Happy anniversary to me!

Five years ago, I was having a mastectomy. Actually, the surgery was at 2:15pm, so five years ago right this minute I was probably finishing up a pre-op appointment with the plastic surgeon (Hi, Dr. Heistein!). I believe my instructions were no food or water after midnight, so I was very thirsty and pretty tense. I don't remember a lot of details about that day (honestly, probably due to the no water thing as much as anxiety; thirst is pretty distracting), but I remember checking into the hospital at about noon and pleading — pleading — with the intake nurse to let me keep my underpants on. For some reason it was really important to me. (I guess sometimes a woman just needs her underpants to feel secure, you know?) She kindly relented and let me wear them during the surgery, and I do realize that's not actually a detail you really needed to know.

I also remember the anesthesiologist telling me, "I've given you the happy juice," and I responded, "Okay. Bye-bye." I was obviously right about the bye-bye part, since that's all I remember until I woke up back in my room.

I did, at some point, think I ought to take a last look at my left breast before it and I parted company. I don't think I did, though, and honestly I wasn't all that sentimental about it. No angst. I was okay, as long as it leaving also ended the breast cancer thing. Of course, in the following months, I had times when I lay in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I had made the right choice.

Well, five years later, I can tell you I believe I did. My chances of recurrence went down dramatically because I opted for mastectomy, and that's something I can sincerely appreciate.

So, anyway, today's going to be a good day, pretty much however it goes.

Hello? Hello?

I have a bunch of really great topics that I plan to blog about, but only have time for a quick note right now. [Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone pole.*] Yeah, well, anyway.

I don't think anybody besides me ever reads this blog, because there are virtually never any comments, but I get an email every week with some site statistics. They tell me how many visitors my blog has had that week, how many first time visitors, and so on. And I'm always surprised that all the numbers aren't zero every time.

So here's a test. A spot check, if you will, to make sure that StatCounter.com isn't just making numbers up to keep from hurting my feelings.

We have season tickets to the Dallas Stars (if you actually know me, this is not a surprise to you). There's one game in a few weeks when Rich will be out of town, and I'll need someone to go with me. There are a few more games over the holidays that we'll miss. If you're a hockey fan and you want two free tickets and a parking pass to these games, just leave a comment and they're yours.

I need a buddy to go with me on 11/18 (vs the San Jose Sharks; always an enthusiastic game)

I'm offering two tickets & a parking pass for:

• 11/20 against the Colorado Avalanche
• 11/26 against the St. Louis Blues
• 12/21 against the Montreal Canadiens
• 12/23 against the Calgary Flames
• 12/26 against the Phoenix Coyotes

So…anybody there?

*A tribute to my sister Linda's third graders early in her teaching career. She kept trying to tell them it's "…nose as long as a telephone wire," so it'll rhyme, but they informed her that wouldn't make sense. So pole it is.

  

Books

Yes, I know how long it's been.

I've spent a good portion of the day entering books into LibraryThing. It's a good, free to cheap way to keep your personal library organized. I have trouble keeping track sometimes, particularly with business books (not the ones I've read, but the ones in the queue) and knitting books (did I buy it or just want to buy it?), so I decided I needed to get organized. (If you saw how books are scattered on shelves throughout out house, you'd understand how I could lose track.) And as someone who's stood in a bookstore wondering if I've read a particular cozy, it seemed like a good—nay, great—idea to be able to access the info from my phone's web browser. I know I've read all the Southern Sisters mysteries because there aren't many of them, but I sometimes have trouble keeping track of those Chocoholic and Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom ones.

At the end of the day today, I know two things for sure:

1. I seriously need some paying work.
2. I have way too many lace knitting books. Frankly, I've learned that my attention span is not really going to permit me to knit anything recognizable as lace, so it's not something I pursue. Why do I have all these books?

Connections

I'm reaching the deadline on a big project today, but I thought I'd jot this down before I forget it.

An old friend, Lisa Bailey, did something really nice for me last week. (Really, really nice. I mean, WAY above and beyond). Besides feeling incredibly, eternally grateful, just thinking about her, emailing and talking to her many times over a few days reminded me of something else. I actually think of Lisa every time I drink champagne.

We had this experience in Germany some years back. (I won't mention just how long ago it was, but you'll have an idea when I say it was West Germany at the time.) Lisa and I were both in a dance group that was doing a little tour of the country, and in Munich all the members of the group had the chance to stay in the homes of members of a similar group there. Lisa and I stayed with Karl. We had a fine time, and the night we were leaving on the overnight train to Frankfurt, Karl opened a bottle of champagne to toast to our visit.

This brings me to the reason for the Lisa–champagne connection. She doesn't drink anything carbonated. Not soda, not sparkling wine, nothing. She doesn't like it. Of course, she was much too polite to refuse a glass, under the circumstances, but was kind of in a dilemma because she really didn't want to drink it. I knew all of this, so I waited until Karl's back was turned and quietly emptied Lisa's glass into mine. As I remember (and it is a little fuzzy), I did that a few times. I whispered to her (at least I hope I whispered), "You better make sure I get on that train tonight!"

She did, apparently, and we made it back. Years have passed, and yet every time I raise a glass of champagne, I think of her.

Isn't that funny? People leave these indelible marks on our lives, sometimes significant but also sometimes kind of goofy. Presumably, we leave those same marks, too, without even knowing it. Maybe that's just as well, maybe it's a shame. Would it be good to know exactly how and why people remember us?

In any case, there you go, Lisa. You're with me forever, or at least as long as I drink champagne.

Next time I'll talk about Ruth, green food and crumbs on the keyboard!

We're living for Tuesday afternoon

Reports from viewers of local CBS Channel 11 about today:

Cold front coming in Tuesday afternoon. Supposedly after that we'll be back around our normal temps for this time of year, mid-90s.

Come on, Tuesday!!

Projects

Finishing up the first-half-of-the-month group of articles today. Then working around the house, my favorite! Yes, really! Well, okay, maybe not always my favorite, but I do look forward to some of the projects. Well, not laundry, which is on the list for today, or cleaning the kitchen, ditto. But some things, like cleaning out the guest bedroom closet and...wow. That's actually pretty dull, isn't it?

Maybe it's just that some of these tasks have been on my To Do list for so long that getting them checked off would be nearly orgasmic. There's got to be some reason I look forward to doing them, right?

Oh, well. It doesn't matter! Even if I only enjoy them because I'm a domestic dweeb, that's okay! I'm going to hum while I do it, and be blissful when it's done. What more can one ask of a Saturday?

Why does it take so long?

Could someone tell me, please, why it takes me ten times as long to do things as it should? Is it that I'm getting older? Is it that my attention is perpetually fractured and I can't focus? Is it that I'm caught in some kind of freakin' fissure in the fabric of spacetime? Or is it just lack of sleep?

I planned last night, and got up this morning intending to spend one hour clearing off my desk. (Yeah, it was a mess. I dumped a couple of days' worth of mail at the beginning of the weekend and didn't look at it again.) That was six hours ago, and I'm still not done.

It could be age. Seriously, I'm no stranger to the Midlife Mambo:

I'm so resigned to it that normally I tell myself it's okay as long as I'm doing something. Say I leave my office and go to the kitchen, then once I get there can no longer remember why I went (yes, I see all of you nodding). I can manage to be satisfied as long as, while I'm there, I move the laundry from the washer to the dryer, or put a few dishes in the dishwasher, or something. Anything. As long as there's a little forward progress. But it's apparently getting worse. Otherwise I don't see how I could have started out the day with the intention of making two — TWO — phone calls and six hours later still have one left to make! Is that how it's going to go? Is it just going to keep getting worse every year? How can it? I mean, there's only so much room to fall, you know?

It could be that my focus is eroding. Seriously. You can read more about it on my business blog, but there's a lot of information around that indicates multitasking 1) is kind of a myth (we can actually only work on two tasks at a time, and we do neither of them as well as we would if we did them separately), and 2) doesn't do anything good for our brains. The more you multitask, the worse you get at ignoring irrelevant information and focusing on a single task. Like walking to the kitchen to do something, I guess. That could be it. Am I doing it more now than I used to, so the effects are more pronounced? Am I in some sort of multitasking downward spiral?

As far as the fabric of spacetime being to blame, I'm willing to consider it. I may be living on a cosmic slub, the border of some big metaphysical Uh-Oh, and time just speeds up when I start doing certain things. Or the time some tasks take expands as I approach them. Yeah, okay. We'll say that could be it.

Or it could just be that my dreadful occasional knee pain has started again, and I'm worried about health insurance, and I've had a terrible time sleeping the last two nights. But, really, how likely is that?