Not much to say

I want to keep up my dedication to write more often but I find I just don't have much to say ... much of the time. I'll try to improve on that. For now, I have one more day to work at the bookstore and I'm pretty happy about that. I don't think I wrote here that I figured out why I took this job: It was to see if I actually wanted a job. My across-the-road neighbor is my age (maybe 1 yr. older) and retired about 6-9 mos. before I did. She lasted about a year before she took a part-time job at the college in food service. She works half-days, I think, and gets her summers off. But she's very local with her entire family practically within shouting distance so she doesn't travel as much as I do.

I'm finding that even volunteer work means a commitment that, while more easily adjusted than a paid job, is something that you have to try to keep up. My reading for the vision-impaired, for instance, is something that I'm supposed to do every week. I miss about 1 out of 6 weeks and always feel guilty about that. I just realized that I might be gone for 4 successive Tuesdays when I go to FL for grandbaby2's arrival and I'm wondering if I should have a laptop to put my sound-editing program onto so I could sort of keep caught up with the reading. I won't spend $500 (or more) to do that but it has crossed my mind. So keep this in mind, all you young readers: retirement, like old age, ain't for sissies!

The weather is weird: LOTS of wind yesterday and last night, the yard littered with broken branches ... again. Yesterday it got into the 50s, I think, and there are flood worries because of rain and ice jams just north of us; tomorrow it'll be snowing and then pretty cold again. Bruce thinks yesterday was our "January thaw." Oh, I hope not. At least we're not Utah ... or Seattle ... or southern Wisconsin ... or ... ... ...

Christmas 2008

Happy Christmas to you!

As you can see, Bruce & I had a very nice--and rewarding!--Christmas. He gave me a very beautiful pendant: a blue topaz heart-shaped stone that's a "flower" with silver (or white gold) stem and leaf. It was designed and built by the local jeweler who designed my engagement ring. Really beautiful, delicate and feminine. I love it. I gave Bruce a shiatsu massage chair pad and he loves it. I'm glad.

Below is my attempt at a Martha Stewart table design. It's not too fancy this year; I just decided to use the bows from gifts to dress the table. It was fun to try, anyway.


And here is yours truly with Bruce, our Christmas portrait. I'm wearing my lovely Coldwater Creek winter sweater. It's too subtle to show up here but there are three white Christmas trees on the sweater, pearled and lightly sequined. Very nice and I feel lovely in it.


The ice cube snowman lights up blue and the light fades in and out. A little weird but I love it, and obviously so does Bruce because he got the batteries into it well before I got to it!

Ho Ho Ho!

About that job

Darling Bruce snowblowed (snowblew just does not sound right so live with my approximate grammar) the driveway yesterday even though he should not even have been outside. But he honestly doesn't mind doing that (most of the time).

And then it snowed more last night. But really only a little. And I put together a crockpot meal last night so I didn't have to do that this a.m. And even more darling Bruce drove me in and I got to the bookstore at 9:00. That's where I discovered I was on the schedule now to work 11:00 - 7:00. HUGE sigh (and muttered curses, you can bet). I actually caught Bruce before he got home--no he doesn't have a cell but I knew he was going to the gas station--and he came and took me back home. Then lo and behold, my car started! (I'll get a new battery in the next week or so just to be sure of it.) So I drove to work. As I was leaving the training supervisor told me that if I'd come to her at 9:00 she would have had me stay and work till 5 or 6.

All that was just lead-in to this: Is it because "retail" hires so many students that managers can be that capricious with their schedules? Or is it that college students have taught managers that they don't need to know schedules more than a week in advance? Or is it that because there are so few full-time workers that capricious schedules are the rule (whether or not the part-timers are students)? There's a fundamental difference between the way retail in a mall situation is run as compared to the way upscale department stores are run. Or maybe they only used to be different. I don't think so, judging by my experience in some upper-end stores in Tampa: the floor salespersons were very well dressed and made up, knew the stock in their departments and provided VERY good service. Malls maybe began our decline to the McDonalds type of service in retail, and then WalMarts took that even further. I know I sound old and crotchety about this, but there really was a service standard that meant the customer was right, or at least knew something.

So a customer complained to me at the cash register that the service in the bookstore was "terrible." There were always lines, he said. (There aren't; it's the week before Christmas, for heaven's sake.) So I said, "We try to give every customer as much time as needed at the register, sir, and that's why the line sometimes moves slowly." I had done all he wanted, after all. He missed my point. But it was nice to hear from a customer about 3 people later that she was impressed by how quickly we kept the line moving. Yin and yang, I guess.

"Later That Afternoon ..."

Here's the second video I did.



You can see the snow a bit better, I think. I have no idea how many inches we have now--looks like 3-4. Bruce is apparently feeling better and is out with the snowblower, which he pooh-poohed a couple of years ago. The birds are fun to watch on a day like today: They're puffed up as fluffy as they can get so they look like feather balls with wings! Even the tiny chickadees look big.

I called the bookstore and told them I wouldn't be there at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. I told 'em my battery was dead and my husband was too sick to shovel. One truism & one slight exaggeration. I'll get there when I can. And they're okay with that. There won't be any shoppers until about 9:30 or 10:00 anyway. Duh.

So we're getting the snowstorm that you all got (with the exception of the Florida contingent but at this time of year it's just better for my peace of mind to pretend they're getting this too). It started at about 8:30 this morning and will probably snow all day. As you can see in the little video, this is on top of the 10 inches we got two days ago.



(I think the snow coming down is actually more visible a bit more distant from the house. And I didn't mean to cut off like that; I thought my camera battery ran out.)

White Christmas? To quote Sarah Palin, "You betcha!" I'm not so happy about that because white could mean just enough snow to cover the grass; it doesn't have to be two feet deep! And Bruce has a whopper of a cold. I'm probably going to learn how to use the snowblower!

However, my Beetle's battery is dead right now. So I'll make a call to AAA because the car is in the garage nose-first, of course, and I don't want either Bruce or me pushing it out. Those AAA guys have a portable charger they can take into the garage, I'm pretty sure. I just can't decide if I'll call today or tomorrow. I think I'll let it go till tomorrow because I should drive it around a bit after it's charged and I absolutely do NOT want to do that today; the weather is just like it was when I was a pinata. I do learn from experience. :-)

The bad news is that I'm scheduled to work at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. I may not be there at 8:00. I can take the Ranger; Bruce doesn't mind that. It's getting out of the driveway that might be problematic. When the plows go by we get an impenetrably packed foot or more of snow from them. It's like shovelling concrete. We'll see how it goes, and I'll certainly tell you, dear reader, all about it.

For now, have a relaxing Sunday.

Picture Postcard World

I live in a world of picture postcard pines. Driving home from the bookstore today I passed countless evergreens (I was driving; I couldn't count them!) that are snow-laden just like those always pictured when showing ski resorts or the Adirondacks. The roads were slushy and brown but the pines were beautiful. I do love this area. Looking out my window right now I see about 4" of snow on the cedar rail fence around my garden. It's so pretty. (It covers all the leaves I didn't rake off my garden. But my plants seem to do fine with a bit of insulation through the cold cold months. How's that for rationalizing?) I think I really am gearing myself up to walking outside again; I miss walking around the block here and keeping an eye on snow-covered trees, the now-frozen now-not river and its winter changes.

The bookstore was busy all day today, and I'm probably in a pretty good frame of mind because I only worked 8:00 - 3:00 today. Next week will be a long one again: 8:00 - 5:00 on Monday, Tuesday and ... dah da dah dah (think mournful, threatening music) Friday. I'll just paste a smile on that day and try to deal with all the people who want to return things without receipts. Maybe I'll try to find an attractive flak jacket between now and then! But that schedule means I'll be able to make my cinnamon rolls--yes, just like my mom made every Saturday--for friends. I won't eat too many of them because I'm still working at staying low-carb. My cookie and candy intake has been remarkably low this year. I'm not sure how long that will last but I'm trying!

Light is fading outside; it's getting close to that shortest day. The air seems blue.

Have a good evening.

Am I Just Too Old?

This job at Borders is far more wearing than I had thought. It hadn't occurred to me that I would suffer so much from being on my feet so long. I'd made an appointment with a podiatrist back in August; their first opening was Dec. 3. When I went I was told I had bunions, no big news, but I'm finding that those bunions that almost never hurt me are being really badly affected by this job. My feet and legs ache all the days I work and it takes about one day (I've had F Sa Su off all this time) out of three before they're really pain free. As you might guess, I'm looking forward to having this job end: Dec. 30 is my last day. That means only T - Th this week, probably M - W next week, and M - W the week after.

I'll start walking outside again in January. It might not be every day for awhile but it's going to be several times a week. Last year I didn't go when it was about 10 degrees or colder, but we'll see about that this year. I may up my wimp quotient and not go when it's 15 or less.

Right now the wind, as Bruce would say, is "blowing a gale." It sounds strong and feels soooo good to be in our nice tight house. And I'm off to soak in a hot tub (no, it's not a hot-tub!). Mmmmmmm.

First "gift" under the tree

We put up the tree this afternoon/evening, just getting it up and the star on top and then broke for dinner. I made a stir-fry so the break was about 90 minutes, but dinner was good. As I was walking through the living room after dinner I noticed something on the tree skirt. It was too big to be kitty throw-up/fur ball and too far under the tree to be doggy doo. And when I asked Bruce whether he had put it there he said no. So here's the first "gift" put under the tree by HollytheDog:





It's her bone! Yes, it's blue, but it's a big rubbery thing that we were advised to get for Holly because she's a hard chewer. (NylaBones can chip and if you've ever stepped barefoot on a well-loved NylaBone you know just how sharp those chips can be. I guess they're dangerous to a dog's insides so she doesn't get them anymore.) I don't know if she didn't want the cat to get it, or was being considerate about us tripping over it (she's never been considerate that way before...) or whether she was pretending to be outside because her walkies got cut short today when she stepped on something or twisted an ankle, anyway she got hurt. So I just had to put the photo up here. That dog is way to much like a human sometimes.

BTW, just a thought that occurred in my usual free-association way, here's a quote attributed to Groucho Marx: Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Hallelujah

I forgot to say anything on Sunday about our concert on Saturday night. The Champlain Valley Voices, F.K.A. the Champlain Valley Oratorio Society, presented portions of Handel's Messiah oratorio. We did the whole first section, virtually nothing from the 2d section, and much of the last section. We had a 20-piece orchestra and 90 voices plus 4 soloists. The soprano had a glorious voice, pure, clear and effortless. She's a local girl, the 23-yr-old daughter of a pediatrician and she's studying currently at Mcgill University in Montreal. Just an angel of a voice. The alto soloist was the former director of CVV (when it was CVOS), the tenor was a college student currently in NYC, and the bass sang the part his dad had sung 20 years ago with CVOS. I'm pretty sure that performance was the one I sang in; I very vaguely remember it but it would've been the first time I ever heard the whole Messiah.

The chorus sounded pretty good from where I was and I actually bought the CD so I could hear what 90 voices sounded like in the college's auditorium with the worst acoustics. Here's the PSU Web site's image of E. Glenn Giltz Auditorium:



It's pretty but you have to work to get the sound out to the audience. We were onstage--all of us--so it was a bit crowded. And the orchestra was, of course, in front of the chorus, so we really had to work! But I think it went well.

And the Messiah was certainly a good way to get me into the holiday spirit, anyway, so tomorrow I'll get out the house decorations and probably do the tree on the weekend. Let the holidays begin!

A very interesting video

My friend Wayne, another librarian, sent me this link for "Old Fat Naked Women for Peace." (He's further left than I am, even.) It's pretty neat. I think I'd have to have a very personal reason for such a protest--a child serving in Iraq or the like--or I couldn't do it. But a lot of women can, obviously!

So here's the link.

Still here, part deux

So after I finished talking with the trooper, who almost fell again getting INto his patrol car, I got back on the road and drove about a block from the intersection of death to the next intersection of death. (This is literal; there have been fatal accidents at both intersections in the last 10 yrs. Both times they were caused by drivers on the Rand Hill Road running their stop signs and either broadsiding or being broadsided by someone doing 55 mph on NYS 374 or even just 40 mph on NYS Rte. 3 [the latter would have been me]). ANYway, I sat at the stop sign at 374 while a long string of cars made its way slowly up that highway, led by a person driving a red Jeep convertible. She turned left in front of me and started to go past me, only HER wheels had nothing to grip and she continued to pirouette until she hit me in the LEFT rear fender. She was truly crawling and although the crunch sounded disastrous, again my miraculous blue baby didn't get even a scratch in the paint!

However, two bangs like that are two too many for little me. I felt like a pinata! I drove home evereverever so carefully, very grateful for Bruce behind me, and STAYED HOME the rest of the day.

This doesn't compare in danger to the accidents that have befallen my sister in the last couple of weeks: a blown rear tire--while she was talking to me on her cell phone (I've said that it's my familial duty to be the one to hear her death, and I'm truly not joking about that, just really really hoping it doesn't happen)--and an exploding rear passenger window while driving on I94 in Wisconsin. At least we weren't talking when that happened; I would have been the casualty!

I know she won't read this but there was a conversation yesterday on NPR, her favorite radio station, between an NPR reporter and an expert on the neurology involved in "multi-tasking." Turns out we really cannot multi-task. What we do in reality is pay attention to one thing at a time, switching among all the demands on our attention and managing them all worse than when we concentrate on only one thing such as, um, driving. Our brains simply can't do more than one thing at one time. And the PhD who was making this statement specifically addressed driving and cell phone use, saying that our attention is naturally more on the conversation than on the driving. Just as an aside, a trooper told Bruce and me that they're familiar with "cell phone lane-drift." Apparently it looks a lot like inebriated driving but it's really people paying more attention to the phone than to the road.

I've always found it too distracting to talk on the phone and drive. It's one thing to have the person there and carry on a conversation; they see that you have to ignore them to pay attention to traffic. I'm glad to learn that I'm not really working with an under-developed brain!

Okay, okay, I'm off my soap box. I'm going to veg in front of the TV: Chuck, Heroes and CSI:Miami are a 3-hr. no-brain-required evening for me. Yay.

I'm still here!

This will be very brief and I'll try to expand a bit tomorrow. I'm really, really tired because my adrenaline was so high for a period today and then it dropped and I made about 8 dozen Spritz cookies and wrapped presents, on either side of making lamb chops for dinner (for the first time in my life) ... and they were very tasty!

Why was my adrenaline up? you might ask. Because I was in a minor accident that almost was a T-boner--either I would have broadsided someone or he would have done it to me. As it was I managed to pull my car to the left and scraped across his front bumper. Then I slid across the opposite lane and headed directly for a sturdy wooden fence in someone's front yard but I went onto the grass where my wheels finally got some purchase and I didn't even get a scratch -- on me OR the car. But the other guy never even came to see if I was okay; he just took off. I did call 911 (after a call to Bruce) and reported it all to a very nice trooper, who nearly fell on his fanny getting out of his car. Slippery doesn't begin to describe it.

More tomorrow. I'm going to bed.

Our Feast

Here's what we did for Thanksgiving: I cooked and we ate. But I've been very good lately (lost 6.5 lbs. so far) and didn't blow it on too much food. But I ate carbs for the first time in awhile.

What you see here is my traditional Thanksgiving menu: roast turkey with stuffing (still in it), mashed potatoes, gravy, asparagus, and cranberry relish. No rolls (as if they were necessary!) and only a few crudites.



And here is what we look like this year: older! Bruce NEVER smiles in photos. I smile like the Village Idiot (minus drool ... usually). And next time remind me to try to coordinate what we're wearing; print with plaid is a bit hard on the eyes!