Writer's coffee block.

I started this last month.

It is dark and cold and damp outside, plus we are expecting a 10 cm snowfall. I am typing with two fingers, because of carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, and I have let my coffee get cold while playing useless games. Nor do I have anything much to say that is either fun to write or interesting to read. Time to shut down the blog, perhaps. I am thinking about that.

Reheated the coffee.

It is a truism that we don’t appreciate health while we have it, but it is also true that I didn’t really grasp how much of a truism that is until I became unhealthy. For most of a year before my heart went on strike I felt lousy and since the bypass surgery I have been alternately fighting to get some strength back and sitting in an easy chair feeling sorry for myself.

Just glugged down some sort-of hot coffee.

You know what – being unwell is boring. All the time in the world to read books, do crafts (painting and sewing in my case) and keep up with the world, but none of this makes up for being tired and cranky almost all the time. I have joined things like an exercise programme and let them go again because it was just too much trouble. A lot of things, like cooking supper, are just a pain. My [censored] husband got me an ‘Instantpot’ for Christmas, hoping to inspire me, I guess. I would just as soon continue to do things the way I have done them for the last fifty-five years, frankly. That will be fifty-five years next Friday that we have been married. Holy cow!

I am out of coffee again. But if I go and make another one, I may never get back to this.

Last month the YD and I and a couple who are good friends of hers went to southern California for a week and stayed in a most opulent rental with its own pool and hot tub. YD and I drove a lot of the coastline and she and her friends did a lot of hiking, in which pursuit I declined to join them. Iron Mountain? You have got to be joking. We were in a small town called Del Mar, north of San Diego, where there are lovely parks (One we found by accident had a seal colony.), great scenery and a lot (a LOT!) of people and planes. That was fun, all but the traffic jams. No wonder road rage was created in California. One of the YD’s friends took a surfing lesson (big surf). A while ago I would have been right in there with her but not now. I was happy to sit in a beach-side restaurant and drink coffee.

I took a Kindle load of books to California, and am really fascinated by the contrast between David Frum’s Trumpocracy and Charlotte Gray’s The Promise of Canada. Positive and negative poles apart. Not that Canada is a wonderland of positive feelings, for sure, but we seem to be holding on to “Peace, order and good government.” Sort of. So far.

Lunch. More coffee. Have to come back if I am closing this, don’t I?  CONTINUED

Next day. Lukewarm coffee and lots of sun sparkling on the snow piled up everywhere. CONTINUED

Next week, or maybe the week after that.

We have had some beautiful sparkly new snow and blue-sky weather, but it is now heading for the end of February and today there was a grey sky and freezing rain that I did not quite outrun on my way home from grocery shopping. Ice on the windshield. Luckily, I have a great defrost system and I made it into the garage in fine style. CONTINUED

Still thinking. If all I have to talk about is the weather, I SHOULD close. Other people are talking about assault rifles and the Prime Minister’s dress up trunk and climate change much more eloquently and successfully than I probably ever could, although I have strong views about most of these excitements. Small ‘l’ liberal views. Ban assault rifles. Do not arm teachers. Do not arm students. Armed guards only work if they are at the right place at the right time. 

I am the grandmother of a 14-year-old girl who attends a city high school. I can imagine how a lot of the grandmothers in the USA are feeling just now. We have Raging Grannies up here in Canada. Glad to export the concept. Feeling helpless and furious at all of our politicians.

Nope. Not going to quit today.