A Bunch of Nothing

Today was one of those days where I feel like I did nothing, but actually did a fair amount.  I got a sort of full night of sleep, falling asleep at 10:30 and gettng up at 6.  I did have about an hour and a half in the middle of the night, but essentially had a good night of sleep.  (I have to laugh.  Gilbert suffered from insomnia and it seemed that every time I saw him, he gave me a report on his sleeping of the night before.  I've turned into Gilbert.)

I was thinking that we had some overly ripe bananas and that I should make banana bread, so at 6 a.m., I got up to make some.  As I was mixing it, I kept hearing this tinkling sound and wondered if something was leaking, then realized Walt had set the coffee pot to start at 6 a.m., so as soon as I got the bread finished, I was able to get a fresh cup of coffee.

I got back into the recliner, thinking about the about-to-be-finished banana bread and then realized, with horror, that I had forgotten to add the 3 eggs.  Gleep!  The end result wasn't as it should be -- a lot more crumbling, for example.  You couldn't cut a slice that held together, but it was tasty.  I have two more ripe bananas so maybe I'll make another bread tomorrow.  With eggs this time.

Ironically, on Kelly and Ryan this morning they were doing part 1 of a banana bread bake-off, where Ryan's girlfriend was making her gluten free, sugar free banana bread.  The recipe which included almond butter, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and unsweetened chocolate chips (no flour) did not appeal to me at all.  I'll stick with my Bisquick bad-for-you ingredients bread (only WITH eggs!)

I decided to read for awhile.  I'm reading Dan Brown's new book, "Origin" which is driving me nuts...or did for the first 10 or so chapters.  He spends so much time setting things up before they start to get gripping.  I read about 30% of the book before I realized I was finally hooked.

I would have continued to read but I realized I had not yet written my "Diary of Anne Frank" review so switched to the computer and worked on that.  I found a fascinating article about how the diary came to be published and the editing done by her father.  Turns out there are at least three different versions of the diary.  I never knew that.

When the review was written, I decided to write to my Compassion kids -- 28 of them.  Some of them had written to me and so their letters started with answers to their letters, some had not written so I just wrote generic letters to them (all of the letters having a bunch of photos from Santa Barbara) and two kids are too little for a generic letters, so I mainly wrote a couple of sentences and then sent the photos.  That all takes time, but I'm glad that it's done.  Of course when the mail arrived there were four new letters from kids I had just written to, but I can't answer them until it's been 24 hours since the last letter.

I remembered I had not yet filled out a Swap Bot questionnaire on musical theater.  It involved checking a lot of YouTube videos.  I found a video, for example, of Zero Mostel singing "If I Were a Rich Man" and I had to include this video of "The Kite" from You're Good Man, Charlie Brown.  It's not the greatest version, but I love it because it's Paul doing Charlie Brown.  This was a 3-night run and the first two nights he screwed up this song and left the theater furious with himself.  But he nailed it this night and at the point where he screwed up before and he realized he got it this time, you can see a slight smile coming across his face.

I was going to go back to reading again, but Walt decided we should go to Kaiser and get our flu shots, which we did.  I expected to find a long line, but there were very few people.  The lab was also empty and I was supposed to get a follow up blood test this week, so I decided to do it today, and now that's done.

I came home and worked for an hour or so on the "Unusual Journal" that I'm putting together.  When I got my flu shot, I asked if I could have a sticker that they give to kids after their shots.  I lied and said it was for my granddaughter, but I had this page design in mind.  Artistic I'm not, but this one turned out OK. 

I knew I wanted to use "the Scream" and a hypodermic needle but I didn't realize how many variations of the Munch painting there were.  I nearly used one using Beaker from the Muppets, or Garfield or one of a host of other variations, but I was kind of drawn to Lisa Simpson's scream. (There is also a Homer Simpson scream).

By the time I had finished that page and another page with an "October" theme, Polly was telling me it was time for me to get her dinner ready.  And then there was Chris Hayes on MSNBC, then Rachel Maddow, then Jeopardy and the evening TV line-up.  At some point I made Chicken Schnitzel with Buttermilk Ricotta (a Home Chef menu).  I will be going to sleep again after my Haagen Daz mini ice cream bar.

So I guess I have a few things to show for my "nothing" day, but it still feels like I didn't really do anything.