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29 septembre World's Cutest NieceI have finally met my newest niece-it only took me 11 months!
Of course, she is adorable. And she took to me like a duck to water-it was like she knew who I was. I must have smelled right or something. Mom told me that she's usually wary of strangers, but the two of us got on like a house of fire (which means I fetched her binky off the floor every time she threw it down).
It was tough to give her back after only an hour or so with her. I've learned that I've got to make the most with my time. 28 septembre Summer VacationI lead such a pathetic life- here it is the end of September, and I've just gotten to take my summer vacation.
I'm not sure that sitting for eight hours a day and listening to lectures actually constitutes a vacation, but I am out of the stifling house, I'm sleeping in a very soft bed with down pillows and I haven't had to cook for the past week. I haven't got much sleep either, but this is beside the point.
Only one more day of the conference-and then life will go back to normal- work, work and tedious boredom.
To the state of Florida- you've got some mighty cute doctors, but does your SFU team always have to beat my beloved Mountaineers? 4 septembre Mother-in-Law on BoardMy mother-in-law has been visiting for the past two weeks-needless to say, I'm so glad my doctor upped my dose of Lexapro.
My husband was hurt in an accident (don't worry, nothing serious or permanently disabling) and he's not allowed to do any lifting, so he asked his mother to come stay with us during his initial stage of recovery.
With his mother around, my husband has dissolved into a son-helplessness. He hasn't driven a car yet (which he has been allowed to do since day one as long as he wasn't taking any narcotics), or done much of anything else except for micromanaging the checkbook and going on walks with his mum.
I will say one thing- at least she does housework. I haven't done many dishes or made many dinners since she arrived, and she even washed the kids' clothes. When she leaves, all the housework will fall back on me-again. Well, at least I'm used to it.
I've managed to make a small dent in my book stack-my husband and MIL are busy keeping each other company so I'm totally ignored and I can read my books in peace. (Can't watch my movies, though, because they talk loudly and walk in front of the TV during the good bits.) 26 août I Can't Believe I'm Saying This.....I can't believe I'm saying this, but......
I think I have too many books.
Let me amend that-I have too many books that need to be read. Somehow, I've accumulated books faster than I can read them. I have four stacks on my little endtable to be read-four stacks that are each three feet tall and threatening to topple over at any second. (Thank goodness that the cats haven't tried to climb Mt. St. Bookins.) And then there are the books on the dining room table-if I put them all together, they would probably make another three foot stack. (We won't mention the pile on the laundry room toilet tank or the stack I bring home from the library every week.)
I need about three weeks of uninterrupted time to seriously make a dent in my stacks. I do have a conference to go to next month-I'll need at least two feet of books just for the airports alone. (Only bad thing about books is the weight-I've got little bird arms that can't manage heavy loads for long periods of time.)
Why can't I kick the habit? How come I can't go into a library and not bring home a stack of books? I should show some self control, but it just seems wrong to go to a library and NOT bring home at least one book. ( I feel the same way about book stores......)
19 août Hospital PornThe bane of many hospital employees existance is the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Saving) class. Every two years you have to retake the class to keep your certification current.
After the seventh or eighth time (in my case, the third or fourth time) you take the class, it becomes a kind of cerebral anesthetic. As I use ACLS all the time with my job, the classes can be agonizing. ( I just took the class! My two years can't be up already! Say it isn't so!) Thankfully (I guess), the experienced provider can update using a computer program, which is what I did last week.
It was an experience.
Part of the exam is proving that you can provide efficient chest compressions, and there is a CPR manequin (sp) attached to the computer.
So there I am, performing chest compressions on Chester (I'm calling it Chester as I can't remember how to spell manequin), and all you can hear in the room is a rhythmic thump-thump-thump. It reminds me of my noggin hitting the headboard......
If the thump-thump-thump wasn't enough, it turned out that Chester talked to me-giving me little tips to improve my performance. "Push harder!" Chester said. "Push faster!" "That's right!"
"Good!" "Push deeper!" I thought I was in a porno film-all I would have needed was the waan-waah boom chicka music playing in the background.
After passing my exam, I had the strangest urge to go out and smoke a cigarette...... 10 août Wish I Had Written ThisFirst- a disclaimer. I did NOT write this-but I wish I had. When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways ..yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter ...with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister! We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600 With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked a**! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE! When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed! Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards! And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980! Regards, The over 30 Crowd 8 août Short Thought for the DayNever read Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" during a heat wave. It's like reading Thomas Hardy to cheer yourself up after a suicide attempt. 6 août Things You Learn Too LateOwning pets and painting the basement should be mutally exclusive. I haven't decided which animal creates more havoc, the dog or the cat.
The dogs like to race around the house and try to slam into the ladder. The cats like to climb up the ladder and bat at the paint roller pan.
The dogs like to lie down in the spot where you want to place your ladder. The cats like to lie down in the spot where you want to place your feet.
A dog isn't happy unless he's thumping his tail against a freshly painted wall. The cat with the furriest feet likes to trod in the roller pan and leave bright yellow footprints on the bathroom vanity.
Close the basement door and the animals will practically knock the door down to get into the basement. It's a lose-lose situation. 3 août Journal MusingsOccasionally, I go back and read old journal entries. Sometimes, I find that I've written something almost semi-good.
From March 2006
There comes a time when we all must ask ourselves-who am I? And what happens when we don't know the answer to that question? What becomes of us then?
Do we float about in the limbo of the living, waiting for divine intervention- or do we play God and try to create something out of the dust that we are? And what if we have not the talent to create, to sculpt, to mold? Shall we forever be condemned to be a shapeless lump of clay?
Who am I? Who am I really?
All I know is that this is not it- I am not the person I want to be. I've been left no instruction manual, no blueprint- I'm making this up as I go along.
August 2007
Nothing's really changed. Still don't know how to get to where-to who- I want to be. I guess that's the beauty of this universe-some things never change. 31 juillet Observations on a Life with CatsThere are times when I feel like I'm living in a cathedral. I'll look up, and looming overhead is a cat staring at me from her perch. The only difference between my cats and gargoyles is that my cats occasionally blink.
My cats believe in a rigid time schedule. If the small cat is not fed within five minutes of my dragging myself out of bed, she will bite at my ankles until I feel compelled to feed her. Due to her razor sharp little teeth, I make feeding her my number one priority in the morning.
The more interesting the book, the more my cat feels the need to stretch out on my lap and be loved. With the large cat, loving her means your complete, undivided attention for as long as she deems necessary. As she is a large, extremely fluffy cat, she can completely obstruct a book as big as a church altar bible. Sometimes she lies down directly on the book, and takes it as a personal insult when she is removed from said book. The big cat will then take a page out of the small cat's manual and bite me on the ankle.
The cats believe that the dogs are annoyances who should be left outside for as long as possible. At least the cats and I agree on something.
The small cat and the psycho dog (do they make Prozac for dogs?) are alike in their mistaken delusion that all food in the house belongs to them. They have agreed on a division of labor-the psycho dog gets anything that comes close to the floor and the small cat gets whatever is on the countertop and stove. Needless to say, a ham sandwich is safe nowhere in my house.
The cats tend to nap in places that cannot be described as comfortable. As I am writing this, one cat is sleeping on top of the rolltop desk and the other is stretched out on the junk mail-littered dining room table. Other favorite napping places include a tiled window ledge, the seat of a wooden chair and a box full of mailing envelopes and packing tape. The dogs, however, prefer the couches and my bed. 22 juillet Hurray for JKR!JK Rowling has done it again-literary cuisine disguised as a kiddie meal.
Some may dismiss Harry Potter as just a children's book, but JKR packs more literary punch than most adult books (especially those on Oprah's book club) {If you haven't guessed, I'm not a big fan of Oprah's choices-I've only liked 3 books she recommended- "Drowning Ruth", "Anna Karenina" and "The Road."}
It's difficult to blog about this book without giving it away, so I'll stay away from plot points. I liked how small details from previous books turned out to be very important in later ones. I'm particularly pleased that I was about 85% correct on my predictions on book 7- I got who RAB was, which student ends up as a professor at Hogwarts and why Dumbledore was so sure why Snape was loyal to the Order-among others. Where I erred was who was going to die. JKR killed off a few people I wanted to live and some I hadn't even considered as targets. What I want to know is who was the character who was spared? (And was Crookshanks once the Potters' cat? I'll have to read it closer the second time around-maybe I'll find the answer to that one.)
And yes, I stayed up most of the night reading the book. Got home at 12:30 AM, finished around 5:15 AM and was rudely awakened by my daughter at 7:00 AM-she needed me to drive her to band camp. (Seeing as she's only 13 years old, I'll forgive her for not driving herself.)
Time to stop blogging and get back to reading-I'm rotating through 6 books right now, and I'd like to finish off at least two of them tonight. 19 juillet CountdownOnly 24 more hours until I have "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is in my hot little hands. (Okay, so it's more like 24.5 hours, depending on how long the lines are at Hastings at midnight)
I plan on putting the kids to bed as soon as we return home (they like dressing up in their Hogwarts robes and playing the games at the release party), kick the cats off the couch, pour myself a very large glass of diet Pepsi, set the i-Pod for random play, and read until the crack of dawn. By the time the kids wake up for breakfast, I should have the book finished, and be ready to start a more leisurely second reading.
I am a very fast reader. I polished off Book 6 in about 5 hours (including bathroom breaks and one mini cat nap). My speed depends upon how dense the writing is. James Patterson-2 hours tops. Tami Hoag or Lisa Gardner-3 hours. "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" however, took three days of fairly solid reading. ( I tend to like dense books, ones where you have to pay attention to every sentence.) JK Rowling's books take some time-there's always more than meets the eye- I have to pay close attention to details, so I can't breeze through the book.
And no, I am not planning on reading the ending first. I don't do that. That would be cheating. I want the story to unfold, however, I will admit that the temptation to peek at the ending will be strong with this book, but I do have some will power.
And now for something completely different- I just came across this saying. I think it's wickedly clever.
" Some people are like the slinky toy. They have no apparent use, yet they can bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs." 12 juillet Famous CatWent to see "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and discovered that I'm living with a celebrity look-alike.
Yes, it's true. My cat looks exactly like Mrs. Norris (acts like her too). Unfortunately, there are many mornings when I look exactly like Filch......
9 juillet Bizarre Mating RitualsI read that there were 38,000 weddings planned for 7-7-07. I managed to go to two of them.
The first one was a Catholic wedding. Being a Methodist, this was a whole new experience to me. Personally, I was a bit surprised that I didn't get smote by a bolt of lightning when I entered the church. The atonal chanting got to me, the Lord's Prayer is a bit longer in the Methodist version (yes, I kept going when everyone else stopped), and I was a bit miffed that I couldn't participate in communion.
It seemed like the whole upshot of the wedding was "Go out and get knocked up-NOW!" and the bride and groom didn't kiss until they were half-way down the aisle, and this was mostly due to the promptings of the non-Catholics in the crowd-those of us who didn't use the kneelers. (Tripping over the kneeler apparently doesn't count.)
I was a bit weirded out by all the statues and the stations of the cross, but I did like how colorful the sanctuary was, even though I like the stained glass windows better at the Methodist church.
The second wedding was at a nondenominational church. The super cushy chairs were a great improvement over the wooden pews, but it seemed odd not to have a well-defined center aisle. Again, I was a bit surprised when I didn't get struck by lightning when I entered a church for the second time in one day. (My church attendance has been spotty at best since I've left my parents' home- I like the Christmas eve candlelight service-that's the only one I make an effort to go to.)
This minister told bad jokes, read patronizing scriptures, but had a smile on his face the entire time. The decor was basic real estate agent-all beige and ecru and a bright red cross. No scary statues, but no windows in the sanctuary-stained glass or otherwise-that was a bit depressing.
Only went to one reception-the one where I knew that there would be large amounts of alcohol served. The entire male portion of the wedding party had been drinking since 11 AM, so that made for some interesting dancing as well as speeches. It's a good thing those tuxes were rentals, because by the end of the reception, the best man was wearing more alcohol than he was consuming. Still, it was quite amusing to watch him perform the chicken dance, the Flying Dutchman and the hokey-pokey. (All these dances were banned at my own wedding reception- I was the dance Nazi.)
Folks out here don't dress up much for weddings. Where I'm from, if you're female and wearing pants, you are woefully underdressed. I bought a dress for the weddings, a cute black, lacey affair, but I looked like such a cow in it, I decided to wear something else. My daughter suggested an outfit I had worn earlier in the week-a pair of wide legged black pants and a fancy tube top. Sorry, but I just can't wear a tube top to a wedding (although, if I had, I wouldn't have been alone....) so I decided to throw on a black and pink camisole top which showed off the new boobs nicely without being obscene.
I was way overdressed. I am so glad I looked fat in the dress.
At both weddings there was a mix. Summer dresses and capris. Jeans and John Deere ballcaps. Shorts and knit tops. Cartoon teeshirts and the occasional tie. It was like a huge episode of "What Not to Wear" .
One word of advice-try not to be the last one to get to the reception, otherwise, your M&M favor will be used to extinguish a table candle, and you'll spend the rest of the night picking wax off the M&M's. 6 juillet Augmentation UpdateIt's been over six months since I've had the surgery, and I am still glad I had it done. I've surprised several people when I tell them that I had surgery done. I think I look pretty much the same, only I don't have to wear a padded bra to get the same effect.
My plastic surgeon did such a great job. I can't even see my scars-and I know where to look. Hooray for board-certified plastic surgeons! 3 juillet My New Favorite SiteI have a new favorite site on the www-a book trading site called Bookins.com
I read about this site in one of the Sunday supplement magazines in the paper, so I decided to give it a whirl. What was the worst that could happen-I get rid of a few books gathering dust in my basement?
Being the organized, i.e. obsessive-compulsive, person that I am, I went down to my basement with a pen and a pad of paper to record the ISBN numbers of the books I wouldn't mind parting with. I was more than a little stunned when I realized that I had over 100 numbers on my notepad. These were just the books I could part with without even missing them-there were still the " I don't know if I really want to get rid of them or not" pile and the " You can have this book when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" pile. I don't even want to think about the amount of money those books represent-no wonder I have nothing in my IRA!
Thanks to Bookins, I've gotten rid of more than 25 books in the past month. Also, thanks to Bookins, I have 20 new books in my "To Read" pile. Oh well-if any of my new books suck, I can put them on my trade list.
What's amazing to me is that I've gotten rid of several books that I thought nobody would be interested in. Now if I could just find a new home for "Mary Mary" and "Citizen Girl"- I want those books out of my basement! The respectable books in my library are embarrassed by them! 27 juin Time FliesThey always say "time flies", but no one every told me the speed that it has. Einstein stated that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, but I think the year 2007 may become an exception.
I can't believe that it's nearly July! Last time I looked, it was April. All this time gone and about the only thing I can show for it is a pair of aching thighs courtesy of yoga class.
I hate looking back and realizing that I haven't really accomplished anything. Wasting my life away and having nothing to show for it- this getting older stuff sucks!
Should I concede to the passage of time and start "acting my age"? "Age with grace and dignity"? Be only "as old as you feel"?
Nah-I'm going to one of those "kicking and screaming" types. I'm not going to take this time passage thing lying down.
Okay, I guess I have to take a little of that back. I want time to skip ahead about three weeks. Like every other person in the literate world, I am anxiously anticipating reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows." I have lots of theories about this book, and I have to see if I'm right about any of them.
Jean Auel should take a page out of JK Rowlings' book. JKR knows how to finish out a series. I started reading "Clan of the Cavebear" when I was a freshman in high school and didn't want to pay attention to the geometry teacher. My 25th class reunion is just around the block and that woman STILL hasn't finished her Earth's Children series. Talk about procrastination...
I'll finish off this little blog with one of my favorite time related quotes-this was scribbled in the pages of my geometry notebook.
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."  25 mai Remember When....Just the other day, I had one of my I-know-it's-bad-for-me-but-I-love-them-anyway snacks: the Hostess Ho-Ho. The Little Debbie Swiss Roll would like to think it's a Ho-Ho, but it's like shopping at Wal-Mart when you're used to Saks 5th Avenue.
Still, the Ho-Ho isn't as good as it used to be. It's not because now I realize how many bazillion calories are hidden beneath its chocolaty surface or the thousands of chemicals needed to create that home-baked goodness. The Ho-Ho just hasn't been the same since the plastic wrapper.
I miss the foil wrapper. There was just something about it that made the Ho-Hos taste better, fresher. But along came the Tylenol-cyanide event and everything had to become "tamper-proof"-including my beloved foil wrapped Ho-Hos.
Maybe, some day, the retro-packaging will come back, but I'm not holding my breath. 12 mai My Kingdom for a Pair of ShortsAll I wanted was a pair of shorts that I could wear when I wanted to lounge around the house. All I found was a piece of cloth which doubles as a gynecologic exam.
I am a small person-that's all there is to it. I can't just go to the department store and buy something "age appropriate." They don't make "age appropriate" affordable clothes in my size. Seriously-go to the grown-ups section at your local JC Penney's. Try to find something smaller than a size eight. If you are lucky, you might find a smattering of 4's and 6's, but nothing smaller.
If you are fortunate enough to be a size 6, try on a pair of those shorts. You will probably find that they are generously cut and you purchase the size 4's. If you are lucky enough to be the size 4, you will feel frustrated at not being able to find a pair of shorts that fit properly. You sigh and move on to the juniors' section.
The juniors' section is meant for teenagers, for cute little co-eds who haven't joined the "grown up" world of marriage and children. The clothes are undeniably cute-low slung hipsters, Daisy Duke's, belly shirts- and they come in the small sizes that I need.
Unfortunately, my body isn't quite junior appropriate-I have saggy bits and stretch marks that glow in the dark-and all of these occur just at the gap between the low rider jeans and the belly shirt. But if I wear the smallest of the "appropriate" clothes, I'll look like a wanna be gangsta with my pants halfway down to my knees (and showing some more unsightly stretch marks).
Therefore, I am wearing a pair of teeny tiny shorts made out of sweats material. I can't leave the house for fear of being arrested for indecent exposure. If I were to bend over, the whole world would become my gynecologist. But they are shorts for lounging around the house-and I've paired it with a rather large and long tee shirt- and I am cool and comfortable in my living room.
Here's hoping that no one rings the doorbell...... 24 avril Out of Shape Blob in the Wheat FieldOne of the disadvantages to living in the middle of nowhere is the lack of "big city culture."
I may chat with the produce man and the guy who stocks the shelves with diet Pepsi at my local grocery store, but I can't get ahold of a pint of fresh black raspberries to save my soul.
All the librarians know me on sight, but I still have a major Amazon.com habit because I can't get certain books here.
I shop on-line as I'm too old to shop at the Buckle or Rue 21, but I'm not so old that I'll settle for what JC Penneys' and Wal-Mart think is appropriate for my age.
Only the senior citizens come to our symphony concerts because everyone under the age of fifty around here think that classical music is the spawn of the devil. (Besides, I know that country music is the true spawn.....)
When something semi-sophisticated comes to town, we tend to be overly excited about it, or think it's too "citified" for us 'country bumpkins.'
Case in point-we finally-finally-got a yoga studio in town. Real classes that you can drop in on whenever instead of a six-week class at 5:00 PM on Tuesdays once a year at the rec center. Rapture! Or should I say-rupture!
My experience with yoga has been the kind I've had to adopt because there were no yoga classes in town. I have lots of different yoga DVDs that I exercise to in the evenings, and some books (ordered from Amazon.com-of course) You might say I've been "home-schooled" in yoga.
One of the nice things about following a DVD instructor in the privacy of your own home is that you can pause it any time you need to-kids fighting, dogs and cats running amok in the house, overwhelming thirst. Another great thing is that the average DVD "class" is about 1/2 hour long-easy to fit into a day.
As soon as I heard about the new yoga studio, I immediately signed up for classes and showed up with my mat tucked under my arm for my first honest to goodness "real" yoga class.
As is typical of the overly average Midwest mindset- yoga is something to be suspicious of- it brings to mind a bunch of liberal lesbians who eat granola and don't wear deoderant. Needless to say- I was the only student in the class.
And then I discovered what a big fat out-of-shape lump I really am.
In short-yoga class kicked my ass.
I have discovered muscles that I didn't know existed. I didn't know it was possible to sweat so much and still be alive.
True, the class was 75 minutes long-three times what I'm used to, but I thought I was in better shape than I really am.
There's only one thing I can do about it-buck up and take another class. This time, I'll be better hydrated before I go. |
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