General topics.

CW, you've had, like, five minutes to adjust! Give yourself a chance!

After caregiving it is *incredibly* difficult to think of anything that merits your time. I can't go back to what I was doing before, I just can't. I've lost all patience with these absurd people and their pitiful conceits and their trivial demands...

As one account handler put it to me long ago: "it's a good thing you're not client-facing, isn't it?"

I couldn't think *what* she meant! But that was even before I'd lived with the insult that according to "the real world" (don't start me) my ability to craft straplines - things which I'd always loathed from the bottom of my heart anyway - was seventy times more valuable than my willingness (if not much ability) to comfort a dying woman.

And it's worse than it was. Over twenty five years ago I made up a pharmaceutical company called "Winsome & Hush - caring for you." It was supposed to be a joke. B*gger me if there aren't now encouraging little slogans over every spare inch of wall in the hospital - it's all I can do not to take a black permanent marker and go round the place correcting the misplaced apostrophes.

There goes my nervous tic again.

Could put horns and fangs on all the Chief Executive's 'big brother' posters. Or speech bubbles - "f*** 'em, they're only patients..!"

As I say. I really can't go back to my old life.

There's CCTV in every corridor, for a start.

At your crossroads, where were the other signposts pointing? And if those options now seem devoid of any interest or value, why do they? What are they lacking?

Can you do some online courses during the winter months, cwillie?

art history, astronomy, 18th century lit, perhaps?

any home based business ideas ? eBay merchant ?

small batch, organic recipes

big sister to a foster kid ?

Some days it feels like I'm just waiting for death😕. The thing is I was kind of at a transition point in my life when I came home to help mom, what I had been doing before had ended. That made it seem that the fates had aligned to enable me to become a caregiver, now though I'm back where I was before only years farther on and with no clear direction where to go next.

Wait for death? Just kidding.

I've really gotten into fitness. I try to work out at least every other day.

Other than that I've been just trying to get to know myself again. I forget who I was before taking care of Mom started. I think I was taking care of her since my Dad died when I was four in some capacity or other.

What did you like to do before Willie? Any hobbies that you could still pursue?

I already knew this winter was going to be brutal even before mom died, it is only 4:00 in the afternoon and I've run out of things to do. I know some of you are no longer caregivers and are retired - what do you do all day?

The bird stories made me laugh. As a kid, I had a pair of parakeets, and one of them liked to fly around the room, the other was a bit of a "homebody" and preferred the cage. The "flier" was roaming around the room and all of a sudden I looked and he had landed on the turntable of my little record player and was going round and round. I had been playing a 45 record and he apparently enjoyed the ride.

CM, I started chuckling about your coffee panic. Then I suddenly stopped because I recalled the time when my Mr Brown ice coffee was out of stock on island. I need my daily cup of morning coffee. It starts my day. The wrong coffee or no coffee will trigger my migraine which no Excedrin can relieve the pain. Doesn't help that I can't stand those fancy ice coffees like Star Buck and Coffee Beanery. In a panic, I was buying all the different Hawaiian canned coffees, Asian coffees in their language on the can, different powdered coffee - trying to find the brand closest to my favorite coffee. It all flunked the test. Since then, I always keep an extra case (24 count) of coffee in my bedroom for emergency. I also keep at least 2 cases in the kitchen. Good thing, too! On the last typhoon scare, I went to buy a case, and they had only one left. I wasn't worried because I still have the emergency stash in my bedroom.

I wish you luck, from the bottom of my heart, that you find a coffee similar to your favorite.

Glad, Linda has very sweetly sent me a brand suggestion to try - I notice they've just opened in Cardiff, which isn't so very far from me. It is possibly a little too far to be a sensible distance to go for a packet of coffee... If I get really desperate there are two branches of Starbucks in the town, too.

My favourite poison is nothing special, it's a supermarket's own blend that just happens to tick all the right flavour boxes with me and I've been drinking it - far too much of it - for over twenty five years.

My grandmother used to go to a proper old-fashioned grocer for Jamaican Blue Mountain, which was delicious. But you'd have to add a tot of brandy to recover from the price of the stuff.

It is just possible that a little less caffeine for a week or two will do me no harm. Courage! How bad can it be?

I dunno, who wants to be that special?

I guess some days you are the Pigeon
And some days you are the Statue!

Lu,
Aww, that will ruin playtime quickly. I would have cried too.
However, I have heard said that if a bird poops (from the sky) on you that means you are special.
:)

I have a different kind of Bird poop story smeshque....
When I was about 6, I was playing "cars" in my Grandparent's gravel driveway and suddenly my arm turned white. I ran in to show my Mother. She and my Grandmother told me it was Bird poop and then I started crying, while they laughed.

Thank you Lu,
It was a pretty stinky day :)
My parents were quite amused by it so that made it bearable. :)

That was a nice Bird poop story smeshque~

So this talk made me think of when we moved my parents here to live with us. We had a huge moving truck, my suv and my parents car in a caravan.
My Dad being a bird lover had many pigeons. As well as I had taken my dog and hen and her babies with us when we went to stay with them 3 months. ( I love my pets). So we caged up and boxed up (with wir holes) all the birds and put them in the back of my suv. My Dag was in the back seat. I am already frantic because my Mom had to drive their car and I was so worried. As I was driving and rounding this curve, all of a sudden my dog jumps in the front and hits the steering wheel and I was blessed not to go into any cars or off the road. Shortly after I look in my rearview mirror to see birds sitting on top of boxes and all escaping out of their cages. Now if you know homing pigeons will go back to where they were born unless they have hatched babies. So I had to be cautious not to let any out. Difficult when I had to get out to get gas or use the restroom. But ther was no way I could get them back in their cages, along the journey or they would escape. I put my dog with DH in moving truck and just imagined what people thought when I stopped at lights and they saw all these birds lose in the back of my car. A 10 hour journey.
Needless to say we had to wait until dark after we arrived home to catch them, and I was cleaning up bird poop for a little while.
Anyway, thanks for letting me share my bird poop story.

Reading again, on the internet....

"It was said that when angels are present, they tend to leave feathers along your path as they walk with you."

The Lord knows my needs.......sent the whole Tweety bird full of feathers!

CM, I must ask the brand of coffee, wonder if we even have it over on this side. Some brands really cause me intestinal issues so I don't drink coffee but one cup a week now. Used to drink three cups a day until it started causing me gastric issues. That was about 15 years ago now. Doc prescribed Nexium. I did not want a lifetime of a med just so I could drink coffee. No nexium, no coffee. Drink green tea various flavors, pomegranate my favorite, and does not cause any upper or lower issues.

Cold sweat. Trying hard not to panic.

My brand of coffee has been unavailable for a few weeks. Hadn't been a problem, because any addict knows to keep a healthy stash, and when I asked the store assistant about it and he said "there's been a fire at the warehouse" I assumed he was being flippant.

He was not being flippant. There has been a fire at the warehouse. I had sufficient presence of mind to say first that I hoped there weren't any injuries - there weren't, thank goodness - but I then urgently needed to know what they were doing about this utter, utter catastrophe.

They hope to restore supplies by the 29th November. I have one packet just opened and an emergency packet of unground beans. 😰😱😭

Also -

Those of tender stomachs look away now -

- because birds' anatomy is different so that their urinary and, er, other waste products are combined; and because you control the diet and can make very sure that it's strictly vegetarian; their excreta are nothing like as noxious as other animals'.

You still don't want it decorating the Axminster or landing in the toaster, naturally; but you don't either have to go far beyond a quick wipe with some Flash or whatever you use for clean-ups.

It's actually their dander that tends to cause problems for human lungs. But that's probably not going to cheer you up! :/

Well, my aunt was a bit of an eccentric. If Tweety has a whole sun porch to fly in I expect that he is better off than most pet birdies.

Online info:
A parakeet poops every 15 minutes.

I really cannot clean and sterilize the kitchen counters that often if the bird Is flying around. The chemical smells will kill the bird, as well as cooking with Teflon coated pans. So it does get out to fly daily, in the enclosed back porch.

I baby-sat - bird-sat? - a canary called Pete for a friend, once. One week only, cage and birdseed and full user's instructions provided, how much trouble could he be?

Pete had his own ideas about that. Respect!

My aunt's cockatiel didn't spend much time in a cage so I suppose it got all the exercise it wanted. She and mom used to phone each other daily (just checking in to see if the other was alive) and my poor mother (and occasionally I) had to endure talking to Peetie on the phone - how do you deal with that, she could totally hear if you refused to talk to the bird. 🙄

Send.

Costco do (or did, anyway) industrial-sized rolls of terry towelling wipes. You might want to get some.

Your parakeet's proper place is your head. You will just have to get used to the new normality of going around like that. The upside is that it's frightfully good for your posture.

Nobody glared and said "how dare you, Madam!", Book? I'm glad about that :)

The icy reserve thing has been on my mind lately, because a novelist explained it from a different angle. He described an out-of-towner eating alone (and lonely) in a city dining room where all the people "would as soon knock a man down as talk to him."

Of course! I thought. They're not being unfriendly. This IS their friendliness. In this culture, being friendly means you don't intrude on someone else in case they don't want you to. You no more strike up a conversation with a stranger than you would hit him in the face.

But when you showed those strangers that you DID want to make a connection, they were only too pleased. Yay! People like people! It all works :)

This current avatar is the first thing I saw when I walked into the El Paso Museum. The guards were right behind this very tall Ms Fancy Bones. She has a name which my niece mentioned but I don't remember what it is. Has to do with Halloween? She's really tall. I took her pictures (like 4 of it) after I asked permission to take photos in the museum.

Smeshque, you may want to check on the Dysfunction thread. I think that’s where I read most of Becky’s comments before.
 
Thanks, Send. You got yourself a new pet? Not a cat like everyone else here on AC? I used to watch that TV reality show of the cat whisperer doctor.  I never realized what it takes to have a cat. They need a wider room (not just being caged up in small room or bathroom.) How you need to play with them, etc… Bird sounds easy but … be careful of it’s biting you (when trimming their claws) and inhaling their excrement. My niece used to tell me stories when she worked at the pet shop. Thanks for the chuckle on your take of those bird are videos.

Cwillie, I loved walking outside and feeling the cold air. I did not appreciate going back into the house and it being freezing, too. Niece and family love to keep the home temperature cold. I actually bought a open front long sleeve knitted midcalf dress at Birmington for inside the house. 

My nephew from Colorado kept pushing me into leaving the island and moving there to the US. When I kept saying no, he finally asked – repeatedly Why won’t I move there. I just kept saying no. I was getting so upset on his pushiness. He even said that I can move in with his mom. Older sis gave him ‘this look’ which means ‘Hell, no!’.  I think he’s going to hear from her privately about offering That!  

I’m an island girl. I can see myself moving to Hawaii but not to the Mainland.  I love the beaches (although I avoid it like the plague.) I know it's there, if I ever feel the need to watch the waves. I love the coconut trees (not palm trees), the friendliness to and from strangers, and the laid back attitude, atmosphere. 

When I was in the states, I tried so hard not to be friendly to strangers. I tried to avoid eye contact. And failed miserably repeatedly. I was friendly to everyone, to strangers. And they were friendly back to me.

too many bird videos? :)

Or possibly the time change?

Oops. Must be cognitively challenged. I put the bird in the fridge, and the salsa in the cage.

T h a t. w a s. a l l. S o. s I l l y. Yeah!

Ofcourse you'll be dipping Tweety and counting "Ono,Dose,Trace,,,"