Corn on the Cob

About a month ago, they opened a farmer's market in town. It's held in the parking lot of the Korean church every Wednesday. The Hubs walks there at some point during the day and brings home goodies, especially corn. We've been having corn on the cob for dinner every Wednesday since then.

For most people, corn on the cob is a side dish, a vegetable, and I suppose it always was for me, too. But my father would tell stories of his childhood, when his family piled in the old car and spend all day every Saturday and Sunday at "the Cape" -- he grew up near Cape Cod -- and on the way home they would stop at a farm stand and get a bushel of corn and that would be their dinner. (Not both days, I presume.)

I like corn on the cob, as most people do, and I associate it with Taunton, the place my father grew up, but not for the same reasons. My grandmother died when I was eight, and my grandfather years before that, so if we had corn feasts on the way home from the Cape, I don't remember them. What I remember is Uncle Ben.

Uncle Ben was not like anyone else in my family; I don't think he was like anyone else in his family, either. He was the husband of my father's oldest sister and they married in their forties, although they had known each other all their lives, grew up around the block from each other, and their mothers were friends. My Aunt Rose was a schoolteacher, very dignified and refined and soft-spoken. Uncle Ben was a boisterous, growling, cigar-smoking fanny-pincher. He was short, even by my family's standards, about 5'2", and had been a Marine in World War II and Korea. Let me see if I can come up with a picture:


Somewhere there's a picture of him actually pinching Aunt Rose's bottom, but I couldn't find that. Anyway, I always adored him; my earliest memory of him is before they were married. When I was about six, my grandmother sold her house, and moved in with Aunt Rose and Uncle Ben, into the house they had just bought. I loved their house, I can't believe I don't have a picture of it. Wait.


Yay! I found it among the pictures I scanned a few weeks ago, unlabeled and not in the file it belongs in, but there it was. I don't know why I loved this place, but I did. It was an older bungalow, but the kitchen had been all newly remodeled just before they moved in, so that's an up-to-date 1959 kitchen. Here are the cabinets (and co-incidentally, my parents):


and the tile. Anyway, it was the first house I had ever seen that had a garbage disposal in it. (I've never even lived in a house with a garbage disposal, as they're illegal here in B-Town, where I've lived most of my life.) Uncle Ben adored the garbage disposal. It was his baby. (There were no actual children in this house, unless I was visiting.)

My aunt was a good cook, and we always had a lovely dinner every night we were there. After dinner, she would serve coffee, which my parents didn't do at home. We would all sit around the table as the adults had their coffee, and Uncle Ben got everything ready for the garbage disposal.

Got everything ready, Gracie? Oh, my. He would take everyone's plate and sort the refuse onto various plates, so that food of similar textures could be scooped in together. Every so often, when he had what must have been the optimum amount, he would go scrape something in -- say mashed potatoes -- and turn it on. He was absolutely a craftsman when it came to corn on the cob. Which we had often in the summer, farmstands and all.

He would take everyone's cobs on a plate, and you know, even if you're a member of The Clean Plate Club, you leave cobs behind. He would work with a very sharp knife, and while the rest of us were chatting and the grown-ups sipping coffee, he would slowly and methodically carve down each cob into pieces about an inch long. Remember, these were people who could eat a lot of corn, so there were a lot of cobs. I don't recall how long it took him, only that I couldn't take my eyes off of what he was doing. Once had a heaping plate of carved coblets, he would feed them to the disposal, watching carefully to make sure that each one got ground up and didn't jam up the works. Every so often he would be called into the conversation, and he would answer "Aye-yuh" in a New England drawl, almost like a Mainer would say. At some point while he was doing this, I'm sure, he would stick a cigar in his mouth and light it up. A cigar was never made that was too cheap for Uncle Ben, and they were all rank. But he would give me the cigar bands to wear like rings, and that made me very happy.

Anyway, to this day, when we have a corn-on-the-cob meal, either the Hubs or I will look at the stack of cobs and know that we are both thinking of Uncle Ben. He actually put on his cob-carving show for the Hubs the first time we went to visit them right after we were married. That was just before he took us on a tour of the invisible Army base, but perhaps I'll save that story for another time.




watching THE GOLDEN GIRLS :: ENTRY #2113
READING: The Outliers by Malcolm Glaldwell

Lost Weekend

I didn't lose the whole weekend, just yesterday and today (which I know is Monday, but it's all running together for me.) It's about 11:30; I'm having a colonoscopy in two hours. At this point, I'm mostly bored, and HUNGRY. I thought I'd post now rather than think of the food I'm going to eat the second I come home later on.

It seems like a long time without writing for me, for no real reason. I thought a log about July 4, but couldn't decide where to go with it. It used to be a family holiday, a barbecue in our backyard, but the kids are all dispersed now, and my parents are gone. Maybe we'll restore it someday. It was a lot of work for me, but also a lot of fun. And truth be told, we did it as simply as we could. The vegan Hubs even cooked all the meat for everyone, but I don't know if we even have a grill anymore. Ah, I'll put it on the list for future consideration.

I couldn't eat solid food yesterday, so I pretty much slept as much as I could. I should have had a morning appointment; I did, for last week, but had to postpone it because the Father's Day barbecue at my sister-in-law's got postponed a week, so I couldn't have done the preparation.

Anyway, the worst of it is over, and I do like the feeling of going under the anesthesia. All I want to do now is eat. The good news is that this time, I actually did lose a couple of pounds. So altogether, I'm down a little over six pounds in about ten days. Not a rate I expect to continue, but if I can get two more by the end of the week, I'll be back to where I was before I started gaining the weight back. And maybe then the Wii Fit won't tell me that I'm obese. :(

So that's my story.




watching WILL AND GRACE :: ENTRY #2080
READING: ----- by -----

An Uneasy Day

I had some strange dreams this morning just before I woke up, and they carried over into the day, which is strange and annoying. I won't bother you with all the details, but the dreams involved 1) me, driving on roads both familiar and unfamiliar, and not being able to see well, and hitting things and getting lost, and 2) stopping at a McDonald's where they would not give me a cheeseburger.

I always used to remember dreams, but not so much anymore; even so, I felt very ill at ease driving today (even though it was bright and sunny and my eyes were wide open), and as lunchtime approached, I realized that the only thing I could possibly eat was a McDonald's cheeseburger. So, a weird day.

Did I do anything else today? Oh, I finished a book last night, which I liked, but boy, what a weeper: My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult, or whatever her last name is. I figured I'd better start my summer with it before all the ads for the movie gave away the ending, and trust me, they don't. First thing I've read of hers. I could do another.

I've made myself a nice fish dish every night for the last several, which is probably too much fish, but I'm not eating salmon (or sushi), which has the highest mercury levels, I think. I make it differently each night, or with different fish, but only in parchment paper packets in the microwave. It is absolutely the easiest healthy food I can make. And good. And good for me.

Hoping to dream about happy things tonight --



watching TWO AND A HALF MEN :: ENTRY #2079
READING: ----- by -----

It Was A Dark and Stormy Afternoon

We've actually had something like sunshine for the last couple of days, but around four this afternoon, it turned dark and started to monsoon. I had to take off my hearing aids, because I hear a burst of static with every flash of lightning, which is annoying. It's passed, for now, and let's hope it doesn't come back, because R and the Gentleman Friend are flying to the U.K. tonight. They'll be there a week, but they're actually going to be at a wedding of a close friend of her from when she lived in Cardiff. And K is house/cat-sitting for them, so, although she'll be home here and there, she's basically away for the week, too. Which means I can do the Wii Fit when I want to, and not when I think she won't be wanting to watch TV in the family room. I did about 20 minutes of aerobics this morning, pretty good for me.

I seem to be having trouble creating paragraphs here today.

I also made sure that I didn't take my standard two hour nap this afternoon so that I sleep better tonight, which may or may not happen, but I'm a little brain-fried at the moment as a result. I'm also really, really hungry, which shouldn't happen, since I made a very nice meal for myself. So now I either need to eat or sleep, I don't know which. Probably eat.



watching THE GOLDEN GIRLS :: ENTRY #2078
READING: ----- by -----

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 -----

VaCa Day 1

An ordinary start to a vacation, I suppose, nothing bad, nothing much. Oh, it is Valentine's Day, so the Hubs gave me yet another plant-thing, since he now takes it as a personal challenge to give me a plant every Valentine's Day and keep it alive as long as he can despite my occasional presence near it. This year, a dish garden of herbs, which he will plant outside in the spring. I gave him an argyle sweater vest. It's not a big deal to me, Valentine's Day, and not really to him, either.

I slept until 9:40 and took a nap from 1:00 to 2:30 and I'm still exhausted. Not bummed or anything, just dragging. And I had a wonderful breakfast of bagel and lox, which I have not had in some time, and ooh yum, lox. On cream cheese, of course. Ooh yum.

R and the GF are away for a few days, so K and I went over to feed the grandcat a little while ago, and will go tomorrow as part of our normal Sunday Target run. Monday morning I'm having that CAT scan of my liver, and then I'll go feed the little on myself, and then her mommy will be home.

The best news of my day is that my eyes are much, much better today, which means whatever I'm doing to them is right. (What I'm doing is a warm compress at night, followed by eyelid scrubbing, and anti-biotic drops twice a day, plus lubricant drops or gel whenever I need them. But I haven't needed them today.) This is not the inflammatory thing acting up (which is episcleritis), but just your routine blepharitis, which my father had too and which is very common. I didn't realize that what I've been calling allergies for years was probably allergy-triggered blepharitis, so knowing what to do for it now is very good. It means I'll be able to get back to some reading soon, I hope.

Oh! Listen to what I did last night: I had POPCORN! I have not had popcorn in many a year, but you know, the Resnick says I should eat whatever I want and see what happens, and I've been eating some walnuts and almonds in small amounts over the last few weeks with no ill effects. So last night, in my normal semi-awake state (I really am awake, I just don't want to be) and searching for food, I popped a little bag of K's popcorn and I ATE IT ALL and I am not in the Emergency Room yet, so thumbs up for me! Tomorrow, I may pick up a box of popcorn without butter, as I prefer to put on my own or have without, and then I can try it once or twice a week. Just like a grownup!

The Chinese food is on its way. I'm going to go juggle the cars so that when the Hubs gets back with it he can park my car for the night.


LOVE, ACTUALLY :: ENTRY #1988
READING: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Oatmeal Helper

Back in the day when the Hubs still ate what I cooked, he said I was a very good cook, as long as the meal preparation didn't involve boiling water. There is some truth to this. I had a couple of corned beef disasters on St. Patrick's Day in the early years, and I've inherited my mother's absolute inability to measure the proper amount of dry pasta into the pot. I am notoriously poor at timing boiled eggs to come out the way I want them to.

Sunday morning, I could not make myself a bowl of oatmeal.

My first mess was actually earlier in the week, when I tried to microwave a bowl of regular -- that is, not instant from a packet -- oatmeal. It all looked great until I took it out and it was more like gruel, thin and runny. Sunday's endeavor boiled over and went everywhere, but what was left was edible. This morning, with a reduced portion, more boiling over. I need to work this out. Oatmeal is apparently The Thing to eat in the morning if you expect to have any health at all.

My in-laws dropped by yesterday afternoon, which is a huge production, even though they stayed less than a half hour. We knew they might be coming, but not exactly when, so that requires everyone to stay in the house at the ready. The in and out of the house takes some time for the FIL, who has a lot of trouble walking. It wasn't a long visit; they came up mainly to see Uncle Al (married to Aunt Marie, who is the FIL's sister), who just got out of the hospital. He's not well, and I think, not going to improve much. A very dear man.

My personal husband, as usual, is strange, but that's not new. He could go visit Uncle Al, I'm thinking, whom he adores, but he hasn't done that. Ah, hell, maybe I'll go over there without him, but it just seems like it's his family, he should make the move. And it's not as if he wasn't raised right, because he was. He's just weird.

Anyway, we went out to dinner last night with R and the GF (Gentleman Friend), who is a sweetie. He's moving into the rented house next week, she will move in April; it's all based on when their current leases expire or can be properly broken. I'm very excited and happy for them. Closer would be nice, but this is nice, too.

My back is just terrible, and I really don't know why. I don't think it's the Wii. I've had this back thing coming and going for a long time -- I think I was 20 or 21 when I first hurt my back -- and it's unpredictable both for cause and treatment. A few weeks ago when I had it, Tylenol was my wonder drug. Now I'm reluctant to take the Tylenol because of the liver thing, but when I do take it, it doesn't do anything anyway.

We're having half-days through Wednesday because of mid-terms, and they called a special faculty meeting today, which grumped everyone out, but I knew it was the farewell meeting for the SCM and the guidance counselor who's also leaving as of Friday. I was supposed to get up and say a few words, but then the meeting was canceled, so I guess they'll hand him his gift on his way out on Friday. He's got tomorrow, and then he'll be out Wednesday, and then two more days and he's done. On the one hand, that seems very strange, but on the other, I feel like, okay, next stage, let's go, let's get it started.

Even so, in honor of his last week, let me present to you a picture of the library staff:



I am in the front left, of course, and the SCM is beside me. Behind me, the lovely young blonde lady is Media Girl, who is the part-time aide who takes care of scheduling and delivering TVs, our video collection, and a wide range of other things. The other lady is our part-time secretary who is Not The Colleague, and who is an absolutely lovely person who does nothing at all in the library that I can see.

---------

Later.

No happy face tonight, although today was fine. It's about 6:45 now, and for the last hour, at least, I have entered one of my panic states over K not being home. I knew she had a student teaching orientation to go to "this afternoon", so by 5, 5:15, I started to wonder where she was. I texted. I waited, and then I left voicemail. I was sure this thing was in the early afternoon, because she had emailed me around 1, and I emailed her back, but she never answered, so I assumed it had started then.

Oy. She just called; it was from 4 to 6:30. I am a wreck. You cannot even imagine how many times I have gone over this very issue in therapy, and here I jumped right off the deep end again, and after two really, really good weeks.

I don't want to eat or anything; I just want a really good long cleansing cry. (But it's hard to keep crying once you know the kid is okay, of course.) Maybe just a lot of deep breaths, and more iced tea.


WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1972
READING: ---- by ----

Ready to Go

Let's see, I have my clothes laid out for tomorrow and a nice pasta and shrimp dish that I packed up for three days worth of lunch, and my lunch bags on the table, along with a mug with the dry oatmeal already in it for breakfast. (Add 1 cup of water, microwave for a minute or two.) The two huge shopping bags of stuff I have to bring in are in the living room. (Twilight books, coffee, a jug of water, some mugs, the tin of peanut butter cookies the ILs gave me for Christmas.) I am ready to go back to work tomorrow.

I'm not eager, but I'm not dreading it, which is better for me. The only thing I can't figure out is this: if I have slept until 9:30 nearly every day this vacation, plus taken a two hour nap most days, how am I going to get up at 5:45 tomorrow and work all day?

Hmm. Is a puzzlement.

I haven't eaten dinner, though, which I guess I should. I have some Chinese food left over from last night, so I guess I'll have that.

Things are quiet. I still haven't taken down the tree decorations, so I guess I'll try to do that when I get home from school tomorrow. K has two weeks before classes start, and then three weeks of that before student teaching, so she may or may not be substituting at the high school (if she gets called), which will make mornings more hectic. Otherwise, since the Hubs is working at home, the mornings are pretty much mine alone, which, y'know, is calming and pleasant. But of course, once student teaching starts, we'll both be competing for the bathroom and the kitchen. We'll see how that goes.

The kitchen smells so good now because of the lunch I made, but none of that for me now. I'd best go see if the crispy noodles are any good on day two.



WATCHING 60 MINUTES :: ENTRY #1954
READING: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke

Stuffed

Y'know, we get Chinese food every Saturday night and I haven't been enjoying it much lately, but tonight I got Chicken and Pan Fried Noodles and I am stuffed full of it. I was hoping that after dinner I would have the energy to work out, but now I think I'm too heavy to get out of my chair. And I have actually lost a pound or two recently, which is motivating, but this may be holding me back tonight.

I couldn't fall asleep last night until three. Ugghhhhh. Today is like walking through marshmallow, and a surly K at the supermarket this afternoon was not helping me. Yes, the supermarket was crowded and full of idiots, now leave me alone. I didn't invite them or make them stupid; it's not my fault.

Tomorrow I need to put away the laundry I did on New Year's Day and possibly take down the Christmas stuff. I don'wanna. I do want to do some cooking so I have lunches for the upcoming week. I don't even really feel bummed about going back to work on Monday; ya gotta do whatcha gotta do. I just wish tomorrow could be another lazy day, like most of the vacation. I like that.

Oh, I'm running out of iced tea, I have to go make more or I'll be up tonight at three with nothing to drink ---



WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1953
READING: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke

Puzzle Pieces

Instead of writing my normal whiny long entry at school today, I kept writing bits and emailing them to myself so that I could post them later. Which I will now do, and when they're all here -- there are four of them -- I'll see if they make any sense.

The Nickname Game

Poolie played the game where you use a nickname you once had and Google-image it and post the first thing that comes up. As I wrote in her comments, I opted out, because the nickname of my young childhood was Bushie. My sister called me that from the time I was born until I was about five. Her only explanation ever was that when I came home from the hospital -- she was four and a half -- my hair stuck up straight on my head and it looked like a bush to her. So, okay.

My father adapted the nickname Sweetie Pie to my name and called me Sanny Pie (that s is a z sound). So I'm not finding pictures of that one, either. Or of my sister's adaptation of that to her nickname for me in my teen years, which was E-Pie.

The nickname of my adult life, which is used by virtually everyone except my sister and her family (and never by my parents either) is Ro, which works for me. Everyone in the ILs family calls me that, and a whole lot of people at work. Funny, I always wanted a decent nickname when I was a kid (instead of the goofy ones I had, although I liked those at home), and I would never .... NEVER answer to Rosie. It makes my skin crawl.

So, no pictures, just a handful of goof.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So, I went to the office to talk to the principal this morning but he wasn't in yet. I asked his secretary if he would be out today but she didn't know. I asked her to call me as soon as he came in. Did you get a call? I didn't get mine.

But I went there a couple of periods later, and he sees no reason my desk cannot be moved, says getting the computer and telephone drops are no big deal, and so on. All I have to do is email him a list of what I need (which I did the second I got back to the library) and he'll try to get it done the first week in January. !!!!!!!!!!

He also said that he only has five applicants for the librarian's job and none of the them look great, so we'll be hiring someone as a long-term sub to fill out this year, and most likely we'll be looking again for the real thing for next September. It's okay with me. What I want, though, is to switch to the early shift, so he'd better get someone who's going to fill in the half hour after school until the late person comes in from 3:00 to 5:00.

In the meantime, I've been cleaning out the shelves behind my desk, which I will miss (the only thing I'll miss about this location), but I'll make do and I'll make something else out of that space. It already looks like I'm moving tomorrow.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have been picking up all kinds of green habits lately. Not that we haven't been recycling since day one; the Hubs pulls the labels off of cans and recycles them with the paper (before he tosses the cans into the co-mingled) for years and years. I've been good, but not that good. Oh, I stopped running the water while I brush my teeth when I was a teenager, I always check the water level in the washer, and I almost always wash in cold water. I don't know what got me started these last few months, but I'm making an effort.

The first thing I did was get an aluminum water bottle and stop using plastic toss-aways. Then our town started taking all kinds of plastic, not just some kinds, in the recycling, so I'm rinsing out all kind of things and putting them there instead of throwing them away. So I thought I could start recycling plastic forks and spoons, which, I'm ashamed to say, I'm a big user of.

(As an aside, you know, I have a very small kitchen and no dishwasher, so I've been a huge fan of the disposable plates and cutlery for a long time.)

And now I'm recycling the paper plates, too. Of course, it's becoming pretty clear that if I'm going to be washing off paper plates and plastic forks so I can recycle them, it makes much more sense just to use real plates and real forks. So now I'm there, too.

I usually bring a second cup of coffee to work with me in the morning in a small aluminum thermos, but today I wanted to stop and get some Dunkin, and I found myself bringing a travel mug with me so I wouldn't have to throw away a paper cup with a plastic lid. (Oh, I've also started using a real mug for my morning coffee at home instead of a paper cup. I am no longer the best customer in Costco's paper goods aisle.) Turns out I don't want to carry my thermos every day, and I don't want to stop at Dunkin everyday, either. I need to be able to make myself a cup of coffee in the library. (They make one pot of decaf every day in our cafeteria, and when it's gone, it's gone.) So last night I ordered this from Amazon. This is either going to be very cool or very weird. I can buy loose coffee at Dunkin and use that -- yum -- and I have a microwave so I can boil water, which I'll have to bring in a big bottle of. (Still working that part out.)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Storm's a-Comin'

It's beginning to look a lot like snow for tomorrow. There's a winter watch, or whatever they call it, for 6 am tomorrow to midnight, with a possible accumulation of 12 inches. So that would be a good bit of snow. The question is, if the roads are clear at six, will they call off school, knowing that possibly they will have to close school early and that people will have trouble getting home? The FIL, who used to be the one who made these decisions, would always say that closing school early was a problem because it would be dangerous for the little kids to walk home. Well, yeah, but his background is elementary, so I always think that the sooner we get the inexperienced drivers from the high school off the road and home, the better it is. And hardly any kids walk to and from school anymore, and if they do, their parents are walking with them.

Anyway, a snow day would be reeeeeaallly nice, because clearly, I never want to go to work, but I'm being cautious about my sick days at this point. Aside from the new drivers among the students, there are so many teachers who live an hour or more away -- why they do that I do not know -- and in places where the weather is worse, and sometimes they actually don't get the call that school is closed until after they've left home. The bottom line is that if the roads look bad, or you think they'll get bad, you need to stay home, even if you're a first year teacher, because it's smarter than being a last year human being.

The sun is actually out now -- it's about 2 pm -- for maybe the first time this week. How deceptive. I wonder what I'll wake up to tomorrow.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There ya go, a day's worth of random thoughts. Oh, get this: I actually cooked dinner tonight for myself and my husband. I don't think he's eaten a real meal I've cooked in a dozen years. It was a test run for Christmas Eve dinner, and came out well. Go me.

WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1943
READING: Slam by Nick Hornby

Time

I just now realized that I wrote this entry at school this morning and forgot to post it. This coincided with K going down to put in a wash and finding a dead mouse in the basement. She reacted as if this was someone she knew personally. Hey, she didn't want the mice in her room, and there are no mice in her room. I went downstairs and scooped it into a box and took it outside. A mother's work is never done. Anyway, earlier today, I wrote:


Today is cousin Edie's birthday; she's 92. The unquestioned matriarch of the family now, it seems, but she is beyond knowing that. For some people, Alzheimer's comes on very slowly, but she was fine, more or less, until maybe four years ago, after which her decline was steep. The good news is that she no longer remembers the pain of losing her husband and older son. The bad news is that she no longer recognizes the son who comes to visit several times a week. But she's happy when she sees him, even if she doesn't know exactly who he is.

Ah, no intention, really, of making this sad, although it is, of course. I just wanted to say Happy Birthday, since there's no point in my calling her and saying it in person. On to something else.

Another by-product of the working out is that I'm drinking a lot more water. I don't generally like to drink water, but apparently I enjoy it after exercise, which who knew, because I would have to have exercised extensively before now to know. Dr. Resnick will be very pleased with me, I think. At the very least, my kidney function test should come out better.

And less Crohnish today, I think. I guess I ate some things over the holiday that had to work their way out of my system (which I don't mean the way it literally sounds.) It started with eating the Hubs' soup the weekend before, and continued on through rice pudding with raisins and small handfuls of macadamia nuts. Actually, I think the macadamia nuts went well. It was the finocchio that got me. (This is pronounced fenookie in our third generation half-Italian home. It's fennel. We slice up the bulbs and roast them, and then, whatever's left after Thanksgiving dinner is a snack for me. But maybe not so much in future.)

... Later ...

So now let's hope that the mouse thing isn't going to keep me awake tonight. My evenings are carefully structured to lull me to sleep, so the last thing I needed was a little adrenaline surge, not to mention a trip outside in the 35 degrees with no socks or jacket. (But I did put on shoes and a sweatshirt.) The real question is, if I'm so sleepy all day at work, why can't I just fall asleep when I want to at night? Hmmmm?


WATCHING RACHEL MADDOW ON MSNBC :: ENTRY #1925
READING: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Still Standing

It's taking all the effort I can summon up to stay in my chair and not lie down on the couch. Or the floor. Flat would be nice, but I can't risk a nap, as much as I'd like one. Ever since that late phone call on Tuesday, I've had trouble falling asleep before one or two in the morning, and since it's back to work tomorrow with a 5:30 wake up call, no nap for me today. Maybe it'll help.

I have been the busy bee. I got all the laundry done and put away yesterday, including things that needed to be laid out to dry, which I avoid when I can. The living room remains orderly. Starting yesterday, but mostly today, I froze lots of lunch portions of all the leftovers, as well as the stuff that wasn't left over so I had to make more. K and I did get to Target today a little after nine and it was empty, so the returns got done, as well as a few more gifts bought.

Well, I guess I am hooked on the Wii Fit, but it's probably the healthiest addiction I've ever had. I am feeling good in terms of energy and such, but certain parts of me are just always sore. For example, I can't have a bad back for 35 years and cure it in two weeks of working out, and my feet hurt because my feet hurt. I know that as I learn to do the exercises in better form, some of the hurting will go away, and even what doesn't, well, it's still good for me. It wouldn't hurt if I could talk to a human trainer about it (as opposed to the trainers in the program, of whom I'm getting a little tired, I can tell you); I wonder if I could talk to the trainer at school. I know there is one, but I have no idea where he even works, or if talking to him about this is available to me. I mean, for all I know, he's only there after school to work with the athletes. I'll have to see what I can find out about that.

So, other than everything hurting, I feel pretty good. I've been Crohnish here and there for the last few days, but nothing serious, I think, just a blip. I've experimented with some foods I've been careful about, which may have aggravated it a bit, but on the whole, doing well.

Back to the book mines tomorrow.


WATCHING TCM :: ENTRY #1923
READING: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Where Was I?

I just noticed that I didn't post yesterday. I have no idea why, or what else I might have been doing. Huh.

I stopped at Whole Foods before to get some chicken, and I also got something called "Yucca Fries." I looked it up when I got home; it said that although the yucca plant is sometimes eaten (parts of it, anyway), usually, when you see yucca as food, it's really yuca, which is what tapioca comes from. So I ate it. It was really good. Medical report to follow.

I am not actually reading tonight (although I put a new book title down there), but earlier today I finished this teen science-fiction/dystopia book that I started reading while I was on hall duty Monday: Unwind, by Neal Shusterman. The premise is that in the future, following a war between the Life Army and the Choice Brigade, a compromise is reached and passed into law: human life begins at conception and there are no abortions. However, when a child reaches 13, his parents may choose to have him "unwound"; that is, they make a choice and their child is taken away to lead a "divided" life, in which all of his parts -- organs, everything -- are used as replacement parts for other people. Kind of like a retroactive abortion, but technically still alive, just split up into parts scattered around the world. When the kid reaches 18, he's safe. An interesting and thought-provoking book.

Yesterday's news was that K went to the school where she'll be student teaching and everything looked good, the teacher she'll be working with seemed terrific to her. Good news, since that tends to be a kind of make-or-break thing. The kid's taking her "Methods of Teaching" class this semester, which is the biggie, and it seems to be getting really excited about going out and doing it. Nice to see for an old veteran like me.

Funny, we do discuss various aspects of teaching, lesson planning, philosophies involved, and so on, and I sometimes think that she's a little surprised that I know what I know. It's that old prejudice that school librarians aren't really teachers, and she should know better and probably does, but when I discuss pros and cons of certain very specific techniques with her, it's as if she didn't think I would know that because I'm not a classroom teacher. It's like being Rodney Dangerfield, y'know: I don't get no respect. I think when I retire, I'll just tell people that I was a librarian, and not a school librarian, and maybe then they'll know what I do. Did.

Anyway. I'm all full of chicken and yucca fries, and I have to go wash out my little lunchbox for tomorrow.

WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1862
READING: Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! by Fannie Flagg

Hello.

I am going to respect the wishes of my chosen candidate and therefore not discuss today's political (if that's what it is) news, because he says that candidates' families and especially children should be off limits for discussion.

I will only say this: it's as if this year's presidential campaign is being scripted by someone in Hollywood. And not in the good way.

Okay. In preparation for tomorrow's early rising, I set my alarm for six this morning. It went off, I said "Oh, it works," and I went back to sleep for two hours. I get a late pass tomorrow, so to speak, because I don't have to be there until eight, so the alarm is set for 6.30. We'll see how that goes.

I am absolutely exhausted today. My own sleep research lab this summer turned up an interesting fact: I will sleep deeply and for a long time as long as I have nowhere pressing to be in the morning. If I set the alarm for, let's say, seven, I will wake up at five and just drift in and out after that. If I have no place to be until noon, I will sleep happily until eight, maybe later. This does not bode well for me, but it does explain why I'm always so tired: on school days, I'm likely to get a couple hours less sleep than I'm actually entitled to. My back hurts today, too, but that will pass.

I spent an hour or two early this afternoon in the kitchen, cooking up mostly a lot of little lemon chicken nuggets, which are now neatly packed in lunch-sized portions. I was going to make it from a package of chicken breast tenders -- easier and quicker to trim than boneless thighs, even though I only like dark meat -- but the chicken breast tenders packages were buy one, get one free, so I had twice has much to cook up. I also cooked and froze little turkey burgers, and a spaghetti squash, which divided up into seven or eight packets. I can eat squash, which fortunately I also like. So I should be good to go on lunches for a couple of weeks. Maybe more. I just have to keep buying fruit. And next weekend maybe make more rice.

I would also really like to finish this book tonight, and I don't have much left, but I keep falling asleep, or at least, closing my eyes. I hope A.J. Jacobs does something else goofy and writes another book because I'm enjoying him, although how much his wonderful and long-suffering wife will put up with, I don't know.

Okay, I have got to find something to eat here, although really, I'm not in the mood.


WATCHING SCRUBS :: ENTRY #1847
SUMMER BOOK #9: The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs

Just an Ordinary Day

More or less. When the Hubs came in a little while ago, he said he had to be at the airport early tomorrow, because he was going to be named as Obama's running mate. Heh.

You may or may not recall that after the Crohn's diagnosis, I vowed that I would never be obsessive about food again. And I am true to my vow. What I didn't consider was that one day K would go on W8 Watchers and she would obsess about food and I would have to go along for the ride. Hmm.

I'm not counting points or doing any of that, although she certainly is. She has also decided to start cooking, which is not as charming at the end of the week as it was at the beginning. She doesn't actually know how to cook, so this is all new to her. (Despite anything I've ever said, I do know how to cook, I just generally prefer not to.) She finds recipes and decides to make them, which is fine, and then she makes a list of ingredients as long as your arm, and we go food shopping. Oy. Vey. Once you know what you're doing, you take shortcuts, like leaving off the garnish if you want to, but she's not up to that yet. My refrigerator is bursting with food, nearly all of it ingredients for something or other. Earlier this week, she realized that she wasn't going to be able to make the chicken we got, so I had to freeze it. Her cooking skills are not yet up to knowing how to freeze things.

By the time we got back from the supermarket this afternoon, she had a migraine, which, okay, happens, but she was grumpy. I went back out to the fish market to get the halibut for tonight's recipe -- no halibut at the A & P -- and they were out of it, too, so I got sole. I thought, if I tell her it's not halibut, she'll freak, so I offered to make it, a very simple baked halibut sole, but just before we sat down she bounced into the room extolling the virtues of Excedrin Migraine pills, so I told her, and all is well. And it was very good, too.

That's the extent of my news for the day. (I had not a single thing to write about yesterday.) I have a week to go before school starts, roughly. I've got to make the most of what time I've got!

(Oh, here's a good one. I got email from the Chum today, whose name, btw, is Chum Phelps, and says as far as she's concerned, the best thing about the Olympics is that she hasn't had to spell her name to anyone on the phone all summer. Another little heh.)

WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1838
SUMMER BOOK #7: My Life in France by Julia Child

Waiting for My Turn

I am hungry, man, but K is in the kitchen cooking herself an actual meal, and our kitchen does not support two independent meals being prepared at once. Seeing her start the W8 Watching is a little like a window into what I must have been like when I started. My entry into it now is a whole other thing, since I can't do anything seriously until my tummy calms completely down. Today was a pretty good day, so tomorrow I'm going to try taking the vitamins again. If that's good, I'll put the calcium pills back after a few days. I won't be trying any new foods until next weekend at the soonest.

I had an extremely quiet day today, which was fine by me, because my recent tummy travails have worn me out a bit. We did some food shopping, I watched TV -- lots of Gene Kelly on today, yum -- and I read. That's my outlook for tonight, too.

R is out of Mexico, currently holding over in Charlotte until her flight home later this evening. I can stop worrying about kidnappers now.

WATCHING AN AMERICAN IN PARIS :: ENTRY #1834
SUMMER BOOK #6: My Trip Down the Pink Carpet by Leslie Jordan

I Slaved Over a Hot Stove!

For at least an hour and a half!

Yes, it's true; I prepared animal flesh, using heat and various other ingredients. I also prepared a few vegetables, those among the few I can eat. Everything is neatly packed up and frozen and marked so that I can pull out all the parts of a meal I need, and even not eat the same thing every day.

Then we ordered pizza for dinner. It's possible that I don't have this exactly down pat yet.

(When I was a kid, my mother would ask me every single day what I wanted for dinner the next day. I absolutely hated this; why was it my job to decide what dinner would be? As a result, I now give dinner minimal thought. Usually around 5:00, K or I will say to each other, What do you feel like eating tonight? I am the anti-Shirl. And she probably asked me because I was a picky eater, and she preferred to make something that I would actually eat.)

When I talked to R last night, she insisted that the registration was in the car, so I looked again this morning, and it was. It was not in the little registration holder, where it was supposed to be; she had just shoved it under the pile of everything else in her glove compartment, still in the envelope it came in. So I'm taking it in tomorrow. That'll be one less thing to worry about. And I even remembered to register my car and the Hubs' online today, and took care of K's tuition bill. I am so accomplished today!

And now I'm going to collapse, thank you, and either start a new book or play solitaire for hours and hours. It could go either way.

WATCHING PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES :: ENTRY #1829
SUMMER BOOK #5: Big Russ and Me by Tim Russert

I Should Have Something to Say ... Or Eat

I finally finished a book, go me, the Bill Bryson Shakespeare book, which I enjoyed, because I'm into Shakespeare and I like Bryson's writing, so why not? I'm back reading on the device, although now it's the iPhone, and I like it again, but Faulkner has not been released as ebooks yet, so I'm putting that off for awhile. (Yes, I have a copy of the book right here. Leave me alone.)

My visit to the nutritionist went well, I think. My 11:30 appointment started only a moment or two late, and was supposed to be an hour long, but I looked at my watch when I left and it was 1:15. She found me amusing *blush* and we just kept on talking. She was nicely prepared with all kinds of Crohn's information on hand, and went over a booklet with me to help me see that yes, there is stuff that I can still eat. She was even familiar with the bento concept. So, I have some ideas to try and I need to keep a food/symptom diary and go back in three weeks.

I have not yet reached The Other Chai, whose father was supposed to have his hip replaced this week. I'm sure that all is well, though, and she is either visiting him in the hospital or rehab, or she is at the soulless mercy of her mother. Her father, at 80, still golfs and bowls, is tall and dignified, and carries himself with the air of someone who played football for Princeton years ago. (He was a penniless, fatherless Navy recruit from the Bronx with fantastic potential, and the USA put him into a special program to train officers at Ivy League colleges. And by the time he got out, the war was over. Good deal for him, eh?) Anyway, a lovely man; I hope he's well and I'm sure he is. His wife is just like Marie Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond, but not as easy to get along with. I'll try the O.C. later on this evening.

Once again today, I was toodling along in the car, on my way to the nutritionist, I think, and musing about how incredible it is just to feel okay. (I was also keeping an eye on the speedometer.) It is remarkable to me that I have long stretches of the day when nothing hurts, and that this makes me feel happy. (I mean, I know it would make anyone feel happy. It's just unfamiliar to me, and for a long time. Not that other things don't make me happy ... okay, whatever.) I could still take a nice long nap every day, but I didn't take one today at all. And I'm starting to wake up earlier, too.

Anyway, I don't know what to eat for dinner, I have to go see. K and I went out and picked up a few things before, and when I opened the back of the car to get the bags out, one of the bags fell over, and of course, it was the bag with the dozen eggs on top, so they were all over the driveway. Ick. And now, no eggs until tomorrow. I have to go over the stuff I got this morning and make a serious shopping list for Sunday. And start to *shudder* cook more. Or any.

Ah well.

WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1827
SUMMER BOOK #4: Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg

Thursday

Tomorrow is the last day of regular classes. Final exams start on Monday, which means the kids leave at about 12:30.

I am really ready for this.

I have to say that although I like kids in general and am generally fond of the kids in my school, they're just being crazy lately. More and more, I'm noticing them doing dumb little (or big) rude things. Yesterday, I pulled open a door at the bottom of the stairwell to go through it, and a boy raced past me, slipping through the door I was holding open. He said nothing. I'm glad that this is not a common occurrence, but come on. The after school crowds we've been getting in the library are really out of control. They will not lower their voices; it's as if they don't understand the concept that their raucous laughter could be bothering anyone else. If I call their attention to it, they're back up to full volume in 10 seconds. They absolutely do not understand that it is not appropriate to use a cellphone anywhere they feel like it. I'm guessing that these are people who answer their phones or text while they're in church, assuming some of them go to church. And who do you think is calling them during the day when they're in school? Most of the time, it seems to be mom or dad. Don't they know where their children are? Do they remember their parents calling them on a personal phone when they were in class? I don't think so, it doesn't matter where they came from. I do think that part of the problem here is that many of our kids are being raised by parents who were raised in other cultures, but hey, I'll bet mom and dad toed the line when they were in their 65 student classes in Mother Russia, or the Ukraine. It's as if they come here and feel like all bets are off, and now they have to stand up for themselves at every conceivable moment, even when they don't. (What do you mean, I have to return the library book? I am not finished with that book! Why do I have to return it today? Because you're graduating from the school next week, bub, which takes away your right to use our library. Got it?)

Okay, a mini-rant. I am also tired of picking up their empty (or not) water bottles. And yesterday after school, I found that walking up to a kid on a cellphone and saying "Oooh, I like that one; I'll enjoy using that," was pretty effective in getting them put away. When I made a loud announcement that I would be taking all cellphones I saw for my own from that moment on, I also told them that I would appreciate it if someone would use an iPhone because I really want one of those. (Which I don't, actually, but maybe ...)

No, I don't want an iPhone, just an iPod touch, but K is really itching for that new iPhone coming out in July. It's faster, smaller, and cheaper. Sounds like a good deal. It probably costs the same as an iPod touch at this point, but I'd have to add on the monthly phone bill charges, and I wouldn't even want to use it as a phone, although Internet wherever I go would be nice. Some random workers were in the library today -- not roofers -- and they said that we're getting wireless in here soon. I'll believe it when I see it, but that would certainly make an iPod touch a lot more useful, since it uses Wi-Fi for Internet access, so I could use it here. I think. Who knows. It'll probably be some bizarre encrypted network that only dogs can hear.

My quiet, yet insane, obsession with the bento is amusing me. It's not like this is something you can do all the time, because you can basically only do it for lunch, which is a self-limiting activity, and I can't imagine collecting bento boxes (which some people do) because hey, it's just me and it's just lunch; how many could I use? But I've read every inch of every website, and I'm somehow disappointed that the PTA is providing lunch for the whole staff tomorrow, because that means I can't bring my own lunch to school. Am I a lunatic, or what?

Including tomorrow, I have to get up eight more times in the morning for work before the school year is over. I don't know if K is working tomorrow -- it's pretty much the last day she can -- but getting up without her being up too has been just lovely. Although my alarm is set for 6.00, I've been waking up between 5.30 and 5.45, which means I can get in the shower before the Hubs is even up, and then I have a nice big chunk of relaxing time. This morning, I realized I was all ready to go at 6:30, so I went to Dunkin Donuts and got a lovely iced latte and came back home and drank it there. I even saw the first few minutes of the Today show, which is not a normal workday occurrence for me, but I had the time, since I didn't have to stop for coffee.

Otherwise, not much happening here. Wonderful Niece is coming over tomorrow so we can finish something for the gala couples' shower on the 28th. All I can say is, any time I get to see W.N. is a good thing.

WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1780

On To the Rest of My Day

(There was an earlier entry today, but really, it's not worth it.)

So, it's about 7:50 a.m., and K calls to say she's been in an accident. (Shit.) She sounded okay and said she was okay, and said there wasn't much damage on the car, but she didn't really know what to do, so I said to get all the other person's information, call the police, yada yada yada, and call me back. She hasn't called back yet. I don't know if she continued on to the gym or just went home. I really hate to think of damage on her six-week old car. I also really really hope it was the other person who hit her. And certainly, the second I heard the word "accident" my guts went into overtime. While I was on that excursion, I ran into the Martian V.P. in the hall and tried to explain to her how degrading it is to have to call someone whenever I have to go to the bathroom, which is her plan. It would be degrading for anyone. I don't think any of this is personal, I just think it's all stupid.

Later (since I'm writing the rest of this roughly twelve hours after I wrote the previous paragraph.) I still haven't seen K's car because she had already gone off to class by the time I got home, but I talked to her later in the day and emailed here and there, and it does seem to have been her fault, but I don't think it's a big deal. It was one of those merging-onto-a-highway things; the car in front of her stopped but she was looking back and she went forward and bumped it. It's the accident that I think everybody has once, and she's driven for seven years now without any accidents at all. I don't think this is even worth reporting to insurance, but she did call the police and so there will be a report. She said she felt bad because the car in front of her was full of Mexican men, and now she's afraid she's responsible for their being deported. Now, for all we know, they're all here legally, so I think that part's an over-reaction, but there ya go.

And last night's epic thunderstorms knocked out the rail line that goes into the city from R's town, so before 8:15 this morning, I'd heard from both of them by phone, which is not a great way to start my day. (R just wanted me to check the NJ Transit website for information.) I also emailed with her later, so the day turned out relatively okay for both of them, but boy, am I tired of putting out fires. I must say though that they pretty much handled their own fires today, they just felt compelled to share them with me.

So, karma. I've been thinking a lot about karma today. It's a concept that really has a place in many religions and cultures. I believe the Christian equivalent is divine retribution. My Orthodox Jewish grandfather and his mother, I know, believed that by doing mitzvahs (good deeds) in this life they would earn their way into heaven, so to speak. I tend to believe that what goes around comes around, or, as it was better put by John Lennon, instant karma's gonna get you.

But true karma, I think, means that your actions in this life will determine in what form you will return in your next life. So I'm trying to figure out in what form my sister's first husband, the one I call here Satan J, could possibly return. At the moment, I'm thinking that his most likely scenario is that he'll be convicted of a crime he didn't commit and then be continually raped in prison for as long as he lives, which should be a long time. He is a vile and worthless human being masquerading as the nice guy next door. I don't wish him illness or ill health in this life -- although he's already got that -- but I do hope that somehow he will reap what he has sown.

Heavens, I am just full of the cliché tonight.

My bento box lunch was just adorable, and very filling. Oh, the sites to look at, if you're so inclined, are laptoplunches.com and justbento.com. When I was putting tomorrow's lunch together just before, I also made tamagoyaki, which is a kind of Japanese omelette served cold in a bento. I haven't eaten it yet, but I'll let you know. Yes, I actually prepared food from scratch. It happens.


WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1779