Teenage girls.

Ambivalence about a job.

Never-ending foot pain.

Sudden crash landing of depression.

What do I want??

I still have some holdouts from the virus I had for about 3 weeks. I think I still have some fever spikes. I am still having problems with a nasty little cough. Little, yeah, persistent, yeah. And the nausea--damn, I wish that would go away.

I thought that had disappeared this morning. I fasted for a blood sugar draw that it turns out I didn't need--hooray, no sticking of the arms or hands! I got home and I was hungry. UnbeLIEVABLE! I was hungry! Bowl of cereal tasted good! I even fried an egg, since I was cooking eggs for the kids (just got braces). It's been downhill since then. Try to cook dinner when food just makes your stomach turn over. Blah.

One good thing to look forward to: NO KIDS THIS WEEKEND!! The grandmas are taking them camping!! Wahoo! Thanks, grandmas!

I keep sitting down at the computer feeling vaguely about doing something fun. I run randomly through various board games and Facebook. This isn't fun. This isn't what I really wanted to do. Why do I keep fighting myself? Why do I keep from doing what I really want to do?

Is it that I'm too lazy? Writing is hard work sometimes. A lot of the time. I do sit at the computer when I want to do something mindless, like solitaire or word twist. And I know I need to do work first then play. It's hard to keep oneself on the straight and narrow.

Yes, my sweetie, I'm very glad you do all you can to bring home the bacon. I'm very glad you cook on the weekends. Very very glad. Yes. Please don't stop that.

I am delighted you are willing to take care of your share of dishes. I think you need just a couple of hints as to how to clean the kitchen.

Load the dishwasher every day. With dirty dishes in it. Just load that puppy with whatever loose dishes you can. If you load in an organized manner you can get a whole lot more in. You know, plates in a row on the bottom, glasses up top, utensils down. Etc.

I understand you may not want to wash pots and pans and whatnot that don't fit in the dishwasher at the same time. I get tired too. Wash those big fry pans and pasta pots at least twice in a week. Please don't leave everything we cooked with on the counter for me to deal with when it's my turn.

Don't forget to heat the water before you turn on the dishwasher. Don't forget to put soap in the dispenser. Don't forget to actually run the dishwasher.

Please wipe down the counters and the stove. Everything will look much much better if the crumbs, coffee grounds, tomato splashes, baked-on spills and grease has been done away with. Even if there are a few large and dirty dishes at one end of the counter.

Scrub out the sink. Especially if you leave things to soak. If they have been soaking more than a couple of days it smells as though something has died in there. And is moldering away. Softly keening as it slides slowly into the garbage disposal. There's cleanser under the sink, and lo! it has bleach in it! The sink gets shiny white and clean and there's no more dying stinky things slinking down the drain.

With these few small suggestions, I won't have a huge pile of crappy dirty crumby slimy dishes to take care of when it's my turn. And thank you.

I have been stuck at home for about a week now, recovering from foot surgery. I didn't want to take another nap, so I started surfing our limited channel selection (no cable here). I ran across a French cooking show. The chef ended up with pot au feu. Instant backflash to when my brother Andy and I toured France for ten days, 6 in Paris. We found a little (maybe 15 feet square?) restaurant that served JUST pot au feu.

Pot au feu is a French New England boiled dinner, only way better. You put several different chunks of beef: short ribs, sirloin tip, etc into a pot with carrots, celery, potatoes, onions, leeks, mushrooms, you name it. Simmer for several hours for a meal fit for a king! At the restaurant we were served the broth first (I think). What a magnificent flavor for a broth! Then we were presented with the meat and veggies that had simmered deliciously in that broth, ooh la la. Everything was seasoned with everything else and was so delicious, tender, and juicy even the marrow I scooped from the soup bone was outstanding spread on a thin baguette slice.

All the food in France was like that, even more so. Everything tasted so fresh and alive. Andy and I discovered a patisserie down the street from the first hotel, where of course we would have the chocolate croissants and other pastries, but we ended up eating slices of a custard pie with a delicate crust and glazed fruit on the top for breakfast. So good to wake up to! Not too sweet, cool and comforting. Whoever was up first in the morning would go get a couple slices and perhaps a croissant or two and sneak it back into our hotel to eat with the coffee.

We discovered a bottled bubbly orange juice that was more tart than expected but very refreshing, Orangina? I think? The nectarine I bought off the shelf of a little grocery store tucked away was the best nectarine I've ever had, ripened on the tree and probably in the store within a day or two, is what it tasted like, gushing with juice and sweet, sweet.

I am an experimental eater, thankfully. I have branched out quite a bit since my days at home with Mom and Dad (boiled vegetables, canned or frozen never fresh, no onion because my poor Dad's stomach didn't like them although he did sprinkle fresh chopped onions on bits when he could withstand no longer.) I had some adventurous eating in college and was willing to explore.

I had snails while we were traveling, but of course? How could you go to France and not eat snails? They came in the standard round plate with little depressions full of butter, garlic and Parmesano cheese, freshly grated. Yes, ANYthing would taste good bathed in butter, garlic and cheese, yes? But these were tasty tender little morsels, a delight to savor, as opposed to snails I'd eaten in downtown Seattle that tasted okay, but were like chewing rubber bands. Andy watched me eat them and exclaim quietly over each one. I offered him one, he declined, but when I started dipping the fresh bread into the little beds in the plate to sop up the divine sauce he bent and tried a bite or two as well. His eyes rolled up to the ceiling as he chewed. Mmmm.

He'd ordered a mixed grill, I asked him for a bite. It was a small steak I think, but one of the most flavorful and tender pieces of beef I'd had in a long time. For dessert the waitress offered me a creme fraiche (?), it was a full cream something that was tangy and sour, she'd brought a shaker of sugar that I completely forgot about until I was done. I took taste after taste, wondering if it was good, weird, or just different. And all this was in a little town on the way to the Alps. Little!

Andy got more adventurous as the trip went on. One of the last nights we were in Paris we went to a fine restaurant and we tried several courses. The one that struck me like lightning was a fish soup, excuse me, a soup de poisson. I thought, of course, a classic dish, I need to try that. And what a revelation! It was a creamy spicy fishy concoction, not a chowder, not a gumbo, maybe a bisque? It was heaven. And surprisingly, it came with some additions: fresh grated Romano cheese (I think), tiny little slices of toasted buttered baguette, and a sauce. A sauce for soup?! Oh, yes. It was light enough to float on the soup although it wasn't fluffy, but creamy. It had tiny bits of something--picklish, perhaps?--blended into a slightly mustard flavored...umm...sauce. I tried the soup plain, with just the cheese, with the cheese and sauce, with the sauce and bread, with everything possible permutation. I moaned and groaned with delight enough that Andy broke down and ordered the same, after a taste of mine. He loved it. We took several hours to eat dinner and we were still full the next morning, but oh, what an experience to leave Paris on.

What brought all this to mind, besides the French cooking show on PBS? I watched Julie and Julia, my latest DVD from Netflix. I so wanted someone to show up at my front door with something creamy, fruity, luscious, tasty, savory, oh, you know what I mean! Something wonderful that I didn't have to cook! I settled for a sandwich: made with Dave's Killer Bread, turkey lunch meat, light mayonnaise with feta cheese crumbles, and a piquant honey mustard. That was a fairly tasty lunch to come up with on the spur of the moment, and better than a can of soup.

Now I feel I have to come up with a special interesting different kind of dessert for Thursday. Why Thursday? To celebrate turning 53, of course! Sam's birthday is Saturday, he wants chocolate cake with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting. Ed's birthday is Monday, he would like a chocolate cream pie. What should I have...? Lemon bars, butterscotch lace cookies (that I only made once about 40 years ago and have been afraid to make since?), truffles? Coconut cream pie, one of Ben and Jerry's exotic best, chocolate-cake-in-a-coffee-cup? I must ponder this some more....

We all discussed it several times. It was a tough decision. We worked it out--we are giving up computer games for Lent. Except for weekends. We're sort of trying to give up the computer except for necessities, such as email, or writing.

It's harder than I thought it would be. I really miss playing word games or card games in the evening after the kids go to bed, when I can really relax. I'd rather do this than watch TV. I prefer Scrabble and Free Cell and Word Slinger to watching the boob tube.

So it's a few days after Lent has started (it's Tuesday, the first one in Lent). The kids have been put to bed. I check my email. I start playing a hidden object game. Suddenly I hear soft steps coming up behind me. It's my boy. He comes to my shoulder. He says, "it's Lent. And I'm hungry." I do a double take, since I just don't get it at the first hearing. Then I start to laugh. "You're right, Sam, it is Lent, I won't play any more, and what would you like to eat?"

And the next night, he came out of his bedroom and I was just standing up from the computer. He says, "Were you playing computer games, Mom?" in a totally accusing way (sounds like me, actually). I said "it was just a game of Free Cell, one quick little game!" and I'm laughing a bit. "Mom." he says, and I say "OK, OK, I won't play any more!"

Now I'm starting to wonder if I should give up reading blogs, or checking craigslist, or watching videos on youtube. Still, I'm spending less time on the computer and more time on things that need to get done. Which is why I'm doing this.

And it's not Valentine's Day until tomorrow. I've been on some kind of sugar-hunger, as in eating a couple handfuls of mini-marshmallows and eating the leftover frosting from various cakes and anything else deadly sweet I can find. Well, I slowly savor it, but I still--sheesh--frosting! Sugar and fat! I'm supposed to be smarter than that, I'm freaking diabetic, I need to lose weight, my arteries are hardening!

I made a cake last Saturday for Rose's 13th, and yes, the teenage behavior has already ramped up, more about that another day. She wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting in the middle and vanilla on the outside. I ended up opening two cans of frosting, and of course neither carton got emptied. And of course I had my share of the cake the next two days.

I made a cake last night--lemon cake with home-made lemon frosting--and of course I had to eat a few tablespoons of that before I managed to get a hold of myself and wash the bowl out. Had to ask Ed to take down the beaters and get those in the sink, though.

And I have to bake a healthy snack for Sam's class tomorrow for their Valentine's Day party, and I was thinking of baking heart-shaped cookies for us for dessert for tomorrow, but Rose made chocolate pudding yesterday, and we'll probably have it for dessert tonight. I'm hoping I'll have the willpower to stay away from it.

Ed wanted to make lemon-honey bread in the bread-maker this morning, I said I would get it in as he had to get to church to get ready to play music. Luckily I counted up all the sugar recently past and all the sugar to come and I didn't bother. Told Ed next week he could have honey lemon bread for Sunday brunch. Since he usually makes the Sunday brunch I know he'll enjoy it.

Maybe I can blame it (nasty uber-desire for sugar) on the SUBSTANTIAL lack of sleep. Yes, I've been diagnosed with apnea. The latest sleep study said "micro-arousals every 30 seconds then waking up totally every 3 minutes". Yeah. So I'm trying to get used to a C-PAP. Sleeping not so great, tried another mask starting last Wednesday. TOTALLY not sleeping. Will go back to the old mask, at least I slept a little longer with that one before yanking it off my face.

Talked to a mom at church this morning. She said she also has a C-PAP, took her several months to get used to it. She said that they finally realized that her nasal passages are too close together, so they ended up SEARING THE INSIDE OF HER RIGHT NOSTRIL so she could breathe in better. I'm not sure I'm up for that, but right now I'm realizing SLEEP IS PARAMOUNTLY NECESSARY. (So paramountly isn't a word, sue me. You know what I'm trying to say, right?) So maybe I'll contemplate nose-searing in the near future.

So I need to sign off and go for a nice long walk around the block--hopefully at least a mile (five times around is a mile).

It's odd, how menacing the computer looks when I'm dreading an email. I feel as if it's waiting to pounce. It starts to seem like a gargoyle is perched on my desk, waiting to savage me. I start feeling nauseous. I tend to stay away from the office. I have no wish to play computer games at all. On the other hand, it means I get more things done.


Sometimes I feel like three different people. A bad case of multiple mirrors?


I sometimes wonder what I'd be right now if I had gotten regular normal amounts of sleep the last 25 years. US President? Mistress of the United Americas? Published? Queen of the World? I've started using a C-PAP machine again. Which means countless nights ripping the thing off my face in the middle of the night, semi-waking up multiple times as the damned thing slips off my nose or my face or my head.

Still, a couple of times, I've woken up feeling energetic. By god, that was an unusual feeling. And I can sit up straighter, with better posture. My shoulders actually go back. Perhaps if sleeping better happens more regularly more wonderful things will happen. I will start to remember names better. (I feel so thick and stupid sometimes, people I've met multiple times, that I've talked to multiple times, I can't remember their names.) I will feel like exercising more. I will get more things done during the day. Possibly even happier, although I'm generally a pretty stable-keel kind of person.

Also, I realized after I'd had the C-PAP a couple of nights and was eager and hopeful it would work sooner rather than later, I realized I was actually happy to go to bed. I'm scratching my head here, I'm happy to go to bed? So before this happened I wasn't happy to go to bed? That's why I've been staying up late so much? Small realizations, big impact.

This morning I went on a field trip with my son's third grade class. We went to a place called Scratch Patch. This is a wonderful place filled with interesting colorful abstract art. And rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.

Well, I should probably say minerals. The floors were covered with beautiful shiny tumbled almost gem-like minerals from South Africa. This tiny little shop is run by a woman from South Africa. She had the most amazing glorious opal earrings on, and had a lovely accent.

Once the kids had taken off their coats and shoes, they went into a larger room. There were stepping stones all around the borders of the room. The lady (named Amanda) told them about the various different kinds of stones, how to identify them, showed how some of them looked, passing around odd and intriguing rocks with unpronounceable names. She told them several times not to drop the rocks. Dropping them could chip or break them into very sharp chips which would be highly uncomfortable for sock feet. Then she let them get on hands and knees and start looking through the rocks on the floor to see what they could recognize. The kids had small colorful baskets that they could keep their collection in. They were allowed to take home a small bag full of these rainbow colored rocks.

I would have liked to do this, but not with 27 kids and 5 parents hanging around. These rooms were tiny, small, itsy-bitsy. It was very noisy and very crowded. I would want to scoop the rocks away so I didn't have to sit on them. I would want lots of time, space, and quiet, and I would want to keep asking Amanda about rocks that I had found. I love these kinds of rocks and I know several of them by sight.

In the meantime, we adults have taken off our coats and shoes. Our feet are freezing. Stepping on the granite stepping stones hurts, and they're cold too. Stepping on the tumbled rocks is a different kind of pain, much worse. By the time we leave my feet are numb and tingling. My shoes were on the top shelf above a baseboard heater, so my shoes were toasty warm. Thank goodness. My feet started to thaw out on the walk to the Greenlake Community Center.

The kids played on the playground, had lunch inside the Center, then played in the gym. Totally echoing loud shrieking playing in the gym. I did a lot of standing and walking and walking and standing. By the time I got home I ached. My feet were still cold. I was exhausted. I couldn't think. I played some non-intellectual computer games. I ended up taking a nap.

I think I might be too old for grade school field trips.

This afternoon I took my son to a doctor's appointment in Bothell. When the kids in Sam's group took off after their teacher, the room settled down. Other moms sat and read, texted or crocheted. I sat in a comfy leather chair, picked up my tea and my book and started to read.

The room was quiet. The large aquarium to my left burbled. The heater to my right hummed. It looked like a small fireplace, with gas-like flames, but no chimney. It gave off a gentle heat. I faced a glass wall that looked onto a deck. It held an large inflatable Thomas the Tank engine that was slightly deflated. There were soft murmurs of conversation from the office around the corner.

Three of the walls were painted a soft green. The wall to my right was a stone brick wall, with slightly projecting bricks here and there. There is a large sign that you see as you enter this room that always makes me smile. It says Please Don't Allow Your Children to Climb the Walls.

It was very peaceful. Although the book I was reading was excellent, I paused every now and then to look up, look around, and relax more. I was happy, warm, comfortable, soothed by ibuprofen. I was reading a new book and drinking Peach Passion tea I'd brought from home.

My feet still tingled and ached a bit. On the way home the heater was on full blast on my feet. They felt warm only on the outside, still cold and tingly inside. When we got home and I started walking around, I finally felt that the heat on the outside was finally moving inside. Aaaahhh.

What a day.

Well, I'm not spending my free time in front of the computer too much. Not all of it anyway. I started sewing a fleece sweater for Sam that I'd cut out months ago. I lost the first page of instructions, which makes it a little harder to get started.

I emailed McCall's to see if I could get a copy of the first page emailed to me, they never answered. I finally went to the shop where I'd bought the original pattern. I asked the manager there if I could copy the instructions off the pattern there. I got lucky, there was one pattern left. I copied it down in a spiral notebook, then went home to try to decipher it.

Now It's mostly done, just the collar, the facing and the zipper. Of course I have the two toughest things to do at the end: collar and the zipper. Here's crossing my fingers.


I think I typed this well, considering I typed it with my eyes shut most of the way.