I completed two weeks of eating without screens1. It’s become much easier now. The hand doesn’t automatically go to the remote or the phone the moment I sit down to eat. The anxiety has disappeared too. I’m definitely lovin’ it.
I started on level two of wobble board balancing today. I achieved a level 1 PB of 6 mins 20 seconds on Saturday after the Parkrun. Also, balancing for a minute or two has become fairly easy now. So, decided to take it to level two today.
I found an old, barely used volleyball that R and li’l R had bought a while ago. They never used it, and it’s only lightly inflated now—perfect for bouncing off the ball while balancing on the board. A small, heavy medicine ball would’ve been ideal, but this volleyball is good enough for me.
There’s just one small (32kg black with 4 legs) hitch. Chewie gets agitated when I bounce the ball off the wall. He thinks all balls were made for him to play. Also, we often play where I bounce balls off the wall and he catches them. He protested that it was unfair that I bounce the balls from such a height at close quarters, and then catch it without giving him a chance. I have a few scratches on my waist from his attempts to topple me off the board and get at the ball!
Today is the first day in three weeks that I’m skipping the scheduled running workout. Between the hot day, and taking care of Chewie in the evening, I just ran out of energy and viable time slots to go for a run. I’m telling myself I’ll do it tomorrow. But tomorrow is just the same—late morning will be too warm to run, specially after walking Chewie, and evening will again be busy catering to him. The only viable spot is early morning, but those are my favourite work hours :(
Other stuff happened too, but nothing important or interesting enough to note.
Haven’t spoken-to / seen parents in two weeks. Unlike usually, I’ve been calling them, they’ve not been answering. It’s bothering me. I’ve been missing them. Dad appeared in a dream last night. I was visiting home, ma was there, the home was the same as it was 10 years ago, they were the same as 5 years ago, I hugged dad, Dad had that smell that I only get from him. I woke up with that smell. I can still smell it.
Have also been missing Dad’s elder brother. When I moved to the UK, he was the only relative in this country I could connect with. He passed away a few years ago. I miss having him around for a rare chat2. I can’t chat with any of the other relatives like that.
A few days of missing people. Some around, some gone, others lost in time.
- with one exception—on Sunday afternoon I ate while watching Wimbledon men’s singles final (and flipping occasionally to British F1, Tour de France and the Men’s cricket world cup final) ↩
- I enjoyed chatting with him, but he was a blabber mouth—couldn’t keep a word to himself. If I met him, I could be sure that the whole family in India would know details of our conversation before I got off the tube. I eventually, slowly pushed him away because of this. He refused to keep the words to himself, and I valued my privacy too much. ↩