I Ask For So Little

I made some changes to my computer dock -- where all the program icons are along the bottom of the Mac screen -- over the weekend, and you'd think I bought a new computer. I'm so tickled just to see the different icons, and to see the icons for the Mac calendar and address book applications that I started using. Really, I ask for so little.

Speaking of which, K is always asking me what I want for my birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas, etc., and I always tell her that I can't think of anything because I can't. I did tell her a couple of weeks ago that some day I would like to have a really nice sock monkey, which for some reason I don't have, and want. I seem to recall that I had a sock monkey as my cherished toy as a child, but I must have gotten sick or something and so my mother had to sterilize my environment and she threw it out. She did that. Anyway, it's not like I've been craving a sock monkey for the last 50 years, but I do like them, and homemade ones -- I've made them; even out of baby socks, which are adorable -- are just not sturdy.

But I did point out a back massagey thing at Brookstone on Saturday and said "This. You can get me this." And now she seems to think that I have demanded this item. I said hey, you asked. I don't care if I get gifts or not. Which is true. And we shall see.

The play was excellent last night, btw.

I am very achy today, though, partly from sitting on the straight backed chair and partly because I am an Old Woman. My hands were very, very sore today, so when I went to CVS for my bargain extravaganza -- eh, not so much -- I got a box of single-use arthritis heat wraps for hands. Well, I have very small hands. Typing with this thing on is killing me. So much for the cure. And which is why I shall post now and type no more tonight.


WATCHING MASH :: ENTRY #1748

Taking a Break

Well, it's another quiet but unusual day.

The Hubs' birthday is in two weeks, and he is impossible to buy for. And here, he just got me this lovely gift for our anniversary in July, so I was in a quandary. Sometimes I get him things that I think he would just love -- in a few cases, things he had actually asked for -- and he looks happy and thanks me and never takes it out of the package. But you know, he's turning into another person lately, so ...

There was a 17" LCD TV on the front page of the Target circular this morning, so I went off and got it. Since there are no hiding places whatsoever in this house, especially for something that big, it's on the steps up to Katie's room, behind the closed door. And then, to my amazement ...

After he got back from his Sunday morning walk -- he goes miles and miles -- he asked if I was busy this afternoon, because he wanted to go ... shopping. Shopping. A pod person, indeed.

So we went. He has finally decided to get himself a decent chair to sit in in his little study -- a long story about why he has no decent chair -- but he didn't want to get one while the cats were still puking and pooping everywhere, and this was our chance. We went, armed with sale circulars, and found nothing, but then stopped in a third store and damn if he didn't buy himself a chair. Which I offered to go pick up Wednesday, since I still have this last week off and the delivery charges are insane, and it will fit even in my little Barbie car. And then ...

We came home and he ripped up the seriously awful carpet in his study that has been there since we moved in. The one with melted crayon here and there, in addition to the stains of cat effluvia, since this was K's room when she was little, and R's room when she was in the stage of writing on the walls and stuff with chalk. The carpet is gone, and we have decent hardwood floors, because the house was built before they decided that floors only had to be plywood because everyone was putting carpet over them anyway. Unfortunately, there are remnants of carpet padding stuck to the floor, so I'll see what I can do about that tomorrow. I have a long list of things to do tomorrow, but I think #1 just became picking up a bottle of Murphy Oil Soap and a new mop. I don't think that the Swiffer WetJet can cut through this crap.

So now I'm really glad I got the TV, because he seems to be in changing-his-environment mode, and that makes this a good time. I only hope he doesn't re-arrange the whole room once the chair is in to see his crappy, 25-year-old 15" with dials and a half a picture at its best advantage.

While he was ripping up carpet, I was flipping channels and saw an ad for tonight's big season finale of Big Love, which I watched last year and was really into, but I haven't seen a single episode of season 2, although I recorded them all. So I wondered what I was waiting for, and I just watched the first two episodes. It's very, very good, but it's kind of emotionally demanding to watch. I may only get in another one or two tonight, but I have a headache, so maybe not.

Boy, I have a lot to do tomorrow. Well, there's always Tuesday.

WATCHING BIG LOVE marathon :: ENTRY #1567

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

It Was 30 Years Ago Today ...

Yes, folks, I was married 30 years ago today, on a freakishly hot day. New York City was in its first day of recovering from a power blackout that left the Bronx (where my grandmother lived), among other places, in flames from the looting and lawlessness that came in the dark.

Well, that was cheerful, wasn't it?

So it was hot today, and I had some issues with that, but otherwise a nice day. My big surprise of the day was that I did not get a DVD as an anniversary gift (which is what I gave him, you may recall.) I got this:



You coulda knocked me ovah with a feathah. Now, because the Hubs is not a maven* when it comes to the jewels, I have no idea what this actually is. I can tell you this, though. It's the kind of thing that when I see it on a TV commercial, I think "Yeah, right, like I'm ever getting one of those." My guess is that the woman who works with him and who helped convince him to take me on this trip also told him that he had to buy me something and then she went with him and helped him pick it out. I can't imagine him doing this on his own. This is the guy, remember, who showed up in the hospital the morning after R was born -- 35 hours of labor, here -- carrying a shopping bag, so I thought he had a gift for me (how naive) but he had stopped on his way to the hospital and bought himself a very expensive fishing reel in honor of being a new father and he didn't want to leave it in the car. Nada for the new mommy. Yes, some things we always remember, don't we?

I don't know how I'm going to combine this with what I usually wear around my neck (which apparently he's never noticed me wearing for years and years), which is a gold chain that came from my grandmother with my father's wedding ring on it, but I guess I'll work that out somehow.

Okay, so I'm still working on all my pictures, but here's what we did today. We got to the visitor's center before 8, and when it opened, we got on line to get a guided tour. This means that a guide got in our car with us -- she drove, actually -- and for two hours, showed us all over the battlefield and relevant parts of the town, and gave us a tour, just the two of us. They have six guides available at a time, so if you don't get there early, you have to wait. This woman was FABULOUS. Not surprisingly, it turns out that she does this in the summer and is otherwise a history teacher at Gettysburg High School. She was just great.

After lunch, we went on the tour, so to speak, of Eisenhower's farm, which was very eh. He was not a great president, and his wife was a little peculiar, if you ask me. The house is not tremendously fancy or huge, but has some interesting features, things that Mamie apparently thought were just the best you could get. There were two curio cabinets that were basically filled with crap, the kinds of little things that we all gather over our lives and then dump at a garage sale, except she thought they were treasures. You know, little candy dishes and souvenir-y stuff. The house was very very fifties. One of the really very strange things was that one of the rooms was clearly the maid's quarters because on the easy chair in the room, which was facing the small TV, there was a copy of Ebony magazine from the fifties. Way to say "See? A Negro person lived here."

We went to TGI Friday's for dinner, and guess what? Just because they have a veggie burger on the menu in New Jersey, it doesn't mean they have it in Pennsylvania! They did ask us when we went in if we wanted to be in the smoking or non-smoking section, a question no longer relevant in New Jersey, so the Hubs got to smoke even though he didn't get to eat. (He ate the french-fried string beans, which are delish.)

Okay, so, on to tomorrow. A little more town browsing, a leisurely tour of the battlefield on our own, and a guided walking tour of the cemetery. You remember the cemetery, right? Lincoln came here to dedicate the cemetery; they just asked him to say a few words on the occasion.

* a maven is a person who knows a lot about a particular thing, seriously, and is a kind of connoisseur of it. An expert, sort of, but not in an official way. Not a know-it-all, but someone who just really knows.

WATCHING CSI :: ENTRY #1525

No Title Today

[copied from dland]

Like Summer-Gale, I always figured that Sophie made the choice she did because she thought a boy, and an older child, would have the best chance of survival.

My dippy niece -- not Wonderful Niece, but the one on the Hubs' side -- lost the gift card I gave her for Christmas from the Giant Jeans Conglomerate. Her mother called and told me the other day. Yada yada yada I made a zillion phone calls and searched through my unfiled papers for the receipt and now I have to stay home this afternoon because UPS is delivering it today and they require a signature. Am I being a dope here, or what? The SIL would have gladly made all the calls but she would have needed the receipt, and I bought other things that day and she didn't need to see all that, did she? When you lose a gift card, isn't that just your own damn fault? Do you expect to get it replaced? I don't know, just asking. Anyway, I'll send it out tomorrow and then she'll have it and it'll be over (as I thought Christmas already was, foolish me.)

I was leaving work before, driving out of the parking lot, and thinking "This week is so long! How can it be only Tuesday, it feels like so much later in the week!" and then I started to laugh and said "Oh, because it's Wednesday." Does it even make a difference?

Oh, I got my bookends today, along with a bunch of other stuff. Getting there, getting there. (That was 300 bookends, btw, which the SCM put out. He's good for some things, after all.)

I'm cold, I'm tired, my back hurts. Just to remind you that this is still me you're reading.

Okay, I've let this go on long enough. I'm going to put on my jammies and eagerly await my Beauty and the Geek. Huddled under a blanket.


WATCHING changing channels :: ENTRY #1351