lack of control is getting old

Yesterday, the physicist and I dined at Kayak Cafe Midtown.

I had already looked at the menu and brought two Lactaid tablets to allow it.

Yes, I had not had eaten cheese in what felt like forever!

So, the Olympic Greek Salad - the large, at that - was what my taste buds longed for!

That's what I had, too, feeling that I had taken precautions to overcome any repercussions from that lactose-rich choice.

How silly of me to think I had complete control!

By the time we left, I had wondered if I should have hit the bathroom before rejoining my car, but did not.

Sure, I made it home in time to prevent an abdominal mishap, and the glass of Lactaid milk I immediately drank did settle down those beginning twinges of intestinal distress - but not before having a cramping session with the carbon dioxide released as the bacteria in my gut rejoiced in the feast of milk sugar from that cheese.

Still worth it, in my book - just look at all that feta, scattered so liberally on top!

With the two pots of lime cilantro dressing, it rather looked like a robot, didn't it?

Maybe that's just my take on it, as I've indulged greatly in science fiction of late.

(smile!)

The bfe told me that the students were aggravating him, the other faculty was aggravating him, and the school was aggravating him.

"I'm sure," I said, "everyone is ready for life to go back to normal, whatever that ever meant. More than anything else, folks miss that sense of control over what is happening around them, and right now, everyone just feels that everyone else is out of control."

"Control," he replied, "that's it exactly."

I had nodded. "Exactlly. Even though in truth the only things anyone has control over are their actions and their reactions to events around them."

That settled, we had gone on to talk of tv shows (he really likes "Turn", about spies during the Revolutionary War; I spoke of "Alter Ego") and movies (I really talked up "The Wolf Of Snow Hollow", hope he'll see it). 

I told him about the two comedy-horror films I'd watched that had absurd amounts of nudity that I thought he'd appreciate (those would be "Graveyard Tramps" and "Deep Murder").

As this is November, I brought up NaNoWriMo. Apparently he had a girlfriend once that did that and it wasn't a fond memory. So I told him of the Southern Hemisphere's alternative, Kiwiwriters, that takes place in July and that I participated in. I also told him the characters pretty much did whatever they wanted to every time I sat down to write and that I had ended up not liking any of them.

He's a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut's work and we started talking about novels and characters. Kurt had a character that appeared in several of his novels and he decided he'd "like to meet that character as himself"... and so he wrote himself into one of his novels, for the express purpose of conversing with this character he'd written of so many times!

How very cool is that, right?

Surprisingly, the bfe's a fan of Tom Robbins, too! He was talking about "the book where all the action takes place inside a pack of cigarettes" and I recognized it at once as "Still Life With Woodpecker", one of my favorites (for more reasons than just because of the Camel cigarettes on the cover).

Before we separated, I dug into my butterfly tote and produced: a t-shirt bought years ago! I remember asking his size and he'd said XL; so I'd ordered it and put it away "safely". I'd recently run across it and wanted him to have it - no one else I know would understand it. As it is, it's long enough ago that I don't remember the details, but I remember a few things:

each of the 16 colorful symbols spread all over the shirt mean something in a grand unified theory of everything that is based on symmetry.

That's all I've got!

He was touched to (finally) receive it; I hope he'll wear it next time we meet.

Maybe he'll even explain it to me!

(smile!)

Today, I had lunch with Dawn!

Remember that her phone was not receiving my texts or calls?

Well, that's in the past, and we were finally reunited!

Back at The King & I, too, and back to our Wednesdays!

I asked about her and Koz's BYOP; nope, they decided the numbers of COVID infections and people dying in September were too scary and had abstained from the party.

They hadn't even decorated the house and yard, something they've done with great joy for the past decade.

I asked about her and Michanne's planned trip to Chicago; nope, the trailer they were going up to fetch was no longer available, so they scrubbed the mission.

Dawn had made a trip recently, though, down to Florida to help out a friend and former coworker who was going through a messy divorce and was utterly overwhelmed (my words, based on the description Dawn gave of the situation).

(I love that phrase: utterly overwhelmed. Every time I unsubscribe from an email list, and they bother to ask why I'm leaving, utterly overwhelmed is what I type in. I should have mentioned that to Dawn; I think she would have liked it.)

Dawn was there for a week, helping her friend get paperwork organized, get the preteen kids organized, get the house organized, get meals organized.

Organization is where she truly shines and this was an opportunity to do so and help someone feel more in control of her life and her situation.

As I told Dawn, this was also an opportunity for Dawn to feel more in control.

She has not worked for over a year now and is more than ready to have that part of her world back up and running. Now, she does food-related volunteer work: making meals at the homeless shelter, being part of Meals On Wheels.

After our long overdue luncheon, after we parted with hugs, I walked to my car, looking up as I did.

Justthatfast, a song popped into play on my mental jukebox!

"The Simpsons... do doodo doodo doo do, doo doo doo do!"

I just had to bust out laughing!

What a marvelous release!

Right place, right time!

That blue sky -

those swirly, fluffy white clouds -

what else could it be than a joyous reminder from the universe that life was moving as it should, 

no matter how we silly humans preferred.

Here's hoping we all have a better sense of control of our worlds in 2022.

(smile!)