2799 Little Bitty Dream

Friday, March 5, 2010

Money cannot buy love, but it can put you in a good bargaining position.

(Random quote! Honest! No connection to this entry!)

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I had a dream a few nights ago, and it was so clear and has stuck with me so long, it must have meaning, but I can't figure it out. Sometimes simply writing a dream down makes it clear.

I'm in a motel/inn room. Very early morning, sun is just coming up. Rustic, lace curtains and embroidered spread kind of place, Maine shore feeling. The door and window open onto a boardwalk with a bay full of fishing boats directly below. The wide window has lacy cafe curtains that are closed on the bottom but open on the top.

With me in the room is a guy I'd apparently been dating for a while, but had not slept with. Slender, dark hair and eyes, pale complexion. I like him, and I know he likes me. I guess it was a late night, because we're just getting into the bed. I'm wearing a bra and panties. He's naked, although I hadn't actually seen him naked yet, he's already in the bed when I come out of the bathroom. He's lying flat on his back. I climb into the bed and snuggle next to him with my head on his shoulder.

He doesn't say anything, but I can tell he's nervous, uncomfortable, like he's not sure how to act. I push him over onto his back, figuring maybe a back rub would relax him, to sleep if nothing else. I pull the comforter aside in a heap, and find he has a beautiful back, and a glorious backside, high, round, tight, just the way I like it, with the perfect narrow hips I adore. Yummy. I crouch over him and start massaging and kissing his back, working my way down.

Just about then, the door is flung open wide, and there's the cleaning lady. She's like something out of a cartoon - lacy mob cap, comfy plumb body, grey bunned hair, apron, with a bucket in one hand and a string mop in the other. She says, "Oh, hello, good morning", like it's perfectly natural, and she stands in the doorway chatting, asking if we have visited the local sights and attractions yet, natter natter natter. I sit up and stare at her in shock. "Um, could you come back later? Like this afternoon?" She seems a bit surprised by my request, but she shrugs and leaves.

It sounds like the hamlet is waking. A lot of activity out there now, around the boats and on the boardwalk. The guy seems perfectly relaxed now, so I roll him back over onto his back. Anything that happens now is up to him, but I decide to take a peek anyway.

Down there, where there should be all kinds of interesting stuff, there's nothing. Well, almost nothing. There are concentric circles of loosely piled skin toward the front, like ripples in a pool. In the middle there's a tiny nubbin, smaller than the blunt end of a nylon-tipped pen, just barely peeking out. No "jewels". Nothing. The rest is perfectly smooth.

He has his eyes closed and may be asleep, but I guess now I know what he was worried about. I kneel there staring, trying to figure it out, when I catch activity outside the window. Some guys have arrived, in white canvas coveralls, apparently to paint a mural on the external wall. They can see in over the top of the cafes! They don't look, but they'd see all (or nothing!) if they did.

The windows swing open and closed like doors, on hinges, and the latches are both on the inside and outside. One of the men casually opens outward one panel of the window so he can put a can of paint on the inside window sill. Convenient, I guess. Then he pushed the cafe curtain to the side to keep it out of the can. Now anyone walking outside can see in.

I jump up, go to the window, hand him his can back, pull closed and firmly latch the windows, close the curtains, wonder what I can do about the top uncurtained part of the window, and stand there for a minute wondering why all these people seem to have no respect for our privacy! And seem to consider it perfectly natural.

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Ok. I figured it out. Explanation later, maybe.... Anyone can attempt a guess, but I think it requires knowledge no one else has right now. Sorry. Useful exercise anyway.
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2798 Thursday stuff

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Democracy is the worst system in the world - except for the other ones.
-- Unknown --

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Falling down on this blogging stuff. Not much happening. I was sick in the throat and chest Monday, the diarrhea and queasy stomach (probably due to the zinc tabs) started Tuesday, and Wednesday I felt better, but I was weak.

When the throat and chest started on Monday, I dug through the medicine cabinet to see what I had that might help. There were all kinds of cold remedies there, but the expiration dates gave me pause - 2001, 2003. There were even some from the '90s. The most recent was a Tylenol severe cold prep with a 2009 date, so I took some of that. It worked. I hope it didn't kill my liver.

Yesterday was the first day I could get out, so I went to the pharmacy and stocked up on various head/throat/chest combinations. Naturally, the very act seemed to vanquish the virus. I haven't even opened the packages. The expiration dates on all this is late 2011. I found myself hoping I'd get sick between now and then, so I could use the flippin' stuff.

You'd think that with such short effective dates, and the fact that it's taken by the ounce, they'd sell at least the liquids in smaller packages. What do they expect you to do with it when it expires? Dump it down the drain, into the water supply?

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Dinner this evening at a Puerto Rican restaurant with the southern Orange County Mensans. This weekend is the central NJ Mensa gathering. None of the southern Orange folks had ever been to a regional gathering, so I talked a bunch into signing up for it. They're getting all excited about it. When I got sick I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to go. Irony there.

But, I'm going, and I've arranged for Jasper to stay through Monday at Pussyfoot Lodge (kitty summer camp - that's where each kitty gets a room with a window and a bird feeder outside), to see how he does before the big stay for the Morocco trip. Which trip, by the way, I am seriously wondering is going to happen at all. The woman organizing it is unresponsive.

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I've been on the diabetes diet for three weeks now, eating tiny amounts six times a day. It feels like I'm eating constantly, and when I total up what I eat each day, it's like twice the mass quantity of what I'd normally have eaten. I was worried that I'd gain weight, but I've lost 4 pounds! Cutting out fat and sugar and increasing protein really does make a difference. I try to keep each meal close to 300 calories, and each snack around 100.

TMI: This diet has a lot more fiber than I've been used to. It's messed up my poopies. I've never had problems in that area. I go every mid-morning, and it's always the previous day's intake. It knocks and says, I'm here. I sit down, and it does its thing with no effort on my part. All of a piece, not too hard, not too soft, a rich dark tan or brown, and that's it. (Occasionally, if I've eaten too much during the day, there's an evening delivery, too, and that can be very soft and a bit of a surprise, but that's highly unusual.)

So with all this fiber I was expecting some change. I was not expecting hard and reluctant one day and watery the next, and generally the color of old gold. I don't like this change at all. I thought fiber and low fat was supposed to be good.

Maybe it's because I'm allowed much less fruit daily than I had been eating before. I didn't realize how much fruit I ate until I couldn't have it. Apples, pears, dates, figs, melons, plums, prunes, bananas, oranges, berries, ... I used to eat two, three, four or more fruits a day. Now I'm allowed one serving of fruit - which is defined as half a banana, half an apple, half an orange, or 1/4 cup of berries - and it must be eaten with a protein. That's *half* a fruit.

I guess I used to eat like a bear, or a monkey. Far as I know, neither of them have problems pooping.
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2797 Sick

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

"The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot."
-- Mark Twain --

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Sick. Not really a cold - no phlegm - just very dry sore throat and chest, headache, fever. Non-productive coughing that doubles me over. No stomach involvement, but no appetite, either.

I went to a community theater play Sunday afternoon, in an old historic building. I'd been fine before I went, but the minute I walked in the building I could smell mold. Within minutes I was sneezing, then the coughing started. I left at intermission, and by the time I got home, I was sick sick sick. I couldn't even walk straight. I don't know if the mold started something of its own, or if it exacerbated a virus I'd heretofore been winning against.

I spent most of yesterday in bed, dozing, thinking about the groceries left in the car at the bottom of the driveway, too steep, too weak, too heavy. It hasn't been cold enough for things to freeze (eggs, yogurt, fruit?).

My chest hurts. I'm hungry but I can't think of a single thing I want to eat.
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2796 The plebeian "We Are..." and other stuff

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Why is the gift of intelligence so often given to people too stupid to know what to do with it?
-- Lev Grossman, Time, 3/15/04 --

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Celebrities have remade "We Are the World" to benefit Haiti. That version is easy to find on YouTube. But, a bunch of less well-known people have also done it. Some of these people are pro or semi-pro, some are pure amateur. I think they all have made "cover" videos on YouTube, that's what they have in common, and that's how they got invited to participate. They recorded separately, and then it was edited together. It's good. Hell, it's great!

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hhX0KkQBW4] The full description is at the link, with info on contributing to Haiti.

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Remember when we were small, and the edges of roofs had icicles? Big thick long ones? And parents always warned you not to walk under them 'cause they could fall and impale you? And every winter, somewhere in the country, someone was killed on the street by icicles falling from a high building? Yeah. Howcum we never see icicles any more? Not even on things like sheds and barns that don't have guttering. What happened to icicles?

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Some sports have weight classes. They figure a 150 lb. person shouldn't have to wrestle with a 250 lb person and so on. Weight can be too much of an advantage.

So why don't they have classes for leg length in speed skating, running, and so on, where long legs have a definite advantage over short?

You have some control over your weight, but none over your limb length. This is unfair!

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In all the interviews and stories I've heard and read about runaway Toyotas, I have yet to hear anyone mention slamming the thing into neutral so you can pull over. I haven't heard anyone say they tried it and it didn't work, or trying it and it did work. Nothing.

Why not?

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I've mentioned the town near here named "Milan", like the city in Italy. But here it's pronounced "MY lun". Well, I found another. It's a village named "Chili". The locals pronounce it "Chai lye". Do they do that on purpose, so they can laugh at visitors?

Snork.
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2795 Recycling weird stuff

Sunday, February 28, 2010

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.
-- Frederick Douglas --

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After Jay died and I cleaned out the basement, I found many bottles of chemicals. A lot of it was darkroom chemicals, clearly labeled, but there were also many small bottles with missing, cryptic, or indecipherable labels. What labels I can understand sound downright dangerous. Jay was a chemistry major in college, and had always been interested in ... experiments.

They're still down there. I don't know what to do with them.

Switched.com has a post today [http://www.switched.com/2010/02/28/dispose-of-your-gadgets-properly-with-1800recycle-com/] about recycling, specifically electronics, but they have a link to a site [http://1800recycling.com/] where you can enter any type of material and your zip code, and they'll tell you where you can take it.

So they found me a place in Connecticut, about 2 hours away, that will accept hazardous chemicals and expired medications. Not convenient, but at least it's someplace.

Then I tried "clear glass", and they gave me a recycle center 8 miles away. Duh? I guess they don't know about the recycle center in the village, 2.5 miles away.

Still, somewhere is better than nowhere.
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