I didn’t directly speak to a lot of people today, so that helped with the temptation to complain.
Also I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with something so I may be bedridden soon, which will help even more, unless I get hold of my iPad while in bed and find my way to Facebook to share news of my condition in a less-than-positive manner.
But that probably won’t happen.
Because I rarely post to Facebook.
Following the challenge from the book A Complaint Free World, I have begun a quest to go 21 consecutive days in a row without complaining to another person. As these are modern days, I’m also including complaining on social media.
Today I have managed the trick, largely due to two things:
Tomorrow I will be working alongside others and the urge and opportunity to complain will be much greater. I may have to channel my inner monk to get through successfully.
But for now, it feels kind of nice to not be seething after a very busy day. I am not happy, but I am also not stressed out. I am focused on making things work for me while doing the best I can with the resources I have.
Today I found out what happens when poo (officially “fecal matter”) is found in a public swimming pool.
They close the pool.
This makes sense, of course. Who wants to swim with poo? After the poo is fished out, the staff must conduct a sweep of the pool using their poo-meters or whatnot to make sure the water is fit for swimming. Thid can take awhile as public pools tend to be large.
This happened at the Canada Games Pool, and while it didn’t inconvenience me–I was there to use an elliptical trainer–the closure of both the main pool and the large kids pool meant that anyone who wanted to get wet had to:
The swirl pool and kiddie pool were both more crowded than I’ve ever seen them. I felt bad for everyone. And sweaty. Because of the elliptical.
I started thinking about why or how someone would poo in a public pool and then stopped. I think I made the right choice.
(With apologies to Loverboy.)
Today I strolled a bit around Central Park in Burnaby, taking advantage of the somewhat rare dry conditions. It was cold (relatively speaking–we don’t get frostbite warnings here) but was clear and otherwise pleasant.
The two ponds were partly frozen and the seagulls were shuffling in a way that struck me as funny. Birds probably don’t like falling on their faces any more than humans do.
You can’t see them shuffling here, but I present seagulls walking on water all the same:
It looks kind of chilly because it was. But sun! Blue sky! Wondrous and amazing!
Some things never change, though. The squirrels remain as chunky as ever, given the generous food donations made by good-hearted passersby. NOTE: squirrels can feed themselves, you don’t need to help them. Really! Several people were feeding them today and they are kind of cute when they’re scampering (or waddling) around–until you get close to them and realize they kind of look like rats with bushy tails. Check out the thighs on this one. He could be checking into Weight Watchers tomorrow as part of his New Year resolutions.
The reason I can get so close for pictures like this is the squirrels have shed their customary wariness of humans, having grown accustomed to people approaching them with armfuls of fudge instead. Or maybe not fudge, maybe nuts or whatever the people have in their pockets that is both edible and something they’re willing to give up to these fur-covered blubber balls.
Anyway, it was a nice walk and I didn’t slip or fall. Hooray.
Is this a metaphor for 2017 or just a cat adorably batting at a dog’s tail? You decide.
Well, not another. But one is probably enough.
Last night I dreamed of being in a small, cluttered bedroom or spare room in some place or other. The bed was covered in sheets, blankets and bric-a-brac. I pulled aside one of the blankets or sheets and revealed a very large, circle-shaped spider sitting on the bed. Size-wise, imagine tripling the average tarantula and you have it about right. The spider was startled and skittered in its spidery way to the edge of the bed–where another spider waited. The second spider was similar in size but was differently-colored, light to the other spider’s dark. When the fleeing spider made contact with the second spider a fight broke out.
Lesson: do not disturb a spider, especially a large, circle-shaped one.
The part that made the dream stand out, though, was not the weird shape or large size of the spiders, but rather, the sound they made when they began to fight.
They screamed.
It was a high-pitched screeching. It didn’t stop. As they grappled the screaming went on, the two voices overlapping each other and sometimes blending into one super-creepy tone, on until I awoke and wondered what I ate to prompt such a dream.
I had other dreams last night, but the screaming spiders are the ones that stayed with me. I’m good without having a repeat, really. It wasn’t scary or anything, but those screams. Spiders should not make those sounds.
After running in the snow yesterday the temperature rose above freezing and the snow today has turned to rain.
And it rained and rained and rained.
If it had stayed cold we’d be up to our eyeballs in snow right now, so in a way it’s good that it rained instead, even if the entrance to the building I live in is now a growing lake thanks to mostly imaginary drainage.
Only six more months until summer!
Of the ten resolutions I made this year, I hit four of them and failed on six. Not exactly inspiring, but then this year has been bleak in an existential sort of way that hasn’t happened in a long time, thanks to the appalling spectacle of Trump’s breathtakingly corrupt and inept presidency, which easily eclipsed my absolute worst expectations.
But enough of that. The world didn’t blow up in 2017, so there is a small glimmer it will make it through 2018, too. Therefore, my resolutions.
My theme for 2018 is “Be realistic” so my goals are more modest than in years past.
Bonus resolution:
With only five days left in the year, here’s a look at how I fared on the resolutions I made for 2017. Here’s the original post in full for reference: New Year Resolutions for 2017
I will make resolutions for 2018 tomorrow.
Scorecard for 2017 Resolutions:
Summary:
6 NO
4 YES
Not great, but not a total disaster, either. The most important ones I flopped on, though, so there is significant room for improvement in 2018.
In my defense, 2017 was generally a colossally awful year for the planet, not just me.
I’ve talked about A Charlie Brown Christmas before and how its message decrying the commercialization of Christmas resonates just as much today as it did when the special first aired in 1965.
It is then ironic, to say the least, that you may now purchase this:
Charlie Brown Christmas tree with blanket
Yes, you can buy a plastic replica of the humble tree Charlie Brown picked out–the only real tree in the lot where he and Linus went looking.
It’s only $8.62 U.S. That’s just over $10 Canadian, a bargain for those looking to simultaneously pay tribute to and mock the message of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Ho ho (no).
Yes, I’ve completely remade the look of the site. The couple of bots scraping it probably won’t even notice. 🙁
Changes made:
I may chuck it all in a week but for now I kind of like the more subdued, cleaner aesthetic. It will work great with the slightly grainy animated cat gifs I love posting.
Hopefully this will be the only post I make in this particular series.
Yesterday I went to work in pouring rain. This is not terribly unusual in December. However, the temperature got tricksy and started going down instead of up as the morning progressed, and by 10 a.m. the rain turned to snow and it snowed a fair bit, then it warmed up, turned back to rain for awhile, then back to snow again and then finally it stopped in the early evening.
Today it was clear and it’s not as bad as I make it sound. Most sidewalks and roads are clear or clear-ish, with some slippery sections. The trail around the golf course is jog-worthy (several were out during my noon walk today).
The 10-day forecast calls for a mix of sun, clouds and some showers, so we may get through the rest of 2017 without more of the infernal white stuff. Hooray.
Here’s a picture taken from the Langara Trail looking toward some trees, behind which is Langara College. I’m posting this shot because it says damn snow more than the others I took.
