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Some of My Favorite Things: Part 2

By Gloria Diaz

Check out Gloria's Blog — Edge of Gloria!

Fort Wayne Reader

2012-08-16

So last column, I wrote about some of the things that make me happy. I actually need more space! Isn’t that great? So here are some more things that make me happy.

My down comforter: I actually have three of them. The first one I bought at Sears when I was working crazy overtime at the post office and had one paycheck that was $1200. I bought a down comforter, and I love it. I bought another one really cheap at Bailey’s Discount several years later, and in late 2009, bought one that is machine washable. I sleep with it year ‘round, and it doubles as a body pillow.

Sleeping in: I am not a morning person, and sleeping in makes me really happy. I used to wake up hungry, then I’d eat chocolate and read for a while, until I was tired enough to go back to sleep, knowing that I had several hours before I had to get up. I haven’t had chocolate in bed for a long time now, because my appetite is down and I’m trying to eat healthier.

Swimming: I go and lap swim for a few minutes, then I climb out and read and sun for a while, then lap swim some more. I love the feeling I get when I go swimming. Especially when I’m done for the day. I feel refreshed.

My pets: Daphne has her corner, and Summit usually curls up on my left. It’s lovely to wake up and have your pets right by your side. It’s nice to see this, because sometimes Daphne and Summit get involved in skirmishes that are quite frightening. It’s not quite a fight to the death (duh, they’re still alive!) but it’s scary to see. It’s over in a few seconds, and hours later they will exchange a kiss or sniff. Do they hate each other? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Getting stuff done: I keep lists, and it makes me happy when I cross stuff off the list because it’s DONE.

Time off from work: Americans don’t get enough of this, and when they do get time off, they whine about how bored they are. My neighbor actually went to work right after his mom died, in order to keep busy. Not me. I was unemployed and cried buckets and tried to avoid my brother. Then I went to Canada and I had a reason to live again. I have time off now and even though I am almost flat broke, I am getting stuff done, and relaxing and cleaning. Maybe when your house is immaculate and nothing’s out of place in your house, you actually ARE bored because you don’t need to clean, but even if my house were spotless, I’d still want to write and surf the Internet and check Facebook and look at videos on YouTube and promote my books, and read and eat and take walks with Daphne and sleep late and browse in stores and drive and take pictures and maybe make videos and weed my garden and watch movies and eat tomatoes. People who are easily bored are boring and uncreative, in my opinion. Time off from work is like someone giving you a pound of gold or something.

Ikea: I love Ikea so much, I made a YouTube video about it. Ikea is possibilities spread out over a huge store. I bitch about the size of my house, but they have three apartments in the Canton store (one is only 270 square feet) that are completely adorable and neat and modern-looking. My house could look so great if I had some money and got rid of the clutter that threatens to call the producers of “Hoarders” and expose me to the entire world. As I write this, I dumped three garbage bags worth of stuff that was in the inside storage in the trash. I feel really good about that. The storage isn’t done yet. There’s still some stuff, but I told myself if I filled a third garbage bag, I could take a break from it. But Ikea remains inspirational and exciting. When I go up the escalator at the Canton location, the feeling is almost sexual. Where do I look first? Can I find something cheaper? Ooh, that bookcase is so awesome! Will it fit in the car? One of my biggest fantasies is getting a beater pickup truck and having two grand to spend at Ikea. Then, I come home and transform my house.

Oke-Doke brand cheese popcorn: Back in the day, I used to devour a bag of Seyfert’s Cheese Popcorn while I watched Saturday Night Live. Then, they changed their formula (Seyfert’s, although you could say that for SNL, this was before it started sucking like a Hoover) and I fell out of love. Then I discovered Oke-Doke, made by Jay’s Foods of Chicago, and I have my eyes peeled for this whenever I leave Fort Wayne. For some reason, every so often I see this in town, but most often, I don’t. When I do have a craving for it, I’m forced to buy an entire case of it, at $35 a pop. I usually end up eating it all, but sometimes just one bag is all I really want. But on my birthday, I went up to Ikea, then came back and stopped at a gas station, and Ta Da! There was my popcorn, sitting on the racks. I scooped up a few bags, plus a Coke Classic, and munched all the way home. It’s the best cheese popcorn in the world.