Those were the days, my friend

I noticed today, not for the first time, that I am definitely getting old. In some ways, on the inside, I still feel like I am 18; I still feel awkward and gauche in social settings, un-informed about current events, certain that everyone else is better than me at cooking and housekeeping, that my kids are lazy and self-centered, and I'm a lousy driver. But yet as I look around me, I can see that, like the lyric in 'Strawberry Wine' there is nothing that Time hasn't touched. I think of my Lotsa dog, and with a jolt I realize that the puppy times for her were more than 20 years in the past. I think about heart-ties to pets that no one but me and N remember. I think about friends that came and went in my life, some moving away, and some passing on. Family traditions that have vanished because there is no one left to do them. Places like playgrounds and parks that are no more. They're tearing down my old high school this year, a school that was 'state-of-the-art', and building a new one just in time for my 40th reunion. Physical things, old photos that have faded to illegibility, dried corsages that are ribbon and dust, a quilt that is nearly transparent from use, even prosaic things like my rolling pin, a gift on our wedding day from my to-be father-in-law, that got crammed in a drawer once too often. Who expects to wear out a rolling pin? And like my mother did in her day, I find many new things to be unsatisfactory; much cheaper in price, but poorly made, solid old brick buildings replaced by new cracker boxes with paper thin walls, lovely big trees cut down between one day and the next to make room for more parking spaces. I always thought that I was someone who embraced change, like when the music of the 60s disappeared I found the current music to be fine too--right up until the 90s ended, and the music began to sound too strident, too incoherent, and yes, too loud. Now everyone looks too young to me, doctors, plumbers, mailmen, everyone, and when I see old farts on TV gabbing on and on about the Vietnam war, it's a shock to realize they are in fact my age. The entertainers like Cher and Robert Redford are old farts too, and the new ones on the magazine covers are completely unrecognizable. People talk about movies I've not only not seen, but never even heard of, when did that happen? When I tell the kids an old old joke, they laugh instead of groan, because it's not old to them. When I watch TV, I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out where I've seen that actor before, only to find out it's the son or daughter of the actor I remember. And god knows my body is wearing out, I've only to listen to the cacophony of my knees to know that.

Anyway, as I reflect on all of this, I wonder if it wouldn't be the best to accept, even embrace my ever-growing decrepitude. Go ahead and wear cotton housedresses and ankle socks. Give up makeup, haircolor, and tweezing my bristles. Keep playing LPs, go back to Windows 3.1, put cash in little envelopes for groceries, clip coupons.

Wait a minute...would I have to vote Republican?

Never mind.

Discouraged

Saw the ortho doc today. He said there was a little healing occurring on the broken ankle in one (small) spot, put on a new cast and said "4 weeks more" minimum. It is 25 days today since I broke it. I went home, and 4 hours later I'm back at the doctor's, unable to bend my leg at the knee without tourniqueting my leg. Sheer pain! I said, get this thing off, no more casts, I can't bear it for 4 more weeks, and he said, it's either a cast or find another doctor. So I got another cast, AND my x-rays to take to another doctor tomorrow. How dare I object to his medical wisdom? I need a doctor who will work with me on this, keep me from going berserk, and if it isn't healing, go for the surgery. I already didn't like this guy, and he wouldn't even discuss a walking boot, air cast, or anything but a damned fiberglass cast that can't be removed, gotten wet, or balanced on.

Raven got her splint off, and is still a little gimpy, but running and playing all the same. She goes tomorrow for her first trip to the groomer, so hopefully she will smell better for a few days at least. It would help a lot if, when she squats to piddle, she didn't subsequently SIT in the puddle. I mean, isn't that a little dumb? The, ah, aura surrounding her is particularly noticeable when she is draped over the shoulder while navigating stairs.

I got my MacBook back today from repair; somehow one of the hinges broke, and it is all of 3 months old. They were amazingly fast, received and shipped it out the same day, can't beat that. It was a warranty repair; when I Googled "Macbook broken hinge" I got 33,400 hits. I thought from the beginning that the hinges were a little creaky, and I wasn't sure how far I could tip the screen back, because it felt like I was forcing it. Alls betta now!

While I am immobile for so much of the time I am doing a lot of reading and a lot of crossword puzzles. I have never been able to use those books of puzzles because I fall to the temptation to look up the answer when I get stuck. Now I download daily puzzles to my Palm Pilot and can get a hint of a single letter or a single word, if I absolutely have no idea (I am REALLY bad at geography questions). And when I get it totally solved, the screen says "congrats!" It's pretty lame when you have to get your kudos from a inanimate object.

We Match!

I never realized that casts were contagious. Little Raven got in the way when the guys were unloading hay into the barn, and got a 50 pound bale dropped on her. We rushed to the vet (on a Sunday, of course!) and the xray didn't show a break, but in puppies, with all the growth plates in the radiogram, it is hard to tell. So, splint and wait for a week; and meanwhile she can no longer sneak up on the cats. Hearing her walk in the kitchen from downstairs sounds like the sound effects from a horror movie, SCRRRape, thud, SCRRRape, thud. Now she has to be carried outside AND inside, and she has gained 10 lbs since she was 8 weeks old, she now weighs 29 pounds, at not-quite-12 weeks old. Needless to say, I'm not the one doing the carrying. My ortho doc says, no signs of healing, come back in two more weeks, and I am discouraged to say the least. The only saving grace is that I don't have to work anymore. But this surely isn't what I had in mind for me OR the puppy when I retired.

Right now there are other sound effects; there are 5 guys on the roof doing a lot of pounding, as they replace the roof. They do not have complimentary things to say about the last roofing effort, but then, have you ever known a workman to say, "Hey, those last guys did a heckofa job, we really can't do anything better"? No of course not. Anyway, after we get a few good rains and verify that the damn dining room ceiling isn't leaking, they will come back and put up new drywall on the ceiling and re-plaster. Hopefully it will match, but even if not, it will be a big improvement over the hole and brown stains:



Sigh. We've been in this house 25+ years, so I guess you have to expect some fairly major upkeep along the way, but it feels like it's a big hole into which we throw money. Worst of all right now, is that with me laid up, the cleaning is not getting done, but I just look the other way and promise to do a real job of spring cleaning on it once I am mobile again. I've never enjoyed the role of nag, and the kids and N have enough to do as it is. My main interest right now is getting OUT! Just a little cabin feverish, you know.

The patient is resting quietly

Can you see the little black nose on the far left? That's the puppy, and the reason Beans looks like she's possessed. They'll work it out.

Having an 11 week old pup who can't go down stairs without being carried, a split level house, and a broken ankle is not combination I'd wish on my worst enemy. Plus, I have cabin fever big time, since the only time I've been out of the house since I broke it on the 15th was yesterday, to the ortho dr. I came home with a new, tighter cast, and the news that there is no sign of healing. I bet that I'll go through weeks of gimping around on this, and THEN the dr. will decide to do surgery, thus ensuring I am laid up for twice as long.





Mega rain for this area, flood watches out. And us with a leaky roof! The repair will start in 2 weeks or so; meanwhile it's...........

Need a carpet cleaner

The puppy is a lot of fun, don't get me wrong. But although she seems to feel OK, it is also true that in the poop department, she has no equal. We took her to the vet for anti-diarrheal meds, and then in the end taking her back for the vet to keep for two nights and give her anti-spasmodics, sedative, and so on, to get on top of this thing. She is home now, and seems to be much improved, so we are back to trying the housebreaking game again. I guess it is a foregone conclusion that all the carpets will eventually have to be cleaned. Meanwhile, we make daily use of the SpotBot we got a year or so ago (mainly to clean up cat barf stains). It works great, too great in some cases, leaving a clear light area amid a more dingy background. Isn't pet ownership fun?

In a related topic, I've been taking a bunch of photos, not surprisingly. What was surprising was that among our many many cameras, 35mm, 110 and

I stopped right there to get ready to go out for an appointment.

I started downstairs to get my purse and coat.

I fell on the stairs and broke my ankle.

it is now evening on the 15th and I am in bed with my leg in a cast propped on pillows. I broke this same ankle 10+ years ago, just the tip of my fibula, but after 5 months it hadn't healed, and I had surgery to have two screws inserted to hold the fibula in place. The doc today told me good news, the old break is well healed and the screws look fine; the bad news is there is a spiral fracture of the fibula just above the screws. He sent me to an ortho doc, who said he was fairly sure I wouldn't need surgery for this break, but I'm to come back in a week so he can xray it again. I feel really down, since I am diabetic my bones are slow to heal, and I remember the sheer misery being one-legged caused me in the past. No walking the dog for me, just as she gets to where she frolics instead of gluing herself to my leg. I have to ask for help at every step, can't drive (right ankle) and our house being two stories means I am either up or down, and whatever I want will be on the other floor.

Feeling down doesn't begin to cover it.

Puppy Mom

Above is the photo I took a few minutes ago. There are inherent problems with photographing a solid black dog. They may be clearly defined in the viewfinder, but simply put, they don't reflect as much light as, say, a tan dog. In my film camera, I can use the backlight compensation (+2 for instance), but my simplistic digital camera doesn't. So as I get my film processed, I ask for a CD, and from that I'll uplaod a better pic.

Getting a new puppy is more work than I remember from 20+ years ago. The whining at night, the housebreaking accidents, the necessity to put everything UP above nose height (which will get higher and higher as she grows!), it's all a constant struggle. Garbage cans. Kleenex. Shoes. Candy wrappers. The only saving grace is knowing that, unlike babies, puppies grow up really fast, and in 6 months the worst will be over. I shall endure.

As for the cats, the youngest one has hidden in a back bedroom for the last week, but the others are getting pretty blase about the pup. Mind, they too recognize the value of getting up high. Fortunately, she is unable to use stairs, so they can go up when she's down, and vice versa.

We named her Raven. She's 8 weeks old today, and weighs 18 pounds.

On the mend

Slowly recovering the ability to breathe through my nose, but still in bed to write this. More snow today, but mid-week it is supposed to warm up into the 40s. This is good news because Friday we drive to the Cleveland area to pick up the new puppy! There will be pictures posted, not only of the puppy, but of 5 very ticked-off cats. This should, at least, have the upside of distracting them from the aquarium, where new fish are darting and air is bubbling, and the fish won't swim near the front of the aquarium for fear of attack.

The hub and son made a run to the store yesterday for orange juice, and came home with candy, cookies and cake as well, bless them. My appetite has been nil with the cold, for everything except sweets. Being diabetic, I am careful of amounts I eat, but I can't eat nothing either.

In addition to general web surfing, I have been ebaying quite a bit. I was on ebay back when I had to explain to people what it was. Too bad I didn't invest in it too. Anyway. I've had good fun with it, getting everything from clothes to Christmas trees. Currently I'm interested in old cameras. We have several that were bought new back in the 50s to the 70s, and recently we sorted through them all in the process of re-arranging furniture. Somehow, I can't get into the whole digital scene, the comparable pixel-to-film comparison is generally thought to be 12 Mpix = 35mm at 100 ASA, and do you know what a 12 Mpix camera costs? Some sources say it is actually more like 24 Mpix, if you want to make a significant enlargement. Plus, I like photos I can hold in my hand, or frame, or fill an album, and the cost of printing digital photos is absurd. And too, I think of archival properties. How can a digital photo be preserved in a format that will be usable in, say, 50 years? CDs don't last more than 20 or so, I've been told, even if the hardware and software to read them is still around. The same goes for flash cards, hard drives, etc. Remember 5 1/4" floppies? I have family photos as cabinet cards dating back to post civil war times, taken in the Matthew Brady studio in D.C. But yet the film part of photography is taking it on the chin. It is exceedingly hard to find film in 110, 16 mm, 120 mm or most polaroid formats, let alone someone willing to process them. I'm sorry we did away with our home darkroom, at the time I had a really great one available at work (for doing electron microscopy), but now some of that technology has been subverted to the digital format too, although believe me, the film used in EMs, at an ASA of around 8 and magnifications of 100,000 x, make the digital cameras on the scopes cost in the hundreds of thousands, often equal to the cost of the scope itself. And the digital files are, of course, gigantic. Anyway, no darkroom here anymore, although I think the Vo Tech still offers classes in B&W photog. I took photo classes in San Fran where the emphasis was photography as art; here at the university I took photojournalism classes, which is an entirely different kind of slant on photos. The funny thing about any kind of photograph is, if you show someone a really good bunch of pictures, the almost universal reaction is to say, wow, you must have a good camera. And not that you yourself had any influence on the subject, composition, exposure, depth of field, etc. Just that you had 'a good camera'. The best camera in the world, with every shot technically correct, won't equal having a 'good eye'. Neither will Photoshop.

Well, just writing this has tired me out, so I'll give up for now. Hope everyone is keeping warm!

sick, sicker, sickest

Having a cold/the flu is the pits. Between the sore throat, the hoarness, the drips, the aches, you get the picture....

I haven't had so much as a sniffle in years.

Outside it is 20 and snowing, with wind gusting to 30 mph. Thank gods I don't have to work, or even go out, except the Miata is supposed to go to the shop on Friday, which will only happen if we get the sunshine plow through here sometime soon (not likely). I think I caught the cold at the grocery store, but we bought enough for two full weeks of cooking, so I can hibernate as needed.

Signing off for now....

TA DA! We have a kitchen!

OK, the kitchen is done. The entire job: vinyl floor replaced with ceramic tile; painted; new curtains and border; new corian (tumbled glass) counter tops with new corian sink. Doesn't seem like a lot, put that way, but it took nearly 6 weeks. We used the original cabinets, but I cleaned them with steel wool and re-stained where necessary.

So here is a photo showing a bit of the floor and up to the border


Here is the other side of the kitchen


And here is a close-up of the sink and counter


And this is the view of the other corner, showing the new pantry/door.


The kitchen is actually 11' x 11', but the side not shown is just one tall cabinet between the reefer and the freezer, not too interesting.

These were all taken with the MacBook's on-screen camera.

What a huge relief; my dining room is still not quite recovered, but frankly I ran out of energy. Tomorrow.....

Worst Fiction

Yesterday's retreat reminded me that years ago I won second place in a WVU contest for faculty and staff to write the first sentence of the world's worst fiction novel. As I recall, there is a national contest for this as well (I'm too lazy to google it to check that). At any rate, I thought I'd share my entry, and the entry of the first place author.

Mine:
The prince had danced with all of the eligible women at the ball, most of their brothers, some of the castle livestock, and anyone could see he was thoroughly bored, so Cindy was determined to make an unforgetable impression, twitching her ammo belt to reveal the right amount of cleavage, adjusting her satin cape and matching eyepatch, checking that the spikes of her wrist gauntlets were glittering, she tugged the leash of her dire wolf, stepped briskly across the floor, slapped the prince firmly across his plump cheek and in a husky voice snapped, "Wake up, dolt! My pumpkin's double parked. You interested in hauling ashes?"

But mainly I wanted to share the first place entry. Maybe you can guess the year from this...

Bill Case
Ronald Reagan Abercrombie (his mother had named him for her favorite TV actor, and the Abercrombies, whose pretensions to New England respectability were still strong then, not diluted by the events that came later, never forgave her) slipped his feet smoothly into the size-12 Bruno Magli leisure shoes the well-spoken African-American man had tossed at him from the window of the speeding Ford Bronco on LaCienga Boulevard, thinking fondly of the last leather shoes he had owned before his vegetarian girlfriend shamed him into wearing only cloth and plastic on his knurled and tired footsies--she was gone now, gone far away and would never--he hoped!--return, not in this life, not without some sign from above--the kind of sign he saw out of the corner of his eye through the smoggy Los Angeles air--a sign that called out to him, him alone, in a gaudy neon imitation of the tablets Moses wrested from the mountaintop in some old black-and-white movie his mother dragged him to in 1959, from its perch on the six-story block of flats, once owned by The Italian, now home to fallen movie stars, lost hillbillies, hopeful models and not a few forgotten felons--not that the shoes fit, mind you, but their very looseness was itself a luxury to him, who had known so many and missed them all.

I think you can see why it took first, yes?

Reader, Writer, 10 O'clock scholar

So, I attended the writer's 'retreat' today and thought I would marshal my thoughts here. There were 9 of us, all women of middle-ish age (I guess), and we all introduced ourselves, said what we wanted from the effort. Everyone mentioned what she was reading, or was inspired by, except me. I recognized none of their authors, although I might have read a review of one of them, but I didn't think telling them I was currently reading Dean Koontz (Brother Odd) would foster the image I was pretending to have. That's of being literate, without mentioning that I never voluntarily read anything other than for pure entertainment and/or escapism. Well, not counting Newsweek and Time, since I never watch the news on TV because they go too fast for me. The poetry we were given to read did what poetry always does for me--nothing much. To me, poetry is like marzipan; it tastes good, but in the end your mouth is empty and you've left thinking, is that IT? Some poetry is OK, but it doesn't go far enough for me, I want more story, details. I feel the same about short stories; even if my favorite author writes them, I never read them. So I think I'll forget the bi-monthly workshops, but still I got what I wanted from this session, which is the inspiration to get cracking again on my science fantasy novel. I never seemed to have the time to really make progress when I was a worker bee. Now that I am a Lady of Leisure, I can't use that excuse any more. Great literature it isn't, but I like to think it's a decent enough tale.

Monday is supposed to be Countertop Day, but I'll believe it when they carry it in the house and not before.

Now the 10 degree wind is howling around the house, revealing every ill-fitted doorjamb and leaky window seal. The outdoor cats are all in the garage huddled around the heater or under the rugs/blankets etc. The horses are in the barn wearing their winter woolies. They have liquid water twice a day for at least some time; I tell them to drink fast. Several years ago we had a water pipe burst in the house and had to shut off the water at the main valve. We attempted to melt snow for the horses to drink, but do you know how much snow it takes to get 15 gallons of water? Twice a day? In the end, we turned the water back on and held buckets under the split pipe for them, until a plumber could slog out to repair it. If someone had stopped by with a horse trailer and $50, they would have been gone, that winter.

I made bread last night (and it's all gone today). I ended up letting it rise inside a pre-warmed oven, because there are drafts in the kitchen from, weirdly enough, the attic. All my dishes and glasses are pre-chilled; if only we were drinking champagne or eating bouillabaisse or gazpacho. My old gas stove had pilot lights instead of sparking lighters, so the oven would be just right for bread. And yes, I know the new way is safer, and environmentally sounder, etc. etc., but I still wish we had an old one. It was also just the thing to hold your hands over after being outside.

All in all, it's hard to envision global warming today.

Still dreamin'

OK, so here it is 3 weeks and counting, and still no kitchen countertops. We have kitchen accoutrements strewn far and wide while we try to do simple cooking tasks that don't require, say a whisk, or the top to the big pot, only because we haven't found them yet. All the carefully labeled boxes are so much random scribblings because their contents have been shuffled while we search for ever-elusive bits of cookware. Now I am resigned to our fate. Maybe next week.

Meanwhile, I have signed up for a local writer's workshop. What, you don't think I need one? Ah, shucks, ain't nothin' much. But seriously, I expect to be completely at sea, struggling to comprehend difficult concepts like character development, plot lines, and who knows what-all else. I plan to do much listening and no talking. If I think I can get through my extreme shyness with strangers, I may sign up for the new weekly group sessions, I'll just have to wait and see how this goes. I have a novel half written that I've piddled around with for at least 10 years, maybe I can actually set shoulder to the wheel and get it finished. No promises. And what I'll do with it afterwards, I haven't a clue.

A sweet Newfoundland puppy is in the immediate future; she's now 4 weeks old. We'll drive to Ohio, up near Cleveland, to pick her up near the end of Feb. Big changes in store for a bunch of very spoiled cats who have ruled the roost for a long time. I have a photo at 3 weeks:

Dreeeeam, dream dream dream

Did I say the kitchen the would be done this week? HO! and HO! Everything has been going along like clockwork. Cabinets packed up, the countertops and sink removed, cabinets disassembled, old flooring ripped out, new ceramic tile down, grouted, then sealed, cabinets replaced, leveled, stove re-connected. Next to come is the corian countertops. Fabricator notified, and tho we were ready for them yesterday (monday), they called to say they couldn't get out to do the "template" until Thursday. When I said, then when do the countertops themselves get put in? And the answer was, oh, 2 to 3 weeks!!! We hit the roof. We ordered the countertops and paid for them on November 3rd. The whole point was to have all the many people involved to be ready ready as each was called upon. Our contract says, date to commence, Jan 2, expected date of completion, Jan 15. Clearly this isn't going to happen. The manager of the really big Home store thru whom all of this is being done says, Oops. When we threatened going to the regional manager, they conceeded that perhaps we "had a failure to communicate". In compensation, they agreed to have a temporary sink installed (hopefully today) so we can at least use a kitchen that has running water, instead of washing pots in the bathroom tub.

And as if that weren't bad enough, late last night we suffered a major catastrophic Plumbing Failure, in that the Master downstairs bathroom, toilet, whirlpool tub and 4 foot shower all backed up with every bit of water sent down the drains in the two upstairs baths, which mostly ended up on the floor. I felt like I was trying to stem Noah's Flood with a squeeze mop. We had a bucket brigade going out side, and my whole goal was to keep it from reaching the carpeted bedroom. After two hours I got the last of it mopped up --not clean, mind you, but mopped up-- the plumber called to say he couldn't get here until this morning, and we ran out and bought a camping potty to use meanwhile. I was supposed to get a Mammogram and then a visit to the surgeon this morning, but no way was I going without taking a shower first! The plumber is here now and hopefully I'll be able to wash all the wretched towels and throw rugs used in the Great Flood currently residing in the Washer soon.

I'm too annoyed with the whole world right now, and I'm going to go shopping. As soon as I get a shower.

The New Year

I've been noticing that quite a few of the blogs I read regularly have not had any recent posts. Of course, neither has mine. Maybe I just lurk on a lot of slacker blogs (not Ginger, tho!), but more reasonably it's the holiday and new year ennui that leaves everyone saying,"Oh, the h*** with it".

I'm sitting in the living room with the MacBook while two hard-working guys lay ceramic tile in my kitchen. Having the entire kitchen pulled to pieces is way more disruptive than I had anticipated. We started demolition 5 days ago, and the house looks like Dorothy's house after she landed in Oz. There are narrow pathways to thread between cabinets, appliances, and boxes, and for cooking we have the microwave and the toaster. We nuked a casserole last night and then discovered we had packed all the serving spoons; all we have are plastic tableware. By the time it was served it was cold and had to be re-nuked. Tonight it's going to be a restaurant. The kitchen won't be useable until next week, probably Friday. I have a ton of stuff to throw out, I found stuff in the cupboards I didn't know we owned, like a presto hot dog cooker, and a belgian waffle maker, neither of which show any sign of ever being used. Goodwill will get whatever doesn't go in the trash, and maybe we'll be good for another 25 years here. Any future remodeling here will be done with a box of kitchen matches!

But other than this mess, I'm getting used to being retired. It is so cool to be able to work on a project without having to anticipate leaving it half finished until the weekend. I like being able to schedule appointments for the middle of the day instead of first thing or last thing a 5. I like running errands when I take my time instead of rushing in and out, and getting vexed if I forget something. But I never realized how far things have been let go, cleaning and organizing, yard work, and let's don't think about the attic, I'm sure I never sanctioned all the stuff up there, what is in all those boxes?

I've been able to work on the genealogy records, one of those jobs that you can't stop when you're working through, say, census records in a given area, not unless you plan on reviewing the same records more than once. So much more on-line sources, even actual images of the hand-written records. As a side note, never let anyone maunder on about the poor penmanship of the modern era, those census takers back in 1870 had atrocious handwriting! No wonder the transcribed records are unreliable. I never met my paternal grandfather, he and my grandmother were divorced back in 1922 when Dad was a baby. I discovered that he (my GF) was illegitimate, that the family name comes from his mother who was a servant at a neighbor's farm at the time he was conceived. And I discovered he lied about his age to get in the Army in WWI. And I found he is buried at Gettysburg National Cemetery. Interesting.

I once considered posting my genealogy files, but despite containing 1800+ relatives, it's still very much a work in progress. And probably will be, forever....I figure I'll use my knowledge to bore the socks off all the other little old ladies when I'm in my dotage. Meanwhile, I'll spare the rest of you!

This is the first day of the rest of my so-called life

This weekend just felt like any other one, but today! A Monday of permanent workless-ness! So nice.

On my last day, my co-workers took me (and the Hubby) to lunch, followed by a nice cake-and-snacks party, and a lovely gift of a fountain pen (which I collect). They are a nice bunch of people, and I like to think I did a good job for them these last 30 months. As for the two or three b****s that I barely survived back before this last job, I am secure in the knowledge that what goes around comes around, and that there will come a day when they are in need of a helping hand and they won't get it. PFFFTTTTT.

I am propped up here in bed writing this on the new MacBook. The screen is so much brighter than my desktop, and I can position it so I can actually read with my bifocals. I tell my family I don't need a thing for Christmas, that I have everything I can think of, most especially the freedom to pursue my interests full time.

And right now I think I'll pursue a snack.......

Five....

Today is my LAST Monday at work! I saw both my psychiatrist and my therapist earlier today, and they both remarked on how upbeat I sound today.

This weekend, I rounded up a batch of photos from our 2001 vacation to the Carribean, scanned or uploaded them to the MacBook, and began arranging them into an album. It's a small start on the photos, which include 36 years of our photos, all of my mother's, my mother-in-law's, my paternal grandmother's (she was a flapper in the twenties and some of her photos are a hoot!)and including various portraits and cabinet cards handed down from WAAAY back. Some of the cabinet cards are from the Matthew Brady studio in D.C., where my grandmother's parents lived. And many of them have no names on them, grrrr.... Of course the people who had them originally knew who they were, but now I am clueless. In some cases, I have simply guessed and in others I'm making them up, because after all, who is there to contradict me? And so my children and so on will have a lovely photgraphic legacy to pass along. I find it so sad when I find old family albums for sale in antique shops, to me it means there was no one left who cared, no one at all, to keep them in the family. The same with family Bibles, I would KILL (well, not really)to have a family Bible to clarify my genealogy searches. When I watch Antique Road Show, I marvel when I hear someone say, "Oh, this belonged to my great-great (X5) grandfather, my father left it to me." I mean, the main thing my parents left me were debts and furniture from Sears; oh yeah, and old photos....

Movin' right along, dum de dum

If you don't recognize the title, it's from the Muppets Take Manhatten movie, and the tune is bumping along in my head as I write this.

Just 5 days of work left. I've been working since September of 1972, barring some time off for babies, moving, surgery, etc. And I feel every bit that old, too. Lately I've been having dreams, more like nightmares, of trying to do some lab procedure and flubbing it up. I wake up and think, hummm, how DID I do that? Which is totally unproductive, since I have forgotten WAY more procedures than I ever learned (leaving me at a -9 in knowledge). I think this must be the work equivalent of the post-college dreams of having an exam in a class I forgot to attend all semester.

In other news, I bought a (used) MacBook to use on the massive photo album project I'm planning, and Crikey! I LIKE it. I may become an Apple convert -- probably the only conversion likely at this point! Back in the Old Days, when "mini computers" were first moving into work and homes (like 1980), my then-boss bought our lab an Apple IIe, and I re-wrote the program for our data analysis (a weighted fit log-logit program) to run on it, previously done on a mainframe. It was a darned complex program for a mini, but far too simple to justify running it on a main-frame, and I was way proud of it. I still have the code (in BASIC) somewhere. Anyway, when the Hub and I decided we should get a computer ourselves, he pointed out that all the government offices were going to IBM PCs, and to be able to work at home, an Apple would be useless for him. So we bought/made a 286/16 ("blindingly fast", don't you know?) PC from component parts, which ran on MS-DOS, of course, using a program called "Automenu" to start the various programs. For years I had a sign for my desk that said "I don't do Windows", but eventually we were forced to switch, starting with 3.0, I think. It didn't work any better then, simple as it was, than it does now, unfortunately. But all this time, I've toyed with the idea of having a Mac, and recently thought I'd dabble. I installed Parallels on it, which lets you run Windows on a virtual machine, mainly so I could load Family Tree Maker and take my family file with me when I go to courthouses/library to work on the genealogy thing. It was a little difficult, simply because I couldn't locate a bootable CD for Windows XP. I mean, here at home we have 5 computers running XP on them, but since XP comes pre-installed, with a partition on the hard drive for Recovery, NO install disks! Or so I thought, until I remembered the defunct (fried motherboard) Compaq laptop my daughter bought some 15 months ago (never buy a Compaq, trust me on this). Compulsive that she is, she had the thing IN its original box, with all the papers, manuals, etc. that came with it, and LO, there was an XP install disk, with the key code stuck on the bottom of the laptop. Given that it is DOA ($800 to repair!), I felt completely justified in installing that copy of XP on the MacBook. Did you know that it is real complicated to make a CD that is bootable? No more of the "format D: /s" to make it bootable; that parameter is no longer available for the format command. Instead you have to burn an .iso image to the disk (one program to create the image, another to burn the image in the correct sector) and then transfer the correct Windows file to it....I gave up. And making a copy of someone else's bootable install CD doesn't make the copy bootable either (well, duh). Anyway, the Mac now runs both OSs and I'm right pleased with myself. All that computer programming back in the early 70s wasn't a complete waste (keypunch cards, remember those days? No? Well, then I guess I'm older than dirt, after all....).

For my final week at work, I think I'll be doing it with a cold, rotten luck. I haven't had one in years, but today I've got a sore throat, and that "malaise" feeling that all is Not Right in Redhead land. I tend to get (somewhat) morbid when I'm ill, and along with the Muppet tune, I've got John Donne's Meditation 19 rolling around in my brain ("Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee..."). I had to memorize it for an English Lit class eons ago, and one thing about it, it's stuck in my memory forever, unlike more important information, like the names of my children. I think that my memory worked best when there was so little in it, why else would I still remember the poem "Winken, Blinken, and Nod" after 50 years? Not something I've had call to use much in the meantime...

Movin' right along

Counting Down

I only have ***15*** days of actual work left. December 15th is my last day, and I'm feeling a fair amount of unreality now. Friday (the day after turkey day), the Hub and I went to our bank and made the LAST payment on our mortgage. We actually paid it off 11 years early, having moved in here in Oct. of 1980 with an interest rate of 12 and one-quarter percent (not unusual for those days), and having re-financed it twice to take advantage of the much-lower interest rates, and to put an addition on the house. Starting Jan 3rd, the kitchen remodel will begin (already paid for), replacing linoleum with tile, and Formica countertops with Corian, and a Corian sink, new disposal, etc. Keeping the original cabinets, which need a little touch-up here and there, like new knobs and such, but they were top-of-the-line back then, and I still like them, dings notwithstanding. Of course, all this means having no kitchen for a week or more, and having to pack up all the kitchen junk in the base cabinets and move it all into the dining room (somehow), so that the tile will go under the cabinets, and more specifically, under the dishwasher. As it turns out, the weird black marks on the linoleum in front of the dishwasher and sink area are not caused by the backing of the throw rug; no indeed, they are caused by the dishwasher having corroded through its base, leaking under the dishwasher (mushrooms!!! Under the dishwasher!!!) and seeping betweeen the two layers of linoleum, and then mold forming. A total mess. A new dishwasher was installed, but this clearly only addressed the immediate problem and not the damage done by the leak. This latest remodel should be the last for the kitchen. Oh yeah, we're repainting too, starting with the (ewwww) ceiling. My ideal in a kitchen would be one with a big floor drain, and a reel-out steam hose you could use to BLAST AWAY at the greasy, cobwebby bits, ceiling to floor, cabinets, appliances, countertops, the works. Daily. Sort of like an operating room, all white tile and stainless steel and bright lights. Meanwhile, scrub, paint, and then keep scrubbing. I tend to work on housework the way they paint the Golden Gate bridge--I putter away at it, slowly making progress day to day, but never having the whole thing done at once, just starting over again and again and...

Our Thanksgiving was fine in all respects. Having once had only the two of us for it, then gradually adding more and more people (I think the high was 17), and then gradually having attrition back to just the four of us, Hub and I and the kids (now 25 and 26). For the first time, daughter R came in the kitchen and helped with that last hour's worth of pandemonium, peeling and stirring and setting the table and so forth, WITHOUT being asked. Then she and her brother began the clean-up. It always amazes me, how long the prep and cleanup take, when the actual eating is done in, oh, twenty minutes. You know the definition of an optimist? It's the guy who asks, the day after Thanksgiving, "What's for dinner?"

I was off this entire week, and got a lot of re-organizing done, and also a fair amount of reading and naps. I even did some Christmas shopping, washed and vacuumed my car, and the usual laundry. Which reminds me: I have a key hanger that has a spare key for pretty much everything. When I took my Miata to get its winter shoes put on, I thought I'd use the spare key so I wouldn't have to wrestle with taking the key off my keyring. I grabbed it, hopped in the car and OOPs, it didn't work. My guess is that it is the key for one of the other two Miatas I had in the past. So I popped by the Mazda dealer to get a spare key made, and guess what? They have a "chip" for security in the key, and to get a key made you have schedule a service visit, bring the car and ALL the keys with you, and have them program the new key. The cost? $115. For a spare key! Don't you think they should have mentioned this at the time we bought the car? Also, they told us that the main computer in the car has been recalled (we never were notified), and when the replacement comes in, they will call for us to schedule a time to bring the car back, along will ALL the keys, to be re-made (fortunately, for free). If we had known about the recall, maybe we would have saved some $$ by asking for another key THEN, but alas...

That's about it for now, I'll try to post more frequently now that I will be a Lady of Leisure. Maybe even post some photos! as soon as I figure out just how to do that.....

What are the odds?

Two weeks ago my husband and I arranged to meet at a local restaurant for lunch. I got there first, and was shown to a table, and I sat facing the door so I could watch for the Hub. As I was seated, I realized that at the table directly behind me, also facing the door, sat a man that I used to work for (D), whom I disliked, with three women from his department. We didn't make eye contact, so I didn't speak, just sat down.

So here I am at a table alone, looking over the menu, waiting. I swear I wasn't eavesdropping on D, there was just a wash of murmured conversation all around me. But have you ever been in a place, maybe a party, where you're wool-gathering, and suddenly someone nearby speaks your name in passing and your attention zeros in on that voice? That's what happened here--D said not just my first name, but first and last names. Over the next couple of minutes as I listened, I realized what he was saying. At first I thought, he DID see me, and now he's going to say hello, and I'll have to be polite back. But actually, he was telling the women about when I worked in his department, how I had taken 3 months of leave (FMLA, actually) following a suicide attempt that put me in the ICU, and how they terminated my position the day I returned; and that in response I had filled a grievance against the department, and then proceeded to tell them how the grievance went. And the longer I listened, the angrier I got, that here was this jerk revealing confidential information to other people, just as an entertaining story! He also mentioned that now I inspect his departmental labs for safety, etc. etc. I was in a quandary sitting there, deciding what to do. They had already been served, so inevitably they would pass directly past my table as they left and D would see me, and then think, did she hear me? And I wanted to tell him Yes, I DID hear him; and I wanted him to stop before more juicy tales emerged while I sat there feeling devastated. So I turned around, leaned over to look him directly in the face. He said "Hey, there's M now!" all hearty hail-fellow-well-met. I said, "You might want to think about changing the subject right about now." He said , "Huh?" and I repeated it. Then I turned around, and signaled the Hub, who had just arrived at the door. There was freezing silence behind me, and a few minutes later they fled past our table and out.

So what are the odds that I would be seated near someone I knew, and that without my own companion to talk to, I would overhear him, 4 years after the fact, talking about me? Could he have unconsciously registered me when I was seated, and that started the train of thought? Did he CONSCIOUSLY know I was there, and start the conversation so I WOULD overhear? They say eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, and I guess this proves that.

But yesterday, I finished the annual lab safety inspections on his department, and there are all kinds of deficiencies, some of the ones I pointed out last year still haven't been corrected, and I will bring the most egregious violations to the attention of the administration. With prejudice, I might add. Ah, payback is a bitch.....

Newbie Drivers

I grew up in Miami Florida, or My-YAM-ee, and when I was home for the summer after my freshman year of college, I needed to find a job and get more $$ for school. I put in apps many places, but usually telling them you were leaving in September ended the interview right there. One of the places I went to was MacDonalds. At that time I was driving my parents big ole Chevy Stationwagon, and the view out the back was limited by that tailgate. Backing up in the empty parking lot in the pouring rain, I accidentally backed into a post, about 6 inches in diameter and maybe 30 inches high. It dented in the bumper, pushing it up against the tailgate, so that opening the tailgate would crease it. I didn't want to tell my parents, so I "forgot" to say anything that night. The very next day, Mom drove me to an interview downtown, where we had to park in a valet parking garage. After we came home my dad arrived home and parked his car behind the wagon and came in storming, "What the h--- happened to the tailgate?" And Mom said, Oh d---, it must have been that valet, I hate having to turn the car over to someone instead of parking myself, they must have backed out into a post and never said a word, I've a good mind to go back and demand they fix it, but of course they'll deny it was them, I guess we'll just have to get it fixed, etc. etc. for some time. As for me, I said nothing, other than, oh my, just look at that! etc. If they had seriously planned on making a fuss at the garage, I like to think I'd have 'fessed up, but I dunno...
Anyway, for YEARS after that, Mom would always say,"no valet parking for us, remember what happened to the stationwagon?" She said this very thing when she visited us in San Francisco, where nearly all the restaurants in the city had valet parking. So, did I ever confess? Nope. So if she's up there somewhere checking in on me, sorry Mom, it was an accident. I promise I'll tell you next time.....