this Friday feels like Tuesday and I need a nap

I'm totally discombobulated. Being out of town Sun-Wed has messed up my schedule and so at 11:29 a.m. Friday I feel like it's only Tuesday morning and I wish it was Saturday afternoon so I could go take a nap until I feel better.

Remember when you'd get real cranky as a little kid and you'd start being super unreasonable because the dog licked you in the face or your brother made fun of you and your mom would say "I think someone needs a nap"? Oh yeah, then I'd start wailing "I doooooo nooooot neeeeed a naaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!" With tears down my cheeks and snot starting to run. Well, if my mom appeared out of no where right next to me and said that now I'd cry from relief. "Thank you mama, I do need a nap". And I'd toddle off with my favorite soft bankie and do it.

Man, I hate PMS.

just me -- stirred not shaken

A lot of stuff has happened in the last year or so and the latest thing, K's return to Lincoln, was a sudden, hard right that hurt almost more than anything I've ever experienced. It wasn't that she did -- a small part of me always believed she would. It's how it all came to happen that was such a smart slap in the face.

It's not the kind of hurt that heals quickly. If it hurts me this much I can't imagine what it's done to T but he's soldiering on in incredibly brave fashion and I think in some ways we're closer now than we were. I dream about the girls a lot now-- including a couple of vivid ones on this trip, made worse by that wierd disoriented feeling you have when you wake up in the middle of the night in a strange place. I dream of A regularly, on the road and at home. My dreams make me sad because the dreams are usually happy and I know it's just what I wish for and not what really is. I so wish she would call. I don't really expect she will.

On another topic, I managed to survive a 4 day trip out of town with my weight loss and my mind mostly intact. I have some seriously unattractive bruises from dropping boxes on myself, twisting my ankle in my cute boots and falling, and any number of other dumb human tricks I pulled these last 4 days. I never remember coming back from a trip feeling so beat up as I do this time. I am really out of shape. It was a good thing for all 3 of us that the trip was ending: I think we were all exhausted. Last night going from the convention center to the airport was stone silent, just watching the rain and the traffic and hoping against all hope we'd make the plane. It's good to work with friends who don't feel uncomfortable about the silences. Sometimes conversation just takes too much juice.

Anyway, home again. Back to some kind of normal work routine until a month from now when we head to San Diego for another show.

10 down

Since Sunday I've been in Nashville working at a trade show and I just want to say YEAH!!! I did it! I managed to keep off the weight I lost late last week for a total so far of -10.1# lost since the first of January. I don't know if I'll see the 140s by May as I'd hoped but I know it will be close and keeping the weight off while everyone's throwing cookies and candy at you for three days is a big win in my book.

I'm so ecstatically happy. Also very busy so I'll come back and do a real post later. Happy Thursday everyone!

sad little loss

The weight tracker up on top doesn't reflect fractions of pounds so it's rarely spot-on. I haven't quite lost 9#, more like 8.8. If you think that .2 pounds isn't important, that's all I lost this week.

I could have blown my nose really good and lost that much.

Losing weight isn't so bad if it's consistent but my losses have been all over the board and with a trade show to work Sun-Wed of next week I'm afraid the scale isn't going to be nice to me next Thursday when I finally make it home.

I am trying not to be sad. It's hard. It's a sad, lonely little .2# loss. It needed company.

Soon, soon, soon.

laser show

Almost forgot to mention, for the curious few, the laser thing went fine on Friday. I had a venous lake removed, basically a big ugly blue vein on my lower lip, left hand side. It's not gone but is now more like a faint grey bruise. I'm assured that if it's not gone in a month I can return for another shot of laser beam to rid myself of this thing for good.

The procedure itself was relatively pain free, like having someone stick me with a pin about 15 times, hard enough to be uncomfortable but not enough to really hurt. Worth every penny and pinprick if it's really gone by March...

Short ruminations on Valentine's Day

So is Valentine's Day a made up Hallmark holiday? An excuse for flower shops and restaurants to make a few extra bucks? There's a part of me that wants to remain above it all but then there's that other part that loves to have any reason to celebrate... Whether it's roses or a homemade card, I'm game for anything that comes my way and will just as enthusiastically search out the perfect expression of my own affection.

Valentine's Day has been celebrated since around 1400, the first commercial Valentine's greetings were popularized in the 1840s. I'm pretty sure that predates Hallmark and American Greetings so it seems that love expressions don't have to come with a red envelope and a $4.95 price tag. And who am I to buck 600 years of tradition anyway?

Beyond the horror of the classroom parties where you only got valentines because everyone had to give one to each kid in class, my Valentine's have been mostly good. I remember the Valentine's Days in high school sans boyfriend, when my girlfriends and I would comfort each other with dollar carnations sold by the student council. My best Valentine's Day, or at least the one I remember best, was a few years ago when T was on the road. I arrived home to find a bright red foil Russell Stover's box on the table. I was a little puzzled that the lid didn't seem to fit but figured he has snuck a piece. So I lifted the lid to find a black velvet ring box in the center and inside, a diamond cocktail ring (T is a big fan of Kay's holiday promotions. Bless the man who understands that jewelry is always appropriate!!)

So I will celebrate Valentine's Day with pleasure this year: I have a day to find a way to say "thanks" to the man who's put up with my butt for the last (almost) 13 years. It doesn't seem adequate but it will have to do for now.

oh yes, and ...

Someone said "you look pretty today -- but then you always look pretty". Now see, that just makes my day. See how easily flattered my middle aged self is?

Goody goody foody

I looked at my packed and carefully pre-planned breakfast and lunch this morning and realized that I have (gasp) started eating healthy again... and it's paying off... down 8.6 pounds in 5 weeks!

breakfast: fat free yogurt, Kashi chewy granola bar (which tastes a little like a piece of plywood), 4 points

lunch: Healthy Choice Chicken & pasta, cucumber with 2 tablespoons of garlic hummus, apple, 6.5 points

Dinner: probably a taco salad made with lettuce, 1/2 cup leftover chili, light sour cream, chopped onions, tomatoes, black olives, light queso dip and 13 Baked Tostitos. Also a light hot dog on a slice of light wheat bread. 9.5 points.

Snacks: a little weight watchers snack cake and maybe some sugar free Cheesecake pudding with fat free Cool Whip.

My Gosh, what happened to the Wendy's #1 combo with fries? Whither the pizza? The candy eaten with wild abandon?

Ah, well, looks like I can survive without that stuff after all.

God love America and our wretched excess!

As we were leaving Sam's Club on Saturday with our world record most expensive cart o' stuff ever, I had a few moments to reflect on the absolute excess of club stores. 40# of dog food, 40# of charcoal, 2 big plastic buckets filled with Baked Cheetos, enough grape tomatoes to string and decorate a Christmas Tree, a box of Tide that will keep our recently reduced household in clean undies for the next 9 months. There was other stuff, too, more than I care to recall. And then we went to WalMart to do our "real" shopping. One might look at our house and think we're children of the depression the way we hoard certain items. When I compare my 3' x 3 1/2' multi-roll package of paper towels to the single roll packages I saw in Spain, I'm ... so ... embarrassed. And a little giddy.

In another show of over-the-top American consumerism, let us reflect for a moment on the chili-and-chip-eating, rooted-to-the couch pastime that is the Superbowl. Only in America would companies throw down several million dollars for 30 seconds of TV time that consists of a pretty woman with a heaving bosom snapping the straps of her tiny shirt and some old guy hyperventilating. I still have no idea what godaddy.com is and if their commercials aren't outright offensive they're really stupid. But I did really like whoever had the commercial where the guy works with monkeys (and his friend works with jackasses). I have no idea what that product was either. But in a stunning win earned by blending brand, humor and frequency -- my declared Superbowl winner is Budweiser. Loved most of their spots and especially the Clydesdale spots (little one pulling the wagon and the football game/streaker spot). Bravo! Runner up? Disney World -- again with the frequency thing and the charming idea of the players rehearsing for their big moment in the spotlight. Makes me wonder why I'm not going to Disney World...

So now that we've snapped out of our food and football induced comas it can only mean one thing .... Speed Weeks. Ahhhh. More American excess, this time represented by big, loud, fast, fuel guzzling cars and sponsorships by beer, liquor and Little Debbies. Long live the USA!

One month update

One month since I restarted Weight Watchers - one month of obsessively tracking and planning and praying for the scale to budge. Freaking scale, what a tease. One time 164.3. The next time 165.6. The 165.5. OK so maybe I shouldn't just stand there, hopping on, hopping off, running to pee, hopping on again, making sure my hair is totally dry, taking my glasses off. Maybe I've gotten a little wierd on that count. This is nothing new, the wierdness.

But really, really, I have lost 6.1 pounds this month. It's not exactly like I got dealt a Blackjack or anything, but it's a solid "19" and I feel good about it. 6 pounds per month and by May I'll be 147 pounds again... and if I can hang in a little longer, by July I could be in the 130s. Unthinkable. Yet .... doable.

So, I feel good. My clothes still don't fit but underneath my winter fat, I'm a butterfly...

College Bands

I wasn't much of a music connoisseur in college -- I actually missed the ultimate college band -- REM-- all together since I was dating a guy whose tastes tended toward Wynton Marsalis, Spyro Gyra and Mannheim Steamroller. I guess I listened to what he listened to. But my junior year I started dating another guy who loved rock and knew a little something about the local talent. Through him I was introduced to Melissa Etheridge (when she had just released her first album and was still a "local" act) and the Rainmakers.

I thought about the Rainmakers today because the lyrics to a song called "Small Circles" just sort of came in to my head. The lyrics don't directly pertain to me but the idea of the song is how my life feels right now -- just moving in small circles, just sort of killing time until issues get resolved and things can move on. Small circles aren't productive but they're sort of comforting. So is thinking of old memories and listening to old songs that help me remember happier times. I guess that's why we still love our college bands, even after we've grown up.

Small Circles - The Rainmakers
She reached out, and twist my hand
And made me dance to some local band
But the beat was slow, so there we stand
As we move in small circles

We cut out before the night was through
Start my car and we drove the Loop
Talked about the things we were going through
As we move in small circles
We move in small circles

She said she didn't know the ways of love
I said "Neither do I; I thought you'd show me some"
We dilly-dallied like that for 6 or 8 months
As we move in small circles

A couple of times she stayed with me
And we worked it out on a single sheet
I can hear every painful squeak
As we move in small circles
We move in small circles

And she grew up, and I grew up
And she got tough, and I got tough
So much for love, so much for love
As we move in small circles

Now we make money, and we're all right
And we drive cars and wield our might
We make love to people that we don't even like
As we move in small circles
We move in small circles

And I don't even think about her now
I just said all this to be workin' my mouth
I wish I cared, but I don't know how
As we move in small circles
We move in small circles
We move in small circles
We move in small circles

Grouchy Poetry Day

Be warned: it's grouchy poetry day. My poetry isn't especially good when I'm in a happy mood. But mix one part Monday, 5 hours of sleep, PMS and cold feet and what you get is even worse than usual...

------------------------------------------
It's hard to go around the next corner
when each turn seems to take me
further away from where I want to be.

I thought you were right behind me
but somehow you got ahead
and now you're completely out of sight.

If you are going to keep on lying to me
stick the blade straight in and twist
fast so dying comes before I can think.

Stop, I want to get off

If my life was "The Zipper" I would say this ride is dumb. It is like I waited in line forever, all hyped up on adrenaline and caramel apples with chocolate drizzles and extra pecans -- only to throw it all up 45 seconds in. Now I have to finish the stupid ride all gross and icky and sick.

If life was a rollercoaster I would say it's too damn rough. It looked fun from the ground but when I actually get on it whips my neck and makes my butt hurt.

My life is artificial trying to be real. It's a sunburn on a high humidity day when all you wanted was to have some fun but somehow, everything's gone wrong.

I keep hoping that if I just hang in there I will get to enjoy the cool of the evening, holding hands with my love and maybe, just maybe, some fireworks and a deep sleep with wonderful dreams.

blogger as metaphor for life

About once or twice a year I get to messing around with my template while doing something simple (like a hedgehog weight tracker) and I lose all my formatting for blogger.

Lately I've gotten a little smarter and figured out how to save most of the good stuff and patch everything together quickly.

This is my life. Screw up. Fix. Start Over. Screw up. Fix. Start Over.

You have the right to ... oh, nevermind

I am very interested in the anti-smoking employment policies being instituted at many companies -- basically if you smoke anywhere, any time, you can be fired. Companies such as Weyco, Investors Property Management Inc., Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and most notably, Scotts Miracle Grow have instituted "smoke and be fired" policies for all their employees.

Other companies refuse to hire smokers and a few have had these policies in the past and quietly dropped them: CNN, for instance.

I could go on and on about what an incredible infringement on our personal rights this policy is. About how if they say you can't smoke, what about drinking? Overeating? Skydiving? Having sex with the scary girl you picked up in a bar the night before? I could but I won't. Because here's the thing. If you're in a state that is employment at-will (and most are) you can be fired for holding your tongue wrong while using a yo-yo. Or any other stupid thing, so long as there isn't a statute that says it's illegal (like gender, age, religion, ethnicity). People can and do get fired for being too fat. People can and do get fired for buying a competitive product.

So just assume that you have no work rights.

That is my soap-box for today. Thank you.

PSA

Folks on the weight watchers boards are fond of posts that have the heading "PSA". It's what they do when they just want to rant a little bit about something that has really bothered them. I don't want to rant and rave or cry or anything. I'm tired of the sound of my own voice. I just want to say today I feel a little fragile. Be gentle with me please.

Aqualung (aka Matt Hales) said it best:

This is not the time to wonder why
Just let the heart and mind
Be still for just some time
This is the time for the rest
Just let it go
You know its for the best
If you're fragile,and if you're delicate
Take my hand but be gentle with me please

Let the river flow
Washing over me
for a while
But be gentle with me please

This is not the time to compromise
if you're feeling it too
Then you've realised
This is the time for a change
Yes you know it's true
Deep down within you
If you're fragile,and if you're delicate
Take my hand but be gentle with me please

Let the river flow
Washing over me
for a while
But be gentle with me please
Let the river flow
Washing over me
for a while
But be gentle with me please
But be gentle with me please
If you're fragile,and if you're delicate
Take my hand but be gentle with me please
Let the river flow
Washing over me
for a while
But be gentle with me please
Let the river flow
Washing over me
for a while
But be gentle with me please
be gentle with me please
be gentle with me please
be gentle with me please

Is it just me?

Or does January seem like the longest month of the year? Dear Lord when will it ever end?

I hate January with a passion usually reserved for the DMV and the dentist's chair. This one has been very mild but today when I got in the car it was dark, gloomy, drizzly, nasty and all together the kind of day where I'd like to go lay on the couch and watch bad Lifetime movies. It's supposed to snow later on.

I'm thinking of making it a Blockbuster weekend. I'm thinking I'd like to eat everything in sight. I'm also thinking that K's P.E. teacher is a sadist who enjoys punishing his students. She showed me the exercises they do in class and 3 days later I still hurt.

I'm thinking I need to quit goofing around and get some work done so maybe this day -- and the 11 left in this month -- will go a little faster. I'm ready for spring.

House of Geriatric Pets

I have a neighbor that used to be quite a collector of aged animals. She had, at one time, 2 antique poodles, an 18 year old deaf and blind cat and another dog in the backyard that was well past his prime. Since then I think all of her critters have died, to be replaced by other, presumably younger, models.

I think I've taken her place.

It is a sad fact of life that Abby the famous D-O-G (famous because she appears in the EMT Spray packaging at the top) can no longer make the "big loop" around our neighborhood without showing a very pronounced limp. T and I realized last night that her days of long walks with mom and dad are, indeed, finally over. My poor girl. We have grown older and fatter together, unfortunately her more so than I. This same gimp also affects Dusty, or Fatboy, as we like to call him around home. His jumper doesn't quite jump and he's got a definite hitch in his giddyup. KC, the oldest of the batch, still hops around like the superfit feline she is (even with questionable kidneys) and Penny, the baby of the bunch, hasn't slowed down at all.

The "people ages" of the critters in my household:
KC (cat): 73
Abby (dog): 70
Dusty (cat): 63
Penny (dog): 55-60

I'm the like the Denny's of animal care. The only sobering thought is that I fear that they will all go at once... except for Penny who will live forever, unless she sneaks out the gate and is flattened by a UPS truck. (She hates UPS trucks). I am afloat in a sea of Senior formula dog and cat food, treats for grungy teeth and glucosamine. But I am completely surrounded by furry soldiers of love, my aging but dedicated army of bodyguards. Lucky me.

what I had for lunch

There's something weirdly empowering about eating a predator for lunch.

I had a business lunch at my favorite Spanish restaurant and the fish special was Mako Shark.

Cool.

Having eaten Morcilla in Murcia (hahahaha!) I now feel emboldened to eat all kinds of new unusual stuff. It was good shark too, very mild and firm. Plus, it was SHARK. How cool is that?

On a completely unrelated note (and maybe TMI but it's my blog and I'll be strange if I want to), I have decided to go "under the knife" or should that be "under the laser" to have a venous lake removed from my lower lip. This is a disturbing blue vein that grew on my lip basically overnight some years ago. I have been very nervous about having anyone do stuff with needles or lasers near my face but after having a chat with a cosmetic surgery place it turns out that it's no big whoop and won't even require a numbing cream. Just a few zaps and $50 and I never have to have anyone ask me again if I've been chewing on a blue ink pen. Yay.

OK, maybe I'm feeling a little goofy today....

The cleaning lady

I had a cleaning lady a few years ago when I was in graduate school and working full time -- I had simply run out of time to do all of the things I needed to do. For $50 (she was inexpensive and my house was small) it seemed like a bargain to have someone come and scrub the floors and chase my dust bunnies. Also our cleaning lady was a friend and the wife of a church elder. For $50 she cleaned: for free she prayed and blessed while she did it.

On the flip side, I have been someone else's cleaning lady -- although mostly just empty rental property and the occasional helping hand for a friend. Cleaning houses is very hard and surprisingly intimate. There's no way you can scrub someone's kitchens and bathrooms and bedrooms and not know them in a very personal way. You learn their habits, their weaknesses, their likes and dislikes, the books they read, the foods they eat. You see but you try not to. It's like overhearing a confession or reading a diary. Your cleaning lady knows you in ways you probably don't want to think about, believe me.

One pretty fall day I spent a significant portion of my morning on my hands and knees scrubbing floors. It took a long time and it involved some not insignificant physical pain, as my softy office knees aren't used to that sort of business. After finishing, I stood up, bloody-knuckled, flushed and sweaty, pfff-ed the stray hair off my face and bragged to my mother (who is a cleaning lady full time and then some and had been cleaning circles around me all morning) about how beautiful it was. She said, "Yes, I do that every week. It's the only way to get a really clean floor." Well, the idea of my 59 year old rheumatoid arthritic mother on her hands and knees scrubbing floors really popped my bubble. I hated to think about her doing that and at the same time I realized that I really hadn't done anything special myself.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't pity her... but I really respect her. Mom is usually happy cleaning and has augmented her earnings or made her living for 40 years by straightening up someone's mess. I understand why she likes it-- I do too. I like the pop of a fresh sheet as I make the bed, the faint smell of bleach on my hands. I like the order and comfort of a clean room. It doesn't have to be antiseptically clean, just ordinary clean and clutter free. If I've done something really big like a basement or garage I'll sometimes go in to that room again and again just to enjoy the difference between before and after. In my own house I light scented candles in each room as I finish it... I don't know why, other than it's just part of my ritual.

There is one difference between me and a real cleaning lady though. I choose to do it -- I don't need to pay my bills this way. If I had to do it day in and day out to put food on the table I'm sure I would feel differently. I never see a cleaning person without thinking of my mother and my own reddened knees and raw hands from scrubbing floors. To this day, I always smile and say hello to the office cleaning people, the hotel cleaning staff, the people spraying sanitizer in the public restrooms and scooping paper off the tables in the food court. They work hard and they keep many secrets. They clean up my mess and then they go home to do it all over in their own homes. The least they deserve is my appreciation and my respect.