34 posts tagged “stress”

My daughter sent to me .... flowers in a ceramic pot!

First Day of Christmas one floral arangment in a ceramic pot!

The flowers arrived just at the right time to save Mr FD. I was instructing him to go out in the rain and finish mowing the front lawn. He was able to make a lucky escape as I told the Flower Delivery Guy that I loved him!

I share my flowers with all those people who can't make it to their Chrstmas destinations due to weather, illness, poverty, or wisdom! Enjoy.

Thank you, Daughter 2. It doesn't get you out of helping with the domestic duties when you arrive though!

Pecked to death by ducks

This week is one of those weeks when the whole Flamingo Dancer family feels that there is a bounty on their head and that we are slowly being pecked to death by ducks. Daughter2 was in tears last night due to workload stress and a work environment where no one provides the information that they are required to but fly to appropriate blame for their failure on others, Daughter1 is of course having ongoing issues but has her union with her now, Son is being put through the treadmill of third and fourth round interviews for job he could do blindfolded, Mr FD struggles to get his business onto firm footing (and some regular income!) and me...well, my family is under attack and so I have to protect them AND I got an unexpected bad mark on one of my last assignments and I am asking to resubmit - heavens I am human after all!  Daughter2 tried to cheer me up with the comment that other people my age (51) are slipping in dementia (!) but that I am out there learning new things and tackling a new life - but perfectionist that I am that doesn't soothe my wounds.

I think I need a back up stick - a quiver full of sticks. Open hunting season had been declared. Gird you loins ye foe and foul, Flamingo Dancer strides forth!

Flamingo Dancer is going to take out the duck peckers of this world!

I went to the bank today and there was a young man undertaking training to be a teller. An older woman was assisting him through the steps. Throughout the transaction they appeared to be competing with each other to engage me in conversation. It was difficult to hear them through the vertical slit in the perspex screen and so I often had to ask them to repeat what they were saying. I guessed the gist of the conversation was that they were asking me what kind of day I was having and what I planned to do.

I stood and looked at them. Blank. My mind was a totally empty vessel. For the first time in months I did not have a long to do list, I did not have assignment tasks or lesson plans running around in my head. Totally blank, clean slate. It took until today for me to realise what freedom I temporarily possess. Until I am offered a teaching position I can be as mindless and thoughtless as I wish.

I blinked at the tandem tellers. "I am going to buy a Christmas ham", I said and smiled. Some total of my life today. It feels good.

I am partaking of a small, well middish, glass of a cheeky little le grand coq cabernet sauvignon 2004. It's promotional claim is that it is produced from very well hung grapes. I have no idea where or when we obtained it, I suspect it was either a gift, or purchased in one of the moments of holiday hilarity when one thinks everything is humorous and a must have. It has been cellared very carefully in a cardboard cartoon that once contained reams of printing paper, in the corner of our living room, for heavens knows how long. Maybe since 2004.  It did have the requisite covering of dust though.

I drink it as I write my way through my first draft of my last assignment in my postgraduate degree. Perhaps too soon to celebrate...but damn I am being creative. Luckily I don't have to hand the assignment in until Monday so I have time to sober up and edit!

It tastes very nice....

I walked outside this Sunday morning and the jasmine vine was blossoming , and the magnolia tree was flowering and the gardenias are in bloom and the birds were in the trees chirping...a perfect Spring day.

Between now and the end of July I have many, many, long and complicated assignments to complete so I may not be around the neighbourhood as much. I haven't gone away, though I have considered drowning myself in the toilet bowl...

Don't go away in my absence, or I will hunt you down and hit you with my stick!

P.S. I got a 6 (on a scale of 1-7, 7 being a High Distinction, 6 a Distinction) for my touchy feely subject with the crazy lecturer - wonders never cease! I still don't understand what we were suppose to know...

you mean they have to match?

1 comment

Proof today that I have lost the plot... I wore two different shoes to school today!

They were both court  shoes, and both black....and that is where the similarities end. One was utterly plain and the other had a lot of styling.

And guess when I noticed - yes, when I sat down after arriving home from school. Over 10 hours I wore those shoes and never noticed! Perhaps it was a blessing that I didn't notice as then I may have felt foolish. At the very least I would have told everyone and then they would have had proof proper that I was a "little different".

No one said a word, not even the students. Maybe no one noticed. Maybe I am already marked as eccentric and they just assumed I was making a fashion statement. Maybe they just assumed the dementia had kicked in. Maybe no one cared.

I may not tell Mr FD  or my children as they will only use it to prove their case that I lost my sanity years ago...

Just another day in the world of a Flamingo Dancer!