VaCaDay 3

John Adams is dead, finally. (And Thomas Jefferson survives. No, wait ...) It was a good mini-series, but it seemed never-ending, which I suppose has something to do with Adams living into his nineties and being a relatively unpleasant person throughout. (The phrase used to describe him repeatedly in the movie 1776 is "obnoxious and disliked.")

I think I have not slept well the nights I watched those episodes, for some reason, and last night, after all the tearful moments of everyone dying here and there, I just tossed and turned for hours. So I'm very tired today. But it was a good day.

I went to Kohl's twice, even though I tried on what I bought in the store, I realized at home that one pair of cropped jeans were okay, but the other fit me really well. So I took back the okay and got another really well in a different color denim. In between, I took stuff to recycling, dropped off my tattoo design so they can prepare it for Thursday, bought lottery tickets, and listened to more Harry Potter in the car. I'm also eating a lot of jelly beans. If I have them in the house, I will eat them. And I have them. But I'm closing the jar now.

I thought I would try one of my exercise videos this morning as soon as I got up, but you know, that early morning exercise thing is a part of my past. I got up mentally prepared to do it, and as I limped into the bathroom on the hip that aches for the first hour or so that I'm up every day, I said to myself "Who are you kidding? You're lucky you can walk at all early in the morning." So. But I did do arm exercises with weights last night, and I'll do that again tonight. I'll have to see when I can work in anything else.

Otherwise, I'm just tired. I really hope I sleep tonight.

WATCHING MASH :: ENTRY #1734

It's Later Now

and so, on to other things. I did a variety of things today, got a variety of things done. I still absolutely need to get into a good stretching and exercise routine, because I'm walking around like I'm 90.

One of my tasks today was to get a good pair of walking shoes. There's a New Balance store not far, so the Sibs and I went there. I looked at a few, and then the salesperson brought out these. They look kind of like Herman Munster shoes on my feet, but they're very stable, and I don't feel like I'm rolling from side to side when I walk in them.

Another task was the jeweler, finally. Is my grandmother's ring secure enough to wear every day? He says yes. Then I showed him the diamond circle on a chain that the Hubs gave me for our anniversary, and he said a) that the chain is perfect and very secure and I don't need a better one, and b) that the pendant is really nice and unusual and he hasn't seen one like it before. Wow. You should have seen the Hubs glow with pride when I told him. "So I done good?" he asked. Yes. It's good. To tell the truth, since he's never bought real jewelry before, I was a little afraid that he'd been taken, but it turns out not. So, good.

I FINALLY got some of the pictures from Wonderful Niece's wedding, which was only two years ago June. The only picture I had asked the photographer to take was one of my sister's three kids with my two, since we had taken so many different poses and pictures of the five of them over the years, and I finally have it. I felt a little bad about not asking Little K to be in the picture, too, since he's officially one of the cousins now, but I just wanted one final one of the group of five. I have, however, been asking my sister for a good picture of Little K to put on my piano with the zillions of other family pictures I have, since the last good shot I have of him was taken when he was 8, and there was one good one of him in the wedding shots, so I'll print that out tomorrow -- I need to buy ink cartridges -- and put it in a frame. Of course, he's 17 now, so a two-year old picture looks like someone else, but it'll have to do for now. I've asked her for one of his prom pictures and one of his senior pictures, but I don't think they have those yet, so I'll have to harass her some when they come in.

I have house things to do tomorrow and calls to make. I've set my alarm for 7.00 for three days since I only have a few weeks left before I have to wake up at *gasp* 5.30, and I'm working my way there gradually, but let me tell you, I am dragging through the days. I may let myself sleep a bit tomorrow; I know I won't go past 8.00, so I can afford a day off.

Off to read more Kavalier and Clay. Very well written.

WATCHING WILL & GRACE :: ENTRY #1555

Half Over

August 1 -- okay, August 2 -- makes the summer half over. So far, one of the strangest and least satisfying of my 54 summers, but all in all, okay. Nothing terrible happened, I actually went on a nice vacation, I got pretty jewelry, I don't have a heart condition ... I don't know, maybe this is a kind of unease that will be with me during the summers until I retire. There's a nasty thought. Anyway, it's okay, it's just not spectacular. I'm not sure what it would have to be to be spectacular, but it's okay.

I just finished that Good Omens book, which was likewise okay. I like very much that I'm reading more this summer. At least when I wonder in September where all the time went, I'll know I read several good books. Still debating what to pick up next, but I have several at hand.

When I got up yesterday, I decided to go for a walk in the park, but as soon as I got there I needed the bathroom, of course, and theirs had been demolished to make way for a new one. I got back in the car to come home, but decided to go instead to the town's new Recreation Center, which I had heard has a walking track. (And a bathroom, I assumed.) So I got myself signed up there and walked the track for ten minutes or so. The thing is, the track is 1/16th of a mile, so it's pretty short, and just after I started walking, around 9.00, troops of adolescent boys charged into the gym (which the track overlooks, like a balcony surrounding the gym) for summer basketball camp. I could barely hear my headphones over the noise. Anyway, ten minutes was my limit, so home I went.

I went back this morning, but still could only manage about 10 minutes, even though I got there well before the basketball boys. Even so, and despite two attempted naps during the day that were aborted by ill-timed phone calls, I managed to do a 20 minute workout with one of the Walk Away the Pounds videos this afternoon. Looks like that may be my best way to go, especially since the Rec Center is closed for cleaning or something during the third week in August, and their hours during the school year won't work for me at all.

What about the gym? I'm still thinking about it. For one, I have to get into better shape just to use the gym. It's one thing to peter out after ten minutes when I'm four minutes away from home. It's another to drive ten minutes each way, sign in, put stuff in a locker, and then crawl out of there ten minutes later. And I learned last year that it was hard to work regular trips to the gym into a my work week. But I'm not giving up on it totally yet. I should be ready to investigate that option again in a week or two. For now, I've got to get up tomorrow morning and walk away some pounds before I do anything else, I think. I'll give it a shot, anyway.

In other news, K is finished with her summer class, so she's got the month of August off, too. I'd like to plan a day trip into the city with her to visit my OldFriend, hopefully the week after next.

In other, wonderful news, there was an article in the town paper today that a former student, in fact, a boy who was Junior class president when I was class advisor, is back from his second tour in Afghanistan, having served there for a total of 25 months. A wonderful, wonderful boy, an Eagle Scout, he was an intelligence officer there. When he came home, our Congressman, who, it so happens, moved here to Bizarro Town not long after he was elected, was there to greet him as well. I was very, very happy to see that this young man is home safe and sound. Nice news.

I'm late posting tonight because I was finishing the book, and now I'm tired and sleepy. Time to settle in for the night.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1542

Oh! Am I Still Here?

[copied from dland]

Sometimes I lose track.

Once again, I had a pretty good day, which leads me to believe that I really will enjoy retirement, when the time comes. Let's see. I walked away some pounds this morning; I've really got to try to do that every day, because, you know, the newest true information about health says that every woman is at risk for heart disease, and what you've got to do is 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day, and take an aspirin every day if your doctor says to, and god knows what else, stand on one leg on your front lawn and swing a dead chicken in a paper bag and howl at the moon. The real truth is that everyone is going to die from something, and if you live long enough, it will be your heart giving out. Cynicism aside, I am at risk for heart disease thanks to all the people who loved me in previous generations, and that's the way it is, and walking away some pounds every day isn't going to kill me.

Where was I?

I made Sweet Potato and Split Pea soup in the crockpot, but I omitted some of the water because I like things like that to be thick, so it's kind of a cross between a soup and a stew. Not bad, not bad. I'll take some for lunch tomorrow, too, since it seems I have no choice but to go back to work, seeing as how today was the last day of vacation.

I also went to the accountant, so that's done, more or less. This is going to sound like a giant duh, but my accountant is boring. The woman who used to own this accounting practice was a dynamo, a real powerhouse and a fantastic person. When she retired, her daughter took over, and she was like a cuter, more petite version of her amazing mother. (Who had been widowed young, and raised two children and built a successful business and became a community leader, etc.) Anyway, they moved on to bigger and better things about eight years ago and sold the accounting part of the business to this schleimel. He's nice enough, but a low talker -- I just love that -- and he seems to be permanently depressed. Let's just hope he got it right.

When I came home, having asked a question or two, I did K's taxes, which are very simple. Uh ... wait. The federal taxes were very simple, very clear directions. Who ever thought you'd hear someone say that? But the state taxes ... oy. Awful. Ridiculous forms, useless directions. I think I got it, though. And the state of New Jersey owes her a refund. of $4.00.

The handyman did not come and put in the door today; he called and said that the paint wasn't dry, so he's coming tomorrow after school. The hearing aids are definitely delayed, and I made a new appointment for March 7. (quack.) In the meantime, a water main broke in front of my next-door neighbor's house, which prompted him to speak to me for the second time ever; he doesn't even sound unfriendly or weird, I guess I'm just not on his radar. So they were digging up the street in front of his driveway, but we're fine. Funny how that works out.

No other news. Man, I love days off.


WATCHING THE SIMPSONS :: ENTRY #1383

But First ...

[copied from dland]

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Thanks for the chuckle!

It said that

* There are 14,998 people in the U.S. with my first name.
* Statistically the 1495th most popular first name. (tied with 85 other first names)
* More than 99.9 percent of people with my first name are female.

and

* There are 0 people in the U.S. with my last name.
* This name is not found in our database, this means the name is relatively uncommon.

therefore there is no one in the United States with my name, including, I presume, me.

I should like to think that more than 99.9 percent of people with my first name are female, since I have one of those Something-Anne names. I hate it to death, but it is nothing if not a girl's name. In fact, probably one of the things I never liked about it is that it's too girly. I never thought of that before until just this minute.

---

Things are going well, she said hesitantly.

I told them to go ahead and order the hearing aids today. I really wasn't wavering at all, but the office person there had to get back to me with information about the warranty. Get this. The audiologist had told me that he thought the company covered repairs, damage, and loss for two years. It turned out that they only covered repairs for two years, and damage and loss for one. So he's going to cover the second year damage and loss himself, because he told me that I was going to get it. He certainly seems to be a mensch.

I went to the gym today, and when I calculated the activity points for WW, it came out to 2, so I didn't walk away any pounds when I got home, as I had planned. Let's not be insane, shall we?

I'm very into food again, as I always am when I am on the WW, figuring points and working out what I can eat. I think it's comforting for me to do this and gives me a tremendous sense of control. My scale tells me that I've lost a pound and a half each day for the last two days, which is certainly the water weight you lose when you start a diet, but it is encouraging.

I also got nice compliments on my make-up today from two people, which you know I crave, and so that made me happy. I'm going to try to let that go now and have some confidence in the whole thing.

I had some unusual classes in today, three very small groups with the ESL teacher, which means that these were kids with very limited English. Some of them, I think, are very recently arrived here and speak almost no English. I was doing the whole plagiarism thing with them, which is something of a stock lesson of mine, but I really had to adapt it for them. It was fun, and they were nice kids, and seemed to get it on some level. Their teacher is the most wonderful patient teacher in the world who takes absolutely no crap from them, and it's always fun working with her. I also made a new make-up convert out of her today, so that was fun, too.

Not sure what I'm having for dinner, surprisingly, but K left me a note that when she gets home from work at 8:15, she's planning to eat the leftover stirfry. And so was I. But I have other options, I just haven't worked them out yet.

Oh, and another perk of the new hearing aids? The office is only open on Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons, and they have no open appointments on Wednesday the 28th. So I'll have to take the day off on Tuesday the 27th and go get them in the morning. And Tuesday the 27th is ... ? AN IN-SERVICE DAY! HAH! Getting out of another one, baby!


WATCHING STILL STANDING :: ENTRY #1371

Sidetracked

[copied from dland]

I was going to talk about the whole Dakota Fanning thing, but I just don't have the energy. Morons are just going to keep on being morons, no matter what. Do they really believe that a child was raped for a movie? Probably not. So what makes it any of anyone's business? Don't like it? Don't see the movie. Case closed.

Okay, so I did talk about it. Having trouble staying on track today.

Had the kind of day where I just kept getting one thing done after another, all the laundry done and put away, eyebrows waxed, supermarket, cleaners, all kinds of crap. Cleaned out the refrigerator. Did every single conceivable exercise in my plan, both in the gym and at home. I even did Walk Away the Pounds for five minutes to see how it felt on my knee. Felt fine. That's still the best aerobic exercise for me to do; for some reason, it doesn't exhaust me or put too much strain on any particular muscle area or body part.

R went in to work in the morning and came here after; she and K are out at the moment picking up dinner (Mexican food) so I've got a chance to write. We went a few places, including to see K at work (more to buy things at K's store), but we skipped the mall, since by Saturday afternoon the mall is not a place you want to go unless you're already there. I had wanted to go to the make-up store with R since I think it wouldn't hurt her to get started on some grown-up make-up and I'd help her out a bit, but it was just too crowded. So I'm going to go after school on Monday with the Sibs, which should be fun.

Ah, dinner's here.


WATCHING MEET THE FOCKERS :: ENTRY #1361

The Story Is ...

[copied from dland]

That I am lately addicted to the ellipsis. Moving on.

The full story on the posters, with appropriate illustrations, is here.

I just made an appointment to have my eyebrows waxed on Saturday, which is only significant because I've been going to the same person for facials for maybe eight years now which means, I guess, that I haven't done anything to my eyebrows for at least that long, since she hasn't done it and no one else has. It's not like I'm running wild here, since my eyebrows appear to be diminishing with age as well, like my mother's -- who knew -- but you know, I've got the one eyebrow that works and is more or less always arched and I've got the other one that's paralyzed and so it never arches, so I figured a little careful shaping might normal that out a bit. Never thought of doing that in fifteen years. And I forgot to ask the doctor about the botox/paralysis thing yesterday, but I was also deliberately not asking her EVERYTHING at the first visit so she would call the men in the padded trucks on me.

I managed somehow today to get the vice-principal's permission to stay at school through lunch and just leave early, taking my lunch at the end of the day, which was my early day, so it was almost like a half day for me, but with permission. (Only on a mid-term day could I get away with something like that.) So I did an errand or two -- looking for posters for school, actually -- and then went to the gym. Two days in a row, go me! All in all, a good workout, I'm getting better at it each time. The Doobies, sadly, were not the best music I could have gone with, in part because I didn't realize that what I had was from a concert album, which makes everything a little less familiar and the rythym not always steady, so it kept throwing me off a bit here and there. But someone here has got to have a regular Doobies CD, so maybe better next time. And I'm thinking maybe some Creedence.

It was snowing this morning when I left the house, and it actually took a half hour to get to Dunkin Donuts and then school, a trip that usually takes about ten. The roads were slow and the railroad tracks were stuck down, so I had to detour and take a longer route. Which means I forgot to go to the bank, and now I don't want to go out again. Hope the Hubs has what he needs for tomorrow.

Twenty minutes later, it turns out that the one in the house with the good Doobies CD is me, and I had all the songs on my iPod but one, and I had a live version of that, which got mixed up with the others and there ya go. Creedence, I got.

I'm finally catching up on the last House, which I was waiting to watch with K, but she watched it Tuesday when she had a day off. So now I gotta go so I can read the captions while I watch.


WATCHING HOUSE :: ENTRY #1359

So, Then I ...

[copied from dland]

Let's see. I was at school this morning, and then took a half-sick day in the afternoon to go to the doctor, which wasn't until 3:00, so I went directly from school to the gym, which is definitely the way to get that done. Wish me luck for tomorrow. I did all the weight machines, some of them twice, and added a new one, and even did some time on the stationary bike without feeling like I was fixin' to die. The trick there was that I could hear the music playing in the gym, and it had a good beat and I could pedal to it. So now I'm loading up the little shuffle with the only music I have that I've ever been able to exercise to consistently, which is the Doobie Brothers, and I'm hoping it strikes twice here and I'll even be able to ride for longer.

I squeezed in a nails appointment between the gym and the doctor -- another task-filled productive day -- and then it was time. This doctor has some different methods than my former one -- a 30 year age difference will do that -- so she was different, but not bad. I have to say that I have no negative feelings about her or her office. I never felt that she wasn't being appropriately thorough. The other thing I liked was that I wanted to ask her about not taking the hormone replacement therapy anymore, and the very first thing she asked me about, before I got to say anything, was the hormones and that she thinks I should go off them. I told her I want to stop when school is over for the year, and she said I will actually go though withdrawal, and unpleasantly so, if I stop cold turkey. Funny how the GYN never mentioned that. So I'm going back to her (today's doctor) in June, and she's going to put me on a plan that weans me off them slowly, to minimize the bad effects. Sorry if that's TMI. I'm psyched.

*Geek Spoiler* Aw, the little Trekkie just got bumped out of the mansion. I do adore this show. And that CeCe, what a bitch.

Oh, I also asked the doctor if she knew the magic secret to losing weight. She was very sweet, and seemed sad to have to tell me that the only answer is aerobic exercise. (Hence tomorrow's return to the gym with biking music.) She also said that there's some new med coming out that targets belly fat, and since she's a doctor, I assume she's not talking about the same stuff they show on infomercials in the middle of the night. (Maybe this is that thing I was talking about a few weeks ago where they found that certain bacteria in the stomach cause you to retain weight and they're working on a pill for it, but I don't know.) Anyway, she said it might be available when I see her again in June, and if so, she may prescribe it for me. Of course, with any luck, I'll have accomplished some on my own by then and won't need it, but let's not hold our breath. (Oh, and I was weighed in her office today, as opposed to not having the courage to weigh myself at home for some time. The last time I saw that number on a scale, I was nine months pregnant. Enough said.)

So I'm in school all day tomorrow, which is the second day of midterms. That means the kids get out at 12:25, after which the whole staff has lunch at the same time and then we come back until ... when? Thursday is usually one of my early days in the rotation, which means I leave at 2:35, but I know that the SCM will figure that since there are no kids there, he gets to leave early, too, but I think he's not supposed to. Whatever, not for me to worry about. The only thing I don't know, since I wasn't there today, is how long the staff lunch period is. Which means I don't know whether to bring my lunch -- if it's short -- or just go home or do errands if it's a whole hour. One of the errands is for the library anyway, so maybe I'll just ask for permission to go do that, I don't know, I'll see.

The errand, btw, is to go get some posters. I ordered a lot of them today, but there are a few more I want that I couldn't get cheap online, so I need to go to Michael's or some place and see if they have them there. The SCM and I decided to forego the standard library READ posters, and we made a list of iconic images that we wanted to put on the walls. To the best of my recollection (the list is in school), I ordered

• Starry Night
• American Gothic
• a picture of Albert Einstein
• Washington Crossing the Delaware
• a reproduction/explanation of The Bill of Rights
• the Beatles crossing Abbey Road
• a picture of John Coltrane

and a bunch more, I think about a dozen altogether. I'll post the list tomorrow. I'm still looking for

• Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms
• an Ansel Adams photograph
• a poster for Casablanca or Citizen Kane
• a Picasso
• Jesse Owens leaping from the starting blocks at the Berlin Olympics

and I think some others, but again, the list. I have only three posters on the walls now, saved from the old library. These are

• Martin Luther King and the text of the I Have a Dream speech
• The Niemoller quotation about the Nazis first came for the Jews, etc. and no one was left to stop them when they came for him
• a portrait of John F. Kennedy

Oh, I'm also looking for the picture of the Big Three at Potsdam (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin), but if I can't get it, I'd like a big portrait of just Churchill. And the burning of the Reichstag, if I can find it, and the explosion of the Hindenburg, but I doubt I'll find those at a crafts store. (I did find nearly all of these online, actually, but not all in my price range, which is cheap. I'm not going over $15, and that better be a nice big poster.) Oh, and Lou Gehrig's farewell to baseball.

Okay, there ya go, two entries for the price of one.


WATCHING AMERICAN IDOL :: ENTRY #1358

Health: What Is It Good For?

[copied from dland]

I just got off the phone with an insurance company nurse, who called from Minnesota (to New Jersey) to quiz me on my condition so that I can qualify for long-term care insurance, which seemed like a good idea of something to get. So she asked all the questions one might expect, you know, the kind of test that if you get 100 on it, you're probably already dead. But I was listening to myself answer all her questions ("no, no, no, no, no") and it occurred to me that I seem to be in way better shape than I generally think I'm in.

Okay, I wasn't all that truthful about the weekly exercise routine. Maybe I told her what I PLAN to do, instead of what I really do, which is basically not a damn thing. What I described was what I did during a six-week period this past summer, when I joined a gym and actually went, until the ragweed bloomed and I was nauseous and congested for about a month. But I'll be going back to the gym any day now. Really, I will.

The trick was this: almost all of the nurse's questions involved that magical period of time known as "the last five years." And since the imminent breakdown of all my body systems that appeared last spring turned out to be all stress, and actually went away the very day after my mother died following an eight-year illness, I don't think that counts. It didn't fit into any of her questions, anyway.

She did ask if I'd had any brain disease (encephalitis, tumors, etc.) And I said "In the last five years?" "Yes," she said.

So I actually never had to tell her -- no lying, no deception, I really am a remarkably honest person, not counting the exercise thing -- that I had a brain tumor removed from right out of my head about 11 years ago, and that I'm missing a chunk of skull about three inches across as a result of that surgery, and I'm totally deaf on one side because they had to snip out a significant section of my hearing nerve, while they were at it. It was a tumor of the hearing nerve, so I just got to end up being half-deaf and with a hole in my head as a result, instead of being actually dead. So all in all, a good deal for me.

Can you believe it? This nurse on the phone thinks I am the very picture of excellent health. And me with a head hole as big as a racquetball. Huh.


ENTRY #7