Done!

School's out for summer! (Which were the exact words the principal used to dismiss us from the final faculty meeting. Oh yeah, and the words from an Alice Cooper song, of course.) He let us out by 11:30 this morning. Very nice.

Which caused me to learn that I do actually have the energy in the middle of the day to do other things, as opposed to coming home from work and collapsing. I got all my laundry done and put away, so I can start the summer with a clean slate. I tidied up my car and the living room. I decided to cook myself some dinner.

I know! Me!

Well, I've been thinking about how I was going to eat intelligently this summer, which I do intend to do, without going on any kind of actual plan, because I never want to get caught up in obsessing over food again. It turns out I did eat well today, so far only about 1000 calories (which means I can finish the Coffee Toffee Frosty in the freezer; I'm not a fanatic.) Anyway, I went to the produce market in town, which also has a fabulous fresh fish counter, and made some tilapia with veggies on it in a parchment paper packet in the microwave. I could have that every night, but I think they say you shouldn't have fish more than three times a week because of the mercury and stuff.

I could even do some Wii yoga tonight, but I'll be horrified enough when I step on it tomorrow and see my weight in the morning, I don't need to see my after-dinner weight. Perhaps a bit of bowling or golf might be a good toe-in-the-water to see how my shoulders and elbows take it.

Massage in the morning, and then I need to pick out my first book of the summer. I have ... counting ... about 15 books on the piano bench, and a few more ebooks, and one coming from my sister. I know I won't read them all, but I like knowing that I'll get to a lot of them. Some are YA novels, which I'll either love, or toss aside after the first few pages, and three big books are the Mary Stewart Merlin/Arthur trilogy, which I read many years ago and loved, and I'd like to try to re-read.

I'm going to go sort out the dry cleaning to see what I need to take in tomorrow. Whatever I get cleaned (shirts, for me) will just sit in the closet, ready for September, because I like to wear only denim shirts in the summer (I have six or seven) over a tank top. And jeans. Voila, my summer wardrobe is complete.

More tomorrow from the exercise front.



watching THE GOLDEN GIRLS :: ENTRY #2074
READING: ----- by -----

Wearing the Uniform

Rather than relate today's medical saga, I'm going to tell you a story that involves a bit of family history and what seems to be a family quirk. Let's begin.

These two people are my great-grandparents, my father's father's parents.



A couple of lookers, eh? Here's the thing: Rasel was Shlaime Baer's second wife, so he had I don't know how many children altogether, five of them with her. It seems she carried some intense DNA along from her own parents, because for a couple of generations, Rasel's siblings' female progeny, all looked like this:



Clearly, I'm talking about the large-jawed women in the back, not the pretty woman seated on the ground with the child. (She comes into the story later.)

The men, on the other hand, were all good looking, and not the same; for example, my grandfather Louie when he was about 19:



And my father Jack when he was about the same age:



At this point, you can almost see more of Jack's mother in him, the pretty lady in the other picture, above. Anyway, the weird thing is that the men in the family all aged into virtually the same face. This isn't a great picture, but here's Louie old:



And Jack:



(That's Wonderful Niece with him, btw, about ten years ago.) When I was a kid, I saw others of my grandfather's cousins who had virtually the same face as my father. (My grandfather was gone by this time, but I had seen many pictures.) Which was weird.

Okay. So, last week K and I went for lunch one day to a nearby IHOP and we sat in the booth and I could see that she was staring at someone who was sitting across from us but who was just a bit out of my range of vision. I leaned over and she whispered "There's a man there who looks just like Grandpa, but not as good looking." I casually turned and there he was, an elderly heavy set man with my father's hair and bushy eyebrows and the face shape so characteristic of Rasel's family. What he lacked were the distinctive clear blue eyes that they all had. He was close, maybe close enough to be a distant cousin, but not quite Jack.

Katie whispered again: "He's even wearing the uniform."

Ahh. The uniform.

As my father got older, he wore virtually the same thing every day. Now, I don't mean he wore literally the same clothes, because he was something of a hygiene freak, but like Monk, if you opened his closet, you would see multiple copies of the same thing hanging there. He wore black pants. He wore white button-down shirts, short-sleeved. (Unless it was a holiday or he was going out somewhere, in which case he wore a blue shirt, like in the picture above, or for extremely dressy occasions, a blue collared golf-type shirt, which looked like a tent.) I'm guessing he wore the uniform because he found clothes to wear that he was comfortable in, so he acquired multiples so he could wear it every day. The grandchildren, apparently, thought this was part of his quirky charm. Except ... uh ...

I do that too, as I've mentioned before, but I never thought of it this way until K said that the man in the restaurant was wearing Grandpa's uniform. K did mention earlier in the summer that perhaps I might want to ... vary my wardrobe a bit. The truth is, I don't. Maybe I will some day, but for now, I'm very happy. I wear jeans every day. I wear a t-shirt, preferably v-necked, or in the summer, a Land's End cotton tank top. Over that I wear a long-sleeved button down shirt, sleeves rolled up. In the summer, I wear a denim shirt, of which I have several. During the school year I dress up a bit and wear a plaid shirt, or stripes, or a nice solid, maybe even in pink. When I dress up, I wear a Chico's micro-suede shirt, and I don't roll up the sleeves. And furthermore ...

My sister does it, too, wears a uniform, although hers is different. She wears cotton-knit shorts, year round, often with a print cotton top and a denim shirt over that. She wears Birkenstocks. She carries a huge purse. I prefer to carry no purse, and put everything I need in my jeans pockets.

So I ask you, is there anything wrong with picking a uniform and sticking to it? I have my reasons, most of which involve my weight and various other body issues; my father probably wore what he wore because of his weight, too, I'd guess. I could pass on worse traits to my children, no? At least I don't have that giant jaw thing to hand over to them.


WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1812
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

No Wire Hangers!

I've gotten in touch with my inner Joan Crawford today. No, the kids are fine. But I purged my closet of all wire hangers, which I have always felt were the tools of Satan anyway, but you know, you get stuff back from the cleaners and don't wear them right away, you've got wire hangers in your closet. No more! My closet is very neat now. It's still too small, but it's neat, and my shirts are hanging in groups -- wool, denim, striped, plaid, solids -- and my sweatshirts are also categorized: hoodies, zipped hoodies, pullovers -- so I can find what I'm looking for. (Yes. There is a purpose besides OCD. I found stuff I totally forgot I had because I couldn't see it was there. I swear.)

I also found about a half dozen pair of slacks. I said this to my daughters, who said "Slacks? Who says slacks? That's an old lady word." I reminded them that I am, indeed, and old lady and they let it go, not before asking me if was also going to tell them that "their outfits looked sharp." Uh ... something wrong with that? Not seeing it here. (And anyway, why on earth do I even own slacks? All I ever wear is jeans.)

I also got two pair of new jeans to try at The Gap, same jeans in different sizes. I am pleased to report that the larger size was the wrong one, but I still haven't decided if the cut of these jeans is good for me. I'll try on for the jeans maven when she finishes dinner. (She worked at The Gap, I remind you, and knows what to look for when people are trying on jeans, and also how to not make them feel like crap no matter what they look like.)

Between the two of us and closet cleaning, we also have five big bags of clothes to donate. Now, this is something I have always done because it would just be ridiculous to throw out clothes that someone else can use. I saw something on TV years ago about which charities to donate clothes to and which ones to avoid. Basically, if you give clothes to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, or Vietnam Veterans of America, the clothes will be sold to used clothing stores (or sold in their own second hand stores), so poor people will have the chance to buy good clothes and those charities will make money for their other projects. If you give to the Red Cross, the clothes go directly to people in disaster areas. However, if you give to other random donation boxes -- DARE, for example -- the clothes are sold for rags, and cut into pieces and recycled into other stuff around the world. So I avoid those boxes. If I have clothes that I can't wear but that are in good shape, I want someone else to be able to use them.

Anyway, there is also a tax benefit to this, which I never cared about much because I was giving the clothes away anyway, so I estimated their value at tax time. Now my accountant says I have to keep a record, so I looked up the value of the stuff we were donating this time, and damn, it's about twice as much as I would have estimated. I'm sure this would never have made even a five dollar difference on my actual taxes, but really, who knew?

Once again, I have messed up my dinner time, not realizing what time it was, and had a big snack -- leftover boneless spare-ribs from last night -- at five, so now I have no interest in any other real food. (Which would be leftover sweet and sour shrimp.) I guess I'll have that tomorrow. The girls and I went to The Cheesecake Factory at the mall for lunch today, so, aw, poor me, I'll just have to have my Dulce de Leche cheesecake in an hour or so. That's what I like, go right from the appetizer to dessert, and skip that whole pesky main course thing.

More John Adams tonight. Is it just me, or did he just turn into a schmuck as he got older? (It's not me. I've read the book; it was him.) It makes for a less entertaining TV show is all. But I've already invested in the first five hours; I can't pass on the last two.

WATCHING YOU'VE GOT MAIL :: ENTRY #1726

The Weather Outside

while not exactly frightful, is far from delightful. It snowed all morning, then stopped, then maybe it rained some ... ick. I don't think the Hubs ever got to shovel because it was never that deep, but he went and swept before. Me? I haven't been out of the house all day, never even put on a real pair of pants, just jammies.

My mission for today was my closet. Yes, I did this not that long ago, but not with the epiphany I had the other day, which was "Hey, you know what? A lot of the stuff in that closet does not fit." Oy. I'm at yet another crossroads regarding weight, which is that yes, I know I need to lose some -- can't wait to hear what the doctor says on Wednesday -- but that will take some time, and until then, the sweaters and such that I've been wearing for the last few years are just too tight.

Epiphany #1: Take those clothes that don't fit out of the closet, which is so jam-packed that I can't even see what's in there that maybe does fit.

Epiphany #2: I need a few new things that do fit. But damn, I'm already wearing extra-large. Where do I go from here?

Epiphany #2.1: They make sizes bigger than Xl, moron.
Ephipany #2.2: What is marked XL in Target is not necessarily what would be XL anywhere else.

So, armed with my new found knowledge, I did go to Target the other night and got a couple of things (XXL and Women's whatever that first size is), and then I went to the Lands End department at Sears yesterday, where, behold, an XL actually is extra-large, and fits. I even found a new winter jacket there that didn't pull across my chest and I could wear a sweater under.

And today, I pulled out everything that I can't wear anymore. Most of it I just put away, because I could, realistically, lose 15 pounds sometime between here and death, so I could use it again. Some things K took, and the rest, I'll donate somewhere. (Actually, a club at school is having a coat and sweater drive, so I need to gather everything up and then just bring it in.) I had room to put the new stuff away, and I did indeed find a few things that I didn't remember putting there at the end of last winter.

Otherwise, I watched the Law and Order marathon, did a bunch of crossword puzzles, and took a nice nap. So, all in all, a pretty good day.


WATCHING LAW AND ORDER :: ENTRY #1638

Merry Rat Schism!

[copied from dland]

Boxx wanted to see pictures of my holiday sweaters.

Blue:

Green:

I wore the blue one, because I was also wearing jeans (of course) and I wore the blue crocs, too. Should we all be more dressed up? I have no idea. Since it's usually just the ten of us at the ILs' house, jeans are pretty standard. (Except for the high school years, when the niece, according to her mother, did not own a pair of jeans. She also apparently owned only capri-length pants, which is what she wore year round. But no jeans.)

Later. Next day, actually. I mean, today.

So we headed down the Parkway around two, and got to the ILs around 3:30, no traffic whatsoever. The SIL and her brood were already there, which is maybe the second time they have arrived before us in 30 years. The MIL served the antipasto, everyone dug in, and gifts were opened.

The gifts were all fun, some particularly good, but the MIL apologized and said she was having an off year. Which she was, because just when she was ready to get her shopping started, all this mess with the FIL's back started up and she was making daily trips to the emergency room rather than the malls. Anyway, she had gotten me a Chico's gift card before all the hoohah started, and everybody else got a check. She got one DVD for each kid, then gave them money, and all their stocking stuff. The SIL gave R, along with money, a copy of The Joy of Cooking, which the kid did not put down all evening.

(A note on the FIL's health, since I've mentioned it before. His last injection for pain worked, and it's not a steroid injection, which means he can just go back for one every six to eight weeks for the rest of his life and be pain-free. Score for him. His mobility is still very limited though, and he's finally agreed that he needs one of those scooter things you see advertised on TV all the time, so he's got the prescription and he's getting one of those. The only sad thing I noticed was that he seems so much shorter, what with the back trouble and the difficulty in standing up straight; he seemed no more than 5'8" maybe, and he's always been 6'2". But no pain is the most important thing.)

There was way too much time between gifts and going out, so we pretty much just sat around, and left the house at six. The MIL rode with us, and the BIL drove his crew and the FIL in the FILs' car, which is the only one big enough for him to get into. The restaurant is in a strip-mall of restaurants, but is very nice inside and has absolutely excellent food. (An Italian restaurant.) All was well and nice; they had set us up at a round table, so we could all see and hear everyone. Even my usually-silent nephew spoke some; maybe he's finally growing up. We all have leftovers for today, which impacts on our own holiday meal schedule, but more on that later.

Then we went back to the house for some few desserts, although we'd had coffee in the restaurant. The MIL has many holiday decorations and trinkets all over; the Hubs' favorite is this alphabet-block thing that spells out "Merry Christmas" and has a Santa sitting on it, but every year, he spends heaven knows how much time re-arranging the blocks to say stupid things. Last night, K got into the act, and in a few minutes, topped her father's all-time best:

(That's the MIL on the side.)

We got home about eleven, also without traffic, and now we're in to spend the holidays with -- horrors! -- just us. I woke up with a colossal headache, probably from drinking nearly a whole glass of wine with dinner, which is more wine than I've had in years, so I'm getting a late start. The girls have even offered to go to the supermarket on their own, and I'm thinking of taking them up on it. Looks like we'll have our more-or-less traditional meal tonight (shrimp cocktail, orange salad, something else, I don't remember) but we'll skip the pasta, since the Hubs and K still have huge portions of last night's pasta left over, which they'll probably have for lunch. (I have sea bass leftover, but R polished off her filet mignon.) Somebody needs to make sure that the Chinese food place is open tomorrow, in which case, that'll be dinner. So I'm not cooking as much as I thought, although I will make some pumpkin pies later.

We were saying on the ride home last night that we should have wine with dinner tonight, and nobody could even remember where are wine glasses are. I did find them this morning, but the Hubs also found a bottle of cognac that someone gave him once, and I don't know if I can come up with glasses for that; I got some as a wedding present, but they've never been used, just toted around from place to place, no takers in any garage sale ever, and still someplace in a box in the basement. Maybe I'll look later. As for the wine and stuff, we always have bottles of one thing or another around, even though we rarely drink in the house, because the Hubs gets them as gifts every Christmas. He says he opens one bottle a year and uses it in his cooking from time to time. Anyway, I believe I agreed to drink red tonight, so we don't have to open two different bottles for just the four of us, and I'm guessing I haven't had red wine in 25 years. So tomorrow's headache ought to be a doozy. (I had a nice, very dry Frascati last night with dinner, and I know shit about wine, but it was most enjoyable. The drier the wine, the better I like it.)

So here it is, 10:30, and so far, what I've accomplished today is that I brushed my teeth, had a cup of coffee, and read Parade magazine. And read diaries and typed this, of course. I should probably go put on a bra, and then check the basement for those glasses. Or something.

Merry Rat Schism, everyone!


WATCHING BULL AND TED :: ENTRY #1330