Thought-streaming

Random thoughts from a sleep-deprived brain:

I'm repeating my pattern. The one I always think I'm over. Basically, I over-commit myself, find my life has been eaten by my commitments, burn myself out trying to do too many things at once and then begin to withdraw from everyone and everything to recover. Right now I'm nearing the phase where I cry a lot, drop the ball, cry more for disappointing people, hide under a blanket with Oreos and a Marian Keyes novel and eventually get some much-needed sleep. Hmmm... maybe it's possible to skip all of that and jump straight to the sleeping? I hope so. The crying bit is unattractive and leaves me with aching sinuses. Also, I've run out of Marian Keyes. Maybe not such a bad thing.

My mother is possibly the reason I don't like to expose my vulnerability to people in person (for some reason, I seem absolutely fine to broadcast it on the internet where random strangers and my father, who may be lurking here right now, can read it). The woman is a trojan. She's been sick the past while with cystitis. Antibiotics didn't seem to help. But yesterday when we spoke on the phone, she told me the infection had spread to her kidneys and she'd been to hospital the day before to get a stronger antibiotic, be put on a drip and get herself sorted out. I was gobsmacked. She hadn't said a word until I pressed her about her health. I was ready to rush out to their place and play Florence Nightingale, but she said she was "fine" and that at least she was feeling better than she had the day before.

My dad doesn't know how to handle my mom being ill. Maybe it's because she's a doctor and when she was still practising she developed an amazing immune system from being around bugs all day every day. She hardly ever got sick. And when she is sick, she doesn't seem to demand sympathy like most of us. She just carries on, and, if necessary, puts herself to bed for a day or so until she's feeling better. But she no longer works as a doctor and her immune system isn't as impenetrable as it used to be. She works with a children's home and sometimes picks up bugs from the kids there, or from one of the family if we're sick. My dad worries a lot while she's sick, perhaps because she's so independent about it, and frets until he's sure she's better. It's very sweet, really. He can be a total hardass at work, but he's tender as a lamb with my mom (hehe, hope you're enjoying this, Dad. Seeing you won't let me blog about certain other things. TLL).

On a totally different and even more random topic, don't ever buy "Budget Russian" sausages from PnP. I made Jambalaya last night and TSC managed somehow to convince me that the usual sausages I buy are too expensive and that with all the spices and herbs I use in the dish, we wouldn't even notice the difference if we replaced them with the cheapie Russians.

Ugh. We did notice. Never again. Sausages are fairly gross in the first place (made with the sweepings of the abattoir floor, I tell you), but Budget Russians are just plain disgusting. And orange. That should've told us. There's not much scarier than a tanned sausage. Except maybe a dancing sausage with an Afro.

This sausage incident once again demonstrated to me the value of doing the grocery shopping without TSC. Because if he's with me, it's somehow not acceptable to buy the normal supposedly pricey sausages, but absolutely fine to fill up my trolley with other arbitrary expenses, like Lunchbar chocolates ("but they're on special!"), which due to their strange advertising tactics always remind me of short, black Scottish men in skirts. Or huge bottles of orange juice (he reckons that "we both drink it!" suffices as an explanation).

Now here's something I am glad they don't tell in our local PnP, because I would never be able to pass up on the chance to buy these beauties:

Prettiest cupcakes ever!