New week

I’m out of practice waking up early these days.  Jerry gets a quick exit around 5/6am, then I go back to bed and sleep until 9/10.  I frequently have trouble falling asleep so that way I manage about 6 hours, although it’s often interrupted.  Part of that is due to Jerry, who arranges himself so he’s comfortable, and I wind up in an “S” shape… I’ll adjust so I get into a relaxed spot, where I’m not in pain, Jerry settles into a ball on my tummy, and we sleep happily until his early morning needs… I’m moaning about this because yesterday the support worker called me around 7:30 to say she was on her way, and this morning the nurse said that he was planning to arrive at 8… I negotiated with both of them for a slightly later visit, but it meant that my sleep was broken and I didn’t get a nap during the day, so I’m starting to flag and I’m about ready to fall asleep in my chair.  From past experience, that means I’ll be wide awake when I go to bed!  Don has no difficulty napping during the day, and often “watches” his games.  (He “rests his eyes” quite a bit…)   Hopefully I’ll manage a decent sleep tonight before I have to head in to my 8:00am appointment!  Happy to report that there aren’t any lingering effects from yesterday’s outing, just tiredness. 🎉

You know that I’m a big fan of fairy tales, and I’m happy to dive into them at any time.  I read today a lovely article that talked about Cinderella from a new perspective.  Normally, there are lots of grumbles about how the story is a bad example for girls, as it seems to teach that a man is needed to save her.  The thing is, though, (and I double-checked) in the story Cinderella never once expressed a desire for a man.  She wanted to go to a party; not unreasonably.  She worked, slavishly, to try to reduce the abuse she received at the hands of someone who was supposed to protect and care for her.  She accepted the offer of help from a stranger (the fairy godmother) and went to her party, had a lovely evening, left at midnight without even giving her name and ran back home.  It worked in her favour, as she was removed from the horrific situation and moved into a happier (ostensibly) place.  I was so pleased to read this and skip the usual bashing that normally accompanies a discussion of this tale.  It’s also interesting to me to note that this tale has so many variants across different cultures.  Sometimes the godmother is a fairy or witch, sometimes a magical animal, in one case, a magical tree.  It’s so fascinating that this archetype is so prevalent.  

In an unrelated note, we’re into the third week of Lent, where the fasts should now be fully in place.  I’m continuing to try avoiding overt negativity and untruths, and I’m astounded at how difficult that is!  So in terms of my social media interactions, I skim my Facebook like the “oldie” I am, and do an even shorter glance at Twitter (I just check my DMs, really, and review news headlines.)  WhatsApp, though… oof!  I get videos / memes from various people that are just drenched in negativity!  There are complaints about “sheeple”, attacks on women (primarily) for not looking a certain way, slurs, and so on.  Most of them I don’t open — especially those captioned “you wouldn’t believe…” occasionally I open one and am disgusted that it was sent on.  I’m disappointed with people who should know better, who circulate untruths and distortions.   Those challenge my attempts to avoid online poison.  I understand the urge to participate in or initiate a discussion, but in my view, it should be based on facts.  If you’re unsure of the facts, don’t circulate the material.  Sometimes I block the senders, but it’s not my preference.  I avoid Reddit (the AITA section is a tempting area, because it leads to so many judgements!) and my YouTube viewing these days is mostly crochet patterns! 

I don’t want to give the wrong impression that all the material I get is negative.  I’ve received several jokes, amusing videos, some prayers (I’ll just add an aside here that I really don’t accept that Jesus was blonde and blue-eyed; that would have attracted TONS of attention at the time, and he would have been identified by those characteristics in the New Testament.)  I’ve learnt a few crochet terms in Romanian, because there are some lovely patterns that are mildly challenging.  Plus I regularly get lovely, encouraging messages from my awesome friends.  So it’s just filtering out the awful stuff, which is really just an extension of real life, where we have to deal with people and their opinions.  I mean, I can’t completely avoid the news, nor can I simply not talk to people who have different viewpoints (although I will tell someone to shut up if they tell me things like, “with all that science, how come they’ve never found a cure for cancer?” or “you shouldn’t do chemotherapy, it’s just putting poison in your body.  Go see a homeopath.”)  I confess, though, that hugging the dog is an excellent way of eliminating negativity and overcoming the desire to judge others, so I’ll do more of that!  Good night