Life and Fish Tacos

My very first post on this blog was called "Bill Paying Night" and it had to do with how it feels to be singularly responsible for my life, without the help and support of a spouse. You can deduce, then, that I am a recently separated/divorced person. The truth is that the court date is still looming. Pretty soon, though, the chapter will be finished. Very soon, in fact. Over the course of an over 2 year separation, I have written a small mountain of rants that may never see the light of day. They mostly have to do with what it was like trying to manage a marriage to an alcoholic person who is also, probably, dealing with other psychological issues. Because my children, and maybe even my precious mother-in-law, read my blog, I'm hesitant to say too much publicly--what it has been like to pull out of mental and emotional turmoil, and begin again, is something I have to avoid posting to the world. I did, however, come across a little glimpse of my recovery, j...

Lakefront Park at about 8pm on an August evening, dog in tow: --I'm glad my friend finally told me what he wanted to tell me. --Was it hard? Did it hurt your feelings? --No, it was nothing bad. --But you guessed right in what you thought he was going to say? --Ya. --Well, I'm glad for you. Having to wait to hear something that somebody wants to tell you could drive you kind of nuts, not knowing what it is...whether it's good or bad. --It wasn't bad. -- But you're not going to tell me what he told you... soooo, we need to move on to a new topic.  Silence as FiFi stops to smell a spot in the grass . --It's amazing the smells that dogs can sense.   More silence as we walk on. --Life is just going too fast. At the beginning of the summer I was happy. Now the summer is almost over. --Well, today it is still summer. The more moments you can stop and appreciate in a day, the longer the days will seem to last. And today it...

Summer Insomnia happens to me every year. Think about it: The winter sun sets here at the 45th around 4:45 pm. We stay up another 6 hours in the dark before we head off to snuggling and sleep. In the summer the June-July sun sets at about 10pm and it's light for another 45 minutes before we need flashlights and bug spray. My body is used to staying awake hours after it gets dark--the only remnant of winter that lingers into the summer--and so it happens that at 2 am at any given night during the summer months I am still wide awake.  What do I do? Fortunately (and unfortunately) I am sort of unemployed in the summer. Because I have a certain amount of flexible time, I do what comes naturally to one who appreciates Spanish culture: I take afternoon siestas whenever I can fit them in.  Nevertheless, I am wired in the summer. Awake at 4:45 am when the first birds begin to call and up until well past midnight. By August I finally start to settle in and pure exhaustion, f...