Busy Day

We were all going out today.  Ned and Walt were going down to the barber shop to get Walt a much needed haircut 

I was going to Atria, since the flu quarantine is now lifted and then off to the store to figure out what to have for dinner.

But first I ended up watching the memorial service for Natalie Corona, the 22 year old police officer killed in the line of duty last week.  The university memorial auditorium was packed with more than 6,000 people

Everything was very moving and a nice send off for this woman who had such a promising future ahead of her.

When the service was over, they were going to be processing down Anderson Rd. on their way to her home town, where she would be laid to rest.  Anderson Rd. is the street I have to drive down to get to Atria, so I left quickly, hoping to beat the motorcade, which I did.  But it was moving to see how many people lined both sides of the street as far as the eye could see. 

I found my mother sitting in the dining room, finishing lunch...but she was still wearing her bathrobe and no shoes.  That surprised me because I thought the aides were good about getting everyone dressed before they went to meals.

After we moved into the common room, she told me that she had no clothes and that she had not been able to wear clothes for several days.  Well, we walked down to her apartment, and of course her closet was full, so I helped her get dressed.

This was one of her less "with it" days and she could not understand what I meant when I told her to take off her bathrobe first.  Then she told me that they change her bed every day and she never knows what her bed is going to look like.  At that point I reminded her that the bed was the one she slept in with Fred and asked if she remembered Fred.  She laughed and said "of course!" but in an instant she said she thought she had been married and I mentioned Fred again, she couldn't remember who he was.

It was, as it usually is, a depressing visit but I left and headed off to Supercuts, where, after NINE months, I finally got my hair cut.

Then I hit the supermarket where I first saw what would be our dinner tonight.

I got home and found Walt and Ned.  Walt had indeed gotten a haircut and looked better than he has in a very long time.

For dinner we had squash soup and the crab.  Ned has decided he is going to try to like fish which he has hated all of his life.  And, to give him credit he did eat a little crab, liberally topped with Sriracha sauce and pronounced it "not horrible."

We're still working on the ideal sleeping arrangement for Walt but Ned did a lot of arranging and rearranging today and maybe tonight will be better for him.

The Ides of May

This has been a weird day, with little glitches throughout.

The only thing on the schedule was going to the dentist at 1 p.m., but when they called to ask if I could come at 2 instead of 1, suddenly I had time to Do Things.

Yesterday was the day when I found my mother sleeping at 1 p.m. and just left her laundry for her.  I really should go and make sure she actually is alive.  By the time I got to Atria (slipping in the back door), she was not in her room, but it was lunch time, so I just slipped out again.

There was lots of time before the dentist, so I stopped at Supercuts and got my hair cut, something it has been sorely needed for weeks now.  As she was shampooing my hair, my cell phone rang and started a long back-and-forth between me and my friend Ellen.  I didn't get her call, but checked later.  She wanted to know when a particular photo I had taken of her and her wife Shelly was taken.  I told her I didn't recognize it and didn't think I took it  I wont bore you with all the details, but the discussion is still going on and she still insists I must have taken it.

I was happy with the cut...I probably lost a pound, she cut so much off.  The last time I had it cut was right before we left for our Mediterranean cruise, so it was way overdue for a cut.

When I finished there I still had an hour and 15 minutes before my dental appointment so I drove out to Michael's craft store to pick up a few things I wanted.  Miraculously, I got out of there in 20 minutes and under $50.  I didn't have any lunch because I didn't want to "dirty" my teeth before my appointment.

I drove back to Cindy's and still had 20 minutes to wait, but I had brought a book, so I was fine with that--I'm always happy when I can sit somewhere where I don't have to do anything and can do some guilt-free reading.  I'm reading a free sample of Bob Hope's biography.  I saw the author on Theater Talk this week and it sounded fascinating, but the kindle version was not cheap, so I wanted to see if I really thought I'd read the whole thing (it's also quite thick).  While I am enjoying it, I probably won't buy it.  I think I will lose interest eventually.

Funny thing about Bob Hope (who, the author says sadly, stayed in the limelight too long).  Recently there was all this brouhaha about the Oscars -- I can't remember what anniversary it was, but one of the big ones. 50?  Lots and lots of talk about MCs over the years and was Carson better than Billy Crystal, and remember that really awful year, etc., etc.  In all the talk I don't remember hearing ONE person mention Bob Hope, who hosted the damn thing for nineteen years!  In fact, I remember wondering if Carson could live up to Hope's reputation.  It was kind of like ... can you have New Year's Eve without Guy Lombardo?  Can you have an Oscar telecast without Bob Hope?  And now nobody remembers him at all.

But I digress

The teeth cleaning appeared to go well.  I really like Kristina, my dental hygienist.  We always get caught up on each other's lives when she's cleaning my teeth.  Cindy has posters on the ceiling, which rotate throughout the year.  This time it was this elephant poster, which I really liked (can't believe I found it on Google images!)

The more I stared at it, the more I realized that the contour of the elephant's back matched the contour of the tree and pointed that out to Kristina, though I said I knew she probably didn't look at the picture much.

After Kristina had finished her cleaning, Cindy came in to break the news that I have a couple of small cavities and must come back in July to have them filled.  (She said that as a dental hygienist, Kristina is not permitted to tell me that, though she was the one who told Cindy that I had cavities).

From there I went back to Atria, where I found my mother sitting by the dining room and sat with her.  I wanted to get coffee, but you can't GET coffee in the damn place any more.  Forget about a cookie or something like that. I discovered that you also can't visit with my mother in the alcove there, especially on bad memory days, which today was.  When we are in her apartment, she spends an inordinate amount of time talking about the beautiful flowers in her apartment and the leaves on the trees outside the window.  With those two topics not possible, we had nothing to talk about at all.  I only stayed 15 minutes and then left.  The good thing is that she has no concept of time, so she had no idea that I stayed such a short time.

If she would ever...just once...not ask me who the cute little girls are on the back of my phone, I would be so happy, but it's like another knife in my heart every time to know that she has no awareness that she has great grandchildren, or that she has ever seen them.

At home, we had a refrigerator that was filling up with leftovers, so I just heated a shrimp, rice and kale dish for Walt and leftover mac and cheese for me.  We don't have a usable table for two right now, so he ate at the table and had brought down a TV table for me.  My bowl of mac and cheese was so hot, I bobbled it and turned the whole thing upside down on the floor.  To show how bad Kraft dinner is, not even the dogs wanted to eat it.  And I had a right regular good ol' tantrum, briefly.  I heated more mac and cheese and ate that.

Shortly after that, Walt was setting the coffee pot up to start at 6:30 in the morning and bobbled the cup that the coffee grounds go into and dumped them all into Polly's bowl.  He had his own mini tantrum.

Then I watched some TV and at some point went to check something OnDemand and the screen froze.  I could not get it to do anything, not even to turn off.  Normally, I would go into my office and watch the little TV, but the little TV is in the living room, and not plugged in.  

So I came into the computer and worked on a project I've been working on since last night.  I finally got it to where I wanted to print it in Word Perfect, which tells me that the .jpg I was trying to use was not the right format.  I decided to print it from PhotoShop and it printed fine, but I forgot to indicate that I needed it in portrait orientation, not landscape.  When I went to run it a second time, the printer was out of paper and I realized I don't have a clue where my printer paper is.

That's when I decided this was not my day and the best thing I could do was finish this entry, post it (I hope) and hope that by the morning the TV would have fixed itself.

Clip Joint

I have been putting off getting a haircut for far too many weeks.   I get it cut at SuperCuts and somehow I just didn't take the time to stop by there and have it cut.  But when it starts growing 2" longer than my hairline, it's definitely time.

I went to my mother's for lunch first.  I hadn't been there since last Friday and I had actually done a lot since I saw her.  She always asks, many times, "so what's new with you" but today she didn't need to do that because I was bombarding her with so much information.

We had a nice lunch and my friend Peggy stopped by after she finished her lunch (her table was full) and we chatted with her.  She finally told my mother that she is moving in March.  I could see Momma was unhappy to hear that.  I think she and Peggy have become good friends and Peggy is so good about looking out for people.  I will be sorry not to see her at mealtime all the time too.   But we still have 2-3 months before we have to go into mourning.

My mother is needing a laundry done and I was going to do it with her today, at Atria, but I really didn't feel like sitting in the laundry room, so I told her I would come tomorrow and bring her clothes home with me to wash BUT before I took them, we were going to photograph them so that if she didn't recognize them when I brought them back, we would have the pictures to look at.  She seemed confused by why I thought this was necessary, but we'll see how it goes and if this is a solution to her not recognizing her clothes (I still haven't been able to sneak back the clothes she has given away befor).

I finally left around 1:30 and went off to SuperCuts.  My problem with SuperCuts lately has been that no matter how short I ask them to cut it they usually leave it, especially the top part, too long.  But I don't think I can make that statement today!

I'm happy with it, though with winter approaching (I hope!) this may not have been quite the right time to go so short!

(I'm lovin' that remote control for the iPhone camera.  I have also ordered an iPhone tripod which should be here any day now, I think)

I had a rather weird email today and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  It is from a site called Heart Writing and the message reads:

Our new website, www.HeartWriting.com is specifically for baby boomers, grandparents and seniors.  It lets folks write notes to their loved ones, which are delivered posthumously. The notes can offer advice, recall happy memories, or simply say “I love you”

I don't know.  It sounds kind of creepy.  I don't know how I would feel getting a message from the beyond, though I do admit that if you wanted to have the last word in a dispute, this is sure the way to do it!  But I heard back from the writer who gives me her pricing at $1.40 a month for a 5 year membership.   This means that if I plan to live to my mother's age, will spend a fortune to keep letters at the ready for my demise...and who knows how long this company will be around.   Sounds like a great deal for the very gullible.  Not for me (though sending Peggy a message that would arrive after my death does have some sort of gruesome appeal!)

Another Day, Another Trip to Kaiser

This one was going to be easy.  Walt and I were going to get flu shots first thing in the morning and then a quick re-check of my blood pressure and then we were outta there, Baby.

Only it wasn't easy.  Of course.

The shots went fine, but my friend Sherri took the BP and again the BP was fine, but the pulse today was higher than it had been yesterday--by 10 points.  Nobody knew what was going on.  So it required another visit with Terry, the nurse from yesterday, who had me sit and relax for 5 minutes before she took the BP.  In my right arm, the machine wouldn't register a pulse at all (I assured her I was alive) and in the left, this machine matched Sherri's.

So I'm now set to see the doctor herself tomorrow morning after she has all the results of my tests back.  I have now seen all the results and everything is "wnl" (as I used to type on medical forms -- "within normal limits").  The shocking number was the LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, which a year ago had been 186 (it should be less than 120) and today was 85.  My A1C, the glucose, which is supposed to be 7-8 was 13 a year ago and is 9 today, not quite within range, but oh so all but.  So there is nothing immediately visible, to me, at least that may be causing this pulse spike.  I'll see what the doctor has to say tomorrow.  MAYBE I can get by with only one appointment, and not have to run around to several different departments, but after the past two days, I'm not going to hold my breath.

I was meeting my friend Lisa for lunch at 11:45 and hoped to mail 2 packages at the post office and get my hair done before that.  Knowing that this is approaching post office hell season, I anticipated a huge line and wasn't sure I could get both errands run before lunch, but there was almost nobody in line and I got the packages mailed AND there was plenty of time to get a long-overdue haircut.

To my surprise the woman who cut my hair asked if I wanted some "body" put in it.  It has been a long time since a hair dresser has complimented me on my thick hair and I have been aware that it has lost a lot of body, so I said yes.  It seems to have a bit more oomph now, which will, of course, disappear as soon as I wash it.  But I wasn't going to spend $15 for a little bottle of oomph.

I made it to the restaurant with 5 minutes to spare, just enough time to finish the chapter I'm reading in Tess Gerritsen's new book, "The Last to Die."

The restaurant was Namaste, a Nepalese place with a nice luncheon buffet for about $10 per person.

There were two tables like this with a large assortment of choices.   Surprisingly good was the bin of "fried chicken skin," which I had to try and which was delicious (I love crispy skin anyway!).  We had a lovely lunch and an even better visit and I got caught up on juicy gossip, which I had not heard in a very long time.  Such fun.

When I said goodbye to Lisa and returned to my car, I discovered that though we were both parked legally within the lines, the car next to me was so close I didn't think there was anyway I could get into the front seat on that side.

It's times like this that I hate being fat.  But this was an area where it was likely that the owners of the car were at lunch and would return in a short time.  I got in on the passenger's side and listened to an audio book for awhile until I got tired of waiting, then I decided to see if maybe I could squeeze in.   Miraculously, it was a very tight squeeze, but I did manage to slip inside the car, though I was afraid for a moment that I might have to leave one of my Birkinstocks behind.

On the ride home, I stopped to take some photos of some of the glorious color that you can find on the streets right now, before the wind tears all the leaves off the trees.  I do love the fall colors, even though we don't get what you see back east.  It's still pretty, for one brief fleeting moment.

No More Helmet Head

I have been getting my hair cut at Supercuts for years. Maybe decades. I think I started when haircuts were $6. Now they're up to $13. The reason I have my hair cut there is that they are cheap and my semi curly hair has a mind of its own and pretty much does what it wants and looks the same all the time anyway. I'm not vain enough to do anything fancy with it, use "product" or anything. Just gimme the $13 special and I'm happy.

In all these years, I don't remember a bad haircut. I always give them the same instructions--to cut it about mid-ear length, to layer it and to leave the front long enough for bangs. I couldn't give a more complicated instruction to save my soul. I never learned about "hair" stuff.

The other thing about having my hair cut is that I'm blind as a bat when I take my glasses off, so I have to trust whoever it is who is cutting my hair. I can see my image in the mirror and I can see the cutting going on, but I can't tell what she is doing. I suppose I could tell if she shaved my head, but otherwise, I just have to trust that the combination of the hair cutter and my hair's insistence on doing what it wants all will be well.

Until last time.

It was a new person in Supercuts, but it seems that every time I go there it's a new person, so that was nothing unusual. I asked her how long she'd been there and she said two weeks.

We went through the usual instructions of mid-ear length, layer it, and leave the front long enough for bangs. I took off my glasses and she went to work. She asked a zillion questions--was this OK, did that look all right, did I want it like this. I said yes to everything, even though I couldn't see clearly enough to see what she was doing. I was, in fact, impressed with her because she was being so conscientious.

But after I'd paid and left and looked at myself closely, all I could think of was that I looked like I was wearing a German helmet, made out of wool. (I'm not sure why a "German" helmet came to mind, but it seemed to fit.)

Owell, I thought. When I wash it the curl will take over and it will look OK. Only it never did. Fortunately I'm not particularly vain about my hair or I would have gone around wearing a real hat (if I could find one that fit me--but that's another story).

After a week, I just wanted to have it fixed, but had to wait until it had grown out more. The more it grew, the worse it looked. What was worst of all was that it was straight. The curl seemed to be angry too and refuse to do anything but just grow straight and lie flat on my head. And long where it should have been short. It just got worse and worse. Walt started giggling when he looked at me.

This morning I went to the dentist and the hygenist looked at me and said "oh...you have a new hair do." I told her I was about to get rid of it today.

So after I had my good bill of health from the dental office, I went back to Supercuts. There was the same woman who had given me the Helmet Head. BUT, when my name was called, it was someone else who claimed me and I went off happily to her station. I confessed that my last cut had been THE worst haircut ever and told her, sotto voce, that it had been the other woman in the shop who had done it.

I also came prepared. When she asked what I wanted, I showed her a picture of a good hair day.

I took off my glasses and she set to work and I hoped that this time things would be better.

You never know for sure as you leave the shop, because hair is still wet, but when it dried, I was thrilled. "I" was back. My curl was back. Helmet Head was gone and I am a happy camper again.

Goodbye to (Some) Stuff

Well, I threw it away. Or, more technically, took it to the SPCA thrift store.

I had not even a twinge of regret about giving it up.

You see, this little tsatske was a thank you gift from a Brasilian guy named Sergio. Sergio had been one of our exchange students. He was one of the Uber Rich who stayed with us. When he returned to Brasil, he brought a motorcycle in his suitcase, because it was not legal to send it. His family owned a ranch in the middle of Rio de Janeiro. A friend of mine visited his family when she was in Rio and came back to report that they are "rich...rich...rich...rich."

I don't remember how long it was after he returned to Brasil that he married. We never heard from him, of course, but one day he and his wife of one year showed up at our door at 10 p.m. at night. I was delighted to see them and, since it was so late, I invited them to spend the night. I would have been less delighted if I realized he planned to use our house as home base, a place to have breakfast in the morning and dinner at night and then go off on their adventures during the day...for a week. One day I took them to San Francisco and we walked around Chinatown. We stopped in a store and he pulled this little cork statue out of a sale bin. He paid 25 cents for it and gave it to me to thank me for taking care of them and giving them two meals a day for a week. Then he went back to his rich, rich, rich family and I never heard from them again.

So in cleaning up stuff in preparation for the big painting project, there were no difficult decisions to be made about this piece of crap. It went in the discard bin. And today it is at the SPCA shop.

Yes, we are PAINTING. I use the term "we" advisedly. I have offered to help, feeling bad that Walt is doing all the work, but I can't get to the top of the walls without the ladder, and we only have one. I can't do the floor because I can't kneel down and Walt just figured it would be easier if he did it all, so he has been, poor man. He's so sore tonight he can barely walk...he forgets he's pushing 72.

But I'm happy with the color, which is a light shade of yellow called "sunkissed." I was afraid it might be too yellow, but it's more the color of buttermilk on the walls and I'm very happy with it. There is one wall left to do, and that is the wall that the dogs "use" to look out the living room window, so we aren't really happy about having to inconvenience the dogs for a couple of days. Let's hope it goes all right!

I finally had my hair cut today. I was looking like a mangy old lion. I always go to Supercuts. Can anybody tell me why NONE of the hair cutters at SuperCuts have even somewhat looking hair styles of their own? In the past, most of my experiences there have been good, despite a frequent language barrier. I was expecting great things today since the girl who cut my hair grew up in West Sacramento. I should have worried when she said she had only started working there a month ago, but I was comforted by the fact that she asked lots and lots of questions about what I wanted done with my hair. Finally someone who would get it perfect!

It is not good to have your hair cut when you have to remove your glasses and can't see a thing in the mirror.

My hair looks like a close fitting German helmet. Probably the worst cut I've ever had. And no, I'm not going to post a photo. I just hope that when I wash it it will loosen up a bit....and I'm philosophical enough to realize that it will grow out again. I am also very lucky that my hair does what it wants to do, no matter what someone has told it to do, and I'm sure that by the time I've slept on it, it will look OK.

Girly Stuff

I finally got my hair cut today (though it doesn't really show in this picture...it really IS shorter).

I always go through angst when I have my hair cut. I hate the question: "how do you want it cut?" I don't know from hair. I just tell them how long I want it and that I want bangs. It's a crapshoot. Sometimes it turns out the way I want it, sometimes it doesn't, but since it still has vestiges of a natural curl, it usually does what it wants anyway.

My mother set and styled my hair until I was about 18 years old. When I was supposed to be entering the convent, my biggest fear (and this should have been kind of a big clue that I was not cut out for convent life!) was not that I couldn't do the work, or that I might miss my family or that I didn't know if God had really selected me, my biggest fear was that I would have to do my own hair for the first six months and I wasn't sure I knew how to do it. It was no big deal. As I recall at the time I set two pincurls on each side of my head and that was pretty much it. But fear of doing my own hair was one of the big things that kept me out of the convent.

I never really learned "girly stuff." My mother has never looked anything but completely put together. She goes to the hairdresser once a week, gives herself a manicure once a week, She has shoes for every occasion and a closet full of perfectly pressed clothes, with all sorts of coordinating pieces that match.

She buys most of her clothes at the Hospice of Marin thrift shop, so though her closets are full of clothes, it's not like she spends a fortune on them. She just has a great clothes sense and knows how to wear clothes and coordinate an outfit.

I have five pairs of black sweat pants (most with dog claw holes in them), one pair of non-sweat pants that I rarely wear because they need to be ironed and a pair of faux velvet pants, my good pants, which I've had, again, for about 10 years and which are going to fall apart any.day.now, but which I wear to most theatrical productions because I can't find another pair like them. I have three drawers of t-shirts and a handful of what might loosely be called "blouses," though most of the ones in my closet no longer fit.

I don't wear skirts because my legs look like this:

See how the skin darkens as you go lower on the leg? I asked a doctor about that and he explained the problem (which turns out to be "something that a lot of my older patients have" and another one of those old age things I have learned to live with). Pants cover it up, skirts don't, though thinking about "squat toilets" on the China trip makes me wonder if I should buy a skirt.

Until last week when I got my Wicked Witch of the East shoes, my "new" shoes were 10 years old Birkinstocks. My walking shoes were chewed up by some puppies a couple of years ago, but I keep wearing them because I hate shopping for shoes. My "good" shoes were purchased when I was still working for Women's Health (I quit there in 1996) and they are finally starting to look worn outside, though the lining inside has looked like it was home to a family of moths for years (creating embarrassment when I have to put them through the scanner at the airport).

But I don't know how to shop for clothes. I couldn't coordinate an outfit if I had to and I usually stand in a clothes shop, look around, and then leave because I'm too embarrassed to admit that I don't know what I'm looking for. I did manage to buy a couple of things for the Russia trip (including the aforementioned iron-needing pants), but when I got them home, they didn't look the way I thought they would. My mother has taken me shopping (before it started to be painful for her to walk) and I would buy the things that she gushes over, though I never wear them when I get home because they just aren't me...and she usually took me to shops that don't carry clothes big enough for me anyway.

I don't wear makeup, mostly because I'm blind without my glasses and so I can't see to put makeup on!

As for hair, I'm a total dork. And I never learned how to use a hair dryer. The best haircut I ever got was when the kids were all in school. Some high priced hairdresser had come to a local beauty shop to give a demonstration on how to cut naturally curly hair, but when his model failed to show, someone grabbed me as I walked past on the way to the supermarket and asked if I could be their model. Free haircut for me. Though the stylist kept up a running stream of conversation with the hairdressers about how he didn't understand how any woman would let herself be seen in person like I looked (as if I coudln't hear what he was saying), it was the best haircut I ever had. That's when I learned that there is such a thing as "cutting to the curl."

For many years I thought I was sounding so smart by asking to have my hair "cut to the curl," but nobody ever really knew how to do it. So I stopped asking for that and just tell them how short I want it and ask them to "layer it." I don't know what that is exactly, but if they do it right, my hair usually looks better. They always fix it so that the hair sweeps back behind my ear, despite the fact that I always brush my hair forward. I fix that with a shower. Sometimes they brush bangs for me, usually not. That, too, can be fixed by a shower.

Growing up I was a real girly girl. I always had to have dresses that "twirled," the frillier the better. But somehow along the line there was a fashion disconnect between me and the rest of the world.