My Life as a List

Since my last regular posting period a LOT has happened.  Here is a brief summary…

I have officially been diagnosed with PCOS
I have gone to and returned from Franklin, MA where I attended a family reunion (and realized I really don’t know any of these people).
My grandfather’s health degraded, but has stabilized over the week.
1/2 of the office staff has quit.  Currently I’m covering 3 desks.
Put most of my CD collection on my iPod
Tomorrow, I am going on my first date in 7 years.
Imp has developed bladder crystals.

Here’s what I haven’t done (besides post):

Practice
Organized the spare bedroom
Tackled the spiderwebs
Finished The Memoirs of Cleopatra
Reorganized my kitchen

Crossing

While I was in Arizona, I crossed the border into Mexico (on Memorial Day), something I had not done for years.  For the first time in my life I was walking into Mexico with a proof of citizenship requirement, a concept I found utterly bizarre.

I grew up in San Diego and crossing into Mexico was pretty much a weekly activity.  We would go to dinner in Tijuana or go to Ensenada for the day.  One of my first memories is attending one of my dad’s concerts in Mexicali and discovering that Mexico had pretty good Chinese food (there was also a horrible incident with an anchovy, but I digress).  We had a beach home in Baja for most of my childhood.  We RARELY carried citizenship papers with us.  I’m not even sure such a thing was required.  But, these days they technically are, and I had nothing on me that met the requirements.  The fact is, I don’t even have a current passport, and my birth certificate was barely legible the last time I saw it – which was years ago.  We decided to go anyway and chance it.  I figured that if they actually had to go through the process of verifying my citizenship it wouldn’t take very long. 

So, I followed my dad through the labrynthine foot crossing at Nogales, listening as he pointed out where he had an office and whether or not they were actually using the biometric device he had worked on.  We poked through the stores.  My dad bought Controy; I found some knick knacks.  Then we headed out.  As we waited in line, I noticed many people had their passports out and ready.  When we were next my dad told me to move far enough forward so that he could get through the gate too.  I handed the agent my drivers license.  He gave me a slightly annoyed look.  He looked at my dad’s passport and dismissed us without a word.  I didn’t even get the informational document about crossing requirements.

“Hasseling us would have been a hassle for him” was my dad’s logic, nodding his head at the growing holiday line.  I guess that’s probably true.  I certainly didn’t want to spend any more time there than necessary, and was perfectly happy to walk back into the US.  I’m not sure if a year from now when the requirements become more stringent I will even attempt this.

I just can’t help wondering if the situation would have been differenet if I had been alone.  Or had less of a WASP name or appearance.  Was it really due to holiday traffic? If so , what’s the point of having requirements if they’re going to be blown off because someone seems a low “threat” and there’s a line? This sort of inconsistency happens all the time, and it does little to encourage me.  These are in place, supposedly, to make me feel safe (though I think many of them go overboard and really have a different agenda).  That they are so easily bypassed does little to make me feel comfortable.

Well that wasn’t so bad…

While I was blessed with and internal ultrasound this morning, my anxiety about it was fairly unfounded.  I found it less uncomfortable (physically anyway) than a pelvic exam.

The technician couldn’t see anything (other than I have a tilted uterus), but I won’t get all the results until June 13th.

Working Saturday

I spent yesterday at Peggy and John’s helping to finalize the look for our branch’s experimental blog.  I have to say, it was well worth it.  I love, love, love our new custom header.  John really deserves most of the kudos for that since it turned out to be a much bigger pain in the tail than any of us expected.  I think the end result was well worth it.

Plus, I finally got to see the rest of Studio 60.

Tune Worms

I’ve been suffering from a severe case of tune worms.  It seems like I merely need to think about a song and it continues to buzz around my head until something else replaces it.  This is usually a sign that I’m tired and can vary in the degree of annoyance it causes me.  The annoyance has a direct correlation to the song.  This morning I was humming along to Tradition as I fed the cats.  This was the first time that The Butterfly Jig tune worm had released it’s hold on me since Saturday when we succeeded in turning a minuet into a jig.

At the ball, I picked up a cd of what I thought was dance music.  Turned out, it was an album of listening music compiled to support a Bay Area shinty association.   Every once in awhile there are tracks that I simply must dance to.  The Butterfly Jig spoke to me immediately.  The problem I had was that while it is, technically, a jig, it is so much slower than our normal jigs that I couldn’t actually make any fast-time steps work.  With the Modesto Games coming up, I was trying to pull The Yellow Haired Laddie out of the mental mothballs.  On a whim, I danced a basic minuet step.  It fit.  I went through the first step.  It worked.  What was more, it turned a dance that I was really starting to loathe into one that I enjoyed.  Everything seemed to fit together so perfectly.  For the first time, ever, that dance felt beautiful.

Scottish Haiku

I realized that it’s National Poetry Month and I’ve not done anything to honor it (I even missed Poem-in-your-Pocket-Day!).  So, in honor of this month’s theme, and since I’m in final crunch time before the Games, I give you a Scottish Games haiku:

Scots Games this weekend
Piping, dancing, allergies
Many men in kilts

Repairing karmic damage, one stamp at a time

With the sound of self-inking stamp, I think I have helped repair a bit of the neighbor damage caused by my cat-infused musical lifestyle.  I just compd two notary services and hopefully mended some fences in the process.  They certainly left happy.  Hopefully it will be residual.  Since I don’t live off my notary commissions, it certainly isn’t any skin off my nose to not charge.  I called it a benefit to help outweigh any negatives.

Emerging from the toilet

I have officially been able to hold food down for the last 24 hours.  Not much food, not interesting food, but solid food nonetheless.  And I won’t say I feel well, but the fact that I am not hovering around the bathroom waiting for the next wave of nausea to overtake me, emerging cold, sweaty and shaky, with barely enough energy to walk the ten paces to my bed is an enormous improvement.  The fact that I can sit upright feels like a miracle.

I spent Sunday violently ill – in fact I don’t remember ever being so sick.  By Monday, clear fluids would stay where they belonged but nothing else would.  Yesterday, I crawled into work to distribute checks and went home three hours later after confirming that no one else in the office felt that it was “stuffy”.  I tentatively tried a few saltine crackers and de-fizzed ginger ale, and then graduated to soup.  Nothing tasted good, but it stayed where it belonged.

This morning, I woke up and took inventory.  Back hurt from days of heaving.  Stomach still queasy (was the soup too much too soon?).  I opted to stay home.  I ate some dry bread.  I drank lots of water.  I had some soup.  It tasted like, well, soup.  It tasted good.  I am on the road to recovery.

The ultimate irony of all this is Monday I had cable and hi-speed internet installed.  I have been looking forward for days to tuning into the Food Network (a channel I love, but could only watch at friend’s houses), and on the day I finally could enjoy it in the comfort of my living room, watching anything to do with food was absolutely not on the table. 

Wine and Chocolate

My dad and stepmother are visiting from Arizona.  On their visits, we always drive down to Lodi for wine tasting (and buying).  This trip, we inadvertently stumbled into the Lodi Wine and Chocolate Weekend.  We knew something was up when we pulled into Phillips Farms (home of Michael David, the makers of Seven Deadly Zins), and the parking lot was full with a tour bus parked on the street.  We are quite fond of this stop for a number of reasons.  First, their wine is great (and this comes from someone who is not fond of reds – they make the only zinfandel I will willingly drink).  Second, they are always very generous and happy to sit and chat.  Third, they have a GREAT cafe attached to it – we always eat lunch there.  And finally, they have a very cute country store, filled with baked goodies (pies, breads) and farm fresh produce (in February their tomatoes looked amazing).  I discovered yet another reason today.  Because there were so many people passing through their tiny facility, they set up a tasting station in their arbor.  While my parents tasted (I, due to my dislike of reds, was immediately dubbed the designated driver), I wandered the gardens.  Even in February they were neatly kept.  I could easily imagine their beauty in full bloom (I feel like gardening as my dear friend Yolanda feels about crafting – it’s porn).

We only went to two wineries this afternoon (we did not buy tickets for the festival, you could still taste – for the normal tasting fee, usually nothing- at the participating wineries without one).  The crowds were insane, and two were enough to knock my folks pretty well onto their asses (each tasting has at least five wines, and the tastes are really generous – at least a quarter of a wine glass).

The weekend seems like something that would be great fun with friends, perhaps on a Sunday when it’s not so crowded.  Shall we place it on our calendars? You taste the wines – I’ll taste the chocolate.

One last time!

It has happened again.  My current air mattress has sprung a leak, managing to retain only the consistency of a flattened souffle.  Tonight (and tomorrow) I will proclaim the couch my bed for hopefully the last time.  Friday my long overdue (and eagerly anticipated) mattress arrives (along with some other pieces of furniture).

The last time my mattress sprung  a leak, I composed a commemorative haiku and sent it around (this was pre-blog).  Many people responded back with their own versions, and somehow in the maze of two inboxes  I have lost the submissions (which upsets me greatly, for they were all entertaining).

So, here’s the beta version.  Please free to add your own…

Air mattress is flat
But hark! Who knocks at my door?
Sears, my savior!