20130314 Friday March 14, 2014, 2:436 PM Pi day 1 I am at the Dermatology Clinic. I was in such a rush that I forgot to put vaseline on my biopsy sites and they are drying out and Dr. Ferrara will probably say something ("yell" at me.) ;-( Wahn! and there's nothing I can do unless I ask one of the ladies at the desk for vaseline. And the longer I sit here, the drier it will get, grrr.
Today is Pi day and tomorrow is the Pi day party and I have not yet prepared for it. I'm supposed to be bringing stuff, but I haven't had or made time. Tomorrow is also the deadline for the Library short story contest and I have amole I'm trying to get ready and I am not sleeping nights and then trying to catch some sleep in the morning. I jsut can't keep up.
I can feel those scabs drying. AK.
I didn't get the dishwasher unloaded or the dishes I used loaded in or the kitchen cleaned or the extra ground round for ML. And I WAS going to walk at the little park behind here, but I'd better skip that and dash home. AK! ;-{
It would help a lot if I could sleep at night. I feel depressed and overwhelmed and worried.
Just transferred $6,000 from my personal savings to our joint checking toward Graham's tuition and I am feeling upset about it but also guilting because Keith is working Saturday and Sunday to help pay for GRaham's tuition which means he will be working like 13 or more days in a row.
The man sitting next to me, a cute man around my age, used to be an engineer and asks me for the date and tell him it is Pi day and he rattles off the numbers and I tell him I'm gettin senile and can no loner remember them He is wearing black jogging clothes and brand new joggers with brilliant flourescent ornage laces.
The doctor's sister makes lovely prints, color lithographs, perhaps. They are really big. I am not sure of the process. The one closest to me is two people riding a white hourse with a bat leading toward a lake through gress with mountains in the background with snow on them One person has an English saddle and other is astrode bareback behind. They are wearing English riding hats.
I can also see one with two white and blue parrots among blue leaves. Some look very classical.
It's getting close to three and I haven't been called yet and I have so much to do and my scabs are drying out. Some doctor's waiting rooms provide a place hang your coats, but not this one.
3:00 PM I am in the examining room and I hung my coat and hat and I hope a rmemeber to take them. The nurse gave me a tiny amount of vaseline on a swab, not enough to cover one spot, let alone two.
I would like to be using my time productively while I am sitting here, but I should have brought a book, because I am too agitated to concentrate on writing anything meaningful, or work on a story or a poem or even health notes.
And I would like to use the bathroom.
4:07 PM I am walking to Village to get ground round. And other things. Just as I was leaving, Keith pulled into the driveway. With ML. I waved, unlocjed the dorr that I'd just locked and kept going, no timne for converstaion, must get ground beef and get back with it. Then must go back out for perscription.
The doctor says when he scraped my skin, he found no mites, but he wants both Keith and I to use anti mite cream twice a week apart, change the sheets the next morning. Do it all again a week 'later.
Meanwhile, on April Fool's Day, they are going to cut my face open and then maybe the other as well, or I will have to come back and have it done separately another day, depending on how long the first one talkes. I am, needless to say, NOT looking forward to it. They (he) is are going to stick it up, which means I will probably have a scar.
I am not looking forward to any of it, It definitely does NOT sound like FUN!
dter all that snow, it is warm and sunny today and the snow is slushy and there are big puddles. It's very windy and I'm having trouble keeping my hat on.
5:19 PM Now I am out on my way to CVS for the perscription. I'd love to also go to Joanne Fabrics or somewhere and get some cards --colored cards, but there will not be time.
I do not like these big stoopid puddles. Better than ice, but they're so deep my socks are getting wet.
Just ran across mack in rush hour traffic. Ugh.
I saw some daffodil shoots up 1 1/2 o 2 inches! all bleached pale yellow from being under the snow.
Because the DSS meeting was cancled for March, there will be two topics for next month, close-ups and humor. My creativity unfortunatley does not often run to humor and I am not in a very humorous mood, but I'd like enter. I al1ways feel that if yr going to participate, you may as well participate.
So I need some idea for 3D humor.
I just noticed I have my outer fleece shirt on inside out.
5:55 I just heard my first red-winged blackbirds of the new year! Yay!
This is also the first day I am walking outside without a coat for any distance, and that after we had record-breaking cold a few days ago.
Sa4tirday, March 15, 2014, 3:03 PM I am trundling along, fast as my little fat legs will go, toward the post office to mail a card to Ellen and Warren and go Joanne's for card stuff, quicly and then to CVS for Benadryl and then to Village for stuff I need to pie.
Yesterday wad Pi Day, but we are celebrating today at Dale and Sues. I made 3 pies so far, 2 chocolate creams (one for the party and one for Keith, plus a dish of pudding, plus a bumbleberry pie, None of which I'm going to be able to eat. I have to make a pie that I can eat. I wanted experiment during the week ahead but never did. Too much going on and not enough waking hours where I was lucid and not up with wretched insomnia.
So now I have to invent something and make a pie out if it without knowing if it's actually edible. I looked online for ideas, but none were suitable for y diet. I have an idea, but it might suck.
Here's the idea: I plan to make a stirfry with yummy veggies, meat (ground beef, turkey sausage, ground turjey or chicken and then add spaghetti sauce and eggs. Make a crust with biscuit dough made with gluten-ree flour (and maybe, if I remember, some almond and or hazel-nut meal. Olives to substiture for cheese (green).
I swear I put a clean hankie in the pocket of this coat. My nose is running for the cold wind and I can't find the hankie. What happened to it? Wahn!
Mission 1 accomplihsed, mailed card to Ellen C3ressman. People trying to run me down in the alley.
Mission number 2 accomplished, I got my card-making supplies. However, I forgot to get a new hankie, which I intended to do, and I forgot to take any pictures, and I wasted a whole lot of time standing in line behind some dorkulous women buying hundreds of things with hudreds of different coupons from their phones, OMG! So long I stood there getting sweatified. I do not like shopping there, they are understaffed and very slow.
3:43, mIssion #3 accomplished, I got the benadryl, 2 bottles so I can "order" (or acquire a new one when I open the second.). I'd like to not have to use them at all. The line was long in CVS, too. And slow.m After a while, a sullen girl came up to help. That was a relief, but still slow. I had a chat with grizzed black man who looked very tired in line in front of me.
He asked about the 3D camera I am carrying. I keep forgetting to take any pix because I am in such a worry-hurry to get everything done before we leave.
4:07 PM Mission 4 accomplished and I am on my way home. I hope I ahve time to actually MAKE my pie beforw e have to leave. They live so far away. I shouldn't have gone to Jaoanne's, but I was trying also to get my wlaking in for the day.
I'm so sweatified I'll probably have to chnage my clothes before we leave if I ahve time.
(I didn't).
Sunday, March 16, 2014, 4:39 PM I am walking. I didnt go to slee until after Keith left for work. Then I stayed in bed until 11 AM and then attempted an unsuccessful nap at a little after 3. I am very tired.
Monday, March 17, 2014, 4:32 PM Well, here I am at Dodge Park after seeing Dr. Macon. I am carrying 5 cameras and a spare lens, but haven't take a single picture. I'm so tired I'm dazed. Macon wants me to try Ambien again, and I have thought of one use for it--if I know I have to get up early in the morning, like for my facial surgery, when I have to be there before 8:00 AM for numbing for the needle, I can take Ambien like at 9 PM. I'd like to getself back on a schedule of bed at 10:30 and getting up at 7. Or earlier. for both bed and getting up. He wants me to have another sleep study and he wants me to see a psychologist who specializes in insomnia. AK!
I attempt to take some pictures to go with my Cowbird story, "Treadmill desk," But nothing looks very appealing. I see a woodpecker, but he is too high and too many branches are in the way to get a goood shot.
Tuesda, March 18, 2014, 1:54 PM I am out walking from Dr. Victor's office, where ML, Paul and I have come, under my "steam" for our cleanings. Paul is going first, then me, then ML. Then we will go to ML's and Keith will drive Paul home.
I've been so busy I haven't had time to download the Psion or the cameras, and I could not find Pandora when it was time to leave, so I came without her , though I've been trying to take her everywhere.
I am walking on Gratiot, and I turn onto a side street, Curtis. I do that to get away from the traffic, the noise and the fumes, but I will have to be careful not to get lost.
I am carrying Thyraia, but do not expect to use her.
It is warmer than yesterday, 42 degrees, and sunnt and the snow is melting and there are puddles. Forty-two is not exactly toasty, though.
2:46 PM I got lost. Actually lost. I turned right on Curtis and right again a couple blocks later, thinking to walk around the block, but I went too far. I turned right again and went out to Gratiot, and not realizing, I had gone too far, I walked the wrong way. Nothing looked familar, so I turned around and saw the Dairy Queenn in the distance. So then I ran abck, but I had walked 36 minutes instead of the 15-20 I'd planned on walking. But then Tracy took ML in isntead of me, even though I was back. (Debbie had said Iw as second, so I was really worried.)
Meanwhile, I can't go back out because ML's and my stuff is sitting here and Paul hasn't returned. ML and Paul are both in there. I'd like to finish my walk. It would only take ten minutes to finish it now. But if I wait, I should do 15 (when?)
What started out as a simple observation about the people around me turned into another Cowbird story. I have two on here, and many others that I've never published. I have other things I need to do. Here are some of what I need to do today: mail my package. to Mike Kline. Take my glasses to be repaired. Walk. Make dinner. Get some sleep. I hope.
3:21 I am in the chair in the dental hygenist's room. I took a break for writing on the Psion, Caution Bravery, to read an article in People magazine, of all things,
5:57 PM I am walking from Rolandale while the2 African violets are soaking. The article in People magazine was about a woman named Erica who was raised by two murderers--her parents. Her mother killed her husband and her father killed his wife and two children so they could marry each other and not have to pay child support.
That's pretty low.
The daughter says they gave her a normal happy childhood and she never had a clue. But theyw ere secretive about their past. The murders occurred in Wyomeong and the vbodies were suffed into barrels, weighted down, and sent to the bottom of a lake. One was buried in mine where Eric's father worked. (The wife's husband.) The mother of the woman and grandmother of the kids who were murdered (Claire) suspected the father (Erica's father and the woman's husband) of having murdered her daughter and Claire's friedns said that Virginia, the woman who died, (was murdered) was really afraid of her husband.
Imagine murdering your own kids.
They sdaid that Alice, the new wife, was complaining about child support and encouraged her husband to kill his ex-wife and kids.
I thought it would be an interesting story to write about, in a way--horrible though, but of course, it was already written about in People Magazine and other will jump on the bandwagon.
* * * * Normal Cowbird story
Normal
Two men ride by on bicycles. They each look strange in a different way. One is whiskery, as in unshaven for two days, riding a small bike, and hunched over a large box he is balancing on his lap. The other, riding on the other side of the road, is riding a very tall thin old-fashioned "English" bike and sitting up very straight. He too is "whiskery" as in a fairly long grey beard. He has long grey hair. He is sitting ramrod straight and riding a hundred feet behind the other guy and on the opposite side of the road. The tall guy is tall and thin on a tall thin bike and the short guy, while not fat, is slightly plump.
They both strike me as strange, but then I think of people dear to me, Keith, for example, my brorther Tom, Judy, Jaison, Rosy. My parents. Everyone I know is strange and interesting.
I remember one time when my kids were tweens and we were talking about one of our family friends, and they said that person was strange.m And then,
(I turn off Curtis onto Chalmers when I see I have accidentally walked too far.)
one of us mentioned another friend, and that friend, too, was pronounced wieird, and then we named everyone we knew, and they were all pronounced wieird. It was a kind of game, taking turns naming a person we thought might be normal and the others ticked off the weirdosities of that person. Oh yeah. We laughed and laughed. Then we tried hard to think of someone who was not weird, but name as we might, we thought of weirdositties of every single person. We finally settled on one person who we decided was not weird, Betsy Fallon.
Betsy, my husband's sister, had two children, taught preschool, lived in a nice house by the lake, had a nice dog, a nice husband (who was wierd), and acted "normal," whatever that mean.
Years later, we decided Betsy, too, was weird, and could think of no one who wasn't. Including, of course, ourselves.
What exactly is normal?
I remember reading an article in Science News about Perceived Beauty. They showed a bunch of pictures of people to a bunch of people and had them rate them on a scale of one to ten for attracriveness. The images had been produced by a computer that overlaid pictures of many people, 3, 5 9, 15 and many mre. The more different people who were combined into the image, the higher the beauty rating.
What we perceive as most beautiful, according too the article, is actually most average. The most average person is the most beautiful or attractive (handspme) to our animal minds. The too big noses are averaged out by the too small noses, the too big chins by the too small ones, the wide mouths by the narrow ones Something in our animal nature is programmed to find the most average face attractive.
There may be a adaptive advantage to this. If I, who have tendency to gain too much weight, marry a man who is delightfully thin, perhaps our children will apporach normalcy. or not--some may be fat and some thin. Perhaps those people who look most normal have the greatest opportunity to be used as breeding stock if we perceive them as attractive.
I wonder if that might also be true with behavior. Those people who behave in a pattern closest to what society labels as normal have the greatest breeding potential and thus theoretically produce the most offspring.
I think of the two men who rode by on their bikes, and I think to myself that "the very fact that they are riding bikes with all this snow and these puddles makes them weird, especially since they are adults, not kids or teens." Then I think, "I might do that myself." And then I think, "Yeah, but I'm weird." The normal people in my neighborhood go to the gym if they exercise at all.
And then I think of the people I love best in the world. They are all out on the tail ends of the bell curve.
We tend to be afraid of people who look weird or strange. But when we get to know them, they look like people we know and love. Those two men--they might each be someone's dearly beloved. They may never have met each other, but this may be the day that they meet and become lifelong friends--or lifelong enemies. I vote for friends. Or, they might be nefarious criminals in some far out scheme, only pretending to not be together so no one will suspect that inside box are the weapons they need to rob the bank on the corner and begin a long and devious crime scheme.
Interesting as the crime scheme may be, my guess is that they are probably ordinary people involved in ordinary lives, and I know from long experience that many of our ordinary lives are quite extraordianry!
* * * * Treadmill Cowbird story
My Traveling Treadmill Desk.
I've recenbtly red severala rticles about treadmill desks. You walk along on a slow-paced treadmill, killing two bird with one stone. You get your work done and you get some exercise, too. And I read that if you walk at a pace that is comfortable for you, you can be smarter, more creative and more productive. What could be better?
I like my "treadmill desk" better. It not only allows me to work and get exe3rcise, be cretaive and productive, and see an ever-changing scene. The desk is air, the treadmill is the sidewalks, paths, roads and floor I travel along as I walk. I have a small "palmtop" computer called a Psion that alloews me to write while walking, which is what I am doing right now I am walking along Mack in Detroit, walking toward the sun, and toward Staples, though I probbaly will not go into Staples, since it is nearly 55 PM on a Sunday afternoon.
One problem with my treadmill desk is the temperature control knobs. They're non-exustent, and it it is twenty degrees and windy. That's way below freezing, 20 farenheit. My fingers get very cold. I have to warm them between sentences.
Today the treadmill slipping under my feet is the paved path along the Clinton River at Dodge Park. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, there's a foot of snow on the ground, the river is flowing past, but there is almost no one else here. I have the whole park to myself.
Although today, the sky is blue and the sun is shining, I can't control the snow or rain that falls on my "treadmill desk". I could, however, choose to use my "treadmill desk" at the mall, or, if I could afford a gym memship, at the gym (maybe ever on a motorized treadmill.)
Another disadvantage of my "treadmill desk" is that the Psion requires XP, and support for XP is being phased out. XP is the last windows that supports the Psion software necessary to remove (download) my work form the Psion.
I've written cowbird stories (many never published due to computer and other issues), blog posts, flash fiction, poems, short stories and entire (as of yet unpublished) novels on the Psion. But my virtual treadmill way of life may be coming to an end soon.
I could never afford a real treadmill desk; they're bit pricey. Even if I could, would I like it? No trees, birds, flowers, dogs to greet and pet. No freezing fingers, snow and icy, treacherous sidewalks. Okay, it might be nice sometimes in the winter. No unbearable heat, sweatification, bugs. Okay, it might be nice during hot spells.
But then I might miss people stopping me to say they see me all over town, miles from home. They ask me, "Did you really walk there?" Yep. I walked. And I carried my desk with me and wrote a chapter in current novel, while admiring the scenery between words and sentences.
I wonder if there's somehwere you could try out a treadmill desk, to see what it's like. My husband says, probably not. The manufacturers have learned that it's best to play on hype, notions and fads. Most of these things, he says, end up at the curb when people discover that it's not as much fun as they imagined and involves real work and commitment.
Commitment is one thing I have plenty of for walking. I walk and I write every day. But that cmmitment might not translate well to an indoor treadmill desk, and that's a lot of money to experiment with. A moot point anyway, since we can't afford it.
I like this "treadmill desk" anyway, with the big blue dome of sky overhead and the foot of snow underfoot (at the moemnt, since I'm off the paved trail) and the river sliding by and ducks and geese paddling.
* * * * Health Notes Get the notes from abover and add below!
"If you sleep four hours a night for six nights, you body produces 30% more insulin, about the level of a diabetic." From sleep poster in doctor's office.
Ever since I gave up wheat and oats for the one-month trial prescribed by Dr. Beeai, I'be been fairly constipated and my butt is getting sore and it is scaring me.
I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast and "lunch" because it's blueberry pancake day and I didnt' have time to make two separate meals. I've been missing lunch every day this week. Today, I jsut had two pncakes and called the second one lunch.
First, I had mix up new flour so that it would have neither oats nor beans (not wheat, of course). That took a while, and I could only mix up a small batch because there no larger containers left.
Now I have to watch for extra gassiness, because Blueberry pancakes tend to make me extra gassy aand I open wake up with gas pains. I tried various things for gassiness, but nothing seemed to reliably help.
I also want to watch for fibro pain, as last week after blueberry pncakes, I got really really bad fibro. Wasn't sure whether to attribute it to lack of sleep, which always makes my fibro worse, or beans, or both. The flour I used had a very small amount of garbanzo bean flour in it. And maybe a little favo bean flour. It was just a scoop of the gluten free flour mix from Bob's Red Mill mixed in with rice flour, quinoa flour, corn flour, millet flour and a little flaxseed meal. The percentage of bean flour had to very small, since it was only a small component of the glten-free flour and that was only a small compent of the whole mix.
Because I have not been eating lunch all week, I have had very few blueberries (until today), no salad dressing, very little spinach, no tomatoes. None of those things seems to have helped.
My itching which keeps me awake, seems to be a frog hair better, but ony a tiny bit. None of these things really seem to be helping.
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