HOT! HOT! HOT!

Whoa! What the heck happened? It was, like, nice and cool outside one day and the next it was roasting. I know it gets cold in part of the year, and hot in another part of the year, but there's usually a little more of the just pleasant temperatures betwixt and between them. I've been waking staff person up at like 6:30am so she'll let me out before it gets so gosh awful hot in the back yard. There's a lot of different critters out there at that time of the morning, so it's been kinda fun. She'll come out and check on me like every 5 minutes or so (guess she still thinks I might check out the alley again - ☺) and then calls me back inside a couple of hours later and since it's already heated up by then I usually go at a run. I go find one of the twirly things that's still on and flop down on the cool floor. Jeez - you know. Just jeez. I hang around inside until later in the day when the sun goes behind all the trees in the back yard and then start getting pesky. We'll go out and sometimes she'll turn that snakey thing on and water will shoot out. She'll put water on all the plants on the deck and others out in the yard - it's interesting that the temperature gets cooler on the deck when she does. Still. When she says 'let's go in' I totally head for the door.

Oh, and did I tell you whenever she opens the door to that really cold thing I go running in and ask for ice? She'll put a chunk in my water and it cools it right down! Nice to have a good slurp of cool water after a hot time outside. Guess I'm going to have to wait a while for the cooler temperatures to come back. I'm kinda thinking I'm not so cool with that...

Brains on mush

My brain has pretty much turned to mush the last few months. I forgot a good friend's birthday last week and felt extremely guilty about it. She doesn't seem to be bothered about it, but I am. I even have a list of important birthdays and forgot to check the list. It dawned on me I'd probably forgotten other birthdays so called another friend who'd had a recent birthday to apologize and she laughed and told me I'd sent a card and enclosed some cute magnets in the card in the shape of her initials. I'd forgotten I sent it. I showed up for a Census group meeting yesterday only to discover I was the only one there. I called the Crew Leader who reminded me she had moved the meeting back an hour. Then I remembered the day before as I left our meeting I said "See everyone tomorrow at 2." Cannot remember things from literally one minute to the next.

At first I was seriously concerned that perhaps I was totally losing it. But I'm wondering if it's more that I've been under so much stress the last two and a half years my brain is just trying to shut me down for a bit. Someone about a year ago said in passing I should enjoy my time off. Seriously?? When I have no health insurance, no steady income, a mortgage and bills that have to be paid every month, and the unending pressure to find a job? Sure - piece of cake, think I'll take a vacation. There's a myriad of other things as well. For instance - I'm now living way below poverty level and qualify for low-income health care from a local hospital. Please don't get me wrong - I'm extremely grateful for it, but at the same time I feel ashamed as well. I've always been able to take care of myself, no matter the situation, and it seems I'm losing that option.

So, losing my mind is maybe only a response to losing my options. I guess I'll just start carrying sticky notes with me at all times so I can write things down, and hopefully at some point I'll find a job and my brain will start functioning again. At least the memory part. Thanks for putting up with my whining. And please let me know in advance if your birthday is coming up so I don't embarrass myself even more....