michaelboy

cried when i woke up this morning.

cried in therapy. therapist says if i have a downswing i can reach out to him between sessions and if he can, he will make time for me. not sure i will ever do that, but it was nice of him to offer.

i have downswings every day tho?

:(

spending the day with tyler tomorrow will help. i'm exhausted tonight, work and chores did me in, but i will try to get up early and get my hair dyed while i clean the kitchen and make lunch and wrap a lil gift for him. we are hoping to hit a few freebie birthday treats and get a hike in (silver star redux, perhaps)

here are a handful of photos from silver star on sunday. Josh in the background with his "fluffy flower" in one, Mt St Helens and Rainier in another.

Everyone is calling this "sub-alpine mariposa lily" this year but I learned it as "cat's ear mariposa" years ago and I'm sticking with my name lol

katriona_s

On the last Sunday I went to the beach and enjoyed kayaking. The sunshine, sea wind and physical activity have made me tired and feel lazy, but somehow, this seemed to the proper tiredness in summer.

On weekday I went to the office or worked at home, spent all day in front of the computer screen in air-conditioned room. It's not hot nor humid in the room still sometimes I felt hot and took off the jacket or turned down the air-conditioning, sometimes felt cold and turned it up. The artificial cold air is really unhealthy, I feel. And looking at the screen sometimes makes me feel a bit dizzy or slight headache :(.

In summer time, we should go to the beach or mountain instead of going to the office... :(.

It seems, it's a bit cooler on the maintenance hatch.

Goya, bitter melon loves this summer heat...

pjthompson

Random quote of the day:

“At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons.”

—Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

keplers_angels

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serafaery

when I feel an impulse to feel repulsed by everyone who does weed, I try to think of Willy Nelson. I like him, he's cool, he can do all the weed he wants. When I get hateful rage at all children after watching a group of them tearing up dozens of stalks of bear grass at the summit of a beautiful mountain that people travel far to see and beating each other with them and throwing them aside like garbage just to rip up more, while parents walk away obliviously, I think of Ragnar, who I love, and would probably think that game was fun, too. Also flying private jets to a wedding is way worse for the world than wrecking a field of wildflowers. sigh. This post brought to you by a random non-alcoholic beer that was supposed to be my after-work relaxation treat but for some unforgivable reason smells like weed (which to me is nauseating).

alierak posting in

dw_maintenance

We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

serafaery

feeling a bit better today. whatever physical/chemical ailment that was causing that intense emotional discomfort has seemed to ease off a bit. it's not gone. i don't think i've felt it totally leave for more than a fleeting moment here or there in a couple of years, at least it seems that way. that hot tight ball of discomfort is still there in the center of my body, but it's less intense, today.

dragged my husband up a beloved trail yesterday. i was giddy from the get-go. trails just make me happy. i was miserable in the morning, Avalanche was sneezing so I finally swept the floors, despite the terrible timing, and have never seen so much dust and fur. Josh actively gets in the way of this chore but I just pushed through this time, I can't leave Avalanche in a dirty apartment like that. Or us. I felt much better when that was done.

I got my beargrass fix on Silver Star mountain. I'll post pics later.

We got a late start on a hot day but I was happy anyway. Josh ended up pretty melted, but I fed him lunch at the top, and on the way home we saw a girl on a street corner with one of those fabulous fruit carts that are all over the place in Venice Beach, so we got one of those and it was heavenly and perked him up quite a bit. We also got ice cream and n/a beer and n/a wine and drinks on the way home so I will never lose this stubborn extra 7lbs but oh well lol.

Need to try to get some office work done before I leave and I have not much time, I am nervous about seeing a new Ob/Gyn tomorrow and hope at least I'll have someone I can consistently get hormones from who won't argue with me about it.

Pondering chelation surgery and running. I miss it so. It's the only thing that stabilized my mood consistently. Not sure if cutting into my body is the right way to go. The last surgeon I talked to about it told me to just do whatever I want and when it's bad enough I can get the joint fused. But it feels bad enough now. I don't want to hobble myself at age 50. I hate that I can't even do push-ups without shoes on, it hurts my toes too much with the bone spurs in them. I'm down to only 10 push-ups after having 30 last year. But. I so desperately want to run. I am so miserable without it. It's been almost two and a half years and I have not found a way to deal with not being able to run, yet. I keep trying things but nothing is the same, or there are barriers that I can't seem to overcome. Maybe I just haven't found the right alternative, yet.

...

On Silver Star, we saw a pika! I've heard them many many times while hiking in rocky areas, including on our way up this trail yesterday, but this is the first time I actually laid eyes on one - they are pretty shy. It was the cutest aaaaaagh! They are related to rabbits. Josh spotted it before I did, on our way down.

(We did not get a photo, but this was taken in the same general area, this is what they look like, squeeeeeeee! They live in rocks and make funny little nests full of plant fluff and they make a cute little Pi! barking/squeaking like sound.)

BBC Earth did a silly little profile of them years ago:

Watch on YouTube

katriona_s

Yesterday (Sunday) I went to Zushi beach to enjoy kayaking. It's more than 2 months since I have paddled last time - in Apr., on the mountain lake. Yesterday it's fine and hot, like in mid-summer, there were many people on the beach and on the water, enjoying swimming, sun-bathing, wind-surfing, jet-skiing etc. And there were some waves in the sea, so it was not very easy to paddle but a good practice to paddle :) It's just 2 hour paddling, in the middle of the afternoon I came home, had shower, washed the swimwear, then prepared the supper. And all the while the sunshine was strong, the atmosphere was just mid-summer like!

I enoyed the outing and kayaking yesterday, but because of this physical activity - and also because of the summer heat - today I have been sleeping ALL DAY in the office ! XD It' very very difficult to concentrate on my job X(

chicating

angry and cheated, like, always.(THere is plenty of reason, but I did always hope to get more from life, before it was all over.)

katriona_s

Recently when we (I and mother) have breakfast we enjoy some homemade jam. My friend M loves making jam and gives me the jars of the homemade jam often, like strawberry jam in spring, orange marmalade in winter etc. And I made juneberry jam at the beginning of this month. So I enjoy to choose which to eat :).

The jar with green top is the juneberry jam I made, I have some more unopened small bottles. Other are from M, the biggest one is marmalade, the jar of strawberry jam is almost empty. The dark green one is mint & apple jam, my favorite. Every morning I think the colors of jam are beautiful :)

I heard that some people do not receive the homemade jam or sweets from friends because the homemade thing cannot be clean enough compared to the merchandised foods made under the strict hygiene management. I understand those opinions because in Asian humid climate we should be careful to avoid food poisoning. Still I believe the homemade foods always taste better, especially jam and marmalade :)

katriona_s

A fine day. The annual rainy season has been over oddly early in the west part of Japan, our area is officially still in the rainy season but no rain for a few days. It's already hot and humid in the middle of morning. There are 3 stone steps outside of the north window of our living room, the garden cats seemed to find it's a bit cool on them XD.

They have been there for a while, then moved to the other shade before noon.

Now there is no flower I can put in the vases in our garden, so I need some ideas for displaying the flower vases.

keplers_angels

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ofearthandstars

Questions from

thefridayfive:

1. Who was your favorite teacher? and 2. Why was that teacher so special?

Without a doubt, it was Patricia Adams Lent, who taught my AG middle school English classes from 6th-8th grade. She recognized that I was a socially awkward oddball stuck in my own head, and she was so very, very kind to me when I had no real friends. She was a rigorous instructor, she helped form/improve my writing/editing skills, but also was a very much a teacher of critical thinking. Outside of that, she led drama activities, a literary magazine, and even enjoined me for bike rides in the countryside outside of class. On my middle school graduation, she made me an actual walking stick (made from an apple tree, carved and cured and polished and with my name and the dates carved in it).

3. Do you think teachers get paid enough? Well, having very close family as teachers I must say I am pretty well-acquainted with the responsibilities and the paycheck, and no, it is not nearly enough, not for the extra work and activities that are required, not for the enormous disrespect and wringers that they are put through by students and parents and administrations and political pontificators. There's so much less freedom in teaching than there used to be, which seems such a disservice to all involved.

4. Do you have a favorite year of school? Not really. School was mostly miserable for me, I connected more with the adults than the other students, with a few exceptions, so I mostly focused on the work. I did enjoy the last two years as I was starting to finally feel more comfortable with myself, but given that I cocked everything up right after high school, I don't look at that former version of myself very kindly. (They were intelligent but also young and naive, I really should forgive them someday.)

5. If you could travel back in time and tell yourself something now that would have helped you get through school, what would you say? Calling on Mr. Rogers, I guess I'd say "Look for the helpers." They are the only ones to have helped me survive it.

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michaelboy

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Page generated Jul. 11th, 2025 02:58 am

Reading

too sad.

The tiredness of summer

Landscape

(Leibniz for one)

perspective.

Rebuilding journal search again

anxious monday morning.

After kayaking...

I don't like feeling...

the homemade jam

Cat stairs

stalking for friends...

Friday Five - Teaching Edition

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July 2025

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