Deluged

I know…two posts in two days! Outstanding!

Actually, this post was prompted by Erica.

Nearly full rain gauge

I emptied this gauge yesterday afternoon and the storms rolled in overnight.

Yep, that is total rainfall within the past 12 hours.

Seems like most of the garden survived the hailstorm and it has stopped raining…for now.

Woman, you have no idea what you’re in for.

Like visiting an old friend

Hello, blog. It’s been a long time since I’ve checked in with you, hasn’t it? I’ve been much too busy lately, but it hasn’t all been dreary work keeping me occupied. I’ve been having a lot fun, too. And it’s really more the fun stuff that is keeping me away.

I actually took 3 whole days off of work recently, and spent most of that time engaged in fun, fun, fun right here in my hometown. I spent a morning having breakfast with G and his mother at Manny’s [his idea; yeah, he wanted me to meet his mother, OK?]; a day with Adrienne; and another day going to the movies and having lunch with G. And the nights…well…let’s just leave that to the imagination. [Oh, yeah!!]

The weather has continued to be very springlike: cool and wet. We’re not used to having a real spring in Chicago, though, where we typically have lingering winter weather and launch into summer humidity and heat. So we wring our hands with worry about this strange phenomemon and try to make predictions about how the rest of the summer will turn out. Meanwhile, I’m very happy to not be heating OR cooling the house so far, and that I have an incredibly lush garden with no watering duty to fit into my busy social calendar.

Look at the evidence of this bounteous spring.

Zucchinis, cukes, and squash galore!

Loads of quickly ripening garlic

Peppers, tomatos, eggplant, and beans, with asparagus in the background!

Broccoli and the small amount of lettuce the birds left me this year

And to end, a thing of beauty.

My beloved zepherine drouhin rose. Great scent, easy growing, and no thorns. Gotta love it!

I turned 42 last week. It was OK. My friends did special things for me like cooking me a lucious, dry-aged ribeye to perfection and giving me adorable gifts. G took me out and gave me a nice bottle of wine, too. I got a card from my ex-mother-in-law and my ex-husband. Interesting.

The next few days will be filled with prep work for the kitchen remodel, which is starting next Monday. I need to vacate the kitchen AND my bedroom, as the bedroom floor will be sanded and varnished, too. So, I get to live in the basement like a hermit. At least I have another bathroom with a shower, a cooktop, and the laundry sink for washing up down there. It will be like living in a poorly laid out open loft apartment. Except it’s more of an underground loft, if such a thing can exist.

I’m hoping this kitchen thing will be over in 6 weeks and then I can start cooking on a REAL stove for a change. [A decade-plus-old electric range with only 3 working burners and a wonky oven does NOT constitute a REAL stove, OK?] I will be enamored of my new kitchen and never want to leave it.

Maybe not. Well, at least I will appreciate it and all the labor and expense it will take to bring a 1950’s kitchen into the 21st century where people routinely use things like dishwashers to clean up after a meal.

And until then, I’ll just eat a lot of sandwiches.

Catching a break

Well, it’s been pretty crazy for me the past month. I’ve had a lot of work to do, and it wasn’t unusual for me to start off my days with 7 AM meetings and end my day at around 9 or 10 PM. All of this to orchestrate a big project that had a deadline of…today.

But the crazy project is now over. My body has declared it’s break time, too, by becoming achy and sniffly over the weekend. Once I confirmed that all was well this morning and completed my early call, I claimed the day as unplanned time off and went back to bed for a long sleep. I now have time for a brief sigh of relief before picking up all the other stuff that piled up at work in the meantime.

In the past few weeks, I spent so much time hunched over my laptop that I had to make a few emergency visits to the chiropractor just to unkink my neck and shoulders. So it should be understandable that I really didn’t feel like blogging much during the crazy times.

I did use Twitter quite a bit, though. Making mini-posts every day helped me stay a bit more sane and gave me a minor break. I also like the fact that I can tweet from my mobile phone, and took advantage of that ability a few times.

And one of my tweets was about…my first date. Yep, I went on a date a couple weeks ago. That one date led to another, and another, and actually I spent quite a bit of time with this person over Memorial Day weekend.

G and I definitely have a great physical attraction for each other and we’ve had a lot of fun together. It’s been wonderful to have someone find me so attractive and desireable and I’m glad to have an attentive lover in my life. He’s smart and sweet, too. But (and you know there had to be a but in there) he already wants us to be exclusive.

It’s not as if I’m out trolling for dates these days. In fact, it was just good timing that brought G and I together for our first date. I’m not ready to have a steady guy right now, which is why I really haven’t gotten worked up about a few other things that have my antenna aquiver, so to speak.

This is quite a change from my lonely nights just a month ago. Whether or not this situation with G works out, I think this bodes well for my dating future.

Sunday nights

It’s here again: the end of another weekend. I think Sunday nights are the worst for me. I start gearing up for my early start on Monday, and I typically feel like I didn’t accomplish something critical that I really wanted to get done over the weekend.

I also feel more lonely on Sunday nights than any other night. What with long work days and the typical evening routine to follow, week nights are fairly mundane and go by quickly. Friday nights and Saturday nights are for unwinding and relaxing. I may just spend those evenings kicking back at home on my own or with friends, or I may go out. Either way, they are the evenings for fun.

Then Sunday night rolls around. Although Sundays are typically considered the first day of the week, for me they seem like the last. As the daylight fades on Sunday, my final opportunity to finish up whatever thing it was I wanted to accomplish “this week” is fading with it. I’m often tired on Sunday nights and wanting to savor this last bit of freedom from work, but ironically I usually have to spend some time working Sunday night prepping for Monday.

And after spending a couple days with friends old and new, I find myself alone on Sunday night and feeling isolated.

Tonight, after 2 days of riding around quite a bit on my bike, I’m slightly sore as well as tired and lonely. I’m treating myself to a hot bath with a cup of fragrant herbal tea, and a good book. When the bath grows cold, I’m certain to be feeling drowsy and sated and ready for bed. Ready to take on another Monday.

Making adjustments

I’m still working like a fiend. So much so that I have not been able to get out and really enjoy my garden as I have in years past. I’m hoping I can catch up in June when I’ll finally be able to come up for air.

I did get my washing machine last Saturday. A fancy, schmancy energy efficient thing that’s whisper quiet as it goes about its work and promises to operate for about $11 a year. I’m not sure how I would measure that without a kilowatt meter and some sort of water heater meter hooked up to it, but it looks pretty impressive in print.

After a crazy work week, today was a whirlwhind of a day. First, I cycled off to the Lorna’s Laces Sale and Tour, an annual Windy City Knitting Guild event. I met up with Jamie and Chris there at around 8 AM, then went to wait at Beans n’ Bagels on Montrose until the actual event opening. [It was there we saw Rahm Emmanuel getting a couple cups of coffee and then leaving the store to get into a black SUV where it appeard his wife was awaiting him. We all waved at him as he left and he gave us a thumbs up back. He's much smaller in person: both shorter and smaller in general than he looks on TV. And I didn't hear him swear once. ]

At the Lorna’s Laces sale, we all bought a smallish quantity of yarn (compared to what has happened in years past for some of us) and then proceeded on to Lillstreet Art Center for a special event. Chris was in her element, as she is an avid student of the wheel there, and she was excited to show Jamie and I her most recent pottery handiwork.

I was torn between checking out the excellent art of my friend, and the event: an urban farming celebration of chickens. One of my fellow urban chicken keepers – who is also an artist at Lillstreet — had arranged for this event that included a special menu at the resident cafe, a full display by Martha Boyd of Angelic Organics Learning Center, and a showing of the Mad City Chickens documentary.

It was an incredibly fun day, but I was ready to cycle home at about 2 PM when all was over. I rode against the wind all the way home, and so was exhausted and ready for a wee nap. I lay down with the newest Mary Russell book (thankfully acquired quite easily through the Chicago Public Library and thereby sparing me a few bucks in my budget), and was just getting into it when the dogs started getting rather riled and my mobile phone rang.

I picked up the phone — a call from Rachael — and looked out the back door to see that it was the arrival of my nephew and a friend on their bikes that was exciting the dogs so much. I put off Rachael for a bit, and visited with my nephew instead. The dogs were quite excited by the stimulus of these teen boys, and from there the real trouble started.

The boys were preparing to leave and were standing in the driveway with their bikes when the fight erupted. It seems that competing for attention became much too serious and the dogs began to fight. In earnest. Now, there have been a few skirmishes here and there since the big household upset of divorce and loss of a human presenance (Mark). But this was pretty serious.

I waded into the fight, picked Hannah up by her hind-quarters, and pulled her away from Sadie. True terrier that she is, Sadie launched herself at Hannah and the fighting resumed. Next, I grabbed Sadie by the hindquarters and then picked her up entirely. Hannah moved away, and I was able to get a close look at the damage Sadie had suffered.

It was disturbing: she had saliva all over her head and neck, and was starting to bleed from several wounds around her left eye. This was serious. After seeing my nephew and his friends safely away and putting Hannah in the house, I put Sadie in the car and headed off to the emergency vet.

Cubs traffic made it impossible to reach the one here in the city, but I was able to get to the one in Skokie within the hour. Luckily, Sadie’s eye is fine, but it was a close call. She has lacerations and bite wounds all around her eye and on the eyelid itself, so she will require oral antibiotics and an antibiotic salve in her eye for several days.

And per the vet’s instructions, I now have to send the dogs back to “boot camp.” The changes in the household have led to Hannah trying to move up in the pack hierarchy, to the detriment to Sadie. So instead, Hannah is leashed most of the time and I hold her back to be second to Sadie — the older, but smaller dog. Hannah must eat after Sadie, must go outside after Sadie, must only be allowed to get attention from me after Sadie.

I don’t mind, but it is a bit more work, for sure. It’s not easy being the alpha in a pack. But I do what I must. Oh, and that precious household budget is also quite reduced by a trip to the emergency vet. Again, I do what I must.

Living and working

I haven’t written in a while because I’ve been so busy with…well…life! This is a good thing!

It’s true that I’ve been working quite a bit, too. We’re quickly approaching our fiscal year end and I have a HUGE project that must be delivered on June 1. Needless to say, I know how I’ll be occupying my time the last weekend in May.

But it hasn’t really been all work and no play. I’ve found time to go out and be with friends quite a bit and have learned some new things, too. For example:

• Last Sunday I learned a new way to prep and cook a whole chicken that involves de-boning and stuffing it
• For two weeks in a row, I spent Wednesday nights with Betsy at the Matchbox, chatting with “the regulars” and kicking back
• Last Saturday night I connected up with some old friends I’ve known since I was a child
• And, I’ve been fitting in stuff for the kitchen remodel, such as picking out a sink and faucet, light fixtures, and tile

It’s actually been pretty difficult to fit in personal care stuff like going to the gym and the grocery store or taking care of the yard. Which is why I’m home on a Friday night tonight catching up on my blog. I made a decision to NOT line up something to do tonight so I could get home early enough to mow the grass before it got dark, and then go to the gym.

Despite all the running around and intensity at work, I’m feeling quite good these days. I think I laugh more often and more spontaneously. I don’t feel so lonely anymore, either.

Maybe the fact that it’s spring and there is so much blooming around me is helping to lift my mood, too. I’m not sure. So, even though I have to fit in time to go out to Abt tomorrow to buy a new washer (definitely NOT a planned purchase, but when the 18-year old washing  machine breaks, you gotta bite the bullet and replace it), I’m not stressing very much at all.

Yep, life is good.

In the raw

The past couple days have been rough for me. And I think I’ve figured out why I’m feeling so sad and raw the past couple days. I’m adding it all up:

• A brief experience in bed where I awoke thinking I was touching a person and it ended up being one of the dogs and how disappointed that made me
• A dream in which I was symbolically separated from a man I want in my life (even if he doesn’t want to be connected with me)
• My envy of a TV character and her relationship with her husband (Allison and Joe on Medium)

I’m missing the feeling of partnership and having someone to “catch my back.” I’m under a lot of pressure at work and have no one at home to whom I can vent or turn to for help. There’s just me. Me and the dogs, who can share some physical comfort but rely on me for care, so aren’t really a help at all.

So, essentially I’m lonely. And I wonder: over time, does it get easier to be alone? Does one get to really relish the quiet nights, the weekend days perennially open until and unless I decide to take on a commitment for myself?

I spent last night working late and then speaking to a friend as I tried to process through my feelings. I kept feeling like I wanted to cry, so I would give myself permission to do so, but the tears wouldn’t come.

It wasn’t until today that they finally did, which wasn’t ideal since I had to go into the office today. At certain points during the day, I’d start to tear up and would go off to the restroom to cry. I did this a few times until I finally got through most of my meetings and was able to leave early. I knew I could finish the rest of my meetings from home and desperately needed to lay down for a bit first.

Maybe it was the klonopin I finally took in the afternoon that made me feel so tired, or maybe it was the crying, or maybe it was just the interrupted sleep last night. (Hannah dog hates the rain and thunderstorms and refused to go outside before bed, so of course she needed to go out at about 1:30 AM when all had finally been calm for several hours.)

I got home and took a short nap and then finished my calls. And I cried some more. Then I opened When Things Fall Apart (which I think of as my “buddhist book” now) and went back to scan the chapter called Six Kinds of Lonlieness.

Usually we regard lonlieness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It’s restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we can begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down.

After reading through the chapter again, I started to feel more calm and centered. I welcomed in the cool loneliness and tried to relax with it.

But still, I realize that I want a partner. Someone who values me for more than just my work ethic and ability to get things done, as they do at work. Someone who gives me comfort and touches me. Someone who makes love to me in the real sense of what that means: tenderly, passionately, and with deep feeling.

So for now I’ll sit my my cool lonlieness and my desire. I don’t think they’re in conflict, but they are both equally new and raw and soft.

Back to normal?

Except for an occasional cough and bit of wheeziness, it appears that the bronchitis is finally gone, as is the pityriasis rosea. Fingers crossed!

I’ve been keeping away from the gym because of these two problems that make getting out of breath and really sweaty a bad idea. But now that they’re gone, well, unless I want to backslide into poor shape again getting back to the gym is important.

Last Wednesday I went to work out with the trainer. There was a mix up, though, and the trainer wasn’t yet back from his vacation. So I worked out for 30 minutes on the elliptical and then went back to work more at home.

While he’s been out of town, I was supposed to follow a plan my trainer carefully put together for me that invovled 30 minutes of cardio and then some toning stuff to do for upper body, lower body, and core (although not all in one session). Of course I haven’t done any of them because of the bronchitis and the rash.

Today I decided to follow one of the routines and dutifully went to the gym where I did my 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical then decided to just do the core routine. On the first attempt I made to use one piece of equipment [I can't recall what this thing is called, but its just a support type thing where you do all sorts of core things like lower back, obliques, etc.] it was occupied, so I went to do some other core training stuff on the list. When I came back to the equipment, it was free so I started in on my routine.

This is where the real weirdness happened. [Folks who follow me on Twitter or Facebook will be glad to finally found out what I meant by that tweet about seeing weird stuff at the gym...I'm speaking to YOU Betsy. ] I was on this whatchamacallit doing up-down-side-twist thingies (again, hard to explain, but a *really* good workout for the obliques, glutes, and outer thigh) when I notice about 3 guys standing in the corner about 10 feet away from me. One of them has his shorts pulled down and is in his tiny briefs showing himself to the two other guys.

I don’t know exactly what this guy was trying to show, but it involved a certain amount of gesticulating around his groin area. And it took them a good 5 minutes or so to finish this display. All the while, I’m doing my routine just a few feet away.

Once I had figured out what has going on there (”Yes your brain has intrepreted that correctly. There is a man standing in the gym in his undies with his shorts around his ankles.”) I kept my eyes averted and just tried to be sort of non-chalant. But WTF? What could he have possibly been showing these other 2 guys?

The “displayer” was quite buff, so I guess he was trying to give advice to the others about how to get good muscle definition in a certain area. But still, dude, take it to the locker room! 

Yeah, the guy was muscular and not unattractive, but this was a big turn off for me. Which was actually a good thing, ’cause I’ve been “running hot” the past few days and need a little cooling down so I can be more functional.

Maybe I’ve been reading too much Penelope Trunk these days, but I’m gonna just give fair warning that after all I’ve been through lately, I’m inclined to just write about all sorts of stuff that I never would have done in the past.

When I started blogging years ago, it was just to share my gardening and my knitting. Then I started writing about my chickens, too. So this has always been a pretty tame blog. But lately I’ve had a hard time resisting the urge to get much more explicit about stuff that occupies my mind.

I know some people have more than one blog so they can keep separate their thoughts about different subjects or aspects of their life, but I’m just not inclined do to that. It seems too much work to me.

So, fair warning to those who are more faint at heart: I’m giving myself free rein here from now on.

Yesterday

When you read this, you’ll realize why I couldn’t even think about it until today, much less record it.

6:00 – 7:30 AM — Get out of bed; head outside with dogs to open coop and feed/water chickens; shower and dress; feed dogs; pack lunch and afternoon snack; make coffee and eat some breakfast.

7:30 – 8:00 AM — Conference call with India team reviewing work done in past 24 hours, and assigning priorities for next 24 hours.

8:12 AM — Walk to train.

8:30 – 9:15 AM — Commuting to office on the train while on a conference call about resourses/staffing in India.

9:15 – 10:00 AM — Catching up on email and fielding IMs.

10:00 – 10:30 AM — Conference call about status of an open project; have to juggle the deadline due to higher priority, “all-consuming project.”

10:30 – 12:30 PM — Catching up on email and fielding IMs; meeting with a local team member to provide feedback on her deliverable; working on deliverables to send to India; heating up and eating lunch.

12:30 – 1:00 PM — Conference call discussing several open projects; multi-task by continuing to work on deliverables.

1:00 – 2:00 PM — Continue to work on deliverables and review the re-work of local team member.

2:00 – 3:00 PM — Project status checkpoint meeting. Continue to work on deliverables while meeting going on.

3:00 – 4:00 PM — Review/assign work to local team members, making sure all is clear and accountability/timelines established.

4:00 – 5:15 PM — Continue to work on deliverables, emails, IMs and field questions from local team members.

5:15 – 6:15 PM — Catch train home and use the downtime to do a bit of knitting; let dogs out in yard; set up laptop and get on the phone with my boss to review status of “all-consuming project.”

6:15 – 8:08 PM — Discuss deliverables, resources, record feedback for priority setting with India, and troubleshoot problems with boss; mix up a double martini as we talk since I *really* need it; feed dogs; eat some peanuts as I drink.

8:15 – 9:30 PM — Change out of work clothes; shut up chickens for the night and collect eggs (a 4 egg day! woot!); fix some dinner (bagged salad and homemade salmon patties from the freezer); sit down at laptop to eat and write up notes; take a bit of extra time away from laptop screen to watch 30 Rock (funny!), but otherwise just leave TV on as background noise.

9:30 – 10:30 PM — Decide have done enough work for the day and stop; wash dishes and clean up kitchen; knit for about 20 minutes as I decompress in front of TV and listen/watch local news; go to bed.

10:45 PM — Thunderstorms start outside; Hannah dog begins quivering/quaking, shaking the bed as I fall off to sleep, exhausted.

If I wrote one of these up every day, it could certainly help me with my time report…

Earth day’s end

Another long day today, and I didn’t even have time to fit in a nap. But it’s Earth Day and the weather cooperated wonderfully.

A sunny blue sky with fluffy white clouds to admire. Warmish temps: not too hot, not too cold. It was a perfect time to bring out the bicycle for my errands today. And riding your bike around town to run errands is just what one should do on Earth Day, too.

When I finally escaped from my home office this afternoon for a gym appointment, I got there on my bike. Later, I treated myself to a facial (it’s been way too long…over a year!), and I rode by bike to the salon.

In between I found a bit of time to collect eggs, feed the hens a treat (some bread ends, limp mustard greens, and past their prime grapes), and check out the garden.

Arugula and lettuce are coming along nicely and it’s nearly time to sow another row of each.  Asparagus is also coming up and I’m contemplating cutting a few spears already. I may have to replace a couple crowns, but only time will tell.

My big excitement today, though, is that the peas are definitely sprouting. I saw just the barest tips peeking through the soil, but now that they have tasted sunlight, they will be sure to grow more rapidly. I was starting to worry that I’d need to get some new pea seeds and re-sow them.

The sun is fading now, but I took time to enjoy this wonderful day despite the demands of work and such. Tomorrow promises to be another fine day, too.