Infrequently,

you look something up you think is going to be pretty simple, and what you find is rather astonishing.  The viral video of the guy dancing on the walking machine in the gym to Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" caused me to wonder about the history of the song. The lyrics have always seemed a little - poetically mysterious? - to me, for a Rat Pack song about a mafia hit man, which was what I thought it was. Hoo boy, was I wrong...

Culture...it's what you're soaked in and don't even know it.

Lyrics:

Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
      And it shows them pearly white
      Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
      And he keeps it … ah … out of sight.

      Ya know when that shark bites, with his teeth, babe
      Scarlet billows start to spread
      Fancy gloves, though, wears old MacHeath, babe
      So there’s nevah, nevah a trace of red.

      Now on the sidewalk … uuh, huh … whoo … sunny mornin’ … uuh, huh
      Lies a body just oozin' life … eeek!
      And someone’s sneakin' ‘round the corner
      Could that someone be Mack the Knife?

      A-there's a tugboat … huh, huh, huh … down by the river don’tcha know
      Where a cement bag’s just a'droopin' on down
      Oh, that cement is just, it's there for the weight, dear
      Five'll get ya ten old Macky’s back in town.

      Now, d'ja hear ‘bout Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe
      After drawin' out all his hard-earned cash
      And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor
      Could it be our boy's done somethin' rash?

      Now … Jenny Diver … ho, ho … yeah … Sukey Tawdry      
      Ooh … Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
      Oh, the line forms on the right, babe
      Now that Macky’s back in town.

      Aah … I said Jenny Diver … whoa … Sukey Tawdry
      Look out to Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
      Yes, that line forms on the right, babe
      Now that Macky’s back in town …

      Look out … old Macky is back!!

Perfect summer night!

Last Friday evening,my friend Doris and I went out to Fremont to show support for a friend of ours, Michael Jones, as he displayed his hot air balloon, Emerald City Express at a “balloon-glow” event for a church fundraiser, ice cream social/fun fair (I guess?). I took lots of pictures and even drew one! 

 A “glow,” I learned for the first time that night, is when the balloons are inflated but never leave the ground, and the operators shoot flames up inside them to make them glow - a lovely spectacle for the crowds.  But because of the winds, the four balloons were only vertical at one time for a very short period of time. The crowds - especially the little boys and the little boys disguised as grown-ups - were excited about it all anyway. I got a good upper-body workout out of it - when inflated, those things want to FLY DAMMIT and we had six people hanging onto the sides of the basket with Michael and his niece standing inside it. That was 20 minutes of strain, let me tell you. And the wicker basket sides are like a cheese grater - my knees show the evidence. But it was grand fun, I’m so glad Doris called me and invited me. I ate a hot dog, and an ice cream cone, so it was perfect. Good company, too.

(I told Michael to strike an intrepid pose. I think he needs an aviator cap, goggles, and a white scarf, don't you? Or maybe a top hat.)

Michael’s niece Heather Jones, Michael, his nephew Allen Jones and *his* wife, Kat - the ground crew that night.

These things attract attention even when they’re lying down!

The giants are awaking…that’s Michael’s beauty in the front; Emerald City Express! I was trying to walk and take pictures at the same time, dummy me.

Looks scary, but everything’s OK. You can feel that heat from 150 feet away, though.

Now there are THREE waking giants.

After that, I got busy trying (feebly) to help get Emerald City Express vertical, and keep her on the ground. The three balloons (the fourth was deflated before the other three got vertical) were only vertical for a few minutes; once they were standing up they interfered with the wind such that the middle one was bobbing around impinging on the other two, so there was only a brief Glow display and I wasn’t taking pictures. 

But it was a grand evening complete with hot dog and ice cream, what could be better? Oh yeah - a yard sale - and Doris and I hit the one on the main drag heading toward the fun fest on the way there.

Then on Sunday I hosted another Game Day for my buddies Linda, Sharon and Doris. We had a great time playing a new game that I got by supporting its Kickstarter campaign, called "paperback." 

As usual half the fun was figuring out how to play the darned game. I think some developers forget their customers aren't all experienced gamers. But we worked it out to our satisfaction and it IS a really fun game. Then we played a game of Forbidden Island - I think that's one of the group's very favorite, so far. Food was et, and a good time was had by all. 

Updating my US travel map

I've added a couple-three states since I last posted it in 2011:

visited 29 states (58%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Triposo world travel guide for Android

aughhhhhhh

Just wrote a check for over $6000. Having AC system and hot water heater replaced today. How kind of them to decide to fail me at the same time.

I'm going to escape into a book for the rest of the day.

A regretful admission

I am *not* going to get *any* of the books read for the Once Upon a Time Challenge that I so rashly announced here.

It was one of those impulsive ideas that I tend to sign on for and then beat myself up for once I realize it was never going to happen.

I'm trying not to beat myself up for this failure. I mean, it is of no consequence to anyone, not even me. So I shall apply my rational mind and put this behind me. No harm done.

*dusts off hands* Now off to that PhD I never even applied for... (not really).

First I fallen behind then I catchen up

Lots of putzy stuff going on in the umpteen days since my last post. Mostly house and yard-keeping. Some fun stuff, too.

I got the director's chair camp chair re-canvassed for my adventurer's bedroom:

I got low-cost (what I thought was) canvas from the Hancock's upholstery remnants. Turned out, it stretches a bit. I didn't know that until I sat in it. It's OK to sit in but I wouldn't bounce around much. It's mostly just for show anyhow. I was pleased with how it turned out.

It took me forever to get around to mowing my back yard (I love it long and going to seed but heh heh I don't think my neighbors do) but now that it's done (last Sunday!) it'll be easy to keep it mowed weekly. The front's looking pretty good. I planted a bunch of lavender Ageratum, white annual begonia with bronze leaves, some dark purple petunias and white petunias, in the little bare spots in the front boomerang and along the side of the garage.

I've been watching out for fireflies but haven't seen any yet. I wonder if the temps have been a little cool so far. It'd be nice if they'd show up for my son's and family's (how *do* you punctuate that?) visit next week.

I finally got to see "The Triplets of Belleville" on Netflix (meaning N. finally got it bought) - not at all what I was expecting. What an odd, weird, film. Still deciding whether to buy it for my French movies library... I also bought "The Night of the Doctor" off Amazon. I think that might be the best acting job Matt Smith ever did in that role, and that is saying a lot, IMO. It will require additional viewings, like all the big DW's do.

As for reading, I just finished The Way of Herodotus by Justin Marozzi:

I really enjoyed it. I knew nothing about Herodotus but now I want to get his "Histories" and dig into them like crazy.

I'm currently reading "Full Dark House" by Christopher Fowler:

It's the first in the "Bryant and May" London detectives series and I'm really loving it.

I'll be learning all about vegan cuisine while the kids are here, looking forward to that.

And that's about it. Lovely weather we've been having, all is well and I am among the luckiest people alive, rich in friends and family.

ttfn

And furthermore...

Seems like I just discovered I have a blog, LOL. But it occurs to me I should share a couple of fantastic women whose blogs and wonderful, amazing thinking and creativity has been enriching my life and world view lately. I'll go in chrono order of when I first came across their web sites.

Ada Palmer is a scholar in Medieval and Renaissance history, at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. She's also a genre fan, a writer, and composer and many more "-ers'."  Her blog "Ex Urbe" is fantastic. She has a series about Machiavelli that in addition to being fascinating, completely upended everything I'd ever heard about him. Her geekness is that period of history, and she's not only written music and blog posts - she did her PhD dissertation about it. And she's a science geek. This is a song she's written about real-life space exploration. Caution: may require hankies. I love, love love this, and she has a permanent fan in me.

My newer find is Felicity Ford, a soundscape artist (never heard of one? Neither had I. Wow, has she picked an enthralling career!) who is also a knitter and textile designer, and has one of the most infectious sunny enthusiastic attitudes I've seen in years. She lives and works in Reading, UK (I hope that's how you write that.) Just watching her Kickstarter video for her new book on designing knitting patterns had me grinning, as they say, ear to ear. (Of course I contributed, how could I not?) Her web site is The Domestic Soundscape and you must, must, must set aside an hour to go visit it. Luscious knits and sounds, and delightful creativity and humor.  (I'm writing this at 1:30 pm CST - there are only five more hours to go on the Kickstarter campaign so if you think you're interested, you'd better get over there! The book will be available once it's published, of course, but why not get in on the ground floor (with some lovely supporter rewards)?  She also (as if this all wasn't enough!) has a bi-weekly podcast called KnitSonik! It's available free on iTunes, too.

The few things I've said about these two women are just a tiny fraction of the areas they explore and the things they have accomplished, and the terrific projects they've got going.

ETA "Renaissance" to Ada's specialties.

They're falling like dominoes, I tell ya

Finished another book last night, this one for the mystery book club at the library. It's The Janus Stone, by Elly Griffith.

 

I really like this one a lot. It's the second of three (so far) in a series about a forensic anthropologist, Ruth Galloway, in Britain, called in to determine if a small skeleton found under the door of an old Victorian mansion, now being demolished for new apartment buildings, is modern, old, or ancient. I like Ruth a lot. She's an almost-40, not-thin, not-hot, professional woman with flaws and strengths (more than she knows), passions and prejudices. She's smarter than I am about when to shoot off her mouth (or punch some asshole) but when she does stand up, look out. Her relationship with her friend, Det. Chief Insp. Harry Nelson, is a source of warmth and oh boy complications, for both of them. The book has quite a few laugh-out-loud spots, which are always welcome. The story line is dark, twisted, and sad, and there are excerpts from an unknown perpetrator's disturbing diary at regular intervals, steadily ratcheting up the anxiety level. 

So there's another book read and reported. Last night I picked up the most recent Flavia DeLuce novel, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches.  I devoured it the instant I got it home a few weeks ago, and then went back and re-read the whole series. This is my second, slower, reading. I love it as I love all of the Flavia books, but something - a rather major something - that struck me falsely the first time, did so even more this time. I won't write about it in my review because I don't intend to give out spoilers. I'm hoping to find someone who's read it who would be willing to talk about this point privately, though. 

Lagging behind with my reporting, here

Did a spate of sewing last week; this:

is the latest grocery tote project. Only two more to go and I'll have replaced all my venerable old (1985!) grocery sacks with these new, pretty ones. I'm finding that sometimes grocery clerks are hesitant to assume they're for my groceries, even though I plunk them on the conveyor belt ahead of my groceries. It's no surprise that female clerks commenting outnumber male clerks commenting by about 5:1.  I have to say, I haven't seen any prettier grocery totes than mine in any store I've been to. LOL this retirement gives one lots of time...

In the book-reading realm: Still none read for the Challenge (see right column and a few posts ago) but I have been working on my giant, teetering TBR pile steadily. I've re-read: Louise Penny's A Trick of the Light (for the library mystery club), and Alan Bradley's Speaking from Among the Bones, just because I love Flavia.* Well, and Inspector Gamache. I dearly wish we could get the Canadian Gamache TV specials series here on Netflix, sigh. I suppose it'll come around eventually, but really,  Nathaniel Parker as Gamache??? swoon

      

I've also partially read a non-fiction book that kind of disappointed me. I did get about 3/4 through before I realized I was Slogging, and quit.  Now, I loves me some biogeography - deeply, madly, truly I love it. So The Monkey's Voyage by Alan De Queiroz was totally my cup of tea. 

He discusses the ongoing controversy raging between the "far-flung species totally coulda rode accidental natural rafts to remote island sites" camp, and the "species on remote island sites got there when Gondawandaland (or was it Pangaea?) split up WAY before then" camp. It held my interest as long as it stuck with the bio- and the geo- - but it seemed to devolve into a certain amount of axe-grinding and personality conflicts (which engender so many of those delightfully entertaining shitstorms in Letters to the Editor columns in scientific journals) ego-stroking and petty bickering.  Ho-hum. Life's too short.

Yesterday, I finished The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman.  

       

I really enjoyed reading this thing. It reminds me more of The Club Dumas than what it's been compared to, or rather slotted in next to, which is Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. It interleaves descriptions of fifteen ancient objects that were stolen from the library of (an actual, historical) Muslim polymath, adventurer and traveler in the early 12th century in northern Europe. Latvia, I think, and/or Estonia. It gets confusing. Anyway, Those are alternated with a Today story of a young, kind of aimless small town reporter who haplessly crosses paths with the seriously dangerous people who are trying to find all these things, when he takes on the writing of an obituary of an old college professor at his alma mater. Naturally the flaky old guy turns out to be something other than what he seemed. Whoa Nelly, WAY Something Other. A mysterious and alluring woman a few years older than he, one of his own former professors, a likeable oafish but really brilliant cop, and of course the aforementioned Bad Guys make this a real page-turner. However ... after finishing it, some questions came to mind that made me realize that it could have been a lot *better*. It doesn't really fulfill its promise and potential, and that's all I say about that. I loved it while I read it, and maybe I'll entertain myself by imagining what *could* have happened. 

Last night, I finished Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.  

It's the first in a trilogy, the other two volumes will be published later this year. It's a science fiction mystery/horror kind of thing, and I have to say, the first couple chapters were seriously creepy. Readers have complained because it's so obviously the first in a series, but I don't care as long as they get those other books out here SOON! Fascinating, horrifying premise and if the thing is what it seems, it's a gratifyingly original take on what "aliens" could be like - nothing like any I've seen or read about before. Nothing like anything I EVER want to meet in person thank you very much.

So that catches me up on the reading front. And the sewing front. 

ETA: the pretty book cover pictures, and the note, below. 

* Please note, I'm putting live links to these books' amazon.com pages not because I'm an affiliate (I'm not) but because for the most part, I find amazon.com the most useful site for good images of the covers (and any interior images they may post in their Look Inside dealie-bobber) and because there are usually a good mix of reviews pro & con each book.

Ahem, well, yeah. About that

reading challenge. Haven't read a single book for it yet. But, I have plenty of time, right? Until the end or middle of May, isn't it? Yeah. No worries. Heh.

More immediately, Saturday is International Table Top Game Day, which I and my little band of brave ladies, will be observing. Observing, but not really "participating" in because the people running the web site with the big map, with the pins for all the locations all over the world that are participating? That web site is set up for people with 1s and 0s in their very DNA. It is damned awkward and confusing to access, for me, a humble individual who was NOT nurtured by the soil of Silicon Valley since conception. Also, the web site assumes you are a business who wants ALL THE PEOPLE TO COME TO YOUR PLACE and play games Saturday - so they REQUIRE your address. I'm not putting my address on there. I did leave a query to their help desk, saying "I'm a private individual hosting a private game day for some friends and I don't want my address on the WWW, but we'd love to have a little flag in the general vicinity of the place so we feel like we're being included and counted. And we'd post a picture or two of the revelry. JUST LIKE THE PROMOTERS CLAIM YOU CAN DO, by the way."  What did I get? An email signed by someone with only a first name, saying "No worries, just sign up and we'll take care of all that."

?

Is s/he fucking KIDDING ME???

So we won't have our little flag or be able to post a picture but we're going to play the hell out of some game/s Saturday and eat good food and have a blast and I'm even going to print off the little Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day standup cartoons, and a copy of their ITTGD trophy, and put them all on cardboard and have them around (and our winner will take the trophy home. She will not be given a choice. Get it out of here.)  And I'll continue to enjoy Wil Wheaton's Table Top Games web program. But I am disappointed in the annual event's web site. They should do better by the private folks they claim to welcome. You shouldn't have to have been on the internet before you were born to understand how to sign up, and there should be a "private party" option that doesn't require your address. Oh well.

I'm not usually much of a joiner, but

for some reason, this time Carl Anderson's Once Upon a Time reading challenge really appeals to me this year. The link is through the beautiful image on the right side-bar. Join in! It's all about reading/viewing fun!

Quoting a bit from Carl's intro:

Friday, March 21st begins the eigth annual Once Upon a Time Challenge. This is a reading and viewing event that encompasses four broad categories: Fairy Tale, Folklore, Fantasy and Mythology, including the seemingly countless sub-genres and blending of genres that fall within this spectrum. The challenge continues through June 21st and allows for very minor (1 book only) participation as well as more immersion depending on your reading/viewing whims.Don’t like the word “challenge”? We have something special just for you.

I'm hoping to exceed the minimum requirements to complete Quest the Second, Quest the Third, and the Short Story Quest - viewing films and TV shows on the weekends for the latter, and I want to go back and re-read the original Shakespeare play for the Midsummer Night's Dream challenge.  This starts tomorrow! Eek! Well, I have several to choose from right here at home - that I haven't read (and I've got the complete Shakespeare handy, too) so I can get started on the dot. I hope to post reviews of everything I read or watch.

This could get interesting...

Game day!

Around here, that has zero to do with oversized glandular mutants running into each other on plastic grass. It's all about playing table top games!

Today it was 7 Wonders. There were five of us, and we had a ball.

It's vastly more complicated than any game we've tried out so far, and I'm pretty sure we bent some rules and made some up just to keep the thing moving, but we'll learn all the ins and outs eventually. 

We decided on a name for our group: "Eat. Talk. Play."  And our motto is, "Eh, we don't care." So we're not overly competitive, although I'm thinking that when we get proficient at some of these games, the competition is going to warm up. I am not very competitive myself so I just play for the social fun. And the food. 

We've got dates lined up for April and May, and I think we're hoping to make it a monthly thing. 

An added benefit is that it causes me to clean house really well at least once a month!

I dood it!

The map wall is done. Took about two hours. No glitches, no worries. The adhesive hook & loop and the removable mounting putty worked fine - so far. I anticipate that some of them will fail. If too many do, I may have to decide whether to bite the bullet and do the Real Wallpaper Paste schtick. Oh I do so hope I don't have to do that. This was a breeze - as can be seen in the photo, I didn't worry my pretty little head about making any pattern or regimen, just slapped 'em up there - though I did make sure they were square with ceiling and adjacent walls.

The Before picture:

with the obligatory cat, shows the awful crappy silver wallpaper I've put up with for over twenty years (really, what is wrong with me???).

Here's the After picture:

I've got rid of the two little table/cupboard thingies, replaced them with that neat old floor globe (that lights up!).  Hmmm...you can tell some time has passed between the first picture and the second - the shelves have filled up. LOL as they do.

So, I'm chuffed. Another long-desired project done. On to the next! No, wait - on to cookies and milk. Next can wait until tomorrow.

Why do I do this?

I have been slowly working on changing the "decor" in my bedroom. It has been pretty much boring, no coherency, functional, though, with lots of books and knicknacks and mementoes, photos, art work. But no "theme." Frankly, I'm tired of it. But it took me several years to come up with a "theme" I'd enjoy. I'm not one to decorate out of showrooms or catalogue layouts. I'm not talking about paint, wallpaper (er, quite), carpeting, curtains, yada yada all brand new and coordinated at the factory.  Several months ago, though, the idea dropped from nowhere into my head: Adventurer. Anybody who knows me probably LOLs at that, since I'm the world's worst Homebody.  I do love steampunk but I don't have enough interest to go that direction. What I LOVE is scientific adventuring. I have a BA and MA in biology, and I've had the good fortune of a career job that required I spend some time outside tromping around in wetlands, forests, sandhills, river banks...and I love a good biology/adventure yarn. So I thought, why not? 

I started hunting on the internet for ideas. What I learned is that if you Google "adventurer bedroom" you get a bunch of kids' bedrooms. Heh. It's hard to find the right search phrase. I did finally find a few with some ideas I can use. I started putting the pieces together in my head.

Maps as wallpaper. *Perfect!* [Have maps, and decided instead of using wallpaper paste and going the whole wallpapering route, I'm using hook & loop dots and that sticky-tacky stuff to hold them on the hideous silver wall; then if I need to take them down it will require minimum work.]

Railroad and hotel stickers from around the world; airline tickets, luggage tags, post cards, postage stamps - displayed wherever looks good. [I have lots of the last five; the first two are available all over the internet for downloading and printing. There are also vintage posters you can get images of but my wall space is limited.]

Reproductions of botanical prints on the walls. [Have a bunch from old calendars, or I know how to make real ones myself.] [Edited to correct: I know how to make museum-quality herbarium specimen sheets. Those would be cool, too. I do NOT have the talent to paint botanical prints!]

Throw Pillows with prints of butterflies and birds, and map/travel designs. [Have the fabric already.]

Old iron headboard. [I've seen perfect ones on Craigslist but my budget's really limited so I'm going to have to just troll the thrift shops until I luck out.]

Bare wood floor (I'll have to yank out the ugly brown carpet that was old when we moved in 20 years ago, boo hoo NOT) plus (maybe) grass mats, or something that looks like them. (It is too cold in the winter to go without some kind of floor covering to walk on.) [This is the step that's going to be the most work. I think. Maybe it'll be easy.]

Whitewashed wooden shutters on the bottom half of the windows. Tropical vibe (to my Nebraska mind, anyway). [Shutters installed; painting to be done in the spring.]

An old, beat-up, travel trunk. I need one anyway to store blankets and a rather large stash of sewing fabric that's currently in an unsatisfactory place. [Turns out, I have one in my garage already! It's my late husband's grandfather's saw & sander trunk. All I need to do is scrub it and get it upstairs - the size is perfect. Gramps put a galvanized steel covering over the lid so I'm going to make a padded top to cover that - the cats will love it.]

A camp chair. [Really one of my old Director's chairs with a plain Natural-color canvas seat & back replacement.] 

A big old floor globe.  [Found one! Bought it from a nearby thrift shop. It even lights from inside!]

So a lot of the stuff, I've already got. I'm just really slow in getting it all put together. In fact, except for the shutters installed, and the globe, none of it is actually done. I have it on today's To Do list to put up the Map Wall. Yet, I feel this internal reluctance. Why? (So yes, there was a point to the title of this post.) I don't know! Am I scared it'll turn out crappy? I'm making it easy to take the maps down! Whence cometh this interior quailing? Now - NO one but me (and my two cats) ever sees this room. It can't be because I'm afraid some unknown somebody is going to look down on me for having a "kids' bedroom" (mine's going to be SO much cooler than that!) 

My brain is so weird and obstructive sometimes.

So I just have to frakking Do It. Put up the maps.  Take that next step. DO IT TERRY!

Self-imposed recupe stretch

Mostly arbitrarily, but also due to some comments by the doctors and my own instinct, I set Feb. 1st as the day I'll return to full activity (which isn't all that much, so don't be impressed). I've been gradually picking up the amount of little chores I'm doing around the house, and it *does* so help with better sleeping!

The house is littered with To Do lists and Plans. When I have too much idle time, I get into trouble like that. Most of them will get tossed. And I just deleted all those recurring chores reminders from my calendar on my PDA (yes, I still use a Palm Tungsten T3), to simplify the look of my monthly calendar (see? too much idle time!) I *think* the urge to create a big, elaborate garden has passed. I need to decide if two tomato plants is pushing my luck, in much the same way I have to evaluate every thought of a glass of wine as to its threat to my sobriety (28 years now, thank you).

I had already decided before Christmas that what I need most nowadays is to get off my butt and keep working/playing at things as much as possible every day. So Feb. 1st, that's the drill. I have SO many things I want to do and there's no reason I can't do them all. (I'm hoping this also translates into more, and more interesting, blog posts. Even if I am the only one who reads them.)

And so this isn't totally boring, here's a picture of a cat.

Adams. Isn't it difficult not to attribute to cats a sense of humor, sometimes?

ETA (8:15 pm) I sat at the sewing machine for like, 6 hours today. My back hurts now. But I've made great progress on certain Sekrit Projecks! They're gifts so I can't show them off until the recipients actually, you know, receive them, and then OK my showing them off. 

It is necessary for me to go to a fabric/crafts store tomorrow. Fear is flowing through my bank accounts in waves...

Stamping and snorting in the starting gate

Yesterday I finished the last of the antibiotics. I'm hoping that means the painful heartburn will soon be totally in the past. It's not manifested today. Yet.

But I feel great! It is SO NICE not feeling cruddy, or in pain, or feverish. All this enforced inactivity has my bod wanting to boogy, though, and my mind obsessively creating To Do lists. I know my stamina isn't even at the relatively low level it was before I got sick, though, so I'm sharply limiting what I put on my daily list.

Last year, or maybe the year before that, I set up weekly chore reminders on my PDA. Rather like the old tea-towel embroidery mantras: Monday is Laundry Day, Tuesday is Ironing Day, etc. etc (except I rarely iron anything unless it's something I'm sewing nowadays) - one chore per day (Sundays off).

Which, honestly, I largely ignored. I did stuff when I felt like it.

While I've been sick I just deleted those day by day. I think I'm ready to pick up that schedule again, and ease back into a "normal" routine.

But it is so good to feel so good!

AND the past few nights, the moon has been shining directly in on me around 3, 4 a.m. (I generally am up for about two minutes in that time span. I leave the reason to your common sense.) I like the moon, and moonlight.

And I'm getting hungry for some socializing too. There may be two events in February when I get to hang out with some of my favorite people - I hope they pan out!

Good news

It wasn't MRSA. I'm on the mend now, after a scary event that found me in the ER and then in isolation for 24 hours. But they've chased all the bugs away (one more day of antibiotics) and I've been home for 9 days and feeling better every day. It's knocked my stamina for a loop, though. I'm getting very impatient, wanting to tidy and clean, but about 15 minutes of that and I'm all worn out, so I will remain inert.

I figure, I'll be up & slugging in February.

Brought more home from CA than I'd meant to

I've contracted what my doctor thinks is MRSA. So far while the few boils I've got haven't been really ghastly, they've been incredibly painful - I'd never experienced those before, and I don't want to. I was damn-near crippled yesterday. But, the antibiotic seems to be working, and I'm following his instructions - and I don't have anyone else here to pass the crap back & forth with, so maybe I'll weather this, get rid of it, and it will be just an unpleasant memory.

After I try to sanitize every square inch of the frakking house. God, I hate germs. And not in an OCD way. In the way you hate them when they've robbed you of years of living with the love of your life.

Post-Christmas (mimimalist) report

Had a great time in CA with my son and his wife & my grand-daughter! Ate wonderful food but still lost 3 pounds! So, yay! Now to keep up the momentum. We went to the Grand-daughter's kindergarten for their holiday program (very cute! with cookies!), we went to a ballet, a symphony, and what I'm guessing is one of the most expensive shopping areas in California to see "The Hobbit," and we had a delightful and delicious Christmas night dinner at their house with two other couples and their kids. Oddly, the weather out there wasn't much different from Omaha's.

I got lovely gifts, and the ones I gave seemed to be well-received.

I was fortunate in my flights - they were all on time, even early, and smooth and uneventful. Just the way I like my airplane rides.

Now I'm home again (I did miss my kitties! And they must have missed me, because now they're little pests! Constant nagging for pettins!) and getting ready for the new year. Lots of hopes, plans, and ideas - nothing thrilling, just life stuff. It was a good trip, very rejuvenating!

As hard as I've tried to avoid it,

I'm afraid Reality is just too close to ignore any more. (This isn't as ominous as it sounds.)

Between still being in the healing-from-loss process and the life-after-retirement-adjustment, it has taken me a long damn time to get here. After losing Bob, I spent about 5 years continuing in my profession but it took a harder and harder toll on me. It's only in recent months now two years later that I have begun to realize just how used-up and strung-out I was by that last day at work.  I am so, so lucky to be able to retire young and have enough money to live on. I suppose many people would not consider my post-retirement income to *be* an income, but I have pretty low wants and needs. I'm pretty healthy (get to that in a bit) and therefore, so terrifically lucky in that regard, also. I've planned carefully and should be OK barring further shenanigans from the 1%ers and their pet lawmakers.

But in terms of day-to-day life after retirement, it's been pretty pants. I mean, living by the seat of my pants. My bedtime has drifted ever-later. My arising time is all over the map. Some days I do nothing, some days I do lots of different stuff, some days I go gangbusters (which are then followed by several Doing Nothing days). No rhyme, reason, schedule - BECAUSE I'M RETIRED. That's been my mantra so far. I *have* achieved a few larger projects around the house and yard. There is SO much more to do (my vague aim being, not having any extra Stuff lying around anywhere that I don't use).  I've been kind of a hermit. I'm an introvert and it's been heaven just holing up by myself for days at a time. I get out, socialize, when I want to, but it's been predominantly solitude I've sought.

But looked at overall, it's been kind of chaotic - for a very VERY low-energy, snail's-pace version of chaos.  I'm having a hard time figuring out whether that's good or bad, or even either. I'm feeling dissatisfied with how I'm moving through life now.

One source of dissatisfaction is my health. Given disgustingly good health, I have, it seems done everything in my power to undercut that. Inertia, inactivity, over-eating. Just saw my doctor yesterday and gee, those health goals I've been working so diligently toward? Looks like I'm almost there. My glucose and bad cholesterol are elevated. The dread words "statins" and "pre-diabetic" were uttered. And I've known bad news was creeping up because my knees have been hurting (obesity - and inactivity) and my sleep has been pretty chaotic, too. So now I'm waiting for the blood work results so we know the actual numbers. And I'm thinking, I can still save this. Or at least, I want to give myself the chance. I do NOT want to go on statins. And I most certainly, heartily and dreadfully do not want to dance on the edge of diabetes any longer.

So it looks like today is when I finally have to get serious about what I've known for a long time. From here on out, if I want to have a *good* old age, my daily mantra must be "The most important thing I do today is exercise."  Simply getting out and walking, or going downstairs and getting on the Tunturi, and using the weight apparatus downstairs, for 30 - 60 minutes a day, has got to be my A-1 priority every single day. That, and cutting down on the bad foods I eat, and not eating after 8 p.m. But I have been reading for years that simple regular aerobic exercise will improve almost every one of my problems: excess weight, lack of stamina, lack of energy, lack of strength, deteriorating hips and knees, high glucose, high bad cholesterol (and especially low *good* chol.), poor posture, poor breathing. It also helps me feel more capable which I have found is HUGE in my general feeling of self-worth. Another way to say that is, regular exercise drives depression and inertia right down into the ground. And stomps on it.

With all those benefits, what the HELL has been holding me back? I guess, depression - though mine takes the form of inertia, not emotional anguish. No suicidal thoughts here, no worries. I LOVE just sitting in one place. I also LOVE getting stuff done. And I would much prefer to not have to deal with all the health shit that I've been putting out the welcome mat for all these years. My life needs shaking up, my routine has to change. This might involve even moving furniture around. I don't know. But it has to change, and today is when it has to start.

What a pain in the ass.

Edited to add: I'm amazed - the doctor's office already has my blood work results. They called me to give them to me. It turns out, he must have been mostly concerned about the blood glucose because he only ordered the A1C test and fasting glucose, and some organ function indices (no cholesterol analyses). My A1C is still within normal range, YAY!!!! A mite high, but still normal. My fasting glucose is a bit elevated, but is the same as when I had it measured back in May. It's still under the usual benchmark for diabetes.

So I look on this as  reprieve, an opportunity to get the ol' system working better again. No change in direction, then. This is encouraging.