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Date: July 30, 2004
You would think that I would learn.
I evidently do not.
First, I am still stumbling (falling more like) out of the futon-bed frame with the box spring and mattress piled on top.
Like days of old, I need a stepstool. Instead, I lean over and fall into it and swing my legs over and step out of it. This is provided: 1) I am awake enough to swing said legs; and b) the dog is not sleeping under my feet, which is known to cause ungraceful hopping and leaping and a lot of cursing as I try not to crush her ribs.
Handy to stand on however when fixing an exploding light bulb. The bed, not the dog.
Of course the lightbulb exploded - I was trying for a quiet moment last night to read my new Christine Feehan Dark Destiny vampire romance.
I was in a blood-sucking mood last night.
Must be the lack of estrogen at this time of the month. Or a dirth of chocolate.
So of course I spent 30 minutes taking down the hanging lamp and then using pliers and a potato (which did not work) and a screwdriver to get the remains of the bulb out, the fixture cleaned up and a new light bulb back in. The glass part was captured by the globe, which served as a litter pan for the worst of the detritus from the explosion, which I carried to the trash.
This after spending several minutes trying to find where I had stashed the new light bulbs since I now have a pantry where the old furnace used to be, and I have yet to get used to it.
Mind you, they are still rebuilding my bedroom wall after it was found that the wet spot on the rug was from the wall from the roof (inside roof), from the cross-connected spill and overflow pipes of the brand-new central air conditioner. Which, while unevenly cooling the house, is a BIG improvement and I will put one in the San Diego house immediately upon moving back in there.
This morning, I made my way to the kitchen - yelling at the cat all the way, because I cannot walk anywhere in the house unless Ranger has second-guessed me and leads the way, tripping me up, and made my decaf and sat on the couch. Some days I have threatened to step on said cat. Mostly, I use my super-soaker - except mine has worn out and I have not yet been to Target for a new one.
Sitting down in the morning is a fatal error.
Never sit down after getting up.
I was already late having rolled over for the proverbial 10 minutes more that became 70 minutes more because I had crashed back instantly to sleep.
Why I can't sleep like that when I go to bed in the first place is beyond me but I cannot. (Unless I am trying to read a good book in which case said book falls from nerveless fingers. Repeatedly.)
Although the drugs they have me on for my aching tailbone have solved the hip pain and I do sleep better when the indigestion from said drugs is not keeping me awake. Seems I need special orthodics now (beyond the ones I already wear). Heel, knee, hip and now tailbone are connected. Lovely. I should never have tried to train for a marathon. I used to wear corrective shoes as a child (oh I remember that well). Getting old can be a bitch! Or, in my case, a real pain in the butt. I have pillows on every chair.
After numbly being aware that there is absolutely nothing to watch at 7:30AM on the cable TV with it's 999 channels except the country music station, I tuned in and caught a song or two, all the while aware that I had food to fix, a shopping trip to perform, and work calling me.
Earl had to Die was good - I got up off the couch and made myself breakfast.
I had cereal (whole milk) with raisins and almonds and hot blueberries (microwave defrosting). That time of the month requires a few extra calories and a lot of antioxidants.
I had my medipak pill BEFORE breakfast and my Kaflax antibiotic AFTER, as instructed.
I showered (after chasing the cat again) and then had my other pills (booting the cat off my ankles). The dog had long since been put out.
OK.OK. I fed him. The cat.
Persistent little shit.
While trying to get dressed and my makeup on, I decided to wear my new Bob Mackie 3/4 sleeve tee shirt - Wearable Art - black with a Yellow peacock. My Goodness! I fit a size LARGE! My gut is not hanging out! Where is it? Oh, there it is, he just cut the shirt longer and looser. I like Bob Mackie.
This pretty tee shirt (dressy black I wore with Susan Gravor black Slinky knit ankle pants - no pockets) required that I use my Joan Rivers interchangeable earrings and put yellow inserts into them to match.
And I decided to try the chain necklace that this interchangeable slide goes into. I think.
And found the insert jammed into the necklace piece. (Are the pieces different then from the earrings? I couldn't see that.)
I could not mount the chain onto the slide. The insert was not far enough in.
I had to remove the piece. The insert was jammed.
I tried and pushed and then put it in hot water and lots of soap (works for rings) and no joy.
15 minutes later, I grabbed a large safety pin and managed to carefully lift the tail-end of the insert and tip it forward and then out. I was trying very hard not to hurt it.
I really could still not see a difference in the inserts. I had the earrings off by now.
But I swapped pieces and got the necklace on.
It hangs too low.
So I got a really thin, thin omega and put it on that one (also uses the sliding interchangeable piece - I think).
I put the earrings back on and voila - I am ready to go. With makeup in place of course. My hair is wild and wooly and growing out. No too shabby.
I ran to check on my son before I ran to the store --- and he was - contrary to normal days - AWAKE!!!!! Before Noon! Egad! Threw me off schedule!
So now I had to fetch him a drink, set out pills, set out some canned fruit (Lite Peaches as opposed to the ones in heavy syrup we were using).
I am off- to the grocery store. Albertson's this time. Trader Joe's does not carry everything. I alternate.
Flex hours are useful for working mothers because working mothers need to do so much in a day.
By shopping early - I avoid long lines and crowded stores. Then I can type at night having come and gone from the office in non-rush hour traffic - which, in Silicon Valley, even though it is lighter than in past years, is still pretty heavy.
I raced thru my shopping ($290 worth) dragging a heavy noisy wobbly-wheeled cart - you could hear me coming. I am fast - a power shopper from hell - and noisy carts simply are not allowed to get in my way. I have a set timetable. I do not miss it.
I raced home after a young man (so young he looked like a baby to me) helped me take two carts to the truck. He had little experience in the one-legged hook shot where you stand on one leg while hooking the cart with the other as you unload the cart which, since there is a sharp slope, tries to roll away every second, until it's empty when it will magically freeze. I try to keep said carts off the truck, which has acquired three scratches total in three years. I have been very, very careful. After all, it's not my truck and the owner is beginning to assert his rights. I promised. (Take your pills and get better - here's a silver extended cab Tacoma TRD! - Well, he did. And is.)
I hauled in the groceries.
I am fast and efficient, after locking up the cat - who will bolt on any given opportunity. That's why he wears a bell.
I carry three bags at a time. And I only put away perishables. Who needs to lift weights. (Oh, OK. I do, I do.)
I grab stuff for lunch for my kid - bread and butter (in a sandwich bag), a packet of tuna he requested (in foil), ice and water (seltzer).
I live in fear that I will get to work without my lunch. I have Momentum bars - 3g carbs each.
I am trying to behave. (Just not making it at 3 AM.)
As I race to check myself in the mirror, handle a phone call - and in the process remember to plug all the phones into their little wizzywigs (since we have my line on DSL, the phones must be filtered or they are useless), I check my mirror and find I went to the store sans mascara.
This is a crime against humanity!
Old ladies must always wear black eyeliner and mascara because Mother Nature is trying to erase all evidence of eyes from our faces.
When my doctor is back from his sabbatical, I will be ready for an eye peel (get rid of wrinkles and those tea-bag eyes for a few months anyway), and to finally have my eyebrows tattooed. Maybe the upper lids as well. Not in black, but in a dark taupe color - the kind they say suits everyone without being too harsh. It will, after all, be permanent.
I am considering doing my lips too, since, in spite of a rash of purchases of late (my annual refresh the makeup cycle that never seems to happen as it should - with the disposal of the old - thereby crowding my bathroom to capacity), I never remember to put lipstick on during the day and no matter what they say, it will wear off. Tubes rot in my p[urse, themy rolling suitcase, my back-pack, my bathrrom counters and my kitchen counter. Don't ask.
Old ladies need lip color since Mother Nature is busy erasing all traces of what were once lips from our faces. Maybe I should have them plumped.
Maybe not.
I am still contemplating this.
After all, I am not contemplating kissing anyone other than my sons and they don't want me doing anything.
(If I fix myself up, after all, I might return to stalking Fabio. This concept still worries them. His having a girlfriend does not deter them from this. Never has.)
I have finally gotten the PC computer (in its rolling suitcase - because a 17" Toshiba is not a computer to tuck under your arm) into the truck my son threatens to remove from my possession shortly, as soon as they tell him he can drive. He's doing so well.
I run to work and am surprised that 880 is still a bloody mess, although 237 is wide open.
I run to meetings and fetch stuff and collect email, which is what I came for.
Surprise, a dormant databook is due out August 13th, while the newer one, the subject of meetings, is due out the end of August. They are supposed to be staggered.
Ha ha. My boss delivers this and then skips out on vacation for a week. He always delivers these decisions and requests on Friday (because I am seldom in on Friday) and then goes on a trip (business or pleasure). Caught him this time. He laughed.
My meeting with engineering is to be done differently today. Having been to one of these meetings before and acquiring lots of scribbles, this time I have tucked said 17" Toshiba under my arm and taken it with its power cord (because it has decided not to run without AC power - it goes black and refuses to wake up) and the mouse (because I hate touchpads) into said meeting with me. I type while engineering talks - which is a good thing as they haven't written it all down. Sort of editing on the fly. The only things I didn't haul into the meeting were the rolling bag and the slanted keyboard. During this meeting I am given copies of specs I should have been gifted with some time ago. Like November. This is good as I have to make up a few more register descriptions.
I even add notes to myself of tasks left to do - marked in red - right in the document. Hint. Do not release this to a customer if red is still present.
Ho ha.
When you want things done with efficiency, ask a busy working mother.
I have had my bottled Starbuck's coffee, more pills, my Momentum bar (I had a yogurt - low carb - before leaving the house). I have also consumed a bottle of light lemonade. I am thirsty, another side-effect of the pills.
I drive home in near-rush hour traffic. Ugh.
I find the child sleepy and grumpy so I reheated pork and rice and apple from our crazy brandy cooked pork. He doesn't like leftovers but he eats the pork and leaves the rest and I had the rest since I had the leftover chicken and nothing else.
I give him more pills. I take my pills.
We are a pill-crazy household. I have a chart on the wall just to keep track.
It is mystery night on PBS, and I watch the ending of Taste for Death even though I have now purchased a big collection of the P. D. James mysteries on DVD including this one. I have seen them all several times and I love them dearly. Roy Marsden will not be in the new story, coming this fall. Too bad! But I have watched the leads in several series change hands several times over the decades. One thing you live with as you get older. And older. And older.
Pride and Prejudice is being remade for the 8th time --- whoa! I only have three versions and one was that slap-dab one in black and white with Sir Lawrence (where the Regency people were dressed in antebellum hoops and mutton sleeves). What are the other five? I will have to ask the Jane Austin Center in England about that.
I also plan to get the rest of the Dalgliesh mysteries - they do not yet have them all on DVD.
And I want Inspector Morse - all 63 stories.
I also watch Kavanaugh, Q.C - same actor. He would have done two more years of that series but we lost him. He was very, very good. BBC does good work.
These are old friends. I will play them over and over while I work or write because they are comforting while not being distracting
Or I will sit and watch them sipping wine (which I cannot have while on all these pills) when I need to be unstressed.
It's that catch 22 where you want noise on but if the show is too stupid it is distracting and if it's too good it is distracting. If it is good and you know the story it is not distracting. As the oldest of 6 at home, I cannot abide it being quiet. (Unless I am in a tent on an outing with the Boy Scouts when quiet is good. I haven't done that since my son got sick. Camp out. 15 years of Boy Scouts have faded away. Too bad. It was fun.)
By 10PM I have fetched my son warm rolls (heat and serve) and some medium hot sauce and mild lime-touched chips. I will stage a raid and have some of these because I suddenly want salt. It took awhile for me to guess I should have grabbed a Gatoraide. The effect of the pills you see. But, in a weak moment it's hot sauce and chips. Only a few. And it clears the sinuses. Gatoraide won't do that! Pace Picante Sauce HOT will!
In my shopping I neglected yogurt for me and medium hot sauce for him. He is not yet ready for full-blast stuff even if it was like ice cream to him before the chemo.
It's always something that I forgot. Always. I have learned to live with that. I can't make a list without leaving something off - so I don't bother with a list. I am a practiced hunter-gatherer. It will even out.
Tomorrow he gets an egg omelet and toast with apple cider for breakfast.
I don't want him gaining. And I don't want him losing. A balancing act. I am also trying to not gain and to actually loose. I had one roll. Wheat.
I give him his third set of pills, fetch ice and sodas (70-80 oz a day is his requirement).
I make coffee and get ready for my fourth set of pills. And this also requires a regular dosage of Advanced Imodium AD. Or I really will loose. My insides are now empty - hense the munchies and thirst. My body is rebelling.
This in turn requires the consumption on my part of 24 oz and 12 oz of diet soda over ice over three hours. And many fast runs to the bathroom since old ladies cannot go 3 hours without a potty break. Something else that needs repair. Soon.
My ice is from my freezer and the filter needs changing. I can tell since the ice cubes I have are cloudy.
His ice is bottled or sterile water made in trays and the cubes are clear. Makes me rethink my set-up. Maybe never get another icemaker and just buy a bunch of trays and bottled water. I will have to find a spot to put that.
And this makes me remember that I need to call Sears. My oven door handle is falling off. I could take it apart and repair it. But - if the maintenance is still running - let them do it. I am upset that it is loose but I have learned that refridgerator doors and oven doors never stay tight and I keep a Philips screwdriver handy just because. Works on my very expensive electric skillet too..
Register bits and pieces aside, it is now late and I need to crash someplace.
Perhaps back in my too-high bed with yet another attempt to get hip-deep into my vampire book.
Tomorrow I have to try yet again to get this year's taxes sorted and typed up. I am about out of time on the extension. I only just completed the audit. (I was fine - $2000 to the CPA and nothing to Uncle Sam. I keep my very detailed records. All the way back to 1964.)
Besides, I need the kitchen counter space. It's almost Thanksgiving. Hmmm. Perhaps I should defrost the last of that turkey and cook it to death in a soup. Make room for the next one.
He has now also informed me that I forgot his sparkling cider.
Now that makes me bloodthirsty. Where is that book?
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