Sleep is an underrated commodity
Feb. 6th, 2025 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeI managed to get to Costco this morning as planned, and was pleasantly surprised to see that not only had they opened early (God, why would you ever subject your employees to that?), but the store was not crammed full of people. I did get routinely hemmed in by two older people somewhere North of retirement age but not by much who seemed to be following me around the store, each with their own cart. At one point I wondered if this was a really weird mob hit against me, because no matter which direction I took, a few moments later they'd catch up to me and park their carts on either side of wherever I was standing, effectively preventing me from moving. I got away from them at checkout by faking going to the regular check-out and then doubling back toward the self check-out instead, like the most prosaic spy movie ever.
I chatted briefly with the lady supervising the self check-out, because she's the wife of my former boss at the RCMP the year I was acting manager, and once that was done I dragged my now very tired self home. I unloaded the groceries, put away the recycling bin and the green bin that were still at the curb because I didn't put them away the night before, and had a little catch-up with KK, who had called in sick to work due to a lingering migraine.
I only ended up getting to sleep by 11:00, and after that I got woken up first by our real estate agent telling us our offer wasn't accepted, so alas, no friend-shaped house for us. There were apparently something like six offers made on the house, which isn't surprising. It was extremely friend-shaped, and multiple people obviously thought so. I slept poorly after that, only to get awoken two hours before my alarm by my father calling me on Skype of all things. Anyway, it turns out my parents were horrified that the friend-shaped house was so far from the city (my parents are very much city mice) and thought it was "an unreasonable option" for me and KK.
For the record, I think it's adorable that my parents think they actually get a say in where KK and I decide to live. They mean well, of course, but I think they occasionally forget that I'm fully a middle-aged person now. I know that reads a lot like "I'm an ADULT and I can make my OWN DECISIONS, MOM!" but that's kind of how it is. I have lived on my own longer than I lived with my parents for a few years now and don't particularly feel the need to get their stamp of approval about my decisions. Do I talk to them about important stuff in my life? Of course! But they're not super in touch with today's reality, so I don't generally ask for advice on what to do about things like job or house hunting.
Anyway, we chatted about house stuff and finances, and then my mother off-handedly mentioned that she'd forgotten her kettle on the stove and from what I understood melted it into slag. Oops. So my father took her out earlier and bought her a new kettle, and I had a little internal freakout because neither one of them seems particularly worried that she nearly burned down their entire condo. I strongly recommended that she start setting a timer on the stove whenever she turns it on, because she seemed convinced that she could somehow willpower her way into being less forgetful. AUGH.
Having aging parents is HARD, y'all. My mother is turning 88 this year, and I'm having some little emotional pangs about watching her very slowly lose tiny bits of herself. She doesn't have dementia or anything like that, but she's getting a little more forgetful, a little more easily confused or overwhelmed by stuff that even five years ago wouldn't have fazed her. My father is still really sharp, but he's starting to dislike driving after dark because he doesn't see as well as he used to. It's all little things, but it sometimes feels like my parents are just blurring along their edges now, slowly fading out of focus as time goes on.
I need to schedule another visit with them soon, probably for my mother's birthday at the beginning of March.
I chatted briefly with the lady supervising the self check-out, because she's the wife of my former boss at the RCMP the year I was acting manager, and once that was done I dragged my now very tired self home. I unloaded the groceries, put away the recycling bin and the green bin that were still at the curb because I didn't put them away the night before, and had a little catch-up with KK, who had called in sick to work due to a lingering migraine.
I only ended up getting to sleep by 11:00, and after that I got woken up first by our real estate agent telling us our offer wasn't accepted, so alas, no friend-shaped house for us. There were apparently something like six offers made on the house, which isn't surprising. It was extremely friend-shaped, and multiple people obviously thought so. I slept poorly after that, only to get awoken two hours before my alarm by my father calling me on Skype of all things. Anyway, it turns out my parents were horrified that the friend-shaped house was so far from the city (my parents are very much city mice) and thought it was "an unreasonable option" for me and KK.
For the record, I think it's adorable that my parents think they actually get a say in where KK and I decide to live. They mean well, of course, but I think they occasionally forget that I'm fully a middle-aged person now. I know that reads a lot like "I'm an ADULT and I can make my OWN DECISIONS, MOM!" but that's kind of how it is. I have lived on my own longer than I lived with my parents for a few years now and don't particularly feel the need to get their stamp of approval about my decisions. Do I talk to them about important stuff in my life? Of course! But they're not super in touch with today's reality, so I don't generally ask for advice on what to do about things like job or house hunting.
Anyway, we chatted about house stuff and finances, and then my mother off-handedly mentioned that she'd forgotten her kettle on the stove and from what I understood melted it into slag. Oops. So my father took her out earlier and bought her a new kettle, and I had a little internal freakout because neither one of them seems particularly worried that she nearly burned down their entire condo. I strongly recommended that she start setting a timer on the stove whenever she turns it on, because she seemed convinced that she could somehow willpower her way into being less forgetful. AUGH.
Having aging parents is HARD, y'all. My mother is turning 88 this year, and I'm having some little emotional pangs about watching her very slowly lose tiny bits of herself. She doesn't have dementia or anything like that, but she's getting a little more forgetful, a little more easily confused or overwhelmed by stuff that even five years ago wouldn't have fazed her. My father is still really sharp, but he's starting to dislike driving after dark because he doesn't see as well as he used to. It's all little things, but it sometimes feels like my parents are just blurring along their edges now, slowly fading out of focus as time goes on.
I need to schedule another visit with them soon, probably for my mother's birthday at the beginning of March.
