When you come to a fork in the road ... Take it. - (Yogi Berra)
Friday, December 29, 2006
Tick, tick, tick...
Is this year not over yet? (sigh)... I have so many plans for 2007, and these last few days are just draaaaaaagggggggggggggging.
Why not get cracking on my new plans now, you ask? Well, it just seems wrong to start something on December 29th or 30th. I've been programmed, like most of us, to let things slide during this time of year, and to instead hold off and tackle them "in the new year".
I've got 3 places to call next week to make appointments. I guess I could have easily called them this week, but instead, I'm waiting to do it "in the new year".
I'd like to rearrange the office in my home... move some stuff around, throw some stuff out... but I feel compelled to wait until the year is over. It's almost as though if I do it now, I'll only need to do it all over again after January 1st. As if the things I might accomplish now won't count in the new year... they'll be erased from the board.
Maybe it's true. Maybe it's best to start things fresh after the new year. So bring it on, already! A week between Christmas and New Year's is just too long. Time lags, and nothing gets done. I think we should do the Christmas thing on December 30th instead, and then whip straight into the new year without missing a beat.
Until this idea catches on, I'll just keep watching the clock, and polishing my plans.
I behaved badly yesterday on my return flight home, and I am deeply ashamed. I guess I was tired. Or something.
It's just that... well, I had spent the last several days at my in-laws', and that'll drive a girl to behave the way I did, even under the best of circumstances. Or at least, that's the excuse I'm comfortable with.
And it's not like I went looking for trouble. She started it.
When the seatbelt light went off, I stood up and reached for my bag in the overhead compartment. That's when she plowed into me. I don't mean that I was accidentally nudged from the back. I was mowed down.
We had been sitting in the aisle seats across from each other, near the front of the plane (immediately behind the 1st Class section). She was a small middle-aged woman with a perma-grump face, wearing severe-looking glasses perched on the end of her nose, and she had decided that she was getting off the plane before everyone else.
Naturally, she could only get so far in the aisle before having to stand in line behind the VIP's. When I straightened myself up after having been launched face-first into my seat, I grabbed my overhead bag and went to stand immediately behind her.
I felt indignant and upset, and so naturally, I dealt with it by being maturely and appropriately passive-aggressive.
She couldn't have been more than 5'3". With my 2" heel boots, I am 6'. I held my carry-on bag firmly in front of me, and walked directly towards her. I kept walking until I was a little too close to her... just enough to cause my bag to press in between her shoulder blades.
I know... it's silly, really.
She turned to look at me, came face-to-face with my boobs, and then looked up. I didn't budge. I just stood there, looking straight ahead. She didn't say a word, and turned back around. I kept pressing.
The line moved ahead a couple of inches. I followed, and I kept pressing. Still, she said nothing.
I finally let go of the whole thing when I left the plane. I told Main Man what I had just done, and that I felt mean and ashamed. He did a "you didn't!" face, and then laughed it off.
I don't know if I managed to get a message through to the woman, or even what that message might have been. But I do know that it felt really good to behave that way at the time, and that when I wear 2" heels, I seem to be able to get away with a lot.
However, payback arrived for me today in the form of a painful blister, compliments of my boots.
A green Christmas in Quebec. That's just unheard of. It's just...... no.
Tomorrow, we fly out to Ontario to spend Christmas with Main Man's parents. It's green there too.
I took my skis out of storage the day I put my golf clubs away. I know... what was I thinking? It's almost as though I was expecting winter to arrive or something.
The only positive thing I see coming out of this snowless state is that people will be quicker about taking down their Christmas lights this year, rather than waiting for the Spring thaw.
Oooh, and the no-shovelling thing. That's pretty cool too.
In the meantime... rain, snow, or sunshine... have yourselves an awesome Christmas! I'll be back next week.
p.s. - Santa? Did you catch the part about me being somewhere else on Christmas morning? Okay... just making sure you'll know where to find me. Thanks!
For my entire adult life, I've been extra careful never to get my hair styled during two important periods: The week before my stylist goes on vacation in the summer, or the week before Christmas. That's just asking for trouble.
But this Christmas, I didn't have a choice. I put my appointment off recently because of the vertigo thingie, and ended up going in today. Unfortunately, because I broke the golden rule, I will need to return tomorrow to "fix" a colour-related boo-boo. Hey... that's life. Put your mane in the hands of a stressed, overworked stylist, and these things happen. No biggie.
But this post isn't supposed to be about me. Instead, I want to relay a story that happened to my very harried stylist the other day.
She's a mom to two young kids and has an extremely demanding work schedule. Still, she recently managed to sneak a day to herself to do some Christmas and grocery shopping for the weekend's festivities, which she's hosting.
She spent hours at the mall, carrying heavy bags, wearing a hot, cumbersome winter coat, weaving in and out of crowded stores, standing in check-out lines... you get the picture.
By the end of the afternoon, feeling completely wiped out as she stood in the middle of Zellers (sort of like a K-mart, for you 'Merkins), she decided she could take no more and just. wanted. to. go. home.
She headed for the cashier and took her place in the long check-out line. Growing more tired and irritated by the minute, she shifted her weight from side to side, sighing audibly and stretching her neck to the side now and then to see how things were moving along at the front of the line. She thought, "Why do they always put the slowest, dimmest temps on the registers during the holidays?"
She glanced at her watch. Her arms were tired. Her purse felt like a sac full of lead weighing her shoulder down. Goddamn it, MOVE IT PEOPLE!
When it was finally her turn at the cash, she suddenly had a moment of stabbing clarity. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks and her eyes grew wide in alarm. The cashier gave her a puzzled look. "Ma'am?"
She had nothing to purchase. It's like she had been on shopping auto-pilot, and just naturally gravitated to the check-out line when she decided it was time to leave. She mumbled a simple "thank you" to the cashier, and left the store.
After I stopped peeing my pants and wiping the tears from my eyes, I left her a hefty Christmas tip.
You know, if you're going to wait until mid-December to order something online for Christmas and not anticipate problems or delays in getting your shit on time, then you're an asshole.
If you're too cheap to spring for the safer expedited shipping method during the busiest season of the year for freight carriers all over the world, but still expect everything to go smoothly just for you, then you're an asshole.
If you think you're the only genius to think of ordering a Christmas gift online at the last fucking minute, and that people (oh, say... me and UPS, for example) are sitting here with our fingers up our asses waiting JUST FOR YOU to give us something to do, then you're an asshole.
If you think the postal service will not screw up delivery of your package a week before Christmas, then you're an idiot. But if you actually get upset when they DO screw up, then you're an asshole.
Okay... that's all the time I've got to vent this afternoon. If you happen to have landed on this blog while shopping online for Christmas gifts, then don't be an asshole, and select the goddamn costly expedited shipping method, 'mmkay?
So I mentioned yesterday that I had seen a doctor about the head-spinning thing and that I was feeling better. I figured that it'd be okay to resume using the treadmill today.
There was no running involved; just a brisk walk at a decent angle. I had no plans of being a hero... I just wanted to get moving again after 1.5 weeks of sitting on my ass.
I guess because I was still feeling a little vulnerable, I took extra notice of the safety warnings posted on my treadmill. One image in particular stood out:
I stared at it for a few moments, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. I soon realized that if I was going to fall off the treadmill during normal operation, this wouldn't be the way it would unfold.
If I lost my footing while moving, I would be whisked away towards the back end of the treadmill, and I would probably fall on my face.
If the belt suddenly came to a screeching halt while I was walking or running, it would seem that the speed I had generated would cause me to fly forward, straight into the control bars.
There are only two reasons I would end up looking like the guy in the image: One would be if I was shot from the front while moving on the treadmill. And if that happened, I don't think falling off the treadmill would be my biggest concern.
The second reason is the most obvious, and I'm sure you've already figured it out. A banana peel. Only stepping on a banana peel while walking on the treadmill would cause me to fall that way.
So it's settled. There will be no banana-eating on the treadmill.
If only I had known it would be so simple, I wouldn't have suffered for eleventeen days.
Last night, desperate to see a doc to get over this vertigo, I came up with a plan to beat the crowds in the walk-in clinics. I got up at 4am, had some breakfast, took a shower, and then went and parked myself in the empty hospital emergency room.
The timing was perfect; there wasn't a single other patient there. The place looked like the morning after a New Year's Eve party, though. All kinds of trash on the floor, chairs all over the place... it must have been a busy night.
Still, I was the only one there this morning. Ha! You HAVE to see me now, suckas!
And so they did.
I 'splained to the doc what was going on, and then looked into her eyes and said, "Fix me."
And so she did.
Turns out I had some particles floating around in my inner ear canals that don't belong there, and they were making my gravity sensors crazy. The only way to get them the hell out of where they don't belong, was to contort my head into a series of angles and positions to guide them out the gate. Sort of like one of those little plastic games that you have to lean gingerly one way, and then the other, to guide a little ball through a labyrinth.
It was uncomfortable and I hated every second of it (I had to deliberately induce the vertigo, over and over again), but IT WORKED!
I'll need to do it a couple more times to take care of any particle stragglers, but I am basically on steadier grounds now. And it feels awesome!!
For an entire week now, I've been dealing with bouts of severe vertigo. My right inner ear is on crack and if I change positions too quickly, it freaks the fuck out and takes me along for the ride.
It is the most frustrating (and I admit it... at times frightening) thing on earth. When it happens, I literally cannot tell which way is up. So straightening myself out proves to be an impossible challenge. I've had this before, but it only lasted a few days. Now that it's been a whole week, I decided to see a doctor.
Only, thanks to socialized medicine, it is impossible to actually get to see a doctor without waiting an eternity in a crowded clinic with dozens of people offering to share their flu. Seriously... I'm considering driving across the border and paying cash to see a private doc in Vermont. The drive would still be shorter than the wait by several hours, and at this point I will pay with my own blood if it will make the world stop spinning!
So yeah... add this little problem to the busiest season at work plus holiday preparations, and that's my excuse for the lack of posts.
I will try to be more diligent, but please... no sudden movements!
I finally went to see Casino Royale yesterday, and I would just like to take the opportunity to personally thank Daniel Craig for, you know... all that exercising he's been doing. And for perfecting that gaze.
Besides all that, I kinda liked the grittier, he's-on-his-first-assignment-and-is-not-yet-refined Bond. And I can't remember ever enjoying a Bond chase scene nearly as much as I did the opening scene in Casino Royale. Damn, that was good.
So, if you haven't seen this movie because the usual Bond stuff isn't your bag, you might want to check this one out.
State: Sunny California! County: Monterey Mayor: Dennis Donohue (Hey there Denny!) Population: 151,060 Claim to Fame: 1. Birthplace of John Steinbeck 2. Nicknamed the "Salad Bowl of America" (how cute!) 3. Birthplace of every fucking E. coli outbreak across the U.S. and Canada in the past year.
Seriously. Y'all need to fix this. Stuff won't grow around here for another 8 months, so I'm counting on you, Salinas, to clean up your shit.
I watched The African Queen last night. I've seen it many times before, and I always notice something new every time I view it.
Last night, I was completely distracted by Bogart's immense overbite. And then for the first time in my history of viewing Hepburn films, I ignored the mountainous cheekbones and was also drawn to her overbite.
I suppose my fascination could have been caused by the fact that I ended up at my dentist's chair yesterday afternoon, whining about a recurring pain I've been getting in my jaw joint. It was bothering me a lot yesterday, so I guess I just had teeth on the brain while watching the movie.
Remember that acronym? It was popularized during the Yuppie era. It means "double income, no kids".
There was a time, it seems, when every other couple was a Dink. Or maybe it just appeared that way, because I wasn't actually looking out for any at the time.
Thing is, it's really, really, difficult to get a social life going when you're 40 with no kids. Take our summer at the golf club, for example. Main Man and I were there every day this season, except for the few precious weeks that Step Son was here. We haven't been living in this area long, and thought the club would offer all kinds of opportunities to meet people and develop a circle of friends.
Problem is, everyone else who has the time to play golf like we do are either retired, or in their early 20's. Those in our age group are busy with their kids. (If Step-Son could be living here with us, or at least if he could visit more often, it'd be a whole different story, obviously).
We spent so many years trying to have kids, that the circle of friends we developed were couples going through the same fertility hell. The difference now, of course, is that every single one of them was eventually successful, and many of them are on their 2nd or 3rd kid by now. That leaves them with very little time to socialize with us, naturally.
So now we need to make new friends; friends like us. It's not that we're anti-family. It's just that we don't fit in. And besides, it'd be nice to socialize with people who have as flexible a schedule as we do. Only, we don't know where to find them. Where the hell are these Dinks? What do they do with their time?
If we had kids, we'd be meeting up with other parents all the time! Through daycare... playgroups... school functions... our kids' friends... on the playground... yadda yadda.
We work for ourselves, so finding friends at work isn't gonna happen. Are we really gonna have to wait until we retire to find friends in the same "place" as us? Christ... that's a long way away.
So yooooooooo-hoooooooo!!! Those of you in our age group with no kids (and who aren't gonna have any)... where the hell ARE you?? Where's your secret hang-out? Come out and play!
Main Man and I went straight to our favourite Moroccan restaurant after work on Friday. We had some great food - as usual - and let the pressures of the week evaporate.
The weather had deteriorated steadily during the week, and by Friday evening, it was about -1 C and pissing down with rain. I had on my comfy Columbia jacket. The inner shell is soft polar fleece, and the outer shell is windproof and waterproof. These two sections can be worn separately, or zipped together to make one jacket.
I had worn them together, but hadn't bothered to zip-connect them. Essentially, I was wearing two separate jackets. This only meant that I had to first zip the polar fleece part, and then zip up the outer shell. Easy as pie.
Or so you'd think...
After our meal, as we hovered next to the table to put on our jackets, I began to experience some technical difficulties. Main Man, of course, was ready within seconds. I wasn't so lucky.
First, I put my purse down on the corner of the table. Then I reached down to zip up the outer shell of my jacket. It wasn't working. I could get the two zipper parts to meet, but then I couldn't lift it up. It was stuck.
The bottom of my jacket sits just below my butt line. So in order to get a better look at what the problem was with the zipper, I had to stretch my neck way down, and push my pelvis up and forward.
I was at it for so long, completely focused on getting the zipper to work, that I failed to notice that my tongue was now sticking out... exactly like a kid who's fully concentrated on colouring within the lines.
Main Man was still standing patiently next to me, watching all of this unfold.
Next came the purse situation. I noticed it was beginning to teeter towards the side of the table. So I shot my hip towards it to block its fall.
So just to recap... neck down and forward, pelvis forward and up, hip lifted to one side, tongue sticking out. I was the picture of authority and confidence.
I finally get the zipper to connect. It wasn't until I started to pull it up that I realized I had completely forgotten to zip up the polar fleece first. But there was no way in hell I was going to disconnect the outer shell zipper... not after all of THAT. So I did what anyone else in my situation would do (obviously): I reached underneath the outer shell, and attempted to blindly zip the fleece. It took several awkward attempts, and by then, we had the full attention of the other restaurant patrons. Even the cook had stepped from behind the counter for a better view.
It was at that moment that Main Man finally spoke up. In a very calm, patient, and loving voice, he offered these helpful words:
"See, this is why we could never be on the Amazing Race."
One of the biggest days of my life is quickly approaching. Part of me is very excited, anticipating how different my life will become... and yet part of me is horrified.
Yes, that's right. I knew you'd guess it: I'm letting my People mag subscription run out.
Go ahead and call me crazy. I bet you don't even believe I'll go through with it. But I am. I SO am. I'm ready now. I feel strong.
In fact, just yesterday, I received my "FINAL NOTICE - WE WILL NOT SEND YOU ANOTHER!" envelope in the mail. It was the last of about 10 such notices mailed to me since last summer, reminding me to renew my subscription before it ran out in mid-December. And you know what I did? I didn't even open it. I tore it in half, then chucked it. I walked by the garbage bin at least 6 more times yesterday evening, and not once did I dive in to retrieve it... even if only to touch it.
It's going to be hard, I know. But I can do it. I'll be needing some support, that's true. I've looked everywhere in my area, and there doesn't seem to be a People Magazine Quitters support group anywhere. Can you believe that?
I'm due to receive 2-3 more issues, and then that's it. Thank god I'll have the holidays to keep me busy and focused on other things!
So if I ask you to let me borrow your magazine, or for you to read me one of the articles, or to ask me just one of the questions from the entertainment crossword puzzle, just say no... and be firm about it. I mean it... I'm gonna need some tough love.
