Happy New Year's Eve

The end of 2011. Good riddance! Didn't like this year from the very start and, while some parts were good, a lot wasn't and some was downright bad. Looking forward to a fresh start, even though it's such an artificial thing, to celebrate a new year and think that you're starting off with a fresh slate. All the baggage from last year will still be there tomorrow morning. And all the good stuff, too, I don't want to forget that, it's not all black, nor is it ever all white. Nothing like stating the obvious, huh?

I hope to remember to take each day as it comes, not obsess about the future (or the past)--I think I got away from that a lot this past year, much to my detriment. I hope to remember to be grateful and I am today. My life is not perfect, but it's still better than it could be and is for so many others. I wish I could give more of my time, money, energy, but I'm struggling with those things myself right now. I do think that this is temporary, though, and could easily be much better soon. Part of the problem has been due to multiple trips to Florida this year to take care of my mother and after this next trip coming up soon, it should be a while before I have to do that again, so I am looking forward to getting a lot done and then getting back to work here at home and maybe getting my finances back on track.

Slowly but surely, one day at a time. Universe, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Peace to all.

Been a while

Been a while since I've been here. Sorry about that.

It's that time of year again. A couple of days ago...or maybe it was yesterday, who can remember?...I found myself flat on my back in bed for hours in the middle of the day, zoned out, exhausted. Feeling depleted. Finally, I remembered what day it was. What day is coming up. I suppose I'm grateful that I didn't start feeling bad until this week. It's interesting (well, to me, anyway) how my body reacts to the unutterable sadness that invades me now apparently every year around this time. I was really hoping to avoid it this year, but I suppose it's inevitable.

I'm not complaining. It's just ... well, really, I think it's somehow prosaic. How mourning and grieving can just continue on for years after the people you loved are gone. But I suppose it's also human. And I think I can spare John and Mouse a week. Heck, I celebrate my own damn birthday for a week (or try to). I'm still managing to live my life as I need to, if not always how I want to.

But that, as they say, is a different story. Next time.

Today

Today is a hard day and also, so far, a good day.

Good: Missing the bus and walking all the way to tai chi, even though I was a little late. Finding a bunch of new people in the class, the teacher starting them off very, very early in the process. Way, way too "beginner" for me, but I decided to appreciate the refresher course, the focus on the first few steps.

Good: Walking to Fifth Avenue and stopping in at the pet food store and finding some more cans of stuff Spike will eat. Reading sign up at the counter that informed me that I was, thankfully (I think) missing out on a cat adoption event that was going to start in 15 minutes.

Good: Finding great produce at the greenmarket, buying lots of different things, including artisan pasta and having awesome pork tacos from my favorite greenmarket cooks. Great food, really nice people, too.

Good/Bad: Not waiting for the bus to show up on Fifth Avenue to take two lousy stops to 9th Street and having it pass me before I got there. (Time lost! Exercise gained!)

Good: Finding things I needed at CVS and saving a bunch with some coupons.

Bad/Good: Missing the bus going up the hill to my place and so, yes, having to walk uphill back home. All of this walking that I had hoped not to do is presumably the universe's way of making me work off all the ice cream I ate last night.

Good: Stopping to talk to a very nice neighbor down the block and meeting her new puppy, while pausing to catch my breath on the way back up the hill.

Good: I had remembered to leave the A/C on before I left the house. It's off now, but it's nice and cool in here! It's on fan, and there's another new fan right behind me that my neighbor across the hall insisted on giving me. I took it with the understanding that he gets it back when he moves back to Brooklyn (and, we both hope, back into this building, though that's less likely).

Also good: Knee hasn't been hurting. Okay, a little bit, but nothing that required my cane.

It's John's birthday. Or, would have been. Add to it Derek Jeter's getting his 3,000th hit and my dear friend and wonderful Shark Lori missing it...I've been getting teary on and off all day so far. Her friend Jill, who is now also a Shark, said that she and Lori's widower will be going up to the cemetery next weekend. Her 42nd birthday would have been the 21st. I wish I could go with them.

It's getting to be another bad month, like September. My dad's birthday was the 24th, he died on the 27th of July. Ah, well, life is like that, I guess. There's good and there's bad and one is to be enjoyed and celebrated and appreciated and the other is to be dealt with and moved on from.

It's all good.

Tomorrow

I just realized that tomorrow would have been John's 75th birthday.

If he were alive, this is a number that would be freaking me out. Probably freak him out, too.

And remembering his birthday brings up for me one of the biggest regrets of my life--that I didn't call him on his birthday when I could have. Knowing he'd been sick. Knowing he wanted to see me, hear from me. Not sure whether to do so would be good or bad for him or for me. Teaching me once again that, when in doubt, choose the positive, not the negative.

I still miss him. I can't imagine anyone ever being such a perfect (or, really, near-perfect) match for me, temperament-wise, with the same sense of humor, taste in movies, intelligence, etc., that he had.

Whole lot of shakin' goin' on.

Let's see. My friend Madeline's 19-year-old granddaughter just underwent a double-lung transplant (after having been on the transplant list for maybe a month!). Madelyne still wasn't breathing on her own, last I heard, but they're hoping to take her off the ventilator later today. Maddy has cystic fibrosis, so the transplant was very much needed.

My friend's young cat, Pumpkin, has been diagnosed with FIP, a disease that is 100% fatal here in the U.S., but she ordered interferon from the U.K., which has shown a 30% success there. She's just hoping he hangs on until it gets here and it's not looking good at the moment.

Another friend's young daughter (also 19 or so) is showing signs of mental illness and is in real danger of being suspended from the very prestigious and very wonderful college she's been attending. And she's behaving very badly toward her mother and is basically being self-destructive.

A sort-of-old beau is, apparently, dying of cancer. He's had part of a lung removed, has spinal stuff going on, needs radiation therapy and chemo and .... really, doesn't sound good at all.

And last but not least, my mother is driving me crazy. But that's for another post. As is all the other crap that's going on out there in the world (Weiner, Palin, other crazy Repuglicans, economic stupidities, etc.).

So, as much as I'd like to just pull the covers up over my head and retreat from the world, the world keeps bringing me news like this. Thank goodness for the wonderful people who work with me and my friends, even the ones who are sick or have family members going through awful stuff. Thank goodness for all the lefties I know who are engaging in the good fight every day.

sitting

I shouldn't be sitting here this long. It's been about 40 minutes and I should have gotten up about 20 minutes ago.

Did you know that cats can have allergies to pollen, just like the rest of us? Guess how I know this. Yes, last couple of weeks there have been a few days here and there where the pollen count was not just High (according to weather.com) but Very High and yet I still opened the kitchen window because the weather was otherwise very nice and, besides, there really needs to be SOME fresh air in here sometimes. (We'll leave the discussion about how fresh NYC air is exactly to some other time.)

Anyway, I had also started to notice that Spike's white eye (that's the one that has white fur all around it, as opposed to the other eye, which has black all around it) was getting inflamed all of a sudden. Just for a little while and then it would go away. Then I started paying attention and, sure enough, I'd open the kitchen window and he'd jump up to, you know, survey his kingdom and 10, 20 minutes later he'd show up in my office with the eye all extra-pink and sometimes a little squinty, too. Sigh.

Saturday was the worst. Not only did his "white" eye get very inflamed and swollen, but it didn't respond to the eye gel that had been prescribed for him other times and then the "black" eye also got pink and swollen. Not easy seeing pink around an eye that has black fur and black "eyeliner", but it was there.

I waited till morning and called the vet. His regular vet was all booked up, so I chose one of the other vets and schlepped him over there. She confirmed that yes, it could certainly be allergies, but she prescribed him another antibiotic, this one with an anti-inflammatory and these were drops, not a gel, so I figured it'd be easier to administer. And it was, as long as I put his e-collar on him.

Twenty minutes later, both of his eyes were dramatically worse. So I called the hospital, where fortunately his regular vet was on emergency duty and he called me back a couple of hours later and told me what to do next. Tuesday afternoon is when Spike's eyes were both back to normal. Needless to say, I'm not opening my windows for the rest of the summer or fall.

(And, oh, in the no good deed goes unpunished line, I injured the piriformis in my left butt in transporting said cat to and from the vet's office. Am seeing Hector, the gorgeous physical therapist, tomorrow. This is why I'm trying not to sit very long.)

shoulda, woulda, coulda

There is so much stuff I should be doing. And I am doing some of it. Just way too little of it. It feels like I'm building a sand castle one grain of sand at a time. Or some metaphor like that.

It should tell you something if writing in this blog is actually a better use of my time than some of the other things I've been doing lately.

And now I'm hungry, so I'm going to go do something about that, at least.

bin Laden

I've seen so many different reactions to the death of bin Laden. My own reaction? Some small amount of happiness and relief. Some sadness, too, a bit inchoate, not about his being dead, about which I feel very little, actually. Maybe more about all the death and destruction he caused, brought about for himself and others...and what this country has become. Sadness for all that's been lost. So, mixed emotions.

Oddly, the reactions that I find the most mystifying are the ones of some acquaintances who profess not to understand the celebrating and jubilation. It's one thing to not feel the same way or to participate in it, but c'mon. This is America, there is plenty of cause for people to feel happy about this. And I kinda find it a bit offputting, to say the least, because there seems to be a lot of judgment about those reactions. So, yeah, I'm judging the reactions of the people I know who are themselves judging others. Theirs is an intolerant stance and I won't stand for it! (heh)

Seriously, I think it speaks of a lack of imagination, of empathy, really, to not be able to understand what a lot of Americans are feeling and expressing today. Do I think those reactions are unseemly and perhaps a little reminiscent of the Arabs who celebrated when the Twin Towers fell? Yeah, kinda. Somewhat. But I understand it, anyway. And I can't deplore it. I think we're (and by that I mean Americans--and certainly New Yorkers and D.C.ers) are entitled, if only to our own emotions and reactions and not what or how other people think we should feel and react.

Missing

Just finished watching "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" for the umpteenth time. Cried at the end again, as usual. But it was a bit different this time. It wasn't just the unbearably sad/happy ending of the two people in love, of Capt. Gregg waiting for Mrs. Muir's life to end so they can be together through eternity. It was that I desperately wish there were an afterlife so I can be with my John.

Plus, the bastard promised he would haunt me after he was gone and what has he done? Nothing! Not a peep! Well, okay, it would probably freak me out a lot if he did. But, still.

I miss him terribly. I'm still crying and I really need to stop so my eyes aren't all messed up when I go out later.

I'm going to get some work done now.

What next?

I should be working on my business plan. I should call AARP Travel Center (aka, Expedia) to see about getting a reasonably-priced hotel/motel/B&B room near the conference center where I'll be attending a one-day SCORE conference in a couple of weeks, where I will need said business plan.

I should be doing a lot of things, but somehow they're not getting done. But at least I'm writing this, because this is better than solitaire or any of the other games I could be playing and, until a few minutes ago, I was.

No more Dems

There was an article in the Sunday Times about Mario Cuomo and how little influence he's had since he left office and, in particular, on his son and his politics. It was very depressing to read, I nearly stopped before the end, but I persevered.

I swear, the Democratic Party is where Republicans were in the 50s. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. But at this point, I want nothing to do with the Dems. They no longer represent my view of things. It's possible that I'm just a little late to be realizing this, that they haven't really represented my views and my political desires, but as bad as the Repuglicans are, Democrats are nearly as bad. If not worse, because they've chosen to go to the center and, in some things (anti-abortion Democrats? Say what?) they are so far to the right that I can't even see them anymore.

We need another party. At least here in New York, I think there's still a Liberal Party, although I don't know what condition it's in. The Working Families Party is doing well, but I'm not sure they're quite what I have in mind. But maybe they are, I dunno. Or maybe MoveOn should become an actual political party.

Maybe I should just register as an Independent. I'm disheartened enough to be thinking about that seriously.

Changes

I've been in business for more than 15 years now and a large part of that time I've had Sharks who work with me. And it's such a cross-section of women (it's almost always been women and it's been entirely women for the last decade or so) with such different lives and I get to see and hear about all sorts of things that in a way become part of my life. To wit:

A Shark I only just started working with turned back two files because her marriage just ended this morning. I feel so bad for her, esp. since she thinks that this means I won't work with her again. Of course, I don't work like that, plus I need all the help I can get, I'm not going to cut her loose unless her work really suffers.

One Shark's son has had some very scary medical problems over the last 9 months and they're still dragging him around to different doctors, including the Mayo Clinic (which is relatively nearby) to try to find out what is causing them.

Another Shark, who hardly works with me anymore, but is a good friend who's "lending" me her husband for a few days to help with my mother, has two grandkids with cystic fibrosis. One of them is waiting to get on the waiting list for a new set of lungs.

Another Shark is in Indonesia, where her husband is stationed with the State Dept., except lately he's been going to Kabul for extended periods.

Another Shark had a life-threatening illness last year involving several days' stay in a hospital.

And, of course, one Shark just lost her life due to breast cancer about a month ago. I still find it both hard to believe and terribly upsetting. Can't really think about it without crying a little bit.

There's always something else. Some of it is good--babies being born, fun trips taken. I guess this is a way of saying that I've got this incredible window on life just from my Sharks and I want to find a way of letting them know that I appreciate them, not just for the work they do, but for their friendship and that window.

feeling funny

My head feels a little funny all of a sudden. There's a little bit of a headache, but there's also some pressure kind of feeling...I dunno. Just thought I'd make a note of it.

I booked myself a small vacation yesterday. My first cruise! Maybe my last, too, we'll see how it goes. I don't even have the dates set yet, I can do that tomorrow. I'm really very nervous about it, there were a lot of bad reviews for this cruise line/ship, but also a lot of positive ones. I think as long as I'm not expecting something great, I probably won't be disappointed.

Forgot

I was reading back a little ways and realized that I hadn't mentioned that my stepfather died in January. It's odd how unaffected I was/am by this, other than it's changed my relationship with my mother. She feels alone now, but she hates that "other people" (namely me) seems to know all about her life. Because I have access to her IRA and money market account, so I can see online to whom she writes a check and how it much it is and when and where and for how much she uses her Visa card, because it's really a debit card.

There's so much I need to be doing to help her and I'm having a hard time getting it all done, for numerous reasons, at least one of which is that I don't know what to do half the time. And then there's the part about needing to spend time working and having a life. And I don't want to face the things that I do have to do, including flying down there again, so I put that off and it's costing more as a result.

Argh. Anyway, I made pumpkin muffins again tonight. Given some to a couple of people already, but I think I'm going to have one for dessert tonight. There, how's that for ending on a bright note?

Disappointment

I am SO very disappointed that mah jongg got canceled for tomorrow night. I really needed that diversion, some fun. Knowing me, I won't even try to find someone else to spend the evening with, something else to do, I'll just get work done and mope a little.

At least I will get a new bottle of wine and maybe something for dessert. I'll make pasta with shrimp and whatever...spinach, maybe. Garlic, of course. Maybe fresh dill and/or basil.

I'm still disappointed.

A good day

Not even sure why I feel like this was a good day...but I do. I did a little tai chi. Not as much as I'd hoped to, but I couldn't find the sheets with the list of the moves and that slowed me down a lot, as the DVD isn't as helpful as I'd like. So I did "24" and a little bit of "37" and I'll do more on Sunday, in class.

I got some shopping done, that was good. I got some work done, including finishing billing. Endured an endless phone call from my mother's friends, who are being "helpful"--really, truly helpful in some ways and possibly not in others, but I'm up here and they're down there and I figure let them do whatever, I can't help it. My biggest concern is what may have been done to the laptop, but there's nothing I can do about it from up here.

I'm also concerned about the increasing strength of vibrations I keep feeling. It used to be only at night, occasionally I'd feel the floor tremble and it was probably the work train going through. But now I seem to feel these vibrations much more strongly and much more frequently. I wonder if all the snow and ice did something to the foundation of the building. Which seems crazy now that I write it out, so I'm probably wrong.

Heard from Spike's vet tonight that his blood work is fine and he's cleared for dental work. Now I just have to find the right time to get this done. I also have to make definite plans to go back to Florida. End of March, I may have just gotten to where I've caught up on everything that got dropped on the last trip.

But that's: the future. Today, still, was a good day. I'm going to go to bed now.

Not reading that

There's lots of things I don't want to read these days, but topping the list may well be articles that talk about how being with a loved one, preferably having sex with them on a regular basis, will prolong one's life and make it a meaningful one in the bargain and the converse, that not having a mate will shorten one's life and make you miserable.

So I'm not looking forward to having to decide whether or not to read the piece in this coming Sunday's NY Times Magazine titled: Does Loneliness Reduce the Benefits of Exercise?

It's not like I'm getting enough exercise these days, although I'm making progress. But to think it's going to benefit me less because I don't have anyone to share my life with? Well, gee, thanks, Universe, for making me feel even worse about being alone.

It's not like that's going to change anytime soon...or, really, ever. If I ever have sex again, I will be very much surprised. To be honest, I'm okay with that. Which some might think is sad, but being post-menopausal has its benefits. Not many, but a drastically reduced sex drive is certainly one of them. Sure, the argument could be made that, if I weren't alone and I was, ahem, being intimate with someone else, then maybe the urge wouldn't have diminished quite so much. But we'll never know, will we?