Unimaginable

I'm far from the first widowed person to notice this sort of thing, but I look at that picture of me and Jerry in the spray booth and I'm amazed at the expression on my face.  I've smiled since Jerry died (to my amazement, since right after he died, I never imagined I'd ever smile again), but I can't fathom experiencing the joy that's on my face in that photo.  Of course, as I just said, I never imagined I'd ever smile again, period, so I can't predict what the future will bring.  But that happiness, that ease, standing next to my Jerry like that and being so full of joy?  I can't even remember what that felt like now.  I know I did feel it, and there are certainly enough photos of the two of us together in which I'm doing nothing but smiling like that to show me that once upon I time I did have that happiness.  That love.  As unimaginable now as that is.

Today's excitement was of the animal variety.  I kept hearing noise, pretty sure it was coming from the basement, but kept finding nothing when I went down there.  Then I began to think it was coming from the kitchen... and finally I went in and definitely heard a plastic rustling sound coming from a stand-alone pantry cabinet that had belonged to my grandmother, then was in my parents' house, and came with us back to Illinois when my parents moved into the apartment in the city and couldn't bring all their furniture with them.  Jerry and I stripped the layers of paint off of it and refinished it, but didn't get all the paint off, so it has a pleasant battered antique look to it.  Anyway... I got the little LED flashlight on my keychain and shone it into the pantry... and there was a mouse looking back at me, sitting among plastic bags of pasta.  We stayed that way for I don't know, a minute?  Then the mouse took off.  And it was so cute.  Little ears twitching, little nose twitching, dark eyes.  As Jerry and I would say when we saw mice, "Little feet!"  But... but... it was in my pantry cabinet.  And as Jerry would say whenever he saw a spider on the wall, "There are rules."  So although I'm not feeling as totally cold and brutal as I was a few months ago, I still went back up to the Despot and got some more rat poison.  Part of me hates doing this, but the humane trapping just does not ever, ever take care of the problem.  So, brutal, yes, but I have to do it.  (Don't e-mail me or comment and tell me I shouldn't, or I have alternatives.  Just don't do it.  It's not as if I don't see the mouse's point of view here too.  I just have made a decision I have to make.  End of story.)

Another week ending.  Tomorrow, another Auburn game to look forward to on TV.  Then ten days or so until, if all goes as planned, I head down to Alabama for a few weeks, to spend time in Huntsville, see more of the city, attend the Auburn-GA game (and if you'd told me only a few months ago how excited I'd be at the prospect of that, I'd have said you were nuts... but yeah, real excited, and Mr. Cam, you'd better stay healthy between now and then, is all I can say!  Also, Karen & David, I need to learn more cheers and stuff before then!), and go to the Alabama State Sacred Harp Singing Convention in Birmingham.  It's making me nervous to be planning to be away from home for that long - Jerry and I never spent that long away from home the entire time we were married - even our honeymoon was only 6 days long.  One of the many things that you give up when you run your own small business... or at least, a small business that's that far in the red.  I'm sure I'll be fine once I'm on my way.  Better, in fact.  But it's making me nervous.

My big plans to start being better about eating were a huge, huge failure.  I can't bring myself to care.  Not even the prospect of being put on a scale on Monday at my semi-annual appointment with the endocrinologist has been enough to slow me down - I just can't care.  I know the answer to the question of "Who should I be worrying about my appearance (or health) for?" should be me, but right now it's not enough... yet.  Yet.  I suppose it's like everything else these days: when it's time, I'll know.  Same goes for exercise, I suppose... whatever that is.

In other news: I've been obsessively looking at a pair of high-heeled Danskos on Zappos.  I, for those of you who don't know, am a person who cannot wear high-heeled shoes without major foot pain.  (And "high" as defined by me is not "high" as defined by most women.)  I'm also a person who wears wide sizes, and although my Dansko clogs are perfectly comfortable, I don't know how their shoes run as far as width goes.  I'm also a person who has no need for those shoes.  But I keep looking at them.  I'm working on staying content with just looking at them... and staying realistic about how they'd feel on my feet.  (If you're curious, it's these.  For as long as that link stays active.)