Shifts, big and small

I have been strangely exhausted the past few days, so yesterday I asked Vagner to accompany me while I found some red meat to eat (I hate cooking meat at home and almost never do). We went to Tune Up Cafe, which a friend had recommended to me months ago, and I had all sorts of food. Yum. Then we browsed for shoes in the plaza but I didn't see anything affordable enough for me to buy. After getting cold drinks, we headed back.

I had to do the very hard thing and rip out most of my lid. It was clear, as I progressed, that if I finished it as is, it would not fit the chamber pot. That increased the grumpiness quotient, but I know I'm doing the right, mature thing. Then I headed out to the store for apples and red cabbage. I miss home cooking so I did a dish that my mom learned from our Armenian piano teacher years ago, and then the residents all had a sweet cookout/potluck/final meal together (without staff--tonight we'll have open studios and dinner afterwards with more people). It was a late night, but I managed to rise early and had all this energy to take care of a few emails before heading to the gym (part of it was being so thankful that I didn't drink last night and thus had no hangover). The radio is usually super loud there and I can hear it over my headphones, so I heard something about the health care mandate being struck down and was so horrified that I (against the rules) turned down the volume. But then the guy in charge of the gym was so sweet and showed me how to hook up my mp3 player to the stereo and even closed the door so I could have privacy while stretching. TOTALLY made my morning. Small gestures of kindness are a big deal.

Once Vagner and I walked back from our workouts, I headed straight for the iPad to confirm the news, and almost started crying when I saw that I had heard wrong (or they were saying ridiculous things on morning radio, which is more likely). Being someone on Medicaid and otherwise having no affordable options for healthcare had made me very testy around this whole debacle. Vagner came to my studio just now to see if I had heard the news and we were both so relieved. His friends actually cried. I may later.