It's Been Quite a Week

Friday at last. And I didn't even go in to work today. I shall recap.

After Monday's extravaganza of retirement letters, the rest of the week really was consumed, for me, by becoming the world's foremost authority on how to retire from teaching in the state of New Jersey. I pored over all the instructions, managed to get through on the phone once or twice, worked my way through the website a couple of times and got caught in website traffic for hours a couple of times, too. Bottom line: I submitted my application to the pension system online Thursday morning, so I'm all done for now. I explained how to apply online to two others, and I took two more through the basic steps and gave them paper applications to fill out over the weekend, which I'll fax in for them Monday morning.

Whew.

Thank god I had some nice classes to teach on Wednesday -- juniors, I love juniors -- to break it all up. I really wanted to work up a book order this week, but I never got to it, and brought my journals home to get it done over the weekend. I have a real sense of time running out, and wanting to get certain projects done before it does. In school, I hope this includes training my replacement, but I don't really know what's going on with that. Out of school, it means trying to fit in doctors' appointments before my health insurance changes July 1 (but I don't expect to have the new cards and stuff until August.) I can't even count how many of these are coming up, but they include a colonoscopy, a six-month ultrasound at the mammogram place, the dentist, and meeting my new internist.

Today I met the endocrinologist. I'm not looking for a lifetime relationship with him -- although it may turn out that way -- but he seemed all right. My biggest fear was that he was going to send me to the hospital to get my thyroid biopsied, but Oh No! he did it himself right there in his office. Well, I'm good with nearly every medical procedure unless it involves putting a needle into my body and leaving it there, and on my neck? Oy. But it's over, and it looks like I've been bitten by a gap-toothed vampire. (That was actually the doctor's description, so I guess he's okay.) I can expect to be bruised by tomorrow, so Sunday at my in-laws for the FIL's birthday (82) should go something like this:

FIL: (slowly) What happened to your neck?

Me: Oh, nothing, I had to have some tests at the doctor's.

FIL: (clearing his throat, looking at me, pausing, and then slowly) What?

MIL: (shouting) Tom, for god's sake, she had some tests at the doctor's!

Question: Who among us is losing the most patience with the ever-slowing-down and losing-more-hearing-every-day FIL? I guess that would be the one who lives with him, which makes perfect sense. (He's not so much losing his faculties as he is his hearing and his speed. He was always laid back. Now he just talks and moves at a snail's pace.)

I did some shopping pre-doctor today, and got a nice outfit I can wear to the school end of the year dinner and to a wedding the Hubs and I are going to in June. WITH A SKIRT! And I went to Old Navy to return some stuff, and I bought ... ANOTHER SKIRT! But I'm not wearing them yet, because .... if TMI is problem for you, stop here.

I've decided that I don't want to shave my legs anymore. There's not much left anyway, but I just can't shave it smooth. So I am going next week to have my legs waxed, which I have never done. And with any luck, will have done once more, just before the wedding, and then, never worry about it again.

The good news is, I seem to have gotten my body hair gene from my mother's side and not my father's. (Lots of electrolysis for his sisters, I was once told on the q.t.) The story from my mother's side, which I have told before but not in a long time, is this:

When I was about 12, my grandparents were living in Florida, and Grandma flew up for a visit. I had gotten a sleeveless dress, although I never liked to wear sleeveless, and had been permitted to shave under my arms for the first time for the occasion. (Of the dress, not the Grandma.) On the way home from the airport, I was in the back seat with her, and suddenly she grabbed my arm and pulled it up and looked curiously at my armpit.

"Did you shave there?" she whispered.

I nodded and grinned, proud to be a grown up at last.

She whispered back to me with a shake of her head, "I shaved there once. And it never grew back!"

Uh ... good? Well, it seems that she and her sisters and others of their immigrant generation did not so much do that. Grandma and her sisters were blonde, so it must not have mattered much to them, I don't know about anyone else. But Grandma had never shaved under her arms ever, until there was a family event -- a bar mitzvah, I think -- in the early sixties, and Grandma bought a sleeveless dress, and my mother flat-out refused to pick her up and take her unless she shaved under her arms. Grandma would have been near 70 then, so combine that with the no-hair gene, and the blonde, and yes, it never grew back. I could never understand why that was a problem for her, but okay. It should only happen to me.

Bottom line, no skirt until my legs are waxed, since I'm forbidden to shave them for several weeks before hand. Now you know my shame.