It’s early Sunday morning and here are my ruminations from yesterday and so far this morning.

Yesterday I walked with Cindy and her dogs earlier than usual. Later on, about 9:30, we went to town to shop at MaxXMenos and Compre Bien, where I got enough food to last through the end of the month.

We also stopped briefly at the panaderia at CoopeVictoria so I could get four small cheese pizzas and a stick of butter.

We  bought so much stuff that I offered to help Cindy carry her bags into her place before she drove me home with mine. And because we did that, I stayed while we ate the lasagna meals we had bought for just 600 colones each on sale (as opposed to 3400 colones each) at MaxXMenos because the items had reached their last “sell by” date.  They were absolutely delicious! They had peas and corn in them, which was a new combination to both of us.

After we ate, Cindy drove me home. I unloaded my groceries and bade her goodbye as she drove away.

Back inside my home, I greeted Charli and let her out the back door to explore. She didn’t want to stay out long.  Checked on the stalk of bananas in the enormous brown paper bag on the back porch to see how fast they were ripening.  (Not very!) Watered the plants.

Came back indoors to see if there was anything more on IMO that I wanted to watch. I watched the Josh Johnson episode and another one on aging with Jane Fonda, Michelle Obama and a retired Black model whom I didn’t recognize. Then I tuned the flatscreen to an instrumental natural ambiance option and left that running most of the day.

RIGHT NOW

…I’m steeping some tea and typing this. Just relaxing and ruminating. Charli is on the upper back part of my couch behind my head sleeping. It’s 12:31 a.m.  I went to sleep about seven and awoke about thirty minutes ago.

I recently read about the natural sleep cycle of our ancestors for the vast majority of the past 300,000+ years and discovered that the now so-called insomnia that can ensue in the middle of the night is actually a natural sleep cycle rhythm.

Before the incandescent light bulb and electricity came along, our species was accustomed to hitting the hay as soon as the sun set and it became too dark to see or do much else. Then, along about midnight, earlier generations of humans would awaken, light candles or whale oil lamps or stoke the cave fire, and spend the next couple hours socializing with their families and neighbors and clans/tribes/significant others.

During the daylight hours, they were almost entirely consumed with the activities that kept them alive — hunting, gathering, sowing, reaping — so the midnight to three a.m. hours became their social time: singing, playing instruments, story-telling, love-making, fond bond building.

And when scientists experimented by having modern folks retire at sundown, they discovered that within a month all of them had fallen into the same first sleep and second sleep patterns.

It’s in our DNA to sleep when it gets dark for several hours and then wake up for a few hours before returning to “second sleep.”

Fascinating, huh?!  I thought so. But it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Just Got Hungry!

I didn’t eat anything after lunch, so just got a hunger pang! Gonna fix that pronto!

Nuked one of the personal pizzas that I bought at the panaderia and added pineapple chunks to it. YUM!  Had it with my herbal tea.  All is well now.

The Elephant in the Room

Yesterday I got “told off” (and blocked) by a former acquaintance here in Costa Rica.

Why?

Because I elected to remain friends with someone whom she has recently written off as friends.  (I have no idea what her beef was; I didn’t ask her or the other party, and wasn’t told by  either one.)

That’s some grade school-level crap.

(And I never behaved that way even in grade school!)  “If you’re gonna stay their friend, you can’t be my friend!”

Since the rift didn’t involve me in any way, shape, or form, it’s none of my business, as far as I’m concerned. I simply accepted the news; I didn’t dwell or ruminate on it.

But I’m glad that I discovered this disquieting truth when I did.

There is no room (in what remains of my precious time on earth) for people who literally stated in one text that they don’t want to put me in the middle of their spats, and then write me off as soon as I don’t join their crusade of grievance  and endorse their opinion.

Ya simply can’t mess with a neurodivergent 

…like me in this particular way. It’s a line I have never crossed; a definite deal breaker. My friends are my friends, whether anyone endorses them or not.  People who treat me well get treated well.  (Usually even people who don’t treat me well get treated well by me for as long as I allow the mistreatment. Length of mistreatment is my call, no one else’s.)

So, although I’m disappointed, I now feel adequately informed about the tenuousness of the tether.  If an alliance requires compliance that I don’t abide by, it’s too tight a tether.  (That’s bordering on MAGA-like psychopathology, in my amateur, armchair-level opinion.)

Some people simply assume too much

They aim to control others.

Not me.

I do not behave that way.

I trust people to SHOW me who they are, and I respond accordingly.

I want people to feel completely 100 percent free to come and go in my life. No obligation.

If my (occasional) companionship isn’t a sufficient plus, it’s okay to say sayonara. It frees up our time to pursue the friendships that are worth their weight in gold.

I’m keeping those for as just long as anyone feels similarly about our bond!

I don’t make friends easily, but the ones I build and keep are duly arrived at using all of my  intrinsic, neurodivergent powers of discernment!