Pretty sure I know what it says about me that two of my all-time favorite activities are feeding people and gardening. I'm currently waiting for a pulled pork to cook in the instant pot, to take next door to share for video game night. I swore to myself, and especially to Mr S-P who has to see me exhausted the next day after I make big meals for everyone, that while I was going through cancer treatment that I wouldn't cook so much. I'd either let the Wednesday night crowd do their own thing, or accept it when one of the kids volunteers to cook for me. I'm not very good at ceding that level of control. I'll work on it. But providing nourishment for my friends is one of the absolute top things that brings me joy. I'll never stop doing it altogether.
I had to go to my new primary care doctor's office to turn in a medical release form before my old, now retired, doc shuts off her fax and stops sending out records in a timely manner. Since the new practice is only a few blocks from Lowe's, I dropped in there for a while. Like I have most of this week, I grabbed a cart and pushed it up and down every single aisle. As I looked at all the raw materials, getting inspiration and mentally filing away ideas for later, I decided that this was really just browsing Pinterest, but with more walking involved. I was there to get the pouring medium that all these people use in the painting videos I've been watching compulsively for two weeks (Floetrol). I had crossed to the far side of the store, to lumber and roofing, to start my walk before I looked for Floetrol. In the first set of shelves I passed, I saw a black plastic concrete mixing tray, the exact kind of thing lots of these painters had been using as a drip tray. It cost less than half of a storage tub from Target (I looked earlier this week), and will be more useful. Better yet, it took up space in my shopping cart, so fewer store employees stopped to quiz me as I walked for fun. (Even so, several asked whether they could help me -- did I look particularly needy today?)
I ended up in the garden center. I've been desperate to load up on herbs and get that garden started, but I'm exercising more patience than I really thought I was capable of finding. There were a ton of flowers I'd love to have, but I have to dig up the gardens that are being overhauled first, to figure out where anything big (like roses or peonies) would go. I did splurge on a six-pack of alyssum, because it's time to make the front porch smell heavenly sweet for a few months, but other than that, I stuck with a quartet of clearance flowers. While I was checking out, a guy standing by the register said his wife calls those "foster plants." I said they were more like plants from the Island of Misfit Toys. They need someone to look past their flaws and nurture them anyway. Like me. I enjoy doing that.
It's still daylight, and I'm basically done writing here. It feels so weird. But as I said, tonight is video game night, and in the interest of full disclosure, I intend not to feel pain tonight. I have a plastic coil with titanium tips inserted in the void where the tumor came out of my breast, and for days now, I've been fairly sure I can feel it. I'm remarkably uncomfortable. I want to do things that make me happy, and tonight, not feeling leftover surgical pain will make me ecstatic.
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