Sunday: I’m glad I live in a heated home because it’s never going to get warm again, is it?
Monday: Work from home day on another day with a wintry commute!
Tuesday: My half birthday. I’m still here and still healthy.
Wednesday: Going to be vague here, but I identified something that has been causing me anxiety lately. Knowing what that issue is makes me feel better. (Grammarly hates that sentence, but has no good suggestions for it.) I hate the weird handwavy feeling of being anxious about something that you can’t put your finger on.
Thursday: TNP supplied us with breakfast and lunch, as well as a coffee cup to celebrate the inaugural National Hospitalist Day. I brought the cup home with designs to turn it into a flowerpot because I have so many mugs. NB: I realize it’s hella easy to find where I work, but I don’t want this creaky blog to show up when people search for my workplace.
Friday: My manager who has been with TNP for only 2 months had the awkward task of doing my yearly review. It’s good! Relief!
Saturday: Today the first of my seedlings sprouted. Cherry Tomatoes! After a week of sad, it was nice to see that life does find a way. 🙂
In this season I’m in, my peers are dying young and the adults I grew up with are dying, well, as scheduled.
The week in bleak:
Luke Perry died at only 52. I was a college freshman when 90210 came out and watched the episodes lovingly and with not one shred of irony.
A woman who lived next to the house I grew up in (where Mom still lives) since before I was born died. She was in her 80s and I can’t even picture my childhood home without this person next to it.
A member of an online community I’ve been active in since 2010 (and lurking in for years prior) passed away. This is something that’s happening with more frequency as the old-guard denizens of the Internet age.
Alex Trebek has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He’s 78. I know how this is going to go.
And I’m feeling like…is this it? Is this the back nine…watching everyone die while waiting for your own number to be called?
It’s bleak and damn sad but I wouldn’t be doing this blog justice if I implied my life was all gardens and love and beaches and doggie hijinks. I’ll pull out of this soon enough – I have a 1st birthday party to attend for my favorite little meatball, Nephew B after all.
Because if I can’t do it on my own blog, where can I do it?
This is the first week that I used reusable bags for my entire grocery shopping journey. (Because I am becoming An Old, grocery shopping means I go to Target and then to Acme instead of meekly accepting whatever crap produce Target has in stock.)
Bags pictured: Froot Loops, Barnes & Noble, Acme, ShopRite, King Arthur Flour. Not pictured: Disney store, Pennsylvania Women’s Conference.
I had the bags for a long time but I never went through with it. Why?
Imagined obstacle 1: I was waiting until I found the perfect set of reusable bags. My bags are from a plethora of stores (the Froot Loops one is from Atlanta Pride!) and they’re all different sizes. In my mind, I wanted the best set of attractive, uniform, brand-free grocery bags I could find.
Reality 1: Nobody gives two craps what your bags look like, as long as they work. And the best bags are the ones you’re actually going to use.
Imagined obstacle 2: It’s awkward telling the cashier that you want to use your own (fugly) bags.
Reality 2: Put the bag at the very front of the conveyor belt and they’ll know what you want without you asking for it.
Actual obstacle: I’ll never remember to bring the bags into the store with me. Like I never remember to use the stainless steel straw in my purse.
Reality: Yeah. That takes time. Now what I do is bring the bags right back out to the car after unpacking. Another thing that helps with that is I’ve started taking most of the plastic bags we accumulate each week to Target to recycle. Since I have bags on the brain, I bring the plastic bags AND the reusable bags in with me.
Also, did you know you can drop off many types of plastic bags at Target, including Amazon plastic mailers? YES, YOU CAN. This link will blow your mind.
Why do I do this? Because I am tired of trash in trees, in drains, in rivers, and storm drains. I’d like to see a world with less garbage … to see a world for once all standing hand in hand. And hear them echo through the hills for peace throughout the land.
Glad you figured out what’s causing your anxiety. Happy weekend!