Black Oak's Daughter

It’s been an interesting day here at Casa Grania.

First, it’s Valentines Day.  I used to hate it because it was more of an excuse for my ex’s idiocy than anything. He’d do all the stuff that you’re supposed to do on Valentines and then expect me to respond by doing something that I inevitably thought was a bad idea.  I’m not bitter about Valentine’s day, just reminding myself how glad I am that I don’t need to deal with that crap anymore.   Roomie and I have grown into a different kind of relationship, and since I’ve known him, I’ve always bought some nice chocolate, because he loves it, and this year I got flowers for the table for both of us to enjoy, and a small cake with strawberry glaze that’s really much too yummy at 300 calories a slice.  He cooked a nice healthy meal for dinner today.   That’s probably the extent of it, although the evening isn’t over yet.

It’s also Chinese New Year, or Tet as Roomie knew it in Viet Nam. He’s much more into that than Valentines day. There are a lot of customs and rituals that I know nothing about. He’s never made a big deal over it before. Mostly just mentioned it on the day and that was it.  This year he started talking about it a couple of weeks ago, so I did a minor amount of research, just so I’d be up on what he was doing.   The one thing that I didn’t do was get my housework done on Saturday. It’s bad luck to clean house once the  New Year luck comes in, so I can live with that, I’ll do what I need to do tomorrow (laundry) and the rest can wait until Tet is over. We both have our lucky red shirts on, and we had ramen noodles with dinner. It’s bad luck to break a noodle while you’re eating it on Tet, so we slurped a lot .   He made a comment that I probably don’t believe in “this stuff” and that’s not necessarily true.  I think that there’s probably more to and Eastern tradition that is thousands of years old and has so much custom and ritual to it than there is to the New Years that we celebrate that’s based on the Roman calendar and gives idiots an excuse to drink and not much else.  I know very little about Eastern traditions compared to Roomie. He’ s making an effort to educate me about this one. Maybe I’ll be a little better prepared next year.

This also marks day 2 with no diet coke.  I think I had cut down enough that it’s not going to be so hard to leave it behind this time.  Anyone that says caffeine isn’t addictive can take these cravings that I’m having and stick them where it’s not sunny   Yesterday wasn’t bad. I keep the advil going most of the day.  Today I was sleepy all morning and a little headachey this afternoon, but I got on the treadmill for 35 min and got some endorphins going and I feel OK now.  The first thing I notice every time I quit the evil stuff is that I’m not nearly as hungry. Caffeine is an appetite stimulant, and the stomache ache from the rotgut Coke only accentuates that. I haven’t had any advil yet today. I’ll take some when I go to bed, but I’m doing OK now. One more day before the real test of going back to work.  I stocked up on breakfast food so there’s absolutely no reason to drive through McDonalds for anything.

I’m enjoying the Olympics too.  I know they’re a bunch of commercial crap and some of the athletes are professional, but there are a lot of stories of hard work and hope, and that’s the stuff that suckers me in.  I’ll never be an Olympian, but they still inspire me.

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