Yawn Girl and the Ragged Runner's Biggest Rocks

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Hormones hurled from the heavens upon the weary brow of our heroine left her weakened for the vicious calcium attack from below. The lessons were hard and well learned: never trust a supposed ally in the supplement battles (and always drink your water). The plague ravaged the (W)right weekend plans, taking our hacking hero from bike seat to convalescence in two hacks and a sniffle's time. Only the other-mother and her button sewn eyes could rouse him from his dwindling consciousness. And a plunge into the inner realms brought new ruminations (and yet more "pills"). 

Coming Up: Gorillas grapple with barracudas in the foggy twilight. Best laid pilates plans tremor in the winds of change, as YMCA billing processes inactivate accounts and annoy a hormonally-cocktailed member. Will logs and trees be hugged again? Will our warrior poses pullulate or peter out? Fatuous fiction traps our heroine in its anserine agony. Will she plummet through the looking glass into a funhouse of meta-mawkish-mumbo-jumbo seeking to subvert the Highsmithian highs into chick-lit lunacy? Will windows break when kindles fly across rooms? Kitchen plans laid waste and wastrel as the nutty norns intervene with fragile forks and harbor happenings. Will the hummus ere be saved? And runs raise rampant self-doubts and far-flung symbolic ponderances. Will Mr. (W)right ever ask "a simple question" again?

Charge up your e-readers, froth up your bile and pack some uncookies along to discover the final tally!

Friday Forms in Formidable Fog A final feat of a day to earn the weekend

There may well be gorillas afoot, what with all this mist dripping from every street lamp and traffic light (the only things that remain visible on a smazy morning)! I can't say that my ride to work stayed strictly on the roads, though I hope this is the case. I may well have barrelled through a few parks and office  buildings along the way. I'm not sure when exactly I tip-toed into an Edgar Allan Poe novel, but it does seem appropriate an appropriate ambience for our torrid tumble into full fall! We will eventually get to the point of putting fans away, closing the windows, and possibly even turning the heat back on. Not yet, judging by the tendency thus far of these fogs to burn off into crisply crystalline days. But eventually.

I've been riding the orange barracuda bareback(upping the hormonal mojito ante by an additional "pill") for three days now. It may be that the dosage is starting to accumulate sufficient to warrant side effects. Or I could be nauseous due to some philosophical crisis of existentialism and every one could just be exceptionally irritating to the point of tiring me out! Always an option.

After finally renewing my commitment to that pilates class at the YMCA, I got a phone call yesterday informing me that they stopped taking checks this summer, my account has been "inactive" since that time, and they don't know what to do with the checks my bank has been sending them. This perplexed me a bit, since I was allowed to enter several times in October. Apparently month-to-month memberships must be auto-charged by a credit card on file now. I guess I don't really mind this. But the whole idea seemed obscene to me yesterday. And when I did sufficient math to discover that the "seasonal membership" (three months paid in a chunk without the autobilling requirement) was actually four dollars pricier than the month to month... well I'm currently not a member of the YMCA anymore. I'm sure I'll come around, but the timing (just starting to use my membership after two months of desuetude and occasionally commenting that if it weren't for this one class, I'd drop my membership...)

Fortunately, I was mostly a touch too sleepy to care much after the YMCA phone call (phone calls intrinsically annoy me, so that might have had as much to do with it as anything). And the ambivalence floated me through the rest of the day quite nicely. I even had another excellent spell of quiet contemplation while perfecting the previously crafted excel spreadsheet. Oh even further, I reached - brace yourself - data entry!! Which was just my speed!

And when I got home, I forewent any grand ambitions at making "cauliflower steaks," proclaiming I was low energy and would make do with leftovers. Of course, when I do leftovers they typically become culinary endeavors unto themselves. Thaw and reheat some pumpkin chili? Sure, but wouldn't the bit left be good with some lentils? And a sweet potato? Oh and there's plenty of napa cabbage and kale that would really pop. And hmmm more onion? You know, I'm not feeling the chili, let's revamp the spice profile with more of a garam masala and ginger sheen... etc. until it's 6:00 p.m. and I hear the garage door growling (at which point I realize I never plugged the rice cooker in, so ... time to make couscous!!!) But considering how much time and effort leftovers took, I'm glad I didn't attempt something that would have required innovative thinking and a lot of produce prepping (read "mess-making with sharp knives"). 

The futzing was restful, and the sofa surfing with my hubba-hubby was decidedly un-irritating (and I have Bhutanese rice for lunch today!) So I come into this day feeling pretty a-ok. A little nauseous from time to time. But a-ok. 

Once we debouch from our haze into the glare of autumn's sunniest (should such a thing continue to occur), I see a beautiful WEEKEND unfolding. Well, after my mother is surgically extracted from the mediation miff that looms over our collective morning. There are several reasons this won't be a tea party. For one, nobody remembered to order the scones. For another, all those other reasons I'd just as soon ignore for another few happy moments of ignorant bliss. 

For now, I'll stare into the haze outside my window and the little pinprick stars of glowing orbs (streetlights? aliens? spirits? who can say) and wish you all a fantastic FRIDAY!!!!!

Caturday Capers and Escape from the Peaks of Lit-Pique

I have escaped the bonds of a bad book! And there was much rejoicing. As I was explaining to a friend recently, I'm the kind of reader who lets a book... um... get to her. While I'm relatively even-keeled in most of my relationships, my relationship with literature may have some strains of borderline personality disorder. I love it. I hate it. It's nothing in between and if it lets me down, oh god will I destroy it ... with my brain. And nothing more. 

The way I see it, literature forms a symbiotic relationship with the readers' imagination, borrowing great portions of any reader's cognitive facilities each time the story is recreated. Overwriting portions of brainspace generally dedicated to the  maintenance of that trusty illusion of identity, even. It's a full-bodied cerebral experience that leaves little room for passivity. As such, it has a stronger effect on me than many other forms of entertainment. With movies and so on, I feel I have a greater ability to choose my level of engagement. I may sit back and let the story present itself to me (while doing a crossword and maybe fixing dinner even). Or I may become fully complicit. But I have that option. 

With literature, I become the conduit and vessel of the art itself. It burrows into my brain. And inevitably, my inner monologue (having been co-opted by a narrator's timbre) picks up the prose-style and tendencies of the piece I'm reading. Which can make me fully rapt. Alternately, I may fall prey to the throes of vituperative viscerating venom against the thing which has so abused my delicate id-self.

I'm more likely to abandon a book halfway through if it's a book I think is "ok" or "meh" or even "well written, but just doesn't grab me" than one I actually dislike. Maybe it's a sunken cost fallacy. A desperate hope that one brilliant ending will justify the time lost on something that has so insulted my supposed intelligence. Maybe I just kind of enjoy a little self-righteous raging.

I'm loathe even to admit which book was currently irritating me, because inevitably (1) I cannot talk about my fully frothed annoyance without some sheer hyperbole that may well imply a scathing review not only of the source material but also of anyone who likes the material; (2) at least one person I know and respect and have no intention of insulting inevitably loves any book that I hate. Tastes are funny like that. 

Suffice to say I will eventually froth over and just declare that Gone Girl is - to me in all my righteous roil - not my cup of tea. Really, it strikes me as an awkward attempt to squish Patricia Highsmith into chick-lit. Which is just wrong. It is also obsequiously hip and meta, something it is so hip and meta about that it frequently references the fact that it is being quite hip and meta within the book. Every five seconds, some character or other is mentioning how much they feel like they're a character in a crime novel or tv procedural. Then thinking about how they're thinking about it and how that's really cliche and then becoming cliche and going with it in this endless loop of pointless reflection.

Given that the story is decidedly derivative (though as unlikable protagonist #1 points out more than once, "derivative as a critique is like soooo derivative") of said crime novels and stories, that's appropriate. Which could well be exploited for an interesting tension between the happenings of a crime-novel formula and characters of a more realistic bent. I think there are hints we might try to exploit that. But instead, they just kind of conform increasingly to cardboard cut-outs of more interesting-and-less-overwroughtly-explained predecessors. 

None of them are particularly engaging or begrudgingly appealing in that way that horrible people in good thrillers tend to be. The villainous victim (yeah, I don't think anyone who's ever read a cliff notes of a mystery or noir could call it a spoiler to say that "Diary Amy" is a fake and our heroine is apparently a "brilliant" sociopath... except when she's a naive moron) is always a chance for a seductive anti-hero, but instead she's just so annoying that she made the annoying Diary Amy persona slightly less so by comparison. There's no ambivalence or ambiguity exploited or utilized. It's all so obvious for a book promising miles and miles of twists and turns. Painfully, insultingly obvious. And unremarkable. But in this sort of blecky way that still makes my inner dialog go a little crusty and bleak and suspicious of the institution of marriage. 

Maybe less psycho chic-lit than revenge chic-lit passed off as noir for bitter divorcees of average intelligence who want to feel clever. Ok, see where I said I go all judgmental and hyperbolic? I don't really mean that, but I get all wound up. 

I started this "literary" endeavor because David Fincher went and made a movie out of it. And that had all these fairly intelligent reviewers coming out and comparing it to the book. Some of them had high praise for the book, making me rethink my previously "no thank you" to the whole affair. I still have hope for the movie because (1) since it is so derivative of prior crime stories, the story itself - with a more interesting ending - actually has been and could again be quite functional in the proper hands, (2) David Fincher made Fight Club, which made a generation of smart kids benightedly believe that Chuck Palahniuk was the voice of our disaffected generation (he's not, but when your concept of Fight Club starts with the movie... you give the book and its subsequent carbon copies a lot more leeway for several years before realizing you've been had). 

Regardless, it's a bloody f-ing relief to wash a painfully prosaic pablum from my inner voice with a refreshing chaser of something else! Anything else! In this case, a series of short stories called Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell. Thank you, Ms. Russell for not sucking horribly (har har, vampire joke!) 

And I'm off and on to my Caturday capering! I have already been out shopping, nearly requiring an ark to make it to the store with the passing tsunamis. And Andrew is hearty and hale enough to make it back to his four hour bike ride plans. I'm sure he'll survive. Hopefully. But if he doesn't, I swear he like is totally a brilliant sociopath who set me up with some massively over complicated (but BRILLIANT) plans. You'll see. When you find the second diary that he inscrutably is keeping after the first one and intersperse it with my self-conscious half-truths of a snivel fest... oh you'll see those Marionettes weren't just whistlin' Don Giovanni!! 

Of Big Rocks and Little unCookies Saturday gone (not hugely) wild

Yesterday was not the kitchen bacchanalia that I had anticipated. Those hempy norms quite craftily wove a polyphonic counterpoint to all my little mousy plots. Immediately after getting all my produce and prep stuff sprawled and smooshed across the kitchen, my presence was demanded elsewhere. Requiring a hasty repackaging, half-hearted "clean" and a rush back out the door yet again to barrel down streets and avenues towards far flung destinations. I can't complain about this too vociferously. My throat is hoarse from all the moaning yesterday, after all. 

Also, well,  the interruptions were generally pleasant affairs. After the first attempt to make my version of pico (not really at all, but the chopped onions, parsley, and peppers I add to my morning meal), I was off for a walk in the highly atmospheric Zuanich Park (Bellingham's bigger harbor). We hit a window between deluges and even saw glints of sunlight glinting from the roiled tides beyond us.  

Upon my return, I had just enough time to mop the hurricane I'd left behind, and extract most of the produce for a mostly finished pepper and onioning. Well, turns out that I left a bunch of cabbage and parsley and onions and peppers stashed in the salad spinner and promptly forgot about them for the rest of the day. Oh the joyfully pungent discoveries of later days. But just enough time to mostly give the food processor its second what-for that day. 

No more time. Not before Andrew - who'd been out in the Chuckanuts plummeting down even steeper hills than usual - requested a pick up in Fairhaven because "something was up" with his fork. Turns out it was less of an emergency than I'd interpreted in my dervish back through the stashing-everything-in-containers-in-the-fridge-and-fleeing-the-house routine (going on Tour in Spring of 2015 - reserve your tickets now!). I arrived in a glutted and thoroughly clogged Fairhaven about twenty minutes before Andrew puttered in on his bike. That time was well spent dredging the clotted neighborhood for something remotely resembling a parking spot. Eventually, I just picked him up on the curbside after he'd left his little treasure in the capable hands of the Bike and Ski people.  

Needless to say, I'd not really anticipated all this kitchen nonsense taking longer than "the morning" so I also hadn't had lunch by the time we got back (just around 2:30). Finally did eat and finally made it to the hummus I'd  expected to finish at roughly 11:30 a.m. that morning. All the several grander culinary conceits have been waylaid and ziplocked. They are on their way to the freezer at this rate. 

After the grand kitchen finale, we did have a pleasant evening excursion to Big Rock Garden, one of the little hidden gems of Bellingham's extensive park system. Beautiful Japanese gardens strewn with commissioned sculptures and related arts. Slowly zenned me back out of "AAAAA" kitchen-panic mode. 

This morning, I tried to make up some of the kitchen-crafting difference by making some protein bars and a new recipe experiment of uncookies. My last had mashed banana, oats, applesauce, and spices. Bananas are anathema to Papa T. He made it through one without realizing the "secret ingredient" but awareness exponentially increased from there. So I thought I'd try to replicate without the banana. Applesauce, peanut butter, oats, some jam and spices. Could definitely have used a little honey, though I like them in their nearly savory form. 

We are just about off for our run, so I'm jotting this out a bit more rapidly and less elaborately than generally, but I assure you, I'll be having far more strange fantastical thoughts just about all of you while I plod around the lake. And/or about the painful callous on my right outer arch that is making running a little uneven. One of those. 

Moonday Mystifications and Morning Pother - Socktober to the Rescue

It has come to this: I'm on the brink of booting up my SAD light. Like turning on the heat, firing up the ol' mini-nova represents a point of no return on the season, rife with portent symbol and onerous omens of darker days ahead. Not something to be taken lightly (har har PUN!). 

Sure it's a little chilly, but it's not cold enough yet! Sure, it's pitch black when I rise and for several hours afterwards, but it's going to get so much worse that's it's virtually mid-summer in Alaska hereabouts by comparison. The days have several more hours to lose before the hiemal quietus to our sanity manifests in perpetual ash of our sparsely day-almost-lit hours. 

Sparking up the incalescence and luminescence feels a bit like (1) admitting defeat, because obviously the seasons and I are in an epic battle, (2) wasting fire-power and risking early hedonic adjustment. Or something. Maybe I'm just lazy. But soon. Very soon, I'll stop stumbling through the mornings in somnambular stupor and instead grope blinkingly through the blinding happy rays. Eventually, it may even grow cool enough to turn off the office fans. Ok, probably not. I hear they're revving up the boiler now, which means it's probably just going to even more infernal in our twelfth floor boiler room. Just watch, we'll have to run the a/c all year round!

Yesterday was, however, one of those days that doesn't quite merit the heat/light combo. Yes, it was a touch cinereal and moderately damp, but with bursts of sun and a certain warmth. Perfect running weather. Just cool enough to make my and head lungs happy, but only so cool that my hands got tepidly numb and blue. Once we hit the forties, my fingers will go gelid no matter the insulating layers I pile on top. Really, by the forties, my toes may start losing sensation. But fifties are fine by me. 

As Mr. (W)right discovered (or desperately tried not to discover) upon asking what appeared to be the very simple question "would you like to start increasing our run times together": I have this lingering ambivalence about running. I love running. It got me through my first year of law school. Yes, I dread it before every run, but by the second mile I am soaring. Yes, I keep injuring myself, but hell I do that in the kitchen. Once I'm out there, there is nothing more meditative or transcendent. Just me, the pavement, my breath and my steps. It's magical. 

But in my current hormonal predicament, I can't help noticing that it was when I started running that everything went wonky. Granted, I started running specifically to deal with nuclear levels of stress-fall-out and this coincided with a drastic loss of weight which I've dubbed "the law school thirty" (everyone either gains or loses it, but that first year will transform ya one way or another!)

And honestly, I think it's the combination of underfeeding myself for my activity level, and continuing to mix running with dancing with aerobics with yadda yadda yadda that really did me in. And that then, despite an ongoing sense of unease, I masked the symptoms with birth control and decided not to deal with it until we were at least arguably "ready" to head towards possible fecundity for fear of either terrifying a not-so-ready boyfriend or stumbling into some kind of "oh it would just figure" sort of discovery along the way. In that natural way of human  beings who will blame themselves for things far out of their hands because at least that blame gives them a faint illusion of control, I feel like I didn't listen to myself and kept on running. Yeah, running's become symbolic of all the stuff above. 

So when I read in my endo's flier that maybe I wasn't even supposed to get beyond "four hours of moderate activity" (maximum HR 140 bpm, which is about twenty BPM below my average running HR) a week... well, like all of us as patients, I have a way of undermining myself on the one hand, and flying into hypochondriac manias on the other. I have gained weight, but not as much as I proclaimed I would/should (still hovering at just 130, which is technically healthy but not really). And, well, for a while I was running, working out, etc. etc. on top of the usual several miles of treadmill walking a day. I like it. It's my lifestyle. If I don't have to change it, I'd rather not. But what if I ought to? 

 The arch injury was kind of a relief. It made any ambivalence between my athletic drive to over-push and my miserly drive to over-conserve (plus the cerebral compulsion to overthink) a moot point. But now that my foot has recovered... well, I was at least able to say "it's just 30 minutes a week. That can't really do all that much. " As if magically each minute added to that "only" has an exponential impact. 

I love running. And I'm horribly jealous that Andrew gets to do it with little impact on his health. And that if I bag out, what was once my thing when we first started dating will become his thing instead of at least our thing. And maybe I'm more competitive than I think or maybe I just hate being left out, but the fact that he already does more of it than I do (especially after this last year) does make my inner child do a pouty face. Which is the same pouty face (tumid lip and all) it makes when he attempts to retract his offer that "we" do more running and suggests he can just do it midweek. 

At any rate, the real moral is: This is why you don't ask Adella even the simplest sounding of questions right before bed, or at any time where you aren't ready for at least twenty minutes of omphaloskeptic dialog as she rounds the corners of every single facet inherent. And don't think there won't be a pop quiz at some point in the future about how this simple question relates to that time when she was three and realized her parents were not god and mortality was the bittersweet spice of life.

This is why, instead, you wait until just after a run - when her brain is too amped up on endorphins and already bitter than she has had to stop, to ask this question. Because then she'll most likely just say "ok, but let's work up gradually. Now excuse me, I NEED TO EAT. And SHOWER. Possibly at the same time!!"

Fortunately, between giddy and ponderous, most of the day fell into a loosely efficient half-focus. We watched The Corpse Bride. We took a nap (oh the indulgence).

And I made my hackneyed variation on aloo gobhi. With red rice instead of basmati. With a garnet "yam" instead of potato. And with maybe not enough sauce. Really, the recipe let me down on the one area to which I remained devout (well mostly). It was delicious but about half as much as I would have liked in ratio to my small head of cauliflower, half yam, onions, peppers, and chickpeas. I could have eaten the sauce like a kitty lapping from a saucer, but instead I had to allow that it had absorbed into the veggies. Ah well. 

And today is Monday. I see pallid promises of sunlight peeking twixt strata and hilltop, while I eye my light box suspiciously. It is whispering sweet nothings in my direction, which I fortunately cannot hear over the Wind Machine that still chugs along beside it!

Wolves Weary and Family Flees: Teeter Totter Out of August Anomie (and a fall into Fall Frenzy)

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Moon-howling Mad-Olympian Cohabitation: Despite her terror, our Auntie-DINK plunged forward through the mirror-maze of specialists to the final test of little lobby girls who wanted to play. Wolves bayed at aquatic slots, while children scampered and screeched. Our little matrilineal mob shuffled three young lads to the home of The Great Wolf. Many traffic toils were (barely) conquered! Jungles were razed. And waves were decidedly wild!  Our DINKs held rendezvous in enemy territory for a night of pure passionate exhaustion and passing out, before mountains were scaled and final traffic torments taken on. 

Coming up: Returns of returns of returns. With final smashing of breaks and retching of nephews, the grand Bellingham Stage of Falconer Vacation comes to an end. I-5 determines to foil the flight of our little companions. Will Gramma Pam and google maps speed them ever on their way to Antarctica/Mars? Or will they be doomed to roam the side streets of Everett for all eternity?? Auntie Adella officially declares naptime, and our DINK comes leaping out, then tumbling down? Will fitness manage to put the final quietus on our "healthy" hapless heroine? Will she ever find a comfortable sleeping arrangement between the ache in her side, the twitch in her husband, and the implacable fussiness of perfect bedroom climate control?? Looby lady pills and orange barracudas get new playmates and perfectly pitched pill-regimens are toppled all turvy. Will new pills bring new perfect schedules? Will stickers be golden or silver? And Englettlaw licks its maws after a months' starvation. Will Associate Adella and Mom-Boss rise to the occasion or be eaten in the neglected August emergency slush and ash? 

Prepare the bandages, ice your wounds, and pick up a box of donuts before joining us to find the answers below...

Return to Tiny Sphynx Cat Casa   Of Olympian Ichor, Climate Wars and a side of stabbing ouchie
I have ventured to the Wolf's lair and emerged only psychically scathed (more than can be said for my return to DINKdom, but we'll get to that later).  A buzzing breakfast buffet, one last splash around the water park, an emergency poop operation (successful), and one final splash in the bath and we were on our way. Into traffic! And boy was there plenty of it. Ian was stalwart in surviving a good two hours in the back of our car with no functioning kindle or dvd player. Thank god we stopped for lunch eventually so he could get the other kindle. Also, I have now sort of heard The Nut Job, even if I have no idea what the heck was goin' on beyond good old fashioned shenanigans and moral lessons about the rule of law for small rodents. 

And today, the whole brood is off to Chicago. They never actually go home. Falconer trips are truly epic. I believe after visiting Ryan's family and their old haunting grounds, they will then be off to either Mars or Antarctica. Whichever one has the better theme park. It took some wheeling dealing and engineering innovation to shove the luggage into the trunk, but somehow we managed. The boys started off in good enough moods, but were cavilling cavalierly by the time seatbelts on signs lit up. I'm sure that the drive and subsequent ride will be a delight for all involved!

And like that I'm a DINK again. Well maybe after I rinse the lemonade and Mike&Ike hair treatment out and dust the remaining cinnamon toast residue off my pants. But we're back into childless territory with a great wham and slam. 

Yesterday morning, Andrew and I again arose next to each other, but with the twist that we were in our familiar little bedroom. Breakfast was another buffet, but the placid climes of Old Country with my fairly sedate (if rapaciously ravenous) Papa T. This was kind of the penultimate birthday hurrah "meal out" with bonus socks to be displayed in future exhibits! Andrew talked about his ridiculous race around Capitol Forest and ate roughly five breakfasts to refuel. I drank roughly twenty cups of decaf, which brought about a sufficient buzz. And with hugs, we departed off to our abridged weekend routine. 

First off, a run! I also took a quick run on Thursday before heading out. This is promising. Two runs in one week and they're starting to feel pretty good. Mostly. Good news, the injury to my arch is slowly adapting. I don't feel any pain from my Thursday and Sunday lopes around Padden. More good news: the pain in my pectoral from pilates seems to have subsided (no heart attack required!).

 The inevitable stinger: Ok, I took a total spill on the trail, during I which scratched up my right side a decent amount and - wait for it - have once again pulled my the ornery intercostal that I originally pulled trying to breakdance and then subsequently re-pulled trying to mountain bike. So much for my theoretical grand return to pilates today! Physical fitness is maybe not really all that good for your health I sometimes think! At least when you're kind of clumsy and not an unbreakable pre-teen. 

After our run and a grocery kicker, Andrew went off on a post-bike-race-bike-ride and I had a final hurrah with the family before coming home and even managing to start a few of the usual weekend chores. 

Toddler triage abandoned it was time for a return to our own portentous problems: the absolutely perfectly pleasant climate control settings for our bedroom. Naturally, I am particular about my sleeping climate. I prefer slightly cold with warm slippers on my feet and a hefty blanket for snuggling. I'm willing to negotiate on this one for the summer months but only begrudgingly and only because I'm also plagued with a miserly eco-guilty bent. In winter, I may sleep with the electric slippers on and I'll definitely have the heated mattress pad. 

The old bike-and-chain, it turns out, actually has specific preferences as well.  I swear, I used to think Andrew was completely immune to nocturnal discomfort. His old cave in Seattle was a stagnating swamp in the summer and  a hibernal hell in the winter. He slept on a crotchety twin bed with missing slats and a mattress reminiscent of camp with only a top sheet and a threadbare comforter many years beyond comfort. And he slept! In the same pjs throughout the year. 

Eventually, I learned he gets hot sometimes. Like when he stayed at my drafty condo, he didn't seem to appreciate the extra fluff of my old down comforter and incalescent heating pads. By which I mean, I'd wake up next to a sweaty irritable-looking shirtless boyfriend entirely on top of the sheets and thrashing. Similar issues in my next two residences. 

Then we moved to our current place. The stuffiest bedroom conceivable to my sensibilities. At this juncture the open windows and assisting fans were way too breezy and he got cold. I can't deny this one, though. It was a bit of a airplane hanger, and apparently he actually didn't like the sensation of "sleeping outside on a cliff-bluff in Oregon" (whoops, forgot he didn't like camping). 

So we moved our bedroom around to take him off the bluff and bought an air conditioning unit. When we first got it, it sounded like the exact settings were up to me, and I should choose what was comfortable for me, because he was comfortable in warmer rooms than me. And his main priority was not being wind-swept into the abyss in the middle of the night. 

Turns out, he's found himself waking up in a torrid sweaty humid blecky mess in the middle of the night. He has subsequently appraised himself of air conditioning usage. Being me, I turned this all into a conversation about how we could discover our mutually optimal settings and collaborate so as not to be undermining each other in a silent battle of settings in the middle of the night. 

Not sure this really gels with Andrew's "if I'm uncomfortable in the middle of the night I'll either be a man and suffer stoically or be a man and take steps to fix it," but we try. The experiment yesterday was to turn the a/c down lower. He thought he'd turned it to 70. I had turned it to 69 after that. We also tried the fan on the middle setting, which he turned to low in the middle of the night. Not saying they're related, but I did wake up in the middle of the night feeling overheated and needed to throw the blanket off myself and disrobe by a few levels. 

As of this morning, he claims this was a good setting, but then again he spent the entire evening tossing and turning (to the plaintive chorus of tired uxorial sighs at each jarring toss), so I'm not sure it was a fair test. I'm also fairly convinced that when the temperatures hit a certain level in the evening, it is better to open the windows back up and switch to fan, but it's really hard to pinpoint exactly when this is.

Oh how hard it is to be a DINK! The things we put ourselves through!

While the kiddos speed to Seatac, and the hubby groggily finishes up testing with nary a Screwpocalypse in sight (knock on wood, but his work project seems to be finally coming together), I'm back at the office in a dreary daze. My life has been waiting for me, it appears, but I think I'll ask it to hold off for a few more hours anyways. The monkeys and I would like to gather some wool and stuff it into our heavily contemplated navels, if possible.

May all your Mondays be Merrily Madcap and full of Monkey-business!

Kickin' Back (Into Associate Hyperdrive) The Feverish Falconer Dallas Delerium, and Workdays Looming

The wolf may have left its prey undigested, but there are plenty of neglected work demons licking their lusty maws and waiting to pounce now that family is gone. Is family gone? Just barely! As apparently is now par for the course for any air travel and/or drive through Seattle, it was ACTION PACKED. Accidents to the left of them, vomit to the right... and a reschedule/late plane/minor apocalypse/etc, with a dalliance in Everett of all places.

Being at the office, I only got the slightly panic-soaked text messages requesting that I continue watching google maps to ascertain where the accidents were and what the time estimates were. Not entirely sure why but somehow maps wasn't quite cooperating on the in-car phone, so I got the zesty and delightful request to tell them how to get back on the freeway from Highway Something Or Other Of No Return. Anyways, I threw a bunch of speculation (having no clear sense of where they actually were) at the chat window and suggested there were later flights, since they were not prolly gonna make their planes all considered. 

Apparently they ignored my unhelpful suggestions and found their own way back to Seatac with minutes to spare... in somebody else's context of time. Alaska offloaded them to American. And off the family went to Dallas, where a connecting flight and some additional upchucking children awaited them. Last I heard, they all survived, and are now in Chicago visiting Ryan's side of the family.

According to Braden, this part of the trip is WAY better than the Bellingham portion. If only we were out to please exclusively him, I'd rejoice at this declaration, it basically being a pass not to even try (and oh lord do we try) to amuse or entertain him, since apparently the real path to a four year old's heart (other than being the land where his lifelong best friend lives) has to do with Daddy buying him donuts and grandparents making him freezer biscuits.

Donuts? That sounds a lot easier than the various excursions to children's play palaces, wave pools, arcades, and theme restaurants! Ah well. Nobody really tries to please the fickle but fabulous Bray-bray Jiggs (duh, he's the middle child anyways), so it's moot. And since I've seen some pretty happy moments from the kid during this trip, I can only take it as a testament to how freakin' awesome Daddy and those freezer biscuits really are. Life-changing, I bet. Which is funny because usually when Ryan brings the kids treats in the morning, they almost entirely ignore them.

 Did I mention kids are fickle? Fickle as a pickle if pickles were fickle. You should hear the bitter sweet epithets thrown at mommy, the worst most beautiful most awful terrible wonderful mother in the world. Is it just me or are our totally unhealthy codependent relationships from those netherlands of late teens just practice for being parents? 

Having ensured that our kin were well provided for, Gramma Pam sped back in a race against all clocks to reach her 2:00 mediation. She made it with only a five minute deficit, though we did have to forestall the rental car return until later in the evening.

 Needless to say, none of the other exigencies brewing were acknowledged, let alone addressed. I did manage to note them on the case status sheet and to set about the fairly daunting task of billing my mom's last week of "vacation" work. This involves trowling phone, email, and chat records over several days and checking against our billing records. Since she was consistently handling the crucial flow from Wednesday afternoon through Saturday, I had a fair bit to trudge through. And this does not count the 16 new messages in her inbox from yesterday! 

Or the meeting with one of our clients who may not technically be in emergency, but who operates in panic mode regardless. 

I, for my part, will have work assigned to me by the ton in a few hours, but currently all is pending. I have a free mediation/legal options consult coming up in an hour or so for which I'll need to round up paperwork. The real question, do I let on in advance that my clients have an uncanny knack for reconciling? Probably we'll just keep that my little secret for now. And between the pleasant meet and greet and the flurry of looming exigencies, I'll be back volunteering at the DRC. Except my new supervisor is on vacation for the next two weeks. My original supervisor's successor claimed he was going to think of things for me to do, but we'll see... I'm sorely tempted to write and say "hey no biggie if there's not much to do, as I'd love to just go home and take a nap while propped up gingerly in the only pillow configuration that doesn't hurt my intercostals!"

Oh yes, the joy of my little recurring intercostal annoyance is that it's pretty ok with being upright or sitting, but laying down hurts. Which makes sleeping... interesting. I may need to get more pillows tonight as my half solution last night left my neck a little sore. 

It's gonna be a wild ride today, but don't hassle me: I'm on vacation from vacation (from vacation from vacation). 

Hungry Hyper Happy Hippo-Thyroids Evolution of the Pill case

Now that the children are on their merry way and Aunt Adella has mostly receded into the booster seat inexplicably still lurking in her kia rio, the quest to max out that insurance deductible continues! Now that I'm with specialist^specialist, I've got all kinds of new excitement coming up. First off: new pills. How did the Girl Scout ditty go? Take new pills, and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold? Something like that.

 New pills will beget new blood work to check on new pills, which may or may not spawn even newer and better pills. I've also got some other tests and blood work waiting to be done once old pills  are finished with their last hurrah. 

I had my old pills all figured out, but now... oh now there are more! And they come with their own drug/food interactions and specific instructions that turn my little twice a day pill regimen into a full on LSAT logic puzzle. Take the synthroid at least 4 hours but no less than twenty before and/or after the iron, but take the iron on a full stomach and in combination with the prenatal compound with the vitamin C that can be taken with the calcium but never with fermented yak's milk unless you are also taking the estradiol, which you should definitely take at a different time than the crushed beetle antlers which should only be consumed while slathered in holy pumpkin and during a full moon... something like that. 

No, really I just added a small dose of synthroid, which I'm promised shuffles me down the road of ART excitement yet to come. I'm just barely "normal" but "normal" isn't good enough for somebody as fabulous as me, right? Anyways, it's supposed to be taken on an empty stomach, which is challenging because my dietary habits are sort of centered around constantly eating food from waking to sleeping. It also should be taken at least a few hours apart from any other vitamins or medications and at least four from calcium or iron, both of which I was previously taking in the morning. With a huge glass of milk and a fair bit of coffee and/or fiber, which may or may not be relevant in terms of dosages and absorption. 

Anyways, I'm enjoying the puzzle aspect of it. I realized if I take it immediately upon rising, then I usually don't actually have breakfast for about forty-five minutes anyways. Of course if I start making lunches in the morning, I do munch on those, so it's easier to make lunch the night before (for several reasons, really, but to avoid the munching also). Then I can put off my previously titled "morning pills" until noon, and keep my evening pills the same.  I skip my coffee, which is just fine because so far the psychosomatic and/or other type of side effect of this new regimen involved feeling pretty wired in the morning. Have a much smaller amount a few hours later in the morning. I hear that we're actually better served by coffee putting off the first cup until a few hours after we get up anyways, so my coffee flavored milk can wait. 

But clearly, I need (1) a new pill case, (2) a compliance chart that I can fill in with stickers and/or gold stars. The pill case, because I've found that having a record of days helps override the usual "did I or didn't I do that automatic pill popping earlier and if I'm not sure should I risk over or under dosing myself today?" quandary.

The chart because I like charts and I like stickers. I used to have little achievement charts when I was taking piano. Lots of pretty sparkly stickers involved in those...

Anyways, after a bit of a dither yesterday, we are nearly caught up at the office and ready for things to start heating up and slipping away again over the impending Labor Day holiday. I'm thoroughly unaware of the fact that our trip is in less than three weeks. We did look at a guide book and like our itineraries. I speak um... English and we have a phrase book. I'm sure it'll all be fine. And that exploding Iceland thing is apparently not a problem according to several very assured scientists and desperate aviation industry representatives who think this is all totally different than 2010. 

Plus I got a dehydrator for my birthday! As is my wont when I travel, probably 75% of my luggage will be devoted to foodstuffs. I suspect the durability and versatility of dried foods might actually enhance that portion of my luggage. Of course, I'll have to actually remove it from its packaging and utilize it to enjoy the benefits. Packing the dehydrator would probably not be an ideal solution. 

And it's Wednesday!!! This is a pleasant surprise since yesterday had the panicked pallor of Monday for us. 

Happy humpday all! May all your meds be consumed in responsible doses and your stickers gleam and glisten!

The De-Labored Pre-Labor Day Work Day

I guess we're not the only ones lodged between summer vacation frenzies and Labor Day last hurrahs: This day just doesn't wanna happen. Like I'm back in law school and TGIT (yes, we actually did break with business-school tradition and have classes on Fridays, but the traditional law school drinking started around mid-Thursday with a TGIT party in one of the classrooms), this sardine packed Thursday keeps reducing itself to a glaringly vacant calendar. 

First they came for my mom's appointments: a client dropped a Protection Order hearing so no need to prepare, another client moved to next week, another call couldn't be handled until after speaking with the client. 

And I said nothing because I still had a morning consult.

 Then they came for her hearings: a presentation hearing had to be cancelled because - yet again - the wrong commissioner was assigned to this day. We did actually try to check this with the clerk before setting the hearing, but oh well.

 And again I said nothing other than "grumble grumble" because I had my morning consult and a volunteer shift at the DRC in the afternoon. 

And then, oh beautiful then, I came into work this morning to find a message from my putative morning consult. She believed she had an appointment with a - um - Adella Wright?? Anyways, she doesn't anymore. FREEDOM! It's like having your classes cancelled due to a prof no-show. 

After a double-surge of frenetic productivity, the unexpected lull is a blessed relief that I may or may not have the energy to exploit for productive purposes. You know those days right after exams, where you are so mentally done that despite all those fantasies about "what I get to do when I'm no longer studying/writing/scrambling," you find yourself sitting still on a sofa for straight hours staring inscrutably into space as time laps over you like a gently incoming tide? That may be my morning. Or, I may go out and get some blood drawn! One can never predict!

Yesterday, despite all my reconciliation juju, I managed to get a client divorced. It only took them a decade or two (most of which, due to complications with prior attorneys, they were unaware that they were still married)! And, I may have hooked a couple into Collaborative Law. I've sent out the forms and I believe it when I see it, but it would be really exciting to work with them. 

In far more important news, I discovered the secret of the ZERO and/or "AGENT" command. After Andrew's laboriously involved quest for the perfect phone and phone plan, I came to understand that (1) I just wasn't ready to switch to AT&T even if I could theoretically save money doing so (after having to buy a new phone anyways);  (2) Given my data usage, I could save a decent amount of money (like half my bill) switching to a newer plan from Verizon; (3) Given my mom's non-existent data usage, she really really needed to switch as well.  

Of course, the Verizon automated phone tree was absurd, and the internet didn't want to let me make that switch. But then Andrew revealed the magical back-door cheat code. If you just push zero a whole lot or ask for agent, you eventually get piped to a living person. And, in my case, that person was extremely helpful.

While Andrew's subsequent dalliance (with my phone on the unlimited talk and text single line plan I had switched to just in time for such telephonic tangos with the hold line) AT&T was fruitful, and his phone is now set up and his number transferred, I did note that he was on hold to some really awful music several times and was cut off and had to call again several more. So I may still be happy with Verizon for now, now that I know the secret of the zero. 

Having accomplished these things already within the week and having given today a good sporting go at preparation only to have it flake out on me, I'm quite ready to celebrate Thursday old school. TGIT, I say! Bring on the leis and the grass skirts, because I declare it time to limbo. 

Mediation Matroyshkas Yuk Up on Yucca: A Sticky Gummy Guilty All-Amuricuhn Week

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Mediation madness marred our heroine's mind. Identities flung to the curb in a gaseous burst of panic and confusion. Rooms tornadoed in torrid tornadoes. Sleep blew away in the wind tunnel of infinite mind. Stones fired harmonic unities. And our couple returned to the altar to pray for their imperiled marital bliss in a pelfered Mazda and with plenty of panic. 

Coming up: Mediations continue their merry-madness. And Adella once more descends through Franz Kafka's The Doctor Visit. Will she emerge from the shifting Matroyshka with new pills? Will Dr. House's illegal intervention kill or save her? Gum goes the way of the gas guzzler, as oral fixations succumb to eco-guilt. What new lives shall be taken in the compost heap of Pacific Northwestern trash tetris? Father of the Pink Beard returns in a huff and puff of nicotine. And our hero sets out upon his endless infinite mountain quest with a battered spoke, while Sis & Brood, Inc. promises a visit of epic food proportions. Sherpas shall be required. Running rampages come in every context while poisonous produce lurks in the kitchen and smoke seeps from the stove. Can anyone survive the weekend? 

Separate your bottles, retrieve your paring knife, and check your grocery list twice.

Mediation Mojo Don't Fail the Feets Now And Attack of the Eco Guilt

Here at work, we are entering Bout 3 of Mediation Madness in our grand Year of the Muddled. Mediation. 

A recap for those of you following the series points: Mediation #1 didn't go. Last minute pile of bloviating nothing from the other side necessitated rescheduling. Mediation #2 happened on Monday. It appeared that rime would ridge Satan's heinie before any "agreement" would be reached between these particular parties, after all the "delightful" ways various involved professionals have been poking hornets nests with lit sparklers... but implausibly, the mediation actually did resolve in a signed agreement. 

Of course, the fall out of that agreement continues, as one of the agreements had to do with the "use" of a certain "professional" whom I won't call-out in so many words, other than to call this professional Dr. Looney-Tunes. Dr. Looney-Tunes is a therapist. Well, technically a counselor (distinctions galore). Let's just say DLT and our client don't get along. But of course DLT is  professional, so it is definitely is all our client's fault that during DLT's "communications therapy" communications between the parties has deteriorated. Anyways, now that DLT has been informed of the mediation agreement (ending that part of DLT's services) DLT is turning to our office to argue with the agreement. Just short of going in for a court order to force our client to spend more time in the clinician's chair. A little odd, but that's life. Seriously, if you're thinking about getting a therapist, ask your family law attorney friends first. We've got horror stories and success stories on almost every counselor/shrink/trepanation specialist in town!

Anyways, so Mediation #2 was a victory won at quite the cost. We are also crediting my strange wallet and gas line escapades with taking  some of the mad juju away from the mediation site to allow agreements. 

And that brings us to Mediation #3. If Monday's mediation victory could be bought at a cost, then surely the cost of today's would involve loss of limb or the lives of family pets... but, you know, we're trying to stay optimistic here. Maybe swine will flutter in with alae of resolution before we subsequently have to rush to the courthouse with legal motions afluttering. Maybe!

In the meantime, the (W)right homestead has settled concertedly into its climate controlled equipoise. The bike-and-chain has his Pathfinder back unscathed and frisky as ever. The air conditioning protocols are being developed. The new room arrangement continues to be the how did we not stumble into this earlier? And no additional peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were frozen at 4 a.m. this morning. So all is well...

Well... well, maybe with a little disappointment as a coda to an utterly not-disappointing date night. Turns out that the big race in Port Gamble was cancelled yesterday. This leaves Andrew without an insane way to punish himself for "series points" come the weekend. Since his entire week has been targeted towards training up to this event, it took him aback a bit. There is a pretty heavy chug-a-chug of the internal recalculations for both of us. Him for rearranging his cycling goals for the rest of the month. Me rearranging my little calendar slots for the next few days. Lots of brain power, I assure you. 

In other news, we have finally started using the incredibly accessible and affordable local FoodPlus! Program. It's basically an add on to our garbage/recycling service. They partner with Green Earth Technologies for full-scale composting services. I've dallied with composting before, but never fully committed. Our prior tenants must have used the service, because we had the proper bin for FoodPlus! next to our garbage can. We just haven't enough waste to add on a waste removal service. I already don't need garbage or recycling pick ups as often as the most liberal intervals. Of course, I do indulge in a lot of food prep, and I'm sure that the garbage disposer doesn't need the entire dregs of a pot of broth pulp... 

After realizing that the office also goes through about twenty forests' worth of paper towels a month, I realized I could consolidate office compost and home compost and maybe make it worth it. So, we're experimenting. Works great at home. Requires carting some kitchen waste in smelly bags from work. But nothing bad. 

The funny side effect is that it is making me super aware of my waste production. The same way diets of any kind work as much because you're suddenly aware of what you've been cramming into your coconut-cream-pie-hole... Unlike recycling, which apparently inspires people to give themselves karma-credits to the point that they feel more justified being jerks elsewhere, composting makes me feel really, really self-conscious about the non-compostable "garbage" I create. Particularly the gum wrappers. 

I've admitted to being a chain-chewer with a pretty compulsive habit before. Sometimes I wean off the wriggly's when all that gunk starts to agitate my stomach. But more recently, I've been realizing that an obscene percentage of my remaining waste consists of gum wrappers and those little petroleum pleasure sticks that come in them. 

Benightedly, I did one of those google maunders through the possibility that either gum or its wrappers could be composted or otherwise handled. It can't. The stuff is mostly as durable as radioactive cockroaches wearing lasers on their heads. 

And, of course, I had to stumble right onto a few environmental impact assessments of the production of gum, costs of removing it, etc. etc. Stories of little birds eating gum and exploding (or was that alka seltzer... whatever) So, while I don't buy into that whole "it's unnatural and will KILL YOU WITH ITS BRAIN!!/nutrasweet" line, I am once again taking a pause on the compulsive chewing... for now. 

Which opens up a whole new world of oral fixations. I do think gum chewing is good for oral hygiene, breath freshening, saliva production, and stress management. So substitutes could be valuable. Smoking, probably not a better alternative. Toothpicks, though, I already sometimes use. And I do hate forests. I also rather enjoy chewing on parsley and fennel seed (old habit). So I'm trying these out. I think something a little mintier wouldn't hurt. 

I'm sure I'll lose my guilt and go a little wild eventually. It is my one true addiction, gum smacking. But we'll just pretend it's Lent again and I have a new 40 day challenge. 

So,  I suppose while I bend over backwards to reduce my miniscule carbon footprint with alternatives to the old petrol pleasure tar, I'll head back up to my bedroom and crank up the a/c to hiemal and hope that Mediation #3 can be coaxed into a frozen-hades type scenario this morning. 

Waiting For Aunt Flo* 

The Medical Matryoshka Re-commences With Follow-Up Fun and Likely Bonus Referral Out 

* FN: "Aunt Flo" is vernacular for a specific phase of the female cycle that appears to involve wearing white stretch pants, running on beaches, and doing lots of yoga... at least based on commercials. While this is in reference to that "time" or - in this case - lack of time "of the month," no further disgusting details or references will be included to curl the masculine toes or scrunch the faces of the constitutionally queasy. 

As a this-is-the-internet-so-deal-with-the-TMI-or-no catch ya up, I've been struggling with some cyclical fall out of what we think had to do with being underweight for a few years. I gained some weight with a shocking amount of specialist guidance required (seriously, not easy to change a set point either way) and have been taking hormones that induce a fluctuating state of magnificent PMS to pregnancy symptoms at all times so as to make up for whatever symptoms I might have missed in the intervening years.

It is time for the legendary FU (so it can feel, sometimes) with Doctor Specialist Number 1 who will be likely referring me to Doctor Specialist Number 2 some time later today. As medical mysteries go, mine is fairly prosaic and mostly doesn't interfere with my day to day functioning (in fact, often simplifies life astronomically), but I wouldn't mind some form of theoretical clarity.

And/or not waiting in a room for several hours only to be escorted to yet another room to then get sent to another building to wait in yet another room. Maybe if that kind of waiting around felt like it had more pay off. Human beings like a sense of control in their lives, even an illusory one. I totally understand at this point why so many people turn to alternative medicines and prayer and whatever else: medical science seems to wanna move slowly and cautiously (sometimes) and that's hard for a patient. Just having a sense of agency, possibly in the form of some tincture or daily action, helps. Incidentally another vote for the placebo.

I'm ornery today (see above comment about the fluctuating hormones and the perma-PMS). It's not that bad. It's not my dentist (and choirs of angels sing at mere mention of my eerily perfect dental experience), but it is a nice time to read my strange French crime novel and not worry about work. And I actually like my doctor. 

Anyways, perhaps today will be the day that Dr. House storms into my waiting room, does something unethical and borderline criminal while fighting off screaming extras and a few regulars in hockey masks, and explains that everything can be cleared up if I just drop two hits of acid and drink some purple-berry kool-aid! One never knows. 

Andrew's exciting race for Saturday has been cancelled, so he's rolling with the punches by torturing himself minus the race fee. Seven hours of cycling this weekend after coming home at 6:40 last night and immediately hopping on a bike and planning a jello-legged Friday "lunch-ride" in the interim. And the a/c churned upstairs in our little tamarin-cave. I love holing up in the bedroom. Reminds me of my halcyon days of twenties and roommates, where I lived in my room between sneak-outs to the kitchen or bathroom. 

And with that, I bid you a happy Friday. No doubt updates shall be forthcoming. Most likely of the "and then the assassin got bad stomach cramps when he attacked the ex-contractor buddy of the alcoholic philanthropist who is harboring a dark secret about the bratty child that the crazy woman is now nannying!" variety. Because I am not gonna make the mistake of forgetting my book this morning!

Also, I made yucca for the first time yesterday. Well, bought it and made it not-poisonous (I hope!). Reports on whether I keep over from poor preparation shall also be forthcoming! If I survive!

Naw, I'll give you the thumbnail now just in case. Yucca is one of the most rapaciously consumed carbohydrates in the galaxy according to several websites I stumbled onto after picking up a weird stick of a root next to the jicama. It was on sale! How could I resist? 

It's covered in waxy tree bark, contains a "woody core" (apparently - I didn't find any in the little twig I got), and enough cyanide to make a person sick if it is consumed raw. Several helpful sites informed me of the way to make it edible and it boils down (har har) to this: 

1. cut into 4-6 inch barks. 

2. Use a paring knife to cut off the waxy peel. 

3. cut sticks in half and then in half again to have long quarters. At this point, theoretically the woody core is revealed, but I'll take somebody else's word on that. 

4. Boil for 20-40 minutes until it is translucent. Or, in my case, covered in remaining vegetable broth and boil until you smell smoke from upstairs, to whence you wandered to leap into a cold shower after believing there to be at least another fifteen minutes of broth to boil with the yucca. 

5. Come downstairs dripping and holding onto a towel, though not wearing one and transport the entire pot into the sink. Run cold water liberally until the risk of smoke has diminished. 

6. Soak the crap out of the pan. 

7. Once again check for the aforementioned "woody core". Cut at the corner randomly and call it good. 

8. Cube and enjoy. 

It's pretty good, and I've enjoyed adding it to my salads, food mish-mashes. More work than most of the foods I prefer to eat, but any food that doesn't kill me OR successfully burn the house down is a success in my book!

Magical Mystical Pill Organizer Like an Advent Calendar for anytime, but with pills!

I have so needed a pill organizer for longer than I can recall. I have a great memory (implications of prior sentence not withstanding). For some things. Numbers, if I've worked out mnemonics for them. Names, with the same mnemonic caveat. Every detail of every conversation, musical twist, emotional texture and sapor of scent... all that is indelibly etched into the crevices of my cranium. But little things like "what did I just do five seconds ago"? Not always as well. The body is an efficient thing and will seek to cut mental costs wherever possible: hence habit! Habit is great, in that is bypasses conscious lucubration and delves quietly down into the automatic processes that make sure things get done. 

Until it's not. 

Like if it's a so-called "bad" habit. Trying to break a tendency encoded into muscle or behavioral memory takes a whole lot of conscious thought to override and ends up being far more taxing. And sometimes, since it was so automatic, you don't really remember the doing of it. 

We remember struggle. We don't remember easy. And taking pills is easy. It's automatic. It's thoughtless. Until the web of routines is shaken with a tremor. Then all hell breaks loose. Did I take my pill? Did I just drink my coffee and forget it? If I don't remember should I take one just in case and risk overdosing myself or leave it alone and risk underdosing? 

Always a conundrum. I have had a series of memory encoders to bring conscious thought (thus memory) back into it. In the mornings I make a grand production of taking my pill. First I'd just announce the fact that I was doing so to Andrew, but as that became routine, I had to add little memorable nuances. It's now become a morning ritual for me to display the pill I intend to ingest with grand flourish and narrate the entire process between pill and final swallow. Little comments on the temperature of the coffee and the returning of the bottle are helpful. Andrew has an allergy pill he takes at the same time. 

That works pretty well. In the evenings, I just send him a chat that I'm about to take my pill, which works as a written record should I doubt myself later. 

Of course, sometimes I get all into the announcements and the intention without actually taking the pill in question. Maybe there was a last minute thing that sidetracked me and I'm back to the "should I double-up or skip a pill" weighing of pros and cons. 

My next variation was to turn the pill bottles upside down after ingesting them, and then switching them in the morning. This works quite well, unless they fall during the day, or I also forget to to place them one way or another. 

So, finally I have found a pill container to my liking. The nice thing about these are that I can refer to a calendar, check sky or my watch for the a.m./p.m. part, and be fairly certain of my answer. Also, if I keep a decent pill popping compliance, I"ll have a little reminder of what day of the week it is... which never hurts in our sometimes distempritis-stricken lands. 

I'm sure I"ll find some way to complicate this as well in my memory, but at least I have a cute new toy that matches my socks. 

Happy Saturday! Hope it's full of excitement and August adventuring. Dan of the Pink Beard is back from a year long Arabic intensive in Jordan, and stopping by Bellingham before heading off to George Washington University. Bike-and-chain will be doing a four-and-a-half hour bike ride.  And I'm going to help Papa T with the very first grocery run in anticipation of the Sis and Brood's upcoming visit. They travel up to his home in the Canadian Gulf Islands for the first week. The Gulf Islands are very remote, and transportation of foods across borders is complicated, AND feeding three fussy children is a fool's errand... so the grocery bills shall hit astronomical and the compost piles shall reach the sky!

You Got me Runnin' (well, maybe); Baby What you Wan' Me to Do? The Running of the DINKS and Afternoon at the Cinema

This morning the DINKS shall run by golly! Or maybe not. Who can tell. We missed the last two DINK runs together. Two weekends ago, I went out dancing the night before and my arch was aching. Besides the Tour de France was on. Last weekend, Andrew's car cavils and pre-wedding negotiations took on an entirely different connotation of running (with the implied like decapitated poultry trailing after). 

My ambitions for running have a decided fair-weather clause. My definition of fair-weather is a narrow enough band to make life difficult for all involved. If it's below 50 degrees out - so, say, winter or early spring or fall or sometimes during the summer- then my toes go turgid and my fingers shrivel into little blue iceballs no matter the level of insulating intervention. The numb toes is a little problematic for things beyond comfort even. On the other side, if it gets much above 60 - so say, any part of summer other than that special band of witching hour through which we generally slumber - then I get hot. I don't mind getting a little sweaty, but humidity is usually attendant with the warmer weather. And I don't do humidity. My lungs, particularly, don't enjoy respiring water. I have yet to develop gills. As of 5:52 a.m., it is 61 degrees out and 91% humidity. This bodes ill for said ambitions. Of course, my ebbing ambitions don't pound a death knell in the DINKy running plans, as much as they imply there shall be great gnashing of teeth, lamentations and (possibly literal) bellyachings during the experience. Lucky Mr. (W)right!

Yesterday was a mad dash of a different kind. Andrew had intended to embark upon a 4.5 hour bike ride. But his wheel had different ideas. It snapped a spoke midway through. So he returned after a mere 2.5 hours. Lazy bones, I know! Never fear, he'll be doing the 4.5 one today probably. 

While Andrew was off,  I served as Supermarket Sherpa for Papa T, a man with a list and a lot of terror. He can handle his own groceries, but THE FALCONERS ARE COMING!! Annually, Sis & Brood (Inc.) come out for most of August. Their first leg of the trip always involves going off to the Gulf Islands where my Dad has a house on a teeny tiny little island in the middle of nowhere. Food is not easily acquired once at the home. And food that the kids are willing to eat on any given day is not easily acquired or even imagined... ever. I swear, the household garbage disposal is offered more viands than several small island nations. 

So, Papa T had the first phase of the list for this annual outing. This list involves brand specific, highly detailed instructions that must be met on peril of additionally volatile temper tantrums while stuck on a remote island with nowhere to run. So it's important to get it right. And Freddy's is hard to navigate for most people, what with its narrow aisles and dearth of common sense placement of any given object. I was pretty on yesterday, though. I surveyed the list, divided the items into clusters, and systematically moved through the store on a full scale and quite targeted sweep. Round One down in twenty-five minutes. New record for me. This clearly is a new career path that I might benefit from investigating. 

Papa T will be going back for more stuff the day before the trip, as he lacks storage capacity for anything perishable and will be throwing the remaining US-bought groceries into coolers immediately. He will then do a final run of  produce in Canada before getting onto the ferry. Quite the production. I may become embroiled in the Thursday in-country run. 

Upon returning home, I made Sunday-night dinner. Because it's nice in the kitchen in the mornings and it sucks to have the oven on in the afternoon stew of summer. And we had plans for dinner this evening.

What plans? With whom? When??? If you're my friend Dan Pink Father of the Beard, you want to know all that in detail in lieu of merely accepting a goodbye. I love Dan, but he has a different set of boundaries than my very private, contrary, and introverted self. And humans often tend to entrench into contrasting roles when met with contrast, I become more recalcitrant the more he queries. Based solely on a teenage campaign of his to get me to play chess with him, for instance, I shall never touch a chess piece. I'm oddly difficult like that. But when we're not playing fifty billion personal questions, Papa Pink Beard my oldest friend and I'm glad to have him for a visit between his Arabic language program in Jordan and his Masters program as GWU.

He's just back from nearly a year in Jordan. Having spent two years in Romania a few years back, we've already gone through the DEAR GOD, AMERICA!! type culture shock. He's never really been a fan of American culture, so it's always been a bit  of a mismatch. Travelling outside the country mostly appears to be a relief for him. This time back, he was much mellower about the experience, though I found it quite funny that the "American" things over which he caviled were some of my favorite aspects.

To wit:

(1) In Jordan, a host could never elliptically imply that a guest should leave because that host has something else to attend to; it's an unspoken rule, at least in this part of the US, that there are certain commonly understood codes that wrap up a visit (rising from a seat, theatrically checking a watch, busing dishes, referring to upcoming plans, a certain timbre to the word "Well.." not otherwise elaborated) that consist of a no questions asked opportunity for a polite guest to make excuses. As somebody who gets queasy at the thought of having a drop-in guest, at least having the mutually respected illusory plans, is respite for me. And when I spend time with almost anybody I need to have it blocked out as a specific period of time, with plans on either end.  If I don't wrap up within a determined period of time, I run the risk of tapping out my introvert-energy battery and breaking into tears. Which is awkward.

(2) In this part of the US, our fashion is closer to pajamas and active wear. He feels it's sloppy and disrespectful. I feel that it's a highly nuanced hierarchy of social cues, investments, and a heckuva lot more nuance than he's seeing. Also, it's a lot more comfortable than having to kit up in heels and well pressed linens before leaving the house. Don't get me started on makeup and hair torturing products. But I've previously made my peace with all this, as you all know. 

(3) Americans are more obsessed with time and the use of its passage. True. But I'm even more obsessed with time and planning than the average. Dan did refer to a Swiss friend who found his stay in Jordan particularly vexing due to that sense of timelessness. Dan was amused that when this friend's father visited, his subsequent thank you note said "thank you for all the planning." Dan found this quite alien. I feel I need to hop the first plane to Switzerland. A land of planning! Where schedules are literally followed! Oh the merriment. 

(4) You can't smoke just anywhere. Apparently there's a whole lot of chain-smoking in Jordan. Here in the the Pacific Northwest in particular, smoking is pretty limited to college ramshackles and some of the less savory streets of downtown. It's kind of a social taboo at this point. 
(4) Ok, actually I found this one interesting. Dan was commenting that people here speak much too loudly. He subsequently followed up that Jordanians had no problem yelling as a way of emphasizing speech and it was not taken as hostile or aggressive. He added that he had taken to yelling in those contexts as well, as it's sometimes the only way to be heard. I did note that he was speaking far less loudly than he used to. He has the kind of resonant voice that can fill a room ,so the muting was certainly a contrast. On this note, it's a muddle. I agree that people speak far too loudly here (mandatory eavesdropping abounds at the commanding volumes of average conversation), but then again, I don't really find the yelling or the talking over each other thing very appealing. 

Anyways, to fill the time, we all went to Lucy, which is the ultimate Luc Besson film. It takes Besson to utterly new heights. Insipid psuedo-scientific philosophical ideas crammed into a blender with a little touch of Old Boy and a whole lot of suggested but ne'er developed plot conceits. It makes Prometheus look like a well-stitched film! Crazy action. Morgan Freeman giving a fairly hilariously rambling lecture to a bunch of serious looking students with an admirably straight face. And more stock footage interjected than most documentaries. I can't decide whether this is kind of film's answer to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, or the editor just realized that the movie was only forty minutes in final cut and started pasting in cheetahs and exploding stars. Either way, it was awesomely insipid in the most delicious of ways. And one most certainly emerges in kind of a bemused daze.

The whole thing looks kind of like a really bad acid trip. Which is not a bad thing, but you do feel a hangover afterwards. I may not be able to speak anything resembling sensical sentences for quite some time. Fortunately, few people will likely know the differences.

And with this and that and the other, it's likely time to get on with my day and prepare for another steamer. Might even give the husband a bit of a run-around one way or another before his ridiculous bike ride. Carrots quiver in terror as I contemplate the post-run phase of my morning.