by Phyllis McCrossin
It’s 4 a.m. and I’m not sleeping. I was lying in bed thinking about what I was going to write and decided there really was no need to wait until the sun came up to begin. If I get tired later in the day because of my early morning missive, I can always nap because, well… I’m retired.
I don’t HAVE to do anything I don’t want to… well, except this. Today I don’t want to do this.
I’ll apologize ahead of time: Sorry folks, I’m afraid my irritation with people is going to show — just a bit.
I hope I get over it, but I’m not so sure I will. And please, don’t TELL me to “just get over it.” I seldom tell others how to think or feel, please grant me the same courtesy. My irritation is mine to have, to hold and allow to fester all it wants.
Was that harsh? Sorry. Not sorry.
Then, again, I think I’m probably nicer than most (most of the time, but not today). It’s called empathy. I have a lot of it. Either that or Momma’s admonishment to “be nice” is too ingrained in my psyche. I’m not sure which it is.
Maybe both. At any rate, I’m cranky and right now I want to be cranky.
Petra was lying in bed next to me when I gave up trying to sleep and fired up the laptop. She raised her head, half opened her eyes, shifted slightly to her side, raised a paw so I could scratch her tummy and is now snoring quietly next to me. Oh to be able to fall back to sleep without chemicals.
Sigh, life goes on.
We spent last week with our daughter and her sons. This coming week the boys are going to be with their Dad and our daughter has work to do, so King and I will be left to our own devices. That’s not all bad.
Our “campground” host had some yard work he was going to do over the weekend and King was going to help – in fact, I think he was looking forward to it – but the third individual (the one with younger muscles) who was going to be working with them can’t make it so the project has been put on hold.
We will look for diversions.
Behind our trailer is a bricked patio/observation deck. King, Petra and I sit outside, enjoy the sunshine and watch the world go by while he smokes his cigars and I work on my loom.
Right now I’m weaving a rug. There is a small airport not too far from us and small planes fly over quite often. To the east of us are mountains and we can see the Pacific to the west.
King and Petra often see coyotes on their early morning walks, and since I’m a star-gazer I often hear them at night while I’m outside. It’s a quiet, rather peaceful, existence.
And I have revived an old passion — an additive-free lifestyle.
I’ve been having some health issues for the past several months and decided it was time to take control of the few things I still actually can control. King and I (well mostly me) are working on removing additives from our diet.
Those who know me might be surprised to know I once was a real “food snob.” I could tell you what each food additive was and what it would do to you. I devoured (pun intended) nutrition journals. No sugar. Little meat. No pop. No chips. No cookies. I even made my own mayonaise. Then King and the kids rebeled and I gave up.
But once again, I digress.
I’m not going crazy with this. It’s just “a thing” I’m doing. King is still drinking his diet Mountain Dew and smoking cigars. I still sneak potato chips after he falls asleep.
Basically it means I’m going back to cooking the way my mother did — from scratch. It also means I’m that annoying person in the grocery store who reads labels.
Or to put it better, I read the labels I can actually see. I did that (read labels) when we were still students – I was a student longer than most, by the way – and I’ve found that people are as huffy about an old woman standing in the aisle reading a label as they were with a decidedly younger woman standing in the aisle reading a label.
Am I the rude person or are they? I’ve decided not to care and let them huff their way around me. I’m sure they think I’m old, slow and in the way.
I probably am.
