Tuesday is tired

Long evening last evening. The couple taking me out for dinner picked me up at 6 (turns out I was sort of a 'surrogate daughter,' Wanda mentioned that they had taken their daughters out for her and her husband's birthday dinners until the daughters left home, then they started a tradition of taking a friend out instead). It was after 8:30 when I got home, which is a long evening out for me.

I also went through the casino here for the first time (to get to the restaurant, you must walk through the part of the casino with all the machines). It confirmed for me what I had expected: I would not enjoy going.

Not just because I am cheap. But that's part of it. No, more because I am easily sensorily overwhelmed. The gaming-machine part of the casino is loud (the machines, plus they play piped in music) and there are lots of bright flashing lights on the machine (the lighting itself is not very bright and as is typical of casinos, there are no windows, I presume so you don't have as much a sense of time passing). And they allow smoking and while it wasn't bad, it was bad enough. (I think I get more sensitive to smoke because I'm never around it).

The restaurant itself was nice. Dim, with banquette tables (they sat at the banquette, I took a chair - too big for me, made for someone taller or bigger - at the table and felt like I was perched on its edge all evening)

The prices on the menu are...yeah. I looked it up ahead of time online partly so I'd have some sense of what I might want to eat and an idea of what they served. And I'm reminded of how different my life is from some people's. (Granted: most people probably eat at that restaurant once a year as a treat, but...)

I wound up ordering prime rib which was one of the more reasonably priced things (!) but was still fairly expensive. But it was a 14 ounce cut (the smallest they had). I ate half and took half home. (They paid, and told me to get whatever I wanted but still...I always spend less when it's someone else's money)

As it turns out, I was dressed fine. Wanda wore dressy slacks and there were other people in the restaurant much more casually dressed.

I will say I feel like I probably need to send a thank you card (like the old "bread and butter" letters I was taught to do: write a formal note thanking someone for their hospitality).

But other things are making me tired:

Apparently my dishwasher (12 years old) has died. It won't fill, and it makes grinding noises. Granted, I was not as careful about always scraping the plates as I might have been. (And while they talk about 'cleaning the filters' on some washers, I could never FIND where mine were; I could not lift up the washer arm assembly the way some models show you can).

So last evening, after getting home, I hand-washed the accumulated dishes. Left them on towels on the top of the stove (I had no open counter space) to dry over night. I'll be doing that for a few days because I'm just too busy right now to think of either trying to get a repair person in (I doubt a repair is possible) or a new one. (This was a bottom-of-the-line Whirlpool and I....may rethink that decision for my next one). I do have my income-tax refund so I have a little extra money right now.

But yeah. That's another thing occupying my headspace - making the time to clean my kitchen enough to feel comfortable getting someone in, making the arrangements, all of that.

And the after effects of the Notre Dame fire - predictably, the bad-take brigade (bad-take, from my perspective, as in "takes I'd rather not hear") is out in force.

I will say there are things to remember in this: Apparently only one serious injury, and that was to a firefighter; the cathedral apparently closed its doors to the next group of visitors as soon as any fire was spotted, so no one needed to be rescued. A couple of important religious relics (the Crown of Thorns and the tunic of St. Louis) were saved (and also possibly a piece of wood believed to come from the Cross?). And they're saying this morning that at least the South Rose Window survived, though it may have damage. And a lot of the statues had already been removed for renovation and are safe....and the crucifix in the nave is still standing.

And other artwork seems to have been saved, and more may be able to be salvaged. They said firefighters were going in to try to get artworks/relics out (I guess it was actually a priest who saved the Crown of Thorns) *during* the fire.

And the stone walls still stand, though there may be some compromising of their integrity. (And I also hear this morning that the giant oak beams may actually be replaceable? There's a rumor going around that large, old oaks growing at Versailles were planted for that very purpose, so very many years ago).

I don't know. Yes, some people are pointing out "it's just a building" and as we say a lot in my denomination, the church isn't the building, it's the people, but this building is symbolic and meaningful. Part of it is, as someone I read commented, "it's seen the best of humanity and the worst of humanity and we all expected it would outlast us" (written at a point where it was not clear the walls even would still be standing this morning). Someone else commented that Notre Dame was significant to them because "It shows what people can do when they act out of love" and yes, that's it: that's the thing like some of Bach's music or great poetry or things like that. And in particular: people acting out of love of God, which to me feels more...eternal and selfless...than romantic love does.

But April, April just seems to be a brutal month. I'm sure there are things I am forgetting, but: The Oklahoma City bombing. Columbine. The bombing at the Boston Marathon.

The rest of today is going to be long; we have the first interviews this afternoon from 5-6:30 pm. I am going home for lunch but have to be back here at 2 to meet a student; I think I will just stay here then until the interviews.

But yeah. I feel kind of drained today. Too much stuff.