Catch-up time...

I haven't posted in a bit. This is because my friends keep having babies. Really, it is. They keep having babies, which means I keep having to knit things for the new little humans. Right now I'm knitting a tote bag for a pal who will need something to carry baby gear around in. I'm knitting it from yarn another friend of hers made. Next I finish up some Christmas things I'm knitting for a relative who will remain unrevealed and then comes a sweater for the inimitable Truman. In between all this knitting, I have writing to do and books to read, volunteerism to be trained for, and work to do -- oh, and before all that, I have to be an engaged partner. Woo! Anyway, new: I scheduled my second bunionectomy, this one on my right foot. Looking forward to it, but ... argh ... also not so much. It'll mean no driving for six weeks, minimum. I'll be stuck in my condo unless my sweet husband cares to ferry me about, or I care to crutch myself up to the subway or bus line. I'm not sure yet how I'll maintain my fitness level, but I will need to, as working out is one of the tools I use to avoid insomnia. Anyway, that whole journey will start sometime in mid-January. I'll take two weeks off work immediately post-surgery. I should be able to stop the pain meds after three days. And then I will have loads of time in which to write. Yay! Finished Poem No. 1 and I'm quite pleased with it. I must break a promise and not post it here. If you care to see it, comment and I'll send it to you. I've started Poem No. 2, and continue with Short Story No. whatever, with a hard deadline of the end of this month, as I owe it to my writing group. And now, I'm off to make a quick batch of chocolate-chip cookies (with pistachios), because my husband has asked for them. It's his opinion that chocolate-chip cookies taste better when someone makes them for you, and who can argue with that?

Immediately Post-Workout II: Toasted

I am again a victim of The Libinator. Tonight it was a delightful little 45 minutes of aerobic shadow boxing, mixed with calisthenics I haven't done since high school: jumping jacks, mountain climbers (still just as evil), pushups. OK, I've done plenty of pushups since high school. But not jacks, nor mountain climbers. As Madeline Kahn says so well in Blazing Saddles, "I'm tired." Knackered, pooped, wrecked and toasted. However, my silhouette continues to dwindle, and so the classes (and all the free-weights and plyometric work I've done over the last several months) are worth it. Tomorrow afternoon at 2, I'll be in the pool doing some other form of extreme torture.

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One happy outcome of all this working out is that I sleep like nobody's business. I hit the sack and boom: Asleep. Which is good because lately my mind has been wandering back to horrific images of my mom's decline, along with a weird background dread of cancer, and that's not a welcome little relapse. My brother's visit this weekend should help jolly things along. He's a lion of a tourist. Brings his long shorts and binoculars and everything. I think I'll get him a cloth bucket-style hat to wear, and then he'll be positively iconic. He's got all his usual record stores in mind for plunder, and we may take him bowling, or to an amusement park. It's his birthday celebration, and he's bummed about being 51, so we have to pile on all his favorite things. I may even bake him a chocolate cake with coffee in the icing -- mom's secret touch. 

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In other developments, my Greek lessons are going well. I've started back at the beginning (phrases like "The little boy is jumping," and "The car is red. No, the car is not red. The car is white."), which is tedious. But I think a refresher will help me build a more solid foundation for launching back into the intermediate realm. My short story is also coming along. I owe it to the fiction group on Sept. 30 so I have a little hustling to do. And I've begun another poem. It's in the "throw a bunch of words on a page and stick to a specific theme" stage. Time to wade in and start refining. But first, I've got to get some sleep.

Immediately post-workout. Famished.

I took an hour-long aerobic weightlifting class this evening. I took my own dumbell sets because there are seldom enough to go around. The instructor, a monster in the guise of a tiny powerhouse of a woman, whupped us all good. Then I took my two sets of dumbells and hoofed it home, forcing myself to walk to the beat of whatever fast song was playing on my iPod. Result: I am exhilarated, exhausted, and starving. We have not grocery shopped. So I broke out some freezer stashes of Trader Joe's cioppino and started it simmering. Food was not happening fast enough, so I made up a small bowl of olives and various pickles, and am snarfing them down. Please don't be harsh with me, but I think pickled okra (Talk O' Texas brand) is one of the better brine-preserved foods around (second only to anchovy-stuffed olives from Spain). And lucky for me, my husband won't go near okra. Which means that whenever I stock up on jars of salty okra goodness, I get them all to myself. mwah-hah-hah...munch munch munch...

MMMMMmm...vodka

It's autumn in San Francisco, which means that we finally have our summer. It was in the 90s here in the city today (oh: and we had an earthquake last night, proving once and for all that my mother was right -- there is such a thing as earthquake weather). Our loft does not have air conditioning, so around 12:30 we gave up and walked downtown and took cool shelter at Westfield Center. Which is probably spelled Westfield Centre, but since we are not in England, and since I'm doing the spelling.... Anyway: we shopped. We considered a movie, but decided against it. We at summery salad. We shopped some more. My husband is a champion shopper. It was fun watching him try things on. We'd disappear together into a dressing room, and I'd inwardly titter at the "God I hope they don't get out of line in there" looks we'd get from the attendants. We did not get out of line. He got four shirts, three pair of pants, and a sweater. I got a sweater. It was not my day for finding Fall wardrobe additions, which is a pity because I'm getting pretty low on clothing that fits. (This is good. Ballast ditching is working.) Anyway, then we walked back home with a stopover at our local, The Chieftan, for a Stella Artois. We were on a roll once we got home, so we graduated from beer to vodka and cranberry juice with a splash of orange juice, which goes down frightfully easily. I am violating my "don't drink and blog" rule. MMmmm. Vodka.

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I have a churchly conundrum. Next weekend my older brother is visiting me, and that Sunday a new priest is being ordained at my church. Greek Orthodox ordinations are pretty special, and it's not often one comes along, so I 'd like to see this one. Plus, the emergency backup priest, Fr. Pete (we call him Pete to distinguish him from the main priest, Fr. Peter), is super-cool. Example: during our recent Greek festival, I found myself serving him coffee from the Greek Coffee Bar and talking to him as if he were a regular Joe. And he was responding as if he were a regular Joe. I kept zooming outside myself and observing "You're having a normal, offbeat conversation with this guy, and he's a priest." It was pretty cool. And because I like this guy, I'd like to attend his ordination. However, my brother -- who is slightly autistic and comes to visit me for no other reason than to indulge his obsessive record collecting -- would be bored silly. So, I have a choice to make. Eat pancakes with my brother, or let my brother sleep in and eat pancakes alone while I go to the liturgy and ordination. Hmmm.

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Speaking of Greek things, I didn't dish about the Greek festival. It was fun! This is probably because I worked only one day of the three. I sold jewelry from noon until 4, and then went and sold Greek coffee until 8. I had the most fun selling coffee. Whenever anyone came up and ordered Turkish coffee, I'd say "Excuse me?" and when they ordered Turkish coffee again, I'd point emphatically toward the door and say "Out!" Actually, I like Turkish coffee much more than Greek coffee, and I stand by my opinion that Greeks can't brew coffee to save their lamb-loving asses. To get a decent cup of coffee or espresso in Greece, you must climb on a ferry or airplane and go to Italy. Anyway, it was incredibly busy. There were lines outside the door for our Greek dinner offerings, after which (of course) people streamed in for dessert. And the desserts were many and tooth-achingly sweet: baklava, melomacarona, galactoboureko, kourambiethes, koulourakia. It's impossible to eat these without something to wash them down with, and so we were inundated with coffee requests. Time and again, I'd spoon powdered coffee and sugar into the briki, add water, stir, then hold the briki over the heat until it foamed up, let it subside, heat it again until it foamed, them pour it into the tiny cups, making sure each one had a topping of "cremaki" (a little foam). For $1 extra, we'd add a shot of Metaxa. One guy kept coming by and ordering Greek coffee and Metaxa, then asking us to hold the Greek coffee. After my shift, I headed out into the still-crowded plaka area to buy some souvlaki and giro to take home for dinner. I hung around the back of the booths like a hopeful puppy until someone took my money and thrust warm, foil-wrapped packets into my hands, and then I shouldered my way through the human swarm, walked a few blocks to my car, and made my peaceful way home.