The hanging drop trembles

Still no word on my car, but at this point I'm not going to worry about it until later this week. Tomorrow's my surgery and my anxiety level yo-yos in a slow oscillation. Trying to tidy up around here, prep stuff for when I get home (though several people have either told me or written in their blogs that the operation itself is routine and post-op discomfort is minimal, and I'm really not scared of the operation), and keep my mind occupied - though I can tell when the anxiety's working in the background because I do things like completely forget I don't have a car while cheerfully writing up a grocery list. I am so fortunate to have such a golden friend who will come by later to take me to the store AND go with me to the hospital tomorrow!

Tick tock...

Taking a breather

Quiet day today; talked to the car dealership but they have to hear back from the Hyundai HQ before they can tell me anything (?) so that's still hanging in the air.

But, I just spent a lovely two hours playing Settlers of Catan with my son. It was his first time playing it, and he whupped me. But not by much! It was fun.

Not the greatest day ever

A total of about three hours on the phone with, variously: my car insurance company, my car dealership, and a towing company. No one was obstructive or not helpful, quite the opposite, but it was still mighty stressful and frustrating. My car's rear end seemed to want to go walkabout the day before yesterday when I started out on errands, so five blocks from home I turned around and crept it home about 5 mph. I had my pre-op doctor's appointment yesterday so I left the car for this a.m. to deal with.

Long story short: the car is finally at the dealer's (though I haven't heard anything from them and now, won't until tomorrow). The tow truck guy took a look and was stunned at what he saw: the rear axle and tire assemblies had come completely un-attached from the sub-frame. They were floating freely. He kept looking at me and saying, "You are SO lucky!" He thought it was beyond repair. It's a 2001 Hyundai Elantra 4-door and I am its only owner. For 10 years it was (for the most part) faithful and true, commuting round-trip 100 miles per day, probably an average of 3.5 days per week. Since I retired in 2011, it hasn't got anywhere NEAR that many miles put on it but it's still at a respectable 190,000+ miles. Its breakdown is no doubt my fault. It was rust what done 'er in.

And I have no idea, at this moment, if it is gone for good. The dealer's shop guy seemed to think they might be able to fix it, but he had to have it in the shop to take pictures of and send to their HQ shop (? Really? They do that?) and ask how to fix it. I can't imagine its Blue Book value can be very high so it's going to have to be a VERY cheap fix before I'll be able to afford it.

And I cannot afford another car. At all. So if this one's a goner, I'm officially carless. And now I'm very glad indeed that I did that carless experiment back in October, because it gave me a realistic idea of what I'd be dealing with in this situation. It's going to alter my life, but I can do it.

I am so lucky that my son & his family are here right now visiting. He worked in a bike shop for several years when he moved to California many years ago. Today we went to the Omaha Bicycle Company in Benson and bought a replacement tire tube for my new bike, a helmet, a pump, and a lock. The basics. Next I'll need elbow & knee pads (THIS old lady ain't going out on a bicycle without them!) And that will round out my transportation options: feet, bike, bus, taxi, friends. With the occasional rental car as needed. I won't be able to offer friends rides to places any more. I don't like that. But maybe it won't be forever. Maybe I'll be able to save up enough to find a decent used car, eventually. That's not on the top of my list right now.

My surgery Monday is on the top of my list. Compared to that, all else pales. I can handle transportation.

Tending to my knitting

I think I've mentioned here before that I have enough sock yarn for about 30 pairs of socks. I NEVER imagined I'd fall into the yarn stash trap, but here I am. Well, there seems to be a certain amount of enforced inactivity coming right up (after surgery on July 13th) so maybe I'll make some new socks to keep my hands busy.

Right now I have two pair on needles. Both are self-designed, if by "designed" you mean "casting on a bunch of stitches and making it up as you go along." I am NOT a fabulous knitter but it turned out that sock-knitting is really easy to figure out! And I have a really hard time keeping track of anything much more complex than a knit 3, purl 1 rib stitch pattern, so I just basically make the same sock over & over again. I'll get venturesome and try a single lace leaf pattern in the middle of the sides of a pair of socks - eventually. For now my two main reasons to knit are to replace my rapidly-disintegrating store-bought-sock wardrobe with all me-made socks, and to keep my hands busy. The old socks are falling apart much faster than I can knit new ones, is the problem. So, I need to trundle on.

Here's the current sock:

It's not perfect, obviously. I don't aim for perfection, I'm just doing the best I can.

This is the first sock of the other pair, which I've set aside while I try to figure out how to approach the heel flap and turn:

Both of these pairs are made of CoBaSi yarn, a new fibre for me. Cotton, Bamboo, and Silk! The intent is to have some non-wool socks for the warmer months.

I don't know why I seem to have narrowed my interest down to socks. Just can't muster much interest in anything else, though there are a couple of winter-wear accessories projects I have everything needed to make. Maybe this fall those will distract me from socks for awhile.

I usually have plenty of help when I knit:

You can see O'Keefe is applying all her kitty intelligence to supervising me. Here she's just about to mention that I dropped that last stitch...

How we get around

One of the subjects I've become interested in since my retirement is urban transportation. I have a list of blogs and web sites I check frequently for local and national and even international news and insights. I subscribe to Mode>Shift>Omaha's email notices, I've bookmarked several bicycling web sites (I have a bike now! It's not ride-able yet but once I've got the health stuff behind me I'm hoping to get back in the saddle!) I've said here often that I need to walk more, and take more advantage of our bus system.

Here are some web sites I've found interesting, entertaining and helpful:

Poynton Regenerated - Rumor has it that the construction chaos out at 90th & Maple Streets is going to be revealed, when the dust settles, as a giant roundabout. Single-lane roundabouts are no longer strange sights in Omaha, but somehow the idea of scaling that up to two lanes scares the hell out of people. Big cities the world over have long had roundabouts - usually scapegoated humorously by Americans such as the hapless tourist taking his life in his hands to get across the Place Vendôme. But if they can do it, we can do it. This 15 minute film is fascinating, showing pre-project doubts and conditions, and post-project opinions and benefits. They used a number of known approaches to increasing safety for pedestrians and keeping traffic moving. There is a whole *world* of ways to make our lives better through the design of transportation projects. This is a good video to get your toes wet.

Mode>Shift>Omaha - for citizens to keep up on local transportation issues.

Mode>Shift>Omaha onTwitter (pro tip: you don't have to "belong" on Twitter to read other people's Tweets; you just can't respond to them if you haven't registered. I haven't. I lurk. If I feel the overwhelming urge to comment, I'll send the Tweeter a private email. Doesn't happen often.)

Human Transit - pro planner Jarrett Walker's excellent blog about issues in transporting human beings through their cities and lives.

I love the web site Streetfilms. You get to see videos from cities all over the world about dealing with human transportation issues in humane and intelligent ways. It's inspiring!

Charles Marhon's video dissecting an engineer's video of a "diverging diamond" intersection is an entertaining 10 minutes that will get you started actually *seeing* the kind of insane transportation environment we've all become accustomed to. Marhon's blog Strong Towns is full of insightful discussions, videos and interviews about how people are trying everywhere to make towns and cities about human beings again. He pulls no punches when critiquing his profession's blind spots about designing for people.

There's a lot going on locally in this arena. If you've ever wondered what the heck is going on in Benson - cruise through Omaha By Design's website to find out.

Last October I tried a month-long experiment to see if I could live without a car in Omaha. I didn't make it the full month; read about what I learned, starting with this post.

Getting into a summery frame of mind

I dunno, just had a sudden yen for lemonade and a good book...and a cool place to settle in and laze...I also have my Number 1 Chief Assistant, O'Keefe who's glued herself to my lap. And it's warm and sunny outside giving just right amount of appreciation for the cool indoors...

That was taken on a summer morning.

The red flag.

That's it. You may have to look very very closely before you see it.
A tiny dot.
A tiny RED dot.

This is not a subject I would choose to address in a blog post. But it might be important to someone else so here it is:

If you are a woman who's past menopause for a few years, and you see that tiny red dot in your panties, and if there is no known reason for it - see your doctor. NOW. Put everything else aside, because nothing is as important as getting to your doctor. 

Post-menopausal female plumbing should not bleed. Not at all. Not even such a tiny amount as that itty bitty red dot like the one above. That tiny red dot is your body doing the best it can to wave a gigantic red flag in your face: get help now.

I did, last week, and Thursday I heard those words you never expect to hear: "It's cancer."

So everything else gets set aside and I go to a succession of medical pros, and at this point we know it's Stage Grade 1 endometrial adenosarcoma. ["Grade" and "Stage" are two different things, describing different things. Grade I means it's the least aggressive form, it takes the longest to spread. Until the post-surgical analysis, we won't know what "Stage" it is - this is the familiar "Stage I, II, III, and IV" which tells us how far it has or has not spread]*.  I'm going to get a CAT scan in 3 days that will tell the surgeon more. We know I'm going in for a complete hysterectomy July 13th, and after that they will be able to tell whether it has spread, whether I'll need chemo and/or radiation, exactly what that nasty bugger is doing/has done. 

I was scared until I could see the oncologist yesterday, who would relate to me everything they know so far. I'd have moments of existential dread and despair, alternating with long periods of not thinking about it, going about my usual daily business. 

But the dread is gone now; I know what it is. I know what we're going to do about it. I don't know what will come after that, but I will, as time passes. I have a lot of hope that catching it "so early" (as every one of the medical people I've been to see said) means they can get it all with surgery. I have a lot of hope that even if that's not so, it hasn't gone so far that we can't still kill it with medical science. I even have a lot of hope that if it eventually kills me, I will still be able to remember what an incredibly lucky life I have enjoyed, and what dear, loving and loyal family and friends I have. 

But if you see a tiny red dot, and you know it shouldn't be there - see your doctor NOW.

This isn't going to become a Cancer Blog. I might mention it now and again but I hope to have other more interesting and fun things to post.

My kids gave me a tee shirt before I got the diagnosis. It says, under the atomic symbol:

"Keep Calm and Trust Science."

That's my motto these days.

*I edited this Monday, June 22nd to make it more accurate.

Sometimes you just need to take a break

If your heart is a little heavy maybe this guy catching water in his hands for his goldfinch to take a bath in will ease the soreness a little.

Reality.

Not much has been happening worth blogging about, but stuff has been happening. Haven't decided yet whether to blog about it all. The basic life stuff marches on: trying to keep up with the yard work, carry out my over-optimistic plans (if they're not over-optimistic, what's the point?) for various plantings and features. Also keeping up with just ordinary chores. Family's coming for a visit this week which is exciting and very, very welcome.

But running always behind and beyond any life stuff, good or bad, fun or work or ordinary or exciting, is a kind of ... hum. It's a baseline in the back of my head from ghods know where, childhood or whatever. My lifelong constant background of feeling inadequate, incompetent, not good enough, not smart enough, not Enough enough. And it's exhausting because on top of the energy required to keep the house and the yard and my own interests and friendships and family-ships going there's this 10 Ton weight of Inadequacy I have to haul up the hill, every time.  I don't know what I'm doing, I've NEVER known what the hell I was doing, and I never will and if I don't make a complete lethal disaster out of it (whatever It is) it certainly won't be my doing.

I think maybe I should save up for a week at a spa where you don't have to do anything at all for yourself. Somebody else cooks and serves the food and somebody else does the laundry and there are no decisions and no responsibilities and you don't have to think about anything at all for a week. Sounds good to me.

Fantasy vs. Reality, again

Here's how it works in my head.

Sometime in late April, after mowing the front yard and sweeping all the trimmings up and making everything all neat and tidy out front, I take all the plants I have nurtured through the winter - the geraniums, the begonias, the pretty bright raspberry-red-leaved things, the Swedish ivy, the Pothos that vines so nicely indoors - and arrange them all, biggest to smallest, in the garage after having made a temporary workbench out of the two barstools and a half-size plywood sheet - and gather all the outdoor pots. Gather the potting soil, the compost, the sand, gravel, and stones, the watering can and water...the hand tools...the 1970s-era macramé plant hangers for the two hooks on the front porch pillars. Then I serenely and cooly take the biggest plants (the geraniums) out of their pots and put them in their new ones.  I place them out front on the steps, one, two, three. I go back to the garage and take the Begonias, ivies, and raspberry-red things and put them in the hanging pots, and then hang the pots. The rest of the plants are indoor plants and each will go into the next-size-up pot. All go back into the house to their appointed places. I go out and clean up the garage, the few crumbs of soil and a dead leaf or two. Then I come indoors and have a tranquil cup of tea and read a mice mystery novel.

Here's the reality: It's May 21st. I did mow the front yard, once, a couple of weeks ago. Since then it's either been pouring down rain, or I've been sick, so the dandelions are now on their third generation. Today the mower won't start at all. (Makes me so glad I paid the people $180 for its annual spring makeover! He's supposedly coming this afternoon to figure out what's wrong. Any bets it'll turn out to be my fault?) It's now 4 p.m., and only the hanging pots have been planted and hung and it took me two hours and the garage looks like an entire kindergarten class was let loose in there with the open bags of dirt and the hose. I'm hot and sweaty, covered in dirt, and I'm not at all sure the plants in the one pot are going to survive, after I unceremoniously dumped it upside down when trying to insert it into the macramé hanger.  All of the macramé hangers are now in the trash can. Fortunately I had plenty of 16-gauge galvanized wire, and I cobbled together hangers for those pots. (One of which, it turned out, is broken. I'm hoping the double round of wire under the rim will keep it together.)

Also, so far this spring the back yard has never been mowed. Happily, the grass is on its second generation - free seed! But it's knee-high out there so the first mowing is going to be quite exhilarating.  I mean exhausting.

Also, the mowing front and back really really REALLY needs to be done by tomorrow night because my neighbor - the best neighbor in the world - is having his entire family over for BBQ this weekend. He has 9 siblings. I'm assuming they all have spouses, kids, maybe grandkids, and various others tagging along. I don't want my yard to look like the Neighborhood Crazy Lady's yard.

Hope I can get this done.

UPDATE: 5/21/15 5:25 pm: The lawn mower guy came. He pushed the red primer button 7 times (the manuals says 3, and no one ever told me any differently) and guess what happened.

Go on, guess.

Oh rats, you're right: the sucker started right up.

I'd like to know why he didn't suggest that red button thing over the phone.

At least he didn't charge me for the house call.

So, the front yard's mowed! Tomorrow, the back!

Look up "peace" in the dictionary

This is what you'll find.

Thanks, Mom

My mom's been gone since January 1, 2004. I think about her every day.

Ours was far from a perfect relationship, with imperfections abounding on both sides. But I can tell you what I received from her:

A love of nature.

A love of words, and reading.

A love of humor.

And those three things almost define me. I cannot begin to express how important all three are to me. I cannot imagine what I would have been, what my life would have been, without them. It took me way too long to realize this but I did get the chance to write it down and give my thanks to her for them in a birthday card one year. It affected her deeply. She always said she wanted to be buried with that card. Unfortunately by the time it was needed, she had lost it so I couldn't, but I did certainly reiterate the fact and my thanks as appropriate, before the people who attended her memorial service and afterwards, between just her and me.

You gave me the world, Mom. Thank you.

Never was into history

I only took one history course in college, because I had to have one. Otherwise, it never interested me much.

However, as I approached retirement I started getting fascinated with old - as in, The Enlightenment-era - scientific instruments. They are beautiful. Such exquisite workmanship and details. I thought maybe I could center a post-retirement hobby around those. I started reading up on the history of science -- which almost immediately plunged me into the arts, religion, economy, social structures and politics of those times. It was all interwoven. Go figure. My personal non-fiction library started to grow, and I've checked many books on those topics out of the library (AND returned them, in case you were wondering!)

Following are many of my non-fiction books:

My bedside TBR. Only the Habit book is not related to my interests in history. (Note the four library books - not due yet!)

Only the Chesterton here isn't history, though this little bunch is surrounded with other fiction books. The Walkable City, surprisingly, fits right in with my general interest; the author refers often to European cities and how they've developed over the centuries.

I haven't read all the books in these pictures yet, but I aim to. (Side note: I liked that book The Swerve, but I actively loathe its title. Unfortunately it seems to have caught on in the history academic circles. Bleagh.) The one on the far left is Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History by Dr. Ahmad Dallal, of Yale. I tried to crack that one when I bought it but it turned out to be rather dry and dense. I'll have another go at it sooner or later; the incredibly rich scientific history of the Islamic world is (or should be) fascinating.

These aren't nearly my whole non-fiction collection. I have TONS of books on France, and the French language, and many many books in my favorite subject of biology and other sciences.  Every once in awhile I do a thorough comb-through and purge some but it's getting down to the ones I really want to keep now. Books comprise one of my two big vices. Not sure if that's grammatically correct...

I could never sit in a classroom and read this stuff and have to study it and take notes, pass tests, ugh ugh ugh. But very slowly, my reading is accruing layers. It's always fun when something in a book on astronomy clicks with one I read earlier about painting in 15th Century France, and like that.

Collecting a great gift bag for new homeowners

I have no idea why my brain decided to think about this today, but for some reason I was remembering when we first moved into this house in 1993, and how more than once as we were settling in, I found myself having to make unexpected store trips to get items that seemed SO OBVIOUS NOW but which we'd completely overlooked when planning for our move. So without further ado, here's my list. You may notice it's not full of things like $300 monogrammed bath towels, or solid gold lamp finials. This is down and dirty stuff you find really handy when you're getting settled in your new home.

Oh wait, there is one ado I want to further: My one big hint for making Moving Day less hellish:

When you're packing your furniture, put the beds in LAST, so they're the first things placed in your home. (Know where you want to put them before moving day, too). And take all the clean bedding you'll need in the car with you - don't for God's sake bury it in the middle of the moving van! Then, when the beds have been brought into the house, put them together FIRST THING, and make them up with the fresh bedding. Then proceed to move your stuff. At the end of that exceedingly long day, you will SO thank yourself for fixing up the beds first - they're ready to fall into when you most need them!

OK, stuff for a goody bag for new homeowners:

Masking tape, one or more widths

a box of adhesive bandages, various

microfiber cleaning cloths

a small calculator

rubber bands, various sizes and widths

tape measure and / or yardstick

pad(s) & pencil(s)

clothespins (honestly, these are CRAZY useful in all rooms of the house!)

two or three spray bottles (you can give them baking soda and vinegar, great less-polluting cleaning compounds, too)

used toothbrushes for cleaning grout and crevices

A box of sandwich-size sealable plastic bags, and / or one of big garbage bags,  will always be useful, too.  A few folds of clean newspaper, clean cotton rags, plastic cleaning bucket...use your imagination! You could also get gift cards at the closest pizza parlor for your exhausted and starving new homeowners. 

Now I have to go scrub off all the Martha cooties I feel like I've attracted...

Freedom of speech

Journalist Leigh Phillips has an excellent article on Ricochet about free speech in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo atrocities. If you've seen some of the Hebdo cartoons and thought, "Hey, the world *would* be a better place without that shit," you really really

REALLY

need to read this.

Blasted cats!

No matter how recently she's been fed, no matter how long I brushed her fur and murmured sweet nothings in Her Imperial Ear, no matter how few minutes ago it was that I stopped what I was doing for me and petted her for a solid ten minutes - if I put her down on the floor in a fit of exasperation, O'Keefe adopts the Supreme Martyr Posture and facial expression and sits by my chair with her despairing gaze cast down to the floor. Emanating those evil Martyred Cat waves at me, silently. In her mind, she is the Most Abused, Most Starved, Most Neglected, Most Unloved Cat in all the universe. And I am the Evil Mom doing all those terrible things to her. Simply because I refuse to pet her 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

SHE DRIVES ME CRAZY!

What -

well, yes, okay, she was the sick one that kept me awake nights about 6 weeks ago because I was so worried she was dying - or worse, I'd have to decide to have her put to sleep.

What's that got to do with it?

It appears that

a couple of people have somehow, miraculously, stumbled across my blog! So I thought I'd better post something. The freshest thing I have is that I finished reading The Girl on the Train by Paula Dawkins last night. It's on our local library's Mystery Book Club list soon, if not next meeting, so even though I originally requested it because I'd read a review, now it also saves me from having to say about Yet Another Club Selection, "I didn't read it." (There have been some problems with the list. They're getting straightened out. I am not the only one who's rejected The List.)

Anyway - I spent most of this book being really irritated with the main character. As in, if I wasn't bloody well DETERMINED to finish a damn book for the club, I probably would have quit somewhere about page 100. This is a personal thing (of course) I mean it's not because it's not well-written - it is *very* well-written - and it's not because the plot didn't make sense or was inconsistent or unbelieveable. The author did a terrific job, actually. She also used multiple points of view but the changes were clearly marked, and she used present tense which should have been distracting, but it wasn't at all.

No, it was me, and it's a fault I recognize in myself in real life, too: I don't like spending time with people who have character traits of my own which I also hate. This probably isn't unique to me. And maybe my irritation with them is a sign that I really need to work on myself a lot more. (I can hear you: "Ya THINK?")

Also, I'm not someone who tries to figure out the solution to mystery novels. I just go along for the ride. I mean, if I figure out whodunnit, the author has made it thumpingly obvious. In this one, I did NOT see the answer coming. I think I said out loud, "Well damn."

So I can recommend this book because it's very well-written, I think it's a good mystery, and the problems I had with it I believe are all my own. Go for it!

What is it about NaNo...?

Once again, NaNoWriMo has sucked me in. This time, it's April's Camp NaNoWriMo, wherein you can set your own project and word count goals - well, technically November's NaNo doesn't have power over you, you could set your own everythings there, too, but when I participate in November I go by the original rules.

In this one, I'm not. I'm working - rather, re-working - the novel I failed to finish in November 2013. It has bugged me ever since because I really like the thing. So I'm giving it a second chance, I'm just not doing up the whole big NaNo rah-rah thing, enlisting a "team" of friends to prod and praise me along the way, etc etc. Just trying to do it ... um, well, I haven't been doing it for the past three nights so I should really get off this thing and Just Do It.

But what is it about NaNoWriMo that's so compelling? The years I skip I feel guilty and like I'm missing out on something at the same time. There's that almost-irresistible pull...OK. Off to WRITE!

Should have put this in the previous one

But I hadn't run across the Book Riot piece that made me think of this: do you keep a list of your favorite words? Maybe a tiny piece of paper tucked in the back of your wallet, or a sticky note on your laptop desktop...in your diary...or just in your mind?

I have just a handful that I've thought to write down, and remember. Here are some of mine:

leafy

niggle

plausible

(And no, the first two weren't inspired by Tolkien; they were on my list long before I remembered that story I read 35 years ago.)

I really, really love "leafy." And I'm lucky to live in a leafy neighborhood! (Means tons of leaves in the fall but that's OK, too.)

Doesn't look like this right now, but it will before long! I have to believe it will become Spring for real, any day now!

Took an online quiz...

Can't get the results panel to show up on here correctly so I'll just paste the text...and I see the background now extends over to the right side column - however, it's readable so I'll settle for that. Yes, I am that determined to brag. LOL

You Have Mastered the English Language!

You either aced this mock-exam or got a lot more right 

than you did wrong, either way - Color us impressed! Your

 knowledge of the English language extends beyond a

 solid foundation of grammar and spelling, and into a 

finer understanding of syntax, diction, and rhetoric. 

Reading comprehension is also something you're skilled 

with, something most who are take for granted. Try to 

keep those grammar-based pet peeves in check whilst 

sharing your vast knowledge with the rest of the world!

Jupiter and Europa

NASA photo, my dialog

Hittin' some yard sales

Well, actually, an estate/moving sale and a garage sale, but anyway. It was my exercise for the day, a mile and a half (I was surprised it wasn't more - but then it was very hilly). I scored 7 Cherry Ames books (sans dust covers, and there are two of one title - that'll teach me to read the titles before scooping them up!), a tiny bird book that's lost its cover, so I'll have some fun re-covering it, a box cheese grater, and a brand-new 6" x 6" sketch book. That ate up my $10 cash. Walking to sales is a really good idea - not only is it good exercise, it keeps me from buying a lot of things, or any big things.

Still chilly here - 45° - but sunny and breezy. I heard my first cardinal of the year, but could NOT find the bugger even though there aren't any leaves on the trees yet. He was laughing at me, I'm sure.

At one curb I noticed what seemed to be an over-abundance of official markings: the concrete curb itself had been embossed with the contractor's name; there was a "this drain leads to river" disk, and right next to it was a manhole cover over a storm sewer access shaft. The cover was iron, with the Seal of Omaha:

I stood and stared at this for several minutes, trying to figure out what all the various images mean. But it's the one in the center that baffles me. It seems like it *should* be a buffalo head, but what's that object running down the middle of it? In white in this image - stamped in iron it just looks like a blob. Could be a not-quite-stuffed bag of wheat, maybe? I can't figure it out. Yay, city symbols!

In the rule book, right after

the rule that says the trainee grocery checker who's been holding up 13 customers for 15 minutes gets switched for the fast, experienced checker immediately after you move to a lane with a longer line, is

the rule that says the day after you bookmark a new blog because of a brilliant post you found through a favorite writer, the brilliant blogger walks away from their blog and forgets all about it for six months.

Yeah, I know privileged First World problems. I don't think of them as problems, though. If I remember, and try, I can relax into the thing and enjoy watching the people in the slow lane, and delve into the brilliant blogger's Archives and get to know more about them.

The little dickens

This forenoon I found a tiny little pink pill on the floor of the bathroom. This, after another fairly calm and easy pill-putting-down-the-throat. The little stinker! I gave it to her downstairs, and she had to go all the way upstairs into the bathroom to get it there. Going to have to be more careful. Trouble is, I have no idea whether it's this morning's or some earlier one. So I just discarded it, and we'll resume on schedule tonight.

The little dickens. She is looking and acting more like herself, though still thin; but this morning she ate her 2 Tbsp of Fancy Feast AND her brother's 2 Tbsp of Ocean Fish Formula so I'm taking that as a good sign.

Little things

Nothing big, here. O'Keefe and I are kind-of getting used to the administration of one tiny pill down her throat, two times a day. She doesn't like it, and neither do I, but perhaps we'll get to where it isn't so hard on both of us.

I got apps in for Medicare parts C & D yesterday, which was a HUGE relief. Just dental and vision coverage left to find.  So I felt like a grownup the rest of the day!

It's in the high 50s and sunny today! My mood can use the light. And the slightly longer days...oh, wait. Krep. We go back to CST - or do we leave it for DST? I can never remember - this very night. Well, when one's retired (have I mentioned that I'm retired?) the whole "losing an hour's sleep" isn't really an issue any more. I just need to remember to adjust all the clocks. I am so ready for Spring.

Some new kind of equilibrium, I think

Good news/bad news re: O'Keefe's blood work. Good news: no diabetes, her kidneys look good. Bad news: there may be something bad going on with her liver, but what the vet wants addressed first is hyperthyroidism. So, two tiny pink pills a day, morning and night. Two weeks of that then more blood work to see if it's helping. If so, she'll stay on that dose for life, or until it stops helping. I read the possible side effects of this stuff and they're pretty horrendous so I'm going to be keeping a close watch on that!

In more good news, O'Keefe seems to be feeling better, is up and walking around, going up and down stairs, though she is weak and may rest in the middle. She's eating Fancy Feast and drinking water. The vet says a Tbsp. of vanilla ice cream a couple times a day won't hurt and might help her put on some weight. She's not sleeping all the time like she was doing - this is a cat who *doesn't* lie around 16 hours a day sleeping, normally. Sometimes I've wished she *would* because instead she likes to bug the hell out of me with constant demands for pettins and attention.

Anyway, the intense worry stage is on hiatus for a couple of weeks. I don't think she's going to miraculously become her younger more vigorous self, but maybe I can make the decline easier and slower than what I saw over the weekend.

Still nothing noteworthy

Had a most successful Game Day here yesterday with my friends. We ate, laughed, and played 7 Wonders and Mille Bournes.

Overshadowing it for me is the illness of my little girl-cat, O'Keefe. I've got a 1:15 pm appointment at the vet's for her. Here's hoping it's something transitory and/or treatable.

MY sock #10 is just a few inches away from completion, then showing off the matching heels (accident! I'll never be able to do that on purpose) yesterday I clumsily let one of the needles slide all the way off about 25 stitches. ARGH! It'll take my 3rd Hand (magnifying glass on an articulated armature), a crochet hook, and large quantities of patience to fix that.

March 14th I'm entering a pie in Omaha Atheists's Pi/e Day Pie-off. Because Pie! Also, Pi. My pies aren't beautiful but usually they're tasty. Hmm. Maybe I should practice...heh.

Update: O'Keefe's got Feline Leukemia Virus. Waiting on further blood tests tomorrow. I have a sad.

Not doing much

Decided tonight was the night to start a knitting project other than socks; got out the dark green alpaca I've had all ready with needles special-bought and the pattern ready to go, got started on the easiest part of a billed cap, the headband - got about four inches done and discovered I'd screwed it up - that's when I learned that alpaca tends to marry itself as you knit. I ended up just cutting the wonky part off to start anew with a new end...not tonight. Crud. Well, now I'll know to be more careful. It's a pretty simple cap, no lace or cables, so if I keep my head it shouldn't take too long to finish.

No drawings, but OTOH

I got out of the house today. Went to Spielbound and played Pandemic! with three very nice guys. Hope we can do some more board-gaming in the future. Speilbound is a non-profit gaming cafe.  A really cool place for Omaha. Or, anywhere, really.

I thought about taking a sketchbook and pen along but then decided naw, I'd rather just play games.

Drawing a day, Feb. 10th

Had mystery book club tonight, a perfect opportunity to try some character sketches. Boy, am I bad at it. You'd never recognize these lovely ladies from my drawing.

Drawing-a-Day, Feb. 9th

Having been put to shame by a dear friend who - unbeknownst to me - took me up on my suggestion for this ordeal, and who brought her EIGHT drawings to game day yesterday, I decided I had to get back in the saddle and try some more. I decided also that I need to scale back my ambitions lest the drawings eat up all my hours every day. Therefore, ta da:

It's a very old Persian (as in, before it became "Iran") copper bowl with lid. I noticed the intriguing way it peeps out from the shadows on my bookcase and decided maybe I could manage that. Simple shape, additionally-simplified surroundings, so there. In the middle I thought it was a waste of paper but somehow I did get it looking *just* good enough to post.

So I'm back in!

Well, that de-escalated quickly

Didn't take me long at all to run out of enthusiasm for a daily drawing, did it?

Well...

there could well be no drawing for today. I have had an extraordinarily arduous - for me - day. First I went out to dig the car out of the two feet of snow it's been buried in for three days. I got 90% done THEN decided it might be a good idea to start 'er up and run the heater to get rid of the ice covering all the windows - but the battery is dead. Completely dead. So I sat down in the garage and thought about it. I was already tired and sore. I'd have to call the emergency guys, wait for a truck to show up to jump-start the battery, wait awhile for the windows to melt, and THEN go to the grocery store.

I gauged my energy remaining. No. Way. So I decided to rest a bit, eat lunch, and take the bus to the store and the taxi home. Leave the car business until tomorrow. Getting to the bus stop was physically challenging (remember, it's me we're talking about - Ms. Sedentary of 2014). Snow was piled up four feet high no matter where I tried to walk, so my shoes got soaked. At the disembarking spot, same thing - though most of the way from there to the store (two blocks) was clear.

Anyway, I'm home, the groceries are put away, and I am really, really tired. Little to no interest in doing art now. *Maybe* later, but probably not. Ah well.

Drawing-a-day, Feb. 2

Signs of improvement over yesterdays' entry. For one thing, watercolor paper works so much better with watercolors, innit? This is a little better, too, because I remembered to erase as much of the preliminary pencilling as I could. It's far from perfect, but it's better.

Just two things hold me back from being a great artist: the inability to see what's really in front of me, and the inability to get what I see onto the paper. LOL

However, that's enough ado. Here's today's effort:

I think the real value of this exercise will turn out to be its keeping me humble. Oh, so humble.

Drawing-a-day, Feb. 1

I warned you. I said it'd be bad. Just sayin'.

NOW I remember there's a reason they say to use watercolor paper for watercolors. Duh.

Well, it's supposed to be a murder mystery book cover.

The best thing I can say for this is that it sets the bar for the rest of the month very low. Shouldn't be hard to show improvement over this thing.

Books read in January

In Jan. 2014, I started keeping track of what I read in a little notebook. I just entered the title and author of each, and I assigned a “grade” to each book. 

1 - didn’t finish

4 - very good, but probably won’t read it again.

5 - best ever (LotR, for example), will read again

Anyway, now that I’ve got the list, I’ll review each month’s books very briefly here.

January 2015: 12 books; of which at least four are re-reads. The doubtful ones are the Christies; if I’ve already read those it was decades ago and I had forgotten the plots etc. Completely.

5 - Exploring JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit - Corey Olsen (“The Tolkien Professor” online): I’ve listened to all of Prof. Olsen’s Tolkien podcasts on iTunes and will probably listen again, eventually. He’s a Medieval Lit PhD who brings both his rigorous academic training and his passion for Tolkien to this book. It is very enjoyable for a Tolkien nerd like me, and will reward many re-readings in the future.

4 - The Mother Hunt - Rex Stout: I love Archie and Nero and I don’t think I need to give my rundown of the plot or anything for any of these; much more skilled Stout fans have great posts all over the internet.

4 − 13 at Dinner - Agatha Christie: see the previous comment re: Stout; the world doesn’t need my recap of the books. 

5 - As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust - Alan Bradley: the newest Flavia de Luce mystery from Bradley and like all the rest, *superb*. I adore Flavia and I was worried that transplanting her to Canada (to her late mother’s boarding school alma mater) would ruin it - particularly since I am completely mesmerized by Dogger and he of course got left behind to care for her father and sisters and the crumbling family manse. But I needn’t have feared - Flavia is more than equal to anything the world seems bent on throwing at her! And in this one we get more information about her mother’s mysterious past. Going to stop now; Spoilers!

4 - The Secret Rooms - Catherine Bailey: This is a non-fiction work about England’s biggest, one of its oldest, ducal estates, and the mysteries held therein. The blurb and jacket are a bit misleading, as they hint that it’s a ghost story. It’s not - it’s a deep dark family secret story, that is nonetheless fascinating (except I skipped the extensive descriptions of WW I battles and equally tedious marathon about a certain mother’s wartime machinations on behalf of her son - these simply didn’t interest me, it’s not the author’s fault). But the revelations had my jaw dropping several times. Also, as a glimpse of just what kind of life the aristocracy led before WW I, it was a real eye-opener. It’s unbelievable, the wealth, and the arrogance that equaled it. I for one am right glad the system pretty much crashed after WW I. Never will I look at Lord Peter Wimsey’s brother the Duke of Denver the same way again. 

5 - Death on the Nile: It’s Christie, in Egypt. What more do I need to say?

5 - Unbound - Jim C. Hines: this is the third book in the Magic ex Libris series, and I gobbled it up like popcorn. That’s not to say it’s light & airy; Jim doesn’t back down from confronting the implications of  the tropes he’s dealing with - just one example - Isaac’s friend the dryad warrior Lena Greenwood’s origins as basically  a character created for the benefit of horny male readers. The Magic ex Libris books combine several of my favorites - books, libraries, strong smart talented women, and every damn hobgoblin (including I think hobgoblins themselves) you can think of. A rip-snorting read. There’s another to come and I can’t wait to see how Libriomancer Isaac Vainio emerges from that one.

4 - Over My Dead Body - Rex Stout

5 - Help the Poor Struggler - Martha Grimes: this is a Richard Jury book and I am hopelessly enslaved to Grimes’s characters, regardless of whatever unevenness of plot, circumstance, attitudes, anything. I’ve got the whole series and I’ll be going back to them every so often until the day I die.

5 - The Deer Leap - Martha Grimes - see previous.

5 - The Five Bells and Bladebone - Martha Grimes - see 2 previous.

5 - Mrs. McGinty’s Dead - Agatha Christie: Probably read this years ago and forgot it. It’s a nice Poirot with him deliciously out of his comfort zone, staying in an ill-run, ill-heated, chaotic country B & B whose mistress hasn’t the slightest understanding or talent of cooking. The mystery’s pretty good, too.

So that was my reading for January. I’ve got The Shining Girls on my nightstand because we’re discussing it in the mystery club Feb. 10^th.

Fool, rushing in

(a watercolor I made up long, long ago)

It's the depths of winter (even though it's been pretty mild here so far), and I'm cabin-crazy. My urge is to bury myself in blankets, fortified with hot chocolate and a six-foot stack of mind candy in the form of books, and British TV mysteries, and just not be seen outdoors at all until April. It wears on the mood, it does.

Also it's hard on the health. This is my most inert, junk-food-crazed time of the year. And the least social. Really, why DID I not get into the Hibernate line B.B. (Before Birth)???

Anyway, in a desperate attempt to not devolve into a puddle of primordial ooze here, I'm going to give a "Month of Drawings" a try. (If you google that you might find something, but I just made it up right here so whatever you come across has nothing to do with me.) I'm going to spend February trying to do a drawing a day, and post it here. Fair warning: they're likely to be drek, but I am going to go at each one with the best of my abilities. Not just scribble something to fill out the day's check box. And I will go further: I'm going to draw actual people, places or things, not *pictures* of people, places or things. That will probably mean I'm going to have to go out of the house sometimes. *shudder* It'll be good for me. I might expand the OK subjects into mere designs for things, too, like designs for end papers of books, or placemats or something. I have two more days to prepare myself for the ordeal. So do you. Good luck to both of us!

A passing thought

The BBC must be one of the yarn world's biggest assets.

Found an illustrator whose work I LOVE

Vince McIndoe's his name, and I love his almost-retro style!

Makes me want a whole library of novels with these pieces as cover art.

Life in the slow lane

is just fine with me.  Dominating my thoughts this past week have been the horrible events in Paris, though the response around the world is very heartening. I only hope leaders don't just use these despicable murders as further excuses to deprive the people of our liberties. Time will tell - but one can hope that even the most venal, conscienceless pol will look at the millions flooding the streets in support of "Je suis Charlie" and take pause at what might oppose them if they are not wise.

Anyway, aside from following that unfolding story, I've not done much this week. Got Season 8 of Doctor Who and marathon-watched it all in two nights; I think I love Peter Capaldi's Doctor. I've never been very fond of Clara, but I do like the prickly interplay of those two characters. I do wish Pink hadn't left the scene - maybe they'll bring him back, somehow.

I've read two books this week: the newest Flavia de Luce, As Chimneysweeps Come to Dust (LOVED it - like all Flavia fans, I think, I was a bit nervous about her decamping to the Canadian girls's school but oh my it turned out quite well). Keep 'em coming, Mr. Bradley!  The second book is non-fiction, The Secret Rooms, by Catherine Bailey. It's kind of advertised as a possible ghost story, in a real ancient family ducal seat in Britain, but it's really the story of that ducal family's history and in particular the generations just before, during, and after WW I.  I really enjoyed it until she got to the part where she was detailing - and I mean *detailing* WW I battles and the behind the scenes machinations of a particular mother - I skipped a LOT of pages there. In the end it's a fascinating look at how those people really lived before it all fell apart after WW I - mind-boggling wealth and arrogance OMG it's GOOD that it fell apart (and I am again reminded it was GOOD that the American colonies scraped Britain off their shoes like horseshit).  Ms. Bailey (except for the boring war details) is a good history writer for popular readers and I will be watching for more from her.

I got hung up knitting Sock 7 - discovered I need to tink like, 7 rows so I can start decreasing for the toe sooner, but tinking is SO fiddly and tedious. So I picked up the CoBaSi sock (Sock 8) again and got a little further on it. It's certainly not perfect (you can't see the other side) but I really don't care - I am needing socks, and I'm not out to show off my knitting expertise (since I don't have any). I try to learn more with each sock, though.

This is reminding me of a soccer jersey, and it's odd because that pleases me, even though I have zero interest in any kind of sports. Psychology, go figure it out. I can't.

Happy New Year!

I opened last year by putting this picture:

as my laptop desktop image. Eight days later I was in the hospital (just for 26 hours, but my they were an exciting 36 hours - those that I remembered)! I thought maybe I'd tempted fate. Then I remembered I don't believe there is such a thing, LOL. But that image and challenge just embodied my feelings at the time - I was ready for 2014 to be amazing! In many ways, it was.

And here we are, in 2015. This time, I've put this:

as my desktop. It was taken in Paris, I don't know where, exactly. But isn't it lovely? I can lose myself in that picture. Go drifting down a willow-shaded stream hazy in the summer sun, to the background of bumblebees humming and birdsong. That's kind of where I am right now. If it changesI can always change the desktop.

Best of 2015 to all!

Made out like a bandit, I did

Had a lovely lunch with my two sisters-in-law, where we (traditionally) exchange gifts - by this time we are all giving each other the same things (meaning there are three sets of the identical objects being traded) because we know the others like them, so that's kind of hilarious. It's the lunch that's important - no, I'm wrong - it's the *company* at the lunch that's important.

Had a lovely Christmas Day dinner at my one sis-in-law's home, with her son's family and the other sis-in-law and *her* grown kids. Lots of good food (lasagne! Another delectable family tradition), lame jokes, banter, and watching the ten year old and the two year old zoom around.

And I was *buried* in gifts from my son & his family! They just kept showing up on my doorstep, day after day! And what gifts!!! The Firefly board game! (swoon)  The Pandemic board game! (squeeeee!) The Tolkien Professor, Corey Olsen's "Exploring JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit" (I debated how to treat the font in that title. If I remember I'll look it up in my handy grammar and punctuation book and let you know how I did)!

[And now I'm wondering: Is italicizing and underlining *grammar*? Or punctuation? Is there a third rail in English usage? Something else to look up. Post a comment if you know. I check comments daily because I've got the comment filtering setting On.] [No one ever comments, but I live in hope.]

Short catch-up post

My energy level has improved considerably since that last post. Since then I've gotten cookies baked, presents store-bought or handmade wrapped and in some cases mailed, a lovely luncheon enjoyed, and lots of reading done. I finished Bill Bryson's One Summer: America 1927, and enjoyed it a lot (despite one friend's scathing critique of Bryson's research quality), and Alan Cumming's autobiographical book Not My Father's Son (this last was a cheat on my TBR pile; I sat down the minute I got it home and read it all in one sitting - now I go back to the TBR pile in proper order).  I'm working on Asia's Cauldron: the South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific by Robert D. Kaplan. For bed-time reading right now I'm working on Christie's An Overdose of Death.

I started Yet Another pair of socks, to alternate with the sock I've *almost* got done. I got tired of that one, and this pair excites me because 1) I'm again making it up as I go along - no pattern - and 2) I'm using two colors! Whee! Wide dark green and natural white stripes in a knit 2, purl 2 rib (except for the sole, which will be smooooth stockinette). It's also the first time I've used the CoBaSiyarn (cotton, bamboo, and silk) so I'm interesting to find out how long-lasting it is in a sock.

And so goes my tha-rilling life.

Low-karma week

Having a hard time doing any of the many things I have on my To Do list this week. Don't know if the grey, clammy weather has anything to do with it, but that's not going to get better; looks like we have maybe 5 straight days of grey cold rainy crap coming up, segueing partway through into grey cold snowy crap. Oh joy.

Oh well, my library book pile is up to 9 volumes now. I could always hide in bed for days at a time.

This week's Project

This was what my dining room windows looked like yesterday morning:

This is what the dining room looked like last night:

And this is what it looks like now:

I made some shelves! I'll remove the clamps tonight (I glued a board to the foot of each side plank for stability). They're not finished or painted, because I'm not sure where they will ultimately end up. The main two things were: get rid of those god-awful sheer curtains at the windows, and get a shelving unit up to put the little houseplant babies on. And open the wall up to be lighter. It faces east, over the neighbor's driveway to the side of his house, and it's entirely canopied by huge oak trees from his yard, so it tends to be dark in the dining room. 

I made up the shelves as I went along. As always with anything I build, it's pretty half-assed. But if it works, I'm happy. 

Ridiculously chuffed

Since last May, I've been trying to change my diet and activity habits to reduce some bad-trending numbers in my health assessment. Cholesterol and blood sugars, mostly. Yesterday I had a fasting blood draw to check the cholesterol levels. Today I got the results: My good cholesterol (HDL) dropped 2 points, 51 to 49 (both within 1 point of the "50 or higher" desired level). My total cholesterol dropped 41 points. My Triglycerides dropped 46 points. My bad cholesterol (LDL) dropped 29 points. The cholesterol/HDL ratio dropped from 5.3 to 4.6. The Total, Triglycerides, Bad, and ratio are all still higher than desirable. But if I lower them as much in the next 6 months as I have in the past 6 months, they'll all be down in the Normal range.

I was really anxious about this blood test. I have been working hard but I was thinking, please please oh PLEASE, let me lower the bad ones by 5 points! Just 5 points! On my more optimistic days I thought maybe I could make that 10 points.  So today's results have got me OVER THE MOON! OVER THE MOON CARL!!! (I don't watch The Walking Dead so I really don't have the ticket to use that meme but I felt like it, so there.)

What have I done to get here? Changed my diet, mostly. I mean, that's almost entirely it. I have reduced my beef consumption, bacon consumption and cheese consumption by like, 85 - 90%. What meat I do use, is more of an accent or a garnish. I have fish (cod, pollack, frozen; tuna, salmon, canned), chicken, rarely pork. Once in a great while I go crazy and go to Village Inn and have Pigs in Blankets LOL. Woo hoo do I know how to live, or what??? I've increased the proportion of fresh or frozen or canned vegetables and fruits I eat per day. Like, I've doubled that. I've reduced by about half the amount of bread I eat (which really kills me, but since I make my own, eating less of it per day means I have to bake less often, so there's that). I TRY to either ignore dessert cravings or have a pear or apple or some canned fruit - that's really hard as I have a giant sweet tooth.

In fact, I buy almost no processed foods, I make most of my meals from scratch using fresh, frozen or canned straight stuff. I like my cooking better than Corporate America's. And with my adjusted plate I know I'm eating a well balanced diet. My problem is, I eat too much of that wonderfully healthy food. And my main problem is after dinner - after nightfall. When I'm sitting here watching a DVD or Netflix, knitting, or playing solitaire...it's almost irresistible to go out there and graze. And I'm an experienced cook & baker so it doesn't take long to create something Bad in a very short time (cookie dough, anyone?). I've been working on that for some time now, and I have to say I have failed often enough to start considering the drastic measure of installing a chain gate with a sign: No Admittance After 8 p.m.). I have the hardware. It could be up in like, 20 minutes. But the idea is so humiliating that maybe, just maybe, I can threaten myself with it into behaving myself, late-night-snack-wise.

So keeping with the diet methods I've had is the first component of my plan going forward.

The second part is staying out of the damned kitchen after 8 p.m.

The third part is exercise. That, I told my health coach, is the Piece of the Puzzle I haven't been Pounding in Place. (That was earlier today on our monthly phone visit, right after I'd eyeballed these wonderful new numbers. I was a little giddy.) So we arrived at a goal - a realistic and achievable goal - for my exercise from today on: one hour aerobic per week, and 3 times per week strength training. I mean really, that's pretty minimal. I should have no trouble doing that. Yet it's BEEN my goal for like 6 months. I haven't DONE it yet. So now I'm hoping my curiosity will be an additional incentive: My health numbers have improved so much, just changing my diet, how much better will they get if I add in the exercise?

Oh, I haven't yet mentioned my BMI. It's horrible. It's in the LOOKOUT YOU'RE GOING TO DIE OF FAT range. It's identical to what it was in May (this was not a surprise). I'll be very interested to see if staying out of the kitchen after dark and exercising every day will have a beneficial effect on my weight, too. Whaddya wanna bet? Likewise, the blood glucose levels, which didn't get measured in yesterday's test. They were "borderline" last time; I am even more concerned about those than I was about cholesterol, I mean I am flat-out fucking terrified of diabetes.  But I am confident that if I follow this plan of mine, my blood glucose levels will revert to normal, too.

Stay tuned.

I mean to behave.

House plant update.

Ageratum doesn't transplant well. It dies. Ah well, worth a try. The thin-leafed deep raspberry-colored plant is also struggling. I don't know if any of the slips from that plant will make it. But, the Swedish ivy, geraniums, and bi-colored (white and jade green) vine are doing well. The begonias look a little tough, but they're going for it. I can trim out the dead bits once they're established for sure.

I moved some of all of them (except the dead ones) up to the sewing room window. They seem happy. I put a bicolor in the bathroom, but the light there is limited so I may move it.

I'm going to go looking for string-of-pearls and Philodendron, and maybe one other houseplant, in a couple of weeks. This is an oxygen-enhancing effort, as well as a home-enhancing effort. It's been a long time since I had plants. Didn't want them. Now I do. And so it goes.