April 22.2004

I have been most productive today.  Floors are mopped. Dishes are done.  Laundry is well underway.  Delena's room is cleaned.  Next comes the boys' room.  I could also possibly think about making up my bed.  Mom used to always tell me it was unhealthy to make your bed... that beds need to breathe.  I wrote an e-mail and a follow-up snail mail letter to the realtor who is showing the old house to inform her of the thefts.  The more I think about it, the more it bothers me that things were stolen from inside the house.  Since there was no signed of forced entry, it had to come from someone with access to the lock box or from a realtor leaving the place unsecured.  Nathan is playing outside for the moment, so all is quiet.  Kids are due home in about 15 minutes, so it's to be short lived.

I've gotten so many great suggestions on the motion sickness.  Maybe I won't have to play the ivory tower gig forever after all.  My beloved (dear lord, how I love this girl!  there is no scale large enough to measure my love for her) daughter-in-law, Sandra, is bringing me some bootleg Gravol from Canada when she comes to visit in a couple of weeks.  Gravol is the bomb and totally knocks out motion sickness.  Sherry Mercurio (the magnificent Sherry) told me about a Unisom Vitamin B-6 combo that is also supposedly failsafe. 

Of course, that doesn't change my overall distaste for driving.  My first husband was one of those "Let's go for a DRIVE" people.  I drive as a conveyance from point A to point B.  For me, it's never recreational.  I have a really big drive coming up in July (to LA for the GH Fan Weekend) and I'm already pulling my hair out about it.  I'll have to load up on Dr Phil books on tape or something to keep me sane.  It's still cheaper than flying, since I'd rent a car while down there anyway.   Plus, by the time you check in, get through security, sit around and wait, have the flight delayed, etc, it doesn't take much longer to drive than to fly.  It's about 6 hours or so as nearly as I can figure.  Plus, by renting a car, you can drive like a bat out of hell and let the insurance take care of it. 

So no matter how you stack it, I'm 40 minutes from any kind of civilization.  While there are parts of that I love, there are the obvious inconvenience of being stranded (we are 1 vehicle at this time) and the distinct lack of things like pizza delivery, thrift stores (my favorite form of recreation) and grocery stores.  If you're out of something, you're pretty much assed out until the next trip to town.  If you need something nonessential, like (in my case) shafts for my darts, you're pretty much assed out until the next long trip into a big town.  It's a new lesson in self-sufficiency.  Sacramento was an exercise in instant gratification.  Anything you want is a mile or less away.  I do miss that.

I don't miss city life.  I don't miss the constant noise, the less than pristine air and the  traffic.  I love going outside and smelling Christmas trees on every breeze.  It's just glorious.  The days are a LOT slower here.  I feel like I've lived a couple of months just since I got up this morning.

But then, that's the theme.  EVERYthing is slower up here.  I wake up and look at the clock, certain I've overslept, only to find that it's 3:45am.  Still a couple of hours and change to go.  I go to load a page to Eye on Soaps, hit "save," go pee, make tea, do the dishes, come back and check, take the dog out to pee, google a few people I used to know, then it's saved.  Life ambles at its own pace and up here, time is sloooow.  I guess that's good when you're past 40.  Maybe I won't age as fast.

I must have this T-shirt:

I am not even sure why it appeals to me, but it does and I must have it.

I also thought this was wonderful (thanks, Dayna):
 

Marty wakes up with a huge hangover. First thing he sees are aspirins and water on the side table. His clothing is all laid out. The bedroom is spotless. He notices a note: "Honey," it reads, "breakfast is in the oven. I had to go shopping. Love You!"

In the kitchen a hot breakfast awaits him, along with the newspaper, ready to read. Marty's grown-up son is at the table. Marty asks what happened last night. "You came home at 3AM, Dad, and you were drunk as a skunk. Good thing you took a cab. You threw up and gave yourself a black eye when you stumbled into the door and woke everybody up."

Confused, Marty asks, "If I was so disgusting, why am I being treated like a prince?"

"Because when Mom dragged you into the bedroom and tried to take your pants off, you said, "Lady, leave me alone, I'm married."
 

I took a personality test to see what world leader, past or present, I was.  I got Mother Theresa.  I find something very, very wrong with that.

I took another test on the same site to see what classic movie I was.  I was Easy Rider.  I can live with that.

http://similarminds.com/leader.html  You can get to both of these and other tests from there.

I forgot to tell you a horrible thing that happened during the move.  Eric was working and the turtle tank badly needed to be changed.  There were still boxes and crap all around.  The turtle tank is on two speaker stands in the laundry room cum Eric's office, so it's a bend over affair.  The damned thing is about 50 gallons, so it's quite large and cumbersome.  Being an independent, self-sufficient type (read:  Eric wasn't here for the begging), I decided to move it myself and do the cleaning.  One never knows how foul a turtle tank can be until one makes the horrid mistake of adopting turtles.  I was carrying the damned thing, log style, (underhanded) to the kitchen sink, when my foot got tangled up on a wrought iron candle holder.  I went down hard and all I could think of was saving the tank because we could NOT afford another one.  I saved the tank, but went down with all my weight and that of the turtle tank of water on my knees.  Wham!  I thought I was going to die.  Fortunately, I'd taken the turtles out before I moved it, but I did get a really thorough bath and facial with some disgusting turtle water.  Bleh.  In my face, my ears, my mouth, my eyes, just sloppy with it.  I sat there and cried for a while, my knees swelling like mad.  Finally, I got myself together and got the thing cleaned up and put away.  I cried a little more and took a hot bath to soak the knees.  That was about two weeks ago and although the swelling and bruising has gone down, they still hurt like hell when they get any pressure, like carrying heavy things or (of course) going up and down stairs.  I'm sure it will heal in time.  There was injury AND there was insult to that injury.  Between my back, which was destroyed in my last pregnancy, my knees that bit it with the turtle fracas and my feet that still go with a round of plantar fasciitis from time to time (although it's much better since I've been wearing the supports Sherry sent - if you have problems with plantar fasciitis/heal spurs, go HERE:  http://www.comforthouse.com/comfort/footcomfort.html and change your life forever), I feel like my body is wrecked. 

I know the answer is to lose weight, but I've got to find the right brain-place to do it.  I'm watching what I eat very carefully, but I'm really challenged on getting to the exercise.  Intellectually, I know I'll feel better and it'll get the job done on a lot of levels. I just can't seem to get past the initial barrier of "I don't want to."  I'm having to do a LOT of things I don't want to right now and it's already kind of pissing me off, so I'm not eager to start another one.  On the other hand, if I'm already disgruntled, what's a little more?  I need to think on this more.

Speaking of things I don't want to do, I should really go clean the boys' room.  

OH, one other thing that's odd.  I have almost no dream memory here.  I've always had excellent dream recall and have used them extensively to help get a tighter grip on my own self-analysis.  Since I've been up here, I can never remember what I dreamed the next morning.  I can remember the essence.  Last night, I know I had a sex dream.  A couple of nights ago, I dreamed about my mother, but I couldn't even begin to tell you anything that happened in the dream.  I don't know if it's the higher altitude.  I don't know if it's going from having the bed moved from North-South to West-East.  I just know I haven't remembered a single dream in 3 weeks, which is really, really odd for me.

I've also falling asleep  hard  around 9pm, to the point that I feel drugged and can't hold my eyes open any more, no matter what I'm doing or how hard I try.  It wasn't just watching "Lost in Translation" that did it.  It's every single night.

Beezarre.

Now I'm off to clean some more.  Who'da thought, huh?

Have a splendid Thursday night.

Love,
K