Defying the bad

 January is never the jolliest time of the year, let's face it, so I have been planning and preparing for fun times ahead. In addition, today is Friday 17th which in Italy, Greece and some other countries is as bad as Friday 13th in English-speaking ones. To ward off bad luck, you are supposed to scratch yourself. And not plan journeys, do business, or cut your hair. Oh dear, there's a lot of bad luck on my way, then, as I've been doing all that today. I'd best hire a scratching robot to purge the evil.

Fear of Friday the Seventeenth is known as Friggaheptadecaphobia. Which sounds exactly like the sort of expression you mutter when bad luck befalls you! (Or is that actually what Muttley used to mutter when in the dog house!).

Anyway, here's what I've been doing to score on the femmometer this week.

Slimming to slinkier dress sizes - I lost another two pounds in weight (0.8 kg), which is a decent weekly loss and it would be great if I could keep that up steadily. Time for a reward!

Clothes - I am so much in love with the soft cotton trousers I bought in the sales last week that I got another pair in a size down - after all, slenderer is what we're aiming for. Thank goodness for elasticated waists, eh, girls? I also got an additional pair of feminine corduroy trousers for winter with those all-important deep pockets. I might make a repeat purchase of those, too.

Hair removal - I got a new lady shaver in purple that so far is proving useful for quick and easy hair removal. Not as accurate as a wet razor but a lot less painful than epilation. Time to find a waxing specialist for summer, though.

Travel - I have started booking my next major trip to Britain to sort residual things and have some more girl time with trans friends. So far I have bookings to visit London, Salisbury and Nottingham in late May / early June with Bath, Bristol and South Wales as other possibilities. A busy trip!

Salisbury Cathedral Close with Dee and Chrissie, November 2010

 

Grim Reaper

Not so good at the moment is the prospect of my having to attend a relative for some weeks after he has an operation as I am now his nearest kin who can. His other half and stepdaughter (a nurse) would have been ideal, of course, but his partner is now in hospital and the daughter died just before Christmas. We are all very upset about her passing. She was 62 and had had a lifelong heart problem that the doctors eventually ran out of options with. The Grim Reaper has been culling a lot of my friends and family these last three years and I confess it's getting me down, especially as most were my kind of age. If scratching's the remedy for this, too, then I'm scratching away!

 

Social media

I was annoyed to lose my Facebook account to hackers last autumn. But given the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, their increasing twists and turns to make your info public, and now their policy change to reduce fact checks and allow more toxic discourse, I wonder if I'm so bothered and whether I would ever return. I'm becoming cautious about any social media site based in the US in the same way that I don't use any based in China. Maybe these sites have had their day as a place for enjoyable exchanges. OK, so this site, Blogger, is run by Google in the US, but that seems less Trump-leaning at moment, or am I uninformed? Lynn of YATGB offers a characteristically wise and informed summary.

Have a good weekend.

Sue x