I'm back. Sorry for running off like that.

A lot has happened since I scurried off and abandoned this journal: work went completely into chaos, for one. We lost two beloved pets, and acquired another. I went through bouts of writing interspersed with no time at all to write, because of the awful overload of work. Yes, I do realize I'm lucky to have work, however odious it might be, so don't wag your finger at me. I put this URL on lockdown back in the spring because I was interviewing job applicants for an open position on my team and realized they were all reading my blog. It was unsettling to have people I didn't know and who were trying to impress me ask me about family members and health issues as if they were my long-lost cousins. Bleah. Anyway I don't know what I was expecting, since I'd made this an extremely findable blog. That's changed now. I cut off the padlock, but have locked down the searchability factor and altered my profile. Now people can read if they choose to do so, but the posts won't be traceable directly back to me. So, it's Sunday after Christmas. We washed up back home last night and are putting things back to right. I'll get back into the posting habit, if there's anyone left to read what I write. And if there is not, I'll post anyway. This blog was always more therapy for me than reading material for anyone else. Happy almost new year.

Call me a crone and I'll bust you one.

I've been dealing with the hormonal mutiny every woman has to face at some point in her 40s. Trouble is, I wasn't ready. Is any woman ready? Anyway, it started with the previously mentioned never-ending visit from Aunt Flo. Apparently this was caused because I didn't ovulate last month. Hello, perimenopause. Boy, is it not nice to meet you. Anyway, apparently when you don't ovulate your hormones just go into complete confusion and they go running around your endocrine system with their little heads on fire and their little hands waving in panic. So, I couldn't stop bleeding, and to boot I was fighting an extremely low iron level (still am). As fast as I was shoveling iron in, I was losing it. So, I went to see my doc. She prescribed progesterone and lots of it. My panic-ridden hormones said "we SPIT on progesterone!" and they kept up the chaos and I kept bleeding. 30 days went by. Finally, my doc got out the big guns and put me on birth control pills. (The fact that I'm back on birth control 2 pregnancy-free years after going off it, is fodder for a whole different post.) I'm not just on birth control: I'm on 3 pills per day for the next three days, and then 2 pills per day for the following 3 days, and then down to the normal 1 per day probably until I'm 52. It's just depressing. But on a high note: this ought to halt the hormonal chaos and I can stop single-handedly supporting the feminine-products industry. Which will give me time to start contemplating the idea of menopause. Goddamn I'm not ready for that.

The saddest picture in my world

Before I was born my parents bought a chair to rock me in. It was a typical rocker for its time, with a turned spindles to support the back, and curved arm rests. It was painted black with antique gold trim and flourishes of apples and pears and flowers. Over the years, the paint was rubbed off the hand rests and the rockers had to be replaced, but my parents kept that chair. It was for me to rock my own children in one day. It turns out the never-ending visit of Aunt Flo is the result of one of my ovaries miss-firing. This is a relief, considering there could have been more sinister causes, like benign or malignant tumors. In the process of arriving at her diagnosis, my OBGYN performed an ultrasound. There on the screen was a dark gray image of my perfectly healthy, empty uterus. I'd never had an OBGYN ultrasound before. I'd always expected that when I did have one, it would be so I could observe the beating of a small heart inside me, and that I would get a series of little photos that would reveal the curve of a head, the little Hang Ten image of two tiny feet. The first picture in my baby's album. At the end of today's appointment, after my doctor explained her recommendations for treatment, she printed out a strip of images, zipped them briskly from the machine and waived them briefly in front of me. "For your chart," she explained, and left me to wad up the blue paper sheet I'd been covered with, get back into my black and lavender work clothes, and resume my hectic day. I was grateful for my health, but there wasn't time to think beyond that. Now, it's a half hour into tomorrow and I can't sleep. A month ago, when my younger sister mentioned the need to clean out the garage of my parents' house so tenants could park there, I asked her not to sell the rocking chair. "Please take it home," I said. "And rock your children in it."

Iron will

When I and my siblings were growing up, our mom was fixated for a while on our getting enough iron. Calcium was not a problem: She had milk for that. Fluoride was provided in our tap water. We ate oranges with gusto, so Vitamin C was not on her worry list. But iron? There was something to fret about. The last thing she needed was five little wan, anemic kids. My mom was canny. She knew that policing a multivitamin into her kids every day was not going to work. No, the iron problem would have to be solved by means of a carefully managed diet. She started sneaking spinach into soups and salads. She tucked an individual-serving-size box of raisins into every brown bag lunch we toted to school. She tried getting us to drink milk that had molasses stirred in (we hated it and flatly refused). She made liver and onions at least every other week. I can't think of a meal that is more designed to repel children than liver and onions. But my dad loved it. And on liver-and-onion night, as on every other night, it was either eat what was served or go hungry. We had wolverine appetites so going hungry was not an option. We'd drown the liver in ketchup and choke the mess down. All my mother's toiling on the iron front came to mind the other day when one of my lab results came back with a low ferritin level, again. Abysmally low. Hemoglobin is down, too, though not as alarmingly. I've been chasing after the ferritin for a while now, trying to coax it back within normal range. But It's remained at 9 instead of the minimum 22, and I imagine it thumbing its nose at me from the depths. Add to this injury the insult of either wacky hormones or a side-effect of the low iron (or both): never-ending visit from Auntie Flo. Now I have the attention of two doctors, both of whom want to run more tests to be sure nothing sinister is going on. Overnight I've turned from someone my insurance company makes money on to the dreaded "high utilizer." So, I'm scheduling appointments and going back to a carefully managed, iron-rich diet. I drink nettle tea, eat my spinach, take iron tablets, munch on raisins. I'm even considering cooking up some liver. Pass the ketchup.

One year

Today is the first anniversary of my wedding to The Hunky Scientist. It's been a wonderful 365 days. We've learned a lot. We still adore one another. It's the paper anniversary, so we gave each other cards (my first anniversary card EVER!) and we made some dinner (calzones). I'm blogging while he makes dessert. Presently, we'll cuddle up and watch a movie. And tomorrow will be Year Two, Day One. I'm very happy.

Flouting this blog's raison d'etre

Today I'm going to write. Yes! *gasp*. I really have no excuse not to: The Flexeril I had to take last night has mostly worn off. I say "mostly" because the dosage is for every six hours, but every time I take it at night I feel dopey well into the next day. My chemist husband says this is because dosage schedules are set around a drug's half-life. I love knowing things like this. But I'm getting off track. Back to the usual litany of excuses that I do not have: I can't clean house because I can't stand upright for long without my foot swelling up. It's Saturday, so I'm not working. Chocolate-making is out. So is going to the gym. It's a sunny, clear day but there's no way I can go outside and enjoy it. I have a folder full of writing exercises to choose from, and I've set myself the task of writing an essay AND a poem around each of them. Really, it's time to write. 'Bye for now.

mom@heaven.com

It's probably because my mother cared for me after my last foot surgery that I've been missing her sharply these past two weeks. My husband has cared for me magnificently, and I haven't compared their caring styles at all. But I just miss my mom. I have reflexive thoughts of picking up the phone to call her. When in the middle of a pain-med dose, I've idly wondered what her email address is. My mind keeps grasping for ways to communicate with her, and then abruptly ending up against the doorless wall of her death. So then I start longing for earthly reminders of her: I crave "mom eggs" in the morning (that's soft-boiled eggs on buttered toast); I'd trade a kidney for one of her meatloaf sandwiches. But I know from nearly two years without my mom that making those favorite meals may take care of my hunger, but it won't ease the longing to have her here. There's no medicine for that particular kind of pain. 

Last day of "sick" leave.

I'm using my last day of PTO to do clean-uppy things like run MacJanitor on my laptop. It's an iBook G4, and while it's a hardy little soldier, lately it's been having to think awfully hard before executing simple commands. So, I took myself on a wander through Apple's support site and boned up on how to optimize RAM and maintain OS X. Ooooooh, scintillating. Now I understand that my computer hasn't been able to run maintenance scripts (daily, weekly, or monthly) the entire time I've had it, since the scripts are written to run between 3 and 5 a.m. -- if the computer is on and not asleep. My computer has never been on and not asleep at 3 a.m.. MacJanitor allows me to click a button and run those scripts whenever I feel like it. There are daily, weekly, and monthly functions. I clicked the "Perform All Functions" button and then hobbled to the kitchen to clean up dishes. It took several minutes to run all the scripts. Now I'm hoping this little soldier will march a lot faster. We shall see.

Tomorrow I step into my new role, supervising four people whose job title I used to share, and two project managers. It's going to be a tough first week. Speaking of first weeks, I'm mighty pleased with our new president's first-week activities. He's had an easier time of it on foreign policy changes, but what I'm really looking forward to is seeing how his big stimulus bill makes it through Congress. My friends say they're worried. I'm not. I figure our leader is shrewd enough to have realized well ahead of time that his plan wouldn't make it through the gantlet unscathed. He's playing chess with Congress and it's the strategy as well as the outcome that I am keen to see.

On the surgery-recovery front: I found this morning that I am able to put a tad more weight on my right foot. We'll see how this works out later on the pain front. I have several exercise sessions to run through before this day is done. I'm hoping that as days pass I'll need less pain medication because it's kind of a hassle to get a refill on this stuff. Not only that, but I don't want to develop a dependency on it in order to sleep. I just got my insomnia issue under control a few before the surgery. But as of last night, the foot was waking me up with shooting, stabbing pains up the leg every 4.5 hours. Only thing to do is keep moving forward and see how things go.

Healing

Good news: my podiatric surgeon took the cast off my right foot and leg, removed the stitches, and pronounced his handiwork healing nicely. He gave me some exercises to do several times daily (ouch! owie! ouch!) to prevent scar tissue from restricting my foot's mobility and strength, and then he sent me to the cast room to be fitted for a "moon boot," which sort of resembles a ski boot. The boot protects my foot while the bones that were fused mend together and keeps my ankle from over-flexing, which allows my achilles to heal. I am grateful for the boot. But also I hate it with the heat of a zillion radiators. Reason: I have to wear it when I sleep. Awkward. And painful. So I have to take pain meds before bed. To tell the truth, after doing all the foot PT, I need it. At least I sleep well. A funny thing about recovering from foot surgery is that whenever I'm upright for very long, my foot swells into a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade foot. So while I can start putting just a tiny bit of weight on it, I can't do so for very long before having to recline and elevate the puffy thing above heart level until the swelling subsides. Needless to say, I haven't been able to exercise. But my surgeon said in another week I can start swimming -- pulling only; kicking forbidden. I can't wait.

In between

I am just unmedicated enough to be tired of lying around with my foot up on pillows, and just medicated enough to be unable to concentrate on writing or the written word. I don't dare take up any craft work, because I'll just have to re-do it later. THS and I have watched a few movies together, and now he's absorbed in a computer game, and I'm looking for low-focus-required ways to entertain myself. Our cat would rather I entertain her. In fact, she's staring at me right now, willing me to stop typing and do something for her amusement. It's a little uncanny how long she can just sit and stare at me, Yoda-like, using the Kitty Force. 

Now and then my foot starts feeling all stabbed and hurty, and I have to up the dose again. On pain killers, the days blend by. Natural pauses in conversation seem to me to take hours; I can't tell if what I say is said or merely thought, but my visitors report that conversation flows normally. After they leave, I think of spring. I think of tulips and daffodils forced into bloom from bulbs set into water-filled beakers. I see all the leaves of fall that will have settled over winter into loam for the earth, and my pale right foot with its paler scars. strong and planted to the soil in counterpoint with the left, right, left, right, carrying me over the trails and hills of this land.

That line from "Juno"

One of my favorite lines from the movie "Juno," and there are many, is one the main character utters while in the first stages of delivering a baby: "Ow, ow, fuckity OW!" Honest and an understatement. But that's how I feel every time I get up to do something simple like brush my teeth. Here's how it goes: Sit up from my reclining, foot-elevated position on the couch; grab crutches; hobble over to the bathroom; start brushing. As gravity does its thing and my foot begins to swell inside the cast, the pain comes in waves, and it feels like an approaching cannon sounds: boom, BOom, BOOM. I start thinking the wise thing to do is brush fast. None of this flossing business. Finish up, hustle back, assume the foot-up position, ask my husband for an ice pack, apply pack to the back of my knee and grit my teeth until the booming pain recedes to a blessedly dull ache. The only reason I am brushing my teeth this week is that my dentist is uncannily good at knowing when I've slacked off. Bastard brushes AND flosses, three times daily. I am on a mission to get through a teeth cleaning without a lecture and handful of pink stain pills from him. So I keep getting up, brushing, and thinking of Juno.

BUI: Guilty as charged

I am blogging under the influence: The influence of vicodin and flexeril. This is because on Monday I had the surgery I blathered about in a post last September. Two days ago, my fabulous and wonderful ortho surgeon lengthened my right achilles tendon and reshaped my foot. From the knee down, my leg looks like a mummy's. It was fun to have my husband, the hunky scientist, accompany me into the pre-surgery area and meet me afterward in recovery. He kept scrutinizing the bags they were hanging on the IV pole and telling me what was in them. And he and the nurses gabbed away about whatever injections the nurses were giving me (anti-nausea to combat that lovely side-effect of anesthesia, antibiotic, pain relief). And ever since I got home, he's been doting to just the right degree. I've had to keep my foot elevated, ice at the back of the knee, and take pain meds at just the right times. Failure to comply means Loads O' Pain. One great side-effect of the pain meds is that I am sleeping a LOT. In between sleeping, eating, downing the pain meds and more sleeping, I've been getting reacquainted with my crutches. I'll be using them for at least 2 months, so I'd better get used to them again. I haven't written this week. I may blog under the influence, but poetry or short-story writing under the influence is just a big invitation for trashing it all once I'm out from under. Next week I'll get back to it. But for now? Zzzzzzzz....

In the bleak midwinter

This afternoon I drove to meet some friends in Oakland, and as I drove I listened to a Chanticleer CD. As I drove and watched the various scenes around me -- storm clouds gathering in the patches of sky between the sky scrapers, commuters and old people waiting at a bus shelter, a street person lurching across Broadway, business people on their phones -- all backed with transcendent harmony, it seemed as though I was driving through a beautiful, heartbreaking movie. I remembered a time when I was 19 and riding my bike along the ocean-front boardwalk in Santa Barbara, on my way to class. A storm was gathering that morning, also, and the sunrise set the clouds off from the ocean and the sky between them in a striking syncopation of grays that transitioned into the beautiful gold and green of the beach and cliffs. I stopped my bike and took it all in, and it occurred to me, there at 19, that I had only a few short days of life on this earth, and that I would miss it once I had gone. There are times when my world already echoes with my former presence, with who I was, what I hoped to accomplish. I wonder who I will be, what I have left to do, what difference I have yet to make, and for whom. The Christmas season always reminds me that I need to be thankful -- that I must be present and grateful for every humble moment, and not be fooled by mundane afternoons. 

In other news, holiday candy making is finally done. That cold I posted about turned into a mild case of walking pneumonia, which delayed me a week. But after a five-day course of antibiotics, I bounced back into the kitchen and promptly ruined two batches of lavender caramel. It was the weather -- way too humid. We don't have air conditioning, and so I gave up on caramels and made lavender truffles instead. The Hunky Scientist deemed them "interesting," but I liked them just fine. Then I candied some orange peels, dried them, and dipped them in semisweet chocolate, shaped some marzipan and did the same with it, made some almond clusters, then half-dipped some dried apricots. Very pretty. We've given most of it away, but have about four pounds left here at the house to disperse. As a Christmas gift to myself, I bought a big book called "Chocolates & Confections: Formula, theory, and technique for the artisan confectioner." The editor in me can't stand that prissy subtitle, but the candy maker in me is inspired. I can't wait to test out some of the recipes next year. For now, I've put away my dipping forks. There's just enough chocolate left for my husband to use in my birthday cake in January.

Now it's Christmas time.

It never feels like Christmas until I start making chocolates. And I started yesterday in a big way. I had four friends over for a chocolate-making hands-on tutorial and production-fest. We made:

• Semisweet fruit and nut bark
  
• Milk chocolate walnut bark with golden raisins
  
• Mocha truffles enrobed in milk chocolate
  
• Lavender caramels enrobed in semisweet chocolate
  
• Cointreau truffles (that's still in my refrigerator waiting to be enrobed)

I think we probably made about 25 pounds of chocolates in total, and we hummed Christmas carols for part of the time, until we realized that Jason, one of our kitchen-mates, has to listen to treacly carols all day at his job at Costco. Still, the Christmas season began for me. The day began at 7:30, when I got up to start the coffee beans steeping in hot cream for the mocha truffles. Then I did the same with another batch of hot cream, but added lavender for the caramels. Then I poured all the ingredients for the two barks into staging bowls, so I wouldn't forget to add anything (it's happened before). My four friends showed up at 11, and we began a full day of work. We used every mixing bowl in the house, and every dish towel. There was melted chocolate everywhere. My co-chocolatiers had never made barks before, and when they plunged their hands into melted chocolate to mix in the nuts and fruit, the "I have both my hands wrist-deep in chocolate!" look on their faces was priceless. We broke around 2 for some pizza, and the last two die-hards went home around 6. I finished cleaning up at 8:30.

I've decided it's a lot more fun to make chocolates with friends than it is to make them by myself, which is how I've done it in years past. Bob helps me with barks, but usually I do all the other candies myself. It's much more efficient to have more hands in the kitchen -- we got two days' worth of production done in one. The only downside is that my friends made off with most of my inventory, so I need to do a couple more batches of things, caramels in particular. But they paid for the cost of ingredients, it's just out the time. That's not a big deal -- time seems to just slide by when I'm making candy; it's never a chore.

In other news, I have a raging cold. I was just achy and a little sore-throaty yesterday. But last night it was full-on congestion, which meant very little sleep, and today I feel like a cable car hit me. I slept in until 10 this morning, which meant no church and no visit with my elderly friend Betty. She doesn't need a cold from me, anyway. Neither will there will be any chocolate making. It's a lie-around-and-drink-tea kind of day.

Sweet holiday fun

Some people make fruitcake at holiday time. Others make cookies and trade them like baseball cards. I make chocolates. Chocolate making was my first profession, and it's stayed in my blood. So each year instead of joining the Black Friday crowds at the retail emporia, I head for my old place of employment and buy pounds of semisweet and milk chocolate. Usually I've been thinking for weeks about what kinds of chocolates I want to create. I settled years ago on two kinds of barks (now called "tablets" by the chichi chocolatiers), so I have the ingredients list for those memorized. I also make at least one kind of truffle, and at least one other type of confection. This year, I'll make mocha truffles; perhaps a star anise or sweet curry one (if star anise, I'll make a fennel toffee to top it with); and for certain some lavender caramels enrobed in dark chocolate. Also, I've invited four friends over to join the fun, learn chocolate making, and take home a few pounds of our creation to enjoy or give as gifts. So far my acquired ingredients include (in random order):

• 30 pounds of chocolate (milk, semisweet, bittersweet)
  
• 10 pounds of sugar
  
• Culinary lavender
  
• Star anise
  
• Sweet curry
  
• Pecans
  
• Pistachios
  
• Almonds
  
• Walnuts
  
• Golden raisins
  
• Dried cherries
  
• Crystalized ginger
  
• Cocoa
  
• walnuts
  
• golden raisins
  
• Dried apricots
  
• Espresso-roast coffee beans

I still need to pick up a gallon or so of heavy cream. First we'll need to make the centers -- the caramel and the truffle bases -- and set them aside to cool. Next we'll make the two types of barks. Then we'll shape and enrobe the caramels and truffles. After it all sets up, we'll set about packaging the candies for storage and gifting. Bark-making is really the most fun for newcomers, as it involves getting their hands into the warm, tempered chocolate to mix in the fruit and nuts and then spreading the confection into a thin layer to set. There are few sensations more glee-inspiring than that of velvety warm chocolate spread up to mid-forearm. And with four people getting in on this action, it should be quite a production. The date's been set for next Saturday. Expect a recap.

Yellow moon, shining in the same big sky

Tonight while I was working out at the gym, 'Yellow Moon," by the Neville Brothers, started playing on my iPod. As is my habit, I focused on the bass line, and when I did, it immediately stood out in my mind, a fluid orange-red line spiky with thumb-slapped syncopation, and I thought of an old friend who played bass like that. Once you start leaning on the bass line when you listen to music, you can never stop. The bass line is the canny guide that'll show you the back alleys, the local haunts of music that tourists who hear only the drums or melody will never know. I haven't heard from this friend in a very long time. One of the last times we spoke, he said he takes comfort in knowing the same sky arches over us both, each in our worlds on this earth. And I know the same horizonless sea of sound swirls around us too, waiting to be distilled and momentarily ordered into composition.

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I'm in the second week of following a program aimed at retraining my physical and mental rhythms, so I'll get back to sleeping normally. I kept a sleep diary all last week, which showed I was snoozing an average of five hours a night. Least number of hours was three, and then I got one night of a miraculous eight. Anyway, So this week's strategy is to schedule six hours for sleep, with a target daily wake-up time of 7:30 a.m.. I have a half-hour buffer on either side of that. This means I have a target lights-out time of 12:30 a.m., and I must set an alarm for no earlier than 7 a.m. and no later than 8, with an optimal wake time of 7:30. If I can't sleep, I must get up after 20 minutes, stay up for 30 minutes, then try sleeping again. If I have a rough night, I can nap the next day, but only for 15 - 45 minutes, and not at all after 3 p.m. After a little while on this schedule, the scheduled time for sleep will be increased to 6.5 hours. I'll report on any success or lack thereof. First report: I slept 6 hours last night. Woo! Right now I'm sipping some red wine, after having enjoyed a light cheese-and-apples dinner post-gym. 

Damnit. I got m'amed again.

I've been called "m'am" three times this week. The last time was a half hour ago, by the guy who handed me my pizza to go at the shop that's a block from my home. Being called "m'am" means you are officially no longer hot, if you ever were, except perhaps to French men, who are said to appreciate older women. Most days I feel attractive, and so the "m'am" thing doesn't bother me. But today, after getting only 3 hours' sleep last night, I do feel rather un-hot. Rather rampled. Slightly haggard. Ugh. 

I remember calling women "m'am" when I was in my 20s, and being sharply reprimanded.  Sheesh, I'd think. I was just trying to be polite. So I didn't snap at the young and handsome pizza guy tonight. I just smiled and took my box, turned on my heel and left, musing that I thought I'd been rather hiply dressed when I walked out of the front door to get dinner. 

The other night my husband saw a trailer for Brooke Shields' newish TV show, and he remarked "She looks really good, for her age." He nearly bled from the look I shot him. "What?" Then his face softened. "Ohhhhh. Yeah." Mmm-hmm. Not the best choice of words when you happen to have a wife who's seven years older than you are. He apologized with a hug, which I appreciated. But I did not feel kindred. As a man, my husband will not be faced with this particular issue until he's well into his 60s. Men are considered attractive years longer than women are.

It's lonely business mourning youth.

Struggling to sleep

I've been struggling with severe insomnia. Lack of sleep makes doing just the normal minimum each day a challenge. It also tends to change a person's personality. I've been a bit short-tempered, sometimes weepy, often frustrated by the mental fog that steals in during afternoons after near-sleepless nights, slowing down my thought processes and response times. An admission that I'm dealing with insomnia brings out the advisor in everyone. "Are you stressed out over something?" No (seriously, no). "Is it that your mind won't turn off?" No, I'm not obsessing over anything at work nor at home. "Try drinking warm milk!" I have. It tastes good. It does not help me sleep. "I took melatonin and I haven't had a problem since." I'm so happy for you. Wish it had the same effect on me. "Benadryl. Take Benadryl." Oh yes, my pal Bennie. It does knock me out. But then I spend the rest of the night in agony as my brain tries to fight its way back awake through the drug haze. It's worse than being fully awake. And I'm not keen to take strong sleep meds, because this can result in dependency issues.

Once in a while I get so exhausted that I do sleep eight full hours. And then the cycle begins again: stay awake until 1 or 2:30 a.m., then go to bed because I ought to, lie awake (sometimes with the added fun of restless leg syndrome. Woo!), get up after half an hour because that's what the sleep hygiene folks say you should do, wait until I'm even more exhausted, and try again. Sleep for 3-4 hours (if I'm lucky, 5). Then get up in time to drink some coffee and get to work. Last week my employer launched a new Healthy Lifestyle Program component that's supposed to help people overcome insomnia. So I signed up. I read the first chapter of the material, and I'm filling out a 1-week sleep diary. After that I can continue with the rest of the program. Wish me luck.

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.