I’ve always been okay with New Years Day being a holiday, but if the powers that be changed their minds and made it a normal day, I would understand. I get it… we are flipping the calendar over to a new year (hence the name!) There’s nothing to celebrate, though! What happened on this day? Oh, we made it around the sun one full lap? We don’t know when the Earth settled into it’s current orbit around the sun! The year could have started in March or August, but we say January 1st because that’s when we, the humans, started counting? I don’t know. What I do know is I’ll enjoy the day off and I hope you do, too.
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I asked my mother if, while watching my sister’s dog, I had to spend time with the four-legged friend or just feed her and walk her. She texted me that just feeding and walking is perfectly fine. She added “I don’t think they have a concept of time.” That made me chuckle and wonder, well…do dogs know about time? Will the mutt be sad that I left her alone for too long and made her feel lonely? Will she be looking at her dog watch and rolling her dog eyes? It doesn’t matter. I was relieved of my duties so the dog can be lonely without me.
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We are getting blasted by wind right now. Cold, nasty wind. There’s some snow included but the blacktop of the road is still visible. The gusts are stunning. They are strong enough to rock your car back and forth and they can pick snow up from the ground and create a whiteout. It was a strange drive home from work earlier. There seemed to be reason to panic, with the strength and noise of the wind and the momentary blindness of the lifted up snow. However, when I looked at the challenges, there wasn’t much to it. I don’t know why traffic was so slow, an abundance of caution amongst Buffalonians apparently.
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I need to learn Spanish if I want to visit Tijuana. Well, truthfully, I don’t need to learn it. The people there probably know Spanish and English, at least the ones selling things to tourists. However, I think using Spanish in Mexico opens the place up way more than only speaking English. It is also respectful to the locals to use their native tongue and they might take a liking to me if I show I am willing to be adventurous and try my non-native language. There are really only benefits to learning a new language. I should start today. -
It is Christmas today and my mind is filled with thoughts of Tijuana. I want to go, and I want be there now. I was surprised to learn that it is the second-largest city in Mexico. I wrongly assumed that was Guadalajara or Monterrey. Tijuana has a bad reputation for being a dangerous border town, but the Caesar salad was invented there so how rough could it be? I joke, but I think once a city has a reputation for violence, it takes a long time to change the public perception. I’m thinking the reality of Tijuana is different than the internet’s depiction of Tijuana.
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Adding to my previous post about San Diego, another intriguing thing about the city is it’s proximity to Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. I’ve enjoyed Mexico in the past, having spent time in Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City. I hear tons of people walk across the border daily and I may join them. It would be interesting to see the southern border of the US in person; I’ve only ever heard of it, usually on the news or internet where MAGA idiots talk about how horrible it is and how illegal immigrants pour across it daily. I will see for myself. -
I’m thinking of visiting San Diego in February. The things I’ve heard about the city throughout my life, like the Mediterranean climate they enjoy, the burritos, the beautiful baseball stadium and the world-class zoo, have built San Diego up to epic proportions in my mind. Will the reality match my dreams and visions? Does reality ever match our dreams and visions? Maybe in San Diego, the impossible will become possible! Even if it doesn’t, there’s no way the weather there isn’t better than the weather in Buffalo in February, so I might just sit outside and smile the whole time. -
I went grocery shopping today. It’s not even the tasty treats that tempt me in a big supermarket, but the ingredients I could use in my cooking. How insufferable does that sound? I’m being serious, though! I find joy in planning and cooking a meal, but I am not wealthy and these things that tempt me are not cheap. Or if they are cheap, there’s many of them that I need so the small purchases add up. It is fun to splurge sometimes. Less fun is walking out holding my receipt saying “Damn, I didn’t mean to spend that much.”
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I did laundry today and now I have every sock that I own in front of me. It’s a weird feeling, “owning socks.” Why don’t we let the socks be free? To be fair, socks are the most elusive of all the garments. We all lose that random sock and it happens all the time. I would like to live a sockless existence. I am a fan of having less and less stuff all the time, and socks seem surplus to the requirements of being a human. Consider your socks today. Do you own them or do they own you? -
I feel stuck. I whine and moan about the price of things, like breakfast sandwiches, but I don’t intend on not buying breakfast sandwiches. I get bent over but I do not change my ways. I am saying, with my behavior, that although unpleasant, I will continue with this experience. Same with drinking. I don’t like being hungover but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying beers. It doesn’t have to be this way. The hope that I can change one day gets me by for now. And then I wake up tomorrow and I’m fifty and I’m still the same.
Dog Bites and Bee Stings 