Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Some Tuesday stuff

* Piano tuner came yesterday. It was a bit of a cluster as I had told his (adult) daughter, who scheduled the appointment, I was leaving a key under the doormat and apparently she told him the door would be unlocked, so he came, couldn't get in, left, called me, I called back, and we had to reschedule for the afternoon. So I was actually home for the tuning which, for someone as noise averse as I am, strangely does not bother me to listen to.

* I got two exams for next week written while the tuning was happening. Life is already hectic. And I admit the under-running current of the whole "sign up for Fitness Foo!" stuff isn't helping. (We got "called out" by another department - this is apparently how it goes, some people in a department sign up and then they trash-talk another department to shame them into signing up. I disapprove of this. I don't like "shame" being associated with health-related stuff; I think it's a counterproductive thing. It should be "Yay, I am being healthy" rather than "You horrible person, you are not being healthy.")

I think the crux of it for me is: I will actually not be as good if I feel like someone else is hanging over me and monitoring me. I will do foolish things like exercise hurt if I am hurt or try to exercise sick. Or I will excessively restrict my eating. I do fine if I am my own drill sergeant, but if I feel like someone else is judging me - if I have to "please" someone else - then I start to get obsessive. And yeah, you can say, "You shouldn't feel like you have to do that" but I don't have time for counseling to undo certain behavior patterns on top of everything else.

* The tuner and I commiserated on how hard it is to maintain climate control in this part of the world. (There is a narrow range of humidity that is ideal for pianos and it happens to be the range that also upsets my asthma the least). He said it wasn't too badly out of tune for that, and for having gone a year without tuning (Ideally, you get pianos tuned here every six months but I forgot to call him last winter)

* Allergies very bad. Apparently the ragweed is bad this year. I don't know that any of the smoke from the Western wildfires has traveled down here but I know my eyes have been scratchy and I have been sneezing a lot. And bad allergies affect my mood badly....I am less tolerant of the foolishness some people get up to and more easily undone by the slings and arrows of everyday life. And the problem is, knowing this - that I am more emotional because of allergies - *doesn't help*

* It's also going to be unnaturally hot (10 degrees over what it should be) ALL this week. I may just scrub the Saturday trip other than for grocery shopping. I am SO DONE with it being hot. SO. DONE. I want it to be cooler and to rain and to feel like fall. I find this time of year frustrating, because my Ohio-raised brain is going "September! Football weather! Apples in the grocery store! Hayrides! First frost!" (well, okay, maybe not that last, maybe not most years) but here in Oklahoma it's like NOPE SUMMER IS STAYING ON LIKE THAT TERRIBLE HOUSEGUEST WHO WON'T LEAVE.

Some people claim we have nine seasons in Oklahoma. If we do, about seven of them are too hot in some shape or form. (To me, it feels more like we have four, but two of them - the two best ones, spring and fall - are very short: about 8 months of "way too hot," a month of "nice" where it is cool and rains a little and if we're lucky we see the leaves change, two months of freezing rain, and then another month of "nice" and flowers before it gets too darn hot again.)

* Picking away at various projects but not getting much done on any of them. I did finish the warm-up-kids hat. I'm close to finishing the first of a pair of socks. Part of it is that when it's so hot, it's hard for me to imagine being able to wear knitwear again and working on it seems less exciting. It's just kind of a doldrum time.

I will have to figure out something I can carry along for when I give those exams.....


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