-
Coping Mechanisms
As if life during quarantine wasn’t hard enough, I’ve decided to quit drinking. I hate to talk about such things because it usually sets me up for failure and then I feel like an ass mixing up a beautiful Brendarita on a happy festive afternoon. I’ve never thought I seriously had a drinking problem but I do have a problem *thinking about drinking* so I’ve come to the conclusion that for me, that is enough of a problem. I’m tired of feeling bad about it. Sober Brenda hates Drunk Brenda and Drunk Brenda hates Sober Brenda. I know it’s controversial and lots of people drink without any problems. I drink without any problems too, except the self-hate the next morning. I don’t even get hangovers. I get guilt-overs.
I don’t know if I’ll be successful. I’ve tried lots of times before and never really lasted more than a few days. But it is what I want to do right now. I figure I don’t have much to lose blogging about it. You’ll still love me if I fail. And if I fail it doesn’t mean I’m a falling down drunk. I just want to practice self control and stop feeling bad in the mornings. It’s all part of the mental health journey, I guess.
Moving on to the worries: Will I be un-fun now? What will I do to pass the time when we are relaxing watching a show on tv at night? That is what Payam and I do. We sip and watch tv and talk. It’s one of our favorite things. So now I’ll sit and watch and drink tea and probably be way too high maintenance with my hamster brain worrying problem. I expect it to be hard. I’ve subscribed to some online programs. I think they will help me through the hard parts. What about camping without wine next week? That’s going to be a drag. Will I steep tea on the campfire? Just go to bed early all the time?
-
Wascally Wodents
It’s TomatoGate all over again. I wake up early every morning to walk the dogs and the first thing I do is go check on my tomato plant in my backyard garden. There is nothing I like better than a garden grown tomato. They put any other tomato to shame. They are so sweet and they taste like sunshine. I’ve been dreaming about them ever since I planted them back in April.Well…
The day before yesterday there were three giant green beefsteak tomatoes just waiting for the sun to finish ripening them. I have been watching them every day get bigger and bigger and THEN all of a sudden yesterday, they were rudely bitten by rodents! Big teeth marks scrape the sides of all three of them leaving a little more than half of each tomato just hanging there with it’s green seeds open to the air. It’s tomato murder!
Those rodents! I suspect rats because the bites are pretty big. My tomato plant is on a table and the tomatoes are a bit high up for possums but I guess they could be possums or even raccoons or squirrels. There is a wall behind the plant that is a regular squirrel freeway. I wish I had a camera I could set up to film overnight and I could track down the culprit.
In the meantime, I have fashioned a cage out of orange bag netting. I put some wire in a circle inside the netting to keep the tomato in the center of the orange bag. One night down and there are no bites on my remaining two tomatoes. I don’t know how long this will work. Probably at some point those wascally wodents will probably figure out they can chew through the bag. Here’s to hoping I come up with a better solution before then.
