Category: Philosophical (Page 4 of 4)

I mentioned in the Music Thursday post that I was sorry for my lack of involvement over the last week.  This blog has been a great outlet for me, and I hope to come back in full force soon.  I know there will be ebbs and flows…last week was a tough one for many of the HM.  J.E. and Shotts, I think, had mentioned a tough week also.  This last week was particularly hard for Steph and I, and I’m glad to be able to have a group of friends I can share this with. 

It started out hard, but I thought it’d get smoother instead of more difficult.  I had some deadlines in the beginning of the week that caused a lot of stress.  I still was feeling like I was coming out of my post-vacation pining (which makes it really hard to sit in front of a computer screen).  I had to hit my workload hard, and started up BirdBox activities bright and early Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and worked until 9:30 or so each of those days.  It really takes it out of me to filter my world through an LCD monitor most of my waking hours.  Steph knows I’m not much to talk to after days like that.

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There’s something strange that happens to me once or twice a year.  It’s a perceptible switch of preferences.  The switch usually coincides with the onset and subsiding of summer, starting mid-spring and usually lasting until the Indian Summer hits. 

Sometimes, I’m surprised as I skip a cycle.  Instead of a six-month turnaround, the phases last a whole year. I don’t ever make a conscious choice about it, it just happens.  I sometimes wonder if it’s body intelligence, shifting me to something that inherently it knows I need.  That doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, though, as the shifts seem to be preferential, and not necessary.  I’ve tried to wrest control of the shift, but I don’t seem to be able to affect it.  I think I’ve ruminated on this to a few of you before….

The shift looks something like this: I move from coffee (black) to tea (Earl Grey, white and sweet).  I move from Gin & Tonic to Scotch (neat).  I move from water to Coke (especially with Mexican food and pizza).  I start thinking of curling up in a blanket with a book and hot chocolate — instead of images of sun, outdoors and cool drinks.  At Starbucks, I’ll order a Hot Carmel Apple Cider instead of the usual Latté.

There are other shifts.  Salad to soup. Just a week ago, I was craving salads, fruits and vegetables.  Yesterday we had chili, and now I can’t stop craving the heartiness of meat and beans.  I can’t even think of the lightness of salad right now.  I think it has something to do with the weather.  It’s gotten a lot cooler and rainy in the last week than it has been since mid-June. Perhaps I’m more like a bear than I realize, and my body seeks out heavier, calorie-laden foods.

Maybe foods are the clothes my insides wear.

Do you have a shift this way? What cravings leave and arrive in your life this time of year?

Thought of you last week Peters.

On the first rainy day we’ve had in a months I was out at Stock Building Supply loading up the Performing Arts Center pickup with 4 x 4s and 2 x 12s. By the time I was finished my leather gloves were soaked through. With slimy reactivated glove sweat and grease inside my gloves and rain dripping down the back of my neck I was reminded of those days at the pipe yard.

The highlight of the morning was watching the “new kid” drive the forklift around. The kid hits a pot hole and dumps half his load in the mud. He crashes around, backs into the racks; has to climb off the forklift to adjust the load by hand. The old guys drive by pointing and laughing, coercing a rueful wave from the kid.

Ed on a Massey Ferguson; McPherson, Kansas; April 1, 1994.