Monday, September 08, 2003

Okay, it's time for the Extended Play Whine

The anemia, with the corresponding lack of energy, seems to be resolving itself (thank God) and I have good hopes of the underlying medical condition being manageable without surgery. I also hope work is not as hectic.

It really has been odd, and not-myself. Some big things (I was going to call on Best Friends to help rearrange the furniture, and get the deck plans finalized and the builder settled, maybe start planting this fall), and so many little things.

kvetch ON

- No visits to the farmer's market for peaches and 'maters. Me? Not at the farmer's market in the summer? I went for the first time Saturday.

- Speaking of cooking, anything that required chopping vegetables was out. I've been living on grilled steak (esp. leftover with store-made salsa in tacos), roast chicken, and baked salmon. With green beans or sugar snap peas (the ultimate no-prep veg). I made minestrone last weekend and it was the first time in a while I had chopped an onion. I'm thinking of doing an amazon guide, "Cooking for the Utterly Exhausted" (j/k).

- The Border's book card my SIL sent for my June BD was not spent until last week. This is highly unusual for anything involving money at a bookstore (for me). And I could have used some new reading material because that's a lot of what I was doing in the evening. :-)

-No church for three months because I couldn't bear the prospect of even Pew Aerobics, much less walking up the hill. Even if I wasn't working.

- I had to get the battery replaced in my watch, and it didn't take the first time, and it took me several weeks to get back. Okay, I had a "backup" watch, but it wasn't keeping wonderful time either and that sort of thing bugs me. Enough to take care of a dead watch battery within 24 hours of noticing it usually.

- Best friend #2 and her charming newlywed husband gave me a half day at a spa as a combo birthday/thanks for helping us with the wedding present. Bugger if I've even had the energy to pick up the telephone and book it.

- I was two months ahead of myself in the "throw or give away an average of 2 grocery sacks worth of stuff a week". I had hoped to take Nov and Dec off. I will need to do doubletime to get that lead back since I haven't done a damn thing in the decluttering department since July 4. I have actually missed doing it; seeing the order emerge from chaos really gave me a sense of accomplishment.

- At the worst of it I couldn't even formulate a good rant about the current political clusterfuck in this state (I'm better now, thanks, and I know exactly how I'm voting in October. September actually since I plan to do early absentee) .

And during the recent crunch time the A's went two games up and I didn't know till my labor day breather.

kvetch off

Although there's been some good things out during the period too. Some are definitely in the black humor category - as bad as things were at my job, actual bombs got exploded by animal rights extremists outside my former employer's. That was a real "it could be worse" moment :-/.

In other news, Warren Zevon died today. I've been aaawwoooooo-ing (a la Werewolves of London) all day, and I must say that I admire his sheer guts in working on one last album when he knew the end was near. He covered Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door", particularly apropos. Safe journey, Excitable Boy.