Conspiracies, Sunday, and World War II

Okay, just so you know it isn't just me. Here.

So K and I are watching episode 4 of The War, which I've seen twice now, although I haven't seen 1 or 2 or most of 3, but it's not as if I can't follow the story, so it doesn't so much matter. It's really an excellent documentary series. Anyway, we just saw a segment that described the weeks following D-Day, and how the Allied troops were having trouble making progress because the countryside of Normandy was cut up into small fields by the hedgerows, which were difficult to get past, and how General Bradley decided that they had to push past the hedgerows and get to Saint-Lo, after which they would have a clearer landscape in which to pursue the German army and push towards Paris, and ultimately, Germany.

And I said to K, "And that's where Grandpa was." He had arrived in Normandy about a week after D-Day, since where he went he was accompanied by the big anti-aircraft guns, and they couldn't move those in until the beach-head was already established, but once he was there, he was part of the push eastward. I'm watching this show, and I see the veterans in their 80's being interviewed, and I think it's frankly a miracle that any of them came out of this alive.

The parts about the war in the Pacific are almost more horrific, as if there's any need to compare. One segment is about a family of American civilians who were living in the Philippines when the war started, and how they were gathered up and quartered in a hotel. Not too bad. I used to work with a man, now retired, who was about 9 and living in the Phillipines in 1941, and who watched the Japanese airfleet as they flew overhead to Pearl Harbor. He and his family were kept in a concentration camp for the duration of the war, a place where guards routinely beat women -- all foreign nationals and civilians, but not all Americans -- for minor infractions. He got out of the camp when he was 12, during which time he had not grown at all, due to the malnutrition.

Anyway, that was quite the tangent. I didn't write yesterday because I just didn't do anything worth writing about. I do feel okay; whatever that lightheadness was on Friday night was gone when I woke up Saturday morning. R came over today to do her laundry, and she and K and I went to Target, because it was Sunday, and that's what one does on a Sunday, and then to a mall near the Target. It was very busy and noisy at the mall, but I got a couple of sweaters at The Gap that were either mis-marked or mis-scanned, because it looked to me like about $52 worth of sweaters and I had a $10 coupon, and somehow it came out to $22.99. So I'm not complaining.

The weather has turned incredibly beautiful here, and is supposed to remain so for the week. Mid to upper 70's, no humidity, no rain. Feels so nice. But I am very tired; I feel like all the juice has been squeezed out of me. I'll be a real hoot to tote around DisneyWorld.

I'll be back.

WATCHING THE WAR :: ENTRY #1594

Nice Day, Actually

Had a pretty good day today, notwithstanding the two doctor appointments, but for some reason I've been light-headed and a bit dizzy for the last couple of hours. Whatever, it's not getting in my way, it's just annoying.

I got to sleep an hour later, and then went off to doctor #1, the podiatrist. I liked this guy much better than the podiatrist I saw last year. He was very professional (although amusing.) I outlined my list of foot problems, and maybe fourth on the list was that the soles of my feet hurt all the time. He laughed when I said that, and I told him that every doctor I've said that to has laughed, and then explained that well, at this age, I can expect things like that. He said no, he laughed because he couldn't believe I hadn't said that first.

Anyway, so the bunion that's been growing for all my adult life is still there but not worth doing anything about, and he explained why my feet hurt, and "strapped" one of my feet (like putting a mini ace-bandage on it) to keep the foot in the right position. I have to keep it strapped for a week. He said "You're probably wondering what to do when you take a shower. Call me, I'll come over and unwrap it and re-wrap it when you're finished." Which I thought was pretty funny, but of course, what I have to do is put a plastic bag on my foot when I shower. And take it off next Friday and let him know if it helped. In fact, it helped the minute I started to walk on it. So that'll tell him something, I guess. I have to go back in three weeks, and he told me how to use the orthotics (shoe inserts) that the other podiatrist made for me last winter, and I have to start using that when the strapping comes off. And hours later, that one foot still doesn't hurt.

When I came home, I called DisneyWorld again and was able to change our reservations to what we wanted (but which wasn't available when we first called), so now we have all four nights at the same hotel and the room with three beds. Yay! I finalized the dining reservations, too, and put it all in a chart -- you knew I would -- and printed out a copy each for the Chum and the Other Chai.

And then, very cool, I got to go out to lunch with the Chum, who just got back from Maine last weekend. A most excellent lunch. She is, as I may have mentioned, a Disney virgin, and is getting very excited about the trip, as are we all. So I had a nice visit with her, and then, on to the butt doctor.

Good news here, I still don't need surgery, and I don't need to see him again unless the situation worsens. If that isn't what you want to hear from your butt doctor, I don't know what is.

And came home and got my bills all paid, and then leaned down to tie my shoelaces and the room started to spin. No idea what that's about; I thought maybe I needed to eat, but I did eat and I've still got it, pretty much. Well, I'm done for the day anyway, just one last email to write so that the Other Chai knows what I did with the reservation, and then I'm on the couch for the night.

Here's to waking up with a clear head and no bad dreams tomorrow morning --

WATCHING RAYMOND :: ENTRY #1593

TV Slave

There is no Law and Order on. (Which is kind of amazing, when you think of it, because L & O is the Saved by the Bell and/or Wings of the 21st century, as in it's on all the time.) Anyway, there is nothing for me to watch no and so I am sad. Not very sad, mind you, but if I were four years old and still me, I would be making The Face. (Or if my grandparents were visiting, it would be The Punim, which is Yiddish for, of course, face.)

I was a remarkably scowly child, and I've been looking for pictures of me making that face, but there are none, because of course I would have run scowling from the room if anybody had pointed a camera at me at such a moment. When I think of myself at the age of, say, four or five, it's with narrowed eyebrows and a downturned mouth. I must have been a real peach.

(What I would have heard my grandmother say is something along the lines of "Gib a kuch affen punim!" which would be "Give a look at that face!" Punim would be pronounced kind of like poonim, emphasis on the first syllable, for all you linguists out there.)

Where was I?

Oh, right. I'm actually in television heaven, because I've been setting up my recordings, and I worked out a way around that PBS show The War, which I'm looking forward to seeing -- they've already shown the first four episodes -- but I'm annoyed by the way they scheduled it, four nights in a row for a week and then the same next week. Like that's not going to conflict with whatever else everyone is watching.

In other news, I had an amusing exchange today with several freshman boys who were in the library after lunch. They had a pile of old yearbooks on the table in front of them, and as I walked by, I said "What year is that?" about the one they had open, and one of them said "72", so I said, "Oh, I'm in 71." Mad scramble for the 71 book. One of the boys says "How do we find you?" and another says, I swear, "I'm sure you were as lovely then as you are now." Is that funny, or what? (And he knew it was funny, he wasn't being weird or fake polite.) I laughed, and patted him on the shoulder and said "You're a good boy." Anyway, they flipped the pages until they found the Hubs, of course, and were confused, and I said "That's my husband," and they giggled and asked if we were high school sweethearts and I said No. One of them looked at my I.D. card so they knew my first name, but they still couldn't find me, so I flipped to the page and slapped my picture and said "There!" and went off to lunch with a smile. This is a very cute freshman class. And hopefully my last class, the last one I will be with for all four of their years. Not a bad way to go out.

I am still hungry. Just thought I'd let you know.

WATCHING THE SIMPSONS :: ENTRY #1592

Tick Tick Tick

I bought a watch today. I basically do not wear a watch anymore (other than wearing the dressy watch to the wedding Saturday night), which was a huge life change for me when I did it. When I tell people that I don't wear a watch, most reply "Oh, I could never do that! I always wear a watch; I have to know what time it is!" Yeah, well, me too. Remember, I live in a house where every room has a minimum of two clocks in it; the kitchen and the bedroom each have more like five. I too was always one of those "I have to wear a watch!" people.

Consequently, I have a dozen or more cheap watches that don't work, but which I keep nonetheless, even though I don't wear one. I don't wear a watch mostly because there is usually a clock to look at somewhere, and I use my cellphone as a pocket watch. But I bought a watch because it makes more sense to do it that way when I travel; I always wear a watch when I travel, especially since sometimes you have to turn your phone off. I was at the mall again this afternoon to exchange something I bought when I went with my sister on Tuesday, and there was a watch kiosk right outside. It looks something like this, a man's clip-on watch. I won't even have to take it off at airport security because I'll have it clipped onto my carryon.

Why, yes, I'll have a second helping of crazy, thank you.

We actually had this discussion at lunch today about being a crazy mother, and why it's often good to be that way, and I assured them that I take the crazy prize, and regaled them with a tale or two. And the Other Chai, whom I have known forever, stuck up for me, and agreed that yes, I probably was the craziest mother. Heh heh. And then I was telling R about this on the phone just before, and she said, "Well, yeah, except for Grandma." Oh, right.

Oh, and my watch has a compass, too, which I guess could be useful ... never, actually, because at DisneyWorld there's always some huge structure in the center of each park that you can orient yourself to, which is why they're there, actually. I'm just saying.

Did I mention that I may have a broken toe? This is next to impossible for me, since I wear shoes almost all the time, but I was briefly walking around the other night after I took my shoes off, and I caught my foot on the leg of a stool and I thought I had ripped three toes clean off. But only one of them looks bruised, and I'm going to a podiatrist on Friday anyway for something else, so I guess if he says "Hey, did you know you've got a broken toe here?" well, then I'll know.

And it's an indiglo watch, too, so it lights up blue when you press a button. In case you were wondering, because sometimes it gets dark in DW, so I might need that.

Oy. I need to take a pill.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1591

In the Groove

I have been very good. Here it is, almost the end of September, and I have taken out my clothes for tomorrow's school every single night before. And every night, I remember to set up my coffee for the morning, and since I got my new lunchbag, I get my lunch ready the night before, too.

Ow. I hurt myself patting my own back.

I will also be finished with the little freshpersons tomorrow; I only have ten cards left to do, and six of those kids are coming to the library with a class second period. I will hunt down the other four if they're in school; they were absent today. And then I will be done with that.

And did I mention that our brandy-new library software, the stuff that we had to work on like crazy last spring, was actually not set up properly? We check out books by photocopying the barcode on the book and the kid's I.D., hoping that we will eventually be able to check them out as if we were a real library. Long story. Lesson learned: the software company was very gung-ho when we had to do stuff for them. Not so much now that they have to do stuff for us. I think they have not yet been paid, though, so we get the last laugh, not to mention all those cool photocopies piling up on my desk.

Got my nails done today, by the new manicurist. She was very nice, and did a good job. I miss Grace, however, of whom I am very fond. I hope she's happier in her new job, which she deserves to be. The chemicals and the dust in the nail shop were very hard on her, as were the hours.

Gonna go call the Sibs and report on my nail visit.


WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1590

How Tired Am I?

I am so tired that I can't even think of a clever answer to the question.

I had one of those night-sweaty/bad dream kind of nights. I've been having bad dreams a lot lately; not nightmares, but unpleasant and almost-scary dreams. The good news is that I rarely remember them after I've been awake for a few minutes, but the bad feeling stays with me.

I do remember the very weird one I had just before waking up Saturday morning. It was in real time, sort of, in that I dreamed that I was in bed Saturday morning at it was 7.00, which it was when I was having the dream. I dreamed that the Hubs came into the room and woke me up and said "My father's dead; I have to go," and then he started bustling around the room, very business-like, gathering what he would need to spend a couple of days at his mother's. I sat up in bed and said "Am I awake? Is this real?" I held out my hand and he slapped it and said "It's real."

I got out of bed and saw that K was in the house, not dressed yet, which meant that she would be late for her 8.00 class. The Hubs told her that her grandfather was dead and she started to cry. Shortly after that, he broke down completely, sobbing. At some point, I was facing my mother-in-law, who was dry-eyed. I asked her what she would do now, and she said she would do what she was raised to do: she would go on.

I woke up and looked at the clock. It was 7.05. The house was very quiet; I got out of bed and looked out the window. Both the Hubs' car and K's car were gone. So she had gotten off to class on time, and it really was a dream. I have a history of dreaming in real time and demanding to know if I am asleep or awake and always being reassured that I'm awake. I do not so much like these dreams.

I didn't have real time dreams last night, but I did wake up fully at least three times, each time my face soaked in sweat, and each time pushing myself to wake up so that I could shake what I had just been dreaming.

So my day was just a lot of yawning and eye-rubbing. Hoping to finish the damn 9th grade cards tomorrow. I did a bit of shopping with the Sibs after school today, which was most enjoyable, although I could hardly keep my eyes open. Nails after school tomorrow, with a new manicurist. Not a big deal, I know.

Heroes tonight!

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1589

Catching Up

So we went to the Polish wedding last night, which I mention by its ethnicity because this was an extremely ethnic affair, in many ways. Among other things, the host/emcee/DJ (whatever he was) kept referring to "our guests" and "our American friends," aka, the groom's work friends, of which the Hubs and I were two.

You may recall that we already went to a wedding for this same couple, about a year and a half ago. They got married the day after she arrived from Poland because she came on a bride's visa -- the groom is Polish born, but has been here since he was a child, and is a long-time citizen -- but they still wanted the church wedding and big reception, so it took until now to have that. Her parents and other family not already here came from Poland.

The toasts were in Polish, although the music was a real mix of Polish and American music, as were the dances. The food was not especially ethnic (as it was at the first wedding), but this was new to me: instead of pitchers of beer on the tables, which I've seen before (but not at Jewish weddings), there were unopened bottles of Johnny Walker Red and vodka. (I forget the brand, a good one, but not a Polish vodka.) And an open bar, which is nice at a wedding. (I went to a wedding once where the groom was Italian and the bride from a strict Lutheran sect, and one half of the room was happily buzzed while the other half sat straight up in their chairs, no dancing and certainly no drinking. And no open bar, for sure. It was a strange one.)

Anyway, I hate the noise of a loud party like that, and I hate the shoes I have to wear, but otherwise it was a very nice wedding, and the company at our table was also pleasant. The groom is just a delightful young man, and his bride beautiful and in a gorgeous gown. She spoke almost no English when I last met her, but was pretty fluent last night, also a lovely girl.

Which is why I never got to write last night.

I had also spent Saturday morning with R -- K was at class, and was also tutoring as part of that class -- so we did some looking around for new DVD shelves that she needs, and went to a very nice farmers' market in her town, and out for lunch. I also wanted to commune with the grandcat, but holy cow, that kitty did not stand still for two seconds! She backed away when I approached her, and I wasn't sitting long enough for her to get curious and climb all over me, but she also had a toy mouse that she continually batted back and forth and chased. She is incredibly cute, and has a lovely little personality for a kitty.

I got stuff done around the house today, including opening all the windows and airing things out, because it was just beautiful here today, a perfect day. I finished what was leftover to be done from Friday's workshop, I obsessed over DisneyWorld happily, I got my laundry put away, and then I watched a whole lot of last season's Heroes in anticipation of tomorrow's night second season opener.

And ... back to work tomorrow.

WATCHING REBA :: ENTRY #1588

Observations

So I had this all-day workshop thingy at the central office, which turned out to be mighty odd, though not unpleasant. There were about 30 people in the room -- very noisy -- from all the schools in town, K-12, making plans for an in-service being held next month that we are presenting. The six of us from the high school sat together, making our plans. We needed computers to work on, so we went to the COW.

COW stands for Computers on Wheels. It's a cabinet that holds about 20 laptops; the cabinet is plugged into the wall and the network, and the laptops communicate with the network wirelessly through the cabinet. Except someone had unplugged it all, so it took forever to get started, and then all the laptops died in five minutes because they hadn't been charged. Fun.

Then the middle school librarian and I got diverted into working on the glitch with our new software, and it progressed from there. The high school group ultimately got our basic plans made, though.

I did get to make someone's day, which you don't get to do that often, so that was nice. Before we all got started, a woman sat down next to me and said hello to me by name, and then something about that I probably didn't recognize her, but she was so-and-so, and how were my girls? And I recognized that both R and K had been in her class for 7th grade social studies. And I said the girls were well, and thank you, that K was in the process of becoming a social studies teacher. Oh, she was delighted, as she should have been. K had an excellent series of social studies teachers from 7th grade on up, and I'm sure they all contributed to the road she's on. It's fun to be able to tell someone something like that.

And here's the afternoon's fun. First, the Other Chai dropped in to join the group for the afternoon, for some reason. Then the now seven high school people debated the injustice of our having to be in this meeting today on the elementary school teachers' schedule -- 8.30 to 3.30 -- when not only does the high school staff get out earlier because we start earlier, but that today, all high school kids were being dismissed at 1.45 to go to a re-scheduled football game, and any staff that wanted to go would be dismissed at 1.45, too. So someone asked the administrator in charge of today's meeting if we seven could leave early -- we were done with our work -- and go to the game, too. Absolutely! So we left when we were told we could, and knew that no one at the high school would know if we were there, or still at central office, or at the game, so ... Yeah.

It was good to be home, too, because after months of my allergies attacking my skin in the form of hives, the fall has brought back my old familiar symptom of horribly itchy and sticky eyes, and I needed to close them for at least a half hour just to continue to live.

Later on, after K got home and we went out on an errand or two, I saw something that was a familiar sight in my childhood -- I did it myself -- but now looked so wrong that it stood out right away. I was turning a corner, waiting for a car to pass, and as it did, I saw that there was a little boy, maybe four or five years old, standing on the floor in the back seat and leaning close to his father, the driver. They were happy, smiling, talking. But seriously. If you don't have the sense to use a car seat, at least doesn't everyone know that a child should wear a seatbelt in a car? All I could think was that if that car got hit from behind, the kid was going right over dad's shoulder and straight through the windshield. How does everyone not know this in the 21st century? Fifty years ago, it was different; nobody knew. People routinely held babies in the arms in the front seat, because it was the safest way at that time to carry a baby in a car. There were no seats designed for infants, only car-beds that you could lay on the backseat. When I was a kid, I often slept on the back shelf about the backseat when were on long car trips, or sometimes -- on the Connecticut Turnpike, if that's what that road was called -- I would climb over the back of the front seat and sit between my parents so my sister could have the whole backseat. It was different then, but now we know better. Don't we?

So tomorrow I have to get dressed up and go to a wedding. Oy. We're not going to the ceremony, just the reception. It will be noisy, and we'll be sitting with all of the Hubs' work friends. Can't hardly wait.


WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1587

The Day Started With a Headache

Did I mention that I found the perfect -- for now -- lunchbag the other day? It's here. It's made of neoprene and you can stuff a lot of stuff into it, and the ladies in my lunch group oohed and aahed. They also make a wine carrier, which I think I will get the ILs for Christmas. (I am not much of a drinker, and because of meds I'm on now, I don't drink at all, but when we had dinner with them a few weeks ago, there were just wine bottles in bags coming out everywhere, so I know they'll get good use of this.)

So here's the fun thing I did when I got home from school today *giggle*: I started packing. But just a little. I took out the bags I'm going to use and pretty much just put toiletries and that stuff in them, the stuff that I keep in a bag for when I travel, like a travel toothbrush, a little alarm clock, like that. You would think that I travel all the time and need to be ready on the spur of the moment, but I pretty much started doing this when I would go on the senior class trip every year. And now it's all for DisneyWorld. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

I finally got the doctor's appointment I needed today, which I did by going to the doctor's office in person. This phone thing was just not working out for me. I found out that the new podiatrist is not someone I went to high school with, although someone I did go to high school with and who has the same name did become a podiatrist. (This man I'm going to see is in his sixties and is semi-retired.) The other thing is that he only has office hours on Fridays, and only from 9 to 1. Hmm. So I guess next Friday I'm taking my first sick day for this year. I could take only a half day off in the morning -- I got the 9.00 that day -- but I also have an appointment at 3.00 with the butt doctor (it's coming along, thanks for asking, LA), which I could get to if I left school in a big hurry at the end of the day. But you know what? I remembered that the Chum is coming home from Maine on Sunday, so I emailed her and said if she wants to meet for lunch that day, I'll take the whole day. Hey, it's not like I'm not actually going to two doctor's appointments that day.

The little freshmen are still annoying (but individually, mostly sweet) and I still have 100 cards to go. And I won't be there tomorrow because I have an all-day meeting at the central office. (If any of you would like to call me in sick for that, the number is ...) I spoke to one of the administrators about the cards this afternoon, and I forgot that this is the guy who always infuriates me and knows how to do my job better than I do. He didn't get to me today, but he thinks it's brilliant when he comes up with a new approach that I gave up years ago because it didn't work.

And then K called me around 2.00 to say that the A/C wasn't working in her car, and her professor (that she works for) gave her an impossible task, and this, and that, and she was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, and I said "Uh huh ... uh huh ... oh, I'm so sorry," and inside I'm thinking "Oh god, I want to hang up the phone!" Yes, I know her car is falling apart, but the Hubs gets the next one, and then she gets his, which she really, really wants, actually. Anyway, she called me at home around 4.00 and things were much better, as in, she was a lot calmer. So that was nice.

The Hubs has actually started to look for a car. Yes, we are all astonished. Did I say this part (I don't think so): on the ride home from seeing his folks over Labor Day weekend, he said he had driven a friend's Mercedes, and it was really nice. And I thought, well, that'll just about kill me, having to figure out how to pay for a fucking Mercedes (because he has no idea whatsoever what money we have, or more precisely, do not have), and I knew he was going to start looking for a car, but I had no idea what he wanted. The the next weekend, he went. What's he looking for? A gently used Toyota RAV4 or Honda CRV. ** extremely deep sigh of relief ** Still, I knew the time would come when we would have to replace all our cars at once, and it would have been nice if he had bought a car three years ago when I had the money just sitting in the bank. But foolish me, I spent it on college tuition since then.

If I had no children, I would be a very wealthy woman. I don't know what I'd spend it on, since I spend most of it on them, but you get my drift. But of course, my children are the best part of it all, so I'm not really complaining. Well, only that I don't want K to call me and complain when she's having a bad day.

And now the Hubs and his sought-after 1991 Oldsmobile with the missing side-trim are home.

WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS :: ENTRY #1586

Signs

Watch the watch.



Anyway, so if the video works, that's my cool watch that I've had since I was ... twelve, I think, maybe thirteen, that I wrote about the other day.

In other news. K says that wearing headphones is the universal sign for "don't talk to me," and while I think this should be correct, her lament, and mine, is that wearing headphone actually seems to be the sign to every idiot who crosses your path to start a pointless conversation with in which the most significant words spoken are the first three, forcing you to say "Wait a minute, wait a minute; I have headphones on," and then fumble at your ears and in your pockets for the pause button. Guess how my day started?

Actually, I walked to school again since K's car was in the shop, and listened to the UK audiobook of The Prisoner of Azkaban, and the school nurse started talking to me the minute I put my foot in the building, interfering with Stephen Fry's dulcet tones. But the car is good now, the Hubs and I just picked it up (K has gone to class with my car); the mechanic had to replace the alternator he put in last week and so there was no charge to us. That's my kind of pricing.

Aren't TV commercials idiotic? One caught my attention just before; it was for wipes for kids to use who are learning to use the toilet. I don't know what they're called, but the tagline that caught my attention was "xx wipes make wiping fun!" Uh ... excuse me. Under what circumstances does wiping one's ass need to be fun?

Okay, got to eat something.

WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1585

Peevish

I am beset by my pet peeves, so I thought I'd share a couple of them with you.

1. Medical Studies

Every day, there are countless medical studies made public just so we can all have the shit scared out of us. They are all contradictory, and none of them make sense. Even so, there are headlines, there are stories. According to things that I've read recently

... because my waist measures more than 35 inches, I will most likely die an early death from cardiac disease.

... if I lose more than 20 pounds within 20 years of turning 70, I will most likely suffer from dementia. (That was one of my favorites.)

... if you smoke anywhere in the proximity of a child, you are most likely dooming that child to a lifetime of illness, most likely asthma at a young age. Also implied is that you are a sick criminal, and should be locked away from polite society for ever and ever and ever.

Now. I was exposed to smoke as a child, as were most baby-boomers, because our World War II parents were all smokers, and no one knew differently than to smoke around your children. My parents smoked in a closed car -- hey, it was cold -- on our 5+ hour trips to visit grandma in Massachusetts every other month, not to mention at all other times. My father apologized to me for this in his later years (he had actually quit when I was five or six.) Nothing to apologize for. That's the way things were then. Anyway, we lived, and relatively few of us had asthma as children, as I recall, or were unable to play high school sports, or ... you get the idea.

Those medical studies have got to go. I'm not pro-smoking, as such -- okay, I love and miss it, but that's another story; I know it's bad for you -- but this is probably a study done on rat-children anyway, since doing it on human children would be highly suspect, so, true or not, it's worthless shit to me.

2. Voice mail

Having personal voice mail, like having an answering machine, is one thing. When businesses use voice mail in place of having people to answer their phones, it drives me crazy.

I called to make a doctor's appointment before. The receptionist -- live -- answered the phone and asked how she could direct my call. I said I needed to make an appointment with Dr. X, and she put me through. The phone rang six times, and then I got the voice message of Dr. X's assistant, who schedules the appointments. She couldn't talk right now, and invited me to leave a detailed message, and she would call back. Well, you know, I called when it was a good time for me to talk. Maybe when she calls back, it won't be so good, like I could be busy at work and I don't really want to explain why I need the appointment when there are kids standing around me (although this is not the butt doctor, at least.) And I don't know when I'll be home, exactly. I finally did call from home, and left a detailed message -- it's a foot issue -- and K, making a sandwich in the kitchen nearby, called out "EEUUW!"

I don't think it's too much to ask to speak to a live person, or for a live person to call you back as soon as they get off another call. (Hours later, still no call back.) I'm not in this for their convenience. I am literally in this one for my health. Come on.

---

K's car is making a horrible noise -- what else is new -- so I'm walking to school tomorrow again, and she'll pick me up. I like walking there in the morning, and I need to be walking more, so I'm fine with that. I hope her car is ready by the time she has to go to class tomorrow night, but if not, no big deal, she'll take mine.

Sometimes, five years from now looks like a good idea.

Tomorrow I'm being trained to use a "Smart Board," which is best described as an interactive blackboard (except it's a white board.) When you project a webpage onto it, you can just touch the buttons with your hands, as if you were a mouse. It's an interesting technology.

I am the hungry. Wonder what I can go nuke for dinner?

WATCHING DR. PHIL :: ENTRY #1584

Hi.

Yeah. Um. So I feel tired and lazy and fat. I ate a lot for dinner; even though I snack all the time, I rarely eat a lot at one meal, and I feel like my tummy is growing outward before my eyes.

My day was not as busy as I had hoped, because those nasty little freshpeople are not coming in on their own for their ID cards as they should.

[Pause.]

An hour later ...

Anyway, so I've got to ask the principal to make an announcement that they'll be checking for freshmen ID cards next week. That ought to wake them up a little.

So I took a pause because K happened downstairs and somehow we got onto the topic of jewelry, and we decided to look through what I laughingly call "my jewelry box." You know, if you have an actual jewelery box -- and I've had those in the past -- it's like telling anyone who breaks in that here it is, all my valuable stuff is pre-packed for you in one convenient, portable storage case; bye! Anyway, I'm not good at conventional stuff like that. I have four big gray storage boxes, cardboard, stacked on top of each other on a file cabinet in the corner of my bedroom. My jewelry, so called, is in one of them in an assortment of trays. Getting to this box is like decoding a puzzle, what with all the stuff on top of it, which is fine because I rarely need to look at it. But it was fun.

I have very, very little in the way of good jewelry, which is also fine with me. I have a lot of the costume things my mother loved, although I also have a couple of very good pieces that were hers: her wedding band, which I wear every day, and an opal wedding band that she wore every day (which is why she gave me her original ring years and years ago.) I have Grandma Ida's engagement ring, which I wrote about recently and yes, I'm wearing it every day, and Grandma Sadie's diamond watch, which, how did a living human woman, especially one that heavy, have such a tiny wrist? I have my own engagement ring, very pretty but not terribly valuable. I think that's it. My jewelry box is filled with memory type things, mostly, and a variety of costume jewelry that I used to wear, and things that people have given me, either as gifts or as souvenirs brought back from travels. I like opals; R brought me opal earrings from Australia. She brought my mother an opal pendant, which I now have, too.

I have bracelets and things I wore as a child and as a teenager, and both a bracelet and a ring woven from leather strips that I bought from a street vendor in high school. Really, I never throw anything out. I have about a dozen cheap watches that don't work.

Ooh, and a really cool watch, that I set and wound, and I'll wear it on Saturday -- we're going to a wedding -- if it's still running. Have to remember to wind it every day; there's a flashback. It looks something like the watch on this page; the face is similar, although the style of the watch is a little different. When the watch is running, the two circles in the center rotate and create a kind of kaleidoscope. The red hands tell the time. How did I come by such a fancy shmancy device? In fact, I have two of them:

When I was about twelve, I think, my father knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, and he was offered some kind of deal on these really expensive watches. I remember that we all drove into the city on a Sunday -- stores were not open, even in New York City, on Sundays then, but this guy opened special for us *ahem* -- and my mother, my sister, and I each picked out a style that we liked. My mother got one with a square case surrounding the dials, which I now have in addition to the petite round one I picked out for me, like my sister's. I never knew what the deal was, but it seemed a little outside of the normal practice of business to me even then, if you get my drift, but since Jack was the most honest and moral man alive, I don't know.

I also don't know if the watch works, but if it does, I'll wear it. If I can figure out how to take a little movie of it running, I'll post it for you. It was very cool. Hey, it was the sixties.

Okay, time to post and go into my long-awaited food coma.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1583

So ...

I'm watching the Emmys, and Seacrest was good, Ray Romano was embarrassing, and frankly, I may have listened to my lifetime quota of Tony Bennett at this point. And I'm thinking, You know, what I really want to watch is Roots. Seeing those members of the cast all together reminded me of how incredible and inspiring that was.

And Robert Duvall. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is he not quite with it? Can he still act? Certainly. But should probably not be permitted to speak on his own, because he sounds old and not clear and that is sad.

Yes, I watch the Emmys. As I had to point out to the cable guys three times, for some reason, yes, we watch a lot of TV in this house. Why I had to justify that to the cable people, I don't know, but one of the repairmen seemed to think we had an unnatural number of cable boxes in the house. Ah well, nice to know where all my money goes.

Now I see that after the current commercial, there's going to be a musical number featuring "the Jersey boys" and a tribute to The Sopranos. The Jersey Boys, you may not know, is a musical currently on Broadway that chronicles the rise and success of the 1960s singing group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, who were, obviously, from New Jersey. Which reminds me that it's about time for my periodic disclaimer about the Sopranos:

No. I don't know any mobsters. I am familiar with some of the locations used in The Sopranos, because they're all relatively close to where I live, but we are not all gangsters here, not even if you're of Italian descent, which is actually a big chunk of the population of northern New Jersey, and half of my husband and therefore one-quarter of my children, including, for all four of us, the Italian last name.

When each of my girls studied overseas, and people meeting them realized they were American, they would ask where in America they were from. When they answered "New Jersey", the response, almost uniformly, was "Like the Sopranos? Is your family like that?"

It was fiction, folks, set in New Jersey. Are their real people like that? Oh, I'm sure. They're just not quite as everywhere as the show made it seem. And for the record, the Hubs comes from artisans and teachers.

The Jersey Boys -- the cast of the musical -- are singing now. Man, I love that music. But I think performing in the round like they are is confusing them.

Yawning, finally! Am I tired enough to fall asleep? I'm certainly bored enough. Let's give it a try.

WATCHING THE EMMYS :: ENTRY #1582

Decisions, Decisions

You can call me crazy --although I would prefer quirky -- but I can't decide what bag I should use when I'm in DisneyWorld.

Understand: one of the great quests of my life has been for the perfect bag. Oh come on, you know I'm not alone in this. Anyway, I'm pretty much okay with my everyday bag at this point, and I even have the one perfect piece of luggage (or so I'd like to think) to take on the trip. The question is: what will I carry around each day as I go through the parks?

I have been to DW before, of course, and so I have addressed this issue before. I've done it well and I've done it badly. I think my favorite was when my sister and I drove down with the kids; I wore a kid "Hakuna Matata" plastic backpack every day in the parks. I'm not so comfy with the backpacks anymore, and I think I may have finally overcome my interest in displaying products that are more commonly seen on four-year-olds. (Although I will still keep my daily spending cash at DW in my Fort Wilderness Mickey Mouse plastic wallet. Some things are just tradition, you know.)

I'm looking for a smallish-to-medium size messenger bag. I probably have one in the house that I can't find, or K does. This one is taking a lot of willpower. I know I have two months to decide, or more precisely, according to my desktop widget, 51 days, 8 hours, and 9 minutes. Although I'll probably have to pack the night before, I would think, so I actually have 50 days to pick a bag. I'd better get on it.

I'm also looking for the perfect lunchbag, now that I've decided to a) start bringing my lunch again, and b) what to bring for lunch, which will be some sort of frozen low-calorie meal. My freezer is stocked, and I'll go to the Container Store after school tomorrow. I went to Target before -- it is Sunday, after all -- but they didn't have what I wanted, although it's on their website.

Very strange day today. Our cable started misbehaving last night, so I called them this morning, and after sending signals to the cable box, I set up an appointment for someone to come after school on Thursday. But the second I hung up, the guy called me back and said he could send someone today, but it would be any time between 10am and 8pm. Oh well, I didn't have anything planned anyway; the girls were going to an outlet mall and I just didn't have the patience for that. But the guy came around 2.30 and has allegedly fixed everything, so I went to Target after that.

It was very nice having this long weekend. I really could get used to this full-time.

WATCHING BEAUTY & THE GEEK MARATHON :: ENTRY #1581

Taking a Walk

So. I took my car for the new radio this morning, and while it was being done, I took a walk.

I am fairly certain that I did not recently write about one of my happiest childhood memories, although I was thinking about it recently. If I Peter Pan were to sprinkle fairy dust on me, this is the thought that would make me fly. If I were at Hogwarts, this is what would conjure me a Patronus.

I grew up on a street that was three blocks long; we lived near the end of the middle block. The first block rose up a little towards the highway that is one of the main roads through Bizarro Town. The bus from New York City uses this highway as its major route through town. When I was small, I was not permitted to go off of the second block, and certainly not up to the highway.

But if I knew that my grandparents were coming to visit, I roamed the limits of my block, looking hopefully up towards the highway. I knew that after they stepped down off the bus, they would appear at the crest of the street, at which point I would be free to run up to them, taking a package from one, perhaps, as I danced excitedly beside them while they walked wearily towards my house. They were always burdened with bags and packages and suitcases; it was Grandma Ida's way of life. My happy moment would be the instant I saw their recognizable figures come into view.

So the car audio place I went to was on the highway, where it intersects with the street of my childhood home. I put on my headphones, turned on my iPod, and turned right out of their parking lot, which put me at the crest of the hill, suddenly a player on the other side in my childhood memory.

I walked down the street, all the way down to the third block. Once I hit the second, though, I could look at each house and remember the people who lived there long ago. The names did not always come to me, but the faces did. My parents' best friends lived near the end of the third block; they had helped my parents find the house to buy. I spent a lot of time here.

At the end of the third block, I looked across the street and saw an empty lot -- still empty; there's a huge drainage ditch here -- where we played all the freaking time as we got older. I took a left, and came up the last two blocks of the street next to mine. I passed the house where my third grade teacher lived. I passed the house where I babysat when I was a teenager.

Before I came up the third block, though, I turned right, passed one house, and saw this before me:



So, they finally put a cut-through in the fence. I always just climbed over it.



Trees? Why would you put trees right in the middle of the playground? Hey, when I was a kid, this school was jammed; we would have run headlong into trees in the middle of the playground for sure. I guess the population's a little thinner now.



This is just a piss-poor imitation of the backstop I used to climb. For one thing, there's no actual ball field anymore; it's mostly overgrown, so I guess they're not expecting much ball playing here. The town leagues don't use this field to play on. And is it just me, or is the backstop a lot shorter than it used to be?



The building to the right is the new addition. It used to be one big open field, but now, this building breaks it up. There's still a little playground on the other side of it.



The two story building on the left is the original school, built in 1923. Not only did I go to elementary school here, the MIL is a graduate as well.



You're wondering what this is. It's the faint outline of a white dodgeball circle that's been painted over. I don't know that dodgeball has been banned here in Bizarro Town as it has in many other places, but I guess it's not encouraged. They used to paint these circles on the ground so that a class could come outside for recess or phys. ed. and have a specific place to play.

What makes this dodgeball circle special? In fact, it's the specific spot in the circle I was standing on to take the picture that rang the bell of my memory. This is the spot I was standing on when our fifth grade teacher told us that President Kennedy had been shot.

I moved on. I hit the Dunkin Donuts, and then went back to the car shop, where the guy had finished early (!) and my car was ready. Nice little radio, not too expensive. Too many buttons, though.

And I finally got the new car inspected this afternoon, the bastards. There was NO LINE, but it still took a half hour for a five minute inspection, because the line my car was on just stopped dead with no one working it for about twenty minutes. On the other lines, five people who came in after me left before I did.

It was an interesting day.

WATCHING DR. PHIL :: ENTRY #1580

Vacation Mode, Revisited

With no school today, I slipped right back into a summer vacation state of mind, and it was good. There was even the obligatory trip to a car mechanic, which was not good. But mostly it was a quiet day, with a side trip to Target, of course, and not much more.

Here in the Garden State, all cars must be inspected every other year -- used to be every year -- and there is a sticker on the windshield that indicates when, and if, the car has passed. K's car failed last month, I'm sure I have mentioned, for an allegedly loose headlight cover.

It's free to get your car inspected at a state-run inspection facilities, but these are the people who give public employees a bad name. They have power, and like to toy with people. If the inspectors are out of sorts, they find some reason to fail your car. Which is what happened, since the car passed two years ago when the headlight was in the same condition.

But you can take your car to a private facility, a garage with a state contract, and pay for your inspection. I chose this method rather than get back on the line and have those schmucks find something else wrong with it. Well, it was a good plan in theory.

My own mechanic can't be bothered with the state (smart man), so he doesn't do inspections. I found a station nearby that would, and called yesterday to make an appointment. The guy said to bring that car at noon, and it would take maybe an hour. I had explained that there was really nothing wrong with the car (as my own mechanic had already tightened the headlight.) So.

I took K's car over at noon, and asked when I should return. The guy says, he'll call sometime in the afternoon, when it's done. I said my daughter needed the car to go to class at 3.30, and he says, well, he doesn't know, it's noon now, and most of the guys have just gone to lunch, and there are other jobs ahead of me. WTF? Why did I call for an appointment? Why tell me noon if it's their lunch hour?

Anyway, I walked home, about a mile, which was the best part of the day. Beautiful day today. I don't seem to huff and puff as much anymore when I walk, and my feet don't hurt any more when I'm walking than they do at any other times. (When I wake up, the first thing I'm aware of is that my feet hurt.) But my hip hurts when I walk, my right hip. This, I'm sure, has something to do with the chiropractic stuff. Should I be continuing with that? I guess so, although there was no chance to go this week because he's closed for the Jewish holiday tomorrow. It was basically a good walk, though.

I'm taking my car in for the radio tomorrow at 10, which they say should take about a half hour. Uh huh. We'll just see about that. But there's a Dunkin Donuts across the street, and it's in a part of town that I'd really love to just walk around in, because it's the part of town where I grew up. I drive through it often enough, and sometimes even past my old house and elementary school, but it would be amusing to walk past the house, and around the school yard. Both are very different than they were when I was a kid. The house looks weird to me, but isn't it always like that? They've taken down the two big trees that were in the front, and replaced the windows, so it does look strange. It was actually a very nice house, for a split level:



The school yard has changed, of course, because they put a big honking addition onto the school building last year, just like they did to the high school. I would always go there when I was a kid and I wanted some alone time. Sometimes, I would climb up the back of the backstop and sit on top of it for awhile. Great view. I don't think there's even a baseball field there anymore, let alone a backstop.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1579

Erev Yontef

On the eve of the holiday (which is what today's title means, "the eve of the holiday"), the proper greeting, I believe, is Le shana tova tikatevu, which means, "May only good be written for you this year." Of course, I'm telling you all this as if I have ever actually observed this holiday in my life, which I have not. Rosh Hashonah, along with Yom Kippur, on its way a week from Saturday, are the big-time religious observances, and therefore, got little notice in the house where I grew up. Jack and Shirl did not do religion, and even Grandpa Sam (Shirl's orthodox father) knew this, and so spent this holiday elsewhere, where he could go to services at the shul (synagogue.) The only holidays we covered chez Jack and Shirl were Chanukah, the present-giving event that's around Christmas, and Passover, the wonderful family/tradition event that was always held at our house but presided over by Grandpa Sam.

So what am I doing tomorrow? Waking up without an alarm, getting K's car re-inspected, taking a nice walk or two, and either getting my new car radio put in or making an appointment to get it done on Friday.

I got home from the dreaded Back to School Night around 9.30, at which point I was wired. I hadn't eaten dinner because I was too keyed up, and I went back to school at 5.30 anyway. Why keyed up? A variety of reasons, none of which were school-related, but I knew I had a lot of work to do, so I skipped dinner and went back early. The evening was not unpleasant, although by 9.00 I could have eaten the furniture. I came home, had a frozen pizza, and finally fell asleep around 11.30, only to wake up at 1.30, and then ... you know. I finally fell back to sleep around 5.00. My alarm rings at 5.40.

In the last three days, I have printed approximately 300 school I.D. cards for various people, and done nothing else whatsoever, since I didn't have a minute to spare. So remember, kids, get your education! See what fascinating work you can do when you have multiple graduate degrees?

One of the parents who stopped into the library last night looked around at the books in awe and asked if it cost anything for the kids to be able to take them home. I was not rude to her, and actually did not feel the need to be, because she was clearly from some country where the concept of a free lending library does not exist. She was delighted to hear that no, her child can borrow our books just by being a student at our school. All the parents who dropped by were lovely. I was particularly touched by a couple who were clearly from India, and who looked around admiringly at the new furnishings, posters on the wall, and so on, and who stopped dead when they saw the big poster I put up of Gandhi. They were actually moved, and expressed their gratitude and delight. To me, it was no big deal; you may recall the fun I had last winter picking out posters. But I think to them, it meant that their child had a place in this American school, too.

I'm going to investigate dinner -- I think I'll have it tonight -- and then ... no idea.

WATCHING REBA :: ENTRY #1578

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

I am contemplating, without drawing a conclusion just yet, the way that people assign significance and meaning to things that otherwise do not intrinsically have any.

Most especially, I keep thinking about what we have done to the date "September 11th." It is only a date on the calendar, you know. September 11th doesn't know that it's different in any way from the 10th or the 12th. This is not to diminish in any way the significance of the event we associate with that day. I'm not talking about the event. I'm talking about a random name -- or in this case, date -- that happens to be associated with it.

In the faculty room last week, someone expressed surprise and ... disdain? that our Back to School Night had been scheduled for the 11th. I asked her what she would have us do: all sit home that night in contemplation? Shall we drop this date from our calendar, never allowing any event to take place on it? I asked her how she would feel if, one day, a grandchild should be born on September 11th. Wouldn't she be happy? Wouldn't she celebrate that date?

I dropped the conversation at that point, but I continue to think. Shall we tell all people with that birthday to mourn, and never feel happy on that day again? Surely, then, the terrorists have won. Anytime we succumb to changing who we are as Americans and human beings based on what they have done to us, then they win. That's what they were going for, after all. To make us weak and frightened, and to make us change who we are.

How many mothers today weep when they give birth on December 7th, that "date which will live in infamy"? How many of us stay home, scheduling no activities, lest we forget to mourn the lives lost at Pearl Harbor, and that attack on American soil? The answer, of course, is none. Pearl Harbor was a horrible disaster, and then we moved on. Not to do so would have conceded defeat.

Let us never forget what was done to us on this day, not just to America, but to the western world at large, including our allies abroad. But let us move on.

WATCHING BEAUTY AND THE GEEK :: ENTRY #1577

Is It Still Monday?

I guess I didn't write yesterday, and I don't know that I have that much to say today. I'm feeling kind of random, and also very anxious lately. That's just the way it is, nothing I can do about it.

I've been very busy at school, and I'm going to get busier starting tomorrow, and that's all good. I have Thursday and Friday off for Rosh Hashonah, and I've got cars to get inspected and stuff like that. If I can make a decision one way or another, I'm going to get a new radio in my car. The CD player in the current one is very erratic; it plays home-burned disks but not purchased ones, which I've never heard of before. The radio reception is iffy, and there's the iPod thing, which I mentioned last time.

I went to Best Buy after school to look at either an iPod adapter or a new radio, and I confirmed what I really already knew: never buy such a thing at Best Buy, because the salesman in the Mobile Audio/Video department is whichever ignorant high school kid was posted there at the moment, and there are few devices which fit this car. I knew the thing about the fit because, of course, I had a Tracker before, and it was hard to get a CD player put into it. After I left BB, I decided there had to be a car stereo shop here in Bizarro Town, and dang if I didn't find one up the street from where I grew up. The guy was very very nice and not a moron, and he has a good, inexpensive radio on special this week, including installation and the adapter that will make it fit my car. All I have to do now is decide if I want to spend even more money than I just spent to buy the car. Hey, if I buy a lottery ticket tomorrow, maybe I can win enough to cover the $200.

Other than already having every moment of the school day scheduled tomorrow, I have a nail appointment after school and Back to School night tomorrow night. I totally hate the BTS night, but maybe the library's less-than-intuitive location in the school will help us out there, and no one will even know that we're open.

Rosh Hashonah, by the by, for those not in the know, if also known as the "Jewish New Year." This is a two-day holiday, which, along with Yom Kippur -- "The Day of Atonement" -- which follows a week from Saturday, comprise the "High Holy Days," aka, the most sacred holidays for observant Jews. If you live in an area like this one, your schools will be closed for these holidays, because if they stayed open, they would be empty, and you would never find enough substitutes to cover for the absent teachers. I always thought this was because we're part of the New York metropolitan area, but for all I know, all schools in New Jersey are closed. No idea how far this reaches. And now I really am rambling.

Perhaps no entry tomorrow, due to all the ... you know.

WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1577

Turning Into a Strange Day

I would have to say that as of yesterday, I had no plans for today. I would go to the cleaners in the morning, and then maybe investigate the options of getting something installed in the car so I could play the iPod directly through the radio (not by transmitting it; that doesn't work well.) And get my laundry done.

Change #1: K has been having trouble with her cable box and made a service appointment for today between 11 and 2. She has a class from 8 to 12. So I was on the hook for at least part of that time.

Change #2: R was thinking of canceling plans to go to Long Island -- don't ask -- and I was going to go shopping with her in the afternoon for kitty things. Sounded good.

Change #3: The Sibs bought one of those flat TVs, but they can't get it connected to the DVD player. Would I come over and do that?

So let's see. I went to the cleaners, and while there got a call on my cell phone: R feels better, is going to Long Island, and K's class is already over (9.00) and she's on her way home.

Home. Went out on an errand but swore to return by 11 because K does not like to be alone in the house with service people. I asked what she did when she lived in the apartment in DC and she said she and her roommate were equally freaked by that, and were always there together when it came up.

!2.30. Still waiting for the cable guy. (I should put that on a tee shirt.) K is napping on the couch. I was napping in my chair until the phone rang, twenty minutes ago.

I do have to be here for the cable guy, because if he needs to get to the wire that comes from the utility pole to K's room, Houston, we have a problem. When they put the vinyl siding on the house six years ago, they buried the cable under it. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but I may have to give permission for them to run a new cable and punch a new hole in the house. We'll see.

When that's done, K and I are going to visit the grandcat, since she's otherwise alone all day and is just a baby. After that, it's off to the Sibs, where I hope I still know how to do that kind of thing.

I did find out that there are kits to add iPod capability to a car, because I quickly perused Best Buy when I was out this morning. They weren't expensive, either, but may not be compatible with my car. I'd like to go the BB closer to home and find out and make an installation appointment, but I think that is not to be today. They're closed tomorrow (it's Sunday, no open stores here), I have a faculty meeting Monday after school, and Tuesday after school a nail appointment and then Back to School Night. Wednesday, perhaps, although I wanted to get it done Thursday or Friday, when I have no school for the Jewish holiday.

Strange day. I have so much to do, and now I'm just sitting here, waiting for the cable guy, with some awful show on that K put on and fell asleep. My next move is for the remote.

P.S. People who want email need to send me their email addresses, if you know what I mean. Send it to oldewoman at gmail.com, 'kay?

WATCHING some awful show :: ENTRY #1576

I Walked to Work This Morning

Today was the last leg of the Great Summer Car Repair Marathon, and K's car was in the shop, but she had a doctor's appointment. So I walked the mile or so. It was fine; I was a little achy here and there, but not worn out or anything, as I usually am when I walk. I paced myself, I listened to George Harrison tunes, I was fine. Then I got to work and I looked in a mirror.

I swear I never knew my hair even could frizz up like that. Roseanne Roseannadanna, anyone?


Which was a shame, because my haircut looked very cute yesterday and very sucky today. I'll have to work on it some.

The thing about yesterday's entry is not that I don't get good bras, because I am a big supporter *ahem* of going to a good shop -- a corsetier, if you will -- and getting fitted. It's just that the straps slip and stretch over time, and I just never think to tighten them up. But I will now.

I didn't get to the pep rally today because I had a meeting, and then K picked me up right at the bell, so I don't know how my little freshmen did with their cheer. I'll ask someone on Monday. But a few people on the staff told me today that they were amused by my routine the other day. As it happens, I had completely forgotten that the faculty was standing in the back of the auditorium at the time. Heh oops.

And that's it. Have I only been back at work for a week? Not even, actually. It feels like I never left.

WATCHING LAWNORDER :: ENTRY #1575

I Feel Like a New Woman

Seriously, you've got to try this. But first:

I went to get a haircut after school, just a trim. Now, I wore today a variation on my normal daily uniform: jeans, a tee shirt, and a button-down shirt over that, long sleeves rolled up. (When it's cold, I'll wear a sweater instead of a button-down, but I digress.) Usually, I wear a dark-colored tee shirt for camouflage purposes, but I wore a solid black button-down today, so I wore a lovely textured white tee underneath. It's not like I was ever going to take the over-shirt off, anyway.

But I took it off to get my hair washed, and while my hair was cut. Before the stylist came over and put that drape-y thing over me, I was sitting for several minutes, looking at myself in the mirror in that white tee and all I could think was "I look like every old bat I've ever seen with her boobs down to her waist. Omigod. Why oh why can't boobs just stay in the proper boob-place your whole life? Is that too much to ask?" And then I was covered, thankfully, and put the button-down back on as soon as my hair was done.

What did I do when I got home? Okay, maybe this is just common sense, but I'll bet there are plenty of us -- okay, not you, Cosmic -- who just never think of doing this:

I shortened up my bra straps.

Well, yes, I couldn't get away with sleeveless because my bra is up to my armpits, but let me tell you, ladies: I looked in the mirror -- wearing the white tee -- and I look like I lost ten pounds, or maybe it's ten years. Okay, they're not where they were when I was 16 -- that ship has sailed, its rotted hulk resting on the bottom of the sea -- but maybe where they were when I was 40, so that's something, eh?

Listen, you gotta get your kicks wherever you can these days. Fred Thompson is running for president, and I'm not getting any out of that.

WATCHING LAWNORDER (as per Red Nose) :: ENTRY #1575

Moving Right Along

Meet the grandcat:



Okay, so work is work, which is why it's called work and not play, and that's about it. I did speak to the freshmen this morning, and I was very silly. There's going to be a pep rally on Friday, and there's a particular cheer that's done at every damn pep rally, which is called, oddly enough, the "Hey, Freshmen!" cheer. The first time it's done, the cheerleaders begin by facing the freshman class in the bleachers and cheering, in a prompting tone, "HEY FRESHMEN!" and the freshmen have no clue what to do. This is repeated a couple of times to a tune, at which point the cheerleaders turn to the sophomore class and cheer "HEY SOPHOMORES!" and every sophomore shouts back "SOPHOMORES!" and so on, until the senior class response brings down the house.

So this morning, when the principal said, "And now our librarian, Mrs. Chai, has a few things to tell you," I took the microphone and yelled into it "HEY FRESHMEN!" and of course they did nothing because they've never heard it before. At this point, I turned in mock horror to the student activities coordinator (who knew I was doig this) and said "Oh, Miss X -- they don't know! We have to show them what to do!" So I explained that when someone yells at them "HEY FRESHMEN!" they have to yell back "FRESHMEN!" as loud as they can, and I got them to do it a few times. Heh heh. I won't go to the pep rally on Friday, god forbid, but I'm sure I'll get a report back on how they did.

My hair is longer than it's been in many a year, and I've gotten at least a dozen compliments on it since yesterday. Of course, I'm getting it cut tomorrow, but not drastically; it's just time for a trim.

In the meantime, I've got my work calendar to put together tonight. I'm using what we call at school "the planner", which is a datebook/agenda thing that all the kids get each year. I've never done it this way before, but I'll give it a shot. I've never really found a computer calendar that fits the school day and year, and I'm not in the mood to fill in a year's worth of dates on an Excel sheet -- okay, it's 40 sheets in one workbook -- which is what I do every year.

K is off at her first night of classes, although she had to go in early this morning and cover a class for one of the professors she's assisting this semester. Hey, gotta do something to earn that money!

WATCHING ELLEN :: ENTRY #1574

And a Meme, Too

But first, the arrival yesterday of the grandcat. After waiting months and trying to decide when would be the best possible time to get herself a cat, yesterday morning R woke up, went to the shelter near her house, and came home with a cat. She's four months old, black and gray, and has been named Trillian. I'll post a picture when she comes out from under the bed long enough for someone to take one. She is very cute, and doesn't seem skittish or scared. It looks like she just really likes it under the bed. She'll adjust.

I slept weird again last night, doing the hot/cold thing all night long, and woke up at 5.45, 15 minutes before the alarm. School was, what can I say? It was school. I'll be starting my 32nd year in February. For the most part, things never change.

The only different thing this year seems to be that our custodial staff, all of whom are generally terrific, have somehow dropped the ball this summer. My library was a mess, and I know a lot of the classrooms were, too. Not that they were dirty. The problem was that they moved everything around to clean and didn't put anything back. They didn't move some other heavy things I had asked them in June to do. When I got in, the little sofa and the four armchairs were upside down on top of bookstacks. They came and moved them, but they wouldn't have unless I'd asked. That's just weird. And they also seem to have pulled all plugs out of outlets, for what reason I do not know, and now the computer at the circulation desk will not turn on.

I'm going to be very busy tomorrow.

---

And now, a meme. I got it from The Cranky One, but I think I saw it at Rednose as well.

1) How old do you wish you were?

I used to say that my "identity age," the age I feel myself to be, was 19. I had a good year at 19. But right now? I'm going to go with 58. I think I'll be able to retire that year.

2) Where were you when 9/11 happened?

I was in school, in the library, with a class. Our secretary's son called her on the phone from North Carolina and told us to turn on the library TV because a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and I turned it on. We saw the second plane hit and both towers go down. Meanwhile, kids in our school had parents working in those buildings.

3) What do you do when vending machines steal your money?

Hasn't happened to me in so long that I don't remember. Smack it? Kick it?

4) Do you consider yourself kind?

Yes.

5) If you HAD to get a tattoo, where would it be?

You mean a third one? If I knew that, I'd have it already. I have two small ones, each about the size of a quarter. One inside my left wrist where I can see it all the time, and one inside on my right ankle.

6) If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be?

Two languages. I'm sorry I didn't learn to speak Yiddish when I had the chance as a child, but at that point, they were all trying to make each next generation more American. (And I was obnoxious to them when they spoke Yiddish to each other, so no one was rushing to teach it to me.) And French. I love French and the way it sounds. It was one of my best subjects in school.

7) Do you know your neighbors?

Eh ... not so much. The ones on the left are very, very nice and we say hello, but they speak very little English. On the right, they do not acknowledge us, although the husband came over to me once in the driveway out of the blue, never spoke to me before, and asked if we were out of power in our house. He seemed nice. People across the street -- can't get a fix on them.

8) What do you consider a vacation/holiday?

There's a vacation and there's a trip. A vacation to me just means not having to go to work, taking things easy and at my own pace. A trip is going somewhere special, not always relaxing. If I'm going on a trip, I want it to be DisneyWorld. I come home and need a vacation.

9) Do you follow your horoscope?

I have never bought into that stuff for five minutes.

10) Are you touchy feely?

Hmm, good question. I think I am, but I'm surrounded by people who aren't, which makes it hard. You can't be just the one touchy-feely person in the room.

11) Do you believe that opposites attract?

Yes. And so do non-opposites. Attraction has many facets and causes.

12) Dream job?

Can't imagine at this point. Something where there is NO politics involved and everybody is happy. I should be selling cotton candy on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom.

13) Favorite channel(s)?

I watch a lot of Lifetime and the History Channel, but the TV is on here all the time, so I catch a lot of them here and there. I'll go wherever Law and Order and L & O: SVU are.

15) Favorite place to go on weekends?

Target.

16) Showers or Baths?

I was very happy when I outgrew the need to take baths and could start taking showers. I will only actually sit in a tub once every five years or so. It does not generally appeal to me. It's boring.

17) Do you paint your nails?

No actual paint involved, but I get my nails done every other week, and my toes -- okay, polish there -- every three weeks. I get a gel manicure, which is the only thing I've ever found that keeps my nails strong so they don't bend and chip and break. It looks like a French manicure.

18) Do you trust people easily?

I generally do. Not that this is a good thing.

19) What are your phobias?

Snakes, of course, is the big one. But I have an unnatural fear that every time a family member strays from home, it will end in a phone call from the state troopers. Gotta work on that one.

20) Do you want kids?

Only the two I have, thanks.

21) Do you keep a handwritten journal?

Heavens no. Writing by hand for any length of time cramps up my hand and makes it useless. When I was a kid, I would write books, and do them all by hand in composition books or on legal pads.

22) Where would you rather be right now?

Asleep.

24) Heavy or light sleeper?

Very light sleeper. If the person in bed next to me -- that would be the Hubs -- moves, I wake up.

25) Are you paranoid?

See question 19. I'm as nutty as a fruitcake.

26) Are you impatient?

Sometimes, but mostly no. But very much so when I'm waiting for someone to come home and I think they're late.

27) Who can you relate to?

A lot of people whose diaries I read. Shy kids I see in classes at school.

28) What's your main ringtone on your cell?

My cell phone ring sounds like a normal telephone ring, like a phone in your house would sound.

29) What were you doing at midnight last night?

Sleeping.

30) What did the last text on your mobile phone say?

No idea when I last got a text message. It's not something I do well.

31) Name 3 things you have on you at all times.

When I leave the house, I presume. Wallet, keys, cellphone. And hearing aids and glasses, of course.

32) How much money do you have on you?

I'm in my pajamas at the moment, so, none. In my wallet, enough for lunch tomorrow.

33) What is your favorite part of the chicken?

Dark meat.

34) What's your favorite town/city?

Very tough one. I can't think of anyplace that I've thought "I really want to live here!" Visiting? I don't know. I liked Cardiff, Wales a lot.

35) Who got you to start an online journal?

It's a long story that I wrote about right after I started, but it was when I found a diary kept by a girl in my school.

36) What did you have for dinner last night?

I had this amazing Chilean Sea Bass, left over from dinner with the ILs the night before.

37) How tall are you barefoot?

About 5' 2", plus a skoosh more. I'm losing the skoosh.

38) What do you prefer to drink in the morning?

Decaf, black, with two Sweet'n'low.

39) Do you have A.D.D.?

I think it's one of the few things I can safely say I don't have. But I'm leaning towards OCD; does that count for anything?

40) Favorite place to be?

Other than DisneyWorld, at home, in the family room.

41) Where would you like to travel?

I've been to England and Wales twice; I'd like to see Scotland and Ireland. Maybe Disneyland Paris. And much more than the tiny bits of Canada I've seen. If they weren't so far away (as in, too much time in a plane), Australia and New Zealand. Anyone see a pattern here?

42) Where do you think you'll be in 10 yrs?

Retired, god willing, and being a grandma would be nice.

43) What songs do you sing in the shower?

I don't think I do that anymore. I'll listen tomorrow morning and let you know.

44) Worst injury you've ever had.

Probably the time I fell and the Bible man picked me up. I didn't break a bone, but I had a bruise from my knee to my hip, and I was on crutches for a couple of weeks.

45) What is your favorite candy?

Smarties.

46) What song is stuck in your head?

Nothing at the moment. I' was very immersed in iTunes for the last couple of days, cleaning it up and tweaking it here and there, and I feel like I'm drowning in all the music I have. Oh, okay. "I've Got My Mind Set on You" by George Harrison.

WATCHING REBA :: ENTRY #1574

Still Not Dead

My weekend started to go downhill Saturday at 9.00 pm.

Let me back track a bit. Around 6.00, I got involved in this crazy iTunes project. K was engrossed in her computer and I asked her what she doing. She said she was going through her music and making sure that every song had an album title listed for it. Well, that sounded like something to do to me, so I started working on mine. Since a lot of my music is the stuff I heard on the radio in the early sixties, many of them were released as singles but never on albums. I must have gotten them from compilation albums. Anyway, it took me a long time.

At 9.00, I reached for my night-time pills, which I take at 9.00 every night. I have two of those pill containers that have a little compartment for each day, and that you fill at the beginning of the week. Because I am that old. The morning pills are in a green container and the night-time pills are in a white. And Saturday night, I reached somehow for the green container and took my morning pills for the second time that day instead of the white container that I should have taken.

And now the fun began. Instead of taking my night pills on top of everything, I carefully selected which ones I needed that wouldn't duplicate or interact with the ones I just took by mistake. The upshot was that I had taken my blood pressure meds twice in one day, and did not take the stuff that usually helps me sleep at night.

It was one of the worst night's sleep I ever had, if you can call that sleep. I was awake a lot, and when I slept, I had nightmares. I would wake myself up; at one point I was afraid to go back to sleep. When I finally did fall asleep, the nightmare continued from where it left off.

It was as if everything and everyone I had seen or thought of in the last week was in these dreams. The only good part was that my mother was in an early part, before it turned scary, and my father was in the last part, after it was okay. I like seeing them in my dreams. But otherwise, it was very creepy, and I was groggy and out of it all day.

But it was Birthday Fucking Sunday yesterday! Time to drive down the Parkway and have a day that I can never get back. Here's how that went down:

We were scheduled to meet the ILs at a restaurant near them that we've been going to (because it's too hard for her to cook and serve anymore). We hopped into my new car and off we went. I hoped to sleep in the car, but I just couldn't fall asleep.

I have become THE WORLD'S WORST PASSENGER. I think this is a combination of my natural tendencies, which I've always been able to keep in check, the few accidents I had two years ago where I was hit three times in three months, and yesterday's lack of sleep and bad dreams, which left me very on edge all day. Anyway, I was really trying to control it, but I guess I didn't do very well. You know how it is when you're driving, and you're passenger keeps wincing, or grabbing for the armrest, or stepping on an imaginary brake? Yeah, that was me yesterday. If I had been driving, I would have reached over and smacked me in the head.

And my stomach was upset, so by the time we arrived, I was a nervous wreck with a serious bathroom need. The restaurant was empty at that hour, but the music was very loud. It's an Italian restaurant which was very creatively playing Frank Sinatra, and then Tony Bennett all day. The music was lovely, but it was all that I could hear.

I was eating carefully, given my situation. What I got was Chilean Sea Bass, and although I can't tell you exactly how it was prepared -- it seemed to be in a Française sauce, which I love -- it was among the best meals I've ever had in my life. This was melt-in-your-mouth unbelievably delicious, and I even had the self-control not to stuff myself with the whole thing, but to bring half home.

After dinner, we went to the ILs house, about 15 minutes away. I have to tell you: if I ever become that slow, they have to put me away. I don't mean mentally slow, because they're both fine. They do everything slowly. The FIL has been this way for some time; it's his nature to be laid back. But this is insane. And they never have any sense of all the rest of us needing to make a long drive home, and would keep us there for hours and hours and hours, just to visit. (The SIL's family has to drive at least a half hour farther than we do, more when they pick up or drop off their son, whose college is a half-hour away from the ILs, but not on the way.)

Part of the ritual at the house is the giving of the birthday gifts. This is something else that she can stop doing. It's hard for her -- she has bad knees -- and she gets weird things. It would be better for her to go to the supermarket and get us each gift cards, if she felt the need to give something. And if there were no gifts, we would be just as happy.

The Hubs, his sister, and her Hubs all have September birthdays, and I have given the MIL permission to celebrate my birthday in September, too. She gave the Hubs a Civil War book, but it's like a Civil War encyclopedia for a high school level. He could write that. She gave me a lovely -- I guess -- necklace from Chico's, which is very sweet of her because now she knows it's my store, but it's not something I would wear. R's eyes lit up though, when I opened the box, so I gave it to her when we got home.

We finally left at 7.30. Who were all these people who were sure that there would be no traffic because it was only the Sunday of Labor Day weekend? I was not one of them. But get this: R drove home, and K sat in the front with her. THIS WAS THE BEST. I am a much better passenger in the back seat because I can't see what's going on out the front, and it was a very pleasant ride, despite the traffic. R doesn't get freaked by traffic like the Hubs does, although with his new personality, maybe he won't, either.

We got home at 9.00, I took the right pills, and got back to iTunes. I had finished the album-name project the night before, and was now making sure that all the songs on the same album show up that way. I don't know why they don't, so that there are two identical album names and cover art, but each one has half the songs on it, but it's fixable if you have the time and the mental problem. So I'm most of the way through that, and then I'll see if I can locate the missing album art for those that need it. (I have a desktop widget that does that.)

And here's something I don't get to say often: I SLEPT WELL LAST NIGHT. Wow, is this what it feels like? I woke up alert and not groggy, and not sore or achy anywhere. Most days I get out of bed like a little old person shuffling along, and everything hurts, from the soles of my feet on up. I've only been up for an hour, but so far, pretty good.

I need to go grocery shopping today and otherwise get ready to *cry* go back to work tomorrow. Tomorrow is a day of stupid meetings, and there is a keynote speaker. They never get it. Nobody wants to hear a keynote speaker on our first day back to work. We want to get to our rooms and get started. If there's time tomorrow, I will speak to the staff for a few moments; I'm on the agenda, but last year, the principal canceled all the high-school only remarks because the damn speaker took so long at the district meeting. At least this time, I've met with the principal and I'm clear on what to say, and I'm prepared if the meeting is canceled. On Wednesday morning, I will speak for a few minutes to the freshmen at their orientation assembly. I expect to be very busy for the next month or two, at least. Busy is good.

And maybe a Target run today, as I have something to return and there was something in the flyer I wanted to look at, although I don't remember what it was.

Okay, I'm diving back into iTunes for a little bit, and then all the rest of my tasks. Hope your long weekend is a good one.

WATCHING THE TODAY SHOW :: ENTRY #1573

Not Dead Yet

Just really really really tired. I'll write a real entry tomorrow, when I get the iTunes monkey off my back.

WATCHING SNL SPECIAL :: ENTRY #1572