Dear diary

It has been a long time since we last "spoke". It's not that I don't want to write or that I don't have things to say. It's just that by the end of the day, a day spent on a computer at work, I'm not too interested in spending even more time in front of a PC. Maybe I should try for a weekly recap instead.

Let's see. Last weekend was Women's Weekend. A group of us have been getting together twice a year for over 30 years. It started as a response to our husbands' annual Memorial Day canoe trip. Our first "weekend" was just an afternoon, as many had nursing babies, but eventually we settled on a Friday-to-Sunday ritual, usually at a cabin on a nursery that the family of one of the women owns. We spend our time playing cards, watching movies, eating (but less and more healthily than in previous years), drinking (also less), smoking (cigarettes!), and talking, talking, talking. Over the years the topics have evolved, but we still have plenty to discuss. I enjoy the time spent with these friends, but I always come home exhausted and in need of detox.

Monday was Memorial Day, a paid holiday where I work. I had a massage scheduled in the morning, but got waylaid by a lost dog. I was eventually able to both reschedule the massage for noon, plus reunite dog and owner. Then, besides catching up on the usual weekend chores like laundry, I worked in the yard with the help of my SO who this year has been doing most of the "heavy lifting" - anything requiring more upper body strength than I can muster.

Tuesday it was back to work - ugh - and yoga in the evening. Wednesday, work and date night. We tried out a new place, the House of Greens - not bad, we'll be back - and went shopping for a new mattress for my bed. I have a queensize waterbed frame, but gave up the waterbed mattress about ten years ago. The current mattress has a definite valley in the center which is beginning to take its toll on my back. I was just going to replace it with something similar, but made the mistake of testing a memory foam mattress. More expensive but also more comfortable. Now I am torn. Wish I knew people who have these so I could quiz them, not only on the mattress's sleepability but also how they would grade it as a platform for sex. These things are important!

Thursday more work and new tires. I hate tire places in general - maybe it is the fumes - and they never want to make actual appointments and they don't have shuttles. I did get a lot of knitting done, though, and I am happy with the new tires. On the way home, I made the mistake of stopping at the Niagara store and wasted 'way too much time there because they are so desperate to make a sale that they did not want me to leave and I'm too polite to just walk out. By the time I got home, I was grumpy because most of the evening was shot, so I just put on jammie pants and sat down to finish Homicide My Own, by Anne Argula (if you like mysteries with strong female characters, this series is for you). My son called just to chat, which was nice and helped lift my spirits.

(One of the things we talked about was how most people live beyond their means because they cannot defer gratification, but not us. He said, I must have had good parents. And I said, I must have had good parents. And he said, And Dad turned out okay anyway. Heh.)

And then it was Friday. It has been raining for days around here and even though it looked threatening, I spent several hours out in the yard, working off the week's frustrations. Later in the evening, I started The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, but just could not keep my eyes open.

The weekend is finally here, with the usual chores but also the opportunities for R&R. Time for breakfast, yoga, and grocery shopping. Ta!

Take me out to the ball game

Last weekend we saw our newly named, newly mascotted, newly housed minor league baseball team make a rather feeble attempt at playing ball. Baseball games can be interminable, especially if the home team is playing like they are dazed and confused, but that did not stop the women in front of us from talking interminably to each other, even though they were complete strangers.



Fortunately, there were plenty of other distractions.



Unfortunately, my camera batteries died before the end of the first inning. We did have a good time, though. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon in the Fort.

After a wonderful, 5-day weekend, it was back to work, where I seem to have become persona non gratis with a certain group at our location. Things like this used to bother me, but now I find them amusing. While their emails to me are terse and simmering, my responses are lightly gushing, like I'm a dimwit who just does not understand that they hate my guts. I doubt the ice will ever melt, but at least I cannot be accused of fanning the flames. Unless they think I am being sarcastic. Heh.

We're all winners

Before I forget, let me mention the refrigerator magnets I won in a contest at Thinking Some More. They were made by fellow Hoosier Christy and besides being very cute, are also extremely strong.

I am taking a few days off from the nuthouse, aka that place where I go everyday and they give me funds for kibble. Last Wednesday was nuttier than usual. I would give you a blow-by-blow description of just how nutty it was, but I have already expunged the experience from my mind. As far as I am concerned, until next Tuesday, I am retired.

So what does one do when one pretends to be retired but can't spend the days just lazing around because said pretend retirement has an expiration date? Well, there's the outside stuff like mowing and gardening and driving all over the county in search of plants. Then there is the indoor stuff like cleaning and cooking and rearranging furniture. There is the SO stuff like date night and phone calls and colonoscopies. And there's the family stuff, like power walking (which happened to involve walking through a fiber arts festival - roving!) and a Tin Caps game and a combined Cinco de Mayo/Mother's Day/May birthdays celebration complete with birthday pie.

The days are just packed.

Misc.

The other day at work, someone came to call for Jeffrey D. Jeffrey D was not at the front door to greet his visitor, so the security guard was calling around to see if anyone knew his whereabouts. When the guard called me, he had a brain fart or something and instead of asking about Jeffrey D, he asked if I worked with Jeffrey Dahmer. Surprisingly, I knew who he really meant, maybe because there are not that many Jeffreys here at work. But after the call, I could not remember Jeffrey D's real last name; I just knew it was not Dahmer, familiar though that sounded.

In my previous post, we were discussing money - or at least, I was - but I neglected to vent about my role as association treasurer and the fact that half of my neighbors cannot cough up $30 a year for our association dues without much arm twisting. These dues cover mowing of common property, private snow plowing, property taxes on common property, and postage. The postage would be unnecessary if everyone would respond to the fliers, signs, and online postings about the dues. Complicating the matter is the fact our dues are voluntary and our compliance rate is about 80%. I downplay the former because I am afraid that more would not pay, but I made the mistake of posting about the latter. Now all I get is, Why should I pay if my neighbors don't? BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO AND IT IS ONLY THIRTY BUCKS!!! I'm sure many of these people spend $30 a month (or more!) on lottery tickets (aka the stupid tax). But a few bucks to keep the neighborhood looking nice and to allow us to drive to work after an 8-inch snowfall? Wah, wah, wah.

I have a new pair of glasses. A new pair of $843 glasses which, thanks to vision insurance, cost me "only" $329. They are very light weight. They are also screwing with my depth perception - the floor looks too far a way and sometimes that makes me feel dizzy. I had not realized how fuzzy my vision had become. Everything looks crisp now. I just wish the lenses were bigger; it's difficult to find the right place to look through when one has trifocals. Consequently, I keep bobbing my head.

On the way back to work from picking up my glasses, I turned right onto a road that I thought would take me right back to the office. About a half mile down said road, nothing looked familiar. Instead of strip malls, I was passing upscale residential additions. I swear I took this same route just last week. Where was I?!? Because of the additions - which in this town should be labeled with warning signs that say "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" because they are super convoluted to discourage anyone from trying to take a shortcut through one, assuming there is more than one entrance - I could not take corrective action for several miles. And while looking for a way back without actually retracing my route, I kept trying to figure out where I went wrong. I also wondered if this was a sign of early dementia and/or a flashback. I eventually determined I had turned right too soon, and I eventually found a road that I knew would take me back to work, but whew! At least it was a nice day for a drive.

The pounds are not melting off despite the FBD, maybe because I am still struggling with the hunger thing. And at work, the boredom thing. And the sit-all-day-on-my-ass thing. My food choices were healthy before I embarked on this diet journey, but now they are even healthier, to the point where some not-so-healthy foods cause varying amounts of gastric distress. Like food from BK and the slow-churn low-fat ice cream from Baskin Robbins. At least, I think those are the culprits. Penn Station seems okay, though.

I'm up to 20 friends of Facebook! Most are blasts from the past, and it is fun to catch up with them. I also post pix of my yard and pets and knitting (geek!) So far, I have avoided joining groups or using the applications. It's addictive enough as it is.