Ragioni Per Amare Lunedi - Reasons to Love Monday

Starting the week with another cheese from THIS KID! Love him so much! 

Monday happened all over again this week. Not an ugly - staff meeting first thing in the morning Monday like I used to have. Just another very chill day of trying to stay ahead of the things that hurt and keeping the cats happy. That's what I do.

Do you have recurring dreams? I have this dream where I've forgotten to call in sick to work - for three years. The weird thing... it's never that I've forgotten to call in to the place where I most recently worked. I've forgotten to call in to Life of Georgia, where I worked from 1986-1997. And my old boss Alice, (who ironically attends the church where my family goes UP HERE and whose sister-in-law is my good buddy) is wondering where I am. I'm sure it's because Alice's sister-in-law so very kindly bequeathed me a huge stash of embroidery thread and kits just last week and I keep thinking about combining that inventory with my current inventory. It will be loads of fun. A big job, but loads of fun.

And I am still giggling because this same friend called me last Thursday evening because her internet was down and she was dying to know how things went with our visit with Cosette. It makes you realize how interested people are in this continuing saga that is lived out in this blog / my Facebook / my Instagram. I hope my kids and grandkids look back to this without cringing too much when I'm dead and gone in whatever way people are accessing the internet... like we attempt to translate hieroglyphics. (Did I spell that right?) It's not the whole story, kids, but it's a lot of it. The best stuff dies with me.

Mondays don't hurt in the same way they used to but God knows they still hurt. I'm surviving by catching up on a lot of YouTube videos that I've missed while being hyper-focused/obsessed with the Olympics. I've just made myself my second jumbo iced tea of the day and indulged in a freshly picked fig. I've been watching this one particular fig for the past few days, just waiting for it to reach it's peak ripeness. It was a perfect Monday fig. And you know for sure you don't have a life when you have time to watch figs ripen. The fig bush is literally right outside my door. I can see it from my recliner almost.

It turns out that the YouTube visit to North Korea that I have been watching has sparked quite a bit of controversy. I have watched many videos today explaining why it was wrong for Louis Cole - of the YouTube Channel "Fun For Louis" - to be a "propaganda arm of the North Korean government". I can see why some might say that. I'm an armchair anthropologist so I found his videos to be incredibly interesting. I watched the videos with the perception that his tour group was only allowed a very controlled perspective of North Korea. It would be naive to think otherwise. I guess the target YouTube market didn't come of age during the Cold War and doesn't have the same skepticism my generation does. I don't take anything out of North Korea as factual any more than I would something coming out of Syria. Or China. That... plus my intensive study on the Korean Conflict courtesy of M*A*S*H reruns makes me an expert, right? It was clear that the people were unable to speak freely. The children were all terribly thin. There were no advertisements anywhere. There wasn't running water in on of the hotels where they stayed. I found what wasn't said spoke more loudly than what was.

In other bizarre news... Austin just got a notice in the mail today that he is to serve Jury Duty the week that mediation is scheduled for Cosette. I think he is just expected to serve the one day but we're taking it to his lawyer for clarification and to see what we should do. I think it would be fascinating to serve. I've only been called once and I sat at the courthouse for a few hours and was dismissed. When I (semi) forced him to register to vote, I told him they would probably never call him up for Jury Duty. So there you go... Mom's wrong again. It's with the same judge that is handling the custody case so I'm pretty sure they're not going to want him to serve but we'll sort that out. Much paperwork to be handled tomorrow anyways.

What else can I tell you about today? I'm doing a new course on memrise.com right now. The courses I've taken up until now you had to type out the entire word or phrase which leads to a lot of errors when I do reviews because I either spell the word wrong or have a typo. I'm taking a course now that is strictly multiple choice and I'm flying through it. I wish life was all multiple choice! If you narrow it down to four choices, I'm probably going to get it right. It made me think very literally about how when things aren't as easy as you want them to be, you should probably change your course. That's my new philosophy in life - both things - make like multiple choice AND if you don't like how things are going, change your course. I may even embroider that onto a pillow... with my new stash of embroidery thread! Yay!

Actually... I'm struggling with sewing because my shoulder is so wrecked. I really need to have it more carefully looked at. I love my pain doctor but he pretty much either wants to inject it, send me to physical therapy or let the pain meds I'm already on take care of it. I want the darn thing to work, as in diagnose it and then make it all better. It's my left shoulder and I'm left-handed so gosh-darnit, it needs to work. Today is all about the left shoulder and right hip not cooperating. There's a list of things in my body that I've got to fix, like getting new glasses and finishing up the dental work. I'm pretty much a "one major stress at a time" kind of girl and we've had other things to manage this year. There was mom's cancer, then the evil gut pain/hysterectomy, then there was the whole custody thing... now we're back to mom again. I've got to just start multi-tasking better. Then I multi-task and hate myself for it because it exhausts me.

Also, not sure that anyone cares, but I've changed shampoo. I've been strictly a Garnier girl forever but I thought it would be fun to change back to that Aussie stuff. No reason. Not unhappy with my hair, other than the fact that post-hysterectomy is just like post-partum... I'm pulling out hand fulls of hair every day. I have a ton to spare so it's working out so far... if you start seeing me wearing turbans, you'll know why. I think I've shed enough hair this Summer that you could clone me, if anyone's interested.

I guess that's about all I can possibly share about Monday, at least this go-round. Hope that even if you started with a staff meeting... or realized that you forgot to call in sick... that you still managed to find ragioni per amari lunedi (REASONS TO LOVE MONDAY!). Love and hugs!