Alright, I am slowly catching up. Go to my Flickr account to see the (annotated) highlights of my trip to Brooklyn last weekend (Sept. 4-7).

My mom sent me this in an email; she found it written on an old scrap of paper:

[Crossed out at the top is "This play is by Debbie," which makes me
think I was taking dictation for the early sentences.]

Debbie, Sarah, and Wendy present a play called "The Mother, The Father, The
Little Kitten, and The Roasted Horse."

The Little Kitten came home pulling a horse in a cart. She wants roasted
horse for dinner. They roast it and eat it, and then the Little Kitten
decides it was her pet horse. Then the Father remembers that when she was at
camp she learned how to make a horse alive again. "Let's see, if I can only
remember...Refrigerate 2 1/2 hours, put salt and pepper on it..."

(The horse is placed under the tall speaker that is serving as the refrigerator. But while the horse is refrigerating, the whole plot changes and the casts wander off to a different set. The horse is left under (in) the refrigerator, and the audience has to put it away.)

Drive home was uneventful, I did it without stopping, I only flipped the bird at another driver once. I miss my cutie niece and nephew. I keep on remembering my nephew, who is not yet two, counting from one to ten with me. "un? doo? fee? door? die? see? deben? ay? ayn? ehn." I already asked his parents to take a video, but I do not think this has happened.

I didn't blog yesterday. I worked and then I drove to NJ, and then I couldn't get a signal in the room I'm sleeping in. So there. I had wanted to say that there's a new sign on the Tappan Zee Bridge that says something like "Life is worth living!" to stop bridge jumpers, I guess, which was strange and sad to see, just posted up there right after the "Next exit 2 miles" sign and right before the "road work ahead" sign. But I couldn't post it. Now I'm in a better room for the wifi.

I did this "Tyapealyzer" on my blog, and here's the result:
ESFP - The Performers
[ESFP]
"The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions."

I really don't think I'm a "performer." But I do like pleasure and beauty (crazy, right?). I do like to plan ahead, but I hate making decisions, so that means the plans end up being a bit vague. And the work thing is probably correct. The thing is, I only write about certain parts of my life here. I don't usually write about politics, or anything too nerdy...

Anyway, I'm at my parents' house for a pre-Thanksgiving, parents' birthdays celebration. When I got there last night I was told that one of their two odd and tiny Abyssinians, Misty, had escaped and had been missing for two weeks, but that we were not to bring it up with my niece. They have four cats and they occasionally jump over the dogs as they're being let out for a pee, but they come back in an hour or two. Anyway, this morning around 11 we were in the kitchen and we saw the missing cat outside! She came right to the door, we let her in, and she ran to the food and started gobbling it up. She is VERY skinny. Like, Animal Cops skinny. Poor little kitty! Poor and kind of dumb. These cats have tiny brains. We have no idea where she was or what she spent the last two weeks doing, except she's clearly not a great hunter, though she must have found water.

The other event of note that happened today is our trip to Costco, at which I got a big bag of nuts, a big bag of clementines, a big box of cereal, and a big box of granola bars. I love a Costco. Also, the kids are ridiculously cute, but nothing new there. They're great.

I went to Brooklyn last weekend, and shot this video of my cutie-patootie niece, who is four and two-thirds years old.



I don't know how YouTube's compression system manages to make everything I upload look so incredibly terrible.

I haven't posted all week because my right arm is in burny pain pretty much all of the time -- from my neck to my fingers. RSI, probably, but who really knows? I am 99% sure my doctor will tell me to take ibuprofen and take it easy, and I'm already doing that, so I've been avoiding wasting my time and money. I've been trying to use my arm as little as possible, so no more typing for me at the moment.

I spent the weekend in Brooklyn with my sister and her family. On Saturday I went to the Louise Bourgeois show in the Guggenheim, which was incredible, then I walked down to meet up with my sister (S) and my niece (T) at this amusement park place at Woolman Rink. They were there as part of a birthday party (a friend of T's was turning 5) and had unlimited ride wristbands. T was in hog heaven. All of the rides were tailor-made for younger kids and she was loving it, the giant rotating swings being her favorite. But alas, eventually is was time to go home. She was so bereft that we had to carry her out. (And I don't mean "carry her out to our car" — I mean carry her several blocks to the subway station, and then once we got to our stop, carrying her several more blocks.) She cried and cried, inconsolable. "I don't want to go home!" she'd sob. "I want to stay here!" S bought her a hotdog and an apple juice, but it didn't stanch the tearflow. During my turn at carrying her, I tried to distract her by coming up with silly names for the stuffed lizard she (sort of) won at whack-a-mole. "How about Slithery? How about BlueToes? How about Fred? How about Bugeater McLongtongue?" She said no to each one, but at least she wasn't crying... It took being completely absorbed in a sticker-related activity book on the subway to make her stop. She was totally wiped out, of course; with all of the rides she went on, she's probably never spent that much adrenaline before in her life.

The next day, we were supposed to go to the Riis Beach in Queens, and after a cranky morning and an early afternoon nap for T, it was about time to go. But she did not want to go. She wanted to lie on the sofa and stare at the ceiling, instead. Every strategy we tried, failed. "But I came down here just to go have fun at the beach with you," I said. "Remember how much fun we had when we went to the beach a few weeks ago?" S said. "I want to stay here," T said. "You know, there's no TV if you stay home," S said. "And I'm going to go home too, if we're not going to the beach, since that's the only reason I'm still here," I said. "That's OK," she said. "If you don't go, I'm going to be very sad. Very sad, and very angry," said S. "That's OK, mommy," she said. We demanded she give a reason for her reluctance, and she finally said that she was scared of the waves, or something, and we assured her we'd hold on tightly to her hands. Nothing doing, she still wanted to stay here. Then, over her horizontal body, me and S and my brother-in-law talked about forcing her to go. We knew she would love it once she got there, but would it be worth it? Or she could stay home and be bored, but we would be respecting her wishes. Hmm... Finally, T said, wearily and with disdain, "Alright, alright! I'll go."
From then on it was smooth sailing. We got her suited up and slathered with sunscreen, we drove to the beach, we frolicked in the dead-jellyfish-laden waves, we built a sand castle. On the way to the car she started getting very sad; not crying, but melancholy. On the drive home, she said, with sorrow, "I don't want to go home."
S: Why not, honey?
T: I just don't want to go home. I didn't want to go to the beach because I didn't want to go home.
S: What is it about home you don't like? If you tell me, maybe I can do something about it.
T: Well, I guess because it's not the beach.
S: It is really sad to have to leave a place you really like. Everyone feels sad when a fun time is over. But it's worth it to go and do the fun things, even if you feel a little sad after. Otherwise you'd just stay home and be bored all the time.
T: I guess.
S: Is there anything we can do to make going home better for you?
T: I wish our home could be like the beach.
S: How could we do that?
T: Well... We could get a bunch of sand, and put it on the floor. And then we could put a pool in the middle.
S: That's true, though sand is kind of messy. Plus, cats really like to pee and poop in sand, so it could get gross.
T: We could just build a wall around the sand so the cats can't get in.
We drove on in silence for a while, then S said to me, "I think T got the same kinds of strong emotions that we had as kids." "Yes, I know," I said. And I felt sad.

CJ's family was in town this past Friday and Saturday. Note to self: Do not take the guys from San Diego out on a nature hike during peak mosquito season. They aren't used to the buzzing and the swarming and the biting and the general horror. We are numb to it, of course, but they don't really have annoying insects in southern California. The people there are soft and pampered, like babies. They did say that it was very pretty, though.
Being around CJ's parents means going out to eat a lot on their dime. It was enjoyable, I must admit. They are similar to my bro-in-law's parents in many ways, and since they are all Jewish, I now have the (probably-mistaken) impression that all Jewish families are helmed by people who are incredibly generous and declarative. (They can also give guilt trips at a professional level of skill.) It's like visiting a foreign country.
My parents, however, avoid making nauseating, cringe-making hints about CJ and I getting married and having babies. And if we have babies, how we should move closer to them so they can spend time with the babies. And how they'll buy us fancy Danish furniture and give us a house if we move there and have babies. They are kind of kidding, but in that way that's obvious they are not kidding at all. I tend to deflect the conversation by making snarky jokes, since they like and appreciate a good cutting remark. So they like me a lot, which is nice.
Not nice? My robin's nest is empty. Empty! It still had two eggs in it on Sunday, but this morning, empty. It shocked me and made me very sad. There are enough robins in the world, but this one was my robin. I looked up robin egg predators online; both squirrels and crows are happy to take an egg from a nest without leaving a trace behind. We have plenty of crows and squirrels here too, but none of them are my crow or squirrel. Thus I now hate all squirrels and crows. (The previous is an allegory about how the personal is political, or all politics is local, or something.)

Lady problems update: My doctor looked at the ultrasound film and spoke to one of the other doctors. They think it is definitely a dermoid (because it looks like there's stuff other than fluid in it - so fascinating and disgusting!) but they don't think it's related to endometriosis. So I might not have that at all, though they'll take a look once they're in there (if I don't chicken out and decide not to do the surgery, which has not yet been scheduled, still). I asked her why my belly felt bloated and she had to reason; there's no fluid in there. Am I just fatter, suddenly? Too much Easter candy? I never get like this, though, and I haven't changed my diet at all, really. (The cyst itself is only 3 inches across, so that can't be it.) She did say that exercising would not have brought on the pain, so I can at least stay active without too much fear.

Anyway, she told me that she has a patient that has had ten surgeries to remove ten dermoids, but that's super rare, plus that person has four children. And that's one patient in 25 years of practice, so.

Luckily, tonight it's on to New Jersey, where there will be egg-hiding and more candy (oh well) and lots of niece-and-nephew (and pre-teen cousins!) time. A nice distraction.

Today the whole family (six adults, two young children) decided "what better day than Black Friday to go shopping?" And so we went to Babies R' Us, where the most recent parents in the group eventually (after much deliberation) purchased a car seat and a case of baby food. I took T to ride the coin-op Sesame-Street-character-themed firetruck in the entrance foyer, and after waiting for someone to enter the store so the door would be activated, the rest of the family joined us there. Which meant we were trapped. Instead of waiting for someone to show up and enter the store so we could escape the airlock-like foyer, CJ walked back into the store and out the actual exit so he could activate the door, freeing us. And T has been calling him "hero" ever since. As in, "Hero! Pick me up!" etc. It kind of hurts, the cuteness of everyone.

I also volunteered to take one for the team by taking T to the bathroom at a restaurant today. While she was pooping (let me tell you non-parents out there, holding a small person on a too-big toilet while they shit is AWESOME*), she said something like, "You know what's bad? When someone is peeing or pooping, and another person comes and pees and poops through that other person peeing and pooping." I'm not sure if she's just stating that she's anti-scat, or if it had to do with the fact that it was a multi-stall restroom and some strange woman had just entered the neighboring stall.

*That was sarcasm. I didn't really need to say it was sarcasm, did I? I just wanted to be sure I was not misunderstood.**

** Also, having to wipe the dirty bum of a small uncooperative person is AWESOME.*

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Obviously, we already ate. We (and by "we" I mean my mom) brined the turkey this year, and it did seem more flavorful than usual. She didn't brine it for the suggested 24 hours; it only got about 12 hours in the sauce, but it was still good. We have lots of leftovers. Some of them are out on the deck, because though my parents live alone, their full-size fridge is always packed so tightly as to be a solid wall of food. Mom claims that she cleaned it out recently, but she has a different idea about how long one can keep condiments before deciding they're too old to use. I have a jar of marmalade from January that really needs to go, but I am guessing that my parents would think it was fine, as it is "preserves," after all.

Here I am, slagging on my parents, when they are the ones that made us the chocolate-espresso pecan pie today. That was a heavenly pie. It still is, because there's some left for tomorrow.

I hope all of you out there had delicious food today.

Here I am in NJ, in the land of red mud. My parents' house is getting an addition, and the construction was supposed to be finished last month. Instead, half the house is still in the subflooring and bare drywall stage. It's a bit unsettling, and I don't even live here. My parents are generous enough to be camping out in the unfinished area so that me, my sis, and her kids can be in actual rooms with doors and floors.

And right now I am watching Project Runway and I'm too distracted to blog properly, so I shall bid you all a good night and a happy Thanksgiving.

It's been a while since I've lost the fight to a cold and I am remembering why and just how much I hate them. This weekend was almost a complete wash, what with the naps and the watching TV and DVDs and playing video games. CJ made me matzo-ball chicken soup tonight, which helped a little, if only mentally.
In other news, Thanksgiving is like a week and a half away. Just let that sink in a little. If CJ hasn't left me by then (having gotten fed up with my sickness-aggravated crankiness), he'll be joining me and the family. It sounds like the two of us will be "camping" in the unfinished addition to my parents' house, which will be totally awesome if I'm still sick. I can't still be sick then, can I?

I went to the NEW! BIG! Big Y today. It just opened. Well, re-opened. It is now Stop n' Shop sized, and is similar to S&S, except it sells wine and beer and there's a place where you can eat whatever you bought at the pizza bar and deli. And the "natural" foods are all integrated with the other food throughout the store, instead of handily/food-apartheidedly segregated into two aisles all the way over on one side. The prices are not cheaper at Big Y, in fact a few of my staples were noticeably more expensive (and strange: why did they choose to make the almond/flax GoLean Crunch 60 cents more than the regular GoLean Crunch?). However, Big Y does have a very special savings "club" card. Like other cards, it lets you get the sale prices on some items, and they track your purchases for probably=nefarious purposes. But at Big Y, at check-out you get to play a virtual slot machine which might give you a blue, silver, or gold coin. An actual coin, which you can use for future savings. Today they seemed to be giving everyone silver coins (even though my slot machine thing came up without a win). A silver coin can get you a free small coffee in the new cafe, so I have that to look forward to.

And though it was one in the afternoon on a weekday, Biy Y was packed. Lots of elderly people wandering around in wonder and gratitude; apparently they have been waiting a long time for Big Y to come back. I do not know why they like Big Y so much, and why they do not like Stop n' Shop. Big Y has always had a kind of old-fashioned feel to it, with smaller aisles, lots of canned and processed food, ground beef and frozen hash browns in bulk, and very little fresh, all-natural stuff. At least, it did. Today they had a guy grilling chicken teriyaki on a Foreman Grill and giving chunks out as samples. There was an old man there saying to his wife, "I think it's chicken, but it's got some kinda spice on it." "It's teriyaki!" I said helpfully. He just stared at me. Change can be difficult.

In other news, I seem to have a cold. It's been a while since I've been sick, but the petri dish of my sister's apartment was too much for my immune system. I call it a petri dish only because she has two young children who don't know how or care to know how to blow their noses. It was a snotty situation, is all I'm saying.

I'm in Brooklyn, because I am of course still unemployed, so I can go wherever I want during the work week. And my sister really wants to go to Cringe Night tomorrow, so here I am. Once I got here, T, my 3 and 3/4-year-old niece, kept asking me how long I would be staying. Actually, she was more pessimistic about it: "So you're leaving right after dinner, right?" "So you won't be here when I wake up, right?" "So you'll be here tomorrow in the morning, but you'll be gone when I come home from school, right?" She has been slaying me with the cuteness and the cleverness and the funnyness.
Right now the three grownups are in front of three computers. Sk just farted audibly, S said "gross!" and Sk said "YOU'RE gross!" and S said "that's mean!" and I said "BOTH of you are gross!" and S went "Aw!" and Sk went "Ha!"
This is what we do after the kids go to bed.

I played croquet on Tuesday evening for the first time in more than 20 years. It was good times. I played regularly in the summer when I was a lass, and here's photographic proof:







These were taken at my late grandparents' house in Center Harbor, NH, on July 4, 1976 (making me almost 4 years old). No, I don't know which one is me, though if you go by the parent-enforced color coding system, I'm the one with the red mallet. Which makes my sister the one with the very poor form in the second photo. Click my "some of my photos" link on the right, and look in "General photos", for larger versions.

No movement on the job front, though I have been doing plenty of "networking", i.e. talking to all of my friends about my plight. And I flipped through a book of cover letters, and had my boss look at a draft of my resume (it needs work). I also talked to a former co-worker who told me that since she's been freelancing (after getting laid off in an identical situation two years ago) she is much happier, but not making as much money as she did when she was full-time. Which is worrisome. I still have time to think about all of this, though.

I had a vacation. It was very nice, very relaxing. I got into a total groove of getting up for breakfast (woken up by my cell phone alarm), going to a morning meeting thing for an hour, killing time until lunch (reading, usually), eating lunch, napping, waking up, going swimming in the lake, eating dinner, sitting on the porch with a book or newspaper or computer until I had enough of an appetite for an ice cream cone, getting and eating an ice cream cone, and going to bed. Some variations: after dinner, usually there was some playing on the lawn with the kids; once there was kayaking before the swimming; two mornings I worked on a bowl (thrown on a wheel); there was a speaker on Monday night, the "Fund Fair" after lunch Weds., and the variety show thing Thursday. But really, there was mostly a lot of reading and sitting and eating. There were people (kids and adults) reading the new Harry Potter everywhere you looked. I finished it on Monday and thought it was very good. Anyway, if you'd like to see a few photos of my family enjoying the place, click here.

Now I'm back, and the katydids have started up. I hate them. I love hearing crickets, but the onetwothree scratchy katydid noise instantly makes me feel like it's oppressively humid out, even though it's currently about 70 and dry. The noise makes me feel anxious. I think it's a learned response to August heat, seasonal allergies, and the impending return to school. Of course, it could just be that katydids make a loud, annoying, and not-so-pretty noise.

The memorial service for my grandmother was very nice. I got emotional and was all trembly-voiced when I went up to speak, but other than that it went beautifully.

My grandmother was always an avid church-goer and loved singing hymns in the choir (she was raised Methodist, but ended life as a Congregationalist). At her service, I read the lyrics of this Sacred Harp song:

329 Vain World Adieu

When for eternal worlds we steer,
And seas are calm and skies are clear,
And faith in lively exercise,
And distant hills of Canaan rise,
The soul for joy then claps her wings,
And loud her hallelujah sings,
Vain world, adieu.

With cheerful hope her eyes explore
Each landmark on the distant shore:
The trees of life, the pastures green,
The crystal stream, delightful scene.
Again for joy she claps her wings,
And loud her hallelujah sings,
Vain world, adieu.

The nearer still she draws to land,
More eager all her pow’rs expand;
With steady helm, and freebent sail,
Her anchor drops within the veil.
Again for joy she claps her wings,
And her celestial sonnet sings,
I’m there at last.


I think she would have liked it.

Erin was my grandmother. When we were little we called her Grandmommy, but in the last few years of her life we called her Nean. Like good grandmothers everywhere, she was an excellent baker of cookies and pies, as well as the famous Way Family Granola, and she had the ubiquitous jar of hard candy that had solidified into one big piece. Unlike good grandmothers everywhere, she wasn't particularly warm or effusive with her affection. She was very reserved and liked things to be done the proper way. When we were frustrated with her, we'd secretly call her passive aggressive, but she was really just assertive, even though it came in a "frail old lady" package.

She always seemed slightly sad or disapproving, but that was due to the structure of her face more than anything else. She didn't like talking about herself, and even after we asked, she never told stories about what life was like during the depression and WWII, other than the basic facts of names and dates and who moved to what town after marrying who.

My fondest memories of her have to do with the house in Center Harbor, NH she and my Grandfather bought when we were born -- when we were older, she told me that they bought it so they'd have enough room for us to come for extended stays. The entire second floor of the house was just for guests. It had a huge backyard, a hammock, raspberry bushes and wild blueberries, croquet... and they lived a short drive to the lake's beach. My grandfather would chop wood while my grandmother worked in the kitchen. We visited for at least a couple of weeks every summer, and (I think) every other Christmas. When we grew into pre-teens, they sold the house (breaking our hearts) and bought a boring cookie-cutter one in town, because "you didn't want to visit anymore." Which was probably true, but we wanted the house to always be there just the same.

I remember getting a 12-inch of "Do They Know It's Christmas" one year, and making Nean listen to it, since the song had been in the news a lot. My grandparents always had the radio playing classical music, so having Nean listen to a "rock" song was a novelty. After the song was over she smiled politely and said something vague like "that was fine."

We also watched E.T. (the movie) on cable with her at our house in Jersey. We all loved it and thought she would too, but after it was over she said she had liked it, but that it was "no Wizard of Oz." I was offended (even though it's true). She liked to catch Jeopardy every night, and loved to watch stuff on PBS that may as well have been broadcast from another planet (as far as I was concerned), like the Kennedy Center Honors.

She wasn't a frivolous, silly person, so when she *would* be silly -- flashing a funny face at the camera, or gamely wearing big green Hulk hands (a photo of this is on my parents' fridge door) -- it was beautiful and surprising, like seeing a unicorn.

When I went up to sort through her things a few weeks ago, after she was transferred from her apartment to a nursing room, I found that she had kept every single card we had ever sent her, plus of course all of the various pieces of "art" we'd given her on holidays. She loved us, and wanted us to visit more, to write more. She was very proud of us and loved showing us off to her friends. I think she never really understood my sister and me when we were kids, who were weird and volatile and moody and sparkly, while she was always calm and in control and had lunch on the table at noon every day because that's when lunch is. But -- once after a fiery outburst with my sister (we were home on a break in college) she found me alone and told me that I was sensitive -- and she meant it as a compliment. It was the first time I had ever remotely considered that being sensitive could be a good thing.

Nean died around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning. She was 90 years old.