Anything again

[Hopalong]

Me too!
I just found Gold Bond Healing Hand Cream and really like it.

I've made such a catastrophic mess in my kitchen I am having to wash hands more than once an hour. Ugh. Add in Pup going backward with housetraining when there's chilly rain outside. Errrgghhh.

Hippy, I just realized that although I don't really understand the term well, I think your posts when you write about blankness or "write something here" might be META? So that means you're a philosopher. Sophisticated thinker.

hugs
Hops

[Dirty Hippy]

Hops, I tend to make things from scratch and frugally so I end up with messes because more bits.

IF you are having a kitchen disaster what if you gave yourself two weeks to clean the kitchen -- and ate only microwave burritos on paper plates for those two weeks lol. And yogurt and banana. I'm not sure what is going on there but you need some kind of strategy. Put a book on take or music. Pick one quarter of the kitchen or one counter top to clear and if there is just too much stuff for some reason... throw it away. Minimalism makes it cleaner and easier too. 

But also. I am in no position to give advice to anybody about anything.

[Dirty Hippy]

- I did meet my friend to go to a street market -- a museum -- a couple well known city parks I've never been to and some other stuff and then directed her to a honky tonk bar for live music. She seems to think I hang out in bars all the time. I'm like NO ... I am finding us affordable music because going to a real concert is something you would never agree to bwahahaha and I don't have the money now anyways.

We were both exhausted by the end of the day. We ate the picnic on the tailgate in a very pretty part of the city because parking. We found parking and that is better than finding a picnic table I suppose.

[Dirty Hippy]

AND

When I had my car I did a lot less planning for picnics and it was sublime peaceful solitude and commute almost nothing.

It's way more effort now.

So since it happens that I now have an abundance of picnic type stuff... I made pasta salad again today and cut up pickles and stuck them in a bag.. And cut up veggies... and saw I have a can of tuna in the closet... and fruit getting ripe. So I am doing it all over again to meet a different friend tomorrow. Nobody does this anymore. You would think I was prepping for a family reunion. But my friend just told me it's her birthday and she worked on her birthday so this will be sort of nice I hope. The weather is promising to be gray like Twilight movie of course. Gloomy. Shrug. There's always coffee. And then coffee = toilet stops. Sigh.

long time ago I did international travel and the amount of prep that goes into that feels almost on par with me packing a picnic. Oh well.

no art, no garden, so now just picnic packing as a hands on make something outlet I suppose

at least we are doing something that is the goal

the intense panic to have a summer in the pacific northwest

[lighter]

I hope that pasta salad is enjoyed to it's fullest.  I remember a pasta salad making phase....it was yummy!!!

Let us know how things go.

Lighter

[Dirty Hippy]

Was writing a response then the power cord moved a fraction on my laptop and it shut down. The battery is bloated and dead and won't unscrew out.

So. What was I saying.

To sum it up. It was a very nice day.

[Dirty Hippy]

Thanks for the well wishes.

Had been in a funk the day before the hike. There were multi-striations of gloom blankets in the sky.

First half of the day we hiked in the rain and then later part of the day sun came out. Was glad we went. We went to one of the more beautiful locations I've ever been had gone there last year. I would like to do a camping trip there to have more time to inspect every leaf on the mountainside. I looked for two types of orchids and I did not find them...must try harder.

She asked what trail I wanted to do ... I said "all of them." She is younger than me but I can outhike her. She can outrun me though. I don't run.

(Hops why is mountainside one word --- and apparently there is no real rule for compound nouns?)

She wanted to bring up politics and I let her but I felt guarded and I said "I just don't want to offend anybody." I try to tell people that I am really not progressive and I am really not conservative because it's the truth of it. I explained to her that I had become somewhat radicalized a while back and I have since disengaged from politics now.

She touched on the big taboos. We are in a blue state and she lives in a very progressive area and she is definitely "a type" when it comes to political stuff. I only bring up mild non-offensive stuff that are factual about the business model of these things that people are making money too from the culture of the issue.

She talks a little too much maybe which is good for hikes in theory to ward off bears and cougars. I'm a content person in nature my mind really just goes into the glad-to-be-here thing and doesn't think constantly. I've got more poverty of thought at times.

We ate nobody got food poisoning. I found a picnic table half in the shade half in the sun. We sat with our feet drying out and watched a rabbit.

I feel I am avoiding adulting. My life feels like crisis stuff but when does it not. Sometimes it doesn't. But if a person can't have friends and hang out with them in nature what is the point of any of it.

It's really nice to be around someone who has functional communication.

Saw another friend as well --- she told me the day after we hung out that she was having some leg pain so she is maybe coming to terms with being overweight but maybe not. She tried weight-loss pills. I suggested she might try weight watchers (the group not the products) as some people have told me they liked it and the support of other people help them.

It's really strange how much in common I have with the hiking friend in spite of the politics stuff. Also I'd like to not be standing next to a giant cliff while talking politics with a progressive. I'm there for the view. It's great having company.
I'm not going to let anybody program my brain with political garbage and I have no interest in deprogramming other people. The politics of nature is the apex predator. Enough rambling.

Now if only I could brainwash her into liking concerts.

[Hopalong]

More LIVING, Hippy! (Won't call you Hips, promise. Though if I'm Hops....lol.)
I loved reading this tale of your joyful day in nature. Some people need nitroglycerin, some NEED nature, including you. Bravo bravo bravo.

So so glad you got out in it. And gray days are my favorites. But both, gray then sunny...heaven.

No idea what the grammatical rule is about those compound nouns, but they're good ones:
backside but flip side
offsides
outsides
upside and downside

Maybe the first word is a modifier like an adjective...I only write by instinct and am a pathetic grammarian. I edit correctly (usually) but couldn't recite a rule to save my backside.

hugs
Hops

[lighter]

Adulting .....
adulting.

I wonder how many ideas, around that, are yours or anyone's....and how many were programmed before one's grown.

Food for thought.

On another note ....your posts about nature, hikes and food are gratifying to read. 

Choosing joy is an important type of adulting, imo. 

Choosing not to engage in conflict is also adulting.....and finding a way to assertively draw boundaries around discussions, and hold them, sans big energy.....is HUGE adulting, ime.

Anyone can learn to do it.

Not everyone does, IME.

Not everyone overwrites their programming, and feels worthy to draw boundaries, and hold them, IME.

I can picture you doing that, Meh.....and camping, and making more social plans, and breathing through life's awkward parts....bc they pass.  Like the weather.

I see you choosing yourself.....when "shoulds" pop up. 

Dismiss, and go back to seeking joy.....expressing it, receiving....expanding it.

Write your own rules.....
maybe....
a little.
Maybe a bunch?

You're grown now.

You can do that.

Lighter