Month: January 2011

We had company over the weekend. My daughters beau was visiting from Pittsburgh. He’s a bit quiet so it was nice to visit with him one-on-one and get a sense of who he is. I trust my daughter to choose what’s right for her, although it’s nice to see what she chose as well!

We decided to go Cosmic Bowling on Saturday night. For anyone who has never been to Cosmic Bowling, they turn off the lights, run a light show, play music, offer food and drink specials and you pay one price for the whole evening. It’s a pretty good deal.
Even though I couldn’t bowl yet – still working on healing the neck muscles and moving, although moving 1000 times better than I was – it was great to be out of the house and in public for a bit.

Two friends joined us to make 5 bowlers on our lane. When we started bowling, one of the younger bowlers was having problems getting the ball to go where she wanted it to, which was not into the gutter where IT wanted to go. She was becoming more and more frustrated and was certainly not having a good time. Both her mom and I agreed that bumpers were going to be necessary to save the evening from a grumpy teenager. Since no one had any problem with that, I went up to request that we put bumpers on our lane for the next game.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Is it possible to have bumpers put up on our lane?”
“Certainly, what lane are you and who needs the bumpers.”
“Lane 4 and M.”

He reached over and hit two buttons, smiled at me and said, “Done!”

I got back to our lane just before it was M’s turn and lo and behold, when her name lit up on the scoreboa

rd, up came the bumpers out of the floor. She bowled her frame, smiled and was thousands of times happier and when she was done, poof!, the bumpers disappeared back into the floor! How cool is that?! It really saved the evening and made our youngest bowler feel like she was finally in the game. I think we know which alley we prefer from now on!!

OTHER RANDOM ITEMS:
Got an iced coffee and took a sip and was instantly transported by “taste memory” to Montgomery Ward’s tire center. You’d think that the smell of tires would be a horrible thing to relate to a cup of iced coffee, but it wasn’t.

Basement is coming along nicely. ALMOST TOTALLY DONE! We are getting the trim put down on the floor, ne

ed to clean up a bit and finish a few trim items. Everyone who sees it loves the space!

Last night we were blanketed in a thick coating of heavy wet snow which made everything bow under its weight. Many were without power and heat. Ours flickered a few times, but never went off permanently.

A neighbor pointed out that his tree was bowing precariously over one of our cars. Having had a tree that had been planted in precisely the same spot fall and crush two of our vehicles, we opted to move the cars that seemed to be in peril rather than run the risk again. So, at close to midnight, Hubby and number 4 were outside shoveling the driveway and making a way for her to move her vehicle. She said all she heard in that weighty stillness were tree limbs cracking all around.

Today, I let the dog out and decided to spend some time standing on the snowy deck. I haven’t been out much, and it didn’t look like I’d be out today either, so this was going to be my short interaction with Mother Nature. It wasn’t necessarily cold out so the snow was dropping off the branches and plinking through others on its decent to the ground with a slithering sound that ultimately ended with a wet plop.

It was a pleasant sight, but I closed my eyes to focus on the sound and instead, I realized there was a very earthy yet lightly spicy tang in the air.  At first, I thought it was simply my neighbor burning a cinnamon scented candle that I was catching a whiff of, but then I noticed the interesting woody undertones and realized that what I was actually smelling was tree essence. Both my tree in the backyard and the neighbors Magnolia on the opposite side of me had snapped some large branches. Both of the trees look to be in fairly good shape still, so hopefully there isn’t any real damage done, but that was such an enticingly sweet, yet earthy and woody scent and if I could have figured a way to re-create it without harming my tree, I would definitely bottle that stuff!!

I had my surgery on 1/19/11. I had planned on returning to work today, 1/25/11.  I tried, I really did, but I was overly optimistic about my condition so my boss told me I had to stay home and I called in the troops for reinforcement, apologizing for not being fit as a fiddle 6 days after having someone dig around in my neck and removing a rogue gland. This was the response I got from my friend, who really made me look at my unrealistic time line from a new perspective. It certainly made me laugh.. which hurt…but I’ll forgive her.

Oh My Dear Sharon!

The betrayal of one’s intentions by one’s body is always a distressing circumstance.  The injustice of it all!  That your body might require more than a single week to recover from major surgery is supremely disappointing to all of us who must now groan under the severe weight of holding down the fort in your absence. But, rest assured, we will persevere.  We will collect things!  We will take attendance! We will patrol bathrooms and root out romantic trysts behind the building! We will even deign to alphabetize if such extreme measures become necessary!  We can never replace you (being serious here…), but we can and will hold the pieces together with our bare, white-knuckled hands until you are able to return.

Whew.  Now that that’s out of my system, please do feel better soon  – it’s terribly dreary without you…

I felt ultimately better that all would be well and indeed, during this friends watch it was. However, just before sitting down to write this, and before tucking myself into bed feeling very tired and more than a little sore— more on that in a bit— I got an email that I’ll paraphrase:

Dear Sharon,

You weren’t there. My child had an unpleasant and unacceptable interaction with two other adolescent children and I’m unhappy about it. This can not occur again. [AGREED]  Please know that I’m unhappy that you weren’t there to handle this.

-Disgruntled

Sigh… this makes me feel bad. I know crud happens, but I like it when I’m there and it doesn’t happen. I really don’t like that a child had a bad experience and I want to make sure it doesn’t occur again.

Now being home for a day doesn’t feel as good as it did.

Oh – what I was talking about when I mentioned I’d get to that other thing up there^…

I was told to take my bandage off today. Really, the incision looks very good and the Dr. did a wonderful job on minimizing the wound. Still it’s a 2 inch cut and without the bandage to stabilize the area, and at this moment, I’m kinda dreading my choice to forego pain meds entirely.  So, off to bed with me and hopefully my optimism will be reinstated tomorrow along with the reduction of swelling, altercations and perhaps with the addition of some vodka.

I’ve tried to find a comfortable pillow combination since I came home from my surgery. It’s not easy finding a way to rest comfortably when you have stitches in the base of your throat. It swells often and every little move you make, you feel in those muscles. That’s not said for pity, that’s just to let you know why a pillow combination is so important.

This morning I woke up and saw at least three different kinds of pillows in great disorder and recalled how I’d been switching them out during the night. It made me giggle. I think I finally found that the squishy one is the best, but only if the tempurpedic one is up against my back so I can’t roll flat and the harder one is in front so I can lay my arm on it. The more I sleep, the better I feel, so this configuration is a winner for me.

You know how you hear the phone ring and you know who it is, or you’ve been thinking of someone and they show up? I had that happen to me today.

I was writing an email to my sister to let her know I was home and all was well and as soon as I hit send, someone started knocking on my door. I’m not really ready to receive visitors, so I was cautious to see who it might be. I saw the shadow of a balloon and realized it was a floral delivery man. Who would be sending me flowers?

After dealing with the growling and drooling crazy dog that wanted to eat said floral delivery man, I brought the white and bright yellow daisies and white roses, all stuffed inside a huge yellow happy face mug, into the house. My balloon read “Hurry and get better”. I looked at the card and it was from the same sister I had just written to! Too cool.. love it when that stuff happens.

I brought the flowers into my office so I could have them smiling at me all day while I try to catch up on the many emails I got while I was out last week. About an hour later, I thought it might be best to send an email of thanks to my sister for the flowers. I wrote the note and hit send and almost immediately after I did, the balloon POPPED! My mylar balloon, popped.

I thought maybe the temperature change could be accountable for this, but it had been about an hour since I’d brought it in the house, so that didn’t seem plausible. I’ve never had a mylar balloon pop. In fact, those suckers don’t even pop when you want them to.

Oh well, the flowers are still lovely and I’ll enjoy those, but if they wilt and fall to pieces within the next hour or so, I’ll get the hint and see what it is that ‘someone’ is trying to tell me. Lol!!

That’s what I’m sporting these days in fashion neck wear. A chunk of gauze, some water-resistant clear glue-like, tape-like substance, a purple V at my collarbone and a purple dot where my parathyroid USED to be. Quite lovely if you ask me. Goes with most of my outfits, even.

It’s a great visual to go along with my hubby’s favorite joke of late, “Yeah, I took my wife to Atlanta to have someone slit her throat for me.”

Yukka, yukka, yukka.

Maybe he won’t mind when I wallop him with a frying pan. (Hey!! I saw it in a DISNEY movie, so it must be an approved behavior, right?!?)

 

Hubby and I were talking tonight and I mentioned to him that he reminds me of the greens and blues of a deep forest. In fact, if you asked me to visualize Hubby, that’s exactly what comes to mind. A deep forest. It’s not too dark there, but the colors are cool and calming. Still and active all at the same time. Being deep in the forest seems sort of solitary, even though you are never really alone. There is life teaming all about you. You are being watched by thousands of eyes. The forest is very aware of your presence. Once in a forest you feel the power of the trees, even though they are still. You feel as though you are in the middle of something that is infinite, hidden while in plain view, gentle and soothing, yet can be treacherous and cold. That’s my hubby.

He then asked me what I saw when I think of myself and I told him a meadow. A meadow surrounded by a deep forest. Accessible to all who stumble upon it, but not the easiest to find. A meadow is a place that’s teeming with activity and life and while you can definitely see the flowers, the tall grasses, bugs, birds and butterflies flitting around, there is more going on than meets the eye. You just have to be willing to look. I like to think of me as a meadow that’s hosting small children, limned in sunlight who are romping around and brilliant and laughing.

How do you envision your self?

I’m flying off to Atlanta to have a medical procedure done. I don’t really want to talk or dwell on it, since I’m doing a good job of looking at this in a positive light and knowing all will be well. >grins<

But if I don’t get back to writing a blog later today or some other time this week, please send love and healing wishes my way. :0)  Thanks!!

There is a little place on Main Street in Westminster that blew my socks off last night called Giulianova.

Hubby and I were  invited to a private party held in a little courtyard behind Giulianova Groceria by some good friends who are very graciously expanding our social world by adding us to theirs. This is especially nice, since we are really trying our best to get ourselves moved up to the Westminster area and it sure is nice to know there are people you know in the place you wanna go.

There were 20 of us at this shindig, all toasting or bemoaning the loss of the AFC division game between the Steelers and the Ravens. (oh well…)

We started with a caprese salad that was delish, moved on to a three cheese and sweet Italian sausage puff pastry, followed by Shrimp Scampi. Our main course was Chicken Parmgiana and green beans with red peppers and   pancetta and dessert was either tiramisu or cannolis. I went for the tiramisu, which was awesome. And the BEST part of this entire meal? NO onions. Not a one… no onion powder, no onion bits, none! It was so great to just go, eat, talk and have fun without worrying about your food allergy.

We did meet a few new people and enjoyed ourselves quite a bit, even if we do tend to hang back a bit at first. You know how it is when you introduce new elements to your tight little group and I’m thankful that we were included.

I have to post early today, since I’m going out tonight. I’m going to a place where you pay the chef to teach you how to cook your own dinner. Of course, with the crowd I’m going with, we may not remember many of the instructions. You’ll find out more about that tomorrow.

In the meantime, I was tagged on FB to play a fun little game of “make your own album cover”. Here’s how mine turned out.

Since all the components are random, I think it came out pretty coherently. I even think it looks a little like the light of a train on some dark tracks. If you’d like to try this out, here are the directions:

Try it! 1- Go to wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 – Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4 – Use photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together. 5 – Post it with this text in the “caption” and TAG the friends you want to join in.

I decided, many a-moon ago (when I was 13), that I was going to live to be 113 years old.

Yep, that’s right. I’m going to be an active, sprightly, fun-loving, white-haired and with a quick laugh, mint green velour-workout-suit wearing 113 years old.

You might ask, “But Sharon, WHY??”

Well, I’ll tell you why. I was 13 years old in 1976, our country’s Bicentennial year. At 13 I was into all things Bicentennial. It seemed so grand, so old and so ACHIEVED! Wow, 200 whole years old, and look at the US of A just GO!! I mean, we were truckin’.

My father had heard that the National Archives were going to collect signatures for a time-capsule that would be reopened in 2076 to mark the Tri-Centennial. He packed us all in our station wagon and took us down to see the Declaration of Independence and to sign our names for the time-capsule. I remember I had been recently working on my unique-to-me signature. One that would signify how adult and grown up I was. One that was befitting the movie star or songstress I was convinced I was destined to become.

I waited my turn in line, picked up the pen and put it to paper and  produced the most flourished  signature I could muster. I must admit, it was rather anti-climactic after all those pages I’d been practicing my scrawl on, but I thought it was pretty good and I was satisfied.

This was NOT what made me determined to live to 113.

What ACTUALLY inspired that particular thought was a toilet seat with Bicentennial coins encased in Lucite.

When I saw it, I knew right then and there, that I was going to live to be 113. I just HAD to see what my country was going to do to “commemorate” the birth of the greatest nation in the world that could top the absurdity of encasing the specially memorialized legal tender of my country in plastic and designed for the use of sitting on to remove waste products from my body.  It’s a lofty goal, wouldn’t you agree?! I can see that you are all now carefully considering this idea and understanding that even at the tender age of 13, I was the forward (read warped) thinker you’ve come to know me as.

And since I’m going to stick around to see what ELSE they can come up, I think I’ll go back to the National Archives and find my grandiose signature in the time-capsule book. At first I thought that one of my great-great grandchildren might have to wheel me past so I could see it, but I realized recently that is not a realistic thought. I needed to return to my early teen years for inspiration on the true way I’d go see that signature. I’m going to walk, on my own and in my mint green velour work-out suit, right up to that case and look in. I’ll see my signature and feel proud that I’d worked so hard to make it look so grandiose, and then I’m going to go home and relax, knowing I’d done what I said I would.

And if I die before I wake…. well, you might know the rest of that saying…..