Home Again, Jiggity Jig

What a weekend! Our grueling travel day back across the border was endured, the post-COVID-booster-and-flu-shot side effects weathered, and now it’s Monday and back to business for us both!

So much business–mountains to climb, tunnel through, and raze for new foundations. But…we did it before, and we can do it again.

All is still familiar here at home, but we have changed. For myself, I feel a little more detached, a little more stoic. This is a good thing, or at least it seems so thus far.

I am trying to retain this increased sense of calm in the face of schedule upheavals, surprise post-construction problems (yep, more of ’em), and the thoughtless, schmucky stuff that other people do in Los Angeles with predictable regularity every single minute of every single day, pretty much every time you look out the window.

This new sense of healthy-I-hope distance flows from two streams. The first: living for six months in a dense urban environment where one must strongly filter the city’s input or be driven mad by the noise, the pitiable condition of nearby humans, and the corruption.

The second: having a time chunk away from the recent years’ onslaught of injuries and griefs–enough time to salve and somewhat heal at a literal and figurative remove.

(Trying to navigate in another language for many months may have contributed too, stirring the cognitive pot and deglazing some of the gunk at the bottom of my brains, bien sûr.)

I’m pleased by this development. I don’t want to be an outrage junkie like my constantly-fuming neighbors. I hope to retain some of this laissez-faire outlook until my outrage is needed for something worthy.

Speaking of which, just mailed my California midterm ballot to the Registrar today. Hope you remember to vote also, wherever you are. It’s all hands on deck this year…as always.

Now back to dealing with the ever-morphing sets of problems already coming at me down the conveyor belt of the day. Let’s see how long this “bud of calm” lasts, hmm?