Rainy Monday

It’s been wet, cloudy and grey all day today… and cool; feels a bit like the beginning of autumn.  I don’t mind, I do like the cooler days and nights and the breezes that bring hints of even cooler nights.  I’ll begin to complain when it’s too cold to wear sandals and my toes have to be battery farmed again!  My feet are always happiest when they’re in open-toed sandals with nary a sock in sight!  Jerry has been on my lap for most of the day, as he’s woven himself into some interesting positions for naps.  He was lying on his back, paws in the air, just wanting to be petted and cuddled like an infant… spoiled puppy!  Don continues to be in pain, and I have no idea of what I can do to help, short of drugging him and having him bodily carried to a doctor… and I would, except he now outweighs me by at least 40lbs and I can barely lift a 2kg bag of sugar…

I woke up in the middle of the night last night feeling like I hadn’t eaten in days.  I have zero difficulty with having hunger pangs, but I’d prefer if they were not after I’ve fallen asleep… I got up, had a snack and then it took me 2 hours to fall asleep again!  I burned through some energy today to make a small meal that I’d been craving for a few days; and then was too tired to eat!  That’s just… wrong!  I have the leftovers which I’ll warm up and eat in a bit — although toast doesn’t microwave well!  It will all be fine, worry not.

Don recorded a documentary for me called Jim Henson: Idea Man.  He knows how much I love the Muppets in any form, and came across this and thought I’d like it.  I watched it today — 2.5 hours, with lots of biographical data on the man and following his career from the early days to his passing in 1990.  For my generation, that’s one of those “I remember where I was when I heard…” moments.  I was at university, and my cohort cancelled our classes that afternoon and instead invaded the AV room to watch (VHS) videos of the Muppet Show.  (They were bootlegged.)  For many of my friends, we still use lines from Sesame Street in daily conversation, share video clips of muppets, and can recite reams of skits from the shows.  Someone asked why we’d do that, as those were kids’ shows.  We just laughed and continued exchanging lines.  It’s from Sesame Street, for instance, that we learnt that Prince Charming’s first name in Paul, that Rumplestiltskin’s first name is Bruce, and that “Hey, bud!” is universally recognized as starting a clandestine conversation.  We also learnt at an instinctual level, that colour and status are irrelevant to making a person a decent human being.  The accusations and insults of us being “woke” have deep roots in a show featuring muppets of “frogs, pigs, bears, chicken, people and weirdos” where nobody was excluded.  It was a period where there seemed to be a trend towards “love thy neighbour” which has since seemed to fade into “me first.”  

I think I’m going to indulge in a series of Muppets again and return to the innocence of childhood where we learned about sharing, cooperation and the value of a good cookie 😁. Speaking of which, I received some chocolate-orange shortbread cookies from Vancouver, and I think I need to have one now!  Good night!