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It’s Sunday morning and I am not feeling all well. Last night we attended the ballet and I was determined just for once not to fall asleep in it. The hypothesis: eating and drinking before a show works swifter than any sleeping pill at putting me quickly to sleep. I went to the dance having had only a cup of tea. Lo! I stayed awake. However I was quite hungry after the show so at 11PM we had a cocktail (a proper Manhattan) a dinner consisting of a salad and small pizza with glass of red wine.
I will spare you the details but somehow Someone and I on the way home ended up at a twenty-four hour grocery store where we purchased (of all things!) Pop-tarts and peanut butter and crackers, respectively. I haven’t ate such rubbish in decades. This morning I overslept and awoke feeling perfectly poisoned and a bit hung over. As I type this I am detoxifying with several cups of medicinal tea (the panacea of all ills).
Next time I attend the ballet I plan on eating beforehand.
I am considering not renewing any of our concert series. We have season tickets to the opera, the symphony, the ballet, and various theatre companies and I fall asleep in all of them. This is the consequence of getting up at 53AM, going all day, and plopping down with a full stomach in comfy seat in a darkened warm auditorium. This seems a waste of money. I feel badly for the classical programs, for they are already anemic and can’t afford losing any more patrons (and a donor to boot).
“Life without art”; we would save a bonanza of loot this way. Nevertheless I have a sense of life becoming utilitarian and drab if we cancel everything.
Perhaps we can renew our series and rather than a cocktail with dinner I can take Nuvigil rather.
The spring sun rises early enough to provide sufficient light and warmth for pleasant and comfortable dog walks. Harper has connected the dots; each morning she nudges me get us going after a long winter season of discontent. So it’s off we go (most mornings) at 530AM for our morning aubade to the donzerly light.*
I burn ~ 100 calories per dog walk. On a good week this is 2 walks/1 day x 7 days/week x 100 calories/walk = 1400 calories per week burned compared to last week when I merely slept in. I would burn more if we walked at a faster clip. However, dog walks often have conflicting agendas. Peripatetic intermittent stops to sniff and urinate** are at odds with the do-let’s-keep-moving goal. As the sun rises earlier and the temperature rises, I hope to get in longer walks and achieve greater velocities.
Harper loves dog-walks. Someone and I can no longer say the word ‘walk’ in our conversations as Mistress Four-foot hears this even when across the house or deep in slumber. The ‘W” word evokes instantaneous alertness and excitement at pleasures anticipated – and such as disappointment if we don’t put out! ***
Harper is a leash-tugger; she is quite excited to get going as fast as possible, pulling me down the street, only to come to a screeching halt to sniff a bush or twig, instantly obstinate to my gentle leash-pulls to get her brown butt going. At that rate I am not going to be burning many calories.
Harper seems to have her favorite routes, which all lead to the local park. The park is shaped like a flat tire and surrounded by sidewalk. If the coast is clear, I let her off the leash so she can run amok while I walk (at a faster pace) around the circumference. In the donzerly light, I often see the sun rise; in the evening the skies are usually clear to inspect the constellations. Last night Leo was at its zenith; it is indeed spring.
I hope by summer we are both slimmer and in better shape.
* “Donzerly light” a synonym for pre-dawn sunshine. I first heard the expression singing the National Anthem in first grade. “Oh say can you see by the donzerly light…..”
** Harper , not Urs Truly.
*** I too just hate it when people don’t put out.
This is going to be boring; I am going to write about death and taxes. There is nothing so tedious as the predictable; Life by definition is not knowing what happens next.
Recently a oncologist colleague announced he had brought a man back from the brink of death. It didn’t sound good viz. the condition of the saved patient. I pondered this and thought if he should discover me on the brink of death I’d be grateful if he let me be. 15 years ago I promised Someone I would love him; two years ago I made him promise if I should land in an institution surrounded by zealot healers striving to keep me alive (lest they be somehow sued) he’s to whisk me away in a wheelchair. Plus as much valium as I can carry.
Someone is just finishing the taxes. Every year they get more complex and harder to organize and complete. The kitchen and office counters are piled up with papers and receipts. In the process of tidying the taxes Someone unearthed ‘important papers’ going back to the late 90s (overall a more friendly era) and these too are in heaps, ready for shredding.
Upon their completion he will put the taxes in the post and off they go to the far off kingdom of Chicago to good Mr. Dunn, tax-man extraordinaire. I’ve had a series of physicians and dentists but only this one accountant. He’s been doing my taxes since the late 80s. I haven’t lived in Chicago since 2ooo, but I would return every February for the opera and to see Mr. Dunn. We had a sort of ‘same time next year’ tax date for nearly thirty years, both of us eyeing each other for signs of age and wondering who will outlive the other.
After the taxes are dunn (hohoho) Someone and I can perhaps turn to other projects like creating living wills and ridding ourselves of the mentioned “important papers”. Or perhaps we will just do nothing for once. Sounds groovy.
When doing my evening ablutions I listen to Youtube videos. Tonight I heard “Linguistics as a window to understanding the brain”, “The science of pornography addiction”, followed by “44 Facts about the U.S. Presidents” and finally “The Theory of Everything…A little bit closer” when my GI system – desperate to save my life – leapt up through my neck and throttled my brain and I fell unconscious.
Since I was a boy I had a hunger for knowledge. I wanted to know as much as possible. I am still very fond of biology, astronomy, and several other branches of science*. History also has an allure; what belongs to history belongs to all men and I want it too. I just finished a history of Russia and am about to start a history of The French revolution.**
There is no other goal here other than to cram my cranium with as much of The World Book Encyclopedia I can retain. Thanks to the internet and its search engines, knowing anything at all seems to be a dying art. You don’t have to learn the moons of Jupiter for they are available with a few button pushes on your iPhone or iPad. ***.
Nevertheless it is jolly good fun to be able to recite all the US Presidents or state capitols or the drama personae in the War of Succession. Like a good boy scout (or mentant) I am on guard to interject my knowledge if there is a need at the next cocktail party. Alas, no one asks. I guess I attend the wrong parties – when I am invited at all.
Education is never a waste. I hope all the history and science lounging around in my limbic system makes me a better person rather than a crashing bore. Besides, collecting trivia is infinitely cheaper than cigarettes.
* Well, not ‘everything’. I had (and still don’t) any interest in learning about sports, fashion, and economics.
** Both end badly.
*** It turns out there are far more moons of Jupiter than there were when I was a boy. Apparently they reproduced or someone made new ones.
I am very unhappy for I put on some trousers I’ve not worn in a long while only to discover they were tight. I am overweight. When I gain weight it is always in my abdomen; it goes nowhere else. I feel like a beach ball on stilts. I recently received a photo of myself, taken from the back, which has ‘a touch of cellulite’ to it. That was the last straw. I need to seriously cut back on my calories and get my butt moving, for I am not happy with myself.
Learning to sew when I thought it ‘impossible’ gave me a feeling of liberation I can do anything really. Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast. The one thing that refuses to budge is my goal to obtain a flat stomach. How come I can turn black into white on so many occasions but not this?
Treating patients with eating disorders gives me a myriad of morbid tips on how to slim down, but whenever I flirt with refusing to eat the “ED approach” utterly fails. It’s not the growling stomach that does me in, it’s the hypoglycemic lightheaded feeling. Fasting makes me irascible and I don’t focus so well. And soon I am eating the nasty chips again.
I don’t want to be ashamed to take my shirt off this summer.
I want to look at blogs “NSFW” and feel something other than envy for their abdomens.
I want to fit into my PV bathing suit again.
Finding the anger helps. If I envision the fatty tumor in my belly as a monster perhaps I can wipe up enough willpower not to feed it when it howls for foodstuffs. Maybe. Maybe not. I am going to try anyway. Let me see what I can do between now at April 30th.
I don’t mind Mondays really. There is a certain satisfaction for me to wake up on a Monday morning to realize I have been given another week of Life. This decision to choose gratitude rather than dread makes the difference for me. I may grumble a bit about wanting to stay home/sleep in, but this is lip-service; I am ready to begin another week’s industry.
Monday is often associated with the colour blue (as in “I’ve got the Monday morning blues”) but I see them as white: a blank page or canvas. By the end of the week it is a stained, inky thing covered in spills and mistakes, which allows me to tear it off to discover a new clean sheet waiting underneath it. There is nothing like a new frock to brighten up the day. A clean brush and canvas is likewise.
My job is rather fixed in what I do, when I do it and what happens. I may paint the contents differently but the frame is a fixed stencil. This regularity could be perceived as dull but I appreciate its clockwork rhythm.
I usually dress ‘my best’ on Mondays: professional garb with bow tie (of course) and the ‘Monday shoes” of black oxfords.
In this way my Mondays aren’t dreaded or seen as depressing.
Wednesdays are a different matter; by then I’ve had it and quite ready for the weekend. 🙂
Spo-fans know I often say “Proper (whatever), no rubbish!”. I don’t remember when I first heard or used the expression. But it is more than a request. It is a philosophy. Pull yourself a good glass of wine (proper wine, no rubbish) and let me illucidate.
When I was a boy I had an English babysitter named“Bessy”. I recall she liked ‘proper tea”. This meant to her a quality tea (no Lipton! no rubbish!) made in a certain way to bring out the best of the tea. The boiling fresh water had to be just-so; the tea kettle got a preliminary hot water ‘swish’ to warm it up prior to steeping the loose leaves. Even the tea cups types and when to add the milk (first, thank you) had ideals. I don’t think this was ‘snob’ appeal; she wanted the most out of the experience. She wanted her tea at its best.
Fast-forward to the 80s. I lived in Ann Arbor, MI, the home of Zingerman’s deli. The owners combed the earth looking for the ultimate in everything. They sold ‘the best’ peppercorns, butter, cheese. You name it they had it, and they were excited about it all. “You got to try these vinegars! They will blow out anything you have ever tasted!” They were not snobs either. They just adored great tasting food. Why settle for ‘cheese sawdust in a green can’ when grated Parmasean cheese from Italy beat it by a country mile?
I like the philosophy of ‘No rubbish”. I continually comb the cookbooks and magazines for ‘the best’ in food and drink. This doesn’t mean ‘the most expensive’ but ‘proper’. Recipes are also ‘proper’. I look for the ones with tips to make sure the eggplant parmesan is crispy and tasty, not a soggy bland mush. I would love to take a cooking course to learn how to use pans properly, or how to make a stir-fry that isn’t bland and wet. No rubbish, indeed !
The irony is I seldom eat ‘proper’. Most of my meals are merely foodstuffs to get through the day. Despite having hundreds of recipes, I eat the same items. I am a Babette’s feast” of the Southwest. Breakfast is the same eggs and oatmeal. Lunch is ‘pharmeceutical rep fodder”. Dinner derives from one of approximately eight dishes. Even the carry-out doesn’t alter much.
It is no coincidence my ‘retirement dream’ isn’t to travel or live in the tropics but to make something new and adventuresome every day.
“Getting it right” is another way of describing my panache for good eats and drink. So many people (particularly Americans) eat badly. Worse, they eat blandly. Macaroni and cheese made from a box is greatly preferred in taste to something made with proper cheese.
There is a scene in a Disney movie where two rats are eating some discards. One is rhapsodic over the delicate and complex flavors of his crumbs. The other rat says “Food is fuel; eat your garbage”. The first rat is appalled at this lack of culinary passion. No garbage – or rubbish – for me please, if I can help it. Good food and drink parallels Life. I wish to sample its treasures, not just get enough to survive.
Needless to say, I have never eaten at Cracker Barrel. 🙂
I won’t be sewing for the next four weeks; the machine is at the repair shop. There is nothing wrong with it. It dawned on me I’ve been using it continually (more or less) for years, maybe a decade, and it has never been serviced.
A few weeks ago I went to the Viking devision of the local Joanne’s for a consultation.
The lady-in-charge nearly swooned when she heard my tale. Apparently they ought to be cleaned and oiled on a regular basis. If there was a children protection service for abusive or negligent sewing machine owners, I’d be in Tent City by now wearing pink under drawers and being Sheriff Joe’s bitch.
I took the machine in and the lady (a bit dotty) took down my information. Apparently I never knew my machine had a subset name “Daisy”. I always referred to it as “Viking”. This is like saying you drive a “Honda” but never “an Accord”. “Daisy”, as the nameless device is now christened, is now in the shop for approximately 5-6 weeks. That seems a long time for a simple “COA” which is sewing code for “Clean, Oil, and Adjust”. Alas, I am assured that is the waiting period. I thought to explain as a man and doctor at that I was entitled to be “first in line”, but I was prudent and said no such thing.
Soon I was back at home with a bag containing the foot pedal, the plastic slip cover, and the sundry feet and bobbins. I am bereft of a machine until May.
This doesn’t mean I can’t do anything. I have plenty of fabric to measure and cut. I can get ready any number of shirts for Daisy’s return.
It looks a bit odd, not seeing it there, upon the counter in the family room. I wonder if I will go through withdrawal or soon wonder why on earth was I sewing shirts in the first place.
It’s spring in the desert and the mesquites are in bloom. The air is redolent with their chartreuse blossoms.
This nasty crap elicits the allergies from hell.
Poor Someone! He can hardly breathe; at night time his snoring makes the bed shake. I’ve been sleeping in the guest room. But it’s an ill wind which blows nobody good; I can fall asleep to one of my numerous ‘science’ Youtube subscriptions without bothering him. I am determined to cram into my cranium as much knowledge as it can retain. Alas, this isn’t much. Between age and my own allergies (or is it the antihistamine?) my mind is like teflon: nothing sticks to it.
This week the clinic where I work was given notice by the landlord is selling the building and we have to scram. We have a year to vamoose. I would like an office with a view and a restaurant within walking distance and a new desk, but no one is asking for my opinion.
It is the weekend and needless to say, there is work to be done. I’ve divided my labors into three lists titled “Tasks Pleasant” and “Tasks Unpleasant” and “Task Most Unpleasant”. I should call my family and update my blog roster (TP). I need to work on the taxes (TU). I can’t remember at the moment what else is on the lists, but I am sure to wake with a sudden revelation at 330AM.
All week long some demon of vanity has been whispering in my ear I should dye my whiskers. This inky incubus keeps poking me in my brindled chin and telling me how good I would look if whiskers went from white to dark brown. I will keep you posted whether I not I succumb or come to my senses in the nick of time.
Well that is enough non-sequiturs. I need to get some beauty sleep and my allergy pill is kicking in. Tomorrow I should wake early to do my paperwork (TU) and try to rehang the towel rack which fell out of the wall last week (TMU).
Good night Someone. Good night mush.
Good night to the Harper whimpering, “Hush”
Good night, Henrik. Good night, air.
Good night, Spo-fans everywhere.
My brain doesn’t seem to be functioning very well these days. Perhaps the ordeal of travel has caused my gray matter to snap a tether in certain crucial parts*. On top of its usual Hummingbird-mind characteristics, the Spo-brain is playing some mean and tawdry tricks.. I am not certain of its incentive whatever its motive(s) it’s up to no good that’s for certain.
Here are some examples:
It allows me remember all sorts of non-sequitur irrelevant tidbits of knowledge but it puts up roadblocks to more important things like where the heck did I put my car keys or the name of the person in front of me who only a minute ago told me his name was (fill in the blank).
Sometimes, when sitting quietly, Someone will ask me “what are you thinking?” The reply is ‘Oh, nothing really” which is a taradiddle. What I am actually thinking is along the line of:
“Do you remember your Uncle David played the saxophone but two keys were broken? Did you call that patient back? And don’t forget Alexander II was killed by a bomb in 1881! Work sucks by the way”.
As I slowly slip into slumber my cerebrum states:
“I see you are only a minute away from falling asleep. Let me take this opportunity to flood you with the most wonderful blog entry ideas ever. Alas, none of them you will remember by tomorrow.”
The symphony/theatre/opera gets the hypnosis/terrorist combination :
“You are getting sleepy, very sleepy, oh so relaxed…now…let me WAKE UP WITH A NECK SNAP!”
Having intimate moments is another time when the Spo-brain likes to state sweet imbecilities that tumble so lavishly onto my lap:
“I see you are trying to have a moment. What a good time to remind you of patient matters and personal memories both embarrassing and intrusive.”
Drastic measures must be taken. I need to take up meditation or Ritalin. Perhaps a lobotomy would be useful. I I wait a few years dementia may ensue and I won’t give a darn anymore. Dousing my rebarbative white matter with scotch or bourbon may be in order. The latter won’t stop the chatter but it least it might make things less irksome.
*The mesolimbic system most likely.
Spo-Reflections 