Escape

I had a tough week. Among other things, I was laid off from a long-term project I've been doing on a regular basis for about 2 years. It a small job, and only paid a few hundred dollars per month, but hey, it was money made not only honestly but in a fun environment. And it was one of only two gigs on my desk that were ongoing, consistently bringing in the same amount of income each month. But now the client's revenue is down, so I'm out.

I'm also in a real Funk (yes, capital F) about dating. I will not dwell on that here, since there's really nothing meaningful to be said that hasn't been said already by people more gut-wrenchingly honest than I. Even when I'm with my girlfriends, we don't complain about -- or discuss in any way, really-- Dating Stuff much anymore. Partly because I gravitate to people who aren't complainers or gossipers, and partly because when you are in your late 30's and early 40's, it's all been said. We all know. There's no point in restating the obvious.

Plus I have not left my house for two days because it's been raining something brutal. Hail, thunder and lightning, pounding rain. Friday morning it was as if the sun never came up; it was just dark the whole day. Thanks to my roommate, who does the food shopping, we had enough in the house to make a pretty decent Shabbat without going shopping on Friday: she made bread from scratch, and baked a squash, and heated some fish fillets, and I steamed some brocolli and made a decent chicken stew in the crock pot out of vegetables and grains and poultry we had around. I'm so grateful for it all! But today after lunch she went out with friends, so I was alone the whole afternoon.

It doesn't help that even Artemis has been out of sorts lately. She doesn't know what to do with herself, because Inside is boring and Outside is wet.

Thankfully, I had my brand-new copy of The Gathering Storm, the twelfth book of the fantasy epic series I'm reading, of which I read about 400 pages over the course of Shabbat. It did what it was meant to do: transport me to a world where instead of worrying about finances and being alone (and other things), people worry over more urgent problems, like being eaten by Trollocs for dinner.