favorite local place on his birthday but they aren’t open on Monday. His Indian feast is postponed to the weekend and there was the decision of what food to prepare for guests on the day. He wasn’t too keen to settle on anything so the Scientist and I decided to try out Mexican style foods. Over half our visitors were vegetarian so it was important to find foods that would be suitable for all. I went back and forth on many different options. I got ingredients for more foods than I could really have managed and eventually decided to stop while I was ahead for fear of too much food.
I only did one meat dish, which was the usual chicken that I do with tomatoes and spices. It’s really straightforward to put together once the chicken is cooked and is agreeable to all family members. I found a recipe for baked marinated tofu which had some mixed results. The recipe I used for the marinade was pretty wasted because nobody could taste the flavors at all. I would have preferred not to have spent money on limes and coriander (cilantro) since they didn’t work in this case. I do wonder if a longer marinating time might have worked better on that. I had four blocks of tofu and did two with that and decided to use just some jarred salsa for the rest. That tofu came out really nice and the flavors were just right there. That’s not to say the other tofu was terrible but it was mainly like eating plain baked tofu.
I had wanted to do something with sweet potatoes and black beans, having been inspired by a recipe from Valerie’s Recipes. Initially I was considering using this recipe but decided it was more suited to much cooler weather than we have right now. I plan to try this next winter on a damp and chilly night when I think it would be far more enjoyed by those who are willing to try it. I did find another recipe which is more suited to warm weather. That turned out beautifully and was really easy to make. which was really good so late on the previous night when my feet were in misery after hours of standing. It ended up that this works really well just as a salad too. I’m thinking of making this for our Christmas dinner since it’s so easy and would be something else my MIL could enjoy.
I also made homemade refried beans, which came out pretty well for a first try. They were a bit on the dry side but when heated tasted quite nice. Also, I got some jalapeño cheese(Monterrey Jack cheese with jalapeños that has only recently been found locally) to grate over it but couldn’t find out grater when it was time to use it. I had a second helping later in the evening and it was quite lovely with that creamy cheese on it. I used dried pinto beans this time and they came out nicely cooked. I think maybe I have got the hang of cooking dried beans finally. Means it’s a lot cheaper to prepare than having to buy canned beans and hope for decent quality.
I had intended to do some zucchini and corn in a tomatillo based salsa but gave up on the idea due to lack of time and insecurity about using the canned tomatillos instead of fresh (these aren’t usually available here so canned is the main way to go). I still have the ingredients for that so will make it some other day this week.
We also had four types of Mission tortilla chips, mild salsa and chopped tomatoes and cucumber. We had gotten some lettuce to use but it had gone bad within just a few days and had to be dumped. :(
Anyway, the food was enjoyed by all then we had heaps of yummy brownies and cheesecake made by the Scientist. He’s done the brownies many times before but the cheesecake was a new recipe and it was well liked by almost everyone, but happily was pleasing for Game Fanatic. There is none of it left today.
I forgot I also made some potato salad for Game Lover but didn’t serve to all because it had bacon in it, which was his request.
There were various people coming and going from early afternoon to early evening. Afterwards, we hung out and watched Game Lover play his new Donkey Kong game on the Wii U and then we started the newest Danganrompa game, which was one of the presents. He had a pretty good day overall and seemed really pleased with a few things. He will complete the celebration with his curries on the weekend.
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Garden blooms
Blue flowers 
Pretty in blue? 
Pretty in pink 
Pink weed? 
Pink weed? Identity unknown 
Pink flower 
Pink weed? Identity unknown 
Pink weed? Identity unknown 
Solanum 
Solanum 
Solanum 
Solanum 
Native hibiscus-Alyogyne huegelii 
Native hibiscus- Alyogyne huegelii 
Native hibiscus-Alyogyne huegelii 
Native hibiscus-Alyogyne huegelii 
Callistemon King’s Park Special 
Callistemon King’s Park Special 
Callistomon King’s Park Special 
Callistemon King’s Park Special -
Seasonal confusion
Spring is a time for a lot of back and forth between cool and warm temperatures but we are well into it and it’s still hopping back and forth. Really, it’s been rather warmish this spring so far. We’ve had at least three or four days of temperatures above 30C already and it’s expected it will just worsen. On the weekend the house got really warm and reached a difficult point on Saturday or Sunday evening. We’d been sitting in the living room playing the end of the second Danganrompa game. I was feeling terribly hot and bothered. I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t get true hot flashes but I do get hot and bothered a lot and I think that’s not just related to excess weight I am carrying. Anyway, I thought perhaps it was just me being hormonal or something. But I happened to notice the temperature gauge on the air conditioning panel was showing it was still 24 C in the house, which is pretty warm for evening/night time. It was decided then that we’d open the windows in the house even though that means a lot more pollen getting into the house. Once windows were opened, we put the fan on and it did cool off eventually. And I stopped feeling hot and bothered. :)
Fast forward to yesterday when the temperature had dropped considerably, there were constant strong winds, and precipitation on top of that. It was like going back to autumn. That was bad enough but the night time temperature dropped to practically winter temperatures. The windows are still open but it was really chilly last night and I might have used an extra blanket..
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Weekend
It’s just about the end of another weekend and I guess it’s been eventful enough. Friday afternoon the Scientist and I made a trip to Fremantle and had a late lunch/early dinner. I got my favorite crispy Asian fish with salsa this time. I also got a spring roll and bought some fresh rice paper rolls for later. Those were from pork and lemongrass but there is also a tofu variety too. There are quite a few vegetarians in the area so any food seller does well to offer decent alternatives. I finished off with a dessert of pandan panna cotta which was lovely and light.
We followed by going to the shop next door where we got a black sesame seed cheesecake to try. We had tried the green tea version before but it was a bit too strong on the tea flavour, which didn’t go down well for either of us. Just to make the minimum spend for using a credit card, we got some spicy chips, which is essentially their version of nacho fries. I wasn’t really hungry at that point but ended up eating it along the way home because it’s not the kind of food that keeps well.
Also purchased were fresh doughnuts and samosas and a few sweets from another favorite shops. I did eat my doughnut but the other sweets had to wait for another day as I’d had enough already. It didn’t take long from being really starved to really full that day. We normally get some fruit and veggies from the markets but didn’t have enough cloth bags so opted to wait until our next visit. I really like some of the fruit salads sold by the fruit and veg vendors because they use a nicer variety of fruits than any of our closer markets do.
After we finished there we pretty much moved back to the car to return home. It was threatening rain and it was quite windy so wasn’t a pleasant time to be out in the elements.
Saturday morning I spent sleeping and sleeping. It was rainy and particularly windy, even more so than on Friday. We were supposed to be going to a tai chi fan class at 11 am but it was cancelled…which worked out well for me sleeping. I think I slept way too many hours and ended up still feeling sleepy much of the day.
The Scientist and I did go out and browse through some shops locally but didn’t buy much of anything aside from a new shaver for the Scientist and few food things from the grocery store.
During the evening we finished playing a chapter of the second Danganrompa game with Game Fanatic. That took us about 4.5 hours and we did take a short break in the middle. The game is quite enjoyable but it does take a long time to get through each chapter. I really can’t see how we will manage to do a full chapter on any weekend when it last as long as it already does in the early chapters.
Yesterday was my dad’s birthday so I organised via Skype last night to chat with him this morning (my time) while it was still his birthday. I set my alarm to make sure I was up in time and got the computer turned on. I talked with my dad for close to an hour before he needed to get some things done before going to sleep for the night. I enjoyed talking with him but it was a bit difficult because he is hard of hearing and I had to pretty much shout for him to hear me most of the time. He needs new hearing aids but can’t really afford them at the moment. Plus he needs to put aside a chunk of money for some dental work that is also getting to be more urgent.
This afternoon I went to our local markets to pick up something for lunch and to buy a chai latte and a Perky Nana chocolate bar from the New Zealand shop. Their chocolate bars were better priced than anywhere else until recently when they finally had to increase the price. They are still about the same as buying them at the local grocery store so I will continue to buy there.
My camera’s lcd screen started playing up a few days ago. At first the screen would come on then go off. Then it wouldn’t come on at all. Today I was trying to take some photos in the garden and discovered it worked when I pulled the screen out of the normal position. Then it started to work again when the screen was in normal position. I’ve only had the camera for three months so this shouldn’t be happening at all. I feel pretty sure this will happen again but it’s a good thing the service centre has moved into the suburb next to us so I don’t have to drive into the city again.
It was quite chilly outside so I didn’t do much gardening today. My main accomplishment was cutting back the two bushes under the patio in preparation for moving them. I think one of them is about half the size it was and the other isn’t a lot more than that. We think we have decided where to relocate them but will make final decisions in the next few days as we prepare the new location(s).
Tonight the Scientist was watching the last cricket match of its series in England. It looks as though Australia are set to win for the one day matches. And it’s rather chilly again, especially now that the rain stopped and the cloud cover disappeared.
