On stress (some churchy stuff)

I was just chatting with my sister that we're doing something at church tonight, and she said, "Look out! They want your soul!" and I laughed and said, "No, no, no; they want my money." Ha.

Anyway, we're doing a video series for Adult Ed this Spring and last night's session about Exodus, and was really interesting. I chatted with my co-editor (we being The Comma Queens) and she had really glommed onto the sin/atonement concepts, whereas I really glommed onto the bondage/liberation.

Part of divesting myself from obligations is about lightening up and simplifying my life. I've been in bondage (no jokes from the peanut gallery) in my life, making it too complex and taking on stress from all directions. Declining responsibilities and clearing things up is really liberating.

I've given up one obligation at church, editing the monthly newsletter (as of June). A friend asked, "What are you going to do when June rolls around and they haven't replaced you?" "Let 'em hang," I said. There will not be a newsletter for July/August if that happens.

And I need to quit Lab Rescue. I have a few people outstanding to sign up and then I'll send in my resignation. That will be a relief, too.

Finally, I'm actually considering hiring a cleaning service. Someone just told me that her cleaning lady asks to do the laundry and dishes. Be my guest!

Now, if I could just get a personal secretary, I'd be set.

Whiny rant--don't read

Acid Reflux Makes Jennie Crabby

I've had an on again, off again uncomfortable thing going on. A week ago Friday, it was horrible. I called the advice nurse. She confirmed my name, my day and evening phone numbers, and asked not only if I were pregnant, but also the date of my last period. She went through all the questions one asks a woman who might be having a heart attack. She was thorough and patient. I passed and she made an appointment for me on Saturday morning. The doctor was, as promised, terrific, and she prescribed Pepcid in some Rx strength. I took it, full of hope.

By last Friday, I was out of hope and the warm, spiky hedgehog had taken up permanent residence in my chest. I called my doc's office and they advised me to take the prescription for a full week before we'd revisit the problem. As required, I continued the Pepcid through Sunday. This morning, I was fed up. Called them again.

They asked me my name, my day and evening phone numbers, whether I was pregnant, and the date of my last period. The advice nurse insisted on reading through the generic Dos and Don'ts of Acid Reflux, even though I have already seriously considered and discarded most of them (spicy food has no effect, lying down has no effect, I don't drink caffeinated drinks, I haven't had alcohol in a month or more). Then she said she'd put a note through to my doctor for what to do next.

2 hours later, I was so uncomfortable that I called back to see what was going on. Even though we had done this dance not 2 hours before, they asked my name, my phone numbers, and the pregnancy questions. I know they have to be thorough, but at this point, I feel like explaining the birds and the bees to them. In order for me to get pregnant, spermatozoans need to come in contact with my body. They have not done so for nearly seven years. I am not the Virgin Mary. No, I am not pregnant. Trust me when I say so.

On a positive note, the generic Prilosec that was prescribed and the blessed Alameda Kaiser pharmacy filled a few minutes after their official lunch closing time seems to be improving my condition already.

But thank you for asking; I am not pregnant.

Bittersweet

We had the second Green division "tryouts" (practice) tonight, and quite a few traditionally-present Green players were absent. I know lots of them tried out for Red. I take it they find out tomorrow whether they made it. It is hard not to see them, joke around with them, skate with them at practice.

Don't get me wrong; the 'old guard' we still have, and the new players, are really great. Not just great enthusiasm, but fun and funny. Some folks have returned after an absence (Kendra and another gal who played in last year for about 3 games and then broke her leg in another league) and there are lots of new players, too. Some folks haven't shown up yet but maybe will soon.

But it does feel different, and in a bit of a sad way. I'm assuming the majority of folks trying out for Red will make it; that's just a guess, but we'll see.

It may be nice to be (optimistically) among the really good players on the ice this season. But it will be bittersweet to be there because so many great and fun players have moved up.

Miss you guys.

It's Reading Madness

There's a March Reading Madness poster up in my kid's school, clearly made by a kid:

no tv
reab a book


and then there's a drawing of a book:

Hoq
on
Poq

It is so cute.

Great bumper sticker

Seen on a fairly nondescript car this morning:

Sorry my car is a piece of shit
My parents didn't buy it for me

OK, I can laugh even though my Dad bought my first car out of college. (but not my next 2)

How old?

A few days ago, some actor turned 46. I had remembered seeing him in a movie and hadn't realized how close he was to my age. "Wow," I thought, "he's just 4 years from being half a century old!" And then I had to do the math with my age, and promptly swear off doing math forever.

Another weird dream in which G dies

As my sister said, "What is going ON?"

Yeah, a few nights ago I had a dream. I think we were in a zoo. Things are fuzzy, but then I realize that the huge boa constrictor has a huge lump in him and that G's gone. I consider cutting the constrictor open, but realize that they only consume their food after they've suffocated it. So he's already dead.

Fortunately, he is actually alive and sometimes quite delightful. Except when he kicks me viciously, and then he goes to bed with no stories whatsoever, to his complete astonishment. (But he complies, God bless firmness of parenting.)

This is still making me chuckle

Last week, on one of the rainy days, G looked a little different when I came to pick him up from Y-Kids. His hair was damp and rumpled. Then one of the teachers came up to me and informed me G had been in a timeout. His misbehavior?

He had stood under a rainspout, getting himself soaked. Just for fun.

A good mom would have frowned and explained exactly why this is a bad idea and should not happen again.

I'm not a good mom.

ah, you again

so many haikus
to Aunt Flo; who needs you? Go
on, git. The cramps, too.

Lame am I

Every time I have to type in the set of letters for a Blogger comment, I get them wrong. Once I got them wrong three times in a row.

How lame am I? Worse than a spam machine.

PMV, not PMS

I've just noticed myself wanting to eat, eat, eat these past few days. Then I realized my period is due soon. Yep, this is a consistent pattern. Instead of being crabby and bloated, I am just really hungry--not so much for junk food as for food. It's interesting. I'm trying not to overeat, but this feeling of voraciousness (hence the 'v' in the title) is a little odd.

Or maybe I'm a werewolf.

Did anyone see "The Curse of the WereRabbit"? Loved it.

Not PMS---PMV

I've just noticed myself wanting to eat, eat, eat these past few days. Then I realized my period is due soon. Yep, this is a consistent pattern. Instead of being crabby and bloated, I am just really hungry--not so much for junk food as for food. It's interesting. I'm trying not to overeat, but this feeling of voraciousness (hence the 'v' in the title) is a little odd.

Or maybe I'm a werewolf.

Did anyone see "The Curse of the WereRabbit"? Loved it.

I can afford a $2. lunch

Someone who shall remain nameless (but who is unknown to probably all of you) recently suggested that I could qualify for Free Lunch for G. How is that, you may ask? I make (what seems to me as) a pretty healthy salary.

She says I could write down a $2400/mo monthly salary, and that they don't check.

I've been carrying this around for a bit. Clearly, it bugs me. About half of G's school is on free lunch. I had always wondered how that could be, in Alameda of 30% higher rents than Oakland (I'm guessing). I guess now I know.

I'm frugal (the Coupon Queen), but I am so incredibly happy to pay that $2/day for not having to make my kid a lunch, I cannot even tell you. And it doesn't seem right to pay less than that, when I can.

Shrinking from obligations

Anyone else do this? I got a card from a good college friend, one of so many with whom I wish I got together more often. She wrote in some lovely birthday wishes, and as I opened it, I thought, "Oh, right, her birthday is like 5 days after mine; I should send her a card now." And... I didn't.

And now, a month later, it would still be nice to send a belated one. But am I going to do it? I wonder. I hate this. Why don't I just get off my ass, buy a card, write in it, and put it in the mail?

I do this with a lot of stuff.

OK, that, and why don't I just call her up (and my cousin, and my friend Jean, and my friend Briana, and and and) and set a date to get together?

Another freaky dream

While at my mom's, I had a horrible dream.

Part of it is obviously part of my (periodic) guilt over leaving G while I play hockey.

I had left him to go do something (play hockey, I think). Remember, I told you it was freaky. He was wearing the footed fleece pjs we brought on our trip, which turned out to be too big (in real life), so he didn't wear them (again, in real life). When I left him (in the dream), he was in the oven, which was on, at about 350 degrees. I came back, and with a start realized he'd been playing in there about an hour. I opened the door and he crawled out. I thought it was odd that his hands didn't burn on the oven floor, but realized that he had been in the oven and presumably his body was already that temp, so they wouldn't burn. He stood up and started talking to me excitedly, nonstop. Then his mouth was moving but words didn't come out. He looked kind of confused and went to crawl back into the oven. At this point, I'm thinking, OMG, his lungs are just baked, that's why he can't talk any more. I stopped him from crawling back into the oven, as that seemed like a really bad idea and he looked at me and just crumpled to the floor in front of me. I realized that CPR wouldn't do anything, as his lungs simply wouldn't work to get oxygen into his body; the only thing that could possibly save him would be an instant transfusion of oxygenated blood. I started to open a vein but of course didn't have any medical equipment handy to hook us up together (nor, of course, sufficient medical knowhow) and there was just no way I could save him. All because of my own stupidity.

I was so traumatized by the dream, I couldn't tell my mom or my sister for several hours after I woke up. I still haven't even told G what happened in the dream, just that it was awful and about him. I was glad he was sleeping in the same bed as me so I could just pull him close and hold him and listen to him breathe.

That dream SUCKED.

Our weekend

G was off Fri and Mon (for some reason), and my mom had been asking us to come visit, so I decided we would come on the weekend. We flew out 9AM on Friday to Portland (OR), and took their light rail into the city (how cool is THAT!). It just cost $2 and is entirely aboveground so we got a nice tour of the city, too.

Met my mom and then a Portland friend for lunch, went to Nordstrom (bought another bottle of my perfume--Clinique Happy--the things I do to get my mom free parking!), and then headed out. It's a 2.5 hr drive to my mom's but it was beautiful. It was very chilly (33F/0.5C) but only snowed lightly a few times, and little to no snow on the road. But the trees and hills--OMG. So beautiful with their layer of snow. My mom's fancy Volvo told us the outside temp as we drove and it lights up a little snowflake-light when it gets below something like 36.

Up at Mom's, it didn't snow and barely rained at all. I visited Max's grave. Too funny--two misunderstandings out of that. I mentioned Max's grave to my mom, and she was startled, not remembering me burying her body. Uh, I didn't; I buried the little wooden box with her ashes. And G thought we would dig up the box (LOL) and look at the ashes. Um, no, sweetie; just visit the spot. I found it pretty easily. The woods up there are so pretty. There was soft moss almost everywhere on the ground and lots of trees. It's a lot lighter in the winter; I guess I hadn't realized how many of the trees are deciduous.

We did manage to get to the beach one day (I think Mom just wanted all of us out of her hair), with Mom's dog. It took a while to convince G 1) that one does, indeed, go to the beach in the winter, and 2) that one does NOT go into the water in the winter (or really, in the summer, as this beach has serious undertow/riptides). We found some good sticks, the dog got some good runs in, G found a great old stump to climb on, and I took some photos of him.

And mom and I dyed some wool! What an interesting process. I thought she'd done it millions of times and would be very comfortable. Um, not. Dying involves a lot of math (figuring out how much of each ingredient is dependent on the weight of the wool you're going to dye), and we weighed almost everything on her triple-beam balance scale, which required that we weigh the bowl or paper we were weighing on *first* and then subtract that weight from the item being weighed. Mom is mathphobic; it's challenging. And although I liked the result color, Mom didn't and wants to re-dye it redder. Phew this is going to be a long process--we only got 1/3 of the wool dyed because her dyepot is 5 gallons.

I also got some knitting done and bought a ton of knitting stuff. I finished a watch cap as we arrived and knit almost all of the foot of the 2nd sock for her (on size 1 needles, ugh, they're so small and it goes slowly). We picked out some yarn for a felted hat she wants (I thought she had felted several times, too; not so). I'd found the pattern a while ago, so she chose some black wool yarn and some beautiful variegated wool/mohair yarn for the top. It'll be interesting--to felt something, you knit it HUGE and loose and then put it in the washer on hot, checking every 5 mins. We haven't decided who's doing the felting.

I also delivered the "knotted" scarf I'd knit for her from some black/multi/slightly sparkly wool she'd admired in a yarn shop last time she was here. She loves it. I think she wore it 3 out of the 4 days we were there! It really looks great on her.

G behaved well most of the time and was a COMPLETE pill part of the time. If he still napped, I think that would have made a huge difference. As it was, after one of the fits, we went home and he crawled into bed and fell asleep (at 4:30 PM). That was tough because Mom & I were planning on going out that night, and the babysitter was arriving within the hour! I didn't want him to wake up and be surprised to only find the babysitter, so I woke him as the sitter arrived. He met the sitter, crawled back into bed (skipping dinner), and slept all night.

Our flights were very easy. We brought our clothes with us, G's in his backpack and mine (and toiletries etc.) in my backpack. I was pleased to discover online that my backpack, if not packed too full, is within the size limits for a carry-on. Mom managed to secure a booster for the weekend, so we carried everything on. That was new to me!

A friend dropped us off for the trip up, but we took 2 buses home on this end. It would have been seamless if the 2nd bus had ever come (I thought maybe it had been a minute or two early, but we picked up another woman who'd been waiting even earlier than I was and she said it never came) so we waited an extra 1/2 hour before it came. Then 5 mins later, we were home. :) (ironic!) We are both nearly giddy about public transportation, so taking the bus home was really kind of fun.

We had a great visit with my mom.

WTH does this one mean?

(Preface: I just finished watching "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" last night. Then I had this dream...)

I dreamed that my mom and I planned and executed a burglary. We stole a lot of bundles of cash and some jewelry from someone she knows (I can't remember if the person is someone I know IRL or not). In the dream, I'm a little surprised she's willing to do this, but if she says it's OK, you know? then it must be OK. We get home and start counting the money. But my mom's house (in the dream) has a door and a lot of windows with floor-to-ceiling clear glass, and a woman and her (adult) daughter have come around and are walking around outside. I finally move to a place on the floor where a clear view through the windows and door is obscured and take the cash out to count it.

And lots of the cash is foreign, and most has 1's on it. There's even a bundle of US $1 bills! I'm a little surprised and disappointed now. I don't know how much the foreign cash is worth (I don't really recognize any of it) and am wondering if the whole thing was worth it. Mom has the jewelry out on the floor, and none of it is made with gemstones at all. Most of it is weird coral stuff, matching necklaces and earrings. Finally, the woman and her daughter come to the front door so we hurriedly put away the stuff and let them in. They both need to use the bathroom, so I direct them toward the one bathroom, and then nervously laugh with Mom as we both flub it and direct the daughter toward the other bathroom--but there is no other one; we're confused. We're both thinking that there's one bathroom before the kitchen and one after, but in the end, there's only one, after the kitchen.

End of the dream.

Smiling all day.

My (administrative) boss had to go to Bakersfield (again) earlier this week, and managed to catch a minor-league hockey game. He brought me back a game program, a ticket stub, and--a Bakersfield Condors t-shirt! He said I could wear it under my hockey jersey. Heck, I put it on right away!

I am tickled pink. Am betting I'm the only one I know with a Bakersfield Condors jersey.

Interesting to note from the program: not only are they obviously not wearing cages, none of them are wearing mouthguards! Stunning.

But then again, I remember watching the L.A. Kings play when only the sissy rookies wore helmets. (and I remember watching my favorite player warming up, and flashing me a big smile that showed very few teeth left.)

I can imagine the thrill of skating fast down the ice, a chill wind in your hair, but man, it ain't worth it.

Simplifying my life

Today, I turned in the March newsletter for my church, and also resigned as the Editor, effective June. What a relief that is! It was always a few weeks of annoying moments of remembering that I'm absent-minded (the idea was to send out weekly reminders to contributers that the deadline was approaching, and I always forgot), and then a mad, packed weekend of slamming the thing together, and then adjusting margins, fonts, and grammar/typos. The timeline used to be "articles in on Sunday, draft ready Wednesday morning," but I quickly found that working full-time and actually having a life (and maybe hockey) on Sunday made this impossible.

So I shifted the deadline to Thursday and it was more possible... but still annoying. Articles requiring so much mangling ahead of time, and then whatever software I used to lay it out, had problems of its own. Finally, as I moved into a position at work that required my attendance at a weekly Wednesday-morning meeting, having to rush the proofs to church on Wednesday morning became insane. The donation of a wide-format printer (thanks, R!) to proof 11x17" originals on, as well as the ability to simply email a PDF to the church office for printing directly to the copier (again, thanks, R!) made this simpler.

But it still did not fill my soul, and in fact, felt quite the opposite each month. Proofing it with DD, the other "Comma Queen" at church, was the only joy. (She is as persnickety about commas etc. as I am; perhaps even more so, earning my eternal gratitude and adoration.)

So, with the submission of today's PDF, I resigned. And I hope against hope that someone steps up really soon so I can really be done.

Labrador Rescue is next on the chopping block. I am just not home enough to return the calls on a regular basis, and asswipes who dump their poorly trained dogs just wore me down. Next!