The constants in our lives

Every year I get stressed at this time. It's the job. I can keep my stress under control pretty much because I exercise a lot and I have my knitting to keep me calm, not to mention a cocktail now and again. Sometimes though it gets the better of me and last night I had a terrible nightmare and woke up screaming. Why stress gives me nightmares I do not know. But I'll be glad when the next couple weeks are behind me again.

I drove in again today - too many meetings and errands plus S had to get up and out before I got up this morning and won't be home until after 7 and I can't leave Tinkerbell that long. When I bike I leave before 7:30 and typically don't get home until 6 and that's just too long for her. I heard this song on the radio this morning driving in. (I'm trying something new here -- that link should take you to Jango Music and you'd be able to listen to the song.) I don't know why but it grabbed me and made me think of things that I try NOT to think of. Sometimes I can't help myself. I think I might put it on my iPhone.

Other constants ... the people I see when I bike in on the trail. It's not that odd when you think about it - we all have our little routines. We get up at the same time and leave the house at the same time. When I was in Paris I took a class and I would walk up the street to catch the Metro at the same time and would see many of the same people. One I remember still - a man, maybe Middle Eastern, who would wear a dark blue sweater with FBI in gold letters across the chest. it always struck me as so funny.

These days my constant odd ball is an older Asian man. Each day when I ride by him he is doing what I can only assume is some kind of workout. I haven't yet figured out if he's warming up or cooling down or if this is the entire workout. Granted I know nothing at all about martial arts but this still doesn't seem like a real workout. For example, sometimes he's walking backwards. Not fast, not slow, just walking backwards. Or standing up and, with alternating hands, slapping himself on the back. Just weird stuff.

I bought a birthday card for a friend with a picture of a woman in a goofy outfit in a silly pose toasting the camera with a schooner of beer and the caption said , "We're all the same age inside". I just love that! To me it means some things just never, ever, ever change. How you felt then is how you feel now. Which is neither good nor bad but simply the observation of the day. Now if I could just stop crying .... It must be the stress.