Dangerous new development. I learn to blog via email.

Test post via email.

traveling light

I'm leaving for Arizona, on a jet plane, tomorrow morning. Don't wig out. I hate it when people say, "You?" like I am a recluse of something. What the hell. I can travel, I just choose not to very often. Nothing wrong with that. I like being home.

I am flying an a cheapo airline. So cheap that when I checked in from home this morning, I had to pay ten dollars for a seat. WTF. A seat? Wouldn't you expect that would come with the ticket price? And then they have strict restrictions on the size of the carry on bag...16X14X12. The bag my sweet, travelin' friend Richie, loaned me was 4 inches too high. Crap. So, now I face a dilemma. I either pony up $35 for a bigger bag or I try to squeeze my stuff into a smaller bag. Turns out, once I printed my boarding pass, it was too late to take a bigger bag. The airline has no phone number. This makes me a little nervous.

I'm boarding the shuttle tomorrow at 4:45 and will be at the airport about 6. That's a lot of time to kill before the plane leave so look for photos and lots of dumb observations. Too much information, of which I am the queen!

Regis doesn't know this but Woody likes to get up at 4 am and have treats by my computer. He is fairly insistent that this happen on schedule. Ah, well. Always good to be surprised!

See you tomorrow at the airport!

For Karen TC xoxoxo...my friend in NJ

A picture we took of Woody last night in my yarn box. He looks like an alien cat. But turns out...he's a Super Hero Cat!

horizontal surfaces

I have worked hard the last two years to clear some clutter from our home. You've seen the posts with pictures of boxes lined up at the curb. I continue to work at that project. It seems never-ending. While I work at one thing, maybe photograph albums, all the horizontal surfaces in the house fill up with the shit of daily life. I could weep.

Regis is a flat surfaces engineer. He likes all his papers and stuff out where he can see it but he's not the only one. I have gotten better but I'm far from perfect. He just doesn't have the need, as I do, to see the top of the table now and then, to be able to eat a meal without doing a major excavation first.

Last night I went to the bedroom and realized that every single dresser top was covered with clothes. HOLY CRAP. Where does all this stuff come from???

It's so discouraging.

This morning I work at the treaty site so I have a time limit, but I am getting up from my desk and I am going to tidy the surfaces. If it kills me.

why i like to avoid the dark

Friday night, Regis had a hankering for pretzels so he sent me out into the night to fetch some. Since we are on the north end of town, I headed to the closest convenience store. Three weird things.

• A very tall man. Maybe the tallest man I have ever seen, was talking loudly and rapidly on a cell phone while pouring himself a soda large enough to bathe a two-year old. I swear.
• Two gentlemen bought a bag full of Red Bulls and a sack of styrofoam cups. Party!
• A man in an SUV sat in the parking lot wearing sunglasses (it's night) and never left his vehicle. CIA?

We went to a buffet to eat earlier in the evening. That was another strange experience. I won't name it because you know I worry about google search engines but if you're from here, you know the one I mean. I get that this is a place young children like to eat because of the amazing variety of food. But, it's not cheap so I don't get why adults go there. Without kids.

The place is packed. You have to be very careful walking because children dart out of nowhere in search of mashed potatoes or soft-serve ice cream. One went right in front of me, under two loaded coffee cups, like a heat seeking missile. (I had quite a time spelling missile. Must be a word I don't write very often.)

The food, although it had been dug into by an unknown number of folks, was better than I anticipated. Overall, a pleasant experience since the two small ones were happy. Would I go there again? Probably not.

We have an immersion blender that we got from Tom many years ago. We use it all the time and yesterday, one of it's little legs came off. It was quite a mystery for a while.

Today, I plan to practice my belly dancing moves. I have always thought of myself as incapable of dancing and this class is doing its best to prove me right. I have two feet, neither of which is connected to my brain. At the end of class last week, the teacher asked if I wanted to video her doing two of the foot sequences so I could practice at home. I was not offended.

So this afternoon, I will be in the living room in my coin skirt, holding my phone, and trying to do the fusion shuffle or whatever it's called. I hope nobody peers into the window to watch.

sunday in pictures

It's been a quiet day here at the Fritsch ranch. I woke up early to make scones with dried cranberries and apricots. I am out of walnuts so nuts to that.

Regis took Gus for a walk and he played in the snow so much he came home with a snow beard.

I took a nap then got up to make oatmeal raisin cookies from my new favorite recipe. All these years, I thought I liked crisp oatmeal cookies. Turns out I don't. These are delicious. So far today, my diet has consisted of carbs, carbs, and carbs. Lovely.

We had what could be called a nuisance snow. Enough that you had to get the snow blower out to clean it up but not enough to cause any big problems. I wish it had been more. The bunny looks kind of pitiful this winter.

Picture of the cookies below. They have a tablespoon of vanilla and a tablespoon of molasses. The dough is refrigerated so they don't flatten out too much. And that's Woody. Regis was eating pretzels at his computer and Woody is begging for one. He loves boxes, too.

I made a beautiful chicken pot pie for dinner and I took a picture of it. I might be too lazy to go get the camera. 

Couldn't resist.

blech

Blech is one of those moods that descend on me from time to time. It came out of nowhere and will go back to the same place eventually, but it wreaks havoc while it hangs around. A nap didn't help. I don't feel like doing the dishes or cleaning up the pile of paper in my office. I refuse to go outside. Shut up with your pithy little platitudes about gratitude, I just want to wallow in my misery. Not a Third World problem as my friend Sharon says.

I'm listening to Last Chance for a Thousand Years by Dwight Yoakam, my classic album of despair.

Sometimes writing about it reveals it for the big bag of stupid that it is. Not today. I'm reading this and thinking, boy do I have some shit to complain about. It makes me laugh for a minute, then I go right back to my hangdog look.

Don't call 911 to tell them your friend is an emotional train wreck. By the time they got here, I would probably have on my coin skirt and be belly dancing to Swing Bop. It can happen just that fast.

don't worry

My worry and frustration and wickedness of disposition reached a peak yesterday. You probably would not have know had you been with me all week as most of this goes on in my head. I almost cried once when I was tired and I did cry when I heard some old friends are moving away, but it was just a few tears, not a whole blarney-stone sized crazy wailing and flailing session.

I booked a trip (I think that's what people who travel a lot say...) to Phoenix in February. I am a nervous traveler and this will take some major meditation mojo to manage this anxiety. I have so far, managed everything. Read the schedules, bought the tickets, scheduled the transit. Ta da!

Elliot has been here since Friday when I picked him up at school. His cousins came for dinner and to play until bedtime. We went to the library, to River Rock, and to open swimming in the afternoon. Last night we had a most delicious chicken pot pie and a caramel apple pie from the Cheese and Pie Monger Shop in town. What a feast. Regis went to drive the transit at 8:30 and Elliot and I went to bed.

We're making pancakes this morning. I am sure he will request some unusual shape. Hey, I should put that in google. On second thought, no. Mickey Mouse is plenty good...and easy.

Everything I read this morning says I should stop trying to have control of everything. Stop worrying about every little thing. The best was from The Queen Code:

Queen, you are not stuck. You are not trapped. The emotions of anxiety, fear and hopelessness are making the situation worse than it really is. The real source of your pain is that you may be too focused on trying to make outer changes, when the root to your transformation is within. Heaven knows your predicament. The Universe knows that you have material and physical needs that must be met, but being too focused on outwardly “getting” will rob you of your inner peace. As challenging as it may be, shift your perception today. Do yourself a favor and stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. If you want real transformation “seek first inner peace, all the other things will then be added to you.

Ok, I'll give that a try.

The week in pictures.

I think she captured my essence.

stats and so forth

Entry	Pageviews
another post Nov 28, 2010	3322
http://www.teresasaum.com/2010/11/blog-post.html Nov 16, 2010, 1 comment	1866
medical and a busy week Mar 2, 2014, 1 comment	1005
Oh, Betty Aug 17, 2007, 2 comments	948
2000th post Aug 30, 2013, 1 comment	876

I love looking at my blog stats. It cracks me up that some of these silly posts get so many views. I wonder how it happens. With one of these, maybe the first one, there is a Gary Larson cartoon involved so when someone does a search for the floating head of death, my blog pops up. But that doesn't explain oh, betty which is a great story and my friend should be tickled that so many people have read it. We're both famous.

I get a charge out of these stats but something in me resists counting and keeping track of other things. Regis bought me an Up24 but it makes me crazy so I don't use it. He likes to know how many hours of deep and light sleep he has a night but I don't care. It frustrates me when the damn thing says I forgot to turn it to sleep mode. If it can keep track of deep and light sleep, it should be able to tell when I go to sleep.

It's probably my math phobia that makes me dislike counting. Or maybe it's my rebellious streak.

Is it ok to eat quesadillas for breakfast?

I read some fashion advice the other day. Fashion advice? What? Anyway, one of the tips was not to treat leggings as pants. What the hell does that mean? And not to wear them every day. Who keeps track of that?

I had a friend in middle school (although we didn't call it that back in 1963) who would say this to me: You wore that last week on Wednesday. Apparently the rule was that you could wear something two weeks in a row but not on the same day.

Holy shit.

I can't remember what I wore yesterday much less what I wore last week on Wednesday. I thought that was being more than a little uptight.

I have worn leggings almost exclusively for about five years. I say about five years because I didn't write down the first time I wore them. It just got to be a habit and I like the way they feel. I like the look...long tops and leggings and boots. If Katherine Hepburn can wear white turtlenecks every day of her life, I think I can wear leggings. This is a long rant for something so stupid.

Well, I did buy a pair of jersey baggy pants a couple months ago. I think they might have been born as pajama pants but on nice days in the fall, I wore them as (gasp) pants. I recently bought some "loose pants" and some "harem pants" (More magazine calls them slouchy pants.) but they have not arrived yet. I will certainly keep you all posted because my fashion sense is critical to your well-being. I know, I know. 

So, the fashion divas can relax. I have other pant options. Nobody has to keep track of when and where I treat leggings as pants.

old school dance party

The gym where Regis and I work out recently added a new studio. One of the features is a touch-screen kiosk with a variety of workouts that are shown on a big screen. I am usually the only one in an early morning class which proved to be a very good thing today.

I was tired of yoga and core work and weights so I chose a Vibe session called Old School Dance Party. Yeah, I'm 62 so I'm thinking old school will mean music from the 60's give or take a decade. I was way off.

This very fit and hip dude with bones of rubber led me though a series of what I would call hip urban dancing. Here is what he looked like:

I could do the really simple ones but I was lost plenty and sometimes I would burst into raucous laughter at the thought of what it must look like. Retired school teacher of Norwegian descent tries hip hop dance moves. It was hilarious and so much fun. I'm going to do it again and try to learn some of those cool moves. Haha!

I finished my fox cowl last night. I made the ears according to instructions and attached them firmly to the hood with a series of tight stitches. Those babies were not coming off. Then I put the thing on...and I looked like this. Like the Unabomber with Dumbo ears. In my defense, it is almost midnight, I took the picture with an iPad, and I didn't realize how goofy it looked until it was too late.

So far, this picture has more than 50 likes, several shares, and almost 30 comments. What the...I keep posting the one where the ears are smaller and I am smiling, but the public seems to like the Unabomber one.

I have to wash it and block it, turn back the edge of the hood, and attach the buttons. I'll have Regis take a photo with the real camera but I know what will happen. Ho hum. Big deal. Where's the goofy picture??? (I think the only other picture I had that was this popular was the one in my snorkel parka and mad bomber hat.)

Woody has had his picture taken several times this week. He is one photogenic cat, let me tell you.

I had the nicest morning after I got home from the dance party. Two friends, Kathryn and Keith, came for coffee. We got Keith set up on google docs so he can work on his extensive collection of stories from his 35 years as a hair dresser and from his steel trap memory of his years growing up in Vesta. Kathryn and I are a pretty good audience for his stores...we laugh and laugh. Such a good time sharing oatmeal cookies and coffee and laughter.

Well, I have more work to do on my cowl this evening and I want to get outside to monkey with my new star filters before the sun goes down. More later, blog pals.

retirement is tough duty

I have six coffee and lunch dates on my calendar this week. Regis doesn't know how I manage and I admit, it is tough. I try to get jobs, really I do. Well, sometimes I do. Mostly I don't.

Woody shares my attitude about work. We would much rather take a leisurely stroll though the day, then snuggle into a big, red comforter late in the afternoon.  We should all be more like cats.

I am making good progress on my fox cowl. I am about halfway done with the hood part and then on to the ears and the crocheting which may be more challenging as the only crochet I have done is to make a mile-long chain. Mom, do you know how to crochet?

I worked at my volunteer job this week which mostly consists of sitting in the sun, visiting, answering the phone a time or two, and posting on social media. You can see I have a life to be envied.

Make a snow angel today!

yurt dream

If you see Regis on the street, tell him you'd like to spend the night in our yurt where there is no heat, no running water, no indoor plumbing and the rats and mice are free to come and go. We don't really have one but I woke up dreaming about it and thought it would be a funny prank. Wahaha! I crack myself up sometimes.

not complaining about the weather

I vowed at the beginning of this winter I was not going to complain about the weather and the dark so much. I have been doing fairly well at that...and in trying to embrace the cold and gray. This is not my favorite kind of winter, however. Too much of the same. I want a blizzard, I want some action, I want 4 feet of snow and a bright blue sky.

On Saturday when I was coming home from Mankato at 4:45, I saw the sun! The actual round yellow thing in the sky! And it was bright enough to cast shadows at almost 5 o'clock! Regis and I went to the grocery store and at 5:30 there was still enough light that you could see. It was not pitch dark. Oh, what a relief. The sun will come back some day!

I've been awake since 3:30 am. I was doing pretty well at not napping and sleeping better at night but the influenza kicked the legs out from under that table. (I almost said the d word that means short person.) I slept and slept for two weeks and now I need to get back in the habit of being vertical all day. It's so nice, though, on these cold days, to climb back into the blanket fort for a while in the afternoon.

I moved the furniture around in the house. Men don't seem to understand the need for this but I get so tired of things in the same places. I moved the dining table back into the dining area and the couch back into the living room. The cat was quite amused and leaped onto every piece of furniture I moved, sat up on the bow, and peered over the edge like we were heading into the big waves. I suppose if you never leave the house, anything is cause for excitement.

A couple months ago, my friend Amanda, posted a photo on Facebook of her son with a Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes) toy that they found at Target. I was so envious and wanted one in the worst way but since I never go to Target, I gave up on the idea. When Elliot and I were there the other day, who pops up in a clearance bin but Hobbes! It was meant to be. Here he is with Kermit. Regis says Hobbes is telling Kermit to stfu.

The other thing I did on Saturday was to stop at Mary Lu's Yarn Shop and buy the materials for this fox cowl. The woman working there assumed I was making it for a child. I said, no, I am making it for myself. Well? What's wrong with that? I started it last night and I got about halfway up the second tier of orange. I love the yarn. Like most textile art enthusiasts, I have a stash of yarn that might embarrass me if someone inspected it. They don't so I'm not worried.

Regis and I are going to pump some iron at 7. We have a busy day: coffee with friends, an AARP tax meeting, transit driving, blanket fort. Wahaha! Make it a good one!

P.S. Tom and Betty, We were at the hacienda yesterday and all is well. Call us one of these days when you are tired of sitting on the warm beach and we'll tell you some stories about the temperatures in Minnesota these days!