Back at the Book Mine

Okay, my job may occasionally make me ill, but I do realize that I am not doing manual labor in a salt mine, or in some similar location of metaphoric horror. I work in a library. In a school. Which sucks. [lets out deep breath.]

So, back at school! I actually had very little contact with the SCM today, which is amazing since he seemed to be very much in self-centered mode and usually he needs to tell everyone all about it, but great because he was in self-centered mode and I didn't have to hear any of it. As soon as I walked in and he said "Hi, how are you?" I told him I was sick, so maybe that let me off the hook. I shared neither the sad news about Q nor the good news about R's apartment with him. Both Media Girl and the Reputed Secretary were sweet and sympathetic, though.

The Reputed Secretary, I think, is on the verge of being assigned elsewhere. She has not been a good secretary for us, although I like her as a person. She fucked up something else today in the short time that she was there. What I need to do is negotiate with the principal for what I need in terms of somebody taking care of the library's business. I emailed him today and asked, among other things, if I could see him sometime this week. He never reads emails from me -- I send them with a read-receipt request, so I know -- so I doubt that it'll get me anywhere.

Today is the last day of the semester for K, although she has finals during the day next Monday, but no more night class after tonight. Two weeks from today she starts her first summer session, which is, I think, a six or eight hour day, four days a week, for three weeks. That's two classes.

And R signed her lease today. Yay!

The Other Chai and I have concocted a plan to go to DisneyWorld next November when we get two days off for teachers' convention. We'll see how that goes. I think we would travel okay together. If nothing else, we find each other pretty amusing, and we did spend a great deal of time together years ago when our kids were small, and not just with the kids; we would go shopping and such, or just out for lunch. So I guess I could travel with her.

And now to see if I can finish my book before Heroes comes on.


watching Reba :: entry #1447

Getting a Grip

Or more than a grip, a handle. A lot happened this last week, my so-called vacation. Time to go back to work tomorrow. So here I am, trying to get the week into focus, trying to get a handle on all of it.

It seems like there was a lot, an unusual amount of a lot, for one week. There were many things that happened that would each by itself overshadow a week, would be the significant thing that happened in that week, but are now all paling in comparison to the biggest thing of all, which was little Q dying. Nothing else quite comes close.

Not the hours I spent working on the flood-damaged basement, leaving me with a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

Not being sick all week with the Chameleon Virus, the one that changes from stomach bug to hives to head cold. The head cold is killing me today. I hope tomorrow is at least better for that. And going to the doctor twice.

Got two of the cars serviced. The plumber was here. I guess those aren't big things, but they require planning and coordination enough to be noticed by me. They don't just happen.

Finally, finally got to have lunch with the Sibs and the gang today, and that really was a lot of fun and great to see them all. Not a one of them even spilled the beans about their older brother coming in to see R's play. (Actually, he'll just be here from California that week by coincidence, so he's coming, but R won't know until she sees him in the lobby.)

And R's new apartment. We really are all excited about this and looking forward to it in many ways. Today at lunch, she even asked Wonderful Niece about the stray cats that seem to call her yard home, and to keep an eye out for kittens. (WN adopted both of her kittens when they seemed to be separated from their litters and left behind by their mothers, right there in her own backyard.) So there's even a possible kitten source for her.

An oddly bittersweet week. Now I wish I had a week off to recover from it. Not altogether looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. I have .... let's see ... exactly 8 weeks left, and in there one day off for Memorial Day and one professional day when I'm going to workshops. Maybe I'll take a personal day when R moves, if she wants me there, but that's up to her.

Okay, whatever. Back to work.


watching Gilmore Girls :: entry #1446

So It Goes

Some days are hard to follow with just regular days, but as the great man said, so it goes. Thank you all so much for your kind words and sympathy.

(I'm thinking, btw, that my reward tattoo when I've lost the rest of the weight is going to be So it goes. According to Kurt Vonnegut, it's what they say on the planet Tralfalmadore when somebody dies. It's what he's most often quoted for. I bet I won't even be the first person to get that tattooed, either.)

So, the next day. K is having a very hard time with it. R has a lot going on, and that distracts her, and I am just older, I guess. Of course it's sad; we are all sad. K, I think, is depressed. She needs something to distract her, too. Well, tomorrow we are finally having that lunch with the Sibs and her kids, Monday is K's last day of classes for the semester, and this week will be her last at the Giant Jeans Conglomerate. Hopefully, she'll also sub a few days this week.

In the meantime, my allergies have kicked in big time, and I woke up this morning (after a terrible night's sleep) with a sore throat, achy ears, and the whole stuffy/runny nose experience. I've been pretty miserable all day. My stomach does seem to be settling down, though. And we were distracted for part of the day.

R's roommate is moving out, not because of any falling out between them, but that was leaving R with a three bedroom apartment she couldn't handle on her own, and trouble finding a new roommate. Even though she was happy where she was, she realized that it would be best to start looking for her own place, alone. She had appointments to see two today, so K and I went with her.

One was a studio in a fairly large apartment building in Jersey City. Ten years ago, you would not have wanted to move to Jersey City, and ten years from now, everyone will be dying to move there. 2007 ... not so sure yet. Anyway, it's too far and the apartment, a studio, wasn't great. Then we went to see a one-bedroom in the city she's living in now, just a few blocks away from where she's already living.

It was just adorable. It looks like a very old building, older than the 1917 the owners think it is, and full of charming details. A small apartment building with six or seven apartments in it. I think it must have been a large single family house once, but was cut up into units long ago. There are three floors; the place was saw was on the third floor, up a winding staircase. (Love those.)

Anyway, it's two nice size rooms and a bathroom. The first room has the kitchen in it, but there's also room to make it a living room/dining room. And there's actually a back porch, of all charming little details. After much discussion, and R saying she would call the owners on Monday morning, she called them this afternoon, so the place is hers. I think she'll be very happy there. And it met one of her most important criteria:

She can have a cat there.

Which makes me feel worse for K, since now R has the chance to get her very own kitten, while K mourns for little Q. (We still have BooBoo, of course, who actually pooped in the litter box today, first time in years. Interesting.)

Okay, time to collapse somewhere.


watching -- :: entry #1445

So Long, Sweetie

Our little Q has gone to rejoin the continuum.




watching -- :: entry #1444

Report

Well, the report from the medical front is that I am not having rashes from the pollen in the air or from the iron supplement I took for a few days. Once again, I am in a medical situation I have never ever heard of, although the doctor -- I saw her this morning -- tells me that she has seen it enough to know what it is in me. Here it is: when I get a virus of some kind, my body will now likely respond to it by breaking out in hives. Especially if I am under any other kind of stress. This happened in November, you may recall, the week after Thanksgiving. I had a stomach bug that kept me out of work for three days, and while that was going on, my back broke out in a rash that my since-retired doctor said was shingles. New doctor says it probably wasn't shingles. It's hives. She put me on a new anti-histamine routine, and says I can take benadryl three times a day and bathe in the benadryl cream, if I need to.

Swell.

My stomach flu is eh, not really limiting my activities or even what I eat, since what I eat has no relationship to how I feel. (I wouldn't eat spicy foods under any circumstances, and I really don't have to worry about anything else.)

What's the stress? Well, when this all started, which was more or less Monday, you may recall that I was living in Basement World and working my fanny off there, post-flood. Since then, we're on yet another death-watch for little Q, which I haven't mentioned here because I always freak out and think she's dying and then she bounces back, so maybe she will again, but still, it's stressful to keep an eye on her, to think about what's coming, and so forth.

Tomorrow, I'm going with R to check out a couple of possible new apartments. Sunday, it seems like we will finally get around to having lunch with the Sibs and most of her assorted children. Looking forward to that, anyway. It's such a dreary day today, cold and wet (but the basement's dry) that it's nice to have something to look forward to.

Yet another vacation week used up. Each time, it just makes me long that much more for summer vacation, or retirement. I know people who swear that they can never retire, because what would they do? Gee, I don't think it would take me two minutes to figure out what to do. I read four books, this week, I think, and am working on another. (By Christopher Moore, it's called Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal.) I got so much done in the basement, and got my closet in order. When I retire, if I can go through a carton a week, they can probably sell the house when I die instead of torching it rather than go through all the crap in it. I know that's what my sister has been doing, going through her attic and basement and closets. It must provide a nice sense of, I don't know, closure is the word that comes to mind, to know that you're not drowing in crap and that all your things are in order.


watching Dr. Phil :: entry #1443


watching Law and Order SVU :: entry #1498

Crash Imminent

The physical work of the last few days is certainly catching up with me. Everything hurts. The good news is that I think I'm done with all of that, or at least, with 95% of it. I have one more shelf to assemble tomorrow and then to put stuff on, but easy stuff like big packs of paper towels and toilet paper, not cartons of records or books. And I have the laundry room area to re-arrange, but just stuff on the shelves (which I assembled today) and really, that all can wait until summer. Yes, a fine summer project, that.

The allergens roaming about the atmosphere are not helping me at all. This year, I have a stuffy noise and the post-nasal drip from hell, along with occasional skin rashes. The rashes may be from something else, since I started some new supplements last week (that I discontinued today) ... okay, TMI. And you don't want to hear about my stomach problems, either.

I made the trip over to K's school today to see if I could pay the bill. Not so much of a trip, really; I went there on my way home from yet another journey to Target. They have their screws lose there. They looked at me like I have two heads and said "But we haven't even mailed out the bills yet!" Uh ... what? I never got bills for the last two semesters; why would I expect one now? And the DEADLINE that I must not miss? It's May 11. Since the kid will already be in her second week of class by then, forgive me for assuming the deadline would be before that. Morons. Anyway.

Once again today, I was on the move and didn't stop all day. I woke up at six and started then. So it's been a long day. All I have for tomorrow is the plumber, and the luxury of being home so I can take some stomach meds that might make me drowsy, but as long as I don't drive anywhere, I don't care. And since I'm home all day with just the one little task to do, I can read some more. I hope.

Otherwise, we're off in about 15 minutes to pick up R at the train, and then a quick dinner at the IHOP and she can drive her stained car home. (Really, it doesn't look that bad anymore.) It's raining again, which is a little nervous-making, but it's not raining hard, so I guess there won't be any more water pouring into the basement. It was beautiful most of the day today, but the temp dropped in the last couple of hours and I had to turn the heat back on. Bummer.


watching Reba :: entry #1442

Vacation, Day Two

I think the ink stain in the car is much better. I could do a commerical for the Tide Pens. I considered Captain Ron's idea of using hairspray, which I know would probably work, but since I can't throw the seat into the washing machine afterwards, like a piece of clothing, it would just stay sticky. My goal was to make the ink stain as light as the nearby coffee stain, and I think I've achieved that. Anyway, I picked up my car before, so R's is safely tucked away in the garage for tonight.

I have had yet another busy day, although not as physically demanding as yesterday. It wasn't nearly as hot as it was yesterday either, only in the mid 70s, which is plenty lovely, let me tell you, but not hot, which is what I dressed for this morning, so I had to change back into socks and full-length jeans at some point. Even so, I felt like a human being all cleaned up and such, going out today; even my hair came out nice. I do, however, have some sort of stomach bug, or possibly an IBS attack going on today. Fortunately for me, I had an appointment with a new gastroenterologist today -- a coincidence, this is the appointment I made weeks ago for the heartburn -- so off I went.

I like him very much. He meets my new criteria for a new doctor: he has to be old enough to be a real doctor, and he has to be younger than I am. He was very sweet, had a nice manner. He said that the treatment I'm on is the best available for what I've got, and to keep doing what I'm doing, and to be better about avoiding foods that trigger either the heartburn (I'm already better with that) and the reflux. As for that one ... well. What triggers the reflux? Turns out it is the fat in foods (among other triggers, which I guess I don't indulge in.) He thinks that my last attack, which was Easter night, was brought on by the cannoli I allowed myself for dessert. Swell. It's not enough that I avoid fat all the time in order to lose weight, but apparently, if I eat it, it will also make me sick. On the other hand, he said there's no reason to avoid any kind of food in fear of diverticulitis, as long as I eat enough fiber, which god knows I do. So I stopped on the way home and bought some macadamia nuts. Of course, I can only eat a few, but that's fine with me. (Hopefully, there isn't enough fat in three macadamia nuts to keep me up all night. Maybe I should eat them with lunch tomorrow.) Oh, and he gave me a prescription for when my stomach acts up, like today or with an IBS attack. And he said I have to have a colonoscopy every three years, so that's next March for me. That's the full report, folks, nothing more to see here.

I spent about an hour before trying to figure out how to pay the tuition for K's summer classes. When I finally found out the amount via the schools' goofy website, there was a stern warning: ALL FEES MUST BE PAID BY THE DEADLINE! Only, there was no deadline. None at all. The college does not take credit cards, but gives the name of an outside company that does so on their behalf. Yes, I know, that's how I pay the regular fall and spring tuition. (Hey, if you can get credit card points for going to college, why not?) But I couldn't log in to their site (even though I paid them that way all spring) and called them, and they said they don't take summer payments for the college. Grrrr. Well, I am off this week; I guess I'll head over there and pay them in person. Or ask K to do it, maybe.

Tomorrow's mission, after a brief return to basement world, will be my closet. Pack up sweaters. Eliminate as much as possible. Get ready for the last eight weeks of school, clothing wise, since the summer is pretty easy for me. I wear a variation of exactly the same thing every single day: jeans (or cropped jeans), a t-shirt (if it's cool) or a tank top, and a denim shirt over that. Seriously, I could put away every other item in my closet for the summer (although of course there is no other place for it all.) But as long as I can reach those few things, I'm okay. I'm actually down to the size Large pants every day now, which is good because that's the size last summer's cropped jeans are, too. (I must have put on 15 -20 pounds between last July and February, when I started the WW again.)

And ... epiphany!

Thinking about my denim shirts, I was just about to write that I have several, some going back years and years, and I wondered which is my oldest, and then ... BANG!

I know what to wear when I have to film my next scene for the school video. We all need to look like hippies from the 60s. And I have this:



My sister embroidered this shirt for me back ... well, back in the 60s. It's not worn out like most of my other denim shirts are because I never wanted it to get ruined, or to have to get rid of it. But it was right in my closet -- I just jumped up from the computer to get it, and take a picture of it for you -- at the very end, protected by cleaner's plastic. Which made me look for what I could wear under it -- closing it in front is no longer an option -- and I found a black Moody Blues tank top in my dresser. The tie-dyed Moodies t-shirt is in the basement someplace; I still need to look for it. But I am otherwise set. Ooh, I'm so excited that I remembered this shirt! It's so cool! And the colors are still as beautiful as the day she gave it to me.


watching Reba :: entry #1441

Random Sunday, and Today's Report

Sunday, later

I just remembered this conversation I had the other day with the SCM. I was telling him that I was hoping to buy a pair of rubber gardening boots after school, for working in the wet basement. I told him that I had planned to wear the Hubs' boots, but realized at once that that would be absurd, as I wouldn't be able to walk in them and would probably kill myself just going down the basement stairs. He says:

"You and [Hubs' name] don't wear the same size shoes?"

I swear, I did not know what to say at first. Finally, I said the only thing that really you possibly could say: "No-o-o!" with that tone in my voice that says "Of course not! What's wrong with you?" And he says, after a minute,

"Oh." I just looked at him.

"[Wife's name] and I wear about the same size. We can wear each other's shoes." Now I didn't know where to look. And he continues!

"I have really small feet and hands."

I said, looking at all the important papers on my desk, "Uh ... oh. Okay."

Seriously. What man will say that to anyone?

---

Here's a bit more on the Yiddish glossary. The syllable in caps is the syllable that is stressed. Any time you see "kh", it means the guttural "ch" sound, which you may know from the Yiddish word "chutzpah", often seen in English.

Okay, little bird is faigeleh. That's FAY-gu-luh.
Farblunget, for mixed up, is fah-BLUNGE-it.
Farcokte, full of shit, is fah-COCK-tuh.
Farbissiner punim, two words for a bitter face, would be fah-BIS-sin-ner POO-nim.
Farmisht, bewildered, is fah-MISHT.

It's not knowing where to put the accent, really. Because the words were not originally written in the English alphabet, all English spellings are more or less just the way the word sounds. (Real Yiddish, the way all my grandparents wrote it, is written in Hebrew script, which means there are no vowels used. Don't ask.)

---

So the Hubs finishes all his garden work on Sunday and comes in to take a shower, and comes out of the bathroom, all dressed and squeaky clean, and stands before us at the family room doorway, and K lets out a shriek. I look up and his beard is gone. His beard is gone! He has had a full beard and mustache for about 20 years; K barely remembers him without it. (Or with black hair, for that matter.) He had told us on Easter during the ride down to his parents that he was toying with the idea of shaving it off. And he did. He left the mustache. How does he look now? Like every picture of his grandfather I have ever seen. Like every old Italian man. That's the neatly trimmed little mustache he has. If it were up to me, I'd say grow the beard back or shave off the mustache, or grow the mustache long like Mark Twain. He didn't look like everyone else before, and now he does. It's very weird.

---

All over our neighborhood, and in various parts of town, it looks like the houses have been turned inside out. It looks like there are more possessions out on the curb for trash pick-up tomorrow -- all water-damaged, I presume -- than what could possibly be left inside. Hmm. Our curb is only about half-full, that is, only about half the width of the house. Hmm.

---

Monday, almost 6.00 pm

I have had me quite the day. Grandma Ida would be bursting with pride. (Except she would be kvelling.) I have worked my ass off. My back is very sore (as would be anyone's without an ass to hold it up), but not spasming, as my back is wont to do, just sore and achy from bending and lifting all day. To whit:

I was at Target by 8.15 to buy more shelves (I had bought some nice big ones yesterday, which the Hubs had brought downstairs, but I was getting some smaller ones), and then to the supermarket for a few things, my first trip of the day to the recycling center (with empty cardboard boxes), and then ... home, I guess. I started working downstairs a little after 9.00.

All I can tell you is that over the course of the next five hours, I only stopped to go back to recycling twice, and followed up one of those trips with a short break on the phone with my sister while I sipped a Dunkin Donuts iced latte. Other than that, I worked continuously, assembling shelves, shifting stuff around, taking out more garbage. I filled the curb. I had gotten the latte on my way back from recycling trip #2, and on my way out to #3, I decided that what I wanted more than anything else -- for lunch; I hadn't eaten -- was to fulfill my recent longing for coffee ice cream, so I did that, had an ice cream cone for lunch. I had already worked it off, in spades.

One itty bitty tiny glitch for the day. Trip #3 included an old printer that was down in the basement, never to be used again. After the nice man at recycling took it out of the car for me, I saw ... an ink stain on the front passenger seat. A good inch by two inches maybe. Ink. On the front passenger seat.

Of R's car.

That was the closest I came to breaking down and crying all day. I have her car for two days so that the Hubs' and mine can be serviced. After trip #3, all I had to do was eat my ice cream and drive home. But no. I ate the ice cream (of course), but once I was home, I had to go to work on that stain. I got most of it, but some remains. Now, there's some other kind of stain -- coffee, probably -- only an inch or two away, and much bigger, but you know how bad you feel if you borrow something and can't return it in the same condition. I don't think she'll care since it's not actually a big wet inkblot at this point, but I feel bad about it. I'm also over it.

As you may have gathered, I've had very little to eat today. It seems that the secret to weight loss for me is to keep busy and for it to be hot. I can't eat when it's too hot, and it's 85 degrees now, at 6.10. So here's another year when we went from winter directly to summer, without stopping for spring. I guess when I go back to school next week, I'll find out if the a/c in the new library works.

And now I must eat, because I'm having a whole low blood sugar experience. I was going to cook something -- really, I was! -- but I think something quick in the microwave is a better plan. But of course, first I must post this! I have priorities!


watching Reba :: entry #1440

Better Now

An update, but first, the last Yiddish word I used in the last entry was faigeleh. Literally, a faigeleh is a little bird, and is often a term of endearment for small children, especially girls. My grandmother almost always called me faigeleh, as in "Faigeleh, can you hand me ... " whatever it was, as you might call someone "Sweetie." However, in more contemporary slang (which goes back a good 50 years or more) faigeleh is also used to indicate a homosexual man, or a man with effeminate tendencies. It is not always derogatory, althougth it can be. It can be merely descriptive, as gay now is, or it can be hurled as an insult. But it's not the origin of the English insult fag, which is actually English, as in British, in origin, and comes from faggot, which means a burning bundle of sticks or wood used to start a bigger fire.

Okay, class dismissed.

The rug in the basement is gone, and was not that hard to get rid of. It was a little challenging to get the stuff moved off it, and some things had to be repacked, but the rug cut up into strips very easily, and when the Hubs got home, he carried the pieces outside. I had also left a narrow strip since the stuff on top of it was too heavy; I planned to get shelves and put them up on Monday and then the rug would be gettable, but the Hubs somehow managed to get that out, too. So there are no wet boxes sitting down there, nothing in imminent danger, and I think, nothing prone to smelling. I still have work to do, as in the shelves and re-arranging everything for future safety, but it's all much more managable now. And it turns out that the shelves I need are on sale at Target this week for half of what I paid for the ones I already have, and got a few years ago elsewhere. Score. I may be dropping by Target every day this week until I have enough to cover every basement wall.

I cleaned up my desk. I cleaned up the coffee table. I finished Jailbird. I finished Dead-Eye Dick. So I'm on the move. Next: Galapagos. And getting those bills paid. And I gathered up all the shoes and put them in a laundry basket. Yes, things are looking up. I don't feel so ... okay, whatever the word was that I couldn't find, I don't need it anymore. I'm okay.

Oy. Gotta put the last wash in.


watching Today in New York :: entry #1439

Uh .. I .. Wait a Minute

Not only am I unable to think of a word to describe to you how I'm feeling, I can't even think of a word to describe my degree of .. vocabulary .. ineptitude. Okay, that sounds like a start. Maybe by the time I'm done, I'll have a word for my condition of the moment. I'm sure it will be in Yiddish.

There is just stuff everywhere. Everywhere I look. My desk has random papers and bank cards and flash drives and cleaner's tickets all over it. The shelf that sticks out of my desk -- I don't know what that's called, either, but it's where I live my life -- has four Kurt Vonnegut novels, a copy of my teaching contract, a stack of bills that need to be paid, my keys, my Palm, my iPod shuffle and its huge headphones, and ... my wallet, I think, all on it, on a shelf that measures about 12 by 15 inches. So it's all piled high.

My laundry basket in the bedroom is so full that stuff is piled about two feet over the top of it. Q's carrying basket is still sitting in the living room, even though she went to the vet for claw clipping on Tuesday. There is a pile of about six pairs of shoes -- all K's -- sitting on the family room floor in front of the television. And the piece of furniture that we call a coffee table -- it's really more like a trunk, or a cabinet -- is just too much to be described. Magazines. Dish towels. More magazines. I see a rolled up sock. K's work schedules for the last few weeks.

Oy.

It's not unusual for me to let things go a bit before vacation, because I know that on the first day, I'll get everything squared away. But I don't feel that way at the moment. There is just too much to put away, and not enough places to put it in.

I know what's causing all this: the basement anxiety. I need that space down there to work with, but I don't have it now, and I have to work on that space as well. I don't wanna go down there, not even to do laundry. I want to wake up tomorrow morning and have everything cleaned up and put away. All I want to do now is read.

I told you: if I start a book, I won't want to do anything until I finish it. And I started it. Go me.

I still don't have my word. The only one that keeps popping into my head is farblunget, which really just means lost, confused. I am mixed up, but that's not the essence of what this is. Neither is farkokte, which actually means full of shit. But it's a good word. (Neither of the "r" sounds in these words is actually heard, but they're there, for some reason. Just thought I'd mention it. Or maybe my mother just didn't say it because she was from New Yawk.) But it's got to be one of those far words. Far is the Yiddish prefix for full of. Full of confusion. Full of shit. Farbissener, which means embittered, or, full of bitterness. (Someone with a twisted up, sour look, is described as a farbissener punim, a bitter face.) There's farmisht, emphasis on the -misht, which means more lost in an emotional sense, bewildered. Now I'm getting closer.

But I looked through the Yiddish dictionary, and couldn't find anything else. I miss my grandmother. Not only would she have known the word, she would have my basement sorted out in an hour and a half, everything re-packed and dry, and it would have been like Christmas morning to her. She loved doing that kind of thing, and having been raised in relative poverty on, as they used to say, The Other Side, she wasn't afraid of working like a dog; she was used to it and expected it and was good at it. Unlike her faigeleh granddaughter.

Oy.


watching nothing :: entry #1438

My Performing Debut

So the few scenes we filmed this morning went well and seemed amusing. Hopefully, I do not look like a weird-faced freak, but I am generally assured by people that this is not the case, and of course there's no way ever to know for myself (until I see the film, at least). If I can ever get a clip of it to show you my scene, I will, but I don't know if that's even possible. Anyway, it won't be made public until sometime in June.

In honor of my appearing on film ...

>

Monica: The camera adds ten pounds, you know.

Chandler: How many cameras were on you?

... I decided to wear the one-size-down jeans that I'd recently gotten in anticipation of a generous weight loss. I haven't lost a great deal more, but a little more, I think, and with the help of sturdy foundation garments, I appear today in size Large as opposed to size Extra-Large. This is what the WW people call a "NSV": non-scale victory. Anyway, I feel good, if a little claustrophobic.

It has been a full and noisy day in the library today. We've had several classes in the main room, as opposed to the separate computer-lab classroom, so it's been pretty much a wall of noise. At one point we had a class in the computer room and two in the main room. I am ready to go home and put my head down.

But I'm heading from here to The Container Store so I can get ... well, containers to re-pack some of the basement stuff, and then to the ShopRite to lay in supplies. It's the easiest way to do it. I know I'll have to go to some supermarket with K on Sunday, but that's okay. I've got nothing to have for lunch tomorrow, so I'd better go today.

And then to light some smelly candles and see what's what. Since I'll be posting from home, I'll finish this there before I do.

---

(As we see the hands of a clock spinning madly 'round ...)

Okay, so I'm home. I went to Office Depot instead of The Container Store, and got some stuff, and then the food. Along the way, I made a discovery.

Because the hearing aids don't work as they should and are being replaced, I haven't played around too much with the second and third programs that the audiologist put in. I have tried "crowd" mode a few times while walking through the cafeteria, but I wasn't impressed. It just seemed to make the crowd louder.

But I was out on the highway and couldn't hear my music playing, so in a what-the-hell moment, I flicked on crowd mode. The road noise became incredibly loud for maybe 30 seconds, and then faded out. I could still hear it, but it wasn't overpowering other sounds. Like the music. Oh, could I hear the music! It was wonderful! Everything sounded just like it should. And I didn't change back to normal mode until I got home, so I wasn't overwhelmed by all the noises in the stores, either. I guess you could call this a "NHV." (Non-hearing victory.)

I put everything away when I got home, and I have to tell you, have not gone downstairs to see what it's like today. I don't want to care. I don't think the Hubs has been down there either; he got home early for a Friday, around six, and is just catching up on his email, since he was out of the office all day. I did light a candle. Which turned out to be a good idea, because I made biscuits and burned them a little.

Somewhere in the course of my day, it occurred to me that if I made biscuits with reduced-fat Bisquick, and cut up some strawberries and put a dollop of fat-free Cool Whip on top, it would be like strawberry shortcake. Okay, not exactly like it, but a reasonable facsimile thereof. Okay, maybe not that reasonable, but hey, losing weight is the modus operandi of my life these days, so give me a break. There's nothing easier to cook/bake with than Bisquick, that staple of every junior high school cooking class, so putting them together wasn't a problem. I just couldn't see turning on the oven to make two measly little biscuits (one for me, one for K when she gets home from work), so I made them in the toaster oven. Which is a good plan if you live in a dorm or otherwise don't own an oven, but otherwise, not so much. Anyway, they're a little black on top but hopefully cooked inside. I can't eat it until the Cool Whip thaws, around nine.

Oh, I also got something at the store called "Smart Dogs", which is code for "hot dogs without any actual food product in them." I believe I have tried these before, and may I say, ick, but maybe not, and I've been in a hot dog mood lately. I don't even care about the calories or fat in one hot dog -- I can work that in somehow -- but it's the damn sodium. That stuff kills me, man. Whether the dogs are smart enough not to do that on their own remains to be seen.

So now I am technically "on vacation." It will be good not to be in that den of insanity for a week, anyway. Other than the basement, my big project was going to be changing my closet over, which for me means moving things around, since I have no place to put anything except in the closet. But I can put most of the sweaters away, and make the spring/summer stuff a little more accessible.

Oh, right, I forgot to tell you: it was a beautiful spring day today. Again, ho hum. No, it really was nice, and I left my jacket home and opened the windows when I got in from the shopping, so it really was good. I had the a/c on in the car. My little weather ticker tells me that it's 70 degrees, and will be 76 on Sunday. When I'll be working in the basement. Just can't get away from that one.


watching Reba :: entry #1437

The Dullest Knife in the Drawer

Honestly, I am not functioning at full brain capacity on this whole wet basement thing. First, why didn't I go out and buy a pump Monday morning the minute I got up, instead of not thinking of it until this afternoon, when everyone was sold out? And why have I been waiting for the house to start to smell instead of getting some air fresheners or something? I thought of that this afternoon. Now we're all vanilla and fresh linen, whatever the hell that smells like.

I have also realized that there's a limit to what I can do down there. Even if I have the energy and the best of intentions, there are just things that I cannot move. I can see, for example, that I can start to cut up chunks of the carpet remnant there, but I can't move the milk crate full of record albums off of it. I also have a pretty big carton full of paperback books -- yes, I'm sad there; these are all the Star Trek books I lovingly read during a somewhat depressed late 80s-early 90s and they're what got me through -- that I can't move now that's it's waterlogged. The Hubs is just going to have to stay home from work on Saturday and drag the heavy stuff up and out. I can vacuum and I can cut up the carpet, but I know my limits.

So K subbed again, and is now working at the store again. The Hubs is teaching tonight, so I'm on my own until 8.15 or so. I've already made my lunch for tomorrow and picked out my clothes. Got the coffee maker set up for my first morning cup.

I had a pretty busy day today, six classes, not to mention yet another stupid conflict over library staffing. Do they not get this in the main office? I DON'T CARE ANYMORE. LEAVE ME THE FUCK OUT OF IT AND STOP TALKING TO ME. Thank you.

Now, tomorrow should be interesting. Each year for the last five years or so, the drama teacher (of whom I am very fond) has been charged with making an amusing video which is shown as part of the senior awards ceremony. He is very clever and very good at it, and this is the last year that he has two students working on it who will certainly become real filmmakers some day. They are gooood. Anyway, the video generally involves some sort of alleged plotline, but the essence is teachers making funny cameo appearances. I was supposed to be in it last year, but they forgot to tell me ahead of time and I was out that day since I didn't know. But they have a part for me this year and are filming it tomorrow.

I'm not sure what the part is, only that the SCM is in it each year and he looks like a crazed mad bomber, so I'm reluctant to share the scene with him since I don't want to look like an idiot, but we'll see how it goes. In addition to tomorrow's scene, many of us are to be in the final scene, which sounds like something from the party scene on Laugh-In. The plot this year is a 1960s adventure, and those of us who lived it are encouraged to dress appropriately. (Not tomorrow; this scene is to be shot at some future time.) As if any of us could still fit in our 60s clothes! I have my bell bottoms, but I'm guessing they wouldn't come up over my thighs, not to mention that I didn't grow boobage until I was about 20, so I don't have any tops from then that would fit. Although I might go with a Moody Blues tie-dye, even though it's from the 90s. Looks worn enough to be from the 60s, though.

When I went out to get the air fresheners just a little while ago, I couldn't help but notice that it appears to be spring at last. Ho hum. Too little too late. How can I enjoy spring when my basement is a swamp and all that work looms ahead of me?

And now I remember the reason that I never burn scented candles or use air fresheners or that stuff. My eyes are starting to sting. Hey, allergies! Something else to look forward to.

Do you suppose they have any openings on Main Street? I could sell balloons, or sing with the Barbershop Quartet, or anything. Hey, I could sweep up after the horses in the parade.

watching Reba :: entry #1436

Report From the Trenches

I believe that "trench" would be the most descriptive word for my basement, because the edges of full of yucky water and it smells more or less like a sewer. I keep holding onto the memory that after the hurricane in '99, when we had way more water than we had this time, it all dried up and did not smell. Let's keep the good thought. I think it's the big carpet remnant that smells, anyway, and that's going over the weekend.

The plumber was here and said that the leak (from the kitchen sink into the basement) isn't that bad and can wait until next week when they're not busy (and when I'm on what is now laughingly called "my vacation"). He also said that I could safely use the washer and dryer, and I got right on that, because I'm thinking the less-than-lovely smell is also the result of -- TMI coming -- cat-towels that have accumulated Boo residue over the last couple of days and which I could not wash. Eeuuw, indeed. But they're clean now, and K and I are going to hit the IHOP and then I'll put them in the dryer when I get back. I know that lots of people never run the dryer if they're not home, but I always do. I figure, if the house is going to blow up, I'd really rather not be here. But this time I have to wait for it to get going and make sure I don't smell gas. (The plumber assures me that dryers have safeguards so that if the pilot is out, the gas doesn't keep on coming, which really, who knew? I've always suspected death-by-clothes-dryer is a real possibility. Just another one of those things I irrationally fear.)

(Which leads to this particularly long "I digress". Before we moved to the house 20 years ago, we lived in a two-family house, the upstairs apartment, and I always suspected that one day, the house would do us in. So, one morning, I woke up early, about six, to get little baby R her bottle, and on my way from the kitchen to her room, the whole house shook. I a) was scared shitless, and b) could feel the floor shaking and moving under my feet, and c) fell and/or fainted. Either way, the Hubs, who was asleep, heard me hit the floor and leaped out of bed. Once he saw I was speaking to him, he helped me back into bed, where I lay in a quivering heap of cold sweat, and went to take the bottle to the baby. While he was in her room, I heard on the radio that there had been an earthquake in north Jersey a few minutes earlier! When he came back, he asked tenderly if I was okay, and I said, not moving, "There was an earthquake." He did his best to comfort me, and said "No, you fainted." "There was an earthquake," I said again, and a few times, until finally he heard it on the radio too, and then believed me. The furnace had not blown up. There had been a goddam earthquake. In New Jersey.)

(The house shook another time, too, when one of those big round oil thingies in Linden, on the New Jersey Turnpike maybe 15 - 20 miles from us, blew up, but we also heard that and found out about it right away.)

.
.
.

So we are back from the IHOP, headache much better after eating, and I only ate what I planned to and that's fine. I'm finishing the entry before I approach the dryer, since I ought to finish one thing before I start another one, and K is having a cigarette down in the basement, and you know, why tempt fate. She was telling me more over dinner about yesterday's subbing experience, and she was making me happy. She's got the teacher instinct, all right. Not that I wouldn't have expected her to, she's got it in the blood from both sides, but it's nice to know for sure.

Hey, I read a book last night! I've been thinking more about why I don't read books often anymore, and I usually say it's because I have a short attention span, but I don't think that's it, actually. I think it's that I know I will get lost in a book, and I don't want to start one unless I have the time and focus to give myself to it completely. Okay, that sounds weird. But I actually went in to work later than usual this morning -- I skipped my walk -- so I could finish it. The funny thing is, it turned out that this was a book I'd read before! It was Vonnegut's Slapstick, and although I realized right away that I'd already read it, I kept on. Next is Jailbird, which I didn't buy but had in the library. I may not start it until tomorrow night, though, since I'm devoting my after school time tomorrow to that nasty rug downstairs.


watching Reba :: entry #1435

Where's That Baby Book?

You know how you record the milestones of your child's life in her baby book?

Today was K's first day in front of a classroom. They called her late last night to sub at the high school today, and she went. I swear I wanted to take a picture of her "first day of teaching" outfit. (She looked adorable, I might say, and not 17, which is the goal when you're a first-day substitute who's 5'2" and slight.)

I did see her a few times during the day, and all seemed to be going well. The amazing thing is that when she left the high school at 2.45, she had to zip over to her job in the Giant Jeans Conglomerate, where she's working today from 3 to 8. So, a 12 hour day for her.

Both my children have a very good work ethic. Jack would be incredibly proud.

So, minutes after I finished my list last night, Boo began to poop here, there, and everywhere. The perfect end to the perfect day. And I cannot use my washer and dryer until the plumber tells me it's okay, since they were sitting in an inch or so of water. That would be the plumber who was supposed to come today at 3 but didn't because other people have no heat or hot water and all we have is a leaky sink. They swear they're coming tomorrow. Please.

I did use the pump I got yesterday to get rid of as much water as I could from the laundry area, so I guess it's going to dry. Even so, I have all kinds of stuff on the machines that I saved from sitting in puddles, so it'll be a logistical puzzle whenever it happens, unless the floor is completely dry and I can put that stuff back down on it again.

Here's what I really want: a team of strong men to take everything out of my basement, clean it all up, and then put stuff back neatly, on shelves, with nothing at all resting on the floor except the rubber-coated bottoms of the shelf uprights. Perhaps that's too specific. Honestly, I would call someone from the local paper, but I wouldn't even know what to look for or whom to call. And there are plenty of people in town way worse off than we are, so whoever it is that does this is going to be booked up with more important problems.

I actually did one little something for myself before. After I'd re-scheduled the plumber and then taken Q to get her claws clipped -- she was walking on tippy-toe -- I went to Barnes and Noble and got two Kurt Vonnegut novels that I've never read: Slapstick and Galapagos. Slapstick was his first one I didn't read, if that makes sense, and I know that Galapagos is one of R's favorites. I may start after dinner, which is happening in five minutes, if I'm not distracted by some shiny object.


watching Still Standing :: entry #1434

List

[copied from dland]

1. At some point during the storm yesterday, late afternoon probably, it became clear that our basement was starting to fill up with water. We checked on it here and there and then went to sleep.


2. When I woke up at midnight or so, half of the power in the kitchen was out. Because this has happened before, I knew that this meant that somewhere in the basement there was something plugged into an electrical outlet and the wire was sitting in water. Because I was more asleep than awake, I left a note on the counter explaining this, and went to bed.


3. The Hubs got up at 3.30 and so did I, so I explained this to him. He said he'd seen my note when he'd gotten up before and hadn't really slept since then. He got up and pulled the plug downstairs, then reset the breaker and then began to bail water off the floor and into the utility sink in the basement. He did this until six, when he took a shower and went to work.


4. While he was downstairs, I logged in for a personal day today and went back to sleep. When he went to work at six, I got up and went downstairs.


5. For the next several hours, I would pointlessly run the little shop-vac for twenty minutes at a time and then do something else for a while (eat breakfast, drink coffee.)


6. Somewhere in here, I saw on the news crawler that R's train line into the city today was closed due to flooding, but that the bus would be honoring train tickets. I emailed her at some point to see if she was at work. When she answered, she said she'd left home at 8.35 and gotten into the office at 10.30. It's normally a 20 minute train ride, but not if you're on a bus.


7. K got up early to go to school, and I told her that there was no way she was driving there on potentially flooded roads, so she stayed home. She came downstairs to help me and immediately pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve or something in her neck and was in great pain. She came upstairs and put ice on it, and then went back to bed.


8. Using the shop-vac was like shoveling sand against the tide. I decided that my time would be better spent by cleaning up some of the water damage. By the time they came to collect the trash around noon, I had filled the curb with bags of destroyed books and clothes and other things that had been in cardboard boxes sitting on the basement floor.


9. Around 2.00, I remembered that my parents had had a surface pump for occasions like this and I went to the local hardware store to get one, but they were out, of course. They said that they were expecting a shipment between 4.00 and 4.30. Meanwhile, K saw the chiropractor a few doors down, so she was feeling a bit better.


10. K and I discussed the logistics of tomorrow being her first day available to substitute and how we would work that out in the morning if she got called.


11. I went back to the hardware store, where the delivery truck was late and I stood there for two hours. Very bad for the old back. Got a pump.


12. Pulled into the driveway at six, just as the Hubs was getting home. We went in and looked at the water and it was really much better. (Hasn't rained much today.) So the water was not deep enough for the pump. He changed his clothes and started shop-vaccing.


13. I made macaroni and cheese for me and K for dinner. While I was washing the pot afterwards, the Hubs called me downstairs to see that water from the kitchen sink was pouring into the basement. (This is not, however, the source of the basement flood, which is heavy rain and a 57 year old foundation.) Finally got him to stop working after 45 minutes. It'll dry up at some point.


14. K got the call to work tomorrow, but in the junior high, where she wouldn't be finished until 3.00, and she has to be at her other job at 3.00 tomorrow. Now she thinks that the sub lady doesn't like her and will never call her again. Who knows?


15. Called the plumber, who is coming to fix the sink tomorrow after 3.00, when I get home.


16. Made my lunch for tomorrow. Oh wait, I did that before K got the call, when I thought I might not have the opportunity in the morning, with both of us getting ready. My bad.


17. I am ready to freaking drop. On top of this, I had my normal stress reaction today, which means I was in the bathroom every ten minutes. If I have gained an ounce today, then I just don't know. It would be a fitting end to the day, though.

watching Little People, etc. :: entry #1433

Among Other Things

[copied from dland]

I think we're all agreed that despite whatever wonderful charitable things he's done in recent years, Imus is essentially an asshole. I doubt that he's a racist, and I'm sure he never gave a thought to the things he was saying because he's said nasty things about people for years, and there is this very peculiar double standard in our society that makes it okay for certain words to be used in some contexts by selected people, but those same words become cause for job loss, among other things, when used in the wrong mouths.

That aside, he said something stupid and actions have consequences and that's the way it is.

Racism/sexism/religion-ism/sexual preference-ism/obese-ism and all of that stuff is everywhere. We are much more conscious of it than we once were, and perhaps it has tapered off, at least in public, but it is not gone. I watched this PBS show that was on the other night called FAT: What no one is telling you, and it was quite interesting, and among other things, a variety of people who have one obesity issue or another were featured. One was a woman comedian who has lost a great deal of weight and struggles to keep herself "just chubby", but who once performed at a much bigger size. She said that it was not uncommon for strangers on the street to say to her "You're fat!" Did they think she didn't know? Did they think she was not actually a living human being with feelings like they had? What actually is the point of saying that to someone?

And Bill Maher, whom I adore, was bugging the shit out of me on this week's show. He was arguing with Al Sharpton, which, hey, go for it, although he too was against the words that Imus used. Yet in the course of his monologue he made two crude anti-gay jokes, and later on, he referred to Hilary Clinton as a bitch. HEY! No more calling any woman a ho or a bitch! It's not right!

But what really got me was this one. You know, if you want to see if something is really racist (we'll use that as the general term), what you do is take out the word in the phrase or remark that means one race (or group) and substitute another, and see how it sounds. I read this article in People on Friday: Dr. Ian Smith, who used to be so sweet on the local news and then sold himself out to Celebrity Fit Club is sponsoring a huge weight loss project. For African Americans. Look here.

Here's a quotation from the website:

The 50 Million Pound Challenge is an historic opportunity for African Americans to come together against a growing health crisis. Our challenge is to collectively lose 50 million pounds and reduce the very real risks that being overweight poses to our community.

Now imagine for a moment that it's an opportunity for white Americans of European descent to come together against a growing health crisis. Al Sharpton would be on that in a minute. Why is the program only for white people? Are white people somehow better than un-white people? Why should they get all the breaks, like attention from a celebrity doctor? Ad nauseum.

There's nothing wrong, of course, with trying to improve the health of anyone, or of any group, for that matter, and I applaud the actual sentiment behind Dr. Smith's program. But it's still racist. It is. Do the math.


watching The Tudors :: entry #1431

So It Goes

[copied from dland]

I'm not sure how I let this slip by for the last couple of days, but I suppose it's not really important if time is moving haphazardly, back and forth, or in a linear fashion. It all comes out the same in the end.

Billy Pilgrim has become stuck in time. Or, to be more precise, Kurt Vonnegut has died.

My high school boyfriend, Bob, had a way of imposing his will on me people. This was not always to my detriment (although my parents weren't too sure.) He practically forced me to read his all time favorite book, Catch-22, which I've never regretted. And he was pretty adamant about Cat's Cradle, too. And I was hooked.

Have you ever seen Field of Dreams, how Ray (the builder of the baseball diamond) seeks out the novelist Terry Mann because he was the influential philosopher of his youth? I never stalked Vonnegut, but there was certainly a time when I knew where he lived (Martha's Vineyard) and the names of his children (I've forgotten that.) Kurt Vonnegut spoke to me in a way that I think no other writer ever has, even -- yes, I dare to speak this aloud -- Shakespeare. What Vonnegut wrote reached into every little corner of me; what I have become is in many ways shaped by the words Kurt Vonnegut wrote that I read in my late teens and early twenties. And if you read the article I linked to above, you'll see that I was far from the only one. Aw, you're probably one of us, too. A generation whose ideals were not shaped so much by Dr. Benjamin Spock, as the media once accused, but by Kurt Vonnegut.

He was quirky: no one else got away with writing like that, real novels masquerading as science fiction. (Or maybe they really were science fiction.) He took topics that were nothing more than ethical questions to us and embroidered them into their weirdest possible outcomes, as in the excellent short stories "Harrison Bergeron" and "Welcome to the Monkey House." He took the most ordinary people or experiences and shared them with us, as in the stories "Who Am I This Time?" or "The Long Walk to Forever." Hell, the preface of each of books was pure gold.

I read all his early works, although not all of the recent stuff. I did read and listen to his last book, A Man Without a Country. I remember being totally blown away by Breakfast of Champions; it has in it one of my truly favorite scenes in all fiction: one of the characters has already told us that he calls mirrors "leaks" because he thinks they are portals to other dimensions, a leaking-through of one dimension to another. And then there is a scene in a bar where a great many of the characters from many of Vonnegut's novels are gathered. (I loved the way his characters kept turning up in more than one book.) And then we learn that the man sitting in the corner, watching the scene through mirrored sunglasses, is the well-known writer Kurt Vonnegut, who happens to be passing through town that day.

Blew me away. Still does.

Anyway, I've mentioned before that I have one bookshelf here, a little to my left, on which I have copies of the books that changed my life, or, at the very least, had major influence on my life. Occasionally, I'll refer to a title or two. Only one author is represented more than twice, and he's there four -- really, five -- times.



He's flanked by Catch-22 on the left and Inherit the Wind on the right. I have new copies of four of his titles: Slaughterhouse-Five, Welcome to the Monkey House, The Sirens of Titan, and Cat's Cradle. Lying across the top of them is my original copy of The Sirens of Titan, a mess, but R wouldn't let me throw it out. I bought the new copies and re-read all of them four years ago, right after I turned 50. It seemed like the thing to do. The re-discovery was a wonderful process.

So, I just thought I'd say something. And there it was.

"Poo-tee-weet?"

watching Will & Grace :: entry #1430

Volume Challenged

[copied from dland]

This is really weird, and maybe I have mentioned it before or maybe not, but I have this ... thing .... that I can only describe as a learning disability of some kind.

I do not understand measures of volume. I know what they're called, and I understand one or two of the simplest ones, like what a cup is, but I have no real concept of how many ounces there are in anything -- a cup is either 8 or 16, or maybe both -- and I know that gallons are big, but I'm not so sure about pints or quarts and where they fit in. I've always just kind of blown this off, and have said many times that I must have been absent the day they taught that in third grade, which is certainly possible because I had the measles in third grade and was absent for two weeks. I've always kind of believed that they taught it then. If I'm cooking, I have to refer to this big magnet I have that lists all the conversions and equivalents. If I have to figure out anything in liters, then I'm pretty much screwed, and I have to look it up on the Internet and get some conversion site to help me out.

Which is to say that I've been drinking lots more water lately, and I know I'm supposed to drink as many 8 ounce cups a day as I can. (And yet I still somehow believe that some cups are 16 ounces. I digress.) I buy a particular brand of water bottles because they are labeled 16 oz. and so I know that if I finish one bottle, I've had two servings of water. But I got a water bottle at lunch today from the cafeteria, and since I got home with it, I've been trying to figure out just how much water there is in the bottle in terms of what I need to drink. I've been trying to work this out for about 15 minutes.

It says on the label:

.5 L
1 PT, 0.9 FL OZ

Can you freaking believe this? It took me 15 minutes to figure out that this is just a shade over 16 ounces, and therefore it is two servings of water for me. And now you probably think that I will always know that there are 16 ounces in a pint, and therefore a pint consists of two cups. You would be wrong. I will not always know this. This is some kind of information that my brain will not retain. It never has and it never will. What I will remember is that the Poland Spring bottle that feels a certain way in my hand and that looks a little bit tall and skinny, but not too tall, is two servings of water. That I'll remember.

What a piece of work is man.

So I spent the in-service day communing with the other district librarians, and it was actually a very pleasant day. The SCM called in sick. I did go back to the high school for lunch, and that was a lot of fun, I think to everyone's surprise. About a hundred of us were in the new cafeteria, and as we arrived, they gave us a sheet of paper, one of those ice-breaker things that lists all kinds of goofy stuff, like Wears colored contacts lenses and Has your same astrological sign, and we had to go around and swap sheets and get people to sign ours while we signed theirs for one thing or another. (Among other things, I can name the major characters for both Saved By the Bell and The Beverly Hillbillies.) Then we all sat together at all the tables, and even my dear Colleague came in and joined us and sat with me. So altogether, not a terrible day of work.

It's just still too cold! And the weekend isn't looking any better. So now I'm going to read People, which is my customary Friday afternoon activity, and then I'm going to finally email the Easter pictures to the FIL -- okay, maybe I'll do that first -- and then put away my laundry from Saturday yesterday.

Oh, get this! I woke up at six this morning, and I was up, although I had all this extra time because, as I said, I didn't have to be at work until 8.30. So I got up and went to the gym! Can anyone, including me, believe this? I would do this every day, if I could; I have to think out the details. Fortunately, I was there the day they taught how to tell time, and I'm much better at figuring out time things than I am at water bottles, so there's a chance on this one.

watching Friends :: entry #1429

In the Kingdom of the Blind

[copied from dland]

Or to paraphrase, the kingdom of the deaf, the one-eared librarian is ... confused?

First, a few days ago, I was doing something or other on my iPod and I stopped because I heard a strange noise. Finally, I got it, and I said to K, When you press the buttons on your iPod, do they click? Uh huh. Okay, so just now I was in the car -- alone -- and singing along; the song was Baby Driver by Paul Simon, a catchy tune, and I came into the house and was feeding the cats and still singing, and you know what? I could hear myself. I could hear myself sing.

It wasn't pretty.

So the hearing aids are pretty good when they work, although I still need to reach my final comfort level with the volume controls, but it's hard to do that at this point since they stop working randomly. But otherwise, I think I'm happy with them.

I had a weird day at school, and tomorrow is a full-day in-service, so, if you would, shoot me now. I routinely do not attend a lot of the in-service days, but I go to this full day one in the spring every year. I hope I don't regret it. Tomorrow, the district's librarians are meeting at the middle school, which is down the street from my house. Even so. Please, Mr. Custer. I don't wanna go.

I had dinner with the Sibs just now, which was fun. We are planning to get together for brunch this Sunday with our various children, so I'm looking forward to that too, although not to the nor'easter which is supposed to be inundating us with wind-driven rain that day. We'll see.

In the meantime, the same middle school down the street, as well as the elementary school that adjoins its property, have flown their flags at half staff since December 26, when the period of mourning for President Ford was announced. Once in a while, they fly at full staff, but mostly half. This is driving me crazy. Last week, I called the elementary school one day and asked why they were doing that. The secretary told me that each week or thereabouts, they get an email that tells them the name of a soldier who died in the war and they should lower the flag to honor him/her.

I said, bewildered, You mean, a soldier from Bizarro Town?

No, I don't think so. No.

A soldier from New Jersey?

[pause] Maybe sometimes. But no, not from New Jersey.

Someone emails you and gives you the name of a soldier and you lower the flag?

Yes. I think we get the email from the superintendent's office. [Talking in the background.] No? No, then, it's not from the superintendent's office. It's just an email that we get.

Oh. Okay, thanks.

Uh, okay. So somebody spams them with this allegedly patriotic email, and they just do it. This is who is educating our children. At the high school, we follow the rules of flag etiquette, and may I say, our flag is flying at full staff. Because, even though I am all in full support of doing whatever we can for our service-people -- bringing them home would be the best plan -- we do not, in this country, lower the flag for war casualties, and doing so, I think, is a political statement more than anything, and a political statement that is not in support of our current government. If we declare that as a country we are in mourning for every lost soldier, we are making as strong an anti-war statement as we possibly can. When protesters march in Washington carrying the names and images of our war dead, it is a strong statement of mourning. It is not a show of support for anything, except for ending the war. Which I certainly favor, of course, but it is not at all appropriate for a public school to do this. (There's another school in town, the one I attended as a child, that proclaims in large letters on its signboard: GOD BLESS AMERICA! Oy. I bite my tongue as I drive by and remind myself that I don't live in that neighborhood and I don't go there often so I just need to ... let ... it ... go. But 't'ain't right, McGee.)

I am all about the obscure references today.

News Flash: What have I told you about the Garden State Parkway? And here's the proof. I just heard a new bulletin that about an hour ago, our governor was injured in a car accident on the Parkway and was med-evaced to somewhere -- Camden, I think; God help him -- with at least a broken leg, and one of his state troopers was possibly injured more severely. Now I read that he rarely wears a seatbelt. Way to be a role model, gov.

So I got me some time here tonight, as the Hubs is teaching (and hopefully not travelling home on the Parkway) and K is working until 8.30. I'm going to clean up a bit and make my lunch for tomorrow and take out my clothes. The morning will be very strange, as I am usually at work before seven, but tomorrow I don't have to be there until 8.30 so I don't have to wake up until seven. Can't imagine sleeping that late, but it'll be nice to try. The last time we had an in-service at the middle school, I had time to take a very long walk before I went over there, but dang, it was actually spring then, and a beautiful morning. Not only has the in-service been pushed back from May to April (along with the senior prom, which is tonight), it's still freaking winter-time out there. I don't want to walk from the house to the car, let alone a couple of miles around town before work. Although I was planning to walk to the school tomorrow and then home for lunch and back, but it turns out I have to be at the high school for lunch, so I actually need to drive my car around the block and park so that I can get to and from the high school without using up any of my hour and walking to and from my house to get the car. Now that I think of it, why didn't I call in sick?

Dishes. Clothes. Lunch.


watching The Simpsons :: entry #1428

Now, Mr. Benny?

[copied from dland]

As I mentioned in my tiny little post of a couple of hours ago, I have been getting nasty spam on my comments since last night, so I just set up a HaloScan thing and seem to have gotten it installed. It looks like it works, and I'm astonished that it went up so easily. For tonight, I'll keep the link to the dland comments there, but it's only taking comments from dlanders. I guess I'll take that out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I went back today to see my new best friend, Dr. Gary The Audiologist, and here's the newest development. I told him that the problem that had been "repaired" when he sent the hearing aids back was fine for a few days after I picked them up, but had started acting up again on Friday, and was just awful all day Sunday. I had to reset the hearing aid (turn it off and on again) dozens of times. He sighed. He shook his head. He said he saw no point in sending it back again, since clearly, they didn't know what to fix. He said I should keep it for now, but that he would make a new mold of my ear -- which he did -- and tell the company that they had to build me a new one, from scratch.

YAY!

I didn't even have to complain or threaten or anything. He just said right out that for this much money, they'd better work, and he'd make sure that they did. In the meantime, he put in the two new programs, one for crowded situations and one for ... well. The setting is called "House of Worship," which is pretty funny, but it's the setting that will help me hear the speaker in an otherwise quiet auditorium, where the speaker is not close to me and the sound reverberates. Like when you're watching a play. Ahem.

My stress of the day today is mostly diet related, since I've gained two and half pounds since Friday, and then I saw an article that said diets don't work (a new "scientific" study) and that the most reliable predictor of who will gain wait in the future is whoever's on a diet now. Oh, swell. And I also had some nonsense with ordering stuff for the library, but I won't go into that.

I had my five classes in again today for the next stage of the Internet history project, though, and they were just great. Oh, there were a few stinkers here and there, but really, I enjoyed them very much. Although I have to tell you, teaching the identical lesson five times in one day? You could lose your mind. There are very, very few high school teachers who have one "prep" like that. A prep is a preparation; if you teach two classes of English 11 and three classes of English 12, you have two preps. Two is probably the best you can do because you don't have to say the same thing five times, but yet you only have to prepare two lessons for each day. Three is most common in my school, although four is not unheard of. My friend the Other Chai has had years where she has had five preps by her own choice, because she was happy to teach as many A.P. (Advanced Placement) classes as she could get, and there would be only one of each of them, so that was four, and then she would take one regular history class at any level they gave her. Anyway, I digress. I taught five classes today, one prep. By 8th period, even I didn't think my jokes were funny anymore.

Okay, now I just got a weird dland note. So the notes link is going, too. I never cared for that anyway; I have no idea why I've left it there all this time.

It looks like the prediction of snow for tomorrow has changed since Monday, and is now rain, or at worst, a "wintry mix." It'll be the first day I've worn real shoes in weeks.

Okay, time to figure out the points for one Kosher hot dog and a half a pastrami sandwich, no bread. (Just the Russian dressing. And I only ate half. Not that it makes any difference.)


watching America's next Top Model :: entry #1427

In Brief

[copied from dland]

Shortest of short entries: I am getting majorly spammed in my comments by gross stuff, so I'm shutting comments down to all but d-landers for now. Hoping to get HaloScan set up in a day or so. Real entry in an hour or so, when I finish my pastrami sandwich.


watching Reba :: entry #1426

Where Is My Head?

[copied from dland]

I was so cranky yesterday that I left out the family good news as well as my continual medical report.

The Hubs has a first cousin who is about a year younger than he is, and who was married (the first time) a few months after we were, nearly 30 years ago. This weekend, he became a grandfather, making the Hubs' aunt and uncle whom I adore (Marie, whose food I was singing the praises of the other day) great-grandparents. So that's cool.

You'll remember my heartburn scare a week or so ago. Since then, I've been paying more attention to what I eat and how soon the heartburn comes after that, and I've made some adjustments and I think it's better. In the meantime, the ever nasty GERD woke me up a few times the other night, so I made an appointment to see the new gastroenterologist when I'm on spring break in a couple of weeks. See? I do know when to go to the doctor, and I'm going.

Here's the birthday resolution. K came home from class last night and immediatley -- before she took her jacket off -- apologized for being short with me in the afternoon. So that was nice. Then I raised the whole gift issue and she felt bad that she had led me to believe that she wanted me to buy her a new iPod; she had just been telling me that her iPod wasn't working, and when she got it to work a little while later, I was already asleep so she couldn't tell me. So I asked if she wanted her birthday gift a night early and she said okay, so I gave her the camera and she loved it and was all thank-yous and hugs. So, as I said, resolution. If an ungrateful child is sharper than a serpent's tooth, then a grateful child is ... well .... very, very good.

My big excitement of the day (other than K having a very nice birthday after all) is that tickets for high school's spring drama club play went on sale today. This sounds like it is not a big deal. Oh, but it is.

I think I have not talked about this before, but since I have the memory of the aged, I may have, although I think I haven't. So allow me to share (or repeat) my exciting news: the drama club's spring play has been written by none other than my own dear eldest child. She wrote a real play and it's being produced. Yes, it's the high school drama club, but this is quite a fine drama club that puts on professional quality productions. They routinely do Moliere and Shakespeare, and this time, it's ... R. She (and K as well) were quite active in the club as kids, and have always maintained a nice relationship with the teacher in charge, and she has promised to write a play for him, and she did. In the original ad, this guy basically wrote Directed by Mr. P and WRITTEN BY R. CHAI. So people are coming up to me constantly, even in town, and saying Oh, wow, R wrote the club's play? I am majorly kvelling (bursting with pride), kvelling my brains out. Mr. P. is giving us four free tickets to each performance -- there are six -- which he totally does not need to do. Today I gave him an ad for his playbill, a full page ad, which is $100. So I guess we're square. He had done a lot for my kids over the years, and now he's giving R the opportunity to see her work performed on stage.

BTW, the play will be put on in about a month. Here's what my ad looks like (more or less):

Read Shakespeare to your
four-year old.

Hey, you never know.

With great pride and much love
Mom, Dad, and K
Nannie and Gramps

and a cast of thousands.


My ILs will be able to attend, as will my sister and several of her offspring (I hope.) Her three eldest were all members of the same drama club; Oldest Nephew was quite the key performer in his day, which was 15+ years ago under a different advisor. My parents saw all his performances, although they never were able to see any of the other kids'. I figure that "a cast of thousands" will mean to R what I meant in to mean: all her cousins and all her grandparents, wherever they may be.

So that's my story. R is actually due here within the next 10 or 15 minutes, and then we are headed out, probably to the Olive Garden, for a birthday dinner.

Bye!

watching Reba :: entry #1425

Pissy-Poo Day

[copied from dland]

So, my title pretty much says it all. I've had better days, although work was okay, other than I had to be there. I'm just bitchy, and K appeared to be bitchy during the extremely limited time I spent with her today (intentionally limited by me, in fact.) I won't regale you with all the tales of everything; I'll just hit the highlights.

Easter was fine yesterday. I ate way more than I wanted to, but pretty much exactly what I expected to. As to why I did this, I worked out the whole explanation for you all in my head on the ride home, which perhaps I will share in a few minutes or a few days. Let's see how it goes.

I weighed myself this morning. I gained two pounds since Friday. What. Ever. I'm not happy about that, but I'm not bummed about it either. It just is. I'd feel better if it didn't take me two weeks to lose a half pound, but hey, it's over, it's in the past. Moving on.

I am sick of it being this cold, and of not being able to dress for it. I dressed very warmly today. Wrong. It would seem that 33 degrees in mid-winter does not feel the same as 33 degrees in April. Must be the angle of the sun or something. So I was having one of those malaria days: hot, cold, hot, cold, rinse, repeat.

Speaking of which, I ate one of those Fiber One bars this morning. Seriously, I should be protected from those. This left me with euphemism an upset stomach all afternoon, but it did give me the opportunity to tell the principal that I wasn't feeling well and I was going home instead of to the faculty meeting. Which was almost true, because I had to stop at the supermarket on my way home. Because you know mothers will provide for the home even if they are bleeding out of their eyes. Let alone ... okay.

Tomorrow is K's birthday. It's the first one in her life that's not making her giddy with excitement. She LOVES her birthday, and this year, it's like she could care less. Which is not the case. This year, she feels like she's stuck in boring school and living at home with no friends and her life is on hold. I sympathize with her, but I do not wish her to take it out on me. A great deal of my conflict today stems from her birthday and her gift. She told me last night that her iPod is broken. (We knew it was dying.) Unfortunately, I have already bought her a camera that can only be returned for store credit. (Needless to say, to a store that does not also sell iPods.) She doesn't know about the camera, which she would like but doesn't need, and needs an iPod because it's integral to her everyday life, and as I've already said, she doesn't have a lot going for her life these days. Plus, she has a mother who is incapable of saying No. Raise your hand if you've already guessed that I'm putting the camera away for Christmas. She certainly had been an incredibly expensive kid to have this past month.

And .... now I'm letting go of that one.

Okay, next. When I was a kid, I had an aunt named Sarah. Without going into the complex relationships here, she was my great-aunt, married to my grandfather's brother. Grandpa and Uncle Joe were very, very close, and so we saw Uncle Joe and Aunt Sarah often, but never at their apartment in Brooklyn, always at our house in New Jersey or at their daughter's home in Long Island. Before I was old enough to know much, I knew that Aunt Sarah was not like other people. I rarely heard her speak, and probably had conversations with her no more than a few times in my life. She always seemed to be sitting quietly in a chair somewhere, although sometimes she would help her daughter in the kitchen. My grandmother would chatter away with her as if Aunt Sarah were responding as anyone would, although she rarely did. (They were best girlhood friends who had married a pair of brothers.)

For one thing, Aunt Sarah was not a looker, but she always had a vacant expression, as if she were looking off far away. A vacant smile. She did respond to her own grandchildren, but they were very exuberant little boys, and they overwhelmed her. (Although they were careful not to raise holy hell right where she was.) At some age, maybe six or seven, I learned Aunt Sarah's story (other than the story of their youth, how the two best friends married the popular brothers; I had always known that.) Aunt Sarah had suffered some kind of depression, later, I learned, a "nervous breakdown." (They don't use that expression anymore, but I don't know what's replaced it.) She went someplace for treatment, and they had used electric shock therapy on her. (This would have been in the late forties or early fifties.) And so from then on, she sat in a chair and looked vacant, and sometimes helped in the kitchen. And I steered clear of her, mostly because I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't afraid of her. There wasn't anything there to be afraid of.

For some reason, when I was 8 or 9, we actually trekked into Brooklyn to visit a whole mess of family that was there. It had been arranged that we would stop for lunch at Aunt Sarah's and Uncle Joe's. It was a hot summer day, I remember, and I couldn't imagine how she was going to give us lunch. My grandma helped her in the kitchen, and I was told to sit at the table, along with my sister and Uncle Joe. Aunt Sarah came in carrying bowls, and really, looked delighted to have us all in her home and eating a meal that she served. (She had been a famous cook in her day.) And she set before me a bowl of strawberries and sour cream.

Now, anything and sour cream is an Eastern European thing whether you're Jewish or Polish or, I think, Austrian. I had no problem with the sour cream. But I Did.Not.Eat.Strawberries.

I was a known picky eater, and strawberries had those ... things in them! The seeds! I could not bear to eat anything with seeds or pieces in it. I still don't like it, but I'm not four years old anymore, so it's not a problem. I've never, for example, eaten brownies with nuts in them. Ick.

So, dilemma. Aunt Sarah gave me strawberries to eat. And without a blink -- but with a grimace or two -- I ate them. I knew better than to hurt this poor woman's feelings. And this is how children learn compassion. This is how children learn to suck up their pickiness for someone else's well-being. My mother didn't have to tell me to eat it, or even throw me a look. She had already taught me that I was not the center of the universe, and that there's no reason to hurt a harmless, helpless old lady.

The moral of the story is that I now love strawberries. Just kidding; I do love strawberries (thank you, Aunt Sarah) but that's not the moral of the story. The moral is that yesterday I ate the Roast Crown of Pork, and the mashed potatoes, and the icky vegetables swimming in God knows what, and the antipasto, and the pizza'gain, and a cannoli. What would have been the point in saying to my mother-in-law, Oh, I'm on weight watchers and I can't eat a single thing you're serving today? Which is worth at least two pounds of peace of mind to me, knowing I didn't senselessly hurt someone's feelings.

Here ya go.



That's Passover, 1956. Sam and Ida (my grandparents), Sarah and Joe. (That Joe was a charmer, with twinkly Paul Newman-colored eyes. Remember, neither of the brothers was taller than 5'2".)

and



1965, Sarah and Joe with their grandson Peter at his Bar Mitzvah. She passed away about a year after this picture was taken; Joe lived on to 92, and only missed my wedding by a few months. Peter is my cousin who died of cancer at 55, a year ago last week.


watching Still Standing :: entry #1424

The Weekend, With Food

[copied from dland]

He's fine -- better than he was yesterday, in fact -- but I thought I'd post a picture of my little old man cat.



You can't see in this picture -- or any picture, really -- that his eyes are sky blue, a characteristic of this breed, Birman. They all have cream colored bodies, white feet, and blue eyes. The color of their face, ears, and tails can vary from the darkest brown colors, known as chocolate or seal points to the lightest color, a kind of lavender grayish-brown, known as a lilac point, which is what BooBoo is. His fur feels soft, like a bunny, and supposedly, there is some enzyme or something missing in the saliva of Birmans that makes them hypo-allergenic to people, but I don't know if that's really true. K and I have both tested positive for cat allergy, but we've never had a problem with our own cats, or, for that matter, any other cats.

Thanks, bluesleepy.

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Social Nerd
Drama Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Anime Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Musician
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

I have decided to face tomorrow with the serenity to accept things that I cannot change. Easter dinner at the ILs is apparently going to involve a variety of foods that I have no interest in eating -- the main dish is Roast Crown of Pork, whatever that is -- and a quantity of traditional Italian goodies that would be very hard to resist, so I won't.

The event begins with the antipasto, which is always and only prepared by the FIL. He makes the roast peppers himself, and marinates the mushrooms. He slices any meats or cheeses that need to be sliced, and rolls them up and arranges them on the tray. The only thing he doesn't prepare personally is the olives. Oh, and the Easter Pie.

We eat the Easter Pie along with the antipasto, but the FIL doesn't make that. His sister, Aunt Marie, who lives here in Bizarro Town, makes dozens of these each year, and we bring one down with us. (The Hubs visited his aunt and uncle earlier today and picked it up.) It is known in the Hubs' family as pizza gain, which is probably a regional Italian food. My friend The Other Chai, whose family is Neapolitan, has never heard of it. Most Italians in America are either Neapolitan (from Naples) or Sicilian, but the FIL's family is from Abruzzi e Molise, which is apparently northeast of Rome. Anyway, this must be what good Italians get to eat in heaven. Oh, and Aunt Marie's Easter Knots. I can't even find a link or a picture for that, but they are cookies that are so light they practically have to be held down to the plate. Oh wait, I have a picture:



because I have our share of the knots in the kitchen and so I just took a picture. (I only had one! The girls can have the rest tomorrow, if K leaves any left after she gets home from work tonight. When K left for her semester in Germany a couple of years ago, Aunt Marie made a batch just for her so she'd have them to eat on the plane.)

And then, for dessert, cannoli. You gotta eat a cannoli if there's cannoli. (These are not home-made, btw, but are coming with the catered meal. Aunt Marie can make cannoli, but of course, but says you can buy them just as good as she can make them, so she devotes her efforts to pizza gain and knots. Have I ever mentioned how much I adore the Hubs' Aunt Marie? And not just for the food.)

So, tomorrow I gain back anything I've lost in the last month. Sounds like fun! And a ride down the Parkway, to boot! Lucky, lucky me!

Have a good Easter, everyone. Fingers crossed for no snow anywhere.

Oh, I do know what Roast Crown of Pork is, I just don't care. And if you look at the picture of Boo next to the computer, you can see how small he is.


watching Raymond :: entry #1423

Day Off

[copied from dland]

Didn't write yesterday due to an upset tummy, which then got better but I was so tired that I couldn't sit up and my desk and type and just fell asleep instead.

No school today due to Good Friday, so I got a haircut (still long, just a trim) and such, and took Boo to be groomed. I think I won't be able to take him for grooming anymore. Despite his random pooping, the groomer, who is familiar to him and very good with him, said he seemed very stressed by the whole procedure, pooped several times there, and didn't seem to really know what was going on. Now, people have asked me before if Boo is blind -- he isn't -- but no one has ever suggested that he might be ... well, senile. When I brought him home, he still seemed confused, and investigated the house as if he'd never been here before. Then he settled in and began to poop in all his usual spots. I've been running up and down to the washer all afternoon with the towels that cover his usual spots; my hands are dry and cracking already from being washed over and over and over. TMI. Anyway, we're going to have to try to trim his claws here, because there's just no point in taking him anywhere anymore. At this point, he smells as bad as he did this morning. I guess the stress is just too much for my little old man.

On the other hand, my hair looks really nice.

On yet another hand, I cannot stand this weather. The sun was out for 45 seconds today. The wind blew threw my jeans as if it were January. Oh wait, it was warm in January. This is the first year ever that the weather was nicer on my birthday (January 12) than it will be for K's (April 10, next Tuesday.)

I'm thinking I may have to get a new TV for the family room. You cannot imagine how much I don't want to do this. The SCM commented recently that it's funny that I'm such a gadget/techie person and yet I don't have a TV that's a big screen, or HD or anything like that. Which is true. We have six TV's in the house, and two of them were $10 garage sale specials. Also, I have some point of honor thing that makes me not want to get a new anything for myself that the Hubs also needs new of, which is tough, because he would rather go without than get a new anything. This is why he's driving my father's 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera instead of a car made in this century. And I don't plan to get a new car before he does. It's like a stubborn contest. I know he needs a new TV for his little study, since his garage sale model is going, but he will never get around to it. I told him to take the TV from the bedroom if he needs it, since we rarely watch there. I hope he does, because then I'll get a new little TV for the bedroom. But I digress.

The family room TV is a good size -- about 28", I think -- and has a great picture. I don't want to replace it on principle. So why am I thinking about it? Because the sound is going. And as K pointed out, she'd think I'd want the best sound I could get on a TV, considering my situation.

Damn. The closed captioning isn't very good on this TV, either. I guess I really should replace it. I could swap with the Hubs', who has super-bionic hearing, but he doesn't have the room in there for a TV this big. Oy. It's always something.

If K doesn't get home from work soon, I shall eat the furniture. I wish I had listened when she told me how late she was working tonight. Or if she was going someplace after. Really, I thought she'd be home by now.

(Okay, I called the store. She left, but came back for something she forgot, and then just left again. So she's alive, but I bet won't be happy when she gets here.)


watching Reba :: entry #1422