Buy Low and Sell High?

I'm not feeling well this morning, so I sent a text message to the person who's going to turn off my gas asking to postpone until tomorrow, but haven't heard back yet. It would also give me more time to get organized. I just heard back from him, and he said that tomorrow was fine, so I'm going back to bed for a while.

One good thing about Kate Spade's and Anthony Bourdain's suicides is that the suicide prevention hotlines are getting plastered all over the Internet. I hope that it helps someone.

Harlee has informed me that I need to sit with her before I go lie down. She's the boss :)

Awake after some bizarre dreams. Feeling shaky. Want to wake myself up, make some pancakes, and then do some stuff around here.

I have a flattish basket on the top of one of the kitchen shelves. Zara thinks that it is the best kitty bed ever, and she spends most of her time up there, only coming down to eat or sniff my food.

Some pancakes and coffee later, I'm feeling at little better.

I think that I want to make the contrarian move of getting some Europe ETF shares first because things are volatile in Europe right now. Buy low; sell high. I'm also waiting on a market correction in the US, although that would also hurt me because I have some money in a TIAA-CREF account (education's version of a 401K). But I think that the correction will come whether we like it or not.

Anyone know of a good English-language source of Asia-Pacific news? I suppose that I should look for an Australian newspaper. Hmm, I found the Australian Financial Review, but its international news is mostly about...Trump. Though the G7 summit has a lot to do with it. The search continues, although I should at least skim the Australian paper regularly to learn more about Australia. Okay, found some English-language Japan news. Oh, that's good. It has news on Singapore and South Korea too.

La Klutz

Spilled coffee grounds all over the floor when I was cleaning the kitchen counters. Oh well. I guess that I need to get more.

Cleaned the kitchen (including the floor) and the bathroom (except for the floor).

Then I watched most of an Anthony Bourdain show about Massachusetts. A lot of it was about the heroin epidemic in Massachusetts, and he was compassionate because he did heroin when he was younger. He finished by saying that people used to write off the tolls of heroin because it was concentrated in the inner cities, and we incarcerated the addicts. Maybe now that our neighbors are the ones with the heroin problem, we will figure out what actually will help people. That moved me, and I was also lamenting the loss of his point of view.

So I was choked up when I called my mom, and she picked up on it. She also is very upset about Anthony Bourdain. We talked about him for a while. She said that she kept on asking, "Why?" and I said that we don't know what was going on inside of him. She quoted my line about depression (which I don't remember saying, but she has never forgotten) about how being severely depressed is like being in a deep, dark hole, and you're the hole.

Mom is doing well. My aunt had quite a difficult week in the hospital. She was having radiation done in her vagina, which was bad enough, but she also got a large bedsore on her butt. The doctors weren't doing much about the bedsore, but the nurses finally helped some. My aunt didn't get much sleep in the hospital. She's home now, and my uncle is still in the hospital, which is good because it'll give my aunt some time to rest and take care of herself. My mom has been on pins and needles wondering if she would need to come to Chicago to help out (and she isn't in the greatest shape to do so).

Aging can really suck.

I asked Mom if she had been to Lake Como, and she said that she had spent an afternoon there, and yes, it really is that beautiful. She encouraged me to go there, but thinks that I should go to Florence first, preferably with her.

I took a quick shower and ate after the phone call. I'm going to run over to the store and pick up some grits and milk. Then I need to go to sleep because the guy is coming by to shut off my gas at noon tomorrow, and I want to wash the bathroom floor, eat, and shower before then.