Little bits…

How strange to watch an earthquake in my birth state as I sit safe and unshaken in Massachusetts.  I have been through bigger, but this was probably a good wake-up call for complacent Californians.  The good news is that the building upgrades seem to have worked!

The Boy accepted a job offer yesterday…he will be a baker for Red Hen Baking up in the middle of Vermont.  This job is so much better suited to his lifestyle and his love of making good bread…so much better for him than the one week he spent at the hoity-toity 5 star Maine inn earlier this summer.

Family reunion approaches…a week on the coast of Maine with 20 or so of my nearest and dearest…give me strength!  Everyone has promised to be on his/her best behavior (yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it) and there will be LOTS of good food and laughing.

Shared an amazing video of The Girl with friends and family…I love sharing my kids.

I love summer but I hate summer clothes.  I actually love summer clothes, but I hate that I am too fat to wear them comfortably.  Plus, I have been being bitten by some little thing (ticks are the prime suspect, as ticks are a HUGE problem in New England this year).  Couple that with having fingernails (I bit mine until about 5 years ago and have discovered the joy of scratching anything that itches), my arms are (or should be) festooned with little circle bandaids.  Sigh…

Did I mention that I’m fat?  Yes, it is all relative.  My extra 20 pounds (my doctor says if I lose 5, I’m back to the mid range of good BMI, but she’s nuts) just pad my face, arms and thighs a bit, but it wreaks havoc on my midsection.  I have always tried to fool myself by not eating breakfast (but snacking 3 times before lunch) and my daily salad (I don’t use lettuce, just peppers, carrots, celery, cauliflower, red cabbage, kidney and garbanzo beans and tuna or shredded cheese or feta) on which I use three or four times as much Light dressing as I should and now, in the summer, on which I slice a ripe avocado two or three days a week.  Portion control is a huge issue…I have no self-control…my really dirty little secret is the box of Mocha Nips I consume every work day.  They are 30 calories apiece and there must be 20 candies in the box (I’ll count them today).  WOW…I really did not intend for this to be a food rant.  Hmmm…think I’ve been feeling guilty lately?  Guilty and fat.

Cosmic light show…

WOW!  As I sat at my desk in the 2nd floor converted sunporch of my office building yesterday (a wall of windows on three sides), the sky went dark and lightning started to flash…suddenly I was treated to a big ol’ mid summer thunderstorm…up close and personal.  At the height of it, lightning struck somewhere very close and the thunder BOOMED right afterwards.  Didn’t lose power and the violent aspect of the storm moved on, leaving us with drenching rain.  Then last night, as I left my board meeting, the lightning started again.  Not a lot of thunder, but a steady, theatrical display of lightning…a cosmic light show.  It continued into the night and more of these intense little storms are forecast for today.  I think my gardens are finally going to get that good drenching they craved.

Auditions…

As we move toward the traditional community theater fall show audition period, I have to decide how I want to spend my evenings between now and November.  My group isn’t doing a show with a part for me (although I’m trying to talk the director into cross-casting a part), so I’m looking around…something I haven’t done in a while.  Because I’m President of my group and the longest-serving board member (actually group member) and I’m the one with all the documents on my computer, I always have work to do.  But this season, I’m not directing a show and I realized that I haven’t acted in a show for too long.  Plus, a nearby group, one I have worked with in the past, is casting Steel Magnolias.  That is a show that has been on our playreading list for years, but we have never pulled the trigger.  I think that may be the one that tempts me out to auditions!

Wilting…

I went downstairs to make my morning coffee and looked out on the deck.  I saw an ocean of wilting, dispirited looking plants.  The tomatoes and basil were the worst.  So, before I even had my first cup, I played Mother Nature and rained on all the deck plants.  Our poor veggies are so far behind this year…almost no rain and lots of what we here in New England call Triple H…hazy, hot and humid.  We ate snap peas for a week, but they have stopped producing.  The only things that are thriving are the potatoes, the squash and pumpkins and the volunteer sunflowers (under the bird feeders).  Oh, and the Boy’s bog garden is flourishing…my violets have leaves as big as dessert plates and the mint is abundant.

The ides of July…

I am having trouble coming to grips with the fact that we are already over half way through 2008. ACK!  Work is always slow in the summer, this summer being no exception.  Too many hours in the work day to try to fill.  I have gotten addicted to podcasts on my Zune.  I’m worried, though, that I will run through all the good stuff this summer and not have anything to get me through the winter.  Lots of interviews with Broadway stars and movers and shakers, old time radio mysteries and suspense and sci-fi and NPR.

I had my annual physical this week…blah blah blah.  My weight is stable…she says 5 pounds too many, I say at least 20.  I have lost an inch in height since my tallest measurement as a teen.  My blood pressure is still great, my cholesterol under control with meds, I’m taking all the right calcium, vitamin D, glucosamine chondroitin, fiber and stool softener supplements my aging systems need.  She gave me a tetanus/pertusis shot, for what reason I don’t know, but I’m very obedient…she said I was having one, I had one.  She reminded me I needed to have my annual mammogram and my bi-annual colonoscopy (I have scheduled both).  She sent me downstairs to the lab for my ritual blood draw (checking thyroid levels, among other things).  Which makes me think about health insurance and people who don’t have it.  I just blithely, without even thinking about it, spend lots of dollars for the co-pays alone and know that my health insurance company will pick up the rest.  I am so lucky.  I wish it didn’t come down to luck.

My gardens are a mess.  I have tried to keep up with the weeding, but I have really only been able to manage some of the flower beds…the veggie garden has been weeded around the individual plants, but you can barely see those plants over the tall weeds in non-urgent areas.  Not enough rain this summer, everything is behind.

Boy is home again…it only took him a week to realize he had made a big mistake in jumping headlong into his new job as head baker at the fancy-schmancy resort…this was NOT what he wanted to do with his life.  So, he is looking for a bakery in Vermont or elsewhere in New England (hopefully) that makes good bread and appreciates a hard worker who loves making bread.  The best news is that means his cat is still here!  We were freaking out about her moving out.  She is a sweet little thing.

Aziza

They are never too old…

All right, just so you know…I am always telling friends who are parents of young kids that I am so glad I am past that.  My life is now my own, I love my children from afar, blah blah blah.  I paid for that remark last night.  A has spent the last few days at his girlfriend’s side as she went from ER to hospital admission for a particularly virulent illness that caused her to vomit and writhe in pain.  After 2 days of x-rays, cat scan, barium, dye, every bloodtest you can imagine and oh so much more, they still don’t know what is causing her illness…toxic shock syndrome, stomach or colon infection…?  She is finally getting better, her mom has arrived and A starts a new job on Monday, so he left the hospital in Vermont, calling me first to say that he would be home in 3 hours.  We watched a few innings of the Sox game, moved upstairs to watch in bed and listened with half an ear for the sound of the garage door opener.  3 hours passed, 4…I’m starting to think about calling him to see how close he is to home.  5 hours, 6 hours…I’m going to call his cell.  Got his VM.  Now I’m watching Law and Order reruns, my brain running in overdrive, thinking about the bridges he would have driven across and the thunderstorms…I called every hour and got VM.  I wept those painful tears that just squeeze out the eyes and drip down the cheeks at around 3 this morning.  Finally I fell asleep.  At 5am, I woke up and decided to check his room.  I opened the door and saw those unmistakable size 12 bare feet sticking out of his comforter and life was good again.  He apparently got home around 9:30 last night, was exhausted after 3 nights of not much sleep and collapsed in bed.  I didn’t hear the garage door opener, I never actually checked his bed, thinking that I would have heard him or seen a light or SOMETHING…for whatever reason, I had a bad night and a great morning.  So, lest you think that it all ends once they turn 25 and have their own lives, it never ends.  They are never too old to mean no sleepless nights.